The Simcha of Rosh Hashana (Ep. 298)

Hi, this is Robert Alaski. Welcome to the Robert Alaski show. And whether you're watching with our producers and friends over at Tony Time, but wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts, as always, it's wonderful to have you along for the last official podcast of this year. Of course, I mean the Jewish year. next official podcast will come out uh afterwards, but uh we're going to be doing a number of shorts uh going to be taking place. Um uh few bits of business before we get down to uh to serious uh subject. Um there's a wonderful fellow who makes highlights of the Reverski show. Uh, I enjoy them immensely because I don't remember anything that I say. And he pulls out of each episode from the season an unbelievable like little line of mine or quote and I just enjoy it so much because I'm just amazed uh of all the brilliant observations I make that I can't remember. So, uh, the new one is up for season 3. Uh, we'll put up the link, but the link is raolowski.com/season-highlights. So, if you want to go check that out, I know it's a lot of fun. Hopefully, you'll enjoy that. And I've been having a lot of people asking me about uh what happened to the Pesa Hotel. You know, I have people who have written me and asked, "Please save me rooms." I have about a third of the hotel. I have 150 rooms. 50 rooms are already committed and uh and I was ready already by shuis to to get to work and the the person in the hotel who handles the peso program has been dealing with the manager and the manager has been dealing with the owner of the hotel until they finally came to a a an arrangement and then we said good let's set up a meeting and then they had to work out between a couple of different travel agents how this was going to work and then he says, "Look, it's got to be Benism. It's very busy in the hotel. I can't deal with it. Talk to me after Bayman." And then after Benam, he says, "Oh, I'm taking a vacation." So, now he's not around. So, I've been ready to close this thing. I I wrote up a program already. I have an unbelievable program. I sent it out to a couple of people who just wanted to see it. Yeah. And uh we have a schedule for the day camp. We have entertainment. We have Shirim. We have uh T Lim, we have it's just so much stuff going on. It's really really action-packed and very exciting and very fun. And I can't get a meeting with the hotel. So all of you people out there who are anxiously waiting for news, I love you. I I dive in that this will work out. I hope everything will work out. Obviously, if the hotel is not going to be cooperative, so then uh we're going to all suffer a communal disappointment. And uh like I say, my attitude here is I would like to have you all over my house for Pesak. I just don't have enough room. So, I want to move my family Pesak to this hotel and invite everybody to come and join us. And uh we have a lot of surprises, a lot of good things all lined up. But I got to get the hotel on board. I have everything except an agreement hammered out with the hotel. And once I have that, then everything is ready to spring into action. As one of my son-in-laws who came with me to meet with him right after last bes right after Bes, you know, he said to me, "You've been planning this for 20 years. You're like a spring that's all wound up, ready to go." I am. I've had all these ideas for years. So I apologize. Uh these uh I'm dealing with factors beyond my control because most people don't do what I do. I told him I said I will have this hotel sold out completely by Shivasamos. I just need a go ahead and dre and I'm the only one here who's hot to trot anyway. But I will keep you informed and you know what I know when we know. Sponsored by my good friends Sha and Sepora Karp. Uh I had this that when they were growing up and they were teenagers, I knew Sha separately. I knew Tipara separately and then they got married and I know them together and they are sponsoring this episode. Leo Nishmas the 23rd of L yard site is for Ben Morai Yoseh that is Barry Hakto's great uncle he used to uh run the u the granite for Pesak my parents used to go there they brought me in as a Scotland residence once upon a time and uh uh you So really wonderful wonderful person and the 24th of Elo is the Y site for Mayor Benjuda Harold Shear Sipur's grandfather. They also used to run the program over at the granite and uh it was um it was really they they were very very special people and uh they're definitely missed and so this should be a malia for the nama and everybody should really gain from the experience. We've spoken about different aspects of Russashana, the week of over the years. We're finishing our sixth year, right? And uh I think there's an aspect that I haven't really talked about that I think is very important. Yeah. And that is um my regular listeners out there who are familiar with most of my material certainly knows that uh one of my major talks is called why be Jewish? Yeah. Wherein I ask the question why should a person be from Jew? Because if you don't have an answer to that question then you're going to be at a terrible disadvantage. So I go through the different reasons that people are from today and then I shug them up one by one until I come to the real reason. Uh if you haven't heard that class, it's could I define it. I'm sure you can find it and any number of places. I've done it many times whenever I have a new group. It's my my standard one. It's based on the first two lines of it's basically that we were put in this world. We were here to get the pleasure of being close to Barak and the spiritual pleasure and that's why we're in this world. But I talk about how if you talk to many from Jews, the reason they are from Jews is because otherwise God is going to burn you in gehenn. And a lot of people have received this message overtly or covertly. Now that the Kira movement has come out, people can say Hashem loves you. And because he loves you, he'll wait till the day you die. And if you don't do chuva, then he will cast you into the pit of gehenn where you will suffer terribly out of love. But it's still pretty depressing. And there is no more depressing time for the average Jew. Average Jew. Not really the audience of the Raviolski show because we never get down. Yeah. We're always upbeat, but um there's nothing that gets the average person down as much as the days of a inspiring which is another way of saying scary days of awe. So in that I usually do his routine you know like where kid says to his father what's with the apple and honey for a sweet year how does it look doesn't look too good people people cry during dinvening people you know it's a it's a a very heavy heavy time which is understandable because it's den and den is scary wanted to create the world in den and saw that it couldn't exist so He had to change his original plan and add in raim. But is the yadin [Music] And I grew up with a choir. [Music] That is a scary word. Rashid is a scary time. The knows a famous story of the Reba where they get ready to start chakras and the kazin from his seat begins [Music] and he just faints. So the king is here. It's a scary scary time. So I have a couple of things I want to talk about. One of is how do we handle all of the fear and the scariness? And I want to talk about something practical because as you remember after last year we did a whole series on shabas because a number of the Gdoli Torah said that since the terrible tragedy that took place on it was also a shabas we should be mazic in our shabas observance. So we had a series of it and part of it was how to run a shabas table. So I'm going to talk a little bit of on this scary scary day, how do we make rash shana uh yontiff table that kids want to enjoy and be a part of especially yid. So it's brought down in a story in where He takes out the and everybody was there, men and women, everyone who could understand. the first day of uh the seventh month. Rashi points out for you and he reads the safetra and he brings everybody together and as they go through this whole story listen what happens when we hit test Today is holy to you. Again, Rashi says, "Do not mourn and do not cry." Because everybody was crying. Everyone was called crying when they uh heard him reading the Torah. Rashi says because now they realized they did not keep the Torah properly says the Maldin since it was rash. They read the section of Shana and they understood that this was a day of judgment. They were crying from the fear of the judgment. They wanted to fast. So now let's read the rest of the ping. Eat fatty meat and drink sweet wine. Send out gifts. do not be sad because the I really the itself is going to help you in the den. And so the Mal goes on and says they were crying and they wanted to fast. Therefore it says and against the crying it's we are confident that Hashem will judge us. owes you'll see the power of who does good in his to you. It's brought down is a you have to understand what the p is telling us here and like I say brought down you have a mitzvah of that's what says mitzvah of and the on is itself a strength for us because it shows that we trust in It's complicated to be a Jew. It's hard. You have to have a lot of things going on at the same time. If your father dies and leaves you a large inheritance, you make two brahas. You make the braha ms for the fact that my father died and you make a for the fact that I received uh a large inheritance because two things can be true at the same time. And I have to be able to have the ability to keep two thoughts in my head. Aa to draw close and to hold back. And that's complicated. Friends of mine, you know, told me they were going to ava and they said to me and says you should get me there. Says we're going to have a close friend who died young. So I said two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand, you can feel terrible sadness that your friend died. On the other hand, you can be happy that you made it to the Levia, you know, bashem alive. It was a terrible tragedy some years ago with David Winners who I worked with in my region and NCSY had a van. and he was going to the AOP convention and as they were driving down they hit a patch of black ice and spun out of control and he was killed. We say I'm happy I made it there. We take it for granted. We assume everything's going to be okay. But uh we say to user because we understand yeah we we're in a dangerous situation and I can feel bad that this happened and happy that something else happened. I had a fellow who was a friend of my nephew. He was at my shabas table and he told me that he was on a plane crash and everybody in the plane died except for him. So, I'm sure he was sorry for the people on the plane who died. I don't know if any of them were relatives, but he survived as a sim when that happens. So, we're going into and then is scary. [Music] The angels tremble from Den and Hashem says be happy. be happy in Den because a few aspects of Den we may have spoken about this even recently cuz I don't remember but as I I have a number of different classes you know in places that I speak I don't know what I say where exactly they usually have a trial before the trial a pre-trial to determine whether or not the person is able to stand trial The fact that we have a means that thinks we are capable. We're capable. We we're den the very fact that Hashem wants to judge us means that we're worth worthwhile because when a person says to me is more than one person has God will forgive me anyway, right? Even though I don't do true about me, he'll forgive me, right? echoing the words of the German philosopher Goth who on his deathbed as his wife was crying said don't worry God will forgive me that's what he does God will forgive me anyway and I said sure if you convince him you're a baby course when the 18-month-old crawls into the kitchen and opens up the cabinets and pulls something down and makes a terrible mess The parent has no expectations. They don't take the young man and put him in his room and say, "I want you to think about what you did and then go in there and clean up that mess." Of course not. Cuz he goes, "So the adult picks him up and takes off his dirty clothes that he made a big mess and puts him in a bath and puts on his sleeper and sticks him in his crib. And then the adult goes and cleans up the meth because you know an adult understands if you made a mess you clean it up but a kid it's not capable. So if you say to a keshu I know I've made a mess but I can't clean it up because I'm too much of a baby says well okay I believe you. You're just a baby and we have no expectations of you. we can't expect anything of you. That's fine. But if you want to go to a kuresh and say, I want to live a meaningful life and I'm somebody who is capable. Give an example of a kid who's a smart kid. Spends a lot of time studying for a test. And everyone gets their test. It's a four-page test and they're sitting there at their seat looking at all the questions. Oh my gosh. But he's pretty confident because he studied and he's smart and he gets a blank piece of paper and uh goes over to the teacher and said, "I didn't get a test." And the teacher winks and says, "Don't worry about it. You already got a 100 here. Here 100. Okay, it's going in my book. You don't have to take the test." The kids like, "But I know the material." Yeah, yeah, I know you do. But why don't you just sit down and maybe draw a picture and we'll hang that up, you know? Well, but but do it quietly because everybody else is taking the test. Am I that incapable? Says, "No, you're going to have a because you are capable. Because you can do things in this world. Because you can live a meaningful life. We go into Yadin with a sense of confidence. I've said this before, but bears repetition. We're very good at pointing out all of our shortcomings. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. We're not so good at focusing on all the things that we do do. And so even though you can't do everything doesn't mean you can't do anything. And therefore on rash you say I am I did these things this year and I want to be rewarded but then not just write a 100 on a piece of paper. Let me take the test and see what I get. I don't have to be perfect this year. But just because I haven't done everything doesn't mean I haven't done anything when I taught in Derek. So the rasha I mean Lazarus used to teach the first level Shia because he felt that it's very important that guys get the skills and uh he didn't trust anybody else to do it which is good because I'm terrible at teaching it. I'm good at playing mind games, but I'm not so good at getting down to the dunkey work and getting down all the skills. But he was excellent at it. And he used to give a test, a very straightforward test. Exactly the kind of test that I never want to give because then you have to mark them. Yeah. My uh my grandson Yakov Lieberman. Give him a little shout out. and uh he had a test and he showed me that the Rebi wrote a note on his test like a four-line note. I said, "Wow, he had the time to do that." How many kids are there in your 140? How many of them got notes? All of them. He wrote a fourline little note on 140 tests. I can't even mark 140 tests. That's why eventually I switched to um uh multiple choice which I don't like multiple choice tests because the whole point of multiple choice is to develop your midas hasher. I'm going to come up with four answers. Three of them are wrong and one of them is right, but the three have to sound enough like they're right to try to fool you. But the problem is I taught in seminary and I I I generalize here, but none of my students ever understood the concept of short answers. They just keep writing. They figure eventually something in here will be the correct answer. And sometimes it is when they wrote a lot of stuff that was wrong and I'm sitting here sifting through seeing what I do, but they just threw everything against the wall. One time a girl wrote, she goes, "Well, I don't know the answer to this question, but here's something else I do know." She wrote something else. But that's only because I'm lazy. That's why, you know, to mark all these tests. But what was Rebel Lazarus's test? Just the shock of what's the Gammorra's question? What's the Gammorra's answer? What's the question on the answer? What's the proof they bring? What's the good that just the steps of the gamarra the shakaria that's all you have to just write it down and you need an 80 to pass. So one kid takes the test. He gets an 80. Another kid takes takes it gets a 40. He says, "Okay, you're halfway there, but you got to get an A. He studies. He takes the same exact test because it's just the steps of the Gumar. I just want to make sure you know the steps of the Gumar." I'm not here to try to trick you. Teachers, that's the difference between younger teachers and older teachers. Younger teachers write these, you know, little tricks and this and that to try to cop you. You know, a good teacher understands, I want to see if you know the material. So, he takes the test, studies, takes it, says again, gets a 60. He says, very good. You improved by 50%. But you have to get an 80. And he studies again the same material. And he takes the test again and he gets an 80. And he says, "Very good. You passed." And he says, "Can I take the test again?" and he says, "Sure." So he studies, takes test again, gets a 90. He says, "Okay, that's what goes into the marking book. You get a 90 on this test. The other marks don't count." So the kid who got an 80 said, "Hey, I got an 80 at one go and he gets four shots and he has a higher mark than me." And he said, "Because at the end of the day, he knows 90% and you only know 80%. Would you like to study and take the test again?" He says, "No." He said, "Then you still only know 80%." But he took him four shots and got 90%. I don't have to be born perfect, you know. I don't have to be a guttle biography. I finished shot at the age of nine. You know, I I was uh you know uh I brought Mashiah at the age of 14. You know, I built my golem at 16. Whatever it is, I I I don't have to be that. I'm a work in progress. The real judges is the end of your life. But in the meantime, every year Mayor Ed Cotch, who was mayor of New York, this is obviously an old reference, he used to take the subway and he would just ask random New Yorkers, "How am I doing?" And sometimes people say, "Great, Mr. Mayor." And some people will say, "A lousy job." Because why? What am I not doing? He says, "You didn't take care of this. You didn't take care of that." And he'd have somebody with him who was taking notes on everything. How am I doing, Teddy Kick? And I don't mean to uh to uh give him too much because he was really anti- Torah. But but he did help to build you and that's but uh he used to drive around different neighborhood every day with secretary in the car to see what had to be done in every neighborhood. This has to be fixed that has to be taken care of. This has to be taken care of. Let's go and see. So it's not perfect. The point is to get better and better each time. And if there's improvement, that's the key. And so a yoma is a tremendously valuable opportunity because it gives me and a chance to look at each other and say, "So how am I doing?" Says, "Well, let's see how you did. You got this right. You got that wrong. So you got a 40, but you got to get a 60. Got to get a 80. Got to get a 90. Got to get 100. So take another year and work on it again. It's a Miami boy choir song. Yeah. And so we have to be on. So how do we incorporate this into our lives into our homes and especially into our family into our suda. So Rashai as you know the Gumar brings down those you are doing dy we just had it in harus increases thatim that that if you do sim it can help you to get a good year. When I was growing up, um, we had it very simple. As the Ramos says, we had our kala with honey and we had an apple with honey. That was it. Of course, Vimar brings down other things. Yeah. Leaks, um, uh, a gourd. Instead of gourd, some people have squash. and different types of squash. You know, some people here at M they have gourd rubia which some people say are black eyed peas. Some people say is fenugreek. Um some sort of a different thing. I think someone says it's cinnamon. Yeah. The head of a fish. Some people the head of a sheep. Yeah. Um uh I have a friend of mine, Josh Last, who's a good friend of the show. He told me, he says, "Nobody in my house is going to eat fish heads." So we buy candy fish and we cut off the heads and everybody eats those. So uh very nice you know but you have all these sim this is a beautiful opportunity to remon right you you know the list you can go check the list carrots um uh there's different there's different uh foods that people eat and there's a sated to them which one you eat and what you eat and how you eat it you know um there's a takeout place here it's bas Israel What they do basically is whatever it is, they grind it up and make a cougle out of it and make little cougalletes that that you can buy and give out. There's leak cougles and there's curry cook and they just pour a bunch of sugar into it, you know, beets, rubia, I mean celic sulka. So um uh so this is a wonderful opportunity opportunity. So what I used to do when my kids were little and now my grandchildren participate. First of all, I don't know how it works every place, but here in Israel, all of the children make cartis braha for their parents and grandparents. Yeah. Sometimes they make it, sometimes the ganet makes it, and they just do a little kishkush on it to make it their own, you know. Sometimes they take pictures of themelves, you know, in front of a little apple on honey or whatever, you know, and put it together. There should be at the suda a sense of excitement and anticipation. Now is not the time for crying and doing cha. Now is not the time for amadin. Now is a time to celebrate being together with family. And if you don't have family, find some friends. If you don't have any friends, then find people who want to take in a person with no family and friends. And if you have to be proactive, be proactive. I know people who don't always get invitations. And listen, you know, uh I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of this myself cuz I know her. I have uh a lot of married kids and when they come if they if they come not all of them even a portion of them it's like 25 people I set up for a second table you know my wife is sitting in the corner you know so I don't really have the opportunity to to have guests it's just uh you know I have to get by by the hotel and have it every week you know so it becomes a little difficult but an alman once said to me maybe one time when you giving a sh you could talk about the fact that nobody thinks about us. Nobody asks do we have a suda do we have a do we have a yontiff meal a shabas meal you know I spoke to a a mon group here and uh before kaneka and when it came to the question answer one of them said these are all beautiful ideas rabbi but how am I supposed to enjoy kaneka by myself I said where are your children they live out of town they're not going to come in for kaneka so I like the manora by myself and I you know I sit there and I I have uh khan by myself. And so maybe mention to people if you know an alman if you know a gusha if if you know you know old bakim pakran told this story you know he says there was an older singer fellow and he goes up to him Friday night and says do you have a suda and and pes says he looks at me and he goes you invite me now says I haven't gotten an invitation So, I went out and I went out of the takeout place and I bought food and I set it up and I set up my little hot plate and I'm going to sit there and eat my apartment by myself cuz nobody bothered to invite me. You You thought what would have happened if nobody decided to invite me tonight? So, I would go back to an empty apartment with no food and he felt he felt it was mus [Music] we have to think of people. So uh so some people who don't have a lot of family and friends themselves you know they invite guests we have a lot of people here right seminaries just started over here there's an enormous amount of seminary girls wandering around Jerusaleim and comes they need a place and it's very hard because a lot of from schuls don't have much of an esim so where they're going to dive in and then they uh you know to to try to find sudas for force sudas in Russia where they're going to go and what they're going to do and you know it's uh it's a real challenge. So there are people who don't have much family and they invite in you know seminary girls and uh there was one week we none of my kids were coming so pumm out of the blue the veime's placement called us they gave up years ago because we haven't been taking people they said can I send you some girls you know yeah so they sent three girls and one of them said wow we had a really good time you're really you're like nice people like usually they set us up with like some older couple and and it's just tremendously awkward because they have nothing to say to us. I said, "Me? I have a podcast. I've talked for 300 hours. I got plenty to say. That's not my problem." You know, but you know, it should be a y of table. You should make yummy food. Now, uh I'm going off a little bit on this because as we all know, um I cook. My mother, you know, my parents had six boys. So, one of us had to become a girl. So, I became the the girl. I would do the shopping and the cooking and the the laundry and the cleaning. And um my mother taught me how to cook, you know. So uh uh but I know there are people who have the same exact suda every shabas and yanddef meal. It's roast chicken and uh some potatoes and uh you know whatever it is very simple you know what your what your money is obviously I'm not telling you go into hawk for it but uh but look at look at it from the point of view especially if you have children and grandchildren Now, this happens to be one of those years. I spoke about this a year before several years ago when we had a year like this where there's a shabas. Two days later, there's two days yontiff and then a shabas and then kipper and then a shabas and then if you're two days and then shabas and then two days and then a shabas that's a lot of meals and if you don't plan ahead you're going to be making roast chicken and rice for every single one of them. You know, so think a little bit, be creative. I have tried with the Russash meal to occasionally be creative and I have been met with outrage for my children because they know what you have rush night. So first we start with all of the and we all have cards. She said, "You hear it sounds together, you know, and uh obviously not everybody likes all of the sim, but we put out a little siman plate with with all of them there for everyone to enjoy, you know, and we say all of the all of the different. It's a lot of fun." And my children used to do this and now my grandchildren do it. They hide under the kalas. My wife makes kalas, you know, sweet sweet uh honey raisin kalas. Yeah. And uh they put all their kartis braha underneath it, you know. So, and I of course pretend I don't know what it is. And even though one of the grandchildren say, "Zadeie, there's a secret over there." And their parents say, "Don't say anything." And I say, "What? I didn't hear anything." And then after we make kdish and madam. I try to get myself a Baron Herzog late harvest which is a very sweet yummy wine. Some of my kids who don't like dry wines but you know this is always a treat and uh I don't know who coined the phrase it's like sod pop but uh you know have a nice have a nice wine. We then bring out the regular wines for the uh consur. Yeah. And we so uh so we we make kdish. I open up the kala. I go and all the grandchildren giggle. There's all the cards, you know, all packed up over there. I move them over to the side so I can go over each one afterwards, you know. And we have our kala and honey. The honey is a challenge because it's thick and so you stick it in and you want to pour it over the kala and it takes a long time. What's the what's the answer to it? I'm not sure exactly. Sometimes we get a bunch of little squeeze honeys and put it all around the table so everybody can, you know, handle it on their own. And then we read the cartis braha and we have sweet salmon. That's where we cook the uh the fish head in the the pot also. So we have the fish ad simmon and we have the sweet salmon recipes from the bva cookbook and uh then we have soup and can noodles and then we have sweet chicken which is a recipe of my own making which is basically a uh almost an instantaneous uh method to be able to get diabetes. It's very sweet, you know. And with rice, sometimes one of my daughters will make this pomegranate type rice with different things in it, you know. Fine, you know, and whatever we make a meat simus with honey. That's what we get in our carrots, you know, and the honey cake for dessert. So, everyone knows already how it goes. And I try to keep it very positive. It's brought down that whatever you experience in Russ that's what your whole year is going to be. That's why they say you shouldn't sleep because you'll have a sleepy year. Yeah. Um certainly if you get angry there's a minute not to eat nuts and rash because egos in gam is I don't remember who pointed it out but they said you know also has the gamatri so don't get angry even though you you know there's a lot going on and then that's what we do we try to finish it up with with enough time by the way there's that beautiful mid where at the end of Davening everybody goes around you know and if you don't rattle it off that fast just say that will cover that but it's nice it makes ends the ding in a positive way and then y of lunch and we try to vary it I make different things at each meal I don't know why it is but people are much hungrier Shana first day lunch then even at night ah it could be because uh they just spent a long time in sh whatever it is so that's when we have a nice you know roast you know and potatoes you give something a little body in it you know the second night people are a little nauseous already so we try to make something a little lighter you know uh I'll make ve or I'll make turkey or something but at the lunch meals We sing uh the different nigurum from davening. So sometimes or we just uh you know parts of the daving itself you know that uh that are enjoyable you know certainly gam that everybody likes. [Music] N and people enjoy it. It It's fun. It's enjoyable. You want it to be something that's exciting. That Yantiff is going to be fun through the food that you eat, through the attitude that you keep. And you have to work hard to keep a positive attitude. If you live uh someplace where there's water so Shabas exc you go and say tash we live in and uh you know in Harov some people aim for the water tower on the top of the hill some people shoot for the swimming pool down in B Z sometimes people fill up little pools with fish, you know. Uh sometimes, uh people just turn on the water faucet and say it. What can I tell you? I'm I'm something of a uh of a purist. I grew up out on Long Island. We had lots of places to go and say tash, you know, it was a lot of fun. But um uh so I'll say the psukim but then sometime between you know between rash either during muva or during sukus we go off someplace where we have water and we say tash and you can see a lot of people in doing this where they go off afterwards to say it again to be by the water side because uh you know that's uh it's an Indian and people enjoy it and like I say, so if you can do that, if not, I used to have an old minig with my wife when we were first married at Rash. We would take a walk during during the day before Mina just go for a walk, walk outside, get outside. You know, they have this expression that they use now is, you know, get offline and touch grass. And here in Shalime, you know, certainly I don't know if it we just say touch pavement, but it's the same idea, you know, because we paved over all that grass that, you know, need so much maintenance, got rid of all those trees that clutter up a neighborhood. So, so, uh, but think to yourself how you can make it enjoyable, how you can make it something that's positive. And for sure try to find a minion that is going to be enjoyable for you. And uh, I've mentioned this beforehand that I did not find a minion that I found enjoyable. I started my own. And uh in first sha yam kipa we get a larger location we get a lot of people and it's a a very positive upbeat davening you know I speak and rake Kellerman Davin's in my minion he speaks it's it's a positive positive feeling it's a time where we where we celebrate says enjoy this time of year. So, as much as possible, it's up to you to make your yontiff a yantiff. To make your yantiff a sim. Yeah. Yes. You It's It's also a time of year. Yes. It's also a time of din. But we have to do it and not and not through fear and not through uh my life's in trouble. We're not we're not on that level anymore. It's got to be a positive message. Okay. So, I think we have time for a question or two by confused Bakar. I hope this does not sound like FRA, but my question is why does the yeshiva system constantly bash Balabatim from Schmooen that they are terrible people and many yeshiva are the ideal when the majority of Baham's parents are alabatim. Isn't it counterproductive to tell kids their parents are bad? Also, the concept of a balabatish terrors is saying that they are second rate Jews who can't think again. And isn't this showing that the majority of Kaiso is not up to par? So what is a guy supposed to think when he goes to work other than he's failed at life? The worst example I have seen is when I see these same rebellium, not most of them, but I've seen it enough that I'm confused. Suddenly reve something super special. So Mashma only rich Balabat are good, but the rest of middle class Balabatim are secondass citizens. Why does the yeshiva world give off this impression? And what a guy supposed to think when they constantly see a double standard? I'm not trying to bash the system. I just would like to understand why this is common because there are sofu Jews who keep the Torah and are not yeshiva. But based off this, I would think they're not getting a great inhab. Thanks again for all your podcast and physic. First, let's establish reality. It's definitely wrong. Put it right out there. It's wrong. We could try to understand, but it's definitely wrong. All right. It's counterproductive on every possible level for all the reasons you gave. Especially when today there are so many balabatim who are so serious about their hashem and their and their learning. There are these kim for balabat who get up at 5 6:00 in the morning to sit and learn before they go to work. There are shior and night seder at night for balabatam who come back from work. and and to dismiss these people all for the boss who was a businessman and and and by the boss Mike Tress helped to build a good and all the that he did in America. The Balabos Amos Buunam. I I can go down the list of people who built Torah in America and we're going to dismiss these people. So, it's wrong. Just putting it right out there. Why does it happen? Because I think I think I'm speculating here. Um, we don't know history. We're born into a time where we tend to take things for granted on every level. When you give a kid today a rotary phone, they don't even know what to do with it. But when I grew up, all of the phones were hardwired into the wall and it had a dial. [Music] And that's it. You had to be next to the phone when you talked because you couldn't walk around with it. So you try to explain this to people today. You try to explain to people. There was no arch when I was growing up. All you had was sansino. Sansino gamora. Half of it was in Latin. It was easy to learn Aramaic and to read the the Sansino translation. Today we take things for granted. Everything is there for us. I heard this uh pundit talking. He was on a plane and this was the first plane to get internet on the plane and uh and at some point there it it it uh it didn't uh it turned off. There was a lapse etc. And I'm sitting next to a young man. He's like, "Ah, this is a lot of garbage, is it?" He says, "You are 35,000 ft up in the air and they're shooting these radio waves at your plane so that you could be able to have internet and you're surprised that it stopped and you just take it for granted because everything we just take for granted today. It's the norm in the from community that people sit and learn yeshiva. People who don't learn yeshiva today is accasha. But that's a very new phenomena. Even in Europe, it was only a fraction of people who sat and learned in yeshiva. People are always shocked when they go and they see the great yeshivas in Europe and they're so small. There was nothing like the mirror in yushim or lakewood. There was no such a thing. Didn't exist. The briska the the briskar gave gave shir at his dining room table. There was there was nothing like we could imagine the yeshiva world today. A kid when he was a little kid he went out to work. People people were starving. Everybody was balabat. Yeshiva guys were looked down at by a lot of society. Rabi Chait says that when he was learning back in I guess there was 1930s. He says when we'd walk down the street, people would yell at us. They'd throw things at us. They hated people who were sitting and learning. It was uh it was such miserious nesh. One of the reasons Salanta started the Muslim movement was because guys who learned in yeshiva were treated like such garbage he wanted to build them up. That was one of his motivations. So how do you do it? You say haha you're a Ben yesa. You're a yeshiva man. You're sitting and learning. Now let's be perfectly clear in absolute terms. People who learn you learn Tyra are the best. That's the highest level. That is what everyone should strive for. Not everybody can either um intellectually or emotionally or financially, but a person who's there special. There's no question. A person who is like tremendous thing. But a person who supports Tyra and Rashi says when they list the vul comes before because the supporters of Torah come before the people who love Torah. And so people who support but besides that Abalabos who has to support his family. It was a Ben yes who said to me you know he was trying to make it and he says look I have no support for my family and I don't know how old the rebum do it and everyone I talk to I find out they have something on the side someone left them a building someone gave them stocks someone gave this their family helps nobody is living on the on the on the salary that they're getting from the yeshiva so he says so so they they give me a speech about msage but everybody one of them has something going on in the side. Now, I don't know if that's true, but that's what he said. That's how he that's how he felt. So, it to my mind, anybody today who's a firm Jew deserves the most amount of respect that we can give them. That you're still with the program, that you're still following everything is unbelievable. And therefore, um, it reminds me when, uh, I have eight daughters, so I didn't go to the parent teachers meetings, my wife would. And every now and then, a teacher would say, "I could tell your daughter comes from a very special home." And my wife would always say, "Well, of course the school is so special." And she says, "No, no, no. I know the school. Your family must be a very special family because I know what we do here. And I I know that your kids beyond that because that's our job. Our job is to educate ourselves. My son was complaining to Raasha Shapiro once about the yeshiva system and was just topping him with everything. Every complaint he brought brought a bigger complaint. So finally my son said, "So what are you supposed to do?" He says, "What are you supposed to do?" So you take responsibility for yourself. Good. So you don't have, you don't have, you don't have this. No, this is is messed up. But you stand up and do the right thing. You take responsibility. It it was an eyeopening experience for my son. So I teach all of my children, you have to filter what you're hearing. If you're not sure if a teacher says something to you or a Rebi says something to you if this is right or not left tells the story he says one of his kids came back you know from and he says the rebi said that nobody who wears a kipas has any shayim because it leaks out of the holes left says I don't know all these and who have those knitted keepers that they wear. It seems like they have your Shmaya. How can you say that nobody has your Shmaya with a knitted young but you know you have to be smart enough to understand that uh you have to put it into perspective. And so do I think it's wrong? It's definitely wrong. Yeah. Do I have to condemn everybody? I spend most of my time condemning everybody. Nobody listens to me. When they put me in charge of the world, I'll fix everything. First thing, death penalty for double parking. That's my first thing and I'm going to work from there. Yeah. Imprisonment for anyone who gets on the express line with more than eight items. All right. And appreciation comments. Hello, Rabilowski. Thank you again for the both via recorded speeches and the dedicated time you gave me once or twice. It is not an ex exaggeration to say that you've changed my life. Even post change, I still get tremendous and insight from your speeches and especially the weekly podcast. Thank you for that. Thank you for that because uh you know for an hour a week I stand here in front of my bookcase and I talk to myself and I have to know that there are people who are who are hearing these words and that they have meaning to them. That's what gives me the strength to keep going. So [Music] if you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website.com. You can sponsor an episode. We need sponsors. You can sponsor uh a question and answer. You can sponsor a part five. You can sign up for one of our online shurim. You can uh watch the highlight reel of uh the first three seasons of the Revolowski show. You can uh listen to the theme song, download it, put it on your phone. Uh and that's it. You can submit a question. That's it for now. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Alowski Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orski Show. Torah and Simka, ready to go. The Rabbi Olowski Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme though. It's the Rabbi orski show on Rabbi orki.com to anytime you and more. It's the Rabbi orski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Oravski show. Till next time till we meet again. It's the Rabbi Olowski show. It's the Rabbi Olowski show. It's the Rabbi Olowski show.