WE'RE BACK! Discussing Today's Generation (Ep. 190)

hi this is David olowski and welcome back to the long-awaited return of the rabbi yolowski show and as always whether you're watching with our friends over at tourney time who have been very concerned for the ravalowski show which is one of the top watched things on tour anytime I should point out uh or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast my friends thank you for all of your kind wishes let me Begin by saying that uh um when a newspaper published the obituary of Mark Twain he wrote a letter to the newspaper saying reports of my death have been highly exaggerated and I've received many emails from people saying are you okay Hashem I'm okay from that point of view the difficulty has of course been that I haven't had the raviolovski show and so I knew that if I didn't get it started soon I'm gonna have to actually pay for therapy because that's what this is I get to work out all of my problems in public with you my beloved friends otherwise I'm gonna have to pay money because everyone who watches this knows that I'm crazy as my father said to me once you're crazy I'm crazy mother's crazy everybody's crazy I don't know if that fits in well with a psychological uh evaluation but it sure is true so uh so this has been an opportunity for me to be able to talk through all these different uh issues and things and as you know if you watch the very uh last podcast that came out Hanukkah time uh producer Mikhail who produced The Show for four years um I was just overwhelmed he got engaged he got married he finally forgot at some point that he has to make a living and this doesn't make a living you understand so uh so that's a little bit of a problem and he's been kind of overwhelmed uh at least that's what I heard I actually received a note here saying please help I'm being captured and held Ransom by uh Islamic extremists so I don't know which when it is but uh we wish him a lot of luck and we thank him for his over four years of service and we welcome our new producer Israel who is going to be the producer of the raviolowski show and once again uh I will have absolutely no say in what goes on over here because I'm just the on-screen talent and the people in charge make all of these decisions and uh you know my wife once made up a professional revolasky uh show to sign and you know McCall never liked that because he liked to hang this side sideways to the next thing we've never used it so hopefully we'll get to be able to finally use that yeah and uh I have received many many emails some of them have responded to some of my I didn't because it's just you know uh I have a problem um you got a couple of minutes I got one of my problems I have enough problems one of my problems is and it it gets my wife absolutely crazy I don't respond to an email if I don't know what to answer so when a person says are you available on a particular date so I don't know I'm waiting to hear from this I'm working on that my wife says just tell them that you got the email and that you're working on it I said but I don't have anything to tell them because just send them an email so they know that you got the email you know I'm not good at that I'm not I'm you know when I'm on a telephone call you know there are people who when you're talking they go uh-huh uh-huh I'm terrible with that I just sit quietly and listen and so there are certain people who have a certain lack of be talking and they go hello hello are you there hello I said yeah I'm here I'm here you know constant reassurance but uh so I don't answer right away so some people I answer a lot of you I didn't because people would say are you okay what we get to see the show again what's going to happen I have no idea I have no answer we are back in business and in fact even though we don't have an official sponsor for this episode we do and that is of course uh moisha David from uh Brooklyn who is the only person who's on all of my online she or he's in Mrs Sharma and Fela he's he's in all of them and he kept sending uh sponsorships hoping that we would have to then do a podcast we didn't we just kept the money but uh but I think if anyone deserves to have the podcast in his uh honor it's him so we love you out there and thanks for the thanks for the music okay so that takes care of some of the business that we have been uh dealing with until now and uh as you can see this is the actual bookcase this is not a reproduction the years we've been using a green screen but just so you can see yeah look at this huh actual swarim they're not really actuals for him they're just uh Hollow little boxes that have to be a true story I once was speaking in to this fellow who was a multi-millionaire and um I was waiting in his office and I he has a bookcase you know and I go to reach for a book and all the books but just a hollow ship there's no actual books I guess when you have that much money you don't need to read but um yeah so Hashem hopefully we will uh we will be uh back um back in action and the truth of the matter is that um uh I uh I give a share every other moti Shabbos in haranov basically from time and uh there was a time in my life when I was very busy no I'm not now I just sit around and wait for something to happen I lost all my jobs through my written personality and uh I have I have the online insurance of course for those of you who are still interested in joining we have a dafyomi and we have the filish year on Sunday and we have two missile shasharamshiram all of these are online you can sign up for them and um uh you know but for the most part I don't really have much to do but I was very very busy and I wanted to stop giving the motion to share just just too much and uh where my Shapiro said you'll have to cut out something else because today if you can do anything that gives people to do it what a door that needs physic you know um I I told the story more than once but when I was growing up there'd be a meeting in America thomasaur Feinstein uh it's a rudiment withna you know uh who would get together and discuss how we're going to solve the world's problems how are we going to solve the problems for the Jewish community in America and uh we'll get together and pull out resources but we know where to turn to and where to seek advice and who is there to be able to help us and today you know when uh passed there was who should take over yeah some people says late statement some people said yes it was it was a discussion after the statement was nifter so Gershon took and now who's in charge nobody really knows yeah uh it's a big problem big problem when when we're left without anybody in charge how many times do I hear people say why does the goddolim do something I said no problem give me their name he said I'll go talk to them you know in a situation where this is the definition for doing awesome who's in charge so people have their own individual rebbe people have their own you know people they can turn to but for the most part right it's uh it's a it's a very difficult situation and we need just to get through the day my father was part of what they called uh the greatest generation that was the term you know they had gen Z and Gen X and uh Millennials and you know all kinds of different things and uh you know but that generation my first generation was cool the greatest generation they made it through World War II they made it through the depression they made it through everything I mean yeah my grandfather came from Poland to America and never learned English my father grew up in a house he only knew yida she went to school he learned English and uh and they were unbelievably poor and my father dropped out of school after ninth grade to go to work just to help support the family without food there's no food you know my mother who came from a better well to do family in that sense because my her father had started if you're from if you know Queens the Green Line bus company my grandfather started that with one bus and driving around he made Roots and uh imported more buses and he turned into a bus company and then he brought across his brothers from Europe and put them into the into the business and then he died of pneumonia young in his 50s my mother was a teenager and his brothers all got together and squeezed out uh my grandmother so I lost my bus company whenever I go to Queens and I see a green line bus I say that's my bus I took my buses away instead of a rabbi I could have been a Bala bus just to show you but anyway they took away my buses but she grew up more comfortable you know they had food it was a time when that's how you told the difference you know today is like he doesn't have the latest iPhone you know what I mean he's poor you know but back then it was like you have food you know food to eat so uh she uh get they get married my father says I love cabbage bright my my my mother used to make this cabbage soup that was delicious my mother's a great cook so she'd make a cabbage soup my father says it's good it's not like my mother's it's good not it's not like my mother so one time he was in the old neighborhood and she says he goes to visit his mother he says Moshe would you like him sure comes home says to my my uh my mother well my mother was a terrible cook I must have been so hungry I didn't have a difference you're a great cook you know so uh my mother used to say nobody asked themselves do I find my work fulfilling am I enjoying this is this meaningful to me nobody said those things so you understood if you didn't work you went hungry the government wasn't going to give you money you weren't going to manage you had to you had to get up in the morning and go to work or you'd be on the street and yeah and you'd stop and it's not like today when San Francisco you could be on the street and they give you a tent and they have a TV and you have all kinds of things you may do it was like lying on a park bench and a cop would come by and hit you with the stick and say you know move on you bum you know I was like nothing nothing so um so they did what they had to do you got up in the morning you went to work because that's what you had to do I I'm sure I've told this story but it's been so long I don't remember what I say anymore but um I have a friend Rabbi Dr Ivan Lerner in Silver Spring he's a psychiatrist it's really just a personal relationship I don't know how to remember professionally but uh he told me that when he was um going to medical school to become a psychiatrist his father said if you're going to do that already why don't you become a real doctor he says because I can help people he says people are going to pay you for this it says yeah because when I was growing up we were too busy making a living to be crazy being crazy was a luxury you couldn't afford it you had to get get up and go to work whether you're happy or not yeah um I asked him about this I said well I said good Gazette no he's got a good point so he says yeah but people lived substandard lives they didn't know how to develop themselves more than you were in survival mode you know what I mean you know when you live in uh fight or flight when you're living from moment to moment it creates you have to shut down certain parts of your of your existence in order to be able to continue working and that's what we are today person gets up in the morning they want a round of applause I I heard this from every left and I tell it over sometimes when I speak English you know what the color guys he says people are willing to be mice and Netflix to learn to you he says what's most ineffish if you buy them an apartment and you support them you know and you give them a vacation and they so then they're willing to you know to be moist and National inventory says what's the mysterious definition get up every morning go to Yeshiva so I've said this over and guys said well not every morning but but certainly many mornings now I don't mean to be facetious because it's hard for us it just is that's the Matthias it's hard for us to get out of bed in the morning it's hard for us to get through the day it's hard for us to handle things you think I ever heard my mother say I can't make Shabbos you think I ever heard from my mother say I can't make peso there was no such a thing you do what you got to do yeah that's the thing is it's too hard for me you know you do what you have to do because that was a sense of obligation and to today things are very difficult so said anything you can do to give people today I understand what he's saying because the the world is a hard cold place and as time goes on we become weaker and weaker and weaker this is a process Lamar says it used to be when the rebbe was giving sheer he would sit and all the time of them would stand for the whole that would stand today back then already they said it was too hard so people would sit they would sit they would sit but they would work I used to remember when I was about three kushalowski here is this expression listen yeah one of the mem is listen yeah the hair you have to the hair do you hear what I'm saying well tells the story that he used to go to a Shiva and the room was very crowded and he spoke low and you had to really strain so he said to one of the people in charge he says why don't we move to the auditorium give him a microphone and we can listen like mentioned this is how you have to learn you have to exert yourself how many times have I seen bakram walk into shioram today and they assume the stance okay Robbie let's see if there's anything you have to say that might interest me this August will have been a night's child 35 years and uh I remember we had these girls second year in the Seminary so this goes back many years ago when it wasn't like what situation is today and uh we were talking about one of the classes in this girl one of the girls were like no we don't have to listen to this guy he's boring and my wife was surprised by being the intellectual of the family she says don't you have an obligation to learn even if he's not so interesting don't you have to put yourself forward and they said no [Laughter] no if you're not interesting I just tune you right out and that's it it's your job to entertain me to make me want to learn and so the idea of of working listen to pay attention to put yourself out there the Lost Art everybody wants to work nobody wants to do things so hard it's it's uh and I don't mean to be facetious it really is hard everything is hard that's why you know we need constant reassurance and pets on the back and you know he's doing a great job and that was terrific you know and give everybody an award and you know just you know everybody oh terrific why because the alternative is that a person has to sit down and take responsibility for themselves so uh so that's a difficult thing that's a difficult thing and so uh I have been amazed over the years that we have been doing this uh show of the emails that I have received from people who tell me the physic that they get from this show foreign said to me is the most important thing that we have to do and I have to tell you that over these past six months when I didn't have this opportunity to share with everybody and I meet people and everyone's very concerned where's the show where's the show one person said I went back to the beginning and rewatched all of them you know and and he goes and I I can because they're they're interesting in fact years ago before there were you know downloads there were CDs before there were CDs they were cassette tapes so I used to sell cassette tapes of my shoe room and someone said to me yours are the Best Buy Because unless you remember it's just you know it's just Terror you know they tell us here and it's over but you guys are entertaining you can listen to them over and over again so someone went back to the beginning and listened to them all of them and enjoyed it you know um and uh I like to think that maybe there are more insights waiting inside of them that maybe people didn't realize I had someone used to come to my motor shabashi all the time hey it's a good time you have a good time you'd laugh you enjoy yourself you know and he told me once he wants he says you know I was listening to hey but Wonder he says I didn't realize that you say a lot of deep things I said what are you trying to do kill my partner just say he's funny a lot of people out there saying deep things you know but how many people have that gift and and I have said this before but I like I say it's been six months I don't know how many people remember anymore you know what we do here is unique because there are shows that are just lights on us right and we know them all right I know I'm not I'm not crazy to anybody here listens to them but you know make fun of things in and they're a straight uh taroshi urum you know um but this is the only thing I feel like where we're able to discuss and and entertaining an enjoyable way yeah um over the years you're going on for over 25 years I don't know where there's people from time to time where they come and one of the answers I used to get was it's the only place I come where I feel good that I'm affirmed you a painful answer and yet and yet so true you know because so many things are are so harif and we put everybody down and things are so rough and to be able to to be able to feel good about yourself to be able to have music this is such an important thing and this is what we have to do we have to be makhazek ourselves and we have the mechanic other people now as it happens yeah I was going through the old question and answer file I don't know if people still said then question answers these are left over from months ago but I started going through the list and I saw a number of questions that seemed to address this so at this point we are going to start our question and answer portion of our program and as it would happen the number of the questions in fact relate to exactly this point so Ari writes there's a lot of talk these days that we are weak generation are we doing ourselves a disservice because it can turn into a crutch um and justification to not make more of ourselves evidently I quoted uh remaster Spirit ones um where he said yes is today Ison disaster foreign I don't know if he wanted this for publication I don't know if he wanted this out there but he's not really here to object so I have a big mouth is there been the wine box that Sal used to say to me when I worked in North America is so effective but what are we going to do about your big mouth it's a problem it's occupational hazard you know somebody said to me once I feel like sometimes you sit you think should I say this or not and regardless of the answer you say it anyway so that's probably true but um so what did he mean when he said and I think these two questions are similar well what did revolution mean and and what do we mean when we talk about us being such a weak Darth I'm a big believer you have to be real no Yiddish kite is is based on the reality not what we would like it to be um I told the story about this uh girl who is in seminary that I knew she was she put me down as one of her references and uh she had protection and she was going to be set up with the best boy in the Yeshiva famous issue so the Rebbie called me up and said listen before you come with the girl let me tell you about the boy um he really is the best boy him and his covers are the best boys they get to the basement just seven o'clock in the morning they leave 11 o'clock at night they leave for their meals otherwise they don't lie down they don't take a break they don't this they learn mamish Stark the whole the whole day and uh his best friend got married a while ago to a girl who said she wanted to be you know she wanted to marry a mosman but she found out that being married to a mosmid is not as much fun as marrying a mosque just when you're married to a masmid you never see him hence the term masmid from The Legend of tamid it's constant and uh you know she suddenly realized that she's alone in this community so my wife reached out to her Etc and you know it's really hard so ask her if this is what she really wants so I told it over to her and she says wow I don't know if I can handle that and I said I don't know if I could handle that and then she said but shouldn't I want to handle that and I said here's a very important point don't marry the person you think you should marry marry the person you want to marry you got to be real and if I can't really handle it yeah just have these girls who say to me I want to marry born learning I said Can your family support a boy learning I said no I said um do you uh do you have a job no I first have to go to school and you know and it's going to take years till I can get out there and actually earn you money I said okay so you want to marry a boy who's going to sit and learn what are you going to live on so sometimes they would get a little upset I'd say so just because I don't have money and my family doesn't have money doesn't mean I can't marry a point learning and I said no you can if you're prepared to be poor are you prepared to be poor I'm like um let me ask you right now you get money from your parents do you squirrel it away for when you marry your boy in learning to buy I don't know food or pay for electricity you know or you go out and get a facial would you buy yourself clothes go out to eat with your friends because if so you're going to find the transition to saving the tomato sauce can to boil you an egg in for lunch very difficult you know I think you should start now learning how to go shop in the gamark store you know where people have given away their old clothes you know and expect to get a shato you know from the gamark over there you know doesn't matter if it's your color if it's in such great shape you're lucky that you found something because you're living in poverty do you want to live in poverty no I don't want to live here so then how do you square that Circle but be real and so you know you can say to people you shouldn't be that way I I can't tell you how many times I've seen situations where Bacha has some sort of an issue or a problem and they go to uh they go to uh you know says well just stop years of muscle training that's what I needed I have this one a favorite don't do it okay it's great thanks that was good it reminds me of uh so this comedian years ago when they first came out with the Heimlich maneuver you know to be able to um help people like you know when they're choking so he says this guy comes out you know and he's like you know I've developed you know this whole new uh approach he says to some okay eat this quickly quickly until you touch okay and the guy's choking he says now let me explain to you this man this is a new method I've developed it you know there's enough he says you know guys like dying he says okay spit it out there you go my friends that is our new method yeah well life doesn't work that way you know so when you say uh is it is it fair it means that you have to know what you're dealing with you have to know what you're dealing with and when you try to compare people to you know who they were every Yeshiva I can't say that because I don't know almost every Yeshiva has experienced this that was a story about this couple years ago you know they wanted to go and buy this as a house they scratch they save they got 250 000 together and I looked at a bunch of houses and their price range and it took six months they were looking them over they were thinking this and they decided that all these are really too small for us so they managed to borrow more money and they could spend three hundred thousand dollars he says okay we're looking at housing the three hundred thousand dollar range the guy took them around to all the houses they saw the first time because now they were going for 300 000 you know just the reality so if you try to use the educational methods that worked on the last generation it doesn't work I had a parent say to me once because I don't know what this kid wants for me I treat him the same as all my other kids I said I know so I know a story about a mother you know she'd make all of her kids the same lunch she did it for years and then send them off to school and one kid died because she makes some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it turns out one kid has a peanut allergy so I did the same thing I did with all my kids I know but this kid is different so if you try to use on this generation the methodology we used on the last generation it's it's not going to go I was speaking in the Yeshiva ones they brought me in and I went through the top schmoozen that have been used to destroy people over the years now at the time when they were given I'm sure it made sense but today you know remember hot school says you know a Malik threw themselves into an ambattier as a boiling water just to be able to cool it off he says and he looks looks around the planet which is you know somebody like you're a Malik and you're a Malik every time you cool after learning the best marriage and you're going for a cup of coffee and yeah yeah normally I saw somebody give this schmooze to a Kayla of balichuba guys were coming up he goes sometimes the baby's sick and I come late because I have to take him to the doctor am I your mother you know listen you gotta know who you're talking to So when you say can we use as a as a crutch as an excuse yes the alternative is to put demands on people that they can't possibly accomplish my brother told me a story where he decided to go back to the gym you know and uh the guy who was in the gym is like telling him to do whatever exercise it is and he says it's it's hurting me he says no no you gotta work through the pain yeah so you end up hurting himself and he couldn't back go back to the gym for months because that's not the way you do it you got to know who you are and so you know if you manage to get through four push-ups and that was a strain good celebrate your Victory and hopefully next time you'll do five and and don't and don't beat yourself up because I didn't do six I'm not ready to do six I gotta be realistic I gotta know who I am and what I can handle when uh my son used to come with me to uh davening and I never took him to show until he asked and when he would ask and he was little he's not a tough time I would take off my watch and I'd give it to him and I say go out now and play When the big hand is On the Floor come back I didn't come back on the floor and we were diving some more and then I said okay go out now and come back when the hand is on the nine you know let them go out and have a good time I had an average me once how do you make your children sit at the Shoppers table I said I don't it sounds terrible the privilege to sit at the shop is table and if they'd rather go sit on the couch don't go sit on the couch when I'm gonna beat them up and make them you're gonna sit here you're going to this you know you got to know people's limitations somebody else was shocked who's uh what's how do we pick a calculator what's the best crater he says the one with the most recess like give kids a break uh let them let them let them be kids a big problem so yeah can we use it as an excuse yes that's not what I'm worried about I'm looking at Adar that is that is so damaged so weak um and if you ask me what do I think of Maisha meant when he said oh let me shoot them I think it's related to this because the model that we have of a Yeshiva system was set up basically in Europe and it wasn't meant as mass education that wasn't the purpose at three I started Hebrew school at 10 I learned to trade most people did not sit learning Yeshiva most people couldn't sit and learn Yeshiva those who could you go to you go to these tours in Europe and you look at the great yeshivas there were they were small by uh by our standards because not everybody learned the Yeshiva those who did did those who either weren't very very highly motivated or very gifted didn't and so instead what do you have you have a situation where we make everybody go to Yeshiva the very fact that there are yeshivas for guys who don't want to learn just shows you how crazy the systems become and the systems become Twisted where where what worked 200 years ago doesn't work today I mean do you sit down and say okay I have a Barca coming in what does he need to know there's an old joke that everybody knows you know guys have trouble when they get married because a girl who's gone to Seminary for a year or two years has a strong grounding in Tanakh in and a guy who's been in Yeshiva base marriage for four years knows the first eighth block to five masectas not very well so that if he looks over it years later he was like um it's time there was a paneer shoe on this I say I wrote Penny sure what does he saying you know something of the taste I don't remember did I learn this it's not there we don't have a tweeze on it so what are we trying to do what is it we're trying to accomplish what are the goals and the answer is nobody asks you're not allowed to ask yeah you just do what everybody does because that's what everybody does that's the system and is anyone sitting down to rethink and I think that sort of measurement when he says you have to take it apart and build it up again because you have to start from the beginning and say what is my goal and as we've done in every level of Education when a kid walks into school and you say what is my goal what do I want to accomplish what do these kids need to know how do I give it over to them in a way that's going to be meaningful to them somebody pointed out a brilliant thing they said uh we want people to work together right in business and you know like that they should all cooperate if you do that in school we call it cheating so there we teach you it's only you we don't care about anything else and there's a concept of failing I've told this story before but remember Lazarus when I was in Derek he had this thing called a no failed test what's a no-fill test since the test was not a bunch of trick questions it was the shackler attire what's the most question what's the most answer what's the proof what's the second answer just the steps to the gemara you have to know the steps of the car no tricks no swear it's not lambdas yeah that feeling now they're doing good and I remember when I was teaching getting so uh so there's a Big Mac lake is where Requiem was a lot of different views and we reckon was a town called reckon so I asked on the test where's reckon expecting them to write down the different opinions and one guy wrote where isn't it I said I'll give that guy credit that's good enough you got the idea it's in a lot of different places [Laughter] you know but he would ask you the test so the rule is you had to get an 80. so this one guy takes a test gets an 80 another guy gets a 40. he says okay you're halfway there but you got to get a Navy study again take the test again studies takes the test again get to 60. this is great 50 uh Improvement you gotta get an 80. he studies takes the test again gets an 80. this is great you passed he says can I take it again sure he studies takes it again gets a 90. he says that's your mark the other marks don't count they could have got an 80 says hey you know I took the test one time I got an 80. this guy takes it four times and he got a high Mark to me he says yeah because at the end he knows 90 and you only know eighty percent do you want to study and take it again no okay then you still only know 80 percent what a brilliant approach what am I trying to accomplish Ruby oretz um was uh speaking once uh to a group of educators and he was explaining the correct way to teach something so that they understand what is the meaning of what you're learning the text and one of the people there said that's great but if I do that I'm not going to have any kids in the school because everybody wants to cover ground and to see that we even though they don't understand it and he explained how to try to deal with it but it is very interesting because very often the demands that we make on the schools have nothing to do with education you know I can tell you having worked an education and you've worked for many years there's two things that everyone's an expert on yeah education and youth because everybody was young and everyone went to school so everyone's an expert and uh it's a problem so clientele is uh is it work in progress it needs a lot of help needs a lot of work all right my friends that is our first new podcast under our new leadership and uh if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website Robbie alaskey.com you can sign up for one of the online serum you can make a comment um you can sponsor an episode uh you can um listen to the theme song and there's lots of stuff you can do the I don't really know because I don't have the Internet it's awesome but uh but if you uh if you want you can go and you can listen to all these things and uh until next time in the Mr sham it'll be less than six months away this is deborahlowsky and this has been the ravalovski show it's the rabbi overlovsky show ing ready to go the rabbi rolovsky show now is your 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 orlansky.com Torah anytime you two and more it's show [Music] till next time [Music] it's the rabbi [Music] orlowsky show