You can't go back (Ep. 301)

Hi, this is David Alowski and welcome to the Rev Alowski show. And whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Tour Any Time or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, [music] it is a delight to have you along for the experience. I'll start with the sponsor. My father Yehuda Ben Ephraim, my father-in-law Zalman Benim. A shout out to Arya Schmidt who listens to your show number one kosher entertainment. Thank you. And I do appreciate that. I I point out because uh I've always felt that this podcast is unique in the sense that there are straight Torah podcast which is most of the material on Torah any time where it's just shim you know and uh and then there are podcasts that are just mostly late and I try to present Torah in an entertaining fun way and I mix in other things along the way obviously as I'm probably going to do today because you all know that whatever's on my mind uh I just say you know I years ago somebody said to me I feel like every now and then you pause and you think is this appropriate or not and then you say it anyway so I don't even know why you make that pause and it's true I just say whatever's in my mind so for example now I am been distracted by the fact that I have just had my first root canal in my life uh turns out I had two cavies on either side of my tooth and I had to do a root canal and um I told them that uh you know I'm not so good going into this because number one I'm a coward and number two I have a low sensitivity to pain. So you can imagine dentistry is not where I go to. And and the um the person who was assisting the dentist said that she had written in fact her paper on the fact that in media doctors are always you know um shown in a very positive light and dentists are always in a negative light always shown in a negative way. And uh she's too young to remember the marathon man, which I never saw, but I just remember this scene where they have Dustin Hoffman tied down to a dental chair and they're like torturing his teeth to find out where the gold is hidden. He doesn't know anything about it, you know. They're just torturing his teeth, you know. And in Little Shop of Horrors, you know, Steve Martin plays this sadistic dentist, you know, and um on Seinfeld, they had a dentist who was like, you know, um being roughed to him because he upset at him. And uh I think uh what else? Uh King of Queens had a scene like that, too. A lot of these things come up with dentists are like these psychopaths which is unfortunate because you know dental health is important but uh yeah it's um not something you look forward to you know and the good news is and I told them at the end the good news is my heart didn't stop during the procedure because I was clutching the chair the whole time thinking don't die don't die I have a heart condition I have diabetes and you know uh I'm living on borrowed time anyway. So, uh, that's all it would take is something like really a shock to my system and that would be the end of it. But anyway, I'm still alive and um, I only have to go back two more times. One is to be fitted for the crown and the next time is to put on the crown and then we can deal with my other four cavities and they apparently were not diagnosed. So, um, yeah. So, uh, so I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am about that. So, I'm just sharing that with you. But, um, uh, I have the main thing I want to talk about today, but I'm going to get there in a roundabout fashion, which is my way. I tend to, you know, go go in a little circle till I get to the point that I actually want to make. Um I used to teach parisha at a seminary and um it was on Friday morning. I was the only class on Friday morning. Nobody would come in Friday morning. And these girls came in half asleep carrying these industrial strength coffees, you know, and the uh sweatpants under the skirt look, you know, like that. And uh it just like have and I had to, you know, be entertaining enough that it was kadai for them to come. So, I would always start with a joke, you know, and uh wake them up a little bit and then I would start building my questions and I'd get to questions and questions and questions. Sometimes girls would suggest answers, you know. And at the end, I would tie them all together and neat little package and uh and present an answer that was uh hopefully meaningful to everybody's lives. Now, I had been doing this for many years, and only one time towards the end of the year did a girl figure out that there's a method to my madness. After I asked all the questions and I said, "So, what's the answer?" And this girl says, "I know it's in the opening joke. It's always in the opening joke." He cuts back to that at the end with like a and that's why. Like, ah. So, what was the first joke? So, luckily, nobody remembered. So, it was okay. But you know, yeah, I I tend to set things up in such a way. So, we're going to go on a little journey. The little journey is that there's no going back. No going back. I am um I'm old. I remember when I turned 60, someone said to me 60 is not old. And I said, "That's not disagrees with you." Right? 60 is old. from Lasa 70. You're very old. Basically, we're surprised you're still here. That's how describes. I know I'm old. You know, most of the references that I'm making, most my audiences have no idea what I'm talking about. It's from so long ago, they don't uh they don't understand all of these different references that I have. I remember the last time I spoke and my audience got all of my references. It was in Century City in Boca Raton, retirement community, and they got every reference I mentioned over there, [laughter] but most my audiences don't know it, you know, but I have enough credibility that they figure it must be funny even if they don't get it. And that's pretty good. Yeah. But, um, I've talked about this in the past. You know, I grew up in a time where there were no cell phones, right? A phone was wired into the wall and it had a dial. I remember in the 70s they came out with the push buttons phone was unbelievable and you could play g tunes with the t with the tones, you know, very exciting. That was a big step forward, but it was still wired to the wall. You know, in the early 80s, they were able to put in a jack so you could plug in a phone and then take it with you and plug it in someplace else. Amazing. And then eventually, of course, they came out with cell phones which were like about this big, you know, and uh and it's just gone on from there. It's just gone on from there. Um there's this fellow um I don't have to mention his name. There's a political social commentator and he maintains that I think it was 2006 was the last year of culture and he points to the movies and the television shows that came out over there and how wonderful they were etc. and then it just completely collapsed. Everything today is garbage. Yeah. And uh and he was discussing why and somebody said because that's when the cell phone started to spread. So nobody cared anymore. Nobody needed any other form of media. They just watch their phone and there's no you could put up a cat video and everyone's like, "Wow, this is great." You know, there was no nobody cared anymore and you can go almost any place and go to go to and you see everybody on their phones. Everybody's sitting [clears throat] there, you know, sometimes they're talking, sometimes they're not talking, but they're they're all involved in their phones. No, nobody is living the moment. and it's taken everybody away. So, you can complain about it, right? People used to complain about how kids would just sit on the phone all day, but the phone was wired to the wall. There was not much you could do. Now, you take it with you. I I I've told this story in the past, you know. Um I avoided getting a cell phone when they first came out for many years. And my wife said to me, "Why won't you get a cell phone?" I said, "Why should I?" He said, "Because then people can reach you anywhere at any time." And I said, ' Remind me again why I would want to get a cell phone. Why is that an advantage? Okay, so then one time I was driving and I broke down on the Tel Aiv highway with my mother in the car. I had to run across traffic to try to find a pay phone to reach somebody to get some help, you know. And my mother said, "You're getting a cell phone." A man can stand up to his mother. A man can stand up to his wife, but no man can stand up to the combination. And I got a cell phone. And as I look back now over the many years that I have a cell phone, I can honestly say that somewhere between 98 and 99% of the calls are unnecessary. I could have done all that from my phone at home. Yeah, once in a while. Do I need it? Yes. But do I need it to call somebody and find directions? You ever see that one where the person says, "I'll come out." And you see the person in the car, the self and the person there waving, "I'm here. Oh, you're here, oh my day, you had a piece of paper and a pencil. You wrote down the directions and you managed to find it just fine." You know, but today we can't do anything. I see these men shopping in the supermarket on the phone. I'm passing the oranges. I'm going to the apples. I'm passing the apples. I'm coming to the Clementineas. I'm fasting the Cle. You know, we can't make a shopping list, not being constant contact. It's uh it hasn't made us better. Hasn't hasn't made us more effective. But you can complain about this from today to tomorrow. This is why people in my age group go, I remember when I was growing up. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear about it because there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Um, I heard from somebody uh maybe 10 years ago and uh he said to me, "By the time the yeshivas get around to making a taka, they're already three generations of technology late." says, "So I remember when the yeshivas made a tana, no one can bring a music tapes." Tapes. Everybody had a had a had a MP3 player by that point. Nobody was nobody was listening to tapes, but it takes people a while to catch up. The technology changes so quickly. We had a whole episode on AI. AI is going to destroy the world as we know it completely. completely because many many jobs are going to be replaced by AI and uh it's becoming cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and I know people write books. What do they do? They just take all of their recordings and they plug it into AI and AI turns it into a book. They don't have to do anything. You know, they'll write you a novel. They'll write you a a devout. They'll write you a shar. My son-in-law was at Kanaga and half of the guys who got up and gave Dora, they got it from AI. They said, "Give me a dua Torah. That's this, that's that, this, this, that." Boom. There's a lot a lot of positions that are going to be replaced. We don't need them anymore. It's going to be decimating to to society in ways that we can't even begin to imagine. So um uh someone did a study and they found that when they went to AI to diagnose whatever the problem was, it was better than what the doctors told them and were able to draw upon more information. So um obviously it's constantly evolving until it finally, you know, the machines take over and subjugate us humans. But um but in the meantime, they still need us to maintain them. So that's fine. But um the uh the way technology is going Alon Musk is developing a chip that you can put it into your brain. Let people can't walk walk. Let the blind see. Let the deaf hear. That's where we are. I mean you go back go back to where we were. It's it's impossible. You can't turn back the clock. Even though many people would argue it was it was a better world. the way the world was back then. People uh Rabbi David Gatle tells a story. He says he was a professor in uh America and he would go to speak in South Africa. He says you could not compare a South African university student to an American. He had so much smarter. He was able to concentrate so much more because they didn't have television in South Africa. He says once they got television within a few years they were exactly the same. They lost the ability to concentrate. They lost the ability to be able to focus and it just destroys kids just destroys destroys families. Destroys everybody. It's uh you know I remember seeing a scene these four guys are sitting on the couch and they're all looking on their phones and one of them said you know there used to be a time when four friends would get together and they would talk to each other. One of them says well thanks to Steve Jobs we don't have to do that anymore. [laughter] Doesn't that say it all? Say it all right there. So um so we can complain. There's no going back. It's true. There's no going back. There was a world that was different that we lived in and it was a different reality and everything everything followed by a different set of rules and now everything's changed. Right? So I mentioned this and I will share with you again. It's a personal thing and I'm not trying to cast any aspirations or anything like that, but I'm just it's fresh in my mind and that's why you know me already. I I share whatever is on my mind. It was just my wife's birthday. Now my mother of Shalom used to come um for sukis and she would stay in the Ramana Renaissance in Jerusale. She would take a suite on the top floor and build her own suka and I would walk up those 14 flights and sleep in the suka then come back down. I didn't want to use the shabas elevate. I was probably somewhere between 250 300 lb at that point in my life. It wasn't that easy. Walking was never one of my my great uh my great strengths. And um and I have the fondest memories. So afterwards from time to time me and my wife would go away for a long weekend. So Thursday night they had women's swim. So we would go and she would go swimming and uh you know I would prepare one of my shirm and uh they usually had a milk and a fleshic restaurant in the in the hotel. We would go and we would eat you know and um and uh have supper and uh get in the morning. have a lovely breakfast, you know, and then do something on Friday and we'd have a very nice shabas and it was absolutely delightful. So, I booked uh the Renaissance for a long weekend. I haven't done it in many years, to be fair. And I get there and they say, "We don't have separate swimming anymore." I was absolutely shocked. I I didn't check. I'd been going to the Ramada for 30 years. They always had separate swimming separate separate swimming anymore. So my wife went down to check and there were men swimming the pool. So you know we didn't do it. I mean there used to be people who would just use the pool on ladies nights you know or men nights just to be able to use have the swimming. I was very disappointed. They don't have a place dinner anymore. They just have a milky restaurant. Thursday night it was closed. I don't know why. It's just a sign up. The restaurant is closed. Okay. There was a flash meal going on downstairs. I saw a few people there and the fellow at the door said, "Well, if you buy a ticket, you could come." I said to my wife, "Well, we'll we'll buy a ticket." So, uh, run up to the desk and the chef comes up and says, "No, it's for a group of 30 girls." And I made only enough and nobody can go down there. I said, "Okay." Me and my wife went out someplace else for dinner. We came back. I said, "Any place I can get water?" Just some water in the hotel. There's a vending machine downstairs. It wasn't working. I was really surprised. [laughter] How am I telling you? Um, I came to breakfast and breakfast ends at 10:00. At 10:01, they cleared away everything. They were running around taking away all the food, everything like that. Um, you know, they had somebody making eggs, but they used to have somebody making pancakes. Nothing like that anymore. You know, I I was I was really surprised. I was surprised. It's a fivestar hotel, you know. Fine. Um, over Shabas, I was surprised by a few things. I was surprised by the fact that they had the cheapest paper towels you could possibly imagine. Like you find sometimes in Yeshiva where it takes three or four of them just to dry your hands. Those are the paper towels they had. I was like, I was really surprised. I've gone to some hotels, not fivestar hotels. They have either thicker ones. Sometimes they have actually, you know, little little towels And the food was not so good. They used to have a fancy chef. They used to have this. I don't know what happened. And I came back and I was so disappointed. Not because the overall experience was so terrible. And I will tell you uh just to give you an update, right? The no kinerit the food is not uh is not the waldorf but everything was good. I mean over here they had a carving station. They were carving like a turkey and and steak. It was dry as a rock, you know. Over there the food is pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. And um and plentiful and very nice. and they extend the hours and you know it's it's it was a very very fine experience from top to bottom. I felt I was just surprised that you couldn't compare the experience to a a three-star hotel. Well, I'll be making a pay program. By the way, just for an update, they're still supposed to be having the meeting between the two different travel agencies so that they can work out the arrangement between them in order for us to begin starting the booking. I I I don't know. I don't know. If I had a hotel that was mostly empty last year and somebody wants to fill it up, I would try to close this deal really fast, but I'm not an Israeli anyway. So, um just as an update, but I'm pretty sure we're going to make this happen. And we're very excited. But, uh you know, and uh I'm already I have I have a list of demands. One of them is I'm changing the hours of breakfast because Israelis, you know, make breakfast from 7:00 to 10:00 and Americans don't get started that early. So, I want him to move breakfast from 8 to 11. So, that's one of my requirements. Yeah, I'll fight for you. But, uh, but would it have been so bad if I didn't remember what it used to be? No. But you're used to it. Abdul when they put up the second B and mdash. It says that everybody cried. It says the old people cried because they remembered what the first B mikdash looked like and they knew this was only a pale copy on a smaller scale. The young people who never saw a basic was thrilled that there was a bas mdash. They didn't know any better. So yeah, it it if you if you don't know what you're missing, then it's fine. You live in the reality where you are, you know. Um certainly when I was growing up, so you know, uh born 1959, so I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so I didn't know what the 50s and the 40s were like. I heard about them. There were still plenty of people who romanticized them, but I I knew nothing about it. and I couldn't really relate to it, you know. Um, but uh there was there was an experience and when you lose that experience, there's something, you know, that hits you. Okay. What is all this an introduction to? There was a ailer that took place in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of people. Well, how many hundred thousands of people? I don't know. I know that the pisk said you can make the braha of what you the braha when you see 600,000 Jews. So obviously they must have had evidence cuz they would have made the brah unless they were sure that they had that many. I don't know how many were there exactly. Can't believe anything the media says. And uh and I was shocked by the headlines that came out afterwards. Um I think it was the AP or one of these news agencies that says ultraorththodox Jews protest against the draft. It wasn't a protest. It was a there was people doing. Yeah. Yid, I saw his quote. You didn't see any quotes from in the in this in the secular press or the Jewish press because nobody really cares what they think. Um, and Yalipid said, "If they can march in protest and they can march in the IDF completely, of course, missed the point. Missed the point in the title. So, I I have to give a background and it's a background that doesn't make sense to most people today, but you have to know where things come from. It's always it's always good to know a little bit of the background. Yeah. Um when you hear people railing against uh the second amendment or the first amendment or anything else, you have to know where it came from. What why were these things made? What was the intention? Right? So the briskerv made a statement like which I say today is very hard to understand. It's not that the Zionists wanted to build a state and in the process destroy Judaism. They wanted to destroy Judaism and they felt the best way to do it was to make a state. Now it's very hard for us to understand today because nobody ever reads Herzel. Herzel said the reason there's a problem is because the Jews are separate. And his idea to stop anti-semitism was all the Jews should give up Judaism and in marary. That's what he writes. And when he realized that they wouldn't do it, he decided, let's make a land where we can make them like all the other nations and them uh rehabilitate them, make them so that they're able to function in the world. That was his image of what uh the Jewish land was supposed to be. Now obviously there were many other voices in uh the Zionist movement and his was not the only one but there's no question the Labour party definitely felt um hostile to Judaism. They were anti-religious kibbutim. uh there were swardim who when they came across in the 50s were put on these kibbutim and if they were caught doveting they were beaten. This is documented right these are facts. Um there were persecution against religious people. I remember in the 70s Russian Jews came across and the only jobs they could get would be jobs where they worked on shabas. And one refusnic, you know, was interviewed and he said, "I kept shabas and Soviet Russia and I'm going to come here and they're going to force me to to work on shabas on the docks." Yeah. So, some of them are ambivalent and some of them are hostile. All right. As the years passed, there were less and less people who were outwardly hostile. are still a vocal minority but they do not represent the majority. Yeah. The majority of Israel poll after poll shows is either religious or misorati traditional but the people who are anti have a tremendous amount of power. They have the organs of government under their control. The most powerful one is the Supreme Court. Now, if you're a nice American like me, you hear the Supreme Court and you think, well, it's like the Supreme Court in America. Not a chance. America has a Constitution that they fought over for a long time and was ratified by the states. And there's three branches of government. There's the executive, that's the president, and what he can do. There's Congress and what they can do. And there's the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is just there to decide whether or not a law violates the Constitution. That's it. They're not supposed to do anymore. There have been activist courts wherein they actually worked to legislate from the Supreme Court. But but okay, but even they had to work within certain boundaries. The Israeli Supreme Court has no boundaries. It was uh um Chief Justice Barack who said everything is judicial. We can decide anything and they have they built into their law what's called the reasonist claw which means any law you pass anything you do the Supreme Court then decide whether or not they think it's reasonable and if they don't think it's reasonable they can cancel it. So Netanyo has someone in his government that he appointed and then he wants to fire him and the president goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says, "We don't think it's reasonable for you to fire this guy." Nathaniel says, "I have the right. I appointed him. He's part of my government." Yeah, we decided it's not reasonable. A city decided we're going to build a shul or a yeshiva over here. the city Supreme Court says no we don't think it's reasonable to build a shulia says but it's our city we we we decide the zoning no we decided and they can do anything they want it's insane it's absolutely insane and so when Natano tried to pass the law people came out on the streets and they demonstrated a friend of mine went to one of them and said you said you're demonstrating for democracy but this is completely undemocratic They do whatever they want. They weren't elected. And the guy says, "I know, but this is our last chance. We know that the religious and the right-wing are the majority of the country. Our only hope is the Supreme Court. So we can get them to stop doing what the rest of the country wants." And they go out and demonstrate as if it's for democracy. So uh so there are people who are um anti-religious sometimes almost pathological I don't even know another word for it now um Mosha Dian one of the heroes of the 67 war yeah when he eventually went into politics he had no problem making a um a government with the Kedi parties, but his father on their irreligious kibuts on Pesak would hang a loaf of bread outside of their front door in Pes Davka. That kind of hatred you don't see much today. It exists, but not much. So, Yepid, whose father famously hated religion and to be fair, not just um uh not just Karedi, he also hated, you know, national religious uh Judaism. He just hated Judaism in general. He would say some of the most amazing thing. The whole Shinoi party, their whole platform was, you know, we hate we hate the religious And he made a statement when he was running where he says, "If I'm elected, I'll put locks on all the mikvahos. That way, I'll make sure they don't have any more children." That sounds like genocide to me. Wipe them out. The last people I know who made that decree were the Greeks during the time of Antio when they closed down the mcbose. You know such hatred. I hope you people are never born. That's the level of hatred. So Yalipe grew up with his dad and also hates Judaism and hates religious people but with a passion. So the Supreme Court said no more arrangement from the time the the the country started since there was a very large population of religious Jews who were here before the Zionist got here. So Benorian understood that if he was going to make a government he's going to have to come to some kind of arrangement. I'm not going to be able to force them and now they feel they can but back then they didn't think they could force themselves on the religious community. So he met with the story that's famously described is Bengurian said look you know where we have two agendas here you know someone's going to have to give way. So the says you're right. So Gomorrah Gomorrah says if there are two boats coming and one of them is heavily laded and the other one is not heavily laded the lighter one moves out of the way. He says we're bogged down with 3,000 years of Judaism. You only have like 50 years of Zionism. So you're a much lighter boat. You can move out of the way. And said okay what do you want? says, "You're not drafting our girls." And boys who are learning Torah are exempt from military service. And Goran agreed to it. Okay. As the years went by, much to Bengorian and his friend's surprise, the religious community continued to grow and to thrive to the point where um uh Benorian was so surprised he once went to Meam and he says, "We're going to preserve this as a museum so people can see what Jews once looked like. But he didn't expect this renaissance of Judaism. I don't think anybody did. And it was in spite of the best efforts of the government. You'll no doubt recall when I had the founder of Shuvu on my show and he described how secular Israelis are coming to him begging for him to open Shuvu schools for them, not just for the Russians because they also want their kids to learn about Judaism and they're not learning it in the public schools. So the Supreme Court says, "Okay, no more arrangements." Now Netanyahu and his government and every government has tried to come up with an arrangement wherein the yeshiva guys can continue to learn Torah so that we don't reach the national crisis. Well the Supreme Court pushed that national crisis and said okay all out war. So yeshiva boy is sitting Shiva for his father and the army comes and drags him out of his house and throws him in jail. And another guy is at his Chevraus and they drag him out and they throw him in jail. And another guy who was attacked went to the police to file a complaint and they arrested him and threw him in jail. And the boy was sitting in yeshiva and they dragged him out and threw him in jail. So how long do you think this is going to go on? H how long is this reign of terror going to exist? Yeah. So, the yeshiva community finally said, "Look, we had enough. We don't have the political power to change the situation." Obviously, so we're all going to come together and do what Jews in times of crisis always do. We're going to Daven. And whether there was 600 or 700 or a million people, to me it makes no difference. Hundreds of thousands of Jews came out. There were no political speeches. It was just dvening. Ashkanazming dingharting crying out to let Judaism live because throughout history, Jews have always believed the talum and the Rambam says that there was always a ley whose job was just to sit and learn Tyra and today says the Rambam. Yeah. Anybody who wants to be shy can sit and learn and be exempted from everything else. Aram is told that we're going to go down to Egypt and be slaves and and suffer for 400 years. And the Gar brings three reasons. And one of the reasons was because Abraham was the people who are learning Torah to bring them out to the war. That's what that's what the Gumarra says. So Yaipid for sure missed the point. The point is not whether or not they could march in the army. Of course, they could march in the army. Nobody's suggesting that the boys who are learning Torah are handicapped. Nobody is suggesting that they are incompetent. All we're saying is what Jews have said for millennia. people who are learning Torah protect the Jewish people. Period. When son and the Assyrians were besieging Jerusalem says the Garel went around and put a sword in front of every base medish and said anyone who stops learning will be put to the death with this sword because what will save us are the people learning Torah. The Gammorra says that if the non-Jews knew what they lost when they destroyed the Ba Mikdash, they would rush to rebuild it. But they don't know. Obviously, they don't know. And if the state of Israel knew what they would lose if the Jews stopped learning Torah, they would do everything they could to support them. But this is this this has nothing to do with anything other than So here's the argument. We play with emotions. Emotions always work. My son is out there risking his life and yours isn't. Okay. So first of all, most of the army is not in combat. I have three son-in-laws who went to the army. The one who was in combat was called up. The other two were not cuz most of the army is not in combat. the but even the ones who aren't in combat but who are called up they understand that they have important things to do so there's a bunker in Tel a Viv where there are people who read satellite images and they have a very important role to play risking their lives they're very safe they're in a bunker they're under Tel Aviv not going to get hit by any missiles they're reading satellite images. Nobody calls them a traitor. No one calls them a coward. No one calls them a dodger because they understand they're doing something important. What ya leid and the shrinking number of people like him don't understand is that people who are learning Torah are also doing something essential. We went into Iran and we blew up their missiles. We blew up their scientists. We blew up their their installations. We didn't lose any people. You know, you usually lose people in a war. I remember during the second when there were many terrorist attacks going off and people were not getting killed and there were all these missiles coming in from Gaza and people weren't getting killed. And one of the people in the government, not a religious person and one of the people in charge of civil defense, whatever, they asked him, "How do you explain this?" And he said, Our father in heaven there is no reason but that we shouldn't have mass casualties and I mentioned this was an unbelievable tragedy but had the shot their missiles at the same time which were a lot better than the Gaza ones and Iran would have shot their missiles and Syria would have shot their missiles and Yemen would have shot their missiles and there would have been an uprising in the in Yehuda and Shamron, the West Bank. I don't know if we would have survived that. It was a miracle it didn't happen. Why? You can't give any geopolitical answers. I don't get what anybody says. In the Gulf War, 39 Scud missiles hit Israel. Only one Jew was killed as a result of the missile attack. In case you think a Scut is a joke, one of them fell in Saudi Arabia and killed 27 servicemen. These are not jokes. Buildings were being blown up and people weren't getting killed. Which brilliant military wing did that one? We're a small country and we're surrounded by very powerful enemies and you think we don't need deser to survive. So there's no point in talking to Netanyahu because he doesn't have any power. The Supreme Court runs runs the country and he can't do anything. Nobody can do anything. Not unless they get rid of the Supreme Court. As long as they're around, they can do anything they want to anybody they want without anything to answer to. It's a dictatorship. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Israel is not a democracy. It is a judicial dictatorship. And the Supreme Court does whatever they want regardless of the will of the people. Otherwise, it would have come to some arrangement already. But they don't want an arrangement. They want to persecute religious Jews. drag them out of a house of Shiva while they're sitting shiver for their father. They want that. They enjoy that. They get a glee from that. They want to see mass Yeshiva Bakum dragged out of yeshiva by the police and thrown into prison. That makes them happy. A small percentage, but they're the ones who have the power. And all we have is a vinash. I say this because at least people should know. Don't be fooled by the media. This was not a protest. This was not a rally. This was a aerasil where people cried out. So I saw in the Jerusalem Post they said, "Oh, some reporter, some kids threw something at him." Great. There's 700,000 people and three idiots did something and that's your story. That's your story cuz you hate us so much. I have friends of mine who like me have children in the in uh in the IDF who served in Gaza, right? I have friends like me who have lost children of friends in this war. I don't want to take away a from that. People make a mistake sometimes when I talk this way that I don't respect the people who are serving. They are they are defending CL Israel Boo that's extremely important and I want to see them be successful and I know that if we pull out all the people are learning Tory that's not going to help them it won't help them and anyone who says nah learning Torah is not important it's because you don't believe in Torah That's it. I don't care what you call yourself. I don't care what you wear on your head. I don't care what you say. If you don't believe that learning Torah is the protection of the Jewish people, you don't believe in Judaism. Period. And I don't care if a person's learning, a person's not learning, but you think we don't need who are sitting and learning. You're making a terrible mistake. And it's a mistake that people are going to pay with with their lives. Mark my words. If we seen anything from Shminyat, we saw the fragility of the state of Israel, the protected citizens. Where was the army? Where was the Mossad? I had on someone with a Hatsah ambulance driving around picking up the wounded. There was nobody there. Nobody except Hatsah with one one guy in an ambulance collecting the wounded. At the end of the six- day war, there was a big parade in which lion with a banner Israel Bakal. In the words of Dr. Phil, how's that working for you? Anyway, I I say this only because not because I I want to get political. It's not that. That's the opposite of political. People learning Torah should be a priority for everybody. I've mentioned this before more than once. I had this that my parents sent me to the Hebrew Academy of Nasser County Mayor Fendel who built this island of Torah in Long Island. And because of that, thousands and thousands of families are from today, including mine. And I saw his son Dandel who's Rashro who's been going for the missile attacks for years from Gaza said this yum is not just for the everybody who he has yeshiva everybody who cares about Torah should be doing that Torah is not destroyed and anybody who doesn't care about Torah. Let's just pray that has mercy on the Jewish people in spite of that. So, uh I didn't I don't mean to come across so it's just when I look at these headlines and I say how could you miss the point? This is a rally. This is a protest. This is aila and we have no one. Yeah, that's all we have. We only have a Kesh and boys are going to continue to learn in Yeshiva as the stormtroopers drag them out from their houses of Shiva from their Chevro from their yeshivas drag them out and throw them in prison. Neb will not be silent. We will dive in. And we pray that sends us a Yeshua as we defeated the Greeks who tried to destroy the Torah. as we defeated the Romans who tried to destroy the Torah and all the enemies throughout the generations who tried to stop the Jews from learning Torah. And today it's the Supreme Court and this government and they will fall as all of the enemies of Torah have fallen. I'm sorry. Someone like Yar Le Pit is so far from Judaism that all he can do is make snide comments, but you're going to be irrelevant and you will fall onto the dust bin of history with all of the other enemies of the Jewish people. And Torah will exist. We have seen all of our enemies come and go. And Torah continues. So, it's a little a little karif. I didn't mean to be so karif. I'm sorry, but I get a little emotional when I hear these stories, you know, and I know and I know it's just desperation because a cornered rat attacks. It doesn't have any other option. And the anti-religious are such a minority in Israel, they have no choice but to attack, but they can do a lot of damage in uh in a small mean way. And we need to be mazak ourselves and those who are learning Torah and say just because the world is crazy doesn't mean that we have to be okay. Well, um I've mentioned already that I get uh emails from people letters uh telling me that they appreciate this podcast and what we're doing or going on. I don't know if I'm going to gain people or lose people with this one, but I don't really care. Not I'm not getting paid for this. You understand? I don't have any jobs. I just sit here in front of my bookcase and talk for a week or an hour a week. Truth is, I sit here all day and I do this. Just it's filmed for an hour a week. Otherwise, I'm constantly sitting here muttering to myself. Every now and then my wife looks at me and says, "What are you doing?" Goes, "I just told myself a joke." You know what I mean? It's a really funny one. Anyway, I have to explain it. It's It's complicated. I got a lot of references, [laughter] but I know people people uh get from this show and uh my producer Ari has been sending me comments. Hi Rabowski, my wife and I listen and watch them all the time. We really enjoy them. We laugh all the jokes even when we don't understand them. Yeah. Thank you for the wonderful con content and for making Torah learning so entertaining. That is the goal. Yeah. And whatever it is, it's got to be enjoyable. Torah has to be something that I enjoy that I want to do. In the old days when I had cassettes, I would meet parents who say, you know, I have a kid who went off to D, but he listens to your tapes because he said they're f funnier than the comedy tapes. I said, I'll take it. That's good enough. If a person can watch this show, listen out in my sham and walk away and say, "I feel good about the fact that I'm a firm Jew, then we've done something worthwhile." And I thank you for giving me your time. And that's it for this week. You could go to my website.com. You can sponsor an episode, sponsor Part Five. You know, we had a sponsor of Par. We don't have anymore. So, the opportunities are open. You can sponsor the new [music] question and answer series that has just started. You may have seen a number of them posted. Um we can uh uh sign up for one of my online shurim the dafomi or the Monday mash sharm or the Sunday class. And uh we're in Kesha very and uh and that's it uh for now. Uh, until next time, I am David Alowski and this has been the Rabbi Alaski show. >> It's the Rabbi Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, ready [music] to go. The Rabbi Orlovski show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, though we don't. It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi.com. Torah anytime you two and more. It's the Rabbi or show and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show. Till next [music] time till we meet again. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show. It's the Rabbi Orlowski.