Zos Chanukah (Ep. 308)

Hi, this is David Alavski and this is the Rabelovski show. And whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Tory Time or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, we're happy to have you along as we finish the Kaneka holiday [music] together with you. And I have another Kaneka tie. There's that sort of light look to it over there. I hope hope it captured a little bit of the Kaneka spirit. I bet you there must be these novelty Khan ties. I have to go out and get one, you know, with like manoras or drreidles on them or something. But uh but for now, I figure a nice bright yellow tie will definitely capture that sense of light. Kaneka is the festival of light. Yeah. Uh hi, it's Deasi. I have to do something that I have never done beforehand. The episode that you're watching was filmed in advance and it was sponsored as a rafflifasa and a rafu for brahabas basia in between filming and the episode coming out unfortunately mendel was n terrace so we're changing the dedication as a ra of ykabas and Eloish. And so the shouldyah and should have and all the of the good people who watch this show will join together to uh to give her and to all of Brahabas Mendel's loved ones. I've told this story. My wife was reading the Hamodia. And one of my teenage girls says, "What are you doing?" Says, "I'm reading the paper." Goes, "No, no, no. Your lips were moving." She says, "I was at Ashir." And they said, "You know, when you asked to dive in for somebody, you don't have to just write down the name and wait for someone to ask for. You could write on the spot say." I know people who when an ambulance goes by, they right away say a kapito. for whoever's in the ambulance and uh you have that option to uh say it right away. So she says, so there was a little thing in the ham, a little ad where it said, "Please say, you know, for so and so for a foolish layma." And so I took the advice and I right away said, my kids were very impressed, you know. So if you want to put the show on pause just for a moment, I'll tell you the names again. Rifka should have and Eloy should have an aliyah. Okay. At the end of Kaneka. The last day of Kaneka is known as Zos Kaneka. And the reason is of course that during Kaneka we read the gifts that the nim brought on each day of Kaneka for the first seven days and uh we go from shvet by shvet and that's what we read during that day. We read that particular gift of that particular ni every day of Khaneka until now there were 12vatim. So there were 12 gifts. So that only gets us to seven. So on the eighth day you have a much longer laning because you have to do the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and then the summation where it says and then it adds up everything that was brought and it's much longer. So nothing in Judaism is by chance and so the significance is that Zos Khaneka is a more important day. Why is that? So let us take you if we can to the Brya and the second per of Shabas which discusses Kaneka. There is uh no Mishna that discusses Kaneka because the story of Kaneka was left out of the Mishna because says Yehuda Nasi was upset at the Kashim because the were kohanim and so the last surviving brother of the makabes Shim Hakabe he set himself up temporarily as none I hoping to transfer it over to Malus. But his descendants decided to take the Malus for themselves away from Shvet Yehuda. Since Ryhuda Nasi being the Nasi was descended from David, he was upset at them for this and therefore he left them out of the Mishna when he put together the Mishna. But we have ricees in the second paric of shabas where it talks about and how you light the shabas candles and we go from there to the kaneka candles. So it says what is the mitzvah of kaneka? How do you light on kaneka? The answer is every family, every day of Kaneka lights one candle. That's it. That is the mitzvah of Kaneka. Mahadrin. If you want to do the mitzvah mahadin, everyone in the house lights one candle every day. Okay. Mahadrin mahadin that's a m is based on bami bami says you light the first day eight and then 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 and basil says you light the first day one and then 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 B Shami says you light 87654 4 3 2 1 based on the pare hak. The bulls that were offered up on sukus. You bring 70 alto together. Seven days of sukus. Every day you should bring 10. But we don't. We bring the first day 13 12 11 10 9 8 7. We go in descending order. Now a lot of mafar try to understand what in the world has to do with but that's what b sh says b hill says you go up in kadusha and you don't go down now interestingly enough if I was b hill hil b shama says you do 87 76543 2 1 like the parakag basill says what what did the parag got to do with anything that's what I would have said but that's not what bill says basil says I hear what you're saying and nonetheless yeah we have a principle males you always go up in kaduca and as we know we Askin like Basil. And so we light 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and on Zos Kaneka the manura is full and it has reached its most intense expression. So let me give you an example. We count 49 years until the yel the jubilee year. And it says you count seven years seven times. Now, we do not count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. We count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Cuz every cycle we're going through it, but we're doing it on a higher level. We're always going up, which is what we're supposed to be doing. Uh, Resla writes, "It's the same thing every Shabas. It's supposed to be uh every week. We're not just doing Shabas again, but we're doing each week like a spiral and moving up to a higher level of the shabas that we had beforehand." A good insight into life. Don't do it again. Do it better. Do it higher. Do it more. lift it up a little bit. So, um that's how we count. We could just as easily light the same amount of candles every single day, which is the mitzvah and the mahajin mitzvah. But for mahajim and mahajin, we say malim kadesh, which means that the experience of Kaneka is supposed to grow more intense with every passing day. And the second day of Kaneka should be brighter than the first day and the third day and the fourth day until you reach the eighth day when the manura is full. Those of you who have a lot of people in your house lighting manuras. So you know when you reach those kaneka the amount of light that's given off by all of those manuras is tremendous. You see them all filled up. Nine candles a piece. eight for Kaneka and one for the Shamish. And all of these candles are burning. It's uh it's a powerful sight to see. And that means that those Kaneka is more intense. So we're at the end of Kaneka, which is the most intense expression of what Kaneka is supposed to be. But I want to spend a little time talking about this Musli. Be shame also knows that there's a concept of malamodes. So how come they say to go to 87654321 instead of going up like basill they recognize the concept and they say well we learn from the fireak. So there's a lot of answers to this question but I want to focus if I can on the answer of the paneoshua who says uh absolutely beautiful insight. If you have a Jewish education then everybody knows the famous basis kasha basis kasha is they found a little container of oil. It was enough for one day. So one day is not a miracle. Seven days are a miracle. So we should only celebrate Kaneka for seven days. He gives some and many people giveim to what's known as the BF's kasha. Even people who lived before the basis if they say he's answering the bisfasher. He got the credit for the question even though other people asked it beforehand. And there are many different answers. One is the first day was celebrating the military victory which was an unbelievable miracle. Purim we didn't have a open miracle like that. Everything was political intrigue behind the scenes here. Raad Maim very few people beat this tremendous army. The weak fought the strong. The pure fought the impure. the the sadikim fought the rashim. [snorts] It was it was an unbelievable miracle. That's what we're celebrating the first day. Others say the very fact that they were able to find the pmen this little cruise of oil uh was a miracle because you see that the Greeks as we spoke about last time went out of their way to matame all the oil. So the fact that you could find a pure oil was an unbelievable miracle. Some people say the first day is celebrating the rededication of the basa mikdash. And in fact, Kaneka is seen as the dedication of the second basa mikdash. When the second basikdesh was dedicated under Ezra and and that day is not celebrated. Khan is celebrated as the dedication of the second bas mikdash. And we mentioned this I think in the past that when Moshe was building the Mishkan he finished it on Kaneka but he waited till Nissan to put it up. So Kaneka got the dedication of the second base of Mikdash. When Schlommoik was building the first base of Mikdash he finished it on in Marvin but he waited till Tish to put it up. So maj will be the time when we dedicate the third bas mikdash. It'll be made up to it. So uh so that's what we're celebrating. There's all kinds of different answers that are given. So the pua says like this he he's he was a smart guy. So it's a little novel approach. He rejects the idea that parag is the reason why b shami says to go 8765 4321. He rejects that. Says the only reason he brings Pak is to answer Bilillo's objection. Basill says when it comes to matters of holiness, we always go up and we don't go down. And B Shami says, well, I can show you an example of where we go down. And that's the bulls that are offered up on Sukis. we go down there. So I have a precedent where we don't say mal beesh only it sometimes goes down he says so what were they really arguing about so arguing about perspective what do I mean by perspective what do you look at and he asks the famous basis Casha, why do we celebrate 8 days? And he says there's no way they filled up the monora and it just kept burning for 8 days because you have a mitzvah of trumadesh of the manora. You have to clean it out and put in new oil every day. So at the end of the first day, even if it was still burning, they would have to clean it out and put in new oil. He says the miracle was this. They took the pak she and they filled up the candles completely. It was completely full. And they put the deak shemen. It was only 7/8 full which means only an eighth of the oil went in. And every day when they filled the monora, the pak shean went down 1/8. So it says b shamai, you know where the miracle was? The miracle was not that the candles were burning. The miracle was in the pak she and the the way we light the manora is to uh commemorate the pak shemen that had eight portions and then seven and then six and then five and 4 3 2 1 and when you look at the candles that's where the miracle was and Basul says Yeah, but who saw the pakshm? The cohain who was lighting the minuras of the pakshm. Nobody else saw it. All anyone knew is we had enough oil for one day and it burned for 8 days. So from our perspective of looking at the manora, we see, oh my goodness, it's burning for a second day. It's burning for a third day, a fourth day. And every day that we look at it burning gives us a deeper insight into the miracle. The seda, if you looked at the pan, you knew that right away. But no one saw the pmen, but everyone saw the manora. So to a certain extent you could say that the is whether we look at what's going on underneath the surface or what's happening beully what you actually see. Um there are people who have a lot of potential and if you look inside of the person you see all this potential it's like unbelievable but we celebrate the realization of the potential not the potential itself. Some people have a lot of money a lot of money. Yeah. My son Pesak goes to Florida with two friends who are doing well in real estate. They go down to Orlando. They rent two houses. Everybody gets two, three bedrooms, whatever you need. The other house is for eating the meals. They have a minion over there and the staff stays there. They brought in a chef from a very fancy restaurant and the next year they realized that he couldn't really handle everything himself. So they brought in his manager from the restaurant to manage him and make sure that all the technical things are taken care of. They have housekeepers, they have babysitters, you know, it's pretty fancy, pretty fancy setup they have there. And my son tells me all the time, that's not called rich. You don't know what rich is. And it's true. I don't know. Well, I have told this story in the past. I was in America once and, you know, I bought a Powerball ticket. I think it was like at $800 million. And my son brought a Powerball ticket and I said, "You're wasting your time. I' I've already won." And he said, "Why? Why would you win? What would you do with that money?" And I thought about it. The first thing I said was, "I'd fix up my car." He says, "That's how small you think. Not even I'll buy myself a fancy car. I'll fix up my little Honda that I have now. [laughter] That to you is your dream. Fix up my 10-year-old Honda." [laughter] He says, "No, let's go. You'll buy apartments for your kids. You'll buy cars for your kids. Now what? What are you going to do with the rest of the money? Who I I I can't even think that way. $800 million. what would I do with it? But he says, I know people who own their own planes. That's a lot of money to maintain a plane. I know people who take over, you know, a whole floor of a hotel when they go away. I know people who uh do anything that they want that that kind of money. And of course, to me, you know, I'm still scraping the cottage cheese off of the cover because, you know, I don't want it to go to waste. and I crack an egg and I pull out all the inside of it because I don't want to throw away a little bit of it. I'm coming from a different perspective. That's how I grew up, you know, and not really appreciating uh what it what it is to have money, you know, but there are people who, you know, live very well and what do they do with their money? So I know people who have money and they look at the money as a burden. I have an obligation gave me this money and he's going to ask me what I did with it. And they're very conscious of this. I know two people that I've met in my life who live very simply, not poor. you know, they drive a van and [clears throat] they live in a modest home and their kids don't wear designer clothes, you know, and they pay full tuition. And both of these people were fabulously wealthy. They give away 90% of their money to stuck. There's a fascinating story that I heard many years ago. Lee Ommeritz in one of the mag books Rothschild the original Rothschild Anchel Mayor Rothschild it who was from fellow he's in a carriage he's on his way to wherever he's going for shabas and the wheel breaks this is something we cannot understand what it means when you would drive in a horse and carriage the these wheels were made out of wood they were held on by a little wooden knob they were breaking all the time. I read a uh biography of Peter the Great and they said one of his greatest accomplishments is how much he traveled on these on these rudded uh pitted dirt roads with horse and carriage. How hard this was to get around. Anyway, it's a shabas and the wheel breaks. So, the guy's trying to fix it and anor says, "You know, I have a minute. I don't travel. He says, "Look, I don't know when I'm going to get this fixed, but uh if you're nervous, just walk. I'm sure there's a town coming up and you'll go there." Okay. So, he leaves his luggage behind. And he walks and he's walking and he's walking and by the time he gets there, he's wearing very fancy clothes. They're all dirty. His shoes are all caked with mud. He does not look like a Rothschild. And he comes into town and he says, "Can anybody put me up for Shabas?" They look at this guy. He's pretty disheveled looking. So they say, "You know what? Why don't you go to the Mhammed?" The Mhammed was the poorest guy in town. And traditionally I remember it said Rashi and Yakov says to Shimi Hashem should split you up and cla and Rashi brings out a garra that there are no anim or malamino who don't come from Shim because poor people have to travel around to beg for money and malam tos go wherever there's somebody who wants to hire them to age. So I saw this rashi and someone said to me, "What's the kayino?" I said, "Well, no already you're talking about a nam." [laughter] Yeah. But anyway, so he says, "Ah, you know the Mhammed." So you go to the Malamid. He has a very simple house and he's got a bunch of kinduck and everything is very simple. So he sees this fellow come in. He has no idea who he is. And he says, "I'm need a place for shabies." He says, "Of course, of course." He says, "Uh, yanka, go and bring a clean pile of straw for our guest." And they throw a little sheet over it, you know, and find him a pillow and a blanket. And he says, "Listen, let me give you some clothes cuz you can't go in shabas like that." And he gives him a clean pair of like whatever clothes he wore, burlap, I don't know what it is, you know. And Cho was happy. He had a place for Shabas. Anyway, he goes to Shaw and he's sitting with the Mhammed in the back of the shaw with all the poor people and he sees sitting up front is this the usher of the town and he's sitting there like uh he runs the town and he does and before they ask anyone to dive in, they ask him, can we ask this guy to dive in? He either says yes or no. Can we give this one an aliyah? Can we do this? Can we do that? Whatever it is, he makes all the decision. He stares sits up front. He's the king. So they give anor a uh an aliyah. And at the end he says, "You want to make a mish?" Says, "Sure." What's this guy going to give? So he says, "Uh, what do you want to give?" So he points at the usher and says, "I will give 10 times his net value." And the whole town's like, "What? What? What? What is that? Who's this guy? He's embarrassing him." The guy says, "Listen, don't make fun of this fellow." He goes, "Did you hear my name when you called me up, Anchel Mayor? Do you know any mayors?" He goes, "Well, the only anchor I know is Roth." [clears throat] And everyone goes, then Mhammed faints. You know what I mean? He says, "I got Roth in [laughter] my house." Anyway, at the end, everyone comes over and says, "Please, you know, you know, ana come to my house for the sudos." It's okay. I'm staying with the Mhammed. Yeah. After Shabas, he sends for his uh financial people. And uh they do an audit and when they finish the audit, it turns out that this usher is in debt. He doesn't have any real money. It's all a facade. And the next shabas anchel mayor now dressed like a Rothschild gets up and shaw and he says I knew right away that this person didn't have any money cuz a bar who gives money to people who are going to use it as an obligation to it's not my money belongs to he gave it to me and he's going to ask for an accounting of every penny. So you see rich people it's a lot of potential what could you do with it those of us who are in claw work how many times have we gone to rich people asked them could you help with this could you help with that you do like this and they're like look we get hit on a lot a lot of different people come to us we have to make decision I can't give everywhere can't do everybody you know Okay, it's definitely true. You can't give to everybody. But do I have a sense of obligation? The mag tells a story about uh this fellow. He would give stuck to anybody he could. He wasn't rich, but he would give everybody some money. And eventually one guy came. At the end of the day, he had no money left. He had nothing to give. And I walked away disappointed. And he chases after him. He says, "Wait, wait, wait. I can give you some money. I just figured out if I don't use wine for kdish and I make kdish on hamoti, I can save x amount a year. This year I'm only going to make kdesh on I'll give you that money." That that's how I look at it. What's my obligation to the Hashem gave me? Yeah. I've told this story before and I know people out there know all my stuff. They have things that are called value clarifications. They're exercises that help you figure out. So this is the story. I was at a a youth group once and doing an ONG. I was asked to speak and they were doing a value clarification with the kids. Here's the story. Romeo and Juliet are in love, but Romeo is on Crocodile Island. It's called Crocodile Island because the the river is filled with crocodiles. There's no way to get across except with the ferry man. And Juliet wants to go to Romeo, but she can't because of the crocodiles. So she goes to the boatman and he looks at her and says, "I will take you across on one condition that you sleep with me." Well, she doesn't want to be disloyal to Romeo. She doesn't know what to do. She's beside herself. And she goes to ask wise Ivan and he says, "I don't want to get involved." Okay. So she feels she has no choice. She pays the boatman's price. And when she comes across, Romeo is so thrilled to see her. And he says, "How did you ever get the boat man to take you over?" And when she tells him what she did, he casts her away. And she's broken because she gave up everything just to be with Romeo. And Romeo has thrown me away. And she tells her friend Sluggo. And Sluggo is so angry he beats up Romeo. And as Romeo is lying there battered, bruised, and bloody, Juliet laughs. The end. And the question is, who's the worst person in the story? There are no good people. There are only bad people in the story. Who's the worst? Well, afterwards, I was listening to the discussion. Some people say sluggo because there's never an excuse to use violence. even if you're very upset. Some say people say Juliet, she did this terrible thing and then she gets Romeo beaten up and then she's laughing. Some people say Romeo because everybody was motivated by self-interest. He was just motivated by rejection and everybody [clears throat] was arguing. When I heard this for the first time, they said, "Who's the worst person in the story?" I said immediately, "Why is Ivan?" And everyone looked at me and said, "What?" I said, "He's the only one who could have prevented this. If he would have given Juliet the right advice, this never would have happened." And the person said, "No one ever chooses wise Ivan." Says, "That shows that in your vision of what's right and wrong, the worst thing you could do is not help somebody." That's how you view life and it's for sure true right everybody has an obligation I have been asked at times uh why I don't uh charge for the podcast or someone said at least do part of it and then put the rest of it behind a payw wall you know say to listen to the rest of it the rest of the show do this that I said because Shapiro said to me anyone who can give people is to do And that's it. I'm not I'm not doing it for any selfish motivation. Kushbaru again, we have no sponsors left because at least we need money to cover our production costs and things. But in the meantime, the idea is Kushbaru gave you talents and you're going to use it or you're not. I've told this story in the past. People have heard almost all my stories. Every now and then I pull in a new one. People are surprised. Yeah. I've told this story. I was in LA and uh I don't know how to put this. Uh I'm frightfully talented. I could have gone into professional entertainment. I'm pretty sure not sure. I'm pretty sure. And when I was in LA, that's the entertainment capital of the world, you know. Uh I was teaching and I was teaching the way I always do. with stories and jokes and try to be entertaining and meaningful. And one of the kids in the school, his father was a Hollywood agent, and he says to me, "Kid, you've got what it takes." He says, "I want to represent you." Gave me his card. And uh he said, he says, "We'll put together a stand-up routine. will work the clubs and I see you having your own TV show in three years. I said, "Let me think about it." And I said to myself, well, here's what I told my what I told my is, you know, how many people have heard this line beforehand? And all the stars that never were parking cars and pumping gas. Do you know the way to Santa? That line always stuck with me. Everybody thinks they're going to be a star. Gosh, how many people actually are successful? So I said, nah, you know, he's given me a story. I'm not going to make it. But what I told myself was I said, let's say he's right and I get my own show and somehow I managed to stay from, you know, and I get to keep shabas. Not easy to do. Stephen Hill starred in a television show called Mission Impossible. It was a hit and he was a starring role and he became from and he realized there was no way he could do this and keep Chabas and stay from so he gave it up. One of the to give up the lead in a hit show is something that is hard to understand, especially back then, the 1960s when uh when Hollywood was Hollywood. Yeah. And give that up. I said, let's say I managed to save from I'm not like Steven Hill. I could get them to to to only film during the week and not to film on Chavez or Yand. Let's say Monid. Yeah. So uh at the end of my life I get up to Shamayim and Kra says so what' you do with your life I was like but you never saw my show instead of Seinfeld being the number one show it was Orlavski you know I was a star I was this I was that you know you never saw me on Johnny Carson I was here I was that you know a star and coach would say that's what you I gave you to communicate to ideas and you used it to tell jokes instead and make money and get famous instead of working for me. That's what I said to myself. What I told my is ah it's a lot of bluff. I'll never make it anyway. But every now and then I would speak to a group from Los Angeles and there would be some actors and and directors and people in the film industry and I would do my usual, you know, presentation and uh people would come up to me afterwards and they'd say, "Wow, Rabbi, that was unbelievable." I said, "You think I can make it?" And they'd hand me their agent's card and said, "Call the agent. Tell them I told you to call." I went, one time I had a stack of them. I don't know where they are now you know could have made it big and then what potential I would have been potential what could have been you know what if the panovich didn't build Ben the panovich Shiva all the people who went out and did great things in the world what if they didn't do it they had the potential. You could see it if you looked on the inside, but you never saw it burning on the monora. It was never expressed externally. You never got to see it and what the person was supposed to do. So there's two ways to look at the miracle of Kaneka. You can look at the pak she and say I can see the miracle inside the little jar of oil. I can look at the maneuver and see what actually happens. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you could have done. It matters what you did. The say a mitzvah is only called after the person who finishes it. Even if it wasn't your fault. Cla got credit for bringing atmos Yoseph to uh be buried in even though Mosenu was the one who was Moes and he searched around and he found the atsmos Yoseph and he brought it out and he did everything but he didn't bury it cuz he couldn't go and take it. It wasn't his fault but you had an opportunity and you didn't take advantage of it. It's not my fault. No one's saying it's your fault. You had great potential, but you never fulfilled it. I could have been somebody. I could have done something. How many times you hear people say that? Somebody should do something. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody should do something. I'm something of a social critic. It comes with the with the territory. And uh I was recently giving a shir and I was talking about all the different problems not all of the different problems some of the problems in clay said to me why doesn't anybody do something I said I am if I have to save by myself I will if you help me there'll be two of us I'm not giving up I'll do whatever I can do put myself forward and Just because you can't do everything doesn't mean you can't do anything. I've told this story. It's in the first chicken soup of the soul book where this guy is walking on the beach and he sees these starfish that have been washed up on the beach and he's picking them up and throwing them back into the sea. And the guy says to him, "What are you doing?" He says, "Well, they're outside of the water. They're going to dry up and die." He says, "But there are thousands of starfish and this is happening on beaches all around the world. You can't make a difference." And he picked up another one and threw it and said, "Made a difference to him. You don't know how many people you make a difference to. You're unaware." Because trust me, if you knew, you'd be much more conscious of it. Every time you have an opportunity to make a kdish hashem, sometimes I'll settle just not to make a kilo hashem. But every time you have a chance that a person looks at you and says this is a this is a from Jew. I live in Israel. My Hebrew is not that good. But I make an effort. I say hello to anybody that I can. I try to say a kind word. Before Rashashana, I was way I was waiting online this supermarket. It was a mad house. Everybody's yelling at this cashier middle-aged woman. And I got up to the checkout and I said to her, "Call Kavote." I said, "This is not a job. This is a you're helping people make yiff. This is tremendous thing. I see you working and working and it's really something special. Can I get you a drink? Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? She says, "No, no. I have a break coming up." I said, "Just wanted to tell you from my point of view, I think what you're doing is a tremendous thing." I hope she walked away feeling a little better. I walked into a elevator. Like I say, you know, I can communicate in Hebrew, make myself understood, but but I can't really speak in Hebrew because you have to know all of the right words and the right nuances. There was one time I'm very conscious of the fact that my my grammar and is terrible. And one time I spoke and I said, "My dick is not very good." And this fellow says, "No, it's non-existent. first person, second person, third person, past, present, future, feminine, masculine. It's all one thing to you. You can mix all of those things together in one sent. Let me get a little better. So, one time I practiced before I spoke in my head what I was going to say. And my son was there and afterwards I said, "So, how was that?" He goes, "Okay." I said, "Well, I didn't make any mistakes." He says, "No, but you have the vocabulary of a third grader." And it's true. I I don't have the words. I don't know how to communicate, you know. So they have this thing in uh Israel where you know in America you buy a coffee so they put in hot coffee they put in cold milk that's a coffee. Yeah. Uh here almost nobody eat drinks what you would call coffee [laughter] when you go out to a coffee place. They have a cappuccino. They have an espresso. And they have what's called a cafe hau where they put in the coffee and they put in hot milk. The upside down uh coffee. Yeah. Okay. It's uh Israelis Israelis go for the hot milk more. Yeah. Somebody said once you know in Yehud in par where you know it talks about Rashi says you know or it's actually that you give milk to someone as he says so when an American tells us over he says you give somebody a cold glass of milk you say to an Israeli you give somebody a hot cup of milk. [laughter] Anyway, I was in a building and a lot of Israelis are already on the edge before you even start, you know. I walk into the elevator and somebody had apparently spilled a coffee and didn't bother to pick it up and everybody is standing in the perimeter of this of this puddle and they're really annoyed. And I walk in, I look, I go, "Ah, cafe ha [laughter] upside down coffee." [gasps] Everybody laughed and it broke the tension and there was nobody there religious in the elevator. I hope they walked away with a slightly different impression of religious Jews. But every time you look at somebody, you say, "Okay, I have an obligation here." I just saw a clip of an Israeli comic someplace in Europe and somebody screams out, scream free Palestine, you know, and he says, "What do you want from me?" He says, 'I don't know why every single Israeli when they go abroad suddenly become a representative of the government. I'm not in charge. I don't do anything. I'm a comedian. I tell jokes. What do you want from me? [laughter] So he says, "Oh, look at all the Palestinians who were killed." He goes, "Look at all the Israelis who were killed." "Oh, there weren't enough of us? That's what you're worried about? Okay, so we'll have to make sure more Israelis get killed." So he goes, "Don't use tanks anymore. Everyone should go in on scooters. This way we'll get many more Jews killed. [laughter] Then you'll feel better because there'll be more Jews killed." You know, that's that's the attitude. You know, it was such an interesting idea. But it means, yeah, every firm Jew who walks out is a representative of the entire Jewish people. It's not fair. It's not right. But how you behave and what you do is going to reflect upon all of us. And I have been in situations uh tower air. If anybody remembers tower air, they used to have an early check-in in. It's a very long line. Everybody wants to check in early. So I'm waiting online and this rashiva long beard and a frock and a hamburg comes in and says something to one of the people there and she moves him to the head of the line. So one of the secular people in the wine scream out says maz. So he goes, you know, I'm I'm in a hurry. We're all in a hurry. We all have things to do. And he started screaming at him and said, "You're a dog. Don't you open your mouth. I don't want to hear from you." A whole thing they [clears throat] screamed. I don't think I was the only religious person in the line who was hoping that the earth would open up and swallow me alive. It's a terrible thing. You know, I was sitting on a plane once next to this secular fellow and you know, you have these karate passengers who come in late and uh he's got a big giant roll bag, you know, and everything is full. So she says, "I'm going to have to check the bag." He goes, "No, no, no. I need the bag. He goes, "But there's no room." Says, "So take out somebody else's bag. Put my bag in." So I can't take out somebody else's bag. And everyone's screaming, "Sit down. We're waiting to take off." You goes, "I went back." Anyway, this guy starts saying, "I don't know who these people think they are. I'm so entitled." Da da da da. I couldn't offer any defense. I sat there quietly. And after we finally took off, he had the little earphones that you get on the plane. And I have a pair of good earphones, Sony ones. And I said, "Uh, would you like to borrow my earphones?" And he says, "You're not going to use them?" I said, "No, I'm tired. I'm going to go to sleep, etc." You know, he says, "But I said, these are good ones. You'll enjoy them." And he took them on. He said, "Thank you so much." It was the best I could do. I can't make up for everybody who's who's unfortunately not representing Claireville the way they're supposed to. And people have so much potential. There's so much good that we can do. I'm going to tell you something that I believe 100%. Is it possible that I'm wrong? It's possible. I didn't do an accounting. I have met a dozen people who said to me, I wish I could have more children, but I can't afford the tuitions. We have set up a system that discourages Jews from having children. There's something wrong with that. So, uh, person said to me, "Well, you know, because the school's this." And I said, "You don't think there's enough money in the firm community to underwrite tuition for every single kid in school so that nobody has to pay more than $1,000. You don't think that money exists? Look at Look at the money that's being spent on all kinds of things. Big houses, big cars, you know, fancy vacations, big trips. I'm not talking about going away for Pesak to the uh Nokiner in Tavaria with the Rebelaski program. It's reasonably priced and uh it's a spiritual uh adventure. We're not we're not doing this for uh you know to take it to Disneyland and have uh Mickey Mouse run your savior. You know what I mean? This is something that's you know a spiritual thing. the amount of money that's being spent on stuff. And you're telling me that we can't solve a tuition crisis? Of course we can. We just don't want to. It's just not important enough to us. We lack the will. We don't lack the ability. But who's going to stand up and solve this problem? Who's going to deal with it? There was a big problem that there weren't enough yeshiva katanas and there were kids that's like a high school here in Israel and kids couldn't get into yeshiva katana I'll tell you something really kharif I won't tell you who it was but it was a very famous Adam there was a when the two bus blew up and it was all filled with from people um there were certain People sent around soundtracks and posters and said it's because women wear that's why the bus blew up. So someone asked this Adam very well-known person and he said Shaitl the tears of the mothers who can't get their sons into yeshiva katana is enough to blow up 10 buses. But he said so Rashak sent out a call and said anybody who opens up a yeshiva katana I will be there in nussi I will write them a letter I'll do whatever I can to help them raise the funds and suddenly there was a whole bunch of yeshiva katanas that opened up and the crisis ended said someone has to do something I'm going to do it an amazing thing every one of us can do something. Every one of us can help. We're not the God. We're not a big RV. We may not be a millionaire or a billionaire, although I don't know who listens to the show, but uh but every one of us can help in some way. And when we look at a situation and we say, "I've got the potential." That's the pan. That's b shi. But that's not what we look at. We look at what did you do with that potential? Where did it take you? What did you do to make the world a better place? That's something that if we understand that on this zaneka, we can use this yantiff to use all of that power to be able to it's hashem help us make the world into the place that it's supposed to be. Apparently, I always misqued RFK. Yeah, Robert Kennedy who said this. I thought it was John Kennedy. Someone corrected me. It was Robert Kennedy. Some people look at the world the way it is and ask why. I look at the way the world could be and ask why not. The only difference is every one of us taking our potential and developing it to shine to make the world into the place it should be. And as always, my producer sends me some nice letters. Hi, I want to thank you for all the shur I'm a very yeshiva shagai from Lakewood and though I don't necessarily agree with all your opinions, I still listen to you more than anyone else because you're real honest and logical. Something that's very rare these days. Thank you very much. I can't ask for more than that. I don't expect people to agree with me on everything, just most things. Hi, Rabbi. I'm currently in yeshiva in Queens. I just wanted to let you know that the Rashiva Rih Harris mentioned in Hashkafa that he really enjoys listening to you. Well, he is a very very special individual. I had this he was my Rashiva in Rochester. And thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And uh that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website railoski.com and you can sponsor an [music] episode, please. We have no sponsors left. You could sponsor a para in five. You can sponsor a question and answer. Uh you can submit a question. You can make a comment. You could sign up for one of our online shior fila on Sunday for men and women. Uh mild sasharm for women on Monday night [music] and dafomi for men every day except for shabas. And uh there's other material there. And again, just mention anyone who would like to come and join us for Pesak. We would love to have you along for [music] the experience. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and we'd love to have you there. Uh if you're part of our community and that's it for now. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski Show. >> The Rabbi Orski show and ready [music] to go. The Rabbi Olavski Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, though [music] we rabbi orski show on rabbi orki.com. Torah anytime, [music] YouTube, and more. It's Rabbi orski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orski Show. Till next time till we meet again. The Rabbi Olowski show. It's the Rabbi Show. It's the Rabbi Orski show.