#67: Behind the Bima - Rav YY Jacobson

Boca Raton Florida, Rabbis Ephraim Goldberg, Philip Moskowitz, and Josh Brody are taking you behind the Bima. The BRS Rabbis schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going. Welcome to Behind the Bima. Good evening. It's Wednesday 9:00 p.m. I'm Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg, joined by my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Philip Moskowitz, and we're here to take you behind the Bima. We are here to go behind the Bima second week in a row. There are only two slots. And lest the rumors begin, we would never want anyone coming to the wrong conclusion. Rabbi Brody is still very much part of the Behind the Bima team. He just happens to be in Israel indefinitely. It's good in the next world we left life we're coming back as Rabbi Brody. So, he he is coming back actually soon and he will rejoin us, please God, for next week. But tonight, again, it is the uh good tag team of me and Rabbi Moskowitz. So grateful and glad to be together. We have a very special guest. Rabbi YY Jacobson is special person, an extraordinary speaker, a passionate leader, and there's so much to talk to him about. I hope you drink your coffee tonight. I hope you're ready to stay up late into the evening cuz we've got a lot on the agenda for Rabbi Jacobson, including his own background, his life story, including his relationship with the Rebbe, including the uh time in which he made a blessing over President Trump, or his welcoming of Rabbi Baschkin. There's a lot to talk about. But first, we have to thank our generous sponsor for this evening. A very big thank you to our sponsor, Karen and Simcha Herman of North Woodmere. In commemoration of the first year of the past Sukkot of Yehuda Leib ben Miriam, who touched the lives including of so many, including the staff at at Medical. Huge thank you to the Hermans, good friends of mine, of ours for a long time. Brother Naftali is a active member of our community, a leader in our community. And Sim Herman, in fact, is the one who put us together with Rabbi YY. Thank you for making the connection. Thank you for sponsoring tonight. Thank you for sharing Torah and the light that you do. Rabbi Moskowitz, what is going on, my friend? What is going on? What's not going on? This is great. And uh, you know, it's interesting. The senior rabbi, assistant rabbi dynamic duo has been in the news a lot recently. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that, Rabbi Goldberg. It has been in the news. Don't ask why, and we're not going to touch it with a 1,000-ft pole, you know, other than to say that we love all all rabbis, and it's a unfortunate when in a public sphere people's lives get paraded with a misunderstanding of what's really going on. Um, we constantly find it funny, and I bet our listeners and viewers, they don't believe. There are people who contact us and say, "Come on. You put on this show as if you guys are best friends, as if you get along." Not just the two of us, and not just the three of us when Rabbi Brody's here. One of our most popular episodes of all time is when we had the rabbis and representatives of BRS on. One by one, we welcomed our full team, and it was What was it? Over 3 hours? It was an insane Long time. It was a long time. Crazy episode, and we genuinely all get along. We're really, really close friends. People don't believe us. They think it's a charade, or it's fake. But, we are the closest of friends. What we have is very special. And sadly, as we're seeing in threads on different social media platforms talking about the rabbi assistant or associate rabbi dynamic, which is a conversation going on right now, we're seeing that our relationship, unfortunately, is the exception, not the norm. That is correct. You know, part of what I was fascinated by the conversation. Again, I don't I don't want to delve into anyone else's business. Obviously, this is about us and about, I think, what makes our dynamic duo so special here at BRS. But, um, there's been a lot of conversation about the role of the assistant rabbi. And for me, that's fascinating because, obviously, I've been in this role for 12 years. I have a lot to say on the issue. Um, and part of what makes it Do you want Do you want me to step out? Do you want me to recuse No, no. Part of what makes it work is I think exactly what you said is that you and I and again thank God it comes naturally but we definitely focus on it which is building a relationship outside of shul. Whether it's playing tennis with each other, whether it's playing golf with each other, whether it's when we travel together making sure we spend time together, but it's building that relationship so it is really a true friendship and I think it's a give and take. You know, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's like any relationship. You know, sometimes you give a little bit and sometimes you get a little bit and I give you a lot of credit, right? You make room for me to be able to grow in my position and and you know, I certainly recognize your role as the associate as the senior rabbi. So I think it's I think it it's on both parties really to to work hard to make it work and and you know, Baruch Hashem it's been such a beautiful relationship and friendship our last 12 years and I guess part of what I'm seeing in these conversations of an associate rabbi is like a caged animal one person compared it to and you know, thank God that just has not been my experience is here and uh just fascinating to see people comment on the position. I appreciate those sentiments and I don't want it to get all weird when I reciprocate now nor do I want us to somehow boast about the special friendship and relationship we have but if our viewers want to know why we think it works, um first of all, you know, like all relationships in life it takes work not in the sense that either of us are working hard but meaning it takes intention. It takes mindfulness and it takes a commitment to keep our eye on the ball of the bigger picture than in any particular moment or feeling and I think the reason it works and and something that I'm incredibly impressed with by with you Rabbi Moscowitz I think we're very very committed to the institution, to the cause, to Boca Raton Synagogue, to sharing and spreading Torah and and I think we both try to make it not about our ego, not about our honor and we try to make that space. I know and this is a conscious effort or decision I tried to make early on that when you succeed and you thrive when people tell me did you hear Rabbi Moscowitz gave an incredible drasha or an amazing shiur or he was so helpful to me. I went to him for counseling. I don't feel threatened or competitive. I feel like the whole BRS brand has been elevated, and I'm so proud of who we are and and we're a large place that needs a lot of work. And I think, you know, you do the same thing, which is um understanding and and trying to work together in partnership and each of us understanding roles and so on and so forth. So, uh you know, with without trying to boast or put in anyone else's face or criticize anyone else, I think we could be very grateful for what we have. It is unusual, and I just give us both the bracha that it should go on for many, many years to come, which will be because you don't go anywhere. So, that is one of my number one jobs each and every year is to make sure that Reb Efraim Maskut stays here as a full-fledged partner in leading and having a vision and and making things happen here. I do want to take a moment. Last week, we said we were going to have uh those who would take a moment to review on Apple Podcast would be entered into a uh raffle for some swag, and we have a winner. We used a random generator, and we do have a winner for the swag, and I'm proud to announce. Can I get a drum roll out of Maskuts? The winner is Chaviva123. And let me read to you the review that she left that will maybe inspire you to leave your own because once again this week, the reviews from this week's episode will be entered into a raffle. We've got amazing swag. We've got car magnet. We've got state-of-the-art hat. We've got beautiful What are these called? A cup. Uh but there's a fancier word than cup. It's cup. I don't know. I don't remember what it is. Anyway, her review Chaviva123 was BTBF Behind the Bema fan. Hi, I love listening to the podcast podcast. It's fun, funny, interesting, informative, and of course has great interviews. I specifically enjoyed the show with BB Deutsch and more recently with Elkan Fried. I recommend the podcast to anyone who wants to listen to something enjoyable and entertaining. Looking forward to many more amazing episodes. Chaviva, thank you so much for your kind review. Please be in touch with us with your email address so we can be in touch with you and send you your swag. And everyone else who's listening, trust me, what Reb Efraim is going to share tonight is gold. Amazing. We want the world to hear it. It's not about us and our band, there and boasting a little awkwardly our special relationship. It is about Rabbi YY and his message, Avraham Fried, Binyomin Deutsch, and all the other incredible guests that we have had. When you review, more people stumble upon it and learn from it, and that is our goal. Thank God, we make no living. We don't make one penny. We make no profit. This is not our livelihood. We are just in it to get the message and the light of our guests out there to the world. So, again, thank you to the Hermans, our sponsors. Thank you to Khabibah123 for that great for that great review. I also want to offer a big thank you to Rabbi Book It. I ran out of another program earlier tonight, Crossfire. One of our local Chabad's runs a Crossfire with rabbis across the Orthodox spectrum, one-minute answers one by one. He ended it on time as promised and announced. Rabbi YY Jacobson said, "I wonder if he would have done it if it were another guest." Rabbi YY Jacobson's up behind the bema, and therefore we have to end. So, big shout-out and thank you to our colleague and friend Rabbi Book It. See, I feel like that's your that's your wheelhouse, the 60-second answers. You were probably right in your zone on that one, right? Yeah, I was in my zone, but I kept thinking to myself what probably everyone else was thinking, which was, "If Goldberg could speak in 60-second increments, what takes him so long on Shabbos morning and every other slot?" So, I'll tell you, I did that a couple years ago. I found it very stressful. Like, they asked me, you know, "What's the Jewish perspective on abortion? You have 60 seconds." And like it took me a while to get the answers out, and I kept on getting buzzed, and I found it very stressful, but I feel like you were very good in that context. There were some interesting questions tonight, including, you know, agunah issues or, like you say, a Jewish view. But there was an interesting question. Why would a kohen who um has a um a kohen who has a a blemish be disqualified from serving? Is that not discriminatory against the disabled? Interesting question. What's the proper view on that? If you have to walk 3 miles to shul in the summer in Florida, is that not work? Some interesting questions. No, but but those are great questions and great conversation starters at like a Shabbos table when you can elaborate and you can debate and have a conversation. In 60 seconds, it's really hard to give those answers in a nuanced way where you're not offending anyone, but you're also communicating and defending Halacha. It's very hard to do in 60 seconds. All right, so I've got a question for you and then we will take the privilege of introducing and welcoming in Rabbi YY Jacobson. So, today I was interviewed in another context and there were great questions asked of me. I'd never thought about. One of them was fantastic. We should add it to our Behind the Bima questions from our guests, but tonight I'm going to ask it to you. And that is, you ready? Yes. If if Rabbi Philip Moskowitz, a real Pinchas of 2021, could meet the Rabbi Philip Moskowitz who's 18-19 years old, what would you tell him? If you could go back in time knowing what you know now and how much of life you've lived by now, and you can go back and tell your younger self some advice, what would it be? I have so many things I would tell I don't even know where to start. But professionally, personally, Take it whatever direction you want. So, professionally, I would definitely tell myself to enjoy those years a little bit more and to be more present in the moment. The years of Yeshiva, of college, of being able to really invest yourself in learning without any responsibilities, to me, it's very hard to get that back later in life. And even if you, you know, thank God you and I are in the learning field, but we have a myriad of responsibilities, obligations, children, family, community, baruch Hashem. Those years of just a purity of learning I I crave and I would love to go back to. And at that stage of life, you're always running to like grow up and you wanted to get a job and you had to build your resume and you wanted to start a career. My advice to myself would be take that as long as you can, relish it, enjoy it, savor it, and make the most out of that opportunity to learn. So, from a Yeah, sorry. No, No, I was going to I was going to follow up actually and combine sort of that question with what we were talking about earlier, which is if you could tell your younger self starting out as an assistant rabbi, or let's take that not from you. If an assistant rabbi is starting somewhere in the country and calls you Rabbi Moskowitz and says, Rabbi Moskowitz, you're a team player, you're a super success, you could be the senior rabbi of any shul in the world. I'm starting out, I just got a new job, my first pulpit, I'm an assistant rabbi to a wonderful senior rabbi. What advice would you give him? Um so again, I think it would be a very similar conversation. I really think it starts with with grounding yourself. And I mean that in grounding yourself in learning, it grounding yourself from a mental health perspective, grounding yourself from a physical perspective. In other words, what are your anchors? And a lot of it is trial and error that I've kind of figured out throughout life, and I know you have what as well, but the quicker you can identify those things that are going to ground you, it's a seder in learning. What's that seder in learning that's going to give you that spiritual energy for the day? Is it daf yomi? Is it a mussar sefer? Is like whatever it is that's going to give you that real strength and fortitude in learning, figure that out and make it etched in stone. What is it that you need to do to take care of yourself physically? Is it exercise? Is it walking with your spouse? Like whatever it is, tennis, golf, pelota, whatever it is you got to do, like make that part of your schedule. So I think it would be for me just that self-awareness of identifying what are those, you know, what Stephen Covey would have called like your big rocks. What are the big rocks that are the most important to you? The quicker you can identify them, I think that the more successful you'll be long term. That is great advice, and there's a lot more to talk about that, but we have a lot of conversation to have with Rabbi YY. So let me introduce Rabbi YY before we bring him on by saying, although most people here know that Rabbi YY is one of America's premier Jewish scholars and experts in in mysticism, Kabbalah. He takes these complex ideas and is able to reduce them and communicate them in an accessible, accessible way. He speaks all over the world, six continents, 40 states. He's taught and mentored thousands um all over. He is an author. He has a website the Yeshiva.net the Yeshiva.net where he teaches thousands around the world each and every day again complex topics in the most passionate and compelling way. He served as the editor-in-chief. People don't realize this before he was such a prominent rabbi and speaker, he was a journalist. He inherited this from his father who began but he was the editor-in-chief at one point of the largest Yiddish English newspaper existing today, the Algemeiner Journal and he's the spiritual leader of congregation base Shmuel in New York. Uh Rabbi YY in in 10 seconds Rabbi Moskowitz, what are you impressed by? What do you love about Rabbi YY? Why are you excited to have this conversation? He is an excellent excellent storyteller and his width and breadth of Torah knowledge is mesmerizing. He's the real deal. That's the bottom line. We spent some time with him. It's not just a show. He didn't memorize three good speeches that he gives everywhere. He is the real deal and it is a privilege to have him ladies and gentlemen without any further ado, Rabbi YY Jacobson. It is a great privilege and a pleasure to welcome one of the great teachers, speakers, educators, inspirational personalities of our time, Rabbi YY Jacobson. Thank you so much for making some time to come behind the Bima with us. My pleasure, my honor. Thank you for having me. We hope that you're feeling better and feeling strong and feeling well and we want to dive right in. This you are a a fountain of wisdom and knowledge and there's so many ways we can go, directions, things that we can talk about. Uh but let's start with this. Let's start with your obviously Chabad background, the privileged relationship you had with the Rebbe Zatzal and the role you played as being one of the being a chozer for the Rebbe. The Rebbe gave shiurim that were hours uh long on Shabbos and a team of chozrim listened carefully and recorded and shared and that experience, what it meant to be privileged to be tapped to play that role at a young age, the responsibility of listening in a way that you were trying to remember. I don't know if you have any memory tools for our audience about how to use memory well. Um and lastly as part of this question, what was the Rebbe's reaction to the way that you wrote up his his sichos, his shiurim? Um, did the Rebbe give constructive criticism and how? Because I've shared many times one of the things that touched me very deeply about the Rebbe is that emphasis on positivity, positive language. There's so much written about the Rebbe's understanding davar dibur, using only positive language. So, how did he give constructive criticism in a way that didn't feel critical? Wonderful and very loaded questions. So, let me try to uh put it all into one uh cohesive and delightful child. So, I grew up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Both of my parents, my late father, well, were immigrants from Soviet Russia. They grew up in the 1930s under the tyranny of the horrific Soviet regime, the Stalinistic purges, and the incessant persecutions against Jews and Judaism and really all religion. My grandparents were arrested, my grandfather was arrested, tortured, sentenced to death, and then commuted to 25 years in the gulag. Ultimately, he made it out at the end of the Second World War. And both of the families, separately, with forged passports, Stalin allowed people who escaped from Poland to Russia, from Hitler's armies, to go back to Poland after the war. So, they forged documents as though they were Polish citizens, and in 1946, they left the hell of the Soviet Union, where they suffered terribly. My father was a child, he would always share with me the stories of, you know, his father being taken away Friday night after kiddush. For years, they didn't know if he's dead or alive. In any case, they left the Soviet Union, they came to Europe, they ultimately made it to the United States of America, they built their family in Brooklyn. My father was a journalist for more than 50 years. He worked for Newsweek, for the Herald Tribune. He was UN correspondent for the which is Israel's largest daily newspaper. He succeeded actually Eli Wiesel Elie Wiesel in that position and then he founded he worked for Yiddish newspapers and he founded his own Yiddish newspaper called the Algemeiner Journal, which he ran till his death in 2005. My grandfather, his name was Simon Yakobashvili. My real name is not Jacobs. My name is Yakobashvili, which is a Georgian name. He came from a long dynasty of Georgian Jews. They have a tradition that they came there after the destruction of the first temple. Very very religious God-fearing Jews living in Georgia, Kutaisi. This is not Georgia, Atlanta. This is Georgia, South Russia. And interestingly, when he was 18, this is my grandfather, he got a scholarship to go to Italy, from Georgia, Russia to Italy, to study the fur business, which was the family business. And on the way, he stopped in a city called Rostov at the Don River in Russia. And for those last few years, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Schneerson, known as the Rebbe Rashab, who died in 1920, he escaped the Germans coming into Belarus during the First World War. He escaped, he didn't want to be under the Germans and he moved to Rostov. And that year, my grandfather, a young 18-year-old Sephardic Georgian, tall, strong, handsome kid with no connection to really the whole Ashkenazic world, the Chassidic world, certainly. He was on the way to Italy, but Rosh Hashanah, he davened with the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe. And something touched him very deeply and he met him and he visited him and the Rebbe told him then, "I think you should spend some time learning in Yeshiva and one day you'll go to Italy." And he felt that that was his place and he remained there and he became a very close disciple of the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe and the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe who succeeded his father in 1920 known as the Rayatz, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the father-in-law of the most recent Lubavitcher Rebbe. And when Lenin and the Bolsheviks transformed Russia, now most Jews don't understand what happened. The Yevsektsiya was the Jewish section of the Communist Party. In 10 years, they managed to destroy Judaism in the Soviet Union in a way that has not been done over 200 years of enlightenment. 200 years of enlightenment managed to cut 50% of Russian Jewry away from Judaism. But the Yevsektsiya in 10 years, 1919 to 1929, headed by a man who had smicha from Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, learned in Telz, his name was Shimon Diminstein, they became such a force of tyranny that in 10 years Judaism in the Soviet Union was literally almost completely dead. Mamash almost dead and it remained that way. Everything went underground for 70 years till communism fell. Uh Stalin ultimately shot everybody. He destroyed the whole Yevsektsiya because they were too Jewish. You know how it worked in Russia. But the Rebbe, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, took nine students. It's a very, very moving story and he said that most Jews live now in the Soviet Union. There will be no memory and trace of Judaism left. I want to make a tkies kaf, an oath with you. I'll be the 10th, we have a minyan. We're going to preserve Yiddishkeit in the Soviet Union until our last drop of blood. Do you agree? And the nine students agreed. With a handshake to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, they made this commitment. He divided the country among them to create an underground network of flourishing schools, rabbonim, shochtim, melamdim, mashalim, siddurim, machzorim, gemaras, seforim. The Rebbe created, it's unbelievable, underground Jewish schools in the '20s and in the '30s. You know how hard it is to fund one Jewish day school in America today, right? Now, this is under Stalin, where you were shot like uh He killed 50 million of his own people, fifth more than Hitler. My grandfather was one of those nine, one of those nine, and he was arrested. He was tortured very badly. Anyway, the bottom line is he died young with my grandmother. They both died very young shortly after they left, shortly after their exodus. My father and his two brothers were young orphans, but they rebuilt their lives. And that's where I grew up. I grew up in Brooklyn in the in the community. And sitting at the feet of the Lubavitcher Rebbe for many, many years. What happened was the Rebbe would speak Shabbos between 3 and 7 hours. Now, you and I that Can you tell that to my baal habatim? So, I wanted to tell you. You and I, especially people who went to rabbinic schools and training and communication, you learn you need jokes, you need stories, you take off your glasses, you put on your glasses. The Rebbe would stand, would shrei, would hak, would run around and this The Rebbe didn't do that. He barely ever said a joke, once in a while. He barely said a story, once in a while he said some but but that wasn't his thing. He could speak for an hour, 2 hours a Rambam, a Hadran, a Siyum on Shas, a Zohar, Kabbalah, Nigleh, Pilpul, Rishonim, Acharonim, Chassidus, contemporary events, education, Hashkafa, of Moreh Nevuchim, philosophy. There was a mosaic of his his his his and quote of you know the Vilna Gaon, you know he knew every Malbim by heart, every Vilna Gaon. From all all segments of of Jewish thought. And there was no tape recorder on Shabbos and Yom Tov. So all had to be memorized, everything. And it was history in the making because we all know that what he's revealing, he's not going to repeat. And this is unprecedented layers of depth in Torah, Machshava, Hashkafa, inspiration. Leadership about you know where what our duty is today, the nature of our generation. He would combine it all. Practical and analytical, the transcendent and the and the and the earthly. And so there was a group already from day one the Rebbe assumed leadership in 1950 after his father-in-law's passing. And there was a group headed by a man who just passed away. His name was Rabbi Yoel Kahn. He passed away last August, Vov Av, at the age of 90. He arrived on a boat to the previous Rebbe days after his passing. He didn't know that he died. So he left Israel to come learn by the Rebbe in 1950. He came to New York and he found out that the previous Rebbe passed away. So he was there from day one. He was a brilliant mind. So he was what's called the head choizer, the main person to memorize and transcribe. But he always trained with him a team of of bochurim or young alight who were skilled at this. I was already from the next generation. I wasn't I wasn't yet a 1950, I was still a divine thought. What they call in Kabbalah Machshava Hakduma d'Adam Kadmon. I was born only in '72, but I had an older brother who was part of that team. And when I was young, I guess I displayed some affinity and ability in this field. So I was taken in to the that group of the choizer actually during the last years of the Rebbe until he suffered a stroke which was in March 92. But he would farbreng every Shabbos. Now you have to understand Yom Tov, Simchas Torah, Shabbos Bereishis, only if you had a three-day holiday, he would do four, five farbrengens and you're talking about 10, 20 hours. Not a five-minute speech, not an hour. 10, 20 hours of deep, deep shiurim in nigleh, halacha, kabbalah, chassidus, ashkafah, machshavah, and everything. A lot of times current events, you know, Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish world, education, kiruv, outreach, challenges, crisis, shalom bayis, whatever it was. One farbrengen can have just a tapestry and a mosaic of of hundreds of themes and topics, you know. Then suddenly he's saying, "I'm going to make a siyum on Shas." A siyum on Shas for an hour and a half. You know, there's the siyum on the siyum on Zevachim, a siyum on Tumah, and and he didn't give no notes and he didn't prepare you before. There was no chazarah s'shiur to prepare the material. And there could be a maamar chassidus and the deepest esoteric ideas of Chabad, the chassidic spirituality. Did the Did the Rebbe have notes himself? Did he work off of notes? No, no, he did not. He did not have notes. There were few times that they saw where the song he had like a few words on a piece of paper, also very rarely. Did not speak from notes. And he also would never stand up and mail. You know, you talk about a person 85, 87, 88 to sit for hours without a break, without a break. He could talk and then they sang beautiful niggun and then he would resume the talking, another niggun. The niggun was just a few minutes. So it was, what should I tell you? It was very, very intense. It was not easy. Um Motzei Shabbos was a very very difficult night. Uh all my friends, you know, good good Jewish kids in Brooklyn, you go for pizza, what's the halacha on Motzei Shabbos? mehadrin, do even more interesting things. Uh but certainly it's you know, it's like a a sharp relaxation. Until today, my wife knows Saturday night I suffer from PSS, post-Shabbat syndrome, because I knew that there's not going to be any sleep for me Shabbos and probably not Sunday night either. It was very challenging, but also unbelievably rewarding, and we all felt that we're like part of the transmission of history of the Messiah. And if we don't memorize and then transcribe it, it's going to be lost for eternity. So today, there's more than 100 volumes of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's talks that literally inspire and enlighten the Jewish world in extraordinary ways, and most of it is from those transcripts that were written the days after Shabbos. And what would happen was Mitzav Shabbos, Reb Yoel, all of our shalom, the main chazzan, would gather the chevreh Mitzav Shabbos, and he would go over everything. He would repeat everything. It took a few hours. There were a lot of arguments and debates back and forth. He sometimes got very upset. He spoke in Yiddish. If I state He was a brilliant man. He could not tolerate the ignorance or stupidity. There were a lot of arguments. Did the Rebbe say this? No, he didn't mean You know, that's how it went, but it was all recorded to the best of our ability, and over the week it was transcribed, edited. Sometimes the Rebbe would edit certain parts Most of it he did not edit. He relied on the writers. And it was all published in volumes known as Likutei Sichos, Toras Menachem, Vaduyei Sichos Kodesh, many, many, many volumes. You asked about his his role as a critic. You see, I remember all your questions. Impressive. I saw you did a rishon rishon. I tried to do by be a chacham a gadol and do a rishon rishon acharon acharon. So I have to say this. The the Lubavitcher Rebbe was a very, very kind man and they used to say he was a gentleman. He was a very gentleman. But when it came to the work on his talks, he really demanded uh I I can't say perfection, but he was very, very exacting. He was very, very critical. We knew that it wasn't personal. It's because he the Rebbe did not tolerate, did not like mediocrity. He didn't like when people felt they were mediocre. He you know, he didn't like when something wasn't done the way it could be because of laziness or because you don't believe in yourself or because of you're timid because of you're shy. And the writers and the editors, it was private correspondence. But if they ever found a mistake or something inconsistent or the source in the Rambam or the Mishnah or the Rashba or the Ramban was wrong, the Rebbe you know, the Rebbe would get upset. I remember he once wrote, "After 30 years, I'm not here to teach you aleph-bet." Because he saw some some gross error. Sometimes he would write on the top of a talk, "Marvel." Which means shocking. Shocking how somebody can write these words. Yeah. Once he wrote a very sharp criticism and at the bottom at the end he wrote, "With Hamas Liha, my apologies to you." Usually, it wouldn't come with that, but the truth is we saw it as a privilege. It wasn't criticism like you know, your self-esteem is being shattered. It was a privilege that the Lubavitcher Rebbe one of the greatest minds in many generations should literally take this text and dissect it and erase and delete and add. It was like a privilege just to see to see such genius and such holiness embodied on paper. It was even his criticism of such a person was was the greatest self-esteem booster you can get in your life. You probably know the story with the the Sfas Emes. It's an amazing story. The Sfas Emes was an orphan. The Chidushei Harim, Rebbe Yitzchak Meir, the first Gerer Rebbe lost every child besides a daughter in his lifetime. He had 12 children, 13 children. It's unbelievable. One daughter survived. And he One of the boys of Reb Mordechai left the Sfas Emes of Gur, and he lived with the Chidushei Harim raised him. And there was a the condition he had to wake up early in the morning, and he would learn for a few hours and daven. Minyan came, got Once the Sfas Emes was learning all night, so he overslept Shacharis. So after when he woke up, the Chidushei Harim called him called him with his chavrusah and said, "Where were you for Shacharis?" So Sfas Emes doesn't answer. Chidushei Harim gives a whole drashah how you don't miss davening. So the chavrusah asks the Sfas Emes, he says, "Why didn't you tell the Zayde you were learning all night? Why didn't you tell him?" So he says, "In Parshas Mattos, you have the longest speech of Moshe Rabbeinu in the whole Torah. The Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven tell Moshe, 'We want to settle in the Transjordan.' Right? So Moshe Rabbeinu gives them a mussar speech how "You are fearmongers. Your brothers go to war, you're going to stay here, and you're going to dissuade the entire nation of going INTO ERETZ YISRAEL. JUST LIKE THE SPIES DID 40 YEARS AGO, we're going to have another catastrophe for another 40 years." And he goes on and on, lamah teni'un, how could you be so irresponsible? How could you be so cruel? And when he finishes the drashah, THEY TELL MOSHE, "NO, WE'RE GOING to war. We just want to settle." Sfas Emes tells his friend, "Right when Moshe started to scream at them, 'Achichem yeitzei'u lamilchamah.' You can't be so detestable. You should have said, 'No, Moshe, Moshe, Moshe. We're going to war. We're going. We're not separating. We're not the meraglim. WE'RE NOT INCULCATING FEAR. WE just want to settle this place afterwards.'" Sfas Emes says, "Because when Moshe Rabbeinu gives mussar, you don't interrupt him. You listen." He says, "My Zayde is talking to me about coming to davening, coming on time." He says, "You don't interrupt him." He says, "These are the things you These are the things you want to hear." I'll tell you why I'll tell you why it's fascinating to me about the Rebbe in this way. I remember the summer of the 20th year of the Rebbe, all these biographies came out about the Rebbe, and I read them all. I gobbled them up because he was such an inspirational person. I wanted to learn more. But one of the things I had a tremendous yayish, it really on the other hand depressed me cuz I read about how the Rebbe never took one day off in his life. He didn't take one vacation day. He didn't take one hour. He didn't take one. And I read about the Rebbe was only positivity. It wasn't negativity. It wasn't disappointment. It wasn't frustration. And so on the one hand, I gained in my own reverence for the Rebbe, but I felt much worse about myself. Myself as a person, myself as a as a rav. It's like I I I need a day off. I'm human. But I don't know, the Rebbe didn't take a day off. So it was it was a very mixed summer of reacting to reading those biographies. So hearing that the Rebbe could read these notes, and he had emotion, human emotion. He was frustrated. He was disappointed. He wanted it to be better. He didn't want to tolerate mediocrity. I I haven't read that or seen that, and I think it's so important to communicate that about the Rebbe or people like the Rebbe that people are complicated, and even our greatest people also were human, had a human component to them. So that's very interesting to hear. Yeah, absolutely. And uh to see to see how he edited a talk, there was so much to learn from it. The choice of words. The precision. And never to express yourself negatively. He he You know, he didn't like the word death. He would write the antithesis of life. He wrote If you wrote ra, he would wrote the opposite of tov. It was just an approach of how to look at something. Also, the respect for every word in Torah, the awe, the reverence, the deok, how how he would change a question. You learned intellectual clarity. You learned brisker precision, what they call hagdoros, chilukim, differentiations, distinctions, definitions, compartmentalizations, categorizations, synthetics, grammar. There was There was a lot to learn from this incredible amount to learn from his editing both in terms of style and substance. You learned also that you have to know that you have to know everything. You have to learn everything. You have to You have to as much as you best you have to really go really go through the material and and master it. Can I just a follow-up question? You were describing the process of the It's a very interesting thing. It's interesting how about they wouldn't know this. Never would sometimes quote a safer and quote it. He would quote it and then he would say, "But check it up in the library cuz it was from memory. I I didn't have a safer." And it was far He once quoted Today the Sadiq is popular. In the 1960s there were a few people who even heard of the Sadiq of Lublin. But at one Sadiq the Rebbe was speaking about celebrating a birthday. And he quotes in the Sadiq looking with C say Laila. Uh about Sadiq of Sadiq of Lublin and he quotes it. And then he said they should check it up. And it was Mom It was repeated. It was interesting, you know. It was a Rebbe but he knew every line of the Sadiq of Lublin. Once quoted a Maggid of Mezritch also. Like who knows Maggid of Mezritch? Mom Rebbe and he said to check it up. Rebbe Akiva Eiger safer Seder. He didn't have it in his room. And once there's a safer from the Malbim called Eretz Chaim. Most people never heard of it. I think it's called Eretz Chaim. And then also he he He was interesting the footnotes. He referenced it but he said they should look it up cuz he didn't have it in his room and he was working on it. So you also saw a different level of of Torah mastery that is unparalleled because it was Gemara, Shas, Yerushalmi, Rosh, Rif, Rambam but also all the Sefarim of Kabbalah and philosophy. Very real combination in one person. Rebbe Moskowitz, let me just jump in with one more follow-up then I'm going to let you in. I promise. And and and Rebbe YY, I hope you have the rest of the night for this because there's so much to talk about. The Did the Rebbe successfully transmit that though to his Hasidim? We have a large and vibrant and strong and beautiful Chabad community within our shul. We have a beautiful shtiebel minyan Shabbos morning. We have a tremendous amount of Chabad who moved here. And and recently we were farbrenging together and I brought this up with them is that the world of Chabad is magnificent and the Torah is so deep, but there's a beautiful sea of Torah out there and how come they don't expose themselves? Go learn whether it's other Hasidus, go learn some greats of contemporary machshava, go learn, be exposed to and we had a whole conversation about that and where someone said, "Look, if if the food that you're being served is delicious, why do you need to eat out? Why do you need to eat someone else's food? What we have is perfect, it's most nourishing, it has everything in it. There's nowhere else to turn." And there was a defensiveness and an argument and there was a significant Lubavitch personality who's published many of the Rebbe's uh uh sefarim who felt very strongly that we have a Hasidus and we're learning this derech and we don't want to dilute it or compromise it or have it become distorted by exposing other things to it. So while the Rebbe may have quoted from all over, it doesn't seem like at least from from that conversation that was something that he encouraged for among his Hasidim. Well, listen to my shiur a little more. You're not listening. You're I think No, Reb YY, I do listen, but I think you're the exception. The Torah world embracing you, many non-Chabad, many people who are antagonistic to Chabad love you and embrace you because they see you as the exception to the rule. Meaning you happen to be Chabad. You you happen to be Chabad, but you're also bringing from all over. Yeah, listen, I really can't speak for anybody else. You know, I don't feel it behooves me to do so and I really can't cuz I don't know what you know what's in people's minds. But I know, you know, what what I sat by the Rebbe's feet and listened to him for many, many years and it taught me that the approach of expansiveness is so much more real and authentic because Hashem is ain safe. You know, God is infinite. And how do you contain infinity in one box? How do you contain infinity through tunnel vision? Infinity you only contain through complete humility and complete openness to the endless horizons of the mysteries of creation, the mysteries in every Jew. And of course the endless mysteries in Torah as the possuk says, "A ruchameiris leida, ruchav min yam." You know, longer than any measurement and wider than the sea. And his whole attitude was based on them. And the truth is I think anybody who takes any published sicha of the Rebbe in Likutei Sichos you'll see I didn't do this directly so I can't take full responsibility, but I'm not sure that there's any contemporary, maybe besides Rav Ovadia Yosef, zecher tzaddik livracha, that in one sicha the Rebbe could quote literally between 400 and 800 sources from every conceivable type of sefer. I should just add for maybe intellectual clarity that there is one distinction I think it's important to make. And that is the maimorim of Chassidus of Chabad will rarely quote from other sources because they have a genre. And I'll give you an example. If you're learning Chidushei Rabbeinu Chaim Halevi al haRambam, right? Or Chidushei haGriz, talking the Brisk title, you will never find a Kli Yakar quoted. Right? You'll never find the Brisker Rav quoting a Rav Chaim or Kli Yakar. Why? The Rav Chaim didn't like the Kli Yakar. I don't know what he held about the Kli Yakar. And Kli Yakar is is is a special commentary. The answer is it's a genre, right? Chidushei haGriz is a genre. Chidushei haGriz is a genre. Just like Rav Yisrael Saloveitchik, the Rav, Shiurim lezecher Abba Mari, or his Kuntres haChiddushim al haTorah, or his Reshimos al Shas that came out in last years, it's a certain genre called the Brisker Derech, the Brisker Mahalach. It's a certain style and the Kli Yakar doesn't really fit into that. However, has seen this is a all encompassing holistic sheet developed by the Bala Tanya based on the magnet and the ball shunted and the minor are certain genre that represents the Chabad sheet of ash kava of mash over of the Yahweh perspective developed by the seven generations from the Bala Tanya all the way to the river. So that genre is self contained like the river in his minor wouldn't just you know, quote from here and there because it was a certain style. Yeah, he would quote my Emily he would quote to choose Levy of course the ball shunted the magnet and some of the the greatest acidic masters outside of Chabad over the first generation. But over there there was and there is a certain style that is that is defined by the teachings and the style of the Chabad rivers. So I think maybe this over there there could be some confusion. Understood. Never mind. Okay, if I could just if I could just take us back to the original conversation, I'm mesmerized by the number of hours that the river gave a seeker and having been to one of your show them in person and listen to many online, you're not giving show them in tidbits. And I say this is the show off, right? Your ideas are thought out, they're developed, they're right they're articulate. Double speed was created by Rabbi Miller I don't know. Double speed created for me. No, but I think it's the show off and I'm I'm wondering, you know, in society as a whole where we have reduced so much to sound bites into little memes into one liners, you specifically have chosen not to take that path. You give your show them you develop the ideas that was clearly the Mahalak of the river of giving long drawn out well thought out ideas. I'm wondering if you have a comment on what that's doing to our society first of all and I think even within Torah learning I think we're seeing that, right? Someone says a word, they quoted this, they quoted that, but they're not looking at the source inside. They're not developing a Mahal they're not developing an idea. I'm curious your thoughts on that. Yeah, listen. People have always told me and I'm talking about very close people. They said you speak long, get up 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 10 minutes. You say a word and you sit down. And I understand that. They nobody's going to listen, nobody's going to internalize. But I I appreciate what they're saying and that's why I cherish, you know, WhatsApp clips and I have some of my people always doing clips because some people just want 60 seconds. Because someday the fast word the fast my son a coulda a little music a little animation and they get their inspiration for the day. So be it. We like to be there for every person according to their capacity. But I know for myself and for me it's actually respect. I know for myself when I hear or read somebody that's well thought out, built up. I know from the Rebbe hearing how he would build an idea. He gave once a hadron on Rambam. He made us see him on the whole round the whole mission of Torah of the Rambam. The way he built it, he spoke for close to 2 hours and then he continued the next Shabbos the next Shabbos the next the way he built it the questions the Mivneh it was architecture literally art you build the foundations. You put up another floor another floor another floor and then you hit the peak. And then I we can appreciate the expansiveness of Torah. The broadness of Yiddishkeit the godliness of a possuk of a mymer chazal of a sugia of an inyan of a halacha of a shitta. So to feel say just because we live in a generation of sound bites and we live in a generation where half of us have been diagnosed as ADD and ADHD and all of the under all of the other wonderful definitions and diagnoses which by the way have some mylas. I I gave it shear last Shabbos and there were a bunch of bachurim from a particular Yeshiva. They called themselves ADHD Yeshiva. Fine. They sat and a guy came over one of the bachurim came over to me and he said, "I'm ADHD, but you could have spoken another few hours." I said, "How if you're ADHD?" He said, "Listen, we ADHDs" So, what he told me, he says, "We get bored fast when it's boring. But when somebody touches the spot, when you get into my soul and you're dealing with what I'm really dealing with, we could listen for 6 hours cuz we get turned on deeply." It was a very profound thing he was telling me. So, I have found that yes, there's a lot of jokes about sound bites and it's true. And rabbonim in shuls we have here, prominent rabbonim, you know how long your sermon is allowed to be. How short it's allowed to be. But I have found I have gotten so much positive feedback of real shiurim that really present an idea in all the oirech and roichav and oimek as much as my own capabilities allow to present it and I find that there's a significant amount of people we underestimate people's intelligence and we underestimate people's depth. And I think it's very important never to underestimate it. But here's the mistake that some of us teachers make and that is we want they should just love it because we're giving it. It's not going to be that way. You have to really speak to the people. That means rich, beautiful, elegant, structure, depth, and most importantly, emotional relevance. You got to speak to their struggles. You got to speak to their heart. You got to speak to their soul. You got to speak to the reality they're living in, not some fictional reality that you would love them to live in, which everybody detaches from immediately. But when we can do that, I think that uh on the contrary, there's a significant, huge amount of people who really cherish true Amkus, true them. You You just touched on it cuz I was I was going to follow up by asking you, um you're enormously popular. People are real Hasidim, learn, live, and are inspired. Someone I'm very close with who lives in Monsey, who is a Litvisher person who learned the Daf Yomi for many, many years and Brisk Torahs and would never touch Hasidus, now comes to every morning, put on a gartel, he told me cuz he's putting on his seatbelt to buckling up before he davens. And there's a real Hasid of yours. So, you have a you resonate deeply and profoundly for many, and I was going to ask, what is it about your message that you think is really penetrating and resonating? You answered that. But, I So, I'll ask a corollary of it is, how much preparation goes into your shiurim and and your speeches? You clearly give it your all. You're emotionally invested. Um tell us about the mechanics of how to tell a good story. Half of the meaningful minutes are you because you have mastered the art of telling a story, the same story that that many others are trying to repeat over, copying Rav Waiway, they're saying the story, it falls flat, it's an airball, they can't say the story. You tell that story and it's a roomful of people that are puddle of tears. What are the mechanics of telling a good story? How much prep goes into these shiurim? And what is it about the style that's resonating so deeply? You mean it's not because Nachi Gordon likes my looks? That, too. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. I think that um you asked me how long it takes to prepare. So, you know, it's maybe cliche, but it's the truth. I'm always preparing. I never stop preparing. Meaning, I sometimes for a particular drasha, I could prepare 5 minutes, but I've been preparing for years. Sometimes, I need a few hours or a few days or a few weeks to research, but I'm always preparing, meaning, I'm always trying to learn and trying to grow and trying to stimulate my own mind. I once received spectacular advice from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. You remember Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz? Who wrote 70 swaram, the first translator of Gamara before anybody else, Rabbi Adin Even Yisrael who passed away last year at the age of 83. And I once went out to Israel for speaking and I went to seek his advice. This is 20 years ago. And he told me something very special. He said, he was a very sharp Jew. He talk about criticism. You know, he knew how to cut somebody down if he wanted to. So, I asked him advice. I said, you know, you have been speaking for years, you've been writing swaram. I'm just starting. This is took more than two decades ago. It was Shabbos afternoon in his in his cottage. He had a little garden behind his home in the German colony in Jerusalem. The sun was setting. He sat me down on the stem of a tree and he sat on some others the stem of a tree. It wasn't shaking, so it wasn't muktza issue of muktza. And uh I asked him this question just for general advice. And he told me something and he said, "I want to share something with you. You know, my wife went to a few speeches of yours in Jerusalem and she says you're good. If you're good, you're probably going to get better. You'll probably get so good that at some point you won't have to prepare and people will call you and you won't even have to know the topic. When you get up to the pulpit, you'll see a flyer on the pulpit and it's going to say marriage, education, psychology, fear, happiness, abuse and you'll open the file or the cabinet and you'll take out the, you know, canned speech and you'll speak for an hour. You'll get a standing ovation. They'll give you a check. You'll go home and everybody will be happy." He says, "And you'll do this professionally and you will do it impeccably." He's telling this to me. And then he whispers and he says, "And then one day you're going to wake up in the morning and you're going to look in the mirror and you're going to see that there's nobody there. There's just a mouthpiece. There's nothing left. There's no person. There's only a mouse mouthpiece. And at that moment, you will know that you have virtually died. There's no person left. It's just a mouthpiece. I was taken aback. And he was basically saying that what happens to many is they just become copies of themselves. You know, everything is canned. Everything is prepared. So, I have to interrupt this with one of the This is how I speak. One of the best insights of the Kotsker Rebbe, the Medrash says in Koheles that we have different seasons in life, right? When we're born, we're treated like kings. He says then we become like pigs searching through the garbage. He says then we become like goats jumping around everywhere. He says at 20, we become like horses grooming ourselves looking for a beautiful woman. He says then we become like Excuse me. Like donkeys schlepping all day to make a living. He says then we become like dogs. We need the chutzpah. Chutzpah. Barking to be able to pay all of our bills. And then when we become old, we become like chimpanzees. Asks the Kotsker did the Medrash doesn't explain why. Chaim Kook his kin Chaim Kook Medrash Koheles Rabbah. Why when we become old do we become like monkeys or chimps? Some will say because you know, we make tricks. We do imitations for the ein klacht to entertain the grandkids. Kotsker Rebbe says something so profound. He says when you become older, you often become like a monkey or a chimp or a gorilla imitating. He says who do you imitate? You imitate yourself. You went into a certain mold. This is who I am. I'm not changing. He says once I hit 50, 60, 70, 80, I'm just imitating myself. I daven today cuz I davened yesterday. I go to a show today cuz I went to show yesterday. I learned a few minutes today cuz I learned yesterday. I celebrate Pesach cuz I celebrated Pesach last year. Just like I brush my teeth today cuz he says you become an imitation of yourself. No creativity. No newness. Nothing fresh. So, this is basically what he was telling me. You're going to become a monkey. You know, you'll copy yourself. You'll get your check. It's nice, but you'll know that you're a dead man walking. So, I asked Rabbi Adin, what do I do? What do I do to avoid this? This is 25 year, almost 25 years ago. He said, what you do is you don't stop learning. You don't stop challenging yourself. You don't stop exploring new things that you never knew about. That make you learn more about your emotions, your heart, your brain, your mind. So, what are you learning? Tell us Tell us what you're learning now. What are you learning now and how are you challenging yourself? So, this was amazing advice. Really, I just I just constantly constantly try to learn. Today Excuse me. Just Just an an example. I mean, I'm learning Maseches Rosh Hashanah like many other Jews. Excuse me. And I gave shiurim on the whole Maseches Rosh Hashanah, but it's still always a new Maseches every time every time you learn it. You know, I have my shiurim with the Lubavitcher Rebbe sitting in a shiur Rambam that is an incredible It's one of the best kept secrets in the Jewish world. Learning through the Rambam. People don't realize there's an unbelievable way of mastering Yiddishkeit in a way that you can't get it from other Sefarim because nobody besides the Rambam categorized all of Halacha in an organized way, even Halachos of Mashiach and the Beis Hamikdash in the most systematic organized way. There's a certain mastery of Torah that is available to everybody, even people who can't become Pakiyim in Shas and all the product. That's incredible. So those are very refreshing shirim for me that constantly, you know, daily humash. We have by us it's called daily humash, daily daily Tanya. You know, just learning the parsha with the is something that a lot of Jews forgot about. You know, they go right away to deep stuff. It's embarrassing. I quote a in the parsha and nobody could finish it. Nobody could finish it. People stopped learning Tanakh. Just the parsha was like every Jew knew it. I make a timer in the Shulchan Aruch it says in Shulchan Aruch so so just these types of shirim. Then I have my own shirim and my wife Excuse me. In nigleh meaning in halacha, Gemara, Rishonim, Acharonim. And other elements, machshava, hashkafa, kabbalah. I learn a lot of chassidic works, kabbalistic works, hashkafic machshavic works from really all segments and I always try to explore. And truly every year you learn it again and there's more and more and more than fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab once said something about the humash and he compared the Tanya to it. And he said that he says the humash is learned by the gedolim by the katonim by the greatest of the greats, greatest of the smallest of the small. And he says everybody understands something and nobody understands everything. You know, you read the story of Lot and his daughters. You know, you read the story of the Akedah. How many times can you read the story of the Akedah? A hundred? I could read it a hundred million times and every time I'm like Wow, how did he do this? What was he feeling like when he went with Yitzchak? And every year it's a it it it's it's a new story. Every year it's a new story. I just learned today a sicha of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Likutei Sichos parshas Vayechi explaining the shita of Rambam in Hachnasas Orchim. The Rambam is getting around the Rambam doesn't call it Hachnasas Orchim. The Rambam in Hilchos Avel perek 11 says mitzvas assei lav ayso orchim. The mitzvah is to escort the ark to say goodbye. And he asked, that's the mitzvah to say goodbye, to close the door, to say the mitzvah is to bring them in. The Rambam calls it lava ark. He develops a whole to the Rambam of all of his footnotes. And it was just an eye-opening. Really, he said that what the Rambam is telling you is that ark is not about feeding the guests. That's the small part of ark. Real ark the Rambam is teaching you of is the idea you make the guest feel dignity. You're part of my home, you're part of my family. I appreciate you. Where do you see that? In how you say goodbye. You know, when you stand up, you say we JUST SPENT 3 HOURS. YOU GO TO THE DOOR, YOU TAKE HIM OUTSIDE. I WANT TO spend another few minutes with you. It's hard for me to say goodbye. The Levaya saying goodbye, the Rambam says, call me it is a shofech dam. I didn't SAY GOODBYE, I DIDN'T escort you outside, I became a murderer? So the function say because he could get killed in the street. I said, what about what about Boca Raton? Baruch Hashem, what about Monsey? Baruch Park? You're not talking about the wilderness and every place. The Rambam says shofech dam. Because when you make the guest feel that he was a burden, it's a form of emotional murder. You know, this this type this this it's just my point is that our Torah is so infinite in every aspect of it. And I think our world and the Jewish world and our youth deserves to smell, sniff, and experience the taste of the infinite, divine, limitless richness of Torah, the nigla and the pnimius. Because that that mosaic, that integration, it changes lives, it it uplifts the world. Do you ever learn just for yourself or it's always to give over to other people? Now, there's is there a limit that you say, "This is Yeah, most of my learning I learn for myself, but as I'm learning for myself, you know, I I think, I reflect, I meditate, and something comes and I say, "This is the next year." You know, I I I opened up Friday morning. I'm just an example. Sfas Emes, Parshas Vayeilech. I I love the Sfas Emes very much, especially that I'm privileged because the Sfas Emes is so cryptic, it's so concise. Most essays or classes or Sfarim that are on the Sfas Emes, I don't think they really understood him. Cuz I think it's very hard to understand the Sfas Emes if you don't have a good background in Chassidus, and the Baal HaTanya explained Chassidus with Chochmah, Binah, Daas. So, I I have an affinity with the Sfas Emes cuz I feel that I can understand it based on what I learned from the Baal HaTanya. So, I just open a Sfas Emes, you know, he's so brief and so concise, but he says a line. Hashem tells Avraham Avinu, "Leave your land, leave your birthplace, leave your father, and go to the land that I will show you." So, Rashi says, "Why couldn't Hashem just give him a destination? You know, just say where you're going." No, "El HaAretz Asher Areka." You know, why what You don't forgive Moshe to put into Waze or Google Maps where he has to go, and let him go. It has to be a mystery. The Sfas Emes says one line there, just one line. I don't know if last year I would have understood it this way or 5 years ago or 10 years ago, cuz you know, you read things from your own vantage point, right? Everything is also subjective. We read things with our own eyes and our own mental state. But he says there that Hashem couldn't give him a destination, cuz then it would be the opposite of the whole point of what Eretz Yisrael is. Eretz Yisrael is not a geographical location only, it's also it's an existential state. Can you give up living a life where you have to control and predict and expect everything, and allow the infinity of life to navigate you, open yourself up to the destiny that God has in store for you, not to get stuck in what life has to look like. I'm looking at this and I think you know how much psychological wisdom lay in these words for people today? Cuz everybody's life changed, everybody. Rich, poor, influential, simple, everybody's life went through upheavals. I'm not just talking about because of death and illness. Even people who, thank God, were safe during the Corona, but everything changed financially, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. You know what happened with the youth over the last 18-20 months? In terms of addiction, in terms of mental challenges, you know, every family is now you guys are you are a rabbinic leader, so you know what I'm saying very well. And people need to be able to get comfort and strength and stability. So, if I get up sharpest at the drash and I start off like this, you know, so far turn the parsha, I lost 90% of the crowd. Especially people who are emotionally sensitive, they are what we call HSPs, you know, highly sensitive people. Right? But if I start off and I say, you know, everybody, each one of us, have had a dream of what our children are going to look like. How much of that dream has come true in your life? Everybody is in. Cuz it happened in every single family. Everybody has that one, two, three, four children. You had a dream, you know, next to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, right? Okay, not Rabbi Akiva Eiger, next to Rabbi Yeshua at least. But whatever it is, the dream is not working out exactly that way, to put it mildly. Everybody is in. And then the teenagers say, you know, what did you dream of your life? How is your life working out? And then I discussed the Sfas Emes al ha'aretz asher rak. The security and confidence of never getting stuck in what life is supposed to look like. But really opening yourself up to endless opportunities because that's the only way you will live the most meaningful life. It's those experiences that you could not plan for. You know, they say a line there's two people who fail in life. People who don't have a plan and people who stick to their plan. You got to have a plan, but the worst thing is when you stick to that plan. You got to take the plan, throw it in the dustbin. For that I can't be uptight. For that I can't be egotistical. For that I can't be insecure. I really have to open myself up a little bit and share it. And I just have to tell you that the emotional feedback as I'm talking from the people is just incredible. Always more from the women than the men as we all know because, you know, women just have that that touch for for MS. And and God God graced me and I realized I have the greatest story for this. Last week died a man by the name of Avram Jacubowicz. You read about him? He called himself Eddie Jaku. He lived in Sydney. He was 101 years old. He escaped from Auschwitz, was shot, went back to Auschwitz. He escaped from a death march and hid in a ditch eating snails for 6 months, lost his entire family. He grew up in Leipzig, in Germany. He published his memoirs at the age of 100 and he titled it his book the happiest man on Earth. He titled himself I am the happiest man on Earth. And I asked him, he lost his family. He ends up with nothing. He was in Auschwitz. He was beaten and tortured. A real Holocaust survivor. He was 101. He died last Tuesday. Above all that. 101 years old. He called himself the happiest on earth. The happiest man on earth. And I told his story. I read up on his story and I told his story. I said, "I don't know the secret, you know, we can only be in awe of such people and try to emulate him. But I do know that he had to have His name was Avram. He had to have that code of Avram. If he would have seen success in life as a life that's predictable and a life that you could control and you can figure out how it's going to go, he would have been the most miserable miserable man on earth. He had that that secret code that the first Jew got the Arizal Hakadosh. So, I'm just giving you one example. This was just last Shabbos. You know, there was a huge group of people, men and women. And one of them was a bochur there from Waterbury, Waterbury, wonderful Waterbury Yeshiva, blessed Yeshiva. And he told me He says, "Last time I sat at a shiur for more than 5 minutes was many many many many years ago." So, I said, "What made you sit here?" And he said, "Cuz it was real life. It it it was authentic. It was what's going on in my life. And it was showing me Avraham Avinu comes to life. You'll forgive me, God comes to life. You know, Elokim Chaim, you can't live on a dead God. We often live on You'll forgive me, we live on a dead God. We live on a dead Yiddishkeit. It's like just repeating We're like chimpanzees, monkeys repeating. A boy who left Yiddishkeit many years ago. He's a musician, very smart kid. He told me He says, "I asked him, 'Why did you leave? You have such a spiritual soul.'" He said, "All we do in our system is we read recipe books." I said, "What?" He says, "We all learn about what inspiration is supposed to look like. Put in a little baking powder. If you don't have baking powder, put in another egg. If you don't have an egg, put in almond milk. If you don't have almond milk, and then there's Rashi argues and says, "Don't use almond milk, use soy milk." And Tosafos says, "No, but mad va'am morim." And then the regular Shulchan Aruch comes the says, "But, the truth is that there's a whole different recipe." He says, "And I always ask people, can I experience any of these recipes? Can I actually Does anybody get to eat the cheesecake? Or we only talk about recipes?" I have to say he was a teacher. He taught me something. Don't talk about recipes. GIVE THEM THE CHEESECAKE. GIVE THEM THE BABKA. OKAY, I know with babka you're healthy. Give them the quinoa. Give them the celery. Give them the kale. But, give it to them. Everything but the kale. You had me till the kale. So, so that's exactly I think why you resonate so deeply is cuz you're speaking right to people's nishamas. And everybody knows Reb YY that you're incredibly sophisticated thinker and incredibly sophisticated speaker. I want to pivot for a moment and thank you so much for all this time um to talk about as a sophisticated just leader and I just I just want to I just forgive my interruption. I'm Oh, please, please. There's also one more important thing, and I think this is the beauty of our people. And I try to humbly tune into that. The Jewish people are sick and tired of politics on all levels. I don't just mean dirty, filthy politics. That, too. But, people don't like a Judaism that is claustrophobic, that is allergic to certain people or certain movements, that's based on indoctrination and cultish sentiments. They They just don't like it. They don't like a Judaism that feeds on hate, divisiveness, tribalism, and petty fundamentalism. That's not real. It's not authentic. The The The Jewish people They're Most of people are allergic to that. So, I know when I speak, I teach, I want to give them that flavor of of a Yiddish guy that is very real, but also very pure. And I have to say another just came to me. Another word from the Kotsker. The Gemara says in Eiruvin daf chof beis that when HaMelech HaMelech gave us two takanos, Eiruvin Eiruvei Chatzeiros and Netilas Yadayim. The Gemara said when he made these two takanos a voice came out from the Ribono shel Olam asking "Im chacham bini yismach libi gam ani." When my son is wise, Hashem says I'm so happy. So the Kotsker asked, "What's the What's the greatness of chachma of Eiruvin and Netilas Yadayim?" And he said that some people This is in the sefer Siach Sarfei Kodesh. He says some people are very good with Netilas Yadayim. Their hands are always clean because they're aloof. They're segregated. You know, they're hermits. They're loners. Some people are Eiruvin. You know, they're machers. They're They're called social butterflies, social animals. They mix with everybody. They're integrated. Taruvus. Eiruvin. They're people's people. He says the chachma of was, "Be Eiruvin. Create an Eiruv. Be integrated. Love people. Spend time with your But Netilas Yadayim. Keep your hands pure. Don't allow yourself to get entangled in pettiness. Your neshama always has to be a reflection of Ein Sof, of infinity. The moment my tribalism, my ego, my nusach, my chalos, my way, my habits become the dominating factor rather than just the way I may do things, people feel toxicity and they don't like it. They will not They will not embrace it with real enthusiasm. That's Thank you for adding that. It's a perfect It's a perfect transition actually to the follow-up question I wanted to ask. Sophistication. You want to talk about sophistication? Well, sophistication. And at one point you were the editor-in-chief of the Algemeiner Journal yourself and were exposed to journalism and understand what it means to navigate the world of politics, politicians, community, to do it with nuance, with sophistication. And I want to not get lost with the examples, but I want to talk about the principle because there's so much to learn from and I want to know your wisdom on this. Um there was an event the Jewish community had for then President Trump and his re-election and you spoke in very glowing terms. And and I'm curious that and I share with you the appreciation, the recognition um for the good he did for Israel, for the Jewish people, the Jewish community that was probably under expressed. On the other hand, there were parts of his personality, his behavior, his conduct which were complicated for Torah Jews to endorse, associate with, align with at best and maybe even should have condemned at worst. So, you know, do you have regrets about the way that you spoke about him at that lunch? Um do you wish there was more nuances? Is there a lesson to learn? And a corollary of that and I'm going really behind the beam here and I don't want to get myself in trouble or you. Um and and I'm not comparing the two whatsoever. You know, but similarly when when Rubashkin was released and and you embraced him so fully. So also a role model for all of us of that emunah. Uh he was incarcerated disproportionately, clearly anti-Semitism. He lived through it with enormous emunah. That emunah is a model for us, so much to learn. But at the same time, there was a reason he was incarcerated to begin with. Not everything was pure innocence. And does the community lose that nuance if we don't ever express it that on the one hand we reject this part while we admire and embrace this part. So in both of those circumstance, was there a nuance that's missing? Is it important for us to communicate with nuance that we can simultaneously You know, we live in this in this bifurcated world where you have to either it's hero or villain. You know, which box do you neatly fit in? You're either the worst or the best. And and I live in a world, I think you live in this world of nuance that there are parts we can admire where there are other parts that we could be hyper highly critical of and and that nuance. So in both of those cases, would would you amend? Do you still stand by the way that you spoke about them? What can we learn from you about them? Right. Well, one of the and important question and challenging question. So, in terms of our issue mission when I introduced former President Trump I don't know if you know how it came about, but it may be interesting. I gave a speech here in Monsey. It was a shul It was a shul sheer and speech. And I spoke about the importance of gratitude. To every single person and I spoke about the gratitude that I feel the Jewish community in Israel and abroad owes to the President of the United States. And one of the participants in the sheer a man named Laser Schiner, who's a well-known and great Jewish philanthropist and a personal friend and the builder of our community here, known as Our Chaim in Monsey, um heard the speech. And he called He called the White House and he said he wants to make a lunch and thank President Trump and show support. And I didn't know about this, but around 2 years later he calls me one day and he says, "You know, your speech inspired and we're having 400 people honoring Trump and supporting him. And I want you to introduce him since you gave that speech and you inspired me to do that. So, this is So, I said, "Great." And I have to tell you uh dear Reb Ephraim that I received some very harsh criticism. Very harsh, as you can imagine. Um one person wrote me an email, a Jew, a fine Jew, let's call him a very liberal and progressive Jew. He said, "I was your student for years. I listened to you. I learned from you. I cannot trust you anymore. You have desecrated the most basic values of Judaism and ethics and humanity. I can't believe that a rabbi and a person of your stature would do this. You have disappointed me terribly." I got such emails. I did get such emails. But I have to say I I wrote back respectfully and explained I explained my position. I even published an article the next week in I think Mishpacha magazine explaining. But I'll tell you what I told him. I don't regret what I did. For three reasons. Reason number one is the Rebono shel Olam told Moshe to show honor even to Paroh. It's a it's a it's a Chazal said tziva lachlik kovid malchus to Paroh. Even He told Eliyahu Hanavi, you're going to Achav who was a heinous criminal, "Arov tzacha degam yerasha." He and his wife Izevel, show him honor. Why? It's not because Paroh and Achav deserved honor. They were brutal tyrants and sadists. It's because of the throne, the position, there's something called malchus. It's respect for the country. The king may be benign, the king may be a heinous criminal and we pray for his for for him departing parting every day. But it's a respect for the for the country, it's a respect for the people. The king represents the people. So I said, "Culture can become a crime. You're talking about the seat of the President of the United States of America. There's something called kovid hamalchus that goes beyond this president or that president. Number one. Number two, I said in this case, I'm not glorifying somebody as a god and calling them impeccable and flawless, but I am going to express my profoundest gratitude when I see somebody standing up to the bullies of the world who will delegitimize Israel every single Monday and Thursday, who warned that moving the embassy to Jerusalem will become a third world war and he stood up to all of them, who cancels the horrific deal that was giving the Hitlers of our day 150 billion dollars to create a holocaust of 6 million Jews not in five years, in one day. Somebody to to cancel that deal? Dayenu. Just to cancel the deal with the with the Hitlers that Holocaust survivors in our generation had to hear 75 years later that we're going to WIPE OUT 6 million Jews in Israel IN ONE DAY. THEY HAD TO HEAR IT, AUSCHWITZ SURVIVORS. Just that in fact that he canceled that deal or canceled sending $300 million a year to the Palestinian authority that went to the families of shahids, of terrorists, that we taxpayers' MONEY WAS PAYING PEOPLE WHO STABBED Jews dead in Jerusalem. We're paying the families to encourage these martyrs that there's going to be enough money to marry off their children. Kedoshim Muhammad the Islam. This man canceled it. I thought to myself, as an individual Jew, I owe gratitude. Doesn't mean I agree with his English grammar or syntax. Doesn't mean I believe in the way he gives over his speeches or anything. Doesn't believe that doesn't mean he's a sadist. Doesn't mean that he doesn't struggle with his own demons and skeletons and flaws and has his challenges that I hope, you know, I me and everybody else he can repair one day. So, I thought that's extremely important point and therefore I was I was very proud of it. And the third thing is I thought about one thing and one thing only. That was my ultimate, you know, I also consulted some people before I took it. But I thought about one thing and one thing only and that is, as our grandmothers would say, is it good for the Jews? Is it good for Israel? Meaning, the day after the reception, and I'll do my thing, there'll be pictures, WhatsApp clips will go around all over the place, fine. I'll have my moment of fame and criticism. And you know, life moves on afterwards, right? What happens the next week? When the president of the United States feels such glowing hakaras hatov from 400 people with yarmulkes, so they're not bashful Jews, will it persuade him toward create policies, to cultivate policies that will help the security of our people, Am Yisrael b'Tzion, in Israel and around the world fight anti-Semitism will ultimately bring goodness to the world and my conclusion was absolutely yes. And I have to say for those who know that the weeks after this reception, he has given speeches and allowed for policies to happen that was simply for the benefit of Israel. And for that, I think um we we have to be, you know, grateful and thankful. I also want to say one more thing. This was just on a personal note. I'm a little bit of a history buff. I was standing behind stage with the president and he was flanked by two Orthodox Jews. Berkowitz, the Yeshiva graduate, and his son-in-law. One of them with a yarmulke. He came out to the audience and there were 400 Jews. Everybody was wearing a yarmulke. And I literally shed a tear. And I'll tell you why. You may remember you know why. When I saw the number 400, it just brought me back to October 1943. 400 rabbis came to see President Roosevelt. Including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Eliezer Silver, Rabbi Ephraim Kalmanovitz, great rabbinate, 400 to persuade him to do something to save European Jewry. And what happened? Roosevelt walked out from the back door. He didn't even want to meet these rabbis. He didn't care about disagreed with him. He didn't even want to meet them. This was a few days before Yom Kippur. I believe October '43. And when I thought 75 years later, there's a president of the United States speaking to 400 eating with yarmulkes flanked by two advisers who who celebrated and observed Judaism, I said to myself, Shehecheyanu, Vekiyemanu, Vehiyanu Lizman Hazeh. It wasn't just Trump. It was the moment of where Jewish history is. I was very grateful for that moment. So, I I I understand the criticism. I respond respectfully. I do not I've learned in my life we don't worship people. We don't worship people. We worship God and God has no image. We don't worship images. We don't worship people, but we're grateful to people and we see the good in people even if we see other sides in people, you know? I also learned from my rabbi one of the greatest lessons was my job is to accentuate the positive in every person so they should be encouraged to do more positive. Does that mean they have no negative? Does that mean they have no demons? No, I also have demons. I also have skeletons and I can wake up every day and come a victim to my skeletons. Trust me, I got a couple of skeletons in my closet. You can speak to my mother-in-law and my therapist. But it's a choice we all make every day and that's the choice I think we want to bring out in other people including politicians who who they may have some beef with in this area or that area. You know, in terms of the second question with Havel, with my dear friend of Shalom Mordechai, I have to say two things. First of all I think that there is an unfair statement about, you know, that there was a lot of unethical behavior, but he didn't deserve 27 years. Now, I think he may have made mistakes. I'm not saying he didn't make mistakes. I'm not saying that this business was run, you know, like Boca Raton synagogue is run. You know, maybe there were some what we call "k'dishah malavah malkah" elements and so forth. But fundamentally, I would ask anybody who's really interested to study all the facts but to know the other side as well, to know his side as well. Really study it and we'll see that the levels, even if there were mistakes and there were errors and I'm not turning saying his business was run the most saintly perfected fashion the the sentence that was given to him was saturated with anti-Semitism, with bigotry, and with horrible, horrible Jew hatred. And therefore, I feel that even if somebody and it's important to acknowledge mistakes and not to glorify every behavior of every person. But Shalom Mordechai, he may have made some mistakes, but fundamentally, you're dealing with an ehrlicha person, honest person, a Yiddisher man. An ehrlicha person. Not just saying a Hasidishe guy who likes farbrenging and dancing. That, too. But you're talking about an ehrlicha person who may have made mistakes, and I know some mistakes that he made. And the level of sentencing was a completely different level. And I feel felt that the dancing of Kla- of so many Jews when he came out of prison, there's no chashash that people are going to learn from that, "Oh, you're supposed to when break the law." I did not feel that that way. I feel that uh Klal Yisrael has an immune system, and it's healthier than we imagine. It's healthier than we imagine. I just want to tell this It's an interesting thing. Stop my nice ofar. People don't know this. Are you told me that it was the 1940s, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was not yet the Rebbe yet. His father-in-law was alive. He came into the Beis Medrash in 770. There was a bochur learning Pnei Yehoshua. His name was Dovid Edelman. He was then a rabbi in Springfield. He passed away a few years ago, Rabbi Dovid Edelman. He told this to me. He says, "I was learning Pnei Yehoshua. I asked him which masechta." He didn't remember. Early 1940s. The Lubavitcher Rebbe walks in, and he sees he's learning Pnei Yehoshua. He starts The Rebbe knew Pnei He The Rebbe knew acharonim very, very well, Rishonim too. He starts to shmooze him with him on the Pnei Yehoshua. Okay, it was a nice shmooze. And the Rebbe says, "Do you know that this Pnei Yehoshua wrote other sefarim?" He says, "I didn't know." He says, "Do you know the names of the other sefarim?" No. Most of you probably don't know the name of the Pnei Yehoshua either. But the Rebbe, you know, so he says the Pnei Yehoshua wrote other s'farim, but you know, nobody knows about them. They were not niska b'tzu tzei Yisrael. They just did not circulate. He says the Pnei Yehoshua did. Every yeshiva like Pnei Yehoshua, some people like Pnei Yehoshua more. You know, Pnei Yehoshua was a certain type of m'fairesh. Some people love it and some people find it very difficult. But it's But you know, Pnei Yehoshua was the Pnei Yehoshua, right? You can't ignore the Pnei Yehoshua. The Rebbe said the Pnei Yehoshua became a trend by by Aliyahu. He says, "Why this sefer and not other s'farim?" So, Rebbe Aliyahu told me, said the Lubavitcher Rebbe told him, he said, "Just like individual Jews have ruach hakodesh, some Jews, he says, "Klall Yisrael, in Yiddish he told me the words, Klall Yisrael hot collective ruach hakodesh." Klall Yisrael has collective ruach hakodesh. We have an immune system. And I feel that moment was a moment of collective ruach hakodesh that they felt it was something of a miracle that happened Zos Chanukah when he came out that was a display of genuine emunah and bitachon and a victory against against anti-Semitism. I'll just mention that there were five former DAs. And there was Alan Dershowitz, who's not suspected in being an ultra-Orthodox, Chabad, Satmar, or Lakewood Jew. Or even a modern Orthodox Yeshiva University graduate. Alan Dershowitz is Alan Dershowitz, right? And he too felt and wrote together with five former DAs that this was really a crime that was done to him. I just think if we really want to be nuanced, um we should be done everybody l'chaf z'chus, but especially in this case, we should study the case much more and we'll see that s'nischazeik b'pashut. I I want to thank you for being honest on both of those questions. I know they're not easy topics and I'm sorry for whatever pain the certainly the first one, the criticism that you took uh And and even in the second one, I don't I don't want to harp on it. with No, I understand I understand, but I'm I'm fully Macab your your explanation, and I never doubted the the um the fact that the sentencing was exaggerated cuz of anti-Semitism or the tzidkus of of Rubashkin in terms of the emunah he displayed. I guess my only concern or what I personally felt might be missing and there's still an opportunity for, as we see a segment of the Torah community who are not honest in their business practices, and had lines of them getting indicted, arrested, going to jail, who better has a platform for 99% of their speech to be olive base gimmel, emunah bitachon geulah, and 1% and by the way, fellow Jews, let me tell you it's important we're honest, integrity, this is who we are, this is what we're made of, this is what the world is watching, and I didn't I didn't see it, maybe I didn't read everything, listen to everything. I didn't see it 1%, I didn't see it I didn't see it .01%, and I think that our children are watching, many are watching, and there's no one who could make the the argument more compelling to say I was mistreated, I'm mostly airlich, this is you know, and doesn't have to address it personally, but we and he could could really I think inspire people um to use that experience. That's only the reason that I that I asked that. Fair. Listen, it's extremely important to teach all of our children, everyone, in all of our yeshivas and all of our communities about uh you know, the utmost necessity to be able to uh behave in the most ethical way, bein adam l'chaveiro, between ourselves and between us and the wider world. And as the Rambam famously says in Hilchos Deos, it's one of the greatest forms of Kiddush Hashem when the Rambam describes over there the Jew who's masaya umaton bein adam bein achas um habriyos, it literally creates uh you become a beacon of light and inspiration for so many non-Jews. It changes the world when Jews become a light unto the nations being Adam and Adam it literally changes the world and that's our role in the world. I think we have to you know there is a little challenge also we have to remember. I'm saying this completely in an isolated from an isolated perspective not connected to our previous conversation. That you know I asked a person once. I said He was telling me a cute word you know. So in means in Yiddish you say dry. So where you come from Russian literature Yiddish you say dry. And a dry dry cup is a swindler they say dry but by others Polish and Hungarians they say for everything dry. She says you know dry you also clean them and custom you know you lose all the money. And I said you know listen Jews have been suffering 2000 years of anti-semitism. In the old country they felt that you know if you're if you sometimes say things as they are you're going to go out without anything just like people felt with child molestation you know a lot of go to the police because it's miss hearing. Right? That's not the case. That's not the case. The fact is we as a community could not deal with child abuse on our own. We tried it didn't happen. It failed miserably time and time again with the poor victims suffering in silence and anger. So Jews also have to remember that we're living today in a world even though there's a lot of anti-semitism our opportunity to become a voice in the moral conversation of mankind is a gift that God gave the Jewish people in our century that is unprecedented. And when instead of becoming that moral voice and moral presence and moral beacon of light they retreat into a cocoon and we forfeit our historical opportunity of enlightening and elevating the landscape of human civilization. We are forfeiting our unique mission in history. Yep, exactly. important for for for Jews to understand. So, it's not just about a question of how I run my business, how I run my business and how people see it, and how I relate to people in the subway and on the bus stops and in the street and in the supermarket, the way I hold the door for another person or don't. It literally has an impact beyond anybody's imagination. People who walk around with a consciousness that I want to be an ambassador of love, light, hope, truth, authenticity, avas hashem, avas torah, avas yisrael, morality middos toyvus, they influence people beyond their imagination and lehavdil. It's a great place to leave it with that inspiration, that motivation, and that charge to us. You've been very generous with your time, and uh we want to thank you. Thank you for joining us on Behind the Bima. Thank you for letting us be inspired and even the be a little uncomfortable and to share your wisdom with us. Hashem should give you uh strength and continued uh refuah shleimah. We hear that cough. You should feel much better so that you can proclaim the sophisticated messages of Torah loud and clear in a way that mamash penetrates right to the neshama. Thank you. Thank you thank you for all you do. Can I end up with a little story? Please. Of course. For me this was very moving. You know, a few months ago the Jewish world lost Dr. Twerski. Reb Shiya, he was known as Avraham Yehoshua Reb Shiya Twerski, or in the secular world known as Dr. Abraham Twerski, who was a psychiatrist, a Chassidic rabbi, and one of the innovators in the field of recovery of addiction, created a recovery center in Pittsburgh in the early 1960s. So, uh this is just it was so moving because it it teaches you the zeitgeist. I don't know if we still use that word. The zeitgeist of our times. He had a priest who was in his recovery center. And he recovered, but he went back to his church and Easter was coming and there's a big tradition by Easter, you drink wine, but he's an alcoholic in recovery. Dr. Twerski said, "No wine. No wine. You have a disease. If you drink wine, you're going to go back into addiction." Grape juice. He said, "We don't drink grape juice on Easter." He said, "You drink grape juice on it." Well, he has to bring it to his superiors. Dr. Twerski described it. It went to the bishops. It went to the cardinals. It went to the Vatican. They called Dr. Twerski. "What's the source?" Dr. Twerski realized. He says, "You got the idea from us. We drink four cups of wine on Pesach." Okay? Those who can't drink wine, alcoholics or people who can't drink wine, not everybody agrees, but there's many rabbinic dispensations, they can drink grape juice. Who? Reb Moshe Feinstein didn't approve of grape juice. He said, "The Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, and the Tshebiner Rav, they are matir GRAPE JUICE B'SHAS HATZCHAK." AND YOU KNOW WHAT? The Vatican accepted it. At Easter, drink grape juice AND NOT WINE BASED on the Brisker Rav, Tshebiner Rav, and the Chazon Ish. And I thought to myself, Ribbono shel Olam, look at this. The Taz, Reb Dovid Segal, writing in the 17th century in the Shulchan Aruch, says you should use red wine for Pesach based on Gemara in Pesachim. What does the Taz say? Not in our times. No red wine, please. Nothing red. The Baal HaTanya, Shulchan Aruch HaRav, 18th century, in our days no red wine because the blood libel. The Jews remember using Christian blood for Pesach. NO RED WINE, WHITE WINE. THAT'S THE 16TH, 17TH, and 18th century commentators of the Shulchan Aruch and the Shulchan Aruch Harav. The 20th and 21st century, a Chassidic psychiatrist, a Rabbi Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Schwersky, is quoted by the bishop and the cardinal in the Vatican for a halacha that a priest who's an alcoholic COULD USE GRAPE JUICE BASED ON THE Chazon Ish and the Brisker Rov and the Chibinei Noach. Look, where history the arrow of history is facing. This is an opportunity for the Jewish people. His'oreru, his'oreru ki vo oirech kumi oiri to become moral leaders and influencers of a world waiting for Mashiach. Thank you. This This was only the beginning of a conversation. We can't wait to continue it at YYY. So, thank you again so very much. Have a wonderful day. It's been an honor. Rabbi Moscowitz, Rabbi Goldberg, thank you. Anatzlacha. V'yarich yarich yamecha al mamlachto. Thank you. Rabbi Moscowitz wanted an interview. Wow. And it got longer and longer, and in some ways it did because we continued the conversation with Rabbi YY, and uh we'll have to share that at some other point in some other context. But, what about that that long conversation? Stimulating. I don't think you would even realize we realized how much time had passed because it's just so so captures you. Um what stood out for you? Every part of it. No, I really mean that. I mean every part of it was uh was fantastic and something to learn from. You know, for me personally, probably the part that resonated the most and which was um news to me really was the description of what it was like as the transmission of the Rebbe's sichos. And for me that's so juicy on so many levels. First of all, just the the notion of when he described the three-day yom tov, how they would memorize 10, 20, 30 hours of shiurim and then have to stay up all night afterwards and how he had what he called post-Shabbos stress disorder because he was so worried about communicating and and coming, you know, and making sure that every idea came through properly. I thought the fact that they had a debate about what the Rebbe actually said and what the Rebbe actually meant and how they would record it for posterity. I think it was fascinating also because for anyone who's ever learned Gemara or wondered about the transmission of Torah shebaal peh, to me that was such a vivid imagery of what it must have been like when you sat in the shiurim of Rav Ashi and Shmuel and Abaye and Rava and how sometimes you have a machlokes two generations later, it's, you know, after a three-day yom tov, they debated what the Rebbe meant. And now you got a sense for how the transmission of mesorah took place. So for me that was fantastic. For me the overall reverence that they had and understanding of the historical nature of what they were listening to, I found very inspiring and again, something that I don't necessarily know that I appreciated or ever was in tune to. Maybe for the Chabad people who are listening to us, they're much more in tune for that, but for someone who didn't grow up in Chabad and wasn't really um exposed to them growing up, it was just such a fascinating conversation, something I completely overlooked that you and I benefit from, but that he was on the front lines for. When we talk about behind the Bima, that was behind the Bima. It was going through stories that people never would have appreciated, never were in tune to and we gave them a a really a front row inside seat to it. There's not a lot of people you could go behind the Bima about the Rebbe, Trump, Rubashkin, who every thought is communicated through the filter of a dvar Torah, where he didn't prepare, he didn't know what we were going to ask and he didn't prepare the dvar Torah. It's simply how he thinks. His vocabulary is the vocabulary of using Torah to communicate ideas. He's just super uber impressive. I love what you just said. I hadn't thought about it in that way. The fact that Tommy Demonte Shabbos could debate what he said is such an insight into if he's still alive and in the other room and you're debating what he just said, then imagine like you said generations of years later, we understand why in the Gamara now I remember he said it this way. I remember he said it that way. You see the same thing with Ruv Soloveitchik with the Ruv where different Tommy didn't remember him saying different things. Maybe two different Tommy didn't even say different things where they remember it differently and it does give us that insight. I was moved very much by his conversation with with Ruv Steinsaltz ZT'L. And I love First of all, we we were privileged to have Ruv Steinsaltz in our community. He's an individual who we'd love to have go behind the Bima if we could have. Um, but he was that sharp sharp personality who didn't hold back. And I love that. I love that. You and I feel that sometimes also where there are certain divrei Torah that we have or certain canned speeches or certain we take that vort to that story to that quote to that research. You press play and you're capable even of thinking about something else while you're speaking, right? I press play. I'm right now very with a lot of animation sharing this idea while my mind is oh, what else do I have to do today and I got to do that because that and that's an enormous risk that you become a cheap imitation of yourself. That you essentially become a fraud. Are you really still learning? Are you really still growing? What an incredible insight of Ruv Steinsaltz that not only did he give it to Ruv YY but through Ruv YY he's now shared that with all of us as well. You know, I will say there's a flip side to that because you definitely have your taglines. And I know people poke fun at you, you know, become the best version of yourself. Certain taglines that you've said over and over again. But to me that's a beautiful thing. In other words, our community knows that Goldberg's always going to hammer us over the head with become the best version of ourselves. And so you find different vort loch to say it in and different ways to say it, but often times you'll come back to that idea. And the beauty of that is though is it really drives home a point. And again, you find different avenues to communicate it, but it makes it very clear that this is what we stand for. We're always looking to be the best version of ourselves. Means you don't have to conform to other people. It means there's no one cut cookie-cutter option. In other words, there are many nuances within that statement, but you'll hammer us over the head with that over and over and over again. I'll tell you an interesting theme that's emerged between last week and this week, Professor Ruth Wisse and and now Rabbi YY Jacobson. You asked a similar question to both, which is a great question. We should one day compose a list of questions like Tim Ferriss who asked the titans of industry all the same questions. Um but you asked them both about the soundbite in our generation and and does that cheapen or distort or distill the message? And they both unapologetically said the same thing. They said when you have something to say, you have something you want to develop, you have a sophisticated message to share, you do not have to give in to this generation's intolerance for anything more than a soundbite. So, yes, you could also condense it and reduce it. You could also publish it and share it in a soundbite size, but he's unapologetic. First of all, if you look at what time it is and the length of this, then you know that he and we are unapologetic for how long it takes to develop ideas. But she also, they're coming from very different places and different worlds and different arenas in which they communicate, but both are unapologetic and they're not trying to conform to the collective ADD of our generation, and they are also encouraging us to have confidence in people that even with ADD, whether diagnosed or or not, all of us to a degree have a collective version of it. That's not to at all diminish a diagnosed version of it, but they're not apologetic and they're not conforming, and they have enough confidence and belief that if we're stimulating enough and if we involve and if it resonates enough, then people will listen. And just to be clear, I'm not knocking the the one-minute clips and you know, some will take part of your parsha class and send it out. Nachie got a shout-out tonight. You What was that? Nachie got a shout-out tonight. Nachie got a shout-out tonight. No, and I and I think that's great and I think it's wonderful. For me, the the question really generates more from a social media perspective, where you're on social media or you'll read a news article and you'll judge the entire subject matter by the headline. And you'll fail to appreciate, cuz you and I both know this in our line of work very well. There is so much complexity and nuance to so many different issues. We were just debating one today, which I don't want to get back into, but we were talking about an issue today, and the more we talked about it and had really had a havirusa in the issue, we realized there were there were many different angles. And once you thought about a little more, you appreciated just how complex and colorful the topic was. So, to me, that's really where the conversation generated more from, where I think we succumb to a headline or to, you know, we're scrolling through social media and we see something and we judge a situation or a person or a scenario based on that. And I think both what Rabbi YY and what Professor Wise really sensitize us to is that there is complexity, and you have to build and you have to showcase the different sides, because that's how a thoughtful person approaches the world, not recognizing issues as binary, but recognizing them as complex. And therefore, because they're complex, to show the respect to that issue, you're going to think it through properly. And even if that takes time, and it doesn't fit into what people can consume. I had a conversation with a high-profile person recently who was also challenging me about publishing a book, and this person has put out several books, but also more regularly puts out content in other forms, very popular podcast, and and writes articles. And I asked them, "Why do you put out books?" You know, his most popular book sold 400,000 copies, and he's listened to daily by millions, let's just say. So, what are you putting energy and time into a book? And he said no, no, no, no, we're not sharing. Maybe he'll come back as a guest, a second-time guest on on the show. But he answered, it was very interesting. He said, "Because that's all really for a popular audience. That's all in bite-size. But if you want to prove your credentials, even to the people who won't read it, but you want to be able to develop a thought and footnote a thought and research a thought. And you want a thought to be much more comprehensively presented, then you need a book. And if far fewer people read it, but they'll all know about it, it kind of gives you the credentials and credibility to then when you're offering things in a more bite-size delivered to a popular audience type of way. So, it is something to think about. You've asked and you know what? You know who did that brilliantly, and we just commemorated his first year site this week, is Rabbi Sacks. Right? We all read Rabbi Sacks' parsha tidbits, his parsha insights, which inspired us and filled our Shabbos tables for many years. most people read it while we were giving the drasha their printout in shul. Thank you. Exactly. But but but if you think about it, what defined him was was the books that he wrote and the develop the ideas that he developed, the the themes that he was able to to develop. So, I agree 100% with that. Yeah, that that would be an interesting analysis. What percentage of people who read who read the weekly printout of Rav Sacks have read any book of Rav Sacks from cover to cover? Science to religion one, some of the other more difficult ones that have come out recently. You know, it's an interesting question. So, but that is you know, people should know that let's just go behind the scenes for a moment, behind the bema with us and we'll end cuz we're we're coming close to the rebbetzin episode. Trying to get the text. And Rabbi Moscowitz, we challenge how late and how long you can go. How much have you I got all night. I'm ready to jump. How much have you had from this? My water's done though. That's the problem. Okay, so we don't have that much longer to go. So, um but that is an interesting question for rabbis where, you know, you could put your energy into writing articles that go on the internet that are there forever and that people will Google or stumble on or trip upon or a book that maybe you're going to give out, maybe it'll collect dust on a bookshelf that maybe nobody will ever read. Famous Kotzker who didn't write a book because he didn't want it to end up in a puddle of drool on the floor. But it is an interesting question that when you have certain amount of time to be able to put out content and it takes creative energy, so where should you direct it? And and what is the value of the written book today versus the online website article versus the make a video versus the produce a podcast? All kinds of questions. I I'm still of again, I haven't written a book admittedly, but I'm still old fashion in this conversation where I still believe that there's something about a book on a bookshelf that gives someone a certain set of credibility that that again exists for posterity. I think your children are going to have it on their bookshelves, your grandchildren are going to have it on your bookshelves, your great-grandchildren more than your sheerum and more than your articles. They're going to have that book on their bookshelf and someone's going to come over for Shabbos meal and say, "Oh, you were Rabbi Goldberg's great, you know, great-grandchild." And and and they're going to talk about that with such pride. You don't get that with an article and I don't think you get that with YouTube. And is it a legit book? Let me ask you this. Let's say we're not talk about others cuz I don't want to criticize others. Some have done it brilliantly and beautifully and deserve to do it. Uh I'll phrase it like this. Not is it a legit book, but should it be one's first book? We could go into the file cabinet. One is let's say into a couple of decades of giving drashas, take out the top two drasha on each parsha, put it into a book. Someone's got an amazing book on the parsha. Legit way to put out first book or that's a book down the line? one way. No, that's definitely one way and I respect that rabbis who put out books and and I'll tell you about rabbis. Talk to me. Cuz I don't want to talk about others. is Rabbi Golden. Rabbi Golden's book on the parsha, Unlocking the Torah, is clearly his parsha sheerum throughout his rabbinate. And he and his son worked very hard to construct it in a way that is so reader-friendly. And so good. Different. Rabbi Golden, it's not his drashas. That means he didn't take drashas and just clean up the grammar and put them together in a book. His sheerum on parsha are parsha noot. I mean, it's it's a real it's a study of Tanakh. It's a study of I differentiate, you know, as I think if you took your articles that have already been published and simply collect them into a book, uh that I'm not into. If you take drashas that you've given, you organize them systematically, you maybe edit them to fit better into book, I'm okay with that. But I know, and I know where do you want me to go with this cuz I know you well, you want to write a book. And I'm telling you the world needs your book, and you got to make it happen. And the same way you pushed me to start writing, I'm pushing you. I'm calling you out. It's 10:45 p.m. Wednesday night, October 27th. The We're wait You need a book. You need to write a book. And I'm Again, I'll I'll speak very personally. And for me it's very different. My father wrote a book with a colleague of his. Both of them passed away at very young ages. I know the impact that that book has sitting on my shelf. Now, the book is totally outdated. It was a guide It was It was a layman's guide to medical practices. You think before you had the internet, people didn't know They didn't have the vocabulary when they went to a doctor for how to talk about their medical needs and to understand medical So, my father wrote like a layman's guide. It was published. You'd find on the internet. Very nice, right? It's totally outdated. Many would even say it's worthless to me right now. And yet I know the pride that I feel that my children feel, the the what it contributes to my household, the identity that it gives me in terms of a certain academic rigor, in terms of an aspiration, ambitions. It communicates so much to me in a way that an article never can. I accept that. I First of all, I definitely do accept that challenge and I think about it all the time. It's a matter of making the time, prioritizing it, and also not producing a book for the sake of writing a book. I'm not This is not false humility and we don't need to flush this out for in front of whoever is still listening at 10:47 at night. This is a live show, by the way, for those who challenge us and think we pre-recorded. It is live. And I'll take a moment to express our gratitude to Hashem. The things that one should never take for granted because when they stop is when you realize you shouldn't. Last week we had some technological issues and the show abruptly stopped and it was complicated and hopefully you listened on the audio version on whatever podcast player to the full interview with Professor Weiss. So, I'm grateful to Hashem that at least so far we're we're good tonight. The Weiss was amazing, our conversation. At least Hashem still thinks it's worth the world hearing. So, I want to make sure I'm not putting out a book for the sake of putting out a book. It's been It's easier probably than any other time in history to write a book, right? To to publish, to self-publish, to find a publisher. I'm not saying it's easy, it's easier than ever to put a book out. So, I I don't want to put a book out for the sake of a book. I don't want to be able to put it out so I could say I wrote a book. I want to put a book out if it's going to make a real contribution. If there's whether it's collecting other people's ideas, but the the newness of it, the innovation of it is the way that it's organized, or whether there are original ideas, creative ideas, inspiring ideas. So, I you know, I'm giving you Okay, I'm going to call you out right now because I'm going to direct you and our listeners to the introduction of the Chovos Halovavos. The introduction of the Chovos Halovavos is is beautiful and it's haunting. Because he says at the beginning, he says, "When I when I sat down to write this safer, I thought to myself, who am I and what contribution can I make? And these are ideas that the world's already heard. What's the point of me writing it?" And then he said to himself, he writes this explicitly. He says, "And then I realized that that's my yetzer hara talking. I realized it's all the internal narratives, the false narratives that I've generated for myself." And he says, "Once I realized that it was just the yetzer hara trying to prevent me from contributing to the world," he says, "I pushed through and I went for it. And what would the world be without the Chovos Halovavos? Had the Chovos Halovavos believed that internal narrative saying, 'I don't know, maybe the world it's not worth it. No, no, it's not it's not false humility that who am I and what am I? Because if that were the case, you'd never give a shiur, you'd never give a drasha, we'd never start a podcast. Anyone who grabs a microphone, literally or metaphorically, believes that they have something that's worth saying. But the question is, is there something that's worth saying versus that's something that's worth writing and publishing? It's not It's not It's not false humility. Our fact-checker once actually came to me, handed me a piece of paper. I said, "What is this?" He said, "It's the table of contents for your book." I said, "What are you talking about?" And he basically took the themes he thinks that I always come at back to, combination of some Shabbos shiva drashas, Shabbos hagolah drashas, themes, organized into sections, and he said, "Here's the table of contents of your book." And, you know, it still sits on my desk and I I think about it and we'll we'll get there one day. Please God. Please God. How did we get to this? Oh, bite-size topics versus developing thoughtful, creative, and so on. So, yeah. I look forward to reading it and I know that if our Rabbi of eight Jacob J. Schacter were on the podcast right now, he would also hit clobber you over the head and tell you that it's time to write a book. Yeah, but he would also agree that only if there's a contribution to be made. Now, he would laugh at writing. He basically did in the most sensitive, kind way once basically said, "Oh, those cute articles that you write, they're cute, they're important, they're nice, I'm glad people like them. Write a scholarly article. Write a book. Challenge yourself." He wasn't saying it to criticize or to knock me. He was saying it to challenge me. Said, "Leave your comfort zone. Write a scholarly article. Research something. Put out a a thesis." And Well, listen, you know, we talk about having guests back. This would be a great conversation with Rabbi Judah Mischel. Rabbi Judah Mischel, who writes a weekly Torah article, who gives shiurim all around the world, has inspired lots of people, felt the need to write a book. He called it Baderech. It's a very beautiful book. All of our Yom Noraim, I think every drasha we gave, we looked out, we saw our ba'alei batim reading that book. So, I'd be curious to see his perspective, you know, to have that conversation of people who migrated over to a book. What precipitated that? What void were they feeling that they felt compelled to write a book with? His book, Reb Dov Weinberg's book, their Joey Rosenfeld's book, they're they're definitely contributing to a genre that doesn't exist. They're creating that genre. I think it's very, very important. Again, you know, I'm glad we're having this in front of the world, this conversation. Um but yeah, we got to we got to figure out. Maybe maybe it's my own Should we go really behind the bema here? Or I should lie down on my new couch so that I can really go behind the Beamer, but you know, maybe you don't want to do something cuz you're afraid, you know, how how will it be received? Are you really contributing? If there's a review, what would it say? So, in article, no one really expects it to So, you you know, there's a lot less you're not as vulnerable putting out an article because someone liked it, didn't like it, writes a response, loves it, but it was an article. But, a book, you put your kishkes into a little bit, you're making yourself vulnerable that it won't necessarily widely be received and you got to overcome that and do it anyway. Okay, for those who just caught that I muted, it's because security was banging on my window just now. just at my door. It is 10:51 at night and security's warning me that they're locking me on the campus right now. Yeah, they were just at my door. We're on the opposite sides of the same building. We may build a studio one day and be able to broadcast behind the Beamer and some of our other videos from a studio. If you'd like to sponsor that studio, please be in touch with us. Which is a perfect segue for us to draw to a close. Let's thank the Hermans again, Karen and Simcha. Simcha, thank you for making that interview possible and thank you for sponsoring tonight. We deeply appreciate it. A reminder for special raffle for incredible swag. If you All you have to do is review. Don't think about it as reviewing us because we're humble. There's nobody in the whole world who's more humble than we are, but think about it as reviewing so more people hear of YYY. YYY is amazing and I know Rabbi Moscowitz you agree with me. There were parts of all that conversation which are really really worthwhile to listen to as it is with our guests each and every week. When you review, it helps us get the word out more. Leave a review, it'll enable us to spread the message. You'll be entered into a raffle to win swag. Please let us know if you were the one who won last week so we could send you that swag. And until next time when we welcome back. Should we let him back in? Rabbi Brody? Yeah, maybe. I think we should have someone back instead of him. a few hundred people listening. Feel free to post in the comments. Do you miss Rabbi Brody or not? Let's put it to a vote of our audience. Do we let Rabbi Brody back in? We play a great practical joke cuz there's no way he's going to listen to this episode. No way. Should we have an email written that basically says due to feedback we've decided we're going to move on in two times? It's past a good time right now going over it. We we can have a really good time with this. In any case, until next time, our dear friends, stay happy, stay healthy.