#78: Behind the Bima - R' Yitzchak Adlerstein

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbi's 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 bema good evening it's wednesday night i'm rabbi from goldberg joined with rabbi josh brody and uh we have a great important conversation to bring to you tonight with review took out listing we're very grateful and excited that he had joined agreed to join us and a pre-recorded interview with him that was recorded yesterday uh with me rabbi moskowitz and um it's an important conversation it's a really educational conversation and one that we're happy for you to hear tonight's behind the bemas all those who are ill should have a speedy and a complete and a painless recovery should be healthy and happy and successful and wishing well to anyone who's ill anywhere in the world should only have just the speediest and healthiest of us lima so this week's parsha isro story of receiving the torah and we know that when we received the torah the jewish people miraculously all healed whatever emotional scars whatever mental illness whatever physical ailments whatever was out there at mount sinai they went away the torah the receiving of the torah healed them so in the merit of the receiving of the torah this week pasha's israel anyone who's sick only ill should have a before shema a complete and a speedy recovery rabbi brodie we had an incredible event at boca raton synagogue last night tell us about it well it's not often you know you get someone of that caliber coming to our community not just a great great great uh jewish leader not just a great teacher not just a rash yeshiva a rabbi and someone that's really amazing but he brought something to our community which i think you could say forever changed our community you feel different everyone that walked in was inspired and i think it's we you felt changed you felt like there's something you needed to connect to or you connected to by one of his stories that you just feel something's different there are there are brilliant people who speak to your mind to your head they challenge your head your mind there are people who speak to your heart they tell these stories they make you cry they're sappy they pull on your heartstrings but there are very few people who speak to your soul and speak to your soul to the best part of who you are they peel back the layers they remove and they peel back the layers of the onion of of life that's hardened us and that's made of sarcastic or that's made us sort of give up hope and they reveal that light that's inside each and every one of us and weinberg is one of those people it's just just being his presence he just there's just a light that comes forth from him and he helps you he lifts you someone said to me last night we had a lot of singing and dancing they said it was uplifting it was lifting up they said they didn't get up to dance they just they didn't intentionally do it their body just got up and danced it wasn't just uplifting it lifted them up it was an amazing night we had a packed house a hundred you didn't feel like people you didn't feel like you were looking at the clock either even though it was a long program but you were dancing and i'm not the kind of guy that likes to dance you know maybe i'm just getting older and it's but it was just great let's just do another song let's just keep singing let's just keep holding hands it was there were many hundreds of people there on a tuesday night random tuesday night in january room was set up like a tish lights were dim candles on the table some some great lighting and ron estabag amazing musician amazing got us in the mood we started with some slow knee gun some slow songs we built up until the music just lifted everyone out of their chairs and in our place just swaying back and forth everyone in their place was just dancing she's dancing and both during the slow singing the fast singing dancing weinberger's talk and following the dancing that followed the whole night there's just the same thought was inside me the whole night which was i don't want this to end right you know even even when you hear a great speech there are people supposedly who in my opening room words feel this way you just you're like it's nice it's good i'm okay but i'm good let's write let's wrap it up let's bring it to a close rewind i just just keep going i could listen all night the dancing the singing just keep going i don't want it to end and so i felt like the neshama the best part of us was touched was on fire was alive was awakened and you don't want it to end that's the evidence you don't want it to end and you're lost in it i didn't look at my phone for two hours and during that time there is no to-do list there's nothing else in the world there's nowhere to go there's nothing to be that is all that there is that is all that there is um so you know that that's the sign of not only just a good program but a meaningful deep program and how at the end you know i thought he was leaving maybe to run out i don't know where he was going he goes to the back of the room to find the people that aren't dancing he goes and dances that was my favorite part of the night is that in his talk he said hey you in the back how come you didn't dance when we danced the first round how come before he spoke why didn't you get up and dance he said i'm going to join you everyone laughed ah it's funny and then he finished speaking the music came on and he made a beeline for the black and i got an email today did i send this to you yeah a mutual friend of ours someone new to the shul really new to this community or the nature of our community he doesn't live on this people yeah he doesn't live in the circle he said i was shy i felt like a guest even though he's a member i was sitting in the back he said i was blown away and the next thing you know he had his arm around me he came to the back he found us the guys in the back he didn't dance and sing in the front of the room with the camera with the spotlight right he ran to the back that was the favorite part of the night for me i think that if you have to sum up river weinberger it said he finds the people in the back in the shadows and he shows them love he puts his arm around them he brings them in he gives them hope it was just a great great night if you didn't see it we streamed the whole thing live with our partner meaningful minute nahi gordon and you can find it go to meaningfulminute.org meaningfulminute.org you can still find you can watch the whole thing but just be prepared to get up and dance so if you're watching in the middle of work or like with headphones you're just you're gonna get up watching on the train start dancing and that was one of the great stories he told right was in in the car was rough david lipschitz right amazing he loved the port wait you're telling and uh he was so so inspired by the vote he says we got to stop the car and he's like what happened with this thing i said he's like tell me again say it again she tells him the void again he's like there's a good maldik he just starts dancing with him but but that was that wasn't the point of story the point was that he learned more from that experience of dancing with him and that joy and there's more that he remembers than any other piece of torah that maybe he might have taught him not to say the torah wasn't significant it's very significant but there's something about that the dancing 100 right yeah it was very special that was the most powerful part of the night to me and um so grateful that he comes down that he's connected to our community that he spends time and uh he imagined he loves the community right i i would say brother this is a good transition to our guest rabbi alderstein if you really have to summarize brs it's what happened in the last seven days one week at the boca raton synagogue one week at the book of synagogue singles own egg and then a young professional event singles 20 to 28. you had rebender and dark torah last last tuesday night we had this event for israel latino coalition for israel thousand people ambassador david friedman event shapiro fast forward a week or motion weinberger lights the same room just it's a different room geographically it's the same coordinates but the whole room the set up the feeling the atmosphere the experience and that's you know different strokes for different folks not everybody's going to be at everything we hope people open their mind you know people open their heart we hope people are willing to experience different types of things and learn and grow challenge themselves um i'll give you a little secret i actually happen to be a guest host on another prominent podcast this week a podcast of someone who's been on behind the bima i hope it actually goes through otherwise i'll look pretty stupid if i talk about right now it doesn't work but um our friend david luckenstein is on vacation he asked me to guest host headlines part of headlines so i interviewed a couple very prominent people and on this side maybe you talk about ben shapiro maybe not you take it over how do we take the best of everything and integrate it together and that's you know one week in the life of the book or tone synagogue what happens here so we're proud of that that's who we are what we stand for it's complicated that's we're proud of monte shabbos rabbi bender walked into the school and he was looking you know he looked into the social he says this is obvious about him i said no this is vashinantam he says well where are these girls going i said well that's the mother daughter learning he says where's the monument so that's in the next room there's three programs going on at the same time for different shoulders different parents you know yeah he walked in the room he's like it's unbelievable whatever what everyone needs you know we meet the needs you're not competing there's no tension and it all compliments and it's a beautiful beautiful thing that it all comes together so one of our sponsors of last week's program is review director of interfaith affairs at the wiesenthal center he's the founder of a wonderful website called crosscurrents.com which is a jewish thought in the orthodox community and he was a founding editor as well of call perspectives and he's been told he's a real time but he works specifically in this area and you know we waited till our event ended and some of the noise that certain people tried to bring around it and and we saw not with any desire or goal to continue that which we had no interest in doing we never addressed it confronted it spoke about it we just kept our head down and focused and doing our thing with the support of our teachers in rebellion and knowing what we're doing is right but we did realize that there's a vacuum there there are people who are not they're ignorant they don't know about this area because if you grow up orthodox i don't care if you grew up monoorthodox or you grew up yoshivish anywhere on the spectrum of orthodoxy you probably were not having interfaith relationships you probably weren't part of those conversations you probably weren't considering that and frankly most organized orthodox institutions don't provide that so we came to discover that there's a vacuum there's people who really are lacking knowledge and by alderstein is the one to fill in those blanks so tonight is interesting and informative and we go behind the bema with him but it's also very educational and an important conversation uh for people to be able to gain some greater clarity and understanding in this area i want to reiterate it was recorded earlier he's in israel so we're coming to you live right now behind the beam is live on wednesday nights we're live now we'll be live again after the interview but the interview was pre-recorded with rabbi moscow it's earlier this week and we're super excited to be able to bring it to you now so without any further ado leviathan we are joined by the great rabbi it's like adlerstein or by this team has become a good friend a mentor a teacher a partner and it's a real honor that you are joining us this evening thank you so much for letting us go behind the bema with you rabbi anderstein it's my pleasure to join the weekly rogues gallery let's start from the very beginning tell us a little bit about your life your background your biography and most specifically what is it about your life of where you come from your family that got you into the line of work that you're in within the wiesenthal center fighting hate anti-semitism in particular director of interfaith relations uh as well is there something about your background that put you on the trajectory to be doing this work or that instilled within you a certain passion or enthusiasm for it i think most of it has to do with the fact that i have a big mouth so that when i came out to los angeles uh many many years ago straight out of colo to be a market cheer and that lasted for a few years until the institutions sort of uh petered out as young people refocused in the uh in the 80s and the partner institution to the one that employed me i came out for yeshiva of los angeles was the simon wiesenthal center and it was started by the same people especially rabbi moshe howard marvin heyer and at the time they basically said well you know uh we don't really have a job for you with yeshiva anymore because it doesn't exist but you're now working for us and uh overnight i was given the job of being director of interfaith affairs now the truth is that there were some things in my background um on my mother's side my mother already said we were germans for at least 600 years and german jewelry had a different attitude towards non-jews my my grandmother shalom spent time in a concentration camp in the first deportation of the war uh she had reason to hate germans and to hate him and they hate christians and hate everybody and she would not abide the sound of anybody saying ah christians she wouldn't she wouldn't do it there was there was a western attitude towards that and that uh that certainly contributed to it and probably the fact that i was uh you know i was uh westernized i had a college education when not everybody did i did not burn my diploma uh and at the same time i was really hashem into learning and what i discovered very early in this is the exact opposite of what i had thought when i was younger which was interface stuff that's for the reform and the conservative because for some of them it's the 614th mitzvah of the torah thou shalt be ecumenical and we didn't go for that the the modern orthodox didn't go for it because of of the because of the rav who was uh who was against interfaith dialogue and uh certainly the hereditary world didn't go for it particularly on the basis of moshe's chuva um but yet in every camp there were those who said interfaith dialogue is one thing getting things done or finding allies is quite something else and i quickly discovered that the people best suited for building bridges which the community needs so much are orthodox jews with a passion for the divar hashem because frankly some of our christian allies can't figure out some of the non-orthodox you know they believe that they should support him because of the blessing of abraham in genesis but on the other hand they can't quite figure them out with us there's an instant vocabulary and even though they quickly learn that they have zero chance of converting us even if they would want to but they appreciate the passion for the davar hashem and for living for for for walking the walk and not just talking the talk so i found that orthodox jew is really the best people to conduct this kind of work let's come back to we're going to take a deep dive into this kind of work and really learn from you and use this opportunity to educate ourselves and educate the public because there's been a lot of miseducation and attempt to distort the truth in this area but before we take that deep deep dive and we're going to come back to it uh if you could talk to us a little bit more first of all your smikhas from did the russia shiva or urabayam um influence you at all in this area or in this work not specifically interfaith but the reasons all work at large in terms of trying to confront hate confronting anti-semitism tackling discrimination does that come from the the torah influence in your life uh as well eurobeam did they speak about it and uh and then if you could talk to us about the wiesenthal work you talked you told us just now how you got into it but first of all tell us about your relationship with simon wiesenthal and the wiesenthal center's work at large so my background in my years of learning and uh and in the yeshiva did not contribute directly it was not a havamina was not the furthest thing from my mind that this is something i was ever going to do i didn't i didn't go to didn't spend years in colo training to become an interfaith director i i was hooked on learning i still am you know if i if i don't get my daily dose of solidly matara then i growl uh but that just happened however the fabulous time background did contribute some something in that the russian ship is that sao was particularly into into deriving hashgraph and not by people pondering their navels and coming up with profound thoughts but by looking at ghazal so whenever anybody would come up with any idea uh the first thing i i tried to do was analyze it in terms of what uh what the misawa is from ghazal and it's very very seldom univocal that that is something i just discovered early in life so that that made made life a lot more variegated and and interesting and probably opened me up to some possibilities that i wouldn't have seen in in other places now when i started working for for the wiisonville center i i did kind of paint myself into a holdout without the thinking of it at the time because i i really was brought up in a family that cared a lot about about israel cared about jewish continuity my mother was a survivor and i knew that the center the wiesendoll center from the beginning was front and center in defending jewish rights it wasn't just a holocaust center it was at the at the very beginning but even then much of its work of not most of this work was really done to advance jewish interests not just the the interests of survivors throughout the throughout the world and i used to stop by the offices of some of the people on top and ask what's going on and get the inside skinny and every now and then i'd be drawn in for a project particularly in defending defending the talmud against the the regnant anti-semites of the day the professional anti-semites never gave up uh in the course of hundreds of years of using the gemara as araya you see those nefarious jews and how they hate us and how they're ready to take over the world so after being drawn into that kind of stuff they kind of thought well we're going to use adolescent for something why don't we have them you know work with the christians so that's that that that was that now i i approached the the wiesenthal center as an outsider the center existed for many years i was still on the yeshiva side even in some intermediary uh years i was working on a on a kirov program that that was funded by the wiesenthal center and it wasn't until that petered out that i became full-time at the wisdom doll center so i'm approached as a skeptic yes this is the kind of thing that from jews do you know this is not irish fabulous we leave that stuff up to the ribosome um at the beginning i figured okay but it's not that there's nothing else are going on so it's not a bad way to make a living and then i started asking people back in the karate world and they looked at me like i was crazy and like of course that's irish thoughts for every person out there not for most people but a minority of people those people who are positioned to be able to think of the safety and security of medinak israel they didn't always call it mitinaki israel sometimes they call it the jewish issue that doesn't bother me either way you go but that we should not be concerned for that and then i met people in the community who said this is a matter of sakhanas nafasos sakonis nafasas read my lips for the jewish people that we maintain good relations with the last ally that the jewish state has on the face of the earth you you i cannot i cannot uh overstate the importance of that alliance and that support did you have non-jewish friends growing up did you know non-jews was when you started working at the center already already advanced in life was that the first interaction you were having in a real sense with non-jews um yes and no the the truth is one of the reasons that i'm a firm jew today is that uh by a peculiar turn of events when i started grade school in manhattan i lived in a neighborhood above washington heights you mean riverdale no there's a neighborhood between riverdale and the bronx and washington heights known as inwood and uh i wound up in public school until high school and the public school yeah we we let a few non-jews into the school not many not many but there were there were a few and i did have non-jewish friends it wasn't uh wasn't something unheard of and again because half of my background half of half of me is galaziano so there's not not too much wiggle room there for an ecumenical uh point of view but on this from the yucky side of me the egg side of me there was there was more than ample room for seeing a more universal kind of yiddish kite i became hooked at some point early in life in richmond who's still one of the greatest influences on my life and my teaching and uh no shortage of things in the works of championship fall hirsch that uh that suggests a uh a let's say different attitude towards the non-jewish world than is held in other parts of the community if if i could just jump in for a second maybe begin our deep dive you referenced how when you were beginning your work with interfaith um you know in the intervate affairs you went to members of the kharadi community and they told you that it's akanus nafas and you reiterated that very clearly and explicitly for our audience um is that universally accepted is that universally promoted why isn't that more upfront an overt of a conversation coming from the kurdish community or are people afraid to be publicizing that to the extent that you just did oh thanks for that wonderful group of rhetorical questions let's just translate them let's make sure our audience is succumbed to muscles means that not cooperating is a danger that there are enemies who are targeting and threatening the jewish people and the jewish homeland and to not cooperate is is a failure to take defensive measures that we can right so the attitude is not one that is universally accepted i'm not even sure whether we could call it a majoritarian view i think it is increasing among people who are very interested in the declining fortunes of uh jews in the gola in the exile and of the rather tenuous state of affairs in global politics that the the jewish state has all together part of it is um well all of it all of the skepticism all of the skepticism is well founded the skepticism should be there the skepticism the reasons for the skepticism are several one is you can't erase almost 2000 years of church anti-semitism in an instant i i believe fully that there has been a change of attitude in significant numbers of christians i'm not going to put a percentage on it but they but but certainly in the tens of millions that's not chopped liver we would be foolish not to be the rowa as hanolad and understand the opportunities that has for us particularly since it's been proven since before the inception of the jewish state they were the greatest allies before during 1947 and 1948 and every year thereafter to compromise that takes guts and maybe foolishness but there are reasons for keeping the influence of the non-jewish world particularly the christian world away we have a great reason to suspect duplicity and backsliding we have centuries of hatred they don't evaporate so quickly you have to educate people i have found that when i've spoken publicly i'm you know occasionally on the lecture tour as a scholar in residence and they usually want me to speak about jewish christian relations there are some people who push back but for every one of them they're five people who are just so relieved and are just so eager to think that maybe there is a change of heart among some of their neighbors now we have other problems as well christians by nature evangelize even a mainstream church like the lutheran church in the united states is called elka the evangelical lutheran church of america now mainline churches including the lutheran church it's hard to tell sometimes whether they really believe in god they don't talk about them all that much when you go to their conventions and they're they're the ones they're the first guys who who pile it on to israel they're the mainline churches which are shrinking and shrinking and drinking are not friends of israel for the most part there are good people in all of them please read my lips and all those mainline churches there are good people as well including people you would not believe the amount of time they spend in full-time advocacy for the state of israel not because they want to convert us not because they were hoping for armageddon to come and for us all to be converted but because of the sense of justice but there are others in all the churches including the churches that we like sometimes like some of the evangelical churches there are haters and there are proselytizers the mistake that i believe some people mostly mostly well-meaning with a few nut jobs frankly where they are both both in israel and and in the united states is that we should not be excuse the mixed metaphor firmer than the pope ghazal paved the path for us they said and when you have equal parts of being people recognizing their humanity recognizing the sincerity of their religious quest even when you look them in the face as i always do when i speak to christian audiences including seminaries including you know the classrooms i say despite irreconcilable theological differences between us we have to emphasize that all the time but they go for it because they understand that what we share the idea of scripture and god's promises and that there are absolutes in a world in which absolutes have disappeared it means something to them but all christians believe in sharing the good news now where people in our camp go overboard is that they think sharing the good news means that they're going to lurk in our backyards hunting our children with butterfly nets ready to grab them away and schmod them there may be a few people who try that and there certainly are people who use illicit or in are unethical methods of infiltrating communities of acting like jews of using jewish props and and jewish words and all kinds of things to try to allergies by the way they're um usually not successful but we still we hate that and we should hate it and we should fight it but we have to recognize that we can't stop it just by wishing they would go away we should not be driving away those people for whom evangelizing means trying to be a good person and hoping that people will get the message you know why i'm a good person because i'm a devout christian that to millions of people is as far as it goes including people who would love to see us converted just as lahav the el of havdalas we we finish elenu three times a day with a prayer takaras prayer to god that everybody should become true monotheist hashem the malhot colores does that mean that we are evangelizing the non-jews and the christians and luring them away you know they don't like it when when when christians convert to judaism i sat on a on a gay risk resident for many years in los angeles and most of the people who converted were christians at some point and uh my christian friends you know they're not 100 pleased but you know their reaction usually is you know it's better than jewish than atheists which is where even some of our christians are today so there's a mixture of people out there it's such a mistake to conflate ardent christianity even quoting words from the scripture from their scripture about how how god's message has to be to the jews and how israel will be saved that doesn't mean guys pick yourself up and go to israel and knock on doors and convince people that they should become christians it means do what you have to do do the right thing support the state of israel explore the jewish roots of christianity and maybe somehow some of them will get the message but we're not going to preach directly at them and you know what i can tolerate that i have something sort of educate us and educate our listeners you reference that there is simultaneously a big problem there's a member of our show who told me that he has a sibling who was lost to judaism because the missionary got them and they converted out so to say of our faith although israel after israel is of course a jew forever but in practice has converted out and that person was very very concerned i would say at least once a year i get a call several calls that there's someone in our neighborhood knocking on doors leaving bibles at the doorstep leaving materials trying to missionarize on the one hand we've seen what seems to be an increase in those actively trying to missionarize proselytize convert jews away from judaism and we have to have our guard up so that's on the one hand a reality that it seems it should concern us on the other hand as you've been describing so eloquently there are elements of the christian community evangelical community who want to partner for our benefit to protect us to fight anti-semitism to help support the state of israel so how do we know who do we rise up and confront who do we spec out against when do we raise our voices and say not in my backyard not in our neighborhood stay away and when do we say absolutely we welcome that partnership we have irreconcilable theological differences we're not proselytizing one another but if you want to cooperate on our safety and security in israel yes we will partner how do we know when do we raise our voice in opposition and when should we raise our voice in cooperation how does the average consumer i think this is the biggest area that there's enormous ignorance understandably if you're not involved or engaged in this as you are and as we've come to be then understandably there's a lot of ignorance because you're reading articles and you're getting alerts that caution you missionaries in the neighborhood missionaries described us as orthodox jews and the next thing you know there's a flyer from a shul cooperating with an evangelical it almost sounds like that they are cooperating in an effort to missionarize so how can we educate what's the difference between them when do we cooperate when do we confront and oppose when do we use our voice in outrage against and when do we use our voice strongly in cooperation with it's a tall order so um the first rule is don't come to adlerstein because he doesn't claim to be a navi i i can't tell you that where i draw the red line or my lines in the sand or where the reasonable center draws our lines in the sand is the correct place that really would take a that really would take a nubby i would i would tell you that um again go back to hazal you have to come up with something that's balanced that recognizes that there are different people that there is a way should be a way to find the modus vivendi to deal with many groups let's take the case of rabbi scheinberger coronel of raja in in san antonio texas who became the best friend of john hagee who's probably the single most the best known name he has kufi christians united for israel give lots of money to israel david grossman and miguel emec is a big is a buddy of john hagee as well but through by scheinberg's friendship with john hagee he got john hagee to understand that you just can't deal with jews if uh you're if you're supporting missionary activity if you are funding missionary activity even if you sell up set up a shell company that's doing it um through uh through some linkages we're gonna find out about it and that's the end of the relationship that got john hagee to reassess whether he should be whether he should be funding some of those i mean there's certain churches around that are known to spend heavily on on missionizing directly to jews particularly parts of the united of the southern baptists there are about 100 different southern baptist groups so i can't i'm not going to go into which ones are but they're there we know who they are because people have been studying this for a long time so our red line is that you tell people on the other side hey we're having a great time there are lots of things we can do together but i gotta tell you whether you like it or not we got a history with with with proselytizing we we still have great grandparents who had to sit in schools for hours while the while the local priest came in and harangued them for hours and tell them told them about their false religion when we go to visit rome and we see the four corners of the ghetto and we see the uh the sign in front of the best preserved one uh telling the jews how they really really all got it wrong and they're gonna burn in hell forever you know that that leaves an impression upon us and we're not we're not ready to put that aside so if when you tell them that it's the price for doing business sometimes they actually pull back so despite some of those people out there who are getting it wrong again some the well-intentioned and the craziest actually where actually when you do this kind of activity you have a fighting chance at diminishing the amount of support to those groups and if you do go go ahead and have a good relationship with many christian groups the money to fund the missionaries is still coming in you're not you're not adding anything to their budget you still have to be vigilant you still have to support groups like yadla ahim which combat combated never seen stroll against some of the people sometimes go too far but the administration is a responsible administration we have to we have to be vigilant about that and keep in mind also that most of this activity goes on in israel not not not just muncie and boca and the law of the land is like it or not it's not a torah state and and people are allowed to proselytize for other religions they can't prosecute the people under 16. there's certain restrictions we would love to see the banning of proselytizing entirely but it's not biodenu it's not it's not for us in the meantime the good that can come from that shouldn't be expended by well these people hate us they want to convert us all so we're going to have nothing to do with them set up your red line to us it's missionizing we also don't have anything to do and won't have anything to do with messianic jews and messianic judaism now understand that beeping the tanyos uh was it the social media advice or whatever is a high-ranking person in the the the a room in the uh in the prime minister's office at least he's a messianic jew openly a messianic jew they they're they're messianic jewish whatever you want to call synagogues churches whatever throughout the land of israel they don't they don't disappear we won't have anything to do with them we won't have anything to do with them uh the israeli government does that's their choice maybe not the worst choice we the reasons all center will not have anything to do we don't deal directly with them somebody wants to suck to serve this kind of an intermediary uh sometimes we'll we'll welcome their cooperation um what about somebody who was a messianic jew or who was a missionary 40 years ago 35 years ago and hasn't done a thing since and has done a lot of good since then well we're going to be more on the hajj daily side but that doesn't that won't prevent us from working with such a person so can i just summarize everybody else you need a really dynamic valsejo who has studied who i studied the background who knows a little bit about christianity who knows about the differences between denominations who knows what's going on in the jewish world somebody like a rabbi yeah from goldberg but somebody like that you should turn to and get advice on you know and on where to go and where to set those limits i i i do a personal tune-up once a year there's one particular other goddamn eric cicero that i go to and i and he asked me what have you been up to what are you doing and i say so give me musa tell me i've gone too far he did it once something i hadn't done i was was contemplating doing it all the all the other times every year i go back there and he says full steam ahead you're doing just fine but but like in everything else in life if you're doing something that's a little different you need a rebbe you need mentors you need to you need to go to people people who are loose cannons are the most dangerous people on the face of the earth especially when they can marry their enthusiasm with uh what they think is their understanding of yiddishkeit of what the rebel son wants for them they're more dangerous than missionaries and proselytizers in my book i i couldn't agree with you more i think the fanatics and extremists and jewish terrorists are actually arming anti-semites and the evidence is there not for now but when fanatics speak out of line about those other religions or personalities they get quoted by anti-semitic groups muslim anti-semitic groups white supremacist anti-semitic groups who actually take their horrific quotes and rhetoric and use it to advance their anti-semitic cause not only they're not protecting jews they're harming and risking jews in ways that the greater community should truly hold them accountable but that's not for nara badest and i want to just come back because we said i think is so critically critically important and i want to make sure that i we and our audience understand it if you care about this issue then recognize that when you cooperate with someone worthy of our cooperation you're actually neutralizing missionary work you're not promoting it and when you judge criticize name call threaten people who could be and should be our friends you might drive them right into doing missionary work so it's actually counterintuitive and people who become educated come to learn that captain honor but also suspect have i i couldn't agree with you more and i we've we've tried to practice it here have das torah have your own rebellion ask questions the event that we had we spoke to shakhtar and and you are on my roll of dex i don't know if our listening audience knows what a rolodex is but always one of my first phone calls in this area because you're you're you're a bentora you're a rav you're a talmud and you're knowledgeable and experienced in these areas and unlike ignorant um fanatical people we turn to the people who know and say you know vet this person can we cooperate with them and so i imagine you would say that's also an important thing i know the the um wiesenthal center and other places watch some of our evangelical friends trace them track them watch them closely and are able to advise us this is someone worthy of cooperating with this is someone don't go anywhere near and i think also within the community if there are generally respected people who've done their research and have chosen to cooperate the greater community should assume that they're acting responsibly and not the opposite so there is this there is this ignorance and confusion that on the one hand we should be intolerant of anyone knocking on doors in our neighborhood or dropping off literature and materials we should drive them out of the neighborhood tell them they have no business here encourage people don't engage don't converse with them these are dangerous people this is not what we believe in we're not excusing it we're not tolerating it and of course god forbid we would never cooperate with it but on the other hand there are people who have never exhibited a pattern of proselytizing missionizing they're not doing it now and they could be key allies in a time when they're needed and in fact the cooperation will neutralize missionary activity whereas a failure to cooperate could in a worse case scenario even drive them to mission eyes so the key is of course to be to be educated in these areas and for that and so much more we're so grateful to be able to have you as a resource moscow i see you want to jump in with a with a follow-up question yeah no i just um i actually had a different question that you answered so i'm going to pivot a little bit obviously for many jews around the country and around the world fresh in their minds is the hostage situation in texas barak hashem were all relieved of the positive outcome and really enamored with the with the faith and the courage of the rabbi there but a lot of the discussion has been placed on the interfaith component of it you read a lot of articles they'll focus on the rabbi's interfaith work there was a major gathering of over a thousand people last night interfaith um to show solidarity with the rabbi to show solidarity with the congregation um if you could just describe the importance of building relationships in moments like this and not waiting for a tragedy or potential tragedy to then start formulating relationships with your local allies but to build those relationships in advance so that when you need to call upon your rolodex so that when there is a tragedy in the community or a potential tragedy in the community those relationships are there we've spoken a lot about christian vis-a-vis their support of israel but if you could bring it down to a more local level the importance on a local level of developing those relationships for moments like this fine and my answer to my response today would be different is different than it would have been 10 years ago we live in a we live in a time of increasing um anti-semitism uh out of out of sight uh in in europe and now and now in america social media has let the genie out of the bottle that which was not allowed to be discussed is now openly discussed and it means that there's a lot more anti-semitic rhetoric around that is engaged in the engagement in the public sphere and that means that we are in uh in increasingly difficult times for jews because our own numbers and influence are are falling behind those of other groups who are becoming more important we see certain patterns in in in political groups and how things get spun immediately after they get spun now becomes really crucial for us to see that things that people understand that there's a problem of anti-semitism that it's not spun like the far right has spun what happened at the collieville or the far left spun what happened in colleyville and the only way that's going to happen and you know but there are hoteva they're going to be more of these and if they're not terrorist um and kidnap and kidnappings in in synagogues there'll be other things you know jews are targeted and hit over the head in certain neighborhoods in in brooklyn and uh and that but there are that'll happen other places as well i'm hoping you'll all come to israel where we still have a few houses for you where it's the greatest country on earth uh but to make life livable and sustainable in america on the local level we're going to need friends when there's an anti-semitic incident when they break the glass in in in in your synagogue if you don't respond then the response of people in in in politics of the local police is going to become a little bit more diffuse a little bit more restrained you it's the kind of thing you have to demand and the only way to demand it is if you have allies on the local level if people quickly come to your side and say that yes this was aimed at jews yes the terrorists there spoke openly about his anti-semitism and how jews control the world and how he wanted to speak to the chief rabbi of america which he was sure that any rabbi should be able to put him in touch with and the only way to to to get the word out that this was an attack on jews and even the person who he was trying to spring the lady al qaeda is a notorious notorious anti-semite who spewed anti-semitism at her trials so there is anti-semitism there the far left won't won't acknowledge it it's all you know about colonialism and repression the only way past that is you reach out to people especially younger people with all that they've heard from is cnn and and the anti-semites on campus you you've got to engage them i believe that it's something that lay people can be doing as well in the in in their communities under the guidance of their local rub if the rub is a real bento or you're lucky enough to have one but you should be reaching out to local churches and saying look i just want to have coffee and explain who we are and ex and and then that not even mentioned in the first conversation on the phone but then explain them the what the what the places of error to swirl in our lives why it means so much why we're not colonial usurpers yes we were there before 1948 in the holocaust but that but to some people that's really really news they've never heard that before the only way you're gonna you're gonna put a dent in what's happening in in the the loss of of support for israel among american jews and certainly among american non-jews is education so you know rabbi goldberg you spoke before about you know the call you get about somebody who who who went to the who fell prey to the to the missionaries that's mostly a jewish failing it was our job to make sure that there's no jew around who could who could who could be of who could be victimized by that uh sure we should we should point the finger at the immediate cause of it but that doesn't free us from understanding it's essentially our failing if we lose america if we lose american support that's also our failing and the easiest way to start is with local religious groups but it's a fine line right rub out this thing it's a fine line between cooperating and developing those relationships and then sometimes in those relationships they say let's have a joint prayer breakfast let's have a joint bible study let's have a theological discussion those things we agree are out of bounds right we would not participate in religion we are specifically speaking about issues outside of religion where we can cooperate on shared views and values correct um mostly correct i'm not sure that that everyone in the torah community at least speaking uh anonymously would say that that under all circumstances you can't have people saying to him together if there are to heal him um i don't think it's advisable i think most people will misunderstand and i think it is part of a slippery slope to join prayer of a kind that is much much more objectionable but when you have a relationship with people it's going to take a while before you get to a joint prayer breakfast in the in the meantime they come to understand the depth of your feeling and the depth of your religiosity what halacha means and you say look there's some places we just can't go uh i remember one time i was uh caught on camera in south korea i was a it's a long story how i got there but i was offered the pulpit in the second largest church in korea on a sunday and i had to explain i had to turn it down i turned it down this is a talk about mega church this was a mega church and i turned it down and then in an interview which is live on television somebody said rabbi amnesty you're here spreading interfaith understanding well how could you be so understanding if you won't even walk inside one of our churches you won't walk inside a building of one of our churches gulp uh so i can't tell you i came up with the right thing but sometimes i go to work who puts the uh the right words in your in your mouth and i said i said you know you are a minority people you've been a minority people for hundreds and hundreds of years sandwiched in between the chinese and the japanese you know what it's like to be a small minority people when you can get swallowed up by the larger forces jews are a minority people a very very very small minority people to survive we need to have our our lines in the sand one of the lines in the sand that we draw nothing personal but we draw that line is that we don't walk into buildings of competing religions oh thank you rabbi and uh i it worked on this i worked at the time i can't tell you what all the viewers thought but people will understand your your uh restrictions i'm invited i wish it would be more of them but i'm invited often enough and they want to know will i come into the sanctuary and i say no i won't go into the sanctuary and they don't understand and i explain and if i have a relationship with that person they they will understand the same way that they know that they're things they believe in that are totally puzzling to me but it doesn't get in the way of the relationship so i you know i live with it they'll live with it too and what about you know people see a program that's uh offered to support israel and again it may not be familiar to them so they have questions about it they may not realize that there's a cooperation going on regularly behind the scenes for example that i go to cicero is regularly cooperating with archdiocese on issues of funding for parochial school or during covet the right for places of worship to reopen or schools to reopen and it would be wrong to say well how dare the aguda or the moetzes be working in a way that's giving money for christian education for christian children we can't cooperate of course we trust and we follow the daas torah but we also can see the distinction between when we can cooperate to our benefit and when it poses a risk to us so people may not be aware but there's regular cooperation from all segments of the torah world the kleisenbach rebbe just approved in israel yeshua kharadi hospital received a gift from christians of of uh critical medical equipment to their hospital there are regular cooperations that take place maybe not as overt as the form of a program but equally cooperating without any problem or breach of boundaries within the guidance of of what you're describing right now i want to give you one thought from from one of the real godola israel of our time which has made such an impression upon me and it's such a useful touchstone in evaluating situations like this many years ago i got a call from the ministry of tourism there was a large uh in large group of christians that was going to israel and um the person who organized it realized that these were real believers and they had a reform rabbi who was scheduled to uh to go along and the secular person in the ministry of tourism said you know that's not really what these christians need he just doesn't speak their language we need somebody orthodox rabbi will you go so i hadn't done anything like that at that time i went to i went to rashmur and i asked him you know is it okay i'll be spending a couple of weeks with them full time and okay so he said to me he says yeah yeah you can go no problem for sure you should go but make sure you never do anything you never say anything to that group that compromises jewish pride such a beautiful get there you know sometimes we fall over all over ourselves and uh [Laughter] [Music] some outlier it was not really orthodox uh made a statement yesterday saying that we should call the rabbi of the central uh reform uh congregation who was halachically not jewish but we should call her rashford because she is truly the uh rebbe of all of claudius people fall all over themselves and say all kinds of nonsensical things to to try to to please the other side that sometimes is the is the nissan to make sure that you don't give up more than than than you should but that doesn't mean that you can't find respect in other people that you can't value even their theological quest their spiritual quest that's the toughest thing for a lot of jews to realize but there is a spiritual quest by a lot of people and we have to realize that the ebenezer and the run-up to their sarasota dibros and many others among richonne say that i shouldn't say many i can't mean many only one or two but to me was always a a question until i saw this ebenezer and other things corroborating it what's worse an over devoted zara or an atheist what's worse and even ezra says pamela explicitly atheism is far worse than others are i have a have a good harvard who says that he believes that ebenezer is only talking about christianity and a vote azara which ultimately sees itself as monotheistic and i i believe he's right but but we have a few of them out there who who believe despite the the the totally unacceptable idea of the trinity to us who somehow believe that you know it's really god is one of course god is one of course we believe in one god and it's the same god and and they have a hard time you know you jews used to say vance designer yid i tell i've told my kids it may be but it's much tougher to be a guy a sincere non-jew who wants to do the right thing has to in a sense invent a lot of things on his own they don't have the guidance that we have we have so much going for us in the in the way our lives are are systematized and being able to focus our spiritual energy into midstress and having a torah to immerse ourselves in that that others don't and still if they're trying to get to the same place so a place comparable like they want communion with god they want eternal life what would you say about you know there are some um some people who are unhelpful in this area and their answer to try to um combat missionary work is to host a debate with the christian leader and in the process they essentially are inviting jewish audiences to watch and listen to the christian leader quote and defend christian passages and theology so both in history and now contemporary times would you agree that it's a it's a not only poor idea probably forbidden idea and deeply damaging idea to try to host a debate with a christian leader and and not not to do that in a christian setting but to invite jews to watch a debate with a christian leader um i i will not accept that fully i think it depends on on the person there are a handful of people in in our generation some alive some not who can do it with virtual certainty that they will prevail uh jonathan sacks if ronald raja could do it i would not see any reason on his part to be to be reluctant he debated the best of the atheists the best of people in other religions the best of the uh of the doubters and always prevailed by the way while he was alive he was the superhero at christian conventions people appreciated him saw him as head and shoulders over any of the any of the presenters in their own churches they just loved him for his clarity for his vision i think uh rabbi shulkin was one such person who could be assured of winning any debate i'm not sure that there's anybody today there are some people around some of them employ unethical means i'm not very happy with them i think they inspire a lot of anti-semitism and the kinds of arguments that they use and the the techniques they use in debate are um not the kind that jonathan sacks would uh would have used but uh i wouldn't i wouldn't do it and i would uh i would um if i did it i would tell all my friends not to attend for the reasons that you that you said but there are some individuals and they should not be blamed for them when they know that they're they're going to score a tko in the first round so let me let me rephrase that if you're not rabbi lord jonathan sacks it would be a bad idea to being leader and try to debate them i believe so i think that would be a very poor idea and you know remember in our in our camp in the torah in the tower camp we don't do classic interfaith dialogue we don't try to see how our different understandings of a text can promote mutual understanding we're not looking to cross pollinate our our understanding with that of others and that's one of the things that by the way keeps put orthodox jews and evangelicals together in the golden age of interfaith dialogue there were two groups that started out orthodox jews and evangelicals the same reason they said you know you don't need this stuff we got we got our own so at the wiesendoll center we've always stressed multi-faith not interfaith multi-faith means you take different faiths with the passion for religion for the passion for doing the right thing and you get them to say we're not going to talk then i'm going to talk theology at all we're going to talk about what we can do to to to further god's interests in this world um if i could just uh change focus for a second badlerstein you are a fascinating person we were speaking a little bit before we started recording robert gobert wrote an article a number of months ago about the shah hakole about this multi-color approach to torah learning about not boxing yourself into one approach you are able to dance in many different worlds you clearly are able to operate in worlds and have that not be um not be a contradiction to operating in other worlds as well what is the secret to that knows what allows you to operate in different worlds but still maintain the respect of the torah community at the same time i don't know how much of the respect you can expect to keep when you're when you do things that are controversial you always sacrifice some of that i'm glad you think i have that respect i i try to function in different worlds and uh you know wikipedia claims that i'm i'm ready so i guess i must be wikipedia is never wrong um it's a heart it's a hard thing to battle it was hashgraco pratis in my case divine providence i was able to spend time with remarkable people i i spent i spent i had the benefit of a relationship with nachman bulman sir who certainly was that kind of torah renaissance man who could speak to any group authoritatively about anything who was open to different things who who had assimilated the the differences ramen in in hashgaffer i was close with varya kaplan for not available i've had the benefit now of a good relationship with uh i think a remarkable family one of the first families of police for all the kamineskis we're now going into our fourth generation of them um when you when you were around people with with openness with real real torah central russia weiss is a uh is is a is a confident and somebody who who displays i mean you think that i'm i'm showing some openness think of the kind of people that prabhusha weiss uh reaches on on a given day the breadth of his reach and how many people appreciate his torah his hadrapha when you're around people like that it's not so hard you know what moshe rabbenu says in devon is what does god want of you and then he gives him a laundry list of like 25 things any one of them which we find impossible to to achieve so the more asked on the first one that you should what is god being so tough on you for and the gumaras says in eight salmon so i know this is not the conventional chaat but the way some people learn is yes if you are around the moshe remain if you have the privilege of spending time with somebody like a moshe rabenu then your and the other things on the list become smaller things you want to have an an open person it's not the only one that has to be you know yeah the the this shah khole is one shah among others um among other the other just is necessary but how to get to the shah colo in my case it was being in the company of great people and the hashgaffer of svarim that they introduced me to i'd be nowhere without morale without roof cook without presumption of all hers that's you know my meat and potatoes and my in forging my world view rebels has been a really really um special and critically important and very um insightful and and given a lot of this conversation for which we are truly truly indebted to you there was a lot more to talk about want to hear about the founding of crosscurrents.com um your contributions on torah.org you are out front among the early using technology and the internet to promote and share torah we will just direct people who want to read more learn more from rabbi adlerstein go to those two places crosscurrents.com go to torah.org and take advantage of of the opportunity to learn really nuanced sophisticated torah worldly and open torah contemporary torah that is accessible and speaks to us in this time and and i want to thank you personally you've been a tremendous source for me for us of wisdom of authority of strength of comfort uh of guidance and um we're grateful beyond grateful that you served that for us and look forward to your continuing to be able to help us with that thank you i gotta tell you that appearing on behind the bema was on my bucket list so isn't that an item i can i can i can cross off and i hope i think we've never met in person i hope sometime either you'll be here in your shaline where i can get the bokeh and we can spend some time together absolutely we look forward to it thank you so so much for your time thank you rabbi moskowitz thank you was that not a fascinating wow fascinating conversation people don't start an authority but i just kept texting you the entire interview i'm just like blown i have to watch the whole thing again because there's a lot of wisdom there he's not a person with an internet connection and a keyboard who's just barfing about this topic or subject right he's immersed he's immersed in it he's studied it he knows the groups he tracks the people he understands the value and he's got the support of major major rabbis the major godolam and he's who i turn to for every event that we have planned or maybe we'll plan who knows but all for israel it doesn't it doesn't line our pockets and it doesn't certainly doesn't help our ego or a sense of safety so it is all just for israel and to combat anti-semitism that's why we do it again i want to reiterate that we recorded that interview uh in advance yesterday earlier this week um and uh we were grateful moscow's was able to do that then but it was earlier this week it was yesterday so i hope i hope it'll travel far and wide i hope people see it i hope those who are skeptical or curious yeah and uh who doubt it or who don't know can be a little bit better informed on this subject and to be clear we're not rabbi adlerstein is not suggesting every shul and every jew needs to run out and go find a interfaith opportunity a christian to cooperate with on israel or fighting anti-semitism nobody's suggesting it's right for everybody or that everybody agrees to it we're suggesting is that many agree it's a legitimate position to agree it's valuable he began by talking about psychonauts the fascists he reiterated it very dramatically we're talking about life and death we're talking about the few friends the jewish people have have left um somebody just shared with me even actually during the interview a tweet by ben greenfield who tweets the following let's say you had 100 million dollars to invest in strategically preventing anti-semitic violence in the united states no money can go to tactical security not guards or cameras it's for combating underlying causes and amplifying movements that tamp down anti-semitism how would you invest how would you spend it what would you do how would you spend that hundred million dollars if you said let's get to the is it is it ignorance do we need to educate do we need to support friends how should we spend it how should we spend it 100 million dollar challenge what would you do with it well i mean you've you've it's a great question and you've already seen whether it's athletes or some other personalities that it was really just a matter of education and they did not have exposure to jews in the same ways many of us don't have exposures to those that are different than us but when you had that conversation sometimes all it was with a conversation things begin to change and he kept he kept reiterating over and over again how you know things are different now 10 years ago i might not have said that 20 years ago i might not have done that but in the world we're living in today things are a little bit different and we've got to be guided by dastard that's our way we have we have big rabbis we have people who see 30 000 feet up you know we're 10 millimeters up they see 30 000 feet up and they see behind us they see ahead of us and and that's who we rely on they guide us we don't make a move without them but yeah that means things are different and we need to embrace that and we need we need that support we absolutely need the support you know the event we had last week at the end of the event there was this african-american young couple who uh asked if they could speak for a minute actually they could take a picture they're like blown away they're so excited to be there all right so where were you from you lived here in boca said no we live in doral now if you've given to doral by the way the torreira hotel on november news is being uh converted into homes but if you see the doral dorado's far it's a schlep and a half so they drove up here from us i said to them what are you doing here it was a rainy day through metal detectors coming to a synagogue what are you doing here so they said what are we doing here we love and live for israel i said why do you love israel where'd you find israel they said you know we met we were student leaders on campus and aipac found us we were student leaders and aipac saw on us that we were we were leader they took us to israel and we saw israel and we fell in love so they're no longer student leaders now they're actual leaders in their community in the in doral florida which is a schlep a far far drive from from boca not an easy drive in inclement weather they were there they were on fire so you know you have friends you need friends in their neighborhood where they live i guarantee you they're not a lot of orthodox jews they're not a lot of orthodox jews who are proudly waving a flag and talking about israel's right to exist and fighting anti-semitism there's two friends they're doing it are we in such a position of strength are we not seeing this spike of anti-semitism did we not all on moteshabas turn on our devices to read about a hostage situation at a shul that are we so comfortable that we're willing to reject and turn away the friendship of others that we need that's really what it comes down to all within guidelines cab de oberhashtayu respect and honor and be careful and navigate and uh that's what it's really all about you know so the irony is and again we won't get into it but you know there are people who claim to be fighting this and really they are feeding anti-semites and i don't say that speculatively we've seen with our own eyes that anti-semitic websites actually cut and paste their videos and quote them to advance their anti-semitic agenda so you know people have to be discerning they have to be informed consumers of the internet because a person puts a postcard in your mailbox or makes a video or obsessively makes dozens of videos doesn't mean there's truth to what they're spewing research investigate look read call revive adlerstein talk to a bentora who has credibility assume that people who follow das torah are doing so responsibly respectfully ask a question and say hey i want to understand help me understand more and maybe that's our fault maybe we took for granted that our community understands and the greater community understands that this cooperation is actually helping stop missionizing it's not promoting it it's actually neutralizing it which is something that rather scene taught me so you know a little bit of a different behind the demon tonight as we think about holi israel anyone who's ill we wish the speedy and a full and a painless recovery shady pesos told us only the best good news successful outcomes good health and success in every which way and a little bit different more of an educational to get informed and to bring that information to others so if you saw this and you were informed if you listened to this and you understand better share it get it out tell it to send it to somebody who doesn't know somebody who's been curious or challenged somebody who thinks that rafter actually doesn't have a spell or has poor grammar or would write nonsense that was that was forged like doesn't know how to justify your paragraph that's the biggest insult forget the insult they forged a letter about me forget the insult that they forged the letter of shakhtar but to suggest that rashford got to be swell can't spell or as poor grammar or speaks about in that way or encourages people hey you got to read my stuff it's just like absurd absurd so anyway wishing everyone wishing our friends everywhere for shlaima good health matan tora pasha's israel should just bring a sweeping recovery and good news for everybody and we'll look forward next week we're taking off the shiva week yeshiva week rabbis have to be with their families for yeshiva we have no no plans right now with a straight face so we'll be taking off but we'll see you back here in two weeks until next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy