Rabbi Efrem Goldberg hosted on Zev Brenner's Talkline on Abortion, Homosexuality & Transgender

you're listening to talk line with zev brenner america's premier jewish broadcast on the air since 1981 and now here's your host welcome back to the program i'm zev brenner today is our historic first for our program we've never entered rabbi from goldberg the senior rabbi of the boca raton synagogue in florida new york it's a growing shul over 850 members the first time he's appearing on the program he's also one of the leading rabbis in the united states he plays a role in not just in the florida area but he's involved in national organizations including the biblical council of america tibetan of america tradition magazine aipac he has a very popular podcast which gets all kinds of prominent individuals including the prime minister of israel probably from goldberg thank you for joining us it's an honor to be here thank you thank you you've written some fascinating articles i want to talk about and pick your brain because what i like is you're not afraid to speak out not always are rabbis it's a lot of rappers are reticent to really speak out their position they'll do it in sure but when you call them to be public about it all of a sudden they're they're they're reticent so first i want to start with the abortion issue the roe v wade that's the big issue and people look at the jewish community look at orthodox jews say well the orthodox judaism has one position when it comes to abortion it's not true and you've written about it but let's talk about the jewish position regarding abortion absolutely every time someone compliments me for having the courage to speak out i'm not sure if it's courage or foolishness it's a fine line between the two um but you know to me i think it's true and authentic and i think if we if we speak respectfully and sensitively and try our best to represent what god wants on his torah that's our responsibility and abortion is a perfect case study you know we're living in a time where we are increasingly more partisan increasingly divided increasingly politicized and our rabbis warned us not to use torah as a kardam lakhbor both they said don't take torah don't take judaism and don't turn it into a weapon an instrument don't use it as a means to battle or fight with others for other reasons or causes state to true to torah and what it represents so immediately when that leak came out the leak itself is in gross violation of torah egregious violation of morals and ethics whomever leaked the consideration of the supreme court but when the leak came out you saw social media light up and half of them said judaism is absolutely pro-choice and the other half said judaism is absolutely pro-life and the answer is that judaism doesn't conveniently fit into either of those two it's nuanced and it's complex and it's challenging and a person has to immerse themselves in the study to understand the details and understand the minutia and the sources and to understand that there are different opinions but we have a rich tradition of disagreement so when you represent judaism is this or is that you're actually oversimplifying judaism torah and judaism don't fit in 140 characters on twitter they take a lot more than that and we do a terrible terrible disservice to advance whatever political agenda to oversimplify or misrepresent or distort where torah or judaism is on something and i think our mission in addition to the topic itself when we can talk about abortion but the meta topic even before you get into abortion per se is that we should be advocating and we should be examples of nuance that things are complex and they're complicated they're not black and white there's gray we value life we believe abortion is prohibited the default is that abortion is wrong it's not a woman's right it's not anyone's right to choose it's not a function of your body it's a moral decision it's part of the definition of when life begins it falls under a legal system and legal analysis certainly we should feel strongly in a pro-life context that we value life and advocate for life and fight for life and we protect the most vulnerable for their lives however within that it's nuanced it's nuanced so for example moshe feinstein famously believed that abortion was murder and therefore only permissible when saving the life of the mother only permissible in self-defense if the baby is compromising the life of the mother the viability of the mother then you can abort the baby but there are many other opinions and in fact i personally as a rabbi have on several occasions had to be involved in abortion issues or questions of course never deciding on my own my shoulders are not nearly broad enough but turning to great rabbis of our generation and really it's the opinion of the titelies of oldenburg who was more permissive and liberal on abortion which i think many i won't say most contemporary halachic authorities follow in cases of rape and incest in case diseases that will give a very short life psychiatric ill where the well-being of the mother may be threatened in cases of production there are many men today where she is not the mainstream and my point is not to suggest that bush is not an opinion doesn't mean it's or those who follow it my point is it's complex and when we simplify we do a disservice so can politically land where we may but if we represent torah and judaism must begin by saying that we don't neatly to either the camps but rather we have something in between certainly stand for life portion the default is is we don't take it we advocate vulnerable however the the carve outs we mentioned particularly the life of the mother which even ramosa agrees but many other carve-outs as well i believe also if the mental health of the mother of the state i believe that sicily ezra says if the mother's mental health is affected they're also an abortion could be allowed i recently had a case that a woman with a strong psychiatric condition who had a history of depression and knew the concern she was not supposed to get pregnant again the question the concern was with the pregnancy and anxiety escalating she could have suicidal ideation she was at risk of suicide and i called them major posing who told me the major postage said to me ephraim it's not that it's permissible she's obligated to have an abortion if this pregnancy carries forward and it could cost her her own life because of her psychiatric vulnerability she could take her own life she's not only permissible she's obligated to have an abortion which is pretty strong language but really there are a few different issues that are a play and you're right about it number one is that the problem is is that people want abortion on demand as opposed to looking at different circumstances which is what you delineate the other issue is at what stage are we talking about a few weeks a few months i believe some some states want to have it where you can abort the baby up until birth so these are all varying degrees and this also has an impact on our discussion about abortion absolutely enormously we have demarcations before 40 days and after 40 days before 40 days the talmud calls my obama embryonic fluid that's not to minimize somebody who's pregnant less than 40 days but it means how logically the status of a pregnancy less than 40 days is not a full-fledged pregnancy with many many consequences including a miscarriage would the next child be epidemine there are many consequences of it so 40 days is a very significant delineation if a woman were raped and she was able to within 72 hours even prevent the pregnancy from taking root let alone aborting a viable pregnancy many more postgame would be permissive so when you can calculate tay sachs for example can be diagnosed within 40 days so that 48 to 40 day delineation is a significant one others see three months seven months the facility is willing to go later into pregnancy others only earlier into pregnancy but that's why this area and issue is so complex and complicated and there's such divergent opinions among our giants whom we accept them all and recognize ayluva elu that there can be multiple truths there's a system we have to follow it's a hierarchy we have to have a fidelity to but there are multiple truths that's why it's an injustice and a disservice to simplify it certainly to do so in the name of advancing a political agenda but in general though i would say and i don't want to label but i will is the left tends to portray orthodox jews as being barbaric backwards not with the times so this fits the narrative not just in the case of abortion but otherwise say well orthodoxy as well they have a different perspective and some jews believe the same thing too they don't know about our heritage but how do we communicate this message with what you have it's it's it's very very much a message that they know it's nuanced yeah it is it is a nuanced message and it's a message about nuance in this partisan world where you're either with me or against me you kill it there's no in between there's no derek hazel the middle way it doesn't exist correct i'll give you an example actually at the risk of uh upsetting some of your of your listeners um because of that we're not afraid of controversy here how difficult it is for people to understand this it goes back to the last administration for some reason there were people who were simply incapable of those including me to be able to simultaneously say the trump administration did unprecedentedly great things for israel and for the jewish people while i wholesale rejects so much of his character or his behavior or other aspects of what the administration did a nuanced view that says i can recognize the good be grateful for it embrace it wish there was more of it why simultaneously reject and be disappointed in other aspects of an administration or who a person was right the last administration was a perfect example of a world of with or against you get it or you don't get it you're either never trump or always trump you had people who thought he was perfect you had people who thought you're not allowed to criticize how dare you and you had others who said his imperfections are so great how dare you acknowledge anything good how dare you be grateful for anything that was done there's nuanced views life does not conveniently neatly fit into boxes and and i think again torah is a great platform of nuance and part of the charge and the mandate to the jewish people is not to fall into the trap of what's happening all around us in washington and everywhere else where everything is for or against everything is partisan everything is divided everything is you're on a different team i love unpredictable people who come to a conclusion about this this way that that way they're not predictable most people today you could ask them three questions you know everything about what they believe on anything or you could just look at how they're voted how they're registered to vote and you know almost everything about what they believe we weren't designed to be that way the world is complex we're complex torah is complex it's nuanced and we should stand for represent advocate model that nuance in this world but by the way you mentioned donald trump i'll get political for a moment i believe in the last election if i remember in the numbers it's approximately 90 percent of the orthodox jewish community supported and vote for donald trump he's almost mashiach he talked about him today so your nuance perspective is not the mainstream of most the majority of orthodox jews that well the nuance it's very lonely place i'll be honest over that last administration i felt like i was in a very lonely place vilified by both sides including as a rabbi if you didn't by those who were forever trump and thought that he was you know literally uh the messiah of the jewish people if you said anything critical if you alluded or hinted if you're critical of of things that deserve to be criticized and that we torah personalities should recoil from then you were vilified how dare you not appreciate all the good he's done and on the other hand if you said you know there were some remarkable contributions some incredible breakthrough some things that we truly should be grateful for that no one before him and and we don't know if after him anyone will do then you are vilified by the other side how dare you if a torah character be willing to say anything positive so that's not limited to the trump administration i believe you met with president barack obama and he was not liked and i'm putting it mildly in the orthodox jewish community but he did do some good the iron dome and i said this publicly he has to be thanked for his support of the iron drum people didn't like that either so we live in times very partisan people don't want to look and they say everybody's completely evil completely good they don't look at banner they don't look at everybody in between it's a dangerous world we're living in in so many ways the world is increasingly becoming unrecognizable every day from our basic definitions and identities and interactions and policies it's increasingly unrecognizable and our job i think that hashem without without being too dramatic i really believe that god is telling we his children hey stand up and speak for truth with nuance with sensitivity and with love but defend the principles through which i created this world before we find ourselves in a generation of the flood before we find ourselves in a generation of egypt we're becoming so morally corrupt and bankrupt that with all the progress we've made technologically in medicine and so many other areas we've met we've regressed so far back morally and i think it's up to us to not necessarily not necessarily to not fall prey to some of the definitions or fears or canceling or political correction of the time with sensitivity with love with nuance with respect but also with firmness represent and stand up for hashem and talk about how we believe he wants us to behave and how we should defend his world so today the world we're living and i was i was talking recently to a congressman and he said to me he's a phenomenal congressman richard taurus from the bronx and oh yeah we had him on he's a liberal progressive candidate who's a very big supporter of israel exactly he's a phenomenal person and he said you know we're living in a world where you're rewarded for the wrong behavior and you're punished for the right behavior if you make headlines by calling the other person names by cursing by saying radical outrageous things you'll pick up another million followers online you'll raise another million dollars you'll win another term and you are rewarded for your being outrageous you are you're rewarded for being adversarial and on the other end if you say hey let's work across the aisle we have a lot in common the things that we can get done let's speak respectfully to and about one another you'll have no followers you'll raise no money and somebody will rise and knock you out of office so we're living in a world that you're noticed you're noticed and you're rewarded for the wrong behavior and you're invisible and you are eliminated for the right behavior and it's up to us to change you see that by the way even among jewish personalities the ones who have the biggest followings online or make the most noise often are the ones who say the most outrageous things they're the ones who get the attention and they get the followers and so on they get the the air time and the ones who are saying the right things well nobody wants to hear that that doesn't make a headline you know so it's a challenging time but we need to model for ourselves and most importantly for our children the way that we're meant to be behaving our guest is not afraid to speak out robbie ephrem goldberg is a senior rabbi of the boca raton synagogue a rapidly growing shul of over 850 families in florida he's also well sought after speaker lecturer one of the top brown boys in the united states involvement in different jewish organizations we're talking about consensus we tend to either go right or left there's no middle i believe you got criticized when you came out supporting the rabbi who was held hostage in texas people sent you all kinds of things about what the rabbi does in his viewpoints and you basically said that your concern for him is regardless of whatever his viewpoints are for just being a jew it wasn't very popular with some people out there correct correct that rabbi while he was held hostage universally we were all praying for him but what happened was soon after his heroic release he threw that chair they got out people as is want to do today dig up whatever they could find online that he had ever posted or written or whatever his beliefs were and they found politically he was outside the pale of what they want now first of all even while he was held hostage his own theological religious beliefs are outside of the pale of what i believe but what does that have to do with anything if i had a son or a daughter a brother or sister whose life was threatened or held hostage would i pause to say what kind of yamaka do they wear where do they send their kids to school do they open cans on shabbos or do they end at rabino tom like would you stop to ask those questions or would you say a fellow jews life is threatened our job is to stop and pray for them so i actually found it deeply disturbing and offensive how quickly we pivoted from caring about a fellow jew to then we discovered that that fellow jew politically on israel is different than us so debate rigorously take him on rigorously debate with him rigorously advocate incredibly strongly for what you believe of course i'm i'm i'm all for that but in terms of our care and our concern for a fellow jew review went to the jails did he first check everyone sits us did he first check their yamaka do you want to know where they are in a two-state solution that wasn't a two-state solution then but i'm just saying our greatest heroes the biggest sadiq of our time in the past time they saw the heart of a jew they prayed for a jew you'll get back later to debating plenty of time and plenty of room to debate call that rabbi from texas and have a debate about peace in israel but but while he's held hostage and right afterwards should have only concern and care you mentioned you know it was funny you would think about as you mentioned by arya levine i was thinking about him as you were talking because he loved everybody he came from a karate background he was the rabbi to the iran to the stern prisoners in british prisons he loved them all in fact when they saw him even if they were religious and there was on shabbos if they were smoking a cigarette they put it in their mouth so you shouldn't be seen by them by smoking on shabbos there's stories of holding the hand of murderers and really he reached out and and he's something an example and i recommend the book of sonic nerd times and i'm glad you mentioned him because that's how we should be is not be judgmental we always look to find the fault in somebody we should be looking to find the positive in somebody exactly i'll tell you my favorite environment story zev is he was walking through nakhla the little neighborhood in which he lived and there was a boy who grew up in the neighborhood who had been avoiding him he was weaving in and out of alleys every time ravi levin walked his way he would disappear around the corner and finally he couldn't help it once by accident of ireland ran right into him so he said to the young man he said you know i haven't seen you in so long where have you been so the young man sheepishly he was shy he was ashamed he said to the tadik he said you know said a few months ago i became less religious and i stopped wearing a yarmulke and i was so afraid to run into you i didn't want to disappoint you i don't want to upset you i've been avoiding you so raj levin looked at the man and he said the young boy and he said he said you know i'm a very short man i can't see what's on your head all i could see is what's in your heart and that's how he lived his life i can't see what's on your head all i see is what's in your heart now again and this is what i wrote about maybe a month ago um also is is the nuance the nuance position and it's a very very fine line to try to weave how can we on the one hand say we know what a man is we know what a woman is we know what marriage is we have these definitions they're as basic to us as is that the world is round and nobody can tell us differently this is the way god created the world the definitions he gave us he built into the fabric of creation the distinction between male and female masculinity femininity basic biology but at the same time we also acknowledge and recognize that not everyone feels that they fit neatly into those definitions so how can we maintain and preserve our definitions and our policies and at the same time show sensitivity and welcoming and to confront bullying of those who don't fit in that takes nuance so you have segments of the community you say this is what we believe everything outside of that is disgusting and it's a toeva and it's an abomination and there's no room and drive them away and you have others who wholesale say this is the civil rights issue of our time so therefore we believe and we'll even officiate those weddings and we make room and we will reinterpret torah and what i'm advocating for is that nuance position to find to try to weave that fine line it's very very difficult that says this is our truth it's immutable it's not debatable this is what we believe but the fact that we believe it does not mean that therefore we're a group of bullies it doesn't mean that we're insensitive or callous we care about and we make space for the people who believe differently even while we are uncompromising what we believe that's a very nuanced and a very difficult very difficult but i think that the stakes are very high to do that and to do it now because i don't think it's a long time and in some communities already happening now i believe that it's not a long time from now in which we're gonna have sensitivity training in jewish day schools that talk about pronouns and allowing children to choose their pronouns and i don't think if we don't stop this now and if we don't stand up for what we believe now and again while also developing curriculum against bullying and while also making room with sensitivity to those who are different but without being defensive and without being apologetic standing up for what we believe this is this slope is so slippery and it's moving so fast that if we don't act now we could have a lot of regrets later i want to get to that do you remind me of the sri dev who had a relationship and a friendship a deep friendship with i believe a professor at the hebrew union college who was criticized for having that relationship and he says yes i know the torah says somebody who's anti-torah i'm supposed to hate them but i can't i can't hate a fellow jew and i think that's that's what we're talking about over here but how do we deal rabbi ephram gober how do we deal with gender sensitivity issues he she they all the pronouns how do we deal with gays with those that uh uh lesbians and in the orthodox place because on the one hand it's prohibited by the torah but they belong to orthodox jewels a lot of them are speaking out how should we deal with it it's a big question it's a big question gender of course too right it's a big question probably bigger for the time that we have now um but we need to deal with it thoughtfully and we need to deal with it sensitively and we need to deal with it uh in a principled way without watering down or compromising what we believe in so i think to me those are the um principles that that drive us that we have to have our truth and be uncompromising in it but one of the truths that we have is sensitivity so for example the torah says that um that gay relations gay intercourse is clearly biblically prohibited it's called the toevan abomination but so are dishonest weights and skills so are dishonest measures the people who don't pay their taxes are are violating the very same word of abomination or toeva as those who experience these interpersonal relations so the interpersonal relationship we cannot be material we cannot permit that which is forbidden the torah doesn't recognize a marriage other than between a husband and a wife a man and a woman the torah doesn't permit does not allow the union the physical union of of two men and to women is more complicated within allah but also the torah is not uh does not allow outright for that as well i'll give you an example it happened to me and i'm involved with different truths i don't want to mention the name of the shul but there was somebody who was diving for the army when i walked in they said take him off and he was at the israeli day parade wearing a gay pride button he's gay you can't have him down before the audience the first one i don't know who the person is never saw me i'm not taking him off i'm not going to embarrass somebody in the middle of the show but there was a whole scene about it so these are things which and i understand where people are coming from but to embarrass people it's not the way the jewish way but we're seeing more of that reactionary reactions in lots of different places i just gave one small example of that yeah you did the advocacy is so strong that that's what i think is creating you know for each action is a reaction so the advocacy by the gay community the transgender community lgbtq these communities their advocacy is so strong and so in everyone's face so to say that it's garnered an equal reaction in the opposite direction but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the way we are meant to react so again is there nuance is there room in the middle that says that if somebody doesn't wear it on their sleeve is not challenging you they're not wearing their rainbow color gay advocacy shirt in shul right ensure they're there as an evident trying to daven so is there room that says while we cannot permit things that the torah says are forbidden while we as a shul could never give a family membership to two men or two women we couldn't give we couldn't recognize a family membership where judaism doesn't endorse a familial connection but we still can make room in space what do you do like in a school where you have two lesbians or two gay men have a child in a yeshiva and you send out a no do you call parent and parent you call mr mister how do you how do you deal with these are issues which are coming more prevalent in some of the modern orthodoxy schools they're becoming more prevalent every day each one has to deal with it with their own process their own rabbis their own lay leaders their own policies but i think that what the tools that we have to use to navigate this question is uh we have to stay true to the torah so you you cannot call um you you cannot call a gay couple a couple a family they're not a husband and a husband that's the torah doesn't recognize that on the other hand do you punish a child who's been adopted or the product who who's jewish and who wants a jewish education and a jewish future do we deny or deprive that to that child so how do we carefully navigate what i'll say and again this is a topic much much bigger and broader let's have it back more in depth yeah but i'll just say this i i think that both sides are going to need to be willing to play ball meaning the the gay couple or lgbt or whatever the the transgender and in our show we had um a case of a of a man who man wore garthel and a black hat and underwent surgery to become a woman and i was guided by again by gedola israel i would never make these decisions on my own um during that time period what we do and which side of a majitsa what kind of a membership and how we function and and uh there were interesting answers to all those questions but both sides have to come in with the spirit of a willing to work it out if either one is going to come in as an advocate if either one is coming in as as virulent if either one is coming in as overly vocal it's not gonna it's not gonna be able to find that nuance that space that gray where we can stay true to our principles and our values unapologetic for what the torah and allah say and yet make space because we love you if somebody's going to get up and scream how dare you not accept my family membership as a husband and a husband my gay marriage then if you're going to challenge us would you wish them if they had let's say that boy who is either the gay or lesbian couple has a bar mitzvah do you acknowledge the the the two individuals that have this child has do you wish some mazel tov from the pulpit i've not been put in that position yet i say yet because likely we all will at some point um but yeah how do you navigate that how do you wish your muscles up to the boy and how do you acknowledge uh these two men in his life who nurture and love and care and are devoted without acknowledging that they are married how do you acknowledge these two men in his life it never comes up or how do you deal with it i think there'll be a lot of wordsmithing that will have to happen we have had to deal with and i think every rabbi has or will you know what happens when a member of the shul has a child who has the same gender marriage do you wish a mazel tov in the announcements for that what happens this is not nearly the same it's a lot less complicated what happens when a single woman undergoes ivf to have a child you wish her a mazel tov on the birth of her child outside the context of a marriage um because she's undergone ivf again less much less controversial much less halachically complicated but also not normative in the world than what i find what i find intriguing though if you have a situation where you have a couple who have a child and the child into marriage you wouldn't even think to wish mazel tov from the from the pulpit you know but yet with the same gender same sex marriage takes place they expect it it's just an interesting way of how people have different expectations and with younger with younger it's even stronger go into almost any modern orthodox and i would argue by the way it's not just modern orthodox i would argue you can go into certainly out of town more yeshivish places and you ask these young people if you have a good friend who's having a same-sex marriage and invites you would you go and you will be shocked by the high percentage who say look i don't believe it it's against the torah but i'm happy for them and i want them to be happy and yes i would go or i would acknowledge it or i would send a gift or i would have them over and then you say to them but would you go if your friend intermarries would you attend that wedding and they'll all say no and then you say well what's the difference why would you not go to a close friends into marriage wedding but you would go to a close friend's same gender marriage wedding and they struggle to come up with an answer i i think it's partially that the world has positioned the same gender marriage as the civil rights issue of our time and therefore it's discriminatory not to and i don't want to be part of that i just want them to be happy no matter my beliefs i think ramos feinstein was asked a question by somebody whose child was intermarried and he asked for moshe should he said shiva for the child moshe said no because if he's sitting shiva it means he's dead the dead don't come back but it's a chance you know they'll come back a few moments left rabbi uh we're looking at some very important issues robbie here from goldberg is not afraid to speak out the senior rabbi the boca raton synagogue a well-sought-out speaker across the united states involved in so many different jewish organizations and one of the issues that you got yourself in trouble with robert goldberg was an event that took place in january of 2022 which had the united states ambassador david friedman and you had ben shapiro you also had latino coalition fiscal president pastor mario bromnick and people were attacking you for saying how can you have a missionary in your shul it was a very pro-israel event and we do believe in reaching out to the evangelical christian community but you got a lot of flack for that so tell us what that was all about and they said rehearsal was opposed they forged a letter right they're saying that he didn't allow you to do it all fakery but what's going on the people go to such length as they'll spread lies and misinformation and print things which are not true and fabricate documents is this the torah way of doing things i was shocked when i saw that it was shocking you know is that i had a full head of dark hair before that event that's not true but um you know unfortunately very few things shocked me anymore and this is a consequence of trying to do the right thing there are things i've learned or do differently not that i regret or think that we did anything wrong um but we did this night for israel israel look at the wave of terror that's going through israel now israel is constantly under threat from our outside and from inside and what what i found fascinating was the people who are throwing arrows at me the people who are the most critical and willing to violate every line of of ethics forging a letter from republicans there was violation how can you attack a jew with lies distortions correct without benefit of a doubt without speaking to you i was just appalled when i saw that death threats death threats to me to my family to the entire shul you know that there we received a horrific chemical weapon death threat that the whole show we have to spend so much money on security for that night and why were we doing this event the whole event was for israel we had a thousand people pack our shul to your ambassador david freeman and ben shapiro and we recognized our congressman he couldn't be there that night a democrat my beloved friend ted deutsch we had words from governor desantis and from senator scott it was an amazing night for israel amazing night for israel nothing religious about it and mary abramnek is absolutely not a missionary and the latino coalition for israel has done more is is still until today advocating for abraham accords in other countries is pushing south american countries to move their embassies to jerusalem they are working and fighting so hard for israel and the jewish people it's shocking they haven't given up that work because of the way they were treated but we partnered with them again under the guidance of godol israel they were great great rabbis who absolutely personally i believe gave you he gave you a probation for it his two sons came to the event to show support actually came um and there was nothing religious there was nothing uh proselytizing there was nothing missionizing about it whatsoever what's ironic about it again you know for whatever reason these people are decided to make me enemy number one and to try to gain popularity because as i said before you're rewarded for being outrageous so if you make video after video after video where you call someone a monster and deserving of death and describe them as being a missionary and you say outrageous things you can get a lot of followers you're going to try to build your own persona or brand in that way certainly not the way i would ever want to build my brand but it was based on lies and falsehoods there was nothing true about it we ended up with an extraordinary event and an event that we advocated and continued to advocate for israel and israel itself was was very grateful that we uh that we held that event so there was nothing religious no missionizing no proselytizing simply cooperating and the irony is that that the jewish community is regularly partnering with with uh with the christians and evangelicals absolutely in new york gave a lot of money to orthodox jewish organization i know some of them in fact americana was the first person to really go after the evangelicals to get money for them i know if you're aware of that but yeah pastor pastor hagie the evangelicals have given money to um rabbi grossman the disco rabbi and meg del oro mcdonald the evangelicals just last year a couple years ago they made a big donation to the assans cloisenberg hospital with the rebbe's uh permission oscar these um montiado hospital great life-saving tools were purchased in the hospital from evangelicals or how about the fact that a good of new york works with the church when it came to corona and the ability to reopen private and parochial schools they work on a regular basis i spoke to rabbi moshe sharer of blessed memory who used to be regular cardinal o'connor used to have breakfast meetings on a regular basis it was confirmed for me both by cardinal khan and by members of their goodness so you need to have relationships you need to work with groups uh and especially in new york where you have problems with education and the state and the new york state department of education getting involved in curriculums this affects jews and non-jews tuition tax relief there are lots of issues that we're working together with so uh people that be aware of it but it exists it was a manufactured controversy because again it only benefits the people putting out the fake news so it's telling them left you said you would do things differently with that event what would you have done differently in retrospect yeah the one thing i would have done differently is not to at the boca raton synagogue together with latino coalition of israel i would have joined with other schools in south florida i would have made a much bigger broader night for israel latino coalition for israel would be one but that way all the focus and emphasis would not just be on me and our shul those who would gun for and hate what we were doing let them take on all of us we didn't do it alone now either we did it with simon wiesenthal center was a co-sponsor uh rabbi adlerstein who was an expert in this area actually heads up the interfaith work of the wiesenthal center was a partner and a big supporter in the event but that's really the only thing i would have done differently i don't regret working with the evangelicals if we have to rely on the jews for israel we're in big trouble supporters of and by the way that's changing the younger generation evangelicals are not supportive of israel unfortunately we have to work about that too we need a birthright for christians as well to go to israel pastor mario brownlick what was his reaction to all the brouhaha the controversy did you speak to him about it because i'm sure he was aware what was going on yeah i did he was very shaken by it he was very shaken by it he was very deeply disturbed by it he had his own expense hired private security for several weeks because of the threats that were going around and it was deeply disturbing and as i said we're lucky that he hasn't stopped his work for israel he flies around south american countries regularly and he represents an enormous i believe millions of of latinos for israel and when he comes into a political office and he advocates for moving the embassy to jerusalem it carries weight and it's a miracle that he hasn't abandoned all this work because of the of the focus and the lies that were spread about him grateful for his work and the work of others and again we're not proselytizing we fight missionaries we have to stand up to missionaries but you have to be nuanced and you have to be educated people are not educated especially if you're on the internet people on social media on the internet just because somebody sent you a link or you watched a youtube video or they what's apps you something doesn't mean it's true be thoughtful be smart be judicious in what you read and what you listen to and what you watch know where it's coming from and uh and know the people that they're speaking about and ask yourself does that sound like the rabbi i know does that sound like the community i know would they be in the business of converting their entire community to christianity does that make any sense whatsoever so we have to be uh judicious and educated consumers of information will always be bad characters they'll always be bad characters spreading lies and misinformation it puts even greater responsibility on us to be careful in how we access information we are from goldberg senior rabbi to boca raton synagogue he's a well sought out leader one of the top jewish rabbis in the united states and he has a very popular podcast so what is the name of the podcast robert goldberg podcast called behind the bema an opportunity to hear from a little bit these kinds of discussions in the rabbinate what's life like as a rabbi rabbi's children what are the decisions we make how do we go about the policies that we do different holidays that come up how do we prepare and the highlight is every episode every week we interview another major personality a jewish non-jewish religious non-religious from whom we can learn and gain and we've had really diverse over 80 incredible leaders men and women and uh we'd love if you checked it out behind the bema recommended and i apologize we never had you on before this is the first but not the last time i got to have you back thanks to hear a voice not afraid to speak out call look about keep on speaking out thank you for having me it's been a real honor and i really appreciate the conversation thanks for listening for continuous jewish programs 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