Q&A With Rabbi Efrem Goldberg (Hosted by Moshe Schonbrun) - Part 4

hello and welcome to real questions real answers on contemporary topics i'm moshe schonbrunn and our guest tonight's rabbi are from goldberg tonight's live is sponsored by bits of glitz thank you so much bits of glitz for sponsoring tonight's live hold on one second and we have rabbi ephraim goldberg coming up thank you everyone for joining us tonight first full weekday of the new year hello rabbi goldberg hello hello thank you so much for coming out for taking the time always a pleasure this is super busy season for for a rav of a shawl right before shabbat shiva right after russia's shady i'm kipper and you're coming on with us it's it's it is tax season for sure but there's nowhere i'd rather be amazing okay so if anyone has any questions they could drop it into the question box you could also pop it into the comments if you do put it in the question box it will remain pinned so here we are so right goldberg i was before we start i was listening to uh behind the beam uh behind to be my podcast which is a must listen to and there was a conversation about the virtual versus in-person shah bashub russia i just want to say from my personal experience when when my wife and i first moved out to campus to tucson arizona so we got used to quickly we got used to the heat we eventually got used to the lack of pizza stores and kosher restaurants mignon and all that but the one thing that always like hit me with shabashuva shops i got the when we didn't have a drusha and then when kovac came around that was the first time travis had got all with the rubbish russia was my first job as i go though russia that i heard in years oh wow so there are people like me out in the world so i have a good idea as to how to still maintain the in-person presence and you know like some uh sporting games buccaneers they're playing they have a blackout for the locals so you can't access the virtual if you're local but if you're outside the perimeter i like that amazing i like that i have to figure out i'm not exactly sure how you do that with youtube or whatever other streaming service i'm not sure how you do that it was a heart rate yeah we're back up can you hear me am i good yes all right i think i'm coming in that i promise so it was a heart-wrenching decision because you know you can't compare watching something online while you're multitasking when it's in the background with being in a room torah you know harshinai everyone didn't stay in their tents and like you know we streamed tarsinai to them there was an experience of being at the base of that mountain and understand that torah is meant to be transmitted very much commemorating the way it was originally given buressus and bizea were supposed to feel intensity and enthusiasm and energy with a little bit of trembling a little sense of the awesomeness and the grandeur of the moment so that energy doesn't come across as wonderful as technology is we're taking advantage of it together tonight and as much as a gift and as wonderful as it is it cannot ever take the place of the energy incredible speakers you know tugs in your heartstrings and it taps into your nashoma and your soul in a way that doesn't come across online so you know there's a gift of of technology as a gift of corona that we've been able to all expand what we are able to access and those who teach be able to to whom they teach but it can never take the place of what we do offline incredible okay so we have a drop of technological technological lags but we're still going to do this momentarily yes yes okay so the the first question is about song gadalia so today was the fast day and this is more general to all fast days that with the externalization the trends in the world we're living in and sometimes we go through the outer motions and many times a fast day feels i know myself since two o'clock today i've been thinking just about coffee and penne alla vodka so but really the fast is not supposed to just be about oh i have a headache and what's my next food and literally the whole day i've just been thinking about food so and this happens pretty much every fast so would there have some tips or advice and how to extract more of the the essence yeah sure absolutely first of all not to say that i've uh achieved them or lived them we all struggle i had a splitting headache the entire day and was desperate for the cup of coffee i'm finally enjoying now barack obama finally get that cup of coffee i've been dying for it all day so i think it's i think it's very simple i think that you know we are made up of an animal soul and a godly soul there's a piece of us that's physical that's material it's connected to the to the earth and to the physical world and we eat we drink we eliminate what we ate we reproduce we very much have in common anatomically and behaviorally with animals there's the animal soul in us the nephesh bahami there's you know what we call the animal impulse the animal instinct we eat like a pig or we live in a pigsty or we like an animal or act like an animal so there's that animal impulse that ambulance that you're about something so much more we are a piece of god i feel like this literally god breathed life into us we spoke about i think last week when we blew the chauffeur we were using the very breath that god put into us to begin with we use that breath to produce the sound of the shoulder god you're still in me that breath is still inside of me i'm still godly disciplined in control sovereign so every now and then this world is physical beings we need to eat to live we shouldn't live to eat in order so god put us in this world that he wants us to enjoy the pleasures of this world he doesn't want us to live we're not animals so the more we emphasize the godly soul the less we have our animal soul the more that we indulge the animal impulse then the less expression and the less we are in contact and in touch with the godly soul so we're striking that balance all the time every day we wake up we're in that battle and we're trying to strike that balance between the animal and me and the godly that's what reverse writes what car bonus sacrifices in the basement we're all about god i'm offering you this animal i'm offering you the animal inside me i'm burning the fats i'm offering you the indulgences i'm giving you blood the the the the um the wine libations that is that is luxuries well i'm directing it all to you but i slaughtered the animal i'm slaughtering the animal in me so what i try to think about on fast days in between the cravings and in between the caffeine withdrawal and in between the splitting headache what i try to think about is that those things don't define me and i and only when i can live without it am i entitled to live with it when it doesn't define me and it's not what i live for and it doesn't determine who i am but i strive to be something so much more you know an animal the morale says an animal walks around on all four behemoths what you see is what you get the animal walking around on all fours facing the earth because the earth is the not only the means is the ends the animal just wants to indulge in the animal pleasures of this world but the human being we start out on fort as we crawl but then we stand up and then we walk on two legs because we're not trying to face the earth we're trying to and we ascend up because that's our ambition that's what we're trying to do is to say of course i need to eat and i'll return to eating but for 12 hours for 24 hours 25 hours i want to live like an angel i want to i want to test run i want to remind myself that i enjoy those things but i don't need them they don't define me and only once i can make the statement to myself and others that i could live without now i'm entitled to live with god so the hunger pains are expected it's really the response of the responses i'm looking up recipes and cooking and that that's further emphasizing the animalistic side as opposed to leaning into the hunger and saying this does not define me that's that's right i love that exactly i'll tell you i'll tell you another amazing idea there uh the chef in our quotes are my quotes there's a custom on a fast day to give stukka we all know that the whole reason we're fasting is to try to reflect and introspect and we're trying to analyze our life and see you know is too many amazon prime packages coming to my house is my whole life defined by the brand that i wear and the logo on my car the size of my house is that too much of my life you know i have to live without i have to remind myself that that's not who i am what i'm supposed to be it's not what should define me so part of that virtue of uh introspection self-reflection that day is to get stuck up so the rama says how much stuck would you give you give the amount of three meals the meals that you skipped so is that just like a cute thing like you saved money on the meals you didn't eat so now you give that to stucco i don't remember when i saw that brings it down i forgot what i saw that the idea is you feel the hunger pains now you know what the poor person feels every day not just a fast day when we fast on these fast days and our stomach growls and we're counting down to when we have food and we're allowed to eat that's how the poor person doesn't know where their next meal is coming from that's how they feel every day so it's daft the day that we feel that we should empathize we should channel what we're feeling to have a sense of empathy to the people who feel it even more often wow that's deep okay moving on that's amazing uh moving on we have a question here in the comments um i'm gonna take that to heart coming uh i mean young kipper we can't really give but amazing um so i heard today this is from seven zero mommy071670 heard today that some believe that the gates closed on rosh hashanah and i was also told that we hadn't told young kipper to turn any decree which statement is true i'd add ishana rabba is the the gemara din um and i'll i'll join it to another question that we had pre-submitted was somebody was saying that they went through rosh hashanah and it was great while they were in shul and the schaefer and the pseudos they were all great but now comes today and they feel like they're the same person again and now they want to go looking for yom kippur is coming out like how do how do we uh how do we place ourselves in this russian shannon kepper and gedalia yes those are overlapping questions for sure you know the torah hashem our rabbis all did a great job and it's not that they were disingenuous with us but the truth is we know you can do truth i think we talked about this last week or two weeks you could destroy any day you make a mistake in december or you make it you can also trust not only during this time it's that during this time hashem is more predisposed to hashem being so which has all understand to me call it to god when he's close apostle king shaya these are the ten days the seven days between russian dipper and melaka the king is not only in the palace normally the king's in the palace there are layers you got to be able to get past you got to be able to get in you got to use your patexia you get 30 seconds in the oval office what are you going to say with that time now the king's out and about he's in the street he's in your shoes is that your kitten she's in your home what are you going to take advantage of that time how we want to talk to him so yes one can talk to the king all year round but it's a little harder to get access whereas he's much more accessible much more readily available much more predisposed to receive and to receive with um um favorably what it is that we're looking for so rosh hashanah rosh hashanah launches a period not of judgment rosh hashanah we work for you you don't work for us you run the world we don't run the world really we're going to conform our wants to your wants not the other way around we submit we surrender you're in charge now that doesn't mean we sit back as passive spectators we got to get up we got to take our initiative we got to do our best but in the end of the day after we've given it our all in parnassus in whatever area of life we've given it our all we've tried everything and now god i submit i surrender now it's really all up to you i work for you you don't work for me you're in charge of you but when i karna god is king god says okay i'm the king let's say who do i want in my administration who do i want my cabinet and that's what the mission is everything in the world comes before god in judgment even the helicopter instagram is judged by god will instagram have a good year a bad year youtube facebook twitter what will be the latest the chair the blade of grass the table everything comes before god in judgment because god is the king recarnated says what do i want my kingdom what do i want in my palace who do i want my cabinet who do i want in my administration what will i bring back and therefore what happens is on rosh hashanah you'll notice we didn't say any slichos i'm not sure we don't talk about hate about the mistakes we've made roshan is not a day of of um of of judgment in that way um but rosh hashanah kicks off it launches these 10 days where now we're making our argument from rosh hashanah team kippur on yom kippur god's going to make the decision this is who i'm bringing back this is how i want my administration this is who i want my cabinet this who the world needs and the world would be missing something if they weren't here and therefore we spend the week every day trying to make the compelling argument god make i'm telling you i'm here to serve you here's the difference i make here's my mission in this world i understand that i accept it i'm ready for it i want to enjoy the problem get the pleasures from the world but i'm here to serve you i'm here to represent you i am your ambassador i'm your agent in this world and that's why salons says that the secret you want to be signed and sealed for a great year the secret is be an ish if you connect yourself to the community become an indispensable member of the community because what happens then on judgement day you don't just say like you know me private me keep me around keep you around y so you can binge watch netflix keep you around why so you can shop for more things keep around more so you have more money no so the more we attach ourselves and become indispensable then god we're making the argument so rosh hashanah launches that period of our trying to persuade make a compelling argument to god about why he needs to bring his back yom kippur he makes the decision and while he makes that decision really he seals it more fully on roshana rabbi and even then really on the eighth night of chanukah and then even really then it's a little bit later so it's staggered and it's in stages but all of it is meant to inspire us to continue to evaluate continue to reflect continue to stay steady now the question of rosh hashanah we were on fire and now it's the day after we all feel like we're hit by trucks and are we just reverting back to who we were that's on us that's on us those they can't be empty promises and empty lip service it can't be a wish list we talked about it's got to be a resolution gotta make a plan i'll give you a shameless plug i'm giving the shadow shiva josh on motif at 9 00 p.m and it's all about our habits determine our future how can we create the right habits break the wrong habits our habits determine our future we are the we are the composite of the habits that we have so you're right you're on fire shall we making all kinds of promises and pledges and god is going to be my year this is who i want to be is what i'm capable of being and i'm telling you i'm on fire the house and that this chauffeur i just blew my mind it was the alarm woke me up i'm ready and then you just the next day go back to work and go back to carpool and go back to life and you forgot everything you said and everything you promised so it's all in the habits how do we concretize how do we capture and how do we make sure that we transform what we promised and pledged in our mind and make it habits i know i'm long-winded but i'll tell you one more thing i was curious i didn't know why we have uh we have a shreeba minion which is essentially khabar guys doesn't say the week that we're trying to make the argument you don't say slickos so somebody sent me today actually inside uh somebody sent me the actual uh source if i could pull it up i would read it here's the option and then are you ready says you're making the argument to god don't be in school make an argument be out making the go do the mitzvahs learn the torah do the give the stucco volunteer get out and that's when you're going to make the biggest difference wow some of it was was a drop chopping so i'll just recap make sure i got it so the reason why fabada is not saying slightly serious mechuva because we reached a certain point where we got to take all that inspiration that we got on rosh hashanah we got from sleepus and now we're going out and putting it into action making it real listen to the rabbi's matashamas drasha nine o'clock we already have some comments saying i signed up to listen um we have how do we get to the matsujaba shuv follow rabbi gober you'll be able to find it um we have ricky weinstein that was unreal um mommy zero seven amazing answer um thank you i made it only camilla songs is here thank you everyone for commenting for joining great stuff okay one more question just in terms of rosh hashanah yom kippur sure we have kabbalah's munich of claudius jewish people for for a long time have been taking out something special just for these few days uh seriously shoot with 10 days when shawn sam kipper and the question is if we know it's not going to last is there what's the value in that and i would i would add here a plug for me for a minute there's a great initiative to fila before tech to wake up in the morning and before logging into any sort of technology to first connect it's field to connect and for me i'm i signed up and i know that in the years past that we did the call of duty stroll and official outcome you know eating special foods but now this is super meaningful a great way to start your day but i know this might not last i'm going to try but it might not last all year how do we um how do we view that when a short-term resolution sure that's a great question i once wrote an article about this because i thought the same thing and i came across i didn't i never attended it but i came across there's a a gym [Music] again i lost it again all right i'm i'm back can you hear me yes jim can you hear me i'm excited yes okay i'm sorry i don't know what i don't know if it's a mayan it's all from hashem i don't know why hashem wants our technology to have some some challenges tonight so there's uh there's a gym going great i love it yeah you can hear me though well i guess i won't hear you if i if you can't hear me so it wouldn't help but there's a gym called i think it's called orange theory orange something and classes it's um i forget exactly the backgrounds of it but they have what they call hiit workouts if you have a peloton you can you can take those kinds of workouts um in almost every form of exercise you have the hit workouts hiiit high intensity interval training high intensity interval training and the idea of it is that you can't sustain that heart rate and you can't sustain that intensity long term but you can do so for intervals and if you do it for the interval even though there's a period of recovery after the intense interval in the end you get an incredible workout somebody i wrote this article then somebody works out to actually send it to the the founder of orange theory whatever who i think is a jewish person and who loved the metaphor because i said rosh hashanah yom kippur this time of the year for us is a high intensity interval training it's an interval so some of the things that we're taking upon ourselves we're not naive to think that we're going to do it indefinitely there are people waking up much earlier in the morning to get sleepless in and to do more there are people who are pushing themselves extra learning extra volunteering extra extra boundaries with technology and those things are wonderful but the high intensity interval is not meant to become sustained you'll you'll break something you'll tear something you'll injure yourself you can't maintain that intensity it has to be for an interval that's the best bet that you have that it's going to last and the same is true whoop do you hear me did i lose you now we're here we're here the same is true i think i think the same is true for us spiritually so there are there are improvements and there are changes and there are transformations to our habits and we want to laugh there there are those well done maybe i should sign out and back in will that help i'm not sure how this works but i could i could hear i get the uh i'm getting 99. okay so there there are there are things that we're trying to change which we want to become permanent parts of our repertoire we want them to change permanently and again the shameless plug that's what i'm going to speak about on mote shabbos i have like six suggestions practical how the changes we've been waiting to make in our life we can finally make there are changes that science and research and long before them torah and khazal told us that these are exactly the ways that we can make significant changes so those aren't things that we want to only do for an interval those are things that we want to do in that so i'm always late and i want to become more punctual and time sensitive here's how i change that habit i i never read and i claim i want to start reading or learning or i want to work on my anger my frustration here are ways i can make meaningful changes in my life but some of the other things like this amazing meaningful minute campaign and initiative is an interval it's a high intensity interval and i think it's important for us to know and to name here are the things i'm trying to change permanently and here are the things that for this interval i'm pushing myself for this week for these 10 days like you referenced you know pasi throw [Music] whatever we take on maybe it's not something we're prepared to do regularly we're doing it for an interval so i think that's very important to um is to name what our commitment is much more to be able to do it incredible so there's there is that great value in that high intensity like orange theory has and then to be able to identify what are we doing walking three miles per hour on a treadmill and at high intensity and to have that clarity and know the balance and to come in with that wholesome approach it's really cool okay uh transitioning yeah um any any questions follow-ups feel free to add it in the comments into the into the question box uh transitioning to a community and we're running out of time as a always it always feels like we're running out of time here and so this is a uh it was hard hearing this question um and i wa i'm very curious on the rob's response um i was talking to somebody who's an older single so higher 20s lower 30s has been in in shidduchim for a while and the sentiment that was being expressed was that he and many of his friends feel that they don't have a space in the community they have meals they get invited out but they always feel as a as uh you know beholden to somebody else's plans that in the community itself is not set up it's set up either for families which is great or it's set up for for teenagers for for the youth but there's a large segment emerging adults that feel that they don't have a space and that the words were that the the greatest pain of being single is not that we're not married but that we don't have we don't feel part of the community and i was wondering if the rov had some perspective or or insight on this emerging and we fail we fail a lot of segments of our community and we need to do better we could do better and we have to do better and we will do better whether it's uh singles of all ages people who are believable in our community whether it's women sometimes feel like make sure that we include we involve that we're sensitive i think that a rabbi's russia's have to not make assumptions you give russia's that assume that everybody there is children and a wife it's just not sensitive it's not it's not kind it's not nice um the structure of the school and the school do's and the membership should make assumptions about people in the marital status so we can do better and we will do better and we have to do better and the best way we'll do better which is really the second part of what i want to answer is when we understand better and we'll understand better when the people who are going through it become leaders in our community so those who are single say to the rabbi i say to the show president first of all there's no reason they can't be on the board there's no reason they can't be in leadership position they can't be officers that can't be the president and they can bring to our attention the areas where we need to be sensitive where we need to do better they can advocate they can represent the segments of the community the demographics that are not needs are not being met the the right way i think we talked about one of the previous uh question and answers um something about singles where i said being single is an enormous part of a person's life so much of jewish criminal life centers around the family structure it's an enormous amount i don't need to minimize it in any way but but it is not the total identity of a person you could be the most men of the base mattress you could be the god by the balcony you could be the president the vice president you could be a lay leader you could be a chairman you could come up with a fantastic initiative you can lead a great campaign you can transform the community so sometimes don't wait for others to carve space for you go make space yourself step up and stand up and create that thursday night chilling mishmar learning spiritual whatever go create the great initiative that no singles are ever alone that singles have events and singles have meals and singles are invited out and people are paired up so don't always wait for others to make that space go make the space yourself by having the fact that you're single not be the sum total of who you are but it's one component of who you are and there's so much more to who you are and if others don't recognize that that's a problem in them not in you and surround yourself by the people who do see the complexity and the deeper part of who you are beyond just the marital status box and what you check whether it's single or whether it's married so in our community we have lay leaders who single married divorced widowed marital status does not influence what degree you could be involved in shaping our community leading our community having vision for the community influencing the shapers of the community and so don't sit back and don't wait have great ideas and make a big difference i'm seeing across not only during covert which empowered people shules were shut down and shules are still fighting to reopen and um during corona a lot of backyard and neighborhood and tent minion now living room in yanum the success and i think in many cases the reason people are are struggling to come back to shul is ensure they felt invisible in short they felt in the margins but in the backyard in the tent and the living room in the driveway i was the gabba i was about i gave that to my torah i was the one who you know organized the showed us the kiddush so our job as a community is to say all the people who discovered and found their leadership qualities don't stay outside the school to realize them bring them into the community because there's there's no end it's limitless the possibility of the things that we could work on the difference that we could be making together bring the great ideas so there is this grass move grassroots movement going on in claudius right now the thank you hashem movement meaningful minute naked can correct me you can correct me i don't think it's like a team of rabbis we're like nahi go create a meaningful minute and we're gonna dictate to you what to do there are these grassroots movements of people who said i see a need and i want to fill it and i want to fill it and with an energy and with an enthusiasm within a shama and i want to fill so single married young old widow divorced don't wait for others to make that space you go create that space and be a leader in making a space for the other people who might feel that they're in the margins of community that's such a great answer it's a great answer because part of the sentiment was yes there's what was so hard to hear was uh bias against the single status and that that was so hard for for the people to hear uh but they are going out now and carving out their own spaces and and hearing it for the problem i'm sure um i'm sure would encourage that even more to go out carve out your own space keep going out there and and like like rosie meaningful minute it's it's it's not top down it's the bottoms up and and it's really that grass grassroots movement um that's that it's creating a real when it's coming from the bottom up that's when you know it's real that's when nobody else is telling you to do it and people connect to that more than ever i believe and i think that listen if a rabbi wasn't i don't think that robonim have a bias against single people i think they can be insensitive and it's kind of a a it's an unintentional crime so when a single person that's how i've learned and i've grown my entire habit you know me telling me that yo me coulomb i learn from the people who've made me more sensitive so a single person's in the audience of a drusha and the rev gave a whole rush of making a lot of assumptions about getting married or being married or children then you know gently in an email have a meeting kindly and say rav i know you love me and i know you're the best intentions you may not realize it but when you say x it really makes me and all those like me feel why and can i suggest humbly that maybe if you had put it like this you could get the same message across without unintentionally alienating or hurting people that you don't want to hurt so you could sit in the background and stew you could talk about the shabbos table you can feel like a victim or you can be part of the solution and you can bring awareness now if you brought that awareness and and the other parties continuing to be insensitive and it's complicated not sure what you do maybe you have to move to books with schools i'm not sure what you have to do but um but i think that everybody has a role everybody can can influence and have an impact amazing thank you so much rob thank you for your time on a busy thursday night but what a way to start out the year thank you everyone for joining us and for bearing with us in the slight delays yeah i'm sorry i don't know it might have been my end but i think it was great we got we got it all um deep answers we had some more questions pre-submitted but we're out of time um so we're gonna have to we'll have to do this again hopefully soon if they're always willing to to come back absolutely we're looking forward thank you so much wishing everybody a democracy everybody should be signed and sealed for a year of bracha parnassa naka shall unbiased a year of only good health and happiness hashem should answer call me charles liben letova all of us should be happy and healthy and the best if the next year should be the best year that we've ever had on maine oh mate thank you so much take care everybody and thank you bits of glitz for sponsoring this live and as well if anyone wants to catch the rob's shaba shoot for joshua robbie goldberg it's going to be 9 p.m at brs online you can check it out there are six practical effective habits effective ways of establishing real habits uh thank you everyone for joining us it's been it's been great and thank you for questions you can submit questions throughout the week and we will eventually get to all of them god willing all the best