Q&A With Rabbi Efrem Goldberg (Hosted by Nachi Gordon) - Part 9

ah welcome back everybody happy thanksgiving thursday night live let's jump right in what do you say let's do this hello everybody goldberg hello nachi gordon how are you happy thanksgiving to you it was oh among the things i'm thankful for is this opportunity first of all i'm thankful to you i'm thankful to many meaningful meaningful people and thankful for this app you're too kind you're too kind well actually one of the questions we we received um which let me just share this right over here is eating turkey on thanksgiving fuckase is eating turkey on thanksgiving too it's a big discussion most post can believe no moshe has achieved where he says no thanksgiving is a secular holiday and some try to ascribe religious undertones but most uh do not see it as having any uh religious significance it's a universal significance of being thankful jewish people hindu sheriff says we're called yehudim after yehudah because we have the capacity and we are the world's role models and how to express gratitude so the classic jewish attitude is that we observe thanksgiving every day we're meant to be uh jews we are each and every day so marsha felt there's no if you're eating turkey because you're giving it any religious value if you're doing it because you enjoy it there's a bigger question that people don't even know about about turkey which is that some whole turkey is not kosher because the torah tells us that an animal's kosher if it has split hooves and chews its cud a fish is kosher if it is fins and scales todo tells us what makes a bird kosher what makes poultry a foul what makes it kosher so it doesn't tell us there aren't criteria the torah gives us the names of certain birds and it says the birds that fall in these uh category the birds with these names those are the kosher birds so the turkey was a new world bird tokyo was discovered in america was really discovered in america but it was a new world bird so there was no masonry for the turkey so i don't know if you had turkey today but many do eat turkey those who eat turkey rely on the post kim who say the turkey might be a new world bird but it has so many similarities in comparisons to birds that we have a mesoderm for that are kosher you could eat it but if yaakov kaminetsky didn't need turkey other gadolin didn't need turkey or shechter does not hold that you could eat turkey he believes turkey doesn't have misora so there are many postgame who said that turkey's not kosher so bigger than the hookah the occulum question about thanksgiving in turkey it's probably the question of the castras of turkey it's interesting all i know is a few years ago as i was by the i go to convention on a thursday night and thanksgiving and there was turkey there just saying so that by the way that's the post gonna say if you're eating turkey culturally it's nice it's cute you're connecting with a greater world who are uh who are connecting to the principle of thanksgiving and the symbolism of turkey it's fine there's no religious okay makes sense onwards to a next question that we got i do not uh one second we just take that one off let's get to the next one hmm did it show up no it didn't show up oh here we go i don't understand in relation to being an addict it definitely i mean the person meant to write it definitely doesn't feel like i have a choice so we all know that we have hero we have free choice but someone who is an addict they don't feel like they have free choice it's a great question it's a powerful question it's too hard a question to fully unpack or develop in our little um lightning session over here with questions and answers but i will say this first of all anyone who's interested in this more should google uh dr ben dr uh sirotsky and dr bension sirotskin doctor benson ruskin is a phenomenal mental health professional rav and he has articles exactly on this subject i think we mentioned last time that somewhat of a misnomer that hashem gives us tests that we can't pass that we that hashem doesn't give us we can't pass some are empowered and some are comforted to think that ask me to do anything i can't do but the truth is that there are things that are beyond our ability there are tests that we can't pass and when it comes to those particular tests to a certain degree we are honest we are exempt we're not held accountable for them and he discusses there is a notion of addiction sometimes people are the victims of abuse and being a victim of abuse can often lead to certain mental health certain behaviors so are you going to say just suck it up muster it up free will get over it be better so that's not accurate it's not helpful or healthy for mental health treatment perspective nor is it accurate or objectively true intellectually honest from a torah perspective so it's not so simple that him doesn't give us challenges we can't pass sometimes there are challenges that he understands we can't pass and he gives us an exemption that's built into it but that said with that said we have an amazing ability we have this thing called free will like you spoke about we are given the we're given the ability we're given the strength we're given the courage we're given the conviction and when we set our mind to it we have the ability to rise above what we think we can't we have temptation before last week's question all night long by adiki shimo yaakov wrestled with his alter ego he wrestled with that voice of self-sabotage he wrestled with the voices said he can't do it and we wrestle with that voice in us and we're meant to persevere and to triumph and to set ourselves and to realize we can do it am i still here my back you're back you're back you think that you would think that my own children would know not to facetime me at nine o'clock on thursday night but that memo did not go out so um there's a book written by a secular psychologist who specialized if i were more prepared if i knew this question was coming i would have the source for you i'll show it later for the audience anyone who wants to see it he specialized in studying brain scans and he understood that when certain parts of the brain light up he understood through brain scans that some people are pre-programmed they are psychotic and psychotic people whose brains are programmed certain way will end up becoming murders murders so he was doing two studies and on his desk he had scans of his own family's brains he was trying to study his own backgrounds his own genealogy his own family was one pile there was a separate pile of brain scans of ordinary people and murderers in order to be able to continue his research and a research assistant knocked over the two piles and the piles got mixed up and he picked up a scan and he looked at the scan and he saw the way that the brain was lit up the different parts of the brain that were highlighted that this individual was psychotic that this individual was predisposed to be a murderer so he told his researcher system we need to unblind the study we need to figure out who this is we need to stop them before they act on it and when he unblinded the study when he revealed whose brain it was that he had looked at and included was destined to become a murderer he discovered that it was his own brain and you can imagine totally a good tv show right it's a book it's a real story you can imagine that this individual like his mind was blown literally figuratively metaphorically why because he spent his whole life his whole career studying and he spent his whole life defending he would go to trials and he would testify on behalf of murderers to say it's not their fault they were wired their brain was designed to be this it's not their fault there's nothing that they could possibly do about it and he would go and he would say therefore not that they're innocent or therefore not that he shouldn't incarcerate them but don't throw the book at them it's not their fault and now he's looking at his own brain scan and he's saying wow i'm wired to be that way does that mean that i have to or that i'm definitely going to be a murderer so you wrote a whole book about free will that our brain might be predisposed it might even be designed to be a certain way but we still have the capacity the free will to rise above it we determine our destiny we choose who we want to be and who we become victor franco and his famous man search for meaning even in the concentration camp sorry even the worst atrocity in the world we have the ability to rise up to define ourselves so you know my message and i spent a lot of time boca raton del rey is the capital of treatment centers of america we have rehab center around us and we have a very proud book right on synagogue our shul partners with moshiachnas's onward program and we we connect people in recovery with members of our community and we do a bunch of programs is that is that why boca raton as a community is is growing so fast these days that's one of the reasons it's growing fast there's no question about it more and more people in recovery but um knowing people who are in recovery people who are struggling with addiction um i can tell you that addiction in some hand is is an illness it's a disease and just like we wouldn't yell or blame somebody struggling with diabetes or cancer someone with addiction is struggling with a disease they're fighting they're battling they're trying to defeat that disease but it is a disease so on the one hand through free will through feeling empowered through recognizing our autonomy through having courage and conviction we can rise above even this illness on the other hand it is an illness and there are parts of it that ultimately if a person does fall to that illness we don't blame them so a person should feel encouraged a person should surround themselves with love and support persons surround themselves with those who will protect from giving in to that addiction um a person should there should be zero stigma we talked about this once in question and answers should be no stigma with the person who's using mental health professionals recovery program the stigma should only be with those who need it who don't use it and um the question is not whether we're accountable and whether free will could rise above it on any given day we should just do the best that we can do and be the best person that we can be beautiful answer um for everyone who's just joining this is question and answer with her we have from goldberg myself um if you have any questions feel free to drop it below in the question box if you want to come on and ask one face to face just your request to join the live and you know hopefully we'll get you on here uh moving on to a couple of questions that i guess are very i'd say current uh with what's going on in the world um i'm not sure if we should name names you'll sort of take lead on that if you'd like to or not but there is a very famous very well-known author that has been accused recently of doing some terrible terrible things by a few women and this has you know gone on the internet of many jadeaker stories have decided to pull his books from their from their from their stores and um it's been headlines in a few places so i think uh the the reason i want to the question i want to ask ask from this is here's a situation where um you know somebody was accused and could very well be true uh what happened to him and we always want to you know validate the people who come forward and and make such accusations because this makes no sense why someone would want to do that um and go through such you know an awful an awful thing um at the same there's time justice system there's an essential proven guilty but in 2021 it's kind of a theme that um sort of i guess prosecution by media you know it doesn't really matter by the time something gets to the courts you're you're you know you're prosecuted by the media um how what's the jewish outlook when we have a situation like this where there's accusations and now there's headlines and you know what's the right thing you know i i've been in touch with you throughout the week there is a question about whether or not it was okay for a specific jewish news website to make such headlines calling out this author and and shedding light on this situation what do you think about this it's a great question it's a very difficult question it's a very sad question um and it's really multiple questions on the one hand there's the question of the ethics the jewish ethic of journalism what responsibility do you have to research and and check facts what responsibility do you have to the prohibition of gossip of lashon hara regiles that even if something is true why do you need to be the source of spreading it when do people or the public need to be warned so the responsibility in fact is to be transparent to share information so there's the question from the perspective of the jewish view of journalism and what a person uh if you're a journalist if you're editor you're a publisher to choose what headlines to make but let's focus on the other question which was your first question which was as the consumer of news jewish news or any news how do we absorb it how do we integrate it do we leap to assume that it's accurate and true do we spread and share it and forward it should we be a little bit more hesitant a little bit more judicious a little bit more circumspect how should we approach when we see such a headline and i think the answer is really an increasingly lost art in today's world which is the notion of nuance the notion of nuance is that we don't have to be so polar polarized and life is not such a dichotomy but it's not binary you don't jump on the headline and say he's evil he's the worst person ever we need to not only remove his books we need to burn his books and we need to cancel him and we need to delete him from the universe we're the opposite or the people who almost react with an equal level of passion but in the opposite direction just out of frustration to a cancel culture who say he's innocent there's no evidence he deserves due process and so on i think there's a notion of nuance and i think there's a concept of that middle road that says the following it says that if somebody's been accused of the kind of horrific things he's been accused of and i'm i'm very sad i've had his books in my own my children have read them and many people have been influenced by them my nephew won his book at uh at avo subunim last week interestingly enough last week he should go back and demand a new prize he deserves a uh a trade-in so many of us have had his books many of us have been inspired our children have been have been raised on a generation of his of his books and it's very painful the idea that we're going to cancel him and i think that this is a perfect example of our bringing some sense of nuance and the nuance goes like the type of accusations that are being leveled are dna fascists these are potentially spiritually even physically life-threatening questions a person who is capable or a person who has crossed those boundaries a person who has behaved in that way can or has destroyed lives if a person is a victim of abuse often their life is destroyed how much suicidal ideation how much deep depression how much mental health how much a person's inability to get married or function with intimacy because where they've been a victim of abuse these are dna nefarious this is nothing short of we're talking about um the highest most complicated the most difficult questions of life and death and because of that we have to be strict because of that we have to react and say we caution we have to protect the most vulnerable population there are which is children we as adult responsibility to protect them on the other hand on the other hand there is a notion of due process as you mentioned the concept of innocent guilty and due process and imagine a world to live in in which people can anonymously or even when they lend their name imagine for you or i both of us are public personalities to some degree and imagine somebody who doesn't like nachi gordon's red hair who doesn't like evan goldberg's gray beard or something much more significant doesn't like something we said or someone we've hosted or something uh experienced they've had and so they decide they're going to start a blog anonymously they're going to spread an email they're going to create a whatsapp and they're going to or they're going to reach out to a jewish news organization which doesn't have moral ethics i'm not saying this one didn't but they're going to reach out to one that doesn't and the next thing you know because there's nothing that goes viral like a controversy like something salacious the more salacious it is the faster it spreads your and my lives would be would be over it doesn't matter and it's happened to people i mean there have been situations where people have been accused and it was a hit job and that's why this is a discussion you know and it's very hard to undo once it's done when the accusation has been made when the anchor has been dropped when the internet footprint has been created that associates a person's name with those things it's almost like the muscle with the feathers and the pillow it's almost impossible to put back in and put back in which is why it's very very complicated it's dean and the fascist i would argue in both directions i can tell you as the rabbi of a lord shul and there's no rabbi of any side shul that hasn't dealt with in in 2021 in the metoo movement and a world that is more transparent that as justice brandeis said sunlight is the greatest disinfectant that today people are more comfortable coming forward who hasn't had to deal with someone saying that there's a member of your shule who did a b or c or xyz to me and now what do you do let's say it's past the statute of limitations so the police aren't willing to do anything so the one and the easy way out is to say well look go to the police and the police are gonna say there's nothing we can do because this happened a long time ago or the police are gonna look into it but there's nothing so uh that jumps out and therefore they're gonna say there's nothing they can do so as the jewish community is responsible say well we referred it to the police and the police couldn't do anything so our hands are now clean or do we have a responsibility to go even further does the person need to undergo an evaluation or testing for us to confirm they're not a danger to the children other members of the community how do we deal with that with whom do we deal with that these are difficult difficult questions but realize what i have had to when i've had to on this side of the desk which is not a comfortable place to be deal with those questions i always think about it's dna fascists in both directions it's life and death in both directions if the person is guilty and you allow them to operate in the community potentially risking future people that's that's life and death for those innocent victims on the other hand if the person is innocent and you jump on the bandwagon of exposing them or of saying they're guilty or of canceling them you can destroy and murder the individual and their family let's be real he's already i mean he's already done corrected sure true or not you can't undo what was what's been said already for him his kids his grandkids you can't undo that so so it's like life and death and both which is why both for a newspaper that's about to report it or for a court that's about to evaluate it or if the mental health professional professional does that evaluation or for the rabbi or community leader or lay leaders working to figure out what to do they need to constantly be mindful that this is life and death in both directions not only in one which is why my answer for me personally is to practice nuance is to say the following on the one hand and and i love the image of the books coming off the shelf but going in a box the answer is we're not throwing out the books and i think that was silly though because he came back a couple of years later i think in miami it's safe to burn his jersey but oh yeah the bottom line is fine i don't want him to come back he can't help other people in the face and all right get other fans thrown out of the out of the game well they call them the snitch now or whatever yeah yeah not for me so i think the answer is some nuance and the image of putting the books in a box is really the image of how we should approach him which is to say on the one hand it's not safe to simply say you're innocent guilty on the one hand to say we're gonna put the books in the box we're not ready to burn them and throw them out but we're also not comfortable leaving them on the shelf given the pattern that's been reported and given how many people have reported and given supposedly some significant people who've looked into it so when you add that all up we're not comfortable leaving the books on the shelf but we're also not comfortable without due process simply throwing out the books of burning them in the public square so the image of putting the books in the box and saying we're going to wait we're going to wait until the proper authority the proper venue has an opportunity to investigate to give him the chance to clear his name there actually are experts and professionals who can do evaluations today and give us a sense of what the right thing is to do and i think as the consumer of this information as it comes out what what those stores are doing is what we could be doing in our homes as well is and even the way we talk to our children who've read those books and who might have seen those headlines is to say you know what they might have done some very bad things so for right now we're not so comfortable reading the books but we believe that you know just because someone said something doesn't mean it's true so we're going to wait to learn and see before we rush to judgment and make a final decision you know i was going to ask you about that as a follow-up there are many there are many households who have his books on their shelves and um parents could go ahead and be taking those books off and it could have been their child's favorite book and you know daddy abba tati why are we why are we getting rid of this book i love this book right what is the parent to answer i imagine it's an extremely crucial and important opportunity but there's also with every opportunity you get it totally wrong what's the right thing to say but i you know look at it a little bit differently which is is that apparently this is not true but public speakers love to use this that the chinese letter or the chinese image for crisis is also opportunity the truth is that every time there's a crisis there's also an opportunity and if a child is challenged why is this happening it's a major teachable moment and maybe you haven't had the opening to have that conversation about your body and about who you are and about who has a right to it about abuse about safe space about safe language about how people interact with you and maybe the conversation around this very very unfortunate event is a crisis in some way but it's also an invitation and an opportunity to be a teachable moment and to have what is otherwise a very uncomfortable conversation so i personally i don't believe that you should call the children around who don't know the headline who aren't aware of this issue and say kendall i have a big announcement you haven't read it but i want you to know the author that we've been talking about this is what's being said i don't think that we need to call to their attention if they don't know but if they do know and they want to know from a parent are we reading it not reading it is it standing on the shelf should it come down from the shelf think about it prepare and come into that conversation not with a sense of why do i have to have it or how do i avoid it or go speak to someone else but embrace it and lean into it and say this is an opportunity this is an opportunity in a world which is dangerous that we need to have a conversation to educate our children yaki horowitz rabbi horowitz is a real hero in this area has produced books that give us the vocabulary books that give us the platform to have that conversation about safe space and about our body and about a world and about authority and about people around us and instead of just hesitating or feeling uh upset that one has to have the conversation it can be an opportunity okay that is that is a very uh good answer to a very important topic um as we you know wind down this week's question and answer we have a question that is chronicle related so i think it's apropos that we pull it up here and we give you robbie goldberg the opportunity to speak to it why is hanukkah mostly about the miracle of the oil but not as much about the war that's a great question so there's a lot of diverter a lot of insights on that question um you know as much as the war was revealed miracle as we say in alanis it was the few who defeated the many and the weak defend defended uh defeated the mighty and so on and so forth but there's an element of a war which we could mistakenly and and we see in our generation after the six day war every jew should have become torah observant overnight it was no less of a miracle than the military victory of hanukkah rabbi all of that language applied equally to the six day war and yet we live in a world in which still so many jews many of whom were alive for the six day war still don't believe or still don't practice because they're able to say yeah it was a military victory it was a coincidence it was chance it happened i got lucky or even they were brilliant it was their military prowess but it wasn't from above it wasn't god the notion of the oil is something which is god revealing his hand and the question is that the miracle of the oil wasn't even really necessary the truth is that the halacha is the law is that tomotry even if the oil was contaminated but if everybody is equally contaminated with it we had a right to use it and nevertheless we weren't satisfied we dug deep until we found that one last preserved flask and that represents the pintolet inside us there's that little flask there's that little oil that's a little pure place in us that's not yet contaminated there's a little pure place in us that's not yet cynical or hardened to this world this is the last pure pace in us that we've been able to preserve its innocence and that's the story of hanukkah is to take that last pure place in us in a world which has been attacking us with images that rob us of our purity that is contaminating us with ideas and ideals and to dig deep inside us and find that little flask of oil that's pure that's innocent that's holy and to be able to light it and to make it last to fan that flame so it glows bright and it becomes who we are the other famous question about hanukkah is that why do we celebrate eight days the miracle was really seven days there was enough oil to last one night the miracle was that it lasted seven more so we should only light four seven nights not four eight the famous question from the base yoseph is of which many hundreds thousands of answers have been given it's a whole book called near lemaya which is a hundred answers to that one question but the answer that always speaks to me every year i talk about it every year i think about it the answer that speaks to me is who says the oil was supposed to burn even that first night who says oil's supposed to be the natural is really supernatural and that's the idea all around us is to recognize that even what seems natural is supernatural even what seems ordinary is really extraordinary it's all a miracle from god the only difference is when we come to expect it when we take it for granted so even that first night who says oil that first night was meant to burn the fact that it burned the first night was also a miracle and it's a reminder to us to look around at our lives and the things that we take for granted did corona not teach us that for two years that over two years ago how many things did we take the ability to not wear a mask on an airplane the ability to move about freely attend one another the ability to gather and congregate to learn and to daven there were so many things that we took so for granted until they went missing until they were taken away from us nobody would have called any of those things a miracle until now it's absolutely miraculous when you could breathe without a respirator it's absolutely miraculous that you can survive a contagious viral pandemic and so that's the holiday of hanukkah is that even that first night is a miracle who says oil was meant to light even once so we realized that it's no less supernatural it's no less extraordinary it's all a miracle and the whole world around us is filled with miracles see the miracles that's what it means these are yemen these are days that are one above seven seven is natural eight is supernatural the most surah that we sing we don't say shmona yamim not only because it wouldn't rhyme and it would ruin the most sewer but we don't say shmoni i mean because it's not true we call them yame these are days brought to you by the number eight not you're too young but when i was a kid um sesame street i think used to be brought to you by another letter brought to you by another number so the holidays hanukkah is brought to you by the number eight because eight is one above nature eight is the capacity to look around and what everyone else sees is natural we use that extra vision that extra line of sight and we see what's supernatural all along are we have from goldberg really appreciate we got time for one more we have time for one more okay more there is a topic that's been discussed uh between shirley besser it started out in this buckle magazine about uh called the bana's manum topic about you know bachram and benasamanim waking up late cut them slack check them out during this month see who they are and the other you know side of that conversation uh a a letter from a bachelor timoche bhaka magazine backed up by moshe weinberger yaakov klein and many others was sort of saying you know what a bakura wakes up at 10 30 during baynes mountain and is you know wrapping up the phone in his room or rolling into dobbing with tits over his undershirt that's not a bonus monument issue that's a isman issue parents you know beware don't think that your child is you know who doesn't crack open a gemara during venezuelan is staging away that's a red flag what would you say um what would you say to chime into this conversation maybe i the first thing i'll say is that maybe i should have quit while we were ahead but um you know i hesitate to put my head between these great mountains between these two people i'm privileged to to be close both with shirley besser and with raven berger and they're both great great people um obviously in different ways they're both great great people here's my here's my on it whether it's this you know everyone loves a good controversy right so this has gained some momentum yeah and whether it's this version of it or go back in time a couple of years and it was the rewinder burger of shaffran of new of near esro version of the controversy my take on it is that they're a lot closer than they are far apart they're just looking at the very same thing from from different angles so in other words if one person is standing in front of the elephant one person standing behind the elephant one person standing by the elephant everyone's going to describe very very different things if you're looking at a tail or you're looking at the torso of the elephant or you're facing the trunk of the elephant you're all going to describe very different things and you get arguing and debating you're really describing the same thing from different angles what i mean by that is if you know shirley besser then you know that he and others recognize that there's an issue that the yeshiva system doesn't fit everybody and it doesn't accommodate for the people who don't naturally fit in who aren't built with the zip slice to sit and learn all day and that the individual who doesn't fit the mold can flounder and everybody will look at the system that overwhelmingly works and is beautiful and is responsible for the continuity of torah and claustro but recognize that there are also large small but there are groups of people whom it's not working and we need to do something on the other hand raw weinberger also recognizes the beauty of the yeshiva system thicker weinberg is not mach of learning i think they're much much closer but here's here's the thing they're standing on two different sides of the elephant so if you're somebody who lives in the ulama yeshivas if you're living from within the yeshiva then you're seeing those who are massleaf those who are successful you're seeing them it's young and those who shine and stand out and while you're aware that it doesn't work for everyone that's not your target population and if you're of weinberger you're not in the yeshiva system then your hasidum the people that every day you're there for and that you're holding and supporting and lifting up are the people for whom the yeshiva system didn't work they didn't find their place they didn't find their niche they weren't mockerous mccomo they didn't have a place in that system and they're lost and they're searching sometimes they've fallen into a place that they need some love and they need to embrace so both sides are going to agree about both parts of this the question is the emphasis the question is the focus the question is the passion and the style because i think they're standing at two different sides of the elephant not to compare yeshua to an elephant but my point is if you're when in the yeshiva yeshiva predominantly and while you're aware it doesn't work for everyone that's not the population you're focused on if you're outside of the yeshiva system then you're of course aware of the beauty of the system you're grateful for it but the predominant population you're focused on and being there for are the people that it's not working for and so i don't think i think they're i don't think they're debating as much as the people see this as a major controversy are setting it up to be i think that if we add them on a panel in a discussion maybe that's for meaningful minute meaningful people to get a conversation a discussion between the two i think we would find that they agree much more than they disagree it's just a question on where the emphasis based on the viewpoint of what they're seeing i hear so you're saying is really you know they're they're just mentioning two sides of a coin they're mentioning two sides of the story they're seeing different angles they're describing two different things but they're both true they're both true depending on where you're standing and what angle you're looking at it from i i think that to me anyone who denies what both people are saying is naive does it does it bother you or does it like i'm curious what you think about sort of the idea that a boy can sort of cruise his way through yeshiva really not hitting the books too much um he could go into shidduchim with his sitzes out and say he's a four-year learner who wants to go to ramada school or isaiah bira and demands a you know top girl and said top girl who really is a top girl marries this boy thinking you know well he's been a yeshiva for the last eight years and he wants to go for four years to learn and they get married and then all too often well he's not really what i thought he was so some some could could think that the shiva or you know a shiva could be sort of a uh a a uh a camouflage you could sort of hide who you really are under the guise of yeshiva boy and you can really lead your way down down a path that maybe isn't so honest and truthful and it could lead a lot of uh girls who marry these boys in in uncomfortable you know positions it definitely can now we're getting into the world of the problem or the corollary of this conversation which is its impact within the world of everything everything leads to that but i'll tell you it's not what you described is not i don't even think the challenge or what they were talking about because you're talking about the boy who was in yeshiva four six eight years and he did it you know he was in the basement she went to shir his heart may not have really been in it he wasn't the masmid that he was acting or faking it to be but i don't even think that's the real issue the real issue is the boy who's registered in yeshiva who's really outside who's really spending more time in the coffee room was really not even showing up who's sleeping in that's the bigger issue i think you could argue that this is a reason that in the shidduch world you should go out on more than just a few dates because the more that you see a person their medos the more that you'll see the topics of conversation and whether it's centers around and whether a person has a torah the more you'll come to know them if there's enormous pressure to barely know anyone at all to date as quickly as you can to jump in and take a leap of faith and get engaged you're only going to discover things that were discoverable i'm not saying six nine months 12 months three years i'm just talking about a little bit more runway to gain comfort to learn a little bit more about someone to have some of these conversations where you'll try to see the true person come through now people can fake it you can fake it for a year three years five years you can fake it through the whole dating system to make it look like you're the most righteous person when you're not really so how do we cut through that i don't think it's by asking more questions i think there are ways to be able to cut through it so the issue is is even more you know let's talk now from the perspective of dating but what happens you're a boy and you know that's why you sit and learn three star in the day it just it doesn't do it for you you want to become a torah torah is is an enormous value to you torah is central to you you will always have a harusa torah will be the centerpiece of the home that you want to create and build but you were not constructed in a way to sit and learn for eight or 10 or 12 hours a day it's hard it's hard i was in yeshiva i was in kolo i got smikha i don't know that i could go back to that schedule today as much as i love learning and value whenever i get a break and i can sit and learn for periods of time i don't know that i'm able to it's like training gotta go back into the olympics like you'd have to train to get back to a place that you can learn eight and ten and twelve hours a day it's exhausting it's difficult the focus the mind it's not easy at all so very understandably there are boys who will say i'm not cut out i'm not designed for that so either you could put me into that system and i'll flounder and fail or you can create an alternative system in which i'll thrive and succeed but here's the thing i won't want to and nobody will want me to go to the other system if it means i'm going to get a worse if i'm the failure if i'm the you know sub boy then and i'm gonna it's gonna hurt my then i'm not gonna want to be honest about who i am but what's to say that the you know that the the person in tier one is going to make a better husband or father what's to say that when they leave the old yeshiva they're going to be able to bring that with them when they go into the workforce and now they have to balance parenting and work with learning maybe the person who was honest and was in the tier 2 yeshiva all along is better positioned to continue those learning in the morning and the evening when they're working during the day because they already were trained to know what that means even when they were in yeshiva so i think that's the core conversation that we should be having is the yeshiva system isn't designed for everyone and how do we not give up on the people it's not designed for and how do we make sure that people don't feel like a failure or inferior or a disappointment to their family or that they're not going to get as good of off because of it that's the conversation i think that should be happening i think that's that's a really good conversation we have somebody that wants to come on and join us uh to sort of wrap this up and ask a question so really really excited to welcome to the platform over here drum roll barrel solomon welcome to the stage i was just enjoying this great conversation i don't want to interrupt we're putting you in the hot seat to shoot a question uh terry out from goldberg and take us home um okay so first of all how are you guys doing so nice to see you guys good good friends uh robert goldberg i haven't seen you in a long time hope you're doing good um you know when i was i put out the trailer for my documentary a few months ago and my wife says a line in it and she said i didn't know everything about beryl's past when i got married to him and a lot of people messaged me like oh how could you do that it's not ethical it's not this it's not that so you know 10 years ago as a very different person bingo baltruva i don't know what your guys you know background is but um you know so what is your thoughts rabbi about you know coming to the table when i started dating my wife when i started dating my wife i was in a very different i was a very different person than i am today right so what is your feeling what is your opinion about you know can a person change and uh and how and how how let's say when you come to the table can you be a new person initiative let's put it like that could you and could you sort of not basically open up the the history books is that also part of the break right you know it's not that i was uh all you had to do was a quick uh facebook search and now and and there i was um but you know i definitely was not talking about nightclubs and everything um you know on my first update you know it's my wife it's a great question and the world is better for all the growth and change that you've had with battle so thanks and keep it going i think that absolutely the first part is that absolutely people can change ravi akiva changed he changed at 40 years old rich luck has changed he went from this great thief this robber this gangster and he became the great reshwakish and our entire torah mission is filled with people who transformed their lives they changed and they said i'm no longer that old self in fact they had this enormous fight because rabbi yochanan invoked his past they had a debate about a certain weapon and it's halachic status and purity and impurity and rabbi said you were a total mafia man so you you garnished a weapon around with that sword you would recognize this would you talk about it because you were you were a mafia and he died i was like whoa you're bringing up my past and they broke up javarussa oh my sousa the loneliness from the fact that they didn't reconcile so 100 a person can transfer person can absolutely transform themselves change themselves and become a new you become a he died from he died from the embarrassment no yeah well he died from the aggravation of being alone he died from the episode that he was embarrassed and ultimately they ended up breaking up their havrusa because of it that's what he said oh me you know if i don't have you if we're not together if we can't spar and learn and push each other then i might as well and i'm as if i'm dead so a person can transform and our history is replete with the individuals who who pressed refresh they did a hard reboot they started all over again and when you do that hard reboot and when you're fresh you're actually a new person there are two levels of chuva this is not a hanukkah discussion this is like an rosh hashanah discussion but there are two levels of chew yeah it was just the rosh hashana facilis a couple days ago so i'm off the hook let's say a person violates a law and they come before the judge but the judge really you know they find favor in the judge's eyes the judge says i'll tell you what i'm going to make it time served you don't have to go to prison you're out go home time served that's kapara a person says you know what i'm working on myself i'm better i'm doing community service could you give me time serve so i don't go to prison kapara but there's a higher level called tahara and tahara means that you present yourself to the judge and the judge says i see the you that's in front of me right now this is not the person who committed the crime you're a brand new you right so not only right of the time i've actually expunged your record you have a new record you have a new file that behavior is not part of your life because there's a brand new you so there are two levels of chuba and we have the ability to do both right we could say we're sorry and we can work on ourselves and we can do community service to be able to achieve the forgiveness so time serves gonna let you off the punishment but it's still on your record it's still in your past and there's the part of transforming ourselves that it's actually removed from who we were so come to the dating part of it and i would say i'm not an expert by any stretch i forgot to give my usual disclaimer tonight i'm not an expert in anything but i was following how much that you share and reveal is almost less a function of you and more a function of the person that you're trying to learn whether you could spend the rest of your life with if if they're going to be mysteries about your past which for the other person will be an impediment to being vulnerable to being intimate to connecting because they know you're holding something back then then perhaps it's better to be transparent and share not with pride or nostalgia but as an investment in the relationship i so love you and trust you and i so want you to be connected to me that i'll let you know about these parts of a past that no longer is me but if the other person says they believe that that past is no longer me i am a new person and i want to show it to you and i want you to believe it i'm a new person so the things that happen in the past were a different me they're not part of the not part of the active part of who i am today and and therefore you know i don't need to share them with you because i don't plan on sharing them with anyone because i never think about them i'm not nostalgic for them i don't replay them in my mind or my memory they don't perform and inspire who i am today so they're not part of me if you feel you want to hear about it because otherwise that that is the definition of being intimate emotionally to connect to not be mysterious to not hide to be transparent i think that it's important to give access but if you don't have that need i don't have a need and i don't want to share because it's not a part of who i am i think what you said was great is i think that in the shadow process it does need a little more time not months maybe a few extra weeks um you know and i just wanna and and i do have to go because because it's getting a little bit late and i have a sheer early in the morning tomorrow but um i hear you know a lot of people complain about the shoulda you know crisis or the process i have a friend of mine he's about to he's like 33 years old and he's complaining to me about the crisis he's the trooper let's say two years ago and um and i said to him how many dates have you been on in the past uh six months he's like you know like 10 dates and i'm like how many dates were you on before you became from he's like good point he was on no dates so although the out processes is you know flawed of course it's not exactly perfect there's people struggling out there every single day the alternative and i've been there is completely miserable i mean it's not even miserable like miserable would already be a level it's not even it's non-existent and uh for all the flaws that you know in the in the whole shit-off process if anybody's watching this is stick with it because the alternative is going to a bar and hoping for the best absolutely i agree with you we shouldn't uh we shouldn't cancel this should have process we should just improve it beautiful but degradation but that is an important this this notion of a little bit longer and don't feel rushed because that's how you get to know somebody and you know them because you know you were driving somewhere and they couldn't find a parking spot and did they stay calm did they see it from hashem or did they lose their cool or the waiter messed their order or spilled some water on them so how did they treat them through that process we'll learn about the other person which will give us a comfort and a connection with who they are and that doesn't need meant to go on indefinitely but it should be a little bit longer than what people are feeling pressured for it to be to gay where they only then discover about people later on things that they wish they knew before that would have informed the decision guys it was it was nice hanging out i'm sorry did i cut you off no go ahead i was i was going to wrap it up i wanted to thank you know darryl for you coming on every goldberg we do this every to every every other week here on meaningful minute from goldberg you could re-watch this on our instagram or on youtube so uh just wanted to thank everyone for joining and have an amazing night have a great night have a great great work meaningful minute beautiful nice article in the army by the way beautiful beautiful my favorite pose my favorite post you ever had by the way was that was the was that boy um who spoke about um what was it the the cell phone tech before tila yeah so i actually bought a kosher phone that i use in the morning um it's a separate number only one person has the phone number it's my wife and i don't touch my smartphone until i'm done dabbing um and it came from that post it came from that post that's beautiful i really appreciate that yeah thank you so much so keep up the good work gentlemen keep up the good work and marble 12 rabbi on the uh safer torah mazel tov thank you very much all right take care i saw you outside dancing on the back of the suv you gotta move you got moves rabbi working on it okay bye guys be well have a good shower everybody bye