Chanukah Message: Is there Right and wrong a case for Moral objectivity.

so hey look at these people coming online how's it going everybody um i don't know if you can come onto the screen but uh you don't have to but uh i thought maybe i'd just come online and see if anyone wanted to ask me any questions uh in fact uh it's probably uh a good time to check back in and you know people like to ask me questions for some reason i often am able to answer people the way they need so so please what questions you got um i don't mind cruising onto zoom actually i've turned off the world surf tour here i've been watching surfing a little bit if i go into zoom here create a new meeting let's see if it gives me a code i can put the code on on here if you want to come online so i can see a bit uh let's see if i can do it yeah it's better to come on uh let's see if it shows up so uh you can certainly write questions but in the meantime i will uh share my uh my zoom code for anyone who wants to come on to that uh one sec let me just find it okay hello from ontario still waiting for your questions marlene i'm gonna bring people on zoom instead so so the this comes out good on torah anytime they probably just want me on screen uh four zero seven i'm typing in the code for zoom four zero seven six hundred okay i'm waiting for some questions from y'all so let's see what we got so far no questions oh what's between right and ring that ilya asks what's the difference between right and wrong so yeah that's that's kind of a broad question um some people would hold the difference between right and wrong are are actually um [Music] are actually quite what would you say subjective so that's a whole subject of subjectivity for example the millennials today are all thinking like that right and wrong are subjective so like you know do what feels good that's what's right um yeah i'm feeling great thank god my legs all better prophesy um so a lot of people think right and wrong are subjective and you make your own decision they believe they do that in honor of love and peace you know because if like if we can just get rid of right and wrong as objective and make it purely subjective so then everyone gets to do whatever they want and once you can do whatever you want so then we'll all get along right but it doesn't work that way unfortunately it actually um the the right and wrong creates structure so that there's uh so that there's law and order so that there's um you know that there's peace ultimately you you want structure structure creates more peace now of course it can fall into prejudice it can fall into um you know judgment and stuff because someone's within someone's not so life's complicated you have to learn how to accept people even if you're even if you don't agree with them even if you have strong structure of right and wrong you still have to you know you have to ultimately um you know you have to accept people anyway which is learning the difference between acceptance and approval because i don't have to approve of you based on my structure right and wrong but i but i do have to accept you we have to accept all people um it could be that i i didn't put the right code i don't know if anyone please send a uh on the chat tell me if you were trying to get in to our um chat but you weren't able to um i because i opened the chat i'm thinking it came to my generic chat box i'd appreciate if anyone just came on anyway onto zoom even if you don't want to be there just to let me know that that i got the number right which i put on our chat um oh is the wrong code oh thank you oh it's alicia hey alicia um what happens when you just start up a zoom code like it doesn't uh so i'm gonna end that meeting does anyone know um alicia juno how to get uh the code if i just press start meeting because what good is start meeting if i can't give someone the code i thought that was natural um looking around the uh what do i do instant mute i don't see anything here that gives a code okay i'm getting rid of this in meeting for all and uh i'll create another one schedule meeting here i'm going to do another one real quick for anyone who wants to come on [Music] okay no passcode no waiting room you must select one or both of these options oh my gosh did you guys know that that you have to do that okay i'm gonna keep that same code and i'm gonna start that right now i'm gonna start that meeting right now it's ready save scheduling okay and then let's go to my meetings okay closing that and now my schedule oops didn't mean that cancel and now i need meetings there it is okay i'm on that meeting number now um and i just lost half the people just by doing that but i'd like someone to come on zoom just to be connected to me and turn on my camera all right so uh the topic we're handling right now is topic we're handling right now is right and wrong and um so we're handling right and wrong and okay there's a leash on my zoom okay uh for some reason my video is not coming on alicia not sure why oh maybe it is now just get my video started sorry everyone waiting i'm almost done uh facetime camera see why my camera's not coming on that's interesting wow uh sorry alicia my my camera's not coming on uh let's see if i can hear you on there alicia speak up alicia nice minute okay um so what what we're going to discuss right now is uh is right and wrong and uh how we view right and wrong and the and having a solid view of right and wrong is really is really what creates peace yeah i'm you can mute for now i'm not gonna bother with zoom for some reason my camera's not coming out but i see you it's nice to see you there see i imagine you can hear me you can hear me alicia yeah i can hear you okay good anyway the um the when when we try to get rid of right and wrong in the name of you know everyone should get along people wind up not getting along at all and let me explain why the reason why is because there's that human beings are meaning makers okay we always make meaning and that's we're built to do that and so if you want to get rid of all the meaning and just say nothing's meaningful and everything's just purely subjective you can do that if you want but it has the major fallback is the major fallout will be that that there's no longer something that is meaningful there's nothing that you know so then after a while your your your hierarchy of values starts to fall apart you lose your hierarchy of values and once you lose your hierarchy of values so then you know so then nothing really matters anymore and you you never want to go there you want you don't want to go there you don't want to lose your hierarchy of values okay that's always going to be that's always going to be a disaster and losing hierarchy is a value is exactly what's been going on in the world today for in the uh you know this kind of chasm between the uh sorry i'm just trying to shut off shut off in all my video maybe it'll come back so the the chasm between the left and the right is ultimately that uh anyway they so what i was saying was the lack of hierarchy of values is the it's a total disaster regarding uh meaning in life because after a while like you start to realize life's actually meaningless you know things are only things are only as meaningful as uh as i make them but who says i'm so creative like i'm so creative at making meaning maybe i'm not you know the world's best meaning maker in the world and so ultimately what happens in the end is you get a hierarchy of value and meaning those who believe there's truth so so that you you develop a hierarchy of value and then and then you uh and what that means higher value if i hold this is more valuable than that so then we start to develop eventually right and wrong because going towards that going towards the things i value most i'm going to be heading to in the right direction and going and and prioritizing things i value less is going to ultimately be the wrong choice now that still sounds subjective so how do you make it objective so the way it's objective is the fact that god's at the top of the ladder because the whole point of creation way made us meaning makers why made us desiring so much to find meaning in the world is because that we are we that if we put god at the top of the ladder if we could put god up there so then we're going to we're going to have god as the ultimate good now that there is a god is a is the important question that there is a god that we can know there's a god but once you know there's a god so now you have that hierarchy of values but it's still a bit subjective until you have a torah once you have tara so then with torah then you really have right and wrong but only because the torah delineates what's right and what's wrong meaning there's always natural morality like i know what's hurtful to me don't do unto others you know because i know it's hurtful it was hurtful so now that i know it was hurtful it's wrong to do it to someone else and the um and then what's i i got that earlier what you just said um that's a that may be a sad truth um but i imagine you're saying that god isn't from the belief of the people but the power of god is and uh that's probably a very sad truth uh ilia said i believe the power of god is from the belief of the people and um and so what happens is if you if you have the people i mean if you're part of a community who believes in the power of god you get all kinds of crazy cool stuff happening but uh but because god gets powerful when you believe in his power but it's quite the opposite when when the world decides against god so then they they wind up in a cause and effect cold dry you know um you know tit-for-tat existence and that's that's no good for anybody the uh that's just boring life gets boring it's it's materialist scientific kind of physical physicality is reality and then nobody wants that when you live in a community of people who believe in the power of god god gets powerful that's that's really really strong uh strong word zillion very powerful um i don't think i don't i'm not even sure you meant to say that by the way but uh but i decided to embellish on the way you phrased things anyway but with the proof of god once you got god in the picture and proven real so then you're automatically in a situation of right and wrong once you have god's will just god himself so i still don't know what's right and wrong but once you have the will of god so then things start getting interesting because then you have then you have you know whatever's delineated as as right is right and what's delineated as wrong is wrong but without that without having that then it's ultimately uh then we're back to subjectivity even with a belief in god so um given all that um i just wanted to see actually if people would come on if we went back to ask the rabbi i see people do come on which is really sweet and i don't think i'm going to publish this particular one what i am going to do is go to bed because it's midnight and i want to go be with my uh holy family whoever's awake still probably nobody but maybe i'll find my wife up or something anyway if anyone else has a question i'd be happy to answer i um i just nailed that one okay one more thought on hanukkah someone [Music] thank you um so what can i turn hanukkah um i think uh one of the main teachings i could share with on hanukkah is is that there are people who um who believed the answer to the greeks is to deny the body because they were so physical and were spiritual but uh last i checked i also have a body and i have my own desires and whatnot so um and so absolutely um so i've got a couple of things i'm going to do i'm just doing a hanukkah i'm sorry ilya next time you have to chime in with your yours because i otherwise people are going to keep asking so i've got a coronavirus how to deal with restrictions and then and then we had the the question on oh just to share something on hanukkah so so you're actually supposed to have a fusion between spirit and physical that was the whole point god created the world in the physical was because we're supposed to be involved and interfaced with the physical not to deny it even though the greeks were so physical and went to war against our spirit so that doesn't mean that you don't stay integrated i'm actually doing a this month of all months i'm doing a series on health i'm on sundays live with rabbi yomta i do a two-hour class every sunday which you're all welcome to join if you like it's on rabbi yomtov.com you can become a subscriber it's a lot of fun and deeper deeper deeper work in these webinars on sundays you miss sometimes i do a free one at first so you missed the free one but we would send you that recording if you want on the coronavirus restrictions um uh you can guest up here yeah just not right now elia um but i'd love to do it together yeah for sure just i'm going to bed soon um what i want to say about the coronavirus restrictions is that you um you have to use your brain because um back to values and economics you know you you know you trade a lesser good for greater good you um first of all you have a fake sphaka when it comes to corona what's this fakes fake it's a doubt within a doubt one doubt is will you contract it the other doubt is are you gonna die okay so so that's a double doubt double doubts equal um actually uh less stringency when you have a double doubt you go less stringent and that's the way our sages teach us so so the doubt because we're not sure you'll get it and even if you get it who knows if you'll die um so you could just have a cold now what's the opposite the other side the other side is that you wind up losing your your actual um your actual quality of life so is it worth having no quality of life but staying alive and the answer is yeah for a time maybe pesach through chavula someone want to give up a bit um but what if it just becomes an ongoing thing so so what's called too long a time to have lost my uh quality of life to stay alive you understand so how long is that and the funny thing is the older you get the the older you get the less life you have left like they tell us we're supposed to actually um you know the older you are the more careful you're supposed to be but it's actually the opposite the the older you are the less life you have left you don't have two years to give up of seeing grandkids and your kids and interacting on the holidays and stuff it's like you know how much time left what have you what if you just like would have just died you know of something else having just not seen your family for a year and a half so so that's a that's a that itself's a disaster so what i'm basically saying is you gotta use your brain people aren't using their brains with this people are just like following like sheep and and not a good time to follow like sheep think about it we're we're in the most unstable times in 70 years since world war ii we're in the um we're in the first time in the 70 years where where um individuals have given their their civil liberties up to government and and but this is much worse because normally it's just one government you know it's cuba or it's russia or it's or it's japan or or it's i don't know japan didn't have that uh oh yeah they probably did a bit in the past but uh or it's uh you know whatever it's germany but here it's the whole globe the whole entire globe is is going into you know this this government power at the expense of civil liberty civil liberties that that never goes well when it's one country the globe but what's going to happen the globe is going to wind up giving birth period like we're going to have a the birth of something very big and probably something very scary um so so it seems that the um it seems like giving up our civil liberties and following uh instructions blindly it could be a disaster could we could uh lead to the end of the world as we know it the end of our world as we know it so um you may take it that that i'm not pro restrictions although the law is the law and you got to be careful with that and and um you know and you know at least in public keep the rules uh don't be uh don't don't make fun of things and don't uh don't flout the law and wind up in trouble um it's not so simple how to um how to um oh that's nice amazing jesse zalunka well he was in my class 10 years ago seymour 10 years ago thank you for all your hard work thoughts and teachings somebody thank you that's very sweet and by the way any of you if you want to know when i'm on live i know there's certain things you click that whenever on your facebook that whenever i go live it will let you know i'm live because facebook does everything i can to not let people know so that i i don't know i'm so low tech i don't even know what i'm supposed i wouldn't know how to give them the money that they would want to let everyone know i'm live so um anyway anyway those are my thoughts and um and so be very very careful with with coronavirus be very careful don't you know if you come to a point where you realize it's better to die then it's better to die of coronavirus than lose your your value of living meaning your quality of life so so then uh by all means you know then then you know at least in private uh whenever you're you know anytime you're not gonna get busted for not wearing a mask or social distancing then by all means blow it off you know i'm lucky i'm part of the hasidic community because the city community kind of lost their patience a long time ago for all this and they don't have higher numbers which is really ridiculous because while 33 million californians are locked down they seem to be you know they've been the most careful and they all seem to be having very little uh success with it while uh you know i know the the observant communities are having very very low numbers very extremely low numbers and and there there's no social distancing and there's no masks and and no interest in vaccines that's for sure you know and meaning at least corona vaccines anyway those are some thoughts for tonight should i post this i don't know if i should post this yeah i guess i'll post it why not okay everyone blessings and uh i'll i'll start coming on please god people have been asking me to come on so i'll come on more often all the best