Rabbi Yom Tov Practical Spirituality: Separation Of The Sexes

so and welcome to a practical spirituality here in the old city of Jerusalem in addition to our overlooking the Temple Mount today we're discussing the separation of sexes and it comes ultimately from a little conversation I was having with a on whatsapp with a new student who's not actually not in that new because he had been here years ago and he was I was asking him you know as your wife as inspired about Judaism as you are and he says well she's kind of has takes issue with the separation of sexes which made me think for a moment because when exactly are the sexes separated accepted weddings and synagogue and and then I realized that when you live in America Judaism takes place in synagogue so when you live in Israel synagogues like the least of your worries when it comes to Judaism because Judaism takes place when you walk down Jaffa Street you realize how Jewish it is here like you're you're Jewish like you go sit in the square and see what comes up in conversation you'll be shocked to find that you're once again talking about the meaning of life and then you're right back to like the whole purpose of everything and and you go get a beer in the shock you know all those bars now in the shook which are a blast and I'm the rabbi of beer bazaars so so I suggest beer Bazaar not because I'm the rabbi there I just I just think it's got superior beer and I like the fact that the meat comes from the huff it's high in butcher which is means all the meats Mehadrin anyway the by the way just to give a plug as well to what's the other place that Creek Creek there's another Glatt Kosher brewery hat catch put the word out to hatch and then of course there's what's that other place with the food over there crepe yeah I gotta bring up crave they're all my friends you know each place and also selfies yogurt you know the best frozen yogurt ever yeah I've just never experienced anything quite like that frozen yogurt which is on agrippa seven should go there as well support your westerns making whew by serving delicious handcrafted stuff so so we're we're holding is this guy said that he doesn't like the separation of the sexes which of course would never come up here in Israel because Judaism is always and there's no separation sex unless you went to a wedding or your insurer but Judaism's all the time it's like everywhere you go you're involved in Judaism and is why I pity the fool who's trying to become observant outside of Israel because you don't know which direction to hold a sitter you know you're holding your prayer book upside down you know and you're stuck meeting your host who's gonna have your job as in synagogue which is like probably the most uncomfortable thing in the world is to be a non-observant Jew and walk into an Orthodox synagogue and and somehow like not want to die every minute you're in there whereas in Israel you never ever have to show up in a synagogue until you're well ready for the experience and totally initiated in the process of prayer and and you know at that point you can head to your first synagogue and of course the most famous synagogue in all of Israel is the loosest place maybe in the whole country besides Tel Aviv and that's the Kotel where it's just come as you are you know do whatever you want there's absolutely no rules and and you can just feel so Jewish and put your own prayer out there or put it in the wall or do whatever you want so it's like it's such an ideal ik place and so anyone who's trying to get strong in their Judaism should just should just stop trying and start dialing a travel agent get yourself over to Israel for like three weeks or something where you don't have to try it's just a natural progression in the because the error of Israel itself brings you close to God in Tara the air itself now of course everyone knows their secular Israelis running around and but that's only because there's their Ashkenazi you know if it wasn't for the Ashkenazim there would there would be it would be a total tore experience everywhere but there's something interesting about Ashkenazim is there they see Sparta crews have spent the last 2,000 years in exile with fully observant Muslims belief in God is part of the fabric of society and if they're not gonna be a good Muslim they could be a bad Muslim but they're not gonna they're not gonna discard God to swage their bad behavior Sparta crews are the same they may not be the best you in the world they may not keep Torah but they're not gonna say that terrorism divine they're not gonna say there's no God that's that's just not one of the cards on the table you know that's like they're not gonna discard the very fabric of reality which is which is God in prophecy that's not available to so yeah you're gonna be feel really guilty about your life you know you'll feel real guilty if you get wealthy maybe you'll dedicate a synagogue or something you know they're very good at donating stuff to feel better about themselves but the but the and and obviously there's plenty of Sephardic Jews who donate things that aren't just trying to feel better about themselves but but the but when it comes to Ashkenazi Mushka nauseum spent the last two thousand years with atheist philosophers Greek philosophy atheist philosophy nihilistic philosophy materialist philosophy and and if you want to say well there were Christians in you know no offense to Christians but to me if you understand you like real theology like actual prophetic theology so Christianity is atheism I'm gonna say that again if you really understand pure Torah prophetic viata theology so Chris even the most deep Christian belief is atheism it's just a European amalgamation of an atheist proposition in and sorry there's a lot of 3/4 syllable words but the but it's just a deus ultimately when compared to Jewish theology no compared to the average Westerner it's its theology its Christian theology and since I'm on that so I just want to mention real quick something very important just for those who were involved in the intellectual dark way I've been like watching people like Sam Harris who's an outspoken atheist Jew of course and Ashkenazi and but the the just for the people who are interested in the intellectual dark web and listen to those atheists they should realize that the that the God that they're denying was was ultimately denied when science got developed in a major way when science hid its revolution which is the world we live in where science explains just so much and more and more every year the what happened was for Gentiles theology was really built out of out of the questions of our environment that we just didn't understand meaning meaning human beings had never understood their world they lived it and so for every question mark they put God there so well well that's God you know that God's what sticks you to the earth like how come we don't just fly out into space and well God keeps us here me there's there was no understanding of gravity it was God that was keeping you together and what keeps our earth in orbit around the Sun God that's God you know God's doing that and you know everything was God every question mark you had was gotten that's the basis of Christian theology is is it answered the questions that were not answered by science because science wasn't developed enough which makes sense why when someone said the Sun was at the center instead of the earth was at the center that thing I think they persecuted him maybe they killed him I don't know what they did who was that and I per Copernicus rising Galileo yeah did he get persecuted for that he wouldn't kill further away any but you can understand why because God already is the recod obviously he's put us in the center and it's just part of the answer but anyway so when science hit and they were able to describe things physically like our physical world became describable via science and math and physics and stuff so they're like we don't need God like we don't need a God God we understand this stuff now so we understand enough about the physical world we don't need God anymore but tell me it was Jewish theology built out of our question marks is that where Jewish theology comes from there's nothing to it your theology Jewish theology has nothing to do with questions we have Jewish theology was built out of a slave nation that received a prophetic revelation and that's all we know about God that's it everything we know from A to Z that we know about God is only coming from the revelation at Sinai that's it that's what we know about God nothing to do with answering life's mysteries and so for a Jew whose basis for God is based on a prophetic experience at Sinai to think that they have a secular atheist in meaning post science conflict with religion atheist as as the reason why they don't keep Shabbat or keep kosher or make blessings on their food or or all the other laws in Judaism that if they may if they want to make that there's a seat right here bro I'm interrupting class just for you two seats it was so loud earlier I decided just to bang it you can't use the secular argument against it God if you're Jewish if you're Christian it makes sense if you're Jewish it just doesn't it doesn't hold any water it's it's not we're Judaism's God came from we didn't we didn't posit God to nth to answer questions about the world we didn't understand can anyone repeat that I just wondering cuz when I say this sometimes people look puzzled is anyone in the room able to repeat that quickly and succinctly what I just said you can say it yeah you're good you got yesterday's - yeah it says - you got it okay I'll get because you got yesterday I'll give this one in Peter Peter can you just say that back quickly use modern their argument is that God or theology fills in the space that the things that we don't know answer fill in that space and now that we have so many answers fill a premise he's there - filling gaps well then when something else fills in those gaps and you're left thinking there's no God but you coming with the intention of like Oh God isn't there to fill in gaps he's just there and it's impossible to disprove because it's not there - it's not like oh if you don't have any something to solve with there's God is there either way and that's what you do that's the Judaism Christianity is more of it sorry atheism or the Greek philosophy more than okay it's pretty good no the other thing I added was that was that are a relationship to God based on thousands of years of prophecy right it wasn't it's not like a made-up thing you know it says dude you realize also we don't have I mean who would you attribute our theology - is there one character you can in tribute theology to Avram Moses yeah Avram okay great would Avram say about God that there is one and what did Moses say about God he's so called that there is one maybe then thank you very much and that's not exactly you know much so but what we do have about God is what the prophecies are the actual Torah okay all right here we go separation of sexist he so the person said that his wife had issue with that and what I wanted to share is that is that this is gonna sound a little funny but um you know I'm thinking even to restart this whole class so just cuz someone shouldn't have to sift through it I'll retitle it okay