Rav Lopiansky is liberalism Judaism The Project Inspire Convention 2021

i don't know if it's to say we gathered here and this year's unique um a lot of uh yeah to the people that organized this it was very challenging and hopefully we'll get our inspiration even from this kind of very very unusual type of getting together i'm going to speak about somewhat of an unusual topic i guess it's um it's something that's relevant because of the heavy political atmosphere but i want to speak about it from a unique political point of view uh sorry from a torah point of view um the elections the events have been very very polarizing and everyone has chosen sides right left conservative liberal a democrat republican none of that is torah there are things that are compatible there are things that are important to us we have to make decisions but we have our own cheetah our our own approaches in some areas they might have seen the light in some areas not and therefore i would like to speak specifically about some of the areas where actually the quote-unquote so-called left might actually be closer to arashkoffer and i want to make it clear again i endorse no party because i think no party and nobody out there is a torah person but some of the ideas i think are important to emphasize thorough ideas even if they belong to the right or wrong party i'm going to pick three things three points especially one point the idea of government regulation right or wrong um the so-called right believes the government should stay out of people's um here they should regulate as little or not at all depending on where you are on the spectrum and the so-called left believes more and more government regulations is there a torah perspective in that two people who don't have money um what is the responsibility of society to them do we have responsibility um should the government be involved in it three when we're dealing with different bad needles different alveros which are the worst there are many many immoralities that the torah really really um in very very strong terms denounces and and tells us what the punishment is so what they ask ourselves what is the worst of them all what is it once again it's difficult to translate these ideas because is a u.s government similar to a jewish government in claudius world but edem i'm not making um an easy cut and paste i am we're going to go through some torah ideas and it will give us some perspective on what things ought to look like whether this is what the us government ought to do whether they're capable of doing it whether the best vehicle for doing it that's the asu local orthodox politician i can only give you somewhat of of a torah approach first thing government regulation is there a point to it is it right is appropriate i am going to be quoting from the rambam and hilda's merceria perique dalit the rambam as you all probably know does not really say anything of his own this is a simply laid out um extremely logical presentation of what is the bottom line sack in the gemara so the rambam says he starts apparently dalit and he says it is true that you cannot fool people as far as the prices of items goes uh you cannot sell something that's worth ten dollars for twenty dollars um that's that actually cancels the sale so but if you notify and you tell a person i am a boutique shop a chocolate bar that you can get for 50 cents at your local cvs is going to cost 8.93 because i smile sweetly at you and i don't call it chocolate i call it something else that's perfectly legitimate as long as it's clear that i'm charging a price beyond what you could be gotten for that's not cheating and that's perfectly acceptable i can charge any price that i would like so long as you're aware that this may be far from the best price you can get that sounds quite liberal and open avo bezn has to get enforcement they have to get they have to create a price list and guards to make sure they are called that people not um make a profit as they wish um and there's a certain norm it's in the in the in though in those as 15 percent above and beyond expense obviously however the med verma muram with things that are absolutely necessities yay knows wine in those days was necessity saltos oil flour and so on but other items larger items krishna navona you can do as as much as you want so the first thing is regulation is mandated on items that are necessary so the government does need to make sure that items are not priced out of the range of affordability but they also need to make sure that that's only in items that is necessary we don't have to make everything affordable to everybody and there's no reason for it so yes that people have necessities regulations are in place and obviously you can't force people to charge less and not make a profit but a modest profit is a maximum you can make on items that are necessary next um you cannot hoard things that are necessities uh as if if somebody has a monopoly and he hoards all the oil or flour and then the price goes through a roof because of hoarding you can and should make laws and have to make laws to stop hoarding and actually one of the brothers judas is a curse for people who hoard um if props and thereby raise the prices so the idea of an artificially inflated price meaning there is enough to go around but one person is keeping unlocking key so that the price goes up that is absolutely prohibited and it should be enforced next he's and once again we make a distinction between necessities and luxuries one um the city people the people in the city can make a price list for anything and create a system of punishments they are entitled so you have a cahilla and they decide that this has to be the price and somebody um if somebody veers from it they can punish him um he says lives work in a way that they that they give each person a fair share so on mondays you have to hire this person on tuesdays this person on wednesday is this person they can do that and they can enforce those rules and even penalizing heavy monetary penalties so the first thing we see is the power of regulation on a communal level exists when there was a monarchy in israel his power was absolute um in on a communal level obviously we have not nowhere near the type of power monarch had but we have the power and the right to create regulations one to regulate um the work so that there's a fair distribution that people don't have to work six days a week that by alternating we're able to give people a day off they're they're able to regulate unfair competition they are mandated to regulate goods in a way that people have basic necessities at affordable prices and they also can enact regulation that there's no artificial um uh pumping up of prices by somebody simply holding everything which is in a sense what a monopoly does and why a monopoly creates a danger to a free economy so in the area of economic regulation there are very clear categories of regulation that are appropriated appropriate and mandated that's one what is the responsibility of a community to people that don't have money now everybody feels charity is wonderful but it's personal every person has a personal mitzvah to get stuck up so no one disagrees with that but does the community as a community have that let's take the rambam in the ninth chapter yes must have appointed official fatstaka anosha miyadu and venema people that are recognized as being honest they go around once a week and collect um from them money for it and this how much you need to give to each per person you need to give him a week's worth of food and then he says there's also a daily collection gimmel drama says we've never heard or seen a jewish community that did not have a stalker fund every single community has a soccer fund and this actually can uh this is something that you could enforce you can stalker is one of the things you can force people to give stalker now the rama is also points out in very very powerful terms the shortcomings of community that's very from but not giving with tineos meghal comes on the slantium on the first day you give food to poor people so that they can eat before they can eat afterwards the whole tiny a fair stay where everybody ate and went to sleep without giving stalker to poor people hare eloquence they are murderers it used to be a place of justice and now it's murderous and he goes on to explain how it's collected so the obligation of the community to feed um the people that are poor exists if we ask ourselves um does a community a society have an obligation to feed its body the answer is yes now technically does this apply to a non-jew in other words a non-jewish community do they have an obligation i don't know but it's certainly when we speak of torah values it is a torah value that we take care of people that don't have what to eat now uh you arguments can be made that a a jewish community is a wonderfully efficient instrument um the u.s government is not an official again ask your local orthodox politician but if we're talking about um perspective what is the obligation of society two individuals that don't have the answers absolute and the way the rama says we've never heard of a jewish community that doesn't have that stucco that's at our the perspective of obligation of society towards individual in terms of having a meal and so on one more point which incorporates this and then gives us a sweeping perspective on relative merits and values of what makes a society rise and full sedom is probably considered the ultimate evil society amalek is the ultimate evil nation um of the of the of the three um let's call it societies or mega societies that suffer doom we have the marble that was the flood we have the dorha which was the generation that fell apart and to the tower of babel and we have the stone um anyone familiar with the various um mad russian the the the in in in in the prophets that want to give a paradigm of an evil society kistoma stone is it stone is the worst a society can be and it was obliterated with total incineration if if it's hard to pick but if we ask ourselves what is the worst of the worst in stuff we have many hazal the past the sukim themselves speak of terrible moral depravity the the word sodomy comes from the word stone because the so can speak about that and and terrible tortures inflicted many many many bad things um it's it's um it was a a society that was thoroughly bad and evil but what was the point that triggered that destruction so we're going to learn one of the most arabic early commentaries on hamish i would say second only to the ramban and evanescer the ravenna is um one of the fundamental pirushim on torah and this is by stone he says um call me this ross they had everything bad and he brings the ghazal about all the various it says ansha stomach it says um there was birkas hashem they cursed god it says they spilled blood um and so on so there was no lack of bad or evil that the people of stone did aval the raven mahaya says nigmar dinam why what was the final what they call in hebrew the macabre patis that the final bed that sealed the doom what was that show your moassim is at staka they despised giving stakka m and they did not care about the poor people um and their fellow countrymen that were that that though they were they were hungry they were poor says it's not the bad they did it's the fact that they had a lack of any type of feeling and sentiment towards poor people there's somebody in our neighborhood who's um very very involved stuck he's a wonderful wonderful person he was told over the following story his mother wished to be in charge of the march of dimes a chapter they're at the local march of dimes chapter and um part of that was to go around collect from people and money um now the you know march of dimes used to help children with cerebral palsy because of it was kind of when i was growing up that was the charity a charity you know um and he would knock on people's doors and get through excuses people gave you ready and so on typical that's fine one person answered doing and he explained to him what he's collecting for he says oh it's charity he says i don't do charity i said no it's legitimate and and and they said no i i know it's legitimate i have no problems with it i just don't do charity and this fellow said he didn't he did not respond to it as a jew he grew up with the idea that you do charity so fine we all find little rationalizations help to you know lighten the burden but the idea of charity is axiomatic to us and this person grew up without it so he says that stalker they were they despised charity you know we're self-made people and if you can't make it yourself tough luck they did not care about the poor people or fellow countrymen who were laying starving and then he says and because this was constant it wasn't a deviation once or twice this is who they were the cache [Music] was the reason why they were obliterated from the face of the earth and he says there's not a nation in the world that people aren't charitable each other for anxious the people in stone despised charity and were hard-hearted to the ultimate the alpha appreciated there was no torah given no prophet psalm they gave it there was no uh where was the messenger of god the prophet told him to do it he says stucco is a mitzvah that should be axiomatic it should be something that the human mind should accept as a given the dove two of who it is a disgusting thing shayra adam is that a person can look around and see a fellow human being starving us and he's wealthy and he has plenty and his stomach is full venom watches and there's no mercy in his part no sentiment to try to help this person al has come the comma certainly is a fellow countryman [Music] that's why hashem destroyed the people's stone who who who stopped charity the locker nickname and he took revenge on behalf of the poor people so rabbi says the fact that they were cursed god atheist of some sort terrible not the reason to be destroyed total the fact that they were depraved and did some of the worst arias terrible not a reason to obliterate not even killing people people kill people passionate it was that but the lack of any type of rachman the lack of compassion means that you're just not wide like a human being you're missing something so compassion the idea that society needs to care for the people that are starving sick hungry is the most fundamental media that a human society is exists on and without that it does not justify its existence once again what's the best way to do it how to do it i i not that's not what we're talking about but the idea that we are responsible and that's universal it's not only jewish this is universal that a society is responsible for the hungry for the sick for the wretched whether it's their fault not their fault we have a responsibility and we can't shake it off that is the the the the the the rabbinbachalia so let's just review the points and again i'm making these points so that we understand what our perspective is how to implement it who are the best people to implement it and so on that's not the area that that i'm into but let's never lose our true torah schofa one society has responsibilities towards the individual one responsibility is that to regulate and to govern prices in a way that allows people to live and it does it it's it's not everybody needs to have everything there's a clear distinction between the luxuries that you know that that that if i got blessed with it that's fine and basic needs that people should be able to afford at a reasonable price a society is allowed to and mandated to regulate it two we put in regulations for a good working society so that people um who are working weaken through regulation allow people to have their days of work and and so on those are all positive next we have an obligation to set up a communal sucker it's not people's personal good will it's also that but every society every every is required to have it stuck a fund that has the power actually to collect money whether the person wants to or not covenant suckers and the rambam says it is unheard of in claudius that we had a community that communally did not care they did not create stucco and finally we have the incredible words of verbatim there are many terrible availas and are various carry punishments but all of varus i can look at the person as being a human being who's wrong who's made a mistake who's gone off who's doing something terrible who has a flaw but the only aveda that i could say the person is not a human being he's missing a core value that makes him human is compassion and a society like stone that did not have the feeling of compassion towards the poor and and and and and the starving does not merit to exist they are not humans and they cannot exist society construction help that speedily we recreate our society claudia's soul society with our king mashiach and our legislature the sanhedrin and we run a society that's built on principles of stukka and mishpot likes is the intertwining where where society is a society of law and order and compassion and care and that a society of always stukka mishpot will be an orla and illuminate the world entirely thank you