Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro at CCSU "Zionism's Opposition to Judaism"

greetings as many of you know my name is norton mezvinsky i taught here for a few years and i retired just a few years ago now it's always a pleasure for me to introduce a friend and it's even better when i have the chance to introduce a friend whom i greatly respect a few weeks ago i had the pleasure of introducing rabbi yaakov shapiro as a speaker at the international council for middle east studies an organization in washington which i'm fortunate to to be to be president and now i have the opportunity uh to uh introduce him here at ccsu a place that uh well i already mentioned that i taught for 43 years yaakov shapiro is the rabbi of an orthodox jewish congregation in queens new york he is one of ultra orthodoxy's most prominent public intellectuals and author of four books on jewish law and philosophy he is presently completing his fifth work a three-volume work of orthodox jewish opposition to zionism jewish nationalism and the jewish state rabbi shapiro has often spoken on the radio and has delivered the speeches in um the united states israel and europe to uh various audiences he addressed an audience for example at the european union last week last week he was the featured speaker at a rally of tens of thousands of orthodox jews in jerusalem who were protesting the israeli draft this protest was widely covered by the israeli media as well as by media in the united states i think you will find rabbi shapiro's presentation both novel and incisive as have many other audiences zionism is the heart center philosophy of the state of israel and has in most ways provided the basis for what has been called by many the jewish state or the state of the jews too often overlooked is the conflict between zionism and judaism the title of rabbi shapiro's presentation today as i'm sure you know is zionist zionism's opposition to judaism after he speaks we'll of course have a question and answer period rabbi shapiro [Applause] thank you for the kind words professor lesvinsky it's always an honor to be introduced by you i want to first thank the middle east studies program here at ccsu and the international studies program for inviting me here to speak the odds are i'm probably not a typical type of speaker that the college is used to and honestly this audience is not the typical audience that i'm used to which is great diversity is what makes the world go round um normally when you hear lectures about zionism anti-zionism zionism versus judaism the content is usually focused on one topic the conflict between israel and the palestinians this is unfortunate because there is much to say about zionism that has nothing to do with the conflict about israel and palestinians and i'm here to explain that today the default discourse on this topic was deliberately hijacked so that whenever somebody speaks about zionism immediately the question arises okay are you for the occupation or against the occupation yes or no are you for the palestinians or against the palestinians which side it's like a color war if you speak about one team you automatically have to involve yourself in this conflict this is unfortunate it's like if let's say you were to sell tell somebody you are against donald trump what that means by default is that you voting for hillary or maybe mickey mouse between me and you i voted for mickey mouse but if if let's say i know other things about mr trump that i'm very opposed to perhaps i worked in his building and i'm opposed to his business practices and i say i'm against donald trump and then people would tell me well what do you mean who do you want for present hillary it would be quite frustrating because i'm not talking about the presidential election and talking about a completely different conflict that's what i'm going to be discussing today at the end of today's lecture you could be pro-israel you could be pro-palestinian it would my lecture will not impact on that in the slightest instead i'm going to focus on what zionism is so that we could better understand what makes israel tick the ideas behind the founding of the state of israel and whoever saw it you're on at least you'll know who the combatants are in this conflict because people really don't understand there are many ideas that people assume because they assume it the point of view that i'm going to say doesn't get a chance to be heard people assume that zionism is and this is how zionists define it the national liberation movement of the jewish people i'm going to argue that that's completely false you will also assume that israel is the jewish state or actually professor mizvinsky said it's either the jewish state or the state of the jewish people happens to be there's a big difference between the two to the point where when theodore herzl wrote his book dear judenstadt there are two different ways to translate that either the jewish states or the jews state there's a very big difference i'm going to argue that the entire assumption is not true israel is not the state of the jewish people nor is it the jewish state another assumption that people have is that zionism is somehow based on judaism or somehow connected to judaism especially the the idea that god promised to choose the land and zionism is a fulfillment of god's promise i'm going to argue that that's completely false in fact it was an idea that was taken from christianity not judaism we're going to start by accommodating a request that was made at the aipac convention last week a rabbi gordus i believe his name is i had never heard of him before even though his wikipedia article says he's one of the most 50 influential jews in the country or in the world not sure exactly but he said that there's a problem with judaism america and israel the problem is that we speak more about the conflicts that israel has with hamas rather than the ideas that that created israel we have united states of america we speak about isis he said much much more than we speak about thomas jefferson and if you want to understand what america is you need to understand thomas jefferson that's we should be speaking about he said by the same token if you want to understand israel instead of speaking about hamas so much we should be speaking about vladimir jabotinski and michael joseph bertiszewski these were two of the great thinkers whose ideas are today's israel is based upon we're going to accommodate that we're going to study jabatinsky and we're going to study berkshire and we're going to see exactly what their ideas were first if we're talking about a jewish state i'm going to ask the question that the british committee asked theodore herzl when he first mentioned the jewish state to them they asked what is a jewish state exactly now you should know that in the the surveys that they when people write books when people take surveys and they ask different people tell me what a jewish state is there are several different answers that people give some people say well it's a state where jews could feel safe others say it's a state with a jewish character others say it's the nation-state of the jewish people the way the state of israel defines it you'll find this on israel's website is written by avigdor libra in this particular piece it says that what japan is to the japanese and francis to the french israel is to the jews what he's saying is it's not merely a state that benefits the jews or state that was created to help the jews but rather it's an integral part of jewish identity without france would you have french people without japan would you have japanese people without israel would you have israeli people oh see there's the trick it's not that without israel you wouldn't have israeli people without israel you wouldn't really have jews if we're going to accept this definition that israel is to the jewish people not israelis to the israelis what francis to the french and japan is to the japanese what that means is in some way which um lieberman does not define israel is integral to jewish identity and without israel jewish identity would be changed or reduced or disappeared somehow somewhere so they asked theodore herzl way back when what is a jewish state so he said well states we know what a state is so i said okay so what's a jew and this is where we have to start i'll give you my definition which is the bible's definition and theodore herzl's definition which is not the bible's definition the bible's definition is the verse that describes the creation of the jewish people in hebrew goes like this which means today you have become a people or a nation or society however you would like to translate that word um it's related to the arabic umo we also have a word um similar words could be translated a nation a society a people however you like it but that day that the bible was discussing was talking about the day that god gave moses the torah on mount sinai a bunch of people came out of egypt they were not a jewish nation yet they are a bunch of uh refugees from egyptian slavery then they came to mount sinai god came to moses and gave him the torah salom that's what made the jewish people the jewish people in the desert where they had no land it wasn't in any country they had no common uh state they were into any territory but they came off became a full-fledged people because of one reason because they received the torah and on mount sinai that is the only common denominator that all jews have now this is the way jews have defined themselves for thousands of years almost a thousand years ago rafa sadio who was born in the 800s and died in the nine hundreds said that the jewish people are people only because of their religion if you take me for example i'm an american my father's from poland my mother's family is from england around the corner from me lives a nice yemeni chew his name is his family is from yemen they've been there for hundreds of years what do i have in common with here that makes us both jews we did not speak the same language jews haven't spoken hebrew in thousands of years we know that one of the national symptoms of people are the common language they're those that say that's the most important symptom of a nation jews have not spoken hebrew 1000 if you want to see something very interesting go to youtube and and punch in netanyahu pope now tell you how to mean with the pope last time he came to israel and um they had a very interesting conversation through an interpreter of course netanyahu was braving to the pope about the connection between israel and jesus and he said jesus lived here and he he lived in this land and he spoke hebrew so the pope corrects him he says no aramaic the jews spoke aramaic not hebrew when they had the second commonwealth now if you you look up this this clip and you see netanyahu in the pope and you don't know which is which which isn't the time you know which guy's the pope the pope is the one wearing the yarmulke that's how you can tell who's who i have no common language with this guy we don't eat the same foods we have no common culture the only thing that we have in common is that we are brothers by both receiving the torah on mount sinai and this is why jews have identified jewishness for for thousands of years the jews had a specific type of national or i'm using the word national uh colloquially i don't mean it literally uh national values and goals our goal our value was as the torah said our mission to be which means a kingdom of priests and a holy people kind of like by way of analogy um you imagine the priests in shangri-la or conlon mountain or i don't know x-men island or something like that where you have a group of people that have a specific mission and they segregate themselves and they live there and our mission was to study the torah and fulfill the torah we had no aspirations to win gold medals and we had no aspirations to win wars we had no aspirations to be athletes and if somebody wanted to that's their choice no problem but it was not jewish value ever i'll tell you two things where you can see this you know languages always reflect the culture of a people so if you want to know if let's say you know a thousand years from now if america no longer exists and they were studying the culture of america uh what i would do if i was studying it i would look at the american language the english language the spoken united states of america and see the idioms that they use and i would see that well they have if somebody is um we could sometimes somebody does something unfair to somebody else he hit below the belt sometimes you're behind the eight ball if you really made a good speech they say you you hit a home run um if you late to class you're mia missing in action and all of these are references to athletics to military thing to fighting and in every language they have such idioms but not in yiddish if you take a look at the idioms and the expressions in the yiddish language that the jews spoke in eastern europe that you will find not a single reference not a single figure of speech that refers to athletics that refers to physicality that refers to war these were values that were showed by the jewish people we were we were not a military people we did not like violence we did not like war in fact we are enjoined by the torah that when we are in exile which we have been for the last two thousand years we are not even allowed to fight wars we are instructed it's wise advice from the torah which comes from god to run rather than fight now other people may look at this as cowardice but he who turns and runs away lives to fight another day or lives another day at least if you were and there really is no cowardice in this we never took pride in being stronger than other people there is no pride there's no shame in getting beaten up by a bully do you know why there's no shame in getting beaten up by a bully if you are ashamed of getting beaten up by a bully you lack self-esteem let's say it wasn't a bully that beat you up let's say it was you were attacked by a gorilla would you feel shame that you were beaten up by a gorilla would you feel like a coward that you ran from a gorilla when anti-semites attacked jews the pogroms in the late 1800s in russia there was no shame in that you know why because the anti-semitic pogrom chicks were like animals but worse than animals according to the jewish religion your status depends upon your choices not the size of your muscles and not how many people you could kill or beat up but your choices and jews were proud jews were proud even when they were persecuted you know we were proud of we were proud that we were not our persecutors when jews were persecuted we were proud that we were the victims and not the persecutors nobody wants to be a victim it's painful it's hurtful it's damaging but shame no joy just like a person would not feel shame if he was attacked by wild animals there is no reason to feel shame when you are attacked by bullies or anti-semites or or or evil people even if they are stronger than you and if somebody does feel shame that's low self-esteem we looked at the anti-semites like animals and all we wanted was to be left alone to pursue our studies and our religious devotion the columbia university historian celebrant spoke about the ghetto he says that today people look at the ghetto as the epitome of evil but he points out that the jews about a thousand years ago voluntarily created the ghetto on their own and he had a good line he says quote there were locks inside the ghetto gates in most cases before there were locks outside take for example by way of analogy the amish arganda the people in shangri-la conglom mountain we wanted to be segregated and and celo baron may have not been aware that there was an even earlier ghetto that the jews voluntarily segregated themselves in and that was when the jews were in egypt enslaved by the egyptians the holiday of passover is is coming soon and we know that the jews when they went to egypt segregated themselves in the town called goshen away from the rest of the egyptians why why do we segregate ourselves very simple why does the dalai lama segregate himself because it's more conducive to his mission why do you lock yourself in a room when you have to study for a test because it's better for your mission and that's what's important to you right now i have a friend who's a medical student i can't speak to him because he's always busy studying no problem jews are also always busy studying not everybody has to follow the jewish religion well god said either it's a person's choice if he chooses not to but if you wanted to be if you wanted to have jewish values these were the jewish values jews name their children after righteous people not after war we don't have one war hero in our religion king david was not known as a war hero you know king david was known as the author of the psalms and if you analyze all of the songs which king david wrote you will find very often that he complains about his enemies and he prays to god for the the demise of his enemies but not once will you find in the psalms written by king david about how strong he is and how he's going to take an army and beat his enemies here's the king he's a king and in those days the king wasn't like today a king a king over there was a real monarch he was a dictator and he could have done whatever he wanted he could have taken it off he didn't brag about his strength and the entire book nowhere in kings david's writings you will find such a thing you will find him praying to god god please take care of my enemies please god save me from my enemies he turns to god the jews i'm not asking you to believe my religion right now and however i'm describing to you what my religion is i'm not asking you to believe that an adam spoke to a snake that's up to you i'm not asking you to believe that god split the the red sea that's up to you but the bible says that adam spoke to a snake and god split the red sea and the bible says that when the jews went to war all over the the the bible they won through miracles how many times did god strike their enemies with blindness how many times the prophet elisha brought down fire from heaven as did the prophet eliah elijah how many times it said when said in the bible and moses held his hands up and and focused on god then the jews were successful in wars the jews did not win wars according to our religion through this through strength lloyd not through strength and not through military strength and not through power kim but rather through my spirit says god jews believed and they still do that they are saved through god you know there's a story yeah they the jews did have an army and i want to explain to you what kind of army i'll tell you a story this is from one of our big rabbis his name was he was known for his incredible insight into things and his foresight there was he died in 1917 the anti-orthodox jewish jews in those those days the masquilum they used to always poke fun at the orthodox jews and the ultra orthodox jews we could call them and make fun of them and um they they made a play mocking the bible and what they did was you know that they they had a story about the the mosh the anointed priest that that gathers people to create an army and as it says in the bible the priest gets up there and he says okay everybody anybody who is afraid of their sins going to war should go home can't fight in the army our tradition says that anybody that was killed even of a minor rabbinic infraction cannot fight in the army because in a voluntary war because jews won war because of god not because of their strength half of the people the crews went home anybody who just recently built a house go home that's what says in the bible they went home anybody who recently got married go home at the end of the the the um selection process the only two people left for the army um they ran behind solaveichik himself and and and rabbis a cake into two elderly ancient rabbis was sitting there and that's the whole law and this was funny you're laughing and you should be laughing because it was it was a funny skit something for saturday night live um alec baldwin played her kind sullivan check only joking but they came to raphael and they came to her by sullivan they said what do we do we need to answer this this is a mockery right so i said let me see the paper and he looked and he said uh the first uh the scene the first part this is true the next one this is true and this is true and this is true and it's all true except they left out one part we won the war that is in judaism how the jews won the war that's how he believes i'm again i'm not asking to believe that adam spoke to a snake or that god meted out um uh the plagues upon the egyptians or he split the red sea or that the jews had supernatural powers and war and that's the only reason why they won because of god but that is the only reason why they won we are not military people we don't name our children after military heroes and we do not have any sights any uh holy sites or or uh prominent sites of military uh victories let's say the alamo gettysburg we don't have anything like that in our religion all over the tanakh the bible every other page after the jews go into the holy land there are wars be this nation everybody's attacking everyone there was yet you asked a rabbi where are the sites of these we never celebrated those sites because we don't celebrate wars we don't celebrate violence the relationship between the jews and the holy lands the land of the eretzi scroll the land of israel that the jews entered with with joshua it was not a national homeland again we became a nation before we went into the holy land the holy land is considered not our national homeland but rather a holy land it's like a giant synagogue it's a holy land it's imbued endowed with holiness by god designed for for righteous jews to serve god within it if you're not a righteous jew you don't belong there it's for jews and it doesn't matter sovereignty is not an issue we did once upon a time have kings there's king saul king david king solomon and the purpose of the kingdoms was because that was more conducive for us to serve god the law was that a king of the jews had to hold with him the torah the book of the torah all the time to remind him of what his real duties are our goals were purely religious god gave us this lands to fulfill the religion and he said this is very important if you do not fulfill the religion in this land if you worship idols watch out lest your heart pull you away for certain and you deviate and you worship other gods i'm going to kick you out of the land and that's what happened and god sent us into exile and we all say all orthodox jews pray numero because of our sins we were exiled from our land because the land was not a homeland it was a holy land given to us to serve god with and very simple if you don't if you abuse it it's taken away use it or lose it it was never a national homeland because jews were never united by common land or common language we have a whole language the holy hebrew tongue but it wasn't a national speaking language it's true that once upon a time jews did speak it but for thousands of years we did not and it did not matter to us there is no mitzvah there is no positive thing to speak the hebrew language especially if and this is uh many of our commentators say this is why we don't speak hebrew anymore because if you pollute the language then you're polluting a holy thing the language is holy it was written by god the holy hebrew language and if you don't use it properly use it properly or lose it we don't speak it anymore aramaic we don't have a national language to speak relationship to culture there is no such thing as a jewish culture there's an eastern european jewish culture there's an american jewish culture what is jewish food bagels and loxes too jewish food i'm not sure why exactly they decided bagels unlocked this jewish food chicken soup as everybody knows if you go into a jewish neighborhood an orthodox jewish neighborhood you will find that the most popular foods are pizza and sushi i'm really not joking there's no such thing as juice there is no such thing as a jewish culture again me and my yemenite guy that lives around the corner from me um they i don't know they don't even they don't eat sushi they don't eat pizza they yemenite food which is fine we don't have a we have one thing a religion and one goal one national aspiration to fulfill the will of god that's all now after the little history after the emancipation and and jews had an opportunity to leave the ghetto and then to um join the colleges and to join the the non-religious world there there were many jews that had what i call a wizard of oz complex which means they thought that over the rainbow there was something unnoble and great over there and they wanted out the problem was that um a lot of them assimilated but the non-jewish anti-semites would not accept them in 1881 the russian pogroms started and millions of jews eventually had to leave russia and it was the secularized jews the assimilated jews that were also targeted assimilating did not help the uh jews become and by the way there are many people that think i don't know who invented this idea that the word is some kind of pejorative as it is it is not it just means nations or gentiles in fact if i just quoted the verse from the bible that describes the jews is going holy good a holy nation and the gang did not allow the jews to they they wouldn't accept them into their um their clubs they would accept them as guardians so so so the religious they didn't want to be religious and they didn't want they couldn't so now they're stuck between a rock and a hard place heretics didn't want to be what are they going to do so they embarked upon plan b plane a was assimilation plan b was to re-engineer the jewish people the jewish people to them were disgusting sickly ugly who in the world if he could have an opportunity to be a baseball player to be a football player to be a soccer player if he could be a a olympic gold medalist why would he want to be a rabbi why would he want to be tevye sitting and and and being busy all day with his his religion so they decided they embarked upon a social engineering project that was going to change the jews change their values change their characters it's true the jews ran from a fight you consider that cowardice that's your choice i know that my son asked me a question said father if i am approached in the streets by a burly man asking for my money should i give him my money or should i find and i'm 90 sure my son tells me that i could beat him why would you tell your children fight or give him the money and what if he asks for your clothes i would say give me your clothes and he asks you to stand on your head stand on your head the five percent chance the one percent chance of getting killed is not worth it perhaps you would give your children different advice perhaps you would not that's what i would and that's our choice and that was the jewish choice we did not want to fight we'd rather these people considered it shameful and they wanted to change the jews to become more like the cossacks more like the anti-semites more like the tough guys rather than like the jews how are we going to change the personality of the jews the non-jews will not allow us into their societies the jews we don't want to be part of their disgusting society the only solution is to change the jews change their character and make them into well the opposite of the jews now let's quote vladimir jabotinski one of the founding fathers of giant zionism and by the way today's liquid party the dominant party in israel is based on the zionism of jabatinski more than anybody else benjamin netanyahu considers himself a student of jabatinski nathaniel's father ben sia netanyahu was actually a right-handed one of the right-hand men of vladimir jabotinski jabatinsky said he said what is a zionist what do we want to make the jews into and he said like this he said it's impossible really to give you a model of what a zionist is because there's nothing like it right now to compare it to but if you want to know what a zionist this here's what you need to do take a typical jed is a derogatory name for jew kind of like take a and take all his personality traits and characteristics imagine their diametrical opposite and that's going to be a zionist he called it a hebrew quote because the year the is ugly sickly and lacks handsomeness we're going to endow the ideal images of the hebrew with masculine beauty stature massive shoulders vigorous movements bright colors and shades of color the yid is frightened and downtrodden so the hebrew will be proud and independent the yid is disgusting to all so the hebrew will be charming to all the id likes to hide with baited breath from the eyes of strangers and the zionists the hebrew will should march ahead to the entire world look them straight and deep into their eyes and voice before them his banner i am a hebrew the zionists more than anything else wanted to change the jews their characters their values skoda michael joseph bertiszewski the other man who in apec conference said we should study methios of bertiszewski said describes why the zionist movement is important he said that the values of judaism have destroyed the jewish people apart from turning us as a quote into spiritual slaves men whose natural forces had dried up and whose relation to life in the world was no longer normal therefore we have to make a revolution it cannot arise other than by a total overturn a total trans valuation of values which has been the guidelines of our lives in the past our hearts aren't for life sense that the resurrection of israel depends on a revolution the jews must come first before judaism the living man before the legacy of his ancestors we must cease to be virtue for to be jews by virtue of an abstract judaism and become jews in our own right as a living nationality the traditional credo is no longer enough for us he ends his speech by saying his essay to be or not to be we will either be the last of the jews or the first of the hebrews they wanted to change the jews into another nation with a trans valuation of values by the way that's a nichian phrase trans valuation of values that's what they wanted to do these were the some of the leading thinkers the thomas jefferson's the george washington's the patrick henrys of the state of israel today this is what they wanted how are they going to do it well we're going to synthesize a new nationality we'll create a new identity for them for ourselves now if you want to create a new identity for yourself there's two ways to do it let's say you'll take norton as an example hope you don't mind let's say norton doesn't want to be called norton anymore sounds like something out of an old television show so he wants to be called so he wants to be called uh ahmad norton wants to be called ahmed so there are two ways he can do it he can either just change his name to him and wherever he goes and say i'm ahmad i'm not but there's a problem with that because you say norton where were you ahmad where were you a professor well ccsu i don't see you on the list where were you born what is your history you can't just make up a new identity in the middle of nowhere there's another thing you can do you can kill somebody and then take his birth certificate take his identity and become ahmad the zionists wanted to change the jewish identity but not by creating a new a new national identity there actually were those who tried they were called the canaanite there was a movement in the early zionist days by jonathan rotosch which was a small but uh disproportionately influential group of people who said we're not jews we're canaan we're a new nation but it fizzled out quickly because why would anybody want to be canadian so instead what they did was we said we're going to kill the old jewish identity the religion that's not the definition of a jew a jew was a nationality and in those days they referred to it often as a race but they didn't really mean race they meant what we call today nationality uh their jew is a nationality your religion is only the constitution of the jewish people it's the national religion in the same way that the greeks believe in zeus but you don't have to believe in zeus to be a greek jews believed in god and the creator of the world hashem but you don't have to believe in hashem to be a jew in fact how many greeks today believe in zeus and how many vikings believe in four and how many jews believe why do the jews have to believe in god we're going instead we're going to change the holy land we have a the holy land we're going to change it into a homeland we're going to change hebrew into a national language from a holy language and this guy benny who actually sat down to try to create a new language if it it it resembles ancient hebrew but it's not the same language at all and i'll give you certain i i'll give you some examples of not only is the language different but the content was designed specifically to change the identity of the jew i'll give you an example there's a phrase in in in a biblical hebrew karen kyanis karen kayemus means it's used in one context means everlasting fund eternal fund it's referred to when a jew fulfills a mitzvah god's command he gets rewarded in the afterlife today in israel the phrase kevin cayemas is the jewish national fund what used to refer to uh accumulating mitzvas for god now refers to accumulating money for the states there was a phrase beethoven the token comes from the roots which means trust but the form only appears in one context in ancient hebrew trust in god that's different than trusting in people the word better refers to trusting israel refers to homeland security national security there was an angel of fire at the beginning of the book of yakuskel ezekiel i think it's it's referred to in english it refers to him today in israel means electricity in the olden days we believed in angels today it's technology there's a word that we use when we refer to god now we know god has no real eyes no nose no mouth he's not physical and yet in the the bible it refers to the eyes of god the hand of god outstretched on but those are what we call anthropomorphisms to indicate an anthropomorphism we added the word caviar cavioco means in a manner of speaking and it was only used in hebrew in referring to god today in israel the word kavyoko means like as if whenever you say something that's like the idea was to change the holy holy identity of judaism to a national i'll give you another common example everybody knows the story where by passover moses came to pharaoh and said let my people go right let my people go sounds like a national liberation movement but that's not what it says in the bible they le they they dropped one word in the bible moses comes god tells moses go to pharaoh and say let my people go that they may serve me it was a religious demands that moses made to pharaoh not a national liberation demand yet today let my people go became the national liberation cry and they left out the religious gods this is what they tried to do now ben gurion the early ben green by the way the idea of uh the the land being promised to the jews unconditionally is not a jewish idea then uh david ben-gurion did invoke the idea when speaking to the british committee he said the mandate the british mandate is not our bible but the bible is our mandate and that is our claim to the land quote i can only point to our bible into its sequence in the many jewish initiatives to regain israel stretching across the sense of centuries and say this is our mandate now the same man david ben-gurion also said the one that said god promised the land to the to the jews and i quote since i invoke the torah so often let me state that i don't personally believe in the god that it postulates i mean that i cannot turn to god or pray to a superhuman almighty being living up in the sky i'm not religious nor the majority of the early builders of modern israel believers yet their passion for this land stemmed from the book of books that is why the socialists of the belu movement rallied themselves with reference to ezra who brought the jews to the holy land and it is why though i reject theology the single most important book in my life is the bible in other words and many have said this but it is absolutely true i don't believe in god but he promised me this land where did he get this idea where who came up with this idea that god unconditionally promised the jewish people the land as a homeland well as early as 1585 a christian from cambridge published a book called quote the glorious and beautiful garland of man's glorification containing the godly mystery of heavenly jerusalem that's really the title where he mentions the jewish national return to palestine francis kett whose name was in 1609 an english priest thomas breitman wrote a pamphlet called i hope i'm pronouncing it right apocalypsis apocalypsios describing the process of the jews return to the holy land and their conversion in it he called for jewish state in palestine in order that the prophecies of his religion what we would call today evangelical christianity would be fulfilled he said only if this happens will england be blessed by their god he also predicted the conversion of the jews to christianity in the year 1650. the first zionist was neither moses hess nor theodore herzl kent and breitman lived a few centuries before either of them as time went by the christian zionist movement gains momentum quote from the first quarter of the 17th century belief in a future conversion of the jews became commonplace amongst the english puritans and a large number of them taught that there would be a restoration of the jews to their ancient homeland in the near east either after or at the same time as their conversion the jews who needed support their zionists ben-gurion unique support in his attempt to obtain the holy land particularly from britain leveraged the british which were mostly a puritan country there wasn't catholic this is not a catholic belief this is a puritan belief he leveraged this christian puritan we would call today evangelical belief that the jews are going to return to the land even though he didn't believe one word of the bible he he was a completely non-observant jew he didn't eat kosher ben gurion he didn't keep shabbos nothing just one thing he cared about god promised him the land because not him he took that from the christians and in order to obtain the support of the christian world this is what they claim now today benjamin netanyahu very often cites he was at auschwitz benjamin netanyahu and he he made a speech this is a five years ago i think it was and he described the prophecy in in the book of jessica ezekiel of chapter 37 where dry bones uh come out of the ground and grow flesh and they become alive and he said that this prophecy is fulfilled in the creation of the state of israel because the jews were like dry bones and now they're alive again now i remember hearing this from him and and this is so far in from a judaic interpretation thousands of years we've had commentaries nobody ever said such a such a thing so from a jewish perspective there's this i was thinking where did he get this from and i did some research this is a over 100 year old christian evangelical explanation and benjamin netanyahu who used it so the christian evangelicals the next day and the christian broadcasting network were all they were hopping and saying oh even the prime minister of israel says that the christian prophecy is fulfilled of ezekiel 37 the jews didn't understand that he was quoting christian theology what they did was in order to recruit the jews they they created a whole new version of history a history where the jews were always poets and soldiers and politicians where king david wasn't merely the there was it was a minor uh blot on his just like drop on his career that he wrote the songs but really he was a warrior king and the jews were warriors and then unfortunately we went into exile we got all messed up and now zionism really brings back the real jewish character and personality no question about it the zionist idea of jewish identity and jewish character is completely incompatible and jabatinsky said it it's not me it's japotinsky bertaszewski and there's more herzl said it too is the exact opposite of the classic jewish personality but they needed to say that they're jews because this way they're somebodies where the ancient jewish people support us come back to your heritage they created the the nation that these zionists created the jewish nation is synthetic it's a mythology it's a delusion there was no such nation ever they never the jews were a religious holy society not a society of people like arik sharon and david ben-gurion and and vladimir jabotinsky in fact jairo lapid's father tommy lapid had said that if moses or maimonides would come back today they would say that we tom lapid was completely unobservant and anti-observant we are the real jews and not the ultra orthodox now the most the most powerful point of prop method of propaganda that israel has is their army last week as uh professor mizvinsky mentioned i spoke at a protest with many thousands of people against the draft in israel and i know that there are people that don't understand why we refuse to serve in the israeli army shouldn't we be serving our country owen spoke to some diplomats in the eu a fine man named got leonello gabrici he told me that you guys have a pr problem because people are saying you're just freeloaders you want to serve your country i will explain if the israeli military was a regular military that just defended their country that would be one thing but it's not the israeli military was designed to be much more than a military it is because there's no separation of church and state in israel the israeli military is an indoctrination camp for the zionist religion i have over here quotes from the officers training manual discussion points are this is in an army what is judaism is judaism a religion a way of life or constitution war according to jewish values what and etc what rights does any army have to to shove down the throats of its recruits religious indoctrination now if you want to join such an army go right ahead but do you have a right to draft kids into the army and then voice down them force them to go to your religious indoctrination kim's imagine if the united states army let's say you would call the united states a christian country just for the sake of the argument would come and tell the recruits that your what you learned in parochial school from your priests is not true christianity is not a religion christianity is a nationality what you learned is not true we in the army and the government know about religion will anybody say that they are entitled to draft people into the army there is no security reason for israel to do this they choose to inflict their ideology their zionist ideology their anti my maybe lapid is right that moses would say he's the real jew that's fine but you have no right to to to draft people and require them to go through religious indoctrination if that's what you want to do then you have no right to force people to go make your army into a normal army make your state into a normal state don't call yourself the jewish state what the jewish state means according to israel an actual part of jewish identity what francis to the france israel is is to the jews stop that if you would become a normal bulgarian if it's overcome bulgaria call yourself herzel you're not a jewish state you're a state you want to be a shelter for jews be a shelter emma lazarus was a zionist one that wrote that that little blurb under the empire state this statue of liberty give me all your your your persecuted and you say give me all your jews no problem but they created an ideology it's a religion it's a nationality it's not a country it's not just merely a service provider for the jews it's an actual religion a civic religion a nationality that they have and they foist and they say that our religion of judaism is wrong now more than that we know there are different types of nationalism there's a liberal type of nationalism that let's say we have in the united states of america being american national means that i live in new york but if some if california is attacked by the japanese for example i will have to go to the army to help them and in return we pay taxes it's kind of like a social contract between the people there is a more organic we'll call it a romantic type of nationalism that the germans had that there's something intrinsic to a nation there was 19th century philosophy that said nations are the natural evolution of society and that there's something intrinsically called the german intrinsically called the frenchman that somehow separates them from other people that's organic nationalism now the israeli nationalism is not merely an organic nationalism it goes further israel claims different than every other country in this world except the vatican not only to represent its citizens but they claim to be the rep to represent all the jews all over the world benjamin netanyahu came to congress just recently and said i'm here speaking in the name of all jews naftali bennett wrote on his facebook page that benjamin antonio is not merely the prime minister of israel's prime minister of the jews this means that israel doesn't merely claim to represent its citizens it claims to represent all the jewish people in the world what kind of nationalism is this now i i'm born in america my family's from poland on my father's side england and my mother's side and some guy listen to this some people in the middle east in 1948 created a country and they decided that's my nation-state is that not oppressive if i don't like my government over here i could move to canada or mexico if i can get past the wall i go to mexico or canada or bolivia or wherever i want and i'm free according to international law you could choose your own nationality you're not bound to where you are if i'm an italian i can but wherever i go if i go to mexico or bolivia or canada i cannot escape the state of israel claiming that they are my nation state because i was born into a certain religion and they don't even have a definition of a jew what's a jew if it's not a religion what makes somebody jewish that's a whole other story the definition that israel has of a jewish person is not the same as the religious definition of a jewish person this is an oppression and there's a there's an actual measurable damage done to jewish people all over the world because of this the greatest database of anti-semitic activity is held in tel aviv university in the cantor center every year they release a report on anti-semitism they're not activists let's say the way the adl is they are actually scientists every year the report invariably says that because people mistakenly conflate zionism with judaism and israel they think that israel represents the jews whenever israel gets involved in a controversy all over the world during the gaza war during other wars jews all over the world suffer anti-semitism rises if you could make a graph and they did between the rise and and reduction of anti-semitism all over the world and a parallel uh line of israel's getting involved in controversy they would be parallel lines up and down and if you want to know if anti-semitism goes down one year and things are peaceful for jews it's because his things were peaceful in israel jews are blamed all over the world for what israel does and this is a crime this is a crime because israel claims not only to represent the jews that their nationalism goes further than that such a radical type of nationalism you know the controversy the question is anti-zionism anti-semitism well clearly it's not i say zionism is anti-semitism but if somebody is against israel does that mean they are anti-semites yair lapid said they certainly are not because that they're hiding behind anti-zionism as an excuse to harbor their anti-semitism but he said since israel is the essence of the jewish people you hear this this is a type of nationalism this is a really organic type of nationalism where where the people are just cells in the body and israel is the body we jews all over the world are just cells we are parts israel is the whole it's like a voodoo doll whatever your attitude is towards israel defines your attitude towards jews and if you are against israel if you criticize israel by definition not that is that's not a symptom that you're an anti-semite by definition you're against the jews now why do the jews buy into this why would religious drew buy into this in short there was a rabbi his name was rabbi from it's cook before him he he died in 1935 before rabbi cook there were religious zionists but they had a different calculus they they didn't buy into any of this philosophy they just figured that you know what the zionists will make some kind of safe place for the jews to live but but it's not zionism really isn't an ideology and they in their naivete they figured that the zionists weren't interested in changing the jews just helping them that's been refuted many times but rabbi cook changed the the the playing field he took 19th century nationalist philosophy hegelian philosophy and various things and he literally plagiarized it took it on his own wrote it in hebrew in mystical hebrew language and presented it as if it's judaism so that now you have a man who presented that judaism is nationalism if you're more nationalist you're more jewish if you're more loyal to the country if you you you you till the land if you're that that means by definition you're a better jew he made it up to this day they don't find sources his even his closest uh students have not find sources they just figured it's like the mr mysterious kabbalistic things beyond our ken but we know rabbi cook's philosophy is taught in colleges all over the world if you have a course here in 19th century nationalism i could find you uh parallels even identical ideas in your course and i could show you rabbi cook's writings they're the same thing rabbi cook students became what we call today the settlers they mixed nationalism with religion to them nationalism is a religious duty fighting is an israel is a religious duty fighting for the land is a religious duty being part of uh national nationalism is a religious duty that makes you a better jew and what you have today the settlers that is all every single one of them bar none our students are following the the the uh ideas of rabbi cook and his son by the way the rabbi cook senior of miyazaki who died in 1935 was a pacifist he didn't believe in wards his son yehudah was a militant what they did was today the settlers they took because they figured that since nationalism is judaism guys like jabatinsky guys like ben gurion really are spouting holy doctrine so they take the the land worship of the early labor zionists of a guy like aaron david gordon uh that it's it's pagan land worship and they believe that's judaism and then they take the the militancy of jabatinsky and that's judaism they mix it all together and i want to tell you that history shows nationalism mixed with religion is a very bad combination those are your settlers other jews tell me many people jews support israel i want to explain to you why israel has a a trick that they use to gain support they tell jews listen you may not agree with our philosophy but you've got to support us anyway because there was a holocaust and hitler's coming and and they didn't think hitler was going to come but he came and there are anti-semites all over the world and who's going to protect you when hitler comes only us forget about our religious differences right now we're both hated by the anti-semites so even though you don't agree with us support us help us tell people that let's show a united front so that the anti-semites will be intimidated by our unity and they'll show that they can't divide us and we're not going to be victims and there are jews orthodox jews there are orthodox jews who are zionists but many i can't believe that there's any orthodox jew unless he's a really hardcore zionist who would agree with israel's definition of a jewish state what italy is to the italians and japanese to the japanese is that they took surveys and they asked people what's a jewish state different people have different ideas so here's what happens they go to the jews and they say jews look we're all under attack you got to help us even though you don't agree with our philosophy even though people think we're heretical and and we're anti-jewish but look you know when hitler's coming he's going to throw the religious ones into the concentration camps as well and then the jew says this is why a holocaust is so emphasized there are more holocaust centers than yeshivas in most out of town communities outside of new york you go into the holocaust center you learn something about israel you learn that you're in danger you learn that can happen tomorrow and it will happen tomorrow except for the fact that israel has a very strong army and therefore even if you disagree you got to support it so now the jew says you know what i i really hate what the zionists are doing i'm really against zionism but i need to to to show some unity otherwise hitler's gonna take me away then they tell the rest of the world look the whole world's a zionist soul the jews support us we are the state of the jewish people when in reality they're not philosophically ideologically they are very opposed to zionism they're just scared imagine you're you're in a car going 60 miles an hour and it you hit a skid during the skid the guy who's driving the car you hate his guts but he says look let's put our differences aside hold the wheel until we're safe that's what the zionists tell hold the wheel until we're safe and they constantly reiterate the anti-semites the terrorists hitler the russians the pogroms throughout history jews were persecuted do you want to still be persecuted forget about support us the truth of the matter is that the connection between jewish between israel and the jewish people is the most dangerous thing in the world for jews as i said tel aviv university says statistics show because people think that israel represents the jews jews all over the world suffer and in israel i mean how is this safe place worked for them more jews were killed in israel than anywhere else in the world if there's going to be a holocaust god forbid according to what we see who's a bigger danger iraq benjamin netanyahu israel says iran's a nuclear danger to them i'm not scared of a nuclear iran israel's scared which is the most dangerous place for jews but ideologically they need to they they need to to to uh support their ideology so they disguise it in security i'll give you an example they insist that jerusalem should be the capital of the jewish state is that safer will that make more peace or more problems for israel everybody knows it's going to make problems there's going to be a big course to life if they do that but benjamin netanyahu says jerusalem was always the capital of the jewish people he's a liar it was not it was a holy city a capital is only a political concept if you have a country where the government buildings are itself that's the capital jewish people never had a capital we had a holy city he changed it to a capital of the jewish people again it's the jewish people it's not israel this is an ideological there's an ideological position that comes at a cost of security they take ideological positions and they say we need this for security support us because of the security but really it's ideology this conflation of ideology and security say dr we need to draft you into the army how could you not serve your country yet in the army they say you know what let me explain to what judaism is no the idea the conflation between ideology and security is what gets jews to support israel now we're going to end with that except for one more point it's clear that zionism is not judaism but there are many people who think it is um there are two types of people who insist though that it is many people think it is my friend morty who's in the audience travels all around the world unless he was in vietnam uh this year what uh cambodia he was cuba or whatever and he meets people and the people always tell him that they think that jews well that means israel and he says no judaism is a religion we have nothing to do with it don't blame us for that and they're really relieved to hear that it takes 30 seconds to explain to someone i met a woman in the street who's walking by while we're making a protest and and she asked me what what are you guys protesting about she didn't understand i said 30 seconds may i ask where you're from she said colombia may i ask your religion she said a baptist i said question for you is being jewish like being a colombian or a baptist said you know that's a good question i said it's really like being a baptist but the zionists tell everybody it's being like being a colombian what would you do if there are people that said back being a baptist is not a religion it's a nationality like colombia said i kill them i said now you got it that's what we're protesting not killing anybody that's a protest people who insist that zionism is judaism are one of two types of people people who insist they're either zionists or anti-semites anti-semites want people to think that zionism is judaism in order to discredit judaism zionists want people to think zionism is judaism in order to give credits to zionism this is why you will find anti-semites especially of the white supremacist type guys like david duke insisting said he wrote about me david duke we had protests three four years ago against the draft here in new york he said don't believe what rabbi shapiro says that jews is not zionists jews are zionists he's lying to you all he cares about his people going into the army all that we know recently this this alt-right supremacist spencer had an argument with a rabbi a hillel rabbi a university in texas and he said i don't know what you want from us old white people you guy you jews made an ethnocentric country in israel we want to do the same thing in america but no it's not an ethnocentric country if anybody wants to know if the connection between judaism and zionism is damaging is dangerous or uh helps the jews all you have to do is see what anti-semites who want to hurt jews like david duke like the neo-nazis like the white supremacists are saying and all of them all of them go to stormfront website all of them everybody should know zionism is judaism we know that if this is what they're saying that's not good for the jews statistics show that it's a big mitzvah to explain to the world and it's for the sake of peace that judaism is not zionism jews are not responsible for what israel does we have to break this cycle of fear paranoia that that that the zionists try to impose upon the jews to silence them and and you don't you know what you could support israel if you want you could america supports afghanistan and egypt right they're not the jewish state and you could support israel if israel if america has interests in israel without israel being the jewish state support it all you want i don't care if you're against it you're against it it doesn't matter all i'm saying is if you support it you are not supporting the nation state of the jewish people get that out of here the the the israel is not the nation state of the jewish people it doesn't represent the jewish people it's a claim that they make and it's a lie and it's a dangerous lie it's dangerous both for israel because once you make the whole conflict into a religious war it never ends and it's even more dangerous for the jews outside of israel who function as human shields for what israel does and um now i guess we'll take questions yeah we'll take questions i'd like to take a student first phone i'll come back to you over there well go ahead go ahead i saw you uh hi so yeah i'm one of the students here i guess starting with a little bit of a joke um kosher pizza is not that great but other than that but i guess going back to the theme that jews are inherently or to practice duties and properly is inherently non-violent what then are your views on say a jew who volunteers for the u.s military who lives here in the united states does that discredit their judaism at what level does uh religion overwhelm our obligations to our nation state right uh religion meaning our loyalty to god does override our obligation to our nation-state however jews also have an obligation to be loyal to their nation-states and if their nation-state is doing the right thing if you assume that the united states army is doing the right thing then yes go join the united states army if the united states army is commanding you to do the wrong thing to murder people or something then murder is a bad thing okay but in general the default is that jews are loyal to their nations i hang out a uh american flag on the fourth of july in my house my synagogue does and i instruct my parishioners to do so as well i am an american citizen israel is not my nation state i am no more or less american than anybody else and therefore we are equally loyal to america if the the army will tell you to violate your religion and you know what thank god in america they don't in america they don't make their own i know many orthodox jews that are in the american army and they have no problems they have more problems in the israeli army than they do in the american home well thank you so much for your presentation and particularly um part of your thesis is that jews are not naturally uh violent in fact they're actually non-violent um but i would like your biblical hermeneutical interpretation of some of the texts speak up a little i like your biblical hermetical interpretation of some of the biblical texts which talks about you know how david is i'm a bearer for saul and um in this context the message that went out was that you know saul has killed his thousand but david has killed his ten thousand also in the context of the fact that when uh of course um david is uh of course overseeing the army and he falls in love with sheba and has uriah of course which is bashing his husband put on the forefront of the fire line and he is actually killed and it's actually nathan the prophet that tells him that david and you have basically committed a major sin in addition to this moses who kills a man and has him buried and has to actually discover and then finally you know when joshua who is moses's minister is actually told to drive out the judicites and to drive out the canaanites from the land and they do engage in militaristic violent um activities so if i could have your biblical interpretive hermeneutical interpretation of what that actually means because to me that sounds like violence okay sure um you understand that the orthodox jews have a um amendments not really amendments but a second part to the bible which we call the oral law similar but not exactly to what the muslims have what they call the hadiths and we have our traditional way of interpreting it and i'll go through your questions one by one first king david king david indeed was told by god that he is disqualified from building the temple because he shed blood now we assume we know according to our tradition that even when david did shed blood it was always according to god's will their self-defense there's all sorts of reasons nevertheless it was considered a complaint against david that he shed too much blood that shows that judaism is against that in any other nation in the olden days david's shedding of so much blood would be considered heroic in judaism it was considered not heroic and our authority maimonides says that you see from the fact that king david shed all that blood and therefore he was disqualified by god to build the temple that nobody not even king david is perfect but you have to understand that all other kings would be praised by their religion for their military victories and their military conquests in judaism king david was criticized for it now as far as vasheva with nathan the prophet we have a rule it's a jewish law that rebelling against the king is a capital offense oria the person who david sent to the front lines rebelled against the king because he referred to joaoff as adoni of my maestro urya should have been executed by law for being a rebel instead king david figured i'm going to give him a hero's death i'm going to send him to the front lines he took a look at his wife basheva and said this is a good woman and it would be sad for her husband to die the death of a criminal so i'm going to let him die the death of a hero and send him to the front lines and i'm going to take this widow and make her a queen now nathan the prophet we have a rule that the more righteous a person is the more accountable he's held for even the smallest sins somewhere deep deep deep inside king david's soul he may have he did something that looked as if he killed the husbands to get the wife and force somebody with the moral obligations and the the the uh and the job to be a role model like king david was the optics were bad and nathan the prophet gave him hard rebuke because of that but our tradition tells us that the narrative that i just said was the real story or really as they would say the rest of the story now what else did we ask about moses you know moses who killed the egyptian buried him that egyptian was in the middle of killing somebody else moses wanted to save the victim and therefore he did it plus we have a tradition that moses killed that egyptian by praying to god not by smiting him joshua joshua you mentioned no first now joshua the bible as far as the conquest is concerned two things you need to know let's talk about god who commanded joshua to do that forget about for a moment let's set aside god's command to joshua every year millions of people die if memory serves i i looked it up on the internet i think 50 million people die a year along the world who kills those people god what kind of god causes people to have heart attacks causes floods causes famines causes volcanoes causes hurricanes and causes death from old age now that doesn't bother anybody and nobody's nobody considers that problematic because we know that everybody has a time in this world and we live in nature and then after this world we go to the next world and that's the way the world runs what bothers us is where we see murder is not when god takes somebody out of this world because that's his natural lifespan murder means that you cut somebody's life short before his lifespan was supposed to be over so i have a question for you if god were to command you that so-and-so's let's say you were the angel of death nothing personal let's say you were the angel of death and a car is driving down the verrazano bridge they go into a skid and they crash into the gate and they're teetering tire you know and they're scared to move lest they tip the car over into the water you're the angel of death god says to you those people in that car their time in this world is up push it over now if you know if you're smart you will follow that instruction from god because god gives life and god taketh away life if you don't so we have a story in the bible where king saul refused to kill agag of amalek and arg's grandchildren almost annihilated all the jews haman in the book of esther if god says this person's life is over it's over god told joshua that the lifetime of these cannonim in the land is over i'm i'm going to be god now okay i'm going to you're going to be joshua listen joshua i could kill these people with a flood i could kill them with a family in those days what was the life expectancy of a person 30 something like that right i could kill them all right away and i could send the angel of death they're gonna die anyway but now it's because of their sins i'm giving the job to you so that people should know that the good people win against the bad people i will miraculously cause the walls of jericho to fall down and you will miraculously win the war it is your choice joshua whether you want to kill them or not in other words when god himself says somebody's life is over that means it's over now you may not believe that god commanded joshua to do that and that's your prerogative but if you do believe it then god who's taught hashem is king david or god is good to all when god says it's time for somebody to die it's time for him to die i will give you a theoretical one day let's say somebody goes up after he dies to the heavenly court and god says to him you have a lot to answer for look what you're responsible for and he shows him hitler's concentration camps he says that's your fault and the guy says what do you want what are you crazy god what are you doing i lived a thousand years before this holocaust what do you want from me and god says you don't get it you remember when i told you to kill this and this person that was hitler's great-great-great-grandfather hitler was never supposed to be born i i run the world i'm telling you the best thing is for everybody kill this guy he deserves it his time is up if he would live longer all he would do is wreak havoc in the world it's for his benefit to die you'll do the job and then it'll be much better for the world your fault you didn't listen to me you thought you were smarter than god and look what happened now you may not believe this that god tells prophets things and if god doesn't tell prophets then you're right if some human being made this religion then it is violent but don't forget you can't take the religion halfway the only time this type of violence as you refer to it as justified is if god revealed that in his master plan for the world the time for these people to leave the world has arrived it's just a question if it's the angel of death or a human being that does so it's not a violent religion we don't have prophecy anymore and if anybody claims that god told him to kill somebody we know he's a lunatic thrown either in jail or in bellevue but in those days of miracles where god split the jordan river for joshua to go in and he made the walls of jericho drop god revealed his plan for the world who should live and who should but everybody dies god kills everybody if that doesn't bother you then the method god uses or the agent that god uses philosophically intellectually should not bother you either if you accept the truth of the bible we'll take a couple more a couple more questions if i could just have a quick response one quick responsibility but quickly phil here's what we get very quickly however the issue as it relates to david and uriah it's not that this is an honorable death necessarily for uriah what initially happens is that dave rocks out the window and he sees uriah oreo okay but but he looks out the window and he sees but sheba bathing and she's naked and he desires her and not only does he design her he impregnates her and to conceal the fact that uriah would know about this who his hits are there and very loyal to him he hasn't put on the forefront of the firing light and kills him and in addition to this it's not on just with it it's not only that david does not get to build the temple but the son of david and uriah dies and he pleads and prays for this and the son does not come back if he dies my question if this was ordained by god and data was acting for god why would god punish him for doing his will and we can talk about that okay the answer is because even if somebody does god's will there are ways to do it where the optics are bad and you know every yin has a yang and a yang has a yin so even if you do a very very good act somewhere deep down there may be just a little self uh motivation or some some self-serving motivation even a good act could have self-serving motivation and a righteous man like king david is judged by very strict standards and that's why you're you're using only the written bible we have we believe that the talmud and the oral bible explains interprets the written bible and this is the interpretation of the oral bible so the story you said you could say that my religion is wrong and that we don't know what we're talking about we could discuss that but if you can right according to our interpretation there was no problem yes yes um let's assume for a second that i believe everything you said to come up in front of government to make these arguments is it not no you're deliberately going in front of him and speaking much more about jews no what i'm doing is may i explain the question sure okay his question is that i i'm being like an informer because i'm saying bad things about jews i'm not saying anything new about jews that the jews themselves have gladly said to everybody vladimir jabotinski's statements are public knowledge the only difference is i'm saying that this is not judaism so for example if somebody were to say bernie madoff represents judaism and that he's a real jew and i were to get up and say no our religion does not approve of what bernie madoff does that's not informing at all that's clarifying and protecting people from false accusations i am not saying anything about the zionists that the zionists themselves do not proudly proclaim vladimir jabotinski proudly proclaimed that michael joseph he proudly proclaimed that the only question is one question is that judaism or not and like i said could be i'm not if somebody wants to say that they're right and i'm wrong that if moses would be here he would say that jabotinsky is right and i'm wrong you know what you could believe that i am discussing what judaism allows so if i said to people that you committed a crime that nobody knows about that's one thing but if everybody knows that you