Blood Brothers Welcome a Special Guest (and a Mazal Tov!)

all right so um david we have our friend here with us i'm very very excited about that this is an old friend of ours betsy sudak hi from london england this is called the blood brothers ambush is that what this is almost we're going to make you an honorary blood brother right now which is irony on top of irony already because it's already silly that we're that we are blood brothers because we're actual brothers but then because we used that term wrong now we're saying he's an honorary blood brother when he could actually just be an actual blood brother yeah right a blood brother by the way is uh i'm not sure if you're familiar with it's not a jewish thing it's actually we're just joking when we say blood brothers blood brothers is like an oath that friends take where they become um like fast friends it's like an oath of uh loyalty it's called blood brothers at any rate okay so benson are you in london right now yeah london england what neighborhood are you in i'm in hampstead garden suburb and uh i'll give you a quick quick uh spin the camera around this room here 360. quick 360. this is our show and uh co-working space same time so these this is set up for co-working people come here to work we had a heatwave today i mean every year in london they have a heat wave everywhere else in the world they call it summer but in england they call it heatwave they don't know why it got hot and um but we have air conditioning and it's not so common in england to have air conditioning so people came here it was like quite full today tomorrow people are gonna come and work um during covert we and we saw that there's going to be four we saw there's going to be five covets the first kobe that everyone was dealing with and then there was the other four codes that came because of lockdown and that's domestic covet financial covet the emotional covet and spiritual covet and those are all the things that happened because people were in lockdown affected their pronouns affected their when they're working from home and how their domestic life hurt um uh their their domestic life their mental health suffered and obviously spiritual so this place we designed it with these special lights i don't actually remember how dark you used to get in the winter here in london and so we've got these special lights it's beautiful and people coming to work get out of the house and helps people with their pronounce people mental health and obviously spiritually that's natural light that's sunlight that looks and feels like sunlight but it's not so because you're in england yeah but now it's really bright today was 100 degrees uh fahrenheit and tomorrow it's gonna be like 105 or even like going up to very very hot for 43 uh celsius i don't know celsius like 109. whoa that's like arizona temperatures yeah no it's really hot it's uh today was over a hundred to a power hundred it was like an oven outside yeah but in the winter for a few hours and then you know winter in london is not cold that was what really surprised me the few times i was in london for winter it's not really cold i mean i'm from chicago that's cold coming off the lake yeah and uh no we don't get snow here much and even the rain is not so much it's just dark and it gets this grizzly but it's uh it's just neither was blah very blonde winter but the chabad is like sort of an oasis yeah it's it this is it feels sunny and summery and fresh and beautiful the whole time it's beautiful so we heard that you have a uh simcha coming up a personal uh happy occasion mm-hmm two days time my son is turning bar mitzvah and you need to write a bar mitzvah speech well we've written one permissive speaker this is a presentation where part of the theme of this part of the bar mitzvah speech or celebration is about the fill inside we have in the front a a display on and we want the people who are coming in a short amount of time in a few minutes to be able to walk away empowered with philanesia my son's learning obviously the bar mitzvah mimer the discourse that uh chabad kids learn in yiddish at the at the bar mitzvah and do you know what a [ __ ] is yeah a a magnifying glass but yeah so but one of the things um that the goal i think for me that my son should learn the mind obviously you should you know get him into learning facilities and learning how to learn but also that it's still in when he holds those feelings she'll feel like he's holding darkness he's holding something so precious and and he does and one of the beautiful things of the mimer is that it opens up with a saying that jewish people say we want to learn her day by night we don't have time sasham says he put on filming and i will um [Music] make it as though you do and the mimer goes on to explain later that um what what happens when you learn tara is you bring your emotion your intellect into over your emotions it brings it together and that happens through learning if you don't have time to fill in of the head and on the arm bring it all together um i think it's a very very powerful thing it's quite deep into this and the goal i would like to do is a bring that over and also show why why it fill in wherever you go from the hotel to the caribbean you'll see how about next white filling why that minster so that's uh what i think we should discuss in a way that's concise we could bring it over and what is so powerful about it that that gives people a connection i've heard people say they've put it on once and they felt like they had to shut off their arm you know what it what is it maybe dub it or chase what do you guys think well i i dovid's the expert in condensing mystical concepts into powerful insights that uh all ages can enjoy so david what do you say i i i don't i don't know i'm thinking about i'm the one thing i thought of this i was listening to the radio one time and there was this guy on he was talking about i forget what the whole gen the the context of the discussion was but he was talking about the difference between monotheistic religions and ancient pagan religions and he was explaining how monotheistic modern monotheistic religions are about uh faith and belief and pagan religions ancient pagan pagan religious are much more about experience and uh and and interacting with with the world and uh when i was listening to us thinking like wow uh that that's avoided sounds a lot more like judaism than i assumed christianity it was what he was talking about um somebody once told me along those same lines i remember i was speaking to a guy who's a doctor and i asked him to put on fillin and he said that he feels that it's total mystic he used the word totemistic and um excuse my ignorance what does total mystic mean well tona mystic means like related to a totem yeah totem a totem is like a little like a good luck charm you know lucky rabbit's foot or something so like a totem pole is a is a is a pole with totems stacked on top of each other by the way i heard that low man on the totem pole is a complete misnomer and actually it's not a hierarchy it's a story and the low man is not he's not the inferior he's foundational he's foundational so google that low man on the totem pole complete misnomer and misunderstanding of native culture it's a bit like the story with the king and the bridge the soldiers holding up the bridge it's the salt that they've used to build the bridge with soldiers to cross the the river so soldiers would pile up and the king would would drive across and it was at the bottom were holding up the whole structure that's right is that the totem pole really what the total perhaps i don't know i don't want to pretend that i know anything more about totem poles although just as long as we're talking about indigenous cultures um i'm talking indigenous to uh america not england though i think those are the druids are indigenous to england no one knows who's indigenous here nobody knows who built stonehenge but um i'll tell you something interesting i found out that igloos this is true igloos are built not only for functionality as far as how it preserves heat and uh it shields you from the wind but also it's supposed to look like a sleeping polar bear so that polar bears won't attack it otherwise it would just smash right through it and take the people inside but it looks to a polar bear like another sleeping polar bear so they don't get close that's very cool so anyway the doctor who was saying it's total mystic oh yeah so um i said that these aren't idols we're not worshiping them um they are they are tools i said you're a doctor you use tools right you use a stethoscope right you use different instruments these are tools so going back to what uh david was saying that this guy on this radio show was saying oh the ancient pagans they had props for their religion um and then monotheists we don't have props that's very sad because uh judaism i can't speak for the other monothei lahavdil the other monotheistic religions but in judaism we do have props and they're not just gimmicks like you know prop comic they are actually longer like gallagher they are like um they are tools they are tools we have so to fill in film is very powerful technology it's powerful it's a powerful tool so how did you explain what the power of that tool is and how it functions and what it what it's what its function is and how that i said it's like a fagratherin glass that and he said oh i get it no he was already down the hall at that point but um yeah in the mimer that you're referencing it says that the the fill-in function well there's a lot of functions to fill in but one of the functions is similar is akin to a magnifying glass which makes tiny things appear large it makes the insignificant appear significant so over there he's talking about the whole problem of the fact that from the perspective of the infinite really the finite creation should be irrelevant meaning hashem shouldn't really at first glance if you understand theologically what what is hashem and his infinite his infinity and his eternality really nothing that takes place down here in the time space continuum should really be of any concern to him and then it says well yeah but uh through torah which is higher than creation meaning hashem's ideas or his blueprint or his plan which precedes the actual implementation through learning torah we connect to hashem in a way that is we sort of uh sidestep the relative insignificance of creation and then it says phillyn accomplishes a similar thing wait how does turner do it how does toyota do it is that um toyota came before the world toyota is actually the blueprint of the world um contrary to popular misconception toyota does not contain laws for how to deal with a creation that already exists but rather are the laws which were manifest as existence there are to use the language of the there are laws that govern life and there are laws that give life or create life so toyota has significance before creation even exists and in fact creation is subservient to toyota because it only exists to be a a forum in which toyota as a concept can be concretized so one second tara there's you said torah is is laws that create life as opposed to laws that were created by the circumstances of language are most laws most laws are created like uh you get together and you say hey we need to have a stoplight on that corner and the council votes and they say yes let's put in a stoplight created by life but terror creates life yeah does that mean that torah was torah existed to create life but then you said that the world is just there so that the torah which existed already should have an expression and shall have a place for it to manifest and why should the torah exist if there isn't the world right that and that's the whole question of when david malek was king david was was was had a heart he had a hard life and during one of his travails he he celebrated the fact that his escape from his problems were his escape was that he would study torah and in fact he called his comfort that he took in tourists did he call it songs david malek was very musical he wrote lyrics the whole psalms are his lyrics um so actually he was chastised you call you call it you call them songs the whole explanation from the altar in the gerusa kurdish that it's really a put down it's like what do they call it damning with faint praise it's a compliment that's actually an insult because to say toyota is a comfort and an escape from your trivial problems of this world because toyota is so much greater than the world it's actually a put down it it compares toyota to the world and really uh the world is incomparable to toyota so really david shouldn't have compared them and say toyota is so much more vast than my little problems down here really toyota's on a completely different plane a completely different ballpark however however encounters the rabbit says actually it's okay to say that because the gemara says hashem says yet sahara i created an evil inclination but but i created torah as its remedy it's antidote asks isn't that a put down you're calling torah basically a remedy for a problem that exists only in the embodied world is supposedly beyond which it looks like it's created that looks like it's laws created by life right it's a response or a reaction to a condition right to help modify and mold life right like i have this problem in my life it's called my evil inclination oh you have this thing called tita this new gadget that'll come deal with that so that ebb explains no no no you have to understand toyota surely transcends all of creation it has an existence and a value that is far beyond an incomparable to anything that takes place in this phenomenological universe and yet where do you see where do you see the true nature of toyota meaning where is it revealed to us in its ability to deal with the smallest problems in other words something that is truly transcendent is also going to be practical because isn't that cheating though isn't that what it's cheating it's solving the small problems because it created everything it's not solving the small problems it's just a cheat code is it the cheat code it's i mean the if we're saying that like the small problem and its solution are all part of the the the instructions that and blueprint that that the world reflects so it's not it's it's like a show you're you're you know you're solving a problem that that you know you can solve because you created it oh you're asking something different which is what's so impressive about toyota having all the answers to the problems of life when tata ostensibly created all the problems of life yes and the answers well not just created the problems that created the problems and i mean they're not in other words because i wanted to tell you something and i came up with a question and i forced you to ask that question so i could tell you the answer that i already had in mind which is yeah like the way people always try to tell tell over sixes how do people always what yeah you ask the question the person gives an answer you're like no don't answer it yet it's supposed to be a problem for now uh yeah that's always the hardest thing when people don't know the rules and you ask the question in the system rabbi um no no please no we don't know the answer it's supposed to be unsolvable right now yeah but you're saying back to this that the torah is both the question no sorry not both the torah is both uh creates life and including the problems of life and therefore it is also the answers into the problems that create and therefore terror can be both a laws that create life yes the response to life the response to the exhaust yes i agree with that characterization and i will add that that perspective sheds new light on the nature of our problems which is what that our problems are not really problems they are an inherent part of a process they're a step they're a necessary step you know to simplify things you sound it sounds very esoteric and and uh you've got to have a moon up for this but my father was once going through a really really tough time it was together and i'm not going to go into the details when we were together in the office and um he said look this is i've been on slicker for 55 years and he said that every person in their life has a moment no matter how success or failure has nothing to do what you achieve it's how you act at a certain moment where you're really against the war and if you are if you if you give in then no matter what you're achieved you're a failure and if you hold strong even if you don't succeed now you're a success because you stayed strong and it was really really tough to stay strong then and uh my father told me another line he says he says you could be really really strong in your arm but you'll never know it and you never access it unless you have a really really strong weight pushing back so he says you've got strength inside you but you'll never access that strength unless you go through this problem so what you're saying here is that these problems in life are there to to unleash to open to crack open the shell in which we have like the the weight against your muscle that you know popping that unleashes the strength right particularly particularly if the solutions are from toyota which is eternal so the solutions existed forever so what's what's the novelty what's the what's the news flash how does this bring it all the way back down to what you're saying before about the magnifying glass you're saying the magnificent magnifying glass and from the uh from the point of above is infinite and we are finite and you're saying that there's there's normally there's a contradiction the infinite can't be fine but if you're truly transcendent you can also come down to below that's how we're tying it back to before remember right so over there what he explains is that the reason we want to study torah all day is not just because we want to become smart or we want to be rabbis but that when you study torah you're part of something greater than this world and then you become more esteemed more significant in hashem's eyes than just another thing that's happening down in creation you're you're elevated to a to a plane of of the creator's perspective as opposed to just looking at things from within creation is the creator's perspective why does that have to happen constantly well you you want to do it as often as possible why are you doing it for yourself because you want to be big yeah that can't be the answer so why i would assume god wants to wants to love you so you got to make it easier he's trying to find you it's like when you're a kid and you're lost in the mall you want your parents to find you yeah and so you go up to the thing who's more frequent yeah now is that what it is it must be more than that and just just as a as a big me up cheat that i'm little and i want to pump myself big so i put these on so god should say hey look at me quite selfish right can't be it no more than that why why why can't it be it that god desires connection with jews and we have to do everything we can to make that connection easier yeah i think it's more in how this film makes you bigger not it's about making you bigger but the function why does the film make you bigger because filling is nothing spiritual about putting on innately there's nothing spiritual we didn't leather i'm putting you on your head there must be something else we didn't even we didn't get to tell him yet i mean we've just been talking about how tall accomplish the same thing where's chase is he's i i can't see the is he still here can't see me i'm here oh yeah they are yeah i could see you i don't know why my screen went yeah so are we moving from turret to fill in they both do the same thing but there must be a reason why because your souls learn torah in heaven too by the way so there must be something that we're accomplishing here that we couldn't do above well physically putting on filling you couldn't do that you're taking a piece of leather and you're turning it into something holy that's an act of transformation that's that's incredible because there's nothing it's you know if you say you're meditative or fasting and kipper you're meditating or leaving this world that makes you bigger that makes you more spiritual but putting on filling um if it wasn't the mitzvah just wrapping leather around your arms and putting scrolls on your on your arm and head um [Music] that's not a innately spiritual experience that people would normally define spiritual so this be something a little bit it could be that it is the goal to make yourself bigger or is the goal to do what you're accomplishing which a result of which you are you're magnified but is the goal more the process rather than the end goal of being magnified if you get what i'm saying is the purpose of putting them filling to magnify you or is magnification just a consequence of it or even an indication that you've correct huh all right i'm gonna i'm gonna toss out something that might sound heretical but uh chase you might have to edit this out um i've been i've something i've been thinking about for a long time for for a couple of years actually is the idea that for for an infinite being an infinite being that encompasses everything it is impossible for them to to be able to appreciate and and engage with and connect with or even perceive in other right it's impossible if you're if you're infinite there is no answer then then if it's impossible and it's not infinite okay i mean for the sake of this section of thinking about it i mean there's no way we can conceive of the infinite so i'm going to conceive about the i'm going to conceive of the infinite in a finite way which is only we're always going to be missing something so for the sake of this exercise i'm going to look at it this way all right that in that infinite being that is everything and cannot uh can cannot experience an other i mean that that was a contradiction a conflict we you're right yes the infinite being obviously can and that's why we have a world because god was able to be matumpsum and whatnot but because we're finite and we break things up into little pieces we can look at the part where god couldn't and then the part where god needed to make space for another right so when you look at it that way the entire world is an exercise in if you think of it as an analogy of a human being somebody who cannot perceive or relate to any other any other maybe somebody there's you know yeah a variety of disorders which you might give that ascribe to that um but the entire exercise of the world is god trying to be able to appreciate engage with and connect with an other so why not why can't it be that the whole point of this is god says learn torah so that i can see you and we say okay that's important what do you mean by c see he could connect and see at different things what do you mean by connect connect means like no because if you don't learn torah then you're a squirrel a squirrel or a rock or a paperclip does that say something really uh radical well yeah why squirrel why not human okay i pick squirrel because it has a k in then it's funny that's from the sunshine boys so um yeah but i think that's top its points that when you're not learning torah a human squirrel are the same thing right so the human condition and the final analysis is on a continuum with the existence of squirrels yeah but wait a minute humans don't feel like they're squirrels and that sense comes from somewhere that means we're not like squirrels not just squirrels also those little pom-pom things from the 80s they had little paper feet on them yeah yeah but they don't they don't feel humans don't feel like they're pom-pom things and and squirrels don't feel do don't feel that way uh squirrels don't think above themselves humans do and the fact that we can as humans can have this discussion whether we're a big as a squirrel or not comes from somewhere because we do feel yeah even like all of our self-awareness our self-awareness could be this our self-awareness which is the way we define what where i start where i start and end and everything else starts and ends is could be the same could be perceived the same as just a rock being solid and not letting you move through it right it's like here's where the rock starts and ends and you can't push past it right so there there's a way to look at that where it's all the the same stuff and everything's just the same the same so when you learn what happens then you're somehow engaging you're putting you're putting yourself in a different context and a context that god it can can see differently or at least a certain aspect of god can see differently or is it that you can see god differently it's about you seeing god of god seeing you because the magnifying glass is more about god yeah the mag it's not about you seeing it's about being seen yeah and how does filling uh fulfill that function guys i think we need a part two yeah i think so because you gotta go i gotta run yeah so we need to do a part two before the bar mitzvah or maybe after the bar mitzvah but i need to get that speech done but anyway anyway it was great talking and great to see my old friend david after all these years it's good that you haven't changed i love the hand thing that's great um show notes keep that up do keep doing that thing it's working for you the uh the used car thing yeah that that thing yeah that that that's about making yourself bigger by the way because that you know that's right because when you drive by the used car lot and they have that guy yeah that's how i protect that's how i protect myself from bears if i ever see a bear they think i'm bigger than i really am so that's your magnifying glass that's your magnifying glass by the way it depends what bear it is they say brown lie down black attack brown lie down white good night like like an igloo oh brilliant i gotta run guys this one okay nice to catch up on the bar mitzvah thank you okay we'll see you soon bye