Maslow vs Frankl (Parshas Chayei Sarah)

so this guy goes to visit the great Swami to ask the meaning of life and he travels by air and by boat and by Donkey and he finally he gets to the top of the mountain where the great Swami resides in isolation comes face to face with the Great Farm he says great Swami what is the meaning of life the great Swami says my son life is like a fountain he says yes yes of course of course life is like about life is like a fountain thanks for a second he says great Swami how how is life like a fountain great Tommy says no so maybe it's not like a fountain okay all right I'm pretty consistent here with my jokes consistent reaction to these jokes okay the meaning of life well it's funnier than you're the it's always the cop-out excuse well and yeah this is hilarious yeah so uh the meaning of life how important is it to seek the meaning of life it's interesting because actually it's a subject of dispute between two great Jewish psychologists of the previous century you have uh Victor Frankel of course who was a holocaust Survivor and many many people think that he wrote logotherapy as a response to his Auschwitz experience it's actually quite the opposite he came up with it as a theory and then unfortunately he had multiple opportunities to see it verified his theory was that a person needed to have meaning he needed to have a reason to live and that it was actually essential to survival and then in the camps he actually saw this the people who lost the will to live um could not go on at the same time interestingly in 1940s you have another Jewish psychologist imagine that a Jewish psychologist uh yeah it's another one of those anti-semitic tropes the over-representation of the Jews and certain Fields by the way I I want to say for full transparency you know where Jews what professional Jews are really overrepresented rabbis it's like dominated by Jews at any rate um yeah so we're talking about Jewish media Bankers Jewish psychologists okay so there was another Jewish psychologist at the exact same time as Frankel who lived in Austria there was a a Jewish psychologist by the name of Maslow Abraham Maslow he lived in California and he had the uh the famous hierarchy of needs which is a representation it's a sort of a diagram of a pyramid and the base of the pyramid the widest level the foundation of the pyramid those are what he considers to be the most important needs that's why he calls it a hierarchy and then you go increasingly to the top and you have thinner or narrower levels which she considers to be things that are after you meet the lower need then you become interested in meeting the higher needs so for instance like the lowest level are physiological needs so a person who can't breathe let's say God forbid he can't breathe and you ask him where do you want to go for lunch today he's not that interested in eating because first needs to breathe but after you can breathe then you're interested in making sure that you can eat and in turn a person who doesn't know where he's gonna get food where his next meal is coming from is not thinking about where he's going to find shelter for the night but once a person has food then he'll start to think oh where's a drive safe place for me to to sleep and then it graduates from physical physiological needs um to things like uh like Society companionship living in a community so a person first for instance who's who's trying to keep their body alive they're not really worried about friendship and that kind of stuff but once you do have those needs met then you look for higher level needs and then the highest thing uh the the Schmitz to use a Yiddish word the little tippy top of the pyramid and Maslow's hierarchy is self-actualization which is meaning finding uh uh like a coherent philosophy or a narrative that explains what life's all about that kind of thing so it's interesting um these two approaches are really inversions of one another Frankel is saying that what Maslow considers the last thing you need Frankel says is the most essential and that vice versa even if somebody has their most basic survival what we can classically consider so survival needs met but they don't have what Maslow considers the most uh call it maybe the luxury the most luxurious of needs then then according to Frankel's worldview person would actually die they would not even be able to survive so um what does it have to do with this week's Torah portion so you talk Isaac marries Rifka Rebecca and it says here that Rifka Rebecca's brought to Yitzhak Isaac's tent a holla imai yet brought her to the tent of soda his mother as Rifka and he took Rifka that and she became his wife and he loved her was comforted comforted after his mother what is this phrase holla imai the tent of Sarah his mother Rashi reads it like this he brought her to the tent the holiday he started imai and she became his mother that would get another Jewish psychologist very interested Freud would have a field day with that Oedipus mattapus as long as he loves his mother right okay Claymont that is to say nice dugmats she became the image a replica of soda his mother what does it mean that she became that Rifka became like soda Rebecca became like Sarah 's Manchester is that as long as Sarah was alive her tent had a candle that would stay lit from one out of Shabbos one Friday afternoon till the next and there was a blessing in the dough meaning that the no matter how many guests they had and Sarah's husband Abraham was always having guests no matter how many guests they had the doe was always sufficient to satiate everyone so there was a blessing in the dough but on uncultural and there was a cloud over the tent when she died meaning Sarah those things stopped all three of those things stopped shabboska Rebecca came when she married Isaac they returned they were reinstated so there were three things that took place as long as Sada was alive so remember what they were there was candles that stayed lit all Shabbos are all weak from Shabbos to Shabbos there was a blessing in the dough and there was a cloud over the tent okay when she passed away those things left when Rifka came and and married Yitzhak those things returned okay and the source Rashi gets this from is from gracious rabba foreign so this is like the archetypical Jewish Home this is our matriarch Sarah as well as our matriarch Rebecca and whatever they have in their home it's not just uh peculiar peculiar to them it's really sort of a model for all of us and this idea of these three miracles that were the signature of these two matriarchs is is a teaching to us I mean I'm sure there were many miracles we know there were Angels coming and going in their home and all types of Supernatural stuff why are these three things singled out like there were there weren't other unusual things to speak of and the explanation is these three these three things are three categories there are many miraculous things and special things that happened but these three things are three categories and they're sort of like the Mainstays of a Jewish Home and that's why we see them by the original Jewish Home you have the Shabbos candles the Shabbos candles represent warmth and Light um light is intangible so it's not a material thing it's a it's an abstraction you think about light you have a room that's dark and you can't see what's in the room and then you turn on the lights you say ah there's a beautiful banquet here well the banquet was there before the lights were turned on so turning on the lights doesn't actually put anything new in the room but it allows you to see it to appreciate it so it's intangible but uh it enhances our experience of all the tangible things that that's light then there was the the blessing in the dough that's I mean every Jewish mother knows that you got to have what to feed your guests and you can't let people leave your house without eating more than they planned on eating and make sure to serve them fruit you have to have fruit you can't leave without a little fruit at least some fruit and then you have the cloud on the tent that's shelter and that's probably the most basic thing to have a a home you have to have a house doesn't mean you have to be a homeowner whether you you own or you rent the point is that you need a physical space you need a physical space where this Jewish Home is taking place so that's the that's the cloud over the tent so basically you have three categories you have the warmth the intangible light you have the food and all the other material needs that people need to keep their bodies going and then you have the the cloud over the tent meaning the shelter the actual physical environment where to put everything those are three categories so if I were to ask you like Sesame Street Style which remember that which of these kids is doing his own thing right so of these three categories which of these three is different from the other two what might you say candles because it's not physical okay so you have the light which is intangible and then you have the food and the shelter which are tangible physical and the question becomes what is the role of this sort of odd man out this intangible category um and why is it a category on par with these physical needs like food and shelter and furthermore in a case where one has to prioritize which one does one seek out first so ah tell you a story there was a holocaust Survivor named uh Hugo green and he had a radio show on the BBC in England and sometimes he would tell stories about his his own life he had a an unusual experience in the camps he was actually in Auschwitz with his father that was unusual because generally speaking um they kept people who could labor who could work as slaves and fathers and children didn't I don't want to be morbid but for obvious reasons we're not generally uh in the same camp but Hugo uh I think he was 12. and he may have lied about his age or he was a little bit tall but he was able to get in with the adults with the men and so he spent his time in Auschwitz with his father they were together in the in the same in the same Barrack they they slept so anyways he tells the story that was one bitter freezing cold night in uh in Auschwitz and there's the middle of the winter and they went out all day performing slave labor and at the end of the night they would come back and they would have a few hours to sleep on these slats that were called beds and he came into the the Barrack and Hugo says he was horrified to ascertain immediately as he entered the door he could make out his father crouched in the corner sort of hiding in the shadows bent over and he had a piece of scrap metal in his hands and he had a flame and he looked closer he could tell what was it there was the the piece of metal there was a like a wick that had been fashioned a crude Wick that had been fashioned from a torn uh strip of his uniform didn't have sufficient clothing for the for the winter they had just those threadbare uniforms but he tore a strip from that uniform and he twisted it into sort of a makeshift Wick and the the the oil the fuel which the wick was to burn was a slice of butter which his father had somehow procured butter and Auschwitz was worth more than literally more than money I mean can't eat money people were starving and butter is fat and those of us thank God who have never experienced starvation probably don't realize but a lick of butter could keep a starving person alive for another day so somehow his father had procured that that slice of butter and uh so Hugo saw this and he understood what was going on that his father was going to light this this Wick and burn this butter in this piece of scrap metal and he screamed out stop and I don't think I don't think any of us who haven't been in this situation can really relate to why you screamed up stuff I certainly uh when I heard the story at first didn't understand what what his objections were maybe you thought that uh he was afraid the guards would come in and catch them which certainly could be deadly uh it was the first night of Hanukkah and Hugo realized that his father was lighting with Hanukkah menorah that was the scrap metal it was a crude Menorah and the torn fabric from the uniform was the wick and the slice of butter was the oil and Hugo screamed up stop now also you might think he he maybe he objected to the display of religion maybe that's what bothered him no no that that wasn't the problem it was very simple he could not bear to see this slice of butter go to waste to go up and smoke when somebody could eat it and they could live for another day and in a manner that I don't think any of us who live thank God who live in this uh very affluent society where where the worst problems we have is we have to buy groceries on a credit card and we don't know maybe how we'll pay the credit card bill or maybe we'll barely be able to pay a minimum payment but we're we we don't know what starvation is we don't know what it's like to go to bed against your will without food many many days in a row and it's a primal it's a primal reaction and that's what Hugo was experiencing a very Primal survival impulse stop you don't do that in Auschwitz you don't burn butter you eat it so he screamed out stop so he says my father turned to me and he spoke to me and what he said to me I will never forget as long as I live he said to me Hugo if being an Auschwitz has taught us anything it is that a man can live for many days without food but he cannot live one minute without the Light Of Hope so Maslow Frankel Maslow would tell you that when you've got two cars in the garage and the kids have their college accounts I have their money for their tuition and maybe even you have money set aside for all the kids down payments on their first house and you're living the American dream that's why we came here right for the American dream George Carlin said it's called The American Dream because you got to be sleeping to believe in it so Maslow would say when you've got your material ducks in a row then we'll talk about nice things like Hanukkah candles and spirituality but first things first and and Franco I think would be on the side I know I know frankly wrote he wrote many books based on this thesis frankelwood be on the side of Hugo Green's father saying that yes this is true that you can actually live it's not pleasant but you can live many days without food you cannot live one moment without the Light Of Hope so it's counter-intuitive to a certain extent meaning to say I more easily understand Maslow than I understand Franco yet if you have thousands of years of Jewish history to look at I think we have abundant proof that it wasn't material security that assured our survival it was when we had light and wisdom and Clarity and hope and spirituality and faith and even in the absence of having our material needs met we're able to survive and in many cases even thrive it's interesting to me just my own personal commentary that Franco's writing in Nazi Germany and at the very same time Maslow's writing in California he's writing in America and not just America the West Coast the ultimate Manifest Destiny like the ultimate in the American dream and those are sort of two different schools of thought that depending on what age you are what generation you are I I would say our grandparents for me it's my my grandparents you know what was their thought what for as long as they could remember as long as they could everything they knew was the old world it was the old world it was another hemisphere and whether your family came from Poland or from Morocco or from Lithuania or from Iraq they didn't even have Iraq back then Baghdad was a real happening place it was a Jewish Community for a long time many centuries or whether your family is from Yemen or your family is from Hungary we spent many many many centuries millennia in what we call the old world and then all of a sudden the demographics shifted we had this flux of Jews to the Western Hemisphere mostly to the United States of America and and what was the purpose you know why did the people who came why did the Jews who came to America come here mostly they were afraid of getting killed they were running from pagrums they were running from persecution they they wanted freedom they want a protection under the law and that's why they came here and the irony is that many people saw that as an opportunity to put material security ahead of spiritual connection and I think the results are in the results have been in for quite a few decades already what the results were from that Jewish American experiment that we found out rather rapidly didn't take too long to find out what happens when we put our material security ahead of our spiritual connection and we couldn't we could have predicted it and I don't judge I don't judge those who came to America and said I want my kids to be doctors and lawyers and to be able to get into country clubs and if they can't get into the country clubs of their non-jewish neighbors then we'll build our own country clubs I get it I understand where that impulse comes from but you look today and it's not so many years it's tops 100 years this experiment's going on you see the results of it so Sarah's tent Rebecca's tent the original Jewish homes the original Jewish Mothers what were the key elements what were the key ingredients the Mainstays of their home of course you got to have a house a cloud over the tent which represents a physical place and blessings in the dough you got to have what to eat of course we need to feed our families very important but also uniquely light that intangible quality that gives meaning to the shelter and to the food without the light the shelter and the food lack meaning when I'm talking about physical light I'm not talking about photons you know what the photon said to the desk clerk at the hotel the desk clerk of the hotel asked the photon do you have any luggage he said no sir I'm traveling light Photon said that okay um I'm talking about spiritual light Helen Keller said what's worse than being blind lacking vision that's the kind of vision I'm talking about the ability to see more than that which our physical senses can appreciate the ability to appreciate purpose and meaning that we're here for a reason that we're sent by God to this world to accomplish something special and unique and that our lives are important on an infinite scale that's what light means so yeah light is up there with food and shelter and in fact if you look at which one is listed first light Frankel not Maslow the Jew from the old country not the Jew from America there was a a group of Jewish communal leaders in Austria who came to meet the sixth La Baba the sixth syllables was traveling and he came to a hotel like a fancy hotel in Vienna and I don't know if you've ever been to Vienna but Vienna is uh it's a very statsy place it's known it's known for its architecture and art so the hotels are are like works of art the hotels look like museums he was staying in some Hotel and this group of uh local Jewish leaders came to meet him and so you have to understand a little bit about casidis the teachings of the belsham the belsham lived in Poland and most of his influence was in Eastern Europe and uh I mentioned the sixth of Chabad so Chabad is is from Belarus from White Russia which was also Eastern Europe and this particular incident I'm describing occurred in Austria which is in Central Europe where the influence of this was not uh so strong so this story took place in the in the inter-war years in 1930s at any rate so uh he uh he was met by this group of communal leaders Jewish communal leaders and they asked them a question they said meaning the teachings of the Hasidic masters from the from the balsham to van down what is this innovate what did it contribute that was new that we didn't already have in Judaism and you have to understand the complexity of that question because it's really I don't know if it was a deliberate trap but it's a question that you have to be extremely careful in answering and I'll explain to you before I tell you what the answered I'll explain to you why that's such a dangerous question when somebody asks what did this thing innovate that's new to Judaism you're sort of damned if you do you're damned if you don't because if you say well here's what it brought that's new well hold on a second why are you bringing things that are new oh we don't want Innovations we've had this experience you know a lot of people have tried to do their new and improved version of Judaism and we don't really appreciate that just give us the Coke Classic and don't mess with the formula okay um those who are around in the early 80s I'm sure you appreciate that I understand what that meant means so you say well here's what it contributed that's new if you on the other hand if you say well say this didn't add anything that's new so then the response is oh perfect then I have no need for it because you're telling me it doesn't even do anything it doesn't add anything new then I have whatever I already have and that's enough so you can understand that's a very difficult question to to respond to so the sixth lab of Chabad says um above your head there's an ornamental crown molding it was a fancy hotel and uh I think he pointed the lamp like he tilted the lamp so the light was shining on it and he said if you look you'll see there's a carving of a flower like a wooden carving of a flower and they turned around they looked at and the light was shining at it and they they saw the carved flower and he said to them did you see that earlier during our conversation so they said no we hadn't taken any notice of it until now he said and that is what this contributes to Judaism just like that carving was there the entire time we were sitting here and long before we even entered this room but you didn't notice it until light was cast upon it and it was pointed out to you so too see this as like a light that allows you to appreciate the depth and the meaning in fundamental Jewish belief and practice that you surely already have so we are in a time where thank God we've been blessed with abundant material bounty we are more materially comfortable than any generation of Jews who have ever lived if your great-grandparents saw how you lived they would think that you are some type of royalty um and that's not a problem that's a wonderful thing when mashiach comes very very soon the Delicacies throughout the rambam says the Delicacies are going to be matsurium Ka offer they're going to be as plentiful as dust so having all the luxuries abound that is that is uh that's a good thing it's a Messianic thing it's not a problem where we start to suffer is when we believe our security is dependent on those things and when we start to prioritize that our material needs have to somehow be considered before we take care of our spiritual needs and that has always been always been disastrous for for the Jews wherever we've lived whenever it's always led to undesirable outcomes so but the response is not is not that you have to renounce material uh things and you have to be uh a Luddite and you have to like like Ted Kaczynski remember Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber he hated technology that's why he went to live in the forest you ever read his Manifesto should read it it's not as crazy as you would want it to be he's got he makes a few I mean he was crazy I mean he was crazy but you would want his you would want it to be more insane ramblings it actually says a few coherent things there um and he was part of the MK Ultra project so CIA messed up his brain but that that's not a joke that's you could go check that out and I'm sure the YouTube algorithm is bringing all the people who are interested in MK Ultra to my channel now and I don't have more to tell you about it but we didn't do it that they sound like so figure out how to make the Jews involved in it anyways that because it was not Jewish by the way um we don't need to renounce the physical uh progress the material progress industrialization the information revolution we don't have to hide from these things last week we spoke about the importance of using these tools and flooding the information highways with positive messages spiritual messages so it's not that we need to go and live on a Mountaintop and take an oath of poverty and renounce all physical comforts that's not the solution we live in a time of blessing of bounty we live in a time where people live longer thank God than they've ever lived we're healthier we have more luxuries we people travel and you know just a generation ago when people lived in different area codes they rarely saw each other we we hop on a plane we fly we thank God these are good things these are good things and we when and we thank God we're grateful for all these material blessings but here's the thing we have to remember something none of those things give us security none of those things are important to our lives when we have them we'll use them we'll gladly use them and try to use them responsibly and in meaningful ways but the one thing that makes it a brexit the one thing that we need to constantly prioritize is the light the meaning the spirituality the faith that's in our lives and in in our homes because without that everything else is meaningless you know why you're supposed to light Shabbos candles so the simple meaning it says it says in the code of Jewish law you're supposed to light Shabbos candles so that you don't trip on the furniture that's what it says you don't trip on the front yeah and it says for the Peace of the home so you don't trip on the furniture because if you don't light the candles before Shabbos you're going to bump into the furniture and then the husband and wife are going to start fighting so for show them bias for peace in the home you have to light the candles so you don't trip on your stuff but there's a deeper explanation first of all today we have so many lights in the home what you're really relying on the few little Flames by the dining room table to to keep you from tripping on the ottoman we have lights on we have lights blazing in every single room so practically speaking that's not what the Shabbos candles are doing for us anymore it's not like they're protecting us from tripping on our stuff but spiritually they they still fulfill they still fulfill that function doesn't just mean people getting along Shalom really means um the harmonization of of seeming opposites so one great perceived conflict or dilemma is the spiritual and the material that's what we've been describing shalom means peace it means to realize one God made both and that as long as you have spiritual light meaning you have a guide you have the Torah telling you why life is important and what we're here for then you can incorporate all the material blessings God gives us and we can use them productively so the light the Shabbos candles turn on the light take a day where you step away from the material world you step away from working you step away from the rat race you step away from being part of the world and you just sort of transcend it all turn on the light the shabbat's light that means the vision the clarity the spiritual perspective and it'll give peace it'll harmonize the seeming dilemma between material and spiritual and therefore you won't trip on your stuff you won't trip on your stuff in other words you won't be one of these poor little rich kids who is suffering because everything that you own is just destroying your life because it doesn't have meaning doesn't have meaning so it's just consuming you you're trying to consume it and it's consuming you but when you have the light on when you have a spiritual reason for living now you don't trip on your stuff you look at the things that God has given you and you perceive a use a god-given purpose for all of these material things whatever he gave us so again there's the light there's the food there's the shelter The Jewish Home needs all three of these things but if you take away the light and you just have the food in the shelter if you just have physicality even though Maslow would say well that's what you need to begin with in order to survive Franco would say and Hugo Green's father would say in Jewish history with certain corroborate it's not going to work out well for you you're going to end up tripping on that physical stuff first get the light figure out what life is about what we're here for then open yourself up for God's blessings for material Bounty and you'll be able to use it you'll be able to deal with it gracefully because with the lights on you'll see the purpose for everything that God's given us and uh ultimately obviously this is most this is most uh characteristic of the of the era of mashiach which should immediately imminently be with us where Godly knowledge will inundate the entire world the entire world will see the purpose and then at the same time it will not coincidentally it will coincide with an incredible time of material bounty because then we'll be able to use it all and we'll be able to appreciate it all but you start with the light then you do the material stuff then it works out for us foreign