The Power of Oil (Ep. 307)

Hi, this is David Olowski and welcome to the Raviolski show. [applause] Thank you studio audience. In honor of Kaneka, we have a special studio audience for everybody to make you think that this is actually coming to you live [music] and uh actually this is all AI generated. And uh I don't know why someone just showed me that there's some sort of thing now called the real Rabbi Olowski. I I don't know what that is, but apparently there's a fake Revolki out there. So, there's an AI version of me. Whoever he is, I hope he's doing well. Um, and this is our special uh Kaneka uh podcast. This will be coming out right at the beginning of Kaneka. And our sponsor this week is Leila Nishmas, our mother and grandmother, Rifkabas, Gabrielle Kaim, Rita Grunberger. And this is of course by our good friends Avda and Mindy Freed good friends of the show sponsored many episodes over the years and uh they should all have only and all good things etc. And for everybody else out there we have one sponsorship left and then uh we may be going radio silent because there's nothing here. So I'm just going to be here going like this holding up a little cup. [laughter] So [gasps] anyway, but we'll see. All right. Uh so uh this is our special Kaneka show. I've told this story before, but people seem to know almost everything. Every now and then I have a little kabur of guys from the mirror who come Thursday night. I you know we talk about things from the parish show. There's two guys there who know like everything I've ever said between the two of them, you know. I started telly hear this one and they go no. I was like oh my gosh I still have some material left. [laughter] It's like squeezing blood out of a rock. But every now and then you come up. I tell you the truth. I'm, you know, married 43 years and every now and then I tell a story. My wife's like, "I never heard that one." You know, I was like, "Yeah, there you go." So I I've been saving some things so you don't get bored before the 50th. You know, after the 50th, I don't really care because uh uh I'll mostly forget where I am and what I'm saying. I'm almost there, but I have another seven years till I'm totally out of it, you know. And uh I end up, you know, with one of those yamas. My mother always used to say to me, "Why do you think when people get old they talk with a Yiddish accent?" And I said, "That's my experience." Anyway, so hello Mama T. Anyway, um she goes, "You grew up in Long Island. Why you have a Yish accent?" [laughter] But anyway, uh I want to focus on one aspect that I can and I've told this story before as I mentioned. Um I grew up in a house where my parents worked uh yella they worked very hard. They had six boys at a time when that was not uh so mubal to have large families. And my parents worked very especially, you know, at one point my father went bankrupt. Uh I said, "When was that?" And my mother said, "Right around when you were born because every child brings their own luck." But anyway, so uh my mother started going into work for them. And uh I grew up with my parents working mama to be able to support this family, you know. And um and we were definitely not rich, but uh we were, you know, middle class, middle class. So you had middle class accutrants, you know, and uh one of the way my father maintained this was by screaming at us to turn off all the lights. This was very important. And you walk around the house turning off lights and you say, "Why are all the lights on?" You know, and my whole life I regret this decision. I really wanted to go to Lilco, which is Long Island Lighting Co Corporation, and bought one share of stock. So that when my father says to me, "What do you have stock in the electric company?" I could say, "Yep, right here, Dad. [laughter] My one share." Anyway, that and nobody even knows what this is, but once upon a time when you wanted a phone number, you called up 411. They would say, you know, city and state. That was when it was international. When I first started, it was only local. And they'd say, you know, business or residential. And you would tell them the name and they would look it up. And uh this one comic, he says, could you imagine? Do they even have that still? I would imagine if you called up, they would go, "Really?" [laughter] Yeah. I want the number of a Chinese restaurant um within a mile of where I am. Well, where are you? You tell me [laughter] because I can do that on my on my iPhone. And also send uh tell me the three closest Chinese restaurants and then send it to my six friends. No, you couldn't do that. You just called up and got a phone number. My father would go crazy. It was 10 cents. You know, he says, "You have a phone book? Look up the number." You know, if I needed $1,000 for something really important, my father would pull it out of his pocket without a word. But if I called information, forget about it. It was World War II, you know. So, uh, my father my father, uh, grew up during the depression, you know. There was there was no food. Not like today a kid comes home from school and says, "Mom, there's nothing to eat and the refrigerator is full." I mean, there was no food. My my grandmother used to hide some money away to be able to buy milk for the children. It was it was really a source. It was a terrible situation. There was no food. Push it. And that was his uh that was his attitude you know but we had basically you know a pretty comfortable existence to be able to you know have certainly all the basics and things. My parents worked very hard so special occasions were rare. We would have a pesak seder but my father was in the flower business and it usually came out around Easter which was busy and he'd come home late at night. That's when we had the seda, you know, the house they made at Kosha Pesak and he'd start the seda whenever he came home. You know, it was like that Friday night, especially in the winter bench could be 4:15, 4:20, you know, my parents wouldn't come home until 8 8:30. Now, even before I became, my father always Friday night would make kdish and hamotzi and kalas and we would have brisket and guta fish and like, you know, have a suda. Yeah. Um, that was that was even before me. But now I'd come home from school at 5:00. So I'd have to, you know, I could either wait until then to make kiddish or I make kittish and I can eat and then bench and then wait till my dad comes home and then, you know, pretend to do it all over again, which is what I usually did because uh I knew it was important to him, you know, but uh we we didn't have a normal schedule. That was how it was. So Kaneka now when I was growing up my parents used to put the electric manora in the window. That was very exciting. Uh but of course we would also light candles in the dining room. But uh it was whenever they came home and remember this is around another very popular holiday which is very busy in the flower business. You know my brothers uh would go into the store and sell Christmas trees. One year u my father asked me to work in he had another florist selling Christmas trees. I was not successful at this. I did I did everything right. I put on a pair of uh jeans and a lumberjack jacket and a cap and I would shle out all the trees and I would try to sell them. I didn't sell any. It was in a little mall in Flatbush. Guess there not a lot of Christmas trees being sold in Flatbush back then. And uh there was a drugstore there from guy who owned it and he used to come out every now and then and watch me sitting there with the trees. And one time he calls me over. He says, "Kid, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. [snorts] If you sell Christmas trees, tuck in your tits." [laughter] Now, I don't know if that's the reason that I wasn't so good at selling it. I just didn't have a gift for it, you know. Uh all the boys used to go into the store on Sunday and help my father. You know, and after I came in for like a month or two, he said, "Do me a favor. Stay home and help your mother instead." You know, that's uh I used to remember when he would do things around the house, I say, "Dad, can I help?" He says, "You want to help? Don't help." You know, so I would be home and I would light the manora uh by myself. And uh that's what it was. I'd sing uh ner alu in my tour and you know sometimes uh I would buy myself a gift and open it and it was a little depressing but uh you know but my birthdays were like that too. My mom used to leave me money and she'd say buy yourself a present and wrap it up. We'll open it when you get home. Okay, that's wonderful you know. So I had to look surprised which was a little hard because I just bought it you know but no no no no these should be that everybody's sorrow should be that you know but that's how I remember Kaneka and then I went to yeshiva and in the middle of seda we would stop and everybody would go out and light the manoyra and this was an in the old days and we would all light our manoya And then we would all sing haneer halalu and we would all sing maur. And when we got to yanim we would all dance. That's how I remembered Kaneka. It was like to me this was completely different than obviously the experience I had growing up alone uh on Kaneka. Uh it's interesting. Um and NCSY we used to do Shabbatonim and uh a Shabaton is not representative of an average Shabas. It's just not right. Um it's singing and there's dancing and there's all kinds of things going on. You know uh many places on chabas you eat as quickly as you can. you go to sleep, you know, as early as you can and you just wait for it to be over, right? This is a whole celebration. So, I was doing a shabatone once in a particular sh and the rebbiton says to the RV, well, actually said to me in front of the RV, he said, "This is nice, but you should show these kids what a real shabas looks like." And uh and the RV said, "Why? Let them think this is what Shabas is supposed to be, what they have to see. The father falling asleep at the table, reading the paper, you know what I mean? And you know, and and then all the teenagers going to sit on the couch and walking away and uh the whole thing. Let them think that Shabas is singing and dancing and celebrating and beautiful. Let them think that's what Shabas is supposed to be. So, because this was my memory of what Kaneka is supposed to be. Now I don't know what Kaneka is like in a regular house. I only had my own house. Yeah. But when I got married and we started having kids, I did what I did in my yeshiva. We would everybody would light their manoras and uh I don't know how it works in America but if there are any uh ganets out there who make little manoras for these children to take home please for the love of God put in little metal things that fit the candle. You put in these enormous metal things. We have these tiny little candles and I'm sitting there with a with a match melting them on the little thing and then of course if you move one they all tumble over and I go back again melting on the little things. Why can't you just get a monova where it sticks in and fits and everyone has to use their monova? Because they're very emotional about it. I can't solve all the world's problems. But if when I die I can say that every gun only makes manoras for the children that the little Khan candles fit in then I know that my life was not wasted in this world that's all that I would like to do [laughter] that's it and that's how I want to be remembered you know Rabowski managed to change the manuras coming out of the ganim for the little kids so no one ever again had to get hot wax melted onto their fingers as they were setting up the little manuras H I know that doesn't sound like much, but the guy who invented the Pringles can. That's all they talked about when he died. You know, the whole thing was the uh the he was the one who invented the Pringle can and based it on on a tennis ball can and this and that. It was Could you imagine? You look back at your life and that's what you remember. I made the Pringles can, you know, which I guess is better than the guy who wrote the hokeyp pokei because when the guy who wrote the hokeyp pokei died, uh I remember reading the obituary says uh he says I was at the funeral and first they put his left foot in [laughter] and that's when all the trouble started. I love that joke. [laughter] Anyway, so I I would make my home based on the experience that I had, you know, that we would all light the monora and we would sing and when we came to Yvon and we would dance and the kids the the when the kids were little they loved it. Then they became adolescents and I am far too cool to do this. [laughter] I remember Dave Barry who was a humorist out of the Miami Herald. who used to write books and one of them was a travel guide and there was a little chapter traveling with teenagers and it says you have to gear the trip to teenagers right going you know what you want to do go to the Grand Canyon and and look at the spectacular view what a teenager wants to do not go to the Grand Canyon look at the spectacular view what you want to do you know go to the you know the painter desert and the petrified forest what a teen wants do not go to [laughter] do nothing, you know, sit in the back seat with their earphones on and say, "I'm bored." You know, so uh it's uh it's it's challenging. So they would leave and then when they get older, they would come back in and uh it was very exciting. And on Zo Khan, we would actually do a big dance and we'd sing all the Kaneka songs. It became a whole a whole to-do. And uh it it's the kind of thing where you want to try to give people a feeling that there's something special taking place. So as we would sing every year, there is an aspect of it that I would like to draw out if I can. Yeah. Right. The Greeks uh um came up against us and they broke down the walls and they were matame our oil. That seems like a strange thing to do. I imagine there they were in their headquarters. These were the Syrian Greeks. So maybe some place outside of Damascus. Uh maybe it was in Antioch. I don't know exactly where the headquarters were. And they said, "We have to stop the Jewish people. Get them to assimilate and to become Hellenists. What do you think we should do?" And one of them said, "What if we were matame all of their oil?" Brilliant. Who came up with that plan? Spartacus. Ah, let's free that guy. All right, so let's send out the troops. Spartacus, Eraticus, Hepatitis, everybody. Let's get out there and Matame the oil. And they go around and Tommy tummy tame all of the oil. Which is why when we finally captured the Harabas and Yehuda Makabe said, "Find me Taha oil." They were like, "Didn't you hear the song oil? There is no taha oil anymore. Why would you do that migdalai? You broke down the walls, which by the way, this is the only ghost where they didn't destroy the base of Mikdash. The Babylonians did, the Romans did, the Greeks did not. All they did was make 13 breaks in the which was the wall that separated on the heart of bias beyond which non-Jews could not go. And they didn't break it down. They made 13 breaches in the wall and they were matame all the oil. It's got you got to admit that's strange. Why would you do that? Yeah. So the Greeks had a mission and this was different than any enemy we had encountered to that point because we went into Gulus for 70 years. Porus, BL, Mai, we knocked off all three of them in 70 years. But the Greeks came in and challenged us in a way. It was the only gulf that was in Eritell. Babylonians exiled us. The Romans exiled us. Persia didn't want to let us go back to it. They didn't want to let us rebuild the base of Mikdash. But uh Yavan did not try to exile us. They did not try to destroy the base of Mikdash. They wanted to change the way we lived. And this was unusual. We had not encountered an enemy like this who was philosophically motivated. Hammon wanted to wipe us out. Men, women, and children. He wanted to kill us all. He wanted to to perform genocide on innocent people. Yeah. To wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. That was his plan. The Greeks did not. The Greeks wanted to break holes in our walls and they wanted to matame all of our oil. So, let's speak for a moment about oil. 40 maybe 50 years ago, my mom had a copy of a cookbook called The Joy of Cooking. This was the cooking bible for many, many years. I don't know if it's still around anymore. I heard they changed it. Um, I remember it was it it had like everything in it. If you wanted to make a champagne fountain, so you would pour it in the top glass and it would go down into all the glasses. They had a picture exactly how to do that. Very worthwhile. I thought they had a section on how to properly uh skin and prepare a bear, which is not something you find in your average cookbook. Right. In my cookbook, there will be no bear. Yeah. There won't even be be claws because that's too complicated. I don't make anything that, you know, I have to bring it out onto the show. But I have these guys who I I learned with and one of them brought me an apron that says it's easy stupid, which was my mother's mantra and how she taught me how to cook. So, I only make easy things. You know, I don't make anything too complicated. But, uh, it was really interesting. Anyway, it in the section on salads, it described the correct way to make a salad. Stick with me here if you will. Yeah. Now, this is a standard salad back from the old days from 50 years ago where you made, you know, your own homemade sort of salad dressing. There wasn't any mayonnaise in it. Was oil and vinegar and spices and lemon juice. I mean, those kind of things, you know. So, here's the correct way. Before you do anything, you tear the lettuce. You don't cut the lettuce. You tear the lettuce, the different I say lettuce, the different greens, right? Chory, escer, um, you know, whatever it is, you know, redikio. You tear them into bite-sized pieces, preferably in a wooden bowl, and then you add the oil first, and you coat the the greens with it. And then you add the other vegetables. And then you mix up all the other ingredients in a cruit. And then you pour it on top. And that way the oil uh coated the leaves and all the other the rest of the dressing sticks to the salad. This happens to be the Raviolski show at the best because sometimes I give recipes and sometimes I give dri. But when I can combine the two, then we know that it's food for thought. >> [laughter] >> That's awful. Anyway, but um but the reason you don't put it all in together is because when you put the oil and everything in and you shake it up, the oil will separate. And that's why when you buy commercial salad dressing, you will notice one of the ingredients is zanthium gum. Now, I don't know what zanthium gum is, but it's some sort of a thing that lets the oil and the other ingredients stick together, glues it together, but uh normally if you put anything in, the oil will float to the top. Yeah. Um I just had this the paveas when I um made my fresh pesto. I don't know if I ever gave my pesto recipe. I don't know if I did. I apologize for repeating. You take basil by fresh basil. You remove the leaves cuz the stems can be bitter. So remove all the leaves and I I get the bug-free one, you know. Nonetheless, you wash it and you dry it, etc. For every cup of leaves, you add a half a cup of pine nuts and three to four cloves of garlic. I always add four. And um and then salt and pepper to taste. And then you put it into your food processor. And as you mix it up, you pour in olive oil until it is thick and totally mixed. And then you keep adding olive oil. This is the mistake that I made because you say to yourself, well, this is all done, but it's going to congeal in the refrigerator. So you have to add more oil to the point where you think to yourself that's a terrible mistake. That's how I that's how you measure it. When I put in oil and I say that's a terrible mistake. That's the right amount. And then afterwards you scoop it out and it sits in the fridge and it congeals a little bit. But I left it in the fridge and when we served the fash had already began to separate rise to the top. You know that's the nature of oil. It separates. And this is what Kaneko is all about. Pesto. No. Uh what was it? Well, it makes sense. No, that's Italian. This would be Greek. Anyway, but uh uh what's it about? We did this in a question answer. Someone said, "Why do we eat so many, you know, unhealthy foods on Khaneka?" We don't eat unhealthy food. We eat food with olive oil, right? Because the miracle took place with olive oil. So we have foods that are cooked in olive oil. So in Ashkanazic tradition, we would have potato lattkas which we would fry in oil and uh eat them. Why would we fry potatoes? Cuz that's all they had. They had potatoes, they had onions, uh sometimes they had turnups, sometimes they had beets. It was only root vegetables and many green vegetables. That's why you have these people who still have the minig for carpass that they use a potato potato. It says you're supposed to use a green vegetable for the springtime. If your potato is green, that's not good, right? But they use potatoes cuz that's all they had. It was so in Pesak they pretended that it was a green vegetable. And in Kaneka we fried them in oil and the rest of the time we used them for lawn furniture and that was it. We have all we had were potatoes. That was it. roots. They kept the roots there, you know. Um that's why even though the gamura makes it clear that horseradish is not the first choice for marur we used to uh we used to use it because it was a root vegetable. So they had it. They didn't have greens in uh March and April and and Eastern Europe, the ground was still frozen, you know. They didn't have they didn't have green vegetables, you know. So uh I'll never forget when I uh went to day school. parents sent me to day school and some point we were learning hilak and they said you're supposed to use romaine lettuce but if you use horseradish then you have to grind it up because there's no way to eat it um you know unless it's ground up. So my father would of course put out chunks of horseradish rice. And I'd say, "Dad, we learned in school you can't do that cuz you can't eat it that way." And he says, "Oh yeah." And he's sitting there munching away because his father came from Poland and that's how they made them back then. I told this to a friend of mine. He says, "My father is also from Poland." You know, he says, "You know when you're making the karosas and you're grinding up the apple and you take a little piece, you know, he would sit there with a piece of murk chewing it along as he was making it. You know, it was like a snack food, you know, mara, not just for breakfast anymore, you know. So, they would uh just sit there and munch away at it, you know, but that's all they had. They had roots, you know. So, we fried them in oil. In more of the Smartic tradition, they would take dough and fry it in oil. In Israel, they call them suaniote, which is mistransated into English as jelly donuts. Go to any bakery in the New York area. I'm not a Bucky in all of the bakeries, but any bakery in the New York area, any kosher bakery, go in there and ask for a jelly donut. Um, it's sort of thin and light and cakey and like, you know, moist and it's got some nice little jelly inside, you know, and a little powdered sugar in the top, you know. Um, here Angel's Bakery saves all the old kala rolls and then soaks them in oil long enough that you could recreate the Kaneka miracle if you stick a wick in it. And then they put a little powdered sugar on top. The reason is for people like me who always make fun of sufaniote and they put the powdered sugar on so that it gets all over you and everyone knows that you're a liar and you do eat the soufaniote even though you make fun of them. And if you get it on your jacket or your pants, there's nothing you can do. You brush it off and it just forms a glaze. So everybody sees from the shine that you had this, you know, forget about if the jelly drops on your shirt. It's a it's all for fallen. You know you've given up already. I hope you appreciate by the way I put on my oil tie so that it should look kanagadik. Thank you. So we have foods that are fried in oil. Why? Because the story is based on oil. Because oil doesn't mix. And that's the dafka. The point that the Greeks went after was our oil because they were going to enforce a certain uniformity on the entire world. The Babylonians didn't care whether we worship their gods. Neither did the Persians. Yeah. Um, nobody cared. That wasn't it. They weren't trying to force an idea on us. They wanted our they wanted our money. They wanted our possessions. Um the Bkhanza wanted our wisdom for us to teach. But the Greeks believed that they were the elite of the world that they would bring to the world what we today call western civilization. sports and universities, science, um literature, theater, um all the trappings of Western civilization that they brought to the world, they wanted everybody to accept it and it was successful. you know, Egypt, which had been a uh a monarchy with whatever their culture was for many, many years. When we were down in Mitzim, they were a world power. They were considered an unbelievable force of nature. The Greeks captured them and made them Greek. So Alexandria named after Alexander the great you know became a Greek city. Cleopatra right slowly became Greek and then Roman. They they managed to change the entire world to their philosophy and all we said was good luck friends just leave us alone. leave us alone. And we were a thorn in their side. You think you're better than us? You Jews. Now to be fair, a lot of Jews fell for the message. The assimilation was terrible. People were being absorbed into Greeks. They became known as the misyim. They later turned into the sadukim. But uh these were people who thought we should adopt Greek culture and Greek ways and Greek wisdom. Josephus says that they used to wrestle naked in the gymnasiums and the Jews were embarrassed because they had a brisa and that was an embarrassment among the Greeks because the Greeks worship the human body. That's one of the reasons we eat foods cooked in oil to show we don't we're not going to look like those Greeks. We're going to look like Jews. [laughter] Hello with a corn beef sandwich. Hello. But uh but they worship the human body. Parenthetically um the Israeli army adopted the British um physical uh standard for their pilots. And for many years, an Israeli pilot never got 100 on his physical because you lose one point if you're circumcised. It's seen as an embarrassment to have to do that. Today, there [clears throat] are a lot of people who do it. They think it's healthier. They think whatever it is, uh, to be able to do it. If you remember, I had my friend Mike Ravinsky on the show who was a Moy who does thousands of bristom for non-Jews because they'd prefer to use a Moy over a doctor because a Moy has more experience than the average doctor. Interestingly enough, and that's why there was Yosula, who was the famous Moy here in Yushai. Uh they used to call him lightning. I was I was at brism that he did. Now I've been at brism that his son Misha does. And the kid doesn't have a can chance to cry. He didn't even realize what was happening. I was like, "Whoa, who's that?" You know, and it's all done already. They're banding him up. When Hadassa would have a difficult question on a circumcision, they would call him in because they understood that his expertise was greater than theirs. But the Jews were embarrassed. So they would go through some kind of a medical procedure to make it look like they didn't have a brisa. Now, I don't know what this was, but apparently it was so painful, says Josephus, that people ended up committing suicide from the pain, but they were willing to risk it just not to be embarrassed because they wanted to be part of the dominant culture. We didn't really want to be Babylonians or Persians. That wasn't too exciting. But to be a Greek with their art and literature and sports and theater and all of their their philosophy, everything that went along with this, this was a this was tremendous ty Greek philosophy. You know, someone asked me once, you know, I I want to go study Greek philosophy. What's wrong with Plato? I said, it's almost impossible to get out of the carpet. But I don't think that was his question. [laughter] I love that joke. But anyhow, um the uh the fact is that Jews were being sucked into this oil doesn't mix. They wanted to mame the oil. You have a wall in the base of Mikdesh where non-Jews can't go. No, no, no, no, no. We will break that down to show you that we're all the same. all part of the family of nations and you will be part of us and we say just leave us alone. It's all we want. That's all we want. It's interesting. The Rambam says that the war was fought by the Kohane [clears throat] Golim. Well, not really, right? There's Matiso and there's Yan and Ko. Those are the only two coin guttles that we experience in the story. We know we had the Makabe brothers. We know we had other people who were involved in this. But it was definitely the Kohanim who were the spearhead. Why? Because the Kohanim are the most separate group of people within the Jewish people. Um they eat Truma. Nobody else can eat Truma. They have to make sure that nobody touches their trauma. They have to they can't go to funerals. They can't become tummy. They have to be very careful what they do, where they go, what they touch. People complain about pes. Oh, I have to worry about pes this. That's nothing. Wait till tuma and tara kick in. Every place you sit, one, one second. Did a z or a need to sit here? you know, and you you you understand, you know, someone's tummy in your house and like I say, you know, if if you have a wife and daughters like I do, forget about it. I can't sit anywhere. I can't go anywhere. And at the end, you take the whole house and you to it. Take the couches, take all the clothes, take all of the calem, you know, if you have a wagon, you drive it. They drive through Mikfis. You drive it right through. You know what I mean? Everything was was uh was at Avatum because uh you know need the sits in it you know and uh and that's why they know that they found in the old city when they were digging up they knew it was a coin house if they found stone caim because stone can't be mab when mash comes we're going to be making special stone rebolowski mugs for our kohanim listeners. Everybody else has a karis. If it gets tummy, you smash it. Which I think is good for sales. Anyway, there's no way to to to um constant. My favorite name of a peric in all of Shas is inculin all of the spittle. What is the rule of spittle? You walk down the street and there's some wet spittle and you step in it. Forget about the gross factor. If that was spit out by a zv or a zava, it's an avatuma and you're a tame. You know, you know what that is when you have to get on the bus and somebody bumps into you and say, "I'm sorry. Are you a zv?" You know, it's a little personal question, but I got to know because if so, you know, it was unbelievable. Yeah. The Mishna and Scholam says that most of the meat that was eaten in was corban schlam. you know what you have to do to become tame just forget don't pay attention and they have to go to the mikvah again and that's why you see when they dig up they find like two houses and three mikvah because every time you wanted to eat something you had to go to the mikvah that's where they wore robes and turbans and sandals it didn't pay to get dressed you know what I mean you were going into the mikvah and coming out you know drying yourself up just put on the robe you know and then someone says hey how's it going says not bad what about you yeah oh I'm sorry I I got to go back to the mikvah, you know. Is that that's it. I got this I got this Schlumbim sandwich sitting here on my Truma bread and I just just sitting there waiting for me, you know. And uh you got to keep your focus. All of Claudius has to wash their hands before they eat bread on the off chance that you sit down next to a cohane who has trauma and you touch his truma and you're your daimario. So even if you're to we assume your hands are tame. So you have to wash your hands. So you wait to tum and tara kick in. And so kohanim have to maintain themselves in a state of tahara and kadusha not like anybody else. You know I have to say is difficult as a cohene uh that I don't get to go to funerals because I love going to funerals. Anyway, I have left in my tab and I'm saying this publicly because all of you out there who care about me, make sure no matter what my family says, I don't want any has paid them because then the the person's still conscious after he's dead until he goes up to Shmayim. And I hate speeches. I know my I have people who said to me already they want to give a headspin. I don't want to hesitate them. Put me in the go ground as quickly as possible. Make a schllo. I'll be gone. I'll be in one place or the other by that point. You know what I mean? And that's it. Have everybody and their brother speak, you know, put it in a nice nice room with some coffee and cake, you know, and uh and that's it. Don't uh don't u make people stand outside in the heat or the cold or it's raining and make a bunch of speeches. I don't any speeches, you know. Hashem, I've I've gotten enough spadium in my life already. And if anybody wants, they can go back and watch my podcast, you know. So, my wife said, "Someone has to speak." I said, "I'll record a message." [laughter] Hey, everybody. So, uh, I don't know how you guys are feeling, but I'm just dead. [laughter] I've been working this over in my head. I have a lot of good lines. Anyway, I don't want to go on too long. That's the whole point, you know. So, Kahano separate. They stay separate. More separate than kohanim kohhen. Well, the kohhen doesn't even go to his parents' funeral. Nothing. He He's not allowed to go to any funerals, anything. At least, you know, you know, you're allowed to go to the seven relatives, your parents, uh child, [clears throat] uh a spouse, sibling. So, you're allowed to go to their funerals, but a coin go not not for anything, you know. So the idea was it's the people who are most separate who were most sensitive to what was taking place and so the kahanim are more separate than the israelim and the kang is more separate and the only one who's more separate than that are the women and that's why when the gamarra says women and the says the rash bomb Tyus brings down not that they were also in the miracle they were the reason for the miracle and the medish tells the story of Basco and Gud where they had a rule that the Roman governor could choose to have first rights with any kala and uh wouldn't be also because it was on and anyway it was at this wedding and they hear the governor is And they're like, "Okay, what can you do?" And you know, we pass, you know, and you know, and uh there's nothing you can do. Well, the kala apparently was not quite with the program. And she came out, I guess, to sit in her culture, uh wearing uh not her wedding dress, but rather her birthday suit. Well, a coin God's daughter. You can imagine how this scandalized everybody. And she said, "Oh, I forgot. You are so firm, you would never let me be seen like this, but you don't mind turning me over to the Greek governor like this. Oo. And that got the kohanim crazy. So when the governor came they killed him and that's what started the rebellion because the women sensed it more often more than that than the average person. It filtered down. Didn't reach the average folk. But all of the people who understood what it means to be different and separate were moved by this experience in order to make it something that would be uh we don't want to be assimilated. We don't want to be absorbed into your culture. We have our own culture. Josephus writes, "We Jews are not given to the writing of many books. The Torah has always been our form of entertainment. We don't need your theater and your sports and your all all of your other accutrants. The Torah itself is is our is our life. It's what we enjoy. It's what we get our pleasure from. At least that's what it's supposed to be. And one of the reasons that we lose our appeal for Torah is because Greek civilization pulls us away. That's the darkness of Yavan, but it fills us with a non-Jewish spirit. Takes us away. Alicia Benavuya became known as Aker. Megamora says one of the reasons was that he always had Greek books with him and he was always singing Greek songs and that reached the point where it ended up pulling him away from a Kuresh Baraku and from Torah. And so we go into Kaneka and we are surrounded by a major culture that wants to absorb us. There is a psychological syndrome I forgot what it's called, but it's Jewish kids feeling uh this sense of depression when the holidays come around. Because as much as we like to sit and light our little manora, you can't compare that to a giant tree and fancy lights. I have been to places in America where they cover their house outside with lights and giant blow up manoras and giant drreidles, you know, to try to, you know, emulate it. But Khan has never been about that. We It's not the show. It's for internally that we light those candles for ourselves. It's just the opposite. We're not trying to show the world. We're not trying to compete. I uh I used to run NCSY Long Island and you know the different chapters would come up with you know different programming they would tell me. So it was during December time and they said oh we made a great program. We went into Manhattan to go to the ice skating in Rockefeller Park outside of the tree and then we went around looking at all the Christmas decorations in the department stores. I said, I don't know if that's exactly the message we're trying to give across, you know, that uh that we want to have this. Apparently, I didn't see it, but someone told me Saturday night live Santa Claus couldn't come, so Harry Khan filled his place. And he comes down and everyone's like, "Oh," he goes, "Hello, how are you? It's Harry Kaneka." You know, it's good to see you all. Where's Santa? Ah, Santa couldn't make it. You know, so I'm filling in for him. He says, "Oh, did you bring us gifts?" He goes, "Yes, here." They open it up and they go, "Socks? You brought us socks?" Goes, "Don't keep your feet warm." [laughter] That's what the old joke used to be. He says, "We get presents for eight days." Goes, "Yeah, but we get socks one day, underwear another day, isn't it's not like, you know, they got, you know, you know, a computer. You know what I mean? It's a different kind of thing." Yeah. Because Kaneka is not about the presence. That's not what it's about. Khaneka is not about the spectacles and the big trees and the, you know, and the all those public celebrations. It's just the opposite. Leave us alone. [sighs] For years, um, the I should say recent years, the Jewish people have been accepted in the family of nations. We uh had an Orthodox Jew in the year 2000 who ran for vice president, you know, and when he got nominated, he his statement was, "I'm going to give 246 to this campaign, but not Chavez." Of course not, you know. And and everybody was amazed by this attitude. And one of the major political commentators is Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, wears a Yarmaka, you know, and you can there's a I don't remember his name, but he sings popular songs, not Jewish songs, you know, popular songs. He's supposed to have a beautiful voice. He did the um the Star Spangled Banner at a baseball game, you know, Schill Lummer. So, Jews were being accepted everywhere. And then kamas came in and killed uh over,200 Israelis and captured hundreds of others. And now everyone says because of that we hate you and they hated us right away. Had nothing to do with genocide. Right at the beginning there were college students putting up pictures of the hostages and people were ripping them down. Why would you rip down a picture of a hostage? They didn't do anything. They're being held a hostage. old men, little babies. Why would you rip down their pictures? Because they hate us and now they have some kind of excuse why they can do it. But they always hated us. There's nothing new about this. Victor Davis Hansen says, "The way you know it's anti-semitism is just listen to their arguments." Well, the Jews are occupying Palestinian land. He says, "So you must hate Turkey." They're occupying half of Cyprus. They've been doing it for years. Does that bother you? You know, the genocide. He says, "The Turks have been murdering the Kurds for years. They wiped out the Armenians. Are you angry at Turkey?" You know, Sudan has actual uh slavery. Does that bother you? No. So if you criticize something that Israel is doing and you don't criticize anybody else, that's how you know it's anti-semitism. Uh on and all the arguments that they bring and it's out of the bag. Now there's a guy Nick Fuentes, you know, who's a neo-Nazi and he loves Hitler and there was Stalin and you know, and says all the Jews are the source of all the problems and all this kind of stuff. And now he's on regular talk shows. People have them on. They interview him. Treat him as if he's a BA. You know, and Victor Davis Hansson said, "I don't have a problem if you interview him, but you have to be critical. Not just let him say whatever he wants and then go, oh, really? Oh, is that right? Oh, okay." You know, which is what people have been doing. That's ridiculous. But this is coming from an inherent hatred. So this Khanekah is a Kaneka like one we haven't had in many years. We can actually be that oil where we separate from everybody else. We will celebrate Khaneka and nobody celebrates with us. That's what Bam said when his curses were turned into brahas. Yeah. You're a nation that lives alone. When you celebrate, nobody celebrates along with you. Nobody se celebrates your victories. Nobody mourns your losses. Nobody cares at all. That's where we are. And so the Greeks wanted to matame our oil, wanted to destroy our individuality, wanted to make us give up what makes us special. And we stubborn Jews are still here and we refuse to play their game. [snorts] Oh, my producer sends me some uh nice uh emails. I just read them. Hi, I'm a 29year-old Abra originally from Jacksonville, Florida. Exclamation mark. Now, I'm not sure what the exclamation is if you come from Jacksonville, Florida. Now, I did do a shabas in Jacksonville. I had a very nice time. It was lovely. Um, and I'm happy to go back if they invite me. Um, but he's from Jacksonville, Florida. Mark that is fully involved in Ziko Harabim Kirv with many thanks to my Rebies Rebi Raisha Shapiro Zatal. Yeah, I recently got very involved in your show and it is a tremendous for me especially how you are just so real and yourself. I have tried to be other people, but I end up having to pay more taxes. You should have tremendous success in health and take over the world completely. Now, now we're talking. That's the first thing you said that really hits home. [laughter] Here's another one. Thank you so much for your shows. I'm addicted to them. Okay. In fact, this week after I watched the episode on Torah Any Time, I felt it was a tease. I wanted much more. So I went back and listened to 10 random Shurman shows. I still again didn't get bored on loving every minute. Somebody once told me back in the old days when they used to make Torah tapes. Uh if you anybody's old enough to remember that, you know, um there was a time when they had like magnetic tape and they had records, right? records were originally like um a tube and then afterwards they made these discs and uh then they made small discs 45s you get just like one song on each side you know [snorts] and uh and then of course they moved to cassette tapes. It was a big step forward. Then they moved to CDs and then they moved to downloads and now Elon Musk is going to put something in your brain and just download it instantly just by thinking. But um they had cassette tapes. So, somebody used to say to me, um, I always buy your cassette tapes because they're the best investment. Cuz a normal Torah, you listen to it, that's it. It's over, you know. But with yours, you can listen to it over and over again. So, thank you for that observation. It's uh it's certainly true. I personally, as I mentioned, I can't stand speeches, but I enjoy listening to myself, and I do listen to my own shore. And I'm like, whoa. Because I don't remember what I say. I have no memory. And all I was like, oh, that was really good. >> [laughter] >> to ask a question. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to answer that?" You was like, "Oh, that's brilliant." [laughter] Anyway, that's it for this week. I listen everybody, if you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, ravioliowski.com. You can sponsor an episode. We only have one sponsor left. So, we need your help. You can uh sign up for one of our online shiim. You can sponsor a part five sponsor question and answer. There's other material up there. Uh you can sign up for our PES program which uh is in full swing. Hashem, it looks like it's going nicely. I just got a call from somebody who said, "Oh, I'm so glad. I've been waiting to sign up." You know, it's going to [music] be a lot of fun and no kiner. You can have the information up on my website. And that's it for now. Until next time, I am David Alowski and this has [music] been the Rabbi Alaski show. >> [applause] >> IT'S THE RABBI Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, ready to go. The Rabbi Orvski show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have [music] to ride. No, we don't. It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi.com. Torah anytime you two [music] and more. It's the Rabbi Olavski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi orski show. Till next time till we meet again. The Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show.