Yishai Fleisher Show: Abraham Accords, Biblical Laws of War, and Bowling in Jerusalem

[Music] shalom everybody and welcome to the isha fleischer show broadcasting live from judea to the world you are a part of it wherever you are shalom and welcome to uh the final weeks of summer as kids are not yet back in school but heading back to school it's the final countdown that's right it's a very famous old jewish song the final countdown to messiah and to the school year to the school year and that other voice that you're here is none other than makaflesha maka welcome to the show thank you very much maka today's show is very special we have a long show today uh as you're gonna hear uh after the malka segment uh a fabulous and everybody that that heard it live or saw it on facebook and on youtube uh told me that that it's a really important interview with uh dr mordechai kedar brilliant brilliant man that's right about the uae israel abraham accords uh the so-called accords of the abrahamic chords of the uh peace now this is a word i am i am allergic to completely because a in this specific case it's become a trigger term it's a it's a trigger term thank you malka and it's not really true since we weren't at war with with the uae so we're not having a peace that's not a peace accord this is a bilateral diplomatic it's the opening of diplomatic relationship right it's a regional alignment it is a you know bilateral diplomatic arrangement as you said and it's not no peace because we weren't at war true but i think we all know that there's like a friction and so what they're saying is let's get rid of the friction it's not just like oh hey look there's a country we don't have a diplomatic relationship with let's go do that why haven't we even done that up until now fine but let's say you haven't you're not we're purposefully not diplomacizing let's say you had an uncomfortable moment with a friend and a family member but not a huge one but an uncomfortable moment do you have to always have a sit-down negotiation for uh i don't know what family you're in some families yeah i'm just saying i'm just saying it's not the right word peace and it also is a trigger word because it means something i do not think it means what you think it means it does not it means something else today which is that it means land giveaway and the cessation of jewish sovereignty in judea and samaria which i really want to uh minimize and really maximize what this is about which is regional uh understanding and by the way kedar and that you'll hear on the show today his thing is this thing is actually all about trump and about helping trump get elected because the uae wants his anti-iran stance and so they want him to succeed because they understand that that's do you think that's really going to affect american elections though do you think americans are like well i don't know i might vote biden but trump did do that israel uae deal so so you you made it binary uh not binary you made a binary between vote this or vote this but that is not in fact what voting is about the other option within voting is do i get out of my couch and vote or do i not okay and that is a huge part so you think that some people are going to be like dang it i worked at double shift last night and i know that i don't want to go out to vote today but there was that israel uae deal and so i'm going to get up and do that voting regional stability malcolm people or do you think it's that person who's like well i would like to vote for biden but i'm so tired and i don't like trump but he did that israel uae deal so i won't vote yes i think there are people like that i think i think there are people like that and and i want to tell you what my christian friends say check this out and when i say christian i'm talking about uh evangelical american christians my good friend eric said voters yeah the regular american voters you know what they say no listen to this crazy thing my friend says to me we've got three issues israel marriage and abortion really those now those are three issues now that's within a certain hardcore evangelical world but we but if you think about that by the way do you see the relationship between those three things the relationship is like bible bible like like a biblical outlook like marriages between men and women let's have a sanctity of life and israel is this thing that is a that is a beacon of light for us of life and it's it's a related thing it's just a very interesting thing that i i i'm not making this up this is what what a a christian leader told me i was fascinated and also you know what fascinated me is that i was like this is hebron hebron is life of family family life marriage life cycle babies in israel all rolled into one okay anyway it's a thought any speaking of babies maka yeah uh your baby boy el azar yes uh had his ninth birthday yesterday anymore that's right he's not my our littlest one as you well know ishai yes he's not our last one but but he is still my baby yeah he is one of your babies and he had a nine he had a nine he had a nine he turned nine speaking of family and children yeah we went yesterday bowling right so in jerusalem because elazar is born in the summer school starts september 1st generally in israel almost every year right um and because of that elizar who was born like a cup like in the jewish calendar that's the calendar we really celebrate so i can't say it's like two days before school starts because sometimes it's three days sometimes it's a week before school starts anyway right before school starts it's a summer day and because of that we like never really end up doing like straight-up birthday party we certainly celebrate and we oftentimes go on vacation and we take you know him and we also take him out to a restaurant and we get them to do the happy birthday cake you know at the restaurant and we like buy him a present and stuff like that we make it fun but he really really wanted he's been asking me for a couple of years to do like a birthday party with friends when leia our daughter um had her like eighth or ninth something like that birthday we took her bowling um at there's not that many options there's basically one bowling place in all of jerusalem but there is another one in beijing there's one in beijing that one's pretty new i think but there's one place in jerusalem that we went to and i came back from there with such a crushing crazy headache like brain flattening headache that i was like i kind of probably have to bring a core bone at the bay to make dash for the neder that i made that i cannot ever go back there but um anyway so eliza wanted to do something and i wasn't sure what to do and i thought to myself you know what it's been a few years let's do us some bowling so i asked him he liked that idea and then leia got into the kitchen she made these like so i like to do i'd like to decorate birthday cakes for the kids birthdays you know you send them with a cake off to school for their birthday and stuff i oftentimes go a tad overboard but because i like it i like the cake decorating because you like themes i like themes i like celebrations you like themes you like dates i like dates i like celebrations i like parties i like happy times and you like happy times that i have dates which themes that are celebrations those are the things correct right so anyway our daughter leia who has unusually fine motor skills i would say has like taken upon herself this cake decorating she's kind of arty so she took upon herself to decorate uh elizar's cake this year and we didn't do cake we did cupcakes and we just and leia decided that she's making like bowling pin fondant little shapes and bowling balls and all this stuff and she went crazy and she made she made all these like crazy awesome cupcakes and we took them to the bowling alley now before we went to the bowling alley i called because that's the responsible thing to do now i wasn't gonna you know back in the day when you were an american kid having a birthday so your mommy would call the place some fun place of kids and then there would be like a room right where you like have the party and that's your party and like you blow the kazoo thing sure and like you're having like an you know i had i didn't grow up religious i had one at mcdonald's i remember very significantly anyway so i called them being like i want to make a birthday party for my son at the bowling alley and they're like great come on over and we're like do i reserve anything they're like we don't do reservations you show up so i was like okay well you know with coronavirus and everything probably it won't be a big deal and we'll just like get a lane and it'll be fine anyway flash forward we get to jerusalem we get to the bowling alley okay so i always thought that the most stressful job the like the most stressful occupation was air traffic control where you have to manage the landings of all these planes but i realize now that i'm wrong it is the guy who signs you up for your bowling lane in jerusalem amongst a a a uh they have the person who runs this bowling alley is either an absolute genius or should go to jail basically there's like two people at this bowling alley who actually work there they all incidentally this is a bowling alley they all work as if their job is really important they're like they're so on it there's there's so many times where you get to a place and you like you get the person who's like smacking their gum and they don't really care and their eyes look all glazed over not at the bowling alley in jerusalem well i don't think people understand what you didn't get to the punch line which is how many people there there were and how serious it is lanes i think at the bowling alley we got there they were all full of like full full not like two guys karate families ultra orthodox families ultra orthodox and some you know religious zionist families it was basically religious day at the bowling alley which is every day there maybe i don't know i i i'm guessing probably but it was like there were guys in like beckish's like it was like i think i heard yiddish like there was there was a lot of super from kite i saw a mishna sitting on the side a little one of those fully i saw dude learning i saw dude learning anyway the pizza place there with the beard was in line for the for the air hockey was learning torah wow i saw that i know it was like an older guy yeah it was really and this guy who's signing you up i think he was arab he spoke definitely flew in arabic he's like yes yes he's like answering everyone doesn't get frustrated there's the line there was no line there was a throng there was a horde okay and everyone with eyes they were like i need my this whatever some kind of bowling related thing right and i thought to myself and he was really nice to me by the way he was just really calm he got everyone's thing done he didn't yell he didn't make faces nothing nothing like like a glint in his eye that was like this is so annoying he was just like yeah i'm on this bully and like you lady you're going to get your bowling experience in fact in fact our lane was fine until like frame six or something yeah and then that happens yeah but they took care of business took care of business and they were like i came back there twice because there was a problem and they just didn't even like bat an eyelash on me and then i realized that if i ever go into politics i'm going back to that bowling alley and i'm taking the whole staff [Laughter] and they're all going to work in my office those people were like they're handling everything kids are sticky they're like demanding people getting in front of each other and these people so now there's an arcade right associated with the bowling alley and the and they mahadra and pizza i'm 100 pizza so we got mahajan we had to wait 30 minutes no now i was thinking myself when i saw it at a distance i was like okay this is going to be one of these places that serves cheap cheese cheap pizza it's going to be one of those like papery sometimes you get it in israel like bad pizza i'm like this is going to be that flops when you pick it up no the other that kind of feels like a cardboard type of type of dough bread like bad anyway got the pizza it was awesome it was such a good pizza from friends it was crispy fries for christmas i paid for it it wasn't exactly cheap up in there right but okay it is what it is right you're at the bowling alley and they they got you locked in this is in talpiyo the industrial zone in the industrial zone we even found parking like nice street parking which wasn't even bad yeah that was like the big fear all morning i was like god of parking just that's right just give me a parking spot i want we have to make that sticker oh god who has i want to make like a ben like some kind of domining sticker that you put in your yeah inside your car you who have parked our people 42 times in the desert he who granteth eliezer the servant of abraham parking in the haram we should do it yeah isha we gotta do it we really should do it we've been talking about it for a long time ye who gave the fiery chariot of elijah parking before he understood please oh god of israel give us let us park in the land of israel in your holy city jerusalem yes you're abode and if you give us parking we shall surely work you in jerusalem that's right we shall surely work to bring your presence back to jerusalem and find make it park in the temple mount anyhow so we did our bowling it was really fun also bumpers were not optional you must take bumpers all the lanes except for two lanes had bumpers obligatory originally i was like uh bumpers bumpers okay just go with the bumpers do it it's more fun incidentally there was one kid who got second place we took so we took ella's our son three of his friends and our our daughter and our little son uh israel who's five and you and i shared one you could only play seven people uh in a in a lane so we took all those slots there was one kid the kid who got second place he had a whole strategy of like hitting the bumper and then hitting the pins yeah no he he never not he never not hit the bumper i i sent some some some some fast ones down the middle yeah you got robbed a couple times the point is what what's the lesson forget it just hit the bumper plate that's the thing and i think the blessing that i want to give everybody is hashem please give us bumpers in life you know we're not always going straight exactly and we want to we want to hit those pins get the pins just let us know yeah just just help us with the bumpers exactly that's it and that's you know as as the rosh is tonight tonight tonight really hashem like there's so much gutter there's so much gutter and our ball we don't have great aim oftentimes right but if you'll just we certainly don't need to to do the spin the spin when it spins in the right way we don't know if you'll just put up the bumper and let us hit some pins right just don't make us go in the gutter oh it was a great party monk i want to thank you and it was indeed a beautiful uh uh uh she made beautiful uh lamb made these beautiful cupcakes with the with the pins and you know i was just wondering what condition my condition is in you know what i'm saying [Laughter] if you know if you know what that's from you can hashtag it yeah uh send it to you shy in his email you should give him your email ishaifletcher.com you showed the land of israel.com forget it dude let's just go bowling in any case it was it was awesome and it was it was very holy in jerusalem i hope that you pastors corona will come to jerusalem come to the holy sites come to chevron uh check us out at hebronfun.org come to the tomb of rachel come to the tomb of joseph but don't forget to go bowling in jerusalem right we have a great show lined up we're going to go right now to dr mordechai kedar he's going to give you an incredible rundown no one gutter balls from him no who the uae is what they are who mohammed bin zayed is you're going to find that out just in a second and really get an understanding about their psychology what they're aiming for and what this abraham quartz is all about afterwards we're going to go to rabbi mike foyer we're going to talk about the torah portion of mishpatim lots and lots of laws about society about officers about not defunding the police about law uh and about war so we're going to really talk about uh those kind of like officers even the priests that are that are anointed for war we're going to talk about all these different uh aspects uh and that's it then we'll get a chance to say goodbye to you maka so thank you so much for joining us thank you and let's go to the one and only dr mordecai kedar one of my heroes in this world uh and he is quite famous in the middle east uh research world uh he's a research associate at the basa it's the big institute center for strategic studies at the barilan university along with many other research centers globally he's also the director of the center of the study of middle east and islam under formation at barilan he studies radical islam and gained fame for appearing on many arab media outlets including al jazeera and he has served for 25 years as a lieutenant colonel in the israeli military intelligence both in uh now he serves in reserves at both northern and central command and he's a commentator on many israeli and foreign media and he's really the person who understands the uh the latest latest reality the change in reality here in the middle east between israel and the uh uae united arab emirates and you've all read the headlines uh and so i'm not bringing him on not bringing on dr kedar just talk about the headlines you know the headlines the headlines are that israel has signed some kind of peace accord named the abraham accords with the uae with the stipulation that israel stops the progress forward uh of sovereignty in judea and samaria in the so-called west bank that's the headlines but what's behind the headlines and who are the personalities dr kirar thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show yeshua it's my pleasure and my honor to be here okay great first thing tell me about these personalities we we heard about mbs that's mohammed bin salman he's the leader of saudi arabia now we've got a new guy that i guess a lot of us folks didn't really know much about and his name is mbz muhammad bin zayed and he's the leader the de facto leader i understand of the united arab arab emirates maybe you just want to tell us a little bit what is the united arab emirates is it a country is it a conglomerate of countries is it like the united states we have a few different states together and who is this guy at the head of it well first of all the united arab emirates is an entity which was created in the early 70s like 50 years ago when britain withdrew from the persian gulf and learned from their bad experience in iraq by creating the conglomerate of tribes and ethnic groups and religious groups and the sectarian groups like named iraq and this was failing state already they already saw the problems when they got out from the gulf 30 years later later they left behind them a group of emirates means entities which are based on one tribe each and each and every one of them is based on one single tribe and when you have a consolidated society although small but a homogenous society you get a stable society and you get a stable state and a good state and this is what they learned from the big bad experience in in iraq one generation earlier so they created 10 emirates in the gulf i mean kuwait bahrain qatar which remained separate until this very day and another seven who later made the federation which is dubai abu dhabi fujiera uh and the shark this is the last one all these 10 were given the choice whether to to remain separate or to make some kind of a federation and the seven decided to make it the federation while three remained outside this federation looks more like the european union than the united states of america you know the states in america are not sovereign new york is no sovereignty neither has uh in new jersey or florida or oklahoma or texas while in the european union france is sovereign germany sovereign holland is sovereign and so forth these seven emirates which are united in the in the united arab emirates are separate sovereign independent from each other yet they made this federation just like the european union they united the currency they united the army they have won a coastal guard they united the foreign policy they have one ministry of uh foreign affairs they won one embassy in let's say in france and france has one embassy in abu dhabi representing france vis-a-vis all the seven together but they did not create one police for example they don't have a federal bureau of investigation means fbi because they hide secrets from it from each other they did not unite the economy the economy is separate and so they look more more or less like like europe the european union and yet they when it comes to foreign policy they are very consolidated they get all the decisions by by consultants with each other and when they come to a conclusion they do whatever they have to do uh the emulates are basically what about ethnic are they are they ethnic group they are arabs they are sunni muslims they are not wahhabis they are different sects however their culture their background is bedwin like all the other people in the in the arab peninsula and maybe not the yemenites but most of the arabs in the arabian peninsula are from bedouin background and this what makes the big difference first of all the tribal ties are very very important for them unlike arabs who settled in the cities let's say in syria or in lebanon and other parts of the arab world where the family ties are much more loose this is one thing second thing uh being bedwins or bedouin background they are looked upon by the others uh as i would say backwarded primitive uh those who still remained in the desert or things like this while they themselves the people in the desert view themselves as real arabs while those who dwell in the cities in iraq in syria in egypt wherever they are actually lost their arab characteristics they became weak they became i mean they are stripped of their arab background and they look upon them from above uh peasants are somewhere in between the peasants are looked upon by the city dwellers as low life while the peasants look at their bedwins as low life okay so this i would say the hierarchy of perceptions and stereotypes in the arab world the bedwins are the lowest the presence of the middle while the people who live in the cities view themselves as the elite while the bedouins view themselves as the elite while the others are those who lost their arab entity or characteristics and this what about what about economically because that probably also influences when you look at dubai it's a very it's a great looking town it's a great looking area they must look down upon people who are poorer than them what happened is that because they are homogeneous societies because they don't accept anyone because they are bedouins they have stable states and stability brings money either you you have a oil from like dubai like abu dhabi so you can make money out of oil if you don't have oil like dubai no oil no gas you make money out of business because you cooperate with each other because you are from the same time you don't betray anyone so being homogeneous societies each and everyone who is based on one tribe actually made them rich countries while the conglomerates of ethnic groups tribes sectarian and religious groups like iraq syria libya yemen sudan made those countries failing states because of the multiple groups which never lived in peace with each other so paradoxically because they are bedouins and would not accept anyone else into their country because they are bedouins they became very rich because of this because of the homogeneity of their societies and the stability of the states and the fact that they have a traditional law which they all follow nobody what about what about the vote dr kedar what about their relationship to islam are they a little bit less uh edgy a little bit less given to the extremist perception of islam because they're better ones at least that's been my experience that better ones are more likely to take islam as a bit of an easier form and does that if that's true does that impact the way they see israel well one of my bedouin students once said that our islam is islam light light you know they are muslims of everything they you know they pray everything but the the teachings of islam are secondary to the teachings or the traditions of the tribe which are much more important for example blood revenge is one of the most basic tribal uh traditions this is totally against islam in islam you are not allowed to kill anyone only because he killed your brother or your sister or whoever you have to bring him to court you have to bring witnesses you have to you need a judge and only then after he is being faced with court only then you can punish him you cannot just go and kill somebody especially if he's not the killer but his cousin because this is one of the rules of the time so and this is only one one good example another good example is according to the tribal rules you marry your daughter to her cousin to your brother's son okay uh in islam it's viewed as something not recommended because the prophet muhammad peace be upon him already said from afar means not don't make your daughter marry her first cousin because he already knew the damages you know in in all kinds of genetic diseases which are created and preserved by marrying relatives for generations so all right he recommends warmly that muslims will marry from afar yet you can very easily see see that in tribal societies they still marry the cousin so definitely you can you can say that the tribal law is much more powerful much more significant uh compared to other kinds of law especially the islamic law so i i want to i want to get to now if that islamic light as you say touches how they perceive israel but before you answer that question just a quick question for me uh qatar how does that fit in there how do the qataris aren't they the same folks qatar was created more or less the same but in the 80s especially in the 90s qatar went through a radical change uh because of one person an egyptian the speaker or the leader of the muslim brotherhood of those days he ran away from mubarak in order to save his head so he settled in qatar and he actually convinced the emir of qatar to change his mindset from a tribal thinking to a muslim brotherhood which is totally complicated and since then qatar became the sponsor of the muslim brotherhood organizations all over the world hamas for example al-qaeda at the beginning i think that they also supported isis in the beginning so you really think that karadawi himself this one super intellectual uh ultra jihadist thinker when he moved to qatar was able to change the mind of that whole society because of his influence on the king on the uh on the emir yes he had he had with him many meetings and you know it you don't need much more than to show how bad are the arab leaders who do not implement the sharia who act against the muslim brotherhood when you don't have anyone in the room to challenge what he says so he became the the mentor for islam for this and don't forget that he had the the pulpit of al jazeera since 1996 since since al jazeera started to work uh he had every week a whole hour just that way yeah wonder that he succeeded to turn qatar into a jihadi supporting country thanks to the gas revenues which they have from the gas field which they share with iran and since they share the same gas filled with iran they are more or less in the same bed with with iran with the ayatollahs although they are sunnis by the way qatar is wahhabi just like the saudis but the hatred between the saudis and the qataris is tremendous so okay okay now let's get to the uae right now uh the uae as i understand has has this mohammed bin zaid and he is mbz as is known now in popular culture uh and and uh he's a young he somehow he's the default ruler he's not like the rulers you explain they have these this conglomerate of states like the eu but somehow he is the the um the number one guy that represents the interests of the human beings he's the company just like muhammad bin salman in saudi arabia the crown prince of what i've you told me that abu dhabi right which is the leader of the federation okay okay so mbz is a bedouin he's the crown prince of abu dhabi he's the leader of the uae federation of sheikh um who today is dysfunctional he doesn't function tell me about about this guy tell me about mbz who is he what is his personality he is actually he i think is like 30 something years old and he actually represents the new generation of the emirates a generation of youngsters both boys and girls who grew up in a very very rich society who has the ability to buy everything you should see the cars in the streets lamborghinis bugattis ferraris maseratis mercedes is for the poor guys okay okay uh also is you know you name a car a lucrative car you you you find it they buy the the best gadgets means the most expensive uh cell phones and whatever there is in the market because they can they the fashion which they buy is the top of the top i get it the top of the top of the fashion you know fashion products and they buy it from the most expensive uh shops and designers uh in europe uh even the women are buying the best uh makeup products most expensive makeup products they're super rich all right super rich a jewelry you know there is a a market of jewelry in dubai you know there are shirts made of gold shirts made of gold you know things which are mind-boggling and the most expensive lingerie lingerie okay again again design switch you cannot get anywhere in the world all right so so they're very rich so npc is growing up in this okay and they are they are today means the the citizens of the emirates today are a very small minority of the people who live in the emirates because the majority are foreign workers first of all the citizens do not work all they do is managing their business maybe some lawyers some accountants but all they do is managing the business which they are partners silent partners of businesses um they do not work in construction they have people from bangladesh who work in construction if they survive after two years of working in the heat they go home with some money uh they don't work in garages because in graduates they have the pakistanis and um you know every family with let's say two or three kids need between 10 and 20 workers one in the garden one maintains the cars one cook one bakes and one that make tidy the home and one takes care of the kids you know they have so many servants and this is the only home imagine they needed also for construction and they're running the towns and running the sewage and hunting everything which works there they don't take part in these things they have foreign workers even the police foreign workers usually from india okay so this this is the the society in the in the emirates and the you know qatar now was building many stadiums for the 2020 soccer you know the mundial the soccer games uh they they were very very bad reports of human rights violations how they treat the foreign workers people were just dying like like like flies because of how they had to work in the hot days of you know now i remind you i imagine my original question is my question to you is who is the npc though who is mpz within that nbc is actually he represents the young generation who are more or less free from the tribal thinking more or less because i'm i'm sure that his sister will be married to one of her relatives he won't let her marry somebody from pakistan for example even if he's a good good muslim because is how they say in arabic not not not from ours okay but all right they say in arabic and so they want to invest their money in high tech they want to invest their money in a research they want to be associated with progress of the world they have very nice universities teaching english because they buy the best lecturers and researchers from the best universities in the world and many of the europe they have newspapers in english not even in arabic they have all right so so mbz is growing up in all this and he is as you're describing very wealthy looking towards progress looking towards high tech looking towards investment so within that complex of thinking what is israel to them oh it's an ancient enemy of the arabs and here comes the i would say the history of the 30 last years in the arab world the arab world was led by radical countries especially in the 50s 60s 70s like egypt under gamma abdel nasser who was connected with the soviets like hafez assad like saddam hussein like muammar qaddafi who were all subordinates of the soviet union because they thought that socialism and bath which is the same are their new game in the world and and this is uh and they were radicals they were they wanted to unite the arab world you know gamma the nasser you wanted to unite the world one one entity and united with syria for three for three years wanted to do it with other countries and this was the radical a part of the arab world and they actually gave the lead of the arab league by the radicalism the traditional countries like saudi arabia the emirates kuwait oman they felt that they are under a constant attack by the radicals because they were viewed as contra counter revolutionary countries because they are still sticking to the old traditions of the kingdom and the tribe and the emirates and all these things and they still wear the traditional kofia and the robe instead of wearing a necktie and the suit you know or instead of fighting against israel they don't and israel of course was the main challenge of the arab nation nationhood and the arab league was totally against israel and so forth and israel actually was the unifying element for or what as they posed it yet saudi arabia felt always under attack this is why saudi arabia and the emirates were always connected to britain to britain and to the united states of america to save them from the soviet union uh allies in the middle east like egypt syria iraq and libya okay so already then they felt under attack now what happens in the last recent let's say decade that syria is a bloodbath by itself iraq is dysfunctional uh libya is a another swamp of problems egypt is sinking in its own problems with the nile and with with the unemployment and the rapid the growth of population which they have to feed and actually the dream of arab the league doesn't doesn't work anymore the arab nationhood or arab nationalism is a failure nobody really believes in it anymore israel is not the enemy especially not with egypt because egypt has a peace agreement with israel already for 41 years jordan went off the countries we were against israel even the palestinians made peace with israel in the oslo agreements so and the other and the rest of the countries are dysfunctional so now saudi arabia and the traditional states feel much more liberated to do what it is according to their uh interests and their interest is to live in peace to to develop the countries to prepare to the day after the oil because saudi arabia knows that their oil his years are numbered and they have to prepare to the next phase of life because they want to survive after the oil as well so they have to to start developing the country to start adopting new ways of of making living and they have to stick to powers in the world who lead the progress of real progress of the world not the progress of the soviet union and here is israel now to this you can add the iranian issue which frightens them totally they wouldn't say they wouldn't uh talk about this because a bedouin is not uh supposed to show his emotions and if you cry and shout like the like the the israelis about iran you are like a woman who exposes her emotions all the time this is how they think this is why they keep poking face even vis-a-vis even even vis-a-vis the the iranian issue we are jews we are different culture we shout and scream from wherever we can even in the congress wherever we can go and we are proud of it they are not they keep silent the storm is inside them okay this is the culture but they are much more afraid from from iran than israel because first of all they are closer to iran we have a buffer zone like iraq and jordan between us and iran you're saying they're more wait just one second you cut out for a second so you're saying they're more afraid of you than israel is afraid of iran to them it's a much more uh immediate danger because first of all they are closer to iran they don't have a buffer zone like iraq and jordan which we have with iran they have only the gulf which is a few dozens of kilometers nothing first first second thing they are much more vulnerable our treasures of oil and gas are under under the sea it's very hard to touch it and to hurt it and to attack it in the gulf all the oil industry is on the ground is exposed it's enough if you blow up one pipe that in order to create the whole disaster in the whole area and the refineries are right under the noses of the eye of the iranians they are much more vulnerable and the saudis are much more attractive than us because saudi arabia is mecca and medina and i just want to make that i want to make that point clear when an iranian mullah wakes up in the morning he feels it's a great shame that the sh that the sunnis are in charge of these two holy sites mecca and medina and for him he needs to liberate he wants to restore the caliphate of ali bin abi talib the fourth caliph who founded the shia and his descendants who go all the way down to the mullahs of iran until this very day okay so dr kedar now i want to ask you another question are we going towards a warm relationship with the uae or a cold one the way we've had with egypt and with jordan that touring there is not so comfortable they you know take away your feeling your your jewish stuff and it's not and they teach semitism in egypt very much and and so you know a lot of anti-israelism in jordan is this going to be a different kind of a warmer relationship with the uae are we going to really fly there and feel good walking around the mall there are they going to fly here and feel good walking around jerusalem and tel aviv well already in the announcement of last thursday of trump netanyahu and the muhammad bin zayed bin bin bin zayed muhammad already they talked about normalization normalization in arabic is that that being arabic is a bad word because so far peace with israel is no could be acceptable in some but that beer means hugs and kisses with the israelis this is way beyond what the armed nationalism allowed the the the worst word or term which the palestinian can can use against somebody in the arab world is mean somebody who normalizes his relations with israel this is the worst epithet which they can give to anyone and here comes muhammad bin zayed and declares yes we are going to have normalization with israel from the beginning this is something which even the egyptians have not yet given to israel neither the jordanians and why is this apparently this is what netanyahu demanded according to an article which i wrote and published a couple of years ago under the title the ten commandments of peace with saudi arabia and there i said explicitly that what we should demand is uh and not be second thing don't forget that the arab emirates they have nothing against israel they actually share much with israel the fear from the arab radicalism of gamal abdel nasr and all the others they were a in a defense position for many years inside the arab league because of these radical leaders who were led by the soviets and where else we were as well attacked by those countries so we share the same thing and now we are liberated from the threat of syria egypt of course and iraq as well because these countries are dysfunctional and they are also liberated from the these uh these characters this way okay so again i ask you this this is the let your language of today okay great the language of normalization but is that in fact what's going to happen in your perception do you think that we're really now another difference that you haven't spoken of yeah is there's already a lot of jewish uh uh involvement in the uae i have friends who are businessmen in places like brooklyn arabic speaking business membranes who travel to these places to the uae and feel and they told me this is a completely different arab country we feel great there and there's already been that culture has already created is it also going to be that israelis are going to go to that big mall in dubai and and do the the inside the mall israelis first of all they go to the anyway you know there were some international conferences and the games sports you know things and they accepted israelis even the israeli flag there and the israeli national anthem so it happens already don't forget that israelis can go to morocco as well which is another arab country for tourism once it was only jews who were born in in morocco but now everyone can go to morocco with israeli passport and be very well welcome in morocco and you know israelis do not feel any any bad feelings there in that place so when when countries do not have any problems with israel um apparently the the population accepts israelis especially if israelis give them business right it is very important especially in countries like morocco or egypt where businesses are very much needed by the population and here as well the emirates want to benefit from the israeli high-tech from the israeli developments israel israeli i would say thinking from out of the box which made israel a start-up nation and they know about israel because they know that in every cell phone which they use there are at least 30 israeli patents embedded in every cell phone so they know it and they know and they know another another thing and here comes the the timing uh since they are very much afraid from iran they want overwhelmingly they want trump to be re-elected because of the sanctions on iran because he left the jcpoa the nuclear agreement of 2015 because trump deals with the iranians the way which the emiratis and the saudis definitely want him to do they want him to be re-elected now they already heard that most of the jews do not vote for trump for various reasons and they want to convince the jews to vote for trump and this explains what happened last thursday they know that if they now get into negotiations with israel about the peace agreement because there is no agreement yet it's only declaration and i believe that the end of the negotiations will be like in two months so it will be in october and the signing of the peace agreement will be on the loan of the white house between one week or two weeks before the elections now imagine president trump stands in in front of all the cameras on one side netanyahu and other side muhammad bin zayed shaking hands with the three of them six hands together just like what happened with a president cartel and sadat and begin in 1979 and what happened with president clinton with arafat and rabin in 1993 trump wants to reproduce the same picture in order to come to the elections when all the jews in the united states are very happy that he brought the peace between israel and the united arab emirates and yeshua let me tell you something i will be the last one on earth to be surprised if there will be more parties in this handshake er oman bahrain and maybe the diamond saudi arabia saudi arabia of oman and netanyahu of course all together shaking hands six leaders of the middle east shaking hands with trump what will it do to the jewish vote week later and this is in my humble view the main motivation of the united arab emirates to give israel not only peace but normalization because this is what netanyahu demanded apparently it was a condition and they also he gave them also the fig leaf to cover the shame of of awaiting with the annexation right so before you get into that doctor kedar so so i wanna i wanna start uh wrapping up the interview but we can't skip one issue which is the elephant in the room which is so-called palestine and the jewish sovereignty in the same area that there would be a palestine which is the ancestral jewish homeland of judea and samaria the so-called west bank and supposedly uh part of this agreement is a freeze a moratorium or a secession of the assertion of sovereignty in by netanyahu which he promised in three different elections in judea and samaria the jewish communities the 500 000 jews that live in these places and that's supposedly part of the agreement and that's been nationalist leaders right-wing leaders here in israel have spoken out against that and there's been some some backlash um and here's the here's the real question is is the uae's demands that israel stop annexation is it lip service towards a palestine so that they could get the arab street to accept this normalization with israel saying look we stopped them from annexing so-called palestinian land or is it really something that's deeply important to them that israel does not accept these parts and that we go towards a two-state solution and indeed see a palestine emerge on this land which which one is it look they know that there is a limit to what they can do if they come and say hey because of this peace which the palestinian for palestinians of course they objected overwhelmingly both fatah and hamas if we can come and say hey because of this peace israel uh does not for time being does not claims sovereignty overpass of judean samaria this is something which might might give them some cover or fig leaf to cover what they do of course the palestinians do not buy it because the palestinians already know that there are big differences here in israel vis-a-vis this question if guns doesn't like it ashkenazi doesn't like it never mind the others and even in the american administration there is no consensus about israel if israel should annex or spread its sovereignty over parts of the judean samaria or not um so they went into this crack inside the israeli political system and they say okay we are our achievement is to uh postpone this thing and yes it is a fig leaf but still they believe that this might work forever now it all depends on the small print of the agreement on the agreement and and and now here i must warn everybody as good as it looks like we should always bear in mind that we already israel already had some kind of agreements with qatar and tunisia as well these agreements were during the 90s uh to open israeli commercial offices in these countries with israeli flag it's not an embassy it's not a it's not a a consulate it is a commercial representation the lowest representation which could be but it was still a official and people from the israel ministry of foreign affairs were working in these institutions these agreements were cancelled by tunisia and qatar after the eruption of the second intifada late 2000 means an agreement can be cancelled can be breached even the peace which we might sign with the emirates today or in these weeks can be cancelled by them because of various reasons it could be an iranian demand it could be something else so we should not pay with hard currency for a paper which the world peace tops it should be very very careful not to pay with land or with all kinds of commitments regarding land like not having the sovereignty is of sovereignty over the west bank because of this peace agreement it has to be checked it has to be under control nothing should be free and israel should be always uh on the guard because of this thing it's still not sure that this thing will last forever meaning in other words negotiate like it's the middle east and don't uh get over excited about the peace that is breaking out but rather keep a hard-nosed make sure not to give away your your homeland for peace with the country that was never at war with us uh and assert our demand for normalization what was the word tabia what was the word that's right we have to demand another a very important point we israelis tend to celebrate every little thing to make a whole fuss out of it um historic um event historic agreement historic declarations new middle east new horizon you know the new sun you know all these expressions which israelis politicians and the journalists as well and we do not understand means israelis do not understand that the more heroic you return the event the more you have to pay for it right we all should keep very low profile about this not for our emotions even if we want to be happy be happy but inside you right don't show because like you know in every transaction if you want if you show in the market that you want some some kind of merchandise it's going to cost you that's right it's going to cost you you raise the price while if you say hey i don't need it i live for 72 years without you you we don't really need you what do you pay us for this okay this is a different approach however israelis are so obsessive to be loved by others so they don't control themselves when they when and up and uh immediately come together did he smile to us did he shake netanyahu's hand did he how long was the handshaking you know as if you want to to see how how fast his heart beats so you know get crazy when they see any kind of any any kind of emotion and we should stop doing it because we behave like you know emotional people who can be very easily blackmailed and this is unfortunate what happens with us for many years since we began to to speak to arabs we should always keep poker face and say constantly guys we don't need the peace with you we are a flourishing country we are a vibrant society we are a full democracy we know even how to judge our presidents and prime ministers and we know how to put them in jail if needed this way and we don't and we are part of the oecd and we are a developed country and we are a stable country and we want we want all the wars against you so we don't really need the peace with you what do you give us for peace and this this was this should have been the approach to peace in the middle east between us and the middle east and dr have an opportunity to work in the emirates it all depends on the agreements the same thing will people from the emirates could work in israel look i think or i'm sure that businesses will will be able to cooperate already there are investments from the from the from the gulf emirates here in israel it was published that a company from the from the gulf uh invests in research and development of medications and the vaccine against the corona so you have it already before the agreement was even signed so here we are another one we moroccan always love our jewish we miss those who left morocco in which they stayed uh sir jimmy merlino the same thing i i hear from iraqis not jewish iraqis who regret for the fact that they mistreated the jewish community in iraq so the jewish community ran away in the 50s the same thing i hear from syrians who regret for their attitude to the jews and they pray for the day that they they will have the jews again in in syria and so it is in tunisia and in libya as well yes the the situation today in the arab world is so dire that they are praying for the days that jews were there when the attitude to minorities which was much better okay dr kedar last two comments that i'm putting up from uh from facebook and from twitter uh and from youtube here's another comment wait this one that's not what i meant here's the one here's the one uh he says you can read it so we could learn from the arabs keep our emotions inside hide your cards i couldn't put it in a better way definitely if you show your cards you lose the game and here's one more uh which uh go ahead you can read that now for your expertise thank you for listening mr doctor that's right dr morgan there are tens and tens maybe 60 70 comments uh here really thanking you for your analysis dr morgan kedar is a research associate at the bestest center for strategic studies at barilan along with many other research facilities worldwide globally he's also the director of the center for the study of the middle east and islam under formation in barilan he studies and teaches radical islam and gained fame for appearing on many arab outlets in arabic and not in english this outlet including al jazeera very famously check it out on youtube and he has served for 25 years as a lieutenant colonel in the israeli military intelligence and continues to serve in northern and central command as a commentator on israeli and foreign media and i want to thank you very much dr kedar for being with us here today on the ishai fleischer show and for a very useful uh and informative uh interview that helps us understand these moves forward and not only understand them but also you've given us uh important advice at how to approach uh so-called peacemaking in the middle east and the main point learn to speak arabic it is just speak to the locals in their language because you speak like in english it's like the british occupational british colonialism they don't like it right i mean arabic oh so oh and and and with that and with that dr kdar i actually want to finish off with thank god you just reminded me with the last question here um and i want to keep this discussion under an hour so we just have a few minutes left um the the name of the treat of the uh upcoming treaty with the uae has been called the abraham accords now for us for israelis this term i think is a big win because one of the efforts to undermine israel has been to paint it as a white european colonialist now the minute that you use the term abraham accords you are reminding people we the jews and the arabs are the children of abraham and you're putting us on an even plane that we are a semitic people we are a regional people are tribal peoples all of us here and that we have this kind of relationship so for me where i work in hebron uh at the jewish community of hebron the tomb of the patriarchs and matriarchs there abraham is buried there and arabs and jews both understand this is our forefather this is the the abraham that kind of brings us all together is this term a term that's real in the arab minds around the region can they accept that we too are the children of abraham uh even the iranian uh uh iranian uh that one of our enemies is the children of the these children in the quran the children of israel on israel and he he basically legitimized the idea that we are the original uh jewish people the children of abraham and i wanted to ask you is this a useful terminology when we use the term abraham accords or is this just for the western ears a useful one you know for the christian evangelicals thinking we're the children of abraham who really benefits from this term well definitely if if you say that you are just like them the descendants of abraham you actually declare that you are ibn balad means the son of this place the son of the country means they are not the only ones we are also however uh those who oppose us keep saying that we jews of today are not real jews because we are the descendants of the khazars or the kuzars who converted to judaism they are europeans that's why we don't look like them we look like more like europeans especially those who look like europeans so that depends who you are if you accept these the jewish uh people here in this country you will agree that there are the descendants of abraham therefore they have also placed here well if you don't want them here you will declare that they are not the descendants of of abraham they are fake jews who converted to judaism it's in the 16th century and and the original jews actually dispersed and nobody knows where they are today very good so we should use this terminology in your mind we should keep pushing this this term abraham accords of course this is a good accord is it the good name it actually gives israel and us jews the legitimacy to be accepted here as sons of the country very good i like that very much okay dr morgan i want to thank you i know that you have other work to do today rafi writes we are blessed to have someone like dr kedar indeed we are thank you so much for joining us and thank you for helping us understand our beautiful and amazing middle east made the children of eight with with a poker face and without too much emotionalism may we indeed see the day that the children of abraham uh can come together under the abraham accords thank you again dr kedar thank you so much ishai all right folks that was a lot of fun to have dr kedar with us uh what an awesome awesome person he is what an awesome and knowledgeable person he is i want to thank you so much for joining me on both facebook and youtube and twitter and on the land of israel network and on my podcast the ishai fleischer show please support the shai fleischer show and help me get great people on like dr kedar and i see a lot of people asking for dr kedar to come uh on the show again and we certainly will do that so help me keep broadcasting by going to shyfleisser.com forward slash donate and also by going to shyflazer.com and signing up for the weekly email which has a ton of excellent information and i also since we talk about the abraham accords i want to recommend that you go visit hebron by going to hebronfund.org this is the place where abraham is buried this is where actually isaac and ishmael the father of the jews and the father of the arabs together buried our joint father abraham and we at the hebron jewish community and our aid through hebronfund.org make this tough place to live a continued reality until such a time as we will indeed have abraham accords i want to thank you so much for all of your fabulous comments which i have really added to this program and i hope that you will share this program with others by sending a share link to everybody who needs to know more about the story of the middle east and also write me an email yeshi yeshivefleisha.com letting me know what you like what you don't like just want to thank you very much for being with me lots of love and lots of blessings from israel the land of blessings shalom shalom all right folks uh that was dr mordechai kedar what an honor and a pleasure to listen to him and i got so much feedback from this segment i'd like to hear from you as well write me an email yeshi ishaifleisher.com or you shout the land of israel.com about your understandings about the abraham accords the uae israel in in the region as a semitic alliance uh how do we move forward and how you're thinking about the american elections if that's part of your thinking as well uh about how that's gonna influence uh israel in the future and of course god's blessings through all of that speaking of god's blessings we are very blessed to have with us uh an incredible teacher rabbi mike foyer of mike uh and he joins me he joined me actually uh on facebook live and i'm bringing it to you for the torah portion of mishpatim all right folks you are listening to the yishai fleischer show and we are live here on uh facebook twitter what's it called that twitter thing uh periscope that's right and youtube all at once and you are definitely invited to join us right now and we are also on the land of israel network uh as the shy fleischer show podcast and today we have with us our beloved rabbi mike foyer star of uh of of torah teaching stage and screen shalom right by mike welcome i feel like i just got a promotion or something well i don't know about promotion screen well i'll tell you i'll tell you why why you get a promotion this week and that is because uh i didn't get a chance to be with you last week both you and i were on separate beaches uh in the land of israel different sand same coast different sand right and uh but you were more in the towards the north you were in a famous beach that was once even i think phoenician yes um that's right you were on a phoenician beach uh and famous for its true blue uh creation is that right that is absolutely true so it's a beautiful beautiful spot okay and i was in ascalon uh in a more egyptian it's a very famous philistine city ashkelon was uh and of course samson also went down there and in in i mean i don't want to make him look bad but uh he killed 30 uh philistines there in order to uh win back the bet that he had with the other 30 uh philistines about uh about his riddle this famous riddle the samsonite riddle uh of what is uh from food from from the eater comes out food and from um here comes the sweets right is it bitter or more intense comes out something sweet right and that of course is the uh the famous parable not parable the famous riddle of um the torn lion cub which a a hive of bees set up shop there and set inside and and made honey so that was in ashkelon so we were both in really ancient places tell me something uh do you get the feeling when when you like like me do you get the feeling when you're swimming in a beach like that do you hear the past especially in in light of the fact that you are a uh historian and and uh are the head of the jewish story podcast here in the land of israel network jewish story that ceo that's yo uh do you like also like feel like you're swimming with those phoenicians or swimming with those jews that made the the blue dye there do you like get that feeling that's when you say that because i was trying to really impress upon my kids how that what we were doing by vacationing and it's really a huge uh blessing to be able to take a little bit of a break together with the kids um it was fulfilling the dreams of so many people that had been standing on that very spot you know a couple thousand years ago they they're like trying to connect to like imagine if they could see us now as we look at the winds of where they lived and were like playing in the title pools and seeing little crabs and fishes and whatnot so yeah it comes up uh in in in hof door they have found pits uh of the boiling of the snails uh that that were used the the muric's truncali did i say that right uh the murex shell in any case uh that makes this trailer uh whoops the toilet blue string on the seat seat they they've even found the physical lining of those pits with the dye in it yes it was one of the major points of argument for arguing that this is indeed the the true tahelet and not a different type of dye and if anybody is interested in getting some of that die today please visit trailer.com uh and put in coupon code eshai you'll get i think five percent off but i'm more negotiating for more for you out there so you can get your trailer yeah i don't think they'll do it they used to also do tours of the door where you could snorkel and find the murix see snails like a lot of fun it's a lot of fun and we'll be we'll be certainly doing that again uh when uh when this period of corona is over right now uh nobody's coming in or out of the country except a beautiful group of about 10 000 young people who are being led in on condition that they go to a two-week motel a quarantine and that is absolutely defined spot right the fine spot but you know a lot of a lot of choosing to to go to a motel and this is the effort to bring in the gap year students whether they be yeshiva or university the folks that are coming in for the year and i got to tell you something i am so emotionally moved by this story because the state of israel said well we got to keep people the disease out we got to get keep people out but these people this is their one chance in life to come and spend a year in israel and we're not going to stop them we're going to help them make it happen and these are not just tourists uh they are here for the year and and they made every government effort to make that happen and the doors opened up and they are coming in right now and i saw a picture of rabbi waxman from shalabim welcoming uh his students for the year and i just thought to myself this was this was an effort to open up and to make sure that the next generation is going to be touched by israel and not going to miss their year to to connect to the life of israel i mean i'm personally grateful because i'm a i'm a faculty part of this a faculty of parties institute as you know and we were on pins and needles to know what our institution actually survived i mean was it going to be a year a loss you know and an educational institution that closes for a year rarely reopens ever again um and lo and behold we actually have more full-time students this year than we had last year that's amazing yeah it's a testimony to both the recruitment and also to the fundraising to making it happen it's a fantastic episode so you're going back to parties uh starting very soon yeah it's gonna be complex i mean the mess and the separation and the indoor outdoor zooming is that but we're doing it we're doing it speaking of zooming i called today the internet company the internet provider that i have in my house which is called hot spelled right yeah i resent you know there's a lot of signs in israel and english so i a little bit resent that so i call it uh hot by the way oh speaking of of english and hebrew signs yesterday i went bowling oh bowling yeah bowling yes i saw i saw you with it when the when the was when the going gets tough to go bowling that's right that's right and i was bowling in jerusalem yesterday with an immense amount of ultra-orthodox jews all wearing face mask and all just having the time of their life and i want to tell you something they were bowling and women and men and there's a glad kosher uh well mahadranko excuse me mahdi kosher is more correct pizzeria there and and uh and air hockey you know and video games and it was for my son's ninth birthday and we had a great time there yesterday and it was just fun that's right and i just want to explain to people that if you come to israel and you ask anybody about bowling they won't know what you're talking about they know bowling bowling which is an awkward mispronunciation yeah and it reminds too much of the word bowel uh but you know but for most people here in israel that's not a problem so i went bowling yesterday uh in in your shalom and and you know it was just how could i say a beautiful a beautiful uh a beautiful feeling now uh in order to to keep jerusalem safe we've got uh police border patrol and other kinds of security uh apparatuses in fact uh just yesterday we had an attack in the old city an effort to stab a border patrol police officer uh and the uh the culprit was shot i think was killed um or maybe in critical condition i don't i don't remember but the pot the bottom and i don't mean to make light of it in any way uh but the bottom line is that we have we have we have police and after such a person is apprehended or shot we also have a a system of law and in the old city of jerusalem especially this law is found in the gates in the gates of the old city the reason i say this is because our torah portion which is in the book of deuteronomy the book of devarim and is the starts chapter 16 verse 18. uh talks about a very famous phrase shoftim vashotrim judges and officers police officers if you will that's a modern translation i guess you should put for yourself in all of your gates these gates are not just your gates they're the gates that god has given you very interesting phrase it didn't have to kind of say that that god has given you these gates it's a it's a blessing to have these gates literally a blessing and blessing of god for your for your uh tribes vish that he has given you these lands vis-a-vis and these uh judges and officers have to judge the nation a judgment of justice sounds good sounds really good first thing is the the question of of why does it say in all of your gates not in all of your dwellings not in all of your cities but all of your gates now the technical answer is that judgment was done in the gates in the old world and we have even found in many ancient gates uh benches benches that line blind the gates and basically and we even have stories like in the book of ruth that uh as people come into the gate they're they're told to sit down to be to be to to to see the judgment to witness the judgment the judges would sit there this was this was an intersection if you will um uh but but hasidic the hasidic thought adds another level which is so fabulous it says you got to put you got to put police officers and judges at your gates your gates are the gates to the u and those gates are your eyes your ears your mouth you got to guard what comes in and you gotta guard what you hear and you gotta guard what you say and certainly guard what you look at and also probably guard what you show and so um and so that is the the added value what do you think about the guards and judges at the city at the gates i mean as you're describing this is the essence of civilization and i don't think it should be taken lightly this whole parsha actually gives a at least in a cursory sense an examination of all the models of leadership that the torah really considers shofting the showtime like you said judges and and the officers we're going to get the priests the ghanim we'll talk about the navi the prophet we're going to talk about the king right so there's a there's in this parsha laying out of what we call civilization because the base level definition of civilization at least in my eyes is the idea that there is a structure within which everyone functions which at least strives to to treat people on the basis of law and not simply sort of uh naked power and personal interest of course there's no perfect system blah blah blah i'm not gonna go into that and in fact what's really kind of a very subtle um distinction in this past week is that we've already seen a command for shuff teams in fact judges we've been seeing commands that there should be judges since yitro since the torah was given to moshe at sinai the kirish the innovation here is the shotreem is the police one of the ways to understand this is that all of devarim you know deuteronomy the mishnah torah the repetition is a preparation now that you've been living in the desert for 40 years you've been learning torah it's been great you're about to meet reality in the land of israel and reality is of course a perfect world there would only be judges and there wouldn't be police you know today in america everybody's you know not everybody but there's a certain section of america saying defund the police why because they see the police as part of the problem there shouldn't be a need for enforcement okay i'm not gonna get into their discourse but what the reality is is that police are a recognition of the imperfect nature of both justice and human behavior you need somebody to back things up because not everybody does things because they're right a lot of people do things because they're afraid right or because they feel threatened and the reality is never forget max weber's definition of the nation state which is a monopoly on the use legitimate use of force to maintain order you've got to have police if you want your courts to survive he said because that's the nature of the beast and so that that is important to me and the other thing which i think we're going to pick up in the next few verses is of course the burning question here is what is mishpathetic right because mishpat is the activist judgment static is justice or righteousness it's an absolute standard right and one of the problems is these are words that get thrown around again you look at everything that's happening in the protests in america and a lot of the social upset people want justice they want justice want justice but there's no live discussion of what that word actually means right in fact i think an active attempt to suppress that discussion because the reality is there's no consensus and therefore you have to get into a real values discourse if you want to get anywhere joram khazoni has a very long article that just came out i just got off your twitter feed actually oh yeah it's good right yeah very serious article and and and one of the points that he makes is that marxism has a powerful claim which that societies have oppressed an oppressor but one of the critiques that he points out about marxism is that uh while it's a kind of um open-eyed critique of society yeah it's the other side of it doesn't is a very lame answer which is oh yeah when the oppressed will cease power of the state then they'll get rid of oppression and the many examples of the so-called oppressed oppressed like for example in russia where the workers you know destroyed the the the romanov um uh uh tsar tsarism i don't know the uh vermont of dynasty the people that took over the the folks the tsars the romanovs were were quite harsh on the people the people that took over were far from better you know what i think of you know the image that sticks with me i know this will touch you i think of the arabs of gaza torching the greenhouses that we were forced to leave behind when our brothers and sisters were taken from their home they didn't get into the justice or injustice that disengage with just that image it's like here they forced us to leave behind what could have made we the uh the jews of gaza were growing incredibly it was a productive economically and agriculturally and here these people there were supposedly the oppressed who gained power in that movement what do they do destroy they destroyed you know calzone's point is well taken is that marxism works very well as a critique but it's lousy as a as a means to construct society and that's by the way always true because deconstruction by definition can't build never forget that listen to the word deconstruction by definition cannot build because to build something means you you have a bedrock belief which you will decide or you believe or something is non-negotiable because otherwise you have nothing to build on right and that's where the conservatism that advocates is something which consciously or not anyone who builds a society has a conservative element upon which they're building right that's a very interesting point uh the revolutionaries have built societies but they've been exactly the opposite of what their claim is well they're always better at destroying societies than building them because in the end they have to reach for the reactionary stance just to build by the way i'm going to say i want to say something political but i'm going to i'm going to yeah but i'm going to say something about american politics which is not usual okay fair enough yeah less common and i and i don't want to i don't want to overstate the case and i don't want to get in too much into it i just want to make a little point and put it all out there as a as it is this is all you're framing you're shutting me down when i want to respond not you i meant the people out there i i'm not i'm not saying this with sometimes you want to say something without too much emphasis not as emphatic yeah i want to say it and you can buy it or not buy because i myself am not 100 certain of it but i've been looking at the american uh of elections that are happening in november and i'm looking at the democrats and what they're offering for president vice president and what i've written a few times on twitter and i see that people don't really want to kind of buy into it is i don't think that the democrats are playing to win it just doesn't look to me like they want to win they put up this guy i'm not now taking a partisan side personally i'm not that guy joe biden he doesn't seem like a great candidate he seems like he's not 100 well he's certainly not making coherent phrases or he makes a lot of mistakes he doesn't sound like a great and certainly not charismatic leader and he he sounds you know senile and many many people have pointed that out and uh kamala harris for good and for bad she's a very interesting and smart lady but has not pulled well in the past uh and likability in in the democratic uh in what he called the the primaries and i think to myself wait a minute you just put up two people that are not like awesome stars to win and to beat the incumbent president trump and i thought to myself well maybe it's just incompetence or just you know or maybe it just didn't it didn't work out or maybe they don't want to win maybe maybe some elements in that party want another four years of trump so that they could protest do blm do more do more deconstruction rather than construction and then swoop in after four more years of of this of this out and out battle this battle that's in the media but in the streets as well and then and then take over but right now to offer up a real change and to actually have to take the reins and responsibility maybe somebody there doesn't want that so they want to throw the fight they want to feign it now do i know this for a fact far from it it's just a thought and and and i don't mean this as a partisan person i mean it's just like somebody like the situation right looking from the outside in uh but that's what it looks to me like it doesn't look like they really want to win that's the point like those are there and not only that there were other candidates that were more exciting and could have been more exciting like a michelle obama as vp would have maybe taken the the the the cake and then yeah i hear what you say hear your thing let's end parentheses there let's go to something but speaking of of america new york in my law school in new york corridor law in downtown manhattan there was a slogan the slogan was the the mission statement was uh it was right from chapter 17 16 verse 20. that was the the motto of the school said of justice justice shall you pursue the monty yeah this part they didn't they didn't add into it yeah yeah this is the part that always gets chocolate so that you shall do this video about this world loves this first first three through the first three words of this plastic the rest they kind of whoopsie right that's right so it says so that you shall live and you shall inherit the land but maybe they could see it more generally the land of earth you know if you pursue justice you can definitely see this generally because there's a but there is a direct connection here at least two things to remember first of all absolute justice is always a pursuit it is never an achievement and this is the danger of the sort of utopian element in in marxist law like you were you were speaking about before i mean like the critique of society and the application of sometimes even harsh justice is very important but it's always a process never a product you will never achieve zedek right but the constant pursuit of it is what roots you in the land meaning in the reality of embodied life you want to continue on to live and thrive as a society then you have to make justice your constant pursuit and and i personally think that forget america this needs to become front and center within our society right now it's just too much of a presence of um of uh corruption and and interests within our government within even just the social discourse you know i wouldn't say they were rotten to the core god forbid but the rot is is too present and and i just would like to see leaving aside again for right now at least the substance of what that justice is i think because i think it could it could be expressed in many ways so a word that you've said a few times here and it's an interesting even within your language i see um utopian utopianism as a utopian justice or a yearning for utopia and also a pragmatic this worldly like pursue a utopian vision but understand it in a real world a little bit reminds me of that famous greenpeace slogan one of the best slogans ever which is think globally act locally sure and and this is like think messianically act temporally or something like that you know absolutely do you realize that encapsulates the the divine genius of torah because it is a way in which one can live a gritty earthy life i mean i'm working with a couple of khatanim a couple of young men who are looking to get married and we're learning the detailed of the most intimate parts of married life why in order that they can build a vessel of marriage which is an ideal that they're envisioning and i just i just i want to pause you for a second and explain to people in judaism before you get married you basically take a class with a mentor women with women men with men and they talk about they talk about life a married life in terms of halacha in terms of jewish law and also advice and also about intimacy and the laws of jewish intimacy and we talk about it so we get a handle on these things and and again come to it from a conservative or shall we say tradition and from the word tradition a tradition of how to move forward in life a wisdom a a a a combined wisdom historical wisdom yeah and my my specific point is that there are two primary values in my learning and what i've been taught that these laws embody and they are sanctity and natural desire the problem is without guidance and behavior how we were supposed to make those things rule real in your life because those are ideals to pursue their things to dream about but the beauty of the genius the divine genius torah is you get actual grounded instructions sanctity is important to you here's how you build it into your life natural desire is the right thing and with the proper outlets here's how you build it in life here's how you balance the two here's how you how you have a discussion and a conversation and it's it's just always fantastic to me and it's such an important uh thing to remember that to hear the key word is it's a constant pursuit and never an achievement very good okay and and and this the the question of utopia brings me to the next verse that i want to talk about chapter 17 book of devarim torah portion is shaftim verse 10 which is verse 9 this part and this is a recurring theme in this torah portion is about today bring it the law to today bring deal with the priests the judges the cops of today yeah and it says like this you're going to come to the priests to the levites and to the judges that'll be in those days or not in your days whenever you're going to be reading this video meaning to say moses saying like deal with the judges of your time don't just harken back to some kind of perfect utopia or or previous time deal with the stuff that you have and then it continues and do according to the thing that they tell you from that place which is the temple mount hashem and keep to do exactly which they um instruct you and and and later on he's moses is also going to say there will be a prophet in in your time like me a prophet that will come from your brothers like me deal with him listen down the line don't make a cult of the past it's funny right because we call this torah the torah of moshe right and and we and we're very uh uh you know into the past and we're always living we're quite committed to it right but then he says yeah but but watch out and we we we have a concept called which means that the as it's brought down to you well it literally means it's like the later authorities the right which is the later authorities which is basically like read the halachic law but then ask the rabbi of the time because there may be something called the internet and things will be different or electricity or an aeroplane yeah a microwave for example the the that you're allowed to fly in an airplane on shabbos as long as you put your seatbelt on because that way you're wearing the airplane come on joke joke everybody joke that was a that was a that was an inside baseball joke yeah it was an inside baseball joke the here is that rashi i think says it so beautifully he says he says okay why did the positive say the uh who's in those days because you know what he may not be moses he may not be shmool he may not be fine scene you know he is god you got to live in the world you actually live in it's not just what you're saying which is that the world keeps changing and and the reason that we have torso about the oral torus it's the constant application of an unchanging written torah to an evolving world which you can remember that that's a given in the torah that you're going to be constantly moving in in a changing world but it's also just reality like you said listen you don't like you don't think you could have been better so work on that meanwhile this is what you got deal with reality don't get nostalgic and think woulda coulda shoulda was better than when that's so that's so interesting and important for us here in israel because we're living in a time where we are reborn in our land re-embodied in our lands as you you say a lot of times uh and we gotta hearken back on the one hand to archaeology and to the past and to the to into previous commonwealths like the maccabees but then we're also obviously in a uh uncharted territory completely right and we and we have to you know move it forward and right now i see um uh a comment comment somebody commenting uh on our broadcast galia she says everybody just wants meshiach and i just want to say write immediately here which is um i guess it's a perfect balance of of what we're talking about which is utopia we yearn for mashiach but at the same time as you and i discussed in the past sometimes we push back on that because we don't want to give up we don't want to give up our responsibility and the call to establish and build a jewish state with law and to actually get into the nitty-gritty and deal with it and build the country uh and not just say well this other dude is going to take care of everything yeah as we've discussed i actually don't that's not how i conceive of mashiach at all the salvation model is not right of it um we've talked enough about that but i would like to um just point out an important duke which you read but i think deserves some emphasis is that the only way in which past and present and ultimately of course future can be woven into a hole is if you have a center around which to do it and one of the um themes of the whole book of divine and particularly of this parsha is that there's going to be a place god tells them i'm going to choose where you're going to take this whole torah i've given you which you're not allowed to change and you're going to slam it into the present in order to get to the future on a constant basis and that's going to ultimately be in your shalom on the temple mount because that's the place where heaven and earth connect and in in one of the reasons that we are in many ways as a people somewhat stuck both in our halaq system and our in our ability to adjudicate because it's true that that the general principle is that the law follows the latter authorities but we also are to a certain degree lack the structures to do this you know it says there's a very important type of instruction in fact most linguists believe that that that is the root meaning of the word torah torah comes from the same word as practical instruction but the ability to actually do instruction on that level ended for us in the sixth century and and since then it has not been and what we're looking for is it's the reason that the sanhedrin the high court sits on the temple mount because that's the place where past meets present in order to create a viable future so i just think it's important that that that reference is here in the verse it's not just a casual oh they got to sit somewhere it's a scene are you talking about the fact that there is no sanhedrin today and that there's no uh torah legal body that is a central body that that can decide big questions that we're basically pushing off not deciding in our time um um and kind of the the writ large like we're kind of we kind of treating this time of of the of the return of the jewish people to the land of israel as a kind of better version than exile but not quite this is as usual with some slight adjustments right as opposed to the very revolutionary time in which we stay i mean listen i don't go too far into it but it's certainly enough cook's conception the sanhedrin which is inextricably bound up with the temple it's important to remember these are not like two separate institutions which coincidentally happen to sit in the same place like no that's not the way it works right um the but if coke speaks about how like all the questions that really plague us today whether what plays you is questions of gender and sexuality or whether it plays use questions of relationship between jew and non-jew or whatever it may be all those questions will be in the power of the sanhedrin to adjudicate on the level of motion that's a powerful powerful way to actually bring ourselves into the present order to shape the future yeah and i i want to tell you that um i've been learning a booklet called uh uh the sheikh notion which is about going up to the temple man and then i saw two rabbis really calling for uh one thing god bless you which is rabbi to kaczynski uh a guttural in our time uh and also rabbi mordecai liao uh they are not yet calling for a sanhedrin uh on the temple mount and all that but they did ask both of them for a mechanical technical but very important step which is to create a house of prayer on the temple mount he said let's start there praying on the temple mount is a commandment race disgrace to our people and our nation state there is no such thing right that's my opinion right but but but you know what i thought to myself this is actually doable uh he's actually doable this is this is doable within within the reality right now south uh the south we needed a small group of committed people who simply wouldn't give up on it right okay um now we talked about worship of the past which is dangerous but there's also a danger in the worship of the future or our need to find out the future there's two kinds of utopias really there's the utopia that you look to the past there's the utopia that you look to the future uh but then there's something maybe it's not exactly utopia but it's a need to know the future which is uh necromancy and other kinds of uh fortune telling which is right and god detests he says that um that mode he says that the nations that were in the land before that they dealt a lot with it by the way i didn't get a chance to visit it but i'm hoping to visit the museum of philistine culture in ashdod and it's really there with with tons and tons of stuff i'm really looking forward to seeing that um but in any case they certainly dealt with necromancy and other things like that uh and then the torah finishes off with a flurry one of the most famous verses certainly in these parshiot which is instead of instead of worshiping the past or the dead and trying to figure out the future and spitting out bones and and trying to read them how do the bones fall and all kinds of stuff like that yeah or or you know slaughtering a a goat and seeing it's if it's innards were nice right and shells forget that god says uh be whole with hashem your god basham says tameem if you're whole tia mashem you will be with hashem your god rashi says walk with him with simplicity and look to him don't try to figure out the future whatever comes upon you receive with wholeness with with acceptance and then you will be part of him and his lot you will be you will be part of of him when you right when you when you accept hashem's decrees life challenges life situations and here here just to get a little metaphysical for just a second we are not our choice a range of choices is extremely limited we are not really we don't we're not we don't have as much choice as we think not what our soul is not what our body is not when we were born into whom we were born what time and what station in life and many other things are are are are not within our grasp to decide and so when when you when you get to the bottom you realize you really do have to accept so much uh and and and sure you should strive and be ambitious et cetera but at the same time there's so much to accept uh in in in god's the what god has given us in this world or or another acceptance is you know certain limitations that humanity has we live in and the greatest limitation of them all is death yeah yeah for sure right or body you could just say the same thing right body in itself is limitation earth is limitation uh those three have obviously an intimate relationship yeah right right there are limitations that that that uh that you know or or if you see maybe maybe another way to say it is like gravity is like time is like death it's like if you you know i mean you can't really drag a drag they bring you down they bring you down and and you can't really defeat it you can't really defeat um and so um and so but god says with all that i tell you in the torah receive accept god's leadership his his decrees with wholeness with acceptance uh with love with with with appreciation with with understanding that it's his world as in uh and shawshank redemption it's your world boss sometimes you gotta say to god it's your world boss yeah i mean to me mood this is simplicity it's like don't tie yourself in not so this don't try to come up with sophisticated explanations okay maybe there's a place for that bottom line it's not going to serve you right but still though ironically and and beautifully walk before me well uh yes that's what it is it's not here it's about abraham's original statement exactly i want to go back there is that that that level of which rashi hints at in this verse in his comment there that love its mood isn't isn't just a passive acceptance of thy will be done religious fatalism what happens is when you're able to receive what comes to you as an invitation from god you become the place in which the divine will unfold forward that's why you're out in front of me abraham says god where are we going god says back i don't know where we go it's the same way in your own life you know god's sending you all these things you might think that your job is to just be passive and no your job is to receive them as from god right and act upon that premise right and but and also tell us our our sages tell us in the past that a person wants to go they take him the the the the global energies the the the the path will take him the way he wants to go life is not an arbitrary string of events and whether you want to take the sort of a priori stance like you're pointing out that god is sending you the things that um that will take you where you want to go or where you want to take um say the stance the more post-modernism say that rough cook says that that what human consciousness is is the capacity to string together the events of life into what i would call a meaningful narrative either way you look at it it means that that that very delicate balance which we call tommy mood of being able to receive what is and yet not become completely passive in the face of it is the key to living a life of a voter fine service it's not an easy thing we're discussing there's there's no there is there is a dichotomy here yeah there is a dichotomy because on the one hand we said accept on the other hand lead yeah it's not a passivity and the question is what does active acceptance look like and i would say that the word that that always um helps me is that as i try to look at the things that happen in my life as an invitation instead of saying why did this happen to me it's what can i make of this each thing that happens is a question to you what does this mean what does this mean that's right you know it's an invitation to therefore develop its meaning you know yesterday i went to the bowling alley and then when we came back home and i'm not i think people don't don't understand don't misunderstand this is not a family of bowlers i'm not a bowler and uh and she was in the whole like you know the shirt and whatnot no i don't have a shirt i don't have the shoes and we were using the bumpers the bumpers were out there was no uh what do you call those gutters there was no gutters okay it was kids it was it was a five-year-old four four nine-year-olds and a twelve-year-old and and the parents and and uh we lost big time uh i was by far the fastest bowler but no matter how fast i bowled it was less i hit less pins altogether down than people who bounce that bound bounce uh and you know when we came home when we came home um it was very very loud there it was very very very loud for a person like me i i have to have headphones and i can't i can't i cannot deal with it with that kind of noise um but uh the reason i say this is when we came home i was like oh bummer we we didn't say a dvar torah and maybe i forgot because of the noise and and the action and the eye stuff uh but but you know it's it's easy to uh forget to mention god to bring him in uh it's easy to be living in the moment and kind of forget the you know you know the thing about god is he's oftentimes invisible uh and and and you can you can given the wrong kind of environment totally just kind of like you know forget it okay so i i made up for when when we came home another thing is we have a commandment when we when we're on the path to also talk divreit or uh we in our family we try very hard to to fulfill that like if we're in the cart but you have to say advaithar that's like an important thing because the torah tells us like when you're on the pathway but it's easy to forget sometimes on the road sure it's easy to to to forget god and to bring him in is a big mitzvah okay um so we talked about not present worship not past worship uh but to draw from the past look to to yet to yearn for for the future and to lead towards the future um you make your actions matter in the present right and now let's talk about the circle uh the circle is uh found in the verse um chapter 20 verse 21 kind of famous do not avert your eyes when somebody does a bad thing nephesh benefits soul for a soul iron ban an eye for an eye shen beshen a tooth for a tooth yad bayad the first thing is the first thing is there is and this is a jewish concept there is karma there is karma in this yeah i i really deeply dislike you don't like that terms no i mean cultural appropriation no i don't care about the cultural appropriations did i just culturally appropriate hurry to reach i'm sorry i'll say okay another to another culture in order to explain concepts which originate our own uh which is what you mean is that there's justice yeah but i mean but i mean a yeah but i mean a a justice of some kind of karmic nature meaning to say justice in the sense that that that one's actions create a reality which responds that we live in a responsive creation which is a general principle of torah which by the way in a fascinating sense the physicists now in the 21st century are starting to come around something like the butterfly effect it's not just that the the the nature of where where quantum physics is headed in terms of the role that consciousness plays in the physical substance of creation i don't go too far with this but but it's the the general model of understanding the relationship between your consciousness and creation used to be my consciousness is basically a computer let's think of it as called the computer it's mapping the world around me but it's not affecting it i only make it affect the world is through my actions right whereas already in the early 20th century there was a dawning awareness amongst physicists that actually my very observation of the world begins to change it right to the point where we're now coming along much much further beyond the sort of theoretical what's called the heisenberg uncertainty principle much further down the line in quantum physics and understanding that to some degree we create the world through our interaction with it just the assumption of the torah which is why tamim tiai mashable is so important like because the reality is you know we didn't get into it but there's a big question it's like why is two or so head up about these necromancing sorcerer wizard magician guys i mean that's all nonsense right it's not it's not real right so so one answer like the wrong bomb says no it's not real but you should still be careful with the studio because everybody thinks it's real the ramban says no no no like the the way god created the world is such that you believe in these evil powers and you give them reality live in the world which you choose and that's part of the expression is eye for an eye like you're saying that's why i don't like the the term we lack a good term karma's gotta be also i have to admit that i don't actually have a deep understanding of what karma is i i know the way it gets used in popular western culture but i think the the rashi on karma is what goes around comes around yeah but that's my point that's how it's used in western i don't know if that's actually what it means all right all right i i don't like in general i don't feel i think it's a it's a discredit to torah when we we reach for concepts from other cultures all right actually maybe i'll i'll counter that and say sometimes sometimes there is a wisdom in another culture that when you look through that prison you're like oh i get that better now for me as i've said many times on the show uh concepts like i'll give you i'll give you just a few uh sometimes i and i and and of course don't take it out of context people but sometimes i say uh when when i look at shmuel hanavi the tomb of the samuel the prophet above yerushalayim i say if i had to borrow a term i would call him the quote-unquote patron saint of jerusalem right because he's like looking over and he yearned for this jerusalem and helped david find it and there he is and he's looking down upon him and his tomb was liberated on the 28th of er that's one example another example is sometimes i explain to people what the jewish community of chevron is about so i say well in in in another culture we would be called the knights of the machpelah the protectors of the machpelah that's what we'd be called the knights of the machpelah and so people like oh yeah yeah yeah i get it now i get it you know so some cultural things like help us understand even our deeper more foundational uh sometimes they've developed the lingo for us i hear it i'm still a little bit of a cultural absolutist i don't like it you know it's just a one control uh what do you call it that thing anyway uh okay uh let's go on we have we have a few minutes left uh uh a big part of this torah portion is dedicated to war what is it good for i mean i can name it um the um the torah portion at the end after helping you think about how establish a society at home where where shall we say the many wars that people have within a society are to be judged when you do a a bad action to another person it's a little war when you um when you kill somebody inadvertently with negligence it's a kind of war you were rough you weren't you didn't play safe and you were violent maybe maybe without malice but you were violent towards another and so uh mankind needs justice in order to straighten out the roughness of inner societal war now the torah portion will say okay let's now talk about actual war with the other that you're having actual declared war and it says in chapter 20 verse 1 it's a very famous verse because it was a song during the gush katie period right so so if you go out to war upon your enemy rashi says be careful to recognize that your enemy is your enemy don't try to think that your enemy is your friend know when to make war nor when to make peace uh and he says and and you've uh you saw a horses chariots a nation that's bigger than you do not fear them because hashem look hashem your god is with you he's taking you out of egypt ie hearken back to the past when when you defeated a much superior army and then later on it it says talks about the priest of war the priest who is anointed for war which is such a cool cool thing by the way my mother describes a real life cohen she describes that rav goran she remembers how rav goran was standing during the yom kippur war on the bridge to the galil called the gesture and was waving on the troops literally a man standing there waving on this rabbi man standing uh and and waving on the troops and giving them strength and if people by the way don't don't understand the context there that was a point at which many of the generals of israel felt that the country was about to fall the ghetto yakov was the last line of defense to prevent the syrian army from pouring off the golan and straight across the northern part of the country to haitha do you have a show at jewish story.co about the yum kippur war yeah i haven't gotten there yet we just we will this coming season which please god i'm gonna start recording tomorrow um it's gonna go from 1967 to 1978. and that's found at twitter yes dot co and also on the land of israel network the land of israel.com so check me out facebook that's right that's right facebook.com and then it says it has a verse you know don't be afraid because hashem your god verse 4 hashem your god is going walking with you he's fighting for you with your enemies to to save you to uh give your to redeem you um and then it goes on to the very famous uh triad of things that excuse you from the army first year of marriage first year of building a house first year of a uh vineyard and and the fourth one which is the the real kind of climax of it all which is um what's that if you're a freak if you're playing all the frayed rabbit keep according to rashi says that's what this is all really about right if you're if you're afraid and if you're afraid you're afraid you can just say oh i haven't actually lived in my house yet and you know run off the battlefield but yes you know what always strikes me what's that is that the ones that are afraid leave does that mean that the other ones are not afraid like i've been i've been i've been in those situations where you gearing up for for for for combat and everybody's afraid you know uh but but i guess i guess the point is who can process that fear and overcome it uh as opposed to those who really can't well let's look at the possible second look at uh chapter 20 verse eight because that's what you say right they add and they say to the people see there's two things there it's not just that you're afraid because like you're pointing out anybody is afraid in that situation unless you happen to be stupendously stupid on some level you know but but their heart has gone soft meaning meaning courage even in english rooted in the latin of core of heart is the capacity of your heart to to overcome your fear and move you to right action so so it's not that they're afraid alone it's that they're afraid and roughly above their heart they just don't have it in them to overcome that's the problem probably is not being afraid the problem is actually having that level that prevents them from being courageous i mean that courage is not a lack of fear courage is is actually an existence of fear and the commitment to overcome it that's right that's right when i was in the army we jumped out of airplanes and there was a guy who was a really tough guy and he would get into the airplane get ready to jump and this is what would happen to him he would just be like hey i'm ready to go and he would just pass right out right there was something in his uh in his in his sight it's like you whatever yeah could not handle the airplane he could not handle it and he was subsequently kicked out of the fighting uh paratrooper units because he just could not right and it was funny he wasn't acting scared but something in his body would just shut off wow uh when i was a funny story that happened to me is that i heard a rumor that they would ask you the question who wants to jump first from the airplane so i'm like oh man everybody's gonna want that so i gotta make sure that i get it because everybody's gonna want it so here's my tactic when they start asking that question i'm gonna jump up and yell as loud as i can saying me me me okay and i'm like i'm going to win this thing so so what the like the day before the jump they're like they're like all right we just want to ask a question who wants to ju i was like that's it i jumped up we were all sitting on a big grass i jumped up i'm like me me me me me me me me and and they were all looking at me like this and i and i turned around i saw everybody else just sitting there like this like do not pick me okay so i was i misjudged what everybody else is feeling oh sorry about that knock that down i totally misjudged the feelings that other people had uh about this this thing and guess who got to jump out of the airplane first it was me and uh and that really just meant that i got to actually stand at the doorway for about a minute and a half which is exactly an eternity when you're standing at the doorway see you see when the door opens in the airplane you just something in your body says this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong and when you stick your fingers on the outside of the door which is what you have to do and you're like and the wind is on your nails and on your fingers and you're like this is wrong and then you see the little tiny cars driving on the highway and you're like you i remember thinking i was like you bastard you are listening to radio right now and i'm about to jump out of this airplane okay and and uh but you know what it was it was it was a great experience and i got to jump out of that airplane uh and it was and it was all right uh and it was it was all right we of course didn't use it in war uh israel's israel hasn't jumped officially in a in a big army capacity um uh from airplanes in uh in war since uh since um the middle of pass i think in 1948 is that uh 56 56 yeah so we haven't we haven't jumped out of our place but in any case i have no idea why i'm talking about this uh but uh you're observation like it doesn't seem to make sense isn't everybody scared and the answer is of course everybody's scared yeah the problem here is right right and that guy that dude he he looks like he couldn't do it he couldn't do that mission um whatever whatever his you know no judgment hit there no and i think that that's what the torah is saying here is like we're not interested in judgment we're interested in victory mm-hmm and and the reality is is that victory in the world is always a partnership between humanity and god and in this case between i'm israel and god and so therefore since god doesn't really actually need us we're definitely the junior partner what he needs is our courage to be a vessel for his work the reason i had to pause just for a second here is because i have to look somebody something up and we're finishing right now and that is really about about a last part of this torah portion that i want to talk about which is when you find a dead body between two cities we know that even the high priest who is not supposed to become what's called uh impure is that the word he's not supposed to become impure to a dead body even a high priest defiled even even a high priest walking down the street and he sees a dead body that nobody's taken care of he is commanded to stop everything and to become defiled in order to take care of this dead body that is the level of which we sanctify ironically kind of we sanctify the body and we see the uh the original thing we learned in genesis which is god has created in the image a man is created in the image of god the reason i had to look something up is because uh less than a year ago there was a young man by the name of devir sorek and davier sorek was murdered right in between this town that i'm in right now in our next door town which is i have to tell you rabbi mike a street worth there's a street between the entrance of this town and it's entrance of the it's the other side of an interchange of a small interchange sure i know and this divir sorek was murdered right there between two guard posts okay and i never forgot that this to me was like wow he fell between the cracks devior sorek and the defenders of israel missed it they didn't see the attack exactly there and i always thought to myself wow that murder was to me the story of eglarufa like we did not spill this han this blood but also somehow we didn't manage to protect this boy right between uh our towns this was less than a year ago uh and it was it was it was a powerful uh it was a powerful i just wanted to make sure i remember the name davier sorek who happens to actually be a lover shalom the son of um of a very famous author here in israel uh in any case um uh that's something that happened and the torah portion goes on to say that there has to be an elaborate ceremony that takes place in order to say whoa you know we don't know who this man exactly belonged to there's something wrong about that somehow somehow we have to say we didn't spill this blood but it's like we kind of a little bit did if we if if this guy fell between the cracks yeah in many ways it's one of the most all-embracing moral statements to torah which is that you can't divest yourself of responsibility you mean there's obviously gradations we're not going to blame it's not like you know like the sanhedrin like rashi says in the matrix like when they say our hands didn't spill this blood no one actually thinks they killed this guy but the reality is is that our obligation is proactively to create a world in which such things can't happen like you're pointing out and if and if someone like divorce gets murdered on our roads then we've allowed a world to develop we haven't taken the level of responsibility for the safety and well-being of people then yeah until now we are responsible mm-hmm rabbi mike for uh the torah portion is called shuff team uh there's a lot of laws in this torah portion it's about society it's about it's about how to build society uh how to keep evil at bay and allow it's really it's really mostly about how to keep evil at bay with very few points about how to serve god properly this torah portion is really about how do we allow justice to flourish by pursuing that justice which means also suppressing evil building a social structure which will allow the world to flourish a very important torah portion for everybody to learn especially today when we're trying to rebuild the jewish society in the land and the third commonwealth rabbi mike foyer uh rev mike foyer people can find you by going to jewish story dot co thank you so much for joining me here on the show fleischer show uh on the land of israel network podcast and also on youtube uh periscope and facebook and a lot of people are commenting um and i'm going to get to their comments in a second but i'm going to let you go and thank you again for your time for being with us welcome shabbat shalom to you rabbi mike thank you so much for your awesome and erudite uh knowledge and sharing it with us bye all right folks you are listening to the ishai fleischer show and what an awesome torah portion we have what an awesome torah we have and and so i put up this picture of uh of defund the police uh because what i'm really trying to say is that of course we should be funding the uh emotionally uh and physically uh the um the continued law and order that we need in our land please check out usheiflection.com donate to help us keep the show loud and proud and free and broad and so that's uh part of what you do to help fund the spiritual uh judgment and police and and light in this world all right folks that was awesome to have rev mike foyer with us uh on the show and i'm joined here by michael fleischer michael thanks so much for sticking around that was a great show uh that was a great show a little bit long but also a lot of great content and for those people who have nothing better to do i think that was that was really fun people here just get more for their money that's right uh which is which is actually your money is very helpful to keep the show free uh widely dispersed and continually awesome so please check out forward slash donate we uh a spoiler we're about to set up our patreon uh soon that's pretty cool so look forward to that what you think of patreon yeah are you are you a patreon fan let me know about that patron of patreon that's right uh check out our our sponsors the hebron fund which keeps the jewish community of hebron safe open strong and and touristic and building towards the future and of course holy so that's hebron dot org check out uh some true blue juice string this is your opportunity to get some and get you know you don't have to be 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land of israel and connectivity is what we're all about so that's it i just want to wish everybody blessings from the land of blessings and i want to finish off the show by wishing you um blessings for a new month of elo the preparatory month preparation e okay preparation ello for rosh hashanah so so get get started on preparing for the the high holidays i want to thank moshe herman ben breski and tabitha for getting the show out through the net waves right to your ears lots of love and lots of blessings from the land of blessings malcolm fleischer shabbat shalom this week on the land of israel fellowship what does it mean to love thy fellow as thyself they're training us to think of the world in a new way fundamentally different than every other pagan at that time to hold god and man in one thought and at one time love your fellow as yourself that is the most famous quote in the bible secular people know it muslims know it christians know it hindus know it buddhists know it but the vast majority of people don't know the end of the verse and the ending of the verse makes the command so much deeper and you shall love your neighbor like yourself i