This is how to confuse the Satan and let your greatness shine

when we're in love with God that throws off the Satan when we're in love with our faith somehow that throws off prosecution how does that throw off prosecution My Hope Is that within about 40 minutes from now or so you're going to experience how the chofar will Express the voice of your best self that's my hope within the next 40 45 minutes and I'm hoping we can on together on a journey get us there but let's take a step back the chofar really is essential to rashash it's the essence of rashash that is like the Mitzvah of the day every holiday is going to have its theme and on rashash sh we start off the new year with the chaar blast that is the theme does anybody know the biblical reason for why we blow the chauffeur on rashash Shana this is a bit of a trick question what is the reason that the Bible says okay what what are your thoughts she said so we could be written into the Book of Life something was beginning ah like an an a formal announcement formal like the trumpet blow right like the alarm new New Year's alarm the New Year's alarm right so the truth is if if you look in the Torah there's no actual reason documented for the sounding of the chaar there are three classes of Mitzvah there are rational Mitzvah don't steal don't kill honor your parents these are rational Commandments that our mind would hopefully take us there even if they weren't written in the Torah you have testimonial Mitzvah that are historical we eat matah because God took us out of Egypt and it reminds us of that right or we celebrate Shabbat because God created the world in six days rested on the seventh we also rest theau Rashana isn't does not have a rational ethical reason does not have a historical testimonial reason it falls under the third category of Mitzvah which are this is what God wanted us to do so if you look in the Torah there's no actual reason for the sounding of the Chau however because it says to do it in the Torah it just it doesn't say why yeah yeah yeah it doesn't it doesn't say why to do it certain Mitzvah say do this because right and certain Mitzvah God says I just want you to do it as parents we have that sometimes we want to explain things to our kids we want them to understand and sometimes it's like would you just listen you'll figure it out when you're older right so God kind of does that as well there was a rabbi in the post tamur era going back let's say give or take 1500 14 yeah 1500 years ago his name was rabbi sadon he lived in a short historical period of time of Rabbi editors who have essentially edited the talmud but they were post tamic sages so their Authority was quite limited and he wrote a he he documented 10 reasons for why we sound the Chau far in rashash Shana I shouldn't say reasons I should say explanations for why we s on the show rashash not reasons but explanations there's no a reason is a cause for something you're doing this because he gave 10 representations we're not going to go through all 10 now maybe we'll do that in another class but there are a lot of meaningful reasons I'll share with you one which he doesn't actually mention but I've read somewhere else and it's one of my favorite one of the themes of rashash is coronation you're coronating God is the king for the new year and together with coronation you know usually when a king comes there's an Entourage and there's a symphony there's a band right there's trumpets there's there's a whole right Air Force One lands and there's a whole procession and what do we do we don't have a symphony we don't have a band we don't have a procession we just have a Chau far because we're starting the year with Simplicity we coordinate god with Simplicity there is another theme of rash Shana which is related to the show far as we'll soon see and that is what we call in Hebrew and then I'll Translate Y Judgment Day rash is Judgment Day it's the first day of the year and some of us may be familiar with the famous prayer un one of the famous prayers of the rashash litery where we say on rashash Shana it is inscribed and on yum Kipper it is sealed who shall live who shall die Who Shall Perish who shall Thrive it's a very emotional pray prayer it's a very powerful prayer and in many ways there is a there is a heaviness I don't want to say fear because that's not the right approach and as we'll soon unpack but there is a heaviness to Russ because rash you know we call them the days of awe in Hebrew y the days of awe there is a certain awesomeness of it there is a certain gravity of the day and I want to share with you something that I just came across actually today I Was preparing this in the midash take a look on the back of your little booklets over here text one text one you see there the abam say that six times fast abam was a commentary on the prayer book authored I'm going to say give or take 900 800 years ago um I I will be a little transparent with you it's one of the less especially in the renic world it it happens to be one of the less um opened books for some reason um it's in some ways like Uncharted Territory they just started making new prints of it and he cites an interesting midash midash is the talmudic oral tradition the backstory to the Bible and here's what he says I'm going to read it together in the English in the midash it is said that throughout the year the Satan the Satan will soon unpack what that means um just approach the word Satan with an open mind the Satan accuses Israel before the Holy One Blessed Be he and the Holy One defers the accusation until rashash Shana the day of judgment on rashash Shana Satan comes to accuse Israel and brings the son as a witness to to testify about their sins the son testifies but the Holy One Blessed Be he says to him this is only one witness and the testimony of the witness of one witness is not accepted bring a second witness with you Satan goes to bring the moon but can't find it as it's concealed because rashash Shana is happens to be on the first of the Jewish month which is goes according to the lunar cycle and it's not a full moon there's no moon yet right most holidays with the exception of rashash Shana are on the 14th and 15th right where there's a full moon so he says there I can't find the moon either I can't find a second Witness again this is metaphorical this is not necessarily literal and is as it is written this is a quote from the book of Psalms below the chofar at the new moon at the concealed time of our Festival referring to the time when the moon is sought but not found for it is hidden rashash Shana is going back to that Simplicity to that hiddenness right the sounding of the chaar there's no big Orchestra or Symphony it's something quite simple that's rashash Shana on this hidden day somehow that protects us from the Satan I want to take a step back when we say the word Satan and Satan is Hebrew for they often translate it as Satan and some of us may be thinking of a red devil with horns and a pitchfork standing outside a Podium outside of Hell saying how can I take your order right not how can I take your order sorry how can I uh how can I welcome you you know they say there was a politician who was uh he moves on to the next world after passing away and he's welcomed to heaven and they show him into this beautiful room with beautiful lavish food and a buffet and and he says this is just amazing what what what do I deserve how do I deserve all this beautiful treatment they said we've never seen a politician before up here we want to welcome you um but that's not what the Satan the saan is Satan is the Hebrew word for prosecutor a Heavenly prosecutor an angel that prosecutes that's what a Satan is it's no no he's doing his job he's hired contracted hired by God he's hired by God to prosecute you have defending angels as well you have you have many many different angels that all have different jobs and the job of the Satan is literally just to prosecute prosecution um being meticulous and pointing out where we could have been better that's that's essentially the basics of what Judgment Day is on rashash Shana and somehow sounding the chofar mitigates that somehow sh sounding the chofar protects us from the Satan protects us from prosecution and when I say protects us from Satan I don't mean protects us from a pitch workor in a literal sense but protects us from our actions being under the magnifying glass mean being scrutinized now you'll notice that on rashash sham if you look at the structure of the prayer service we actually sound the chaar multiple times we sound the chofar twice actually more than twice but we sound the chofar once um when everybody Gathers the rabbi recites the blessing it's silent and the chaar is sounded right then if people stay on you'll see that there's the musaf prayer which is a rather lengthy prayer takes about an hour and the chofar is is sounded a second time during the mus of prayer and the talmud analyzes the reason for this why are we sounding it twice we did the Mitzvah already why can't I go home right why do I have to do this again and at these sporadic points throughout the Musa prayer why are we sounding the chofar twice this is a question that the tal poses and it gives a very interesting answer take a look at text two it's the back of your page I'm going to read this quote from the talm book yeah it's I'm sorry how for how small it is if you didn't bring your magnify glasses sorry guys RAB so again this is a quote from the talmud analyzing the reason for blowing the chofar not just with one segment but multiple segments rabak said why does one sound a blast on rashash Shana the talmud the gamar is astonished by the question why do we sound a blast the merciful one states in the verse sound of chaar the Torah says to what do you mean rather the question is why does one sound a Stato series of chaur blasts in addition to a long continuous chaar blast the gar is still surprised by the question sound AA the merciful one States says it in the Torah in the seventh month in the seventh day of the on the first day of the month shall be a solemn rest onto you a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns like it says in Leviticus rather rabak asked about the common practice in Jewish communities which is not explicitly stated in the Torah why does one sound a long continuous chauffeur blast than a staccato series of chauffeur blasts while the congregation is still sitting before the silent prayer in the middle of the prayer service we pull out the chauff far while people are in the middle of the service and we interrupt them with chaar blasts something we had already done prior why are we doing it again this is what the tal would asks and then sound again at Tean while they're standing in the amid prayer he answers and this is the main point I wanted to highlight in order to confuse the Satan in order to confuse this process for this double blowing of the chofar demonstrates Israel's love for the Mitzvah and this will confuse the Satan when he brings his accusations against Israel before the Heavenly court and the Jewish people will receive a favorable judgment so we sound the chaar blast multiple times throughout the service somehow that confuses the Satan that throws off prosecution I guess you got to wonder like maybe the Satan's not the right guy for the job if he's getting confused for thousands of years and maybe he's like if he hears the SAR blasts maybe he hears our discussion right now and he's going to know right so what is this whole confuse the Satan situation confuse the prosecutor situation what exactly is going on but but he's been through this he's seen it every single year and not just through our lifetime but throughout the thousands of years of Jewish practice I think symbol to suggest that Trad what word off negativity right okay to protect us so I'll share with you an interesting Insight which I think is along the lines of what you're saying there's an interesting passage in the talmud a different section of the talud that says that the Satan the prosecutor the yeter har which is the evil internal impulse to do negativity which we all have right we all have that poll to do something we shouldn't he says those are the same people same person same Angel wearing different hats it's just code word right wearing different hats so the yet Hara the internal impulse to do evil tries to get us to sin or to mess up we right and then the Satan up on high puts on his Prosecuting hat and tries to prosecute us for that and and the Tam says that the the internal evil impulse that we all have that impulse to do things that are negative the Satan the prosecutor and the angel of death are really all the same Angel wearing different hats at different times so when we're conf when we're confusing the Satan we're actually confusing hopefully what we mean is to kind of suppress the evil within ourselves excellent excellent question excellent question the short answer is the the the documentation of the talmud is just after the or just around the start of Christianity and the tal definitely references the evolvement of Christianity and the Christians wouldn't agree there was this these are sections of the tal that had been censored for many many years um but certainly the concepts of the tal had predated Christianity for sure because the Tor dates it right so the tomel is just a recording of what had been passed down from generation to generation so the this is a commentary by a rabbi from the 10th Century his name is Ru and ruim one of the great Safar sages points out that the Satan that we're confusing is the internal Satan because when we have that wakeup call of the chauffeur as you had described earlier that wakeup call it's a new year that wakeup call might not actually confuse the prosecutor he's he's been through this right but it does confuse our own internal impulse to do negative and kind of wake us up kind of INSP us I'll share with you another explanation right well and and yeah I ideally look to do the basic Mitzvah you want to hear at least once right but throughout the service it is going to be blown multiple times for that reason there's another commentary rashi rashi is RAB you have a question somebody a question sorry okay if anybody has questions you stop me there was a commentary Rashi Aki he was one of the um great pioneers of ashkan jewelry lived in France this is also going back to the 10th century and he says what is this idea of confusing the SATs and confusing the prosecutor God sees that we're going over time with Mitzvah he sees that this isn't a burden on us but we love to do this somehow that throws off the Satan when we're in love with God that throws off the SAT when we're in love with our faith somehow that throws off prosecution how does that throw off prosecution he just leaves it at that he doesn't explain how but I'll tell you what later commentaries explain there was a rabbi in the early 1800s name is rer from Prussia and he unpacked this Rashi commentary and here's what he said there's a general principle in the talm mode that when one does tsha when one repents God forgives you right that's I mean that that's that's a basic part of Judaism you repent God forgives you which by the way is very important especially in contrast not that this is a comparative religion class maybe we'll have that one day but in contrast to other religions where you're powerless and you're stuck and you don't have the ability and you're forever damned and now you need some Judaism believes that you have the ability within you to be turned and to repent and God will forgive you question okay excellent question repent um we're going to actually talk about that in Greater depth next Monday next week's class but the short of it is to let go to let go of the negativity to drop it and be able to move forward that that's the the real in a real nutshell is I'm well with with that will come forgiveness yeah with the repentance will come forgiveness um the truth is a more accurate translation you know you you know my stick with translations we got to be careful in Hebrew we say tsha which is translated as repent but if you translated literally it actually means return which is a more accurate returning to God and part of returning is I'm dropping what was holding me back and I'm going to accept what can push me forward and when you do that says the talmud you're forgiven but the talmud says something interesting if you do that with love not with fear it it's it's kind of natural to repent with fear because what's going to happen to me what kind of person have I become right but if we do that with love the talmud says you're not only forgiven for your past but you transform your past the talmud says that when one repents with love returns with love it's the negative past that ultimately pushed them to become better and now that negative past becomes elevated and you actually transform it it says your sins literally become merits that's what the tomwood says you could have yeah one could have been it's ironic because one could have been the biggest Sy and done the most unimaginable of things and if they've genuinely made amends and they not only did it out of Duty but they did it with love so now it's like that past has actually become a part of your positive future because it's pushed you to become a better person right it's like the desert making you more thirsty to want to hydrate even more right so it depends on it depends on the context of what somebody may have done if they had offended a person um you have to make amends with that person and return to that person repent of that person you know you have to kind of clear the air and if it was between you and God it's it's literally just making a 180 right it's it's uh with that behavior will follow following the right steps to become the better person that you want to be but the short of it is literally just making a 180 turn around right making that decision I want to turn around and we all do that in our own area even if even if none of us are criminals we all have areas in our life where I want to make that 180 right I want to start facing a different direction and even if it's baby steps walking there but I want to do that and if we do that with love we actually take our negative past and we transform it I'll I'll share with you a beautiful story which I think highlights this idea okay I'll be honest it's a bit of a weird story um there there's a tradition inic communities um that men use a Mikvah men's Mikvah right very often women go to a Mikvah for ritual Purity but there's a tradition in communities that men would go to the Mikan it would be a designated men's Mikan it's like a gym locker room type environment and they'd go there before prayer and because there's like this locker room type environment where you have your there's a lot of chatting people talk and I remember when I was in yiva in Brooklyn I found myself in the locker room of this Mikvah and there's this guy chatting and he's telling his life story his life story was he has tattoos which you don't usually see iic Jews with long gray beards and long coats and Tattoos because the Torah explicitly forbids tattoos but this guy had his journey in life this guy had been around the block this guy had he he [Music] really did his own thing for a while and and really decided to come back he became a returnee right he for lack of better words repented he be he came back to his Judaism he came back to his faith and he was saying how he met a fellow Jew on the street once who was not engaged in his faith and he says hey you're a Jewish person I'm a Jewish person would you like to put on the Fillin could we put on Fillin together the guy says no thank you and he's looking at a guy wearing a black coat and a beard and a hat and he doesn't realize what's under that black coat in V hat right he doesn't understand the full scope he says can I just ask why not he says I'll be honest with you I have a small tattoo here I feel like I've sinned I'm a little embarrassed I don't think it's that appropriate for me to put on filling and start approaching God when I've sinned against God so he says I'll make you a deal if my tattoos are larger than yours will you put on the thrillin and he says get out of here he says do we have a deal or no he says okay he rolls up his sleeve he says say okay where's the Fillin let's put on Fillin this guy's negative past of getting tattoos when he shouldn't have he returned and now his tattoos actually caused the Mitzvah tattoos had become elevated and his tattoos had become a positive part of spirituality now you can't get tattoos in order to start doing Mitzvah you can't sin so you could do a Mitzvah but we're someone who have had that past and they make that decision I'm coming home I'm coming back I want to reconnect and they do that with love you literally take that negative past and you make it positive you can literally affect the past so R AAR explains that the Satan doesn't want to prosecute on rashash when we're so passionate about our Mitzvah because he's going to point out all our negativity but all that negativity is going to be good so he doesn't want to put that under the microscope the Satan believes that you're literally going to do T shua and that your past is going to be positive and that he he doesn't want us to return he doesn't want us he doesn't want to put that under the microscope because that's all that negativity is going to be revealed but that negativity is one day going to be positive and he doesn't he doesn't want that under the microscope let me share with you a third interpretation as to why um as to why we can confuse the prosec as if he hasn't figured it out already so you have by the way when you have two versions I think it may have spoken about this in the past you have two versions of the talmud you have usually when we quote talmud unexplicable were're referring to the Babylonian version of the talmud because after the Exile of the destruction of the temple Jews had gone to Babylon and that was a big study center but about 100 years prior to that you had the Jerusalem talmud there was a little bit of laap between the scholars as well and the Jerusalem talmud quotes a sentence from the book of Isaiah and I have it quoted here in our books if you take a look at text three it's in the inside of the page this is what Isaiah says Isaiah is known as the prophet of redemption because much of his prophecies are talking about the Messianic era the future Redemption area what's it going to be like when the when the Messiah comes and Messiah comes um for the record probably one of the most mistr ated prophets of the Bible as well so you have to be careful whom you learn Isaiah from but here's what Isaiah says and it shall come to pass on that day that a great chofar shall be sounded and that those lost in the land of Assyria and those exiled in the land of Egypt shall come and they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mount in Jerusalem so just like at Mount Si when God had given us the Torah at Mount Si there was the big chaar blast and on rashash we have our chofar blast when the Messiah comes the Messianic Arrow we're going to hear the large chofar blast and all the Jewish people are going to gather so the talud says why are we blowing the chofar a second time the first time it's rashash the second time the Satan thinks uhoh is the Messiah here is the Messiah here right but we're still back to square one how does he not fall for this every sing single year right how does he not fall for this so one explanation is not that the chofar is actually going to bring the Messiah but the chofar will inspire repentance which will bring the Messiah that's one way to look at it there's another way to look at him another way to look at him is that the Chau far blast it it it's not that by the way I got to I'm sorry I'm going to put this in Brackets but I think this is just a beautiful Insight I'm sorry my mind is all over the place but beautiful Insight here in the 1700s there was a rabbi from a famed leader and he was known as like the advocate for the Jewish people he just loved the Jewish people and could never see anything wrong with people there's a lot of stories about him but every rashash he used to say God Almighty for thousands of years the Jewish people have been following your command and sounding the chofar when are you going to s sound your show far right when are you going to bring the Messiah when are you going to bring p peace and love and unity and Truth to the world like it says in Isaiah when is this going to happen because we're doing our part of the deal we're sounding our chauff far when are you going to sound your chofar the Satan here's the chaar and he says uh oh is the Messiah here he may not be necessarily thrown off by the fact that Messiah is not here yet because he he could see but what he is threatened by Is Us having the msia the Messiah mindset those lenses when we blow the chofar we're replicating that era and time when God is going to sound the chofar and that is throwing him off because if we're living in the mesia mindset if we're living in the love unity Peace Truth mindset the utopian spiritual utopian mindset that Isaiah describes Isaiah describes this era and time where the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of God it's going to be just accessible and to the point that there's going to be World Peace the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the Viper with the baby right all these prophecies that Isaiah describes and he says uhoh I think the Satan the prosecutor says I think the Jewish people are living that mindset which by the way as soon as the Messiah comes in that era the Satan the prosecutor will be irrelevant he says my days are numbered because these people actually believe in this stuff even sometimes we have a hard time believing in this but the Satan believes in this I'll tell you a great story in the uh about 150 years ago there was a rabbi named RAB is Mayor Kagan known as fascinating Rabbi because he had written extensively on the ethics of slander the ethics of evil speech the ethics of gossip and that was like his passion is like bringing peace and unity to the Jewish people through teaching these ethics and he' written extensive L Jewish literature on literally just when it's appro when to keep our mouth closed and when is it appropriate to open open our mouth when it's going to be beneficial right you're getting a call for a reference for somebody when are you when are you allowed to talk when are you not not allowed to talk because sometimes it could be necessary you know my my father um the way it works in in our circles with with dating we don't have pre-arranged marriages like many may think but we do have pre-arranged dates you and you kind of research each other are we you know you get a lot of the difficult things out of the way like are we on the same page do we have the same desires you could kind of figure that out with phone calls beforehand so my father once received a phone call for uh a fellow a couple years older than me but he was friendly with my dad dad and this person was calling my dad asking questions about this fellow and one of the questions was does he have a drinking problem my father says no phone hangs up my mom says why did you say that this guy loves to drink and my father says I love drinking with him I didn't think it was a problem so you got to ask the right questions right but the reason why I mentioned this is because there is a system of Jewish ethics in what is appropriate to say and when it's appropriate to be said and how to say it and Kagan wrote extensively about this several different books and he he was a righteous person a very scholarly person he lived in the town of radin Poland apparently there was a somebody showed me a newspaper clipping from 1930 the might have been the New York Times there was a newspaper in America reporting his death in 1930 Great Sage in in radin had passed away Rodin Poland and apparently at his old age um he also had a business by the way he had a a shop store so he could support himself and support his literature and he shows up to schul one morning he's like old he was like in his 90s he shows up to schul to pray and it was like an early morning service at like 6 something whatever and somebody says rabbi you're retired you're a little bit older why don't you show up to a later service why don't you sleep in a little bit he says my yet har my internal negative impulse asked me the same thing this morning when I woke up why don't you get back in bed and enjoy a little bit and I thought to myself well gee you showed up to work on time right why can't I show up on time and what he was trying to convey is that the the evil impulse or the Satan or however you want to articulate it actually believes in this stuff and actually believes in us and when we sound that chofar he's worried that we may have the Messianic chofar spiritual utopian mindset so what is that mindset that the chaar is supposed to inspire us with I want to share with you a very deep and esoteric teaching and we'll unpack it together this is on text 4 the last of our texts over here this is from one of my favorite books called L Torah which is a collection of esoteric teachings on the Torah portion unpacking spiritual Concepts from the Zohar and from cabala and from many other sources and here's what he writes and again I just have excerpt it's not the full thing but we'll unpack it together he says through the chofar which is the aspect of the higher level of repentance there's going back to your question about what is repentance there's actually two types of repentance there's one where I'm running away from my past which is kind of an elementary level of toua an elementary level of repentance and we'll unpack this more next week but then there's a higher level of repentance where I'm running to who I'm connecting with just like in a relationship sometimes you got to clear the air and heal from things we shouldn't have done but then we have to actually actively connect and bond and that's the higher level of repentance that's what the chofar represents it's the Cry Of The Voice from the depths of the heart from the innermost point of the heart such that the tools of speech cannot contain it because it's just the voice alone the chofar is that cry of the heart it's the scream of the soul that can't be articulated into words so it's even higher level than prayer prayer is a very deep connection but this is greater than prayer because prayer is you're communicating feelings and words you're putting limitation and boundaries around around your feelings the chofar is just this let loose scream it's just this deep connection that can't be described therefore there are no words only the aspect of a simple sound a tea from there a person feels an inner cry in the depths of their heart beyond reason if I if I'm tapping into the message of the chofar and I ask myself why am I wanting to connect you know what the answer is going to be if I'm honest with myself at that moment I don't know I just want it it's very deep it's Beyond Reason not wanting to be separated from his unity and Oneness and the heart burns like fiery Sparks that raise on their own without reason or understanding there's no reason why fire fire doesn't have a motivation when it flickers right there's scientific reason what causes it to flicker but there's no actual explanation and it's it just that's just what it does right our soul just wants to connect as the soul pours itself out into the Embrace of its father surrending itself surrendering itself to the Oneness because God is their portion and Israel sended it in it in thought the innermost aspect let me put it this way there's different layers to the soul there's different layers to our relationships different layers to our connection um on a most basic layer you can divide the soul into three intellect feeling drive those are the three basic you could split this up into many many more divisions but I just want to keep it basic for the sake of this conversation intellect or let's start emotion remember remember our cabala class we had this whole chart right you could really split hairs with this but emotion intellect drive and from the perspective of emotion and intellect which means how I feel about God and how I understand him how I feel about Judaism and how I understand it there's a lot of room for diversity because there is but there's 10 of us in this room and there may be even more watching this on this screen and each one of us is going to describe our emotional connection with God very differently because we're each different we're individuals we're going to describe what attracts us to Judaism different we all have different language we all have different words we have different ways of putting it but when it comes to the drive what godess in this room why are you here it's that's that's the chauff far it's it's the call of the Soul which runs much deeper and when the Satan the prosecutor says look at their deep connection there's no reason to their connection they're just connected there's nothing he can do about it he's just like stuck he's confused he's baffled there's nothing to prosecute they're connected what am I Prosecuting they're they're they may not behave as if they're always connected all the time nobody's perfect but deep down inside they're connected so I want to conclude with a story that happened just a couple of weeks ago I have the pleasure every Tuesday of going to the Livermore uh Laboratories we have a Jewish little Club there and we have a Torah study session there and we have diverse people joining us and there's a particular fellow who had joined our class A couple of weeks ago and he's rediscovering his relationship with Judaism because he had a negative experience with Judaism many many moons ago many many decades ago and for the first time he's kind of re-exploring it this is a person who considers himself an atheist um I'll tell you this if if atheists were as spiritual as him I think that would be a this would be a good world right um but he says to me Rabbi Josh I have a question for you yes how is Judaism doing in America because he hasn't been super engaged in Jewish life actively how is Judaism doing in America said what do you mean by that well in my family there was more people that left than had stayed on I'm wondering if in the US or even beyond the US throughout the world are there more people joining than leaving is this sustainable are we going in the right direction this is what he asked I told him I don't know I I I don't have any data and you know Livermore California might not be the best representation uh you know it's not a large sample size right um I said what I do know is that for some reason and this is indicative of a need Judaism is more accessible now than in the history of Judaism from the start of us meeting together at Mount cite was pretty accessible then but after then after that it never has been accessible now as it it's it's been more accessible now than it ever has been there's more kabad centers there's many other Outreach centers as well there's more opportunity to walk into a synagogue there's more resources online and classes for free there's more English translations of things that had never been translated before and he says to me with this just Blank Stare why said what do you mean why said why would anybody want this he he wasn't asking cynically he was just to him he had his negative experiences and and he understood what pushed him away why would somebody want this my response to him was I don't know in some cases it would be easier just to let go if you're a student in Colombia University where there's anti-Semitism and and you can't get the class and you can't it might be easy just to drop Judaism and maintain your identity as a Columbia student University and I use that as an example but for some reason students aren't letting go and they prioritize their Judaism even when it's not easy he says right right for some reason when our Judaism is threatened it it emerges it comes out and there's no reason it's not like premeditative it's not like I thought about it it's like a reflex right and and that's what I said to him I said what you're describing is the language I use to describe a soul that's the blast of the chauff far in rashash Shana that's what we're trying to reorient ourself toward that gets rid of all our internal demons the har the evil inclination and that destroys the Satan it baffles the Satan okay that's my story and I'm sticking to it what