Overview of "THE CONVERSATION" by Rabbi Joshua Golding presented by Yiboneh

hi good evening everybody my name is uh Josh Golding I just want to take a moment to thank Ro Poston and the Yun Organization for having me speak to you this evening about my book which is called the conversation and so I'm going to talk about the book a little bit let me just first say a little bit about myself um I am I'm from New York City I grew up in New York I um studied at Columbia University University of Pittsburgh I have a PhD in philosophy A specialized in philosophy of religion I've written um a book and a couple of Articles several articles in Jewish philosophy Jewish thought and tradition and religious studies those are journals that you may or may not be familiar with um I also uh got SM in h shabas i was learning in Jerusalem in 2008 2009 so I'm Rabbi doctor Professor Joshua Golding I teach philosophy at a small College called Beller University which is in Louisville Kentucky and I've been there for around 25 26 years and this year I've been fortunate enough to have a sabatical so I'm spending it in here in Jerusalem and I am uh a visiting research professor at Hebrew University in the philosophy Department over there so really I want to talk about this book the conversation which was published in 2011 by uim which is a publishing company here in Jerusalem and the book is called the conversation I like to call it it's really a Jewish philosophical novel and I'm going to focus on what I think are the things that are unique about this book the things that are different about this book the things that make this book really stand out as different not necessarily better than other books but I think different in in certain important respects from other books that deal in some way with Jewish philosophy Jewish thought and also with the many many books that are found that deal with uh difficulties or problems or questions that someone might have if they're um either they're they're from from birth and they now confront questions that may of them which I'll get into a little bit what I mean by those questions um or if they're um interested in Judaism maybe they're not from from birth maybe they're Bali Chua or people who have discovered Judaism recently in their lives this book is also very much geared for and explain why it's very much geared for it's not only but it is especially appropriate for uh college students for guys gals women who are uh going from high school into college many of them who are from religious backgrounds from backgrounds and when they come to college if they go to college especially a secular University or even a place like Yeshiva University uh they end up having to confront um some questions some difficult questions that may engender doubt in their amuna in their faith in Judaism so first of all this book as I say it's a philosophical novel it's called the conversation because most of the book is in the form of a dialogue it's in the form of conversation but not just between two characters as you find for example in the kuseri some of you may be familiar with the kuseri the great classic work in one of the great Classics in Jewish philosophy the kuseri is a dialogue that takes place basically between two or three people at the beginning there's maybe four people as the book goes on it's really a two-person dialogue and really for the most part the book is actually a monologue there are many books that have been written in Jewish philosophy or Jewish thought in cabala Rosato the great makal wrote um a number of books in dialogue form many people don't know that the missil sarim was actually written originally in a dialogue form uh it was only recently rediscovered as such but um um dunos is in the form of a dialogue but it's generally these books that you find in the history of Jewish philosophy that are written in the form of a dialogue are mostly between two characters and it's mostly one person or one voice that ends up taking over and it really becomes more of a monologue than a dialogue so this book is in the form of a conversation there is a main character his name is David the main character is a guy who's from a Jewish home but not a very religious home um and he comes to college and the one thing he know he's a very kind of typical American Jewish College age student he he um he knows a little bit about Israel he knows a little bit about the Holocaust and his mother has told him that when he gets married he's not supposed to marry a non-jewish woman and maybe there was a time when his mother used to light candles on chabas a Friday night Friday evening and that's really all he knows about Judaism and he comes to college and the first thing that happens to him is he obviously falls in love with a non-jewish girl and that's kind of brings up a question as to what is his commitment does he is he why should he bother remaining Jewish um and that sort of Sparks him in a way to investigate get interested in questions about the meaning of life and so these are the big philosophical theological questions that many people face especially people who are younger um but not only it's not only for people who are younger but questions about uh God is it rational to believe in God does it make sense to be committed to Judaism um some of the questions that this book deals with include what do we say about science what is a relationship between science and religion what is the um what do we say about Evolution what do we say about the scientific method what do we say about the social sciences what about history what about um biblical criticism this is something that a college student might have to face that issue of how do we deal with faith in Amun in the Torah and what Biblical criticism or secular Scholars say about the origins of the Torah um another issue that this book deals with is the the pro maybe the most pressing or difficult problem of all the problem of evil the problem of suffering if God is good and God especially has a relationship with the people of Israel why does God allow the people of Israel other people too to suffer and of course the big PE question the people talk about is of course the Holocaust as an example of suffering that the Jews have experienced so what do we say about the holocost um there's other issues such as for example um if I don't believe in God does that make me a bad person can a person live a morally good life as a lot of people seem to think that I can live a morally good life without believing in God um what do we say about some of the laws in the Torah or the m that seem not to make senseim statutes that seem to transcend reason and um also a question that people have sometimes especially in our day is what do we say about what does Judaism say about women and the role of women and how do we determine whether we should remain Orthodox or go conservative or maybe go reform so these is this great swirl of questions that um this book in some way seeks to address address so my purpose tonight in this talk is actually not to try to give you the short version of what the book actually says about these questions sometimes people ask me okay well what are the answer to those questions well for that you got to read the book but let me just say another thing that's unique about the book is that as I mentioned before the book has many different characters including the main character whose name is David there's a fellow named Simon who comes from a religious home and now he's become o from he's become unreligious irreligious and so he's kind of like an atheist and he has his reasons for why he believes what he believes or doesn't believe what he doesn't believe um among the many friends that David meets in the book and the reader gets to hear is there's a fellow named Ravi who's not Jewish who's from uh somewhere in the Far East and has a kind of Hindu Eastern sort of perspective on God God and is interested in promoting the idea of meditation and becoming in touch with the ultimate one there is a there's several different Jewish characters there's a professor who is actually a woman whose name is Dr mman and she has a sort of a very rationalistic approach to Judaism she also defends a kind of conservative version of Judaism conservatism there's a rabbi Rabbi Abraham who is very kind of yeshivish kind of a guy maybe he wears a black hat he represents a certain voice that we find in um Orthodox circles and he has his approach to the questions about science and secular learning and about the Holocaust and there's also a character in the book named Dr Rabbi low who's kind of modeled on the maharal Frog whose name was low as you may know all of the names have associations and Illusions to earlier figures in the history Jewish philosophy and in some way you could say are kind of Gil gulim or reincarnations of previous views Dr low is is he's he's a philosophical guy but he's also an orthodox Rabbi and so he combines sort of those approaches in a way I think that the maharal actually did there's another character that you get introduced to in the um later in the book um named Kim it turns out that this character David has some very firm relatives that he only discovers later on in the novel and this fellow Kim um is very interested in cabala is very interested in the Jewish mystical tradition and takes David under his sort of tutelage and gives him a kind of introduction to the main basic ideas of of cabala and he has his own perspective on many of the questions so the thing that's unique about this book or one thing again that that's unique about this book is that it doesn't tell you this is the answer answer to these questions there's many questions that are dealt with in the book and there's many different perspectives that are presented and I tried to present the perspectives of these different voices in the most sympathetic way that I could to let the reader sort of see okay well this is this View and here's this View and here's another view and here's another view now the character David one thing that I think is interesting in the book that I liked is that David starts keeping a journal he starts keeping a journal of his own ideas and his own development and his own questions and his own thinking his own thought process as he's going through the story and um he starts sort of thinking about integrating some of the different perspectives that he's been hearing from his fellow conversants okay so it's in a way um again it's not a dogmatic book it presents different views different perspectives and allows The Reader through David in a way to sort of think through the different approaches and thus maybe come to his or her own conclusion David comes to a conclusion at the end of the book I don't want to tell you what it is because I don't want to ruin the suspense of the book he does have some there's a the sto there's also a story going on here I think this is actually something that's unique about the book relative to something like the kuseri or the other books that I quoted that I mentioned earlier is that there really is a story going on here there is a plot there's romance in the book there's um issues going on with his parents there's death there's uh there's he kind of gets into things that college students get into including um drugs and alcohol and he deals with that and um that's also an issue that's dealt with in the book is um you know what do we say about intoxicants and there's a whole kind of um discussion about uh the role of intoxicant in Judaism um and so and different perspectives on that as well um another thing that is unique I think about this book is that through the philosophical novel through the story of the book you get a sense of how a person's view about the world whether they're religious or not religious whether they're conservative Orthodox or or whatever they are reform form a person's view about the world is interconnected with the kind of person that they are in other words a personality and a set of World Views are connected how we act the way that we Act is linked to what we think about the big questions about the world whether we're hedonists or whether we're H where we have like a faith only approach or whether we tend to be more rationalistic or whether we're maybe more in the sort of Eastern tradition of feeling that the ultimate one is kind of an impersonal Oneness that we have to kind of blend with so the idea is that different views have an effect on what kind of a person you are and how you treat other people and how you treat yourself and so that comes through I hope in the book and as David goes through college the book really is let me say this about the structure of the book The book is all about David's college Years and in those college Years he goes through freshman sophomore junior senior those are the four classic years of college experience um and so that's how the book is organized freshman sophomore junior senior um and so as he goes through the four years he matures he develops he grows he grows intellectually he grows spiritually um at a certain point point in the book he starts learning he starts davening a little bit or trying to again he keeps a journal and he starts developing his own views and ultimately maybe I'm giving away too much he starts toward the end of the book he actually starts writing a little bit of D Torah which by the way I think is an important message for everybody um one of the fans of my book uh told me recently a guy a fellow who is in Yeshiva here in in Jerusalem who read the book who really enjoyed it and one of the things he told me that made me feel really good is that my book inspired him to start keeping a journal and in that journal he writes about questions problems issues that he's having could be in his personal life could be in his spiritual life it could be questions it could be D Tor it could be thoughts about the paraa and a person everybody should write D Tor everybody should keep a journal I believe you don't have to be famous to write D Torah you don't necessarily have to publish your Journal um I talk about that actually that's a major theme that's one of the themes in the book too is writing and the importance of writing down your ideas and making them concrete and then going back to them and I think by the way um I think that D actually I believe that safer to Hillen started as a sort of private diary that doid was keeping and eventually it became you know he organized it in such a way that it became something that could be that could be um made public and of course includes Psalms and and Shak to Hashem and so on and so forth but um again the book tries to integrate views with um personality and personality development so I think that this book is a lively introduction to Jewish philosophy and also cabala a person can learn a lot about Jewish philosophy and a lot about cabala especially in the junior year where the cabala is introduced um in a way that's kind of user friendly and in the form of a conversation um this book encourages independent and critical thought on the part of the reader doesn't necessar it doesn't tell you this is what you should believe this is um these are this is the only or the right answer to these questions the book gives you a kind of model for Spirit viral growth and um perhaps at this point I'd like to say that um one of the um aspects of the book is that the four years of college the four levels freshman sophomore junior senior um it turns out the character David himself discovers this in the book that those four years of college correspond to in a very peculiar way correspond to the name of Hashem the udk VK the tetragramaton that may sound like a bizarre thing for me to say that the four years of college correspond to the Y VK but um actually uh in cabala there is a notion that there is a sort of progression from lower levels to higher levels which are represented by the yud but spelled backwards in other words if you take the yud k v k and spell it backwards so the first letter what cabal is called the lowest letter the last letter of hashem's name is called the lower hay or he tat in cabala and that lower hay represents the lowest aspect of God so to speak the most outward manifest aspect of God which is the Shina the fact that there is a reality that we can touch we can feel that's God's presence or sh it also corresponds to the lowest beginning level of the spiritual seeker and then the V that's the next letter up corresponds to a yet higher level the v in Caba corresponds to the MOs of Hashem benevolence Justice compassion those MOS of Hashem that are maybe not always obvious in what we see around us but those are the major ways in which God runs the world so to speak that's represented by the V and then the next he which is the second letter of hashem's name called sometimes the upper ha or the he law represents Bina or comprehension intelligence understanding and that is supposed to be the guide of the MOs God runs the world with compassion Justice and benevolence but Bea or understanding is what guides those meos to operate and then even higher than that the yud the first letter of hashem's name stands for and rutson or ker in cabala it's called which stands for the highest aspect of God God's Will and God's wisdom which in a way is even higher than bino or intelligence and so there's a progression that a person can follow and David kind of follows this progression as a freshman you kind of start off in college everything's fresh everything's new but in a way you're kind of like a dabbler right a freshman comes to college and you sort of poking around taking this course that course oh this is exciting that's interesting this is exciting and then when he gets to his sophomore year he start of okay now I have to focus now I have to pick a major maybe and you know the word sophomore comes from sophomoric which means both wise and foolish at the same time because a sophomore is someone who says oh he thinks okay I'm not a freshman anymore I know what I'm doing now I know what I'm doing I'm an expert but he's really not an expert because what he's done is he's kind of mov moved on from the freshman year and he's picked some topic or he's sort of focused on something that he thinks he's going to be the master of and then he realizes that that's not so simple being the master of this isn't so simple and that's when he becomes a junior now the word Junior of course represents a kind of lower level relative to senior so you see you have freshman sophomore junior senior in your senior year if you really are a senior if if you really are someone who has acquired wisdom you realize that there's limits to understanding there's limits to intelligence that as smart as you're ever going to be excuse me you're never going to know everything and yet somehow you still have to make a choice about what you're going to do with your life and that's part of actually David's uh sort of spiritual journey is coming to terms with the fact that you know when you pick a way of life or choose a path in your life there may be some questions and problem problem s that you're going to have to live with there's maybe some level of doubt that you're going to have to be able to deal with and that's a very in a way a very mature level at the highest level of wisdom wisdom as Socrates the famous Greek philosopher said a truly wise person is someone who knows how little he knows right as opposed to a the sophomoric person who thinks he knows everything and doesn't realize the limits of his wisdom um so just to throw at throw at you some cab terms from cabala um which again this is part of the theme of this book is kind of educating the reader in some what I think are very helpful ideas in cabala for the spiritual path um the cabalists talk about kotus rehon and Godless Reon you following me cotus Reon means like the first step or the first level of katus means being like a minor literally being a young person being sort of green and then there's Godless but there's a Godless reown then there's a cotton of sheney and a Godless sheney okay there's a second level of being a minor and then a second or a higher level of being a GLE a graduated person so this this theme of growing from step to step and then realizing the limits and then growing again and being able to sort of withstand withhold doubt and yet still make a decision about what you're going to believe in and what you're going to the path that you're going to choose in life is something that um in a way David comes to terms with and I'm probably not explaining it very well but that is definitely a theme in the book as David goes through freshman sophmore junior senior so in summary um I think the book is a unique introduction to Jewish philosophy and cabala and I've had a number of um non-jewish people call me or email me out of the blue and tell me that they read my book and they really found it very interesting and it's not like they're about to convert to Judaism but it still gave them an education about about Judaism and um I've had a number of uh I had a a fellow who some maybe 16 17 years old who was living in Belgium and emailed me out of the blue and said you know I read your book and it really it really helped me deal with some of the issues that I'm going through and he said he was going to write a paper about the book for his high school class so if you are in any way interested in Jewish philosophy or in any of these questions um this might be something a book that you would be interested in um in having or reading and if you know someone who is maybe going through some philosophical issues theological questions that are bothering them about their amuna perhaps this might be a very good uh Kaneka present for them thank you ask some questions yes you mentioned about the udk V and I I am privy to know that you're working on a book yes you want to share a little about that or did you utterly H I'm very happy to talk about my next book um which is which is also very much related to the udk v um does anyone have any questions about maybe someone in the B no that's not okay does anybody have any questions about this book and then I'd be happy to talk about my new book which I'm working on well no let's he about that we'll maybe come back to okay fine okay so yeah I've been I've been working on a book um which is hopefully going to be finished real soon and and published by urm and and um the book is called the Jewish spiritual path the way of the name or you might say in Hebrew D Hashem but the way of the name meaning the name of the ultimate name of Hashem the tetragramaton the udk VK the premise of the book is that the four-lettered I spoke about this earlier actually the premise of the book is that the four letters of Hashem name represent four major ways in which God the infinite essence of God which is you know the mum say that the infinite essence of God is really something we can't know or we can't know directly um but nevertheless God manifests himself in four major aspects or four major ways and that's what the udk VK represent in cabala they also talk about the 10 spheros or 10 emanations 10 attributes of God so each of the four letters is associated with one or more of the spheros but the basic idea is that the udk represents God's modes or man manners in which he manifests himself in the world and the Jewish spiritual path meaning by that what we're supposed to do as Jews is modeled can be modeled on the udk V but spelled back WS in other words each letter of hashem's name represents certain MOS or certain qualities that we are supposed to as religious Jews and even to some degree as human beings develop there are basic attributes or meos and then there's more advanced ones okay and you got to start from first base second base Third Base see even in baseball there's four bags there's four bases you find the number four is very very found in many many places um as as sort of a a model of a series of steps but each of the letters of hashem's name represents a certain set of mos and another very important idea in cabal and a lot of people don't know this but I really believe anyone who DAV shakas the morning prayer you familiar with the morning prayer shakas many people don't know that the shakas prayer has four stages there's four stages of shakas some people know this um but the four stages of shakas correspond in cabala to the four letters of hashem's name in reverse order meaning starting with the he the lower haak the blessings that we say in the morning and the carbonos correspond to the low and then this zimra which corresponds to the V kma together with the Bros corresponds to the upper and finally the Pinnacle the highest level of shakas is really the am it's the Shon when you're standing with your feet together in silent devotion with no interruptions um each stage of shakas is supposed to help us cultivate certain MOS or qualities and I think a lot of people don't know this or recognize this it's kind of like implicit but they sort of know it but in the book what I tried to do is spell out in a user friendly way the uh Jewish spiritual path in terms of the way of the name the ultimate just to give you a little taste the highest level just zipping to the highest level the highest level which corresponds to the yud and corresponds to the Shon is sometimes what's called Deus Deus or means bonding with Hashem and there's also so a flip side related to the yud is something in it's called orb his botas means self abnegation or self nullification sounds like a very extreme thing but actually his botas and vus if you study the these two go together they go hand in hand like one is like the flip side of the other to have you have to have his botas and if you look at the amida just think about the amida for a second the amida represents both of these because his botas is one one way in which his botas is represented according to and cab is by the Bowing that we do in the right there's several places in the in the amida where we're supposed to Bow and the Bowing represents a kind of ultimate submission there's no bowing anywhere else in the daving except in Elena which is later but before that there's no bowing bar is a little bit of a bow that's true good point okay but basically in Theon you have the bow and you also have this kind of there's another aspect of the upper yud of the yud which is called his bodus his bodus means kind of a self seclusion when you stand in Shona ESR you kind of you're in your own Zone the silen monay I'm talking about right you're in the silen monay you're in your own private little space with God yourself and you're kind of like supposed to separate yourself from even the next Jew who sitting next to you or standing next to you DAV so his bodus and his botas on the other handus Deus represents a bonding of the will with Hashem what you're doing when you're daving is essentially trying to make your will conformed to God's will that's really in one way that comes at the end of the DAV say that my my my my my thoughts and my words should be in accord with your will right and also when you dve in and you pray for things the point of prayer there's a lot going on when you pray but one of the things that's going on when you pray is you are educating yourself to want things that are correct or good to want you want you're asking for forgiveness you want you want Jerusalem to be rebuilt you want the Messiah to come a person Who Davin essentially is changing himself working on himself to be the kind of person who wants what Hashem wants okay you can judge a person by what they pray for so conforming your will to hashem's Will and another aspect of deas is being together with God just being with Hashem that's in a way a higher kind of vacus that you have in the es which in some perspective might you might say that's the silent the silent just standing in silence Inon with Hashem is cultivating that vus so I skipped just to give you an example to the highest level the yud but each part of the daving each part of the shakas has certain unique features to it and um my book The Jewish spiritual path the way of the name sets out to show you in detail how through the davening a person can cultivate the different meos that are associated with the um the udk and thus that's why the YK is so important if you go back to you know even basic cabala text and simple there's a concept of the shiv I don't know if they have a here it is sh there it is why is it so important it's not just that it's the name of God which is important but it's because the shame Hashem represents everything packed into it the mukal say that the entire cabala can be understood as a commentary on the name of Hashem there's also a teaching the ran brings it at the beginning of his commentary on the Torah that the Torah is like one long name of God it's a profound most bizarre idea but the importance of the Sham Hashem we all know about that but this book is aiming to the book that I'm working on is aiming to to give the reader a better sense of the mechanics of what the meos are that correspond to the Sham masem which attributes of God correspond to the YK and why those attributes fit fit with the meas that we're supposed to develop and how it is that through shakas a person can cultivate those MOS and ultimately reach the purpose of everything which is to have a relationship with God that is close and intimate um yes oops I see uh that you mentioned yes you know in the uh in the back here so uh I was I was in that film of the chosen oh are you fantastic yeah thank you so um I think you you mentioned uh I think you mentioned about this the the audience at this the conversation is is like to reach yes you know did you do you want to just reiterate again about who's going to be who's interested in this to be honest if a person is looking for um an entertaining book that's probably this is going to be not what they want if a person is interested in Jewish philosophy and by that I mean interested in thinking about wondering about the question questions that I believe should be questions that a person faces like is the belief in God rational to what extent is it rational um what do we have to say about science what do we say about the theory of evolution what do we say about other religions how do we deal with the Holocaust how do we deal with the problem of evil the problem of suffering I mean if a person is is not interested in those questions or doesn't worry about that I mean there are people like that there are many many from Jews there from Christians whatever there are many obviously many from Muslims who don't aren't very thoughtful about their religion so if someone is not thoughtful about their religion about their Judaism then the book is not going to be it's going to be a boring book for them um if someone is thinking about these questions or maybe on the verge of getting into these questions which a lot of high school age you know college students are um then this book I think should be of interest to them and um that's I think where my major success has been in terms of readership in terms of fans like getting emails from people oh I read the book and I have these questions it's generally been from like 16 17 18 19 year old people or people who are like in their Gap year they call it the Gap year between High you know people who are going to go to second universities um and so they're they know they're going to be exposed to other ways of thinking and they're going to be exposed to these questions and they're going to have to have something to say or think about these questions because it's going to be a problem for them unless they just sort of put blinders on and you know don't think about which is what a lot of people do um so I I think the book is but I've had again I've had um anyone who's interested in Jewish philosophy and cabala wants to learn a little bit about cabala the basics of cabalo would find this book I think uh enjoyable and um very highly educational yes yeah you gave a very nice introduction of you mentioned that you're uh uh a philosophy teacher correct and uh you gave a very nice introduction to the structure of how one introduces um the qu the questions of philosophy and the approach and that there needs to be an approach to those questions um one of the I I'm listening to you made me realize recall my years in uh my college age years and the questions you know kids took philosophy 101 right and the question that always came up was uh well the professor uh demonstrates or gives over for your you know for your thought all of the various different philosophies right you know and the question was well which one did he say was correct or which one did he you know did he help you to find one which you can live with or you can you know use um to benefit in your life and to grow and um you know the recently the idea has come to the four based on the elections in the in the United States that uh uh everyone is entitled to their own opinion but no one's entitled to their own facts and uh uh we have a similar idea to that in in the idea of shiv and T approaches to the Torah that's true but um I think it is true of course that there are shiv and P with Torah and that um uh there are many many ways to approach the Torah and as I get older I'm finally loosening up and realizing that there may be alternative ways to my own but the question is this while it's true that and I this has been suggested to me and I'm struggling with it and you gave such a nice you opened the door to this so nicely that I'm hoping you'll comment on this this is my actual question set it up is um that yes there are 70 approaches to the Torah but everybody's only entitled to one at a time so to speak you know in other we've got we're not encouraged to adopt any more than one of the 70 we're encouraged to find One path to the truth and live that truth that would be you know the better the better life that judism promotes by the way of thinking that um I'm suggestive um and my question is as a philosophy Professor right where do you where do you stand on this you know in other words should philosophy just be presented to the students as something that's entirely eclectic with no conclusions or should there be a teaching that yes everyone entitled to their own opinion but everyone should have an opinion you know and that's really you to come you know that that's actually there's a that that issue comes up in the book because there there is a professor that David has that sort of he's taking a class with her Dr mman and in the class she presents these different views and then she doesn't say which one is any better than the other and every time you know there's another philosopher say oh that one seems like the truth and then that one gets knocked down and there's another one so this kind of phenomenon I'm very familiar with and I I believe well I I I believe that in my classes I'll just tell you what I do because it's very very very good question um that you're raising um I tell my students that the first day of class I told them I have my views I have certain views about the questions that we're going to talk about in this class and sooner or later throughout the class I am going to tell you an occasion and maybe maybe especially toward the end of the class I do this especially in my upper level classes like in my intro class I guess this is really the answer to your question when I teach an introductory class in philosophy I try to present the students with the material here's these arguments here's these philosophers here's what they think here's the problems that's life when I get into my upper level classes and teaching philosophy religion and if I were to teach a graduate class which I don't do at my college because it's all undergraduate but if I were teaching a graduate class then I would say listen I have my views and I'm going to make clear what My Views are and I'm going to defend them and I'm going to stand up for them but at the same time I will do my best to give a sympathetic presentation of the other views that disagree with me and of the other views that are out there U whatever those you know topics may be so I mean I think ultimately um Can IOP that's really the Crux of my question yes that a disservice by by giving a sympathetic view of the other philosophies isn't that a disservice to the entire idea of finding emth of finding a philosophy that one well but by by sympathetic by sympathetic I simply mean doing the best I can to articulate what reasons or arguments the other side has in their favor that's being that's being honest but shouldn't you be arguing more so why you think they're that your approach is a better I think it depends on the context you know I mean I think depends on if an introductory class if I'm teaching let's suppose I were to teach a a give a lecture at a Yeshiva so it's a different set it's a different group it's a different context I'm more famili more comfortable in a Yeshiva setting telling the guys that you know this is what I think is true and here's here's here's where I think the emis is um as opposed to if I'm giving a lecture to a bunch of of a mixed group of Christians and Muslims and atheists and this and that then you know I it's it's I'm still going to at some point tell them this is what I think is true but it's going to be and also I tell you I have I have five kids um they're almost all either teenagers or just getting out of their teenage years and uh you know when we they they've read some of them have read the book and I tell them you know I'm their father you know so I don't have to in other words in that context I'm much more dactic and much more um sort of um dogmatic perhaps but still I try to be when I say a sympathetic I don't mean that that's not being that's not being um dishonest in other words I if I say look I think there's a problem here with this view maybe there's there's certain things in Judaism that I find difficult to understand or difficult to accept certain Halos that I think what what you know rabbis really overdid that one and I mean you know I might tell my kids this is I have trouble with this I don't really understand why this or this Mak sense but this is part of Torah okay so you know so I I think that one can be depending on the contexts um one but in general I think one can be sympathetic to other sides other views and try to show the student um why the other view things the way they do but at the same time here is why I think what I think I don't know if I'm really answering your question it's a tough it's a tough question it is but You' help quite a bit thank me a lot to TI you on okay thank you I appreciate it yes sir I think the discussions that took place between Bas Hill of Shai to a large extent are philosophical debates and hit we do p like K and there many reasons why or it's at least more than one reason but one of the reasons brought down was they had I called a sympathetic ear to the other side to try to understand them first allow the other side to speak first and to even agree to a certain extent and then and only then come out but I think that also builds could be trust in you know whether it's the student right teacher relationship or anytime that you want to get someone's ears to give your own first right I mean maybe maybe we should think about just as a something to think about or throw in is think about God as a teacher I mean you know we have this idea of God teaches the Jewish people the Torah and um you know kazal say that when the people of Israel came to harini the famous this is very timely for por the gamor says that God said if you don't accept this you know that's the medish that says I mean there's different ways of interpreting it some people don't take it so literally but the idea is that the Jewish people were kind of forced into accepting the T but at the same time you know God God gives human beings a lot of free will you know he gives us autonomy he gives us the the sort of ability to make our choices and and sometimes we make very very bad choices so you know it's not that God is just saying you can do whatever you want I mean that's not what we believe as as traditional Jews God has a certain teaching and he wants us to know it but at the same time um in some ways the overwhelming nature of mat Tor harini was was not really effective until porm when the Jews you know and you know they they took it upon themselves as of a free choice so you have to that's a very very and it's the same thing with true with with bringing up children is you know do do you do you tell them you cannot do that you must do this and sometimes you give them a little slack and sometimes you that's a problem you wrestle with um but I think you um ideally a good teacher um lets the student have as much autonomy as possible but still says this is really what I think is true ultimately and that way the the the student gains the truth but in a way that's genuine for them thank you forward to having you come back I'd love to come back and when I have the the next book published and good luck with the okay thank you very much great questions thank you everyone