(Way#11) EXAMINING IDEAS WITH FRIENDS: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day folks welcome back to beyond the seven the live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston he's been teaching us the beautiful series the 48 ways to wisdom it's been such a joy so far we've finished 10 parts it's been huge and i encourage everybody to get back there and check out every uh episode um there's so much in this class keeps building and building and building and building and building and building and who better to share it with us than a learned rabbi in jerusalem so let's just tune right in and see how rabbi poston's doing today i know it's getting late there rabbi poston and we are so grateful you take the time to share torah with the nations of this world thank you dan chavortov i'm so glad to be back i'm glad that you do host us and uh host me and everything that ubuntu stands for and today we're going to be dealing with the number 11 of the 48 ways to wisdom so just to reiterate to just go back on the idea the 48 ways to wisdom when when when the israelites left egypt right it took 50 days till we reached the revelation in mount sinai to receive the torah so to speak right the covenant we entered the covenant with hashem and on this process right the journey of 49 days till we arrived there are these 48 ways i know you say so you have to ask why this 49 it's 48. so the the the 49th the unwritten way is to review okay so you have to really um what's the word concretize everything that you've learned so basically the israelites went on a journey in order to receive the truth in order to receive the torah they had to be ready so the truth is this is a lesson for all of us for all time and anyone who is interested in let's just say the journey towards gaining wisdom and incorporating wisdom into their life will only gain from understanding these ways these are as the torah itself is a manuscript it's a manual for living it's instruction manual for living now it is very deep i don't have to explain i mean i think that most people who are watching the show or watching this video understand how the torah is basically we're talking about like the wisdom of god god's mind so in order to be able to receive this one has to make themselves into a vessel so it's about working on your character obviously we discuss many of these ideas and tonight right what does that mean examining ideas with friends ways to and this is really so apropos for today's world with all of the different we call maklocus arguments that people could have it's not about winning an argument it's it's about how you play the game right it's not about who wins or who loses because if your goal is to get the truth then everyone's a winner right if two people are trying to argue their points well are they trying to win are they trying to um convince the other person they're right so there's something wrong with that when we discuss the whole idea is to get to the truth which means you may have to admit that you have been making you made a mistake now how do you present how do you present your arguments and how do you listen to the other side is what we're going to basically discuss um reverence weinberg the roshiva of asiatoru passed away a few years ago actually 12 years ago just a few days ago was the 12th anniversary of his passing on to the next world and he's the one who put together let's say the modern day seminar to try to get these ideas across but this is ancient jewish wisdom goes back to the mishnah the mission is the part of the oral torah and we believe the jews believe that this information was already given at harcinae at mount sinai so this is um very valuable so i applaud you whoever is listening to that they joined us that they're interested in these ideas so what does it mean means to be precise or to be analytical like i said we're this is translated as examining ideas with friends again the i the main idea behind it why would you examine any idea is because you want to hopefully find out if it's true and if it's true then incorporate it into your life so one of the ideas to try to find out how true it is the second thing is it says with friends meaning one of the ideas we spoke about in the last two courses was a famous expression by the rabbis i've learned so much right from my teachers obviously i learned a lot from my teachers what else are they there for to teach us but i even learned more from my colleagues and who did i learn the most from my students so how is it that one could actually gain so much from their students first of all to be honest right when you don't know you don't know and then you go back and you examine hopefully your students are the ones that ask the most questions or um the unexpected questions right if your colleagues or your even your obeying they're going to ask you questions they they already know the answers but when someone's asking you a sincere question i think as as a teacher or as a friend it only begs you to to examine what it is that you're trying to um to to convey to the other person so the main idea of knock expressed in this idea is putting your wisdom on the marketplace right i mean we grew up i'm saying i don't know most people let's say i have no idea who's watching but let's say most people in the west they grew up with let's say capitalistic or um you know the target free free market right so what is going to um succeed the better product right so it's very interesting that when it comes to judaism there is there are laws obviously but there are particular laws about opening up a a similar type of business in a small town where there already is an existing business like that and you would be restricted it would be forbidden to take away someone's else someone else's um someone else's welfare right there they're um their welfare is dependent on on their business and if you open a competing business where it's a small town there are restrictions you may not be allowed to open exactly this you exactly the same type you have to make a change sell something a little different or provide a little bit of a different um service but if it's a larger town of course you know the free market system works and there's enough business for everybody it's not a problem it's not called stealing otherwise it's stealing however it comes to a school when it comes to wisdom that's an exception so even if there's enough kids or let's say students enough for just one school there's an exception you're still allowed to open another school and why is that because there's a concept that says that the jealousy amongst these teachers amongst the rabbis will actually only increase wisdom in other words you you must come up with a better product whether it means more truth right you're you're more evidence for whatever it is you're trying to convey uh maybe you yourself the teacher is more charismatic whatever it is tough luck to the other guy he would have to improve in order to stay in the game right and that's good when it comes to wisdom okay so basically it's putting your wisdom on the marketplace now who are you going to do that with obviously someone you can trust that's why it's talking about a friend what do i mean someone you can trust someone who's looking for the truth right not someone that has an agenda who has already made his decision their decision and there's nothing you could say to them that will convince them there's no point it's just a total waste of time right but if you have two people hopefully they're friends and they're both on the same page so to speak they're both looking for the truth then what they can do is use each other you know to be critical or critique their own argument you know when you say this is what i believe here's the evidence this is why i believe this is why i don't believe the other stuff the other person who is your friend he's not out to kill you he's not out to bury you he's not out to make you minced meat but he's also looking for the truth so there's no reason why you can't reason together okay so the best thing of course is to ask questions i know this is one of the things that turned me on to judaism i wasn't religious my whole life but the the type of questions the the honesty behind the questions and the honesty of course from the ones giving me answers it was a big turn on for me because other places you're either totally discouraged for asking questions i mean or totally belittled or made to feel i don't even want to go into what how what kind of feelings they want to convey to you for even posing such a question but the next the next you know part of the call civil discussion is you really want to ask the person how they came to their conclusions you know what is their evidence right if you're in if you're at odds with the other person so if you can if you can begin to say look if i could show you the evidence where you can show me the evidence i'm willing to change my mind or are you willing to change your mind and one of the greatest ways of learning in judaism has always been it's called a chavruta system where you really focus just one other person and battle out the ideas and i say really battle them out um now the problem is we're all human beings we'll have an ego okay so at times you know and i've learned with cabrous for many years and some of them told us they're my best friends uh you get your emotions and your you you certain amount into the argument and there is a problem with um cognitive dissonance where we've already made this conclusion and we're not willing to see the other side but the other person hopefully your friend will remind you we're here to look for the truth right go poem think about it digest it speak it speak it out with other wise um balanced individuals and see if where you're where you be you might be making a stake in your analysis so of course we do we all know i shouldn't say we all and i keep saying that but for those who are not aware those who are aware there are a famous pair of rabbis and that would be shamai and ill and the truth be told even though we determine the law most of the time almost 99.9 of the time like hillel shami was actually attributed to being smarter and probably maybe even more correct however we go like hillel and what is the reason we're going to go like hillel hillel always always wanted to hear the other side first and he would repeat back is this what i hear you saying just to get it straight so throughout all the halakhas all throughout the shas in the talmud and the mishnas right everywhere you see them having any discussion shamai's point is always the first mentioned and that is because rebbe who comes from hillel he's the one who um codified the mishna of the world torah and he went along that same tradition so how how would it be you you you want to be heard well you have to also right part of a discussion is listening we already discussed that in an earlier uh earlier class as well so you want to make sure the other person is you you want to let them know and assure them that you're listening to them you're hearing them and then you can repeat back even if you disagree at least hear them out now i do want to say something about um conspiracy theories um it's a very interesting dilemma that will reveal you can get lost in it yeah i'm just going to pull this up because this was something i pulled off the internet judaism has a lot to say about these i'll call them conspiracy theories there really is no such thing as a conspiracy theory that will take off and that will continue if it didn't have some essence of truth if it has zero truth it really never gets off the ground so in mysticism we call this world alma de sveka which means a world of doubt it's also called ahmed ashikara a world of falsehood but going back to this idea ahmed this veika it means a world of doubt what is a world of doubt where there's a confusing mixture of both good and bad well truth and false so the fact that there's already even the tree in the garden of eden was called a tree of knowledge of good and evil so when we're confronted with people who and i don't think that a majority of the people that have an inclination to um to investigate i'm going to use that word i don't think they fully believe obviously there are those that will fully believe but most people will hear some conspiracy theory and they will likely hopefully investigate at some point they turn around say well this is hogwash the whole thing is is baloney but the truth is that it's usually not it's usually not entirely baloney and that is where we're you know now i have a couple friends that have really been upset i bet i'm saying it very lightly about all these conspiracy theories that are that are taking off on social media and one of the things i want to mention i actually asked my friends he was interested in my in my criticism and he was not interested he never responded so i'm gonna if he listens to this the main idea that i want to let people know is that facebook is not or any any of these you know social media plays it's not the medium to have these discussions because you're not dealing with friends i just want you know if you're not aware of this but if you have i don't know it's a hundred friends or four thousand friends they're not your friends that's not what a friend is okay a friend is a real live human being that you have a relationship with okay i'll just tell you another thing about this particular friend he won't even answer a phone call anymore only if you text him or you leave of um some kind of recording i find that very strange um you got it we i know this is the time of corona but to actually have a conversation even on the phone is better than this texting back and forth or these leaving of messages these short i don't know how long you can get uh a few minutes and then you're cut off and what do you think it means when you know to have real friends and we're gonna i'm gonna give a few stories of what real friendship is about because that's going to help us understand we're talking about the examination of the ideas but we also have to talk about friendships as well now so the rosh shiva mentions okay so we need more facts right you're in the middle of the discussion what's the problem get more facts we need to understand where the other person's coming from okay because i disguise i discuss this with my students all the time we're looking for what we call absolute truth but will we ever in this world understand completely what absolute truth is no but our goal is to still try so but know that we're limited we're only going to get so far so if i have a group of people and i use the example i put a bottle of coke it could be orange juice doesn't matter a bottle of some kind of cold drink in the middle of the table and we're all sitting around and i say to each one describe what you see now the truth is that everyone will only describe approximately whatever 180 degrees of the label and whatever else they see or can imagine that they see but they cannot see the whole truth we're all sitting around this this table but can you imagine when we all share what we think we see each person actually has a better view of this bottle meaning the 180 degrees they cannot see and each person is on a different angle so everyone is getting um i'll say valuable information i mean if we're talking about trying to find out the absolute truth about this bottle uh and everyone can share and by hearing and listening and absorbing we're um we're getting a better picture and the tr that's the truth now even though i mentioned about base hill on bay shamai it could be that shaman really is the absolute truth but it doesn't matter because god wrote in his own torah that the truth is going to be determined by the majority of the sanhedrin and that's god's rule and try to imagine this i know that many people are dealing with the um you know i forget the word but basically you know man's law or god's law right there's a doctrine isn't it a doctrine of man isn't that what all religion is about when we say no our doctrine is a doctrine of god and yet at the same breath we say that it's determined by the majority of the sanhedrin which are men well guess what that's what god said so it really is god's rule and law to go by the majority of the sanhedrin and the sanhedrin is very carefully picked i mean we've had problems in the temple with corruption but i don't know i've never heard of any corruption that went on in the sanhedrin and that was ruled and uh by the pharisees okay wow the sanhedrin i'm sorry the the temple on the other hand was paid and bought for the quid pro joe whatever um by the the sadducees by the suduki but here you're talking about men of integrity men of great integrity who are on the same head so one thing there is someone who you can absolutely trust and um we find in our the world taurus so much about the integrity of these sages basically the roshiva concludes i'm just this is like the introduction that in order to live in reality we have to be able to master this concept because we deal with people all the time and we deal with ideas on the free market system all the time so definitely do not automatically accept or reject anything right that you hear but rather when you're involved in your conversation you should set the tone make sure the attitude of both people are for the sake of finding the truth that there's mutual respect and you're both willing to evaluate the evidence evidence is a key word here okay so let me just go through some of the ideas that we have in this book this is the book that we're using i encourage people to purchase it online there's a link at least on my website anyway they can look it up you can find it quite easily um look ideas do have consequences right people unfortunately are killing each other right they're fighting the people's families a lot and lives are being torn apart um you can see what's happening in america right now so we need to learn to sit down and reason together that's going to be the main idea so i just quote is thoroughly examining ideas with friends is essential for attaining wisdom and living effectively it means putting your ideas on the marketplace and discussing them with friends and other people you respect and trust but i'm going to tell you right now if you haven't learned the lesson yet facebook is not the place if you have a particular i call it i don't know what they call it facebook page where you have carefully vetted uh every person that they're your friend and they're all on the same page they're all for the truth and they're not out there's no egos involved in trying to um to i don't know what they do they bully people right so then maybe you have a chance maybe you have a chance i think they're called trolls trolls and the trolls are not interested in they're they're looking for uh attention and arguments to develop and uh so yeah i wouldn't i don't understand how people have not learned that lesson right over and over again it's just it's you go to the bait midrash where there's respect so if you want to create a bait midrash so you have to basically be able to vet that people make sure that this is um okay so what happens you start arguing your voices are raised you get angry right the communication starts to break down so you have to at some point you know calm you know would call bring down you know calm everyone down remind everybody we're looking for the truth it has to be civil now there is a statement in perkia vote it's in the first chapter it's number eight it tells you that you should be a judge and not a lawyer because what is a lawyer a lawyer is someone who's paid to defend a certain point even if it's not true i mean for whatever reason his goal is i don't know you know every situation is different but to let's just say his goal is to win the point for his client or their client so what's the judge the judge hopefully is someone who's able to equally carefully look at the evidence and if you're afraid right you're afraid to look at the evidence you cannot be a judge okay so it's very important as it says in perpetual vote that you have to be a judge not and not a a lawyer it says in deuteronomy chapter 16 verses 19 and 20 you shall not pervert judgment now this is truth is even that perky out we just quoted and this verse in deuteronomy 16 seems like it's talking about a judge how and we're not all judges but that's not true we are constantly judging right i i get in this discussion a lot of times when people say um wow don't judge don't don't you know well it does say in our tradition that every you should judge everybody favorably so don't tell me we don't judge the problem is how we judge right we're already uh coming into a situation where we've made uh what you call it um a certain i think they call like first impressions right you've already made certain judgments even before the discussion opened up how the person is dressed how the person looks what you assume his education status is right what kind of family background perhaps so we do we're constantly judging so the question is how should we judge we have to judge pos positively we have to judge objectively so as the verse i meant in deuteronomy chapter 16 verses 19 you want me to read it yeah sure two verses 19 and 20. 19 you shall not pervert justice you shall not show favoritism and you shall not take a bribe for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts just words justice justice shall you pursue that you may live and possess the land the lord your god is giving you okay so basically it does say righteousness righteousness twice we'll discuss that in a second but and the first thing even though it's talking to a judge but again we all judge things do not pervert judgment so you cannot show favor don't accept the bribe once you accept a bribe you whatever that means in other words whether you're a lawyer because the lawyer is taking money and he's already fully convinced or he's trying to prove one side but rather be a judge without showing any favor right this is like every human being really should should accept this if they because we judge all the time okay so i think at the end when it says that you will live and possess the land the lord your god gives you we're talking about the prize you know like in other words you'll have a good healthy life spiritually right well if you want to think of it in in the physical terms that's fine but i'm i'm thinking of in terms of living in the land of israel which is the land of truth the land of clarity okay but that's that's where i'm coming from there's another state famous statement that make and that is there's no joy like the removal of doubts so if someone is living in a state of doubt now it depends how consequential this doubt is but basically they're not comfortable it's there's no joy there's a lot of discomfort let's say so that's one of the main reasons that in the end we have to go with the majority of the sanhedrin like in such a case when there's a doubt remember it says when there's a doubt you go to the highest court and they they'll tell you and whatever they tell you to do you have to follow them that's god's rule that's right it sounds like it's the doctrine of man as i mentioned in the beginning but ultimately it's really the doctrine of god that's how god wants it in this world and this world is a world of doubt a world of sheker and there's always going to be a mixture you know even science is is not conclusive it is the best guess you know when they have evidence and there are certain laws that they have even said have been proven and later on they were proven wrong or they were proven uh with little tweaks and changes okay so you know we have to know we're doing the best we can there's no doubt about it i'll just read what i i wrote here so so there's no joy like the removal of doubts the sages teach us when you've been scrupulously honest with yourself you have to be honest with yourself this is what i talk about in terms of i give a share in shari in terms of let's say recovery programs like 12-step programs uh when you've sinned and you need to get back on the right path if one is not honest with themselves there's no way that they can overcome and um whether find chuva find repentance find any kind of a different way of life because they're basically like like we said earlier in a state of um what was this statement what was the word i used before cognitive cognitive dissonance where they have already believed hook line and sinker whatever it is that they've decided is the easiest path and and not willing to change their decision so when you've been scrupulously honest with yourself and the decision-making process you have to care be careful about the decision-making process as well then all doubts are removed and you experience the most profound joy and that's the result of your absolute pursuit of righteousness right we said righteousness and righteousness meaning the truth that's what you should pursue of making sure the process of coming to the decision was as straight as could be um okay just to go on that um when you should be the lawyer you should be the judge and not the lawyer okay he describes like this what is the lawyer the lawyer argues for the side that has hired him his goals to win the argument so don't be like that you don't need to win an argument the judge strives strives to be objective and weigh both sides of the issue so that he can discover the truth you need to clarify which of the other person's points have merits don't think that none of them have merits i mean it could be the guy is absolutely crazy but at least in most of the times that i have i'll call them arguments but let's call them discussions but they usually are with people who are not on the same page as me i try my best as what it says here is first find the points you actually agree on right let's set the tone to give the other person some credit i mean you know this person is going to walk away at least the way you think believing like you right because you you you've examined it carefully by the time you get to this argument and you know this person is perhaps less educated or hasn't seen all the evidence so at least build the other person up i mean why why tear them apart there's no way he's going to be open to listening to you at least start on this get to the points that have merits that the points that he agree that you can both agree on right and that would bring you further into the discussion again making sure that you're both willing to change your views if there was compelling evidence and that is like i don't know how much that's so important um okay so there is a few stories i want to tell so here's a really great story as i mentioned that people learn one with another right and this is going way back so in the gemara we have the story about reish lakish and reby now how they became cabruses is a story in and of itself i want to spend just a few moments just to tell you how they found each other and that is ray schluckisch was a he wasn't that religious as far as we know he was a thief he lived in the forest much like i guess robin hood robin hood is now in the news for some reason anyway so and he lives in the trees and he would um find i guess what the caravans were lonely travelers and he would rob them he had a gang and they would rob people okay so basically he was very strong very strong-willed and into power like like tarzan okay now what happened was he saw it from a distance a it happened actually it was rabbi yochanan but he didn't know his ruby okay ruby okanan was known to be very pale white and fat uh very heavy as we say in israel very healthy oh wow you look very healthy you're eating well anyway so what happens is he sees him from a distance he thinks it's a woman and maybe he had long hair i have no idea but he goes into the water he sees him swimming and goes into the water and rubio cannot assume this guy thought he was a woman so he says i see you're into beauty you know if i i know you don't learn torah if you would learn torah you would commit to learning torah i would try my best to have my my sister marry you right so he made a the truth is raeshlakis says yeah i'm into beauty if she's the most beautiful girl in the world and you want to offer it to me of course i'll sit and learn torah so he so rabiokinam basically you know appealed to a certain side of reishlukis got him to study torah and they became study partners ray schlakosh is one of the greatest rabbis who ever lived because of his transition of course so what happens so after ray schlakosh passes on ravyokranon is depressed he's looking for a study partner and who do they get for him another great rabbi and after a bit bit of time not very long people see rabbi yokin on very depressed ruby okanan we got you the greatest study part in the world after uh ray schlocker should passed on why are you so down she says listen every time i had an argument with ray schlockisch i tried to make a point he came against me with 24 um pieces of evidence against what i said and of course you know whatever i i i argued back and it came back with all these answers but what is what is um what did you give me this guy you gave me is like a yes man he's agreeing with everything i say well that's not giving me vibrancy it's not giving me life it's not giving me a sharp mind this race luck as well as my sharpener i would say something he came back with 24 problems right whatever i said there was an issue very nicely sent me a very brilliant person but that's that's not what i'm looking for so in the more tinus it mentions give me companionship and study or give me death right it sounds like some great american hero right give me freedom or give me maybe liberty if you if your whole life is trying to sharpen your mind to get to the truth at least to the the truth of truth you can possibly get to you may not get to the ultimate but your goal is to get there if you have a yes man if you have someone who's just agreeing with everything you said so how's that going to how's that going to help you you're not there's no challenge to the position and therefore your clarity is not going to to there's no ladder to be climbing up you're basically i guess at a you know the plateau you know you're not moving higher everything you say the person's just agreeing with you so that's not that's not good so i think that was a very uh important story to tell over um obviously choosing friends is very difficult meaning that a real true friend can be quite a a challenge in life because we we find that we have so many opportunities to find friends but we don't really invest in other words we find a roommate in college or we're sitting next to the same person every day on the bus or even people at work you go to the what they call that thing the the water fountain or the xerox machine right coffee talk that's not a real investment in a friend that's not a friend right that may be an acquaintance that may be maybe somebody who you know by on the first hand basis but a real friend and then now i want to talk about that so the gamora actually gives it's a medrush actually tells us a story and this takes place but it's famous every jewish kid knows the story and we're going to hear a story within a story okay so that's a real hasidis real story we have a story and then we're going to have a story within the story so apparently two thousand years ago during the roman occupation of israel a father he had a son who was very gracious okay so the the the son boasted as a father and this before facebook he says i have a hundred friends so the father says wow that's fantastic right i can't believe that he says why how many friends do you have dad so he says look my whole life i worked very hard to have a friend i only have half a friend how do you have half a friend i don't know but half a friend is better than nothing but anyway he says how can that be that i know you're like a real popular guy a real chevroman as we say in yiddish right you're a wonderful guy everyone talks about you right what how can you have only half a friend what is half a friend anyway so he says to son you know you have to know whether your friends or friends are really your friends right a friend in need is a friend indeed now i know that sounds cliche-ish but we'll hear what it means so he says why don't you test your friends to see if they really are your true friends so the father had an idea knowing that at least murder or if you had been caught as a murderer that the romans would certainly kill you very harsh judgment so he says this is what i'm going to ask you to do okay take a goat kill a goat put it in a bag you got blood all over the bag and go around to your friends and see tell them a story okay he made up a nice story that he got in a fight in a bar and uh some guy hit him and he hit him back to defend himself and before you know it he killed the guy by accident but now he needs to bury the body can you help me bury this body so he went around to his hundred friends with this sack of this dead goat and uh what do you think these friends said get lost i'm not going to jail for this and nobody would really uh nobody was interested in helping you okay so basically the the son returned to his father and says you know dad you're right my friends are not really good friends at all well what about your half friend maybe he'll help me he says you know good idea why don't you go ask him you just tell him that you're kind son so he went to he went to the friend and he explained what happened so he goes he knocks on the door he says who's there he just says it's hayam's son so he says oh you're kind son come on in so the the son told the father's friend everything that happened with the bar fight and having to defend himself and kill the guy and he's got this bag with the goat well he didn't know it was a goat but he saw the the bloody bag and the kid says you know uh i need help to to bury him so the father said this the father's friend says you know i really shouldn't help you but what can i do you're haim son so he goes and he helps him very nice so the son went home and he told his dad you know i don't understand why you call him only half a friend he's the only one to help me so he says what did he say to you he says really i shouldn't help you but since you're high and son what can i do so um see the father says that's why he's only half a friend because he was because he said i really shouldn't be doing this so the father said so the son says well dad then what's a real friend and now this is the story within the story right he says i'm going to tell you what a real friend is and there's another famous story right because it's part of the same story so during the roman empire right there were two jewish boys that grew up in the land of israel they became very close friends one moved to the area of syria the other one still lived in the area of israel they were both under well one was under roman control in syria was under syrian control and the the one from israel went off to visit his friend in syria and when he was there there was a conspiracy right somebody claimed that this guy was a spy so he was convicted of spying on the syrian empire and he was sentenced to death so before he was being executed he was about to be executed he asked look you know they said you have any last request he says yeah i really would like to set all my uh affairs in order allow me to go to rome and to to deal with everything i need to deal with over there so the emperor the the chief guy lance is what are you crazy you're not going to come back is there anything uh collateral you can give me that i know you come back he says yeah i have a friend who lives in syria you know the area uh if if i don't come back you you can kill him so the emperor says what are you kidding me i'd like to see this guy go ahead and say yeah you can kill me so that's exactly what happened so the syrian friend who said yeah sure i'll take the person's my friend's place and be killed if he just returned so the emperor was intrigued by this it's incredible okay so i'll give you 60 days 60 days you come back of course you know what happens he only comes back on the 61st day first thing in the morning i mean you know with his luck he you know to take a boat you have to rely on the wind and it wasn't very you know there was enough wind to get him back on time but he raced back and he's standing there as they're leading out his syrian friend to be executed and he screams no don't kill him kill me and the syrian friend says no you came late i committed you got to kill me and then arguing back and forth this really got the emperor like freaked out it says one second one second this is amazing it's amazing you you guys are willing to die for each other i'm gonna let you both go on condition that i can be i feel like crying every time i i tell the story i the the emperor says i'll let you free or condition i can be your third friend i would like a friend like this this is this is real friendship and the roshiva ends this story by telling us that this is actually written in a torah in leviticus in 1918 right it says love your neighbor love your neighbors yourself for i am the lord your god god wants you to love your neighbor and he itself is the third partner okay so that is a real friend that's complete loyalty what else can i say um there's a few other points this idea i just want to mention this idea is so important about um these conspiracy theories it intrigues me that i think that how do i even say it that people will understand i know that today there are let's say anti-vaxxers that's right they whatever whatever is not popular right there's something behind it i don't really you know i don't care hopefully we won't get censored because of this right every time you hear any of these conspiracy theories there's a little bit of some kind of truth or would never take off our job is to sift through it get rid of the the waste and find out that truth and at least examine it right um i i did want to bring up a possible story that um no so i don't have any notes here but let me just wing it okay like for example i know this could get us in trouble right if people believe that let me just say like this every time you have an election in the united states because it's it's a democracy there's always somebody who's trying to get over the system and vote twice or vote for someone a dead relative or something like that the question is how many how organized and all that right so there's a word it starts with an f right and the next letter is an array an r right you can't even say it the problem is that the censorship the fact that there are people who are not willing to allow these ideas to enter the free market creates more conspiracy theories 100 percent that's what people say that's really my my point here that even these friends of mine that have created this facebook group that are trying to end these conspiracy theories have basically taken a side of censorship of anybody that doesn't agree with them who only has one of these external views from what they claim to be the truth should not be allowed to be heard and the problem is that within these conspiracy theories there is a little bit of truth and that is where we need to examine and to at least to let these people know the way that you can win them over is to hear their idea agree with that one percent of truth maybe even more it could be even 60 80 percent of truth who knows but at least agree on see the evidence agree but doesn't mean that that evidence that's married conspiracy theory is widespread blown through true that's not that's not most likely not the case but these are human beings just like you and the only question is are they looking for the truth and as long as they themselves say uh if you show me the evidence i would change my mind you have to be willing the same way so then go for it anyway that's what i wanted to say i hope we don't get in trouble i hope we gave it over no in a good way and um i just want to stress these social media that platforms are not the they're not the venue they're not the venue for friends well that's for sure i mean look connection maybe you make a private message right i see things that i don't like and i right away i private message a person there's no reason for me on facebook to enter a um way down it's going to get dirty it's going to get bitter it's going to get like it's going to bring the worst out of people so because those you don't know who these people are but hopefully you know who your friends are and you can remind your friend in person we're trying to get to the truth let's see the evidence let's talk with respect and if you're constantly able to remind them and bring the tone down when it gets excited there's no reason why you can't engage in that fashion okay so now we'll leave it for there tonight yeah you have any questions or comments well rabbi yeah i just wanted to say especially since this pandemic started i mean um we saw in my country uh we've seen um like with there was one care home where one of the first outbreaks happened and and believe it or not uh one person incited uh with a rumor and a lie uh about the pandemic and called in and the staff got confused and were in disarray and we'd know it was coming from outside countries and this is way back when it first started the point of the matter is that the person that made the false accusation or allegation ended up inevitably getting charged with a crime and the crime had to do with false representation that actually caused harm and uh i i'm not citing the exact charge at the moment but when you're talking about on facebook a lot of people are are just out there to be derogatory to be like you mentioned trolls it's maladaptive to a level that doesn't pursue that golden nugget of truth and you know since getting to meet you we've done numerous broadcasts together one thing that i've gotten from your teaching sir and you know me i've always been very very in your face confrontation i love how you said today don't shred somebody apart understand that it's about coming together to get to that golden nugget of truth and uh you know my life has been a lot of i don't know i could say a lot of contrary contrary and so i maybe i developed a pattern that just you know you get your fur up you get your back up and it's so needless and i want to thank you for sharing the peace of torah you know and the clarity that hey keep the focus on the prize let's come together and look for that nugget of truth thank you that's beautiful the way you said it so if we're going to wind this down for today have you got any final closing words and hashem willing are we we on for next week rabbi we're definitely on for next week that's rather um look you know there are prayers the jews say before they enter the base medrash you know that they shouldn't um you know make a mistake and they shouldn't cause other people to make mistakes they're looking for the truth there's a there's quite a few things we can still talk about um let me um do i have a copy here no i don't but um it's so important that if we want to live by the truth we you know we're talking about life or death even for our own soul but how responsible are we when we only have we're only guessing so better not to guess like one of the things a rabbi has told is you have to say you don't know when you don't know and i'll get back to you the evidence so this is life or death to be able to say i don't know i'm not trying to convince you of something that i am not sure about myself i'm sure that then many people would be uncomfortable if they invested so much but that's the truth you know you want to be honest you have to be honest with yourself you know be honest if you don't know you have to say i don't know but i will examine how how hard is it how uncomfortable it's you know what's the big deal i don't know i will get back to you i can tell you what i think at the moment i'll get back to you after i do some more examination what's the problem you know rabbi the older i get now and i'm in my 50s occasionally i've got to wear reading glasses especially with fine print i've got to put them on if i don't put them on i don't have the clarity and i think what you're saying is just like hey you know think about it step back get the information get some clarity dispel the confusion so let me just mention because we are about to reach you know purim is coming up in about three weeks so a malec which represents our arch enemy so to speak their gematria the value of the name is the same as doubt suffice the jews who were traveled and didn't stay together as the group the ones who were weak stragglers stragglers they were the ones that were attacked by a mullet they were the ones attacked by doubt and doubt so remember we said that there's no joy like getting out of doubt uh whatever it means in science to get to a point where you're at least as sure as you possibly can be right right any decision you're about to make so as we say shave the lotus sit and do nothing when you're in doubt if you're in doubt it's best not to take action then you can confer with people who are smarter more experienced and you know people you can trust that at least for now as long as it's not life or death you know decisions pray about it meditate on get to the bottom of the matter yeah beautiful it's it brings it brings peace to the soul and uh and and i i think what you've really pulled out is really the core of the friendship i love that narrative you shared today that story no don't take my friend on the 64th day i know i get my you know i mean wow that that there's such profound depth there and um yeah thank you for all you share i know it's late in jerusalem it's now sunday in jerusalem we're still in the saturday afternoon where i'm at and uh um you know my days still got a long way and um i appreciate you taking the time this class is beautiful beyond the seven share in the 48 ways this is part 11. so hashem willing we're going to do part 12 next week rabbi israel so folks till then we're going to sign off and thank you everybody for joining us all around the planet and uh uh those that will be listed in the future till next week we'll see you [Music] then [Music] me is