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Okay, good afternoon everyone. This is
officially the timer kabura, but today
we're going to we're going to veer off
course a little bit. We'll talk about
July 4th and the 250th anniversary of
the United States of
M. You see I get my tuition's worth in
Nishiva
and there's a lot of discussion now
study analysis
about the
state of the Jewish people in America.
How gullless America has been for the
Jewish people. There's no question that
on the one hand it's been the greatest
haven that the Jewish people ever had in
the gulas.
Uh certainly surpasses even the golden
age of Spain
both in terms of the spiritual heights
that we were able to climb to and even
the in a way the economic success we
were able to achieve. So the question
that a lot of a lot of people are
thinking about is how do you account for
the
great success that America has provided
the Jewish people more than like what
what were the ingredients of the United
States of America that allowed for the
success of Jewish communities more than
any other place in the world.
So
>> Spanish.
>> Yeah. Much more than in Spain. Doesn't
even compare. The golden age of Spain is
is basically a misnomer. It was like a
few a few years of reprieve between
brutal persecutions. Obviously the main
ingredient in in America is that you
have a freedom of religion
uh in a unprecedented way.
part of that aside from freedom of
religion
even though technically speaking United
States of America is a Christian country
it has never been a very observant
Christian country so on the one hand we
have absolute freedom of religion and
there's no official religion of the
country so we're not really bombarded
with uh being persecuted by other
religions so the first the first
ingredient this freedom of religion,
but that only accounts for our ability
to observe. But for in terms of the
growth and the explosion of Jewish life,
there are some other ingredients of
America that I think are also
responsible. I think uh capitalism has a
lot to do with it.
The fact that if somebody has an idea,
they could pursue it, they could build
it, they could they could grow it. And
it allowed for fabulous financial
success which allowed us to build
networks of institutions the likes of
which we've never seen. You know, you
have this yeshivas on every corner.
Massive edififices,
tremendous shs, beautiful meto that was
only only allowed with capitalism, you
know, in a social socialism, communism,
then you're capped, you're taxed, you're
you're limited, you're you're mitigated.
So, I think the it's not only the
freedom of religion that the United
States of America provided. I think it's
also the capitalism as opposed to I mean
you could think case in point I think
would be aris
look at the expan look at the explosion
of tyra and Israel in the last 10 20
years as opposed to from 1948 to 2000
what happened what happened in the last
20 years the mere yeshiva and all the
explosion well it could be you know
decades of stability and decades of
population growth, but also Israel
uh changed from socialism to cap
capitalism. It's a different financial
model
you know through the current prime
minister was very uh instrumental in
that but and not you know not saying
that was his kavana to build tora but
that may you you know maybe we could
observe that that system facilitates
greater ability of expansion of tyra
here's another ingredient another
ingredient is 5day work week as opposed
to six day work week you know what five
day work week allows for you could keep
shabas cuz you know if you're not off on
Sunday you need a day off
or if you're only off on Sunday so you
got but in America you could keep shabas
and you can have a day work if you have
a six day work week it's a very big
struggle it's a very big sacrifice you
know just without doing a full-fledged
investigative uh study of the
ingredients of of the United States of
America, how it facilitated Jewish life.
Coming what comes to mind off the bat,
religious freedom, freedom of religion,
capitalism,
and 5day work week. I don't know. What
do you say
in terms of uh
where things really changed for American
jewelry is
the msirus nephesh, you know, the there
was a generation where they had to make
a decision,
you know, whether to uh
and in a way you could boil it down to
and this this I personally feel is one
of my main as of today in 2026
in a way my main responsibility is
promoting hakic Judaism over cultural
Judaism
in America people were culturally very
Jewish they wore suits and ties on
Shabas they spoke Yiddish but
they didn't observe Shabas and they
didn't observe mitzvah and observe but
because they were focused on the
cultural Judaism
and look what happened to their
descendants
and look what happened to the
descendants of people who recognized
that it's Judaism that has vitality.
It's not a matter about the language
they spoke or the exact dress that they
wore or the exact presentation. It's
about adherence to the the law the
themed and the that was a very major uh
breaking point when Judaism was embraced
and those who only uh observed or only
maintained cultural Judaism the verdict
of history is they uh they disappeared
and I think in our time as well there is
a tremend tremendous danger of cultural
Judaism where people you know now the
the the levels are higher the the
cultural Judaism that you encounter
today is a people who are shar mitzvah
for the most part but the cultural
Judaism comes plays out in you know
kiddish club or talking by ding where
yeah you know I'm wearing I'm wearing
the clothing and I have the look oh it
says it in it says in Oh, that's that's
you know what they say they have this uh
insult that that's for baluva you know
we do it the way they used to do in the
alahheim where everything is governed by
what did I see back in the day how was
how did it used to be done where they
don't feel
answerable to the they're only
answerable to culture
and I think it's very dangerous
it was very it was it was um fatally
dangerous for the Jewish people in the
20s and 30s and 40s. It meant the
disappearing of families, but I think
it's uh very dangerous today because uh
it's it's a matter of of focus of what
the purpose of life is and what the
purpose of Judaism is. Is it just to
maintain a certain style of life which
ultimately the next generation will
recognize that it's basically empty? If
the style of life is a certain color of
clothing or certain food, the next
generation will say that's ridiculous.
They'll see the emptiness of it. They're
not going to go for it as opposed to
adherence to hala. But uh those those
Jews who were showed nephesh, my
grandmother passed away this past
Friday. Her father was working in the
garment industry and uh the boss would
say, "If you don't come in Saturday,
don't come in on Monday." and he would
lose job after job after job after job
until uh he was able to prove to the
boss that he had more value working 5
days a week than everyone else working
six days. And he was to tremendous
that he has hundreds literally hundreds
of descendants
because of that decision to adhere not
to cultural Judaism to adhere to
Judaism. So, you know, the the physical
ingredients were religious freedom,
capitalism, 5-day work week, but you
know, the spiritual ingredients were the
nephesh that if we're here today, that
means our ancestors, our parents, our
grandparents, our great-grandparents
were miser so that we could be here.
Okay.
