Another Walking Farbrengen

be like this uh yeah it's good yeah yeah so maybe you'd be in the middle because if you're holding the mic I'm not going to draw any attention a six nine but you're holding a interview Michael reporters Mike walking down Central Avenue um so last week we did this walk and I had a lot of people were concerned about my heavy breathing they thought maybe I was um I was in danger but it was I said it was exaggerated because I was wearing a lapel mic it was right on my chest and it exaggerated the the heavy the panting and breathing so now we have like a reporters Mike tatana so this voice here this Mandy hurts the great Canter the well-known Canter who joined me on a couple of my podcasts about uh rosh hashanahan Kippur daviding I was practicing kill mother rakamim okay and avi's here again as well obvious the founder of the walking fabrina yeah we're putting on calories at this speed I think I think we're doing great I think any movement is good movement positive I like it I was very positive he's very gentle he made it very easy for me to make this commitment because he said we don't have to walk crazy distances we don't have to walk crazy speeds yeah so this week gonna do a rabbi thing for a second sure okay so this week is parshus my favorite really is it really oh yeah because my name is Abra yeah yeah when did you change from avram yes did it yes so um means go to you to you yeah yeah let go to you but don't you see how it's connected to this little uh Endeavor we're doing going the going yeah halika means going it literally means walk right yeah so it means go go for a walk yeah yeah okay and that's what we're doing and that's what we're doing so we're literally that's awesome yeah all right we have a lot of connections I see the streets are kind of empty I remember the last time we did this walk was much Shabbos and you know Central Avenue is hopping hopping on Saturday night last night was busy I walked out I went from like 10 30 to 11 30 with my wife pizza shop crowd and then some crowd yeah you went out with your wife last night you took a walk it's very not what you two nights in a row you're taking walks well one with my wife one without my wife you know that honey Youngman joke he says you know the secret to uh marital Harmony is my wife and I we go out for a candlelight dinner twice a week she goes Mondays I go Wednesdays a drum what is it called a rim shot a rim shot yeah insert here now pizza was packed last night well David's wasn't as busy last night yeah in uh Five Towns uh I mentioned these stores unless they're gonna pay for products shout out no free shout out this is a very popular podcast I got a lot of comments but you want to have something that I felt was like I mean obvi you're gonna I think feel good about this did I tell you I don't think I told you what's that um a lot of people told me they saw what the podcast was and so they walked while they listened to it that's awesome and they themselves did the mile walk that's great that's that's the name of the game that's where it was a one mile walk it was a half hour podcast right [Laughter] by the way one person told me he did it on double speed and he only he didn't finish the mile by the way double speed's A is a real sickness I cannot listen to anything in normal speed people talk to me regularly I'm like could you speed it up already right my kids do that anytime they're listening to any voice notes or anything like that it sounds like Chipmunks talking oh I got used to it it's really really bad because I'm like tapping my feet when people talk to me real life is too slow for you oh my God it's a bad thing yeah streets are kind of quiet yeah it's getting cold starting to get cool yeah yeah it's cooling off it's uh oh you know what it's interesting but this is a very Jewish neighborhood and that is evident from the absence of any type of October 31st activity right now right what is October oh this is that Halloween right yeah tomorrow as as the as my co-workers called Jewish poor what do they call the party they call Purim Jewish Halloween right I was like close but it's not exactly you know that the lab went to Williamsburg in topshin good dollar that's 1950 well it was still 53 because it was October of 53. to be manachoil who lost a daughter well I know and apparently it was either the day of Halloween was close to Halloween and one of the things they discussed at the base oval in Williamsburg was does Halloween have the status of an idolatrous yantev according to the mishnah and avidazada it says certain rules for Jews to abide by regarding their dealings with Idol worshipers three days before and after their idolatrous holidays so what was the I don't know the conclusion but I know that's one of the things they discussed wow and I'll tell you an interesting thing in conjunction with that the rabbit was in correspondence with Rabbi zavin yeah yeah actually who was um yeah and uh turmeric encyclopedia he lived in Jerusalem yeah yeah so um zevin had a friend named gold I think his name was Zeb probably Zev gold who was privy to the correspondences he saw the letters that that ABBA was writing back to rabbi's Evan and he was very very impressed by the Reba's responses and just from reading these responses remember this is the days where there was no internet you didn't see you weren't bombarded constantly with images and recordings and sound and sites of people so if you if you lived in Israel and you had a friend corresponding with an American Rabbi so these Pages these papers were the only thing that you would maybe take a picture of the rabbit but it's not like he had a lot of material from there it was just these letters but the letters were so um they spoke to him so much as a scholar that he started to form a very deep attachment to the Reb even though he hadn't met him just through somebody else's correspondence exactly being a fly on the wall second hand second hand right exactly so he apparently came to the same base level to this Shiva house like we call it in America they Shiva house and um you know the joke about the Shiva house no but the guy's on his deathbed and I'm on the dark human right so this guy's on his death back to the funeral did I just can't yeah you got no that's very good that's like the heimcon movie number 53. so guys on his deathbed and he smells his wife's uh brisket and he's like oh darling he wanted to make me my favorite meal before I die let's bring it here I'll have a little taste I'm very weak but I'll just have a little taste she's like no that's for the Shiva [Laughter] all I want before I go is a piece of Mama's apple strudel that's from the Yiddish for coming I believe was that the same as hello Louie hello yes hello okay so uh this is gold was he went to the Shiva house to the satmarov I think also he made it to New York okay so he had a shy well here's the story so he went to New York and he was at the the samurov's house which I think think is on Rodney it's my settler friends will tell me will correct me I think it's on Rodney um so I've never actually been to the house I haven't seen it but what it was described to me is that there are steps in front which is not uncommon in Brooklyn and um the devil was coming out as this gold was going in and he sees that well maybe somebody told him that's the Bible and immediately clicked with him this is the person who is a schnarism yeah who is watching the correspondences and he's very like he's very drawn to him so he says he says I'm afraid I'm becoming your closet the worst things have happened and that ever sets them with a big smile thus that's why do you have to be afraid what if they do it out of fear become accosted out of love is part of that was language choosing your language right properly always emphasize the past positive yeah well I haven't taken that to heart yet [Laughter] foreign so uh back to Halloween yeah because it's the Halloween we're making a Halloween themed walk uh is it are you allowed to leave like stuff out for the non-jews who come to your home to be a good neighbor mushroom Ava no actually is it I mean it's a pagan holiday I think well originally yes it is it is totally Pagan and see my parents always told us growing up like if we ever had an inkling of maybe we could just you know play with it as an American type thing Thanksgiving yeah Thanksgiving yeah parents were like do you know how many pogroms there were right right on Halloween I was like shut it down yeah then the guilt kicked in that's the tool I didn't finish my dinner starving kids in India no they're at the table for the Russian jewelry the the seat the seat at your temperature yeah yeah yeah yeah with bar mitzvah twins that was like is that a thing that was a guilt thing yeah for sure in the 80s like every Suburban kid you had to be twinned with a Russian refuse Nick kid so this before they started planting trees this is this is after the trees trees were since the 40s the trees yeah double dip for your apartment so you got a tree and a twin and a twin yeah for sure yeah we love this religion they're taking away half our stuff they're giving it to a twin that I've never met and we're planting trees in Israel play some it was before birth rights and not everybody went right but this is like a real thing like you hear once in a while this is like a total American 80s thing it'll be like you're Russian twins family just got out this was it was a totally different reality back then very very very few Russians got out it was a big deal or it was it was the being yeah when Dad got out in 1970. how do you get up in 70 I guess some people got out he actually had a visa to go to Israel in 67 and then the war broke out and he couldn't leave and then they couldn't get another Visa until 70 and they got a visa to come here so he came here in uh in 1970. where was he living he was living actually in a small town called Salish which is where the altaraba's father is buried that's where my father grew up he was born in an even smaller Village a couple of miles away but when he was a little baby they moved to Salish and that's where that's where he lived until he left Russia in that time it was Russia today it's Ukraine have you ever been I was in uman I went to uman for Rosh Hashanah for five or six years in a row but I never I know your wife said to Avi we need you back home right but I never ventured out of that out of there said you really never well you drove how far is the airport from I used to fly into kievable right and then we used to get into a cab and then later on it was like a a mini bus and it would take about three hours to get from Kiev to uman have you ever done that trip rabbit cab no they have a good opinion no no you lost number I was considering going to uh well I said you lost them at minion you're trying to entice you that there's a Chabad oh yeah yeah yeah no you didn't lose me it's just not a draw for me but yeah yeah so um there's a there's a grave in bdichev which is apparently the only grave that survived the desecration destruction of the cemetery it's a grave from the 1700s from liberagodo and I'm descended from him wow so I've spoken to some other people who are also descended from Harrisburg to the clients Lincoln's family yeah so they are also descent from liberagoda we spoke about maybe taking a trip to predictive and go to the no well probably cheaper to fly though right yeah I think of it that way I mean how's your lateral movement go side to side quickly Waters yeah but it's it's a it's a wake-up call and you get there and you really see what the shettle looks like because there's like you go out of the big cities and you're Ukraine in Russia and it's yeah it's literally a hundred years in the past yeah it's like old babushka's on the side of the road pedaling you know yes people moving cows and goats and sheep along the roads it's really like and all of a sudden we're like early years when I used to go to uman they would shut the water off during the day oh we had hot water only after nine o'clock at night like nine to midnight there was hot water it was salt water pumped right from the Azar sea I was actually in Maricopa and it was it was BR it was it was not not brutal it was different yeah I would say that much but uh this is a mile by the way when we get back to where we started it doesn't feel like it because we have such an interesting conversation I'm gonna prepare next time we're gonna be in trouble so I'll tell you what I prepared I thought I thought this is very prepared might feel too didactic but I'm gonna go for it maybe let's turn on chestnuts we don't have to be so like out in the open walking down Central Avenue a little leaders religious self-conscious but that's the basic yeah yeah okay yeah be careful okay this is uh a lot of traffic for Cedarhurst okay um this is like the The Fifth Avenue like in Manhattan right Fifth Avenue this like yeah yeah when you look at the duggage of kid Fifth Avenue yeah so the whole idea we said you should go or literally walk are you ready are you really giving us a heads up to tomorrow's class or this is totally different totally different no I wouldn't do that to you I wouldn't you know I wouldn't uh recycle material so I'm a good recipient I'll laugh so there's not nothing there's no joke I'm not serious isn't it not somber but like thoughtful so the idea of going of progressing of moving um it's interesting the act of walking itself is sort of a metaphor for all types of progress in life because when you walk every step you take you're actually falling and then you catch yourself but the best proof of that we don't think of it like that because we've been walking probably since we were like watch toddlers toddlers right exactly watch your toddler or watch somebody whose foot catches on something and they can't move their foot forward try not to laugh [Laughter] watch what like you know like the booby trap when you have the tripwire in the jungle yeah you know what that's like so you're yeah yeah so your foot stays back you can't bring it forward to catch yourself so then you fall flat on your face but every step is actually an act of falling you destabilize yourself you put yourself off balance and then you catch yourself with the front with your front foot and then you watch what's inside and you alternate yeah what's the bump in the side um so that's a case of the point it's interesting that walking is a constant uh process of surrendering your stability if you retain your stability you stand planted in the ground then you're safe you're not going to go nowhere but you go no move you don't move so that's progress progress is you have to surrender your footing you have to give up the stability that you achieved but that's the only way to get somewhere else and it's to make an omelette you gotta crack a few eggs that's a beautiful thought yeah and then you got to think about like while you're cracking the eggs like if someone just take a picture of the eggs and then take a picture of the broken shells I guess with the the egg okay really cool yeah what did you accomplish well then you got to wait till the next picture to see the fried omelette but if you don't see the fried omelette yeah if you come in the middle of it you're like oh no you had something good and you lost it right until you see the culmination of the process it looks like a disaster looks like you've you took something that was good you lost it now you don't even have that anymore it looks just like breaking you don't see the breaking to heal that's like working out tearing muscle to build a stronger muscle yeah I don't think we're here this is aerobic exercise although maybe me I bet you people are going to ask me to put the lapel mic back because they're going to say they were inspired by the panting it could be people don't write off that you're not panting in this one I'm gonna get a special um EQ like what do you call the the filter yeah yeah the noise canceler cancels out panting yes and panting means you're alive yeah see there's always a way to look at it yeah so that's that's life in general positive look at me wow we're completing the walk and you're already turning positive what do you say about Kanye West uh nothing useless these things don't ruffle my feathers it's racism is scary but I still think it's I think it's a fringe I mean it's not good what he's saying but are you losing sleep from Kanye West I don't think it's a friend at all unfortunately it's a fringe at all I think that the the trend has been very very frightening it's becoming more and more common to have people say outrageous things about Jews and it's totally acceptable and and you know we've seen this before we've seen this in every single generation I don't think that that it's okay and I don't think that it should be minimized it's it's serious stuff but minimizable no I think we should I think we should talk about it oh we're going to get into politics all sudden I don't think it should be canceled I don't like the whole canceling thing because then you're just hammering home what he everything he's spouting it's not about to me it's not about canceling that it's education businesses that don't want to do business with him because he's he's an animal have every right to do that but as the business is not want to do uh do business because everybody's whining they're because they feel because that's what they actually feel because certain things are not acceptable and that's one of them you can't you can't do you got to understand it that that rhetoric and those narratives number one are totally false and number two historically have been used to justify murdering Jews we're not talking about like you know they were not nice to us we're not talking about they said mean things to us we're talking about they killed two out of three Jews in Europe put us in ovens and gas Chambers using those type types of narratives and rhetoric that's not okay you can't you can't accept that and you can't make believe that it's not true I don't think it's accepted what do you think Rabbi is it accepted I think that because of the internet algorithms which are focused on engagement right they have made everyone more extreme whatever you're into they make you more extreme including evil opinions have become less Fringe and people opinions have become less friends or voices I hope megaphones has become less fringed I think it's always there I think just everybody has a mic now yeah I remember when I was a kid one time I was walking down the street and some guy handed me a flyer for Louis Fairgrounds no I bet I have gotten that yeah the final call newspapers uh um no it was like a white supremacist guy and but it was it was this is back in the 80s so it was like hand-drawn photocopied copy of a copy it was terrible but it was really dark and disturbing I remember reading it with like these terrible caricatures on it and but it was probably the first real like racist uh propaganda that I'd seen in real life and sometimes when I see crazy stuff online I think to myself well when I was a kid that guy would just be going to the library making 20 photocopies of his craziness and handing it out on the street corner and nobody would take it from him now it's on Twitter and a million people see it right yeah do you think it's hatred do you think it's just stupid I think people do you think it's people espousing something that they believe and know and educated it and real hatred are just morons being morons Kanye West himself I don't know a whole lot about the guy but he's clearly upset I'm setting aside his his mental illness because to me it's neither here nor there um he's angry he's upset he's got some personal stuff going on and with his family with his with his finances with his business and when people are angry they look for an outlet and unfortunately good or an outlet the anti-semitic Trope Trope is a real tried and true it's an easy one it's like it's like a it's a classic it's a classic one so the Jews are always the classic Boogeyman and from the left and from the right for both sides Joshua to once said he said the only thing that the fire left and Far Right have in common is anti-Semitism all right well it's that game you know the computer game where the thing goes back and forth and uh it's like a paddle and you have to play with you you knock bricks with the paddle yeah so the bricks on one side the paddles the other side and the ball is the Jew just kidding now back and forth between them okay it's true we're coming to the end of our walk so there's there's a concept of Messiah that you're supposed to end with a something positive go for it Ava you got something I don't know I'm gonna let the rabbi take this one we got to know our place you know I think Hashem has a plan and mashir is coming and we all know how this story ends and apparently the amplification of vile ideas is part of that plan I'm not sure I know 100 well I'm sure I don't know 100 that the purpose of it why these things should be Amplified but a couple insights I do have is that just like uh hate can be Amplified today love can be Amplified more than any more than ever before um you know just like you had you had the guy who used to stand on the street corner handing out his his hate and now he's got a he's got a Twitter account so two what used to be confined to walk down the street and you smile at your neighbor you can do the same thing with a platform as well so we can we could amplify positivity spread positivity mayor k ay yeah he's into this that was a free shout out yeah send him an invoice um also I think it's maybe important for us to realize that um it's not just hate it's let's talk about specifically anti-semitism I think the Jews continue to be misunderstood um and and you know what how can you be so surprised because the concept of the Jews is a really wild concept I've been I mean I've been studying what the meaning is what is a Jew what is Jewish identity for years I've been studying and it's such a deep perplexing concept and it requires so much mystical explanation to even start to grasp it because it defies normal categorizations it's not a race they're Jews of all colors I know Jews with blonde hair blue eyes I know Jews ooh well completely dark skin um black hair brown eyes I know it's not a language you know Jews speak English you speak French you speak Russian speak Arabic it's not a it's not a nationality I know juice to hold passports from all countries and uh it's not even a religion because a Jew could God forbid but you could renounce his religious faith and he'd still be a Jew and conversely maybe let's turn around here it's a Birthright it could have um somebody who unofficially Embraces Embraces the Jewish religion without a conversion without a conversion so it doesn't make them Jewish just because they believe in the ideas of the Jewish religion so what I'm saying is Jewish identity it doesn't conform neatly to these categories like race or nationality or language we're not simple that's we're not that's your point well here's the thing it's a metaphysical thing a sphere it's a spiritual condition and the Jewish nation is a nation of Souls and that's a weird concept and so it's not that surprising that people misunderstand the Jews and I guess it's not that surprising that when people are confused about life they make up weird things about Jews because they have a hard time understanding who are these people what's up with them so I think we become sort of like not to uh not to invoke the uh the a meme from last year but you know Jewish space lasers so it's like last year yeah it's so it's very 2021 Jewish space lasers but it's like Jews in space why the history of the World Part Two that never happened right Mel Brooks but why do people say Jewish space ladies nobody's saying that about other races ethnicities because we're not a tangible thing I think yeah that's right so it's almost like any weird thing you say about the Jews almost you could believe right you know like they'll tell you the Jews are from Mars oh really okay it's not funny since I'm the younger younger one here on the group recently you know since this whole uh Miami Boys Choir social IM explosion so there's been other explosions that have come to surface there's like this nanny in Florida she's a non-jewish nanny but she's big on Tick Tock now with the firm World a lot of from people are following her she nannies Jewish kids so you see the outside perspective of somebody appreciating Judaism because he's learning it from the ground up and she's appreciating it's like it's like we take it for granted and people who don't know laugh at it but she's like she's living in it but she's not keeping it but she has but she's gaining an appreciation she has a massive following on Instagram and on Tick Tock and another guy recently somebody sent me who's who's reacting to Jewish videos like positively and he's like it's it's a it's an interesting it's a more positive twist that if you actually sit down and delve into it it's you know if you don't look at it superficially if you actually see what the Customs are and why we do things it's not as foreign or I mean it's still going to be foreign but you get a better appreciation for what it is absolutely so we have to you use the so that those people have to be blown up more than yeah the Kanye West of the world I guess philosophytes I think that's the word well she's been on a bunch of like uh you know Jewish podcasts like uh we're not going to show we're not no more free shoutouts I'm not promoting anymore podcasts but it's it's actually you know it's heartwarming to see and I see a lot of people are watching this guy react to videos he's got like I know it's not a big number but like a thousand new followers all Jewish watching uh watching Jewish guy sing and he's like and then he's learning why is the guy wearing filling why are they wearing a toilet why are they wearing a Kittle why is he wearing what's the silver thing on the tallest so all these little things that we take for granted and we think is normal and they you know people may look at it weird but they're getting an education people are explaining it in the in the comment section and he's you know and they're appreciating it which is a nice thing to see I guess Mama you're going back to the old house I see yeah I'm gravitating back are we still going yeah we're still going you know what I'm going to say is that yeah we should probably stop here but anyways yeah so the um let me looks like uh wandering you're 100 I was very sensitive you you're such a cynical guy that was so sensitive okay I grew up in Crown Heights where like Union Street was like taboo you didn't walk you know what in the spirit of what you're describing about educating people about the Jewish way of life we just uh made a hairpin turn because Mendy reminded us we're heading to the block of the women's Mikvah and it would be the sensitive thing and the modest thing to steer clear of there so we're not going down that block so all the people of different cultures and backgrounds listening to this right now you learn you got a little glimpse into our interesting uh Slice of Life yeah okay let's see how I was going to say though that maybe people virtually taking a walk with three Jews that itself will be uh a positive force oh I didn't want people to think that I don't like to walk down this block because of safety because as you already said you're not afraid of getting my dog is on that phone your dogs are very safe Charlie yeah yeah remember Charlie you don't bring her on the walks yeah people ask me Charlie coming up no Charlie's not coming okay let's see here that's obvious thing he hasn't curved his dog yet right okay hold on a second all right hold the Finish okay good news guys wow 1.46 miles wow you have any kilometers one foot see says my 1.46 Mi run it called it was gracious it called it a run very nice took screenshot okay guys you did it awesome thank you next week we come prepare to the topic yeah Central Evans coming to life