Chanukah on Fire 2024

[Music] okay first of all I'd like to thank everybody lighter for that very nice words of introduction it's one thing to come and speak somewhere once it's a whole another thing to come and speak somewhere twice and it's a whole third thing to speak somewhere two years in a row it's a whole another thing so it's a great honor and a privilege and a pleasure and I wish want to wish you a very warm and and to you all and I I'd like to share with with you all the perspective which I think is a little fresh and I think it's a little unique and I think it can potentially maybe radically change the way you think of the Jewish people and you think of mitzvos and you think of Judaism and maybe the way you think of yourself and I'm going to try to remain as politically correct as possible with no guarantees so buckle up I want to begin with a story when I was a kid I lived in Rochester New York and I used to play basketball in the local JCC a JCC is a Jewish Community Center it's mostly a community center it's also like a drop Jewish and I would play basketball there on Sundays so one day I'm playing basketball there minding my own business and a group of around five or six non-jewish 19-year-old big muscular guys go on the other side of the court and start playing ball no big deal very welcoming place I'm not bothering them they're not bothering me I'm on my side of the Court they're on their side of the Court great after around five minutes I hear from the corner of my ear one of them call that yo D boy get out of here so I just figured I must have misheard even though it was pretty loud so I ignored him but then I heard a little bit louder 3 minutes later again true boy get out of here so I think to myself like I am as welcome here as you are I might even be more welcome here than you are being The JCC so I stayed five minutes after that I don't just hear from the corner of my ear but I see right in front of my face this guy is saying you boy you better get out of here before I make you get out of here so I did a quick you know mental calculation that my 4 foot7 body and his 64 body wasn't exactly a good match according to the laws of physics so I left but I remember think to myself as I'm leaving what did he see in me that bothered him because I'm wearing the yamaka I wasn't bothering you what did he see in me that bothered him what did he see in me that I didn't even see myself and then I began thinking a lot about all the people that hated us parro is trying to annihilate the entire Jewish people what is wrong with you there are plagues raining down on your country you need slaves you're the mightiest Empire arguably ever just go get slaves somewhere else let us free what's wrong with you what did parro see in us that bothered him a mik wants to attack us and annihilate us and kill us we don't even have a land you could steal we're a bunch of EX prisoners in a desert what is wrong with you because we eat filter fish that's what bothers you because we make good cardiologists what did they see in us that bothered them what did antias and H see in us that drove them mad that they we don't even see ourselves what did the Greeks and the Romans and the Crusaders and the inquisitions and the babit and the Nazis see in us that bother them random girl Jewish girls in the University of Nevada who happen to have a mugy do a necklace get punched in the face for no reason whatsoever what is wrong with you anti- anti-Semitism is the single most unique form of hatred on Earth it is unique in four ways anti- anti-Semitism is unique in its universality it's Unique in its longevity it's Unique in its intensity and it's Unique in its irrationality it's Unique in its longevity when was the first time the Jewish people were hated like 10 seconds into our nationhood when was the latest time that Jewish people hated like right the second probably someone in Israel getting stabbed in the foot it's Unique in its universality recently I went to Japan why is mine k a bestseller in Japan there are no Jews in Japan from Sydney to Vancouver to Argentina everyone hates the Jews it's Unique in its irrationality you give me a reason for anti-Semitism I'll find you a 400-year period of time where that reason doesn't apply and yet there was still anti-Semitism we started Marxism Communism works capitalism socialism we're too rich we're too poor we associate ourselves with Society too much we don't associate enough we're involved in politics too much we're not inv involved enough we assimilate we don't assimilate nothing makes sense anti-Semitism is unique in its irrationality you're cramming Jewish babies into ovens 1943 a German yok get a call from a a island off of Japan that we have a Jewish person you want him and they travel a thousand miles to go pick up the person and shoot them in the head A Thousand Miles what is wrong with you what is the Jewish people's unique capability unparalleled in history to annoy anybody they come in contact with I believe the answer is embedded in Kana there's a very obvious question that you can ask about Kaneka and that is what is unique about Han so there was a bad guy and he was attacking the Jewish people and we did shuva and there was a miracle we won isn't that like the entire Jewish history you just open up a tanak open up an Old Testament and flip to any page and it's bad guy attacking Jews do tra Miracle next page bad guy attacking Jews we do trua Miracle next page bad guy that's the entire if you want to encapsulate all of Jewish history that is it we don't celebrate for example the following list of small list that could go on and on what about the bws ofuro falling down victory over the Canan we don't celebrate that no mention of that what about having ative for the victory over the evil cisterra with 900 chariots we beat with dvor we don't celebrate that right we don't have holiday for that what about giddon beating the midani Army who had 135,000 soldiers and we beat him with 300 soldiers no mention most people don't know about that what about celebrating shimon's victory over the ptin what about that what about celebrating s who exiled 10 entire was on his way to Y to flatten it Jewish history would have been over with and the last minutes we do truva and a miracle happens and we're here let celebrate that what about go saving the entire Claus Ro by beating goas what about that what about the entire land of Israel almost being transferred to the Africans before Alexander the Great came and intervened and we it was a miracle we we got it back what we don't we don't even know of these things what is uniquea I believe the answer to this question unlocks sort of The Secret of kanaka and unlocks a little bit The Secret of the Jewish people here's a story so I used to do kirv I used to do Jewish Outreach in a state sponsored school where the acceptance policy was if you had a head you can come into the school so kir was a dream Jewish Outreach was a dream in such a place why because the kids lives are largely dysfunctional and come from a lot of dysfunctional homes and there a lot of them are on drugs and there's alcohol and a lot of dysfunctional relationships so I would hold up a sign we're having sushi and chent and we're learning the ancient Jewish wisdom and you have 150 people show up then I transferred to Princeton University and I began doing C doing re Outreach in Princeton University now Princeton is unique Princeton is one of the best universities in the world with the top 1% of the top 1% there and they're all rich and a lot of them are brilliant they're all driven they're all mostly from functional homes this guy's father's the CEO of Delta his mother has a law firm they are very uninterested in Judaism I'm sitting there trying to get the attention of a guy who has Fortune 500 companies calling him and offering him executive positions at their company and I'm sitting there with my toy chauffeur trying to get his attention Okay let me give you an example I offered them a free trip to Italy free pay for airfare Transportation luxurious accommodations guess how many people showed up signed up all you got to do learn a certain amount of hours of Jewish studies zero uh Italy winter break I've been there 10 times I want to Bora Bora Italy what I have an intership at the White House why Italy what I'm I'm shadowing some member of the British Parliament who are you what are you talking about okay that's what that's what I had to deal with so I knew I had to come up with some form of class to pop these people's bubble I had to say something which would sort of make them rethink their priorities and I'd like to share with you just a small taste of what I told them so I walk into the class after some slightly provocative advertising for my class and there's a large PE number of students who showed up and I asked the following question I said being that suicide is up 37% since the year 2000 I figured it would behoove us to explore perhaps the reasons why I said I asked him a question simple question which age do you think of people commit suicide the most right away they said oh this for sure it's obviously teenagers people in their young 20s you know people who like have dysfunctional relationships and struggling under Financial stress and I said totally wrong according to the CDC it's 55 to 65 year olds now is that so strange so counterintuitive like shouldn't the people with like life basically figured out at that point hopefully have the lowest levels of suicide then I turned to them and I said okay which ethnicity would you say what Tye what group what type have the lowest rates of suicide they're like for sure it's immigrants janitors people of color people who are poor H I said totally wrong I said compared to 497 Hispanic suicides that took place last year and 1,379 Asian suicides and 3,692 African-American suicides upper class wealthy white people have a staggering 36,6 181 suicides wealthy white Americans commit suicide close to 800% more than any other ethnic group isn't that so counterintuitive I said so strange shouldn't the people with the easiest time in this country who speak the language who have the most money have the lowest rates of suicide strange then I asked another question I said okay which states in America would you say would you think have the lowest have the highest rates of su they're like okay this for sure we got it it's for sure New Jersey New York and California right like busy stressful states with big busy businesses and Wall Street and Hollywood Boulevard and Rodeo Drive and the New York Jets right every like obviously that's I'm like totally wrong I think Scandinavia right no way the states in America with the lowest rates of suicide Wyoming with 32.3 suicides for every 100,000 people then came Montana Alaska New Mexico South Dakota and Colorado what so counterintuitive so bizarre shouldn't the states with the most stress run of the states with the least suicide you ready for this California New York New Jersey what make any sense the craziness we deal with the Wall Street and and Broadway and and what I disagree then I think California new get only legal aliens and people are fear for their Liv 100% 100% then I ask them the final question which month of the year would you say people commit suicide the most so they're okay this we for sure where we got this it's obviously December people cooped up it's cold there's no sunshine it's snowing it's raining it's depressed people are trying to figure out their semester they're work they're hunkering down they're trying to stay warm I said totally wrong look it up the number one month of the year for suicide is the month of August wow so counterintuitive how do you explain it August the month of the most sunshine and the most off days and the most cruise ships and the most summer days it's really has the most suicide so I turned to them and I said the f I said every one of you comes into the world with a body and a soul the body comes through the mother's stomach it looks around and it's instantly thrilled it sees that the nurses watching Netflix great the the the OBG pulls up in a brand new BMW love it sees outside of the window there's a barbecue going on love it there's a liquor store love it the soul comes through the mother's stomach looks around instantly confused I left that place for this I left that place for this it's like imagine you had a meeting in the tops top floor of the Empire State building with a bunch of 55-year-old Executives and you come into the meeting and everyone's sitting on the floor crisscross applesauce playing with toy trucks eating squeezy yogurts you'd be like doesn't have anyone have anything better to do with their time right that's what you think the soul is the same way it looks around it's confused and it begins to develop a little teeny tiny ache in this in the soul little teeny tiny but it grows and it's thirsty and it wants something real but that little ache gets buried by the distractions of life it gets sort of kicked down the road the soul needs a degree of calmness of mental Tranquility to come to the Forefront people who are stressed people who are busy with their lives people who are just trying to make ends meet people who don't speak the language people who are just trying to navigate a crazy country do not have time for soul searching there's no room in the schedule but suddenly someone gets a little older there's a little bit more money and there's a little bit more Financial Freedom and it's August and there's a little bit more off days and you live in a place in a state where it's a little bit more laid back like Alaska suddenly there's room for the soul to break free from the jail that it's been placed in and ask the million-dollar question of why did I wake up in the morning why had I not been fed in 30 years and for a lot of people that question is too difficult to handle so I turned to them and I said all of you guys these guys in Prince that I'm talking to are chasing money and power and Prestige but are you prepared to feed your soul there are two chemicals in the brain I tell them that are associated with happiness one is called dopamine one is called serotonin dopamine is shortterm serotonin is longterm dopamine comes from things like ice cream and drugs and alcohol and name brand clothing serotonin comes from things like graduating college and opening a nonprofit organization and having a child and marrying off a child too much dopamine leads to a mental illness called psychosis too much serotonin leads to Limitless infinite happiness I said are you sure you're chasing serotonin and not just dopamine I said how will your money and your power and your prestige and your dopamine help you if you are one of the 47 million people every year who quit their jobs how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you're one of the 29% of adults diagnosed with clinical depression every year how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you're one of the 18% of adults who have severe anxiety how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you're one of the 51% of first marriages and 67% of second marriages which end in divorce how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you're one of the 41% of men and 39% of women who will get cancer how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you are one of the seven 71% of Americans who are unsatisfied with the amount of money they have no matter how much money they actually have how will your M your money and your power and your prestige help your soul which is desperately pleading to be fed so I look at all these students and I say use this time well make sure in life you're chasing serotonin and not just opening and I walk out of the room [Music] we live lives where our souls desperately are looking to stop the ache much like before Google came along the internet was a mess it was a Jurassic Park it was a jungle came along Google and created an algorithm enabling people to search for something online in a simplistic fashion and before Amazon came along researching buying something online it was a Jurassic Park it was a disaster came along Amazon and created an algorithm well before the Torah came along the world was sort of a mess and not even sort of a mess people were desperately looking for a way to stop the ache in their soul people started inventing all sorts of funny Silly Ways to try to stop the ache like bowing down to salamanders or stars or trees or grass or cow manure or sacrificing your only child to the gods of the Sun in short the world was a mess and came along the Torah and created not just in algorithm created the algorithm you want to know the way to live life this is it you want to know the way to stop the ache and live genuine happiness this is it there is according to ancient Judaism only one way to attain genuine happiness and that is with a soul that is wellfed there is no other way no person place or thing can give you happiness other than a soul I'm talking about genuine happiness every single one of the 613 Mitzvah is for our benefit even in this world which is a radical concept when you think about it every single one of the 613 mitzah is our benefit even in this world when other religions talk about Kingdom Come and 71 virgins which is now 72 verses with inflation we have not one explicit reference in the Torah of the next World zero times because it's also about this world because the Torah is here to give us lives and homes with the most light and the absolute best marriages and the best kids and the sweetest children that's why the Torah is here Hashem does not need our service to him we're a bunch of ants he created the world in the Torah for one reason and one reason only to bestow goodness upon us he does not need our service to him he is perfect he gave this set of rules I don't like to call them rules opportunity 613 opportunities to live a functioning good life with homes that are bursting with serotonin and genuine happiness like the says the entire purpose of the Mitzvah of the Torah are for our benefit following the Torah leads to homes with the single most light on Earth you know many juvenile arrests there are in America every single year 700,000 you know how many of there are are in tah observant homes virtually zero you know many drug overdose deaths there are in America every single year 120,000 you know when there are in Jewish homes a millionth of that number there are tens and tens and tens of thousands of gun related deaths in homes in America every single year you know how many there are in TOT observan Jew Jewish homes zero the FBI has a list the city with the most violent crimes with a city with at least 100,000 people the city with the most violent crimes per capita is Mobile Alabama believe it or not do you know the city with the fewest crimes the city with at least 100,000 people with the fewest violent crimes lakew New Jersey on the roock oh is that a coincidence the highest concentration of tot observant Jews in North America also has the lowest crime violent crime rate of course it's not a coincidence listen to this quote from the New York Times the New York Times did a research study where they tried to find the happiest people in America and if they thought it'd be kind of cool if we could study people's happiness and then make an article about it and then people would you know read the New York Times the following is a direct quote from the New York Times March 6 2011 week can review SE c one page three for all the fact Checkers in the room the New York Times resarch staff called thousands of randomly selected adults each day and ask them about their emotional status their work satisfaction their eating habits their illnesses their stress levels and other indicators of their quality of life it's part of an effort to measure the components of the quote unquote good life the responses are plugged into a formula called the gallop healthways well-being index and the results show quote the single happiest people in America are observant Jews this shocked the whole world you know who didn't shock us yeah of course yeah we have the Torah yeah we have the blueprint of life yeah we have souls that are wellfed and nourished yeah of course so when the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Greeks and the Romans and the inquisitions and the kacs and the Crusaders and the B and the Nazis and that random guy NADA was spraying swap because I'm dorms when they see a Jewish person they don't just see a citizen of the world like every other citizen in the world who's endlessly desperately trying to find a way to stop the ache in their soul they see someone who's figured it out they see someone with a soul on fire with a soul well nourished and wellfed they see someone living life the way life is meant to be lived there is no greater dagger into the soul of person than seeing the sight of the soul of a Jew the crown jewel of humanity listen to Adolf Hitler's own words quote Robert wus Hitler apocalypse page 122 Providence has ordained that I Adolf Hitler shall be the Liberator of humanity I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge from the dirty and degrading self mortifications of a false known as a conscious and morality and their demand of freedom and personal Independence which only few can bear The Ten Commandments have lost their Vitality conscious is a Jewish invention it is a blemish like circumcision our enemies have hated us for one reason and one reason only because we have souls wellfed and well nourished because we have homes bursting with light because we are living lives the way life was meant to be lived and therefore we are indestructible because our happiness is not determined by any person place or thing we don't need any other externalities for our happiness it's innate it's inborn we can generate it ourselves now listen to this quote I don't know if I read it last year but I read it every day this is a quote from a Polish reporter who wrote this living in Warsaw during the Warsaw Ghetto non Guy this is the following quote I found a crack in the war s ghetto wall the other day and I stole a glance I'd expect to see humans in their lowest State riddled with hate and violence and abuse I was expecting to look out at the poles outside the Ghetto Walls and see lights while inside I'd see Darkness what I saw shook me to the core I stole a glance and I saw light I saw love I saw virtually zero domestic abuse I saw virtually zero domestic violence I saw children loving their parents I saw families holding on for dear life I saw homes filled with Holiness and Purity I saw the sanctity of their Sabbath and the joy of their sukot I saw the purity of their young Kipper and the sheer happiness of their pin I saw people maintain their respect for human life in one of the most horrid places on the face of the earth I walked away from the crack in the G wall back to the supposed brighter side of humanity back to the streets of Warsaw now rid of its Jews back to the homes with not even half as much light as the Jews behind those walls back to the domestic violence and abuse back to the city where our utopian Bliss has been promised to us by the third R I am not sure what genuine happiness looks like but the Jews from even behind the ghetto wall seems to be a whole lot closer to it than we are you hear that quot I am not sure what genuine happiness looks like but the Jews from even behind the Ghetto Walls seem to be a whole lot closer to it than we are we are indestructible because our happiness is in born it's in a it's in our soul and that is why the kanica story is so unique we've had many enemies attack us the Egyptians didn't want us Egyptian they wanted us dead the Persians didn't want us to be Persian they wanted us dead the amalin did not want us to be amalaki they wanted us dead the Greeks had a whole different plan when other Empires came to a city they flattened the city and they killed everybody in it the Greeks were shim they were the bab before leab were leab they were spreading Hellenism they were spreading Greek them wherever they went they came into a city you know what they did to it they didn't destroy the city they they they paved the roads for you they installed Water Systems they didn't kill the noblemen they married the noblemen to their daughters they instantly upgraded the math the science the art the philosophy of your city we were not prepared for that that's something that spoke to us the Greeks were on a mission to find utopian Bliss and between me and you they almost found it our entire Western Society is built on the backs of the Greeks Democrat Republic are Greek Concepts the three arguably smartest and most impactful Minds ever Sac Plato Aristotle Greek men who basically founded the concept of modern day science but they were missing one thing there was one thing they could not conquer and that was the ache in their soul and while every other nationality got subsumed by the Greeks there was one that didn't why wouldn't you get subsumed by the Greeks what's the pro let them come in and instantly upgrade everything about our lives but the Jews on the other hand had something that the Greeks didn't they appeared to be genuinely happier than everyone else and that bothered the Greeks so instead of just going through the nice route we're going to for greak on you I want a museum on every corner I want a gym on every block the Bas Mish right next to the Bas Manish I want the most attractive Greek women to sit there with bared clothing on all day so the buck the high school students have to walk through them to get to the Bas M that's what I want any Jewish woman who gets married by law has to spend a week with a Greek man to taste what real men taste like we were dropping like FES the assimilation rate according to historians I don't care which historian use from Paul Johnson to barl Wine to Josephus all the same the assimilation rate in the Greek times was around 10 million people every 75 years so if you do the math the Greeks were began the times of Athens and Sparta which was around 490 BC the Hanukah story took place 134 BC so if every 10 years 7 every 75 years 10 million Jews are assimilating that's 47 million Jewish people without one drop of Jewish blood being shed one not even one 47 million Jews finished F 85% of Jews at that time assimilated the only time in history that's comparable is America right now and Germany 1932 huh interesting big right we were dropping like flies because suddenly our homes look so stale and oldfashioned and prehistoric and dinosaur and archaic and their hes seem so Lively and intelligent with algebra and trigonometry and all these things [Music] one family stands up and gives essentially the same speech I gave in Princeton and said my fellow Jews you're chasing darkness in place of light you're chasing your bodies instead of your soul you're replacing homes bursting with love and joy and Harmony and serenity and peace with homes of chaos and dopamine and so we picked up a bunch of forks and a bunch of nourished kohanim fight and miracles happen and we take down the Jew the the Greek army we are celebrating on Kaneka the uniqueness of the Jewish Soul which at no point in history was as in Peril as in the times of the Greeks the entire holiday of chronica is encapsulated by a candle signifying that what's important are spiritual Pursuits that take place in your soul every couple of years there's a major sporting event which takes over the whole world basically it's called the World Cup the greatest largest sporting event in the world and what always fascinates me are the countries that seem to do really well countries like the Netherlands or senagal or Croatia or Morocco or Panama or tiny countries you can't find on a map and I think to myself America with 400 million people is losing to the Netherlands with 17 million people why countries with every medical technology in the world every technological advancement in the world are losing to Sagal a third world country without running water how do you explain such a thing the answer is that America might like soccer these countries live soccer these countries eat and breathe and think and dream soccer and not only that their parents dream and think and believe and are obsessed with soccer it flows through their veins so they become unbelievably good at it the Jewish people are obsessed with life we do not settle for mediocrity if I'm getting married I want the best marriage if I'm having kids I want the best kids if I'm having a home I want the best home and we have the Torah which shows us the way a major theme of Kaneka is doors very interestingly the r nmad page n says you want to know the decree that broke the camels back there were lots of decrees that the that the Greeks came up with bizarre decrees but there was one that broke the camel's back and that was a decree that you cannot have a front door it's just got to come off unscrew it it's a little bizarre that I mean they were decree we were getting raped we were getting slaughtered you had a pris you were killed and they hunted down the mother and they killed the mother and they hunger and time swear and they wacked the baby around the neck of the mother I mean like another time you find this bizarre M the famous poem right yesu we go through each and every Exile each and every enemy we faced and we encapsulate our enemy in one line and we do a pretty good job for three out of four we say referring to the Egyptians they bed my life it was horrible yeah pretty good culation reference the Babylonians you know what they did to us they exiled us we were almost gone you know what did he wanted to slice off our necks pretty good cation and then comes Greek and what do we say what they do gathered found me you know what they did they poked a bunch of holes in our walls um they also like killed a lot of people and threw people off of cliffs and trucked people off of mountains and skinn people alive and raped a lot of people they pumped walls in our they pumped walls in our walls that's the encapsulation the answer is yes because the whole y the whole Kan is a celebration of I have a door I have walls I don't need your latest trend of dopamine for happiness it's in my house it's in my soul I have the time truly tested version I don't need your latest version of dopamine outside I have a door I know how to use it oh light we light he's a door in the human form let me tell you a story so recently I was in Japan really cool place very advanced Tokyo I was in Tokyo Japan and it's the largest city in the world with 41 million people in it so obviously they have a very very Advanced train system in Japan and I was going from the city of Tokyo to the city of Koto Japan 6 and a half hour drive but they have this train called the bullet train which is one of the fastest trains in the world it goes close to 400 miles an hour compare that to antra which goes 2 miles an hour so we're on this train risen by the Japanese Countryside and around 15 minutes before we get to where we need to go the station in toyoto there's an old Japanese man who turns to me and he says um in a broken English if I were you I would you know get your stuff together now because it doesn't stay at the station very long so I I I said Thank you and then I said I I assumed it'd be like you know in America the the train comes and stops at the station for 20 minutes and people get a slice of pizza and they got a slurpy whatever so you everything's faster so it' be like seven minutes it pulls into the station I see I made a big mistake there are people who are lining up and they're ready to jump off the train and they got their little tote bags and in the meantime we have 19 goldade Glock bag we got bomba everywhere we have two we have two strollers I'm like we are not making this we got to make this we got to run so I'm gathering my stuff we got to get off this train finally get am you miss a stop so the next stop is only 20 minutes away and it's only 2 miles down the road this is Japan a train going 400 m an hour the next stop is in another country so I run I gather my stuff we're looking I can't find my son's shoe anywhere one of his shoes I can't find it so I'm like forget the shoe we jump off the train we get off the train and I don't have a shoe for my son and I need a shoe for my son we're going hiking there's snakes there I need a shoe so that we have to find a shoe store now this is not Lakewood New Jersey with a kids shoe store every 15 feet this is Japan they don't have kids and they don't wear shoes so where am I finding a kid Sho store so I'm looking I'm looking they used to be with there we ask this guy go here go there after three hours I find the shoe store and after paying 10,000 Yen I buy myself my kid a shoe and I'm walking out of the store and I'm thinking myself if I would have listen to that old jaes man and would have just spent 3 minutes getting myself together I could have saved myself a whole lot of time and I could have saved myself a whole lot of money life is a fastpac bullet train it could whiz by us and we wake up and we're 55 65 75 and our soul says hello I haven't been fed in 60 years if we take four minutes during Kaneka when we pull into the station it could save us such tremendous heartache down the road I have a lot more to say but I see the kids are here so I'm going to select certain things I'm not breaking news when I tell you that we live in a dopamine external World there was an article recently in a major newspaper which said the following a major crash occurred between a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce and this article goes on and on and on about how tragic it was that two Vint vintage cars like this would crash into each other and it talks about how what a shame it is that they would have to spend so much time in the shop and how rare and unusual it is that two cars of this caliber would be on the road at the same time and how the collective value of these cars was an astronomical $2.3 million and baring at the B bottom of the article is by the way two people died completely irrelevant completely secondary that is the word we live in okay I'm gonna say a bunch of stuff if you get offended I think you're at the wrong party but whatever arguably the single greatest example of the shallowness of the dopamine chasing of the darkness of the world we live in is the day that we're standing on right now and I do not mean Hanukah xmus okay you ask 10,000 people non-jewish people what they are selling celebrating on xmus they will either not know or they will tell you it is yashka I'm going to refer to him as yashka his birthday okay now how many people consider December 25th to be yoska birthday my birthday a grand total of zero people let me just get my papers in order here to get you the accurate Source right here not one date in the New Testament says that his birthday is December 25th the earliest document is from 2 243c from Northern Africa document called AP postic computus put his birthday as March 28th the bishop Clemens of Alexandria put his date in 215 as October as November 18th a different person by the name of Fitz Meer put his date as September 3rd BC not one person claims that his birthday is December 25th so how did his birthday become December 25th okay so let's go back in time there was a Roman Holiday called saturnalia which was celebrated every year from December 17th to December 25th what was this holiday of saturnalia well it was a celebration of Saturn now how did they celebrate Saturn oh well it was essentially a drunken party where you run through the streets and do what your heart desires but don't believe me here is a quote from the Greek historian Lucian who writes the holiday said was the celebration of the human body and it's pleasures and it culminated on December 25th where there were Mass drunken parties in which human shaped biscuits were eaten to signify the worship of the human body and slaves of the state were forced to give presents to the citizens of the city Additionally the day culminated with a large feast in which each town would vote on that Year's Public Enemy Number One and that person would be hunted down and tortured and killed to the Glee of the onlookers okay now Christians [Music] convinced Rome to adopt Christianity and the Romans are like well what about Saturn they like no problem just celebrate it on December 25th as the birth of yashka made no sense right who cares now came along a pagan group called the AA group who lived in modern Germany and the Christians said you want to join Christianity or we'll kill you but you have to but we'll kill you but you want to but we'll kill you and they said sure but we worship trees how is that fitting no problem December 25th we already hijacked saturnalia a day where we worship the body and eat human bait shaped biscuits stick a tree in your house oh gabal gabal then there was a pagan group that believed that an man an old man who lived in turkey and died in Italy named Nicholas was this scary old man who flew across the sky and beat up kids and made them whip them into shape okay so the Christians came and said you want to join Christian we'll kill you if you no but please do but please do and they said well we have this guy that we worship His name is Santa Claus and he's old well what's going to be with him oh no problem no problem just stupid in he'll be part of it okay so the old scary frail guy was kind of unattractive to a lot of people because who likes old frail annoying guys who are whipping kids into shape so a newspaper a magazine called Harper's Weekly had a cartoonist named Thomas Nast who made him instead of an old nor guy from from Turkey because that's a scary place he now is coming from the North Pole and he had reindeer okay it gets even crazier cocacola 1931 has sales plummeting why because cocaine used to be involved in Coke and it was removed it was banned so they replaced it with caffeine nobody likes caffeine as much as they do cocaine so sales are plummeting so what do they do oh so they hire a guy a Swedish commercial artist named Hayden sunbloom who uses his friend Lou Prince as a model and a new marketing campaign comes to F what is it Santa Claus who was originally an old scar man from Turkey who became an old man from the North Pole now is a large Jolly land where red drinking Coke okay there we have it the holiest day of the non-jewish year which by the way is a celebration of the Jewish people being irrelevant right because yes's let's say the obvious out loud here yash's birth is the death of us we became irrelevant when yoska was born according to them right there are millions of people in fact 2.83 billion people right now celebrating the Jewish people being irrelevant that's what XM is a celebration or and don't do not trust anybody who tells you otherwise it's a h pod of nothingness of shallowness and of course Coca-Cola somehow figures out a way to make money out of it that is the world we're living in we light a candle because we have depth we have homes filled filled with light we have homes filled with meaning we have homes filled with the purest holiest sweetest children on Earth I want to end with one more thing the single greatest composer of all time was a man named lwig Von bethoven according to every metric the best he has the most famous compositions his music is played in the most famous venues now here's what's most interesting about Beethoven Beethoven was deaf he could not hear Beethoven was living in Vienna in his late teens early 20s he lost his ability to hear completely and he was crushed so he moved to a Shack in the Austrian mountains and he was immensely suicidal what good is a musician is a is a composer that can't hear years go by and he drags himself to his piano and he starts playing and he makes a composition and he makes another composition and then he makes another composition and from those compositions not only came his most famous works came the single most famous pieces of music ever the standard music taught in music schools are from those compositions how could it possibly be How could a person who's deaf make such brilliant music the answer is that before before he was death his ears were making his music and his ears were contaminated by the mediocrity by the peanut gallery by the way other people did it that he went deaf and suddenly he's making music with his soul he's making music with his mind uncontaminated music and from that music came the single greatest music on Earth the Jewish people are the greatest composers of Spiritual music on Earth you know why because we're deaf because we can close the door and Light One Candle I don't need tons of stuff I don't need externalities I don't need dopamine we sing a thousand years ago we sing 500 years ago we sing five years ago we sing today we'll sing tomorrow we'll sing in the mik we'll sing in gas Chambers we'll sing in ghettos we'll sing in the face of the drummers we'll sing anywhere you want to know our secret because we're death because we can close the door because we have walls that say I am uninterested in the dopamine I don't need your latest trends of dopamine for my happiness my happiness is in eight my happiness is in my soul and that bothers lots of people but we don't care we keep on keeping on every single person in this room is a grandchild of someone who had to look into the faces of Egyptians or Babylonians or philosophers or enlighteners or celebrities or politicians who are six fo seven such goodlooking people man I wish I could be like them and you know what they said they said I will not give up my soul for you I will not trade my soul for a bowl of lentle soup like ASV did they looked into the faces of enemies that wanted desperately for our soul to dissipate and they said I will not give in I will not give up may our grandchildren be grandchildren of people who were able to look into the face of americanism and say I will not give in because the single greatest threat to the Jewish people is not terrorists it's not people spraying swastikas it's a similation it's people who do not appreciate the beauty of the Jewish Home of the fact that the Jewish Home is the single greatest entity on Earth if we can have grandchildren of people who look into the faces of billboards of YouTubers and said I will not sell my soul to you we will join the ranks of Jews throughout history who are called Generals in the army of God and we will live lives with the happiest most light filled homes on Earth and no one will ever convince us otherwise I thank you very much for listening