Q&A: Democracy, Taxes & Slander - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

[Music] yeah um what is today if Lush doesn't apply to people don't keep shabis which is from what I've learned true um what what is the definition of someone that doesn't keep shabas willfully today yeah yeah so so first of all just uh as you know there's a Prohibition called Lush and Hara and that's to say things that are derogatory or embarrassing to a person even if they're 100% true is a very very sever iser uh however uh and the's whole book is about the law of lashar in fact that's why he was called the because he wrote the book anonymously and the P says inim who is the man who desires life guard your tongue from evil he wrote the book anonymously and he became known as because of that book so there are situations where somebody has Hally classified as an evil person a Russia uh there's maybe no prohibition against lanara against such a person because he is not considered to be your brother in Torah and Mitzvah now note that uh the person has to fall into the category of a rajia so uh one of the ways a person could be a Raja is if they publicly desecrate the chabas however the thing to keep in mind is that most non-observant Jews today even if they V don't keep shabas do not fall under the category of Russia uh partially because uh if they were not raised with a knowledge of Torah and Mitzvah uh they're called the kidna baby uh a second idea is that a person is only a Russia if after they have been corrected they refuse to respond and today we don't really have the skill to know how to correct people properly that's a second uh second reason uh and uh because of all of those factors put together oh yeah there's actually a third factor that is it's brought down that if a person would be embarrassed to desecrate chabas in front of a prominent Rabbi which may or may not be the case that's not called public chabas desecration because he does have some inhibitions so if you put all of those different things together that he didn't he was raised without the background and we don't know how to give proper muser today and he wouldn't do it publicly he'd have a certain amount of embarrassment either one of those factors alone is a factor that means uh a typical person who doesn't keep chabas does not have the status of a Russia and as a result it is improper to say lanara against them unless you have other justifications for it I mean there's a whole whole book giving you different uh justifications uh and this applies to a lot of areas this is a very very broad idea uh this is how we justify counting people who don't keep shabas for a minion this is how we justify calling them to the Torah uh this is how many postum justify if they touch wine the wine does not become trafe it has a very broad-based application and uh we don't uh use the label of Russia for for these people the modern non-religious Jew and this is not just like a modern Orthodox leniency this is was said by the Kish himself who said that b the way we have to relate to a non-observant Jew is not by condemnation but by drawing them near with ropes of love and and and and support and the like so even by honoring parents there's at least Aus we shown him if you have to honor a a parent that is a Russia but that would not apply to a normal non shabas obs in which you would have to show them show them honor yeahp would beus also no so so this is this is actually very important this is an this is actually a nice additional uh note to what we just talked about uh we talked about the leniencies uh that we apply to allowing counting for Minion uh to allowing getting an Aliyah to allowing the touching of wine for the Mitzvah of honoring parents right there we bring in all of these things now there is one area where we don't bring in any leniencies and it's a little difficult to understand why the halak is not consistent and that is the laws of being a kosher witness for a marriage for a divorce for a katuba there we simply say a guy doesn't keep chabas he is posle for and we don't make theone of or k or the like meaning has its own individual dynamic in which none of these leniencies apply now uh the truth is that's a very good question if if the tarot just would have said anyone who doesn't keep shabas can't be a kosher witness that that would be fine but the but but the problem is the soul of a shabas for Testimony is precisely because of the word Russia the terrorist says Russ a Russia cannot be a witness and there we Define Russia as including shab and other a so you're telling me for most of those other areas I don't use the label of Russia in Hil I actually do uh there's a bit of a contradiction in the but all I can tell you is that we do not have any of these leniencies when it comes to hus we don't allow it at at at all um this also reminds me of a of a story was somewhat humorous I was like um like a 17-year-old at a wedding and I was talking to uh a rebbi of mine Ina you know was getting married or maybe I was 18 May was a little older was getting married married and uh they approached the rebi and they said uh know the rebi would be a big covered for us if the rebi could be what the witness under the K so the revi started saying you know I never I I never uh take on the role of being a witness under Thea because I during the week I chew my nails and I'm always afraid that maybe I chew my nails on chabas so I can't be a kosher witness so I decline it so the the says right away to me he says oh can you be a wit what am I supposed to say my rebi just said he can't be a witness because maybe he's not from enough and then they ask me oh so you can be a witness you know so I didn't know what to do I don't I don't even remember what I did but uh but you are correct the only question is the only question is uh if a person does these things without thinking inadvertently it's not clear at all that he would become pabas the person who does doesn't think the person who you know bites his nails without being aware of it uh M he would not be puzzle but whatever but you know that's often we tell Witnesses at a uh under the do chuva in your heart in case you have any AOS do Chua in your heart and that kind of will make you kosher to be to be a witness yeah so the Torah never instructed ER to have democra right themus right later on of course in world you know government of Israel has a democratic government ironically this is something that came from the Greeks and Romans which were the oppressors maybe the Torah never instructed it because people were not educated at the time of the Torah and so they would not be able to well but at the same time you know you know that were the case the Tor would have commanded them to be educated really went to the Democracy so you know now that we're on the state where democracy is the norm around the world including Israel now that it does exist is it is it bad enough that it necessitates getting rid of even maybe in the future when things change yeah the question becomes just to repeat it very briefly uh The torah's View on democracy y as an ideal form of government since the Tyra seems to Envision and even command the creation of a monarchy remember that the rambam counts the appointment of a king as a Mitzvah as a as a mitzva and yet uh we don't have monarchies in most of the world or even in United Kingdom uh where they have a monarchy the monarchy is essentially symbolic and the government is a democratically elected government uh so what is The torah's View on democracy versus monarchy and the like so what's very very interesting is this first of all let me point out Winston Churchill himself uh once remarked that democracy is the worst form of government ever invented except for everything else meaning he said democracy itself doesn't always work and to be a little pedantic it's not really that important for our purposes uh what you're talking about is not democracy what you're talking about is Republican form of government uh not to be confused with the American parties democracy is literally where everybody gets into a room and makes their decisions these were New England Town meetings where democracies Republican uh democracy again not to be confused with the American parties is when you elect people uh who then carry out your action but you're not directly involved in the action itself but be it as it may what is the torist view under democracy so I would tell you that it seems to be a very interesting M the rambam who counts the appointing of a king as a positive commandment there's a to have a m seems to take the position that monarchy at least if it's regulated by the Torah by the Torah is superior to democracy because you have a single leader who will carry out the Mitzvah of the Torah without all of the confusion of democracy now let me point out that the rambam's notion that monarchy is better than democracy is referring to a monarchy that is based on the Torah meaning even the Ramba might admit that if you don't have a monarchy that is subservient to the Torah maybe democracy might be might be better like Churchill said it's democracy has its problems but it's better than the alternative now let me point out that there is one interesting dissenting view in our tradition know he's not a posek that actually says that even under The torah's View democracy would be better than monarchy and this is uh the commentary of the abarbanel now barbanel was a very very interesting person uh y abarbanel who is known as Don y because he was part of the Spanish nobility was the finance minister of Spain of Aragon during the Reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella he was the one who financed the Colum Expeditions uh to the new world he was very very brilliant very very talented and this was during the time of the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in which Jews were ordered to either convert to Christianity or be burnt at the stake or get out the abarbanel was given permission to remain in Spain as a religious Jew because they needed him but he refused he did not accept the over and on the 9th of Av of 1492 he led a procession of Jews out of Spain it's recorded interestingly enough that um he gave aaka that they could play music as they were leaving because they were so despondent so brokenhearted they needed to be picked their Spirits needed to be picked up uh so the ab barbanel was in his 70s at the time and he was at the head of the procession just a little detail here and at the end of the procession was a mother holding a four-year-old boy and that four-year-old boy was Ros Kyo who grew up to become rioo the author of The but he was four years old when being expelled from Spain he went to Constantinople and then eventually came to AR Israel the barbanel wrote voluminous commentaries voluminous commentaries on Torah and on Nim and on the book of danil most of theam he did not cover barban's commentaries are so long that people don't read them as much but they're filled with very very great insight and in both partim which is the Mitzvah of appointing a king and in the book of shmoel where they appoint a king the Abel discusses the comparative merits of uh democracy versus monarchy and there ranel says not like the ramb not like the rabam that appointing a king is not a Mitzvah at all because the tah says if the people ask for a king this is what you give them but there's no Mitzvah to ask for a king and there's no Mitzvah to want a king and the barbanel says he and this is very he's very autobiographical he says from his own personal experience he sees how despotic kings are and how unreasonable they are and how cruel they are and at least with democracy you have elections you have turnovers you have term limits and therefore people are afraid to be dictators when they're in power because a few years later they'll be out of power and the same thing can be done to them and his model of what would be an ideal government system uh were the Italian city states which actually had Democratic elections and the like and that's where he went after he left left Spain so it's interesting that the r clearly Advocates monarchy as the desirable form of government if it is suburbian to the Torah the barbanel considered monarchies out of his personal experience to be dangerous and elected representation was much more conducive to the betterment of society so the barbanel really speaks to the modern political philosophy of looking for democracy again I have to say the ranel is not a poac and therefore I wouldn't say that uh his teachings are are definitive but it's a very very interesting perspective now let me mention yet a third view the view of rev cook and rev cook says that a monarch that that the idea of a Mel is love D hereditary monarchy but Mel is whatever Society accepts as its operating government and therefore R cook would say Haka allows Society to have a Mel in different forms you can have a Mel by a single person that's a king or you can have a Mel by a representative form of government or you can have a Mel by a three branches of government let's say like the United States so that's R cookes in which he he redefines Mel not as monarchy but as a centralized form of government and the Tyra gives societies the the freedom to structure the government in the way that is best for them yeah also another another issue right is that Mia will come right but the issue is how can you know a democratic system be maintained to support a Messianic system because by definition a Messianic system would have to be yeah yeah yeah I I think that's true in fact I have to say that side by side with barban's anti-monarchy uh position and his advoc his advocacy of democracy the the the barbanel is one of the greatest writers on mashiah he has other books about mashiah and clearly even the model he describes is mashiah is a hereditary Monarch a descendant of malus B but I would give two answers to that answer number one is that yeah mashiach will be the perfect person meaning in the imperfection of human institutions the abos monarchy can be very destructive when Messiah comes the world's going to be in a different place and we can all be unified under one great leader just like Moser Renu in the desert so the dangers that monarchy poses are not going to be there when mashiah comes uh but the other answer would be that I don't know exactly what's going to be when mhia comes but you know um democracies can coexist with monarchies at the same time meaning uh the Monarch is the boss but there'll be numerous local decisions about uh maybe tax collection property taxes garbage collection electricity Health regulations you know mashia doesn't have to be involved in every single decision every city is going to make so theoretically it might be that the normal government functions of things might in fact be based on some type of democratic representation because doesn't have to be involved in you know how often your trash is going to be collected or a snow removal or what right those going to be problems even when mashia comes so I think the two systems of government can in fact coexist uh yeah um when was leaving from L's house it says that he left and he sent three days of travel and then L caught up to him within one day so could say it was four days in between then the the question is what was she still doing with the TR four days later yes so the question becomes uh Rael took truim truim are normally understood as Idols or things that can be used to predict the future through idolatry and uh Lavan wanted those truim he pursued Yakov and uh he searched and didn't find because rule was sitting on top of the truim and she said she can't get up uh now the question is this if if if I'm just repeating a question if we normally understand that Rael took the traim to keep to separate take away a v Zora from uh from the house then she should have destroyed it right away I mean she should have stolen it destroy it why would she take it and keep it and there's apparently she kept it she kept it for at least as you as you note at least for 4 days why didn't she actually destroy uh the truim uh it is it is it is a very good question in fact uh there's a related question that Yakov finally commanded everybody to Barry the abod Zora that they took uh why didn't he say destroy it why bury it burial is not actual destroying but it could be I guess it could be I I I didn't see an answer directly that Rael wanted to preserve the physical evidence of aidara from her father's house so that none of their descendants should ever be tempted to go back meaning they might think oh lovan must have may have been a righteous person and maybe we ought to reconnect in some ways so the aoar was a reminder just know where I came from know the society that I came from this is what they did they worshiped these Idols they worshiped these statutes and in that way it would be kind of an eternal memory Soo thought perhaps uh to prevent uh her children or B from ever going back to that environment now the truth is that would be an incorrect you don't keep a with thatman but it could be that this was thees that that that she made um any question yeah it's very common for businesses especially self-owned businesses Tolo their expenses overhead and minimize profit margins to pay less in taxes if we say that the amount of money that a person is to get a year is predetermined believe makes no difference if one is completely honest when pling their taxes or if one under reports them because our income is predetermined yeah yeah yes so the question becomes that people often engage in the practice of overstating expenses and or understating income and in that way they pay less taxes and therefore they have more money uh the question is can that possibly work at all uh given the fact that Hashem decrees on on rashash yum Kipper what your income is going to be so that would mean uh you can't really get ahead uh meaning if you save on your taxes there'll be something else that's that's going to be used up yeah so that that is a very good point first of all let let me go back one step and the idea of uh evading your taxes one one needs to know that helically as a general rule uh a Jew is obligated to pay the taxes of a secular government and this is based on the principle of in the G the civil law of the land is binding on me so if I engage in tax evasion I am violating not just violating a secular law there are different discussions whether this applies in erel there is a famous run in theor that is quoted that does not apply in ER Israel which must only be governed by the laws of the Torah however I don't want to get into this it's too long of a discussion thean is not talking about a Jewish State thean who wrote in the 1400s is talking about a non-jewish state in Israel like Christians or Muslims which by definition is not a legitimate malus and therefore the Ran's words have no application to a Jewish State uh it's a different type of question and therefore using the r is improper but putting aside for sure there's a to pay pay taxes now your question is if a person wrongfully tries to not pay his taxes is it possible he will come out ahead so here there's AAR that says that the very first question Hashem is going to ask us after we die the very first question is did you conduct your business uh with amuna now amuna has a double meaning and you should see that both meanings are connected one meaning of amuna is honesty and integrity did you conduct your business with honesty that's Pat number one Pat number two is did you conduct your business with believing that Hashem is the source of your parasa in Hashem both are connected to each other because if you believe that God determines your income then it's impossible for you to believe you will come out ahead by cheating because how is God going to give you more money if you violate his commandment which means there's certainly a strong argument based on this gamorra that one will not come out ahead by cheating however you have to understand that there are differences sometimes between short-term and long-term meaning to say we say crime doesn't pay well people well what do you mean crime doesn't pay yeah plenty of people do very well with crime Hashem looks at things in a longer picture meaning to say maybe God will let you get by this year but he'll give you less next year than he would have given you which means this may be a longer term process it's not automatically going to mean that you're not going to come out ahead this particular year you see even judgments of this year can be modified but then they'll be taken into account in future years so I think we can say that in the long run uh you will not come out ahead uh but in the short term there may be some some material benefits of course spiritually you're going to get punished in inah for this but there may be a short-term short-term gain yeah um okay any yeah why did the go to such great length construction M why did uh who go oh why does the yeah yeah a description of the mishan extraordinary detail detail after detail after detail we have Paras truma God says it to Moshe and then Paras sa we have more details that God says to Moshe and then in parasa Hashem continues and then vak Moshe says it to B Israel and in PUD we actually do it note there are three narrative structures here God to Moshe MOS is and actually doing it now we know the tah does doesn't waste words so in truth after giving us what God Said to Moshe it could have just said Moshe said to B Israel whatever Hashem told him and then it could have said B Israel did whatever Moshe said and yet every single time it spells it out A to Z God said to Moshe A to Z Moshe said to B Israel a to z b is did A to Z extraordinary arus uh repetition uh saying the same thing over and over and over again and the question is the Torah is normally very very economical with words so if something could have been conveyed by one word and it says two words we have AA and we even Daran letters an extra letter an extra whatever it will be it it is it is a good question and the truth of the matter is uh we don't have a definitive answer unless you resort to cabala and very mystical ideas it is said that the mishkan is actually a symbolic representation of a human being and reaya points out all of that and therefore every single detail in the is how we bring the sh into our heart and into our soul how do we do it uh because remember the ultimate idea of a mishkan as the says hasem says make for me a Sanctified place so I will dwell in them so the famous dras it doesn't say I will dwell in it it says I will dwell in them the purpose of mish the purpose of B mikdash is to bring the sh into our heart and into our soul and the molum explained that every single aspect of the architecture of the mishkan corresponds to a different aspect of the human soul and the human personality andaya points out there are 63 Commandments connected to the mishkan and they correspond to the 240 bones in the human body and the 365 Senus or ligaments in the human body and each SEO corresponds so Al cabala this is extremely important information because it is describing the the ability to reveal Hashem within your own Nish within your own body uh to make yourself a mishun for fores and this is so important that the Torah even repeats things uh over and over again because that is often one of the ways that the tah is communicating how Central and important this is it is very amazing because things like chabas which of course are so Central have much less space in the Torah than than mishkan right mishkan has many more psim than chabas uh but that's because of the centrality of its of its importance the other thing though you need to know and we don't have time to go into this is when the Tyra repeats something it very rarely if ever repeats it the same way and one of the things when you learn Kish that you have to be very attentive to is when Hashem said something to Moshe he said it a certain way when Moshe says to B Israel he said it a little bit of a different way when B Israel carried it out they did it a different way than they were told so some some of these are very subtle but sometimes through the repetition and the differences there are many lessons that you get meaning it's not just they did exactly what Hashem told Moshe there were deviations there were shim there were hos and those hosas have major major lessons yeah I know in the front yeah um if if the generations since we were exiled from Mar are going down in caduca like our our souls and the things that we do and the overall culture of the world just goes down in Holiness and Purity how is it that today people that do keep ter mitus have to face much higher in thisness so like are are we are our souls more more holier than they used to be or are they like getting wor the time and it's just like are they better than they used to be or Worse yeah so the question is we normally go with the idea that when it comes to spirituality uh there's we get lower as we leave Matan Torah uh we are lower than the preceding Generations Asal say if the earlier Generations were like angels we are like people and if they are like people we are like donkeys nkos and yet you're raising the question that the challenges we Face seems to be greater than the challenges of our of our ancestors how could it be that people who are spiritually less are facing challenges that are that are greater uh again an interesting question uh but first I think we have to you know maybe maybe the statement is just not true uh we have great challenges to be sure there's no question that we Face great challenges but it's not necessarily the case that the challenges are greater they might be different uh but it's not like oh gee we're facing challenges that our ancestors you know could you know would never face you know it could be every generation has its own challenges but there's another aspect that you need to keep in mind and that is uh there's an old saying which is originally from a secular Source but not Kaz but mafor Incorporated that a on the shoulders of a giant can see further than the Giant the is much shorter than the giant but when the is on top of the Giant's shoulders the can see further than the giant so yeah we might be like midgets but there may be there are spiritual strengths that we get from the cumulative impact of the generations that are before us so it's not that we are greater Souls but we might have Superior capacities in some areas not because we're greater but because we're building on the foundations that we were given I mean let me give you an example you know we often talk about the AA a is so great because he was willing to give up his son to a KES well obviously that's a supreme sacrifice but the truth of the matter is it's not unique to Aram there have been generations of Jews that have given up their child for kides hasem I don't mean kill them but you know they see they child die in the Holocaust or whatever ever it would be meaning you could you could actually say of course it's a great sacrifice but does that make Abraham so uniquely greater than all of the Jewish parents who saw their children die and the answer is well yeah but the capacity of parents to do that is because they got it from Abraham Abraham was the first one who was willing to do that so you have to understand that it's not that we're better but we're like the midgets on the shoulders of giants and therefore we get accumul that's even an answer about mashia you know we say we got to bring mashia by Torah and by good deeds and and we got to bring mashia so somebody might said well wait a second here all the generations before us who were so much greater their good deeds and their and their Torah couldn't bring mashia so how is it going to be possible that I can bring mashiah much less than them the answer is it's not theat you're going to bring mashia imagine that you know in order to get to mashiah you got to climb a wall That's I'll make up a meaningless number that's 10,000 feet high so you can ask well if they couldn't climb the wall how could I climb the wall the answer is they built up a mound of 99,999 Ft so you don't have to scale a 10,000 foot wall you only have to scale like you know 1,000 foot wall because your building mashiah will come with the cumulative Merit of all of the generations of Israel so that would apply out that would answer how we can deal with difficult challenges even though spiritually we are uh lowering the final point I want to make which is not directly an answer to your question is that you do you do have to understand N katos means exactly does ncat Doos mean every single person of the earlier generation was greater than every single person of the newer generation no La dka it could very well be that there are sikim today who were greater than even sadik then but it really refers to the the the ultimate leaders the leaders the GM of the past were greater than the gdm but on the on the lower level you don't necessarily have this automatic thing it's not as mechanical as as you might say yeah should I react when I hear a like saying that saying things like women's whether taking such similar matters of obviously not good things but taking to extreme levels of severity um yeah little background referal uh the one of the great russas at University was a very very big uh and a poac and someone that I respect enormously and we all should respect uh very very enormously uh you know issues suck him all the time he's he's a posac and a few years ago it's been a while already it's not a recent pronouncement when there was some discussion about women on the kind of the left more leftwing part of Orthodoxy having their separate prayer services and there separate Torah readings and the like and he was asked uh is it allowed Etc so he didn't just say it was AER he said much more than that he said something like that Yar y that means you must die before right a woman must give her life I mean again the scenario itself is unlikely someone goes over to to a woman and says go to This Woman's Minion or I'll kill you so RAR would say she must give her life before she goes to a a woman's minion so essentially what that's saying is uh women's minion are worse than eating TR women's M are worse than eating AUM Kipper women's M are worse than desecrating chabas right someone goes over to me and says be M chabus or I'll kill you I'm chabas but somebody says allow a woman's minion in your shoulder I'll kill you your hard right so the question becomes what do you make of what seems like a very very extreme pronouncement so again I you know I can't speak for aor I'm not uh I I can't read his mind there are a few possibilities sometimes sometimes I hate to say this uh these things are rhetorical uh flourishes meaning he's saying it's improper and know he's being emphatic by saying you're hor like people might say uh you know and they do say it uh introducing arithmetic in erel in seventh grade is in you don't have any secular studies right well is that really I don't think so okay but the other thing that was very deeply concerned was this there are two different issues here uh it may very well be that a woman's prayer service May violate certain Halos but those are not they're not a they're not de but was concerned for a concept that the Mah much earlier called a falsification of Torah in which you're redefining the rules of Torah and that's a long-term danger meaning it's one thing when a person sins and we know it's a sin and it's clear that it's a sin okay so we'll say you're allowed to sin but when the sin has a certain danger of redefining what Yiddish kite is uh then the Marshal actually says we have to give our life before we permit a falsification or Distortion of the Torah so R's concern by the way I'm not saying I even agree with it I'm just saying what his concern is R's concern is that the movements of feminism and and the like we're actually going to redefine what Torah Judaism was create a new picture of Torah Judaism and that he considered to be a falsification of the Torah and for falsification of the Torah you have toh be willing to give your life do you see the difference the difference is a sin that is acknowledged as a sin versus a redefinition of a standard When sin is acknowledged as a sin and the question is am I allowed to transgress it to save a life so we're very make that's where P comes in but where the sin is going to redefine the standard of what Torah is the Marshal says uh you got to give your life before you before you do that so RAR invokes the term that the maral uses called zor Z Torah is falsification of the Torah now the EMS is yeah the marsh does say Z and is basing himself on the marsh but I do want to point outson says we don't pin like the marshals actually says Z is the same as any other prohibition and there's no particular to give up give up your life uh yeah as much as possible does it also apply to dress you know the most relig gr are dress W suits you know there was an emulation on the part of dress but you know now that it's become the standard there no longer a transgression of that maybe it was only transgression of the time it was first adopted or first emulated and also does it does it even apply to and we exercise we don't have our own sports games that Jews invented themselves we we play basketball which is a sport which was invented by non yeah yeah yeah now the thing about uh permit me a little digression um somebody asked KV you mentioned basketball are you allowed to play basketball in chabas so kessi asked the obvious question say what's basketball he says well you throw a ball and it goes through a basket so kineski said so why don't you put the ball in the basket before shabas you don't have you don't have any you don't have any problems so so uh I thinki did not play basketball that much I think is is clear maybe soccer perhaps but uh maybe basketball wasn't so PO for in Israel in in those years uh but your question there is an isra in the Torah called you shall not follow the ways of the idolators who live in AR Israel and therefore there is indeed an idea don't imitate uh the go and your question is well how far does that go uh we have western dress uh we play Western Sports uh we do all sorts of things that the go do what don't eat lunch because go eat lunch you know what what is that right everything is so the point out an important point that the of only apply number one if the Customs or practices have some connection to idolatry or rejection of gods or or there's a second front or if they just represent foolishness and stupidity and do not have any type of logical basis like superstitions or the like which would ultimately the two are very related because often things that are stupid or nonsensical probably happen had their origin in idolatry but the types of accommodations that make sense let's say western dress right I so I wear a shorter jacket instead of a longer jacket let's say because longer jackets drag in the mud and shorter jackets don't drag in the mud so there's a logic to it things that are that are logical and reasonable the fact that they came from the goam uh there's no reason to condemn that per se now this gets into an interesting question about h and Thanksgiving and the like um you know when I was growing up and I I went to an Orthodox Jewish Day School uh we celebrated Halloween we would go out in those days uh you know you wore a costume and you did trick-or-treating this was done in the Orthodox Community today trick-or-treating B is down even among go simply because it's now dangerous they put razor blades whatever it is the society changed but you know in the olden days you know so the interesting question is okay Halloween is not a religious holiday anymore so is there anything wrong with trick-or-treating right what's wrong with Halloween so some point out that Halloween was either connected to aod Zara at some point or if it's not it's foolishness so either way it's going to fail it's either going to be the aod Zara prank or it's going to be the foolishness prong so as a result religious kids should not uh do trick-or-treating in Halloween that's why Hashem gave us porm porm is kind of porm is our Jewish Halloween I shouldn't even say that uh for is a very holy day but you know you get to dress you get to put on a costume and uh you know whatever you collect right so whatever they have in Halloween we have in porm plus the kadha of porm but that would be an example uh by the way as a little aside about Halloween I do know for a fact that that uh there wereas who had candy prepared to give to kids who are trick-or-treating because they felt it would be not to give it to the kids who ring the doorbell or whatever it is but they themselves would not let their children do trick-or-treating so this is based on a Chua of the Marik very very important Chua that condemns only those things that are either connected to idolatry or things that are called things that are just called foolishness with no logical basis and that might be the difference between Thanksgiving and Halloween uh a very very big question is um is an orthodox Jew a Torah observant Jew allowed to make a Thanksgiving meal now Thanksgiving for many people uh might be potentially a very useful time to meet with family let's assume that a person is a g his family is not Jewish well he can't go to Christmas dinner he can't go to Easter dinner those are non-jewish holidays you can't celebrate idolatrous holidays that are connected to yashka but people say well okay so what about getting together for Thanksgiving Thanksgiving uh yeah the pilgrims obviously had yashka in in in mind but Thanksgiving I make Thanksgiving to God Etc the fact that it's the same day is is there a particular problem so it's a big uh rosha Feinstein actually held that it was not proper to observe Thanksgiving because it was a festival that was established in honor of the Christian God and therefore for me to participate even without that kavana is others took a position that it's a generic idea of expressing gratitude to Hashem whatever you're of Hashem is and therefore it's legitimate for a Jew to do it R salek of is University uh used to leave you know he used to he used to commute from New York to Boston he lived in Boston but he taught in New York uh his Tom Mo when it was Thanksgiving he gave his share early to get back to Boston in time for Thanksgiving dinner so there's a big mocus so what they do in the ASA world is this they say the following they say hey uh get your turkey uh before Thanksgiving because turkey is cheaper before Thanksgiving but don't serve it on Thanksgiving serve your turkey Lov chabas so get the turkey but give the turkey dinner for chabas and not for Thanksgiving but once again the makus there too would beos uh and the question is do I look at Thanksgiving as an idolatrous festival or do I look at it as a neutral idea of expressing gratitude um one of the three conditions is have to take the food from the waste and not to waste from the food but with within that condition there's an exception if the food is inaccessible for inst like a peel like if I'm peeling an egg I can't take the food from the waste I have to take the waste so the question is when does this rule kind of start and when does it stop for instance I'm peeling an egg and I peel technically I don't need to the rest but it seems that no one discusses this and it seems everyone does it it's fine yeah yeah after it even there usually know teeny of PE but am I still within the ACT yeah yeah so that's a that's a good question again just to familiarize people uh one of theas of shabas is bow rare when a good matter that you want edible matter let's say in the case of food is is mixed with inedible matter so there is a general rule that you're not allowed to separate those types of mixtures but in the case of food if there are three conditions all three conditions you can do it you take the good from the bad meaning what you want from the bad uh you do it right before the meal you don't do it a long time before and you don't use utensils like sifters that are Lia you do it with your with your hand so the general rule of Boer the very first condition is that it be the good edible from the inev from the inedible so uh when you're eating chicken or whatever it is that has some skin that you don't want to eat you got to cut the chicken away from the skin you don't cut the skin away from the chicken now I'm just repeating your question obviously there are situations where this starts off to be impossible let's take a hard-boiled egg uh that's in a shell and let's take a fruit like an orange now there when you're peeling the orange or you're peeling the egg you can't take the good from the bad because you can't reach the good until you remove the peel or the shell so as a result H basically says that when something is begetter kipa kipa is an inedible shell around the fruit of the egg so you're allowed to take the bad from the good because that's the only way you're going to get to it so your question is okay I understand the first peel is that way I'm exposing the fruit exposing the egg uh but at some point uh enough of the fruit is exposed so the question becomes do we then revert to the rule that it got to be good from bad and not bad from good or do I allow you to basically contining the process so I think you have to differentiate between two situations meaning if you're if you're planning on totally peeling it in one MSA meaning I'm going to peel this orange so then the MSA of peeling is MRA because since it had to start off bad from good you can finish the the peeling I think where you would get a Shiloh would be is let's say for whatever reason you only peeled half the orange and then you put it away and then an hour later you want to peel the rest of the orange putting aside somea problems so at that point it's a it's now a partially unpeeled fruit there might be a m to be M that you can't you got to take the orange away meaning it all depends on whether your peeling is in one Misa or separate MIM usually it's going to be one mea and if it's going to be one mea we allow you to finish finish the job 100% we don't change rules on you in the middle of a Misa of of peeling about like a cupcake 80% covered but like you say a cupcake it's covered with covered with whater but it's usually not like allence okay so so wrappers is a different Dynamic see see the reason why I can I can pull off the wrapper is not because of the fruit header I pull up the wrapper because I don't consider the wrapper as a mixture with the food the wrapper is kind of a separate identifiable thing so that would be mucher no matter no matter what uh yeah how one best prepare and use his drunkenness on the day to connect to yeah yeah yeah this is a very very big issue the issue of porm the gamor says a person must drink por till they don't know the difference uh I know B Torah many guys uh that's their favorite Mitzvah drink on that they do Mitzvah you know the Mitzvah of drinking on porm is during the meal during the meal the porm meal which this year will be in yush on Sunday in the rest of the world it'll be on on Friday this year we have a three-day porum in y uh but there's no Mitzvah to drink porm night there's no Mitzvah to drink Thursday night yeah but people do people heater Mitzvah they want to they want to do more and more Mitzvah now the big problem is this I mean is it is a real big problem what on Earth is supposed to be accomplished here uh is the not the Torah but are kazal glorifying drunkenness are kazal glorifying a person like vomiting in the Bas medish is that exactly what we're supposed to be doing so exactly what we're supposed to be doing is not so clear but but obviously kazal envisioned the drinking onim to bring a person to a higher and deeper level of spirituality and joy without inhibitions without the inhibitions that normally block you and therefore you have to ask yourself what happens to me when I'm drunk now if you've ever seen let's say a a little inebriated so what happens when an K gets drunk very amazing things happen it can actually be very inspiring you see him with Torah Torah uh you see him with expressing his love for his tan or his love for his fellow Jill you know normally rosasa might be a little more formal and po him he expresses his love you actually see an inner greatness that comes out that may be concealed or at least reduced a lot of the year that's what drinking un poror him is the inner goodness comes out without inhibition if and even and truth of matters you see you can even see this among people uh who are not let's say gdan sometimes people when they're drunk or inebriated maybe drunk is not even the right word they start crying how they want to be close to Hashem how they want to grow how they want to learn Torah and they might do something like no I'm not saying they might grab the rebi and say teach me Teach me Teach now the reie may not like that you know I myself don't like it so much but but it's still it's coming from it's coming from a place of kadua I want to know the Torah I want to be connected to God that's what getting drunk is about unpo but if it's about you know fighting vomiting just dropping unconscious on the floor what inion what inion what inion is that what does Hashem want so because of that I I think you have to kind of determine what type of alcohol dose is conducive to bring me to that state of yearning and kadha and how much of it is going to take me to the other to the other side which is not so great so I don't know if you compare ahead of time but I think uh just like K always say he who prepares on AR of shabas will eat on chabas so we can say the same thing about porm the more advanced preparation you have as to what porm represents to you the more you'll be able to experience what poor him is remember that PM number one is the day that we re accepted hashem's Torah out of love we sometimes don't remember that part of PM right it says in Hari Hashem held the mountain over our heads and we were kind of forced into it a little bit po him we accept it out of love what we had previously accepted out of fear Cabas sat out of love moreover PM is a day that's very mugal for cab you know Thea normally is if a poor man asks you for Saka you're allowed to ask for a verification you can ask him it's not so hard to get but you have you can ask him do you have a letter from a rabbi or something unless he ask you for food it's interesting I mean they never ask you for food but if he says do you have a piece of bread if you have one you have to give it to him because God forbid somebody they ask for food they might be starving but if they ask for money you are entitled to ask for verification but on porm it says whoever puts out his hand and says I'm poor you got to give him something you don't ask questions so the say that this is how it works with the whole year I ask Hashem for something hasem checks me out am I worthy am I deserving am I entitled I'm poor him call I put out my hand for divine assistance so that's why there are people who get up on porm very early they get up 4:00 in the morning they say to helim and Dav to hasem in their own words for two hours or whatever it would be they do it early in the morning so then they could be o in the Mitzvah of of puim later in the day so porm is of course a joyous happy day of course it's the with but it's a very serious day at the same time time because it's a very holy day everyone knows the famous word of the AR it's a play on words but it's from the AR that yipper in the Tyra is called yur so literally that means a day like porm yum Kipper is a day like porm which implies that porm is even holier than yum Kipper a day like porm so the is of getting drunk is just something that you got to think you got to think about a little bit meaning it may not be again you're supposed to drink something at the suda but it may not be the Avida for for many people and you have to think through it carefully and this is besides the fact that God forbid there have been maybe not so much an ER to sell because fewer people have cars but uh in in America there have been there have been people who have died kids who drive when they're drunk or or whatever whatever it is so there were R of Sak involved that one has to be very careful about yeah what is the chares says no should charge for Tor unlessa like is the in the world to offer your services to L learned guys purely as a even when you're not so well up financially would it be unacceptable to accept payment the other person really insisted yeah yeah so the question is uh getting payment for learning with a weaker person uh you're either a tutor or whatever it is and the person uh so you're citing the rambam that says ideally a person should not get paid for the learning of Torah and a person should not get paid for the teaching of Torah and that's why the Ramba makes the point that the greatest uh made their pinosa through different occupations like hillo was a wood cutter and other were shoemakers and tailor and the like uh so first of all you understand that your question about how can a tutor how can a how can you get paid for learning with a weaker person I mean this would apply to a rebbi himself right how does rash get paid how does a rebbi get paid are all of us so suffice it to say that Rees have worked out the halakic arguments uh for our getting paid maybe it's a conflict of interest that maybe you need a you should need a third party you know arbitration board on this but the general Pak is uh actually a concept called SAR andara means we're not paying you for your Torah teaching we're paying you because you're turning down the other opportunities you have to do something else we're paying you for what you're not doing we're not paying you for what you are doing andala is the general header and uh that would apply not only to a rebi or a Torah teacher that would apply to a tutor and that would apply to a Kusa as well so generally speaking um I I think the the mainstream attitude is that we do not uh discourage people uh from getting paid on the other hand because there is an obligation of and the biggest you can do for a person is to teach them Torah at least some of your teaching should be B some of your teaching should be should be uh without compensation because of theah but you are certainly permitted to take take money and the rubric would be called the reward for turning down the other things you could have been doing with your time yeah I know thoughts around woman getting dressed costumes like firm should we discouraging them I'm not sure if we should be encouraging them but discouraging also would make the difference whether they're married or single yeah this is a very difficult question I mean crossdressing um for men to dress like women or women to dress like men is a be negative commandment in the Torah right the Torah says a woman cannot dress like a man and a man cannot dress like a woman yeah recognizes unisex garments like a raincoat things that can be worn by either one but certainly for a man to distinctly wear women's garments or for a woman to wear distinctly male garments is that that's one of the many many problems not it's not the most important problem that transgender faces when a a boy starts wearing a dress you know I mean that's the most minor of the problems but that is a halic problem uh there as well so the problem is what what how does this work on porm because sometimes porm costumes are crossdressing like a boy will show up with a dress and high heels I haven't seen it so much in Israel but but in in America you know it's it's more common uh or a woman will a girl you know a kid will wear a Kata you know and a beard and the like and some and sometimes it's not just little kids sometimes it's even adults even adults uh do that so the question is is there a hat so the truth of the matter is it is the EM says it should not be encouraged for sure it should actually be discouraged but in the post gim there are there areum so I would call it a practice that has some support but it should not be something that you should doing womaning up oh costumes generally not not crossdressing woman well well okay so for kids for sure it's okay for kids for sure it's okay uh what about adults and particularly women so you're ask asking a more general question uh for a from woman to parade around in a costume is that even if it's a female C whatever it is is that a breach of SOS by calling uh calling attention uh to herself yeah yeah yeah so I would say again this is more I'm not sure if we could talk about this as or not but I think as a matter ofas it's not necessarily SOA to parade outside in a costume but at the porm Su I I think it's perfectly fine it's perfectly fine again the cross dressing was one set of shils but put putting that Shiloh aside the idea that within the home to wear a costume I think is okay yeah know IDE like how and then I've heard very leftwing Orthodox or maybe conservative use use it for example for like a CO who wants to marry someone who would would normally not be eligible to marry and then they asked him well how do you know you're a CO and you know I don't know my dad wasn't religious or whatever and then they can so how come good yeah the issue is har which literally means tricking or we'll call it loopholes or evasions or technicalities to avoid a basic so just the examples that you gave selling a Jew is not allowed to own from it so we sell it to a guy and we know that the guy is not going to take it and after Pally get it back some say A you know having a wire around the city you know you can carry because the wire is a wall and therefore it becomes a a private domain those are what we call haros evasions which are considered to be acceptable and proper and common and then we find haros that people engage in that uh we would say is not so proper so you had mentioned U Cohen wants to marry a divorced woman so we say well maybe you're not a Cohen you only know it from your father who's not religious and therefore there's no testimony and therefore you can marry a gusa we would I guess most poin would say that's improper to uh introduce that assumption so obviously we have what are called good haros and we have what are called Bad haros and the question becomes how do you how do you define uh what is good and what is bad it's a very very hard question and uh the point has to be made that anything that is a uh a good har is usually going to be um very very tough I mean it has to be absolutely clear that the has the right to take the and as a result raban will insist often that you deliver a key and you deliver an exact inventory uh because it has to be you have to realize it's not a joke these are not these are not jokes these are serious transactions now once you understand it's a serious transaction so in a way you've almost eliminated the harama aspect you have to make it real you have to make it real and in truth it's a more comp it's a more complicated answer that than I'm giving you and I I I can't give you a complete answer uh in the system there were certain that were considered to be so important that uh K looked for ways to be make uh frankly uh for a Coen to marry a grusa is normally not of that same importance there are other people he could marry meaning the need also drives the har see let me explain this by m in particular you have to understand M as an institution was not invented for every private guy that has you know a loaf of bread in his kitchen uh it was invented for large Jewish businesses that owned thousands of pounds of grain when they made uh beer or whatever it would be and if they would have to destroy it they would be going bankrupt that's why there are ranim who actually do not encourage they actually discourage M of small quantities of we no egg to be make but you have to understand the har of was created to prevent economic Devastation of Jewish businesses beer is considered Kar yeah yeah yeah but besides it wasn't just the beer it was the stored grain that was in a state of K the grain by which they'd make the beer The Barley so I mean you have to understand one of the businesses in Poland at the time of the Middle Ages when the the standardization of M took place uh many Jews were in The Distillery business that that was their pessa and if the only option we tell you is either sell all of this before P before pesak or destroy it that would have that would have uh that would have economically wiped people out so you know I'm not ashamed to say that sometimes great economic needs had an impact on the formulation of HC institutions in fact let me mention another one the heter Risa again it's a little too complicated to go into haisa but haisa is a vehicle by which you would do something that looks like an interest bearing loan but by structuring it as an investment and profit sharing you're allowed to do what looks very much like charging interest uh by a different label but there too it goes back to the fact that this would be this would affect you know Jew's ability to to survive economically so huh treating daughters equally with sons there are various mechanisms in seems to well uh yeah but remember that in a lot of areas by yusha for example the itself the suas perit alternative dispositions you see in other words uh so once you understand that permits you to find ways of deviating so it's it's yeah okay so that's an is so that's why the post can bring down that even if you have a halic will even if you have the different mechanisms that ensure equality you should preserve a portion of your estate in which the Sader yusha of the Torah is followed including the double portion for the bakar and the like in fact many postum say the Min is that for if a person dies and he's leaving over a library on the CRA kodesh he should follow the S yusha of the Torah even if on anything else he's doing it equally and the like the farum should be L the S Yus yeah um know some people that are in 12ep programs Y and they feel very challenged on P and that not only from peer pressure from itself that there were times there were almost debate debating of whether or not whether or not to dis for because you know is a person that that has an issue of of addiction is included to includ to drink yeah this is a very important question uh the answer is very simple although the peer pressure may make it very difficult and I acknowledge that the answer is that this is literally a matter of p a person who is has who's an alcoholic uh could not that he's going to die from from drinking on poor he won't die from that but if it's going to get him off the program and he'll he'll get back to the habits of being an alcoholic that is a matter of life and death and as a result it's a d that he should not drink on porm uh if he's in a 12-step program uh and uh the turet doesn't require him to do things that will potentially endanger his life now in the case of the Seder the four cups of wine so once again you could be mamit with grape juice at least B the or you could even be mimit with Kar Medina Kamar Medina might be coffee you could have dollar Coos of of coffee or apple juice or orange juice is anything you would serve a guest as something K and the like uh but it's absolutely the case that in fact anyone that would kind of force a person in a 12 step program come on it's por take a drink uh is I think it's it's Mish a sinful Behavior to uh take a person off off that program yeah 100% yeah t lot of knew he was yeah yeah yeah yeah very good uh yeah we actually talked about that in theer uh a few weeks ago uh this is a totally misunderstood idea when we say Moshe got the Torah at SII on SII that does not mean he got the narratives of the safer Torah a lot of the Torah happened after Moshe was in K Moshe didn't know that stuff ahead of time rather the meaning of Torah in that passage was Hashem gave Moshe the 6113 mitzvos of the Torah at seni but the narratives were not given to him till after they happened meaning after this m happened Hashem told Moshe this is how you should write it up and there's Aus in the gor did he write it up as they happened or maybe he didn't write it up till the very end of his life and Hashem gave him the Tor in one Fell Swoop so that's Aus uh but in terms of a complete saer Torah we did not have a complete saer Torah till the day mosha died and maybe not even then if the last eight verses were written by yosua so you have to understand the word Torah has different meanings sometimes it means the saer Torah sometimes it means the mitzvos of the Torah sometimes it means Torah like I'm learning Torah right so MOS does not mean the safer Torah means the Mitzvah yeah A Life Lesson thing that they could do now but reduce whatever mitvah they're currently engaged in uh or they could leave it to someone else but then they won't have that experience of that lesson uh what should they do like for example um if someone had if there's a baby and they could either take care of it now but their learning will be diminished um or they can leave it to someone else to take care of it what should they do yeah um you when you say there's a baby it means your you're baby something okay yeah yeah so so the halaka the halaka actually is is fairly clear on this although it's difficult to always know how to apply it and that is if if you're learning Torah and an opportunity for a Mitzvah comes your way you have to ask yourself your question is this a Mitzvah that somebody else could handle and if it's a Mitzvah that somebody else could handle it is better to continue your Torah study and let the other person handle it but then if it's a husband and a wife for example on the other hand let me point out that in marriage it'll often be the case that your spouse needs you she might not be able to handle it by herself and then you are obligated to stop your learning because there's nobody else that could fill in that Gap but if it's literally an interchangeable type of situation so uh the Mitzvah could be easily done by somebody else just as good then uh you you keep your learning that that's what the says even if it wasn't learning to like if is doing or something like that oh so that's well I I would say it's the same thing because although for a different reason uh that's that's simply the rule of Mitzvah when you're involved in one Mitzvah you don't become obligated to stop that Mitzvah and do something else if is before the if is before the doing happened they weren't involved anything so so what's going to be meaning uh if he takes care of the baby he'll miss minion like say no he'll just be holding the baby while oh I see in other words doing doing this Mitzvah while he's d uh so again I would say you know you're not supposed to hold things in your in your arms when you doin because it distracts you especially if it's a baby because you're afraid you'll drop the baby right so you're thinking about the the baby so I would generally say if someone else could take the baby and your D it's better to do so but but again as I say if you're the only one home and the baby is crying uh you know pick up the bab pick up the baby um what did they tell the story uh the alter Reb the first Reb ofad the the balat had a son who became his successor he was he was called the mler rebby the middle rebbi and the mler rebbi was a great mobel who when he would be learning he would be totally not connected to the world he was like in another world and uh once his baby was crying and the mle rebbi didn't even know noticed didn't even hear anything and the alter rebbi came down from the second floor and took care of the baby the alter rebbi was one of the great great great goolm and the alter rebbi told his son never let your learning stop you from hearing a baby's cry he says if you don't hear a baby crying there's something not good in your learning now that's a a much more General lesson it's not just referring to hearing but it means when you're learning makes you not sensitive to the pain of another Jew that's a in your learning in and of itself yeah was a way to them toward and would have been better in in that so hard like to believe that and at the same time to still want return yeah yeah this is one of the very very famous questions uh as you know the rambam in theim although in the mishna Torah uh raises the question uh what is so great about corbano why why does God want corbano does God need meat God doesn't eat uh what are you giving him barbecued uh so the rambam develops the idea in theim that corbano are not intrinsically what God desires but corbano are a concession that the Jews Like Other ancient people were very connected to idolatry and part of the attraction of idolatry was the pageantry and drama of the sacrificial rituals including Human Sacrifice which was part of the ritual and if God would have commanded us to go cold turkey and say stop with the carbonos just pray and meditate we wouldn't have been able to pull ourselves away from that powerful attraction soes tolerated coronos and created a structure to at least prevent the excesses like human sacri and alike it was a concession to this is the r in the so the question is well wait a second here every day three times a day we pray we ask Hashem give us back the coros give us back the basa Mikes but why according to the ramb we're much better off today we don't need coronos we worship God by prayer and by Torah learning we're doing the right stuff uh we don't need the concessions to so that's uh a very very famous question on the rambam listen the rambam D the same Shon as we do and I actually know that because the rambam gives you the sitter the r in the M gives you a sitter the same the same M pleas Andes you know you bring this and you bring that so the answer that the velt gives may not be such a convincing answer is that they basically say that the morim was a book that was written for a specific audience a specific type of person a philosophically educated person who needed to understand the Torah on a rationalistic logical basis so the rambam says I will give you an explanation for carbonos that fits a rational historical development of human society but the ramban felt that people who were not grounded in the M could not appreciate more mystical spiritual powerful ideas which means the rambam is moda that the reasons in the mo do not exhaust uh all of the underlying Concepts uh but he felt that for the particular audience he was trying to address he needed to give them a level that they would appreciate so there's kind of two rambam so to speak there's the rambam of the mishna Torah the rambam of theim and the words were not addressed to the same audience again I I admit that that is actually a do interpretation but this is often how it's understood yeah uh when someone has a seeming difficulty in their life how do they figure out whether it's a roadblock uh that you have pushed through presented by you through to the or if it's um a wake up called that hashem's trying to tell you you got to change your ways and to take note of it yep that is a really really really great question and really it's one of the greatest practical questions of of our lives and that is um I'm pursuing a certain course and I encounter obstacles and I encounter difficulties now how do I interpret the message is the message well God is telling you you're going on the wrong road switch the road and do something else that's why I'm putting up these Road Blocks or there's another idea particularly in kasas and cabala that the roadblocks are there because what you're planning on doing is so good and so special that the ater har is making it hard and therefore the test for you is to keep on going and don't give up so do I look at obstacles as a confirmation I must be doing something good that's why the HR is making it so hard or do I look at it as God's warning that maybe you need to readjust uh readjust your ways that is an absolutely pivotal question that comes up uh you know it's not it's not a theoretical question it comes up quite a lot uh in life uh the short answer is that it can be either meaning there's not one modality here sometimes it's that sometimes it's that so the the question is how do I know which way it is so this is one of the reasons why says you have to have a to talk this talk this over uh Ander suggests a general a in life that you should seclude yourself for two hours learn Torah without interruption and then you'll have a rues that will kind of give you clarity as to which way uh you need uh you need to go uh because because once again it is very hard to read the signs of divine intervention which what is hasem trying to tell me see this is the vagon writes that this was the great gift of navua when we think of n we think of the N who were giving National messages to CLA Israel right that's what's in messages to the nation and even other nations but the Von said Nim had private functions too in other words the very question you're asking me you could ask a noi and the Novi would give you an answer from Hashem so think about that we we lost a tremendous amount when we lost NAA we lost the ability to have a definitive answer to those questions but as I sayner says that every person has rues every person actually the says every person has R for KES and by learning Torah you get rid of the St static that blocks the messages and then there'll be something within you that will give you and guidance Yeahs instruction bu they seem not so relevant mean I understand let's say you know like we're hoping for that to be relevant again that's how we're studying at the time of did did they know that it seems like they know that there was going a second B they had to know the exact instructions to be able to make the a again make the K again you like if if ideally I guess it was just one mes so then it would just been an instruction that was meant for one specific time and you know would necessarily be have to be recorded you know for Generations after that well well first of all uh again uh during the first B mikdash uh it was not always known that it would be destroyed meaning towards the end it became known but there was not an automatic point the second basas they knew was of limited duration uh they knew that it was going and that's why the second Bas of Mikes was not built in accordance with's instructions because y's instructions is for the final mkes and since they knew the second mkes would be destroyed they didn't build it according toal's instructions but the first mikdash at least when they built it they thought it would be forever uh now that doesn't render dimensions of the irrelevant because remember wear out and they had to sometimes make Replacements right so that was relevant but also I want to point out if you look at the cleor uh in Paras truma you actually see all sorts of beautiful tros about the dimensions I mean let's take the ores he points out that in the oresh its length its width and its height are all in fractional Dimensions one and a half two and a half and he makes the point because the oron represents Torah and in Torah you should always feel that you're defective meaning you're not full you got to keep on filling yourself when we look at the that repres presents parosa some of the dimensions are whole and some of the dimensions are fractions so the Cleo explains that whole is I should feel in I have enough and fraction means don't live as luxuriously as you're able to live a more simpler lifestyle so there are hidden raim in all of these different all of these different inan so even if we're not going to physically build the CM there are lessons we learn out of them know so no here's the thing when they built the first Bas of Mikes that was intended to be forever so they didn't necessarily know about a second or a third however by the time they built the second they knew there was going to be a third they knew that the second mcdash was not going to be forever you know it's interesting the rambam rights in Parish mnas that they observed Tish the fast of the nth of during the 420 years of the second Bas of mes because they understood that there was going to be a Corban so they knew of the third when they built the second but they didn't necessarily know about it uh during the first yeah yes yes but they didn't know what form it would take uh KES says you have not yet come this is in Re El to the place of rest or the final inheritance and that's a Remis to Shilo and the basa mikdash so they knew there would be a basa mikdash but that could have been the mishkan for example in Shilo Shilo was the mishkan all right so theoretically the B mikdash could have been the mishkan as well but they knew it would beam they knew it would be that that place yeah say I don't hear you listen to first because he's only doing it to prepare you're saying so it's only a preparatory prayer so why wouldes listen to that uh that's a very very interesting question because you are correct the gar rash says the fish why does a a silent amida if he is going to say the whole thing anyway and the answer is to to arrange Thea in his mind that's why by the way Raa has an interesting that if you're in asazi and you're the K in AI minion normally you D in your so if I'm ding in ay minion my should as but if I'm the and since my repetition is going to be my silence should also Bey because I have to prepare myself for what they're going to saying so does hasem listen to the uh it's a good question but I would say yes if that is your cavana meaning to say the fact that the said do it for this reason once you're do other words once you're doing it you have the right to utilize it as an extra at the same time so it's it doesn't become a waste meaning they wouldn't have given you that opportunity uh had there not been a need to organize but once you have the opportunity you can grab onto it that's why people I mean and I'll bring a of this let's assume that you add private let's say you're praying for you're praying for private things well if you're thein where do you put it in you v i don't don't say it during Kar right you put it into your silent am what's the point if it's only the answer is it still has a shame yeah small variations between different apparently of Moses is it should be 100% I mean say I mean he's not saying you're not i' say if you did your normal but apparently he says that to be you should uh do it exactly the way you're gonna say it uh in the repetition is how you say it in the silent I usually I usually say have I should I do it like I did no no in such a case you still follow the the minut of the CRA that's going to be uh important unless the Tira is not m i mean in a lot of uh places they're not M and so even you know so if they're if they wouldn't if they wouldn't correct you if they wouldn't correct you then you can do it the way you did it in the silent if they would correct you then uh you know then you got to say it the way they say it yeah know to name yeah we do we know exactly why uh when someone doesn't have a title they did not get ordination they did not get sm now that doesn't mean that they were inferior you could have been the greatest greatest greatest people and they didn't necessarily get ordained and and the gor discusses at various points that Shmo was one of the youngest talim of rebi he actually learned byi last and ra like the first and uh RI said uh you will be known as a great but uh the ordination is not going to go through now we don't know exactly why they weren't ordained but there were situations where there was not an official ordination you know I want to point out without getting into what ordination means that's complicated you know the apparently did not have official SM Rabin ordination till he was uh in his 80s uh because he had to um go to Vienna for the founding Convention of aish Israel and apparently in order to be able to travel he had to be an official member of the clergy which he wasn't because he was not ordained as a rabbi so I think ra gave the in the in the 80s yeah that's okay you right so that's the difference rabi rabi which is used for Tan that was actual The Unbroken ordination from Moshe by the time of the in B they did not have that but they still had a lesser ordination like we have today called RAV that's between RAV and rabi uh but there were some on who didn't even have didn't even have the rav uh uh it's not clear why but it's it's not because they were held in less esteem just they didn't have the title yeah if one's working in a industry that may potentially be harmful to someone how much is it their responsibility versus the consumer responsibility in other words a product that could hurt a person's health Firearms or something like that so it kind of depends meaning if if the product has positive benefits and it can be used for positive ways alcohol can be used for kidish for Simas even guns can be used legitimately by police or or or citizens who who need protection the fact that something could be misused is not really your responsibility um because if that would be the case you know what you know can I sell a car if somebody might drive it on shabas can I rent an apartment if somebody has a premarital sexual relationship or a gay marriage you know there is a certain point in which if you're doing something that has an independent basis for legitimacy you don't really have such an AAS I mean other than things like not marketing it to minors you know I mean those are things you got to be sensitive to but we're not going to condemn the the business uh the business itself you see uh so that would be I think that would be okay and if someone was like investing in uh something that like even more like uh if there's an abortion clinic that has public stocks would they be allowed to invest in it I I think one should be very careful again as a matter of strict I can't automatically say it's forbidden because a there is no Agency for sin so the fact that I invest in a company that does abortions doesn't mean I'm doing abortions so I have loopholes talk about badas loopholes that immunize me but it it certainly is something that one should try to avoid that you don't put your money in businesses that are violating the will ofes and doing bad things in the world but a lot of things are neutral a lot of things can be for good uses and bad uses and then I think you don't have ultimate responsibility for that they should shy away from like sayell different selling yeah I I think I think that much is for sure uh you have a certain Ariz me meaning even if a company is doing something that's not illegal uh and something that may even have positive benefits but if they're engaged in advertising campaigns that are targeting minors or targeting the vulnerable uh or getting people onto drugs uh I think you do have a responsibility you should not be a toch you should not be a supporter of that type of thing yeah system let say here in Israel again let's say somebody like in in the western legal system they do prosecute somebody for yes yes they can yeah yeah but does it mean system the hands of TI that we can't prute somebody somebody to ex yeah so this is an interesting issue according to if I hire a person to be a Hitman and murder somebody according to I'm not guilty of murder because I didn't do the murder I didn't pull the trigger and even though this guy was my sh this is the famous principle that there's no Agency for AOS so I'm not the right I'm not the so what does that mean according to cannot be prosecuted for hiring assassins and the like so the short answer is mik then you cannot be but but the rambam already writes in that when you have a society that is engaged in immoral activities the Sanhedrin can make special rules and punish people even for uh agency killings and the like so I would assume this would be handled by what you might call emergency legislation for the preservation of social order and social justice and the rambam says there is such a principle particularly in the laws of murder and they could even give and they could give Misa they could even give Misa for it yeah explain concept say again yeah yeah is an enormous yeah maybe be the last question is an enormously important yod I don't want to say it's the most important yod of Des Des has many many Yodas but but it's certainly one of the most important and that is the the problem is this I you look at the rambam the rambam seems to say every single second of life I have B to be a sadic or a Russia right any moment I could be a sadic like mosu I could be a Russia like re benat question is what on Earth does that mean a guy was raised a drug addict a guy was you know whatever it is Hashem is expecting a guy that's vomiting in the streets in his own filth you could at sadic right now you know that's not going to work he'll have to have treatment and everything else seser explains that is not an All or Nothing every moment but rather at every moment there is a choice you can make that will put you closer to the Der of so the guy that's in the middle of a drug addiction Hashem does not expect him to go to KY right now but says you could choose to walk into that treatment center and start a process so means that at every stage in life there are two possibilities stay in the bad way or make it worse or move towards the good way and Hashem does not mun from you Hashem does not demand from you things that are Beyond you so in B there are some things that are so much ahead of me that I'm not there yet and by the way there are things that are behind me I'm no longer struggling with right uh am I struggling right you can have a violent person who literally wants to kill people and he makes a decision I'm not going to kill him even though I want to kill him that's an act of if most of us walk by and we don't kill somebody we're not going to get rewarded we can't go to hashm Hashem I didn't kill anybody today that's not your struggle you're beyond that hopefully hopefully you're beyond that and the like so certain issues in life have already been resolved in a good way tra is another example and certain issues of Life are Beyond us is that section of life where you could go either way Hashem is not going to reward you for the B issues that have already been resolved and Hashem is not going to punish you for the B issues that you're not yet there the will be the Judgment like concept that people aren't given to they can't pass well I understand but but the question is how how how do you define past that's the question RB dler would say past doesn't mean you're totally out of the woods but pass means there is always the Fus to make a decision that will put you on the Der and the fact that this guy this drug addict yeah could be that's well it's it's a it's a little more complicated because the question then becomes okay maybe there's AA that he made choices that put him in that place meaning there's no right now but the question isem goes back and well you know you could have done this you could have done this so that's because his was was different at an earlier stage but the fact that in right now that would be KN together in a s so right now that would not it might not be any s again it's hard to know because every case is you know hasem knows the situation but it might be at that moment his preer is not his n right now his n is to take some step whatever that step would be uh to be pish even if it's not a complete prea okay we'll stop here thank you and thank you for listening to this awesome production to find out more and to partner in our mission please visit o.edu