Ep. 78 // "We Need To Ask & Question Everything" w/ Rabbi Mendel Zirkind

00:00 Speaker 1 Everything we held on to, we need to ask and question, what does that have-- how does i- how do I connect to that? We've no more could just hold on to, you know, the Menashe. We can't hold on to Amolos v'den Azai. 'Cause when we do, like you said, that's, number one, a running away, but it's also a false reality. It's a false narrative. It's a f- it's a romanticizing of what happened. So you're not living in the d- there either. And it can't be, well, the future is gonna, you know, be strong, you know? No, it... This is why do you live for a hundred and twenty years? So you could live in your grandfather's watch and your child's watch? Like, what are you doing here? Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-five. My name is Bentzi Yafetz, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. We are here with Rabbi Mendel Zirkind, round two. This is a first so far for, uh, for Homesick for Lubavitch. Um, I'm sure there will be others, but, uh, this is a first, and it's wonderful to have you on. Um- I feel honored. Honored. Y- you should be honored. I'm honored too. Um, it's a special timing. When I reached out to you, I didn't even realize, but, uh, the timing is mamish fortuitous because right after Tishrei, but in a few days, you're traveling to Australia. And, uh, I think we'll

01:37 Speaker 1 discuss this soon, but, uh, Rabbi Mendel is taking on a, uh, very important position that, uh, was once his zeide's, Rabbi Groner's, maradasa of the Melbourne community. I wish you much hatslacha. Amen. And, uh, wish the community much hatslacha from you and with you. Thank you. And we'll, and we'll get there. Well, we'll get, we'll get back to it, I'm sure. But, uh, in the meantime, for those listening to the podcast and those who appreciate what we do, please, uh, drop a like or subscribe on the various platforms. And if you really like it or like it enough, please support the podcast at hflpodcast.com/donate. Anyways, Rabbi Mendel, um, there's many places that we can continue from the conversation last time, which many people listened to and, um, were very, uh, moved by and, and provoked, uh, thought provoked by. Um, but I think, I think, uh, maybe we'll get back to some of those ideas, but I think we... L- let's start with, uh, what's bemidbar parek now. Um, this, this new move of, of leadership and stepping into the shoes of giants. I remember your zeide well. I remember him well. There's a, there's a clip of a speech that he just, that's just going around now, a bit viral, of a speech he gave in, uh, Sydney. I think in, uh, fifty. I think, I think it's in, uh, sixty, uh, eighty-eight, eighty-six or something like that. Very powerful clip. You know, he was just, had a very dynamic way of speaking. Oh,

03:19 Speaker 1 yeah. So in, in, in, in that clip, you know, he was speaking about how the Rebbe, like people say, you know, miracles about the Rebbe. He says, essentially, the biggest miracle that the Rebbe did was take the American shochet lakidies and, uh, you know, turn them into leaders and all that, you know, taking them away from their giants and the Dodgers and the Yankees, and he was a big Yankee fan. Um, I remember growing up, you know, like, he didn't, he, we didn't grow up with him in that sense because he lived in Australia, we lived in New York, but he would come to visit once a year and, uh, it was always like, "Ooh, how are the Yankees doing?" You know? He would ask that. He would ask that, you know, and, uh- Did you update him that they moved to the Bronx? Right. Well, the Yankees are always in the Bronx. The Dodgers moved away from- LA ...

04:06 Speaker 1 田tfield, LA. Um, no, he still took an interest on some level, but that, that little, that clip was, I, I felt personally like a certain like, uh, it was very meaningful to me, you know, 'cause, um, something you mentioned before we started is, you know, looking up to your zeide and saying, "Wow," like there's a book that was ma- was, um, written after he passed away about my zeide called Larger Than Life. And in many ways he, you know- He was ... he was larger than life. Um, so it's, it's very humbling and very scary going in that, if you wanna say, in that direction. Um, but n- knowing where he came from, I guess, not that I think I'm my grandfather, but knowing that, you know, he, he was into the Yankees also, and, uh, his Americanism, so to speak, was, was, you know, he was, he was a regular American boy in that sense. Um, and becoming, you know, a, a, a giant, you know, that is looked up to not just in the Lubavitch world, in other communities as well, for something that is, you know, a certain, a certain, uh, a per- a person of honor, a person of, of, uh, prestige. And, uh, it just, um, gives me a certain like, uh, injection of, uh, you know, encouragement. Yeah. Yeah. He was definitely someone that, you know, uh, had, uh, tremendous abilities. I mean, there was no question about it, you know. And the Rebbe sent him. He, the

05:51 Speaker 1 Rebbe knew he was sending, but he also had his weaknesses. And, and a lot of his weaknesses, I think, actually worked out to be one of i- some of his strengths. Um, you know, uh, people spoke about his insecurity. Whenever he would speak, he wanted to know how the speech was, you know. Um, I remember he would daven for the Amud, I mean, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he would daven. I wasn't there. I wasn't, uh, in Melbourne. Um, my year I was in Melbourne, I did Semikhah in Melbourne, so he wasn't well already. He was, uh, he passed away the following year. Um, so he didn't daven Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but he, Selichos was still something he tried. So I heard that Selichos, um, but the truth is I heard him Selichos prior to that also. Um, I was in Australia with my cousin once, a few years earlier, and, uh, I, I, I recall that, uh, we were sitting in, in his office, I think the next day or something, and, you know, he was asking people, "How was the Selichos?"

06:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. Ruby Nu said on the podcast that he would, uh, he would check in with his mother. Rather, your Zayde would check in with his mother, Mrs. Nu, to find out, 'cause she's also a singer.

07:07 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

07:08 Speaker 2 She would check, he would find out what her, what her marks were on, on, on the performance.

07:14 Speaker 1 So I was sitting inside. I wasn't, you know, mixing into the conversation. I don't even remember who was in the room at the time. But I, uh, I'm, I s- I s- I, I s- I, you know, said, I says, I said, "Shtikel di kvartin." Oh, did he love that. You know, like, for him You know, that's all he had to hear.

07:32 Speaker 2 Kvartin was a gold standard.

07:33 Speaker 1 Uh, for him, yeah. I mean, his style of, of singing, of, of, th- of being about tefillah was, was kvartinesque in certain ways.

07:41 Speaker 2 Tzebruchenkayt.

07:43 Speaker 1 With a certain element of tzebruchenkayt, a certain style of, you know, the hearts.

07:48 Speaker 2 Right.

07:48 Speaker 1 Um, I mean, Kvartin was known for that. I mean, that was-

07:51 Speaker 2 Right

07:51 Speaker 1 ... you know, his famous piece of Tir Abi Shmol and, uh, Vayide Abadecha. Those are, you know, masterpieces in the world of chazzanus. And, uh, for someone like my Zayde, that was, yeah, that was a standard. That was... The, Helfgot came to Sydney, uh, to Melbourne for a performance, so he visited my Zayde. So he, my Zayde tells him, he says, "Du kennst chazzanus. Ich ken nusach." You know, like, for him, that was also a pride that, you know, that... But, uh, I'm saying those kinds of things gives someone like myself a sense of, you know, he was, he was a man of, uh, very mortal qualities.

08:36 Speaker 2 Yeah.

08:37 Speaker 1 And, uh, that, that's very, very, uh, yeah, it gives some sort of level of, uh, comfort, I guess.

08:44 Speaker 2 It's, look, it's very interesting. I've been thinking about this, um, because of a couple other podcasts. You know, there was a recent one with, uh, just published this past week, with Harry Fishman, who was a teacher in Worcester for 60 years, actually connecting to your Zayde.

09:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, he mentioned.

09:02 Speaker 2 He spoke, he spoke about how he remembers your Zayde starting the school in Rhode Island. And, I mean, I, I thought his story was fantastic. There's a lot of things to learn from him. But what's interesting was that there was a sentiment that I picked up from people sending me feedback and putting, and people posting online, that, "Oh, this is an Amalek haMelamed. This is how a Melav, a Melamed used to be." Like, look at someone who was so ivri given to talmidim and teaching for the right reasons. And I, I take nothing away from him, because what, the dedication that he had and the, the way he took in these boys in Worcester and, and for no reason, like, no gain whatsoever, and pashut, you know, just, just gave all that he had to these students, ad hayom, is a tremendous story, and it's not, and it's, it's not usual. It's not common. But then I was thinking, like, I'm, I'm almost sure that there are teachers today who are doing similar things, but they're in their 30s. It's very hard to be impressed by someone in their 30s. And also, it's happening. When something's happening, it's, "Ah, whatever. Okay, fine. Whatever," you know? But in f- 40 years, if someone, God willing, comes to these people and interviews them, and hears a story about how, or 50 years, when they're in their 80s, you know, im yirtzeh Hashem, and someone comes to them and, uh, and, uh, and, and interviews them and asks

10:30 Speaker 2 them about the story of their life, and they look back at it and they tell you these things that they did that to them is like, was a darah pashut, you'll be amazed by that too. So there's an interesting bias that we have, which I think is probably a general Jewish thing. We're always... And there's a truth to it also, the, you know, the, the, what's the Gemara say? That, the, that, that the, the expression about if the people before us were to-

10:53 Speaker 1 Right.

10:55 Speaker 2 No, the, no, the one where, like, if they, if they were like, uh, Bnei Ya-

10:58 Speaker 1 Hamalachim

10:58 Speaker 2 ... Hamalachim

10:59 Speaker 1 "Anachnu keBnei Adam, achid keBnei Adam, anachnu chad kechamor, v'lo kechamor shel avos bnei Adam."

11:04 Speaker 2 Yeah. Right. Like, there's always a sense of inadequacy, and as I'm talking, of course, I bring up, uh, the one Rosh Hashanah that I like to quote up from the Fiidik Rebbe from Koidesh Omayin, where there's a very moving passage there where the Rebbe Rashab sends a Fiidik Rebbe to daven when they're under tremendous pressure. Techtum's about to be shut down, and there's a sense that there's a last stand, and the Rebbe Rashab speaks like, "I, I wanna do what is right, and I don't care what happens." Like, I, like it's, it's very, very tense. And the Rebbe Rashab sends a Fiidik Rebbe to daven at the tziyun of his, and he explains to him that, "I'm not at their level." The inadequacy that he felt, not that I'm ascribing, that he felt. Uh, so there's always been that, but I think in a way we take it a little bit too far. Like, I think the, and the line of it being too far to me is paralysis. Like, i- if, like, if you begin to feel impotent, that you can't do anything because you're not at that level, or you feel like, uh, you have to, like, you, you feel like you can't take the next step because you're constantly having your Zayde's ghost look over your shoulder I think that's where we begin to... That, that be- starts becoming a problem

12:21 Speaker 1 I mean, it holds us back-

12:22 Speaker 2 Yeah

12:22 Speaker 1 ... I mean, in many ways, 'cause when we think that we're not gonna be, you know, kiddush Hashem, so then what- what's- what's for us to accomplish, you know? How much are we even able to really, you know... For some people, they're like, you know, like, "What's, what's the story of the Maggid when the house burnt down," you know?

12:38 Speaker 2 Yeah.

12:38 Speaker 1 "Start a new yichus for me." Like, sort of like their perspective is, "I'll stand on my own two feet and build myself whatever I am."

12:45 Speaker 2 But that was only after the house burned, though.

12:46 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly. Right. Sometimes you need that, right? The rupture and re- reconstruction idea-

12:52 Speaker 2 Yeah

12:52 Speaker 1 ... type in that sense. But I do think there's something to be said about the fact that, you know, you know the sicha of the Rebbe about why Yosef named his children Menashe and Efraim.

13:03 Speaker 2 Right.

13:03 Speaker 1 So we need both. There's an element of looking to the past, I guess, and seeing, you know, the Beis Levi and sort of like how we romanticize the past, but there is a necessity to be able to say that, you know, we're not less in that sense. We, our- our abilities don't, didn't become diminished. And, um, I think the milah of that perspective is that if we would see the past with all its faults, then maybe we would think of ourselves as for sure not having a chance. Like-

13:36 Speaker 2 Right

13:36 Speaker 1 ... 'cause we're very conscious of our- our- our negatives space. I mean, and when a person looks at themselves, even a healthy person, whatever that means, but, like, even a healthy person is confronted more with their challenges and what they need to work on than their strengths. And- and if we then think, "Well, the past wasn't that much better," what does that l- leave for us? You know, l'shav v'mar chail choberia. Like, there's nothing left for us, because if they weren't good, v'ano beinihem, right? Like, it sort of creates the standards just to be much lower. So there's a milah, I think, on some level of us being able to, I guess, romanticize the past or having this notion of im rishonim, you know, k'malachim, because that gives us a certain, you know, ad mosai yagi'u lamai sei avosai kind of, you know, uh, encouragement or challenge that we should say, "Okay, I could strive for that."

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15:36 Speaker 1 But I do agree on some level that it's overdone, where it becomes like, um, you know, a Hasid from 1920s must have been on a different level and must have been in a different place than I am today. Well, granted, our nesiyones may be different. I mean, social media didn't exi- exist in 1920, but whatever the social media has triggered within us, there were things similar to that in 1920 as well. Um, and, uh, you know, I- one of the things I- I- I liked talking about, because I feel it's not spoken about enough, I mean, now it's become more, I think, acceptable to talk about in yeshiva systems, is, you know, talking about, you know, masturbation and things like that. And, um, there's- there's like the sense, like, you know, the Alter Hasidim in the past, like, this was never an issue, and that isn't the case.

16:31 Speaker 2 No.

16:31 Speaker 1 That's just not the reality.

16:32 Speaker 2 It's not the case.

16:33 Speaker 1 Um, I mean, there is a, a vort of the Hasidim that, uh, Igeres HaTshuva of the Alter Rebbe was written to forever answer the question. The Zohar says that there's no teshuvah on such a thing, and that was why Igeres HaTshuva was written. At least, shamati, that that's, uh, something that has been mentioned. But-

16:49 Speaker 2 Didn't they... Did- didn't the Bachurim go into Ten Chatum, the first shailah in Yechidas-

16:54 Speaker 1 Yeah

16:54 Speaker 2 ... about this?

16:55 Speaker 1 Zos Afnah, yeah. The Rebbe Rashab, yeah.

16:57 Speaker 2 Yeah. I also heard, I also heard that, uh, I heard this from a mashpia in Argentina, that Hillel Paritcher once said that he never was a, he never was aver this, this, this, this lav or whatever, this... He never had this problem, because when he was a boy, his father would wake him up at night and put him on his lap and read Resheis Chochmah with bitter tears, and that was poel such a... But the story to me proves-

17:30 Speaker 1 The other way

17:30 Speaker 2 ... the o- the other way.

17:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:31 Speaker 2 It's been going on forever. What do you think?

17:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, uh, but I'm saying, like, that kind of-

17:35 Speaker 2 Or the story of Yosef HaTzadik in Gemara?

17:37 Speaker 1 Right.

17:38 Speaker 2 Hello.

17:38 Speaker 1 I mean, right. Right. But I'm saying it's like we for some reason think that our, our, uh, kedaikais, you know, is, is, is sort of like a new invention or a new world of, of desire. I mean, it's may have been, uh, augmented a bit, you know, given a little bit more potency than, than in the past. I could agree with some of that on some level, but we're not... The struggles have always pretty much been the same. The question is how, I guess, amplified and in which areas more than others. I mean, today's desire of, you know, one of the, you know, the teenage struggle today of recognition I think it's not an old one, but it's become so more... It becomes such a, a, a, a bigger issue just because of the fact that, you know, you just... What, what is the average teenager, you know, spending their time with on social media, you know? Watching this, uh, YouTuber success and this, uh, Instagram creator, you know, these people creating content, you know. I find that quite interesting. They're called creators. What exactly are they creating? But, um, like what's around them is-

18:53 Speaker 2 Distraction. They're creating distraction is what they're doing. I mean, I, this is my business.

18:57 Speaker 1 Right. I guess so. But like, no, I mean, it's just an interesting like, um, uh, like some of the s- some of the creation, so to speak, is just like, you know, exposure of their own, uh-

19:09 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:09 Speaker 1 But I, I, I, I think like it, it... What a, what a, what a, what you as a teenager growing up, and I don't think it's just a teenager, but like there's an element of like, "So where do I fit into the world, and how... what value do I have?"

19:23 Speaker 2 Right.

19:23 Speaker 1 You know? So there's a deep seek of recognition, but like that's been true. Like I said about my zayde, like why did he ask how his speeches went?

19:31 Speaker 2 Right.

19:31 Speaker 1 You know, with all due respect that this is not... I'm not comparing the two per se, but I'm saying it's like-

19:37 Speaker 2 But you, you... Look

19:38 Speaker 1 ... there's an insecurity there.

19:39 Speaker 2 I go deeper. Look, I, I have a zayde who's very well known as well. Um, you know, and, and, and, and so I understand both sides. I understand the, the inclination to be respectful and to protect, you know. But on the other hand, as an in- as a grandson, you inevitably see the person in a different light than the public sees him.

20:03 Speaker 1 Yeah.

20:03 Speaker 2 Right? You see them with their jacket off or maybe even in their pajamas.

20:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

20:09 Speaker 2 Right? And you see them enga- e-e dealing with their wife, your, your grandmother, and your, and your, and your uncles and aunts, and as a father, and they're... And, and the wa- and, and, and their kid pisses them off or, or they, or they get annoyed about the face fuss and, uh, you know, at home, and people irri- you know, people get irritated, and you see people in those moments. They're all, they're all very... These are... This is, this is human moments, right? And so like it goes back to, to the point where when you... With yourself, if you're an honest person, not someone like obsessed with your flaws, you're not, y- like you said, a healthy person, but ultimately you live with yourself. And so if you're at all honest, and you ever reflect on things that you did that were wrong, or you take into account when your spouse or your friends tell you, "Hey, you went too far this time," and you ask yourself, "Why did I go so far?" And you start, you know, you, you, you're, you're, you try to be cognizant. It's all right in front of your face, and you know, you know at some point you think about it. You try to forget about it sometimes, but you know it's there. Whereas with the people that are distant, especially if they're not your grandfather, like if it's a public figure, narrative takes hold. And, and, and the thing with narrative, and this is mammoth what I do

21:25 Speaker 2 for a living, the thing... what's so powerful about narrative is that you choose, if you're the storyteller, you actually choose, but as a society, we unconsciously choose the pieces that we're gonna remember, and everything else falls to the wayside, and we don't realize it. We think we're remembering the whole picture, and we're not. We're remembering this person for the, the highlights, the kind of the interesting things, the things that made them unique. And, and, and what ends up happening is you have this kind of avatar of the person, this kind of version of the person that's not... Who wants to talk about the rabbi walking in his pajamas, you know, waking up, uh, maybe when he's younger or whatever, dealing with one of his grandkids who's screaming in the home, and they wake him up in the middle of his sleep? Like who wants to talk about that? Or e- e- et cetera. Who wants to talk about the, the grandfather... Yeah, this is... I, I don't wanna say these examples 'cause I, I, I don't wanna stumble into, into, but in making a mistake of talking about an actual case. But people have tourists in their family, and people are, people are knocked down by, by life with their kids and their grandkids. Who wants to talk about that? So we forget about it, we just... A- and it disappears 'cause life moves on.

22:45 Speaker 1 Right.

22:46 Speaker 2 And we end up with this distortion of the past, and we end up with this distortion of, uh, of, of, of, um, of, of, of what people are made of. And I think that, I think that ends up becoming way too, um... It becomes a, like a, a weight on people where like, like I, I can't be... I, I can't live up to that. And the truth is the people that you say are there wouldn't be able to live up to these levels either.

23:14 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah. No, so for me, that's like, uh, a very, uh, be able, I don't wanna say cr- uh, to, um, to, uh, sort of create this equality, you know, but to be able to appreciate that, um, with his successes there are and were these also these struggles, and perhaps because of the struggles he had his successes, and be able to see that. Uh, you know, uh, recently, uh, over the years, you know, with this, uh, this whole thing about moving to Melbourne has been going on for quite a few years, so, um, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people, especially my mother. So it's like, isn't... Um, so she-

24:01 Speaker 2 Rabbi Garner's daughter.

24:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. Um, but she shared something about my father, oh, Vashelum, which I found very meaningful when he was involved in the Rabbonis in Crown Heights. So he also felt like this is not, you know, like him being a Rav, like he didn't, he didn't see himself as fitting that role, you know. He felt, you know, maybe he needs to know, uh, Tal Hakish Hanes by heart, you know.

24:28 Speaker 2 He had, he had like a profession that he did, no?

24:31 Speaker 1 He was, he was an accountant.

24:32 Speaker 2 An accountant?

24:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, on a side note, my brother mentioned after my father passed away, you know, that he said about my father, he says, "This Rabbi Yechina Sandler. He was Rabbi Yechina, but he was a Sandler." You know, like he had a day, day job, you know.

24:47 Speaker 2 Even after he got involved in Rabbonis.

24:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:49 Speaker 2 He still-

24:49 Speaker 1 He didn't take a penny for it. He, he, he refused-

24:52 Speaker 2 See-

24:52 Speaker 1 ... to take anything for that. He, he was... He, he earned a living.

24:57 Speaker 2 Right.

24:57 Speaker 1 He, he did not want... I remember even an interesting story where there was a, uh... I don't know if this still, this... They made a wine one year before Pesach where they combined Satmar and Lubavitch, like to make a wine, like an Achdas wine, whatever it was. I don't remember the details right now.

25:16 Speaker 2 So- sounds like the wine tasted terrible. Just my idea of it.

25:21 Speaker 1 Um, I don't remember, you know, the full details of it, like what the motivation was.

25:27 Speaker 2 Yeah.

25:27 Speaker 1 But I guess it was to sort of like create this... And my father being part of the Rabbonim and the, the CHK, so before Pesach, they brought a case to my father, and my father had this whole struggle whether he's allowed to use it, whether this was a she'echad kind of thing.

25:47 Speaker 2 She'echad. Uh-

25:48 Speaker 1 Like he was so straight and careful about like, he took a zero, a zero penny for any of his work and that, and, um, but he, he, I mean, he didn't share with us these particular struggles, but my mother shared with me that he, he went through some of these like, you know, this imposter syndrome type of thing. I mean, and, and, and he was very capable. I mean, he was a brilliant man and, um-

26:14 Speaker 2 You think he knew that?

26:16 Speaker 1 No.

26:16 Speaker 2 You don't think he realized he was brilliant?

26:18 Speaker 1 I don't... To be honest, no. I think that he, he, he had a certain, um... Okay, let me maybe share something about Zirkinds, and I may get a lot of flack for saying this, um, because, you know, I know there's probably family of mine listening on both ends, the Groner and the Zirkind. Um, but the Zirkinds are Baruch Hashem very intelligent people, but highly insecure. Um, they don't come across that way. You know, they're, they're known as loud and, and... But there's a lot deeper-rooted insecurity.

26:57 Speaker 2 Because of being outsiders the whole time with the Malachim?

27:00 Speaker 1 No, I think the main reason is because my grandfather, going through the Korea, Korean War, it had a major impact on him. And I think post-army life, it was a very difficult transition for him.

27:18 Speaker 2 Wait, your zeide, uh, we never heard this story. Your zeide, the, the, the cipher?

27:22 Speaker 1 The cipher, yeah.

27:23 Speaker 2 He was, uh, he was drafted into the-

27:24 Speaker 1 He was drafted, 1950.

27:26 Speaker 2 When he was married already?

27:28 Speaker 1 So, yeah, I believe he was married already. Um, or, yeah, I think he was already married. He had a, he actually, my, my oldest, my, his oldest son, Alav Ha-Shalom, was born while he was in Korea.

27:43 Speaker 2 Wow.

27:43 Speaker 1 He had to do a brit milah himself, and, uh-

27:46 Speaker 2 How does a shatiz do the brit milah himself?

27:47 Speaker 1 There was no mohel around, so.

27:49 Speaker 2 Oh, the family moved with him to Korea.

27:51 Speaker 1 I believe my, yeah, my grandmother was with him at the time, so he, you know, he had to practice.

27:58 Speaker 2 Really?

27:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. But he gave us, all his children, I believe, they had a brit milah, and most of his grandchildren had a milah.

28:03 Speaker 2 He was a self, self-taught mohel.

28:04 Speaker 1 Self-taught mohel. How scary that is, but yes. Um, I mean, he was a jack of all trades, as they say, but in the case of him, he was a master of many. Um-

28:15 Speaker 2 So your zeide was drafted, and how many years was he in the war?

28:18 Speaker 1 I think he was there till the end. Um-

28:20 Speaker 2 A few years.

28:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. Two years, whatever it was. I don't know. I mean, there's, there's sibl- siblings that I have that know the story a lot better than I, but, uh, there's a lot. I mean, the famous story of the Zirkinds, you know, why we wear, you know, the l'vush and, and all that, that's all from, you know... I see it as a respect post my grandfather being in the army.

28:44 Speaker 2 But he didn't wear the l'vush before the army?

28:46 Speaker 1 He did. But the reason why we wear it, I think, is more a respect. Like, it's not like this is sort of the tradition in the family. I, I, I think from my perspective, again, I'm sharing my perspective. There may be others who see it as, you know, this is, we're continuing a certain tradition. But, um, my father never made us feel that way. It was more like a choice. Do you want to sort of, uh... You know, it, it, he went when he was drafted-

29:12 Speaker 2 It's like a ho- it's like a hom- like a homage to your zeide that like-

29:15 Speaker 1 At least I feel it's that way, yeah. He was brought up on, in, in, in, um, in Manhattan. He grew up and, and his connection when... I think the first time we, uh, we spoke, he, uh, he... I mentioned that he, you know, davened in the Malachim shul. He never, he never identified officially, never identified himself as part of the Malachim, but he davened in their shul 'cause that was the only shul that davened Nusach Ha-Ari at the time. Um, and he sort of adopted their l'vush from what I understand. And then when he went into the army, he, uh, they, they didn't allow you to be... He couldn't, you couldn't wear, uh, a beard and payos in the army, and let alone, you know, have a jacket. So, I mean, and, and he changed that. I mean, being able to get, have a beard was due to his court case he had.

30:01 Speaker 2 So he kept his beard?

30:02 Speaker 1 Well, eventually they shaved it off him. Eventually they forcibly shaved his beard.

30:07 Speaker 2 Really?

30:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. Um, which was basically against the... At the time, that was the law, but that, the way they did it was very, uh, um... That was one of the ways he was able to... Initially, he was court-martialed, and he was sentenced, I think, to 10 years in prison.

30:29 Speaker 2 Because of the beard?

30:29 Speaker 1 Because he refused to obey orders.

30:32 Speaker 2 About the beard.

30:33 Speaker 1 About the beard. And his father managed to get a, a journalist, um, to get his story. I, I could be, I'm missing some of the details here, and, or a lawyer in, while he was in prison, and he threatened that if he doesn't get a fair trial, he'll publish, he'll publish this throughout the United States of how that he was treated. So the, uh, they took that seriously, and they gave him a fair trial, and eventually he was released. I mean, there's a whole story with the Rebbe about his beard, whether he's allowed to shave his beard or not. Um- Officially, the way I recall the story, he was, um, the rabbi told him to go ask other Rabbonim what to do. He went to other Rabbonim, and they, some of them said, like, sort of, if it's begeged bekarch nefashas, you know, you're allowed to take off your beard. And then he had hichidus with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe, um, her asked him, "Nu, vos zogt the, the Rabbonim?" Or something like that, and he told him what the Rabbonim said, and then he, the Rebbe asked him, "A yunge man, vos zoks du?" Um, so my zayde said, some Chassidics says it's a misser dereisa and all that. So the Rebbe told him, "Dos iz yareg v'yavor" which is an incredible, uh, you know, psak, I guess you could say. And so that's it. He didn't take-

31:58 Speaker 2 What's the surah?

32:01 Speaker 1 Maybe shas hashmad. That's what I'm thinking. Maybe it was begeged shas hashmad. I'm sure, again, others will have other explanations for it. To me, it was begeged shas hashmad. So as the Gemara says, that even if they ask you to change your shoelaces, it's, uh-

32:17 Speaker 2 If they're trying to prove a point of, uh-

32:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. If it's a religious kind of, if it's a threa-

32:22 Speaker 2 Persecution

32:22 Speaker 1 ... persecution, yeah. Um, so from that, my zayde refused to, to shave his beard and pays. Um-

32:33 Speaker 2 So you're saying all of that contribute, contributed to, to him coming back from the war?

32:38 Speaker 1 I think what impacted... Listen, he was definitely, um, a very, very independent person, and a very strong-minded person probably before he went into the w- into the army. At the time he went into the army, he was already, he went through shas and and, uh, he was a fear, fairly to say, a bookie at that, at that age, at the age of 20, 21. So he, he had a brilliant mind himself. Um, but I think coming out, there was a certain hardening of his, you know, outward, his demeanor, you know, uh, demeanor, his, his, his, uh, uh, you know, his... And I think it impacted his children. I think it created a certain, um, you know, uh, he wasn't easy at home with, with, with food and all. Like, he didn't have the parnassa, and he was a butcher, so, you know, they didn't... And it was a large family, so if, you know, you could put together the, these pieces of the puzzle. It makes sense that the environment they grew up was also a very tough environment. My grandfather was, was very, very tough on his children. He had an expectation of them to, you know, live up to a certain standard. Um, so I think that's what contributed a lot to that type of insecurity. Um, one of the major things, though, of that kind of environment was that there was a, a high level of objectivity, though, because you were able to experience an argument where two people were yelling at

34:13 Speaker 1 each other, tearing each other apart, you know, in terms of discussion and all that, and if you could prove your point and back it up, you won the argument. Like, it wasn't... In other words, there was a lot of sharpening of the mind in that house. So it was, it was, so it was very, there was a lot of objectivity in that sense, which together with that also created a sense that you had to live up to a certain standard.

34:38 Speaker 2 Right.

34:39 Speaker 1 So, and that filtered down from my father's generation to my gene- to my generation. Um, and, uh, so yeah, so going back to the question, I do think my father didn't know that he was as brilliant that, as he was. Um, I remember during Shiva, a, uh, someone came, um, Rabbi Teitelbaum, alav ha-shalom, um, his, uh, um, Mechul Teitelbaum's, uh, son, Laser, alav ha-shalom, ala'ei ha-shalom. So they were chavruses for many years. And Laser Teitelbaum was known as a very big talmid chacham. And, uh, when he came, we sort of like s- you know, were speaking to him about things, and we sort of brought up how, um, you know, like, what was the limud like learning together with my father, like, you know, and all that. So, uh, he was saying, like, no one, no one was able to appreciate, like, him learning with him, my father, no one was able to really appreciate my father's, you know, gadlus in limud and all that. Um, I remember, if I remember Rabbi Heller when he came said something very similar to that also. Um, but he didn't, he didn't see it that way. He didn't see it that way. Um, and I think as a general s- statement, uh, you know, people who are on that caliber probably don't really see themselves on that level.

36:09 Speaker 2 Right.

36:10 Speaker 1 Um-

36:10 Speaker 2 Well, 'cause they're comparing themselves to something much larger.

36:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

36:15 Speaker 2 You, you, you're, you're seeing, you're thinking of them comparing themselves to you, but that's not what, that's not what they're comparing themselves against.

36:23 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, they're comparing themselves to, you know, whatever-

36:26 Speaker 2 It's what else is out there.

36:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. W- who their heroes are.

36:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

36:30 Speaker 1 You know, their standards.

36:31 Speaker 2 Yeah. If you're looking for an event that is memorable, meaningful, and affordable, let me recommend This World Is a Garden, a film and live concert production created by us here at Uvlah Media, inspired by Basse le Ganin, the first mimer, the Rebbe said. If you're a regular here at HFL, you know that Basse le Ganin is something that we think about and talk about a lot. And in this production, we use the power of cinematic filmmaking and a live concert by Sri Quartet to bring the beauty of Basse le Ganin to your community and your audience in a way that they've never seen, heard, or experienced it before. The production has already been hosted by Chabad Houses around the country and has drawn wonderful reviews. Our package comes with everything that you need to put on the production, the film's original arrangements for string quartet, publicity materials, everything besides the string quartet, which we recommend that you hire locally to save on travel costs. To find out more about this production, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. Again, thisworldisagarden.com. And now, back to the show. You, you bring a muscle from, from, from wealth as well. I, I... There was a... The other day, I was... I had this day where I was filming, and, like, the first, the first stop was a smaller home, and then I went with that person to a larger home. "Oh, this home." And this is a „ma zeh she'oyah." "Oh, this home, this is five acres. This is, this is big."

37:52 Speaker 2 You know? And, and the people in the home are, "Yeah. Well, thank God we have this wonderful property." And then we all went from there to a home that was, like, 15, 20 acres. And, and the, the same person who literally an hour ago was the king of the castle was now on eve of Pesach and, and, "What do you say about this? This home's massive." And I'm like, "We're just in your home. Your home's massive." And, and, and I realized that, like, you're, like... A- a- and my bet is this person with the largest home that we saw that day, judging on the kind of business that they're in, I'm sure they have business acquaintances or partners who have even bigger homes, and they go there, and they're like, "All right." And so people are always compare... You, you think that they compare themselves to you. Like, there's always someone bigger to compare themselves to to keep you humble or jealous, whatever.

38:43 Speaker 1 And that's why you think they're happy when they're miserable.

38:46 Speaker 2 They're miserable.

38:46 Speaker 1 You know? Because compared to you, they should be happy, but-

38:49 Speaker 2 Right

38:49 Speaker 1 ... when they're comparing themselves to the other guy, that's when they have to be, you know-

38:52 Speaker 2 Yeah

38:52 Speaker 1 ... and they're still chasing money even though they're Baruch Hashem fine and well off for the next, uh, 100 years.

38:58 Speaker 2 Right. The, the mind, the mind plays games with us. There's no question about it. When you read these books, and I, I'm not proficient in them at all, but the little bit that I read about, like, you know, these, these tests, a lot of it, a lot of it is with these scientists, Kahneman, and Tversky, and these people, and, like, the, the, the, the, the biases that they've uncovered, the way that we basically, we convince ourselves that we know what we're talking about, and we have no clue. We literally just, like, our mind creates these tricks of collecting information and shaping information, and we're like, "Yeah, we have the, we, we, we, we have an accurate assessment of the picture." And, uh, this to me is just a fascinating conversation. I know you're talking about your, you know, your, your zayde and your father. Um, and I think, okay, most people listening are not becoming a rav somewhere, uh, certainly not becoming a rav in the place where their grandfather was a rav famously. But we... But, but I think, yeah, a lot of people have on some level this, this, this, this struggle of inadequacy and, and carrying a burden of, "How do I live up to these examples?" And so much of it is to begin with a distortion of, of reality. And part of that is probably just the way the human mind works, and everybody does it on some level. But, uh, but some of it probably could be avoided. Some

40:13 Speaker 2 of it probably could be avoided. The, the, the, the need to, the need to romanticize things, the need to, to shy away from failure and shy away from inadequacy, I don't know exactly where it comes from, but I, I don't think it's useful to anybody. I don't think it's useful to anybody to, to, to, um, to, like, to shy away from, from the, the, the humanity of people, which includes their, their weaknesses.

40:47 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a certain element... I mean, there's, like I was saying before, I think there's, there's, there's a milah chaser on both ends. Like, there's on one end, perhaps it's part of human nature that we sort of, you know, I guess you could say strive for that unhuman quality, that perfection quality, which is what drives us. I mean, the Rambam essentially in Pirkei Avot is, mentions that point. He says that the human being is... Everything in nature strives for something above it, you know-

41:16 Speaker 2 Right

41:16 Speaker 1 ... on the next rung. So he says, "What's the human being striving for? Something above it," which is, you know, for a Jew, it's zechel elokim and all that.

41:24 Speaker 2 Nevuah, nevuah is always-

41:25 Speaker 1 Well, he brings in nevuah as part of the discussion, but his main point is, is that we're naturally striving for zechel and zechel elokim, and that's, you know, why we're, we're sort of there in as our, uh, you know, what pulls us there, which is sort of interesting because in, uh, Descartes', uh, um, Meditations, he has one of his proofs for God is this sense that we have of perfection, and he asks, like, "Why? Why do we think that, you know, we could be or should be per- perfect?" So I guess you could say from even an evolutionary point of view, what brought the human mind to want or even give, uh, at- attribute perfection to any entity?

42:14 Speaker 2 Right.

42:14 Speaker 1 Like, where does that come from? Um, and I don't think evolution at this point has an answer to that.

42:20 Speaker 2 So what is-

42:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

42:21 Speaker 2 So what is your answer?

42:23 Speaker 1 Well, I think what, I think what Descartes says I think is, is really accurate. I think there's a point that because God is perfect in, in, in this, in this context. Now, you could, you could-

42:32 Speaker 2 So you can't explain it without God. Perfection itself is a-

42:36 Speaker 1 I can't explain it from a purely evolutionary point of view. I don't think there's any-

42:41 Speaker 2 How do you come to perfection in an imperfect world, right?

42:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

42:43 Speaker 2 Yeah.

42:44 Speaker 1 If, if you believe everything is emergent from a sort of, you know, consciousness emerged from, you know, a, a single-cell organism into, you know, this abstract mind, you have to ask, like, what forced, what forces of nature brought that about? And, uh-

43:01 Speaker 2 Well, they'll say survival and-

43:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, but at some point, abstract math- mathematics are not necessary. There's certain truly abstract ideas of existence, um, metaphysics, and all that that don't play a role in my survival. It's interesting because at some point I had this as a, you know, fully convinced... I was pretty fully convinced of this idea, and then I heard an interview of, uh, someone interviewing Noam Chomsky back in the '60s, and he made the very same point. I mean, he's, uh, I think an agnostic, atheist, whatever he is, but, like, he wasn't even discussing God. He was just more discussing being a, uh, uh, you know, a professor of language and all of that. Like, where did man get the need to, you know, to evolve into such a, a abstract mind? You know, Schlemiel says, "With Mozart, "" and the could either be nothing or you're the I in that, that stage of, that state of-

43:55 Speaker 2 Right

43:55 Speaker 1 ... you know? Um, so I, to me, I think there is, there is definitely a truism in the s- statement that, um, there's a consciousness that we're connecting to, that it, that is above us, that is outside of us, that is, or that we're... I don't know if the word is outside of us, but that we tap into, and therefore we sense things like existence and, and, uh, perfection, all of these ideas. We don't even know what they mean. We talk about them as if, yeah, we exist, and then when we try to break it down into some sort of concrete, you know, uh, logical, uh, definition, we have no clue where for where to go, uh, or let's say the word truth.

44:36 Speaker 2 Lema- lemala'yen.

44:38 Speaker 1 Right.

44:38 Speaker 2 The, the Esh understands that it c- that, that, that doesn't ex- cannot start from itself, but everything above it is just-

44:44 Speaker 1 It's ayin

44:45 Speaker 2 ... nothingness.

44:45 Speaker 1 It's nothingness. So we use words-

44:47 Speaker 2 Yeah

44:47 Speaker 1 ... 'cause we need something to be s- on it.

44:49 Speaker 2 Yeah. We force ourselves into an abyss, essentially, is what you're saying.

44:52 Speaker 1 Exactly. And, I mean, without getting too down the road of philosophical discussion on this, I mean, the counter to, to, to, to, to Descartes is Kant, where he sort of says that, yes, maybe Sechel goes there, but Sechel is, has its flaws, and therefore you, we don't have any, any, um, any, uh, uh, history, any physical reality that matches these ideas. So all we're left with is sort of to be skeptical about them, about existence, about God, about these things. But then he says at the end, but there's like this, you know, mystery of nature. There's something mysterious, something, uh, uh, you know. So he defines it in art, you know, where critique of, of judgment. Like, he... Everybody knows there's something lamalo, and that we can't know, that pulls us something, but we guess, I guess in today's generation, we sort of try to, like, water it down into very basic, you know-

45:55 Speaker 2 Create content.

45:56 Speaker 1 Exactly.

45:57 Speaker 2 Create distraction.

45:58 Speaker 1 Right. But, like, I think going back to my original point, I think that there is nityas adam to strive for that, that oyen, to that, to, to be something greater than yourself. And when we have people... I mean, a classic example, if not the classic example, is the whole debate about that Midrash, about Moshe Rabbeinu. I'm sure you're aware of it. There's a Midrash that sort of says that Moshe Rabbeinu had midas ro'es, uh-

46:23 Speaker 2 You know, the, the painting where the-

46:24 Speaker 1 The painting, yes. Right.

46:26 Speaker 2 And it's-

46:26 Speaker 1 And a person looked at it, and he said, "This person has midas ro'es. He's a terrible person," and all that. And throughout the history, there's been a whole debate whether, whether we believe that m- that state, story, and then the, the whole controversy.

46:37 Speaker 2 It's in the Midrash or not?

46:39 Speaker 1 So there is some, there is, is, there is some sort of, you know, evidence to it. It's quoted in different, in Seforim in the last two hundred years. It's definitely quoted-

46:48 Speaker 2 So it's not from a classic Midrash?

46:49 Speaker 1 No, I don't think it's something that is, something we have a clear evidence. It's quoted, though, in Seforim and, and there was different schools of thought on it. Even in the Hasidisha world, in the line of the Maggid, and the Rebbe, like, rejected it, I believe, or said, like, I think in a Yechidas he had maybe with, uh, one of the... I don't remember who it was, but, uh, he sort of, like, rejected this like this. It can't be that, uh, this was Amos. But, like, this whole debate almost is, is, is th- th- it's almost like you would say, like, the Ishbitzer will say that is an accurate story because it defines the human struggle, and we want to appreciate that human struggle. That pushes us higher. And then perhaps oth- another school of thought will say, "On the contrary, we need to have examples of perfection, "" in order for us to sense that, you know, we're gonna get there, or we could get there, or should try to strive for that." So I, I think that both play a role in us, and so we therefore, at some points, need other people to be that way. We see our flaws more 'cause that's just the nature of reality. Um, but there's another side of the thing which we, like you were mentioning, that we need to be able to be honest and realistic and, and focus on... You know, that, just to, to bring that point out a little bit, a little

48:11 Speaker 1 bit stronger, um... As a kid, I used to, I don't know if I... I, I, I, I, I used to listen to Berel Wein's history.

48:21 Speaker 2 Sure.

48:22 Speaker 1 And he had a comment he mentioned, he made about Rabbi Akiva when he spoke about Rabbi Akiva. And, uh, it, when he said it, it, like, struck me so profound, like a very profound con- point. You know, I don't know if it's his, but, uh, he said that, "Why, you know, why is Rabbi Akiva the greatest?" Right? The "" says, you know, "" Rabbi Akiva. Like, why is Rabbi Akiva seen as, like, this-

48:46 Speaker 2 Right

48:46 Speaker 1 ... standout? And he, he said something fantastic. He said, "You know, all of the Gedolei HaDor, by the age of nine, they were baali beshas." You know, like, they were already way beyond, you know... They were not just a prodigy, they were the prodigy's prodigy. Like, they were super, sumu- superhuman. You know, like, the grub built a goyim or whatever at 12. Like, just the, the, these sheer, these, the comprehension of, of these people at such a young age just doesn't make any sense to us. What about Rabbi Akiva? Before 40, he was an am ha'aretz, and he needed to see the erosion of the stone as the, you know, the Oves Rav Nasan says, you know, to be able to, um, or it was Pinchas Rabeleza, he, to be able to see that he also could, you know. And, and, and, and that we, that inspires us. That allows us. So that's why we call Rabbi, Rabbi Akiva, like, sort of like he's the one who was able... Or like the famous Zohar about Yisro. "" Yisro, the Torah couldn't be given. The Rebbe asks, "How you talking about Yisro to say such a thing?" But because he went through that whole challenge, and he took it. So we do need that both. We, we... I think it's, it's a sort of like a, it's a, it's, it's, it's a, um-

49:57 Speaker 2 It's very int- very, very interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

50:01 Speaker 1 And I think some of us choose one way over the other at a given time in our lives, but-

50:07 Speaker 2 Well, I think, I think it's Tikkun and Toyru. I was just learning it the other week in Shul. Um, Tikkun and Toyru, where in many ways Tikkun is the, is a guiding of, of the Rambam, where, you know, t- a deim has to be omah t'tzemech, tzemech t'chai, chai medaber, and medaber has to be olah l'kim.

50:25 Speaker 1 And like you said, eventually nevuah, which is the highest kind.

50:28 Speaker 2 Yeah. Everything, yeah, and everything has a time and place. But then the Alter Rebbe asks a question. Yeah, but in the world of toyu, I don't think he puts it this way, but he asks a question, "Why do people need to eat food?" So cl- uh, in the world of tikkun, you need to eat food because you're being maleit. But what in a wor- what about in a world where people are slapped down by it? Why do we cr- why did they have to create a world where you're not, you don't, you don't elect to eat, you have to eat? So his answer is because in the food, in olam ha-toyu, there's more in the food than there is in you. You're forced to engage with it, right? And, uh, this, uh, wh- which ma'amar was this in? I think this is in Matis. And, and, and the Alter Rebbe explains a beautiful idea of why in olam ha-toyu you have to say the dibur. It's not, it's not, it's not okay only b'machshava. He says because dibur and ma'aseh both necessitate taking energy that comes from your, from your, from, from your e-engaging in the world. So it forces you to engage with olam ha-toyu. It forces you to get outside of yourself and to, and to grapple with, with, with the chaos of olam ha-toyu. Machshava, it, he says chashav ma, which on one hand, sometimes he says chashav how, how big that is. But here he says that it, there's a limitation

51:38 Speaker 2 to it. You're stuck in your own mind. You're stuck in your own limitations, and you can't be ma'amshech at the same, at the same level. You cannot access, you cannot, you cannot, you cannot, um... You're not grappling with the enormity that you are with olam ha-toyu. You're stuck in your own, your own, your own head. Tikkun has that, that limitation. And I-

51:56 Speaker 1 You're confined to your own construct.

51:58 Speaker 2 Your own construct, yeah. Yeah. Um, Descartes.

52:02 Speaker 1 Right.

52:02 Speaker 2 You know, uh, the, the, the, the... I mean, and I, not that I know that much about him, but, but the, the, the world of rational, which, which has faced such calamitous ruin since the World Wars, essentially, you could say, maybe even before-

52:17 Speaker 1 The postmoderns.

52:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. Right. Right. People were attacking it before, but it, it literally just crumbled under the weight of history with, with the World Wars that led to this postmodern existential soup that we all live in today of utter chaos, olam ha-toyu, right? Olam ha-toyu kind of chaos. They, they had everything figured out. They had everything figured out, but there's a limitation to it. They're all stuck in their own heads, and the whole day they're trying to figure out what is real, what isn't real, but it's all in their mind, right?

52:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

52:47 Speaker 2 And there's a certain, there's a certain freedom that comes from realizing that, that not every... So in a way, when you, when you let go of the perfection, there's a freedom that comes, uh, something liberating that comes from engaging with, with the chaos of the world, with the humanity of the world, with the flaws of the pe- of our heroes, right? And, and they're both true, though. You s-

53:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

53:12 Speaker 2 For all the var that we say about olam ha-toyu and how its cherished is higher and, and all the gevaldige zachen about olam ha-toyu, sof kosov, olam ha-tikkun is, is, is supposed to be the predominant model, right? Because chaos on its own is a disaster, total disaster. You need to have order. You need to have some kind of model, like you're saying. We need to have a model that we strive for, and maybe we concoct that model or find that model in the people that came before us and, and, and that allows us to strive for something bigger than ourselves, which is probably a good thing, a religious ideal, where we don't allow ourselves to get obsessed with our own, our own, you know, narcissism and our own gesheft, like our own authenticity. That's not, it's not... Like, we know that that's not enough. There has to be a model, but we also have to remember that that model is very sanitized and very limiting, which we're, we're, we're, we're... It's a complete construct of our own mind.

54:18 Speaker 1 A million percent. I think there's also a factor on a psychological level, is that there's a certain safety in having the rishonim k'malachim.

54:26 Speaker 2 Yeah.

54:27 Speaker 1 Right? It gives us a certain feeling of security, you know? I think there's a certain unhinging of our own identity if our parents, grandparents had the same struggles we had.

54:38 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

54:39 Speaker 1 So just for that sake, just on that level alone, we sort of run away and deny, you know, like, uh, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this topic, but, like, the question if the Rebbe could make a mistake.

54:51 Speaker 2 Oh, I was gonna get there, but you, you preempted me.

54:53 Speaker 1 Right. But, like, that kind of question is, is really, like, I think a lot of it is hinged on this discu- now, obviously, there is, you know, Moshe is, uh, chetzia, you know, the ma'ala is, you know, is, is, is, is keli kim. And from that angle, we say, like, you know, or the concept that a Rebbe is atzmus u'machus u'mehovus u'guf and all that. But, like, then there's the human factor, right? That in the human factor, there is ein, ein ish ba'aretz, ein tzaddik ba'aretz asher ba yahta. There's a concept that, uh, sin doesn't have to mean sin, chaserin, like, Moshe Rabbeinu made a mistake. The Torah talks about his mistakes. Um-

55:31 Speaker 2 Yeah. Didn't the Rabbeim all say that, that, uh, it starts with the Alter Rebbe, but I think there, we quote that if there was a tzaddik gamur, the Mashiach would have come.

55:38 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly, right. No, that's, so-

55:40 Speaker 2 What, what, what's that supposed to mean?

55:42 Speaker 1 Right. No, so I... But again, I think there's a part of, like, where this becomes more of a passionate, almost emotional conversation-

55:51 Speaker 2 Yeah

55:51 Speaker 1 ... is because what happens if we say the Rebbe did make a mistake? So now my Rebbe fu- my whole image of the Rebbe somehow collapses. Like, the Rebbe stops becoming whatever I saw the Rebbe as.

56:05 Speaker 2 Yeah. Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening 10 years ago, Yuvala Media has pushed the boundaries of artistic and thoughtful storytelling in the community with an insistence on there always being a memorable story as well as a beautiful and striking visual image that we believe is second to none. Over the years, we have worked with Chabad organizations around the country, as well as large organizations like Boniolo, Torah Mesora, and Atzalathon, guided by the belief that your story is absolutely worth telling with depth and creativity. If you are looking to tell your story with a video, please reach out to us at hello at yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello at yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast.

56:59 Speaker 1 My brother would point out when we were children, when we were younger, you know, like in the, we used to get, um, the, the picture book on the Parsha. It was, it was done originally by a Satmar school or something. So the picture of Moshe Rabbeinu is with a shtreimel, you know? You know, so he would, he would laugh because they had a picture of, you know, Dason and Avina putting out the moon. So he would laugh, "Dason and Avina with a shtreimel." You know, like, like how far do you take this nonsense, you know? But, uh, yeah, there's almost like a need to sort of re- re- um

57:38 Speaker 2 And that, but that's exactly the point

57:40 Speaker 1 ... revise history.

57:40 Speaker 2 That's exactly the point. We think that we're making them bigger. Really what we're doing is we're forcing them back into our own head.

57:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly, because we're insecure.

57:49 Speaker 2 We, we see Ktusha as a person with a shtreimel, therefore they must be wearing a shtreimel. Don't you realize that God is way bigger than whatever Yiddishkeit looks like in these 10, 100 years? Like, it's not to minimize what you're doing now. It's, but it's to recognize the limitations of these images, like, that you have in your own head, and you're trying to squeeze the entirety of history and the entirety of Godly, of Yiddishkeit into it. Uh, look, it, it's, it's very interesting this question of, of, um, why people, why people... Look, there's a, there is-- this is something I wish, that has been spoken on the podcast a lot, and I'm glad we're getting to it now. This, this, it's almost like people need a, like an anchor or a sense of certainty somewhere. And so Lubavitch, because we grapple so much with God, and God in a way becomes less certain, and it's like there's a certain almost a confrontational kind of aspect to, like, questioning. And so then we find our certainty in the Rebbe. And that certainty very often, I'm not here to knock per se your Emunah Tzadikim or like... But a lot of the times certainty comes across as very, like, cheap or forced. Like it's, it's here, it's, it's here, like, to compensate for something. And that's, that's very strange. That's very strange. And, and I, and I think it, it, if, if, if nothing else, it, it, it basically keeps us in our own heads. It keeps

59:30 Speaker 2 us in our own heads. And, you know, people say, "Well, what about Emunah Tzadikim? And what about..." Emunah Tzadikim is a subjective thing. These are subjective ideas. What you need, what, what you're doing is, is you're looking for objective perfection, like a perfection that, like, is, like, kulam almidi, and, and, and there's absolutely no question that can be pres- I think we spoke about this maybe the last time, where, like, the fact that someone has a question about your relationship with your spouse doesn't necessarily mean that you have to care.

1:00:07 Speaker 1 Right.

1:00:08 Speaker 2 Right?

1:00:08 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:00:09 Speaker 2 Right? You, that's not, like, my relationship has nothing to do with your shailas. I have my own shailas that I have to work on. That's my But you can't help me with that, and you also can't hurt that. And if you can hurt that with your questions, that means I have a problem in my own subjective thing that I have to work out with. And that's where I've begun to start getting, like, why, why, why do you need the whole world to be maskim to everything that the Rebbe never said? Why, why do you need that? If you're so, like, when did, when did, when did these ideas go from being what Hasidim believe about their Rebbe to the whole world needs to believe it? I don't know. May- may- maybe it's because of Ari Kadish, maybe that's the way the Rebbe spoke about the Fidik Rebbe. But I think there's also a way to understand the Rebbe spoke about the Fidik Rebbe at Zahasid.

1:01:00 Speaker 1 I think there's, there is an aspect of lesson the Rebbe definitely was a game changer, if we could use those words, in this whole aspect. I mean, the Rebbe created this whole notion very much about the Deishvi, the Nasi Hador, the Derachin Shel Kolos. And when you're looking at it from that angle, like, then there has to be, like, a sense of uzntsudeh, zivudis is best, elfon zeididis. So if that's the case, then yeah, whatever the Rebbe did has to be, you know, sort of that's the best, and that's what everybody else should sort of want to, uh, you know, strive to be like or accept. I don't think the Rebbe necessarily felt that way. I mean, I think that-

1:01:43 Speaker 2 Look how he wrote to the, look how he wrote to politicians. Look how he spoke to people that were not in the machana, so to speak. It's not like, like militant language where, like, this is what the, this is what we believe, and our way or the highway. There's a difference between how you believe within and what you expect the world around you to believe. Subjective and objective are very No, like there's-

1:02:10 Speaker 1 No, I mean, I think the point you're making, you know, comparing it to a relationship, right? Where my relationship with my wife is none of anybody else's business, and how I view my wife is, is again, is not an objective, uh, you know... If I put my wife to an objective standard, then I'm gonna have a problem, but that's not my relationship. So what you said before, I think is, is a very good point, like, do we-- is our relationship with the Rebbe like... If someone will ask me, right? If you would ask me, do I think the Rebbe can make a mistake? So I'd answer objectively, yes. But in my personal relationship with the Rebbe, no. Like, I have this deeper beyond reasonable, perhaps, logical connection that I don't-- I can't justify that to you. You're gonna bring me stories of things, um, uh, of, of, of, of things, you know, that the Rebbe said or whatever, that the Rebbe re-retracted later. I mean, how do you explain that, that the Alter Rebbe wrote, uh, a psak din in Shulchan Aruch, and later on changed his mind? What, he made a mistake? I mean, that's not called a mistake. You could say that was at the given time, that was his... But there were times that there were, there were things that perhaps we shouldn't get into the, all the, you know, there are stories of things like that that sort of emphasize or highlight that there was a, a certain slip, a mistake,

1:03:36 Speaker 1 uh, you know, forgetfulness, which is normal, right? Uh, the-

1:03:40 Speaker 2 Can, can you even be more simple and say there are things that you think were a mistake? I mean, you can't prove they're a mistake, but you don't, you just don't see how they worked out.

1:03:49 Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, uh, I think that that is, again, when we're looking at this from, like you said, from the Emunas Tsaddikim, from my personal relationship with the Rebbe. So my personal relationship with the Rebbe is, is the way I have, I wanna have a relationship with him. That doesn't mean that objectively I have to hold the Rebbe accountable, so to speak, to that standard also. And, and I think that's a very true point. I think that to the welt, do I have to present the Rebbe as being infallible? I, I don't think so. As a Hasid, maybe I do have to see the Rebbe as infallible. I mean, the-- you could discuss, you could debate this question. I mean, is that I'm creating now an objective standard for a Hasid that's ridiculous based on what I'm saying. I'm saying subjectively in my own, you know, my mind, to me, I have questions, but on a deeper level, there's a certain, I guess you wanna call it emunah, a certain level of, um, hiskashrus, that the Rebbe doesn't make mistakes, and I'm just limited in my understanding of the bigger picture. I mean, take for example the story someone wrote into the Rebbe that you gave us a bracha. You know, he was dating or engaged to someone, he gave us a bracha, now, you know, it fell apart. What happened? The Rebbe says, "Yeah, I gave you the bracha. I gave you the bechirah also to choose how to, you know,

1:05:13 Speaker 1 make it work." To me, that says a lot. That says, like, we, we then say, "Oh, we don't understand," but did-- what was the path? What was the, the, the, our involvement in that process also, you know? And, and then there are things that we could say we just don't know the broader picture of what's going on. I mean, could God make a mistake? I mean, that, that... Not comparing, obviously, but I'm saying is, like, there is a point here of saying that, um, we can say God doesn't make a mistake, but we don't understand the broader picture. Do we, do we relate to that on, do we put that on the Rebbe? Maybe on some personal level there is a ele-element of that, but I don't think objectively that's the standard that we, we, we need to create. Um, I don't think that's what the Rebbe wants us to portray to the world. Um, like another big issue that has confronted a lot of non-Lubavitchers about Lubavitch is this notion that we're the Rebbe's the Nasi Hador.

1:06:12 Speaker 2 Right. What do, what do those words mean?

1:06:14 Speaker 1 What does, what does those words mean and, and, and, and which dor?

1:06:18 Speaker 2 And, uh, and, and, and if, let's say you believe that it's objectively true, uh, but the problem with that is what happens when a big segment of the dor says, "Absolutely not. We, we don't, we don't play ball with this."

1:06:32 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

1:06:32 Speaker 2 What do you do now?

1:06:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:33 Speaker 2 I mean, Lubavitch are arguing that you don't care what... But, like, how, how, like Yes.

1:07:59 Speaker 1 And, and I think we have to accept that there is my subjective relationship to it and my objective relationship to it. My objective relationship to the, to the issue is, is that there, you know, there is conflicts here. I mean-

1:08:12 Speaker 2 There are questions here that I can't answer

1:08:13 Speaker 1 This question I can't answer. I mean, you have the extreme in Lubavitch that say that Gimel Tammuz never happened because of this issue of the Noshi, there has to be Chaive Kai

1:08:21 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah

1:08:23 Speaker 1 So it brings out a lot of problems. Like-

1:08:25 Speaker 2 Yeah, there's, there's a lot of theological problems here. There's no question about it. There's a lot of theological problems. Yeah

1:08:32 Speaker 1 So, like, if w- if we sort of now put the Rebbe to that standard of Noshi Hadar, from what the Rebbe himself said, I mean, this is the Rebbe's words, and like I said, the Rebbe, the Rebbe was a game changer in, in, in, in terms of siddas, in, in, in, in, in many ways, and in, in, in general, in our approach. I mean, the Rebbe, you could perhaps argue, is the most successful leader in history. I mean, he's created an army of, of, of people, and we are clearly-- we're very much, um, hopefully, um, positively, you know, ef- influencing, but this whole nation-- notion of influencing comes from the Rebbe. I mean, he's created us. Well, Jonathan Sacks said the Rebbe created leaders, right? I was just recently speaking, uh, with some sort of, like, ]or something, and some, you know, got up, you know, ]I said, "Now you get to-- I got to appreciate this, what Jonathan Sacks said, the Rebbe created leaders." Like, ]like, everybody becomes a balabosta now. Why? Because I guess ]like, in that sense, look at ]. Some of them are ], some of them are not. But they're empowered. They... So in that sense, the Rebbe's, I guess if you're looking at it from a, a historical point of view and a sociological point of view, psychological point of view, the Rebbe, the Rebbe's shaping of us and the way the Rebbe took, going back to what I said before, what my

1:09:56 Speaker 1 grandfather said, you know, taking the, you know, the American ]and, and, and taking them to a Melbourne, Australia, like, that's a mind-boggling idea. You know, it's like, um, but the Rebbe infused this notion of we're, we're heading to perfection. We're striving to that ultimate, sh- uh, you know, the, the of this. Like-

1:10:21 Speaker 2 Right

1:10:21 Speaker 1 And, and when you, when you see it from that perspective, it's very difficult as a Chabad Hasid to say, "Okay, now we're gonna go backwards, and now we're gonna sort of like, uh, go back to this mediocrity almost of like, 'Okay, we're still working in the challenges and the struggles.'" If we're not working the challenge and the struggles, then the Rebbe has to be obviously above it for sure. So it's almost like-- What I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that, again, I'm talking here objectively, not my personal relationship with the Rebbe. I'm saying from a certain objective point of view, is that there is a certain in the Rebbe's shift, the Rebbe's Torah, and the Rebbe's power, the Rebbe's influence, that the notion of this perfectionism and this, this, this, uh, uh, again, uh, I don't know what words we wanna use here, the Rebbe's infallible or like, is, is because sort of where the Rebbe put us at.

1:11:21 Speaker 2 So look, I think, I think... Look, this might be a bit convenient, and I think what you're saying in general is true, that the idea of finding a perfect answer to this problem is inherently suspect. But I feel like in this case, for me at least, there is a quite elegant solution to it in the sense that, to me, the Rebbe's speaking as a Hasid. Right? And the Rebbe speaking about the ]like, I take it at face value. I don't... Like, I, I, look, I know that there's many levels to everything that a, that a, that a Rebbe says. I know that. But I'm saying it also ]right? Now, when the, when the Rebbe's talking about the ]being the Noshi there forty, fifty years after his passing, that's what he means. He means the ]is Noshi there. Is that on an objective level? The Hasids that were listening to him didn't believe that. They didn't believe that. They thought he was the Noshi there. But that's how he felt. Right? And so what happened? What happened was is that the Rebbe's subjective feeling about the ]became the objective standard for Lubavitch. That's where I think s- I think things went, went, went, went a little bit off. Not a little bit off, terribly off, in my opinion. I think-- And just forget about even theologically, if I'm right or wrong, like, my shit is. Just the idea that things that on the face of them are radical ideas, what-- L-

1:12:52 Speaker 2 let's not even argue what they mean or ex-- or, or, um, let's not argue, like, if, if I'm interpreting it right or not. Everybody will agree that the idea of saying the ]is a Noshi HaDor. First of all, about Noshi HaDor, which is a massive claim to say it's Lubavitch Rebbe and, and ]right? Now, you're saying Noshi HaDor, it's a big claim. That what, and at least what it means to me is at the very least it means that the ]is basically at the... Everybody, all these, all these people who have ideas about what's, what's important now and where the Dor needs to be, but he's the one who really has his eye on the ball. He's really at the top. Everything is downstream from him. That's a massive claim, 'cause there are people who are negative, right? But, but so at, at the very, at, at, at, at, however you interpret it, it's a massive claim. And then everybody just, just goes with it like, like it's nothing. Like it's, yeah, like, like ]. Like, like I remember, you know, I have, I have, I, it's, it's kind of dormant now, but for a while, I had an active chat that was kilo for people listening to the podcast. And I don't know how it... It's a while ago, and I'm tired. I don't remember exactly how it started, but there was basically, there, there was this whole discussion about Noshi HaDor, and there was still Noshi HaDor. So I

1:14:15 Speaker 2 was like, it was Sunday, I think, and I said, "Okay, I'm gonna have some fun today." And so I just started trolling, essentially, and said, "I'm sitting here with my friend Jerry, and Jerry doesn't understand what you mean by Noshi HaDor. Could you please explain to him how there is still Noshi HaDor?" And every answer was sillier than the next. A- and I'm, I'm not even bringing up the answers to make fun of them. It's more despite the fact that nobody could give me a coherent answer that was compelling to, to, you know, uh, to, uh, ]and yet everybody accepts it as truth, that to me is in itself a problematic thing, right? How does something that needs so much work and so much avoda to get to, it's subjective, and you have, you have to hold by it. How did it become this thing that everyone just says like, like, like, like it's nothing, like it's, you know. A- a- and I think that's, that's the... So to go back to your point, you're saying that the Rebbe was „Machadashas." I think the Rebbe spoke out to Chassid. And so the answer of Dirashfi, how long does it last? In my mind, it lasts as long as you believe in it. That's how long it lasts. That's precisely how long it lasts, right? There's no number. There's no number. Like it might be over for you. You might not believe it anymore. In that case, it's over. It's not a thing. It's not

1:15:41 Speaker 2 a thing that I can prove to you like a table. You could, you could say, uh, I don't know, metaphysical world is not based on physical things like a table. Yeah, but this is not a meta-- first of all, I don't even know that we believe in Yiddishkeit. We do. Even that itself is up for grabs. What do Yid- does Yiddishkeit really believe in Greek metaphysics? If you didn't b- don't stop believing in God, like what then? Right? Is there any Yiddishkeit left? It's an interesting question. As we approach the two-year mark of this podcast, Homesick for Lubavitch has become a household name in the Lubavitch community, with thousands of views each week on YouTube alone, as well as thousands more on the various podcast platforms. We have a devoted audience that listens regularly to the conversations and shares their thoughts with their families and communities. If you would like to sponsor an episode or advertise on one of our episodes, please reach out to bentzi@yuvalamedia.com. That's bentzi@yuvalamedia, Y-U-V-L-A, media.com.

1:16:47 Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, that gets into a whole array of things, 'cause what was Judaism before Greek philosophy and Judaism after Greek philosophy? You know, like today they talk about negative theology, right?

1:16:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:59 Speaker 3 The, the ideas of the „Achus v'Eifen Shlilah"

1:17:01 Speaker 2 Right

1:17:01 Speaker 3 ... which is a very big thing in Chassidus, which stems from, you know, Aristotle and down, like even before really.

1:17:09 Speaker 2 Right.

1:17:09 Speaker 3 You know, some Neoplatonism, Platonists who, whose, who developed this idea. Like, and I mean, prior to them was positive theology. There was the Neshama, God had a gulf. Like very, you know, um, incarnate.

1:17:24 Speaker 2 Direct. Direct.

1:17:24 Speaker 3 Very direct. And, and sort of like, so what Judaism is... What, what our definition of God itself is, is you really get into a whole question. Like people take, for example, like you said, today we just say the Aleph Beis, you know, that the Aibishter is, uh... I mean, the famous sich of the Rebbe, like the Rebbe saying on the Rambam, "How could you say that the, the, the people who believe that there's a gulf, that the Aibishter has a gulf are Apikorsim?" Right? And the Rebbe says that now that we passed them like the Rambam, so now talk like... But like, and then the Rebbe says, "So how, how do we teach a child that the Aibishter has a hand?" 'Cause when we teach them, we say, "Yad Chazaka means a hand." That's what Rebbe says, 'cause what does a child think of with a g- a hand of Hashem means? Like it's not, we're not, we're not teaching them Kefira. But like from a very historical point of view, there was a shift in how we understood the Aibishter. And, and therefore, like, like you said, so that becomes a question, like so the Yud-Gim El Okray Amona, like on what legs are they standing? Are they standing on the Rambam's definition, on, on Rabbeinu Chananel's definition, on the Rasag's definition? Like where, where do we go, or do we go even before that? Do we go to the days of, uh, of Tanakh, where it seemed like that the Aibishter had a

1:18:35 Speaker 3 gulf type of thing? Um, but just one point, you know, you mentioned, right, you know, like this point I think about the objective versus subjective I think is very, very important. Like you said, like there's a certain Pshitas to that approach also, which is like, I don't have to try to make my Rebbe be someone else's Rebbe. You know? Like I don't need to force a Nosy HaDar HaNotion on someone else. I need to live it within myself. Um, but I, I, I think there's also... And you mentioned how the Rebbe, like the Rebbe was saying at Chassid. Um, I think there's, there's another factor here, and that is that when we're looking at our own Avoda, right? Which Chassidus always talks about Avoda, and we're trying to, you know, build the connection to the Aibishter and all that. I mean, the Rebbe is an essential piece to that, right? It's the, the, the, the Memotz HaMachaver and, and all that. When you put that all together, then from that perspective, in A- in Avodas Hashem, Nosy HaDar makes a lot of sense. In other words, it's not just an idea the Rebbe said about the Vision. Vision. Right. Whatever, yeah. You know, „Shehayichufnei rucheshok halacha dechad." Like that idea. So it's true in, in a Nigla point of view, but even more so in a Chassidus point of view. There has to be a someone that has that, that is, is, is, is, is, is the Daber Achledor. And- The door is affected through

1:21:09 Speaker 3 that tzedakah door. I mean, this is an idea that's not just mentioned in Chabad. Right. I mean, uh, it is mentioned in, in other Sefer, I mean, in other Chassidus Sefer, and even in the Ramchal's, uh, you know, line of Kabbalah, there's this kind of- The Rambam even speaks about the Chacham, no? The Chacham- Right ... the whole world's Meshammes. Exactly. The Cha- Right, exactly. That analogy of the, you know, even the garbage men have their place. Um, w- so it, it's not a foreign idea at all, but it comes stronger and it's highlighted more in Chassidus, I think, because of the fact that Chassidus is telling us that just like the neshamah resides in the moach sheb'rosh, and there needs to be a kli through which the evodim connect to, you know, what, what, what allows for the connection between the, the, the, the spiritual and the physical, what allows for that? So there needs to be a klipa, that there needs to be that kayachmah, there needs to be that, that, uh, that, uh, mokom of, of haslaves or whatever, the Rebbe notion of nosi hadar, that makes a lot of sense. I think where the hergesh comes in is more how we sort of give these, uh, you know, definitions or, or, or what that, what that includes. It's almost like, again, going back to this discussion about God, you know? So people tell me, have these discussions, "Okay, I could accept God exists." It's, it's, it's a fairly good explanation. It's

1:22:29 Speaker 3 maybe equal to any other explanation out there and, and, and to explain the emergence of existence. But what about, you know, these attributes of God or the claims that God is, you know, uh, fallible, conscious, has free will? Like, why are those necessary factors? Right. And there is phil- there's philosophy on that also. There's ways to discuss that, but I'm sort of saying that in a quote here, like nosi hadar is not, not a chidush in that sense. It's, uh, almost like, uh, uh, it's axiomatic from Chassidus, I think. But at the same time, I think that the, the, the, the relationship and, and what that includes, you know, let's say the chai v'kayam, the guf gashmi kind of idea. There needs to be a nosi hadar chai v'kayam guf gashmi, and, and other aspects that were added to it, that already is, I think, where the hergesh boy comes in, and I mean, the Rebbe does try. The Rebbe explains why that's necessary, so there is a, there is a philosophy behind it. There is a sechel behind it. It's, it does have connections to a lot of these Chassidus, but I do think there is, from a, a, again, from a nigla point of view, and more importantly, from a chassidus point of view, the idea of nosi hadar does make sense. It's not a pure hergesh thing, but, and it's not a subjective thing. I think it's, sechel that can make sense. But again, certain, certain parts of it, like what the

1:23:51 Speaker 3 nosi hadar therefore means and how that, what's the consequences of the nosi hadar, I think is more where we'll, we'll, we, I think we have to more accept that as a subjective factor. Um- But even, even if, even if having a nosi hadar in Chassidus is a objective part or is a, is an axiomatic part of being a Chassid, not everyone is a Chassid, right? So you, you, you're, you-- Within the world that you, within your world of belief and within your, within your framework, this is axiomatic. But object, uh, objective, in the world of objectivity, you're gonna fast hit up against other people who start off with different, different axioms to begin with, right? And so- One hundred percent ... so obviously, at some point, the words subjective and objective start switching places and start getting confusing. Maybe there's a better word for it, but to me, it's just, it's, it's a matter of if, do you need someone else to agree with you to prove to you that you're right? And that's a weak position to begin with. Yeah. The person who needs their child to agree with their joke or to laugh at their joke has a, a troubling low level of self-esteem, right? The person who needs their child to feel his kasherus, to feel the Right. No, I, I think that, that, that, that, that, that is a very, uh, that's a very strong criticism of a lot of, of, of, of, of, of us now, you know? Um, like,

1:26:05 Speaker 3 you know, you, you know, your, your part of this is about what's the Chabad identity in twenty twenty-five, right? It's like, is our identity, you know, somehow, on the one hand, it's like looking back to the past and saying, you know, how great they were, and then being able to see, like, is this still being tr-translated into the next generation? And sort of that gives me legitimacy to still on believing. Right. That's probably what you're saying. And, um, yeah, I think there's definitely... I mean, Bechal Yidishkeit could be argued, is, could be argued that way. Like, w-why... I mean, this is now moving into a little bit of a different dis-discussion, but, like, there are parents that, for them, the reason why they're so tough on their children is because it, it's, it's, it's a fear control factor to give them their own security in their own religion. Right. So my child needs to daven with a minyan because that way I feel safe in my identity as a religious Jew, you know? If my kid, chas v'Shalom, is not up to my level, then that means I-I'm not a frum Yid. Yeah. Or, or, or that makes me feel like I'm a-- Right. Uh, but- Or like in, in the world of, let's say, because your zeide was moys and efish for the beard, so therefore your s- your son has to be moys and efish, and you're moys and efish, quote-unquote, even though no, no other part of Yiddishkeit is meaningful to you,

1:27:27 Speaker 3 because you have an attachment to this as being an identity. So you need your son to continue that for some reason in your mind, 'cause that gives more legitimacy or, uh, gives more, uh-

1:27:40 Speaker 2 Well, see, you see it in the American world. In the American Jewish world, there are many... And, and it's beginning to fall apart now, but for many years, there was a very common thing where we don't keep any Judaism in our house, but we insist that our kids don't intermarry.

1:27:55 Speaker 3 Right.

1:27:55 Speaker 2 And eventually, the kids tell their parents that, "Hello, this is ridiculous. You don't keep any of this, and you just want me to marry Jewish so that you can sleep better at night."

1:28:04 Speaker 3 Exactly.

1:28:04 Speaker 2 "'Cause you don't wanna suffer the, the, the, the costs and the consequences of your actions. You wanna feel like you got away with it, right? Because y- you're, you're insecure about what you're doing, and so you just wanna feel that, like, I don't have to see the cost of my, you know, insecure... I don't wanna face my insecurity in the face, so to speak. I don't wanna see, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna deal with it. That's not my problem. That's your problem."

1:28:29 Speaker 3 And, and they, and, and children sense it. They sense that-

1:28:32 Speaker 2 Yes

1:28:32 Speaker 3 ... and, and, and that turns them off more.

1:28:34 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:28:34 Speaker 3 Because instead of them embracing this thing that you're proud of or you identify with, they see it as a fear and control factor to, to push on, on, on, on them that... And they're like, "Well, don't, don't, don't throw on me something that you don't feel secure about, and have me be your security. That doesn't re- that doesn't resonate strongly with me at all." So, and, and yeah, I mean, you gave the extreme example of the Reform or, or, or communities like that, which the only thing that marri- matters to them is marrying Jewish, and then the children say, "Well, why? Like, for what reason?" But even in, in, in the more frumer, the more ultra, that we s- we have something similar to that.

1:29:14 Speaker 2 Yes. So yes, I, I didn't mean to make fun of them.

1:29:16 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:29:16 Speaker 2 I was saying over there it's very obvious, but we do the same thing.

1:29:19 Speaker 3 We do the same thing. We have very much, I mean, not everyone, not everyone, but there's a lot of that, which is the Yiddishkeit. I mean, there are legitimate, there's, there's genuine people who take seriously their Yiddishkeit, and they try to-

1:29:29 Speaker 2 Right

1:29:29 Speaker 3 ... inspire and, and all that. Like I, I, you know, speaking to a parent recently whose, you know, their child is struggling, whatever, and, um, they were not aware so much of how far their child was, you know, not shomer Shabbos, not, pretty much not religious. And it's very hard, 'cause, you know, you, you send your child to yeshiva. When they leave, they seem to be frum, and you think they're frum. Okay, so they're struggling with, I don't know, marijuana or something, with girls, with, um, uh, pornography. And, and then they're like, "One second. Why do I see that he was on WhatsApp on Shabbos?"

1:30:10 Speaker 2 Right.

1:30:10 Speaker 3 And then your whole world falls apart on you, and, and, and, and, and parents don't know, like, you know, how to, how to make sense of this. And one of the things I was saying, I was, I was bringing up the point how, like, you know, from what perspective do you think you passed on to your child a positive sense of Yiddishkeit? Was, was Yiddishkeit a positive? I know we talk about this a lot, but like, you know, it's not about a conversation with the child. It's the experience that the child grew up with. You know, was Shabbos a positive experience? Was going to shul a positive experience? Was keeping kosher a positive experience? Was... You know, someone reached out to me today like, "How do I explain to my child that we don't wanna eat from our friend's or our neighbor's food 'cause maybe it's doesn't have the standards we want?" It's a very difficult thing, like, to convey a sense of like, they're not bad. We're maybe a little bit more strict, but even then, how do you create pride? That's something that... And you know, really going back to the beginning of the conversation with my grandfather, Zurkin, you know, I grew up with him, and one of the things, you know, I would, I would have these conversations with either classmates or students or whatever, like, I, I, I grew up with the Lubavitch, right? At bar mitzvah we put a black hat and the long jacket and all that, and

1:31:29 Speaker 3 they're like, "Wouldn't you wanna, like, dress like a regular Lubavitcher?" I said, "If I'm changing, I'm not wearing anything , you know? Like, it's not between Lubavitch or this. It's between this or nothing." And, and to me, I had a pride. I had a real strong pride in wearing this, and I was, I went through a lot of torture because of it in school, but a lot of abuse, but there was a pride. I felt proud of some- of being part of something.

1:31:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:31:58 Speaker 3 And, and it's not because necessarily my, my father spoke about it, you know? He didn't make it into the, "This is what you have to do." I mean, he gave us a choice. It wasn't a sense of like, you have to be doing this. It was like, you're part of a certain environment, a certain, you know... You feel special. You s- you spend, you sense a certain beviflinut.

1:32:18 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:32:18 Speaker 3 And if you could take a lot of abuse-

1:32:20 Speaker 2 Right

1:32:21 Speaker 3 ... literally a lot of abuse, because it's like, "This is me. This is my identity." And when, when we convey that to our, to our children, that Yiddishkeit has, you know... Another personal story. Let's say my, my oldest one, he was turning three. So the question was, would we have him have long payos or not? So some of my, my, uh, siblings or, or more of my cousins have their children with long payos 'cause that's, the Zirkins have long payos. And for me, it was like, who does he have to look up to, to be proud of it? We're living in Los Angeles. We're not around the Zirkins. My grandfather's not alive anymore. His grandfather, my father, is not alive anymore. Um, like, who's he looking up? Like, what's the environment that he's living up to that now I should have him feel that he's carrying with him-

1:33:13 Speaker 2 Right

1:33:13 Speaker 3 ... this kind of responsibility? You know, and, and I think that, okay, this is not, uh, you know, das Moisha, that he has to wear a long payos. But I think there's a, there's a certain element of even das Moisha, of when you're conveying J-Judi- Judaism and what it means, is that it's not about a certain, you know, uh, negative energy and, and, and you're afraid and you feel fearful that your identity is being tarnished or, or you're... You don't have an identity unless your child does it and all that. It's, it's... No, I'm proud of this. This is me. This is who I am. And so I'm saying like, this is really another conversation, but in, in, in, in this, in this sense of a, you know, the, the, the Chabad Hasid who's dealing with his relationship with the Rebbe and all those things, I think there's also a factor here of, is there a sense of the Heflino in it? Like, my Rebbe is, is, you know, the greatest, you know? Like, that, that, because... But that's a subjective thing. That's not an objective thing. You're passing on to your child something that you feel.

1:34:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, you can't, you can't fake it. Your kids are gonna see right through it. Uh, your kids are gonna see right through it because you see right through it, because everybody sees right through it. I think the famous rule when it comes to telling a story, any kind of art, any kind of, yeah, any kind of art, a, a speech that you give in shul when you come in. If you decide on a path, a story, a speech, a painting because you think someone else is gonna be moved by it, it's not gonna move anybody. If you do something to, that moves you, then you have a chance. What's a vort? It's like some kind of trick? It's not a trick. It's not, it's not like a skula. It's, it's that the... When we're communicating on that level, we're communicating subjective, subjective. We're, we're, we're trying to touch pnimis to pnimis, which, which the vort over there is, what's the big deal? Why can't Rav just say, "This is a fact, and gendikt"? 'Cause that's not how it works. We have to internalize things, and when we're internalizing things, we're internalizing things on our level, on our wavelength, with all the good and bad and, and hagbalahs that each of us have. And it's subjective to subjective that's, that's working here, right? And, and you can only communicate that if you go into that space. If I go into, oh, I read in a book that this kind of joke is funny. Yeah, but if

1:35:36 Speaker 2 you don't laugh at it, no one's gonna laugh at it. I read in a book that this story is moving. I got approbation from 20 people, they all told me this story is moving. Yeah, but if you're not moved by it, you know, what are we talking about here?

1:35:48 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:35:48 Speaker 2 What are we even talking about here, right? There's no science to these things. We want science in a place where we need feeling and where we need courage. We want, we want, we want proof where what we, we really need is courage. Like, I, I'm endlessly fascinated by the story of Nachshon ben Aminadav. He had absolutely no reason to do what he did. Zero. If Moshe Rabbeinu didn't go into the water, what would you... You think you're smarter than Moshe Rabbeinu? Well, who do you think you are? And, and you're drowning, by the way. Maybe time to get back. And he tells Am Yisrael, "No, I... Like, I'm, I'm, I'm not s- going back, but could you maybe save me?" Right? You can't imagine the doubt that was going through his mind, but you need courage. There's, there's no facts, there's no... That's the world of subjective, you know? And, and I, and I don't think it's a necessarily a different conversation. I think that's what we've been talking about the whole time on some level, is that, like, there is, there is a fear. It is very scary to go into the, to go out in the world and basically realize that all there is on some level is what you have inside, right? But that's what, that's what Chassidus teaches us, that, that, that, that, that the, the whole thing comes down to the drama that's happening inside of us. Not that it comes down a nar- narcissistic way of, like, what we

1:37:13 Speaker 2 feel like, we don't feel like, but we, we, we engage with the biggest things in the world. We engage with the zerum hamazal. We engage with the, with the struggle of kedusha and klipa. The biggest cosmic struggles, we engage with them inside. That's the pela, right? That's the miracle of, of, of, of, of, of Chassidus, and it's scary. You're telling me that, that the whole drama is found within? You're telling me that the whole Yiddishkeit basically boils down to decision that I make? And the answer is yes. We wanna, we wanna pass it on, like you said, to, to our grandparents. We wanna pass it on to our kids. We wanna do anything possible to not confront it in our own lives, right?

1:38:01 Speaker 3 I think what you said, it's like this, like it's a big... It, it, that sense of, you know, it's kimat mein, you know, that you have to, you know, im, im, im tzu fak- tzu fak- tzu faktsheineke kesef, right? Where you dig deep to try to find it. Like, sometimes I'd rather find it in my grandfather's story or my, my son's experience versus in my own journey, in my own, my own digging for it.

1:38:26 Speaker 2 My own blatte. My own blatte.

1:38:28 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:38:28 Speaker 2 But, but, but, like, Chassidus tells us, "Vikash tu mishom," right? "Vikash tu mishom shom shalikachon." Chassidus explains, "Shom" is, is, is, is a place where you cannot find God. You cannot see God.

1:38:39 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah. That's right.

1:38:40 Speaker 2 Right? It's, it's, it's... That's zeh, but shom is the opposite of zeh, right? It's not a zeh likenu. He ne likenu zeh. There's no obvious sense of God.

1:38:49 Speaker 3 Basher hu shom.

1:38:50 Speaker 2 Basher hu shom, vikash tu mishom shom shalikachon, right? The author explains that, that it's, it's, it's in places of darkness. It's in places of you. It's in places where you're alone, and that is where... That's where, that's where it's found. Now, of course you can... If you get carried... If you, i- if, if it becomes all about you, then it, you fall into narcissism and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and you fall into the trap of becoming cocky and so... You, you have no business of being confident in yourself that you have all the answers. It's not the vart, and it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous move that, that people can make, and maybe we, all of us make at some point, but that's a risk that we take. We cannot hand it off to somebody else. We're looking for s- we're looking for, like, a mathematical certainty to all of this. A- a- and it's, it's, it's, like, it, it's, it's-

1:39:44 Speaker 3 Can I give one example to this?

1:39:45 Speaker 2 Sure. Sure.

1:39:46 Speaker 3 It's, again, maybe a little bit another discussion, but it's like when there's a question that comes up, I don't know, I'll tell you, on science. And someone says, "Yeah, the Rebbe answers it."

1:39:54 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:39:55 Speaker 3 Like, did the Rebbe w- like, that means there's no question anymore? Like, in other words-

1:39:59 Speaker 2 You knew the question, you understand the answer.

1:40:01 Speaker 3 Exactly.

1:40:01 Speaker 2 You're not gonna-

1:40:02 Speaker 3 Like, okay, so Rebbe-

1:40:02 Speaker 2 "Hagea dat."

1:40:03 Speaker 3 "Hagea dat," that's it. End of conversation. Like, what happened to your soul searching? And I'm, I'm a very big believer that the questions... It's not about the answers, it's about the questions, right?

1:40:14 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:40:14 Speaker 3 So yeah, like we said before, "I don't understand." Great. Fantastic. Live with that vulnerability. But instead, we're so afraid of that, like you're saying.

1:40:22 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:40:22 Speaker 3 So instead of taking the responsibility, you know, like the Gemara illustrates it so beautifully, the Gemara Avodah Zarah when it describes the, uh, uh, Rebbe Elazar ben Azariah, right? When he's between the mountains, and he feels like he needs to finally change, so he turns to the mountains and he says, "You help me." And then the, "No, it's up to you." And, you know, he asks every other force.

1:40:41 Speaker 2 Right.

1:40:41 Speaker 3 And they all... And at the final thing is, "Ein od ela tavah el ba." It's, it's, it's up to you. You gotta do it yourself. And he breaks down, and he, you know, he does the three law and all that thing, and he fasts-

1:40:50 Speaker 2 And he passes away

1:40:50 Speaker 3 ... and he passes away. Like, yeah, like, th- that's what it is. It's like the con- confrontation of that I can't hold onto any of these things anymore.

1:40:59 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:41:00 Speaker 3 And I think that's a very healthy thing, being able to realize I can't hold onto my grandfather. You know, what's the, the, the famous story they say about the guy who walks into the guy's... Someone walks into his office, and he has a picture of his zeide on the wall, you know?

1:41:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:41:10 Speaker 3 Like, like, like that idea of like, "Okay, so now you're good." Like, it's, it's like we hold onto these things, and if I could go a little bit in, uh, the even ha'truis, like today, the consciousness of today is all about stripping bare all of the identities, all of the truisms that we've held true for, for centuries or for, forever, for, for millennia.

1:41:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:41:29 Speaker 3 Like forever, like, you know, whether it's, uh, I don't know, uh-

1:41:34 Speaker 2 Two genders

1:41:34 Speaker 3 ... two genders, gay marriage, all of these things. And th- there's a part of that which is, I, I actually think is a positive in a very strange way, which is like everything we held onto, we need to ask and question, what does that have... How does I c- how do I connect to that? You know, we no more could just hold on to, you know, the Menasha. We can't hold on to 'cause when we do, like you said, that's, number one, a running away, but it's also a false reality. It's a false narrative. It's a f- it's a romanticizing of what happened. So you're not living in the d- there either. And it can't be, "Well, the future is gonna, you know, be strong." You know? No, it... This is why do you live for 120 years? So you could live in your grandfather's watch and your child's watch? Like, what are you doing here?

1:42:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. A- and by the way, this is, this is a question that I... One of the reasons, by the way, that I started the podcast is because I began to notice a lot of friends that I had, and, and, and on some level myself as well, would be like, uh, we're so pis- like a lot of kind of frustration about things that, unresolved discussions and questions that aren't allowed to f- flow. And yet we're sending our kids right back to those schools and the camps that are perpetuating the same things that are pissing us off. It's not, it's wrong. Like, I... Take a stand, man. Like, if you're, if you don't like this, then find another way of life f- for your kids. Give them a better shot. You're gonna put them right back where you started, and you're gonna just tell them, "Well, I didn't wanna deal with it, so I just put you where I was, and now your turn." Like, like, what about... A- and like you said, like, what's that mean about your time here? Like, you, you're almost like a non, a non-factor. You sort of erased yourself out of this thing called our history, right? I'm not saying that you have to be new for the sake of new and, and modern for the sake of modern, but your life should have some kind of distance traveled, you know? Like, something happened. Uh, I, I want, I just wanna add to, to what you're talking about, about the grandfather

1:43:37 Speaker 2 and that. And this is fascinating, especially in th- in this case, it's not actually a thing that you're dealing with or you're thinking about and going into. But I remember in Hong Kong when I, you know, I was there for Tisha when I was younger, and my father for many years, this only stopped recently when the community, with COVID, a lot of people, um, the, the, the, you know, it got smaller.

1:44:00 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:44:00 Speaker 2 But, um, for many, many years, my father had two separate minyanim, Chabad. He had a kilo Ashkenazi, but really Lubavitch minyan and the Sephardic minyan. And he brought a Sephardic shul chazan for the Sephardic minyan, and they always had a lot more fun, let's be honest. Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur by them is an absolute blast. By the, by the way, they never ended Yom Kippur on time, which was always fascinating as a kid.

1:44:23 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:44:23 Speaker 2 They never... But this is not some kind of Most of them are not... They drove to shul on Shabbats on Yom Kippur. I shouldn't say, but most of them were not kilo firm Eden. They, they were Chabad Hasidim. But Yom Kippur, you come in the island, they're, they're going full tilt. They got 10, 15 minutes, they're in no rush. "Ah, Tanu." You know, they're doing their things. Uh, it was always interesting to observe. Um, but I remember Rosh Hashana night, the chazan, his name was Yitzchak Abuhav, fantastic Sephardic shi. Uh, he comes from, uh, Abuhav family is a big family-

1:44:55 Speaker 3 Sure

1:44:55 Speaker 2 ... in the Sephardic world. He has a- He, he has a yichus there. I don't know exactly what the yichus is, but a very, very Sephardic shi. So he told a story to the community dinner on Rosh Hashana. He said, basically, there was a man with a very old dog, an old dog, and he couldn't bear to put the dog down via dime. But he also, to let the dog wander off into the, the wilderness and let nature take hold of his dog, he also felt like, "I'm, I'm... It's also be a dime. I'm, I'm throwing him to the wolves. He's gonna be gone." So he came up with an idea. He took the dog, and he took a skin of a wolf and put on top of the dog. Now the dog looks like a wolf. No one's gonna stop him. He said, "A wolf is a wolf. But, uh, there's bigger animals in the forest." So he took a, a skin of a tiger and put on top of the wolf on top of the dog. It's not he's not protected. He found the skin of a lion, you know, the king of the animals, and put on top of the tiger on top of the wolf on top of the dog. And he sends out his dog to pasture, let nature take its course. Sure enough, this Frankenstein of a dog comes up to a real lion in the forest, and the lion schmekt as if this is Nishmatik over here. So

1:46:30 Speaker 2 he goes to the dog, and he says, uh, "Well, what's your story? Who are you?" Dog says, "My alta zeide was a lion." "Fine. Ver bistu?" "My zeide was a tiger." "Okay, very nice. Ver bistu?" "My father was a wolf." "Enough. Ver bistu?" "I'm an old dog. I'm about to die."

1:46:58 Speaker 3 Very good. Yeah. Said enough. That's it.

1:47:08 Speaker 2 Yoishbi it much hatslacha.

1:47:08 Speaker 3 Amen.

1:47:09 Speaker 2 My pleasure.

1:47:09 Speaker 3 Shkoyach.

1:47:11 Speaker 2 And, uh, when I make it down under, we'll do a round three Im Yirtzeh Hashem.

1:47:14 Speaker 3 All right.

1:47:17 Speaker 2 The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Dror and Adav Bahar and is used with their permission.