Welcome to Judaism Demystified, a podcast for the perplexed.
Join us as we explore some of the most fascinating Jewish and
Torah related topics with our esteemed guests.
By tackling some of the biggest questions you likely won't find
addressed elsewhere, we aim to shed light on important issues
and inspire a return to the fundamentals.
Enjoy the show. Thank you for rejoining the
Judaism Demystified podcast. Rabbi Pattaragan, we want to
discuss your amazing new book, Reclaiming Redemption, which is
actually sold out in Israel right now and has just made it
to bookstores in the US. But before we begin, we just
want to ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself, just
for those who don't know you from before.
So please let us know a little bit about yourself.
Well, first of all, it's great to see you again.
Thank you for inviting me back so quickly.
This is Parsad Vayera. So Ashen visits Abraham while
he's being Machnis oriak. So teachers does that.
The way to be Makaveli Srina is to be Machnis Orkim.
So thank you for having me as your guest on the podcast.
There's many different ways of being Machnis Oriak.
So one of the ways hosting people on your podcast and you
should continue to be Machnis oriak.
Hopefully, maybe Malachim will join you on the next podcast.
I hope so, I hope. So it's also, before I talk a
little bit about myself, obviously I don't know where
people will be listening to this podcast.
But it's really important, especially if people are not in
Israel, to continue as best as you can to connect and
sympathize and realize that as much as the news may not cover
the wars intensely as it did in the past, there are people who
are still going through a lot of hardship and people still
recovering from hardship from the past couple months, women
who are still living without their husbands, who are up north
fighting or down South fighting. So just to continue, continue to
sync with the rest of our people, hopefully this book will
help a little bit, but it's important to always have that in
our front load before we start speaking, especially someone
from Israel speaking with people.
I guess many of them are overseas.
My name is Marsha Tarrigan again, I, I've lived in Gush for
about 40 years. Bush in Seattle, more or less.
I had eight children. I raised my family.
Now thank God. Many grandchildren, they all
live in Israel, thank God. And I'm a teacher and Hezder
yeshiva. Hezder yeshiva is a yeshiva that
combines military service with terrorist study.
I know that's a hot button issue today.
I'm proud to be one of the first teachers in 2000 years since
Rebe Akiva, who has student scholars who are also soldiers.
And it's a big support to to have that and to try to share
that awareness with as many people as possible.
I'm a columnist for The Jerusalem Post who gets
syndicated in many different Jewish weeklies, I think in
several of the United States as well as I write off in in
lecture. So that's who I am, and I'm
happy to be here. So thank you.
Well, it's a pleasure to have you, and your new book,
Reclaiming Redemption is so great.
There's so many great chapters and so many chapters, so it was
hard for us to kind of pick the ones we want to get into.
We're not going to get into specific questions because
there's just so much to cover. So what we decided to do is just
ask you about specific chapters to give us kind of an overview.
So the first one we wanted to discuss with you is your chapter
called Peoplehood and Identity. Look, it's, it's, that's
probably the main chapter, the main part of the book.
But I'll take a step back just to give a little bit of a broad
lens and a broadview. What everyone agrees, I think
that we're heading towards a pivotal moment in Jewish
history. However you phrase it, whether
you cloak it with this ideological term or that
ideological term, whether you believe that the state of Israel
is divine or you don't feel it's divine, something's happening to
our people. Millions of Jews are returning
to Israel. The land of Israel is being
repopulated and re fertilized. anti-Semitism is on the rise in
broader sense over this century. That's also part of Jewish
history. It's not incidental to Jewish
history and unfortunately we don't have a vocabulary or
tradition of how to navigate redemption for all sorts of
reasons maybe, which we'll discuss.
There's a bias against discussing it.
There's certain concerns that messianism raises.
So it's very much an unspoken topic.
And like anything else, nature abhors a vacuum, and so does
ideology. So that vacuum gets filled with
very extreme, sometimes simplistic statements.
And we talk about redemption. We speak about what will mushiya
look like and how tall will he be.
Or do you believe little Bob Jerebi was or wasn't the
mushiya, rather than discussing it in the same sophisticated,
nuanced terms that we discuss anything else, like a Soghi and
Gemara or philosophy? So there needs to be, before we
start reaching conclusions about when mashiach will come and how
will come, a vocabulary about discussing how Jewish identity
across the board, religion, ritual, how we look back at
exile, how everything changes now that we're starting this
process of returning to our land and completing history in its
final stages. And that was really the aim of
my book, to take a broadview and to not reach conclusions, but
give people food for thought and give people material and words
and issues, and not just when he's coming.
And how quickly will the Beta Macduff be rebuilt?
So people Hood is a perfect way to start.
It's no secret that the question of Jewish peoplehood, how we see
ourselves not as individuals, but how we see ourselves as a
people, is undergoing dramatic, dramatic transformation.
In part, that transformation has little to do with the state of
Israel. That transformation happened 200
years ago when, for the first time in Jewish history, large
groups of Jews institutionally walked away from classic
halachic observance. That was never true.
There were always people who walked out.
There was people who underperformed halachically.
They just didn't keep this mizvah or that mitzvah.
But in the 1800s, you had, first of all, Conservative movement
Reformed Jews who are altering their degree of halachic
engagement, and then you have secular Jews who walk out of
halachic or ritual engagement entirely.
And for some people, once you walk out, you're gone, you're
finished. There's a very famous statement
of of Sajagon that a Jew is defined by his Taro mitzvot.
And if you don't, if you don't hear the term, so you're not a
Jew. And I think sadly, because I
don't agree with that, I think sadly, large groups of Jews see
that way, see secular Jews that way, but I don't see secular
Jews that way. I see there's the elements of
Jewish identity that exist independent of commitment to
ritual and halacha. And now that the state of Israel
was born, there's an instrument or an organ for Jews to express
their Jewish identity through non halachic means.
And though Orthodox Jews don't acknowledge that as the ideal
package, we certainly want to validate, and the war has taught
us to validate different forms of Jewish identity, even if it
exists in dependence. So I think probably the Hallmark
article, this is a book of articles, the Hallmark articles
where I compare Judaism to an onion.
And just like an onion has layers to it, Jewish identity
has layers to it. And the full identity comprises
a lot of commitment, commitment to Hashem's authority.
I call them biblical Jews. Jews who maybe aren't adherent
to halacha, but they feel God's presence and they believe that
the biblical prophecy shaped their life in our future.
There are millions of those Jews in Israel by the way more
smarter types Jews than Ashkenazi got smarter have had
the capacity to carve out commitment to God, commitment to
prophecy, even if it doesn't coexist with full blown Halafa
commitment. And then of course there are
Jews, many of whom live in the United States who don't
necessarily believe in God or in prophecy or they believe in God,
but they don't believe that God's commandments are are are
are translated through prophecies, but they have a
stiff moral commitment. They believe that being a Jew is
to live a moral life and to be a light on two nations.
And that's also part of our people hood.
So since our Judaism has became our identities become refracted,
how do we build an overarching view of our people and identify
with our people in a world in which Jewish identity doesn't
exist in the same monochromatic binary, yes or no, that it
existed 200 years ago. And I think that the war has
opened up people's minds to start thinking in those matters,
especially overseas. You don't attend funerals of
fallen soldiers who may not be religious and call them Sadiqam
without thinking, well, why are they Sadiqam?
Why are we celebrating them? Obviously for some people, maybe
for yourselves and your listeners is always obvious, but
I'm trying to articulate that for people.
That's probably the Hallmark article in the section called
Peoplehood. I don't want to talk extensively
like this would be more interactive, so I'm happy to
respond to other issues. But to me, if someone asks me
which 100 pages of the book you should read, it's that first,
the first two sections called Peoplehood an identity, for
example, a very controversial topic.
How do we relate to nationalism? Is Jewish nationalism something
which secular nationalism, which meant the religious people see
as idolatrous or as a criminal or as villainous?
But if you believe that I interview boys sometimes for
acceptance to the yeshiva and I asked them the following
question. I asked them you can answer the
question. I'll let you guys answer as well
and say who is the best Jew you ever met or read about?
And I wait for them to start thinking in their minds who
wasn't classically observant and religious.
Because to me, a proud Jewish identity sits at the foundation
of religious experience. And if you're not a proud Jew,
then you're bringing only part of yourself to a religious
experience. If you're a proud Jew and it
occupies your entire essence, your entire self, so you're on
vote of sashem, your religious voice will be that much more
profound and resonant. So I want them to be able to
identify Jewish identity outside of halafic practice.
So what would you say is the best view you can imagine that's
not Orthodox as you met or read about?
That's a, that's a great question.
That's a great question. That's really a good question.
I would probably have to think of something like a contemporary
figure, people who you know now after October 7th, you're seeing
a lot of people, courageous Jews standing up.
Like, I think like Jerry Seinfeld, for example, he has it
all. He has it all and he, he makes
people laugh. You know, there's a famous agada
about Hashem loves people who, you know, who are jesters and
make people laugh. But I, I think that he didn't
have to do what he's doing now, which is becoming an advocate
for Israel. And he, he's something changing
him, you know, and you see, you see that with a lot of people.
So someone like him, I always grew up loving his show and
loving his comedy. And now he has a new identity in
my mind. He's not he's he's in a way,
somewhat of a protector of his people.
You know, he stands up for us in the public.
Speaker So I think that to me is somebody who I would, let's say,
admire. What would you say it's?
A good question. I, I don't want to just say
something for the sake of something.
So I, I want to, instead of answering, I'm going to tell you
that I'm actually going to think about this and really try to No,
no, seriously, I, I think it's an important question.
I everything you just said actually has, it's a, it's a
topic that whether we like it or not, it's actually it's kind of
enthroned. Like he said, like you said,
since the war, Judaism has has kind of broadened.
There's, there's more to more to Judaism.
Not that not none. We're not putting importance
here or, or we're not trying to grade here, but Judaism is more
than just observance. Judaism is who we are.
It's a nation, it's a people, it's a conviction, it's an
identity. It's everything that comes along
with it. And I think that, I think that
it's going to take time, but I do think that this is something
which is going to, I hope this conversation is going to grow in
all types of, in the Orthodox world, in the non Orthodox
world. You know, I, I think that also
secular people sometimes maybe hold on only or too much to
nationhood. And, and, and they don't give
the, the religious side much thought.
And the religious side doesn't give the nationhood side much
thought. It, it, it's, it's a, it goes
both ways. And it's, I think it's, it's a
very important conversation to have and, and in terms of
putting it out as a book, extremely important.
Well, we want to ask you. We want to flip that around and
ask you who do? Who's.
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
OK, fine. I don't know I do that.
OK, that's that's an easy one, Menachem Begin.
OK. I don't know how classically
observant he was, what he did and what he didn't keep, but I
wish I could be half the Jew he was.
And he spoke with such prophetic courage and such Jewish
identification. And I, I model myself after him.
And people who I've heard that voice in someone like Menachem
Begin, but they're getting back to what you said before, what I
was saying before I there's a lot of experimentation in
Israel. And it's not just abstract how I
view myself as a person. But Jews in Israel is starting
to experiment with Jewish art and Jewish music and Jewish
poetry and Jewish literature and Jewish language and using this
as an expression of religion. So your religion now starts to
stream, not just through the Lulav and it's villain and how
many Black Kumar you learn, but finding new voices.
Because we have an organic identity.
We have an organic national identity.
When you're back in your land, first of all, there's the
confidence in overseas. Klutzlawitz Galut is very much
preserving the past and fortressing ourselves against
the encroachment of the foreign culture.
What happens in, however you slice it, everyone builds a wall
between US and them. The question is how many windows
and how many doors are in the wall.
But everyone has to build a wall to create some degree of
cultural insularity and protection.
In Israel, you don't. You're not protecting yourself.
As I suddenly joke with people that in Hutzlar it's sometimes a
small keeper is indicative of less commitment to religion.
You're trying to hide your Jewish identity.
You're trying to mute it. And, and sometimes, not always,
but for some people it is. In artificial, it isn't.
You're not hiding for everyone. It's a Jew.
It's just the stylistic decision.
You want to wear a big one, you want a small one.
It's not indicative in many cases.
I know many tell me they have to tell me that we're a kippah that
let's say in America wouldn't pass the, the, the, the
yardstick or whatever people measure.
And it's not because it's just, it's a stylistic issue here.
So how does, how does these broader expressions play into
religious identity? How do nationalist expressions?
And we've been to, sadly enough, many, many funerals.
And the funerals are a mixture of the classic Kaddish Gil Malhi
Rahimi and Tering Korea. But they're also army salutes
and flowers on graves, which is a national experience which no
one includes ours. To put a flower on a Jewish
grave, it's not a Jewish, it's a Christian associated with
Christian customs and standing silently during a siren on
Yomatzmut or Yom Haziqaron or lighting torches.
And none of these have basics, basics.
In halacha, you can't find the Shokhin Arath that says when
someone dies, you light a torch, you put a flower in their grave.
But if we are investing in national identity and creating a
movement called nationalism to capture the hearts and minds of
Jews, even though those hearts and minds may not be attuned to
ritual and religion right now, then those are going to become
sacred moments. And that's pretty much a divide
between those who are part of the nation and let's say sectors
in Israel that are not part of the nation that frown on these
and understand their position. Because everything has to be
streamed only through halacha and it doesn't have halacha
basis. It is no validity.
But now that they were creating more organic.
We have to acknowledge like there's also Drusim and there's
also Arab Israelis and there's, there's other people living in
our land, fighting in, in the country who, who are falling.
And they're all part of that story as well.
I think what makes what makes Israel so like the, the, the
issue with the culture is that we're such a young nation right
now is the new modern Israel, whereas halacha, you know, that
that has always been around. But when you talk about Jewish
culture, we've been spread throughout the world.
So we've kind of just been a melting pot of different
cultures coming back into one place.
And, and you kind of have to figure out what are we, you
know, now or are we Polish? Are we Persian, Are we, are we
Syrian? What are we, you know, And I
think that's a big part of it. That's a very unique situation
that you don't see anywhere else in the world.
I like to say Herzl was the first person in 2000 years
Theodore Herzl to say the following 4 words.
He got up in the congresses and parliaments of Europe and the
palaces and and diplomatic attaches.
And he was the first Jew in 2000 years to say I am a Jew because
for 2000 years, as you implied, Jews introduce themselves.
I'm an Iraqi Jew, I'm an Egyptian Jew.
I'm a Polish Jew, I'm a Czech Jew.
I'm a smart. And he said the word Jew doesn't
need a modifier. The word Jew is a standalone
ethnic, ethnic marker. And if it doesn't need a
modifier, then it deserves its own land.
And so the the implication of having your own land is how can
you build your own culture with all the wealth and the richness
of our accumulated culture, Svarti Ashkenazi But how do we
build a, a latent organic, innate Israeli culture?
How do we build ourselves from ground up, not just by
clustering, cobbling together what we picked up from the
countries we've been hosted by. So there's a lot to parse here.
There's a lot. This is really the core of this
of the book. How does our view of Jewish
peoplehood and of Jewish identity change now that we're
returning home? Very thought provoking and these
are important questions that have to be asked.
Fantastic. And we also wanted to to ask you
if you could expound on the chapter of land, the Land of
Israel, Illusion or illusion. Look, it's it's a.
It's a key Turner phrase. Obviously.
Keep in mind these articles were written initially based on the
Parsa for various weekly. As I write for the Jerusalem
Post, I write for an Orthodox weekly in Israel called Torah
Tidbits put out by the OU. Obviously the dosage of Torah is
different when I write for the post, when I write for an
Orthodox crowd solely, but I did reorganize these articles into
topics. So this was a Schlach article
and for Parsha Schlach and I tried to assess like the spies
weren't foolish, the spies weren't weren't liars, they
weren't inaccurate. They reported what they saw.
They saw giants robbing the land, outsized food, people
diving are all around them, fortress cities.
They saw a very, very imposing and fearsome country.
And the failure was not even what they saw, but how they
interpreted it. And there was an illusion rather
than an illusion. An illusion made them
frightened. And allusion refers to with an A
refers to the fact that this is the land of Hashem and the land
of Hashem is supernatural and everything about this land will
be supernatural. The agriculture will be
supernatural, the fruits will be supernatural, the fluctuations
will be supernatural. In the days of ghazal, the
reports about the agriculture in Israel were phenomenal, were
incredulous. Entire fruits the size of
countries, of the size of cities, the size of homes.
And then when we left the land, Israel became a cursed land that
couldn't be tilled and couldn't be, couldn't be planted for two,
could be colonized. For 2000 years all the great
empires tried to retain colonies in Israel and one after another
they failed because this is the land of a Kurdish barfu and
there's a subliminal awareness. Even people who don't come to
your podcast and the people who didn't learn to, yes Eva, people
are subliminally aware this is the land of Hashem.
Kyen and Hevel the Kuiserie says their bone of contention.
What are they arguing about? Why did Kyen murder Hevel?
Plenty of land to go around. You could have taken home.
New York could have taken the United States.
You take the United States, I'll take Russia and Europe.
They were fighting over our bite.
They wanted Israel. Everyone knew that the rest of
the land made no difference but the land where life began and
where life will end, where history began and history will
end, that was prime real estate, and it was worth the kind to
murder his brother over that prime real estate.
The spy saw giants, as I'll tell us.
Those were the giants from partial that met children of God
who came from heaven. Somehow these children of God
who fell from heaven in the end of the partial separation
migrated their way to Eretz Israel and lived in Eretz
Israel. Those are the giants that they
saw in the land. And this should have alerted
them that this is the land of Hashem.
So now that you face that prospect, living the land of
Hashem, it's going to come with a price tag.
It's going to be more challenging to live in Israel
than to live in Brooklyn. It's going to be more
challenging to live not just because of the giants and
because of the fortresses and because of the agricultural
fluctuations. Because you're living in the
presence of Hashem. That land won't admit evil or
moral failure. It's parshad Vieira.
So I promise you the sins of stone, we're not as severe as
the sins of the Mobil. Since the Mobil were Molarz,
Hamas, since the stone, we're right in the Qatar.
What does the Ramban say? Yeah, But if you're living in
Israel, the margin of error is much less that you're living in
Israel. So that land can't tolerate.
As we see, the land will spit out those who And slowly but
surely the land is in our days spitting out murderers and
spitting out rapists and spitting out people to fall.
I think the land is spitting out from us.
We're helping the land spit them out, but the land is spitting
out people who abuse its moral code and its moral sensitivity.
So facing this prospect, you could either shrink and shrivel
and say I can't, or you can say, oh, this is the land of Hashem.
Where's your courage? Where's your backbone?
Where's your strength? How can you rise to the
challenge which is not just defeating giants and fortress
cities, but there's moral challenges to living in Israel.
It's not easy to live in Israel. I think the fact that Israelis
are so what's what I'm looking for?
Brass and self confident and stubborn and hosmedic.
Because you live in the presence of Hashem, it's going to affect
you. Living underneath Hashem is
going to affect your person. That's going to make you into a
stronger person. And that strength can either be
used in a pious way, it could be used in a brush way.
But they they reached the wrong conclusion.
And I'm trying to give people a sense not to back away from the
challenge of Israel. I want I want to be an honest
book. Life in Israel has its redeeming
qualities, goes with meaning. But let's face it, the economy
is tough, security situation is tough.
Living with other Jews is tough. There are a lot of challenges to
living in Israel and God wants tough people to live in his land
and to face the metaphoric giants who roam the land.
So I try to create a a space for people to acknowledge what life
in Israel is about. But some encourage and and
vision to be able to to to rise to that challenge.
Beautifully said. Moving on to another chapter
that we really enjoyed is the blood libels and the Perversion
of Jewish values. So if you could tell us about
about that? Well, I actually looked at your
website. It's a beautifully done website,
nice design. And I saw that you featured
Revised Axe right on the front cover.
Yes, on the front cover, yeah. So he's obviously someone who
I'm sad that I didn't have much content.
I think I shake his hand once, but I list him actually in my
introduction as one of my inspirations because I think he
did a a very elegant job in restoring our universalist voice
through a people that had been very parochial and inward for
2000 years. For 2000 years, Jewish
universalism was a was a bad joke.
We're being murdered and haunted and discriminated against and
hated. What does it mean for us to have
the message for those that hated us?
We tried to survive now that we've returned to people and to
identity and we sacks tried to remind us that our story is
their story and that we have a message for humanity and it's
intertwined with our destiny and our mission.
And I say this because one of the areas that he both battled
against and articulated with anti-Semitism, he battled
courageously against that this semitism and he wrote
extensively and helped us because knowledge is power.
When I write, I don't try to introduce new ideas.
I try to organize and clarify ideas that are latent.
That info hate because when we know what's happening, then
sometimes it gives, it makes us feel empowered.
When we feel overwhelmed and confused, then we feel
powerless. So I don't have solutions, I
just have. I try to provide clarity and
organization, and I think Rebel Sacks did that by articulating
anti-Semitism and he referred to it as a virus, compared it to a
virus, and a virus mutates. A mutating virus, right?
Is that what he called it? Mutating virus?
Yeah. And his point was that in each
generation it takes a different form as viruses do.
So it started as the hatred towards monothea.
So that was very low lying anti-Semitism.
The paganus didn't really despise us as monotheists
because we just represented another God and heaven was a
carnival of many gods, so we didn't upend their system.
So there's the Jewish God, and the Jewish God can coexist with
all the other gods. But once the world turned
monotheistic with Christianity in the 4th century, Rome becomes
Christian, 7th century Islam emerges.
So then because we are the people of the Bible,
Christianity has its approach. They can see there were the
people the Bible, but we're condemned because we didn't
accept Jesus Islam and it's a very different form of rejecting
the Bible. Islam reinterprets the Bible.
Remember, in Islam it's not Yitzhak, but you smile who's
only al Qaeda. That's a very, very different.
I write about this a lot in the second volume, not in this book
about how the attack of Christianity is different from
the attack where the denial of Islam because they're working on
the very, very different systems.
And you look at the parting between Ishmael and Yitzhak in
Parshad Vayara and the parting between Yaakov and ESAV in
Parshad Vayashlaf. It's very different.
And those are the intersections between Judaism and Islam,
Vayara and Judaism and Christianity in Parshad
Vayashlaf. But that's that's for a
different conversation. Now, what happened was around
the 11th century, 10th century, Christianity finally got its sea
legs. Remember Christianity, it's not
like someone blew the whistle and said now we're Christian.
It took a while for them to articulate their ideas, to
develop their theology, to develop what their belief system
around not 9th, 10th century Christianity becomes very stable
and solid. Then they go on the attack
against Judaism and that's the manifestation of which is the
Crusades in the end of the 11th century, 10th 96.
That's the opening bell of institutionalized Christian
anti-Semitism over the next 1000 years.
That's when it really begins, which is why we adopt Sphere to
Omer. If not for the Crusades, we
wouldn't have Sphere to Omer. Sphere to Omer is not just
because we became a law 24,000 to meet him.
Sphere to Omer is because 1000 years later we suffered at the
hands of the Crusades, and that's why it became such a
powerful and forceful minute. Now there their mutation was
that we were the killers of Jesus, which is a baseless lie.
It's been debunked and disproved.
In 1965, even the Catholic Church admitted that we didn't
kill Jesus. Then there was a sub narrative
to the narrative. The sub narrative to the
narrative were the bloodlines. We didn't just kill Jesus 1000
years beforehand, but we reenacted that and called the
Eucharist and we drank Christian blood and we enacted the
crucifixion again on Christian children.
And that became, of course, the baseline for so many programs
and blood libels and baseless murders and hatred and
discrimination. Now, I don't believe anything in
Jewish history is incidental. And as I implied earlier, if I
can attach it to sources and attach it to Torah and attach it
to a Madrid and attach it, then people realize Jewish history is
not incidental. We're living through prophecies.
And of course, once we know we're living through prophecy,
we know it's going to end because we know how prophecies
end. To me, this is an inversion of
what we stand for. We're not allowed to drink
blood. Jews, how how many efforts do we
take just to clean the liver to catch your liver?
So we're going to have to have liver on job list.
How hard do we work to salt the chickens?
How hard did your grandmother work in Egypt?
Where is she from to salt the chicken because she couldn't
process it in a, in a butcher? And not only we don't drink
blood, but we have such respect for the dignity of the human
body. Judaism doesn't.
I know this is more of a philosophical podcast.
So Judaism doesn't believe in dualism.
There's no body cells split when I perform a midst of my whole
body's immerse, not just my spirit.
When I sin, it's my spirit that also sins.
Dualism is the death knell of religion because once you split
religion, you split God. You split forces in heaven.
It's Satan, it's God, it's good, it's evil, it's dark and light,
and the whole religion becomes a comic book.
There's one God, He made me one like him.
I'm monistic, I'm one person. I'm at fault when I failed, and
I'm credit when I succeed. And because of that, Salaam
Elokim is not just my spirit, my intelligence, my creativity, my
emotions, my dreams, my consciousness.
So like, it was also my fingers, my nose, my eyes, my head.
And that's why we're so careful and delicate about the dignity
we show human bodies, especially after they die.
And as a subplot, that's what's part of this battle after
October 7th with the culture that defiled bodies and
desecrated bodies. That's not our conversation
right now. So I always imagine the Jews
returning home from shul in Europe, not your ancestors, but
the Ashkenazic ancestors, and they just read Akharimo,
Kidoshim and Emor. You know how many times the
prohibition to drink blood appears in those three partios?
That's such an interesting ad nauseam.
I was not ad nauseam, Pastor Schoen.
But it's just it repeats again and again.
And as they're walking home, they're being accused of
drinking blood. Now that's the Pasok in Parshad
Quitobo that you'll be a mashal and Mashina Vitan, the Mashala
volitionina been there. You become a stigma.
You become a you become a what's what I'm looking about
caricature. You'll be meme.
They. Call it today.
Yeah, meme. Yeah, you become a scapegoat.
So this is exactly what Hashem promised us if we failed Him,
and this is coming true. So the ability to see
prophecies, not just the glowing radiant ones, but the dark ones
coming true reminds us that every step we take is through
the lines of the Tanakh, that we're not working.
As much as you may feel you're living in a modern world of
Internet and podcasts and iced coffee and Mets and Yankees
beneath the shell of it. This is part of Hashem's
prophetic world. And every step you take, a
decision you make, has prophetic implications and ramifications.
So it's not just that the irony of history, but the irony of
history is already predicted in the Tohra pashad Ki Tavo.
And that gives us a comfort level that we're in the pocket
of Tanak. Sometimes those pockets are
harsh and authority, but we're always in that pocket.
Very interesting that that edition of the the comic book,
the the comic book and the the fact that the par shield where
it it would have to take place having to talk about not not the
drinking blood. It's just, it's amazing.
No, I got me wrong. I like comic books.
Also, I'm an expert in Archie. These are important things to
mention. We have to we have to mature our
perspective on Judaism. It's very important and
something which that that's part of what we're trying to do in
the podcast, you know, make it less of more, less of a comic
book and more mature understanding of Judaism.
That's that's what it's really about.
And if you can discuss the chapter Muted Messianicism and
Messianic Sabotage. Yeah, those are two chapters.
Two chapters. My apologies.
Yeah. Treat them in chapters again,
just so. No one should be frightened.
These chapters are about a page and a half long and one of the
articles that be accessible. And I think that part, hopefully
part of the allure of the book is that it condenses meaningful
ideas, sophisticated ideas, but in accessible fashion.
So even though I organize the chapters based on topic, there's
an index in the back based on parsha.
So you can sell it's parsha vaira.
What two or three, three page chapters can I read that will
enhance or live, lend historical framing to my Shabbat?
And by the way, also, I don't know how many listeners you
have, because I believe I wrote the book initially to develop a
vocabulary and to develop a sophisticated conversation about
issues we have no tradition about.
As I alluded to earlier, as the process went on, it dawned on
me, I think that 80% of the Jewish people believe in 80% of
the same ideas about redemption. And instead of honing in on the
80% that unifies us, we argue about the 20% that divides us.
Namely, as I said earlier, we all believe that the return of
the Jewish people is meaningful. We all believe that the
repopulation and the refertilization of Israel is
meaningful. We all believe the Holocaust is
a major shift in history. We all, well, we disagree
whether we call it Rishabhi khagulatane or not, we disagree
whether secular government is an agent and instrument of Hashem.
So I really wanted this book to be a Commonwealth for all Jews
of all different opinions, even Orthodox.
I don't like the word ultra. I'm an ultra Orthodox Jew,
Kharadi. Every Jew has to be ultra
Orthodox, Kharidi, reform conservative.
I really want people to gather around this campfire of ideas.
And for that reason, I wrote the book in Ashkenazis, not
Savarddate. Even though I'm Israeli, I come
from Brooklyn, I speak Ashkenazis.
So it wasn't pandering or misrepresenting myself.
But I know there's a large group of people, I don't know if they,
those who listen to your podcast, large group of people
who are in the world that speaks Ashkenazis and don't define
themselves in in, let's say, a Zionist, but absent of those
labels. I think you mentioned before
that you're a Seinfeld fan, right?
So I'm not such a bit, actually. I've seen many Seinfelds for all
sorts of reasons. If you think about some other
time, I think it's a, it's a show that it's had a lot of
humor, but subliminal messages that could be sometimes
destructive and disruptive to moral conduct.
But we could talk about that some other time.
But someone once mentioned to me that there was a episode, I
think I then looked it up on YouTube, where one of the
characters attended a rally and you wanted to rally, I think on
behalf of AIDS, on behalf of, and they wanted to wear the
ribbon or to wear the button. And there was a whole fight in
Fracas that broke out 'cause they didn't want to wear the
ribbon and yes, wear the ribbon. And then it's stupidity of
Steinfeld. They started arguing about a
stuck in a ribbon anyway. But it's very metaphoric 'cause
I think many people believe in value systems and movements, but
they don't want to be identified with the movement.
Cause the identification with the movement creates all sorts
of peripheral issues that they may agree or disagree with.
And I think this book, I would call it, if not reclaiming
redemption, I would call it Take Off the Ribbon.
You don't have to identify yourself as a Zionist or as a
religious Zionist. Stop identification.
There are deep values, their historic values, they're larger
than life. They're larger than any moment
in history. And then how can you tap into
eternity rather than chasing transients?
Sometimes we trace transients rather than tapping into
eternity. So that's just a long winded
introduction for the second agenda of my book.
I would like people to read it beyond the normal community that
I live in. You mentioned muted messianism
and sabotage messianism. This is almost self critique.
This is why aren't there more spirem like this?
Why am I writing this? Chapter by the way, this is like
a so interesting, but go on. Well, what did?
Well, what did you financing? I've done most of the talking,
so why don't you? No, I just, I just found, I just
found it refreshing to hear, you know, critiques of the way we've
gone about our mess, you know, like messianic fervor and how
you know it's misplaced and it's often misguided.
So I, I, I can't articulate it the way you did.
So, and I know there's short chapters, but you know, I, I
would, we love to hear, you know, your take.
Oh look, I don't have to tell you that intellectual honesty is
a baseline of identity. And if you're not able to
critique yourself, you're not able to be honest with yourself.
And if you're not honest, you can't acquire.
This is a podcast that's geared towards acquiring information
and internalizing ideas and belief.
You can't internalize unless you have a baseline of what you
believe. You see something new, a new
paradigm. You question whether it makes
sense, it doesn't make sense, and you try to reconcile it with
your with your. If that probing doesn't take
place and there's no questioning, then information
hovers above identity rather than being latched onto
identity. So part of intellectual honesty
is self critique and self critique in every area of life.
It's a doubt for the for the regular person is integrity for
the layman. Doubt for the layman is
integrity for the scholar. Excuse me, If you're a layman,
you're afraid of doubt. If you're a scholar, you embrace
doubt because doubt is what is what checks your accuracy.
So part of the reason that our tradition has been so
predisposed against it. Yaakov wanted to provide a road
map of Mashiach, and as I'll say that his prophetic vision was
taken from him, impartial by Yafi and Daniel.
The prophet will live to the next scene.
Remember, these are two seams of history, SE AM.
They're not just indiscriminate moments in history.
Yaakov is about to descend into the first exile impartial by
Yafi, and he wants to tell people how history will end to
to improve their spirit because they're facing a dark exile.
Danielle is standing in Bevel and he also wants to give people
a road map to the end. He has these dreams that are
almost begging him to provide that road map.
And then an Angel comes, says, no, keep it, keep it at a
distance, keep it concealed, keep it cryptic.
And the irony is the person, at least in the Hamas, probably
even in Tanakh, that provides the most concrete set of details
is Billa Billa Marasa. In Prasad Bullock, we actually
mentioned Zakrita Yamim as Yaakov does, but then he gives
the detail. Yaakov says Akritaya mimin, then
retreats Bilim says Akritaya mimin, Miyakov, Kamchev and
Misrael, Many of the famous verses of Akritaya mimin.
Why were we so predisposed again?
So basically 3 reasons #1 the primary one, because a messianic
intoxication can boomerang because it raises expectations
of utopia. And while his expectations are
dashed, people become demoralized and dispirited and
fall Into Darkness and despair. And that's, that's a quick loss
of the 17th and 18th century in Ashkenazic Europe, where close
to 1/3 or 1/2 of jury fell prey to the Shabtai's promises of a
better world than he was the Mashiach.
And, and it wasn't just the immediate fallout that people
lost their possessions and traveled to Israel to join the
Shabtai. I mean, Ashkenazic jury in the
18th century was torn apart by Sabathianism.
You couldn't breathe without being accused of being a
Sabathianist. You couldn't enter a show if you
were a Sabathianist. Certain shows you couldn't enter
unless you were a Sabathianist. You couldn't get a rabbinic
position unless you were. It was horrible.
It was a worse period, 17 hundreds, 18th century.
And that's how Hasidut tried to recover in part, Jewish pride,
Jewish joy, Jewish happiness, Jewish optimism.
So, so much of messianic expectations can boomerang when
they're not met. The second reason is that
Judaism is always perched on a very tenuous balance between the
here and the other. Now the here is we embrace this
world. We embrace the challenges.
We don't flee or or or or retreat from responsibility,
from our community, from voting, from building a better world and
serving on a podcast and being a doctor for whatever we feel the
world needs. But we try not to become too
entangled in this world. We try to almost split our
minds, split view. We live in this world, but we be
stride in other world. Now that other world is
sometimes the afterlife. We always think about how our
actions in this world will affect our afterlife.
This is just an entranceway or a veranda.
However you interpret Prosdar, the next World is the palace, is
the tracklin. So everyone has to accept that
hierarchy. This is not the eternal world.
This is just a pregame. How invested are you in the
pregame? Some people ignore the pregame.
Some people invest in the pregame so that others can enjoy
it after we've left this track, this passageway, but we never
one of the I tell my students all the time, one of the basic,
basic contrast that you have to live your life by is the
contrast between, as I said before, eternity and transients.
What's eternal? What's transient?
What's Netsah, What's now? I'm not going to tell you how
much to invest in SHA and how much you invest in Netsah, but
at least you need those coordinates.
You need to know what is long term, what a short term, even in
this world, short term, long term allocation is crucial.
But certainly when it comes to the world we'll inhabit for
millions of years, as opposed to the world we'll inhabit for 120
years at most, that sectioning and partitioning is crucial.
But the other other we live in, not just we live in this world
and all I'm about, we also live in this world and the next World
that we dream of. The world the Machaaf, the world
of Utopia, the world of the world we're trying to we believe
we'll be born into. Mashiach is not the same as
Allahabad. There's a period called the
Messianic Era that will all be resuscitated and lived through
Jewish sovereignty, the golden era of Jewish history.
So too much messianism can become escapism.
You're so attuned to the next, to the other world, to the next
World, whether that's Mashiach or Allahabad, that you escape
from responsibilities in this world.
A lot of the Near Eastern religions are escapist
religions. Nirvana, just to slowly
extinguish yourself and flee from.
And you see, those are backwards, regressive, static
cultures because there's no movement, there's no dynamism,
there's no growth, there's no Jews are always at the forefront
of science and progress and innovation and technology
because we embrace this world. We want to improve it.
She wants us to live in this world.
And Shem cares about whether I have indoor plumbing or not.
Even though you may not think that a transcendent God would
care about indoor pluffing, He does.
He wants me to enjoy my life. And if I'm a plumber, that's the
will of a sham. And if I'm a surgeon, that's the
will of a sham. And if I'm a scientist, that's
the will of a sham. So that's the second reason.
Because I didn't want to direct their attention to the other
away from the here and now. There's a very powerful phrase.
It's based on the last word in parshat aekev Sharon rosheim.
It's a prahayom. It's the end.
Hayom la sotam mahalaka belsara. You focus on today, 1 foot ahead
of the other. Whatever happens in the future,
let leave that for their Bono show, The One.
A perfect, if I may, a perfect balance of what you're saying.
I'm reminded of the, of the story with Honey and Miguel when
he meets the old man and the old man is planting a carrot tree
and honey because honey is a very, he's described as, you
know, immediate gratification type of character within the
Hazel's world. So he goes, he's like, why are
you planning? Like it's going to take so many.
You're never, you're never going to see the tree.
And he goes, I'm, I'm not planting the tree for, for
myself. I'm planting it for my children
and for my grandchildren and their grandchildren after me.
You just see a beautiful balance between taking responsibility in
the now, right? But but also within that
responsibility of the now planting for the future.
So I just thought it was a beautiful balance described in
in that story with how you're you're trying to portray it.
And also if, if I would like our listeners to, if they haven't
tuned into this episode, we did an episode with the Professor
Kent Seeskin on messianism and the age of despair.
Is that what the in in the age of despair?
It's basically exactly what you're talking about.
Just he expands on on those ideas.
How throughout history, Hazal, the rabbi's have been very
careful about even in the Talmud, like kind of toning down
the the fervor when it when when sometimes it gets too far.
So, and I appreciate that because we live in a time now, I
think there's a lot of generally there's a lot of confusion.
We're going to be doing an episode on this with, with
another guest. But people conflate Ulan Haba
with with, you know, Zaman Mashiach and and, and becomes
one. Yeah, exactly.
Like, so so you hear just things like innocently, but like, oh,
someone who loses a family member will say, you know, I
want, I can't wait for Mashiach to come so I can be reunited
with them. And you're just like, you don't
want to say anything, you know, it's a sad thing, but that's not
what, what it is. So, you know, I think a lot of
people will, will be very, very pleased when they read your
chapters because I feel like it, it's just a very sobering and
eye opening way of expressing it.
So we, we thank you for that. And regarding the final topic we
wanted to get into, which comes first is a related redemption or
teshuva? I really enjoy the Funny Imago
Association, so thank you for that.
Welcome. I was just going to backtrack
for a second because the third reason that we're so cautious
about messianism is actually the most ideological.
It's the most subtle, but it sits at the heart of some of the
ideological debates in the orthodox world.
Is not just that it boomerangs, and it's not just that it raises
expectations, and it's not just that it encourages escapism.
And by the way, not just escapism, but it's called
halafic escapism and moral escapism.
The fancy word for that I don't have to tell you is
antinomianism, where where it's a new order, it's a new world
and the conditions and guidelines of the previous world
no longer applicable. And that could be a halafic
antinomianism shop. That's we gathered his followers
around the campfire and ate pork and altered the bracha from mati
asuran to mati isuran. Because it's a whole new world
and Halafa is out the window, God forbid.
And it could also lead to rational antinomianism, where
this is the period of redemption.
We know how it ends. We have God on our side.
Let's, I'm saying this in a very radical form.
Let's blow up the Temple Mount because let's invite 300 million
Muslims to attack us because we know that God will be forced to
save us. So it's not just the abdication
of Halafa, but the abdication of rationality and practicality,
which is something that I struggle with because I'm a
settler. I feel I'm living prophecy.
Remember about 20 years ago I was interviewed by the New York
Times and they were trying to bait me into bad mouthing
settlers. So they said, what do you think
about those settlers? They said I'm a settler.
They said, no, those settlers who carry guns, those days I
carried a Newsday showed her my Uzi.
I said no, those settlers who carry guns and believe that
every ounce of this land is promised to the Jewish people, I
say put me down for that also. So she said you don't look like
a settler. So tell us the difference
between yourself and the people of Sarran.
After I refuse to be baited, which by the way is important to
life, not to be baited by people.
So after I refuse to be baited, I said, put it this way, I'm a
messianist just as they are. But I think that messianism has
to be sprinkled with practicality, pragmatism and
ration and rational decisions. Where I think some of my other
settlers, they believe that prophecy is the only value or
the only guideline for messianic activity.
So they like that statement, messianism sprinkled with the
practicality, pragmatism. But the larger issue is Ghoul is
not just historical event. Ghoul is a reunification or, or
reuniting between ourselves and a Kurdish parcel.
Our relationship has been fractured.
We broke the relationship. Ghoul is the restoration of that
relationship. And like every relationship, you
have to know there's a as you know, right?
Assuming you're both married, right?
Yes. So everything in romance is
timing and you can want your wife to be in a certain state of
mind and to have a certain feeling and to take your
relations to a certain place and if she's not ready or vice
versa, you're not ready. It's timing and relationship is
bilateral. And just because we're ready and
we believe we're living through Gula, we especially since this
is the relation with the Kurish bar who we have to advance in
very measured stages or else is disrespectful to Hashem.
That's at the heart of Shira Shirin.
Shira Shirin every time the relationship starts to fire on
all cylinders, Hashem cools it down.
What's the cooling Pasakash bhatiya trembinotti ishalayim
intaero the inta arweta of Aja tekpats don't advance it, don't
undermine it, just let it happen.
Normally Aja tekpats and there's a rhythm to our relationship
with Hashem. And I think that the SAT Merebi
quite strongly disagree with felt that the rhythm was off and
this was not the time to advance for all sorts of ideological
conclusions that he reached in his safer.
But his basic prospect was basic concern was correct.
And I live in a community in Israel in which messianic fever
runs way high. And it creates a certain
confidence in our relationship with Hashem, which I think is a
little bit disproportionate. And we feel so confident that
we're partners with Hashem, we're settling the land, and
we're serving the army. And it comes across in many,
many different ways. I would like there to be more.
You're at Shamayan in my community, which you say we
don't know the ways of God. The ways of God are still
perplexing. We have to approach God with
more humble, muted, intellectually honest and humble
ways. I think October 7th
unfortunately corrected that a little bit.
I think people are not as brashly and unqualified and
audaciously messianic as they used to be.
Because we realized that though the process may have begun,
there is a lot of pain and agony that can occur between 1948 and
whatever this process ends. So the third issue is not just
the boomerang effect of Dash expectations and not just the
escapism of the anti Naomi anism, but it's, it's a
marriage. We're we're marrying a sham
again. We've been away for 2000 years.
We have to learn each other and we have to take our steps very
gradually. It's a subtle point, but it's
probably the most central point. So so just to tie a bow on this,
because I think it's really does tie in regarding what comes
first redemption or teshuva, because you know, obviously what
you just said, you know, I think that that's kind of a perfect
lead in to to this answer. Right, look, the the article
itself that you, I don't know if you read the article, just
looked at the title. The the the article itself is
basically of Cook's version of Teshuva, which is is is an
amazing, amazing transformation of Teshuva in the safer wrote
that Chuva, which to me again, it's very hard for people to
read with Cook. Even if you know Hebrew, if you
don't know Hebrew, it's almost impossible.
It's done a good job translating it though.
They've done a pretty good job translating Ortho Chuva in many
different editions. It's.
Hard. It still doesn't capture exactly
like the Hebrew, of course I know.
It's Hebrew. It's Tanakh.
It's yeah, basically he generalized to Shuva from
personal absolution and personal vindication and personal
penitence into not just a global but a cosmic reality that
there's a inner will of this world that wants to be aligned
with Hashem Ratzona Panini. And fate is just one of the
aspects in the cosmos that disaligns or misaligns the
entire world. And and Shuva's not personal
vindication, but it's realignment and
resynchronization and recalibration and becoming more
at one with the universe. It's very mystical and it's also
radiant. I mean, when I think of Chubo,
believe me, I call it a Mahloka between David Hamelich and and
Rif Cook. Governor Malik describes to
Shubin very dark torrents. You look at Paraklavitz and
Parikh Nanalif. It's not just dark.
Those are the two prachin which he describes his feeling after
the fate of Bacheva, but it's called Hayam Koderi Lakdia walk
all over the place and it's dark and it's dark, damp and it's
it's very fearsome and frightening.
And Rivku called this efarotta chuva.
So when Alamabazi said I would love to see a khavruta between
David and Rivkuk and how they discussed the Chuva because
they're very, very different views.
It's radiant. It's reuniting with the world,
realigning with this inner force of Hashem's will.
So that's what I dedicated the the chapter 2 to introducing
people who didn't see the English translation or can't
read Hebrew. Triv cooks the chuva.
But in a broader sense, I think that many people feel that
teshuva is a prerequisite for gula.
And when will gula come? When everyone turns their heart
towards a Kurdish bar, you know, Whereas can gula also be an
accelerant or a catalyst for teshuva?
And can there be certain initial preliminary stages of gulab that
are imposed even though we don't deserve it?
And then they start to trigger teshuva.
And of course, given my view of of Jewish history, the Shiva is
not a immediate 180° turn where everyone turns around on Monday
and puts on thrilling and says, but nationalistic idea, national
identity, commitment to Judaism, patriotism to the country,
Jewish culture. All of these aspects of Jewish
identity serve as springboards for ultimate spiritual
renovation, spiritual resuscitation.
Is that your way of trying to bring together the two different
opinions in the Gemara? If I'm not mistaken, yes, to a
degree, to a degree to a degree. I, I, I forget I wrote some
other part, not this article to refer to.
I think I wrote about in some other some other level.
And look, the Jews in the precedent for this is Egypt.
I mean, it's, it's ironic because I imagine if you had a
hardcore Haredi person here, they would quote the following
Madras about Egypt because it's the first Gila and I'm going to
quote a different matters about Egypt.
They would quote, and I've heard people say this to me, it's
horrifying, but I've heard people say this, that just like
in Egypt, 80% of the Jews were killed in McCarthy, they didn't
escape. Let's take that matters at face
value. It's the same.
It's not metaphoric. They believe that that
phenomenon. I've heard people say this will
repeat itself in the final Gila and 80% of the Jews won't be
redeemed. And they're referring basically
to any secular Jew. Now, I find that very abrasive,
as you do as well. But they're recording a matters.
The matters that I quote is that the Jewish people in Egypt lost
everything. They fell into abject paganism,
which is implicit, not implicit. It's explicit in Yuskov.
Whereas them is very frontal with them, as you're a paganist
and I need you to make a change. And they don't, for whatever
reason, they're still redeemed. But what did they retain?
Basically, national identity, their dress, their language and
their names. And that national identity
served as a platform upon which spiritual resuscitation
occurred. Without that, Hashem Quintev
redeemed us. So Teshuva is not just people
putting on fill in and reading blog Kumar, it's also people
feeling Jewish identity more deeply on the road to a complete
Teshuva. That is such an incredible idea.
That is really it's, it's, it's really, it's such an astute idea
in general. We, you know, for me, what I
appreciate about you so much is that I think that the Jewish
people, we need people who are articulate people who are
sensitive people who can, who can bring together these
different dynamics that go on in our nation and as a people and,
and religiously and culturally and nationally.
And you know, you, you really are the type of voice that we
need to hear more of people like you, people who will try to
articulate ideas such as that you brought forward throughout
this podcast to really, you know, elevate our understanding
of Judaism and our association with the Jewish people.
It's really incredible. That's very charitable of you
when you're describing those people, I say.
I'll keep my eyes out for this. No, no, but it's, I, I mean it.
I mean it. No, really we, we need, we need
exactly voices like yours. This is the type of voices we
need to bring together and to bring a balance into Judaism.
Absolutely. That's that's what I really
think. I hope, I hope all you can do is
your small part and just pray in our faith so.
Well, we want to thank you again, and we want to tell the
listeners again about reclaiming redemption.
Can you just tell them quickly where they could find the book?
OK, So the book can be purchased three different ways.
It can be purchased in local bookstores.
I think it hit the bookstores in America last week.
It could be purchased on the Mosaica or Feldheim site.
It's it was published by Mosaica and it was being distributed by
Feldheim. So I guess I think each of those
I've seen are featuring it. It can be purchased directly
from me either in Israel or in America or in the UK.
If you have listeners in the UK at the following website, one
word www.reclaimingredemption.com,
www.reclaimingredemption.com. I'll ask you to put into the
show notes so people can order from there as well.
Thank you so much, this is really enjoyable and we we hope
to when they do it again. Please God, thanks God.
And have a chavoir tov. And we should only get reviewed
in the land, God willing. Amen.
Amen Bisaratova, for all of our people, for all of our broken
hearts.