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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat D'varim. The power of stories, of words, of free will and Hutzpa.
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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat D'varim. The power of stories, of words, of free will and Hutzpa.
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Prof. Shlomo Maital and R. Elisha Wolfin discuss Parashat D'varim. The power of stories, of words, of free will and Hutzpa.
Listen to Podcast #24 D'varim by Elisha Wolfin MP3 song. Podcast #24 D'varim song from Elisha Wolfin is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 33:54. This high-quality MP3 track has 2304 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 21 Jul 2023. Stream and download Podcast #24 D'varim by Elisha Wolfin for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. We live in an era of fake news and people now, you can use artificial intelligence to mimic somebody's face and voice and you can get people to say anything you want. The question is, in an era of fake news, is truth no longer of importance? If truth is important, how can we retell stories and change the narrative? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I, of course, don't have the answer, obviously, but as we're reflecting on it and thinking about it, both of us here, the question comes to mind and it's a scary question but it's a question that I love, when we say truth, is there such a thing? The written D'Rashad that's going to go out later today addresses this question of Moshe is trying through words to convey a certain truth, Yeshua Lebovitch says that we've never actually lived by that truth, we've never really mastered that truth, and I'm kind of wondering is there such a thing as telling the truth? There may be a truth or there may be truth, but the telling of the truth, the minute we use words, we already frame, the choice of words frames the situation and that is already a slight aversion of the truth, so maybe that's what it's all about, there isn't this one, there may be one truth, but when it comes to telling that truth, there are many ways of telling that one truth, exactly, and the fact that we use words, words themselves change in their meaning, so I'm fascinated by the fact that Moshe really argues with God, all through the Torah, he argues with God, and the question is, is that okay, can you argue with God? My grandmother called God in Yiddish, Der Ebersto, Der Ebersto means the Supreme Being, but she argued with God daily, every single day, and it comes down to a word, Chutzpah, I want to talk a minute about Chutzpah, I'm very fortunate, I get to greet Chinese visitors who come to Technion, after COVID, we have a new flood of visitors, the Chinese come and they all have one question, what's the secret sauce of Startup Nation? And Startup Nation, the book by Sinor and Singer, best-selling book, translated to many languages, great PR for Israel, basically Startup Nation attributes high-tech in Israel to Chutzpah, and Chutzpah is hard to translate, it means arrogance, or insolence, or challenging authority, and so on, and it's actually a Talmudic concept, I looked it up, the Talmud, the sages, our rabbis talk about Chutzpah K'neged Shemaya, being Chutzpah, insolent to God, and they talk about it in a context, not a negative concept, but a positive concept, this is a good thing, and I'm afraid when my Chinese visitors come and say, what is your secret sauce, I have to tell them, it's something called Chutzpah, I don't know what that is in Mandarin, but I have to tell you, you guys in China, you don't have it, you have Confucius, and Confucius says, respect the old knowledge, respect the master, respect the teacher, and the Chinese do, they do that very well, but my students, they tell me I'm out to lunch all the time, and I absolutely love that, and I love the fact that Chutzpah K'neged Shemaya is approved and applauded in Judaism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so beautiful, you're such an amazing man of stories, and the first thing you said about words that we use and the connection between words and Chutzpah, it's a deep idea, well first of all, let's just remember that this book is called Dvarim, which really means words, so it's the book of words, and maybe as you were talking, it came to mind that maybe that's what words are, maybe words to begin with are a form of Chutzpah, to be able to put an experience into words, to be able, it's an amazing human ability, Yuval Noah Harari, who's been here to our Keilah a couple of times, and wrote his famous book about the brief history of humanity, mankind, I'm not so sure how it's translated into English, he claims that language, the ability to speak, to put words, to just give words, changed everything, that human beings from the bottom of the chain of life, I'm sure there's a better word, I'm a bit jet lagged, but you'll forgive me, rose to the top of the chain, thanks to words, thanks to language, thanks to this ability to take truth, and with the Chutzpah that you're talking about, give it names, and if we look at the story of Bereshit, of Genesis, when God brings the animals to Adam, and Adam gives them names, and the names that he gives them, they become that, now they don't quite become that, but for him, they become that, and therefore words are a holy deed, and we don't often regard speech as a holy deed, Judaism does, the Jews don't, it's quite amazing that you quote our sages, our sages give a lot of emphasis to the art of words, of speech, of speaking, so much so that there are more halakhot, more laws regarding what we utter from our mouths, what we talk, more than food we bring into our mouths, so apropos words Elisha, we are blessed on Shabbat with the birth of a new baby granddaughter, that's right, I was going to wish you Mazal Tov at the end of this podcast, but we'll say it now, Mazal Tov, we have high grandchildren now, that's number 18, high grandchildren, that's a great blessing, so this little girl, she will grow up and learn to speak, and speech is so crucial in child rearing, and I've learned this from our son and our daughter-in-law, because they have two children already, this is the third, they have Rimon and Carmel, and they've taught Rimon and Carmel to express what they want in words, we have problems with little kids sometimes, because they're upset about something, but they can't tell us what it is, and then we have a real problem, and these little kids, three and five, they're just little kids, but they're able to say, they're hungry, they're thirsty, they're tired, they can express what they want, so words are a crucial part of our being a society, and even for me, I'm an old guy, I do an awful lot of writing, I produce too many words, and the reason is, I try to figure out what I'm thinking about something, and until I frame it in words, I really don't know, you don't know what you're thinking until you frame the words, and then you hear the words, maybe in your head, and you say, yes, that's what I think. Yeah, I love that, I love that, that's so beautiful, it's one of the modes of healing that I use when I counsel people is called focusing, that's what it's called, it's created by a great professor of both philosophy and psychology from the University of Chicago, Eugene Gendlin, and in his therapeutic protocol, it's basically all about connecting with that which arises and finding the right word for it, find just that right word, and very often the process, I would ask myself or ask the person I'm coaching, so what's coming up, or what are you noticing, and their response would often be, well, first of all, be very quiet for a while, and it's a very slow process, and it would start by saying, I'm feeling this sensation of this warmth, and then we would look for the word that would describe the experience behind the sensation, and so they would say something like, it's a sense of home, no, no, no, no, it's not a sense of home, it's a sense of feeling, no, and it's a whole process of naming the experience, and then the miraculous part of it all is when you've found the right word, you know, it would sound like something like stability, stability, stability, that's what it is, and you have the real feeling of expansion when you've found the right word, and until you've found that right word, the experience of expansion or the goodness of it is just not there yet. Exactly, and Alicia, the beauty of Hebrew is that it is sometimes ambiguous and open to interpretation the way we interpret the word and translate it to English, and you do that beautifully in your dress up, so next week is Tisha B'Av, the ninth of Av, and we're in a period of great sadness and tragedy for the Jewish people. During this period, the first temple was destroyed, and the second temple was destroyed, and we sit on low benches and mourn this, and the Talmud says, why did we lose our temples? Because of sin'at chinam, which is causeless hatred, and heaven knows we see a lot of that in our daily life all over the world, not just in Israel, but you have a beautiful new take on sin'at chinam. In your dress up, you interpret chinam as chen shelahem, chinam, that is, we hate the charm of other people because we are jealous of them, and jealousy is so powerfully destructive, and in societies that have chinam, sin'at chin shel'achirim, hatred of charm and beauty and grace and others, those are societies that come apart. I really like that interpretation of sin'at chinam. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, as I was reading this d'rashah that I wrote a few years ago, I was also moved by it myself. Yes, yes, it's a beautiful idea of sin'at chinam, like hating the grace, the beauty, the charm of the other. How tragic, how tragic that is. What needs to happen inside of us to hate someone else's beauty and be jealous of it? And the Torah is all about that. It's all about, certainly, the book of Bereshit, sibling rivalry, and siblings who want what the other has, and are willing to kill for it. So I wonder if we applied it today to the situation here in Israel, and in the world in general, but specifically in Israel because we are in Israel, what is it about the other that we are maybe jealous of, maybe scared of, the power that they may have, that they have something that we maybe lack, and we don't like lacking it, so we're jealous, and it's easier to simply put it down and hate it. It would look very different if we could see the beauty that each part of society brings to the collective, brings to the table. And in that vein, Elisha, I want to talk about the democracy protests in Israel and the turmoil, the chaos, the Balagan that we are going through, and a song, the British thing, called, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, and Elisha, there is a bright side to this, and it's related, I think, to the Parsha. We are all given amazing gifts. Life itself is a beautiful gift. Our little new baby granddaughter is a huge blessing and a great gift and an amazing miracle. We are now in massive turmoil in Israel with block roads and demonstrations about democracy. What is the bright side? Good heavens. The bright side is this. Democracy is a gift, and as a sideline, I might mention the Torah itself has democracy. Sometimes it is said, there's no democracy in the Torah. The word doesn't exist in the Torah. The concept doesn't exist in the Torah. There are kings. There are monarchies. We have people who want to see a monarchy restored to Israel. The Torah has democracy in the following sense. There is a book by Harold Schulweiss. Harold Schulweiss was the rabbi at Beth Sholom in Encino, a charismatic rabbi, one of the founders of the Havurah movement. My wife and I visited that synagogue. It's amazing. His book is called Conscience, Duty to Obey, and Duty to Disobey. We have a duty to disobey. When we see things in Israel that are going wrong, we have a duty to disobey, to protest. We are given this precious gift called democracy, but we took it for granted. Frankly, I don't think our kids really thought much about it because it's just there. It's like an old painting on the wall. You don't even look at it because it's there and you don't see it. All of a sudden, somebody comes and wants to take it away. Then, all of a sudden, you look at this beautiful painting, this amazing painting, and you say, whoa, wait a second. This is valuable. This is meaningful. We have a whole generation of young people who are rediscovering what democracy is and why we have to fight for it. I think that's a very bright side of all the chaos that we're seeing now. It's great that you're giving a bright spin to what's going on here right now. I think it's really, really important for this voice to be heard. We can easily fall into despair over what's happening in Israel. One bright side is, as you're saying, the young generation is realizing democracy should not be taken for granted. One needs to fight for it and protect it. Another one is there's a value clarification of what we're going through right now. It's a real sharpening of our vision for this state. I strongly believe, we've discussed it before, and I strongly believe that when the dust settles, and it may take a while for the dust to settle, when the dust does settle, we are going to be in a much better place than we are today. Some may say, but yes, we've seen how easy it is to destroy and to reach destruction before things get better. That's true. That risk, that danger is always there. But I have a strong feeling that it's somewhat different now. The situation is somewhat different, and we actually need this phase in order to reconnect with our vision, with the truth. This Shabbat is also called Shabbat Chazon, Shabbat of Vision. So, we're at the peak of this, of redefining our vision for the next 75 years, and it's a tough one. It's tough, and the more we're willing to touch the raw nerves of what's important to us, chances are we will emerge triumphant. We'll find the new collective vision, and what's also really important, the book of Deuteronomy also speaks about that. Moshe, on the one hand, this is his last month of his life. He's about to die, and we'd love him to stay alive forever. Don't leave us. We need you. But there's this recognition that it doesn't work that way, that there's a new generation and a new reality. We're moving from wilderness to a settled society. But, here we are, 3,250 years later, we're still discussing Moshe's words, his living words. So, on the one hand, time changes, generations change, new ideas arise, and democracy, the word democracy, as I said, does not appear here. It appeared elsewhere. We've kind of adopted it. But yet, Moshe is still with us through these words, and we have the obligation to interpret and reinterpret and reinterpret generation after generation. Or, as you said at the beginning of the podcast, retell the story. Tell it in a different way that is correct, suitable, and right for this generation. And our kids, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, will tell a different story from the same original words of Moshe. That's beautiful. Exactly. And there's another sense in which this Parsha is highly relevant for what's going on in Israel today and in the world. It has to do with – I'm paraphrasing Moshe. By the way, it seems to me there's a place called Deez Ahav in Parsha. Is that right? Which is funny, because Deez Ahav was a great skin-diving place where Israelis went on the beach. Beautiful, beautiful Red Sea port. Deez Ahav. Plenty of gold. And Moshe basically says to God, God, you've given us the opportunity and the temptation. You've given us free will. So, when we argue with God, how did you allow the Holocaust to occur? How do you allow all these bad things to happen to good people? And there's a basic answer. God gave us free will. And that free will is the basis of our society. It's the basis of moral behavior. If we didn't have free will, it would be meaningless, because everything is predetermined. It's not. We have a choice. It's up to us. Parsha makes this clear in Moshe's argument with God. What we do is our responsibility. This is a great gift, the gift of free will, that we can choose between good and evil. Sometimes the evil itself can lead to good. And, like the song goes, always look on the bright side. You look at terrible things that happen, but sometimes good can emerge from it. Yeah, it's quite amazing and shocking that we can quote Monty Python and see the deep wisdom in this great British humor. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think you're absolutely right. And there's no chutzpah without free will. And the famous, the very, very famous story that everyone who ever studied a little bit of Talmud has had to study this story of the argument over achnai, over that famous oven. And God loves it that we challenge God. Elijah the prophet says, God was beside himself, was laughing with joy when the Rabbi said, you God, stay out of this conversation. We're talking now. You said your word at Mount Sinai. We're now arguing. You stay out of it. And the fact that in the Jewish narrative, in Jewish storytelling, God loves that answer is a great kudos to free will, to democracy, and it's something, I have to be careful what I say now, but it's something that your Chinese visitors may indeed have a difficult time with because where there's no democracy, where there's dictatorship, where there's not free will, then there's no chutzpah. And where there's no chutzpah, there's no creativity. And when there's no creativity, God cannot appear. God appears in this world through our own creativity, through our own chutzpah, through our own free will. Exactly. So, you make the point about the destructive nature of jealousy, but you also in your droshah make this point, and you do this frequently in your teaching and classes and so on, and that is the destructive nature of being judgmental. In other words, judging other people, seeing the flaws in them, seeing what they do wrong, sometimes it makes us feel good if we're criticizing other people. That makes me look good, but being judgmental is as bad as being jealous, and it's as destructive. And it's one of the lessons, I think, that we get from this parshah, and you say this very effectively in your droshah. Yes, and I have judgment, obviously, and yes, being judgmental is something we need to really work on because it means that we're not seeing the grace in the other, we're not seeing the beauty in the other. And there's a dilemma here because we are moral people, so we have to make moral choices. So, being moral people means you have to see right and wrong. You see it in yourself, but also in other people, but in seeing it in other people, I think we need to tilt the scales a little bit in favor of seeing the good. Maybe human nature to tilt the scales in the wrong direction. Yes, and it's not easy, but it's not impossible to see something as evil and at the same time not be judgmental. The two don't contradict. Many, many years ago, I did some work in prisons, and just seeing, recognizing that these people who are sitting there in prison have done terrible things, and yet being able to see their beauty, being able to see their grace, being able to see their infinite beauty and grace. And it doesn't mean that bad things don't happen. It doesn't mean that they didn't do bad things, but they themselves, who they are, their divine nature, being, so many words, we're talking about words here, so many words that can describe an essence, can try to describe an essence of a person, that the essence of the person, we're always, always infinitely good. Why we end up doing bad things, that's for another podcast, I guess, not that I have the answer, but holding these two things, on the one hand, holding this idea that we are infinitely good divine manifestations of God, and on the other hand, knowing that through our free will, we can do some very, very hurtful things. So, Elisha, maybe one final thought quickly before we end our podcast. I wrote a blog this week. The title of it is Life as a Venn Diagram. A Venn Diagram is when you have two things, and you draw... I have to tell people that you're right now drawing as you're explaining. I'm drawing two circles, and one circle is tomatoes, and the other circle is apples, and they have very different characteristics, but there is one common area that they're similar. Tomatoes and apples are actually fruits. How is life a Venn Diagram, and how can that be a practical tool? When I'm with my grandchildren, three-year-old, five-year-old, twenty-one-year-old, twenty-eight-year-old, the key is to find a contact. Sometimes we're quite different in our beliefs, and so we have these two circles, but always, always between two human beings who live and breathe, there is an area of common intersection. When we interact with other people, and you're really good at this, you have to find that common intersection. What is it? Is it Lego? Is it ice cream? I use ice cream a lot. That's pretty common. If you find this intersection with other people, it's a way of not being judgmental, but in finding the intersection, it's pretty easy to know the differences between tomatoes and apples, but what's the common ground? There is common ground. There's common ground for every single human being, two people living on the face of the earth, always. I love it. I love it, and I think from now on, we're going to call that common ground ice cream. Yes, exactly. Vanilla. Good vanilla. Real vanilla flavor. I'll go for that. What a beautiful note to end with. Shlomo, thank you so much for preparing for this podcast, and it's a great way to land from England back in the Holy Land and reground in Torah. Thank you so much, Shlomo, and enjoy your high grandchildren. Thank you, Elisha, and thank you for coming despite very little sleep last night. It's my ultimate pleasure. Shabbat shalom, everyone, and we would love to hear what you think, and send it on to other people as well if you've enjoyed the podcast. Shabbat shalom, everyone. Shabbat shalom.
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