Podcast # 34 Succoth

Shalom Shlomo and Elisha discuss their recent experience of Yom Kippur and the upcoming holiday of Sukkot. They talk about the custom of putting up the first peg of the Sukkah after Yom Kippur and reflect on the beauty and meaning of their prayers in the park. They discuss the idea of appearance versus reality and how what we see is not always the truth. They mention a brain scientist named Daniel Hoffman who explains that our sense of sight is far from reality. They also discuss research by psychologist Susan Gilman that shows how children think about non-obvious and abstract concepts. They reflect on the difficult transition of adolescence and how it can be a time of awakening to an illusion of reality. They give examples of peer pressure and personal experiences to illustrate this point. They also talk about the vastness of the universe and how it can make one feel both insignificant and relieved. They end with a discussion on the number of Jewish people compared to the number of st Shalom Shlomo. Shalom Elisha. So here we are. We just had Yom Kippur yesterday, even though people are going to be receiving this podcast on Friday, Thursday or Friday, it's Tuesday today in real life and we're just recuperating from Yom Kippur which was wonderful, wonderful in our beautiful park and right after Yom Kippur, Sukkot. In fact, there's a custom as Yom Kippur ends, to go and put the first peg of the Sukkah. Elisha, we're riding a high. The Tefillah in the park was so beautiful, especially Mincha ben Neila and the sun setting through the trees, looking at the sunset and praying Neila and it was so musical. We have a musical Keila and it was absolutely beautiful, meaningful. Yes, yes, I admit it really, really was. But Yom Kippur is gone, it's over. Sukkot, we Jews are so busy celebrating all the time, we can't really relax. So Sukkot, what are we going to be talking about for Sukkot? So your Drescha is very creative as always and it deals with appearance and reality. You speak about living in the Sukkah, building this little shack, this little booth. I'm going to do that when I go home. And we look up at the stars at night, we're supposed to sleep in the Sukkah. And we see the stars and of course God promised, Avraham, Jewish people are going to multiply like crazy, like the stars. And you make the point that what we look at isn't reality, it's appearance. And you quote a brain scientist named Daniel Hoffman who proves that what we see with our sense of sight, I'm quoting you, is very far from the truth or from reality. What we see is comparable to the little icons on our computer desktops. They're never the thing itself but only graphic symbol representing a deep wisdom that is not visible to the human eye. Two quick comments about appearance and reality, Alicia. I found some research by a famous psychologist named Susan Gilman. She's a psychology professor who specializes in early childhood. And she researches how little kids think. And this is what she found. She has an article just out in the American Psychologist. She says that non-obvious and abstract concepts, we think that little kids are tangible. What they can feel and touch, that's what they know. Not true. Not true. The non-obvious and abstract concepts are central in early thought by three or four years of age. Non-obvious. Non-obvious means the underlying reality rather than the appearance of things. And that's why little kids are so creative because they think about the non-obvious. And we adults, we are taught to think only about the obvious, what is true, what the rules are. And so creativity declines from the age of five and goes almost to zero as we become adults because we are so attached to the so-called appearance rather than looking at the underlying reality. I'm really grateful that you brought this research and I'd love to read it because I was thinking about my own son's adolescence. He's 15 and a half and he's going through puberty adolescence and we've all been through adolescence and boy is it a tough age, not just for the family but for the person himself. I remember myself as an adolescent. It was I don't want to say it was a nightmare, but you know what? It was a nightmare. And I always wondered why? Why do we come out of this cute and sweet state of being, state of mind, into these little monsters that we become? And you know we talk about there's so many possible answers to that. The hormonal changes that happen and all of that is true and as well as another thing. There's a separation process that needs to happen between the child and his parents so he can become independent. But I think that what you're touching upon right now is also another cause. All of a sudden at a certain age so-called reality now it's not really reality but we kind of emerge out of the dream state and we awaken into what we've been told is reality. All of a sudden, oh so life is like that. People are like this. My parents are like that. And it's a terrible transition. It's almost like being reborn, like born one more time from a state of this dream of there being no solid reality to this hard, rough rough edges of a solid reality. And no wonder they become really agitated. And then over time they learn how to deal with this new so-called reality. And what we're suggesting here is that no it's actually on the contrary. They are awakening from reality into an illusion that actually when they were, when we were kids we knew that reality is a lot more fluid and imaginary and than, you know, adults think it is. And then at some point we awaken to an illusion. And we adults think that we live in reality and the kids live in La La Land. And it's the opposite. I experienced that painfully Alicia, as a teenager. I had very poor vision. I was myopic. Short sighted. And I needed glasses. But if I put glasses on I knew my peers would make fun of me. And so I went to school for years, literally years. And I couldn't see the blackboard. But I refused to put on glasses because I knew I would be called four eyes. And I did eventually have to wear glasses. The teacher made me. The school made me. And I was dubbed as four eyes. And it was extremely painful. An example of peer group pressure and reality which isn't really reality. It's appearance. Glasses. So what? So what if you wear glasses? Yeah. Yes. And if only teenagers, but not only teenagers, even adults, if only adults could fathom this idea. And I'm sure people who are listening will say, what are you talking about? What do you mean? Kids live in reality. Adults live in la-la-land and illusion. I think it needs to be explained a little bit. What Professor Donald Hoffman is suggesting here is that our brain it's our brain that sees and not the eyes. And that in reality what we actually see we see like blobs of light. And our brain translates that into a solid picture. And we are certain and sure that what we're seeing is reality. But it's really our brain making up a reality that makes sense. Now, what does it mean makes sense? It makes sense based on the culture around us. Based on what the adults have been teaching us. What is real and what is not real. So while up to a certain age we're allowing ourselves to see whatever we want to see. The brain is flexible and right now I want to see in this big, big box a beautiful house that I'm going to live in and hide in and play with. Who cares about the toy that was in the box? The box is so much more fun to play with. And then something happens and we see no, it's just a box. Yes, and a good example Alicia is the stars. So God promises Abraham that we will be as numerous as the stars. People used to look up to the sky and see these little beautiful pinpricks of light on a dark night and think it was some kind of curtain or something. And even today we look at the stars and we see these little pinpricks of light. That's the appearance. The reality is, very, very, very far away, these stars are burning hot gases of hydrogen atoms fusing together and creating heat and light. And Alicia, in terms of the Jewish people, so according to the latest statistics there are 7 million Jewish people in Israel and we're going to be a total of 10 million very soon, which is amazing. 10 times more than we were when the state was born. But how many stars are there out there? I was thinking of this Alicia, we did Tashlich on a beautiful beach in Akko and we walked along the sand and I'm looking at the grains of sand and there's an astonishing number that astronomers have come up with. If you count all the grains of sand on all the beaches on the entire planet Earth, for every grain of sand there are 10,000 stars. Really? Yes. There are 70 septillion stars, that's 7 with 23 zeros. Alicia, we are the smallest of tiny specks in this amazing universe and we humans who are so proud in thinking we control everything, we are absolutely insignificant in this universe and we're not quite as many Jews as God promised Abraham as the stars in the heaven, not even for one galaxy. Thank God, imagine more Jews in the world. We're not an easy bunch. Well that's a whole other conversation about the whole number game. It seems like we were never meant to be a multitude. It almost seems like we were meant to be this distinct few but that's a whole other conversation I guess. But here again is this big question when we look at I remember as an adolescent actually and even later in life, maybe I'm still going through puberty, who knows. They say that today puberty takes much longer than it did in the good old days. I used to look at the stars and they would actually depress me because I would look at the stars and say, oh my God this universe is so vast is so huge so many stars. I am so insignificant. So on the one hand whenever I was in a bad mood it was actually very helpful. I would say to myself, Alicia, who cares about this or that? Look at the universe, it's so huge. You're so insignificant. This problem is so insignificant. Move on. Which was helpful. But then when I was very happy, I used to look at the stars and think, my God, this universe is so big. What am I so excited and happy about? I'm so insignificant. And it took me quite a few years. I remember living in Los Angeles. There are many people in Los Angeles. I'm a kibbutznik and all of a sudden seeing so many people. I remember being in a mall and I went shopping with my wife and our agreement was that I drive there, I find a coffee shop, I sit there with my journal and I write what she does, the shopping she wants to do. I can't stand doing shopping. That's what I do, exactly. So, I highly recommend it to anyone who is on this end of the equation. And I remember, I was sitting in a coffee shop in Los Angeles, in the mall. I remember really clearly, it was about 30 years ago, a bit less, and seeing all these people of all colors and races and thinking, each person here is, there is someone that that person is really meaningful to. This person has a mother and father to whom this person is the most important planet in the world. And yet, here he is, just another body walking. And I remember sitting there and looking and observing and then realizing that once again, as our eyes are gazing out, we have to be very careful what we see and what we interpret, that which we see. And the ability to see all the stars, to see all the people, to see all the grains of sand, and to really remember, recognize, feel, that every single grain of sand is an entire universe unto itself. And so is every human being, and so is every galaxy and every planet. Absolutely, and I recall in our last podcast, you said something amazing that everything is God. And in this Dosha, I'm quoting you, you explain that. You base yourself on Daniel Hoffman, the brain scientist. Jewish, of course. Jewish, of course. Professor of science. But God peaks out of all his research, and you make the point that God is, in a sense, an operating system. And I think that's absolutely brilliant, a way of thinking of God, especially for those of us who like computers. And I have a small story to tell about that. In the early days of the personal computer, I remember buying my first one. It was an IBM. It wasn't very good. It was really heavy, big. IBM thought it was making something of great value, and that the box itself, the hardware, that was the value. There was a guy named Bill Gates, and he realized that this is just a piece of metal, plastic, and in there there is a brain, and the real value is the brain, and the part of the brain called the operating system, which he called Windows. So using Windows, he went to IBM and suggested, what do you guys want to do, bother with software? I can provide the operating system. And IBM said, sure, why not? It doesn't have any value. It sure does. And of course, Microsoft is worth many, many times more than IBM today, because IBM just didn't get it. The value in this world is in the operating system, and in a sense, the operating system that we function according to is God, and an operating system is everywhere, everywhere. That is so beautiful, what you just shared now, so beautiful. And I want to pick up on even this metaphor that he called the operating system Windows. So we're asked to look through a window into that which can't really be seen. The operating system cannot really be seen. All that can be seen is only the hardware. The hardware can be seen, but the operating system itself is always, always invisible. And I always love to quote my favorite chapter in the whole Torah is the story of creation, and especially chapter 3 in the eating from the tree of knowledge, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. And what happened there, as we all remember, is they ate from the tree of knowledge. Their eyes were opened. Their eyes were opened. They were not blind before that. They saw the operating system before eating from the tree of knowledge. Once they ate from the tree of knowledge, they saw the hardware. And once they saw the hardware, boom! They were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. And there are, once you see the operating system, see with, you know, so to speak, one needs to look with inner eyes, because our physical eyes, as Don Hoffman is suggesting, our physical eyes show us what's on the screen. They don't, and they never show us the reality, that which is beyond the screen, which we could only see before eating from the tree of knowledge, of good and evil. And a question. I try to find hard questions for you. So here is one, and I actually found an answer, but I want to hear from you first. So, Sukkot and Simchat Torah is one Simchatenu, and the word joy is used in the context of the Chag, the holiday, three times. The Torah doesn't use the word Simcha a whole lot, but three times. Wait a second. Sukkot? We're sitting in these crummy shacks, temporary booths that remind us how temporary and fleeting our presence on the earth is, and Simcha? Where's the joy? We just spent 40 years in the desert. You and I have been to Sinai, Elisha. That's a really hard place to live, and I went there with Sharona in 1969, January, to what supposedly was Sinai. It doesn't matter if it is or not, but it's a hard, scrabble place, and I tried to imagine the children of Israel spending 40 years there, and many of them dying off, and there were illnesses, and hunger, and so on. Where in the world is the joy and Simcha in the Chag? Pesach should be the time of joy, right? Because we just got our freedom. But Simchat Torah? What the heck? Right, and Davka Sukkot. Sukkot, as he said, it's Zman Simchatim, the time of our joy, and it says in the Torah, V'hayitah ach sameach. During Sukkot you have to be only happy. You're not allowed to be anything else but happy. I love that. I love that idea. Maybe there are a lot of possible answers that I want to hear your answer to in a second, but if we connect it to the conversation we just had, maybe that's what it's all about. Our misery and our problems in life are because our eyes were open, and we've been looking at the hardware. We're looking at the IBM hardware of the world. And the hardware is always going to be sometimes going to be prettier, sometimes less pretty, sometimes going to be, you know, sometimes we're going to have lack, sometimes we're going to have plenty. So we're going to get very moody if we are attached to the hardware. But if we can truly see the software of life, we can truly see the operating system that really connects to the forces that operate underneath everything, beyond the hardware, that operate this entire huge and infinite cosmos, then that's where joy lies. That's where joy lies. And I want to make it very concrete. I don't want to leave it too philosophical. It really takes practice to really be able to shift the focus, shift the focus from the outer to the inner, from the hardware to that invisible operating system. And the invisible operating, if we need a metaphor for that, we can think of electromagnetic radiation and force. We don't see that. We don't see that energy. But yet, you know, it's fully there and it's operating. And when we can connect to the operating system, we get to sync with that operating system and try it at home or in your Sukkah, wherever you want to try it. It really, really works. Perfect. This fits very well with our friend Rabbi Sacks, Jonathan Sacks' explanation. And he relates this to faith. So, what is faith? Many people think faith is being absolutely rock-solid certain 100% about your beliefs, about God, and so on. That's not what faith is, according to Rabbi Sacks, the brilliant Rabbi Sacks. Quote, faith is the courage to live with uncertainty. And that's what we celebrate joyfully on Simchat Torah. Because we've just been through 40 years in the desert through hardship and we emerged. God says, I made the Israelites live in booths and I brought them out of the land of Egypt. In Sukkot. In these booths, fragile, open to the elements, the Israelites learned the courage to live with uncertainty, which I call resilience. And this is what has kept the Jewish people alive for thousands of years. We are a resilient people. We bounce back. What people could bounce back, Elisha, from the Holocaust with resilience? And we are now almost as many Jews as we were in 1939. This resilience is what drives us. Just a quick note. I have a close friend at the Technion who researches resilience. He was the chief psychologist of Tzahal. He studied soldiers who came back from the war. Some of them were broken with PTSD. Some of them were whole. The ones who were whole fought in tanks where they had their friends with them who covered their backs. They were in their integral team that they had done reserve duty with. They were part of a unit and they felt secure. The ones who came back broken, in large part, were tank teams, tank crews thrown together. They didn't know each other. They had this terrible uncertainty because they didn't know the people they were fighting with. Our Jewish solidarity is the key to our resilience. That's why I'm so concerned about what's happening now in Israel because it's breaking apart this fragile feeling of bond that we are responsible one to the other. That's interesting. First of all, I really have a tremendous respect for this professor that you're quoting. I just want to mention that we brought him to our men's club here at Zahavta a few years ago. He was wonderful, really wonderful, and had the privilege of doing his grandson's bar mitzvah. That was very joyous. That's very interesting what you're saying. You're right. Resilience is really important in terms of camaraderie and community and friendship and trust in people. That's huge and very, very important. Yet, sometimes, for example, the Yom Kippur War, which this past Yom Kippur Jewish Services, we mentioned and talked about it. It was a key element in our services because it's exactly 50 years since that war, since the war broke out. Many people, most of the people who went into the tanks, indeed, went into the tanks without their friends and those that they knew because it was chaos. Whoever showed up at the front line was like, okay, you jump into this tank with this person and that person and just go. The battlefield is waiting for you. That's a metaphor for life. Sometimes, we cannot be with our closest friends. Sometimes, we cannot be with our community. What then? Are we doomed to lose our resilience? I want to suggest that even then, in the Rasha that I wrote for Yom Kippur about even if I walk in the valley of death, I shall fear no evil for you're family. I think having, being able to create this trust even in the face of the unknown, even when you are grouped together with people that you don't know, we always deep inside, we have that choice. We can choose to trust. Even though we don't have a reason to trust. We don't know the person. We've never met them. We've never fought with them, but we can make a choice. I'm trusting that person and it's not based on anything empiric. I'm just choosing to trust that person and boom, it works. It just works. And Elisha, this is related to a book I'm reading now, a new book by Dan Ariely, an Israeli psychologist called Misbelief and he studies the psychology of people who don't believe what is true. Who don't believe in vaccines. Who don't believe in many things and who believe in conspiracy theories. And the basis of misbelief is that we've lost trust in judges, in the courts, in the law system, in the political system, in democracy, in other people. The amount of trust that people have has declined during COVID, before COVID and especially because we don't know what's true because people can create fake news and others believe it. This is worrisome because as you say, our resilience is based on trust in ourselves and on one another and the degree of trust in society has declined terribly. First of all, I'm going to read the book. Thank you for mentioning it. How are we doing for time? Three more minutes. As we're reaching the end of the podcast, even though I'm obviously not a prophet and there are no prophets today, I want to make a prophecy based on what you just said right now. Right now, indeed, trust is falling apart. What we knew to be true is falling apart. Fake news is tearing everything down and it's scary and tragic and we can say a lot of things about that. I think that what's going to happen is we're going to at some point restructure our trust and our faith. We're going to reach rock bottom. We're going to feel so lost, so insecure, so detached from one another that the human spirit, as it always does, is going to start seeking a new common ground, a new basis upon which to build a new trust. I think that's the way it should be. Sometimes old truths and trust need to be broken. It's unfortunate that it's done through fake news. Very unfortunate. But there always needs to be a catalyst to create that break up so that a new and even better foundation, a new and better trust, a new and better connecting tissue can form between us Israelis, us Jews, and us human beings. The reason why I'm so sure it's going to happen is because that's what the human spirit does. It always looks for a solution. Amen. And Elisha, on that note, maybe I can end with a short story with a Midrash. This Midrash comes from a Lubavitch Rabbi who is quoting the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. And the Baal Shem Tov recounts that on Simchat Torah, the morning of Simchat Torah, the angels awake in heaven and they're bored because they can't pray until the people pray. They can't pray until the people pray. But the people are asleep. And the people are asleep because they've been dancing all night with the Torah, Simchat Torah. And heaven is full of old shoes and old bedroom slippers that are worn out and cracked and torn because they were dancing with them and they wore their shoes out. And they ask the angel, Michael, who's the chief angel, what in the world are we going to do? First of all, we have nothing to do. We can't pray until the people pray. And what are we going to do with all these shoes and bedroom slippers that are cluttering up heaven? Michael, the angel, thinks, and then he has a solution. And he takes these old, crummy, torn shoes and he makes a Keter, Keter Malchut, he makes a crown and he provides God with Keter Malchut, a crown of his sovereignty and God welcomes it and embraces it because it comes from his devout people. Classic Hasidic story. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Right, so eventually the shards, all the broken pieces, are going to form into the new crown of God. Creating a whole new awareness, consciousness, and reality. Exactly. Amen, amen. Thank you Shlomo, thank you for this inspiration. And I want to wish, we both want to wish everyone a Chag Sameach and to really connect with the operating system so there can really be a Chag Sameach, a joyful holiday. Amen Elisha, Chag Sameach.