Podcast # 79: Parashat D'varim

In this conversation, the speakers discuss the current tense situation in Israel while also reflecting on the past and the upcoming holiday of Tisha B'Av. They express concern about the panic and fear being spread by the media and the impact it has on the Israeli people. They also discuss the start of a new book in the Torah, Deuteronomy, and its relevance to today's world. The conversation then shifts to the topic of longevity and how to live a meaningful life in old age. The speakers mention the importance of passing on values to the next generation and the destructive nature of baseless hatred. Shalom everyone, Shalom Elisha, Shalom listeners, Shalom Shlomo and these are such strange times where before Tisha B'Av and here we are all waiting for this big war to break out, for the retaliation, for revenge, for Iran, for Hezbollah, for the Houthis, waiting for the bomb to drop, that's basically what we're all waiting for. And yet we're looking backwards and mourning something that happened 2,500 years ago and trying to understand the causes and draw lessons for today, classic Jewish behavior, Elisha, one foot in the distant past and one foot in the tense present. How are you feeling right now? Are you feeling nervous? Are you feeling anxious? I'm upset with the Israeli people. We've in the past shown great resilience, Elisha, I think the media have fanned enormous panic in people. People aren't going anywhere, they're staying at home, just senses, and friends and acquaintances and family as well, this enormous tension and fear and panic. And our enemies have noticed this, they watch us really closely, all of them, and Asrallah mentioned this in his speech, how we have the Israelis upset and panicky and that's what we want. We've got them where we want them, we should not let them enjoy our panic, it's not right. I agree with you and I have to say, I don't feel it, I really, really don't feel the panic and I was driving south at a meeting down further south and it was great because the highway was open, it's never open, it's always at this hour when I left this morning, it's jam-packed and everything was open, people are just scared leaving the house as you said. I'm quite optimistic, Elisha, our enemies are going to get quite a surprise this time. OK, so one way of approaching this whole entire era is with curiosity, kind of saying, well, let's see what unfolds, what's next for the Jewish people, what's next for the state of Israel, I wouldn't say with anticipation but with curiosity, I think that's a really interesting approach. Indeed, Elisha, and one place where we find hints and clues is in this amazing self-help book called the Torah Absolutely, which is so incredibly relevant and I'm especially excited today in our podcast because we're starting a new book, it's the fifth and last book, Deuteronomy in Greek, Devarim in Hebrew, 11 parashot, and Elisha, by the way, Deuteronomy in Greek means deuter, which is second, and nomos, which is law, literally second law, but that's not what Deuteronomy means, it basically means repeat or copy, so Devarim just reviews what has gone before, nothing happens, nothing happens in Devarim, it kind of breaks the rule of fiction which is you have dialogue but you need more than dialogue, you need to have, something has to happen, nothing happens in Sefer Devarim and yet it's still fascinating, it's the three discourses of Moshe and there's so many things I found that are relevant for today. Right, and maybe we can frame it like, traditionally speaking, there's a tradition and then there's obviously research. Tradition has the book of Devarim in the last month of Moshe's life, Moshe is 119 years old and 11 months, and he knows that in a month he's going to climb up Mount Nevo and he's going to see the entire land of Israel and lay there on the rock and his spirit with a divine kiss is going to be whisked away, and these are his final speeches, well not his final speeches, he never really gave speeches, it's the first time he's actually, here's Moshe, who had a really difficult time speaking, I don't think it was a speech imperative, I think it was simply the ability, how do you convey the truth, that's what he was trying to say to God, hey, I don't have the vocabulary to impart the truth, the divine truth to the people, so Aaron is brought in to help him, and here he is, here's Moshe, delivering those amazing, amazing, amazing speeches, the last month of his life. Absolutely, we learn so much, there's a funny story that Rabbi Sacks tells about Moshe and living to be 120, at one of the Queen's birthday celebrations, she lived almost to 100, Queen Elizabeth was brought greetings by the Jewish community in Britain, and the representative wished her that she should live to 120, a full and happy life until 120, and she was puzzled by that, she was a very curious person, and she made inquiries after that, what in the world did they mean by wishing me to live to 120, and of course they explained to her from the Bible that Moses lived to 120, and that's a traditional wish that we Jews make, because not only did he live to 120, he lived, despite the trials and challenges and tribulations, he lived a full and meaningful life, and one of the things you might talk about, and this is meaningful for me, being over 80, is how do we learn from the Bible and from Moshe to live a full and meaningful life, including the latter years, the senior years, what's the secret, and there are some tips in the Bible in Sefer Valim. Okay, yeah, yeah, absolutely, interesting. Can I just toss some numbers out of this, very briefly, something we take for granted, discussing longevity, that never used to be a real problem, in 1900, Elisha, the life expectancy in the West was 31 years, 31 years, today, in Israel, one of the longest in any country, about 83, 84, women live three years longer than men, but nonetheless, it's more than doubled, it's phenomenal, and it really changes the way we have to relate to our lives, we grow old, and because we grow old, we have to figure out how to do that, it's not trivial. Right, how to do that, and how to, and it's not just about the health care of seniors, which is a whole new science, it's also, who was it, a podcast I listened to when I took the dog out yesterday at 5.30 in the morning, yeah, something about Nietzsche, who critiqued a very famous Italian entrepreneur, businessman, who lived to a very old age, and he had a theory, he said that eating very little is his secret for longevity, and Nietzsche said, not true, absolutely not true, it works for him, it doesn't mean that's the recipe for everyone, and as I was listening to that, I was thinking, indeed, we're getting better and better at making our lives much, much longer, but are our lives indeed better, are they really better, are they more meaningful, are they, once a person, as long as a person is healthy, and up and about, and I'm looking at my dad, who's just like a spring chicken at the age of 90, so, you know, it's wonderful, he doesn't even ask the questions about the meaning of senior life, because he's, you know, he feels eight years old, and, but nevertheless, when not everybody gets to the age of 90 in that condition, and when your health is not that great, how can you still, how can one still live life fully, even when the body is indeed saying, hey, you know, slow down, and things are, Olga, who I'm going to visit right after our podcast, she's going to be 100, and it's a question that I, whenever I, every week when I, after I visit her and I leave, I'm always left with that question, how does one, what do we make of it, what do we make of, she's very frustrated at not being able to do this, and not being able to do that, and she can't do this, and she can't do that, and that's not right, and that's not fair, so it's a question that puzzles me, but let's, you lead the way. So regarding old age, Rabbi Sachs has some interesting insights, and he quotes an expert on aging well, the title of this person's book, George Vailant, and George Vailant mentions that there are two important things that we need to keep in mind, and I think they're directly related to Moshe, we learn it directly from Moshe, the first, Vailant calls generativity, what do you, what do you do for succession, how do you pass on leadership, how do you relate to the passing of the torch to the next generation, have you educated the generation, do they share your values, do they know what the values are, that really is what Moshe's three discourses are about, he reviews it very beautifully and very clearly, and even sees in the future, he sees in his discourse that we're going to be kicked out of our own country because we screw up, and we will come back and we will make amends, and all this he sees, he sees it in his eyes, that he passes this on, the generativity, but also the second point is, and it's related, is the keeper of the values, that is, the older generation are the keepers of values that serve them well during their lifetime, and it's up to them to pass those values on, not just the people who will take up the leadership as Moshe did, he chose Yeshua, but the values that they must embody and implement, and I'm not sure, Elisha, we're doing a proper job at this, it concerns me a lot, I don't think we're passing on these eternal values, Jewish values, to the next generation, and it's related to the theme that you talk about in your drashah, your drashah is from the book, Ayeka, and you relate to Tisha B'Av, Tisha B'Av is next Monday night, so we are, of course, our minds are on the destruction of the temple and what we did wrong, and the cause of the destruction of the temples, which is Sinat Chinam, which translates literally as needless hatred, Chinam is for free, no reason, but you have a brilliant comment, you mentioned that Chinam has a root of Chin, and Chin is grace. And beauty. And beauty, grace and beauty, what's the connection between Sinat Chinam and Chin, and that is, we envy, we dislike, we are jealous of people who have this Chin, and we don't, I'm watching the Olympics, and I'm seeing these runners and swimmers, and they do this with such ease and with such grace, which I never did as a runner, the best I did in a marathon was over three hours, almost four, so you know rightly that sometimes hatred arises from this deep-seated jealousy, and it's destructive, and it ruins this generativity, this cohesion amongst the generations. The young generation can rightly look at the older generation, almost with Sinat Chinam, what have you guys done to our planet, what are you giving to us, good heavens, and this is all kind of in Parshat Vahim. Yes, and I want to drive this point home a little bit further, so basically if we translate this into English, Sinat Chinam is like hating the other person's beauty, and the other person's beauty, and it's one thing hating the other person's wickedness, that's one thing, if the person, if you see like, I'm very, very angry at Hamas, and I think I could also say hate Hamas, the evil that they bring to the world, they brought to the world, so it's one thing to hate someone else's evil act, it's another thing to hate someone else's for their beauty, and that's where jealousy kicks in, and I think that's one of the reasons for antisemitism, that the people of the world, they can't stand our beauty, they can't stand our grace, they can't stand our success, so they turn it into evil, and it's really the point that you're raising, you know, I'm thinking of you as, you mentioned, you say, I'm looking at those in the Olympics, and I'm kind of like, wow, when I ran a marathon, I just, you ran a marathon, oh my God, and I never ran a marathon, I can talk for 42 miles, but 42 kilometers, right, but to run 42 kilometers, me, no way, so I'm not, I'm not, I'm not you know, here you are, in passing, you know, you're giving your hen, your beauty, your grace, and kind of saying, ah, it's nothing compared to those in the Olympics, and that's exactly where, wow, and one could be jealous, and like, oh, you know, that's not fair that he has this ability to run 42, and create this jealousy, or another way is to really be inspired, like really be inspired by your ability, by the ability of those in the Olympics, and we can really check with ourselves, are we inspired by someone else's grace and beauty, and does that make us feel like, oh, you know, maybe we can even try better, or maybe we can emulate them, or just be inspired to do our own thing a bit better, or are we jealous and hateful? That marathon changed my life, Alicia. I ran the New York Marathon in 1985. I was a novice. I was 42 years old. I hadn't trained properly. I was at a conference, sort of piggybacking it on a conference to get travel funds, and I didn't drink during the marathon at all. It was really stupid. It was terrible preparation. The last six miles, my leg was cramping terribly, and I was kind of limping along. I still made it under four hours, but it changed my life. When you do something that's really, really difficult, that takes dogged persistence, it translates. If I can do this, I can do something else, and I had great trouble getting tenure and surviving in the academic atmosphere of Israel, which was very competitive, and was turned down on several, on all occasions, in fact. You were an olech, or no longer an olech hadash, but an ole, like fighting the system, fighting a native system, which is really, really difficult. I encountered that somewhat, made it through, thank God. Eventually, the marathon experience helped. Wow. Alicia, let's talk about another ... This is a big thing. This is a really profound thing. First of all, indeed, let's just make a point of it. You ran a marathon. You're 42 years old, which is really beautiful, because in Israeli terms, it's like 42 kilometers, and you're 42 years old, and there are 42 stations in the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the land of Canaan, so it must have been the right place at the right time, and it kind of brought you to the promised land, in a way. You're saying that it really, it gave you ... Yeshua, Yeshua ben Nun and Kalev ben Yifuneh, it gave you their big lesson. Yes, yes, you're able to do that. If you can do this, you can get tenure, you can do a lot of other things. Yes. It's basically recognizing your chen, your grace, your beauty, and allowing that beauty to show itself off in other realms of your life. Indeed, indeed, well said. You mentioned the spies, Elisha, so there's a powerful lesson with the spies. Somehow, the episode of the spies is recounted again in Sefer Vahim, and it's told differently. It's a different story. Did Moshe order the spies to be sent? Did God order the spies to be sent? Did the people demand that the spies be sent? We have different accounts here, and it leads to a real important issue about truth, and again, a very telling and insightful commentary on this. Elisha, think about the novels of Jane Austen, a wonderful writer. These novels are fiction. The people in them are fiction, but Elisha, if you want to understand 19th century Britain and the social mores and the way people lived, you read her novels. They're fiction, but they contain powerful truths. There is something called narrative truth. Maybe the story isn't exactly accurate in all the facts, but it contains the truth, and I think that's important for reading the Torah. The Torah conveys truth. It does it in different ways. It tells the same story sometimes in different ways, but the kernel of truth, the essence, the core of truth is always there, and it should not bother us about the details or the so-called facts. Truth is independent of the details sometimes. Yes, or certainly independent of the historical accuracy. Right, historical accuracy. We don't even know what historical accuracy is. That keeps on changing, and a new historical narrative is born all the time, but that truth, that ingrained truth, that seems to remain, and the fact that since time immemorial, people could read Parashat Vahim or the other parashot, but specifically Parashat Vahim because that's where we're at, and be able to draw truth from it 2,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and today, and never tire, never tire of squeezing out another drop of truth that we never quite noticed before that. That's the beauty of the Torah. Absolutely, and again, thinking about this issue of aging well, and what it was that helped Moshe age so well, there's a Harvard researcher, a psychologist, Carol Dweck, who speaks about a growth mindset. It's in the mind, Elisha. It's how you relate to the present and to the future. Do we seniors, do we continually seek to learn new things? My wife, Shona, a psychologist, is amazing in this. She is always listening to podcasts, listening to webinars, reading, learning, and acquiring new skills and new ideas. She already knows a very, very great deal. I'm astonished. I don't always have patience to do that. This growth mindset is really, really important. It's part of, I think, part of aging well. The other part is something that I practice, Elisha. Not everything in my body works that well. It's part of growing old. You have to just realize it. Like an old car, some things wear out. Not everything can be fixed. We can spend an awful lot of time running to find doctors who can fix things. They mean well. They will give us pills to fill up our medicine cabinet. They will try their best. People don't like the answer, that's life. We can't do anything. They try. You can waste a lot of time running to doctors to fix things that are really not fixable. They're part of old age. Just get on with it. I'm not able to run very fast or much at all, so I'm walking. That's good enough. It's to find solutions. A growth mindset is always looking for solutions and dealing with what is, not wishing for what was once. Last word, Elisha, this is legal and technical, but it's crucially important for older people to have an enduring power of attorney. It's a document that expresses your wishes about your assets and other things in the future. When we bring old people to the hospital, the hospital people ask, is there a power of attorney? Because they will need instructions eventually. Growth mindset and pass the values on, generativity, keeper of the values, and this legal document that's so crucial can save years of wrangling in courts because of misunderstanding. What did the person really want? We don't know. Write it down. As we discussed last week, I would like to add another component to it, and that is love, to really love God. Getting old is an evolving part of God's plan, however we understand God to be, whether it's nature or whether God is wisdom, but really loving God, meaning that getting old has to be a blessing. We look at people who are young and healthy and we think that's where the blessing lies. I'm really not sure, I'm really not sure at all. I had a conversation this week, we had a really very moving and powerful bar mitzvah, we had a lot of bar mitzvahs this week. One of them was a kid who is totally, I don't know what the terms are in English, but he is crippled. He can barely stand, move, walk, he can't talk. He's very bright. His eyes are amazing. His eyes are sparkling with light and his smile, I mean he's always with a little towel in his hand because he has to wipe his mouth all the time. He has the most amazing, amazing, amazing smile. The family is traditional. The grandparents are religious. We did it in the synagogue. The grandfather's synagogue is Yemenite. The grandfather's synagogue is Hadera. That's what we did, the bar mitzvah. It was really, really, really amazing. I also mentioned that this kid underwent recently, like a few weeks before his bar mitzvah, a serious operation to instill something in his brain to see if they can improve the situation. Right now it actually deteriorated, but they're still hoping that it's a temporary deterioration and it will somehow get better, which is really nice. The bar mitzvah was amazing, amazing, absolutely amazing. Why am I telling this long, long story? First of all, I think it's important to share these things, but secondly, the grandfather, he had two grandfathers there. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it totally egalitarian. We did it as egalitarian as we could, given the circumstances. Even the photographer who was religious was very impressed by how we were able to incorporate the women from behind the women's section, nevertheless incorporate them. One of the grandfathers, the grandparents love this kid, and everybody falls in love with this kid. One grandfather actually fainted during the service. He was so moved. He came back to his senses, or whatever the word is. During the Kiddush, I had a conversation with him, a long conversation. Throughout the morning, I had a lot of conversations. He used to be a police officer in the Hadera police station. He has retired many, many years ago. He was very disillusioned with what happened to the Israeli police force. It became really apparent that the fact that, at least they used to, they still do, retire police officers and army officers relatively young, is a real, real loss. Here's this man with incredible life experience. He understands people. He knows people. He has the wisdom that he acquired over the years. So why do you let him go when it's time for pension, when on the contrary, we need the elders. We need the elders in order to show the young people, show them the way, show them compassion, guide them. That's something that our society, on the one hand, we live that much longer, so we keep people alive that much longer, which is great, but we don't appreciate the wisdom that comes with old age. If we could appreciate that wisdom, then you would see that longevity can really be a God-given gift. Absolutely. One of the advice that I give to startup entrepreneurs is not to do a board of directors that's made up of investors, but to do a board of advisors. You can find senior people from Technion, myself, others who want meaning in their lives, who know a lot and who can help them. You don't need all the formal legalese of board members and the cost of it, and you can get a great deal of wisdom for free from people who have been sidelined, who have been sometimes even warehoused. Older people are put in warehouses and shut out of sight. I think that it's both for the younger generation to realize that, but I think it's also for the older generation to also realize that. I think you said it earlier, that you have a great gift to impart your wisdom to the next generation. Absolutely. Perhaps we could conclude, Alisha, with a beautiful passage from your drashah, and quote, the opposite of hatred without reason. We were discussing sinat chinam, hatred without reason, which was the cause of the destruction of the temples. The opposite of hatred without reason, you write, is, of course, love without reason. This is an important lesson also related to growing old, because frankly, sometimes we seniors are grumpy. We're all grumps. We're grumpy about things that aren't just as we want them or as they used to be. We need to practice, not only seniors, everybody, we need to practice love without reason. That is a mindset in which you relate to other people with love, including people who sometimes aren't that nice to you. I've learned, Alisha, sometimes a smile is amazing. I've done research on this. If you're in a hostile situation and you simply smile at people, it changes the atmosphere. Absolutely. We can tell our listeners, try it. Love without reason, not just with reason, people around us whom we love, without reason, affection for people without any real underlying cause, because that's who we are and because that's the fabric of society. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. As you're putting it so beautifully, love of shamayim, it's not in the heavens. It's so easy. Just a smile can change an entire interaction. A smile and an intention to dissolve the animosity and the hatred in the room, in the situation, wherever that may be. Exactly. Yes. May the next few days prove to be a great turning point for the better, that things will end much better than we can even imagine. May we see the beauty in ourselves, the beauty in this country, the beauty in our people, the beauty, even the beauty in this really difficult situation. Amen. And for our friends abroad, not to worry too much. We will surprise you. God willing. God willing. Maybe God will surprise us all. So Shabbat Shalom, everyone. Shabbat Shalom. Bye, bye. Bye.