TJS S3 Interlude: some more questions

Generated automatically from the audio and lightly corrected. It may contain errors; the recording is the authority.

Monsters exist, says Primo Levi, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions. Well, asking questions is what I'm all about, and I don't like to put any boundaries on them, because I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. interlude some more questions so i gotta say i got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about last week's interlude fielding the listener questions so i figured hey why not double down on the whole process and truth of the matter is i'm also buying time to do a bit more research on my series for the spirit of the 60s that are parallel the last series that we did and we're aiming for 1967.

Don't be worried. This season is coming to an end soon, and we're going to hit a culminating moment in that shining battle of the Six-Day War. But meanwhile, I've got work to do. So, buying time. But like I said, mostly your feedback. So keep it coming. I really appreciate not only the positive returns, but also the questions. I got a bunch of great listener questions, and we're going to address a few of them in just a minute. Well, I also got a very loving but firm piece of feedback from a dear friend of mine who said that I am the absolutely worst dedicator in the history of podcasting. Not, by the way, the person who gave the dedication. So I do want to say at the beginning of the show, in a voice loud, clear, and proud, that this week's show, in addition, of course, to last week's, is dedicated in honor of Seth Weisberg, with gratitude to the Abishter for yet another birthday.

Seth, you should be healthy and well, adme of a serene, and all of your days should be filled with fruitful endeavors. So now, on to the main event, as they say. I've got a huge list of questions, and people sent them from all over. And just again, send me your questions. People can't make promises that I'm going to get to them, but I do love to hear what they are. And it does give me sort of fuel for the machine, as it were. So I have actually a series of questions here. I want to read them, and then I'm going to sort of tighten them up into one particular perspective, and we'll see what I have to say. So the questions go like this. how do we deepen the Jewish character of the state? What practical next steps can we take?

What does civil and criminal law look like in a deeply Jewish country? What about finance, consumer, commercial, lending, Shemitah, what do they mean in the 21st century for the Israeli economy? And what can we do to at least start these conversations on a serious level? So, I mean, truth is, the last part of the question is the easiest to answer, which is we can start these conversations on a serious level by speaking to each other seriously about them. But what I would say is I really want to talk about how we deepen the Jewish character of the state. Or in other words, what's the Torah look like in the 21st century when we live it collectively? In order to do so, I want to offer you three different perspectives.

The first one is covenant. If you look back from Sinai onwards, you see that the cutting of a covenant between Am Yisrael and God around the issue of the Torah is a critical element of our story. start at Sinai. There are actually six, perhaps even seven different covenants that you can find in the Torah. The one I want to think about right now is actually in the book of Nehemia. Nehemia, if you recall, and if you don't, you need to go back and listen to season one, he was the political leader of the Shivat Zion movement, that return to Zion that occurred after the Babylonian exile, which began in the secular calendar in the year 586, before the Common Era, with the destruction of the first temple, and ended, in a biblical sense, 70 years later.

And Nehemia, in his book, records that at a certain point, the children of Israel, or at this point, the Jews, because they were really the Houdim at this point in history, came together at the first line of the 10th chapter of Nehemia. It says, Uvecholzod, in view of all this, we make this pledge and put it in writing, and on the sealed copy are subscribed, our officials are Levites and our priests. So what the pledge is, we'll get to in a moment. But what's critical actually is in view of all this. View of all what? If you look at chapter 9 of Nehemia, what you'll get is an actual review of Jewish history. And it begins in the very beginning, on the 24th day of this month, the Israelites assembled fasting in sackcloth and with earth upon them, meaning there's an act of real mourning.

Those of the stock of Israel separated themselves from foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And before we even get into the content of the covenant, I think it's critical to look this piece in the face. If we want Israel, the state of Israel, to be more Jewish in its character, we want to figure out what the Torah actually looks like when we live it collectively in the 21st century, we have to decide whether we're the Jews or not. I'm not saying that you can't also be a human being, you can't also be a member of Western or Eastern or whatever culture that you like. But really, only those who are willing on some level to separate themselves from all foreigners are going to be the ones that from within are able to dictate the nature of the conversation that will shape the future of the Jewish people.

It's a buy-in at this point. There's nothing in history forcing you to be a Jew. Well, I say nothing but that somewhat alarming return of anti-Semitism on the political stage might indicate otherwise. But for now, those of us living in a free society are faced with a different type of challenge than we've seen historically. Nothing is forcing you to be a Jew. Are you going to buy in or not? You have to separate yourself on some level from the foreigners. And if that's uncomfortable for you, then you ought to ask yourself why. And also they confess their sins and iniquities of their fathers. Now this just sounds downright biblical and it may not appeal to you. I know confession, sin, iniquity are not so popular in the modern religious imagination.

But another way of saying this is that if you're going to create a covenant which will be a basis for a stable society in the present that actually has a future you want to live, you have to face the past. You have to face the past on a personal level. You have to face the past on a collective level. You have to know where you've succeeded and where you've failed. If we can't have an honest discussion about who we are as a society and the rights and wrongs which we've committed in order to get us here, then we have no hope for the future. And so that's why chapter 9 in Nehemi was actually a review, like I said, of all Jewish history. basically from going out from Egypt up until where they are now. But that's the number one thing I would say we need to do to deepen the Jewish character of the state.

We need to speak honestly about the process which brought the Jewish people back to Zion to begin with. Zionism is a wonderful thing, and I love it. But Zionist historiography, the way in which the story is told, has already begun to fly apart at the seams. What do you think organizations like If Not Now or other sort of left-wing radical organizations that are cherry-picking so many of our educated youth are saying. What they're saying is you were lied to. You were told a partial story. When you went on all those birthright buses, they covered up the windows when you passed certain parts of the road or there were simply places you didn't go. You know what? It's true. If we can't talk about everything which is going on in our land and the process which brought us to where we are, then how could we possibly hope to make this a truly Jewish state with a thriving Jewish future?

Now, mind you, I'm quite proud of who we are and how we got here. But that doesn't mean I'm not quite aware of many of the difficult things which have been done. So this covenant has to be founded not only by the act of separating ourselves out, of self-identifying. Yes, we are Jews. That's what I am as my primary identity. Therefore, I buy into a process of recommitting, but also, or maybe followed by, a deeply honest look at our past. And then, it says, in the middle of chapter 30, This is the critical line. They join together with their brothers, they bind themselves together, and they come with an Allah-u-Shuah, like oath and a swearing to go in the path of the Torah of God, which is given by Moshe, the servant of God.

There's two critical pieces here. First of all, the Torah will always be the basis for a truly Jewish society. It may not be the sole basis, and we'll get, as we go a little bit further on, of what that really means and how do we negotiate between Torah and religion as it's currently construed. but if you're looking for a real base for Jewish culture and you're looking for a real guide for a Jewish future I don't know where else you would look again, Torah is very broadly construed and there is certainly wisdom which exists outside of it but it's the basis for who we are but even more profound is if you look at this covenant and I really encourage you to read the book of Nehemiah it's an important one for understanding the world in which we live you look at this covenant and what you're struck by is that the list of things that they actually commit to here in the 10th chapter is, well, let's just call it quite familiar.

Anybody who knows the Torah knows that these are hardly exceptional. I mean, the question of why these things they commit to and not others is a source of tremendous discussion. I don't want to go there right now. I trying to stay above the fray of the details My point is why are they swearing to commit themselves to things that the Torah already binds them to Meaning if these people weren bound by the Torah they wouldn be where they are These are the ones who left Babylon to come back to the land of Israel They clearly heard the call of God, or basically the call of a better life. That's a little bit hard to believe, since things are not so simple. So why are they swearing to commit themselves to the Torah, once again?

I've got news for you. They're not necessarily swearing to commit themselves to the Torah. They're swearing to commit themselves to one another. And the Torah is the field of play on which they stand. This, in my eyes, is a social covenant. And it's what's profoundly lacking from our society today. If you read the news and you watch the political process, then you'll recognize there's very little of a shared social covenant which we see as binding within our society today. Either it's just rampant corruption and everybody's out for themselves, or there's deep divisions over what are the fundamental tenets of our society, which are non-negotiable. That's the number one piece. There needs to be a new covenant.

I think of it as a constitutional process. I'm curious how you would imagine it. But without that, I can't imagine how the details of those very important questions of Shemitah, Yovel, civil, criminal law, how we could actually make this a Jewish state, but without a covenant to one another that we are the Jews and that the Torah is the basis of our society, I don't see it possible. The next piece I would say in answer to this question is the courts. Those of you who have been listening to the Jewish story for some time have probably heard me say at least a half a dozen times that the historical hallmarks of a successful Torah society have always been geographic concentration and relatively autonomous courts, meaning lots of Jews in one place who are able to live their lives according to Jewish law.

That's what makes the Torah not just a theoretical construct for sort of intellectual, spiritual gymnastics inside the Beit Midrash, but rather a living Torah, a guide to daily life. And the truth of the matter is you can see it in Poland, you can see it in Babylon, you can see it in Spain. Frankly, you can see it in Brooklyn. You know where you don't really see it? In the land of Israel today. We've got the geographic concentration. hands down, most Jews in one place of anywhere, don't argue with me, America. But you know what we don't have? We don't have autonomous courts. We need a Torah which is adjudicated in the details of life. Now, don't be nervous, because I know when I say that, particularly those of us who live in the land of Israel, people start getting really nervous about the relationship between religion and state, and the power which the religious courts have already been able to garner.

I have a sense that one of the reasons which the Torah has not flourished on the level which it ought, and I'm not saying the Torah isn't flourishing here in the land of Israel, don't get me wrong, but the potential is so much higher. Like this listener asked, how come the Torah is not infusing every aspect of society, economy, health, care, defense, you know, this issue which my wife is so passionate about, not selling weapons to murderous regimes throughout the world. The Torah has a lot to say about that. There are even rabbis who have a lot to say about that today, but they're not setting our foreign policy. Why not? Well, it has to do with that lack of covenant, but it also has to do with the lack of courts.

And I'm not looking to give courts civil power at this point. I don't think that would work. What I'm looking for is courts which are based in the two critical elements of relevance and authority. Now, authority and power are closely linked, But I would distinguish them in this context by saying power is something I have over others. Authority is something they vest in me. People come to me if I'm authoritative because they want to, and they hear the truth in the words which I speak, or they see the truth in the judgments which the court bases. But also relevance. These courts have to know how to speak to the world in which people live today. Let people go to the Beit Din, to the religious courts, because they experience actual justice there, and let the world see what a society, a just society, looks like when created by the living Torah, and they will know and want the Torah to be the source of the inspiration for the rest of their lives.

Now, mind you, if you know the religious world, then you know it's already visible in one very critical place, the social fabric. My mom likes to joke when she comes to my neighborhood that it's just like the 50s. There are all these ladies with their babies in the park, and the gentleman well-dressed, just speaking about Shabbat. But jokes aside, the other thing she says is that she feels like we're actually a society, people who know and care about their neighbors. When you get sick, they bring you food. Even when you're not sick, people are doing tremendous acts of chesed, love and kindness all the time. There's a sense of mutual responsibility and shared mission. That's what makes a social fabric.

Now, that needs to become obvious in all aspects of life, in personal behavior more than anything else. Religious people must simply be experienced as better. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that just because you're religious you're better. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you choose to show yourself as a religious person, you must act better. You must act better in your personal behavior. You must act better in your financial behavior. Your politics must look different. Please, people, let your politics look different. And when the world sees in all of its obvious aspects, that a just and quality society is created by living the Torah, then the Torah will become the centerpiece for questions of economy and foreign policy and diplomacy fill in the blank.

Until then, well, as Rav Kook says, nobody ever became a heretic because they read a dangerous book. The source of heresy in the world is the bad behavior of religious people. We know what happens in the world when those of us who strive to adhere to God's laws fail in the eyes of humanity. So we have covenant. We have these courts as a point of social organization. And last but certainly not least, close to my heart, I would say we've got to talk about education. In order to talk about education, I want to use a particular structure. But before I do, just a word on the importance of education. Education is the ultimate social tool. If you want a future, you need to be educating your children in the present.

And if you want to do that, you've got to put resources into it, people. People, put your resources into education. In fact, as long as I'm on it, put your resources into what I'm doing. You can go right now to my website, www.jewishstory.cl, and up in the upper right-hand corner, you'll see a button there that says, Be a patron. Put your money where your ears are, people. If you value the perspective that you find in this show, and if you think that in today's world, a story which binds people together rather than dividing them, is one worth supporting. So do it now. And if a per podcast support act is a little bit too much for you, so send me an email, ravmikefoyer at gmail.com or a personal message on Facebook, ravmikefoyer on Facebook, and I'll send you back the details about how to dedicate a show to somebody alive today or in the memory of someone who's passed.

That was just an unsolicited solicitation. Meanwhile, back to education. The key for education, the third piece in this structure of covenant, courts, and education, is actually the structure of the Shema. The Kriyat Shema, the Declaration of the Unity of God, is a central prayer in the Jewish liturgy. If you're not familiar with it, Google it, people. Or you can send me a message. Maybe we can set up a time to talk. But for now, you should just know that it has three pieces to it. First is classic Declaration of Unity. Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then followed by the Haftet, Hashem Elokech, you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, all your heart, and all your might.

It's what's known in rabbinic literature as Kabat O Malchut Shemayim, the acceptance of the yoke of heaven. Now, I'm not saying that in order to make this a more Jewish country, in order to make the Torah relevant in the 21st century, everybody's got to accept God. What I am saying is that you have to educate people for central values. That's the first assertion here. There has to be some central value on which everything else rests. of course for the Torah, it's not just the existence and unity of God, it's the loving relationship between humanity and God. Really, without an education toward the central relationships of society, then we've got nothing else. The other way to say this is that if you're a religious parent trying to get your children to walk in your ways, or you're a religious person who wants to influence their friends, neighbors, the voting public, always remember this.

People value the values of those relationship they value. If you have a good relationship with someone, they're far more likely to want to echo in their own lives the things which you hold to be dear. Don't put your efforts into coercion. Put your efforts into being someone who radiates values and for building healthy relationships. And in particular, especially for our day and age, we need to take humanity out of the center. Humanism is a wonderful thing in its time and place, but I think in many ways, it's gone awry. We need to begin to look at the loving relationship between Creator and creation as a whole. That's first, that central value, Kabbalat O Malchut Shemayim, the yoke of heaven. Number two, the second paragraph is what's known as Kabbalat O Mitzvot, the acceptance of the yoke of the commandments meaning there has to be binding law You can have a society without binding law We know what that looks like and it ain pretty Nevertheless the hesitation many people have is let say theological implications that God commanded these mitzvot in particular.

Now, I'm not going to get into the details right now, but we already said there has to be a constitutional field to play. There has to be agrees upon rules in which society can move. And in my eyes, for the Jewish people, those will always be the commandments. Now, there's a sub-question that someone asks, which is that, in a certain sense, there's a fear of creating a theocracy. Whenever you talk about halakha, Jewish law in the state, somebody will pop up and say, wait, do you want to be just like Iran? A theocracy? First of all, have you ever met any Jews? The Torah actually created the notion of checks and balances within government. So, you know what? Actually, it's a good time to point out that I am bringing that webinar on the Jewish state.

Well, I call it Israeli government, past, present, and future. If you want to talk about the notion of government within the Torah and within Jewish history, how the state of Israel, its current government came to be, what it is that's causing us to be in such an impasse as we are today, and some visions, Torah-driven and driven by political philosophy, for what the future might look like, there are three spaces left for the webinar. It's happening on February 23rd and March 1st, 8.30 to 9.45 Israel time. If you're interested in one of those last three spaces, again, send me an email, rovmikefoyer at gmail.com, or you can get me at rovmikefoyer on Facebook, and I'll send you the details. But for now, the actual listener question, which speaks within education to this third element, you have the structure of the Shema, which is a central value, or really, I think, central relationship.

And then the second piece is a sense of binding law. but there was a question another listener asks that I think is relevant here. How do we find a sensible path between the orthodox approach to halakha which seems too apprehensive to allow for any sort of significant change in the way Judaism has lived in practice and the approach of other denominations which make changes whose consequences can take the practice of Judaism far afield from its roots. This is a critical question for the 21st century because you have the reactionary stance of orthodoxy which seems sometimes to be going backwards socially in reaction to the other side of progressive Judaism which seems to be racing headlong in the future without thoughts for where they're actually going.

How do we find that middle path? How does the Torah actually express who we are today and not some construct about who we ought to have been in the past or who we think we should be in the future? Well, I'll tell you the number one tool here, and that's why this binding law issue, the creation of a constitutional field of play is so important is we have to create a critical mass of consciousness. We have to create a critical mass of consciousness of people who share the following things. First of all, a binding relationship to our past. That is the key, is that we can discuss theology and we can talk about the details of the commandments, this one or that. But if you don't feel yourself bound by law, well then it's very hard to make the decisions in life which challenge you to become something more than you already are.

It's a binding relationship. It's an act of commitment, which really brings out the depth in the individual and in society. So first of all, we need a critical mass of people who have a binding relationship to our inheritance of commandments. Number two, they also have to have a deep engagement with present-day reality. And here I want to give credit to some of my colleagues, my Orthodox rabbi colleagues, who on one hand have a deep commitment to Jewish law, but on the other hand are struggling profoundly with the existence of a large LGBTQ community within the Orthodox world. And instead of dismissing them out of hand or simply telling them that whatever they do is okay, they're trying to find a way in which they can engage that present reality that maintains an integrity with the past.

And that brings us to the third piece, a binding relationship to our past, to our inheritance of commandments, a deep engagement with our present-day reality, whatever it is, political, social, theological, intellectual, and some sort of vision for the future that manages to bind them together. If we want to make this a more Jewish country, we need to get those people together and we need to talk. So, last but certainly not least in the structure of Shema, this three-part overture, right, it's education. The third paragraph of the Shema talks about the going out from Egypt and the commandment of tzitzit, of tying the fringes on the four corners of your garment. But if you look closely at that paragraph, you'll notice that there's a theme, a theme that memory brings us to action.

And if we want to make the state of Israel a more Jewish country, not just more halachically legal Jewish, but truly expressive of the depth of the Jewish story, we have to be so immersed in that story, in our memories of that story that we're driven to action. You know, Zionism on some level is a supreme example of people who are driven to create the future because of their relationship to the past. Now granted, some of them wanted to reject the past and so built a future, freed from it, let us be like all other peoples. And we see the damage which was done to Jewish tradition and Jewish culture in those parts of our society. But they were there to offset another big chunk of our people who were so immersed in the past that they were incapable of taking action to step into the future.

So I think, overall, this is a roadmap for how it is that we can make Israel a more Jewish country. We have to bring ourselves together in a new covenant. We need to swear to one another, and not just to God, that we are actually the Jews, and we want to remake the world in that image. Number two, we have to build courts or other institutions which push us to show the excellence of a life lived according to the just dictates of the Torah. Not because of his ability to exercise power over others, but because of the authority which we find through the wisdom of its judgments. Number three, we have to have an educational system which gives central values and puts human and divine relationship in the middle and yet creates a collective sense of binding law in order to create a critical mass of consciousness of people who are bound to the past, deeply engaged in the present, and have some sort of vision for the future.

Let it be soon. Let it be now. All right, it may seem like a bit of a non sequitur, but I needed to honor this last question. Just one more, and we'll call it quits. The question was, if I met a Jew wearing a Free Palestine shirt, what would I tell them? It's a good one. And frankly, one which may happen to you more often than it happens to me. Although, I have to admit, it does occur from time to time. First things first. Anytime you see someone wearing an emblem which arouses antagonism within you, check yourself. Why do you find it so threatening? First of all, it's a tactical move. You never want to respond to anyone out of anger and apprehension because you're just an easy target. They're going to shut off before you get a word out of your mouth.

But on a deeper level, there's a critical act of self-knowledge that has to come. Why am I so aroused by a Jew who wears a free Palestine shirt? Part of that is this sad phenomenon of a scarcity of identity. I feel that I as a Jew and Israeli cease to exist when the Palestinian people declare themselves as the residents or perhaps even masters of my homeland. There's a longer discussion there. Is it possible for me and them to exist within our identities? I just want to put that out there. But first, you've got to check yourself when you meet people who are wearing the flag of the other team. Next, you want to ask instead of answer. Simply ask this person, so what does it mean to you, free Palestine? it's always worth it to listen before you talk and by the by when you do talk don't bother preaching what we need is open lines of communication between Jews not a sense of victory and maybe we'll end with that idea in a few minutes with the theory of Mahlokit but for now I did actually say that I would answer I do see the shirt as expressive of core identity issue we've spoken many times that there are a lot of Jews who want to free their Jewish identity today from Zionism and Israel in general.

I mean, the roots of American Jewry, if you've listened to season, the end of season two and certainly the beginning of season three, are in the religious idea of Jew, the international Jew. The Jew who could be a German, a Frenchman, an American, could be Dutch, could be anything but still be Jewish, as opposed to the ethnic national model of the Jew, which is alive and well here in Israel. So just recognize that there is a legitimate, long-standing Jewish identity which lays behind this person's desire to divest themselves from Israel. I'm not legitimizing or I'm not appraising it, as it were. I'm just pointing out the facts. So number one, I would tell this person, you have to learn your history.

You know, our identity as a people is bound up with the land. it quite easy to see at even a casual glance in our sacred literature and certainly in the literature and history of the last 2 years that the longing for the land of Israel is not a product of 19th century romantic European nationalism as some people like to say. That's number one. Number two, I would say, where exactly is this Palestine of which you speak, and how did it come to be? The ignorance of history is one of the most challenging issues, for lack of a better term, that we face. I'll tell you a quick story. When I was in grad school, I was in a program for international students, people from all over the world, many of them from Southeast Asia or other parts of Asia, and there was a whole group of Pakistani students.

I remember one young man who was a child of diplomats, a Pakistani, who when he discovered that I was a religious Jew and a Zionist, always wanted to debate Israel, which I'm happy to do. It was more or less on civil terms. But what I found is that every time we began to discuss, I would start back with Abraham, and he wanted to talk about 1948. The power of decontextualization, this desire to pretend that there was once upon a time some thriving Arab country called Palestine, and we as Zionists swooped in and took it away, is a tremendously powerful pull at the heartstrings, which has no basis in historical reality. But when people are ignorant of history, Not only ignorant, but when people actually will tell you that history is simply a product written by the victors, it's a manipulative tool for keeping the oppressed under the thumb of the powerful, all these wonderful phrases, then we know we have a problem.

So, number one, you have to know your identity as a people. Just accept the fact that to be a Jew and to disconnect yourself from Israel is a really challenging posture. Number two, where is this Palestine of which you speak? Tell me its history. And I think you'll end up back at that Jewish culture once again. Number three, just on a basic level, please take a good look at the region, and in particular at this current Palestinian society, and ask yourself if freeing Palestine is actually going to contribute to the well-being of the Palestinian people or the world in general. So that's one side. Number two, I would tell this person, for a Jew to make a change, it needs to be done. as a Jew. Very few of us here on the ethnic side of the Jewish divide are interested in listening to the non-Jews preach at us about what we ought to do.

And I will include in that, we're not also so interested in listening to the Jews who have willfully separated themselves from what we see to be the central fruit of the national product. We're not so interested in hearing those Jews lecture us from the side, particularly not from the safety of other suburban American homes. But that's a different issue. So for a Jew to make a change, it's best done as a Jew from the inside. So I would ask this person, are you as committed to the thriving expression of Jewish aspects of your identity as you are to the negation of the parts you don't like? How do you express yourself as a Jew other than through your opposition to the occupation? Right? That's one. Two in this category is a call to Rachmanut.

Rachmanut, you know, compassionate posture toward other. You need to understand that it has been a messy hundred years for the Jewish people. And that's not as an excuse for many of the actual injustices which have been done in our land and the terrible suffering that have been bound up in our return to our home. I don't have any need to deny those things. I'm not looking to excuse them either, but I am looking to understand them. Rachmanut, compassion is the ability to hold space for another person to come to be who they ought or could be. And that's what I'm looking to for this person wearing the Free Palestine t-shirt. Are you willing to also say, Free Am Yisrael? Are you willing to help in your own way to create a society in which the Jews are free?

And I have no problem. Let the Arabs be free right along with us. We can negotiate the boundaries of what that looks like. But you have to have a little bit of Rachmanut on Am Yisrael. You need to understand that after 2,000 years of suffering, culminating in the disasters of the 20th century, it's not so simple to just shout slogans at us and tell us we ought to get our foot off of somebody else's neck when many of us experience that foot on the neck as the only thing which is keeping them from going for our throat. So last but certainly not least, I would tell this Jew with the Free Palestine T-shirt, whatever you do, stay in the Jewish conversation. we're a people who's founded on machloket, on argument for the sake of heaven machloket l'shem shemayim, and remember machloket doesn't just mean argument it's a belief that I have a piece of the whole miloshon chelik as we say the chet lamed kuf that stands in the middle of the word machloket means peace but it's a machloket l'shem shemayim for the sake of heaven, meaning I have a peace, but I believe that there's a whole, and in order to get to that whole, I need to hold fiercely to my peace because my peace is real, my perspective is genuine, but so is yours.

And there's some way we can put them together and bring about a redemptive whole. So maybe the last thing that I'll say for this entire spiel is a Torah I once learned in the name of the Ketav Sofer. The Ketav Sofer was the son of the Ketav Sofer, great Hungarian rabbi of the early 19th century. He was really one of the founding, if not the founding religious minds of what we now know as Orthodoxy. The Gitalov Sofer asks a very simple question. He says, why does the Torah command Am Yisrael to conquer the land of Israel? He says, you know, in the ancient world conquest is what you did. I mean, imagine that you had been a slave for 210 years and that had wandered through the harshest desert imaginable for another 40.

And here you are, you find yourself on the edge of a good green land with your tribal brothers and sisters, armed to the teeth, hungry and desperate. What are you going to do in the ancient world other than conquer? Why does God have to command on Yisrael? He says it's because God also created us with a nature. He says Rahmanim b'ishanim v'gomle'i chasadim as the Gemara in Kandushin says that we are compassionate we are bashful in the sense of like, you know the positive aspect of shame face and we desire to do good to others. That's our nature. And so therefore, the command to conquer comes to offset the fact that we wouldn't have done it without it. And if you look, by the way, in the books of Joshua and the Judges, you'll see there's a real tension.

Did we manage to conquer or not? Were we really looking to do this genocide that we're accused of doing even in our day, which, of course, must be the worst genocide in history, considering the numbers of Arabs who thrive within our borders? You know, so what's the message here? I'll tell you this. I have a fear that in our day, those two aspects of Jewish character have been dangerously separated. On one side, you have people for whom the Teva, the nature of Gomlech Hasidim, B'ishanim, the Rahmanim, compassionate, shame-faced, and do-gooders, has become the central pillar of their Jewish identity, and they've abandoned the sense of commandedness, be it in a literal revealed sense, or be it in the commands which history hands on to us, and also the responsibility we hold for the future.

On the other side, we have those who are very bound, literally, by the commandments, or very bound by the national drama of the Jewish people, and they often lack compassion. And so the split there is tremendously dangerous. It's a machlogit, but I'm not so sure it's l'shem shemayim, that it is for the sake of heaven, because there's a lack of realization on the behalf of both, that when the right looks at those snowflake leftist bleeding hearts, they fail to understand that they are expressive of an essential nature of the Jewish people, one which fills our purpose in the world. And when the left looked at these cold-hearted, fascist, oppressive settler Jews, driven by their fanatical notions of Torah, they failed to realize that that is expressive of one side of our nature as well, that our mission is to bring law to the world.

And without law, there can be no peace. and so what I would like to see as we move forward in the world is that these two things come back together that we truly have a Torah Chesed a world of binding just law infused with love and generosity that can bring not only Am Yisrael back to its wholeness and its land but can bring peace to the world let it be soon, let it be now so I want to thank some folks I want to thank all the folks who sent me their questions send me more questions truth is the coming episode will get us back into the flow of history in the spirit of the Israeli 60s but nevertheless I love to have the questions and who knows maybe I'll throw one in there one place or the other I also want to thank the folks who give their hard earned money to make this show happen I want to invite you to join them as I already said you can go to my website jewishstory.co and you'll see that button in the upper right hand corner and click on it for a little bit of per podcast support or get in touch with me Rav Mike Foyer at gmail or Rav Mike Foyer at facebook and I'll send you details of how you can dedicate a show.

I want to thank the Land of Israel Network. That's thelandofisrael.com for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people. I want to thank the Pardes Institute, P-A-R-D-E-S dot org dot I-L for creating an educational institution that gives me the privilege of touching the hearts and minds of many, many wonderful Jews. And I want to thank you for listening. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story.