Ep. 65 - Ask Away! #17: Kaddish, Reincarnation and Moshiach [The Q&A Series]
00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Ask Away series on the Everyday Judaism podcast. To have your questions answered on future episodes, please email askaway at torchweborg. Now ask away.
00:23 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Ask Away number 17, the question-answer series of the Everyday Judaism podcast. It is so wonderful to be here this Sunday. We just finished a robust conversation about the laws of Kaddish. We just concluded Simeon number 26, part number 3. And now we are going to open the floor to y'all's questions. So, without any further ado, please go right ahead.
00:47 - Jane A. (Caller)
Question Saying Kaddish for grandparents. If the son is not saying Kaddish for his father, can the grandsons say the Kaddish? And when he met with a grandfather merit the same aliyah from that?
01:04 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Yeah, so the halacha here said that in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch he said that indeed the grandchildren can if others are not, and in fact all family members can if the children are not. So if it's necessary and there's no one else to recite it, then they should. If there's no one else to recite it, then they should recite it because there's no one else to recite it. It's a merit to the neshama.
01:29 - Jane A. (Caller)
How about a grand niece like me?
01:33 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
So, again, if there's nobody else to recite the Kaddish, then that's a great. It's a very special thing to go to synagogue and recite it together with the congregation who's reciting it. I think it's a very, very special thing and very meritorious. But generally speaking, it's a very important thing to note that only someone who already doesn't have a parent and is in the category of Kaddish should be reciting it. Someone who has living parents should not be reciting Kaddish at all. Someone who has parents, even if it's for grandparents and there may be some exceptions, but generally speaking, someone who has both parents living should not recite Kaddish.
02:13 - Jane A. (Caller)
Should a woman stand up and say it in shul or listen?
02:17 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
No, a woman can say it along together with the congregation. She can say it along. You know, we can get into the whole conversation of women's roles in Judaism and all of that. We can say it along. You know, we can get into the whole conversation of women's roles in Judaism and all of that. We can get into that.
02:28
Another, if someone wants to ask that question, it's like I'm the Supreme Court here, right? So if you don't ask the question, you're not getting the answer. I'm not going to offer it, but I'm not the Supreme Court. I'm just kidding. But if that's a question that needs to be answered, we will. But the idea again is that Kaddish is a merit to those who are deceased and passed on. It brings extra merit to them. If someone is in already the category of reciting Kaddish because they already don't have a parent or grandparent or a parent, a father or mother, then they can say it for a great aunt, they can say it for a relative, they can say it for any Jewish people that are deceased. So that's, I hope that answered your question. Thank you so much.
03:12 - Anna S. (Caller)
My opinion. Our world is troubled. Under what conditions can we expect the Moshiach, the Messiah, to come? When?
03:24 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Excellent question, the $66,000 question.
03:29
Right Today we'd go to $66 billion question, right? So here's the thing, the question about when is Moshiach coming. We hope and we pray every single day that Moshiach come today, today. Today we want Moshiach to come because look at the troubles that we're facing as a not only as a Jewish people, as a civilization, as a mankind. You know, we witnessed the most horrific murder last week. I'm not talking about Charlie Kirk, I'm talking about four innocent people sitting on a bus in Jerusalem. You know like what in the world is going on here. Why can't four innocent people sitting on a bus in Jerusalem? You know like what in the world is going on here? Why can't someone just travel to Yeshiva or travel to work? And you know, we had just last month this lone gunman walks into an office building in Manhattan and just kills people arbitrarily because it's crazy, right. So we recognize that the world is chaotic and the world is going nuts.
04:29
We have to pray even more fervently for the coming of Mashiach. And when will that be? We don't know when that will be, but there are things that we can do to help build the temple, to help build Jerusalem, to help make it a place. We pray for this twice every single day. I first want to start at the end of our prayer, we have the 13 principles of faith. One of them is principle number 12. I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah and, even though he may delay, nevertheless I anticipate every day that he will come. That's our faith. Our grandparents prayed this prayer every day. Our great-grandparents, our great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, prayed this prayer every single day. Oh, but Moshiach didn't come yet. So maybe he's just not coming. He's coming, he's on his way. We have to be worthy of it. And what are the conditions of that worthiness? The Rambam talks about it in great length, of exactly what needs to happen. My brother dedicated, I think, about 10 episodes to this specific animamin, to this belief.
05:47
Now, in our prayer, in our Amidah, every single day, three times a day, we recite the following prayers and to Jerusalem, your city, may you return in compassion and may you rest within it as you have spoken. May you rebuild it soon, in our days, as an eternal structure, and may you rest within it as you have spoken. May you rebuild it soon in our days as an eternal structure, and may you speedily establish the throne of David within it. Blessed are you, hashem, the builder of Jerusalem. Boney Yerushalayim is builder. God is actively building Jerusalem, actively right now. God is building Jerusalem. It's not that he built it or he's going to build it. Right now, with our deeds, with our actions, when every time we do a mitzvah, we're building Jerusalem, we're part of that building, boney Yerushalayim.
06:36
What's needed? We need the kingdom of David, right? We need the throne of David. That's the next blessing. The Davidic reign, the offspring of your servant, david. Right, we need the throne of David. That's the next blessing. The Davidic reign, the offspring of your servant David. May you speedily cause to flourish and raise his glory through your salvation, for we hope for your salvation all day long. Blessed are you, hashem, who causes the glory of salvation to flourish.
07:03
These are two blessings that we recite daily, three times a day, in our Amidah, in our Shmon Esrei. Why? Because Messiah is a very central theme in Jewish life. It's our hope, it's our future and it's our prayer every day that we merit to see the Messiah and be alive in the time of Messiah. Because what's going to happen and we see that we're getting closer and closer to that every single day Look at what's going on in the world you have a polarization of religious versus non-religious, where you have people who are saying we want to come closer to God.
07:42
Now, everyone's definition of God could be different, is different in general. We have a very clear in our Torah Hashem Elokeinu, hashem Echad. Hashem is our God. Hashem is one. Hashem is not the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost or whatever. You have the Trinity and you have all these different things. In Judaism, we believe that Hashem is the creator of heaven and earth.
08:06
Hashem is the one who took us out of Egypt, which, by the way, in our Torah, in Exodus 20,. The Torah says Anokhi Hashem HaLakach. I am Hashem, your God. Asher Ho Tzei Tzicha Me'er. It's Messiah who took you out of Egypt.
08:21
In the Christian Bible, they took that out, the second part, why? Because their person, who they call God, who died for their sins. He wasn't around then, so he couldn't have taken them out of Egypt, so it's a problem. So they take that part out and then they divide other commandments into different parts, and we had a class on this several months ago. We talked about this, but. But what we need to understand is that we need to be worthy of having messiah. What is messiah? Messiah is going to be in a time where the entire world will be able to recognize god as hashem. Hashem is one and only one and it will remove all confusion. And it will remove all confusion. We're living in a world of confusion.
09:07
The execution, the public execution of Charlie Kirk, which is the craziest, the worst thing that can possibly happen as a society, as a culture aside for leaving a widow and orphans, I mean it's like it's just unconscionable. What is it? It's because we have a different idea of what is right and what is wrong. So therefore, we kill somebody. It's craziness, this is absolute craziness, and we're witnessing this today. It was on live television. This is unacceptable.
09:48
What we're praying for in Moshiach is that there'll be unity in the world, that there'll be peace in the world, that there won't be any more wars, that there won't be any more of this discord between people. This argumentative nature of everything has to be my way. It's an amazing thing. Look at Judaism. Look how you have so many different Hasidic sects. You have the Satmar and you have the Babav, and you have the Munkach and you have the Skver, and you have the Lithuanian Jews, and you have the Lithuanian Jews who are this leaning and that leaning, and you have the Sephardic Jews and you have all the different types. So why don't we just have one unity? We're all unified in our service of Hashem. We're all unified in our service of Hashem and we don't need to all follow the same customs, meaning one has payas like this, one has payas like that, and one has payas like this and one has payas like this and one has payas like that and this one has the beard curled up like this and this one shaves, this one doesn't. It doesn't make a difference. We're following the same Torah. We're following the same Torah and that's what counts.
10:57
You ever heard of Hillel and Shammai? They fought a bitter fight of ideas to harm one another. They had the utmost respect for one another. In fact, hillel always said Shammah, you go first, we want to hear your opinion first. Maybe we're wrong. I want to hear your opinion first. That's the real way an argument should be. It says that that was an argument for the sake of heaven. Not because I want to be right, for my own arrogance, to puff out my chest and say, look, I'm right. No, because I want to know what is Hashem thinking, what is right and they would talk about it and talk about it and argue and that's the way it should be To get to a point of harming someone, of killing someone. I mean this is unfathomable. So there's no generation that needs Moshiach more than we do.
12:02
And I will tell you something very special there are many, many, many, many messages I saw this week before Shabbos, of people, jewish people, who were secular their entire lives, who, to them, keeping Shabbos is not on the agenda. Who said in memory of Charlie Kirk, I'm going to keep Shabbos this week Because he talked about it all the time. He talked when Jewish students came to him. He says keep the Shabbos, watch over the Shabbos, protect the Shabbos. And he would quote Exodus 20. He would quote it Keep the Shabbos, work six days, rest on the seventh, just like God did. We're obligated to it as Jews, as Christians. They're not obligated to it. They have no obligation to it. But he turned off his phone for 25 hours every week. He turned it off. It's an amazing gift that we have. We should cherish it. We should feel the privilege that we have the most incredible gift in the Torah. We're obligated to it because we're obligated in our desire to have a relationship with God. So we ask when is Moshiach gonna come? We hope today and we pray today and every single day we wake up with a fresh anticipation that Moshiach is coming.
13:15
Today the Chavetz Chaim was once not feeling well and they they summoned the doctor to come to. The doctors used to come to the houses once upon a time and his daughter, the Chavetz Chaim's daughter, was waiting at the window and she saw the doctor from a distance. She says he's here, he's here. The Chavetz Chaim ran into his room and put on. The Chavetz Chaim had special clothes for Mashiach Special clothes, a special suit, a special shirt and tie. He's like someone's so excited that someone's here. It has to be that it's the Moshiach. He quickly got dressed and he comes out. He's like where is he? Where is he? And he sees the doctor. He's like, oh, I thought it was the Moshiach Right who would be so excited that he's here, but thought and that idea every single day of his life Moshiach is here. He's here. Moshiach is coming.
14:05
The more we bring merit into this world, the more we expand the name of Hashem, and each one of us, in our own unique way, can do that with a neighbor, with a friend with our synagogue. Just something of inspiration, something of encouragement Bring godliness into this world Exactly the way Hashem wants us to do it. That's our obligation. So, marilyn, you're way on the way of bringing Moshiach closer. Every single time you're here, it's another delightful opportunity for Moshiach to say ah, here we go, we're here, we're in business. There you go, get your finest clothes ready, all right. There you go, get your finest clothes ready, all right. Thank you, excellent question, gary. Please pass the microphone to Gary.
14:50 - Gary N. (Caller)
To my limited understanding and imagination spirit, the spirit leaves a body. What holds that spirit together as a singular spirit? And if we have some ideas of reincarnation, does that spirit come back? Do I go and become a female? Do I go and become a male? Do I go and become a Baha'i, a Baptist? I feel sorry for the transgender because I think they're a little bit confused. How does that spirit hold together? And people say that there is, what is it? You come back as reincarnation. When does that happen? At conception? At birth? And I hope it's not at conception, because I don't want some grandstand like at the Olympics, people holding up flags of eight, nine or whatever.
15:49 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, excellent question. Thank you, gary. I appreciate that very, very much. Okay, so let's understand a second the process of the neshama. Okay, it says in Genesis okay, we open up the beautiful book of Genesis, given to us as a gift from Hashem, as a manual. Here we go, chapter 2, verse number 7. Vayit er, hashem, elohim es ha'adam and Hashem, god formed the man, ofar min ha'adam, a dust from the ground, vayipach be'apov, nishmas chayim, and he blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living being. It's a verse. You ask a great question, gary. What is that soul? So let me ask you I'm going to do something now and tell me where that spirit goes. Okay, because spirit is something which is in the ear. Okay, let me see if you can hear this. I'm going to say this very clearly, gary. You heard that. Gary, right, there you go. Where is it? It's no place, but you heard it. You know that it exists because you just heard me pronounce your name, your beautiful name.
17:08
A neshama is a spirit, a spirit that was given from the Almighty. The neshama that you have, your holy soul, that you have within your body right now, is the neshama that was blown by Hashem into your body. God blew into your nostrils a living soul. Every human being that lives on planet Earth, and whoever lived, is given a soul. That's a spirit that's within us. I almost like to imagine it and define it. As you know, the ribcage is like sort of the prison, the prison gates, where our soul is within. That. Our soul is locked up within that and, like when people, when something touches them, they go like this, right, why do they go like that? Because, sort of like, your neshamah is touched by it, your neshamah which is deep within.
18:01
After a person passes from this world. We know that there's a custom that we tear, we rent our garments. Why do we do that? Because we're symbolizing that the body is over, the physical is over, it's torn, that's gone, but the soul lives on. The soul ascends back to the heavens, the soul goes back to its place.
18:24
You know, I'd like to even give a metaphor to this, the metaphor of a crown, god's crown. God has a beautiful crown and that crown has many, many beautiful gems. But if you've ever looked at a diamond, even the most expensive beautiful diamond has an imperfection. My father was a diamond dealer for many, many years, over 30 years. Beautiful diamond has an imperfection. My father was a diamond dealer for many, many years over 30 years and one of the things that he would feature with his clientele was enhanced diamonds. What's an enhanced diamond? Well, every diamond has imperfections, but they can infuse that diamond with certain chemicals and it would remove the visibility of those imperfections.
19:08
Every neshama, every soul that descends to this earth comes with its limitations, with its imperfections. Anybody you've met that's perfect? Well, we all have our imperfections. Every one of us has our imperfections. We all have that blemish. We need to be enhanced.
19:26
And throughout our lifetime, god gives us the opportunity, the chemical, so to speak, to infuse our neshama and perfect it. One person comes with anger, one person comes with jealousy, one person comes with arrogance. Everybody comes with different traits that are their blemishes, that's the imperfections inside that jewel, inside that stone. And throughout our lifetimes, all of the challenges help us infuse that soul and elevate that soul with perfections, with clarity, with cleaning up the dirt of that soul. And then, when we leave, god says now I want my gem back. Let me see how beautiful you made it and now look at how sparkling it is. I want it back in my crown. That's the journey of the soul. Now, that's in a very simplified way. We can spend hours and hours talking about this, but in a very simple way for us to understand that we come to this world, we're not happy about it.
20:23
You see a baby born, baby's crying. Why is it crying? It doesn't want to be here. He was in a great place. It says that the baby inside the womb can see from one side of the world to the other. Why? Because there's no physical, materialistic barriers. It's all spirit. It comes into this world. Now it's locked up in this body and it's like I want to be so much greater.
20:44
So what do we do? We give it balloons and we give it, you know, dolls. Or we give it trucks and we give it toys and we give it Legos and we give it all these different things. Just stay busy, just stay busy, just stay quiet. But really, what the neshama wants? It wants an opportunity to reach its perfection, and that's the fulfillment of a neshama.
21:05
The fulfillment of one's life is when it perfects that neshama. You know, someone once came to my grandfather and asked how do I teach my young students that sometimes people die young? So my grandfather answered he says the premise of the question is flawed because there's an assumption that we're all supposed to die old. It's not true. We're all supposed to perfect our soul and everybody has a different journey for that soul. For some people it's a quick perfection, for some people it's a more complicated perfection and we all say, oh, I hope I live a long life. Well, I hope I live a life that fulfills the perfection of my soul. And if one is able to merit to do that, that's the greatest thing in the world.
21:49
They finished their purpose. Now you don't tell that to a grieving mother. You don't tell that to someone who lost a baby. My daughter unfortunately lost her baby after two weeks and this is not the time for her to hear that. Maybe the baby did come back for its perfection and probably did, but with them. For the parents it's really difficult, it's really painful. Why do they have to suffer that that's for their own perfection? We don't know the answers to that question.
22:17
But there definitely is a journey of the soul. Sometimes the soul has to come back to make one rectification, to make one more perfection. We're not here in this world for here. We are not here in this world for here. We're here in this world, for there to accomplish, for the world to come, and that journey, if we don't complete it that's what you were mentioning reincarnation is sometimes we have to come. We're recycled and we have to come back, and God will bring us back.
22:47
However, we need to come back to reach that perfection, whatever it may be. It may be we come back as a squirrel right to return that one thing that we may have taken that was not ours. We have to bring it back and as soon as we bring it back, it's completed its task. We don't know. We don't know how that works exactly. The Rambam delineates it. We can talk about it in another episode, but I think I answered your question. Hopefully I did. If not, please beat me up again. How's that, gary? We're good. No, so let's go. So come back. Challenge me One second, hold on.
23:26 - Gary N. (Caller)
I'm not sure, but what I was hoping to get maybe a little bit of better understanding is how does a spirit hold together as a singular spirit? How does a spirit hold together as a singular spirit? Because I try to understand what a spirit is and I imagine it, and maybe I'm wrong, but as some kind of an energy, then what's to keep it from just dissipating?
23:57 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Okay, so that we have to understand how God works and how things exist. You see, we're in a world where everything is physical. You see, this lid right here is physical, so we understand it exists because I'm holding it, but spiritual. That's why fire, for example, defies gravity. Fire ascends, it doesn't descend, but I know it's there because I touch it and it burns and it hurts, like I have a burn. I have a blister on my finger here, because I was trying to take my daughter's toast out of the toaster oven and put it into her lunch bag and it was like I didn't realize how hot it was and it burns, right, so you feel fire, even if it's not visible.
24:43
Okay, so there is something to spirit that is there, but not there means you can't hold it. You're holding a soul. You're holding a soul in your hand. No, it's in the ear, but it's there. We know it's there. When someone is able to talk, we're able to to see that spirit or hear, experience that spirit. So the neshama is held together. I don't know by what, but the Almighty is the one who infused it into us. Okay, god infuses that soul into us and the Almighty in whatever magic he does, gets it to stay within our soul, our within our bodies and hopefully serve us for a long life of accomplishment. All right, so I hope. I hope that answered a little bit, all right.
25:30 - Bruce S. (Caller)
I want to ask three quick questions, all related to each other and related to what Jane asked. In today's society, we get married, we make babies, we get divorced. We get married, we make babies, we get divorced, we get remarried to other people who have already made babies. What type of obligation do you have to say Kaddish for a stepfather or he's your substitute father in many ways or a stepbrother they're not literally related to you or when you're a convert? When you're a convert, do you have an obligation to say a Kaddish for your non-Jewish former parent? And the last question is why don't we say Kaddish for the anniversary of the birth of this person? We love to celebrate the gift that's been given to us, versus Kaddish for the day that they departed from us. That was it Okay.
26:35 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
So I just want to challenge your premise that divorce is not necessary as part of the part of the life cycle. It's there as a I I know it can and it's unfortunate when it does. It says that the temple cries when there's a divorce because we want there to be a unification always of of these two entities that come together to become one, hopefully to bring children into this world as well. By the way, we don't make babies hashem, does we? We try to facilitate and make a vessel so that hashem can, uh, infuse that baby with an ashamah, holy neshama. So, uh, yeah, the process of how how life works is, um, is is that journey of a baby coming into this world and, hopefully, nurturing that baby and giving it everything it needs so that it can fulfill the purpose that it came to this world for. Okay, now about the question about Kaddish and different children. So, typically the responsibility is on our biological children that are obligated to recite Kaddish for one, biological children reciting for their parents.
27:46
However, if one feels very, very close for example, if someone had an adopted father or a stepfather who they were very, very close to and they feel that that was like sort of their father. So then there's no reason they can't say Kaddish for them. Why not? That was I have a very, very dear friend. His mother got divorced when he was an infant and she got remarried and he grew up with his second father, with his stepfather, his whole life as if it was his father. Most people who knew him didn't know that that wasn't his biological father, right, may he live and be well. But both my friend and his father are still alive and hopefully many, many more years to come. But when his father passes his stepfather, I assume that he will say Kaddish for him. When his biological father dies, he'll probably also say Kaddish for him.
28:40
But I don't see why you shouldn't if that's someone you're very close to. There definitely isn't an obligation. There definitely isn't an obligation if it's not a biological parent. But it would definitely be if someone who raised you and someone who put you through school and someone who loved you and cared for you and nourished your physical and spiritual and emotional needs. I don't see why someone shouldn't recite the Kaddish in such a case. Regarding non-Jewish parents, I have to look into that. I don't have a clear answer to that. Whether or not someone who's a convert, whether they should or should not recite Kaddish will have to get back to you about that. I'm not familiar with people reciting Kaddish for non-Jewish parents, but I'll have to look into it. I'm just not sure, okay. Yes, anna, there are two Annas, so you guys fight it out between each other, okay?
29:45 - Anna S. (Caller)
So we're supposed to say Kaddish in merit of our parents. So our Holy Father right? If we're doing mitzvot, isn't that in his merit as well?
29:55 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Yeah. So that's the way the Kitzhah Shulchan Aruch concluded is that any mitzvah that we perform every day of the year, it doesn't have to be on the yard site. Every day of the year we do a mitzvah. That is also a merit to them. So don't think that it's just the Kaddish. Oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? I missed the yard site. I missed the that's. I've seen people who have become almost forgot it was a parent's yard site. They got so like it's okay. You know what. You do good deeds. You keep Shabbos, you keep kosher, you do acts of kindness, you volunteer for the community. Those acts are also a merit to your parents up in heaven. So don't think that it's just the Kaddish. It's all of the deeds that a person does that are righteous and holy and dignified, that are a merit to the deceased ancestors.
30:44 - Anna S. (Caller)
I have another question. It has nothing to do with the laws. So I was listening to the podcast where you're talking about Zadokah. I'm sorry, not Zadokah. Teshuvah is the highest realm in the heavens Right. So I'm wondering about this time in particular, this month. Right, the king is in the field, so how does that relate, that teshuva is leveled up, if we really need it to be, if he's right here with us?
31:17 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
It's an excellent, excellent, excellent question, so let me share with you as follows. Okay, we say our sages teach us that HaMelech Basad, that God is in the fields. I'm going to share with you an analogy that I try to use every year because I think it's so apropos for this time of the year. In El, when I was growing up, all over the radio and television after Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the mayor in New York City, there were advertisements all over the radio Amnesty for parking, amnesty for parking. What happened? The previous mayor, mayor David Dinkin, was not really remembered for any good things, so he ran a city that was a mess. There was no law and order. You remember the Crown Heights riots? There was a lot of crazy things that were going on then, and one of the things was that people were not paying the parking tickets. So people can have $15,000 of parking tickets and it didn't mean anything because nobody came after you. There was no follow-up, you didn't get a letter in the mail. It was like they just hoped that you, out of the goodness of your heart, would pay for it, and the city was owed billions and billions of dollars. And Mayor Giuliani got into office and he made a 30-day special amnesty for parking. If you pay your parking tickets within these 30 days, you can pay it at the original fee amount, with no administrative fees, with no interest, with no, nothing. But after those 30 days we're coming after you with all the fees and we're going to double the fees and we're going to take away your car and we're going to do whatever needs to be done to get that money paid, to get that ticket paid.
33:05
Rosh Hashanah is the time where God says it's amnesty for sins. I'll take any offer, any offer. Just come forward and I'll erase it. It's called Yimei Ratzon. It's the days of God desiring us. God wants us close. He says I'll take any offer you give me. Just give me an offer, I'll take it, no problem. We cannot lose this opportunity of El. It has to be so. We have to desire it, just like God does. It's Yimei Ratzon, god desires us. Are we desiring that closeness with Hashem? We have to desire it just like God does it. Yimei Ratzon, god desires us. Are we desiring that closeness with Hashem? And I hope this answers to your question, that we need to desire that closeness with Hashem, because Hashem is sitting there waiting, come, come, give me a hug. I want that closeness and we're like well, I'm not sure, I don't know. Are you judging me? Am I going to be good? Am, are you judging me? Am I going to be good? Am I going to be, I don't know? Just come into God's embrace, give an offer. God will accept it because he wants that relationship with us. It's Yimei Ratzon.
34:08
God is in the field. He's saying I'm taking any deal, any deal. He's gone down to the. You know, he's there with his pencil. He's like okay, give me your offer, no, done. Give me your offer, no problem done. And you know what, If we made mistakes this year, this is our time Now. We just started last night, at 1.17 am, we started Slichot. We started asking for forgiveness for our sins. We say Hashamnu Bagadnu. We made mistakes, we did things that were wrong. This is the opportunity to get clearance from them. All right, all those mistakes. All right, anna. Okay, so a woman? Great question, anna. If a woman is alone, she can recite Havdalah for herself. Yes, yeah, you can fulfill all of the obligations for yourself, but if there's another man who is obligated, you can't fulfill him unless he's incapacitated. So if someone is a sick person, for example, and they cannot recite, then you can recite it for them. But typically if you're yourself, not a problem. You can recite the Kiddush, you can recite the Havdalah for yourself at any time.
35:20 - Jane A. (Caller)
And I hope it's not going to sound controversial. I learned from many generations of my family you are your soul. Your body is a piece of luggage holding you, your soul. Your soul is like a wind, it's like a ruach, and if you've ever been in anyone's passing at the moment of their passing I was my father it was like a white smoke came out. That's the soul, but anyway you are. You are not the limited body that you are. You are your soul, which is beyond our understanding, beyond this lifetime, and it's so precious and it's so beyond it's holy or beyond holy that we can understand. Take good care of it. Take care of you, the body. We have to take care of our body. Why? Because it houses your soul, it houses you and that's why nothing foreign goes in the body. We have to take good care. We don't put piercings, we don't in any way damage the body.
36:27 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
So it's very interesting that you're saying this, because in recent portions we say you should be very, very protective of your soul. Why does it say specifically that terminology of your soul, you should be protective of your soul. It should say you should be protective of your body, you should watch over your body. Well, what is your body? It's just the casing for your soul. The body itself goes back to the earth. It came from the earth. It goes back to the earth. The soul is not. The soul lives on forever. So we have to protect that soul. Obviously, that means protecting the body. You don't say well, it says nishmarta mod nafshoseichem, that you should watch over your soul. That means I can run my body in front of a truck because it's not my soul, right? No, no, no, because it's the protector of the soul. We need to ensure that we protect that as well. All right, thank you.
37:22 - Ron B. (Caller)
Thank you, Ms Jane. Next question the risk of being excommunicated by Never.
37:26 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You'll never be excommunicated here.
37:31 - Ron B. (Caller)
And being a contrarian and being a devil's advocate. Many of the Orthodox traditions that are not in the Bible, that are not in the Talmud, to me don't make sense. I was mentioning to Bruce as an example that the Orthodox are not supposed to shave their beard. Why? Because the idol worshippers many, many years ago shaved their faces, so we shouldn't. Well, I could come back and say the idol worshippers use toilet paper, so we shouldn't use toilet paper.
38:20 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Okay, I love your question. So you're not a contrarian at all. I do, I love it. I'll tell toilet paper. I love your question. So you're not a contrarian at all, I do, I love it. I'll tell you why I love it. So, firstly, you should know that there's no prohibition to shave whatsoever. The Torah says do not cut it with a metal blade, which idol worshippers do. It doesn't say that you shall not shave.
38:43
I I was clean-shaven until October 7th. As many of you remember, I started growing my beard for the hostages. God willing, when the hostages are out hopefully today, hopefully we get a message they're all out today Then I'll have to make a decision what to do with this. People started liking it, so maybe I'll keep it, we'll see. But this is my hostage beard, but, um, no, it's, it's. It's like a morning during the days of mourning, you don't shave, so to me it's like mourning those who have passed from these terrible tragedies of october 7th. As you may remember, for uh, 17 years of being here in torch, I was clean, sha, clean-shaven, and you know that was, that was. But again I felt that this was the October 7th tragedy, was a time to make, to make, to do something that made me a little uncomfortable. So no beards.
39:33
It doesn't say there's a big mistake if you say that we are not allowed to shave. That's not true. The halacha, the Torah, says we are not allowed to shave. That's not true. The Torah says don't shave with tar, which is with a metal blade on your skin. If a person uses a shaver like the regular electric shavers today, not a problem. There are many, many ways to shave today that are not problematic halachically, and there's no prohibition whatsoever.
39:57
It does, however, say that we shouldn't cut the corners of our of our head, which this, which is this area, which is called the paya. The paya is the corner, which is why it's called payas. Right, people have payas because that's the corner of their head and that's where they grow. That's why the chassidim, by the way, they grow long locks. Why do they grow long ones? To say we're not only not cutting it, we're gonna do something, we're gonna grow it out, especially so that it's visible that we're not only not cutting it, we're going to do something. We're going to grow it out, especially so that it's visible that we're not cutting it. And many of them will shave their heads, but they will keep their side locks right, because they want it to be an emphasis that they're observing the Torah's laws of not cutting the corners of their face.
40:37
So I think we have to be careful what it means when we say idolatry and the reasons behind it. It's not the Orthodox, it's the Torah. The Torah says it. The Torah says it. I can pull it up for you if you like. The Torah says exactly what the prohibition is of not cutting the corners of our faces and not using the blade on ours. So those Gillette blades that they show you in advertisements of the smoothest shave, that's biblically prohibited for a Jewish man to use. Women are not obligated in this, not at all Okay, but men are, and therefore we avoid it in any way we can. So I would love to go through.
41:20
I would love for you to bring me examples in the future of different things that you may discern as being irrational or making no sense, and we'll be able to discuss them right here on the Ask Away series, so that we can. I want it because I think it's important for you and everyone else that I'm sure you're not the only one, ron, who has this question. I'm sure there are many, many other people who have these questions and it's not good for us to live with questions forever. We should get the answers. Hopefully I've clarified this for you. There are many, many things that people think become Bible and they become law because someone does it and they're not, they're just a custom or some other. This happens to be a biblical command that we not cut our. Okay, so excellent question, thank you.
42:09 - Eliana S. (Caller)
One last question my question is piggybacking off of what someone else asked. If you were a convert like myself and you don't have parents who are Jewish they're technically not family anymore who will say Kaddish?
42:32 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Right. It's an excellent question, which is why the community has special responsibilities to converts and that converts should have a Kaddish First. Is it happens to be that someone who is what they call a Jew by choice and someone who goes under, someone who says I'm going to come under the wings of God's holy presence and I'm going to undertake the acceptance of the Torah, I don't know that there's anyone who's more righteous than that. Someone who says I'm not obligated, but I want to obligate myself beyond what my obligations are. There's a gateway to heaven for non-Jews, but someone says no, no, no, no. That's not sufficient for me. I want to do the whole thing. I want to take the full, you know the full package and full responsibility that there's nothing more To me. I don't even know if they need a Kaddish to be recited. They're on such a high level that someone who's a convert says I'm leaving my path from the way I grew up, I'm leaving my family, I'm leaving everything because I just want my relationship with Hashem, and you know, to me there's nothing holier than that. So you know, to me there's nothing holier than that.
43:41
But still, the congregation does recite Kaddish, and I think that this is something. It's a very, very, very special privilege to have you and many others here in our class who are, like what we say, jews by choice, who decided and took a journey of a lifetime and embraced the Torah and embraced the mitzvahs, and there's nothing greater than that. So congratulations, and live a very long, healthy life. So don't get any ideas, what's that? Yes, definitely, the husband can definitely say the Kaddish. Alright, my dear friends, this concludes episode number 17 of the Ask Away series, the question and answer portion of the Everyday Judaism podcast. My dear friends, have a magnificent week. Thank you so much for joining us.
44:31 - Intro (Announcement)
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