Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

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 torchweb.org. Now ask away.

All right, welcome back everybody. Good Sunday morning still. Good Sunday morning to everyone. We are now Ask Away number 29. I look forward to hearing your questions. And I see some people came eager. They came riled up with their questions. I look forward to opening the floor.
One short one on the shear. You know, they mix everything with wheat, stuff like that today. Like seven grain bread obviously exceeds the five grains. So it's still bread if you have additional things mixed in with the wheat, etc., etc. Is that correct? Yes. So the seven grain bread is, it's bread. It's actual bread. You look at it. It's bread. It feels like bread. It tastes like bread. You understand?
Even though it has a unique flavor to it, which I love seven grain bread, but that would be hamotzi 100%. Okay. Now here's the one that we were pondering before we came. We know that Sarah never saw any of her grandchildren because Isaac didn't marry until after she was dead. And we know that Rebekah never saw any of her grandchildren because they were in Patamharan and didn't come back until he got word that she was dead, right?
We know that Rachel never saw any of her grandchildren because she died on the way from Patamharan. Bethlehem. Right. At Bethlehem. And Joseph wasn't married at the time. And Benjamin was born on the trip. The only one that we think might have seen and probably did see grandchildren was Leah. Because at a very minimum, it is most likely she saw Dina's daughter Asenoff when she was born. When they came down to Egypt. Right. Okay. From Shechem, when the incident with Shechem.
And Eliana and I were wondering, is there any tradition in Judaism that says that there's a significance to the fact the three of the four matriarchs never got to see their grandchildren? No, but I think it's an enormous gift and privilege that today so many people merit to see their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. You know, I was at my grandson's Pidyon HaBen. Yes, sir. Which is the redemption of the firstborn, the firstborn child to my son and daughter-in-law.
And my daughter-in-law's grandfather, so it's the great-grandchild that had a Pidyon HaBen. And he was so emotional because it's the first of his offspring to have a Pidyon HaBen. And he's, you know, advanced in his years. And he was crying to me and he held my hand and he says to me, what did I do right that I merited to see my great-grandchild's Pidyon HaBen that my parents never merited to, my grandparents never merited to, but I merited to see such an incredible celebration, such an incredible mitzvah.
And it really is a unique thing that we get to celebrate in such an amazing way. And we have to be thankful for every one of these blessings that we experience in our lifetimes. There's a very, very unique joy that a person has when it's your grandchild and not your child. You see, when it's your child, you have to feed them, you have to take care of them, you have to do everything. When it's your grandchild, you just give them the candies and they go, right?
They come when they're happy. When they're not happy, parents pick them up, get them out. So there's a certain gift of that. But it's really an amazing thing. I don't have an answer to your question. Bottom line is I don't have an answer to your question, but I do think that there is a great responsibility that we have today as grandparents that can influence our grandchildren. And we should do everything we can to not let go and say, you know what, it's not my responsibility anymore.
I raised my children and I'm out. That doesn't mean that we should mix in with the education of our children and how they raise their children. That's their chance. I think that it's a tremendous error for parents to get involved in the naming of their grandchildren. I don't think it's right. I don't think they have any say in what name their children name their grandchildren, okay? You had your chance, all right? My wife and I, we have, baruch Hashem, eight children. That's our decision.
And nobody should get involved in that decision-making. We're the parents. We decide what we name our children. I have seen and I've been called in many occasions by students who are telling me, I don't know what to do. My father's threatening that if we don't name after his great aunt or whatever it is, or you know, whatever, then he's going to excommunicate us or he's not going to come to the bris or he's not going to come to the celebration.
He's not going to, I said, it's not his business. He had his children. He named his children whatever he wanted. Now it's your chance. And I don't understand why this has become such a thing where people take such offense when their children's children are not named what they wanted. You had your chance. And to me, it's just a little beef I have with this. I say that everyone has the privilege to name their own children what they decide.
There is a Midrash that says, I don't know where it is. I've never seen it. But allegedly there's a Midrash that says that parents get a prophecy as to what to name their children. It's a prophecy. Now, it's very interesting because my wife and I, with one of our children, my fifth child was a miracle baby, our Yehuda. And back in 2010, some of you may recall, we, my wife went into very, very early term labor.
In 28 weeks, her water broke and she was in the hospital for four or five weeks. And then they delivered the baby still very early. The baby was in the ICU for many weeks and then still on a monitor until he was able to have a breast. It was two, three months later. And it was an amazing miracle. And we had decided in the hospital that we were going to name him Yehuda. Yehuda, as our ancestors did, is a name of gratitude, giving thanks to Hashem for this
amazing miracle. Okay, so now three months after the baby's born, we're about to go to the bris. And we're, you know, it's like, it's really a special occasion. You know, a miracle baby, all of this medical miracles that happened, it was just incredible. And on the way to the bris, literally less than an hour before he's going to be named, my wife says to me, maybe we add a name. And we spontaneously, on that moment, decided, okay, we're adding a name.
Named after her grandfather, and we added the name Noach. So his name is Yehuda Noach. And it was like, we had three months to think about this, okay? But it didn't come up in those three months. It was like, minutes before he was actually going to have his bris and be named, that's when the inspiration came, that prophecy came, for that name to be added. And it was like, to me, I was just thinking about, like, if we would have thought about
it a month or two earlier, we would have probably said, nah, nah, you know? We didn't have that, at that moment, we didn't have that prophecy. And it really is, it's an incredible thing. It's like, at the right moment, the right decision is made, and it's such a blessing. So yeah, I don't know, it's a long answer to a question you didn't ask. Well, you know, when we came to this realization, we thought, my God, we can't be the first people that came to this realization.
And you've got to be right about the parents, particularly the wives, having a prophecy as to what the children should be named. I can only think of one person in Tanakh that wasn't named by the mother, and that would be the neighbors named Ovid. They gave him the name, and the neighbors said, his name is Ovid, because, you know, you will have... Look, it's very, very interesting that we do see that the mothers were the ones to name,
and this is also an age-old custom of who gets to name what child. It starts with the mother, then the second child goes to the father, then the third goes to the mother, it goes back and forth. And then my rabbi once told me, he said to me, so did your wife make a decision what you want to name the baby? I was like, this one is like, this one goes to my side. He says, it always is the wife.
It's like Rabbi Saul Solanter said that his wife makes all the decisions in the house, except the important decisions he makes, so everyone's asking, which one's the important? He says, the one that my wife says are important, those are the ones that I... If she says it's important, then that's what the important ones are. There we go. All right. Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, pass the microphone. David, go for it.
Having to do with what we were discussing today, where does bagel fall in there? Bagel is bread. Okay, that's what I figured. Bagel is completely bread. It's not a snack. It's not a snack. It's not a snack. It's not a snack. It's not a snack. It's not a snack. People sit down for a meal with a bagel. People don't sit down with a meal with pretzels. So my next question is, what about a bagel made out of pretzel? Oh, the pretzel bagel.
The pretzel bagel, because they're pretty popular. Right. Today, they have pretzel buns, right? So that's just the topping. It's just the crunch or the whatever, but it's an actual bread. Yeah. Right. It's just they do it with a different type of... Yes, I would say that probably falls into the category of bread. Okay. If you look at it, it has the consistency of bread, even though it's called a pretzel bagel or a pretzel bun, it still has the consistency of bread.
So I would say it's still... Okay. So not a snack on the pretzel bagel. Right. It's more... Look, today, you can go to Casa... No, not Casa, the Dave's Crunch House here in Houston, which is a great restaurant, by the way. Really delicious, kosher, beautiful Dave's Crunch House. I never heard of it either. It's right next door to Casa Bar and Grill, and you can buy all of this takeout. You can order it online and they deliver it to your home. It's magnificent.
So you can order a pretzel bun. Dave's Crunch House. You can order a pretzel bun, and that pretzel bun is like a regular bun that you would have for a burger. It just has a different flavor to it because it's a little crispier or has a little... Because... What's that? It's really bread. It's very good. It is very good. Yes, it's very, very good. 100% bread, 100%. Another question.
You know, when we're supposed to make a prayer before we drink, what if at that same setting we have a second cup or a third cup? We don't need to fresh pray on the drink thing, right? As long as it's within 72 minutes, you don't need to recite another blessing on the drink. So if you have a drink, you recite a blessing of shahakol. Now you're filling up your second cup of coffee, you're just continuing the first. Right?
Now, there is a question whether or not if you change locations, now you get into your car and you go to your office and you're continuing that same cup of coffee, do you need... Because you're in a new location, do you need a new blessing? That we can discuss separately. Okay. One last question. You know how in Hebrew we say Hashem, but in English we say God. Is there a particular reason Hashem is the name that we don't say in English the name? Right.
So is God considered to be saying the name? Because in English that's what it is. There are many opinions that say that that is indeed the case, that you shouldn't even say the word God, G-O-D. Many people will write it G-D because it's like writing God's name in English, which we're not supposed to do. We say Hashem, which is the name, as a secondary to not saying God's name directly. We say Hashem when we're not reciting an actual blessing.
When we're reciting the blessing, we'll say the actual name of God, which is Ado, and then Nai, combined them together, and that is the name of Hashem. We don't say that in vain, and when we're talking about God, we say Hashem. God, I tell my children not to say, oh my God. You can say, oh my goodness. You can say, oh my gosh. Don't say, oh my God, because that's in a way the equivalent of us saying Hashem's name in English. So that should be limited.
Also, you know, one of the Ten Commandments is not to use God's name in vain, and not to curse in God's name. There are some times that people are upset, and they'll say a certain expression using God in it, which is an actual Ten Commandment prohibition, okay? So a person should be very careful. You know, cursing in God's name is not a good thing. So a person should really avoid, if not absolutely necessary for educational purposes or for
study purposes, a person should limit and avoid using the term God unnecessarily. That's a very good question, though. Is there a recommendation you have in the English to say it without saying God? Yeah, you can say Almighty. Oh, the Almighty, okay. The Creator. Okay. Hashem. People are becoming more and more familiar with the term Hashem as being representative of God. Okay? Excellent question, David. Thank you. Regarding the bread, what about when bread is made with egg, and when it's not made with
egg? And you have two loaves. Right. I don't think it makes a difference. I think whichever one, you're talking about which one takes precedence, it's whichever one is more enjoyable for you. One bread is more of a delicacy for you, then maybe recite the blessing on that one. Okay. And the other thing I want to mention is apropos naming people, I have an interesting story to tell you.
I have a son, Samuel, and when he was born, I said to my father, I want to name him your brother who died really early, Uncle Sam, and for grandpa, Joel. So daddy was fine with that. And then I come to find out later that it's not good for a baby to be named for someone that died early. And I went, oh my gosh, how could daddy let me do that? I went to the, it was fine, because his Hebrew name was not Shmuel, his Hebrew name was Amdav
Bear. I had to go to the cemetery and see it, because ah, daddy knew what he was doing. So I will tell you something like this, regarding that. The Gona Vilna says that, for example, if someone, if a child passed away, so the family should name the subsequent child after that baby with another name. So that way, you're sort of bringing that child's memory in, but not completely. So the child has their own, so it's a second name that they typically do.
So if, God forbid, someone's name was Moshe, and then the child passes away, the next child can be Yaakov Moshe. So you have the name, but so that there is something to it, and there is something to not giving only that name. So even if his name was Shmuel, it wasn't in this case, right, but giving it together with another name removes that superstition or that concern. All right, great, great, thank you. This is a question about the Israeli IDF. Okay.
And this is with regard to the Minneapolis killing this week. What was her first name, Renee Good? It wasn't Mossad, okay? It was, I mean, it was very devastating. And I was reading about it and found out that the HLS, the defense, you know, the defense force and the IDF are connected. How are they connected, the Israeli force and the homeland security? Probably in training. I assume that they do a lot of training together because they're dealing with similar issues. They need to secure their borders.
Both Israel does from infiltration from many of our Arab neighbors in Israel. Israel needs to be very, very cautious in allowing people who are going to be adversaries to the land of Israel and harmful from coming in. They do, Israel really has done an amazing job. You see, one of the things that we don't like to do in American culture is we don't like to profile. Don't judge me just because of the color of my skin. No, no, no. In Israel, they do, okay?
They will profile you. If you're a man, you have a greater likelihood than a woman to be a target or to be a suspicious person. If you are of this age, you're more likely. If you're of this color, this background, this nationality, this... Israel profiles intentionally and they're not shying away from it because they want to make sure that they ensure a safer community for their people, a safer country. A lot of that, in America, we like to be very, very politically correct.
We like to be, no, we're not judging by color of your skin. We need to because if we're trying to protect ourselves from harmful adversaries, we need to ensure that... So now, regarding what happened there, I think all human life is tragic when it is lost unnecessarily. But I wasn't there and it's very hard for me to make judgment or to give... I try to stay away from politics here when we're online. When we're not online, we can talk about this more.
But at least online, I try to stay out of the political sphere. I don't want to give an opinion on this. I think every person should... It should be concerning to us that a human life is lost whenever it is lost, whether it's Homeland Security or ICE or a car accident on the corner here. We should shudder in fear that someone's life has ended at such a young age. It's tragic. Yeah.
And whether or not they deserved it, that's not my role to make that decision or to have an opinion on that here. Israel and Homeland Security do a lot of training together. In fact, when TSA began, it began in 2001. You remember right after September 11, they started all of this with the Transportation Security Administration. That was really founded on Israeli security. So they brought in the professionals from Israel. They taught them what they need to know about security. Hopefully, the security systems protect us all.
So that's what we hope for. The truth is like this, is that we have to always look at the big picture of every country has the responsibility to protect its own civilians, its own people. That's the responsibility of our government. If our government is not doing that, we have elections that we need to remove leaders who are not leaders, who are not protecting us. It is shocking to me and disturbing when we find out suddenly that in middle of the night,
the previous administration allowed over 20 million people to just come into our country with no checks and balances whatsoever. And to me, this is like it's dangerous for us. And then we hear stories of people getting raped and people getting murdered and people getting robbed by these undocumented, illegal, whatever you want to call them. Right. But they just came into our country. We have no idea who they are, what they are. They're not, you know, this is concerning that the people who are elected to protect
us are not. That should be, I think, looked at very, very seriously. Thank you. Carlos, go for it. I have a question about the name of God. If I'm, for example, saying the Amida and I'm saying it in English, Hashem accepts it, of course. But when I say Hashem in English, do I have to take it with the same seriousness when it says, if you already said it, if you haven't said it, go back.
And because I didn't say the name with Amonai, but I say Hashem. But I still have to say, follow everything. Right. I would say that probably in English, you should say Hashem's name. Yes. If you say, yeah, why not? You're talking to Hashem. Yeah. Talking to Hashem. Okay. And my other question is. It's an important thing to understand that when we're saying the Amida, we're standing in front of the King, the King, the creator of heaven and earth.
We're standing, we should be with all, we should be with the presence of mind. And I'm actually working on recording the full prayer so that I add specifically my study partner Sunday morning before our class had asked me because he now, his office is about 25 minutes away from his home and he doesn't have time to pray at home. So he prays along the way, but he wants to be able to recite every word carefully.
So he asked me to record the prayer for him so that he can say it along with me. So I asked my rabbi what to do with that. Should I be recording it? Should I not be recording it? So he said, not the Amida. And I said, should I publicize it, should I put it on Spotify so that people can just say it along with me? He says, no, no, no.
If someone asks you for it, you can send it to them, but don't publicize it out there. The idea is, is that someone who wants to recite it, someone, you know, this is a doctor who's very, very busy. He doesn't have the wherewithal, it's his own calculation whether or not he goes to synagogue, doesn't go to synagogue, but he wants to pray properly, but he doesn't have the ability to go to synagogue. Someone who lives out in New Mexico and doesn't have a synagogue, wants to recite the words,
may not have a prayer book. So can they have the audio so that they can say it along with someone else? So I did record the first part of prayer for him. I can send it to anyone who wants, I can send it to you privately. It is in the Ashkenaz dialect. So if you want to have that, I'll happily send it to you privately. Please do not share it with anyone else. And I'm saying this on the interwebs for people to hear.
So thank you very much. But you can, you can email me, but so that's the, that's the answer to your question. But the Amida, my rabbi said not to do it, not to do the Amida because the Amida is your own. That's the highest level of our prayer. And that's a very, very personal prayer where you're standing in front of God. Everything else is preparatory for that. That part, a person should be standing, a person should be recognizing that he's standing in front of God.
The tikkun, we say at midnight, there's a tikkun Rachel and tikkun Leah. I forgot. I've read, um, one of them, you don't say in a year of 13 months. Well, okay. So there's, there's, there's a special prayer that over the years, many have said, it's not very common for people to say now you're supposed to say it after waking up, right? King David would wake up in middle of the night to recite, recite it, not to stay up.
The idea is that you wake up from your sleep to recite it. I did it for a very, very short while when, when my grandson was in the hospital hanging between this world and the next world, I felt that I just wanted to do something that was way out of my comfort zone. So I did that a couple of times and, um, but it's not, it's not something that's commonly done. It's called Tikkun Chatzot, which is the prayer that's recited at the, let's call it the changing
of the guards of the, of the heavens. And it's a special time to slip in powerful prayers in the gates, through the gates of heaven during the changing of the guards, so to speak. It's deep in Kabbalistic thought, this whole idea of Tikkun Chatzot. Again, it's not a prayer that's commonly said, but it's a very powerful prayer if one is at that level. I personally, my recommendation is that we have other things that are more important for us to focus on in our growth.
At a later time, we'll hopefully discuss it in more detail. All right, good question, Carlos. How do you even know about that? How do you know about that? Okay. It's, it's our custom on Shabbat after we say the motzi that we tear the bread. We don't slice it. Oh. Is it still necessary to slice it beforehand? So it's, it's interesting. The Sephardic break the bread with their hands and they tear it apart and the others slice it. It's their custom.
Whatever a person's custom is fine. There's no prohibition to doing either. Whatever a person's custom, if that's the way they did it in your home, you can do it as well. If you're at someone else's home, you don't have to correct them. Whatever a person does is fine. Continue the custom that you grew up with, but in your home, they broke it apart. You know, you're a coin. You have a great lineage.
You gotta be, you know, so it's whatever a person did in their home is appropriate to continue doing. And by the way, in the halacha that we discussed today from Simon 4.1, we talked about that you shouldn't throw the bread. There are customs. There are people who intentionally do throw the bread again. So you have to know everyone should follow their custom and the halacha is just telling us the general guidelines that, that are to be observed. But that's a good question. Ed.
I didn't know we adopted a Sephardic custom. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Ladies first. So, so appropriate. Look at this. First and foremost, um, I'm in a season of learning the Barakas and I noticed that when they say Hashem, sometimes it's Yod, He, Vav, He, but sometimes it's Yod, Yod. What's that about? Okay. So both of them are the name of Hashem. Just as a general rule, we're not even supposed to pronounce the letters, the Yod, the He,
and the Vav and the He in one, in one shot. Because we know that there are, there is actually in Christianity, there are groups, they call themselves something witnesses, um, that's using those letters, which is inappropriate. So we don't even pronounce those. We could say Yod, He, Vav, He, which is very commonly used in, in, in public. We don't pronounce it that way either way. Both of them, the Yod and the Yod and the Yod, He, and the Vav and the He are also not
either pronounced in their, they're pronounced as the same Hashem as Ado and Nai. So that is the way they're pronounced. There are different, different times that they're written out in different ways for different reasons. In the Torah specifically, we'll have it many times in different ways that it's written out and it's particular. Each name of Hashem describes a different attribute of God. And some of them are the name of Hashem's mercy. Some are the names of Hashem's kindness.
Some are the name of Hashem's anger and wrath. So each one has a different, some is more stronger, some softer. Each one has a different representation of God's attributes. And that's why they're written in different ways. But in general, when we're reciting blessings, they have the same, ultimately the same meaning and different, different versions. For example, in our Siddur, if you use the Art Scroll Siddur, most of the blessings are
just with a, the Yod, the He, and the Vav and the He, I believe all of them throughout the entire Siddur are the Yod, the He, and the Vav and the He. I'm going to look in the Amidah to see if it's any different here. I don't think it is. I think they're all spelled out like that. And in the introduction here, the beginning of the Siddur, he gives the outline of it, the names of God.
He has a whole page over here dedicated to this, the beginning of the Art Scroll Siddur. So you can look at that in all of your Art Scroll Siddurim. They should have that page that describes all that. Next question. So a person's gluten-free and they're not eating bread. Where does this leave us at Shabbat? So the bread that you do eat, which is gluten-free bread, whatever, a person should do whatever they can do. I have actually a friend of mine who is also gluten-free.
I will ask him what he does. I think they eat spelt bread and that is hamotzi anyway. So if I'm- Are we obligated to have bread then? It's proper to. If a person cannot for whatever medical reason, for whatever health reason, God will not smite them. But it's proper to have bread if you're able to. So Bruce brought up an interesting question for me. When there's other items in the bread, like they make a lot of gluten-free products are actually just potato.
There's no anything in it that resembles bread, but it looks like bread. It feels like bread. It sure doesn't taste like it. Right, but if it's not made of the five grains, then it's not considered bread. I actually was in a restaurant on Pesach, they had a kosher for Passover menu and they brought out bread for the first, you know, you sit down, they put a little basket of bread and it was potato, it was made out of potato starch or whatever.
And I said to my wife, I said, I don't care that this is kosher for Passover, it just feels so wrong. It does. It does. It just feels wrong. It does. You know, to be eating something that looks like bread during Passover. I don't care that it's kosher for Passover. Halachically, spiritually, it just doesn't feel right. At one shul that I go to when it's time for Hamotzi, they round up all of the children at the shul. Is that a thing?
That's just their menhag or what? They round them up and everyone recites it together. So it's generally done as an educational thing. They want to educate the children to recite blessings. The challenge that I have with it is that you're supposed to wash your hands before making the blessing of Hamotzi and you're not supposed to interrupt and talk between the washing of the hands and the recitation of the blessing. What I have found is that unfortunately in many of these places where they do make a
public Hamotzi, there's no washing of the hands and many of the times they don't even eat bread. They just recite a blessing and that begins the meal. And that's not appropriate. It's coming out of ignorance, not out of malice. So what happens is that people think that that is the appropriate way to begin a meal, but it's only appropriate if you have actual bread and if you can eat the bread. And if you're going to wash before and you don't talk before.
So all of that is interesting. So I will tell you an interesting story. When I did the invocation for the Holocaust Museum dinner, I was doing it together with a pastor and they wanted me to recite the Hamotzi after. So I spoke, I spoke about the Holocaust Museum and about the history that I personally experienced via my grandmother, my grandfather who were both in Auschwitz, my grandmother who was in the Kovner Ghetto, my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandparents.
And I talked about it and then the pastor spoke and while he spoke I washed my hands. And as soon as he was done, I recited the Hamotzi. So that way there was no interruption. He introduced the fact that I was going to recite the Hamotzi, so I didn't need to say, and now we're going to recite the Hamotzi. And we pre-planned this in advance so that, and I explained, I can't talk between washing my hands and reciting the blessing. And that way it was not halachically appropriate.
Even though it was done in public, there was no talking. If the children aren't washing their hands and they're not eating the bread, then I'm not sure if it's the right thing for them to do. So you're talking about interrupting the mitzvah. Is that the case for other mitzvahs as well, especially prayer? If someone interrupts you in prayer, do you just stay focused and keep plowing through? Do you refocus your attention? So any time we recite a blessing, we shouldn't be interrupted in the middle of the blessing.
And if a person is, for whatever reason, a person can always say, Baruch Shem Kivot Malchutot Olam V'ed, which sort of gets you out of that blessing in mid-air, okay? So that sort of ends the blessing without it being saying God's name in vain. Because you already recited God's name. So what you do is, if you start the blessing and you recited God's name, you can end it by saying, blessed be Hashem's name forever and ever.
When we're praying, that's one of the reasons we pray in a synagogue, so that there isn't any interruption. And if a person prays and there is, for whatever reason, an interruption, it shouldn't be in the middle of a blessing. It shouldn't be in the middle of the Shema. Now look, the halacha we talk about deals with all of these cases. What happens if someone interrupts you in the middle of Shema? What happens if someone interrupts you in the middle of the Amidah?
All of these scenarios are discussed so that we can know how to better perform in these situations. Thank you. Thank you. Just a little short one. Matzah sure doesn't look like bread. It doesn't have the consistency of bread. What is the blessing and why? Okay, so matzah is considered like bread. It is just not leavened like bread. We just didn't give it the time to bake like bread. So now you'll have a different question. Well, what's with crackers?
Why does crackers not fall into the category of matzah? All right, Mark, go for it. Okay, so... You know, in Hebrew they say, acharon acharon chaviv. We save the best for the last. Mark, you're the best. Go. Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence, Rabbi. I know this is sort of in line with the conversation or the class that you gave about the bread and covering the bread before the blessing and not to feel... Not to shame.
Not to shame the bread or... So I feel like nowadays, like people are very, very overly sensitive. Is there such thing like in your opinion, you know, over sensitivity? Because I know the class is saying, you know, the principle behind the class is, you know, you gotta be sensitive to the bread and because you're sensitive to the bread, you have to be more sensitive to other people. Is there such thing as being like too internally sensitive to yourself, to other people?
And then in your mind, what do you see as the remedy to this? Maybe not necessarily being overly callous or anything, but getting, I guess, tougher. Okay, so the Torah teaches us one fundamental principle through all, every verse of the Torah and that's called balance. A person has to be balanced. A Jew needs to be balanced. Out of balance, we said this numerous times, extremism isn't Judaism. You find me an extremist, it's not Judaism. It's not Judaism. Judaism is all about balance.
You have to be balanced. You have to be balanced in the way you act. You have to be balanced in the way you talk, in the way you eat. All of it needs to be balanced. We know this, by the way, in our health. If you're gonna be out of balance by eating too much of one thing, not the other, it's not healthy for you. If you're gonna do one exercise and not the other, it's not gonna be good for you.
Eat in every area of life. You can't be an extremist in any specific area except humility, humility. But even in humility, I say to say, you gotta be careful because too much humility is not either gonna be good. So there's always this idea of balance. You need to have balance in your life. To be sensitive is a very good thing, but to be too sensitive is not a good thing. So a person has to be healthy.
A person has to know what is the right balance for each situation. Because in one scenario, it might be too sensitive to do this or that. In another scenario, it might be not sensitive enough. So how do you find that balance? A person needs wisdom and a person needs to learn. The Torah teaches us, we see this throughout the Torah, throughout the Talmud, you constantly see a measuring of circumstances, of situations. You know, in security today, they call it situational awareness.
In Judaism, you need to have situational awareness as well. You need to know your environment, you need to know where you are, who's with you, and according to that, we conduct ourselves based on the principles of the Torah. So a person cannot be a bull in a China shop in any situation because this is the way I act, this is the way I am. No, you have to know your environment, you have to know, I'll give you, let me just give you an example.
So there's an obvious question that's always asked when someone becomes a rabbi in a new congregation. They're doing something a certain way, they're doing it the wrong way, it's against the halakha, they're doing, what do I do as the new rabbi? So the rule is, if you come in and start making changes right away, you're gonna be out in your head before you know it. Because they have customs that are like that for specific reasons. It could be that 10 generations ago
that custom was established, and now you're coming in and making changes, they're not comfortable with that. Someone once went to a synagogue in Europe, and one of these ancient synagogues, and when they would lift up the Torah, there was this custom that they would duck down. They would duck down when they lifted up the Torah. They'd lift up the Torah and turn it to the whole congregation, they would duck down. So they asked this person who's a guest there, he asked, what's going on?
He said, no, no, that's the custom in our synagogue. That's the custom in our synagogue. When you lift up the Torah, you duck down a little bit. It turns out that in the previous synagogue that they had, the chandelier used to hang down very low. So this became their custom, is to avoid the chandelier, they would duck down. But that's our custom. We have to respect that in every place. And we don't say, oh, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. No, it's not necessarily nonsense.
You know, everyone has their custom for their reason. And don't just come in and be a bull in a china shop. The new rabbi is gonna make new customs and new rules. Because if someone is, if you go into a synagogue and they're doing things which are blatantly against the Torah, against halacha, you have to be very, very cautious and very, very clever. A, maybe you shouldn't take that job. But B, if you are taking that job, there should be a plan in place
over a longer period of time to institute that change. And it shouldn't come abruptly. It should be slow and gradual. You learn with the congregants, you teach them, and then maybe it can be inspired by them. Where they say, you know what, maybe we should make this change. And I've seen rabbis who've done this very, very successfully where they educated their congregation to the point where the congregation wanted to make changes faster than the rabbi was willing to allow them to make those changes.
The changes that he was trying to instill, they were moving too fast. He said, guys, you gotta slow it down. There has to be balance. You can't move too fast. What happens even if you take your Lamborghini? Mark, I'm talking to you, okay? Your Lamborghini, and you accelerate too fast, what happens? You lose control. You've seen those, right? You gotta take it easy. Even the Lamborghini has to have balance. Everything in life has to have balance.
What would be the opposite of being too sensitive? But like in the positive way. Not like, Alice, I feel like it may be not right. Well, there are some people who get offended and are too sensitive that you're alive. That offends them. Then you have the other people who are, you know. Again, there's extremes in every dimension. In every area of life. A person has to use common sense. The Torah teaches us a lot about common sense. And the Torah gives us guidance.
The Torah gives us guidance. You can look in the Talmud, you'll see stories of showing how the rabbis dealt with issues. That's why we do our Thinking Talmudist podcast. To learn and to see how they conducted their lives, how they lived, how they talked, how they spoke to people, and how they reacted with sensitivity, with appropriateness in every situation. All right? You're not the bull in the China shop. But those around you are, right? And you're trying to operate with balance
and sensitivity and wisdom, but it's not necessarily right to be accommodating to them. You have to know where you are. And you have to know why are you in such a setting. A person needs to be conscious of the environment they put themselves in. I'll give you an example. I don't like physical violence. I think it's the worst, most corrupt thing for a person's soul. So is it the right place for me to go to a wrestling match? No, don't go there, right?
Don't go there because if you're so sensitive to it, that's not what you should watch. And that's not what you should be at. And you're standing there saying, stop being so violent. You know, it's really not good. That's not the right place. Don't be there. All right? Now, you can also say that, you know, I really like to talk, and I really like to schmooze with my friends, and I really like to have a good time.
The library's not the right place for that either, because that's the place where you need to be. And you see, there has to be a balance in everything that we do. So don't be an extremist, all right? We all think that our way is always, you know, this is the general rule, is I'm always in the middle of the road. And these people are extremists to the right. These people are extremists to the left, but I'm normal. But that's not always the case.
It's not always, sometimes we're extremists, and we have to recognize it. And you can say, you know what? I'm a little bit extremist in my, you know, a person has to look at themselves in a healthy way and determine where they are and adjust themselves appropriately to their environment. All right, my dear friends. This concludes Ask Away number 29. Have a marvelous, magnificent, beautiful, safe, healthy, and delicious week.

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