Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Yaakov Nagel and Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Unboxing Judaism Podcast.

00:13 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Welcome back to the Unboxing Judaism Podcast, Rabbi Nagel. It is so wonderful to be here in this magnificent studio and to launch our first in this studio. I think it's really, really special, and thank you to the city of Houston and the Houston Public Library for opening up your podcast studio to the Torch Podcasts.

00:37 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Amazing and it's great to be here yeah.

00:39 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
So the topic today is Jews and politics. So the topic today is Jews and politics. What should we, as Frum Jews, feel about American politics? Now I want to just give a little preface. I remember, by the bris of my son, yehuda, I spoke about what an incredible simcha it was, because he had some complications in the pregnancy and then, after he was in the ICU for a while and I was saying just thanking HaKadosh Baruch Hu, which is why his name is Yehuda, you know, giving thanks to HaShem. And then I said the truth is, why are we even here? Why are we in Houston, texas? And I went on to talk about the importance of really our goal is to be in Yerushalayim, yerushalayim, to be in our holy land, to have our temple rebuilt. But you know what? Our job is? To teach Klal, yisrael Torah, to teach them about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, emunah and Mitzvahs and Torah. That's what we're here for. So that and I basically spoke about the purpose of why we me, as my wife and our children why we live in Houston.

01:49
Okay, that was the thing that night I get a phone call from someone who's not religious and he's like we need to have a meeting, we need to talk. He says I'm appalled by what you said. I am so disturbed. He says how can you say that this is not our homeland? How can you say that America, america the great, is not where the Jews should be? What are you thinking? He couldn't even fathom. I said what do you mean? The land of Israel? This is what we pray for Yerushalayim, yerushalayim Yerush. Pray for Yerushalayim Yeruch Ha'abrach HaMim Toshuv Es Tzemach David. We have two of our 18 blessings in our Amidah that we say three times a day are dedicated to the coming of the Rishiach and to the return back to our homeland.

02:38
It was a very difficult conversation because, you know, after Jews being here for over 100 years, they feel very comfortable and very complacent. And politics, the halal in general, is such an important thing where people feel that, you know, it's our identity, almost. So that's what I wanted to discuss today, especially. You know, since the last time we spoke there was the inauguration of our 47th president. You know, Donald J Trump took office on January 20th at 12 pm and for many Jews, they have difficulty with this. Many Jews are Democrats, as we know, and they can't fathom how such a person could be our president, et cetera, et cetera. We're not going to get into the politics of it, but just the concept of Jews and politics in America.

03:34 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Okay, it's a very touchy subject for many, obviously, as you introduced, but what I want to share, I think it's first a perspective. Absolutely, it is part of our midah of Hakkaros HaTov, of recognizing good, to recognize that this country has been unbelievably kind to the Jewish people, unique existence that we have here that does not exist in other countries and cannot be taken for granted even for a minute. And we need to show our appreciation. And part of showing our appreciation is not ignoring the politics at all or saying that I don't want to have anything to do with this country or shunning it or only opposite, taking it for what we can get out of it, maximize what's good for me, but really genuinely showing appreciation, because the middav ha-karsatov is a bedrock of what it means to be Jewish. It's not tangential, it's not one good deed, it's really everything, having that aspect of showing gratitude. And this country has been kind, kind not only to other countries, but kind to us Jews that came in after the Holocaust and welcomed us. Not that didn't happen in many countries.

05:04 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
And I say this a lot in my class. You can hear this on some of the other Torch podcasts, jewish Inspiration podcast and others where I've mentioned, you know, the hundreds and hundreds of pogroms, expulsions, holocausts, book burnings, jew burnings, jew killings, you name it. There hasn't been 10 years in the last 2000 years where there wasn't an attempt to exterminate Jews. We had just in 2023, october 2023, we had from Gaza, where 6,000 Palestinians from Gaza, under the banner of Hamas, came and murdered 1,200 Jews, took 200-plus hostage, and we're still dealing with that right now. But you had the bombing in Argentina. You had the only country that did not persecute the Jews in the history of the world was the United States of America. It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable, it's unbelievable, and I always say the gift that we have to sit around a table right here, right now and study Torah without having to think that someone's coming after us is thanks to the United States.

06:18 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
And that's listen, I mean I'm not, I just want to be clear. And listen, I mean I'm not. I just want to be clear. Of course it's a Gentile country and it's easily, we can easily get influenced, but it's not. The country as a whole does not look to proselytize us, does not look to.

06:40
The freedom of religion there's. A freedom of religion is a basis of what this whole country was based on, and it's something to be extremely appreciative for, and that's why it's very it behooves us to vote and to participate in the process, and it's also we should be thankful and show our thanks to this country by being good citizens, by paying our taxes. All those things are an expression of our gratitude to this country that has let us live as Jews, and that's something that we cannot forget at all.

07:18 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Right. So that's I mean, that's such a fundamental. You know there's pictures of many of our Gdolim putting up an American flag for July 4th and many of the other Memorial Day. You know they would say we're living in a kingdom of kindness in the United States.

07:35 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
That's what they called it. This is their words. They coined it as Malchus Shel Chesed Unbelievable. But and I want to point to yes, it's true, jews need to participate, but, and I want to point to yes, it's true, jews need to participate, but what's very important is not letting it go too far and recognizing that our participation in politics falls into the category of number one, an expression of appreciation that we have a right to vote. Do you know how many countries we were in where we had no right to even have a say? So what are we doing? They were showing that we don't care about that. That's number one. So we have a right. We should get involved, but do not think for a minute that we should that by voting one way or the other way. That is like our God, so to speak.

08:28 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
That's our Savior.

08:29 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
That's our Savior. This is so important and that's the real balancing of the two. Yes, we need to show our gratitude, we need to get involved, we need to do an expression of our gratitude, but do not think that because I vote for this side or that side, that's the be-all, end-all, and remember that. Let's not forget that there's a God that runs the world and there's an expression the heart of kings is in the hand of God. God is pulling all the strings behind the scenes. Why this one's president and why this one is not president? And did he steal the election? Did he steal? Is it irrelevant? The point, what we need to recognize is that we do ishtadlos. All we do is our effort for what we believe is the best for our values.

09:22 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
So I have a couple of questions on this. The first is we say so, the heart of our leaders, our rulers, are in the hand of Hashem. Well, everyone's heart is in the hands of Hashem, so it's sort of like almost like why does Chazal need to tell us that? Why do our sages need to teach us this? We know this about all of us. We all have. Hashem guides us to the fork where we need to make the decision, right or left, and this is throughout our entire life. We constantly are brought to the fork and that's our decision where we need to make. It's not what happens, but how we react to what happens is our free will. So that's number one. I don't understand that.

10:06 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
What's unique?

10:07 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
about the King. But there's another question I have, and that is I mean, look at the star contrast between between January 19th and January 20th in this country. I mean, the contrast could not be more polarized where you have what, to the unassuming eye, looks like the highest level of incompetence being barreled away by you know very high level of, you know, pioneering thought, almost of just like getting things done. So it's like. I'll even go back four years now. I remember four years ago I met a rabbi I'm not going to say his name here on the podcast, but he said to me I'm not going to say his name here on the podcast, but he said to me I'm angry at Hashem. Why am I angry at Hashem?

11:02
Trump did so many good things for the Jewish people. How can he make the election results happen, the way they happened? Now again, whether it was stolen or not is a whole different conversation, but the fact is is that January 20th 2021, trump wasn't in the White House anymore. So whether or not it was cheating or not, that's not the conversation. The fact is, someone else was in the White House. He says how can that be? You know how many good things he did for the world how many good things he did for the Jewish people Unprecedented in the history.

11:37
To have someone who does something like this, he says how can that be? This is the reward for someone who does the good to the Jewish people. We always see people who do good for the Jews get good. It's always like it's a promise that was given to Avraham Avinu Someone who blesses you will be blessed and someone who curses you will be cursed, and we see that throughout history as well. Okay, but now, four years later, you see that he got an unbelievable mandate. It was probably the greatest gift for him that he didn't that he was either stolen or taken or won by someone else. So that's another thing.

12:15 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Yeah, absolutely, it's very important. Well, I want to bring out one thing, and this is very important. I think we talk about the two sides, the red versus the blue, and the different political leanings that people have, and, as a Jew and as a Torah Jew, one needs to recognize that there is no one party that has the monopoly on Torah views. There's positives and negatives on both sides. If you don't recognize that, then you're not looking through a lens of Torah. Torah is not Republican. It's not Democrat. Republican is Republican. Democrat is Democrat. There's not Democrat. Republican is Republican. Democrat is Democrat. There's different values, there's different things that they accentuate what's more important to them. That's what it is, but Torah chooses its own path and as, let's say, a voting Jew, one needs to recognize that one has to choose and weigh the values that are more aligned to the Torah between the two, because you can't not vote and say, well, since this is partially against the Torah, so I can't vote at all.

13:34 - Intro (Announcement)
No.

13:35 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
You have to find what's best overall and you have to weigh things and all of those things is part of thinking. Be a thinking person, looking at the big picture, looking at all the things, weighing the two options and seeing what's better between both sides and recognizing this is the most important, recognizing that it's not all everything. This is not Messiah over here.

13:59 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
This is yes, right, and we can't put our trust in the politicians. We can't do that. Mishnah already warns us.

14:05 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
That's the expression Al-tivtuchu b'nedivim v'nadam she'in l'tzua. We can never put our trust in anyone but God, but all that is is heshtadlus and hope for the best to Hashem, to God, who hopefully will influence in the right direction.

14:24 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
That's the idea. It's interesting, the continuation of that. Pasuk Tetzai ruchoi yashuvat masai, as soon as a soul departs his body, he goes right back to the earth, he goes back to the nothingness. So don't think, put all your hopes and all the eggs in that basket. Eggs are expensive today, so it's not right. But um the yes, so. So there's no question. We can't put our trust and our faith and that's what the mishnah tells us in pirkei, avos mishnah tells us, be careful about the, the politicians, because when they need you, they know to come to you and beg you for money and as soon as they win, they don't know who you are. What's your name? Again, I don't remember.

15:07
And that's something that anybody who has donated to a political campaign can feel that. But you know, I had actually a whole series that I was teaching on whether or not God is a Republican or Democrat. The answer is he's neither. Obviously, like the Rav is saying that the Torah is neither Republican nor Democrat, obviously, there are certain values that each of them stand for that do represent Torah values. For example, you know there's one party that used to dominate the caring and concern for the downtrodden. Well, that's a very Torah value. It's a very great Torah value. Unfortunately, today that has gone awry and it's become just like an opportunity to just give whoever they want whatever they want, however they want, with. No, you know, but even in the halachas of tzedakah, you don't just give you try to get someonezedakah. You don't just give you try to get someone a job. You don't just try to empower.

16:03 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
It's complicated because things, even the best ideas, even the most altruistic ideas, can go awry because of the people who are running it that might be cynical and are using it to buy votes, for instance, or something like that, and all of a sudden what was once a very good principle, a very strong value, becomes the exact opposite. It becomes a way of keeping people downtrodden, and it's a terrible thing. But again, no side has the monopoly on doing wrong things either. There's things that are wrong. There's cruelty that can exist on the other side as well, and you have to be aware of that. You have to recognize that and when going to vote, you have to vote with your conscience and weigh things. You have to really think. It's not like I'm blind and I'm just looking and accepting like dogma one side. It's not the way it works, right.

17:05 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
And for many people it's been a generational thing, meaning my parents were Democrats or Republican, my grandparents were Democrats or Republican. That's the way we vote. That's just who we are. And the truth is is that if you look at the political landscape today, a lot of the values that used to be on one party is now the values of the other party, and one has gone extreme one way. One has gone extreme the other way. It means if you just stick to the values, the party might have changed Exactly. Not the values changed, but the parties changed.

17:43 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
You know. So that's fascinating to know that usually the party who wins is the party that was able to pivot more to the middle, because the extreme on either side is unhealthy, the extreme left is scary, the extreme right is scary, and the party that tends to win in the elections is the party that the leader of that party Sticks to the middle Pivots, takes a slight turn from their party towards the center. I remember it very clearly when Clinton first became president, he triangulated. Yeah, he went more to the middle and that's why he was successful. It's a fascinating thing to study, and the same is true with George Bush. He did the exact same. George Bush II 43.

18:38
Right 43, where he also he pivoted to the middle. He said compassionate conservatism. That means he's trying to take part of what the other side was the values and turning it towards a more fiscally responsible style. Whatever All these things are, those are the parties that tend to win, is the when you know, just being just following the history, that's what it is, because neither side alone is correct. It's finding the correct values in between and that's a it's just an interesting thing to think about.

19:14 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
So what is the Torah's perspective on politics? As being a politician, I just want to preface this with. My grandfather of blessed memory, would always say that any Jew can return to Yiddishkeit. He was talking particularly to Israelis. He says the entire Israel can become Shom HaShabbos everyone except if they're politicians. He says they are so lost, they are so gone. And it's an amazing transformation in Israel, where Israel, the pulse of the country, is politics. Everything you know Over here you have people who don't even know who the president is. You can have people in the United States who don't know who the last president is.

19:57 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
I still remember there was interviews where they just interviewed people from all over the street no, this is older than earlier than that and they said you know? They said the name of the vice president. They said do you know who this person is? Do you know who he is? And most of them had no idea who the vice president, the current vice president, was. He said the name a math guy who was Walter Mondale, whatever it's like who's Walter Mondale and like I don't know never, heard of him.

20:23
Most people just never heard of him.

20:27 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Yeah, that's it.

20:28 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
It's unthinkable in Israel that they wouldn't be.

20:32 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
They know every member of Knesset and every Right across the gamut.

20:36 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
They're all very super involved. That's like the sports of the country there.

20:41 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
So that's why. So he was my grandfather said because sometimes the secular were so virulently opposed to Torah values. And sometimes you see that even now, where we can get into the army we did an episode about the army, about whether or not the Yeshiva students should go to the army or not go to the army but I think that this is a very it's a very real thing. There is politics and etzem. In essence, politics is Torah. Let me explain before people start throwing eggs at me.

21:23
The essence of politics is how the world should operate. The Torah is all about how the world should operate. We have value systems and that's the fight of politics is really the fight of the Torah values that are already displayed by the Almighty in his Torah, the five books of Moses, which tell us and guide us exactly the proper values of how things should be or should not be. There are things that are absolutely correct to do and there are things that are absolutely incorrect and should not be done under any circumstances. So these are the things that are being fought out in the arena of politics. So I can't. You know, many people say it's like it's very unrabbinic for rabbis to opine on politics. I don't think that's true. I think rabbis must opine on politics, not because they're picking sides, because the Torah has so much to say about this.

22:22 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
But I will tell you, as a rabbi who's put a microphone in his place to him to give an opinion. It's really subtle, it's not simple. And another thing and I think we mentioned this in another podcast one needs to recognize that Even if a rabbi gives an opinion, I really feel strongly he should not dictate to others, just express an understanding of value and leave people to make their choices. I think that's a very important thing and unfortunately— that's another fundamental in the Torah.

23:08
Yeah, no, it's very important because it's so easy to just dictate how I feel. But what I'd rather do is explain what I see as the value. Let me give you the sides and you make a decision. Right, and I look at it one way. But I recognize your ability to be a thinking person and I want to present to you the way I see things and you can choose, as an intelligent being, what makes sense for you, because for me to dictate for you is just very unhealthy and I don't think that's the right thing as a rabbi to dictate. I'm not a dictator. I'm a person who's teaching. I try and teach ideas, values, how I approach the things and give you the information you need to make your informed decision. That's how I look at it.

23:55 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
So at the end of the day, I think we can summarize that it's. Another thing is that one of my. I love politics. I've been following politics since I was 11 years old. I was listening years old, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh, the great Rush Yeshiva of talk radio, and I used to spend much more time on it.

24:21
It doesn't do anything for you, nothing's going to change, because I listened to one more program of it, but it's sort of like an entertainment, like a sports, a sport. You know people follow baseball. Is it going to change what happens in Yankee Stadium when you're standing behind a television screen and you know yelling you should pass the, throw the ball. You know he's out, he's safe. Nothing's going to change, but it's a sport. People keep themselves busy with that. The truth is that I find myself more and more disconnected from the investment in politics, because Baruch Hashem teaching more Torah and more involved in a community and involved with people. It's like sometimes it's like even the day of the election. And again, I'm very opinionated about my politics, but privately. But I didn't get home from classes and dealing with community things till nine o'clock at night, you know, when all the polls were closed already, and so I think it's a tremendous gift, and I thank Hashem for keeping me busy enough that I am not involved.

25:31 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Don't get too hooked in it, yeah.

25:33 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
It's a little bit here, you know, here and there. If you know you need a little break so you can listen to the. There are days I have no idea what happened. Like someone called me yesterday. He's like did you hear what happened last night at 11 o'clock? Like I idea what you're talking about. I haven't even looked at a computer screen or at a phone. I've been busy all day, haven't had a chance.

25:53
But the truth is that I don't think I would encourage people to know what's going on in the world. No, rabbi Rucham, the great Rabbi Rucham from the Mir, the great Mir Mashpia right. Everything that there is today in the Mir is from what Rabbi Ruchem from the Mir, the great Mir Mashpia right. He, everything that there is today in the Mir is from what Rabbi Ruchem instilled into their consciousness of Torah study and Torah understanding. He would give regular lectures to the Talmud and to the students about what was going on in the world. You know there was a demonstration in Japan and there was.

26:32
These things happen for us to learn from them. These things happen around the world, not for us to ignore it and be in a little silo where we're excommunicated in a bubble. We should know what's going on. That doesn't mean that we have to be so invested in it that we have. You know we're going to start doing the next Ben Shapiro program Right. That's for him to do For us. It's to invest in our spiritual connection to Hashem and to see and to try to learn from what's going on in the world to inspire us to be more connected to Hashem.

27:02 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Right World events is one way that God has of talking to us. Another way, more direct, is the Torah and, by the way, in this week's Parsha, this week's Parsha, the second Pasuk.

27:21 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
talk about these miracles because I'm doing them so that you will know. It means if you look at all of the miracles and all of the things that transpire in the world, if you look and you talk about them, you'll see my hand, You'll see that I'm there.

27:35 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
And that's the goal. The goal is to see God in this world and to recognize it. That's what it means to bring the divine presence in the world. That we recognize that what happens around us, surrounding us, in the macro level and the micro level, is all God's hand and God directing things and a message for us to learn to become better people.

27:57 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
There we go. So there you have it, my friends. You know everything about Jews and politics. Maybe we'll get to another, we'll do another episode. But, our dear friends, our dear listeners, first is we appreciate you listening to these podcasts, but we also want to hear from you. If you can email us at unboxing at torchweborg, unboxing at torchweborg, we would love to address any questions that you may want us to talk about on future episodes.

28:22 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
And we'll be happy to unbox them for you to discuss it, to open it up to see what's inside, and if you want more about politics, we'll talk about that.

28:30 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
If you want more about any other topic, we're looking forward to continue to produce these on a more regular basis. So thank you. Thank you, Rabbi Nagel.

28:38 - Rabbi Yaakov Nagel (Co-host)
Thank you so much for taking part of your busy schedule.

28:41 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
I know it is very, very, very busy in the rabbinic world in Houston. Maybe that'll be an episode We'll talk about some of the current events that are going on here in Houston. But till then, my dear friends, thank you so much. Amazing and shalom from Houston Pleasure.

29:01 - Intro (Announcement)
Thank you for listening to the Unboxing Judaism podcast. We want your questions. If you'd like your question featured in a future episode, please email us at unboxing@torchweb.org. We look forward to hearing from you.