Speaker 0 00:00:05 Hello,
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Welcome to identity crisis. A podcast about news and ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. My name is Debbie Coleman and I'm a scholar in residence and director of new media at the Shalom Harbin Institute. If you're a regular listener to this podcast, you might hear my name in credits as the producer of the show for today's episode, I'm in front of them. I'd rather than behind it as guest host filling in for you had occurred, sir. So in my off hours, I used to spend a lot of time in the world of photography you're working in home dark room. And the idea is that the best moment to take a picture is not when you know how you feel about the subject of this photograph, but actually when you are feeling quite ambivalent about it, when you don't know whether the thing they were photographing is something good or bad.
Speaker 1 00:00:44 And you're trying to discover in that moment, how you feel about it, because it's actually in those moments that you are forced to grow, and you're forced to spend time on a media that would otherwise be consumed quite passively and quite quickly. I think about that in the context of the Jewish media landscape, because I've noticed in my own media consumption habits moved in two directions. On the one hand, I sometimes feel like I'm in the mood just to hear things that will affirm my position and help flush it out. And on the other hand, I really seek out ideas and opinions that are going to challenge me and are going to bring me into conversations that I would not otherwise have where I'm actually not sure in advance, how I feel about a subject. I think in that latter camp, the guest for today's show is really an exemplar of how to do this properly.
Speaker 1 00:01:26 He's someone who I think is quite good at having these conversations and it broaching extremely important and very difficult questions with people that he actually knows in advance. He's going to argue with and disagree with, or he needs to hold her opinions out of them. So I'm really excited to talk with this guest today. David look, them Steen is founder and CEO of the Lightstone group, a large real estate investment company. That as far as I can tell, it's his main job, but he is also, and this is the reason why I'm glad to have him on the show today. The host of headlines, a podcast of weekly events viewed from a lens of Jewish law that has accumulated more than 1.6 million downloads. Since it's launched in 2014. I want to talk about headlines, but for the moment, let me just say that I've listened to a lot of podcasts in the last decade.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 And as the space has grown more crowded, there continues to be nothing that resembles the show. In addition to the show, Devin has written two books about viewing current events through the lens of Jewish law published by the Orthodox union. Not to mention several other books besides, so Devin, thank you so much for being on the show today. Nice to be here. So let's talk about headlines. I've been in the podcasting business since 2013, and I've seen the style of podcasts slowly become increasingly uniform as the industry develops headlines though, just seems like it's doing its own thing. It is riddles connected to Torah and Halakhah, it's longer as podcasts have become increasingly short. And it's really basically the only podcast that I know that contains both Aramaic and yeshivas, English mannerisms. So I'm curious if we can start by just having you reflect a little bit on the experience of creating the show, what spurred you to create it? What surprised you along the way and what do you like about the medium itself?
Speaker 0 00:02:56 So even though I run a fairly large real estate,
Speaker 2 00:03:00 My background is Shiva and I actually never went to college. So I guess you could say my doctorate is in Talmud, harmonic philosophy and law. And we've worked on there for really quite a while, always in the United States, under the axiomatic impression that you're either a scholar or a business person. And I don't agree with that metrics. And I think that we were supposed to live in both worlds. Most of the sages were working. People are <inaudible> right. The Humara talks about the wood cutter or gum Lele. And when he had the big <inaudible> be sure, be sure was upon me. He was a, he made charcoal for a living and it wasn't around memorized because there weren't anybody who would support them it's because the tire is instructions. So imagine if you will end up on an Island where there was this huge set of instructions, one group of people took the instructions and they took those instructions and they use them to work.
Speaker 2 00:04:02 And the other people spend the rest of your life just studying the instructions. We could see that always the way the Rambam understands is that wasn't the intent. So I saw this as sort of the natural step forward, but when you leave your Shiva and I'm an extrovert, extroverts have a need to interact too. Some people learn just by reading. Some people learn by speaking, by interacting, by discussing, which has always been the shift where I remember when I learned in Lakewood, they brought some reporter. I was, it was a woman. I don't remember from some national station. And she walked into the base matters and she said, why is everybody screaming at each other? I said, that's how Tom with discussions works. Everybody has an opinion and they state their opinion and they argue their opinions. So rather than walk away, I said, I am going to, I wrote, but I didn't find writing as fulfilling as that, you know, the dialectic. And I said, let me put it on a podcast. So I, I did it mostly for me and my poor audience had to struggle along with my panel actions, but that real, that's really the story behind that.
Speaker 1 00:05:09 I think that's really helpful. And I'm all on board on this notion of a person who is neither just in the business world, nor in the learning world, but is actually bridging those two. I'm curious. So you've been producing the show for a while. There's things that I know you can do within the medium of podcasting that are more difficult to do in other media, in part because people listen to podcasts and discreetly, it's private, you can tell what books someone's reading. It's harder to tell what podcast someone is listening to. And as a result, people have a little bit more freedom in terms of the podcast they listen to. Then they might, they're just kind of putting their books on the shelf for all to see. I'm curious how you think about the content that goes into the show. And if you've been surprised in any way by the reaction that I assume you've received from listeners.
Speaker 2 00:05:53 So I think the content is in line. You know, when you go to Yeshiva the great list, the waiting yeshivas in the world, which I've been so many of them, a lot of it is very up to send obscure. Like you've missed the legitimate wife. It doesn't happen. Anyway, we haven't done that in 2000 years, right? But it's the tire and the tire is a reward in itself. But I think that when people go to work or when they are busier, I think that very deep and abstract, philosophical, complex theories are hard to tune into. So people just from a practical level, want to speak about things that I'll give you an example. I went between mainland Myra was in listening to a rabbi speaking and he was talking about the concept of being hash mushers, which is Twilight for a Friday, right before the Sabbath.
Speaker 2 00:06:42 We like the candles, but really it's Twilight. So it's not clear exactly when Chavez thoughts. So this shows an arrow holds the code of Jewish law, says that during that period laws that are only prohibited by the sages, they called a drop on. And right, you could do if there's a need for the Sabbath, whereas laws that are prohibited when we derived. So, which means from the Torah, right? The one of the 613 commandments, those you would not be allowed to do during the Twilight area. So this rabbit is talking about an obscure case. Like, let's say you forgot on the table, something that's mixer that you can't move. Would you be able to move in crowded sort of like sleeping? So I said, rabbi, what about this case? A Tesla it's electrical. So according to most opinions driving and the Sabbath will only be, uh, prohibited according to the sages.
Speaker 2 00:07:34 It's not one of the total of 600 thirties. You like to show, could you drive your Tesla to show suddenly like, Whoa, everybody pops up. Really? Could you drive your time? So I find that when you can take laws that are relatively complex or obscure and plug them into people's day-to-day lives, suddenly the Torah becomes alive. I lock up, it comes alive. So I come home a lot of times. And my work is often very demanding. I'll come home at nine o'clock or eight o'clock or 10 o'clock. And to me to open up a good Marie, Yvonne, this is very difficult. It's not just you, but when I open up above a comma, which is all about damages and you start discussing well, and there's every possible thing you could learn from it. If I send the virus from my computer to your computer, would you have to pay according to Jewish law?
Speaker 2 00:08:24 Now, suddenly this is a live a virus, different opinions. Is it Tom? Is it a <inaudible> going? And suddenly I'm surrounded by a cacophony of opinions. Now my right hand side is the great Sage rashy who lived in the 12th century. And he's considered the baseline of opinion of what the Talmud is. And on the left side is the ballet ptosis, the French stages of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, who almost always disagree. When are you from? It was their, and then you open up the rush and then you open up the Spanish sages and see what they do. You go to the Raj VA and the Ritz, and then suddenly you start saying, Oh, all the derivative opinions of the 15th century in the sixties. So you have a laws layered on and how is it relevant? How, okay. And suddenly I'm sitting with 50 people around me debating, and everybody's stridently saying your opinions.
Speaker 2 00:09:17 Do you have to pay for the virus? How much do you have to pay for the virus? Do I just have to pay for the value of his computer? What about his software? What about he forwarded that virus to somebody else? Am I responsible for the other person was damages and the Ritz for Jose and suddenly I could stay in my study. I could get home annoying and be there till two in the morning. And when my wife or somebody comes knocking on the door where I don't even know what time it is anymore. So I think that taking the Torah and making it where it's practical and in front of you, both from a philosophical point of view, and it's also examining a lot of contemporary is throughs through the sages of the Talmud. And in many ways, the Talmud was like thousands of years ahead of anybody.
Speaker 2 00:10:00 I'll give you an example. Do you know that as recently as 1970 and I could be off a little, but you could Google it. There was a fire engine in England was going to a fire and it was a red light. And they could see on the other side, a building burning and the guy in the third floor who was going to die. So the fire engine went through the light, you know, England, the very proper. And they saved the guy and a policeman gave the fire engine a ticket course. As recently as 1970, there was no concept of a high by him that the sanctity of human life overrides almost all laws with exception, right, where you can hurt somebody else, et cetera. And they changed the law because of that incident to say, wait, let's get some perspective here. Do you know, as recently as the 17 hundreds, if somebody was attacked and in defending themselves, they kill the attacker, the person was considered a criminal. And at one point they will put to death. And why does the 18 hundreds, all their property went to this queen? So things that, how logically and tell medically, and we have taken as granted for thousands of years, like it took Western society ages to catch up to.
Speaker 1 00:11:13 So that approach that you're highlighting, I feel comes across loud and clear in the podcast and also in the books and actually had a couple of examples that I wanted to talk with you about specifically, because you're not the only person who is trying to apply Jewish law to questions of technology. I think that's very in Vogue. It's something that I personally am really interested in, but you're doing more than that. You're also trying to think about the relationship between the Halakhah and current events in America, including really fraught questions, really fraught political questions. And so I wanted to bring up a couple of examples in the first headlines book, you talk about the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by George Zimmerman, in which George Zimmerman was found, not guilty in part of Florida's stand your ground law, which meant that he didn't have a duty to retreat.
Speaker 1 00:11:57 Even if he felt that Trayvon Martin was threatening him. And then your book, you kind of bring this into conversation with rabbinic discussions of self-defense and its limitations. And then more recently in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and beyond a tailor, you use the example of the <inaudible> big Eva. So a typical story in which a man is outraged by the rape and the murder of his concubine. And he cuts her body into pieces and sends them throughout the land of Israel, basically, in order to shock the various tribes into caring enough about this crime, to do something about it. And you use this, if I understood the way you were trying to use it, to suggest that there may be actually some amount of legitimacy to the violence that took place as part of some of the protests after those two murders. And I think what you're suggesting there is that the Tor recognized that there are societal problems that are so large, that it's amount of violence is actually a reasonable response.
Speaker 1 00:12:49 So I've noticed this framework and at the same time, I've noticed that very often when you bring guests on the show, you're trying to kind of ask them whether the frameworks that you've proposed are successful, like whether they agree with them. And I have noticed that they're often like a little bit skittish around saying like, well, you know, maybe it applies, maybe it doesn't apply, but they're often a little bit more hesitant than you are to kind of make a definitive statement one way or the other about whether it's as possible to take Halakhic knowledge, Jewish, legal knowledge, and really bring it directly into conversation with something that appeared in the headlines yesterday. So I'm curious if you can reflect a little bit about that particular kind of use of Jewish legal knowledge. And if you have a theory about why your guests might be more wary of it than you are.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 Okay. So I think it was a Trotsky. I could be wrong. Sunset what you write with a lead pencil, you can race with a steel eraser, right? And I think that many of my guests are leading <inaudible> experts and you're applying very complex overlays, which have very many details and circumstantial issues. And they don't want to be on the record of saying like without a really thorough examination. Yes, this is that because the next thing is they've established precedent that gets trotted out. And so many, I mean, and I can give you example both legally and how logically, how precedents, if they're not really exact can be so twisted. And I'll give you an example, judge Coney Barrett. Now on the Supreme court, I think her first case was some adoption agency for the city of Philadelphia versus a Catholic adoption agency. And the Catholic adoption agency would only give their children to couples that were not of the same sex and Philadelphia passed the law and LBGTQ law that you cannot discriminate, same sex, couple won a child event.
Speaker 2 00:14:46 So somebody remarked to me, well, that's going to be a layup for her. She's of course going to say, they have a right to respect their religion now on the Thomas, right? So I said, really now let's take that law. You have a right to protect your religious beliefs. So if you're Catholic and you walk into a Jewish bakery and the guy is very pious and he believes, you know, Catholicism all twisted yet. Now with, did you be able to say to judge Barrett, you know, based on your law, I'm not going to serve you. So just as an example, it's so easy when you set precedent, you really have to be very thoughtful as to do it in a way we are. If it's used in other situations, you've in your ruling, basically laid out, these are the parameters and these are the details. And this is why, so that otherwise you can end up with a real train wreck. So I think for a rabbi to come on, what for me is a discussion, bringing up very valid points of historical thing that could create that conversation. If you were to rule that way, it's not going to be on a radio program or a thing it's going to be with a lot of thought that a lot of detail. So I think that's a lot of hesitation.
Speaker 1 00:16:00 I think what you're describing actually is a phenomenon that I've noticed as well in Halakhic literature over the past, say 50 years, where in some ways it is easier for people who are not in positions of power to have a somewhat richer or more contemporary and more definitive conversation about Jewish law in part, because the stakes are lower or in part, because they're speaking to individuals rather than they're speaking to groups. And I think that goes to your points earlier about the kind of virtue of being both a businessman and a scholar at the same time
Speaker 2 00:16:29 Sort of record. I used to very often put on. I said, the purposes of these programs are not for making her Lafayette rulings there to create a conversation and now go do your homework, speak to your rabbi. If you're a Yeshiva boy and you know how to learn, take out the books, but certainly do not make rulings. I mean, this week we had on the Reb David Feinstein, rabbi Moshe Feinstein son passed away and his expertise was in life and death situations. Like, do you pull the plug on people who are in comas? So like, please do not try this at home, whatever you listening to on this broadcast, right? Whether a mother can take an Oregon that was harvested illegally, please, this is not do not try this, that this is complex. I'm just doing it, the laid out there, what, the type of issues, his way of thinking without getting into the details, which really God is in the details, right?
Speaker 1 00:17:21 It's interesting. Those disclaimers of like consult your local rabbi, I know is also the stance of the journal of Holahan contemporary society, which I think closed a year ago or a little over a year ago. And I wonder if there's kind of like a, you know, a little bit of a wink and saying that in that the way that people today often consume information about Jewish law is much more individual. And they in fact do take it quite seriously. Whether the people who are writing those opinions say they should be taking it seriously or not.
Speaker 2 00:17:48 Hi, I'm Jenny less
Speaker 3 00:17:50 Senior development officer at the Shalom Hartman Institute with so many of us home and looking for ways of being in community. We have launched Hartman at home, a full calendar of online public events running through the end of 2020 taught by incredible faculty like Nickleby tone. Yes, you'll find her levee, Klonopin, classy, Todd Becker, and Rachel Cora's team. You can find out more and register for any of these programs by going to our website, Shallom hartman.org.
Speaker 1 00:18:19 I wanted to bring you back to thinking about the pandemic and the way that you responded to the pandemic within the podcast. So from what I've seen from the very beginning of the pandemic, you took the danger of indoor synagogue gatherings very seriously. And you strongly criticized people who secretly gathered to form clandestine mini-me. I think at one point, even using the legal term Rowe, Dave, to refer to someone who's actively trying to murder another person at one point, I think you also played a recording of a Jewish nurse, giving a vivid description of the refrigerated morgue trucks parked outside of her hospital, pleading with people to wear a mask and maintain social distancing. Certainly you've seen that a large portion of the Orthodox community has reacted strongly against mask mandates and restrictions on in-person gathering. What in your mind explains the gap between these facts on the grounds and the seemingly very clear Jewish legal regulations that prioritize preserving life over almost all parts of Jewish law.
Speaker 2 00:19:13 So that's a complex question. And I think that has many different parts to it. I think one part is that the overwhelming mass of Orthodox Jews are Trump supporters. And the fact that the president openly derided mask wearing never wore a mask, had many super spreader events and in the white house, et cetera. So people followed by example and it became highly politicized and rather CBC as a plague, which is what it is. It was seeing this, I have a friend who's not Jewish he's in the wireless business. He built wireless towers. He was in Florida and he's a very bright fellow. So he went to the beach with his wife or vacation and he was wearing a mask and he said, people lifting. And they said, Oh, you must be Democrat. So this is in Daytona beach. So I think that here in the Northeast, we don't recognize that, but it was political. I was telling somebody I know who was like one of this party and somebody in their family was dying. I said like, why don't you just tell them to sign onto the Republican ticket? And the Corona will go away and that's how absurd it was. But so it wasn't just a Jewish thing or Orthodox thing, but I think that there are other elements to it as well.
Speaker 1 00:20:20 Okay. The other elements I want to just kind of press on this for a second. I'm totally with you that there's a very clear political component to it, but the communities of Orthodox Trump supporters also have a very clear allegiance to Halakhah to Jewish law. And I'm curious how having spoken to many people on your show who are skeptical of mask mandates, I'm curious what your sense is of how those two things interact, that political affiliation, the one hand and a Jewish legal mandate, which seems to look for, which seems to require something quite different.
Speaker 2 00:20:53 I mean, we've heard from Trump, it's the flu, the flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year. And this is a flow. So when you get this type of disinformation from the president of the United States, I mean, you're not hearing it from some Klu Klux con leader or some, you know, UFO advocate, it's from the presidents of all the major networks from the white house. And he says, it's the flu. And there are many such events. And he held many super spread event because he said, it's the flu, right? So that's from just from a medical point. And I still get from people it's the flow. I say, you know, a few thousand Orthodox people died and integrated in New York area from COVID, you know, anybody with the height of the flow. Well, and this, but the president said is the flu sets.
Speaker 2 00:21:37 I think there are more complex parts to it. So I think one part of it is if you look back since year zero, right, almost since then the Byzantines, the Jews have always been persecuted by governments. Wasn't individuals. I don't know where your grandparents come from. Russia. I imagined they had the pale of settlement. A Jew was not allowed into vast. They asked swats of the Soviet union. There were certain splint areas to go to St. Petersburg. They had to get like a visa right in Poland. I mean, they had the white laws. I mean, there were a hundred industries, Jews were blacklisted. They weren't allowed to become a doc that you weren't allowed to become a lawyer. So we've lived through 2000 years of discrimination, genocide Holocaust for grounds Holman Iskey we live in a tiny bubble. It's real, you know, the premier of China spoken Harvard around a few years ago.
Speaker 2 00:22:35 And I don't know what the context was, but one of the students asked them, what do you think of the French revolution, Liberte Guthrie. And he thought for a minute, are you talking to the Chinese go back 3000 years? And he fought and he said, it's too early to tell. Now the industrial revolution is 200 years ago, right? So when you ask a Jew and Orthodox to this government, this loving government is enforcing laws for your benefit. And they're coming from a different world. They're coming from our history. I mean, we celebrate high game that go back 3000 years. Right. And we celebrate rabbinic things that go back to that. We live in a world. That's, you know, you take somebody from the street and you ask them, who was your grandfather? Geez. I don't really know my grand grandfather. You pick your average Orthodox you'll, we'll give you a lineage that goes back to Abraham. Right? So now you're asking him in this bubble, this 50 Bible that's telling you, and they really mean it. And they trying to protect you, governor Cuomo, when he says he doesn't want them people. And it's just a whole different lens that they're looking at it. Right. So that's, that's certainly plays a part in it, right? Yeah. I you're right. About much of
Speaker 1 00:23:46 That. What is striking about what you're describing though, is that it seems like you're describing a kind of reprioritization where it's not that there is an attempt to justify political positions through Jewish law, but rather that politics is just kind of overriding perhaps because it comes with it a completely different set of facts, but that obviously causes real tensions within communities because it suggests a real clash of values between people who imagine themselves as trying to simply follow the law as it is written, or as they understand it, to be written. And those for whom politics is first and foremost. And I'm curious if you see this as first of all, if you see this as a rising tension and how do you ensure that political ideas don't end up cheapening Torah by kind of riding along a wave of some easy interpretation in order to achieve some immediate political end?
Speaker 2 00:24:39 Well, I think that there is a conflict, you know, this government law happens to be for our best interests, but the government law that was a hundred years ago that said you can't wear a yarmulke or beard, or you can't have shaped like the Jewish ritual slaughter was attacked in 19 Belgium this year. Right? So I think that the Jew walks on eggshells on a tenuous line, like balancing moral values that have become outdated. I mean, look at marriage marriage in the United States, it's less than 50% of households. There's a substantial number of singles who will never get married, never been before. Right. Too many people it's like, who cares? I mean, the sanctity of the home is a Jewish priority. The first myths forgiven the quality as well. But <inaudible> a vote, a bias the past school family meal and the understanding, the Jewish understanding of the importance of family of marriage, the character of an individual is best created through a nuclear family who is stable home.
Speaker 2 00:25:55 We do live with the tension that a lot of our values, and these are values that they're not only religious values, but I put to you that the human values, if you would go on and do a search, the success of people who come from a nuclear family, the incidents of crime, et cetera. So a lot of the total values that are both religious values, as well as human values are under onslaught in the society we live in. Right. So did you walk on the tension of balancing the values that we've inherited that are thousands of years old and has changed the world? Given the world values? No other group has given. So we have a great culture that goes back so much longer than the current flash in the pan voice on or whoever it may be. So we have to weigh the conflict of those values versus send the current fed. You know, we say it every day at the end of davening, how Lee close, low, low coal has shown a <inaudible> move stuff flows. You've been alone. It's right before the Elaine and prayer and the towel darshans LICOs alum. <inaudible>,
Speaker 2 00:27:07 Helicos all, it means the paths of paternity belong to him. I'll took <inaudible> Ella levels. One who follows her Locos has eternal paths. And I remember my father was very tall to me. He says, how does Helicos turn into hello house? So he said, how do we close means pathways and pathways are usually temporary. Used to be the Patriots now is the Buccaneers, right? Until January, it was Trumpism. We're going to be looking at borrowed in, right. It went from why ties to skinny time. These pathways are all temporary. When we say <inaudible> eternal pathways, right? There seems to be almost a paradox. There's only one way it can be, must be hella hosts. I love those are eternal.
Speaker 1 00:27:49 It sounds like you're expressing a kind of optimism for the future. I both hear what you're saying. And then I am trying to balance that against the very real rifts that have formed within Jewish communities. I think particularly within Orthodox Jewish communities, there are many Trump supporters. There is also a significant minority of spiders and supporters, non Trump supporters, where I see that those political tensions actually are creating Cirrus, rifts are making it much more difficult for people, family members to talk to each other and are also, I think, as we saw a little while ago around the anti mass protest can lead to some amount of violence. So I'm curious, like how, it sounds like what you were saying is that those are kind of blip along the long Jewish history.
Speaker 2 00:28:29 No, I don't think it's a bluff. I think that it's an eternal struggle between values and reality transcendent and the now, right, the right and the left, but cancel culture that doesn't come from us. Right. I mean, the Jews, one thing we've always had is a very healthy debate. So when you say that this type of insanity where we, you know, I commented on the New York times and they actually printed this one. I said, you know, 50% of America fractionally was voted for a man. Are they all insane? Is everybody insane? I mean, haven't, we learned as children aren't we taught, try to put yourself into the other person's shoes. You may not agree with them, but you can't say 50% of the world is insane. Right? So we've lost things that in kindergarten we were taught. And I just think that what you're seeing in the Orthodox community, the split, the red and blue, it's something that's endemic to America right now. Sadly it's, it's, it's way more than an Orthodox issue. We have just on the contrary adopted this disease that has spread across the country, the inability to listen to the other person. So I'm curious
Speaker 1 00:29:42 In the context of your show, when you were thinking about putting together a show, what it means for you to kind of achieve balance of views, because it sounds like you are very much invested in having all parts of at least the Orthodox community represented in your conversations. I'm curious how you think about that kind of balance. And I also want to ask as part of that as a long-time listener to this show, I think it's hard to not notice that the vast majority of your guests are men. And I'm curious how you both think about inviting men versus women on the show. And then also how you think about the range of political positions that you'd like to feature.
Speaker 2 00:30:18 I think that what I would like to accomplish is under the rubric of Halla, which to me is how lethal saw them. That's the way I try to live my life. If the <inaudible> is a defining document in your life, we should otherwise be a political. And if I can bring on from the very right, all the way to the left, but we'll work under the rubric of Halakhah, I've created a dialogue and dialogue, which we see in the United States is so missing in Judaism to creating the dialogue creates real value and people open up their eyes and they say, wow, I didn't understand that other opinion. So we've created like a weirdness, um, brotherhood call you straw on rave and Zella is that when you understand the other person, when he's not just a number or a garb, we foster humanity. We foster love right now, as far as women, the overriding theme was hella.
Speaker 2 00:31:17 And for the most part, it's not what they study, right? So when we've gone off of how Lofa to social issues, psychology bringing up children, marriage, we've had many women who are experts in this field. But for example, this program is about end of life issues. Most women would just not really be comfortable discussing that. So it's not male or female. It's, what's your area of expertise. So on child rearing, I would have a woman before I would have a man or a psychology or social issues or et cetera, but we've had on many women over the years. For me, it's not about misogyny. It's just about looking for somebody who's published on that. We try to get somebody who's published on the area that we're discussing.
Speaker 1 00:31:59 I mean, it sounds like what you're describing as they reflect existing inequalities within Orthodox communities, which have far more men in positions to speak to matters of Jewish law.
Speaker 2 00:32:10 Well, you say it as an inequality and that's a discussion because I don't see it as an inequality. I think that there is the female voice and there's the male voice and they're equally valuable. And I'll give you an example. You're a male. You think it's a matter of inequality. That Jewish heritage is matrilineal. And patrilineal that if a Jewish woman marries a non religionists, the child of the Jewish, the Jewish man marries, right? The child is not Jewish. Do you see that as a sign of inequality? I don't. I see it that there's different voices, right? And both voices are equally valuable. The man in Judaism, and I'm going to use very broad metaphors, which please do not hold me to is sort of supposed to be the Hunter gatherer out there in the world. And it could be both intellectually or physically. And the woman is supposed to be the one who brings up future generations, who ensures the continuity of the Jewish people who brings what was brought back and turns it into a home.
Speaker 2 00:33:15 Now, when we talk about the lineage, the future of the Jewish people, we say, that's true. The woman nurturing comes from her. Empathy comes from her. And when I say comes from, I don't mean singly, there are men who can nurture and they're men who could be empathetic, but just in broad strokes, the nurture, the one who gives love the one who for the most part creates the psych of the child. So the four or five years old fathers out that the mother doing all that. So is that unequal or is that just a different voice? Judaism believes that they're equal, but they have different voices.
Speaker 1 00:33:47 Oh, I think we probably disagree about that, but I think that's probably for a larger discussion. If
Speaker 2 00:33:52 We wouldn't disagree, we wouldn't be Jewish.
Speaker 1 00:33:54 He might be right. One more question if that's all right. So I think there's a number of positions that you've expressed in the conversation today, which I personally disagree with about gender roles. I think in particular, you clearly are someone who's very interested in community dialogue and having people who disagree with each other speak. I'm curious to what degree you see it as being important for people in the Orthodox community to be in conversation with people outside of it in a way that creates mutual understanding there. Because I see within the sphere that you operate, you are engaged in a project that is creating some amount of conversation and some men of understanding, but there's also a kind of separate conversation happening also within the Jewish world, which looks very different. I'm curious how much you personally are interested in that conversation and how much you think it is important for Thrace Jews to be involved in that.
Speaker 2 00:34:46 I think that's a complicated question. I think that it's like, it's a question on many levels. Should we be interacting with secular Jews? And then should we reacting with the world as a whole right now, as far as acting with secular Jews, we only have five minutes. That's what I'll address. I think kabod has done that admirably. And I think it's something that we could probably do better, but here's the conundrum as the world becomes more and more morally. I don't want to use the word to praised, but morally distant from our beliefs. You know, when you enter into a conversation, it means you have to have an association on some level and I'll give you an example. Moses famously Moshe was asked by Hashem to speak to the stone. And instead he hits the stone and what's the metaphor here. He was supposed to speak to the people and say, listen, God is good.
Speaker 2 00:35:45 He has your best interest. He was supposed to convince. And he did. And he hit the stone. What does that mean? Why did he hit it to enter into a dialogue? The only way to convince is if I can be vulnerable and be convinced, Moshe would not enter into a dialogue with doubters of God. It was too shocking to him. So we hit the stone, right? So I think to enter into a dialogue with secular means we have to take a kebab, has done it admirably. I don't know what the loss ratio is, but we have to take the achiever boy who has never been on the internet maybe, and has never debated LBGTQ issues. Right? And suddenly we're thrusting him into a sphere where to have this conversation is you better get educated son. So there's a certain element of like, I just don't want to take that chance of infection, right. And have the benefit of now being a persuader. And that's a risk. And as a leader, I understand the dynamics of that risk.
Speaker 1 00:36:51 I appreciate you putting it into those terms. I think it's an honest and Frank way to frame it. And I appreciate by the same token, you coming on the show today, you'll be blessed. Okay. So that's our show. Thanks for listening. Special. Thanks to <inaudible> identity. Crisis is a product of the Shillong apartment Institute. It was produced this week by me. Devacy common edited by Alex Dillon. The managing producer is Dan Friedman with music provided by so-called special things this week to you. It occurred to, to learn more about the Shalom Hartman Institute. Visit us
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