American Jews have experienced a unique relationship with their homeland characterized by unprecedented welcome and freedom, as evidenced by George Washington's 1790 letter to the Touro congregation affirming that Jews are citizens, not petitioners for tolerance. This welcoming environment has enabled American Jews to creatively adapt their religious and cultural practices across generations, from the founding of B'nai B'rith in 1880 to the invention of the modern bar mitzvah by Rabbi Israel Goldfarb in 1925, and the establishment of suburban Jewish communities like Levittown in the 1950s. However, this unique position has also exposed American Jews to significant challenges, including a recent rise in anti-Semitism that has affected both far-right and far-left movements, as well as university campuses. The key insight is that American Judaism's strength lies in its ability to continuously innovate and create new forms of Jewish life that meet the moment, rather than being constrained by external forces as in European Jewish history.
Hazak Monday - May 11, 2026Added:
Um the other announcements will come afterwards, but um someone who needs no introduction at all. Uh that is uh Rabbi Feinstein who's hiding behind the screen is going to talk to about talk to us today about the 21st century and what it says about Judaism.
>> Okay, I'm hanging on.
Okay. And then I might add this.
Today uh the Torah study um will be a uh special topic by Rabbi Feinstein who was doing Torah study anyway and we wouldn't know what the topic was then but we now know he's having a special topic topic on ethical wills and uh there will be a guest uh her name is Kimber Saxs and she's the director of advanced planning for Mount Si Memorial Park. And I just want you to know that grant um Mount S always gives us a grant to support all of our senior programming. So today we've rearranged to have Tora study in Glazer right here in case there are more people that wish to attend to hear this special presentation.
So now >> Hi, >> leave me one of these and pass the rest of these out.
>> Sure.
>> This should be enough. If a couple people will share it would be fine.
Thanks.
>> This is your one. You want me to pass this?
>> I'll keep this one. You keep that.
That's better.
>> That's what you want.
>> This room is fun for a close your eyes.
No, I'm not watching. I'm a congregational rabbi. If you fall asleep in front of me, I'll feel at home, >> you know. So, please close your eyes and drift off and take a Don't snore. That's the only problem. We used to have people that snored in shul and it was problem because they were off key, you know, they were conflicting with the caner.
Uh, good morning. Nice to be together.
Usually I work on Monday mornings. I teach young rabbis at the Ziggler school on Monday mornings, but class ended last week and uh the uh two rabbis that are going to become rabbis are be rabbis next week. So I'm really glad to be together with you u this morning. So as all of you know, I was trying to think of what what Sharon asked me for a topic and I couldn't think of anything. Um, but then it occurred to me that in July, which is just a few weeks from now, we're going to be celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States of America.
And I don't know about you, but when I have one of these birthdays with a zero in it, it's a it sort of stops you, right? You know, you're something something 22, 72, 65. Yeah. But when you get a zero birthday, it causes it's a cause for reflection. So I think 250 years of America is a cause for reflection.
And I want to say three things about our experience in America as Jews. We have a lot to say about America as America, but we'll leave that for other people and other times. But let's say three things about America as Jew, as Jewish Americans or as American Jews. First of all, in all the history of the Jewish people and all the history of the Jewish diaspora, in all the lands that we have lived and all the cultures that we have shared, no place has been like America.
No place has been more welcoming, more accepting. No place has given us more freedom, security, no place has given allowed us more influence than America.
with all the problems and we'll talk about them in a minute but no place has been like America first of all because the American story and the Jewish story are so very congruent right think about your Thanksgiving table every November in the third week of nove fourth week of November you sit with your family uh people you can't stand normally and you sit over a table filled with turkey and and stuffing and cornbread and uh green beans and some kind of gray stuff and and and mashed yams and apple pie and pumpkin pie and peacon pie. And before you eat all this stuff, you tell a story. And the story is that when we were back in Old England, we were an oppressed minority. Well, you may not use that melody because you might be spartic, but this is how our seder goes.
Was it, you know, when we lived in England, we were an oppressed minority and we got on a tiny little boat and we sailed across the mighty sea and we arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the winter, which is not a place you want to be in the winter. And we were starving and out of the brush, out of the bush, came the friendly natives and they supported us and protected us. So when we survived a year later, there was a feast and we give thanks to God for this wonderful country. Do you ever notice how much that story resembles our story? We begin in a place of tyranny of oppression. We run away from that place. We take an arduous journey to get to a promised land, a land of milk and honey, a land of providence. And we the idea that somehow God is guiding this process. The American story and the Jewish story are congruent. I mean there's a reason for that of course because the founders of this country knew their Bible and they saw themselves through the lens of the Bible. But the fact that we tell that story just like they tell that story. It's the same basic story. The fact that all of us are immigrants here. All of us are immigrants. We all came from someplace else. The fact that we came seeking freedom and opportunity and possibilities that were not allowed us in the places where we came from. The fact that we suffered to get here. The fact that when we got here and we managed to arrive, we found allies and friends who would help us root ourselves in this place and survive. and the fact that we have a sense of obligation to give thanks for this remarkable gift of this place. And of course, because it's a Jewish story, it's over food, whether it's matzah and gapilta fish on one table or turkey and yams on the other.
And by the way, someone one of my professors pointed out something which is something you got to remember. It's a good thing they chose a turkey because if they had chosen a ham, we'd have been screwed. I mean, but the idea that you can go to Ventura Kosher Meat and pay $125 for a turkey, well, all right, you can get a turkey. But the idea that we can share the story, share the narrative, and the idea that we all see ourselves as newcomers to this place, this gives rise to a sense that we belong here. One of the most rem I didn't give you this text because this is pages about other things. But one of the most remarkable texts which I read every year at this time when I get ready for the 4th of July is the letter of George Washington to the Turo congregation in 1790. So what happened was in 1789 George Washington is elected first president of the United States and the first synagogue in North America in America not North America but in America was in was in Newport Rhode Island. It was the Turo synagogue and it was made up of European refugees, both Spartic and a few Ashkanazi. And it was a custom in Europe when a new king was crowned that you sent him a letter of congratulations begging his protection. And the congregation sends a letter to Washington congratulating him because nobody knew what a president was at that time. And they thought they thought of him like a king, like a European king.
And they send him a letter and they say to him, you know, we congratulate you and your name is so wonderful and you'll be known throughout. They butter him up and then finally they said, you know, and we only ask your indulgence to tolerate our presence in this country.
And Washington sends back the most remarkable letter which sets the tone for our experience here in America. He says first of and by the way Washington unlike presidents we've had Washington could write and he writes this beautiful letter where first of all says thank you for your sweet words and your flattery is very meaningful to me he says but your petition your quest your quest your request for protection and most of all your your request for tolerance is inappropriate.
It's inappropriate because here in America, we don't tolerate anyone. You are citizens just like me. You belong here just like I do. This is your home just like it's my home. And there's no reason to ask me to tolerate your presence. You belong here. And it's the most wonderful thing to hear an American president say this because Jews had never heard that anywhere in the world.
Wherever we were, we begged the prince, the king, the duke, the Earl, the powers that be to tolerate our presence. And George Washington says that petition is unnecessary and it's inappropriate given American democracy. Well, that that's been our experience here. We belong here. Number one, because the the the the narrative is our narrative. Number two, because just like everyone else, we came as an immigrant. We came before some people and after some people and we belong here. The other thing that makes our presence here in America so remarkable is that America invited us to tell it its story.
That America invited Jews to tell America the American story. We did this in literature. We did this in song. We did this in film. We did this in television. Some of you remember I gave a sermon a couple of years ago about one of my favorite movies. It's a Wonderful Life. It's a Wonderful Life is a actually a Christmas movie. If you've ever seen it, it starts playing sometime in October and it's on every channel every hour, 24 hours a day. There's a reason for that, by the way. The reason for that is that when the film first came out in 1946, it was a flop and they put it on a shelf. They stopped playing it in theaters because it didn't make any money.
In 1974, the copyright expired on the movie and the people at Republic Pictures who owned the movie forgot to renew the copyright and so television stations realized it didn't cost them anything to play this movie. And to this day, any TV station anywhere can play that movie and doesn't have to pay royalties the way you have to play pay for every other movie. And that's why it's on 24 hours a day. And it became a a classic after 1974. It became a Christmas classic. And what's amazing about that story is that it's it's first of all, when you look at it, it's America. I mean, who stars in that movie?
>> Stewart.
>> Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. two more pariv whiteb breadred mayonnaise Americans you're not gonna find right and it's about a place called Bedford Falls and it's a Christmas movie first of all the story of the movie the movie was written the story was written by a Jewish fellow named uh named Van Doran uh Van Duran Stern was his name and he writes the story and no one picked it up no one wanted to publish it so he used to send it out as a Christmas present to his friends he was Jewish but he had a lot of Christian friends and he sent it out and that's how got made. It got sent to Republic Pictures. And when a young Italian director named Frank Cafra came back from the Second World War, he loved the movie and he made the movie. And Frank Capra was an Italian, but when he came to America, he saw himself as a Jew. His autobiographical movie is about a Jewish immigrant. It was made by Frank Capra. It was written by Van Duran Stern, a Jew. The movie itself was written by a Jewish couple. Capra, who is this Italian immigrant, makes the movie, but the producer of the movie, this is a good this is a good um trivia question. The producer of a movie was Sam Brisken, who's the who was the president of Temple Israel of Hollywood and Cedar Sears of Lebanon Hospital. And today, the day school at Temple Israel is the Brisken Day School. They made this movie and if you watch the movie first of all it's a great young Kipper movie. It's not a Christmas movie because the question is does your life matter right?
It's about a guy who is a banking problem and he wants to throw himself off the bridge and he meets Clarence the angel and Clarence says let me show you the world if you didn't exist. And in the last scene of the movie that's what the part I talked about. Remember the last scene in the movie, the bank inspector and the policeman is in is in George Bailey's, by the way, George Bailey, another Jewish name, right? What does he do for a living? He's a money lender. He's Shillock. Except Shillock in this movie is a good guy because he's the one who builds the neighborhood, right? Oh, and by the way, in case it doesn't strike you as home, you're sitting in Bedford Falls.
The RKO Ranch was where they filmed the movie. The RKO Ranch is in is Lake Inino is the park over here on Balboa. They filmed the movie one mile from here. I'm not making this up. So, you're sitting in the suburbs of Bedford Falls right now. And in the last scene of the movie when they're about to arrest him and take him away for bank fraud, the whole neighborhood shows up in his house and they bring all their money to save him.
Remember? And when they pan across this neighborhood, what do you see? You see black people and white people. You see rich people and poor people. You see immigrants and native people or people that have immigrated and other You see Irish people and Italian people. You people of every shade and every color all gathered together to protect each other. This was Frank Capra and Sam Briskin's image of America. Now, in 1946 when they made the movie, that wasn't America. America was highly segregated.
America had a lot of anti-semitism.
America had a lot of anti-immigrant hate. But Capra had come back from the war and he saw what hate does. And he wanted to show America what it could be.
Brisken and Capra. It's a Jewish movie because America asked us to show it what it could be. a place of welcome, a place of tolerance, a place of solidarity, a place, a neighborhood where people take care of each other. No place has been as good to us as a as America.
That's the first thing. And we have to recognize that. And on an on July 4th, right, we we we should take a moment and just give thanks for to providence for the gift of this land. Number two, since October 7th, two years ago, we've seen this radical rise in anti-semitism.
Now, anti-semitism has always been part of America. There has always been a populist anti-semitic theme in America. Always. and and populist movements, that is movements of common people rebelling against the people they they see as the elites, have always identified Jews as part of the elite. And so it's always been and there's always been an anti-semitism to American populism. And because right now the country is gripped with this populism, you get this anti-semitism.
What's really surprising to us is where it's coming from. You know, that the far right hates Jews. That the guys who marched in Charlotte with the torches saying Jews will not replace us. That's part of a theory that says Jewish people are responsible for bringing hordes of colored immigrants, people of color who are immigrants into America to steal American jobs and take American prosperity. That's a far-right myth. And that's where you get that that mob saying, "Jews will not replace us."
That's why the guy went to the synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot those people because the synagogue had just had a Shabbat celebration of hyas, the Hebrew immigrant aid society, which is an organization created by, for, and eventually supported by the Jewish community to support immigrants coming into the country. He resented the fact that immigrants were coming into the country to steal his jobs, to steal his prosperity. That's the myth on the far right. Today, the far right is personified by Tucker Carlson, who believes that the reason that we were dragged into a war in Iran was because of Kabad. I'm not making this up, right?
He really did this. He did this whole number on how Israeli soldiers have pictures of the Holy Temple on their sleeves and that's why we got slept in and it's a Jewish war that we're fighting. Tucker Carlson who was the right-wing commentator is now the sort of face. There's others as well. There's this Candace Owens who's a really interesting young woman and a few other on the far right. But the thing that surprised us wasn't the far right. We expect it. We always expect the Ku Klux Clan to hate us. The far right. What's really interesting is the far-left, we never expected to hear anti-semitism of all places on university campuses because the university was the place where we always went to gain the skills to become part of a liberal America and the university was a place where we felt at home. 89% of our kids go on to college. And what colleges are the most Jewish colleges in America? Colombia and Penn. University of Pennsylvania is the world's biggest Jewish day school. And and and that's where you saw these vicious anti-Israel and not just anti-Israel, if it had just been anti-Israel to be one thing, but anti-Z anti anti-semitic riots during the October 7th, right? And then you get, you know, the New York Times's slant and the sort of left-wing intellectuals, the movie stars and writers who are all shouting about genocide. And it's a very interesting and it's if it were just anti-Israel, it'd be something that we could tolerate because we can argue with that, but it becomes this vicious anti-semitism. And so you have what they call a horseshoe effect, which is that normal Americans in the middle don't have any more hate than they ever did. It's people on the far right and the far left who suddenly found one common cause. They have completely different visions of what the country should be. But the one thing they agree on is that whatever is wrong in the world is our fault. So this has become a surprise. Now the third interesting fact is the contrast between one and two. the contrast between an America that was always so welcoming to us and this vicious anti-semitism that has risen up on one level. The first thing we've done is s simply to as they say harden the targets. You may have noticed that when you come into Valley Bash Shalom, we have a small army guarding the place right now. These are very, very nice fellows. And the wonderful thing is if you come earlier in the morning, they know every little kid coming into the nursery school. They slap high fives.
They know what they eat for lunch. They know what ball teams they root for. It's an amazing thing. These lovely, lovely men who carry huge weapons on their hips have become the sort of welcoming force.
And my my grandson can't start school in the morning until he gives Mario a high five. Right. It's and it's a sweet thing to see how kind they are. But the fact that we need them here is an awfully sad statement about where we've come because you can go anywhere in a you can go to the mall and you can go to the ballpark and you can go to Disneyland and yeah there's security of course but not like this.
And no church has metal detectors that I know about.
And the contrast between an America that has been so accepting and this sudden vicious rise of anti-semitism.
This has been something that has shocked our community. And this I think is part of what we need to meditate and think about. Is this simply a temporary thing?
Is this new a new theme in American life? Is this rooted in America? I mean there have been there is anti-semitism rooted in America because because of lots of things. But the question is how is this just a temporary thing? Is this anti-Israel? All kinds of interesting questions. How many of you have children or grandchildren who are currently in college or university? Anyone? Well, they'll tell you stories, right? Have they told you things about Right. They tell you stories. So, you know, so Sarah who goes to Berkeley calls me and tells me that she she's premed at Berkeley and she went to a biochemistry laboratory and the professor who runs the laboratory decided to spend the afternoon lecturing the students on the evil of is of Israel. She's supposed to be studying, you know, organic chemistry and instead this is the stuff that she's getting. On the other hand, the amazing thing that happened is so Sarah my friend with George is here. so I can brag about her. She's going to graduate next week from Berkeley. Um Sarah gathered with a group of kids who felt that even the local Jewish campus organizations like Hilla were not sufficiently assertive toward Israel and they created a new organization called Tikva which is a pro-Israel Berkeley student organization and have done really well. And this has happened on many campuses.
This is where we sit today. this ambivalence, this contrast. This is where we sit today. And I don't exactly know. I mean, you can ask me what are we going to do about it? And I can give you a couple of opinions, but this is where America we sit with America right now. The second, but but here's one thing I what I do, I brought you some texts and I want you to see. But Jewish life in America, as comfortable as it's been, as accepting has been, has always been a little bit ambivalent.
It's always been a little bit ambivalent. It's been ambivalent both from the outside because there has always been an element of anti-semitism and it's been ambivalent from the inside. And let's take a moment and talk about that because whenever I talk about America and I say nice things about America, somebody always rushes up to me and tells me about their kid who used to be such a great Jewish kid and is now god knows what. Right? But here's the point. What what's interesting is that when we lived in Europe, when Jews were in Europe, either in Eastern Europe or Central Europe, a few Jews in Western Europe, but mostly Eastern or Central, or Jews actually in the east, if your family is Sephardic and comes from Turkey or Egypt or Tunisia, the community always came first and the community had a grip on people. even if they didn't want it, they had a grip on people because you first of all had no alternative but to be a member of the community otherwise you would be a person with no identity and second of all because if you wanted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery if you wanted to have anybody around you to protect you you had to belong to the community and the community had a certain form of a certain sort of authority over your life when we come to America there is no such thing Jewish life in America like of all religious life in America is something that's done in private and it's something that's completely voluntary and it's something that you have to sign on for. You have to choose to do it. It's why we have this phrase we call Jews by choice. It's what we call people who convert to Judaism. But the truth of the matter is we're all Jews by choice because if you decided tomorrow not to show up to Khazak, you shouldn't show up tomorrow because there is no Khazak. But if you decided to walk into the Presbyterian church tomorrow and sign up, nothing would happen. I mean, your Jewish friends would have a hard time inviting you to seder, but other than that, it's not there's no force that can keep you engaged in the Jewish world. It's all now a pull of whether there's something meaningful here, something important here. And this is one of the features of Jewish life that has made Jewish life in America so unique.
Even in Europe today, there is more of a sense of the community and your your presence in a community because even in Europe today and today Europe of course is very liberal, very dumb democratic. The community still has a grip on people.
There are certain things you just can't do in Eng has to become part of a community.
This fact of Jewish life in America makes Jewish life very interesting. Let me show you what I mean? We good so far?
Everybody okay?
>> You going back to sleep? Okay.
The first ordained rabbi to come to America was a man named Abraham Rice.
He was ordained in Bavaria and he came here in 1840 or 1838 actually to become the rabbi of Nidrael which is Baltimore. It's a shul in Baltimore. After two years of serving as the rabbi in Baltimore, he writes a letter back to his teacher back in Bavaria. And here's the letter. I dwell in complete isolation without a teacher or companion in this land whose atmosphere is not conducive to wisdom.
My soul weeps. The character of religious life in this land is on the lowest level. Most of the people are eating non-coosher food, violating the shabas in public. There are thousands who've been assimilated among the non-Jewish population and have married non-Jewish women. Under these circumstances, my mind is perplexed, and I wonder whether a Jew may live in a land such as this. He did. He resigned the pulpit, opened a grocery store, and spent the rest of his life living a quiet, private life. In other words, the first the first rabbi in this land identified the fact that in America, Jewish life is going to be very different. It's not going to be what it was in Europe where people were kept by social standards in certain lines, behaving in certain ways.
This is going to be a very different place. And he found it very difficult to carry on Jewish life here. Now, just just for all of you because I know what you're thinking because this is what when what Jews tell me all the time when I ask Jewish people, "Who in your family came to America first?" And they'll say, "Oh, that was my great greatgrandfather."
Tell me about your great-grandfather.
Oh, he was a very Orthodox rabbi.
It turns out that only Orthodox rabbis came to America. Did you know that? shoe makers, you know, people who drove carts, farmers, cow. No, only Orthodox rabbis. Whole shiploads of Orthodox rabbis came to America and they were they lived a very orthodox life.
They were very traditional. We have this kind of We have this kind of nostalgia.
They were very traditional. We are failures.
Here's what I want to tell you. It ain't. So watch. So in the next aliyah is so 1840 come Jews from Germany.
Right. Let's start over again. The first Jews to come here came to New Amsterdam.
They were refugees from Spain who were in who were in um in Brazil. And then when Recipe Brazil was conquered, they came to New Amsterdam. They were Dutch uh Portuguese Dutch. They were Portuguese and they came to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and they tried to uh and they they were allowed off the boat but they were told they couldn't be citizens. So what they did was right away is they emailed the company the company that know that owned New Amsterdam was the Dutch West Dust East Indies company and it was owned by Jews and the East Indies company sends an email to Peter Styverson saying are you crazy? These are our cousins and that's how we ended up here. They were Braz they were Portuguese sphartum. Then there was an aliy of Portuguese and and sphartic Jews in the 18 in the in the 1700s and 1800s. And the first big group of Ashkanazim to come came in 1840, the Germans. They came first in 1840 and then they came again in 1870.
And so you had a substantial population, not huge, but substantial population in certain cities in New York, in Newport, in Savannah, Georgia, along the eastern seabboard of German Jews who came to this country and did really well. They actually did really well. They were pretty, they were wealthy coming in already. And the one of the reasons they came is because there were these populist revolutions in Germany and they wanted to get away. They didn't want to lose their wealth. So they brought their wealth with them and they settled in New York City and they became very popular and very prosperous. Right? Here's a story about them. So by the time they reached their next second generation, 1870. So these are second generation German Jews living in America. What happened to their kids? Well, their kids began doing what Jewish kids have always done in America, right? going to football games on Friday night and dating non-Jews and so so this is an editorial from the New York Herald. New York Herald is Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper. This is not a Jewish newspaper. This is a general New York newspaper. This is Joseph Pulitzer in 1872.
To maintain Judaism in America, something more than a mere recitation of prayers in Hebrew and German is necessary. That's an American newspaper saying, "If you people want to hold on to your kids, you're going to have to do something new." The people, these people are much more intelligent than they were a century, a century and a half ago. And certain and are any religious symbols system that keeps up not with the progressive spirit of the age must expect to meet such a crisis in which the Jewish church in America now finds itself. The rising generations demand a form of religion which their hearts can appreciate and hold fast to though they ask for no change in the true spirit of religion at all. And it is the attempt here's a great line to confine them to the iron bands of system of bygone ages.
What a great phrase that has produced results which the Hebrew press so frequently and generally lament. namely that young Israelites do not manifest that love for the synagogue which their fathers and forefathers showed. Rightly understood, this very religious indisposition is a sign of progress which loudly calls and earnest it and calls loudly and earnestly on the Jewish church to furnish such spiritual food as young American souls can digest.
1872, Jewish kids weren't coming to Shaw.
They weren't coming to Shaw. Why weren't they coming to Shaw? Because the synagogue was run according to the tradition of their grandparents, their parents and grandparents, because it was German and Germanic and formal and boring and they didn't want to participate and they were abandoning Judaism.
Anybody know what they did?
They founded Benet Brrith. Anybody heard of Benet Brrith? Anybody belong to AA or BBG as a kid? Oh, there you go. Benet Brrith was founded in 1880 as a response to this. It was a fraternal organization created first for boys and then for girl young men and women to give them a social opportunity to hang out with other Jews. And it became very popular.
But of course, what happened in 1872 is this was just on the verge because what was about to happen? Thesar in Russia was about to get assassinated. I get this mixed up. It was either Alexander or Nicholas. One of them gets assassinated and the other one is his brother who becomes thesar. And he decide and the the guy who killed him was a Jew, a Jewish radical. And the thesizes the Zar decides we we have two and a half million Jews that the Russians had adopted from Poland. The Russians took over they gobbled up a set a part a part of Poland and they ended up with a section of Poland called the Palis settlement which was the residence of two and a half million Jews. Ukraine Poland right it's where most of your ancestors came from. And the Zar decided we got to get rid of these Jews. They're a problem to us. So what did they decide to do? Kill a third, convert a third, expel a third, kill a third. There were radical pilgrims across the Palis settlement, sponsored by the police, sponsored by the government, convert a third. Every Jewish kid over the age of eight was conscripted into the Russian army.
Right? So the reason I got here is because my grandfather got his conscription notice and the family put him on a boat to America. Get him out of the country and expel a third. You remember Fiddler on the Roof? Remember the end of Fiddler on the Roof, right?
The police chief comes and says there's going to be a pogrum. And it was a mild pogram. Nobody got killed, but it was enough to tell the town it's time to leave. And at the end, where's Tevia going? To Chicago, right? He's on he's got the cart and his kids and he's going to and that's how many of us ended up here between 1880 and 19 1912 1915 right when the war really began 1914 right two and a half million Jews from Europe came to America and they landed in New York except for the very few landed in Galveastston or the very few couldn't get in and landed in Canada and a few ended up in Cuba but most of them landed in New York and they formed what we know as thetle of the Lower East Side, which you all have a cinematic dream about. Oh, Rabbi, when my greatgrandparents came here, they lived on the Lower East Side and it was very orthodox.
Here is a piece from a a study by the Center for Jewish History, which is a remarkable organization in New York City. It's a very long study, and I just swiped a paragraph from it. Listen carefully. In the early 1900s, New York City, most notably the Lower East Side, was overflowing with synagogues. Well, sure, because they were also Orthodox.
Most of these congregations grew out of lansman shaftton or societies developed by groups of predominant Eastern European Jewish immigrants who came from the same hometown. The synagogue was much more than a place to pray for active members. It was an entire way of life. What's a lansman shaft? A lanceman shop is you came from a certain area of Poland or Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Romania or Russia and you came and you found people who spoke your language who ate your foods who knew your customs because you were in this strange land and had no you didn't make plans to be here. you just arrived here and finally you found some people so you hung out with them and they created these cultural groups right and the syn the synagogues by the way were named this there was the Roman shul or the pale right there they were the remain that each community had its own synagogue but it wasn't a synagogue it was a cultural center as a place to feel like I'm back at home again to smell All the smells of the cooking that I recognized, to hear the accents I recognized, to hear the prayers, the music that I recognized. By the way, when I first came to VBS, we have many, many Persian friends here, Jews who came from Persia, and they would dab in with us every Shabas morning. They'd be with every Shabas morning. But on YT, they weren't here.
None of them came here for Yontiff. And I once asked one of my friends, you guys are here every Sabbath. Why don't you come for Rashashana?
And it was the same thing, Rabbi. When Rashan Yam Kipper comes, we want to hear the melodies from home.
We love your caner. We love your melodies. But these are Ashkanazic mel.
We want to hear the melodies from home.
So the reason why we started a sphartic service here at VBS because I said, well, what if I got you a sphartic caner here? That would be wonderful. And we started our sphartic service here because they just you want to hear from home, right? And that's what synagogues were.
Now, here's the important stat statistic for all you very very very orthodox grandparents. During the first two decades of the 20th century, estimates of the proportion of New York adults male Jewish population who attended weekly Sabbath services ranged from 5 to 40%, most tending to 20%.
The attendance of women and children unreported but even smaller. Why didn't people come to Shaw?
Well, for one thing, they had to work on Saturdays, right? If you came here and you were hungry and you worked in a sweat shop, you were expected to work on Saturday. And if you had a choice between feeding your family and going to Schul, you made the compromise and fed the family. That's number one. Number two is because religious life in the old country wasn't all tevia.
It wasn't all happy Jews singing with bottles on their heads. religious life, much less social life, could be oppressive.
And people came to America and felt now is my chance to be liberated from the religion that stifled me.
There's an old joke that before he died, Zeta called me to his bedside and he says, my my grandson, you have to make me a promise. What's your promise?
What's the promise, Zeta? I want you to grow up and become a marine biologist.
Zeta, what do you know from a marine biologist? No, no. I want you to become a marine biologist and get one of those things. What do you call it that you go underwater? Scuba. Yeah. Get a scuba. Go down into the bottom of New York Harbor and retrieve all the fillin and all the prayer books and all the talises that are at the bottom of New York Harbor.
For people who felt that religious life in the old country was oppressive, they tossed it overboard. I mean, we make fun of the names that got changed at Ellis Island. There's a new study that said that story is not exactly true. But the idea that identities were changed when we came to America because people's identities and by the way it's not just the number of synagogues and who came.
There is actually a very simple empirical way to figure out how orthodox our ancestors were on the lower east side. Orthodox women every month go to mikvah.
Okay? They go to mikvah before their cycle starts again. Right. How many mikvahas were on the Lower East Side?
Okay. What? Not many.
Not many. And that's a very big deal in Orthodox life. And when you figure that you have a couple of million people living there and half of them are women and half of them are of childbearing ages, you would imagine there were hundreds and hundreds of mikvas. They're not.
Which means that so many of them came to America and made an adjustment to this country.
They made an adjustment to this country, both a practical adjustment and a personal adjustment. And in that first generation, it was confusing because they wanted to hold on so tightly to the culture that they knew. And at the same time, they needed to make adjustments to the life of this country. And at the same time, they wanted their children to hold on to that tradition. And at the same time, those children were sent to New York City public schools.
So what happens in the second generation?
The second generation of American judge that children of the immigrants. It's a very interesting ambivalent generation.
Right? This is the generation that Philip Roth writes about and Bernie Malamut writes about and Herman Woke writes about all the Leon Urus writes about all the great Jewish novelists and and and Saloo writes about. These are the these are the the movies and the stories of that generation. and its ambivalence.
I found a snapshot of that ambivalence.
Tell you a quick story. I was doing my doctoral research at the library at the University of Judaism. May it rest in peace. And um and there's a shelf I got to the shelf that had I was looking at the history of Jewish America at the beginning of the 20th century. And there's a whole shelf of books and there's one book on the shelf that doesn't have a tag on it.
Now, if you're a library schmuck like me, that's already catnip. So, I say, "Oh, I got to see what this is." And I pull this book off and I start looking at this book, and it's amazing. Here's what happens. In 1925 and 1926, the New York Board of Jewish Ministers, that's what the organization was called.
We'd call it the Board of Rabbis. The New York Board of Jewish Min held a year-long conference. Every month they met, one of the rabbis gave a paper on a topic. Two of the rabbis responded to it. And these rabbis, by the way, were the greatest of American rabbis, right?
This is Israel Goldstein and Goldfarb you'll meet in a minute. And Steven S.
Wise. These are great rabbis. And and and they're talking about the problems of being a rabbi in 1925.
In 1925. So you have basically a snapshot of what Jewish life was like in that second generation. What happened in the second generation? We moved out of the Lower East Side into >> Brooklyn. If you lived in Chicago, you moved from >> North.
>> What was the first neighborhood? The first neighborhood was south, right? And then you What was the next neighborhood?
>> Highland. No, Highland Park is the third neighborhood.
>> Evston.
>> Highland Park is in Cino. Evston.
>> No, not even.
>> Yeah. The middle of the city, right?
Yeah.
>> West Rogers Park, >> right? West Rogers Park. West Rogers Park. Here in LA didn't have the same thing because LA was already an extension, but you started in Boille Heights. You ended up in West Adams, right? And then made the third step was was the West Side or the Valley, right?
Which is where I was raised. All right, Brooklyn. Let me introduce you to my friend. This is a rabbi. I'll come back to Brandeise in a minute.
Rabbi Israel Goldfarb was the rabbi of the Cane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn. By the way, very big Yepy synagogue today. Kain Street Synagogue where >> Street on Cane Street.
>> I don't know. It was in K. What do I know from Brooklyn?
I can look it up for you. It's still there, by the way. He he also, by the way, so he's known for a couple of things. Number one, he was an instructor in Jewish music at the Jewish Theological Seminary because nobody could make a living just as a synagogue rabbi. He is the author of a melody we all sing. He is the composer of Shalom.
Somebody had to write that melody.
He wrote that. Number two, there was a young musical prodigy in his synagogue that he got close to because he was a musician and he did his bar mitzvah and that boy's name was Aaron Copeland. He was very close to the Copeland family and Aaron Copeland did his bar mitzvah with Rabbi Goldfar at Kain Street. They became very close because Copeland because Goldfarb was a great music. I don't know if Copeland wrote his ha to the to the Appalachian Spring, but I imagine Yes, please.
>> Yeah. Kaplan.
>> Sure. You're not going to get far with a name like Kaplan. Right. Okay. Third, um, he he created something and I'll tell you what he created as soon as we read his words. You ready? So, this is his contribution to this study, to this conference on the problems of being a rabbi in 1925.
For all of you who think that your grandparents were so orthodox, of all the problems that beset the American rabbi of today, none is more complex and more difficult to solve than how to bring the child closer to the synagogue, how to arouse his interest in things Jewish, and how to secure his permanent attachment to the ideals and faith of our people. This problem, which is of vital importance to the future of Judaism in America, was completely unknown to our predecessors a generation ago, particularly in the more established communities of the old world, where Jewish life was settled and well ordered, and where Jewish practice was crystallized for centuries. The child not only learned his religious duties by precept, but largely by example.
>> So this is an example of nostalgia.
Wherever you are, where you were before was better. Right? See, because in the old country, the atmosphere in which he lived, the child lived, moved and developed, and grew was 100% Jewish. His environment was charged with a sublime spirit that led him to adopt a wholesome Jewish life. Here in America, however, where the Jew has lost his firm grip on his ancient heritage and where his loyalty to his traditions of his fathers has weakened so much. Here, where the child mo moves from morning until night in a non-Jewish atmosphere, the question of inspiring his interest in a synagogue has become difficult task indeed. We're confronted with the fact that neither home nor synagogue as they're constituted any longer exert that magnetic power over the child and generate spiritual force which in former generations influenced the child's life and made him conscious of his Jewish responsibilities.
Can't get the kids to come to Shaw. Do anybody see the pattern here? Right?
1870 can't get the kids to come to Shaw.
1925 can't get the kids to come to Shaw.
right of the our American synagogues are with few exceptions without traditions their foundations not rooted in the firm rock of Israel's historical experience but our spiritually speaking flimsy and tottering structures swayed by the slightest wind that threatens their collapse education system disorganized and faulty the religious services mechanical lacking in decorum uniformity in sincerity and spiritual enthusiasm is it any wonder that under conditions such disease. The Jewish child is crushed beneath the upper and nether stones of indifference and neglect and that his Jewish consciousness is nipped in the bud beyond resurrection. It has a chance to blossom blossom forth and bear fruit.
He's not wrong. I mean that generation, there were many of that generation who abandoned Jewish life, assimilated totally into America. But what he's saying is we got to do something.
What did he do? Anybody know what he did? And what's interesting is that in each generation facing these same problems of how do you deal with a community that is losing its attachment to Jewish life? In each generation, they came up with new stuff.
Benet Brit in the 1880s, what did he do? Anybody know what he did? Here's what he did. He took a very very minor Jewish ritual where a 13-year-old boy came to Shaw on his 13th birthday on that Thursday or Monday. His father brought him to sh before school before work. He read an aliyah from Torah that the rabbi had taught him, drank a schnaps for the first time, got a blessing from the from the old men of the schul, ate a kickl and went to school and they called it a bar mitzvah.
What Golarb realizes, this is something we could make something of. He moved the bar mitzvah to Shabas morning AND MADE A BIG DEAL OF IT. He made a big deal of it. Made a big deal of celebrating the kid and celebrating the family. And then here's a move that I curse him for every day. He invited the local kosher caterer into the synagogue to serve a fancy lunch. nothing about DJs by the way, but at least and the bar mitzvah became a big deal and he set up a group of boys who wanted to learn with him because they wanted to have this kind of bar mitzvah. And those boys learned with him for the year before their bar mitzvah.
And then when they finished their bar mitzvah, they came back to Rabbi Goldfarb and said, "We don't want to stop being with you." So every Saturday afternoon he had this big group of boys from the neighborhood and they would learn Torah and then go play basketball and he called it the Akiba Society. It was the first Jewish youth group. And then the girls said we want something.
Now in those days you didn't have Bach Mitzvah. That was something that Kaplan created but he was that wasn't traditional. But the girls created a group around his wife called the Rahul Society.
In other words, he invented this idea that the synagogue ought to turn its attention toward kids. And that became a very popular thing. And then when the war came in, when the Second World War happened, right, Americans went overseas. Thousands of young Jewish men, particularly some women, but mostly men, went overseas to fight. and they came back from the war and they had put their lives on hold for three or four or five years. What do they want to do? They wanted to marry their girlfriends and begin families.
But the problem was by the time they came back, they had realized that the world is bigger than Brooklyn. They wanted some place where there was some room. And then there arose a prophet as there always is in America. And his name was Arthur Levit. And Arthur Levit saw, you know who Arthur Levit is?
>> Arthur Levit saw the way we won the war.
We won the war because we could massroduce airplanes, mass-roduce ships, mass-roduce trucks.
Why can't you mass-roduce homes? So Arthur Levit bought a big stretch of empty Long Island, hired a construction crew, and instead of building one house at a time, he built a tract of houses.
And there were three models in three colors. And you chose the one you wanted. And how much did it cost?
>> $2,300.
Three-bedroom house with a yard. And you could get you could get veterans benefits loans. FHA loans and a whole generation moved to Levittown.
In Long Island, it's Levittown. In New Jersey, it's Cherry Hill was Levittown.
There's one in Pennsylvania. And then the second thing that happened was people said people Jews, Jewish boys from Chicago, from Detroit were sent to California for training. And they said, "There's a place in the world where it doesn't snow. Let's go live there."
>> And the fastest growing neighborhood in America starting in the 1950s was San Fernando Valley. All built by Boyer, who was the Levittown of LA, right?
Okay. So the there moved to Florida and moved to California. The move to the suburbs. But what happened when you moved to the suburbs or you moved to Florida is you were far away from the home the sh you grew up in.
So what did they need to do? Suddenly they decided we can't wait for our parents. We have to do this. Here is the um here is the membership brochure of the Levittown Israel Community Center 1948. Listen to this. Just listen to the words to this.
This is 1948.
Many of our pe Oh, by one more fact, by the way. You came home, you married your high school sweetheart, you moved to Levittown, and then there's one more thing that you did.
>> The population, the baby the the number of babies per woman. Before the war was 1.9 1.9 children per woman in America. What was it after the war? 5 >> 3.7 always think my little brother we the seven you know right in other words there was a >> so now you have all these families with all these children living far away from organized Jewish life and they don't know what to do so they put together well listen many of our people this is directed to men have had little previous contact with synagogue life having hitherto regarded the synagogue as the province of their elders ers. Many have not seen the inside of a quote unquote shul since their bar mitzvah. Now, however, they feel that it's time to grow up and have consequently acquired a renewed interest in synagogue activity.
The responsibilities of parenthood have led many to rethink their position with regard to Jewish heritage, which they now seek to maintain in order to be able to transmit it to their children. In Levittown, this return to Judaism is facilitated for them through the existence of a synagogue consisting of like-minded young Jewish parents.
Why did they start the synagogue? Did they start it because they had a spiritual impulse and wanted to pray to the Lord? Did they start it because they wanted to connect themselves with the wisdom and traditions of the Jewish people? Answer, no. Why did they start the synagogue?
>> Community.
>> No, not even community. They did want social connections. They moved to suburbs far away from where their parents lived. But when they got there, they decided they'd rather hang out with Jewish people.
>> So, they moved to Jewish suburbs.
They moved to Jewish suburbs. It's really interesting. Highland Park, Illinois and Cino, California, right?
West Bloomfield, uh, Detroit. Okay. um Long Island, the whole of Long Island, right? I mean, you want to they moved to Jewish suburbs and they wanted social connection and the synagogue was a place you could meet other Jewish families.
But the principle me reason besides social connections, which means that in a synagogue, what was the most important part of the synagogue? The sisterhood.
Because men went off to work every day and that left mom's home with little kids. And this is before Oprah was invented. And so women needed something.
They wanted connection with other women.
You're stuck in a suburban house all by yourself with two screaming children.
You want to meet with other women. So you drive over to the shaw and you can have a playgroup with the kids and the ladies can have a lunch. Sisterhood became the most important part of the synagogue.
But the other most important part of synagogue was the reason why we started a synagogue was not to fulfill a spiritual intention. It was to train their kids to be Jewish. It was all kid oriented. It was all kid-oriented. So you have the first time Hebrew schools become part of synagogues.
Right? And the rabbi who did that was Morris Silverman in West Hartford, Connecticut, right? That's Sheri Pollock's great father-in-law, father, greatgrandfather. He brings the synic.
The Talmud Torah becomes part of the shul and bar mitzvah become a very big deal and the synagogue becomes a place for children for the baby boom to grow up. Okay, anybody hear VBS in the 1970s?
Anybody here at VBS 1970s? Remember Friday nights VBS 1970s? This Friday Sam Foris singing these beautiful songs.
There'd be 1,800 people in Shaw. I got to sit there because I couldn't sit in the front. I was wearing jeans and desert boots and and a work shirt. And Rabbi Show spoke forever uh for about 45 minutes. And then we had what?
>> Israeli dancing in the other room with a guy playing the accordion. And for a Jewish boy like me, I was 15, 16 years old. It was a wonder because I could tell my mother I was going to Schul, but I was really going to meet girls. And then after, if you got lucky, you went over to Dupar's and you got a hot fudge sundae, which consisted of two scoops of vanilla ice cream and a carffe of the most wonderful hot fudge. And because I knew the girl who was the waitress because she was a student at Birmingham High School, and I met her at a debate tournament, I got two cars of hot fudge, the community synagogue and the and the child synagogue. Well, now you raise a group of people in that and at one point they scroll up and they start asking questions that nobody asked before. So, what I want to show you is this. We can keep going and I know that Sharon wants me to finish eventually because Dr. Ryder is already here and I'm late, but I want to show you that this wonderful place of America has given us a chance to do something that Jews could never have ever done in Europe.
Figure out why we're Jewish. Not because the world forces us to be Jewish, but because what's what's the internal dynamic of our community? And whenever you hear somebody fetch that, you know, it's just not like it used to be. First of all, nonsense. And second of all, what look at the creativity, feel the creativity generation to generation to create new forms of Jewish life that meet the moment and that inspire people in the moment. That's the great story of American Judaism from the inside. What's going to happen to us on the outside that we're all going to have to watch very carefully. Well, I'm going to keep going, but Dr. Ryder is here and I don't want to take up his time. So, thank you all very, very much.
>> Thank you, Reb. How about coming back for round two?
>> You come back for round two.
>> Okay, we do want I said, "We do want you to come back for round two." Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your time. Always.
All right. Um, everybody enjoy the break. A little less time today, okay?
Because uh Dr. Ryder is going to speak.
So, um 10 minute break. That's it. See you soon.
No, I was I will No, but you know what?
I'm gonna take one in the office and >> I'm gonna go in the office in a minute and have them print some more and bring it back. How's that? Okay. All right, everybody please take your seats.
See, Ron, would everybody please take their seats?
Oh god, see you see this. I was great in the classroom. Would everybody please take their seats?
Could everybody please take their seats? Joel and Ros and company, can everybody please take their seats?
Please.
>> I know I am not.
>> Can you please take your seats? Can I have your attention? Let's get everybody seated.
It's like crazy. I am going.
>> Ladies, please take your seats. Ros >> and company. I know your name, so I'm going to use you to get these ladies to sit down.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
All right, thank you for your attention.
Um, I I want to now introduce our next speaker who has been here before, but there are several people here who were not here when um, uh, Dr. Ryder, Ron Ryder, a member of our temple, um, was here last time. Um, Ron holds an MS degree in communication disorders and PhD in clinical psychology. He was a captain in the US Army medical service during the Vietnam War, director of aiological services for US armed forces in the Northern Pacific sector.
Between 1975 and 2000, he was the director of rehabilitation services for UCLA hope for Hearing Foundation.
uh 2000 to 2020 he was a clinical director of California chapters in aging and in the 1980s till present time he has a private practice in clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills and Sherman Oaks he's a former president of the LA County Psychological Association a former Jewish affiliation uh his former Jewish affiliation is chairperson for the LA Jewish Federation speakers bureau on Soviet jewelry President, young adult division of Brandeise Bardine Institute and vice president of adult programming at Brandeise Bardine Institute. Most important, a 20-year member of the VBS board of directors. And since 2015, he's been the VBS Goodbye. Rashan, the chief religious officer of our temple. Gee, that's a lot of stuff, Ron. But anyway, welcome back and we look forward to your presentation.
Thank you. Um, who remembers what I talked about two months ago?
>> It helped.
>> Good. Good. Uh, what I talked about basically was the basic elements of communication. How we hear and speak.
Those were the basics. Now, for those of you who missed, I have handouts that uh I will have plenty copies of before so you can get a copy of it. Basically what it talks about and I'll go over this just very very briefly and mention this just as a review before we talk about content when we speak which I'll be talking about in a minute.
Um so eliminate all background noise reduce background noise including television and radio during any conversation. So, one of the things that happened the last time I was here, for those of you who recall, there was a bright light emanating from behind the uh the screen which was so distracting and I can't have anything distract from the wonderful words I say. So, so I chose today not to use any backdrop because we're talking about communication and I want this to be a back and forth today a lot. So, I want to hear from you as much as you hear from me. Make certain there's sufficient lighting. So, if wherever you live, make sure that the person who you're trying to understand has sufficient light on their face.
Before you start talking, get someone's attention by calling them by their name.
We respond to our names. We know that from very early from the time you were very small children. The way parents, teachers got your attention was by calling your name. Because if you start talking, you don't know if somebody's really responding to you. But if you call them first by their name and you have eye contact, it changes everything. Make certain people are facing you. It's continuation of the other. Make certain you can see their lips. Make certain other people can see your lips. I try to keep my mustache trimmed for those reasons. sometimes not so good. Have people speak at a volume that is sufficient, not too loud because if you tell anyone you can't hear them, what do they do?
>> They scream for a minute, then they go back to their regular. So, use hand signals to tell people to speak louder, softer, slow them down. Hand signals work a lot better than interrupting somebody and telling them to do something, which I referred to just a second ago. Make sure you're speaking slowly enough and slow other people down, especially children.
Uh that many of you are here usually every Shabbat.
Half the bar and B mitzvah kids are talking at a rate that no one can hear them when they give their speech. So, it's like you lose them and other people lose us when they're speaking too quickly.
Use gestures as you speak. And again, the gestures to tell people what to do to hear better. Rephrase something. If somebody doesn't understand what you're saying or ask someone to rephrase it because if you tell someone you didn't get what they said, they repeat the exact same thing again.
That usually doesn't add to clarity unless you say what was that last word.
Okay. So sometimes somebody doesn't have to repeat a paragraph for you to because people drop their voices at the end of a sentence. Why?
Why do people drop their their voices at the end of a sentence? They're out of breath.
If you keep taking a breath while speaking, you will speak more clearly.
Our diaphragm area that sends voice upward is dependent on breath.
Remember to explain that you have a hearing problem if you hear have one so you can hear clearly. Last night we were at a large Mother's Day function and I thought this person sitting next to me was the most unfriendly person that I looked in his ear. He's not understanding anything I'm saying. So I arrange because by the way if you sit at round tables which we have here round tables trying to hear the person next to you is almost impossible at times if there's a lot of noise because you can't see their lips and half of communication is done with our eyes not just our ears so it's very difficult when you're in the round. So I did so I noticed his hearing aid and I tried to seat myself in a way that he could see me and everything changed. You need to be patient with others and others need to be patient with you. So today, one of the things for myself about being patient is thinking of ways to follow Rabbi Ed Feinstein, the greatest pulpit rabbi in the country, who has more information at the tip of his fingers. I don't know if he prepared today. I know he had handouts to prepare, but Rabbi Feinstein can speak on anything at any time, anywhere.
He's amazing. And to try to follow that wealth of information is not easy. So, Rabbi Feinstein talked about your ancestors. For some of you, your ancestors, not everyone here either a has Jewish ancestors or you might be the person who came from Europe or from somewhere else. So some of what he spoke for most of you is about people you might have known in your lives. I'm going to take everything he talked about and bring it back to you because what we're going to talk today is the content of communication. He talked about your ancestors and what they brought with them. I'm trying to get you to get in touch with your own hearts.
and your hearts grew because whoever your ancestors were, your emotional bearing comes from the people who came before you and how you grew up. So that's all the background for what I'll be talking about in terms of how you became who you were. But the basis of what I want to talk about today is how we communicate in a way that you look the other person in the eyes and you say that person is a mench. What is a mench?
person.
>> Upstanding person.
What is an upstanding person, by the way?
>> Someone who has integrity.
>> Someone who has integrity.
>> Someone who cares.
>> Someone you can look up to because >> they're very good at something you admire.
moral code.
>> They live by a moral code that defines their action.
>> They're they're empathic.
>> They get out of themselves to do things for other people. All your answers are correct. In studies that they've done in terms of not just in terms of being a mench, but in terms of people wanting to be close to other people, the most important element that they found across the board in every culture is trust.
You trust that person.
We speak with people whom we trust. What do we trust them to do?
Tell the truth. behave.
What does that mean to behave? Well, >> don't be nasty.
>> Don't be nasty. So to behave, to be kind, to listen to us as we said with with a certain degree of empathy.
What else? We trust that they will understand us.
>> Take us seriously. Part of also understanding us. What else?
>> They listen. Very important. Before you can hear, you have to listen and pay attention. They truly take us in.
They're not just doing this.
>> What was >> he said that sometimes you talk to people you don't trust. That's for sure.
We don't trust everybody.
And there's some people who uh you know there unfortunately used car salesmen get the worst rap.
But that's the definition that's used for somebody you don't trust. They'll sell you their mother. You know what the difference is between a Hungarian and a Russian.
They both will sell you their mother.
The Hungarian delivers.
Now you can you can say that about any culture. This is not about Hungarians.
It's just just the element of the joke.
>> You have to trust your instincts.
>> Sometimes in the first couple of minutes they tell you who they are. But the bottom line, every single person in this room has learned through life, what trust means to you.
But what's very important is that other people trust you.
What makes you a trustworthy person? And that has a lot to do with how we communicate. What are the ways in which we communicate that other people see us as a mench? So all the things all of you have talked about are ways that are important that you want to bring to you.
Now one of the cliches that I absolutely disdain because it's 100% incorrect or you wouldn't be here today is you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
That's BS even in a synagogue to use that kind of term. But it's BS because we constantly learn. All research neurologically shows the brain wants to grow cells that we can improve with age. We might learn at a slower pace, but we continue to learn. I feel that every one of us in this room can still learn to be more of a not that we're not trustworthy, but can have communication skills that can endear us to other people no matter what.
Okay. The the question was, is okay today to call men and women a mench because women might take offense to the fact that it refers to being a true man?
I think all of us in this room grew up at a time where pronouns were not offensive. Well, today for a whole different pronouns have taken a a world of their own with um all different ways in which we look at gender and I'm not I'm not going to get into that subject today. Um but I think that most women do at least in this group I think understand that mench isn't just about males but we have to be careful. We have to be make sure that we're not making somebody feel that they're now not counted as much. So when I use the term mench, I mean a true human being, a trustworthy human being, not men versus women at all. It So it's a good question because maybe we need a new word. Maybe we need something that's going to cover both. Gary Okay. So, it's used it means you can't change a person's personality. I wouldn't be in the business I'm in if you can't change a person's personality.
Um, I'm a strong believer that when one is motivated to change, even when it comes to personality, you can change. Uh my job is to make people more likable and I treat a lot of commodants.
Uh people who are bitter for one reason or not. Most people who seek therapy aren't doing it because they're happy.
They're doing it because there's certain problems they would like to settle or know and so forth. And the majority of them complain about their children.
And those that don't have children complain about their siblings and they don't have siblings. They'll find somebody to complain about. That's and I'm not saying that that they're it's how they're affected. I'm not talking about their complaints, but how they're affected and how we respond to people.
And that's part of what I'm talking about today is the content with how we respond to people.
how how you can change your behavior but I believe behavior is one of the main foundations of personality and how people see us. Um, we can change our attitudes.
We can change. So, there's nothing you can't physically I'm not talking about.
I'm sure you all know I'm talking about emotionally we can change. We can grow.
And the words psychologically of growth and change are synonymous with learning.
Those three words are interchangeable.
So you can always learn, you can always change, you can always grow. And I don't think you come here to hear a wonderful speaker like Rabbi Feinstein unless there's a desire to learn.
How what Rabbi Feinstein says changes you as a person in today's gets you in touch with history that brings you and he brought it all back to here to VBS.
in whichever way you see it. And again, many of you who don't have Jewish ancestors, but they're still about the human element about which he's speaking, has to do with our changing and growing.
So, I'm talking about language to change. What I'm going to hand out now, which of course will get everybody looking at that and not at me, but it's still very, very important.
Unfortunately, it's very, very small, is what we call an emotional wheel. It has on here almost every possible emotion that one can think of. Our language for most of us is not rich in what we say.
But when you begin to look at the things that are on this wheel and I have two one and it didn't come out so great but it's still there is from a poster that when I wasn't working virtually but in my office. How do you feel today? How do how many of you remember seeing this somewhere or other with all these happy faces with how do you feel today?
That's a smaller version of this of the emotional wheel. When we get in touch with how we're reacting, what we're feeling and explaining ourselves to other people, how they affect us makes us feel richer in terms of what we're saying and better identifies. And one of the things that affects us as we age is memory. How many of you have trouble thinking of the right word at the right time? How many of you lie?
Um the easiest thing to forget are names.
Why?
Why? Let let me This is even a very interesting question. Why is it easier to forget someone's name in English than to forget someone's than forget someone's name as a typical Israeli name? If you live in in Israel, Israeli names since the 1950s, even the 1940s usually refer to something that's not just a name. For instance, the name Sheer means what?
My song.
So someone who names their daughter Shirley or Sheer Lee, it's my song.
That's easy to remember.
But an everyday name like Ron, where does it come from? What does it mean?
And so forth. We forget those things because it's just pure memory. It's wrote memory for somebody's name. So things that have meaning. When it comes to emotion, we might not come at the right word at the right time, but the more we become um familiar with the things that you'll see on this wheel, it's very important.
The four basic emotions, even though this one here has um seven, but the four basic emotions are what?
>> Joy. Joy is one.
>> Sadness.
>> Sadness. The other anger.
And the one that people fe the one I just gave it away. The one that we are most familiar with in today's world is fear.
You hear more people I'm so stressed.
I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so anxious. I'm so worried. How many of you know people who's use these use these terms?
All of us do because it's part of aging.
These things affect us as we age.
It's the most familiar emotion that people are aware of on a daily basis.
There are many of you in this room who are physicians. Your patients either came to you or come to you fearing something. They're worried what you're going to say. They don't know what a diagnosis is going to be. So, they show up with a lot of apprehension.
All All those things are part of the fear syndrome. And you'll find all these things on here. Anger, the most difficult emotion to express. Usually we see it more in someone's face and so forth. Joy, that's easy. But the one unfortunately we don't experience enough. If you can have some way to a little bit of joy in every day, out of appreciation for life, it changes you physically.
Joy of being alive. Joy of looking here in Southern California. it it how beautiful things can be looking at the hills going out to the ocean whatever it is that can give you a true sense of wonder of joy great sadness is one usually related to loss and as we age one of the things that we mourn on a daily basis are the physical attributes we used to have we talked earlier about hearing you don't hear as well you do things more slowly you don't remember as well. So a lot of people unfortunately get depressed over this depression is not it all stems from sadness. So yes you these are things not to be happy about but if you do the reverse and I'm sure all of you know this the most important reverse for sadness is appreciation for anything you do have and that can sometimes also lead to joy.
We have to teach ourselves to be happy with any little thing we've got.
This doesn't work. For instance, you hear people complain in today's world where we're so dependent on technology and there's so much that gets reinvented every day and how to use AI, how to use all the different things at our disposal. It becomes very very frustrating.
And we hear so many people say, "I can't do this."
You have to revert to think about what it is you can do. Because when you start looking at the things you can do that you can accomplish, it becomes a baseline from which to grow. But if you look you can't do anything, then you're going to have a much different reaction.
So I'm going to pass these out and we will discuss it on some level.
And I'll have these in the back for anybody who wants to take any of these that aren't as clear.
So, as you're passing those out, um, >> I want to know what strikes you as you First of all, it's small. I apologize.
We We tried to make it as big as we could, >> but I'll be going over it.
As you look at it, you'll see that the emotions they list in the center from where things spring from are angry, disgusted, sad, happy, surprised, bad, fearful. Well, bad is a combination of who knows what the word bad means.
Fearful, we talked about angry, we talked about disgusted is part of angry.
Um, surprised is part of happy usually if it's good surprise and bad is usually a combination of sad and angry. Um, but the main reason I pass this out is just these are every single word that's on here is something you're familiar with.
There's not a new thing on there that hasn't been be part of words, you know, but I want it to become more part of your vocabulary as you can streamline to what it is you're really feeling.
So, I I need some volunteers. As you look at this, think about one of the things that's on there and how in the last week you felt any one of those things.
Especially along the anger continuum, the bad continuum.
Let me ask you, how many of you this last week were disappointed about something?
Disappointed.
Do you mind sharing with us what disappoint >> the what?
>> The Laker game. Okay. that the sports happens to be where uh many people become because they're rooting for a certain team. So they're disappointed.
How many of you during the course of the last week were disappointed in some something about yourself that you hoped to do and you didn't get a chance to do it?
>> So you're getting ready to move and you're procrastinating about getting it ready. Well, that's kind of a disappointment in in in a way. uh you'd like to think you're you're more ready.
But there again with that type of thing, any little thing you do along the way, if each day doing a little bit, then you can say, "Oh, I did that." That's going to motivate you for your next step.
That's the baseline for what we're talking about.
>> Go to Europe on Monday.
>> Ah uh disappointing having to cancel a trip because of health reasons. It's very disappointing and hopefully you will get a chance to go and so forth.
Um, how many of you had plans to travel before COVID hit?
What was that like?
>> Very frustrating.
Anybody else?
What?
>> Helpless. That's a big one. helplessness listening to the news.
Um, one of the ways and and this we hear a lot to me, one of the things you can look at when we feel helpless looking at the news is we're not helpless regarding ourselves.
We can't change the people we hear about in the news. We can send them letters.
We can do all kinds of things. And certainly uh for most of us since October 7th of 2023, what the press had done, what we hear in the news, the different way both, you know, Israel was painted and the way Jews have been painted and so forth gives us a certain degree of of helplessness in the world and what can we do about it. how we act as Jews, how we act as people who care, has has we're willing to stand up and speak, not using fear to control us, to speak whatever our truth is. It's how we disagree with other people. One of the main reasons I give this wheel here is because of conflict.
There's two kinds of conflict. I mean there's many kinds of conflict but the two things that one should look at is conflict between you and another person or you and other groups but the conflict within this wheel should be used to describe the different emotions we feel at the same time. We're conflicted because we feel so many different things at the same time. You don't just feel one thing. You have many reactions to the same thing at the same time. You hear something that puts you in a way in which you feel so so both ambivalent and ambiguous and how you describe that to someone else and to yourself is very very important.
>> Hey None of this is separate. You can feel almost everything on that wheel all at the same time.
>> Yes. No, that that's my point is that we feel so many of these things and so often many of the things we feel are conflicted. For instance, you can feel you want to get up and talk to anybody about any of the things that get you angry. Yet, there's fear of retaliation if you talk about it. It hurts me greatly when I know there's so many people who are afraid to be open about their Jewishness and wear something because they fear they're being attacked.
My parents grew up in Nazi Germany.
And when I hear people fear here about being attacked and people say, "Oh, it's just like in Germany." No, it is not.
That is a comparison that's dangerous.
This country is not Nazi Germany. There are anti-semitic people in the world.
There were anti-semitic people in the United States at the same time that there were things going on in Germany.
But what happened in Germany did not happen in the United States. How many of you saw uh the Burns uh documentary on PBS um America and the show?
It it was amazing. But it did point out and show you what was going on in the United States at the same time in terms of the isolationism, terms of not letting Jews in, in terms of people not liking Jews in many factions. But it didn't happen here.
It didn't happen here and we have to make it certain that it's not going to happen here and it's not going to happen by being quiet.
Gary, >> fear of failure.
The fear of taking a risk.
Okay. So, what Gary's saying is it's greater a failure not to try because you fear not achieving than it is to try. And you're correct. It it certainly so whatever you can do to get yourself to take risks builds self-respect certainly builds self-respect.
Brian, >> wonderful.
Okay. The wheel is not my wheel. Uh we don't know who quite honest this this wheel came about by somebody having drawn it for one of their patients to find a language but I thought it covered everything. So it's not that there's any definite concept. It's more the words that are on there to help you identify and speak your truth. So speaking as as many of you are saying, you feel so many things at the same time. I'm just trying to make you more aware of a vocabulary that you can use to identify you. And going back and forth between one emotion and the other is so human.
What we're talking about here is humanity. We're talking about what every human being experiences. It's getting in touch with it. And one of the ways to get in touch with it is to see what do I want to accomplish in talking my truth. What's motivating you? And to me, one of the most important things is to motivate repair when there is a negativity going on between people. And I mentioned before between parents and children because that can be a very important way in which parents are disappointed.
Sometimes children I'm not I'm talking about adult children and parents that goes on. We hear about that all the time. We talk about the ways in which our friends can disappoint us. How we talk about that, how we're able to be express ways in which we're let down and what we want. But what's so important of it? If you're going to talk and have these conversations with someone, you need to be motivated by what you want as a response.
And the what I want you to have as a response is to have a better relationship, not to shame another human being.
What's very important is that you not use what is unfortunately given to Jewish mothers, the term guilt, to make people feel guilty. And that's not a Jewish mother trait. That is a human trait.
What's more important is that we make people feel that they understand us and we understand them. Because so often problems exist by people not being aware of what they've said or done that has upset us. They clueless. Yet we'll walk around thinking, you know, how can they do that to us? They just said this or that or that that that really hurt me.
Well, frequently they don't even know it. I'll give you an example of the one last night. I was sitting next to somebody who I thought was this pompous happens to be a well-known attorney in town and I just saw him as being P. No, he couldn't hear.
Once I knew that, I had a whole different take on the man. Was there What's the difference between programming yourself and feeling? What do you mean programming yourself?
>> Uh, disciplining yourself and motivation, feelings, certainly emotions go with that as well.
going.
>> Okay. So, the gentleman is saying that you're feeling something and you want to program you want to program yourself to get yourself going. So, the programming is a solution to not be weighed down by what you're feeling. Something has got you so angry it can weigh you down. So the term I wouldn't use is program. The term I use is resilience to rise above whatever it is that's bothering you. But you can't lie to yourself. What's very important is that you recognize what you're feeling. Not just uh pass it by, but say I'm feeling such and such and such and such. And that's honesty.
At many times in life, we can feel the term. It's not an emotion but we can feel it is weak.
We don't feel strong about something. We don't feel we have the strength to do something. And some things we do we feel much stronger about or we have greater strength to accomplish than other things.
And what's the counterpart is to try to do whatever it is we can do. But when it comes time to conflict between yourself and an important other, that weighs on us. And I can't encourage people enough to use an approach of honesty and to say, "I want a better outcome."
Again, this is very, very important. Do you know that is against Jewish law to shame another human being?
Yet, inadvertently, we do it all the time.
So the more we can talk to anybody, I'm talking to you about this because I want it to be better. No matter what the relationship is, family relationship, spouse, whatever, have the motivation to make things better.
It's a good point.
Lady was saying that she seems to be aware of so many people having regrets about what they should have done, what they could have done, what they said and so forth.
Um sometimes we can't repair and frequently that is said about I wish I would have said they no longer here for me to say something to whether it's a parent or whatever because you've lost that person and you can't change that which I admit but you can change your future you can learn from that to not have regrets with someone else that you say things especially to people that they matter to you that you care about them and what you would want in your relationship with that person when possible to talk about what makes that relationship deeper, what you care about, what the things also when there's certain things. Well, I'm going to pick on Shirley. Shirley's like family to us. Uh, and when Shirley, unfortunately, is no longer as mobile as Shirley used to be. Shirley was a constant guest at our home. And we have a driveway that goes like this, not not wheelchair accessible.
And we can't tell Shirley enough how much we miss having her at our home and being a part of the family and miss that. And I know Shirley misses it, too.
So sharing that with someone is so important because it lets them know that they matter, that you care.
Okay. Um the there is the the the comment that's made is that having to do with politics and a certain leader a certain feeling of hate and that she can't do anything about it.
The hate is there. Uh I am much more talking today about our interpersonal relationships not politics in terms of that. But what we have to recognize and I I hope it's lessened what the current state of affairs since 2016 in families between that particular issue of families fighting pro and con and not speaking and pro- Israel not uh not Israel enough whatever the jud that to me is the sad part. The sad part is that politics have caused division between people. Instead of talking about what we have in common, what we share in common and the discussion about values that were brought up about being a mench, you need to talk about let's talk not about what causes us to move apart. Let's talk about what brings us together. What are our values? One of the things that came and I don't want to bring politics into it and I've said this again and again to families.
Trump ran on a platform make America great again. I said every family needs to discuss what makes America great.
And tying in directly with Rabbi what Rabbi Feinstein talked about. Why did your ancestors or you in many cases it's you yourselves came to this country? Why this country? What makes America great?
Have that discussion, not about the person, not about the people. Yes, some people do things on both sides that many of us detest. And I've got to say that I have never felt more torn because I do not like a lot of things that either party does and people in either party and I felt very bifurcated at one time only this group was good and the other group was lousy. Today I wish to say that there were more good in both parties but I don't feel that anymore.
I I and it's very distressing. So what do I do? I look toward the myself.
I look toward other people in terms of politics whom I like and I'm finding that harder and harder to see or to agree upon a consensus. But I know I what are the changes I want to make to me? What are my changes to the basic level between me and other people?
Because I certainly can't arrange world politics. I can write letters. I can back certain candidates, but the most important things I can do are ending conflicts that have to do with me or those close to me and how I can help them with the conflicts they experience.
Am I being clear in terms of what I'm suggesting?
Hi, I wanted to get back to a very basic question um which is about cues in terms of being able to remember names. Obviously it becomes very complex and uh in younger people and particularly in older people is to be able to remember uh names whether it's hearing or not being able to make eye contact or difficulty in terms of expressing yourself because of some type of aphasia. But the are there any clues that you can give us as to how you would relate besides having a name tag on your front as we do some of us here when we come here because the first thing that you mention is to mention the person's name >> right >> and which is difficult to do in in English.
>> It's a good question. Uh all your questions are good by the way. I'm not the uh in memory in terms of memory somebody's name.
Input is one of the most important things we do on a daily basis. And it's hard to do whether you have a hearing loss, attention span, whatever. The first thing somebody does and you you meet them, you introduce them, especially in an area where there's at lunch or something and there's background noise, you do this and you never got their name.
The first thing to do is make a concerted effort with every person you meet to really as you hear their name, integrate it. Say it again and again to yourself. That doesn't guarantee you're going to have recall, but you have a much better chance of recall if you've heard their name clearly from the beginning. Now, do we forget people who we know extremely well forget their names, even if they're in your family?
Yes.
And for people whose names you already know, the trick to remembering is three deep breaths.
Your memory improves with breath.
It relaxes your system and it stops the panic.
Everybody understand what I'm saying?
Does that guarantee you're going to remember their name? No. But by maybe 60% it increases the chances you're going to remember their name. The second trick with people you know is you go through the alphabet.
And many of you already do that.
Now, the third thing is the riskiest.
We feel we're going to insult someone when we tell them, especially someone we know well, that you forgot their name.
Now, when you're past a certain age, it's very familiar.
You're going to understand it. And we don't forget someone's name because of any characteristic about them. It's something to do with us. And how you let someone know, please forgive me. Give me your name again because I'm losing all names or however you want to say it, not making it personal to them. The risk is to tell someone you forgot their name.
>> See, call it a senior moment. Call it whatever you want to. But that person knows if you know them well that because you forgot their name has to do with you. Sometimes it has to do as doctors in the room know very well with circulation.
Getting you blood to the to the skull at times helps with memory and circulation can affect our memory at any moment can affect our cerebal functioning. So that breath relaxing relaxing yourself with almost all these situations and again all these things I'm talking about is so general and have to do with all our functioning that you can go on and on with this because it has to do with all of us at every moment but relaxing yourself through all of this makes such a difference and taking deep breaths again research has shown meditative type breathing we should have been doing a long time ago. Where do we as Jews know it so well? And the Cabala, the Jewish mystical studies was very much in touch with breathing, helping us to relax, which helps our memory, which helps our functioning on all levels. And when we're coming from a more relaxed place, we function much better. So, I know many of you are hungry. So one of the things I like to do, we're talking about content, we're talking about memory, we're talking about images, all these things. So sometimes in communication, pictures tell more than words.
So we're going back uh in terms of my work at the Soviet Union and working with refusnix um there was a time where we remember with with the whole Glossnos thing starting it started in Poland and Level Valinska and the in the city of Gdansk and the Russian the Soviets were going crazy. We're going to lose a satellite country. We we have to send Brushv as soon as possible to Warsaw and we're going to have to give them a gift. We're going to have to gift a piece of art. So what's the piece of art? The piece of art of course for the Soviets was a Lenin and Warsaw. So they looking for historical painters who can do a painting of Lenin and Warsaw and they look look and finally some little refusnic guy comes I'm a painter. I'll paint you a picture of Lenin in Warsaw.
So they they said, "What what do you want in return?" I want that my family and myself were all being allowed to go to Israel. They said, "Good. We'll give you the trip. You get to go to Israel."
So they're all in Moscow at this train station, this huge, huge, huge canvas that's going to be unveiled that Brashev is taking with him to Warsaw.
And they unveil the picture and everybody screams in horrors. It's a picture of Grusena, Lennon's wife, in bed with Trosky.
And Breiv screams, "Where's Lenon?" And the painter goes, "Lennon's in Warsaw."
So on that note, always use humor to deescalate any situation. When you can laugh together in life, it makes all the difference in the world. Thank you.
>> The tone of voice is when people speaking to one another, their tone of voice makes a big difference in how it comes.
>> Yeah. How how tone of voice makes a huge difference and the look on your face makes a big difference when you're smiling sincerely makes it. But but the your tone of voice is very important.
I'm going to be putting these out wherever.
Thank you so much.
>> Thank you, Ron. Once more, we're going to all think about improving our relationships and starting to feel good about so many things. Thank you so much for your time and your energy and all your handouts.
>> Which one?
>> Sure. I'm going to be putting them all out.
Where should I put them?
>> Not everybody's eating.
>> Um, >> what about outside on the table?
>> Maybe outside on the table. That would be good. Thanks.
>> I'm gonna go shop on >> You want You want >> Wait a second. I have What? What? I'm going I have a tour to give from 11 to 12. What time you going? You're going in the morning probably. Are you please?
>> So I after >> You don't have to come.
>> I know, but I'm willing to come.
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