The Hidden Universalism of Jewish Particularity: Rabbi Avraham Kook and Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:05]I don't know if you have seen it at the big time, so >> [laughter] >> Anyone needs to go, you're welcome to go.

[00:00:20]Second half of the show and the Michael, can I give you a job?

[00:00:25]Could you give out marshmallows?

[00:00:27]Yeah?

[00:00:45]And for those of you who are Orthodox, thank you so much.

[00:00:48]I have extra kosher ones and I have extra non-kosher ones, so I don't think these things to Michael.

[00:00:56]And to the kids How they are. To the kids that I'm going to ask you, try to roast your marshmallows quiet so we can learn to laugh, okay?

[00:01:10]And after all good evening. I'm going to need good evening.

[00:01:17]Thank you.

[00:01:20]Come back to visit soon.

[00:01:26]Do you have energy to learn something?

[00:01:28]Yeah?

[00:01:29]Do you have energy?

[00:01:31]Tell them and tell them good evening.

[00:01:35]Like I said, there are two. There's the super jumbo ones and the super kosher ones.

[00:01:39]Neither of them are good for you.

[00:01:43]That's right. Yeah.

[00:01:45]Not in the right places though.

[00:01:49]You know, those of you who have been with us for a while have seen the evolution of Lag BaOmer.

[00:01:57]I've already spoken past about the non-Jewish origins of bonfires and arrows and bows and what not what else happens, but today is not even like Lag B'Omer, so we're okay.

[00:02:06]Today is an opportunity to learn Torah in our backyard, and how would we learn it without a fire and tamales? So, we're doing that. Guys, maybe instead of standing, you could Yeah?

[00:02:18]We are Usually I don't record this kind of Torah.

[00:02:25]But last year the Rebbe was very upset I didn't record what we spoke about the neshamos from the world of Tohu.

[00:02:31]And so, she felt that at least this year we should record it and see what we do with it.

[00:02:36]So, I'll tell you the truth is that I don't usually spend time in this area of Torah.

[00:02:43]But I figured that Harav Kook is an exciting place to discover some ideas from.

[00:02:50]Especially since in the last few years, we've spent If the kids make noise, it's one thing. If the adults make noise, it's a whole different thing.

[00:02:59]It's a been a few years where we've been studying the writings of Rabbi Elazar Azikri.

[00:03:09]And back then, somebody asked if Harav Kook ever saw the writings of Rabbi Elazar Azikri.

[00:03:16]And I told you that Rabbi Zinn D he wrote that Harav Kook mentions Rabbi Elazar Azikri nowhere. Not one place in his writings.

[00:03:26]But if you read his writings, there's no way that he didn't read the writings of Rabbi Elazar Azikri.

[00:03:31]He might be right.

[00:03:33]It also could just be that, as our Rabbis tell us, there are two prophets that prophesy the same thing in different words.

[00:03:39]Sometimes two people that are truth seekers reach truth in different ways, but they end up in the same place.

[00:03:46]And I think that tonight, if you ever struggled or wondered as to the deeper motivations, spiritual motivations of the teachings of Elazar Rabbi Nachman of Breslov that Rav Kook has an idea that he's sharing today in the book Zer Anpin it's at the end of Allot.

[00:04:02]I posted it on the website here. So, if you go to shiviti.org/lag you're going to have a source sheet.

[00:04:09]It's worth looking along the source sheet because the Hebrew of Rav Kook is not something that you or I are used to.

[00:04:18]You see there it's the third link on the page if you're on the website.

[00:04:22]It's okay to take out a phone. You don't have to worry about not having enough light because your phone is the light.

[00:04:27]If you look in the third link, if you go to shiviti.org /lag You see link number three says Rabbi Kook.

[00:04:41]It's there?

[00:04:47]Somebody confirm?

[00:04:50]Is it there?

[00:04:52]There's three links.

[00:04:53]Number three.

[00:04:55]Yes, there's 31 on top?

[00:04:58]It says 131 on top. Okay, 131 perfect.

[00:05:03]Now I don't purport to be an expert in the writings of Rav Kook, but this piece always spoke to me.

[00:05:07]And I think now after reading Rabbi Nachman of Breslov it speaks to you also b'ezrat Hashem.

[00:05:12]He says the following.

[00:05:24]Rav Kook has an essay on what he calls Had Deot Veha Emunot on the war of views and faiths.

[00:05:35]We're living in a time where all the opinions in the world are clashing with each other.

[00:05:41]Right and left east and west, north and south all the the anti-religions, the non-religions, every one of the denominations inside of each religion, the whole world seems to be clashing.

[00:06:01]And the responses to the world's clashing is varied. Different people respond differently to that clash.

[00:06:16]And you're probably familiar with most of them.

[00:06:19]When there's a political opinion in the world, a religious opinion in the world, a social opinion in the world, usually have two camps.

[00:06:26]You have the camp of those who oppose it, and the camp of those that agree with it, maybe the other way around. Those that agree with it are very intent on rallying for that cause.

[00:06:38]And those who oppose it are very intent on rallying against the cause.

[00:06:45]But never do you find the opinion of our Hakhamim, which is neither with the cause or against the cause, but both for and against every cause.

[00:06:58]See, the minute I came back from DC, we started with them.

[00:07:02]I have never understood, and I know you don't agree with me, not everybody, maybe some of you.

[00:07:09]I've never understood a partisan Jewish person until today.

[00:07:15]If you tell me you're Jewish and a Republican, or Jewish and a Democrat, all I say is just take away the Jewish part.

[00:07:24]Because there's no way for you to be one and the other.

[00:07:27]It cannot possibly be true that everything in the Republican platform is true.

[00:07:34]It can also be that it's all neutral.

[00:07:38]Rather, as something that does not come from the Torah, it must contain resha, and evil.

[00:07:43]The same with the Democratic platform.

[00:07:46]It can't be that everything there is true.

[00:07:49]And everything there is good and nothing there is evil.

[00:07:52]And when I hear people who talk, and they do talk, and they think I don't hear.

[00:08:01]It makes me sad.

[00:08:04]Because it tells me that everybody has internalized either one news channel or the other news channel.

[00:08:09]One talk show host or the other talk show host. One with a kippah, one without a kippah, one with a small kippah. Everybody with their their style.

[00:08:17]But never what do our sages say about this?

[00:08:20]What would Maimonides say if he was here? What would Hillel and Shammai say if they were here?

[00:08:25]What would Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai say if he was here?

[00:08:28]What would and you enter the name of the sages that you study Torah from? What would they think about this cause?

[00:08:35]And says Rabbi Kook in the beginning, if you didn't get the thing the way it's on the website, sheviteni.org, {forward slash} lag, the source sheet is there.

[00:08:42]It's number three.

[00:08:45]Say Rabbi Kook, Mish'tom'mim hem ha'ray'onot mip'nei shetef ha'de'ot ha'zarot ha'hol'chot v'shot'fot.

[00:08:56]The thoughts of humanity, they stand mish'tom'mim, stupefied, dumbstruck at the flood of foreign views that goes forth.

[00:09:08]B'chud de'ol zarot shel avodot zarot.

[00:09:12]Particularly, the foreign views of foreign faiths.

[00:09:22]Por'tzot hen b'shetef el toch ha'machaneh.

[00:09:25]All the faiths of the world, all the political opinions of the world, all the social narratives of the world have burst forth. They've broken the boundaries into the Jewish people.

[00:09:35]Lok'chot l'vavot rabim.

[00:09:37]They've captured the of many people.

[00:09:42]They've made all of the ways corrupt.

[00:09:49]And they've manipulated many of our people, especially the young ones.

[00:09:53]From the ways of life to the ways of death.

[00:10:00]Those people that feel that they are tasked with representing the views of Judaism, capital J. They know Torah always. And those people, they always know the least Torah from anybody I've ever met in my life.

[00:10:13]Any one of those people that say, "Oh, that Torah says very rarely does a tell you that Torah says." Rather, there are those in the opinions of the Torah like this, and those of who said that, and those of the who said this, and those of the who wrote that, and those of the philosophers who said this. The people who speak in absolutes always terrify me.

[00:10:32]But those that take it on their shoulders to protect Judaism from the left, the right, the east, the west, from this faith or that faith.

[00:10:42]They raise a voice. They scream, "Give all the They scream They scream." There's a lot of screaming.

[00:10:53]They immediately nullify all of the evil opinions of the world. They limit the way they get a lot of and they show you just how false those beliefs are by comparing them and contrasting them to what is written inside of Judaism.

[00:11:09]It can't be that those people are right because the Torah says A B C D E F G.

[00:11:15]For example, it can't be that God didn't create the world because it says in the Torah that God created the world.

[00:11:23]Now, what does it help me though if I don't believe in God or in the creation of the world or in the Torah? What did your rebuke to me just help me?

[00:11:31]Says Cook, But it's very doubtful.

[00:11:46]It's highly doubtful to me.

[00:11:48]Whether this method of attacking all the beliefs of all the other movements and religions and faiths.

[00:11:55]And you can definitely put social movements into religions and faiths because they have taken on all of the garb of religions and faiths.

[00:12:02]Political movements also.

[00:12:07]This is in the kila here.

[00:12:09]So last night I interviewed the rabbinic.

[00:12:12]She gave me six takeaways from Washington D.C. But two of them were most enlightening to me.

[00:12:19]I can share them on camera?

[00:12:20]Two of them?

[00:12:22]Two of them because I'm here to be me about to tell everybody who thinks like this.

[00:12:27]Number one, rabbinic wrote to me.

[00:12:32]That President Biden was Superman.

[00:12:36]He was the most powerful president who ever lived.

[00:12:40]Because everything wrong in this country, everything from the beginning until the end was because of him.

[00:12:45]Everything. But call me call call. There was no more powerful person than him.

[00:12:50]And President Trump is God.

[00:12:52]Because everything that President Biden ruined in the whole world, President Trump is fixing everything from A to Z.

[00:13:00]And both of those people are the most moronic people in the whole world. I can't even imagine such a person.

[00:13:05]Say what?

[00:13:07]Only Hakadosh Baruch Hu has that kind of power.

[00:13:10]Doesn't matter what CNN or Fox tell you.

[00:13:13]At the end of the day, it's nonsensical.

[00:13:16]But when you tell a person, "What you believe is wrong, it's stupid. It argues with the Torah." Most people don't know what to do with that information.

[00:13:24]Says out of cook especially you're talking to the younger generation and you want to show them the things that they believe or the things you consider them to be indoctrinated with or the things their professors told them, you think that by telling them, "Well, that goes against our Jewish values." it's going to help something?

[00:13:39]So, it's the kind of thing you begin to understand the conversation that the world is really having.

[00:13:43]Because the conversation is much deeper and much more intense than anything you might believe or begin to understand.

[00:14:00]It's very important, first off, to call out all of the people who think that they can define Judaism with very clear parameters.

[00:14:13]It is an exercise in futility to tell us who is God, what is God.

[00:14:20]Because God cannot be contained in words.

[00:14:23]Rather, the closest you're going to get is by telling us what God is not.

[00:14:28]Because you can define all the rest.

[00:14:30]But to define it's really a ridiculous endeavor.

[00:14:34]The same thing with the Torah, with with his world.

[00:14:39]Everyone who speaks in absolutes about the Torah usually end up doing a disservice to the Torah.

[00:14:55]You can definitely say certain things like the Torah says you must keep Shabbat.

[00:15:00]The Torah says that created the world.

[00:15:04]The Torah says you have to wear or you cannot wear wool and linen. You definitely can define some things in Judaism as they're written. You could say, "The Jewish people belong in the land of Israel." The Torah says that brought us over the Jordan River. You can say things that are written inside of the Torah for sure.

[00:15:22]But that would be doing a disservice to the Torah.

[00:15:26]Because you would be taking something so vast and so great and so incredible and narrowing it down to its most limited sense. To its most basic reading and understanding.

[00:15:53]Says Rav Kook and like we said because this is our only black boomer we always study a teaching that's more mystically inclined.

[00:16:01]And therefore his Torah and therefore his people Israel are not able to be contained in words just like he cannot be contained in words.

[00:16:10]But rather they contain everything.

[00:16:14]Everything that is the world is found inside of Rav Kook, is found in the Torah, is found inside of Am Israel.

[00:16:22]This is actually connected to the origins of the Jewish people.

[00:16:26]Esau, he says Esau says that he has a lot.

[00:16:33]Right?

[00:16:35]That's what Esau tells us.

[00:16:38]Yesh l'rov. That's how Esau speaks. What about Abraham?

[00:16:42]We say about him bakol. Isaac we say mikol. Jacob we say kol. Everything everything everything.

[00:16:51]Our forefathers were people who were containers.

[00:16:55]They attempted to contain inside of themselves everything that was in humanity.

[00:17:00]I don't know if I spoke with humanity.

[00:17:01]This is essentially the whole thesis of Israel and humanity. What is our relationship to humanity? That we contain inside of ourselves everything.

[00:17:09]All of the contradictions, all of the differences, all of the movements, all of the religions, all of them are contained in us.

[00:17:18]The world that was used to just contain what they want. I have a lot. Have whatever I need. I don't need that. I don't want it. Stay Keep it away from me.

[00:17:36]The way that you can imagine this is the way that a human being is among the rest of God's creations is the way I'm Israel is with the whole world.

[00:17:50]There are many creatures in this earth that have to them characteristics that we don't have as human beings.

[00:17:59]For example, who here can outrun a cheetah?

[00:18:02]I don't you cannot outrun a cheetah. No.

[00:18:05]Who here can live longer than a water bear? Have you know?

[00:18:08]You guys know what a water bear is?

[00:18:09]>> It's a tiny little creature. It lives practically forever. It lives practically It just It could dry out and then 100 years later you add water and it comes back to life. Like the out of the meeting my match.

[00:18:20]You find them everywhere. Everywhere.

[00:18:24]What?

[00:18:25]I have a who?

[00:18:28]You have?

[00:18:29]Yeah. Yeah. So, look at that.

[00:18:31]You have birds. You can fly?

[00:18:35]You can uh carry your own weight 100 times your own weight like an ant? How many ants carry? I don't know how much their own weight.

[00:18:43]100 times? 10 times? What do they say?

[00:18:45]100?

[00:18:47]You can't do any of those things.

[00:19:00]This ability though to learn how to fly like a bird, the ability to learn how to carry weights that are heavier than me, the ability to train myself to run faster than other people, the ability to harness all of the capabilities of nature.

[00:19:18]But to know how to direct them, how to use them, that only a human being has.

[00:19:22]Like he says, "Kativa Elyona." The word Kativa, by the way, is a very unique Hebrew word. Kativa, it's it's mentioned in the a few times.

[00:19:31]The if I'm not mistaken, he translates the word Kativa, imagine you have a few different fabrics, but then you stitch them together into one clothing.

[00:19:42]That stitching together is called a Kativa.

[00:19:45]When you can take many, many different patches, but you're able to combine them and show them what you should do with them, that is something that human beings excel at greater than the rest of the world.

[00:19:58]If that's the case by human beings, then says Halakhic, can you say Kisha you had you tell me much in Kisha and who be said?

[00:20:10]There are nations that are infinitely more talented in certain things than we as Jewish people are. We are not the best people in the world.

[00:20:16]We are not the most talented people on Earth.

[00:20:20]But at least I am but the Jewish people, but to have to share cool down. Because we are a summary, a tasting, a sampling of all of humanity, make up team kill by the good call how many cool down the hand but to come but to reality but I could miss out.

[00:20:43]The opposite. Yes.

[00:20:47]It's the essence of all humanity. We gather all of the qualities of all of the nations, and therefore through us, all of the nations are unified.

[00:20:57]We hold the ability to show all of the diverse people in the world that their diversity is their blessing.

[00:21:03]And that if they only figured out how to cooperate with each other, that the peace of the world can actually come into being.

[00:21:10]Because we've managed to do it internally.

[00:21:13]People always laugh when they hear Jewish food or Jewish clothing or Jewish music.

[00:21:21]Have you ever heard Moshe Habusha?

[00:21:23]And the Miami Boys Choir?

[00:21:26]The common denominator between them?

[00:21:28]Nothing. Nothing. But you could argue both of them are Jewish music.

[00:21:34]Tamales is Jewish food?

[00:21:37]If you're in Mexico, it's Jewish food.

[00:21:39]And and what about gefilte fish? In your Russia, it's Jewish food. It doesn't matter Kevin what do you eat. We Am Yisrael collect inside of us all of this galut of the world.

[00:21:50]We're not here to pick and choose. We're here to take the best from everywhere.

[00:21:53]And because of that we're able to see the common denominators between all the nations of the world.

[00:22:04]So therefore we are in need of a deeper renewed contemplation of all of the religions and political and social movements of the world.

[00:22:27]We must contemplate, to take in, to examine thoroughly in a way that penetrates to their deepest motives, in the world.

[00:22:39]All of the religious movements of the world.

[00:22:41]All of those social, political movements in the world. And to uncover inside of them what's there that's good.

[00:22:50]That's true.

[00:22:52]There is We'll get to that in a minute.

[00:22:55]There is no religion and no movement social or political that is purely evil.

[00:23:03]Not one.

[00:23:04]Not I but are you The inside of every movement.

[00:23:09]Inside.

[00:23:11]But before we get there, let me let me tell you what he's going to share now.

[00:23:15]Because the concept The complicated part is how.

[00:23:18]What?

[00:23:23]How do you know when something is actually good?

[00:23:25]Or when it applies beyond its own dialect amount its own four cubic called Gilui Ruach and you know there was a Rabbi Rabbi Yosef Kilner. He wrote a dictionary of Rav Kook's words.

[00:23:37]Because Rav Kook made up phrases and like you don't always know what they mean. Uh but Gilui Ruach I'm going to translate here as a manifestation of spirit. Any kind of thought that came into the world. Okay, I don't have a better word for it.

[00:23:50]I'm sure the students of Rav Kook have proper terminology here.

[00:24:05]The more universally true something is, the more likely it is a certain fact.

[00:24:12]The less relevant it is to the rest of the things in the world, the less certain that matter is. I'll explain it in just a minute.

[00:24:31]And the more certain a fact is, the more true that something is, the more factual it is, the more special it becomes. The more special it becomes, the less it's willing to coexist with other thoughts and ideas.

[00:24:43]Because it's more true than they are and therefore it does not have a desire to coexist with them. Like Zeb said, the opposite but there's a reason for that opposite. What's the reason? Because it knows that it's true and because it knows that it's true, it doesn't want to play nice with others. He's going to give us an example so you don't have to live with your heads in the cloud, like how of cook. Let me show for example.

[00:25:03]She taught Tkhuna Yeshanot. Tkhuna in modern Hebrew means something else than it does in Rabbinic Hebrew.

[00:25:11]Tkhuna means astrona- as- astronomy. That's the word, not astrology.

[00:25:17]Astronomical systems. When people study Tkhuna, it meant they studied astronomy.

[00:25:22]In modern Hebrew, we've used that word already to mean something else.

[00:25:26]All of the ancient methods of astronomy Shayu Khazyonot Prati'im that were individual scientific explorations Mitpash'tim Rak Al Khul Gvul HaTkhuna Bilvad.

[00:25:40]You found that they were usually relevant only to the field of astronomy.

[00:25:44]Haya Safek Tamun Bikrivam, and therefore they were just theoretical. They were theories. Why?

[00:25:50]Because they were only relevant to one area of life. Al Shaya Margala Bifumaihu Shel HaTkhunim.

[00:25:56]It was already a common saying in the mouth of the astronomers By the way, one of the famous ones who said this, his name was In Hebrew, we call him Ptolemy. I think in English they spell him with a P. Ptolemy?

[00:26:08]Yes? He wrote a famous book called With an A? Starts with an A?

[00:26:17]Okay. He writes, by the way, "This is the way we astronomers explain it, but likely there are other ways to understand this, because only God really knows the truth." That's what he writes about his astronomical theories.

[00:26:31]He says here, Shitatoei HaTkhuna Henam Rak Limtzo Et HaHatz'a'a Lifitron Shinu'ei HaTnu'ot HaRabim Shel HaGramim HaShmeimiyim V'She'efshar SheHaPitron Yihye B'Eizo Derekh Akher.

[00:26:44]They explain astronomy one way. For example, there are cylinders that move in the heavens, and there are different tracks that are moving different things, and that's why these things move this way and that one goes that way, and that's why at this time of the month you've read all of those books before, and you know what they say.

[00:27:09]But once the understanding of ko'ach hamash'ech gravity gravity came to the world. What is gravity?

[00:27:18]Basic definition.

[00:27:21]Attraction between two masses. Oh, attraction between two masses. I don't know if that will help me better. A force It's like something that No, you had a definition.

[00:27:32]I said something that pulls you down to Something that pulls you down to Earth because of an attraction between two masses.

[00:27:38]It's a force that pulls you down.

[00:27:40]So now, says Rav Kook, uh uh gravity is a theory?

[00:27:45]No.

[00:27:47]It's a theory, Abba? No, it's a it's a force in the universe.

[00:27:50]It's a force It's a theory. What? They have a problem with why gravity is in outer space. By the way, and they're trying right now to uh play with the gravity in other areas of science. But for Let's argue. I don't think anybody would tell you the reason why this falls on the floor is a theory that there's ko'ach hamash'ech. There's a force of gravity. Rather, we would understand that there is a force of gravity in the world. Says Rav Kook, from the moment that gravity was understood and it was used to explain so many different things in the world, mitoch shehu chizayon kosmologi klali.

[00:28:22]Kosmologi klali. Because it's a cosmological fact now that crosses many disciplines.

[00:28:29]Gravity doesn't just tell you why your cup falls. What else does it teach you?

[00:28:33]Why the moon is Why the moon is moving.

[00:28:35]It tells you why Why the Earth is Why the Earth is moving. Wait, hold on. If it has to do with the moon, what else does it have to do with?

[00:28:42]What? The ocean. The ocean. Yeah? Those waves in the ocean have some capacity to and therefore because this rule is much more broad than just stars, then you know that it's much more certain.

[00:28:56]I'll give you an example, maybe something that will help you in a When I read a commentary in the Torah, sometimes people get upset when I say my I know Rashi said or the Ramban said, but it's not true.

[00:29:07]They get upset you say that.

[00:29:08]I'll explain to you what I mean.

[00:29:10]If they tell you the definition of a word here means X, but everywhere else you look in the Torah, it doesn't mean that, so then I'd rather go with the definition of the word that means something in all of the places that you look. Like when was here on the green.

[00:29:29]You were talking about the dough that was in the baskets and you said the definition of the word really is the kneading part. The kneading part.

[00:29:39]Why?

[00:29:41]Because that's what it means everywhere else in the So it would be very hard to find here one definition and over there something else.

[00:29:51]Must be that you look for the most general idea that is relevant to most places and that's where you find the truth. And when someone would say, "You know, we explain all of this by gravity, but [screaming] the moon still runs on a cycle from Galileo."

[00:30:07]Not how it's going to work. Once we got to gravity, we very respectfully dismiss all of the older ways to look at the world. By the way, that keeps happening as we go forward in time and we discover more things, we very kindly shelf some ideas and now we stick with the new one and usually we stick with the new one because it answers for us things that the previous ones couldn't answer for us.

[00:30:31]That's the reason for it.

[00:30:34]If we understand this, then you can realize that in the world of spirituality, if you might borrow that word, you have the same exact thing.

[00:30:42]This is also true with the spiritual appearances or inventions in the world.

[00:30:56]You find that historically pagans were much more open-minded than those who are monotheists.

[00:31:03]Because pagans they listen, we worship the god of the water.

[00:31:06]You guys are worshipping the god of the sun. Big deal. We just worship They can coexist with each other. I didn't tell you that the god of the water rules over the sun and you're not telling me the god of the sun rules over the moon. We could all sit around the fire and sing Kumbaya together.

[00:31:20]But along come the Along come the crazy people and they say, "No, there's only one god and he's the god of the fire and of the moon and of the water and of the sun and of you and of your god.

[00:31:32]He's not He's Elohe Elohim.

[00:31:36]He's not Melech HaMelachim. He's Melech HaMelachim.

[00:31:40]And we then become very violent people.

[00:31:43]Not violent in a physical way. Violent in our determination that we are correct.

[00:31:48]And therefore we don't have any more tolerance for the sun believing people and the moon believing people and the bonfire believing people. We don't have time for it anymore. Why?

[00:31:57]It's nice you're a Zoroastrian and you want to skip through the fire. Wonderful for you. But we usually have a hard time with pagans because our god does not leave room for your god to exist.

[00:32:11]Says Rav Kook, "Our certainty is the enemy of tolerance and tolerance is usually the sign of doubt.

[00:32:24]Because when you're not sure, everything might be true."

[00:32:28]You know, I had a a Hasidic couple once come to San Diego.

[00:32:32]And the wife was very sick. She had a a disease that they couldn't heal and they tried all kinds of conventional methods of healing. They also tried what they call people call alternative healing. If it works, then it can't be alternative, right? It must be that it works. So, then that must be a method of healing.

[00:32:47]But, they came all the way to San Diego because here they had somebody who was um telepathically sending energy signals through her nose. Some some you know, something like that. And they came here.

[00:32:58]And when they were explaining to me why they're spending so much money to be in San Diego, by the way, the desperation of people who are almost dying is understood.

[00:33:07]But, the evil of the people who manipulate those people is evil. It's resha.

[00:33:13]Uh there's a famous Jewish missionary.

[00:33:15]He's a Christian, but he's a missionary to the Jewish. I met him once in El Cajon Boulevard. There used to be a a kosher restaurant there. I once saw him there for dinner. I didn't meet him. I was there and I recognized him.

[00:33:25]He has a clinic out of Mexico. All kinds of people who are my my deathly ill. He makes all his money from that. And the rest of the money he invests on missionizing to the Jewish community.

[00:33:34]He's a really crooked person. Not a linen.

[00:33:38]But, you're taking advantage of people who are vulnerable.

[00:33:41]As I spoke to these people, you realize that when someone is not sure, they're open to all kinds of suggestions.

[00:33:49]The same is true when you're not sure about your faith.

[00:33:53]When you're not sure Listen, I know that I'm Jewish and I know that we believe in one God and we don't have avodah zarah, but on the weekends I like to bake keys into my challah cuz maybe the God of the challah key will save me. And I want to make sure that maybe I'm going to skip over water on Pesach because the God of the water will save me. And they Listen, it's not like I was at in Hebrew day school. We had a sleepover in one of the kids' houses. And I don't remember anything from that sleepover except for the mother You should never send your kids to sleepover. The mother, she thought it was exciting to put on a scary movie for the kids.

[00:34:22]I was like fourth or fifth grade, Marilyn. Those kind of mothers, they're a special kind of mothers. Now, I don't even know if it was scary. For me it was terrifying. My house we never saw such movies. And in the movie, a mummy comes out of the grave and comes to attack this guy. And this guy he pulls out a cross from his neck. It doesn't work. He pulls out a Magen David. Doesn't work. He He had like a hundred different necklaces cuz one of them is going to work. Yeah? It's like you know some people they light up with a credit card. They swipe doesn't work.

[00:34:48]Next one. Swipe doesn't work. They swipe doesn't work. The same the same thing.

[00:34:52]When you're not sure, then you're guessing around.

[00:34:56]The more certain you are, the less room you have inside of you for doubt and maybe the other guy is right.

[00:35:02]And that means that the divinity that we contain in us usually becomes the enemy of all the other opinions that exist in the world.

[00:35:13]Says Rav Kook.

[00:35:39]He calls this supernal universality.

[00:35:43]It brings to its breadth and its certainty the delicate quality of precise unity.

[00:35:49]That's not just regular unity. It's the unity of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

[00:35:54]And the pasuk in Devarim says, "Adonai badad yenachenu."

[00:35:58]Hakadosh Baruch Hu leads alone.

[00:36:01]Then "Eemo el nechar." And there is no foreign god with him.

[00:36:09]Says Rav Kook, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu that was universal and there is no room for other gods with him, it must be that everything else in the world is contained inside of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Like you and I have been studying together in the writings of Ribbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov.

[00:36:29]>> But that makes a problem.

[00:36:32]Because how can Hakadosh Baruch Hu's oneness have room for all of the evil and the paganism and all the other things that exist in the world? Bear with me for just a few more minutes and I hope to share with you the answer to that question.

[00:36:43]Says Rav Kook the following, Yodati, our faith knows ki v'chol yesh nitzotz or, in all things there contains a spark of light.

[00:36:55]Ha nitzotz Elohi ha p'nimi zore'ach b'chol echad meha'emunot hashonot b'toch sidrei chinuch shonim l'tarbut ha'enoshit, l'tikun ha'ruach v'ha'chomer ha'ish v'ha'olam ha'yachid v'ha'tzibur shonim, ela sheheim b'hadargot shonot.

[00:37:09]She knows that within everything there is a spark of light.

[00:37:14]The inner divine spark shines inside of everything, says Rav Kook. All of the different movements and all of the different faiths.

[00:37:24]But they're not all the same.

[00:37:26]For example, let's talk about what the philosophers call koach hatzmicha, the power of growth.

[00:37:33]You see this a little tomato plant growing behind my mother's chair?

[00:37:37]It fell because a cherry tomato fell there last year.

[00:37:40]And it grew again this year. Last year Michael cleaned my deck and pulled it out. Michael came back. I didn't plant a tomato in there. It came back. Yeah?

[00:37:48]Now you see that one?

[00:37:50]Look across the canyon, you see those big trees?

[00:37:53]They're both growing things, but which one has a more powerful growth?

[00:37:57]The bigger one, obviously.

[00:37:59]Like all What?

[00:38:01]And let's see how the tomato grows in the stones.

[00:38:03]Let's see how much the tomato grows. We have to see how much it grows.

[00:38:07]All of the things in the world have a more crude form and a much more refined form.

[00:38:13]Just like human beings are much more refined than animals. It doesn't mean you're better than an animal, it just means in the capacity of intellect you are far superior to an animal.

[00:38:23]Yes, sure, dolphins are smart. You're still smarter.

[00:38:26]You don't have to feel inferior to the dolphin.

[00:38:29]But, the dolphin is a magnificent creature compared to a water bear.

[00:38:33]I bet you say the White House said that all of her research reached one conclusion, that human beings are not amoebas.

[00:38:41]That we require community, we require friends, we require each other, we require creator, we require faith and value and family, all those things that we need.

[00:38:50]I'm not reading every word here because I love who can get wordy and I don't want to carry you away to places that are not always relevant.

[00:39:02]I love Cook says the hand therefore maybe Eric.

[00:39:15]Instead of rejecting the entire fabric of the foreign, he calls it a thought weave.

[00:39:22]That's a nice word. Yeah. A thought weave.

[00:39:25]Instead of rejecting all of the fabric that makes up the world's thoughts, and all of these ideas have little sparks of truth and those little sparks of truth, they're like um I used to have this mosquito trap. It was on. It has a little purple light inside of it and miskinim all of the bugs in the whole world come to die over here.

[00:39:51]If only they would know the light bulb over there is safe and the little tiny one here is not a good one for them. Why don't they know? They don't know because most of the time simple people fall for simple sparks of holiness.

[00:40:04]And all of those movements that contain inside of them goodness have a very great capacity to trick simple people at least simpler than you into believing in them.

[00:40:16]Think about any political movement you don't like.

[00:40:21]You must, if you're a student of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, believe that there's something good inside of it.

[00:40:27]It can't be that it's purely evil.

[00:40:31]There is a person who sees the war in Gaza and sees a picture of a dead baby.

[00:40:38]It's never easy to see the picture of a dead baby.

[00:40:41]Our soldiers who believe in God, who believe in the right that they're doing, they still come back with PTSD.

[00:40:48]So, somebody says, "I'm struggling with this." Doesn't innately make them evil.

[00:40:54]It tells you there's a part of their humanity that is alive and well.

[00:40:59]I'm more scared of the person who doesn't bother them. I'm more scared of that person.

[00:41:03]But, what you do with that spark, then it changes everything.

[00:41:06]What do you end up from that spark? Even the movement you don't love, try to bring to some to the world something good.

[00:41:14]There are movements that demand all kinds of rights for all kinds of people.

[00:41:17]You might not agree with all of those movements.

[00:41:20]But, part of what motivates people is I cannot live with a feeling of injustice in the world. And that feeling of injustice is what you have to harness.

[00:41:29]There are people that feel that injustice is being done.

[00:41:33]And instead of telling them, "Our Torah doesn't care about your justice."

[00:41:37]All that does is tell them run far away from my Torah.

[00:41:42]Instead, you have to show them, "My Torah encompasses your justice. We just know how to channel it better.

[00:41:49]We fly better. We swim farther.

[00:41:52]You know, a horse used to run fast, but he's got to stop. Your car can go farther than a horse can. It can drive better than a horse. We can refine the ideas that empower the world.

[00:42:04]From all of those sparks that exist, good things become revealed. By the way, for a Jewish person the world is constantly getting better because we're working towards an ideal, which is the Messiah.

[00:42:20]Rabbi Kook therefore shares the idea with Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook Zait that the world is evolving.

[00:42:26]Evolution from the beginning until the end, the world continues to evolve.

[00:42:30]And what that means is that all of those new movements are actually more sophisticated than the ones that came 100 years before them.

[00:42:38]They're much more powerful than the ones that came 500 years before them.

[00:42:42]And it's on us on Am Yisrael to unite those feelings.

[00:42:49]And therefore says Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook in this final paragraph that Tida has so bluntly pushed so bluntly which you can translate as tolerance, but I don't love that word.

[00:42:59]is going to continue to expand.

[00:43:09]Until the human spirit in its entirety shall be able to find the hidden spark inside of themselves.

[00:43:19]And then all of the seagull is like the contamination, the dross, the the Tanakh would say, all of the impurities will fall apart, fall away from it.

[00:43:30]Like it says in the book of Zechariah I will remove his blood from his mouth and his abominations from between his teeth and he will be left for Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

[00:43:48]Even the evil in the world that all you see inside of it is blood and impurity and contamination when you can remove all of it from there then what do you have left?

[00:43:59]What do you have left is good, the greatest good.

[00:44:02]Like the prophet Zephaniah says Mommy, can I open this?

[00:44:10]Oh, before that we tell and all of the sparks will join the torch that is Am Yisrael.

[00:44:22]And then all will be turned to speak a pure language so they can call on the name of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

[00:44:28]And as Michah Mishlei says Hamelech Take away the impurities from the silver and only then you can turn the silver into a vessel. Perhaps if I can summarize for you like this.

[00:44:46]When we see movements and religions and ideologies in the world it seems that the classic Jewish response is Hashem Yishmo.

[00:44:56]Don't say that.

[00:44:59]What is that Bar Minan? Don't speak about that here.

[00:45:03]Harav Yisrael He said you find that every time a who tries to engage with other ideas and religions when they speak to the Jewish people they say Bar Minan Lo Ya'aleh Al Pikha. Don't say those words here.

[00:45:18]I'm sure the first time someone comes to Bet Haknesset and hears me reading from the New Testament they lose their mind.

[00:45:24]I'm reading from the New Testament so you believe in Yeshua? I read from the New Testament so you believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. How could it be?

[00:45:30]Because you must learn in everything how to find the way back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. How do you expect the Pope to do Teshuvah?

[00:45:37]If all you tell him is na na na na na na na na na Well, that's all you tell him.

[00:45:41]If you're not willing to show him you know the good that's inside of you.

[00:45:45]Do you know the good that you brought to the world?

[00:45:47]If there's anybody in the world that really really didn't like Avodah Zarah it would be the Rambam.

[00:45:54]It would be Yehudah Halevi.

[00:45:57]It would be the Geonim. They they really didn't like Avodah Zarah.

[00:46:00]But yet in every one of their books you find the same thread.

[00:46:04]We are grateful to Christianity and Islam for bringing belief of Hakadosh Baruchu to the world. And you say, "Of all the people to say that sentence, you wouldn't be the Rambam."

[00:46:14]It shouldn't be Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. But it is.

[00:46:17]Because they're telling you, by the way, that leads some, you know, academics who are still stuck in the dress part, to say, "Oh, it must be that Rambam was a Muslim." They have a whole essays written on how the Rambam was a Muslim.

[00:46:30]But you don't begin to under- The Rabbenu Avraham ben haRambam was really a Sufi Muslim pretending to be a rabbi.

[00:46:38]Only person who can say that is someone who can't recognize that our Hakhamim studied Sufism and took out from there the beautiful things they found. And they got rid of all the rest of it. They took from Aristotle the beautiful things they found and rejected all of the things they couldn't accept. Those are the real Hakhamim of the Jewish people.

[00:46:58]All of the ones who closed their eyes and closed their ears always found that they remained entirely irrelevant to the Jewish people. Because when our young people were struggling, when our young people were being moved to other ideas and other political movements, their teachers had nothing to share with them.

[00:47:15]They couldn't even tell them, "You know that movement that you're marching in the streets for?

[00:47:19]We've been marching for this movement since Avraham Avinu.

[00:47:23]We just You're right. Until you came along, we didn't even realize how important it was. That's really You okay?

[00:47:32]That's really why we didn't talk about it so much.

[00:47:35]And I see that the nature around me is helping me end my shiur a little sooner.

[00:47:40]But if I could and if I may, >> [crying] >> the purpose of everything Rabbi Ilan ben Amozegh has been teaching us and tonight Rabbi Huga has been teaching us >> [crying] >> is that though with your belief in one God you are blessed with a lot of confidence.

[00:47:57]We know that Hashem is real. We know the Torah is true. We're not here to look for other beliefs or ideas.

[00:48:05]>> [crying] >> If your goal is like the prophet Zephaniah says that we should all stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world serving Hashem, the only way to do that will be to show the rest of the world not that they're wrong and that they're evil, but that the beautiful things they have been holding on to for so long are already manifested inside of Am Yisrael.

[00:48:28]They already exist inside of our Torah.

[00:48:31]They already are there.

[00:48:33]And sometimes even we forgot about them.

[00:48:35]Sometimes it took other people marching in Washington, D.C. for us to remember that we don't like those things.

[00:48:41]Sometimes it took movements in this country to remind Am Yisrael that our Torah was against slavery, not for slavery.

[00:48:50]But the moment our Chachamim heard that message and it resonated with them, they were the first ones to stand up and give those sermons in the Bet HaKnesset. I told you about one of the rabbis of the Spanish Portuguese community who had to run for his life cuz he spoke against slavery when it wasn't popular.

[00:49:06]Because that's already what our Torah taught us. And all the other people were manipulating the Torah to say what they wanted it to say.

[00:49:12]Sometimes you have to believe in the greatness of Hashem.

[00:49:16]Hashem is not afraid of any other religion. He's not afraid of any other god. He's not afraid of any other political ideology.

[00:49:23]And if instead of straddling or just uh sorry, mechila. Instead of being a partisan and sitting on one side of the aisle, if you would learn how to be a Chacham and straddle both, I know nobody likes it. I told you before, one of my favorite quotes from Margaret Thatcher. I don't have so many favorite quotes from Margaret Thatcher.

[00:49:40]Margaret Thatcher said, "The danger of standing in the middle of the road is that you run get run over by cars that are driving in both directions." Our Chachamim were always those people.

[00:49:49]They always found what they could learn and what they could reject. What they could take and what they didn't take.

[00:49:54]And they engage with everybody.

[00:49:56]Our people, especially our young people, but I'm Israel as a whole is fighting an existential war.

[00:50:02]There are ideologies like in every generation that are trying to sweep them away.

[00:50:07]And the one thing you can be sure of, they won't sweep them away.

[00:50:10]Because who is greater and our Torah is greater.

[00:50:14]But ambassadors of the Torah and who are home sometimes they're very uh puny and very small-minded.

[00:50:22]It'll be so much greater if one of those people could walk into a better midrash.

[00:50:25]Walk into a better and say, "Wow, the came here.

[00:50:29]They really have engaged with ideas that I believe in and they haven't rejected me for them.

[00:50:34]They've only shown me a more dignified, a more pure, a more noble way to walk on that road.

[00:50:39]And I bless us all that we should master this art."

[00:50:43]I showed you a few weeks ago a sentence of Moses.

[00:50:47]He went through every that he could find and showed you how really the origin of that its name comes from the Torah from our and it's a it's a perverted version.

[00:50:57]This is by the way just a commentary in the who tells us that everyone believes in one God and they move further and further away from that belief because it was hard to connect to the one pure monotheism so they the moon works for God and so we'll worship the moon and that's how we ended up here.

[00:51:12]And ended that paragraph and he says, "I can't do all the work. I can't tell you all the answers but I'm relying on the people that come after me to continue this job. There are new movements that have come to the world since 100 years ago in Italy. New ideologies and the small-mindedness of just rejecting all of them and ignoring all of them saying, "But the Bible doesn't say that." Who cares what it says like that?

[00:51:35]The Torah says everything. We're now in the weeks of have have the good of our Flip it over, turn it over because everything that's out there that is good is found inside of here. Everything. And there's nothing out there that is purely bad. Everything that you think is bad, at the deep root of it is good. Why?

[00:51:54]Why?

[00:51:56]Because just like Avodah Zarah is good, how can Avodah Zarah be good?

[00:52:00]Tell me how Avodah Zarah can be good.

[00:52:03]Avinuam.

[00:52:07]Oh. How do people become Avodah Avodah Zarah? That means one day they were sitting in their chair and they looked into the sky and said, "Why am I here?

[00:52:14]What is the purpose of my existence? Who put me here?" Their answer was wrong.

[00:52:19]But the motivation was correct.

[00:52:21]When you see anybody in the world who developed an idea, most of the time that idea is developed from something positive. It may end up somewhere negative because they didn't have the right guide. They didn't have the Istakel B'Oraisa Uvar Alma. He looked in the world, the Torah, and created the world.

[00:52:39]I think that it's our time and it's our generation to not be petty. To not be small-minded. But to show all of the people in the world that are struggling, you don't have to struggle.

[00:52:47]In fact, you're not even contradicting each other. That famous joke, where a man comes to the rabbi and says, "Rabbi, my wife, she said" he says, "You're right." And the wife said, "What do you mean?" He says, "You're also right." And the rabbi comes and says, "What do you mean they're both right?"

[00:53:00]He says, "You're also right." "What does it mean everybody's right?"

[00:53:03]It means Talmidei Chachamim Marbim Shalom Ba'Olam.

[00:53:07]Torah scholars increase peace in the world. There's an incredible Gemara that says, "When two Torah scholars argue, one says emes and one says sheker, both of them find them to be true." What is he talking about? Even in the sheker there's truth. Even in the wrong opinions in Halacha. My Rebbe used to used to tell me, Alav Hashalom, that when you read an opinion in Halacha that is incorrect, you should thank it because it taught you what is correct.

[00:53:31]Contrast is a very powerful form of education. That's what it means "Eilu Ve'eilu Divrei Elohim Chaim." These are both the words of the living God. They can't both be right. The Judaism that thinks everybody is right is a little bit crazy. It's not that they're both right, but both of them brought me back to the correct path and the incorrect path.

[00:53:49]The incorrect path sometimes kicked me onto the correct path. How many people ended up in the better midrash because of the church?

[00:53:56]How many people ended up in the better midrash of the Rambam because they walked down the better midrash of some other rabbis that weren't correct, and they ended up there. How many people ended up in the arms of because of It's always that way. Because we are a collection of our experiences, and our experiences all have a spark of godliness inside of them.

[00:54:15]And even if you're not a on this night that we talk about the great humanity that can come out of teachings like this from the Kabbalah.

[00:54:23]And to ignore perhaps the teachings that came from there that are not so humanistic, but to focus on the ones that are is the power of like Moses.

[00:54:33]And sadly, I read an article not so long ago that says that was not a real Kabbalist.

[00:54:39]Why? How did he study Kabbalah and become a humanist?

[00:54:43]I think that's the again why academics shouldn't write all the articles that they write. And because some people study some things like the Torah PPO, it's a double-edged sword.

[00:54:52]I also know the rabbis that say, "Hey, if you do this, you're going straight to hell burning in the bonfire." That's why they make bonfires to show everybody where they're going to burn. And some of us say, "No, the Torah is so beautiful.

[00:55:01]It's going to burn like a fire that took you out of Egypt all the way to Israel."

[00:55:05]Depends. Both people read the same fire.

[00:55:07]One is burning everybody in it, and one is lighting the whole world with it. And those are two kinds of the same thing with our and we will choose to walk with all of those that lit up the world. With I am grateful to be in a people that learn like this. I'm hoping on holiday coming right around the corner to spend the day learning all kinds of incredible pieces of Torah with you. But for right now, I wish everybody a good evening.

[00:55:30]And I got to tell you, if you didn't get a marshmallow or brownies, don't be ripped. There are more tamales in the pot.

[00:55:36]It's the only night in the world you have kosher tamales in San Diego. So, make sure you take some. Besides the sham, until then I want to thank everybody for coming here. Thank you very much to the Lopez family. I waited until the end to announce it. But, Esther and the entire Lopez family have decided to sponsor tonight's event. So, thank you very much.

[00:55:54]May God bless them with a lot of good health and happiness. And I especially want to bless Senor Lopez.

[00:56:01]I call him Papa Grande, but his real name is Mario Ben >> [crying] >> They keep changing his mother's name for me. So, I don't Mauricio.

[00:56:09]He should have a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun.

[00:56:14]Have a good day. Thank you so much.

[00:56:16]Please take some food. You don't have to leave. We're here. Thank you.