Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Torah says that we are not allowed to follow the statutes of the nations around us.
[00:00:13] Do not follow their statutes.
[00:00:17] What does it mean?
[00:00:19] I will tell you that whenever we go shopping with my kids, I always tell them, if you buy something for a full retail price, you are violating the command, don't follow the statutes of non Jews. This was a joke. But what does it really mean? The Torah says that we Jews have our own laws and we have our own lifestyle.
[00:00:44] Now does everything what Jews do make sense? No.
[00:00:50] First of all, we have the laws that are given to us that make sense. And then we have laws that are given to us that don't make sense. There are three categories of laws that the Torah is commanding us. There are laws that we can very well figure out on our own. We would be able to figure out on our own if the Torah would not be given. They're called mishpatim.
[00:01:12] Mishpatim are laws like prohibition of theft or prohibition of murder, prohibition of rape.
[00:01:18] And if Torah would not be given to us, we would figure it out. And what is the proof of that? Other nations also have these laws.
[00:01:26] Most of civil societies in the world have prohibition of rape.
[00:01:30] It just makes sense.
[00:01:32] So then there are laws that we would not be able to figure out on our own in any shape or form. There was just no way for us even to think about it. For example, like the laws of spiritual impurity.
[00:01:45] And then there is a middle ground. There are laws that we would not be able to figure out on our own. But once the Torah is giving it to us, we see that it makes sense. We appreciate it. One of these laws is Shabbat.
[00:01:58] People that never heard about a day off once every seven days wouldn't even think, why would you rest every seven days?
[00:02:08] You eat every single day, so you should probably work every single day also.
[00:02:13] And we know that in Far Eastern cultures that were not touched by Christianity or Islam, in their world, you work every single day.
[00:02:22] You don't have one day a week off. The concept of week actually comes from the Torah as well. But once the Torah has introduced to us this idea of Shabbat, it makes sense. And what is the proof of that? That it makes sense that other nations have taken it over from us. It just makes sense. One day a week, you rest.
[00:02:41] So these are the three categories.
[00:02:45] These are the laws that we Jews have. As a Jew, then we have our Jewish customs.
[00:02:51] Interestingly, to know that the Jewish custom is not just something that Jews do.
[00:02:55] If all Jews around the world will start wearing green pants, Starting tomorrow, it will not become a Jewish custom.
[00:03:02] People think that Jewish custom is something that all Jews do.
[00:03:06] And there is an old story about it. How husband and wife just got married in the first Shabbos. The wife is making a chicken and she takes whole chicken, puts it in the oven, and her husband yells, no, no, no, don't do it. You cannot do it. You cannot do it. Why?
[00:03:23] My mother always told me never to put the whole chicken in an oven. Okay, I'm sorry. Why they go to the mother? Mom says, I don't know. My mother always told me they go to the grandmother. My mother always told me, thank God great grandmother was still alive. They go to her, she says, yeah, when we lived in Europe, we had a very small oven, so I had cut my chicken in half.
[00:03:42] But since then, in their family, it became a custom.
[00:03:46] So many people think that this constituent Jewish tradition, and it's not Jewish tradition, is something that specifically Jews do to enhance or to help their Torah observance.
[00:03:58] For example, the Torah says that we should not cut sides of our hair, our side locks.
[00:04:09] So some people want to stress this mitzvah, and that's why they have longer pairs. This is a Jewish custom.
[00:04:18] This is. The Torah tells us that we should look presentable whenever we pray.
[00:04:24] So that's why many people wear a jacket. As a matter of fact, wearing a jacket is also, according to Kabbalah, you're supposed to have two coverings, rather one over your body.
[00:04:33] So that is a Jewish custom because it enhances the Jewish observance.
[00:04:39] But if all Jews tomorrow will start wearing green pants, that will not become a Jewish custom. It's just that's what Jews do.
[00:04:46] Not everything Jews do is a Jewish custom.
[00:04:48] So we Jews, we have mitzvahs, and mitzvah's commandments have three categories. The ones that don't make any sense, the ones that partially make sense, the ones that make sense. Then we have our customs, and our customs have a reason for it in order for it to have a custom.
[00:05:04] And then there are things that Jews do. It's not a Jewish custom, but that's what Jews do. It's part of what they call from culture.
[00:05:12] For example, there is a fashionable way of covering woman's hair. They call it Rapunzel, you know, those very weaved scarves that turn into like almost a turban.
[00:05:24] Some women wear it.
[00:05:26] That's a part of Jewish culture.
[00:05:29] So why do we do it? We just do it. Is it good or bad? It's not good. It's not Bad. We just do it.
[00:05:35] So all this is fine.
[00:05:38] Now, the Torah says you live amongst other nations, and these other nations also have many things that are part of their culture and part of their, their customs.
[00:05:49] Now, which ones are we allowed to take over? Which ones of them are we allowed to follow on our own? If you want to. So this is what the Torah says. As I told you, there are three categories of commandments that we have. The ones that make sense, the ones that partially make sense, and the ones that make no sense. HOK is a commandment that makes no sense, like ritual purity.
[00:06:13] So the Torah tells us when it speaks about what we are allowed to follow when it comes to non Jewish customs and what we are not allowed to follow, the Torah says the hoch type of commandments, the hoch type of customs that non Jews have them you're not allowed to follow. What? Which means that if there's a non Jew who lives next to me and he started using this new device at his home, if I will use it, it'll make my life more convenient.
[00:06:46] If people around you have a custom that makes sense, makes your life more convenient, and you want to take it over, you want to start using it in your life, feel free, that's great.
[00:07:02] But every culture has things that make no sense and people do it just because they do it, that we are not allowed to follow when it comes to non Jews. And there's a lot of those.
[00:07:12] One of my very controversial examples that I bring to that is modern day college degrees.
[00:07:21] Today's American economy is oversaturated with people with college degrees. We have 50% more people graduating college than we actually need. What our economy is demanding.
[00:07:34] 76 of college graduates have jobs that have nothing to do with their college degrees.
[00:07:41] So I'm telling a person, if you're in business and somebody suggests to you to make an investment which is going to take hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's going to take four years of your life, and it's only 24% chance that you will have any use out of it.
[00:07:55] Would you make such investment? Everybody says no.
[00:07:58] So I said, but you're doing it with your kids, with every single one of them.
[00:08:02] You're wasting four years of their life for something that has only 24% chance of being useful.
[00:08:07] And by the way, only 60% of college graduates have jobs that even require a college degree. So 40% of college graduates get jobs that don't require college degree. And that's because our economy is oversaturated with people who have College degrees.
[00:08:20] So then I will tell you that's what I tell all the parents. If your child has a specific career he wants to pursue, he wants to become a doctor, he wants to become an accountant, he wants to become a lawyer, he wants to become an engineer, for sure, send them to college, it makes sense.
[00:08:34] But if people send their kids to college just because that's what everybody else does. I make this presentation to all the parents and they all listen to me say I agree with you. They Google check all of my data and they say that it's correct. They say I hear what you're saying but I'm still going to send my kids to a college. Why? That is the hawk of our culture by the way. I would even venture to say this is a Jewish American or Jewish Western religion. Okay, that makes no sense.
[00:09:04] It's a religious belief that the kids should go to college. Why? Makes no sense. You waste money, you waste his life on it. But every kid supposed to go to college, that's a religion of Western Jews instead of Judaism. And now we know how much of garbage they're learning in college. They are surrounded by all this anti Semitic propaganda and pro Palestinian propaganda. And then they wonder why did my son, why did my daughter come back from college with a Palestinian kafiyya and the Science free Palestine? He is Jewish. Well that's how you know all this. So this is a hawk, this is a statute or non observant Jewish world and they follow it blindly without any reason. Makes no sense.
[00:09:43] Again if your kid wants a specific career, obviously it makes sense.
[00:09:47] But nowadays most people go to college. That's like a holding pen for kid to wait to mature because he's too early to work. But he already finished high school, he has to do something, let him go to college, maybe he'll figure himself out.
[00:10:01] I always tell parents, send the kids to work and best even kick him out of the house and send him to work, make him get his own place to live. He's going to be working those minimum wage jobs and it's fine. He's going to get some life, real life experience.
