Everyday Judaism · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Ask Away series on the Everyday Judaism Podcast. To have your questions answered on future episodes, please email askaway at torchweb.org. Now ask away.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so excited. My favorite part of the week, Ask Away, Ask Away number 34. I'm so excited. This is really phenomenal. I look forward to hearing each and every one of your questions. Good morning. Good morning. I have an easy question.
What are the biggest or the worst of all sins in Judaism? You think that's easy. Okay, so let me tell you like this. I don't know. The Torah doesn't tell us what has more value as a mitzvah or what has more punishment as a sin. The Torah doesn't tell us what has more value than the other, both in the mitzvah side, in the performative side, or in the prohibition side. So we don't know.
And the idea that our sages teach us is that we should treat every one, every mitzvah that we perform, every sin that, God forbid, we avoid, we should treat them as if they're the most important mitzvah in the Torah. Aren't there seven sins that are in the Torah? So okay, so no, no. So let me, let me, let me organize this. Okay. There are a total of 613 commandments in the Torah, 365 prohibitions. These are things do not do. Do not do these things.
For example, don't mix milk and meat. It's a prohibition. There are three prohibitions actually in that. Not to cook it, not to eat it, not to consume it, and not to benefit from it. Okay, so three different prohibitions right there. So a person doesn't eat milk and meat, they fulfilled a biblical prohibition. They fulfilled a mitzvah of not committing a sin by performing that prohibition. You have other commandments do not mix wool and linen.
So if you have a garment that has wool in it, we have a place called a, in Houston, we have two people who do this. It's a shotness checking. They check your clothes for shotness. Shotness is a biblical prohibition not to have clothes that have wool and linen in them. Do we know if that's the most valuable mitzvah or not? We don't know that. Now we have the 39 prohibitions on Shabbos. We have a total of 365 prohibitions.
Now we have 248 performative mitzvahs together, 613 commands of the Torah. So the performative mitzvah, for example, it says to honor your father and mother. That's a performative mitzvah, to honor your father and mother. To love Hashem, your God. All of these are performative mitzvahs. And the seven laws that you're referring to are the Noahide laws. There are seven laws that God says this is universal laws. This has nothing to do with whether you're Jewish or not Jewish. These are universal laws.
For example, one of those laws is not to have idolatry. Idolatry is a prohibition for non-Jews as it is for Jews. Evermenachai, not taking a limb from a living animal. So you have to slaughter the animal first. You can't just chop off a leg from a cow and throw it on the grill. You first have to slaughter the animal and then you can enjoy from its meat or chicken, whatever. You can't just knock off its leg or cut out its shoulder and say, I'm looking for a brisket
for Rosh Hashanah, okay? It has to be dead first, properly. To slaughter it properly is also a performative mitzvah. It's got to be slaughtered properly. So there are seven Noahide laws, which are laws that are applicable to all nations of the world, but 613 commandments that are applicable to the Jewish people. And now, if you want, we have the book right here. So here in this magnificent book published by Feldheim, this book is called the Concise Book of Mitzvot.
And this is all the books that are observed today, all the mitzvahs that are observed today. So a total of 91 performative commandments, 91, am I correct? 77. Now this was my bar mitzvah and my bar mitzvah, I said these out by heart. And then you have the prohibitions that are applicable today. And that is 194 prohibitions that are applicable today. And then you have laws that are applicable only in the land of Israel, which is today
26 laws that are applicable today in the land of Israel, only in the land of Israel. All right. I highly recommend this book because it's very, very practical. You see the actual mitzvahs that are relevant for us today. You know who wrote this book? The Chavetz Chaim. The Chavetz Chaim wrote this book. He wrote it because there were many people in his generation, here, Yisrael Meir HaKohen, Chavetz Chaim, okay? Chavetz Chaim wrote this book and the objective was for people of that generation who didn't
know what are the laws that are applicable. I know we don't have a temple, so maybe the laws don't apply anymore. Well, the laws in the temple don't apply, but other laws do apply. So for example, there's a command for every man to get married. That's a performative commandment. Let's go get to work. Get to work, Mark. All right. We have a mitzvah to have belief in Hashem, right? To build our knowledge in Hashem. That Hashem is one. To love Hashem.
To fear Hashem. To sanctify Hashem's name in public. These are all biblical commandments. To pray every day. To pray every day is a mitzvah in the Torah. It's relevant today. This is an unbelievable book. So I hope I answered your question. There aren't only seven prohibitions. There are 365 of which the Chafetz Chaim here lists 194 of them, prohibitions. And in the performative, there are 77 performative commandments. All right. With that, I hope I answered your question, Marilyn. Thank you.
Excellent question. Last time when we were talking on Friday for thinking Talmudist, I don't know what prompted this thought, but I was thinking, right, we don't have the temple anymore. Correct. So I think you may have said, God wants a dwelling place with us. Within us, correct. Right. And so I was wondering, maybe that's why there's not a temple. Because he wanted a more intimate relationship with us. So it is very, very interesting. It's a great question you're asking.
I want to share with you something that Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky, who was one of the great, great, great gifts that Hashem gave the United States of America in the 1900s, last century, is that Hashem gave us three outstanding Torah sages in the United States of America. They all came from Europe. One was, everybody knows, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. The other was Rabbi Aaron Cutler, who built the Lakewood Yeshiva, which is by far the largest influence on American Jewry. I learned in Lakewood for two and a half years.
And almost every single rabbi you've ever met learned in Lakewood. And all of the yeshivas were outgrowths of the Lakewood yeshiva as well. So the rabbis who were teaching in the yeshivas, all of the heads of school, they were all from Lakewood yeshiva, either way. And then you have the third great sage, which was Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky. And Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky was a gem of a person because he was just sweet, aside for being a relative of mine, so I'm a little bit prejudiced.
But Rabbi Yaakov was sweetness. He was total sweetness. And he had a gentle neshama. And he was a real Torah scholar, a real sage, a real smart man. But he also had a delicateness of how to deal with people in the most profound way. And an idea that I just saw this Shabbos from Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky is that, you know, pidgin haben is the redeeming of the firstborn, a mitzvah that is applicable today.
You know, my son had a baby boy, and the boy being born as the opening of the womb of the mother, it needs to be redeemed. If the father or the mother is not a kohen, or the father and the mother is not a levi. Okay, so if she's a bas levi, it's not applicable. They both have to be Israelites, and it has to be the first child, a boy. I merited to do this mitzvah, and my son merited to do this mitzvah as well.
And Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky asks, I don't understand about this mitzvah. What is this mitzvah? Someone who does not get redeemed, so a child who is not redeemed at 30 days, cannot work, cannot do anything. Why? Because he's considered holy to Hashem. So now when you redeem him, now he can go into the workforce. Now he can go do things. Now he can. So Rabbi Yaakov says, why redeem anybody? Why redeem anybody? Let them stay holy to Hashem.
Why would you want to take them out of that state? It's such a great question. So Rabbi Yaakov says that's not what Hashem wants us to do in this world. Hashem wants us to be in the struggle. Hashem wants us to be dealing with real challenges, and elevate yourself. Don't just be in a state of holiness, and oh, I'm untouchable, I'm untouchable, I'm, you know, I'm going to stay like in the church, right? We stay celibate, and they don't, no, no. Get involved in relationships.
Get involved with people. And that's where you're going to have your growth. You may have challenges, but you have to elevate yourself, and grow step by step by step. This is a very fundamental principle. So back to your question, Anna. The temple that Hashem builds within us, yes, that's true, Hashem wants that temple within us. And also when we had a temple in Jerusalem, He also wanted it within us. But we need to have something which is beyond ourselves that we're able to elevate ourselves,
that by just looking at the service in the temple, we would be purified. By just going up to the temple three times a year in pilgrimage, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot would be a rectification for all the mistakes that we made, a repentance. So there's something that's beyond that we're able to elevate on a whole new level. And that's something that we miss without having a temple. Without having a temple, we're limited to our own resources.
When we had the temple, we were able to elevate ourselves to a whole new level. It says that someone who saw the joy of the Simchat Bet Tishreiva, which was during the holiday of Sukkot, when they drew the water for the offerings, the joy that they had, you've never seen a joy like that in your life. I've been very happy before. There's something which is elevated beyond what we can accomplish just on our own.
And to be in the godly presence of Hashem, in His place, is what we're asking for. Yeah, we have temples. Yeah, we have synagogues. We have study halls. Yeah, this is also considered a Migdash Me'at, right over here, this room where we study every single day. The Torah is also considered a micro-temple because we use it as a vessel to connect with Hashem. But how about if we're able to be in Hashem's house? That would be a whole new level. Excellent question.
So Shalom Bias, right? You live with a non-Jew. You're still obligated to some level to keep peace. What do you mean by that? So the other person isn't just not Torah-observant, but they vehemently oppose the Torah, right? And so you're kind of in a protective mode with them. And so what is the obligation to keep the peace? Okay, so this becomes a whole question of our marriage choices. And I encourage every Jewish person to only consider marrying a Jewish person.
The vast majority of these relationships that are interfaith end up in total destruction. Why? Because they're not compatible. Not that they don't love each other. They could love each other, but you can love a lot of things. It doesn't mean you need to marry them. You know, I love fish. I don't marry fish, right? So the choice that we make in our marriage needs to be one that is compatible with our life and our growth. Now the challenge of every marriage is real.
Every marriage. Why? You know, one of my rabbis used to say that when he had students would come over to him and complain about their roommate, he would say, you should just know that having a difficult roommate is a merit, an omen for having a very good marriage, because you learn to get along with someone who's difficult. Not that your spouse is going to be difficult, but your spouse is going to be different 100%. I can guarantee you that. Your spouse will be different than you.
Very different. To the point where you're going to think they're crazy. What planet do they come from? Who rolls the toilet paper like that? And who rolls the toothpaste like this? And who makes their bed like that? And who... There are so many millions of components to every household that there's points of friction. And we can make something out of those frictions and make a big fight and a big fire in our home or we can have peace and harmony from it.
It depends on how we work on ourselves. And it's a very big topic to talk about. And I could talk about this for days and days and weeks and weeks about how... I've been doing recently a parenting class and I started off the first in the series, I talked about... First thing I said, if you don't have peace and harmony in the home, you cannot raise healthy children. And what's amazing is I spoke yesterday to someone who deals with very troubled teens. I'm talking very troubled teens.
And I asked them, what's the key finding of where these kids are coming from? He said, 98% are from broken homes or difficult homes. A child who grows up with two loving parents with harmony in the home, it's a blessing for success. When there's a lack of harmony in the home, when there's parents who are fighting, when there's discord, when there's war going on, when a child feels that when they're coming home they're going into a battlefield, it's not a healthy way for them to grow up.
But it doesn't mean that you can't be successful. I will never ever agree with that. Everyone has heard of Larry Bird, the great, great, great basketball player. Great basketball player. Do you know that his father was a violent alcoholic? And he grew up in Chicago. And it was frigid weather in the winter. And he would stay in the schoolyard and shoot the basketball until his father would fall asleep from his drunkenness. So he took lemons and made tequila, right?
He took what would be a very difficult life and just avoided it. And he became one of the greatest basketball players ever. You understand that just because we have a difficult situation in our home doesn't mean we have to be. It's not a recipe for disaster for you per se. And I tell this to parents, the best thing you can do for your child is figure out how to be the best parent you can, the best spouse you can, right?
Because if the children come from broken homes, children come from homes where they're committed to marriage and they're going to fight in front of the children or they're going to have discord in the home, it's not either going to be healthy. Children have to grow up in a home where you have like a tree, a tree where everybody wants a tree that's going to go straight, go straight up, right? So what do you do? You go look at your tree and it starts tilting.
So what do you do? You put a stake and you pull it. What happens if you pull it too much? It's going to go too much the other way. So you put another stake and it pulled the other way. And then what really you need to do is just to put them so that it has harmony. And that's the father and the mother on both sides of a child. Each one gives different components to the child. Each one gives very vital nutrients to that child.
This one gives encouragement. This one gives love. This one gives guidance. This one gives direction. This one gives embrace. This one gives courage. Everyone gives different components. And that's critical for us to provide that for our children. So in this conversation I was having with this man over Shabbos who was dealing with all of these troubled teens, someone joined the conversation and he says, so what do you say? What's the key to raising a healthy family?
I said there must be harmony in the home. There must be harmony in the home. A child needs to know that it's a safe place for them. And if it's not safe for the parents, because the parents are fighting all the time, it's not going to be safe for the children. And a child who grows up in such an environment where they don't know what the day will bring, because my mother might be mad.
I have a friend of mine, he told me, his father would call him and say, stay out of the house. Mommy's in beast mode. She is mad at everything. Just stay out as long as you can. That's a terrible way for a child to grow up. It's a terrible way. Because he doesn't know. Is she going to be happy today? Is she going to be? No. A person, every, I'm a big, big encourager of people, today there's tremendous help that
people can get by speaking to therapists. And there are many rabbis today who will not officiate a wedding unless the couple, before they get married, goes for therapy. Why? Because you're speaking different languages. You need to learn to communicate. A husband and wife are very different languages. Now I will also tell you a very interesting thing. He's saying different languages. What do you mean? He speaks English, right? I speak English. It's the same language. Let me explain something to you, okay?
Does anybody know how to say the thing that goes woof woof? How do you say that in English? Dog. Okay, does anybody know how you say fish in Hebrew? Dog, the same exact word. Same exact word. Two different languages. Two different things. Same word. They're using the same word, but it's different languages. One is referring to a fish, and one is referring to a dog, okay? That's the way the miscommunication works in marriage. You have to learn each other's language.
When she says fine, after you ask her if you can go hang out with your friends and watch the football game, that's very not fine, okay? But she said fine! That's not what she meant. It's an interesting thing that we see from Abraham, that when Abraham asks God, what should I do, God answers Abraham and says to him, listen to her voice. It doesn't say listen to what she says. Listen to her voice. There's a tone. There's something that's, there's a pitch.
There is something that's behind the words. Listen to that. Don't listen to the words, per se. Not the words alone, because fine is a threat. It's not a permission. Men don't understand that. They need to learn that. And if they don't learn that, they're going through a very difficult time, I guarantee it. Excuse the expression, but I'm going to be the devil's advocate. Go for it. I look forward to hearing it. My basic issue with Judaism, with you, with what we do...
One second. I thought we were friends. No. Don't take that for granted. Okay. Okay. Okay. Is to differentiate laws, rules, traditions. You have the basic Talmud. You have the Ten Commandments. You have the 613 commandments. But then you have all this other mishigas. And specifically, I'm looking at the ultra-Orthodox, okay? And I'll be frank. I see them dancing around with the shlimel, with the long white stockings and the shorts, with the coats, with the payas.
And I think a lot of people are embarrassed by their appearance, by their traditions. And I don't understand the difference between the basic laws and rules versus traditions. A lot of this came out in the Middle Ages, when they lived in a shtetl, divorced from reality of what went on in Europe. And I'd like you to differentiate why they wear white shirts. Why don't they wear a blue striped shirt, for instance? This is what I find disturbing. That's it. Okay. How much time do you have?
Okay. So, let's begin. Firstly, like this, we have to ensure that we have a love and an appreciation for every single human being, okay? Every human being, whether they look like us, whether they think like us, whether they act like us, whether they respect the things that we respect, whether they live in our community, doesn't make a difference. Even where are you from originally? In the Bronx, okay? Imagine if someone tells you to be a Chicago White Sox fan. You're like, what? That's heresy.
You grew up as a Yankees fan or a Mets fan or a Dodgers fan. It's like, you know, you're not like me, but you have to love every creation, even the people who go against your football team or your baseball team, your hockey team, whatever it is. Okay. So, it's very, very basic. At the very, very simple level, we have to love all of creation, okay? That's number one. Number two is there's a mitzvah to serve Hashem. Serve Hashem.
It shouldn't make a difference serving Hashem, whether we do it like our neighbor or a friend, whether we wear the same coat as them as we don't. So now, one really has nothing to do with the other, meaning if you serve Hashem the way you serve Hashem, the way the Torah commands us to do that, that's great. We cannot and should not confuse Jewish law with Jewish customs. The Shriemel is no law. There's no law in the entire Torah that says that you should wear a Shriemel.
There is no law that says that you should wear a Bekesha, which is the long coat. There is no law that says that you should wear a blue shirt or white shirt. So now, what does the halacha say though? That you should have special clothes for Shabbos. The Torah says that you should have special things that are only for Shabbos. So everybody can interpret that how they want. For you it might be wearing a beautiful blue shirt, and for another person it might be
to wear a t-shirt, for another person it might be to wear a tuxedo, for another person it might be to wear a suit, and for another person it might be to wear a Shriemel and a Bekesha. Everyone has their way, and Hashem gives us, which is an incredible important thing for you to appreciate about Judaism, Judaism is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all system. It's meant for every person to have their own way of expression within the guidelines of the Torah.
So for one person, and one of the things we gave about this is if you look at the tzitzit, there's five knots, and then the fringes go in their own way. Five that you keep them solid, our sages tell us that the five knots correspond to the five books of the Torah. The five books of the Torah, you can't play with it. But what you do beyond that, in how you observe them, and how you have your personalization of it, that each one goes its own way.
You look at the tzitzit, the strings, they go their own way. So if your question is about the style, and you don't like the style, that's fine, you don't have to wear that style. Nobody asked you. They never came to you and said, you better wear this or else. They never came to me and said that. So every person, I have relatives who wear strimels, and in fact, for my son's wedding, which was in Montreal, I asked my cousins, please come with your strimels.
I love the strimel. I think it's so regal. I think it's so beautiful. Now, I understand that there are people who don't like it. That's fine. Ron, you don't need to like it. It's fine. There's no commandment that says that anyone needs to wear it. Again, we have to establish that. You know, one of the things we learn in our Monday afternoon class at our Lunch and Learn is we're learning the teachings of Rabbi Nachman.
And one of the first things that Rabbi Nachman talks about is simplicity. You have to know what the law is versus what the custom is. You have to know what the obligation is versus what the preference is. It's very easy for people to get distracted and get caught up with the wrong thing being the commandment versus what's the custom. There's no mitzvah for a person to wear a strimel or a bekeshah. There's no mitzvah for it. I'll just tell you a funny thing.
So my mother's family, my mother's whole family is all Hasidic, okay? I'm talking about they have the strimels, they have the bekeshahs, the white socks, the whole thing, everything you mentioned. They've got it all. They're the sweetest people, sweetest sugar. I love them. I'm the black sheep, by the way, so just so you understand. I'm like the outcast, right? Because I'm not wearing that. Okay. You're laughing. It's not funny. It's a real thing.
It's like every person is not going to be judged by the Almighty after we're done this world. God is not going to ask us if we wore a strimel. God's not going to ask us whether or not we wore a white shirt or a blue shirt. A different question might be asked. Did you do your best to serve me? Did you do your best to honor the Shabbos? So for one person, if I, let me just be honest with you.
If I came to shul wearing a strimel and a bekeshah, you would ask me, is it Purim? What is this? Dress up day? Right? What are you doing? Because it's just not, it's not, that's not me. It's not the right thing for me to do. You have to know who you are and you have to know what you are. I was visiting my grandparents. They lived in Bar Park. And my grandfather was a Bels Chassid, okay, a Chassid from the Chassidic dynasty of Bels.
And he was going to pray in his synagogue. Now I, it was pouring rain like you haven't seen, okay? It was pouring rain that Shabbos. So Friday night, we're going to go to shul and I had just come back from Russia. I spent, I was in the former Soviet Union many times in 1996, 97, 98, 99. And I had bought one of those Russian hats, you know, the fur hats. I figured, you know what, it's pouring rain. I'll wear that. I'll wear that.
So I go and I sit with my grandfather who's wearing his bekeshah, who's wearing his strimel, and I'm wearing the Russian hat. I was the clown in that room, okay? The absolute clown. The kids were walking by looking at me like I was an alien. What's wrong with this guy wearing this hat? It's just, you know, it's like, just because it has fur doesn't mean it looks like a strimel. Either way, it's just a funny thing, but it doesn't necessitate that we have to do that.
I will tell you, just because you bring up Chassidim, you will never, ever find a kinder people ever on planet earth than the Chassidim. If you're driving in New York, or any place, and your car breaks down at two o'clock in the morning, you call up the Haverim hotline, and you will have someone there within 20 minutes to change your tire. You say, how much is it? It's free. What do you mean it's free? You just ran out of bed to come help me. Yeah.
That's what we do. We help. Chassidim, all right, Chassidic comes from the word chesed, kindness. There's no one who does kindness like that. No one. If you're stuck in a hospital in New York, they have a hospital chesed room, a bikkur cholim room, where you'll have hot food, where you'll have snacks, where you'll have a book to read. It's very lonely in a hospital. They're there to take care of you. You need a meal for Shabbos, it's taken care of.
It's unbelievable the acts of kindness that they do. And they ask for nothing in return, by the way, nothing. They just want to be there to help you in your time of challenge. You will not find a people, by the way, you know where Hatzalah is? I'm a member of Hatzalah. I'm a responder for Hatzalah. We've had a number of times during our class, we've had tones that come out for an emergency response. We're all licensed by the state and licensed throughout the United States.
So we can serve in all 50 states to get licensing for each state. Do you know that we have tones that come out literally 24 hours a day, from 12am, 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am, we've had calls every hour of the day. And there's responders, you need three responders for every call, two who go direct, and one who goes to get the ambulance to bring it to the call. Who jumps out to help somebody else?
This was started by a Hasidic man, Hasidic man in Williamsburg, who decided we cannot rely on FDNY, the fire department of New York. They're bombarded with calls all day, all night. They don't have time to come to our calls. And when someone, God forbid, needs CPR, because they have a cardiac arrest, every second counts. So your neighbor could be having one of these radios responding to the call, and he'll be there in 12 seconds.
That's the way we are as a people, and you have this in every Jewish community around the globe now. Started in Williamsburg, Hasidic community, every Jewish community has one. Why? Because we're there for each other. And if a non-Jew calls, we'll go as well. It's not only for the Jewish people. Because our job is not to just be kind for ourselves, it's to be kind for everyone. But you understand that this kind of act of kindness, you will never find in any other
place in the world, in any other community. You will not find. Are there volunteer firefighters? There are. But you won't see the kind of commitment. By the way, we work very closely with Houston Fire Department. And the comments that we've gotten from those responders is unbelievable. They get paid. We don't. We're there in seconds. Literally in seconds we're there. Sometimes we can wait for them. It can take 35 minutes for them to show up, if they show up.
So we're servicing right now the Fondren, Myerland, Bel Air areas. And anybody who will call, we'll be there. And by the way, what's the fee? There's no fee. Do you know that it was once someone who came with a sick patient to my house. So this is before we had an ambulance, I needed to call the Houston Fire Department. So what did they put down as the address of the patient? My house. So I got the bill.
Now, before I noticed the name on it, I had opened that envelope. You know how much that bill was for that transport to the hospital? $3,200, $3,200 to take someone to the hospital. And we do hundreds of transports a year, free. So we have a quality about us that we need to, yeah, can we look at the differences, at the things that we don't like? We can look at that all day. Or we can look at the things that are beautiful about our people and focus on them.
And yet every single person, your roommate, you're not going to like things about them. Your spouse, you may not like things about them. Your children, you may not like things about them. But you have a choice what you're going to focus on. And I think that the greatest thing for us to focus on is on how we are special and unique and the beautiful characteristics we have as a Jewish nation. And the way we go, I'll just tell you, a friend of mine just went to Israel, a close
acquaintance was marrying off a child. Do you know who was at the wedding? It's a Hasidic Jew with the stramel, with the bekesha, with the whole thing. Do you know who was at that wedding? He showed me, he sent me a picture. I can show it to you after class. Officers from the IDF, a whole table of officers from the IDF were there, mostly secular. Why did they come? You know why they came?
Because through the entire war, he was in their posts, bringing them food and bringing all of their soldiers food and making barbecues for them and giving them things that they, whatever they needed to feel loved and to feel like they have someone who cares about them. They're in the middle of war, this is a brutal war. They all came because they appreciate what this Hasidic Jew, who they would never be caught dead just having coffee with this guy, liking this guy. He's religious, I'm not.
He's Hasidic, I'm not. He wears this kind of clothes, has this kind of payas, but he didn't care, doesn't see that. He says, it's a brother who's in need, I'm going to be there to help him. And I think that we have the ability to go well beyond and appreciate the greatness of our people. Because seeing that beauty is just, it's far more rewarding, seeing the beauty in one another. I hope I answered your question, Ron. Thank you.
I suspect that what I'm about to ask you will be found by many people to be controversial. Okay. We like controversy. But at least part of it comes from statements that you yourself have made. Okay. And that is that God sends people to chastise us so that we return to him. Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, the Assyrians, the Romans, etc., etc. The Greeks, certainly, the Seleucids. And today, our greatest enemy, it appears, and I say greatest because we have many, appears
to be, not all, but a significant segment of Muslims. And yet, at the same time, when I look at what they believe versus how they enforce what they believe, there are many things that God must look at them and say, they have merit. They pray five times a day. They are extremely concerned with the virtue of their women. Okay. Yeah. And keeping them from public displays of low moral. Okay. That's controversial because they say that God brought ten weights of immorality, and
nine of them were taken by the Muslims. Also modesty, but sometimes the modesty could be in overcompensation. I'm not looking at their big faults. Of adultery, etc. Yeah. I'm not looking at their big faults right now. I'm looking at what merits God must find to have chosen them to chastise. And I know that this is going to be the most controversial of them all. Many of them are willing to give up their lives for their religious beliefs.
Now, it's apparent to me, and I'm sure everyone else, that their biggest failure is not these particular positive aspects of their religion, but the fact that they then try to use force, murder, torture, rape, and robbery in order to enforce these things upon other people who do not willingly accept what they're trying to uphold in their society. So this is my question, and you've said that, in fact, at some time in the future, Aesov
must do teshuvah and come back to us in order for us to have the complete revelation of the Messiah. Okay, so here's my question. How do we go about convincing the average Muslim with whom we deal daily that they must not use force and all these other improper methods to have other people agree with those things which they do, which are good things, such as seeking modesty, such as praying to God, such as being willing to give up their lives?
How do we convince them without force that what they should do is try to convince others without force of what they consider their virtue? Okay, so I think that that's a very noble desire. I don't know that that's our job. I don't know that that's our job to try to persuade them how they should carry out at least what they think is their performance of their religion. I don't know that – I mean, do we go over to the Christians and tell them how to be
better, right, after they murdered millions of us? I mean, like, I don't think – I think it's falling on deaf ears for us to even attempt it. Aside for the fact that I'm not so sure that even the innocent looking of them isn't indoctrinated with hate and with murderous desires of the West. So – and the West meaning the Jews and the United States, because we're the little Satan and America's the big Satan in their eyes. At least many of them.
Now, are there – is that 100 percent of them? I don't think so. But I think that there's definitely – they say even if only, you know, 10 percent of Muslims are terrorists, that's 200 million people, okay? That's a little bit more than I'm comfortable with, okay? So it's just – it's a problem. And it's a lot more than 10 percent. So there's a problem when you have extremism and, you know, it says that – that's referring to Ishmael. He'll be a wild beast.
We see that. We see that they're not afraid to die because they want to kill you more than they want to live. So I don't know that you can reason with that kind of mentality, with that kind of upbringing. And it comes from the womb already. We see that with children. You see this pathetic Tucker Carlson where he's defending a 14-year-old terrorist who's holding a gun. But again, he was claiming that the Israelis killed a Palestinian child, which it turns out they didn't.
But even then, let's say they did. Or according to the original claim, he was holding a gun at the IDF. What are they supposed to let – but he's 14 years old. Who cares? He's a terrorist. So he's a big terrorist or a small terrorist? Who cares? He's a terrorist. So this whole thing is like – it's a very serious question. We need to understand what our role and the nations of the world's role is.
Hashem gives us very clear guidance in his Torah that the nations don't have any power against him. The nations have no power. What do they have? Only if we go against Hashem, Hashem allows them to patch us, to get us back on course. And that is the only power they have. When we are solid with Hashem, they have zero power over us. None. You see it throughout history. If you look at almost every single week when we read the Haftorah, it's another story
of the Jewish people doing the will of Hashem, getting good, doing against the will of Hashem, getting bad. And who performs that bad against us? It's the nations who rise up against us. So yes, do we have reason to be concerned about antisemitism? Definitely. But I think the bigger concern should be looking inside saying, how do we ensure that this antisemitism disappears? That's when we correct ourselves and improve ourselves. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have organizations that try to encourage the ban
of antisemitism in universities, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, we should try to do everything we can. But know that the real power is not in that. The real power is in us improving our ways. So I don't know that I've sufficiently answered your question. And I don't know that we can persuade our Muslim friends or neighbors to change their methodology. I think they are who they are. And we have to recognize that and not hope that suddenly there's going to be some miracle
that's going to change their course. Now, speaking about the merits that they may carry. So the sages tell us that since they observe the bris, they will get a reward for that. And there is a reward that is coming to them. There's many opinions as to what that reward will be and when that reward will be given to them. But there is an opinion that says that they will merit nine months of world dominance where they will control.
And you see that there's all these Muslim mayors getting power all around the world. So that's something which is concerning to many people because, well, what does Muslim have to do with anything? Well, it happens to me that most terrorists, not most, all terrorists are Muslims. So it's like, okay, I don't want to get into the whole politics of it because it's not the place for it. But I think we need to keep our eyes open. And we need to be alert.
And we need to be concerned. We need to be vigilant. And we need to be inwardly cautious that perhaps we have a part in this by us, even in a little bit, not being the best we can possibly be in our relationship with God. And hopefully we all see that and we all grow from it and find every way possible to elevate ourselves one rung at a time. Okay? I will extend you an option to say no to me whenever you'd like. Options.
It's an indefinite option. No time to expiration. So you can say no whenever you'd like. The option's yours. Futures. Futures. And options. Derivatives, if you will. So this is a history question, sort of a blind spot in my understanding of history. So I guess look back at once upon a time, there were illiterate peoples. How did people learn Torah if they were illiterate? Or was literacy sort of a precondition to the study of, obviously the study of Torah,
but what if you needed to learn Torah and you couldn't read? Good question. The one people in the entire history of the world that was focused on education always was the Jewish people. The first thing we teach our child is Torah Tziva L'Anu Moshe, the Torah was given to us by Moshe. The first thing a child just learns how to speak, ah, bah, bah, Torah Tziva L'Anu Moshe. The first thing. Because the Torah can never be forgotten from the Jewish people.
There are evil dictators, rulers over the history that wanted complete and total control of their people. And the only way they were able to do that is to keep them ignorant. When they don't have knowledge, they don't have power. And they would hide wisdom from them. The only exception to that was the Jewish people. The Jewish people, what were, look at, look at what happened with Chanukah. Chanukah, they were, they had to hide in a cave to learn Torah.
Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai was being threatened, he had to hide in a cave to learn Torah. So we see that throughout our history, there was always a, what did they care that he learned Torah? Because Torah is knowledge. Knowledge is power. You have the ability to discern, to understand, to make valued decisions. So knowledge is essential in Judaism for us to learn and to grow and to elevate ourselves beyond where we currently are to become a better person.
And this is the, this is the charge for each and every one of us to take the Torah that's available to us in a way that's never been available previously in history. What we have today at our fingertips, you have Sepharia, you have Artscroll, you have so many incredible resources to learn every page of Talmud. You can listen to it while you're driving in your car and learn another page of Talmud. You can listen to over 2,800 episodes of TORCH podcasts, and you can listen to over 5,000
videos from TORCH. This is before we had podcasts, we had videos. And it's, it's just unbelievable the resources that are available online for us to learn TorahAnytime.com. It's unbelievable. That wasn't always available to the Jewish people, and it wasn't, but there was always an access. You know that people used to pay to reserve the Talmud for a day in a, in a neighboring city because someone had one book of the Talmud.
People would reserve that they wanted to have a access so that they can learn it. And then they would review it and teach it to the people in their communities, and they would give classes on what they learned in the Talmud in the neighboring community last month. People, people would give away everything they had. So because we cherish, we call the people of the book for a reason, because we never let the book disappear from us. We never let ignorance take over our people.
And this is why we embrace Torah study every single day. Never ever stop learning Torah. King David teaches us, if I didn't have Torah, I'd be lost. It's our compass. It gives us direction. We get everything aligned because we study Torah. So Hashem should bless us all that we should all merit to learn Torah day and night, wherever we go, wherever you go, when you're laying down, listen to a podcast, listen to a class. When you wake up, learn Torah.
When you're traveling on the way, put it in your car. It's so easy today to learn, there's no excuses. My dear friends, have a magnificent week. This is the conclusion of Ask Away number 34. If you have any questions, please share those questions with us at askawayattorchweb.org. Send it to us. We'd love to address your questions in future episodes. My dear friends, have a magnificent week.

You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.