Ep 7 – It’s Good to Be the King

Should Jews really be driving forklifts, and is asking that question antisemitic?  Asher and John then discuss superheroes, both real (9/11) and imagined (Sabra).  After unpacking the Rosh Hashanah seder, our co-hosts then pivot to themes of royalty and Rosh Hashanah.  We marvel at the similarities between the upcoming coronations in England and in synagogue, and discuss whether God is an adherent of servant leadership.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Welcome to a rabbi and alawyer walk into a bar,
a podcast with relatively well informedand a Reverend musings on religion
news and society. And now for your hosts,
rabbi Asher Lopez Pattonand John Garinger.

(00:29):
Hey John, how was your weekend?
Uh, it was great. I did. You're familiarwith Malcolm key team, of course. Okay.
Gosh.
Yeah, we always had atChiha and we got like,
I think the announcements started aroundnow, but that was for Mo team, the,
for PE they started.
Right for those not familiar Mo teamand Hebrew means money for wheat.

(00:50):
And originally it wasbasically a collective endeavor where the whole community
gets together to feed theneedy around Passover time.
But at least here in Chicago,
it's taken on a life of its own andwe do the same thing for Rashana.
So we packaged last week and we're gonnadeliver next week about 4,000 packages.
Wow. And it's a,
it's fun because whole community'stogether and we deliver to the whole

(01:13):
community, all different elements ofthe religious observance spectrum. Yeah.
So it's fun in that way,
but it's also scary because it's the onetime a year where you see Jews driving
forklifts.
you know, actually.Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But John.
In the warehouse, we have,
we have these Jews driving forkliftsand it's so clear that these are like

(01:34):
doctors and accountants in theirreal life. And then they're putting,
being put in charge of heavy machinery.
But you know, you know, what's intertwo couple of things. First of all,
that's the bless. One of theblessings of Israel is that, you know,
Jews and Arabs and others, you know,do all sorts of work. But you know,
you do have Jewish truckdrivers and fork with people.

(01:57):
But what I would sayalso John is in Detroit,
cuz that's where we're from now inDetroit, we really in our community,
there is a truck driver. Who'spart of our synagogue. There is a,
we have people that workin stores. We have tailors,
we have people who just workin stores, you know, and,

(02:17):
and which are amazing jobs thatwe need that you can't even fill
these days,
but it's not Jews are not justlawyers and doctors anymore.
John.
. Well, it's funny.
I was sitting around at the kiddishtable a couple weeks ago at synagogue and
we got into a discussion onone of, one of my friends,

(02:37):
put his own toilet in and thatis something so outside of
my world.
And then we got into this broad discussionbecause at our table there was an
Israeli, there was an, a Columbian,there was the, and then me who, you know,
needs to smear somebodyto install a light bulb.
And these people talk about howthey all put in their own toilets.
And it was shocking to me because if,if I tried putting in my own toilet, it,

(03:01):
it would not end well,
it would probably be about as bad as thetime when we were living in Lakeview.
And I was putting together a TV VCRstand. And by the time I was done,
it was all frustrating. I was sweaty,
it was three hours later and I realizedI'd put the swivel on the wrong place.
So the entire thing swiveled,not just the top for the TV.
Oh my gosh. You're well, you arecertifiably Jewish. So that's beautiful.

(03:25):
Now now be careful, right.
Be careful because the internationalHolocaust remembrance Alliance,
remember we talked about this,
that their definition ofantisemitism is a certain perception
of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred.
So I'm not sure if maybe I shouldcall you an anti-Semite then.

(03:45):
Well, you know, it's interesting.Well, there's fi you know,
because there's also FEMM which,you know, places, Jews, you know,
compliments Jews for being a certainstereotype. But I think, yeah, I think,
well, you know, John,
you gotta come to come toDetroit and experience like real,
real Jews who do real thingswho really move the account.

(04:07):
Like we need lawyers and accountantsand doctors, of course, and rabbis,
you know, we need all of them. So,uh, yeah, I, it's interesting. I was,
we actually have, uh, in our synagogue,
someone from South Korea he'sactually adopted, but he very,
really closely identifies as beingfrom Korea and he was talking

(04:27):
about, and this is pretty well. I mean,the myth is well known, but he said,
it really it's a reality that theyhave town mode on their curriculum.
It's an obligatory course for highschool kids to study TAMU because
they think that the Jews, you know,
are so smart and so successfulbecause of their tou. Now we.
We know our money, right. And justleave the protocols of the elders as Z.

(04:51):
We control the world.
So it it's, so it's always so interesting.
We're EMM and anti-Semitismmix. And, you know, by the way,
we're not talking aboutthis during this one,
but cuz it's too controversial totake up a whole hour on its own.
But that whole article in the New Yorktimes about the Hasidic schools that only
study Tom mood. So it'ssort of like, you know,

(05:12):
South Korea should come to theirdefense and saying that it's wonderful.
Don't need math or English, just studyTom mood and you'll be successful. So,
but I guess that's for another time,
I think one other thing aboutantisemitism and because it's of course no
laughing matter. It's interestingthat I've been following this weekend.
We had a wonderful Shabbat.It's great. But I did follow,

(05:36):
I am following the amazingUkrainian counter offensive
and counter attack against Russia.
And I seem to recall inthe beginning of this, the,
the Russian's invasion of Ukrainethat some Jews were kind of reticent
to help the Ukrainians in generalbecause you know, it was not,

(05:57):
the Ukraine was very antisemiticand, and during world war II and,
and, you know,
participate in a lot of theslaughter of our people.
Now these are not the same Ukraines inour life today, but it's, especially.
When you consider the president is a Jew.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it,
it's so interesting thatthis whole antisemitism

(06:21):
issue is just a really big,interesting and difficult issue. And,
and how do you deal with people that mightnot even like you so much? I do have.
The other thing that I was listeningto over the weekend still is, is,
and I know you were too, because you,
you texted me about it is the queenof England passing away of blessed

(06:41):
memory, the British, you know, there's,
I haven't forgotten thetower of York, you know,
and I haven't forgotten the expulsionand the, I there's a lot of antisemitism,
a lot of deep antisemitism in England.
Now there they're wonderful people also.And they did fight Corbin, you know,
when he was, uh, viciously antisemitic,but it's just so interesting.

(07:04):
And now England is, canbecome a great ally king,
Charles I third is the mostpro-Israel of all the, the, you know,
the royalty he's made an officialvisit to Israel. So, and, and, uh,
prime minister trusts isgreat. She's pro Israel.
So this is going off of yourstatement of the IRA definition,

(07:25):
working definition ofantisemitism, you know,
how do we deal with countries thatmight have some antisemitic bones,
but are acting in a waythat's helping the Jews?
Well, I think the only way we can do it,
it's just is to support our newfavorite Jewish superhero, Sabra.
yeah. So this is allso interesting. I saw this,

(07:48):
I, I hope everyone has seen it,
that the Marvel is bringing out a, uh,
as part of the captain America orsomething. I'm Gideon, please forgive me.
I'm not so up on all these differentcharacters and this and that,
but bringing out a Jewish Mostad agent,
former Moad agent superhero called Sabra,

(08:11):
somebody claim, they might havestolen from someone. I don't know.
I'm not gonna judge who are we tojudge, but Sabra and two things.
First of all, it's the,
if you've watched STLE or if youwatched unorthodox it's that,
that Israeli actress, she's amazing.Please write in and give her name.
I'm sorry. I'm not.
Pass. I believe her.

(08:31):
Name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.Yeah. She's amazing. And,
and I did see someone that Idon't know, someone said, well,
maybe this won't be so pro-Israel,I don't know. How can you not have,
so the name is Sabra, youknow, Sabra OUS, Sabra,
it's like gonna be Sabra.
Of course, is a desert pair, prickly pair.

(08:54):
And they say that that native bornIsraelis are prickly on the outside,
but sweet on the inside. Right.
right. Exactly. Which actuallygetting back to queen Elizabeth,
that's kind of what peoplesaid about her, that she,
she had this very stoicexterior and very guarded,
but inside she was filledwith love and, and sweetness.

(09:16):
And I dunno if that cameout in the crown so much,
but that's what people said about her.It's, it's an exciting time for Israel.
I think really that, you know,
to make it to the Marvelstudios and to be a,
a superhero is incredible. I think, is.
She gonna use her? Is she gonna useher Marjorie Taylor green space laser.

(09:36):
that.
Her superpower.
He'll take it out and dust it off andget it ready. But definitely John,
she's not gonna have you assembleher space laser because that's
not working. I'll.
Leave that to the Rothchild. Yeah.
Right, right, right. You know,
speaking of superheroes, I know you, John,

(09:57):
I didn't know this. You had astory about a real hero on nine 11,
a Jewish hero.
Yeah. Obviously we just gotover the, uh, what was it?
Do my math 22, 20, 21 20. Yeah.
Right. And everyone know.
About, you gotta study a littlebit more Tom mood, John and.
Yeah. I was never good atthat. Todd Beamer, the famous guy on flight 30 flight,

(10:19):
93, who said let's roll or let's roll it.
There was someone elsethat actually Daniel Lewin,
who I think we should all remember,he was the considered the,
the first casualty on nine11. He fascinating guy.
He born in the states, moved to Israel,
was part of the unit called Cy moka,which is their version of the Delta force.

(10:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
And then he, I mean, get this.Then he gets a PhD from MIT.
Then he invents some way to improveinternet traffic. That's used to this day.
He makes millions.
Akamai that come Akamai. Yeah. It's.
That's right. Akamaitechnologies. And then, you know,
obviously it's hard to piecetogether exactly what happened,

(11:01):
but he was seated in between withtwo bad guys in front of him and one
bad guy behind him. Isn't.
The flight from Boston.It was Boston. This.
Is American airline 11. And,
and what they think happenedis because he was sorry, vodka,
where they actually, that was Yonaand BB NATA Yahoo's unit. Right.
Who actually trained toknock down terrorists and planes that he went after the

(11:25):
first two ahead of him not realizingthere was a bad guy behind him and,
and the piecing together ofthe cockpit tapes and the like,
they think he was thefirst casualty on nine 11.
Wow. Yeah. So all those conspiracytheorists who say that, you know,
the Jews that got out of the, the,the building or whatever, didn't go.

(11:45):
Not quite right.
Yeah. Oh my, yeah. I know thatpeople in Boston knew him.
It was an important part ofthe Boston Jewish community.
And it's just so eerie to thinkabout that. They actually had,
I think stewardist recordingsor something. They had some recordings from, uh,
I don't know how they got, I don'tknow. Maybe I guess. Yeah. They, they,

(12:06):
maybe they, they, they radioed in, Idon't know, but how they knew about that,
but that's really incredible.Yeah. It it's the bravery.
I think that is, I know that, thatthe president talked about the unity,
but the bravery on nine 11is, is an incredible thing.
It's interesting that, you know,
we have a special prayer forJews who have died as martyrs

(12:28):
who have Jews who have diedjust because they were Jews.
And so everyone in the Holocaust,it was killed. You know,
they were killed cuz they were Jews,
whether they were religious ornot religious or this or that,
they're all holy martyrs. Andwe have a prayer for them.
But I think it was of our own Lichtensteinof blessed memory who said that,

(12:49):
you know,
these Americans a 3000 plusthat died or nine 11 also
are martyrs. And you know,and they, I think they did,
they died for the valuesof the United States.
And there was a hatred of the freedomand values of the United States. And
Al-Qaeda is sort of litteredwith antisemitism also.

(13:13):
Cause they're always thinking that theJews in the United States are like one
and the same. So,
so anyone that's killed bythese terrorists is included
in really the, the martyrdom and,and in the prayers of the Jews.
When we talk about those who weremartyred and that God should avenge their,
their death and God should, shouldbless them. And that anyone who dies,

(13:35):
the martyr is consideredbecomes righteous.
There is a Jewish sideto this and you know,
I guess all we can do is pray.
I'll say, I mean to thatthe, the prayer that I,
that I was looking atthis weekend as well,
was the transition withthe queen to the king in
England. Because as you know, it,

(13:55):
it's a Jewish custom to pray for thewelfare of the government in which you
live, which creates some interestingdynamic over the last decades,
the centuries. But you know,
you lived in England for a few years andpresumably during your prayer services
at Oxford, did you pray forthe welfare of the queen?
Oh, absolutely. And, and actuallythe, the trickiest part of that.

(14:18):
So the queen that's cool, butthen prince and princess of Wales,
and then when Diana and, youknow, the, the Charles split.
So then they said, and the princeof Wales and the princess of Wales.
So they kind of made thatdistinction. So that got like, like.
An in Gilligans island whenthey said and the rest.

(14:39):
Exactly, exactly. So, yeah. You know,
but I think I might have mentionedthis. I don't know if I mentioned this,
but when I was in Dubai,
the really the most excitingthing on Shabbat at the
Palm minion or the minion on the Palm,
then most exciting thingwas the prayer for the Amir,

(14:59):
for the she, of, ofDubai, of the Emirates.
And then the prayer of course, forIsrael at the same time or right.
A right after it.
But it is amazing to be a Jewand to be able to pray in,
in an Arab country openly andsay the prayer for, you know,
the me, you know, for, for theSHA. So it, you know, the, these,

(15:22):
what made it special because, youknow, you did that, like you said,
through the centuries, you didit for the czar, you know, well,
that's pillar on the roof, but you didit for, you know, you did it for all the,
the emperor,
but what made it SP I think whatmakes it really special is to say both
the prayer for the state andthe prayer for Israel, that,

(15:45):
that I can be a proudZionist and have my Homeland,
and also be a proud American. You know,
I think that those two go together,you know, they go together well,
that's Louis Brandis that reallysaid that who was a big Zionist
himself that said, there'sno contradiction there,
which is interestingabout England that people

(16:09):
say that the Jews reallyfeel part of England.
And I don't know if Jews always did,but I do think regarding the royalty,
they really did feel to bepart of, of the royalty.
So I mean, that, that justshows you how powerful that is.
Because even though the queen of Englandand now Charles II is the head of the

(16:31):
church of England.
And as we saw today was the headof the church of Scotland and the.
Oh, live the king.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and there'slike a religious element to that,
which would exclude the Jews,
but the Jews feel that connection.So it just shows you, you know,
the power of, of, of royalty that,that captures people's imagination,

(16:55):
you know, by the way, John, Iremember hearing from some good,
good authority that Ravyo dose, all of hick,
the great Sal of AIC forbidpeople from watching, uh,
the funeral for John F. Kennedylike a Christian funeral.
So it's, it's such an interestingquestion of going into a church. I mean,

(17:17):
part of a church service,
and there are a lot of differentJewish rulings on that,
but I don't know now.
Believe, I thought the Sal OFXwere more lefty in their outlook.
In certain ways, in certainways, but, you know, he was,
so they was really old school kindof in certain ways, like I'm Jewish.

(17:37):
I don't go to church, you know, so cause.
Cause I watched part of the queenservice in between working and
today and you know, it wasamazing. Like they said to hill,
they said one of the SOS and I was halflistening and it was funny because at
first I thought, cuz I knew itwasn't English. I thought, oh my God,
she's singing in Hebrew.How, how nice of her?

(17:58):
And then I realized it was Gaelic.
Yeah, they are. They're soinclusive. Those Brits, they really.
Exactly well, but, but then, you know,then they, they saying, you know,
time to be born, a time to die and,
and you could have transposedthat into any Jewish funeral.
They said sound, what is it? 23valuable shadow of death. I mean,

(18:19):
it's the same stuff, man. .
Oh my gosh, we're gonna get a lotof complaints on this, but you know,
it is. And, and in my job at JC C a JC,
we do a lot of interfaithand look on the one hand,
I understand RA salivic, you know,
he's afraid he wants to keepJews staying the course.

(18:40):
I don't think we have such aproblem that people are, you know,
converting to Christianity so much. Ithink, I think so. I think you're right.
I think it's a, it's abeautiful and powerful thing.
And what's so interesting now in thisjob is I like I do a lot with Hindus
and I'm finding how much, you know,here's Hindus their idols. Well, not,
not so much.

(19:00):
And there's so many parallelsand similarities between
Jews and Hindus, even their calendar.
The Hindu calendar is a balancebetween the lunar and solar calendar,
like the Jewish calendar.So I don't, you know,
you could be run away andbe afraid of, like you said,
seeing a church service and saying, thissounds so Jewish, or you can, you know,

(19:25):
have a little bit of self-confidencethat John you're still gonna go to
synagogue and Shabbat and you know, and,
and appreciate a beautiful service it'sbut it's not so clear that it's not so
clear from, you know, the,to run from our sources.
That that's always the attitude.It's a real interesting, I think,
debate in, in, in Judaism ofhow open, how open you can be.

(19:47):
I'll say one other thing isthat I love the organ. I,
you know, we don't doit in Orthodox services.
Of course we don't have anyuseful instruments, but I love sometimes that organ,
a real pipe organ, nota fake little piano. Oh.
No old school.
Well.
When I was,
I was attended a wedding for one ofJen's friends in new Orleans at the,

(20:09):
at the big famous churchthere. And for some reason,
I don't know why I was assigned therole to be up there with the organist
because someone has totell her cuz she can't see,
I guess they didn't have agood mirror system or whatever.
She couldn't see when it wastime for her to start, you know,
as the procession was coming in.
So my role was to hangout with the organist in

(20:31):
this famous, you know, new Orleanschurch and say ready go. And I,
I, I felt like I had so much power. LikeI could control this church service,
you know? And I think at thetime I was your congregant,
so I'm not sure how much I wanted to bragthat was hanging out at this gorgeous
church service. But Igotta tell you, I, I,
I know about the restrictionsand prohibitions,

(20:52):
but I have to say there's somethingabout going to those other services
that make you appreciateyour own more mm-hmm.
mm-hmm yeah, I think that's a powerful idea.
You know, I, I do wanna say if you're, uh,
if you're listening to this podcast andI told you you're not allowed to go into
a church. I mean, that was the rulingof a salivation and for some of my,

(21:13):
my close friend, my close Christianfriends, I went to their wedding.
I actually stood outside of thesanctuary. They were, God bless them.
I looked inside at their wedding, uh,
even for my God daughter for Eva,
I couldn't go into the church and itwas, you know, and so I saw outside. So,
you know, I've gone throughdifferent phases and now, you know,

(21:36):
for my job for Jewish community relations,you know, I find a special leniency,
but you know, I think there area lot of different opinions in,
in Judaism there. It's not like, whatis Judaism say about such and such.
It's different opinions of Judaism.And so, you know, I think, you know, I,
I really respect many different opinions,but I hear exactly what you're saying.

(21:57):
And yet people are afraid.People are, you know,
and I think fear is the look, Iguess we gotta have some fear,
but I think that sometimesour fear scares us away
from the things that we really could goto, that that will really benefit us.
Yeah. So tell me about kingship. Imean, again, we, we are near Rahan.

(22:19):
I find it so striking that we'retalking about Kings and transitions and
pomp and circumstance and trumpetsblowing. And here we are, Rahan,
you're blowing the showfar. You're inaugurating the quote unquote king, right?
We're in this season, we're probablynot gonna see one of these for a while.
And the fact that it's going on withintwo weeks of Rahan to me is just
fascinating.

(22:40):
Yeah. I think, you know, it's funny.I think it's a great point, John,
to think about the queenand now Charles a third,
the king, you know, and not,we are a Republic. We are not,
and they're not our Kings, they'reour Queens, but, you know, and,
and one of the things that struck me aboutthe queen and people have played this

(23:02):
over and over again, you know,I will serve you, you know,
I am committing well, I swear, youknow, I don't know. I can't really,
that was good. Yeah. So, you know,her commitment in what, 1951,
I think when she became queenthat she committed to spend her
whole life serving the people. And,

(23:23):
and it's an interestingidea that a lot of Russia sh
the high holidays is God Hamel,
the God is the king,
but a king is also kindof serving the people,
you know, king is the sovereignqueen, but also serving the people.

(23:44):
And that's what people said, that,that the queen and I, I, you know,
whatever I know I've seen,she had a real sense of duty.
That was something that was sostriking that she sacrificed
for the people she served,
she served the people astheir ruler, you know?
So it's interesting to think aboutboy, this might be the sermon.

(24:07):
So if you're listening to itand you're going to my shoe.
Hold your ears. .
Yeah. But really this is sointeresting idea that you,
you combine sovereigntyand power with being
really the servant and howsham in a sense is so loyal
to our world and just serves in some ways

(24:29):
is as forced to be a, I don't wannasay a servant, it's such a hard word,
but.
Well, you know, you know, when you talkabout corporations and things like that,
you always hear about servant leadership,right. That before it was the,
the pyramid with the one dude, andit was always a dude at the top,
right. And now it's the inversepyramid where, you know, the,

(24:51):
the one now dude or woman whoruns the corporation is the
servant leader.
So I think there's something to thatwe're seeing in modern society that, that,
that whole one dude runningthe place without really
taking in everyone's views. And,
and this gets into why diversity is agood idea and things like that, you know,

(25:11):
we hear our own echo chambersand only take one position.
We're not doing thingswell, when we, you know,
when we establish a carthat's called Novan,
we have nobody there speaking Spanish,it tells, it means doesn't move.
Right. Right. Those are thekinds of things that, you know,
whether it be diversity orservant leadership can help avoid.

(25:33):
Yeah. And it's interesting to, yeah,thank God. Cut sparkle. God really,
it, it, the sacrifices thatyou make to be the leader that,
that she made definitely tothe, to family and, you know,
and that that's, you know, thatthis really carries on, you know,
what sacrifices do we make? We don'twanna make, you know, so it's interesting.

(25:55):
I guess the closest parallel we haveto the queen and the king as is Ram,
Manuel was at our shoe,was at an show that's.
Right.
And I remember in his first he was a,
a representative and then hebecame the chief of staff,
or I think it was thatin that order. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That's right. Firsthe was one outta 535. .

(26:16):
Right.
And then he,
he probably gave up the ability to bespeaker of the house to become president
Obama's chief of staff. And that's,as I recall, he was dealing,
this was in 2008, right. The greatfinancial crisis. Right. And right.
You and he have discussions aroundwhat he couldn't couldn't do around the
holidays.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, wait, so let me,I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back to that,

(26:41):
John, but I, the, the thing thatstruck me was that, and, you know,
RO if you're in Japan, listening tothis, you're welcome to chime in.
I think you have to callhim ambassador now. Sure.
Exactly. Good for ambassador Japan.
He sent his kids to a privateschool, even though he,
when he was the mayor of Chicago.

(27:01):
And I was always inspired by thatbecause, uh, that took a lot of, you know,
used up a lot of political loss,
some political capital bysending your kid, you know,
here you are coming to Chicago to try torebuild the public schools and you send
your kid to a private school,
but he understood thatcertain things you gotta do

(27:22):
for the family,
you don't sacrifice thefamily for your career.
So it's a really, it was areally very important lesson.
I'm sure Amy's wife said, you're crazy.I don't care. The kids are covered.
So I don't know what happened in theirhouse, but in the end of the day,
it was a very inspiring thing that you,
you gotta sacrifice alot like the queen did,

(27:44):
but let's make sure not to sacrifice thethings that are most important to us.
Yeah. Okay. So there wasa great, he was actually,
I think he might have beena rep. Well, he wasn't,
but he was working out that TarpaI think it was called, right.
It was that hard.
Troubled asset relief program.
Yeah. You are in bankingthen by then. Right.

(28:05):
I was absolutely in banking.I was knee deep in the tarp.
So, so it really feltat 2008, correct. That.
Le Lehman had just failed.
Yeah. Like it really felt thatthis country could go into a
disastrous depression and,
and which could people who could losetheir lives, people could be starving,

(28:29):
could be a disaster. And so RO asked,
and this is publicly known thathe said, I, you know, rabbi,
I gotta, you know,
lobby Congress to pass this bill.
I gotta be on the phone. AndI said, you know, on Russia.
On the holidays, on the holidays, on.
The holidays, on the high ho on Russia,it wasn't Shabbat, but it was Rohan.

(28:53):
And I said, you know,you, you gotta do that.
That absolutely it's colPok fish, it's saving lives.
And then you gotta do it now.
I don't know if I would've said youcannot do it, whether he would Alyssa.
I don't know. But, but I think itwas, you know, it, it was, you know,
that's sort of a case where thingsget pushed off to save a life.

(29:14):
And really that,
that there are things higher thaneven the high holidays. And that is,
that is human life. So yes, thatwas like one of my great moments.
So that was sort of my,uh, brush with greatness.
well, I remembermy favorite story with him.
He and I were talking in the back of thesynagogue and some guy comes up to him
and, you know, he's got a reputation forhaving a bit of a temper. He ,

(29:38):
one of our fellow congregants came upto the two of us, us who were talking.
And he looked at at ROand said, boy, you know,
you're shorter than I thought you'd be.
And all I wanna do is run away and see what he would
do to this poor guy.
John, I thought there was another storythat I think you told me also that,
you know, again, he wasn't sitting,I, when, when rom came to synagogue,

(30:00):
he would sit and just pray orfocus. He didn't, you know,
except to talk to you, I guess,John, but he would, in general,
he would sit in his seat. And really.
I was in charge of the, you know,I was, I was Manning the door,
so he had to get through me.
Right. So someone cameup to him, you know,
and try to talk to him. And he said, well,
I don't know if we say this on thispodcast, but okay. He said, you know, um,

(30:23):
shut the F up. I'm trying todo some repenting. .
That, that strikes me as perfectlyin character. There was a story when,
when he was a kid, he had part of hisfinger that originally he had cut it,
I think working at a deli. Yeah.And then when lake Michigan,
and I think it gotinfected in lake Michigan,
so he was missing part ofhis middle finger. And,

(30:45):
and I think Obama even made a joke thathe became mute after that happened.
.
But he never swore in front of mein front of his rabbi, you know?
Um, I never heard a swear word from.
Him. He kept it clean. Huh. That.
Beautiful. So, you know, a Rashanais coming up, John, and I know you,
you are excited by thethere's a fruit of Rashana.

(31:08):
Well, yeah. So.
We talked about Sombra that,you know, that Prickley fruit.
But yeah. Everybody knows about thesaters that go on with Passover,
but there's also a, a custom that we've,
we've done forever and itit's strange the customs,
we all pick up the thingswe do and we don't do,
but I I'm very mock I'm verystrict about doing this,
I think because it gets the kids involvedand everybody really into it on the

(31:31):
first night of, ofRohan. And, and that is,
there is an order of eating abunch of different fruits. The,
the most famous of which is of course,apples and honey first sweet year.
But there's all these other fruits thatare derivations around Hebrew words.
Mm-hmm that yousay blessings around either to,
to increase fruitfulness or to keepthe bad guys away or to see your

(31:53):
enemies destroyed. You wannawalk through a couple of.
Them. Oh boy. Puttingthem on the spot. Yeah.
Granites.
One. Yeah. Well, so the pomegranates,
you could imagine a lot of seeds thatwe should have, like, we should be our,
our meats vote, our commandments, the,
the good deeds we doshould multiply. And our,
our merits should be multipliedlike the seeds in a pomegranate,

(32:17):
according to the go from Vilnalived in the 18th century, uh,
at least in the POMEground that he opened,
there were 613 seeds.
That's the amount of commandmentsin the Torah. So, and.
He had a lot of free time to count him.
he was into math,you know, believe it or not.

(32:37):
He was a great mathematician,according to tradition. And.
Then there's dates, which.
Is yes. Yeah.
Tamar resembles the wordfor end, which Isamu.
Right. Right.
So like our enemy should endalso Celek beats in Hebrew,
a beat is Celek she stausSona that Celek means get

(32:58):
outta here that our enemies should,should leave us. And then even.
In England, there's leaks car T.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She year or two.
To cut off your enemies,that your enemies. Yeah.
You know, we've heard a littlecommentary that sometimes we meander,
but then we get back to it. SoJews face a lot of antisemitism.
And so a lot of these blessings, someare like lovely, like a hops and honey,

(33:22):
a sweet year and the pomegranate,but a lot of them are like,
let's get rid of our enemies. Ourenemies should be gone. You know?
So they're as many negativeones as positive ones.
And actually we had a,
a blessed memory norm Levitz usedto when someone had a Y side,

(33:44):
which is the one year anniversaryof the loss of a loved one.
So one of the customs is like,like we're having, you know,
we're Laura and a rabbi going to a bar.I have a little bit of scotch with me.
Aberfeldy so you have a littlebit of scotch or whatever,
a fortified drink .And, and before you say it,

(34:05):
you say there are a wholebunch of things you say,
and the Shama should have an Ali. Thesoul should have a, and be elevated.
A, all those who are sixshould have a healing.
CROs, Yiddish. It's likeGerman being sick. Yeah. Yeah.
Like cranky a little bit. Yeah.
Wow. German. Hospital's a con house.

(34:27):
Con oh, those Germans. Oh,German. German is so earthy. So.
That sick house.
And then one of them is I so name that
our enemies should have, should falldown. so, you know, Judaism,
you know, it's not all, we've had a toughhistory. We've had a lot of laughter,

(34:49):
a lot of good things, but a lotof tough things. So even on Rahan,
which is a very happy holiday, youknow, a lot of those symbols are for,
you know, get rid of our enemies.
But then we do, then you have todo a new fruit on the second night.
And remember, last week we talked aboutSheta tell us what that's all about.
Well, so, you know,
Rashan is a two day holiday and ourrabbis say that it's almost like

(35:13):
one long day and we arenot gonna go into the, the,
it involves the court declaring,which day is really the new year.
And like our Muslim brothers andsisters, we used to declare the,
the months based onwitnesses, seeing the moon.
And so with Ramada, like this year,

(35:35):
wasn't so clear which day it wascuz witnesses in Saudi Arabia.
So a certain time and then whatever.
But when we had the courtin Jerusalem 2000 years ago,
so they would come and you wouldn't knowexactly when the first day of Rashana
was. Cause he had to waitfor the witnesses. So they made two days Rashana and,
but they wanna make sure the secondday feels as special as the first day.

(35:58):
So they say it's one long day.
But in order to say the new Barca,
the Sheu on the second day, like wesay it on the first day, the first day.
Oh, the year. So excited. But thesecond day, how come we so excited?
We have a new fruit, you know, John,
a lot of times it's like an uglyfruit. I don't know. People have,

(36:20):
they're terrible. They'rethey're awful. These new fruits.
There's usually right.
There's usually an inverse relationshipbetween how beautiful they look on the
outside and how disgusting theytaste on the inside. Right?
Yeah. I, you know, I star fruit,a lot of people have a star fruit.
It's kind of it's it tasteslike a sweet yellow pepper.
It's kind of a, yeah, no.

(36:40):
Scar fruits are good. Sabrasare actually very good.
The prickly pairs we talked aboutearlier, they come in red and green,
but some of the moreesoteric ones are sand paper.
. Yeah. But, but it'ssomething new. So something exciting.
There's also a customer where some,a new clothing, new pair of clothing,
I think one thing about,
and it really goes back to our strugglewith antisemitism and people that maybe

(37:05):
have hated us for, for years. I do thinkthe Jewish people and our tradition,
a lot of elements try to give itsomething happy when something could
be sad. So, you know, soreally this idea is like,
you know, make the new year happyapples and honey make it sweet,
make a, a, an excuse to Sheu yeah.

(37:28):
Make it over an ugly fruit, butmake it happy. So I think, you know,
and the same thing withdealing with a lot of nations,
we haven't even talked about Poland hereand really hasn't been so much in the
news,
but there's always a story inthe times of Israel about how
Poland is doing something. anti-Semitic,
you're not taking responsibility forthis, but they're a great ally of Israel.

(37:53):
So you really have to, we have towork with what we got, basically.
So Jewish.
And, and to do how I've lived my life,which is fake it until you make it.
you have not faked it.
You are real inside and outside to Kubo.
I'm blushing. Thank you. I feel the same.
So I think, you know, I thinkwe're coming to the end. John,

(38:15):
did we leave out any of themajor news or I'll just end with
actually,
I'll just say that this Saturday nightis SLE how we begin saying prayers of
penitent. Very difficult to understanda lot of the words in these prayers,
but the idea is like sticking aroundsynagogue a little bit longer.
Some people say them at night.Most people say them early.

(38:35):
You're supposed to say them early inthe morning. I don't know. In Deerfield,
if they go around wakingpeople up at 5:00 AM,
but that's the way they used to do itin, in the old, in the old country.
Well, I know we have Slee codesstarting at nine Saturday night. And I,
I do know, see,
now we can actually do wrap theepisode with a nice bow that

(38:56):
actually, and this isgetting more serious note.
There were a lot of Jews on nine 11 who
made it late to work becausethey were saying sleep hope.
Right? They, you mean, so wait, so.
So they.
They didn't go. They, they didn't.
Go when they normally went into workbecause they were late in synagogue.
For the same reason, you just mentionedthat these sleepful prayers are,

(39:19):
are set in the morning.They extend, you know,
the morning service and everybody'strying to rush out to work.
They stayed a little longerand it saved their lives.
It's so spooky. I know that, you know,
God like gets the creditfor good things. Like, God,
you help them. What about theperson that, oh my gosh, I,
I just made the train Ijust made it right. Oh my thank God.

(39:42):
I made the train.
There. There was someone at,
at our show who used to callthat the fickle finger of fate.
Right, right. Yeah. But youknow, that's the way it works.
So it's like good to be.I don't know, Mel Brooks,
I think said it's good to bethe king. You know, so God gets,
that's just the way it works. God getscredit for the good things. Thank God.
The bad things happen. But youknow, so, uh, you know, we love God.

(40:06):
God's the only God we have .
And.
Our sovereign and you know, and, andGod is loyal to us. Also, you know,
sticks with us and you know, we're,we're in it for the long haul.
And in case he's listening to thispodcast, I echo those statements entirely.
John have a great week.
You the save always a pleasure.

(40:32):
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