 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Feidel. This is Community Matters on a Given Monday with Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky and he is the Rabbi of Chabad, Hawaii. Welcome to the show, Rabbi. So nice to see your smiling face. Thank you, Jay. Pleasure to be here as always. So let's talk about a piece of news because, you know, news is always first. And that is like, I keep seeing in our aunts and other American newspapers news about the Hasidic community in Israel and in Brooklyn, very concerned about the rules that make it hard for them to pray. They wear masks, but they don't like the rules that require distancing. Can you talk about the controversy? What's happening? Where Chabad stands on this? Well, so let me just say, practically speaking, in the calendar, the Jewish calendar, yesterday concluded a series of holidays that began with, as we all know from Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which was in the beginning of September a month ago. And there was a series of holidays, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, then Sukkot. And Jewish holidays are celebrated communally, firstly in the synagogue, where by Jewish law it is required to have a minimum of a quorum of 10 people, which we call a Minyan, in Hebrew a Minyan, and the more, the better. So therefore, you have synagogues all across the world, especially in Jewish communities, where you can have a thousand people attend synagogue services. And normally you attend synagogue daily prayers, but on the Sabbath, especially the holidays, that's the time when the community comes out and gathers together. So it just so happens to be that this time of the year, with all the holidays, this is the height of people coming together. That's just the way it's been for 3,000 years. So with the new reality, this came up against this new reality. And there is a lot of adjustment to make. And I think that's what a difficulty is. Now, it doesn't help, and it probably complicates things, that it is perceived by many in the Jewish community, that the community has been singled out in New York by the mayor and the governor for this strict adherence to the guidelines. When the mayor and the politicians, for example, we've just all witnessed the Black Lives Matters protests and rioting and all that stuff. And there wasn't any reaction on the part of the mayor and the governor to condone it, to protest against it, to stop it. On the contrary, they actually condoned it. So there's a lot of hypocrisy here. That's how it's perceived by many in the religious community. And therefore, there is no respect for the authority when it comes to these things, especially when this whole thing about these wearing masks, where some groups say that this is the most important thing to protect oneself from this virus. And other professionals say that the masks actually don't protect and don't help. So you have a mix of all the stuff going on. So that's basically it. That's basically it. But the religious Jewish community, there's no controversy about masks. That seems to be the settled medical scientific opinion. It's about the distancing, am I right? The social distancing, I guess so. I mean, I guess so. Especially in the synagogue, it's very difficult to socially distance in that way. Even though in many, many communities, religious Hasidic communities or just even Orthodox communities, most of the prayers are done outside, outdoors. Most people comply with whatever the regulations are. But like I say, when this element comes in, this politics and this singling out the Jewish community, when, for example, the governor said that the reason why he's cracking down on these zip codes is because proportionately, the rate per hundred is higher in these communities than it is normally. Is that true? So they fact-checked it and it's not true. Meaning there's other zip codes in New York are Hispanic and the black communities where it actually is higher. And they're taking the numbers from the city and state, working with their numbers, and it's higher. Yet there isn't that coming down heavy on the other community. So this perceived as some people say, and I don't know if this is paranoia or this has any shred of truth, is that by and large, the Hasidic community are conservative politically. Trump's supporters, because Trump's fantastic for the Jewish people in Israel, for sure in Israel. So the Democratic establishment doesn't look too favorably on such a large block that's not Democratic, that it's Republican and pro-Trump, as opposed to the Hispanic and the black community where biologies are Democratic strongholds. Well, that's a discussion that would take us many, many shows here. And by the time we get into that discussion, it may be moot given the proximity of Election Day. Suffice to say that the Jewish community, as I know it, is not necessarily pro-Trump. And so what you have is a division within the Jewish community on that issue. Anyway, let's go to the holidays. Last time you and I spoke, we spoke about Rosh Hashanah, the High Holidays and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement that follows Rosh Hashanah by what, a week or so. And then we get into the fall holidays. And there are three of them. The title of the show is studying the holiday of what, Sukkot, Sukkos in the Ashkenazic pronunciation, and also Shminyat Seres. That's Shminyat Seret in the Sephardic and Shminyat Seres in the Ashkenazic. And you and I were both Ashkenazic. So then, of course, there's the holiday that follows right on the heels of Shminyat Seres, which is Simkas Torah, which was invented by the Rabbis, as I recall. Anyway, can you talk about the juxtaposition of those three, Sukkos, Shminyat Seres, and Simkas Torah? Sure. So these three holidays, while there are three separate holidays, as you just so beautifully explained them, but really there's their sandwich together. And they're referred to in general as the holiday of Sukkos. Shminyat Seres and Simkas Torah are the final days of Sukkos. And they are also the final days of the series of holidays. And in a sense, they are the culmination, the apex of all of the holidays that came before. So Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are, you know, are serious days, you know, days of awe. And the high holy days and days of awe, that's how they refer to Yom Kippur as a time for repentance, forgiveness, introspection. Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment. So these are all, you know, very, very heavy, heavy days. Sukkos, and especially the final days of Sukkos, Shminyat Seres and Simkas Torah, are very joyous and happy times. They are referred to in the Torah as the time for happiness, the time for rejoicing. So it is, you know, it is a whole different mood than Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but it's almost like the byproduct of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, what follows the introspection and the soul-searching of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur manifests itself in the form of joy on, on Shminyat Seres and Sukkos. So they really form one whole, you know, one organic whole. And as you, as you mentioned that Simkas Torah, in Hebrew Simkas Torah means the rejoicing of the Torah. The Torah is the book of God, the Bible, which in the Jewish religion and synagogues, we have a Torah scroll. Every Torah is a scroll written painstakingly by a scribe, letter by letter, special ink. And every Saturday, every Shabbos, a portion of the Torah is read in such a way that at the, every year we go through the entire cycle from the beginning, from Genesis, oraceous, until the very, very end of Deuteronomy. There are 52 portions in the Torah in the 52 weeks of the year. So in that way we go through every, every week another portion. When do we conclude reading of the Torah? On Simkas Torah, that's when we read the last portion of the Torah, a portion that deals with Moses, the passing of Moses before the Jewish people enter into the land of Israel. And the blessings that Moses bequeaths the Jewish people before he passes on. And then we immediately follow it up with the beginning of the Torah, with the Genesis. In other words, we ended and we started at the same, at the same time in the same service. To highlight the idea that the Torah, which is really God's wisdom, God's thinking, is infinite. And one can never, never fully master it. The human, the human finite mind cannot plummet the depths, the full depths of the Torah. And we constantly are learning, learning and relearning it. So what is the, I recall it termed the five books of Moses. Is that the Torah or is that some variation on the theme? No, no, no. So basically the Torah is the Hebrew generic word for, for actually what the Christians refer to as the Old Testament. The Old Testament consists of the five books of Moses that Moses wrote, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These are the English names for the five books of Moses. Then when Moses passes away, begin the era of the prophets. First comes Joshua and then the judges and then the prophets, like the prophet Samuel and then the book of Kings, King David and King Solomon and many of the other Judean kings. Then you have the latter prophets, like the prophet Isaiah, Jeremiah, almost these are the prophets and they comprise 24 books, five of them being the five books of Moses. Then you have the judges and the prophets and a total of 24, which for the Jewish people, this is what is called the Tanach. Tanach is an abbreviation for Torah. First letter is a tough Torah. Second letter is a Nun, like the N-sounding letter, which is Naveem, the prophets. Then Ksuvim, the huff, which is Ksuvim, is the writings are like the book of Psalms, book of Esther. These are all part of the Old Testament. But what we read in the Torah every week is from the five books of Moses. So, Simchist Torah is a day of great rejoicing, because we have just finished one cycle and we immediately begin the other cycle. So, we rejoice with the Torah and the Torah is a very deep teaching, but we don't make symposiums and talk about the deep insights of the Torah. Actually, we keep the Torah closed in its cover and we dance with the Torah, because our connection for the Jew, the Torah is not just a book of knowledge or a book of information or a book of history. The Torah is really, our bridge is that which bridges man and God, earth and heaven. And our connection to the Torah is not limited to how much we understand or how much we know. It's an intrinsic, it's a soul connection. And this is manifest and expressed in the great joy of Simchist Torah. You mentioned history, and then you also mentioned a number of figures that are throughout the religious discussion in the Western world. A lot of characters. And King David is an example. So, my question for you, Rabbi, is these people who are mentioned in the five books and in the books thereafter, did they live? Are they real? For sure. The answer is every child who's been reared and educated in the Jewish way would answer the 100 percent yes. The Torah is, first and foremost, a factual book of, maybe for lack of a better term, history. It tells the story from the beginning, from the genesis of the world, and how God created it until the five books are most until the end of Moses' life. And in the books of the prophets, it talks about the kings and the prophets. So, yes, King David lived, and King Solomon and all the kings. Now, what we say is that there are layers and layers of meaning within the Torah, and the deeper messages in the Torah are really almost like encoded in the Torah. You need to be able to read between the lines and decipher it. That's where the mystical teachings come in in the Kabbalistic teachings. They try to tease out from the story and the words of the Torah the larger discussions about the deeper messages from the Torah. But it doesn't overshadow the factualness of the Torah. So, if you really want to understand those messages, you have to understand what I'm going to call it ancient Hebrew. Not the Hebrew that's spoken in Tel Aviv today, but ancient Hebrew, the Hebrew of the Torah. And you have to understand how the various parts and recitations of the Torah relate to each other. The kind of environment that they are all taken together. And I suppose that's why religious Jews will study the Torah all their lives, because it's not just the words that are there. It's the words in the context that the entire the entire Torah provides. Basically, just generally speaking, there are two parts to the Torah. One is referred to as the written Torah. And the other one is the oral tradition. So, for example, the Talmud, which is the work of the rabbis primarily after the destruction of the first temple when the Jews were exiled to Babylon. In Babylonia, the rabbis, over a period of close to a thousand years, taught and they taught and they learned and they taught the whole framework of Jewish law and Jewish thought all teased out of the words of the Torah. Because there is a methodology to understanding the Torah and the words of the Torah. So, the oral tradition is after the five books of Moses were written, everything, not after, while they were that was written, it was also passed on from generation to generation orally, that which Moses received from God, Mount Sinai. And this is what people refer to as the Orthodox approach. See, we believe that the Torah is from heaven, meaning it's God's word. It's not the words of an inspired leader, even one who's like Moses. But Moses was like a stenographer. He wrote down what God told him. And therefore, for those people who believe that way, the Orthodox Jews, the Torah is as binding today as it was the day it was given. Because God is eternal. And while the world has changed culturally in so many ways, but the skeleton of life hasn't changed in God's words, bind us today like they did then and also provide the meaning for our lives as they did for the Jews living then. Now, there's an interesting comparison going on right now, today, tomorrow, and a few days into the week, with Amy Barrett. And she's being offered for confirmation. And she's a traditionalist, I mean, a literal reader of the Constitution. So some people feel there's big division on this that the Constitution is and should be a living breathing instrument that is capable of being reinterpreted in modern times, in current times, whatever that is. And I want to hear you. By the way, Starfish Interrupting Energy, which sounds very logical, because the Constitution is a man-made document. So you look at the intent of the framers, and then you apply it to the situation, the changed reality of today. The Torah, the issue with the Torah, is that it's a godly, not only godly inspired document, it's handed it down to Moses to give to the Jewish people. So therefore, it's different. Now there's other streams within Judaism, as we know, the conservative and the reform, who say just like the Constitution needs to be interpreted to the realities of the day, in the same way also the Torah has to be reinterpreted to the realities of the day. So that's a discussion for a show or two. Yeah. So if I come to you or somebody who is an expert in understanding the Torah, who has spent his life a religious person, and I say, look, I see this provision here, and I'm not sure how it applies to me or to my life circumstances. There'll be a discussion about that. There'll be an answer to that. We are going to look at the Torah, but we're going to look at the Torah in light of all the wisdom that we can find and interpret the current events. Exactly. So for example, what real rabbis are busy primarily doing is answering questions, for example, with new technology, with new scientific breakthroughs. There are constantly questions coming up, and the rabbis have to address these questions, and these are questions that in the times of the Talmud, these things didn't even exist, but they have to be able to apply based on the principles of what the Torah teaches and find the application to modern day situations. So in every walk of life and every sphere of life, that's really where the creative learning and teaching is going on. You know, so this trilogy of holidays that starts right after Yom Kippur, and it works its way to Simka Torah, which is, is that happening now? I want to say that's happening right about now, isn't it? Well, Simka Torah was Saturday and Sunday, this past Saturday. So where were we? We're finished with the three in the trilogy, but then I remember, I was telling you before the show, I remember there was a Hasidic synagogue in my neighborhood back in Queens, which would march around the neighborhood carrying the Torahs and singing. And some people who were Jewish understood that. Other people who were Italian or Irish, they didn't necessarily, we had a very diverse neighborhood, or Asian for that matter. You know, we were close to the United Nations. We were close to Flushing Meadow Park, which was a very, you know, a diverse neighborhood. It was a melting pot neighborhood. Anyway, so they would march around and nobody would know. I mean, I would know I was in the march. But the point is it was a very happy time. And it was a very fun time. It was a, as you said, it was a great relief from the serious time of the high holidays. But I would like to, before we were out of time here, I would like to... If I can just interject one thought that in Judaism, happiness and joy is a very serious thing. It's a very serious endeavor. So it's not a relief. It takes on a different form, but it's very serious and very important and very integral to the life of Judaism and to the life of a Jew. So it's equally intense, but in a different form. I take your point, Rabbi. And I remember Chabad, which lost two of its Torahs to some mischief maybe three years ago, was able to recover maybe a year and a half ago or two years ago, was able to recover one of them or somebody contributed a Torah to you, which is no small thing. And you were celebrating, Chabad was celebrating that on Atkinson Drive. And it was really something to watch. The people carrying the Torahs, singing and dancing, they were very energetic. And it was an example of the Simchastora kinder experience, wasn't it? Yes. There's a story in the Book of Prophets about King David, that when David brought the ark, the covenant, the ark that held the covenant, the Ten Commandments, which was in an ark and eventually made its way into the temple when the temple was built by King Solomon. And the Holy of the Holies within the temple contained the ark that had the tablets, the Ten Commandments. So when King David brought the ark to Jerusalem, it says that King David led a procession of people, first with the ark. And King David was not only rejoicing, but he was dancing and whistling and making all these gestures of joy that his wife, who was the daughter of the first Jewish King, King Saul, saw her husband being carried away in such a way. And she rebuked him later. She said, that's not the fitting for a king to, you know, to act like, you know, like, you know, like, she called him like one of the simpletons, the way he was dancing and rejoicing. And David answered her that she's mistaken. This is, this is all in God's glory. This is all, you know, it's not expressing, you know, a personal joy. This is a much deeper joy. So yeah, that's how Simchastor is celebrated. And Simchastor, as you mentioned, is the final holiday of the series of holidays. So basically what launches the Jew into the new year is Simchastorah. The joy of Simchastorah is meant to be taken, you know, from that day and have it fill your heart for the entire year. So every day and every week and every, you know, is filled with that joy. So I hope we have more things to talk about the next time, Rabbi. What's the next holiday? What's the next issue we want to cover? Well, first of all, I'll tell you something very interesting that, you know, there's no words in the Hebrew language for religion. There's no such words. In modern Hebrew, they have a word and they call it dati. So a religious person is called Sonu's dati. But in biblical Hebrew, there's no word for religion. Why? Because the whole concept of religion is alien to Judaism. Judaism is really a way of life that touches every aspect of your life from the morning to the night, every day of the year, and every day of your life. So really, holidays, holy days, are also not really a Jewish idea because in Judaism, every day is a holy day. Yes, the Sabbath and the holidays are more pronounced and they celebrate something specific, whether it's a miracle or an important event. But the whole idea of the holidays and the Sabbath is for them to imbue our everyday life that we should feel that joy and that holiness in whatever we do. Now that we're doing a radio show or a think tech, you know, it's imbued with an inner joy and an inner zeal. So we can talk about, we don't have to wait till the next holiday to find something to talk about. But the next holiday, now that you ask, is Hanukkah. That's in about two months. Well, we have to meet before then and I'm sure I'll find something interesting to talk about. There are so many things happening and so many things to, you know, connect up from the Torah, from Jewish learning, and from your experience in Chabad. Thank you so much, Rabbi, for coming around. We still enjoy these discussions. It's a wonderful experience to be with you. Thank you. Same here. Same here, Jay. You're welcome. Thank you.