 And it's what, 10 o'clock at night in Israel, am I right? Rabbi Yonatan Udren. Hi Rabbi, how are you? Hi there Jay, it's great to see you. Good morning to you. It is 10 p.m. in the evening here so if I start to nod off a little bit you'll nudge me virtually. But I'm very happy to see your smiling face. Yeah, nice to connect with you. It's really important we, you know, we want to connect with the whole world and you're you're certainly part of that. And Israel is always a point of interest to really everyone in the United States for one reason or another. And it's of interest to us because of education in Israel and the innovative spirit if you will. Every time you turn around Israel is coming up with some, you know, remarkable success in research and development. It's just unbelievable. And that has to track on on, you know, how the educational process works and you're involved in that. But before we get to your involvement, Rabbi, I'd like to like to know just a little about your background. You're you're an American in Israel. How did that happen? Was that, you know, you got off the plane in the wrong in the wrong stop? What? How long is your show Jay? How long do we have? My goodness, that will take us quite far afield. But the short answer is I grew up in Florida and Pittsburgh. I had 21 great years in America and I came to Israel for the first time right after I graduated Florida State University. And I fell in love with it here. I felt that I was home. I loved the people. I love the food. Israeli food, unlike the Jewish Ashkenazi food that I the European food that I grew up with, you know, gefilte fish here. It's a lawful shwarma. I mean, really, you know, good stuff. So along with all of that and the feeling of this is just home and this is where I want to plant myself. This is where I want to raise my family. That's the decision that I made and never looked back since 2001 now. And so it's been a good number of years since I've been here in Israel and love it here. We really, really love it here. Yeah, I had a trip. Oh, it's a long time ago in 1978. And I loved it there too, especially the yogurt. The yogurt just blew me away. The yogurt was so good. Well, if you're into food, Jay, you got to come back. I mean, it's just exploding over here. The restaurants and all the international foods, it's it's quite a treat. So please, we'd love to have you. What about COVID? Is COVID exploding too? Thank God things are really, really good here right now. I don't know if I heard this term or I kind of made it up because it rhymes, but you're kind of the vaccination nation now. Bebe Netanyahu was able to create a deal with Pfizer and we received here in Israel enough vaccinations for a very large portion of the of the whole country here. So now over half of Israelis, that's including the Israeli Arabs and all the different sectors of the of the of the of the country are vaccinated. And just today, they removed the mask, the mask law outside. Inside were we're still asked to wear masks outside. There's no longer any according to the health officials, no need to wear the mask. And schools, you know, talking about education, schools today for the first time since maybe the first week in October have gone back to all in person classes all across the country. So there is a real feeling of hope and optimism here that the vaccine works, that you get a significant number of your population to take the vaccine. And thankfully, we haven't seen major, you know, any problems with that, any medical issues from the vaccine. And we get back to life here. And there are students on campus at Hebrew University where I work, which after over a year is just such an incredible joy. So there's life at the end of the tunnel. I'm not sure what the situation is there in Hawaii, but but here, thankfully, it's very, very positive. Yeah, we're doing pretty well. I'm not sure their stats are as good as as yours in a relative sense. There was an article in the New York Times this morning about how Israel was able to acquire from Pfizer nine million doses of the vaccine. That's more than a population of the country, isn't it? Well, you have to get two vaccines. So I guess you're going to have to cut that number in half. We have a lot of young people here in this country. I don't remember the exact percentage, but but it's a very, very young country. So we can't even vaccinate everybody. I think, you know, the amount of people vaccinated is quite high here, except for 16 and under they haven't got the the okay to do that yet. But hopefully very soon. Okay, well, you know, I'm really used to you said you worked at what Hebrew University? Correct. Correct. Yeah. But but you live on the West Bank, which is distance. I want to know how you commute. I hop in my car and I drive 35 minutes door to door. It's quite straightforward. There is a a pole booth kind of area where you have to drive through and they take a peek and make sure everything's okay. But otherwise, it's pretty normal commute, just kind of commuting to the suburbs right right outside of Jerusalem. Also, you know, you you haven't lost your American dialect at all. And I wonder, I don't have an Israeli dialect, OJ. That's the problem. I don't sound Israel. I don't sound Israeli. When I speak Hebrew, I open my mouth and speak Hebrew here and people instantly know that they're talking to American even after 20 years, though, the downside of that, but sure, but your conversation with Hebrew, I suppose you can read and write and speak the language and hear the language as well as anyone. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a certain element of growing up. When you grow up in a language, and you're fluent in the language from a very, very young age, a lot of the little expressions, the nuances of language, those we sometimes miss. So I see that my kids get that and I learn a lot of Hebrew from them. Both the good words and the not so good words sometimes, which is also an educational process, because I didn't get to do the army. So I didn't learn the really, really bad words. But but but they teach us a lot of the slang and, you know, they teach us how to operate in a lot of ways, not just through language, but through Israeli culture, because they're the sabras, as as we like to call them here, they're the prickly cactus that's sweet in the middle that the Israelis are known as. And so they teach us a lot as well, including some of those nuances of language. Well, what is what is this generation like the one coming up the one you're teaching your kids, which I know we have a bunch of kids over five kids. Yes, it's worked out for you in terms of having kids. But you know, what's this generation like, you say the prickly cactus, but yeah, what is special about them? What is different about them say when you first came to Israel 20 years ago? Yeah, that's a great question. As far as students that I work with here, just to give you a little bit of background about what we do here, our program is called the RRG Batem Adrash. It's a learning program for students of all backgrounds. We focus specifically on English speaking students who either come to study abroad. That used to be a thing before COVID and the airport were shut down. We're hoping it returns in strength very, very soon. So study abroad students who come to explore Israel, explore Jerusalem, explore what's going on here politically, spiritually, those students we work with and also young people who decide to make aliyah to immigrate to Israel to leave the mainland. I think you guys stay there in Hawaii, and to and to live a different life to live a life here in the Jewish state. So those English speaking students, the ones that we work with, they are really driven and dedicated, especially the ones that have immigrated to Israel at age 18, 19, they join the army, they join national service, which means they're working in hospitals, they're working in schools, they're really out there with the people. So they're incredibly inspiring young people that come here, they're mature young people, an overseas student that decides to come to Jerusalem, as opposed to Sydney, or even Tel Aviv is looking for something very, very different. Though those students are very mature, they're deep, and they have questions. For me, that's the best part of being a rabbi on campus. I love those tough questions. Those are fun to crack open and getting into deep meaningful conversations. That's that that for me is the is the best part of the job that I do at Hebrew you and trying to help them guide them on their own spiritual journeys and who they are and where they're going those. So, you know, but to overall kind of categorize them. I guess, in Israelis, we see this as well. But there is an idealism and there is a lack of willingness to, to take the easy path in a certain way. It's kind of like all or nothing. We're going to do this a million percent or we're just going to sit in the couch and do Netflix. And they have a tremendous amount of leadership and strength and and vision. So, you know, as far as being an educator, with these young people who, you know, 20, 21, 22, when they're getting ready to make big life decisions for themselves, an awesome group to work with. I can't say enough about them. So do they come forever, or just for a visit? And wait to return fit in all of that. Depends. So there's, you know, just to clarify, there are two groups overall that we work with at Hebrew University. I should say myself and my partner, Rabbi Grodner. We work with either the overseas students and those students come, let's say, for four or five months. Many of them have come on a birthright trip or if you're familiar with birthright, talk about the right of return. So, Jews who are, I believe, between 16 and 25, if I'm getting the numbers right through an organization called Birthright can get a free trip to Israel. We're hoping those will come back soon. So a lot of young people will try that, will take that opportunity to see Israel, but it's a 10 day trip. It's a two week trip. They get a little taste of that. So they want more. So a lot of schools want them to do study abroad programs, especially if they go to more liberal arts based schools. So they'll come for four or five months, and they'll spend that time here in class. But they're also, as I mentioned, they're exploring. They're going to the old city. They're also going to Ramallah and they're seeing the political situation here with their own eyes, which I always encourage them, you know, no matter what person's right, left, or center, there always is a certain agenda that, you know, whatever media source is trying to put out there. We all have our biases. So you're interested in the conflict, you want to hear what's going on, you really want to know what the situation is, put your feet in the ground and walk in it. Talk to Israelis, talk to Israeli Arabs, talk to Palestinians, visit these places. And that's what a lot of them do. So especially the ones who are more politically inclined, the ones who are more spiritually inclined, they have a lot of questions about who they are and what Judaism means to them. They grew up in all sorts of different homes and backgrounds from very, very secular to very religious, and they're finding themselves along the way. So, you know, that's that group comes for a shorter period of time. Then you have a group of students who made Aliyah. Aliyah is the Hebrew word, alot means to go up. So whenever in the Bible, there is a discussion about going to Israel, even if it's going down, if you're coming from the north, coming down to Israel, it's always called an aliyah. You're always going up when you go to Israel and you're always going down when you leave it. So as far as making aliyah, immigrating, all Jews have what's called the right of return, as you mentioned, which is a obligation of the state of Israel to accept them, open hands, they even provide financial support. I got my second degree, my master's degree at Bar-Elon University for free as a new immigrant. So there are a lot of advantages. They really try to strengthen immigrants so that they can be successful here and contribute here. And especially American immigrants, they love American immigrants because they come from good educations. You know, from some, you know, not all Americans are rich, right? The stereotype isn't true, but Americans in general are more financially well off than, let's say, you know, those that come from Ethiopia or even Russia or other parts of the world. So you get a lot of support here from the country. I got six months free of Hebrew instruction when I first got here. I didn't know much more than the olive in the bet that I got from my reform religious school education growing up. So they kind of throw you into the deep end and they give you a six months of intensive up on, you know, jump in the deep end training. And it's kind of like a stinker swim. And then for the people that were a little younger, I was a little too old for the army. I was 25 when I got here. And they told me 24, excuse me. And they told me, you're too old. And I went to this is when I went to the army office. I walk into the army office and I said, I'm here. I'm ready. I'm ready. Take me. And they said, who are you? What do you want? Take me to the army. I'm ready, you know, to help defend the country. Don't call us. We'll call you. I'm still waiting for that. But these young people that come at age 18, 19, right after high school, they are immediately drafted into the army. Some of them have very basic Hebrew. Or as I mentioned, they're in national service, which is the direction that a lot of the young women will take. So they'll go and they will be involved in hospitals and schools and the like for anywhere from six months to three years. And then at that point, they'll go to university. So you went to a bar in London and started Hebrew, but where did you study for the rabbinic? And why? And why, you know, that's a pretty heavy decision to decide. Did you say you were a Reformed Jew back in the U.S.? I grew up. All of a sudden you were in the rabbit and you're not reformed anymore. My parents, I think, still scratching their heads saying, what happened? What happened? You know, if they had superlatives in Hebrew school, I would have been, you know, most likely to never, you know, do anything Jewish again. I hated it. You know, my parents were very devoted and still are very devoted Reformed Jews. They're at synagogue, you know, it's not a pandemic. They were at synagogue Friday night. And I had to come up with all sorts of excuses as a kid, you know, I ran out of body parts at a certain point to things hurt that try to get out of going to synagogue. It just wasn't my it wasn't my thing growing up, I guess you could say. But, you know, and I'd love to hear your story as well. You know, at a certain point, we start to ask those existential questions. Who are we? What is the meaning of life? Where am I going? What am I doing? And those questions really, really bothered me. And I think because of that strong Jewish identity that my parents instilled in me, when I asked those questions, I started to look towards the Jewish tradition for those answers. And I was very lucky to have at the Hillel at Florida State University, I think now it's a huge building. When I was there as a, it was a little broken down house on the corner of Dunwoody Street, you know, barely, barely standing. There was about 12 of us at a campus of several thousand, several thousand Jews at Florida State University. And there was a rabbi there that told incredible stories from the Talmud, incredible stories, stories that really addressed those fundamental questions that I was asking. And so he told me before I graduated, he said, you got to go to Israel. You know, these stories, they're great. And they're important. But to really feel it and to really understand it, you got to go to Israel. So I took his advice, hopped on a plane two weeks after I graduated. And that was my first experience in Israel. And that was my first kind of diving into Jewish text as well. And, you know, I mentioned that I fell in love with the country. And I also fell in love with the text, the Talmud. Yeah, I mean the Talmud is an incredible text, but the entirety of Jewish text, there was such depth and breath and, you know, a connection to something much bigger than myself, a chain to what we like to call them a story. To this tradition of really four thousand years, you know, I'm standing in a place. We live in a place called Beit El right outside Jerusalem, as you mentioned. Beit El is a story of Jacob's ladder, if you're familiar with that story, where Jacob had this vision. And Beit El is the place where it says in the Bible that that story happened. And maybe it's not exactly here, but it's pretty close. They have some archaeological evidence that it's pretty close. So I'm walking in my story here. And so being here and studying and learning and connecting has really helped me to address, not answer all of those questions, because that would be boring, but to address those really deep existential questions. And as I mentioned, when students come in with those questions, that for me is great, because they think they have good questions, but I got about 20 more that they never thought of. I can really confuse them, and then we can really start to talk. Maybe you'll share a few of yours with me as well, Jay, your existential questions. Obviously, taking off from New York and moving to Hawaii, there was a shift there that happened with you as well. Well, sure. It wasn't necessarily religious, but I do want to tell you a story. So there's humor. There's humor in Judaism. It runs right through it, and it runs right through it for rabbis, too. So this man comes to see his rabbi, and he says, rabbi, I have a very important question for you. And the rabbi says, yes, yes, what's the question? And he says, the question is, what is life, rabbi? I need to know what is life. And the rabbi says, you know, that's a pretty heavy question. I'm going to need a couple of days of dual research, look at the Talmud, whatnot. And, you know, come back Tuesday, and I'll tell you the answer to your question. Tuesday comes, and he comes in, says he rabbi again, and he says, rabbi, I'm here, I'm back, you were going to study and think about the meaning of life, and I'm here to ask you what actually rabbi, what is life? And the rabbi says, I thought about it, I read about it, and my answer is life is an ocean. Like I said, it's an ocean. That's it. That's all you're going to tell me about life. I come in here, I ask you this very important question I've been thinking about for years, and I ask you as a fancy rabbi, you're going to tell me the answer to my question, and you say, you're going to study it, and I have to come back Tuesday, and you tell me life is an ocean, that's what you tell me. And the rabbi says, okay, okay, so maybe it isn't an ocean. That's funny. I'm not sure that I know why it's funny. I just know it's funny. Do you know why it's funny? I think, I'll tell you why I think it's funny, and it was great in the telling, and I think that was part of it. You obviously got a good Jewish sense of humor yourself, but one of the things that I absolutely love about the Jewish tradition is that it has an ability to look at things from so many different perspectives, and that's the incredible thing you mentioned, the Talmud. You know, you look at the Talmud, it's not a book of answers. There are no answers there, or almost no. The book of questions, it's a book of analyzing questions from all sorts of different perspectives, and even in the codification of it, there are all sorts of different opinions that are codified in it, so if you're trying to figure out what to do and what the Talmud really wants from you, in a lot of cases, you just have to say, well, it's either like this, or it's like that, and that's something so Jewish about that. I love that, and I think it's also a really important point, you know, just to bring to our day, where things tend to be, you know, everyone's hearing their news and their perspectives in this little box. We get our news feeds, we get our Facebook feeds, we hear it, we listen to our news channels, and we hear one perspective, and we think that we got it. We know what that is. That's the right way, and every morning we listen, and our opinion is just strengthen a little bit more about the way we should look at the world, the way we should look at others. But the Jewish tradition says, well, you got to step out of that, and you got to see the other guy's position. You know, there's a great story about two famous rabbis, Hillel and Shammai. You might have heard of them, they're the most famous. You know, I work at Hillel. Hillel was the sweet one, the nice one. Shammai was the tough one, the very straight one. But in general, in the Jewish tradition, we follow Hillel because Hillel always explained Shammai's position before he explained his own. And there's something very, very important and powerful about that. So like all good jokes, I think there's a depth to it. That's what I heard in the joke. Yeah, well, yeah. I'm over-realizing a little bit. No, no, no, you're not. Thank you for helping me understand why it's fun. That's my explanation of the joke. You'll have to tell me yours. But that, you know, that takes us to the main topic here. We should spend a little time on that. And that is what is going on with education in Israel. Now, in the U.S., you know, look at the school system. We do not build citizens. We do not build people who understand the world around them, who are vulnerable to claims of racism. I mean, to cultural seduction of racism. They don't understand civics or government or the role of the citizen in government. And as a result, our country educationally is falling behind. They don't understand geography. They couldn't point to Israel on a map or many other countries. And so what we have is very narrow kind of silo education, all required, of course, by regulation, but not from the, you know, the national Department of Education. But, you know, it seems to me it's really questionable about whether education in the U.S. is working today and has worked for the past couple of decades. But in Israel, it has worked. And I'd just like to know your thoughts about Israel. Comes up with innovation all the time. Some of the most brilliant, you know, research and discovery in science and otherwise is happening in Israel over and over and over again. You see the articles like almost every day, there's something fantastic happening in education and discovery in Israel. Why is that? Yeah. There, we can get into more details about that. You'll tell me if you want to hear more specifics about the Israeli educational system, but I think the heart of your question is it comes down to this. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was founded, but the story goes back, you know, long before that and really to the beginning of the story, that Jews have always been not the start-up nation, but really not even the can-do nation, but really the must-do nation. That's one of my friends shared with that with me. I think it's right on the money, especially coming back to a very tough neighborhood in the Middle East and trying to start a state here with 600,000 people. We have now 9 million Israelis, which is incredible in itself, from, there's 80 languages spoken here. And I don't, over 100 countries have Jews that have come back home after all this time. So, but they come back home and they come back home to a very, very tough neighborhood. We came back to the war in 1948, the Independence War, the Six-Day War where all the surrounding nations around us tried to destroy us. Then we had the Yom Kippur, the Lebanon War, the first one, the second one. I mean, we have all the, you know, what's going on. Iran here is obviously of interest to everybody here, end of concern. So, when you have your back to the wall to a certain degree, you either figure it out and you innovate, or you don't, you die. And somehow that must-do attitude, I think, really pervades Israeli society. It comes through, in a lot of ways, the army and national service, as opposed to Americans, now to speak about myself, maybe the same with you. At age 18, I took off for Tallahassee, Florida, and my parents said goodbye, and those first couple years of college are quite a bit blurry. It was a lot of fun and a lot of partying. 18-year-old kids here in Israel do not experience that. They go to the army. The ones who are the top-notch ones go to intelligence units, the ones who are physically very fit go into combat units. They go into artillery units. They, for three years, are in a must-do situation. So that mentality, that army mentality that pervades the society here, really, I think, is a big part of what makes them such innovators. And it really is pervasive in all areas. You know, you talk to people, these people who are involved in high-tech. I had a great conversation with the gentleman involved in biotech on a flight from New York to Boston a couple of years ago, in Israeli, who was the head of a biotech firm. He was going back and forth between Boston and Tel Aviv, incredible stuff that they were doing. And I asked him the same question, because as much as I've, you know, I've spent a lot of time in my life there, as an immigrant, I do feel always a bit like an outsider, because I didn't go up there. So I asked him your question, because it's a fantastic question. And he said, you know, in the army, we had to do or die. And you figure stuff out. So I think that's a big part of it, and it really does pervade the entire society here. I'm happy to answer more questions specifics, but I think in broad strokes, that's a big part of it. Well, I mean, that that would seem to apply to the students. And, you know, the culture and the we're going to call it the act, the intellectual demands and motivations made on the students. But what about the faculty? What are they like? And what are the classes like? You know, for example, when I went to law school, you know, the Socratic method was very effective in, you know, exchanging ideas and testing you to see, you know, whether you thought it through. Is that used? How are the classes like? And how is what is the relationship of the teacher and the student? I remember short story and I'll stop. After the Idi Amin affair in where was that Uganda? And the Israelis rescued a bunch of Israeli citizens who had been detained at the airport in Uganda. The local Jewish community brought out a doctor from Israel. He had been on this. He went 30 plane or one of them and spoke about the episode. And somebody says, you're a doctor. You know, in Israel, aren't doctors as worshipped as they are in the United States? How do you find yourself in a military situation like this? And he says, you don't understand doctors. It's just a trade. We're like everybody else. You know, we put our pants on one leg at a time. Nobody extols us. We're just doctors, shoemakers, shoemakers, doctors. It's just a trade. To me, that was really a window into the result of professional education. Is there something there we should understand? As far as I'm trying to kind of figure out an entrance way into this question because, you know, we see through our kids' education, our oldest daughter is 13. We see some very interesting, some positive and some challenging coming from America. As far as the universities are concerned, the starting age for university, as I mentioned, is much older. It's already 23, 24, maybe in 25, 26. If someone's very successful in the Army, they'll go beyond their three years and they'll be a commander and they could start their university at 27. So that maturity coming in, I think helps a lot. Also, the university system here, you start in your major. I think that's probably similar to Europe. You don't have those general requirement classes. You want to be a doctor? You don't go do four years and then you go right into medical school. If your grades are good enough, if your matriculation grades are good enough, if your psychology test, if you're the SAT equivalent test. If those grades are good, if you want to be a doctor here, they got to be real good because we only have a very small number of medical schools here. I think there's three in the whole country. You got to be the best of the best. Lawyers, we got tons of them. No surprise in the Jewish state, but there's tremendous competition there because of the lack of space in the universities for people that want to do this. So there is a real competitive nature here, I think from an early age. It does start with that army culture, though, because if you want to get into the top units in the army, you're already thinking about it from 12, 13. I mean, we see even our youngest, our oldest boy, excuse me, is nine years old and we're even starting to hear him talk about different groups in the army, different types of units in the army that I'm not familiar with that he already is aware of. So, you know, there is that push and that competition probably from an early age. There is something positive to that, I think. Something as far as differences between the educational system here that we've noticed with our kids, and again, they're a bit younger, but there's a real focus on social excellence, social units, social networks in the school that I never got, you know, and I don't remember, you know, growing up with. In other words, let's say you have a kid who, you know, is having a little bit of problems socially and doesn't have a lot of friends. Though the teacher may or may not contact the parents, you know, some kids are more socially adept than others. Social issues in the classroom are as important as grades, if not more so. And we've had calls from teachers concerned that one of our kids is not integrating socially in the class in the way that she would like to see her, and she felt like that was a big issue. So that, that I think is great, you know, it was just interesting to me. It's just, oh, that's different. So it's a teamwork thing, and I suggest to you that it came out of the culture of kibbutzim, no? Definitely. I mean, that original, the spirit of original Zionism and the kibbutzim and the socialism that kind of underlies that definitely plays a role in Israeli society still. Very, very much so in the social programs for sure. And I imagine the education as well. That definitely could be a part of it, for sure. I think that's a good look at it. It interests me that young kids would not hesitate to go into the army and if they qualify physically, go into battle without hesitation. It's part of their duty to the community along those lines. But let me ask you my final question here today, Jonathan. And that is, what can the United States and the culture here? And I know it differs from state to state and city to city and all that. And then communities within those cities. But what can the United States learn from Israel's ability to create innovative researchers and discoverers and business people? What is the magic, what is the magic sauce here that we could learn from Israel? That's a great question. Now, as I mentioned, there's that burning fire within the Israeli community that pervades it. That must do, that can do attitude. It would be interesting to think how to inculcate young people in America with a sense of, without having to put them in harm's way and having everyone be involved in the citizen's army. Obviously, we wouldn't want to see that. But to have them inculcate that attitude of have, do, must do, that fire within them to really, really want to make a difference in the world. One of the things that I see here in Israel that I would like to see more of here and more of across the world is we see in Israel, again, 80 languages, people from over 100 different countries. And as opposed to trying to get everyone to buy into one broader holistic national narrative, let's look around and appreciate how incredible all of the differences are from all the different groups. And let's say, you know what, you come from Ethiopia, you have a very special talent in Area X, bring that to the table. Your family comes from this tradition, excuse me, and I'm speaking on a spiritual sense, but as well as a holistic, organic view of where the country is going, everyone, every group has unique talents and gifts. Let's not cancel everyone out. Let's open up spaces to be able to let these different groups let their talents out and let's appreciate these different groups. That's my hope and wish that something we'll see here more of. We have a good, we're going in that direction. I'd like to see more of it. And I'd love to see that America as well because we share a lot with America. There's a lot of diversity there. There's diversity of thought, diversity of background. And so the idea of making space for these different perspectives, but unifying around a common destiny, I love that. And I think that we're doing a pretty good job with that in Israel. And maybe we can see more of that in America as well. Yeah, and it does start with something you mentioned. And that is first, you've got to figure out what the other guy is thinking. This is very, very important. You can't appreciate him unless you get into his thought process and appreciate the metric word being appreciated. Well, you're a great listener, Jay. So that, I think, is a great tool for all of us to use as well in that line. Yeah. Rabbi Yonatan Udren, thank you so much for joining us from Jerusalem today. It's great to have you on the show and I really, really mean this when I say I want to continue our conversation soon. I would love to, Jay. I would love to. This is really a lot of fun for me. And anytime you let me know. Shalom. Aloha. Thank you. Aloha and shalom, Jay.