 Community Matters, I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech and today we have the honor again of Rabbi Ichel Krasynchansky. Welcome to the show, Rabbi. Thank you, Jay. Always a pleasure to be here. You're the Rabbi of Khabar of Hawaii and that name appeared in the newspaper a few days ago because it was Khabar synagogue in Poway, California. Poway, Poway, Poway, south of San Diego, where that shooting happened. And so that has a special meaning for you. I must say also that Rabbi Yistra El Goldstein looks a lot like you. On the white beard and the yarmulke. So this is of interest to all Jews, all people for that matter, but it's a special interest to Khabar, isn't it? Well, I don't know if interest is the right word, but definitely I struck very close to home. I struck home with Rabbi Goldstein. You knew him? Yeah, very well. We grew up together. We're just a year apart. I'm a year older than him. Very, very fine fellow, very nice fellow. And his true colors came out in this horrific couple of minutes when the shooter, the terrorist, came in and began to shoot. As he himself retold the press that the guy was standing literally right in front of him and he stood there with his rifle, aimed it at the rabbi, and the rabbi tried to protect his reaction from what was coming and two major miracles happened. One is that the guy couldn't shoot, so even though he was in very close range, didn't hit his face or his body, he hit his hands, two of his fingers, actually, two of his index fingers. One of them was blown off and the other one was very badly injured. I believe he went through surgery and hoping that he'll be able to save the finger. But then the biggest miracle happened is that the gun jammed and he couldn't continue shooting. It was an assault rifle. It was an assault rifle. And there were two members of the congregation. One was a border patrol police who was Jewish, so he came to the service. And then there was someone else also with the military background. And they right away jumped in and one of them picked up a chair and threw it at this fellow, this terrorist, as hard as he could. And the guy turned around and ran. In the meantime, the rabbi who was leading profusely, his first thought was the children. So he immediately ran to the other room and he counted for all the children and he escorted them out of the building. And then he went back to check on the congregants. That's when he saw this woman, her name was Lori Kaye, who from what I understand, she was in the lobby with the rabbi when the gunman was shooting. And she right away jumped in to protect the rabbi. She took a bullet for him and she passed away. Her husband was also saved his life at the expense of her own life. Her husband, who is a doctor, you know, in all the commotion when he saw this person lying on the floor bleeding, right away rushed to do whatever he could to resuscitate her. And while he was doing it, he noticed it's his wife and he fainted. And you imagined. Yeah, so it was a very horrific scene. And the most moving thing or very moving thing was after the gentleman ran out. Gentleman's hardly the one. Yeah, I'm sorry, the terrorist ran out. The rabbi, the paramedics, they wanted to take the rabbi in an ambulance. But before he went into the ambulance, he felt it important to say a few words to the people there at the congregation. And he spoke very, very movingly. And he said that he tried to encourage them. He tried to give them comfort. And he basically said that, you know, we're in the holiday of Passover. When we say in the last day of Passover, this is a day when more than usually people come to synagogue to say Yisker, the Yisker prayer for the dead, prayer for the loved ones, right? And he basically said that in the Haggadah, we read that how in every generation they rise up to to kill us and God saves us from them. And this is what they just lived through. And he gave them strength and we've survived all the pogroms and the killings. This is what the rabbi is saying. The rabbi is saying, while he took a talus, a prayer show, he wrapped his hand in a prayer show because it was bleeding. It was symbolic, right? And he spoke very, very, very you know, very uplifting words. And then he was taken to the hospital. He'll be thinking about this every day for the loss of his finger anyway. Loss of his finger and everyone who knows. Loss of the woman, yeah. One of the loss of the woman. And other people wounded. There were two other people, interestingly or sadly, they were both from Israel, a young girl and her uncle. Visiting. The young girl, I think, was living, no, they moved there and they were at the synagogue. Why did they move there? Because they were living in the south, a city called Zerot, close to the border with Gaza. They have continuous missiles coming in from Hamas and they moved to Sandia to get away from it. To get away from the violence. Get away from the violence, right? Thank God the girl wasn't injured badly, as well as her uncle also wasn't. Yeah, I saw some footage of the rabbi afterward in the hospital. He was, again, very articulate and moving. And I wonder, you know, what kind of effect does this have on the congregation? What kind of effect does it have on the Jewish community there in Poway? Poway. Things pronounced Poway. Poway. Well, firstly, shock and horror and real sadness for the senseless killing of a person. But many, many years ago, in the 1950s, there was a terrorist incident in Bar-Khabad. Bar-Khabad is the village in Israel that was established by Khabad, primarily for the many Jews that were coming in from the former Soviet Union. And before it was popular, if we can use that word, there was a very tragic terrorist act where some Palestinians got into the town through the orange groves that surrounded the town. And they went into the school. With the children. Where children were there or young adults, teenagers, young teenagers. And they started shooting at them. And the teacher was killed and four young students were killed. And it was a shock and sadness and horror. And at the time, the Rebbe, Rabbi Schneersen, he gave a talk. And he said that the only way to address this horrible incident, the only way to try to fill the void and the sadness is by redoubling our efforts in doing good based on what the line in the Zohar, which is the main work of Jewish mysticism, where the expression is that little light dispels a lot of darkness. The terrorists and these terrorists come from a place of total darkness. The hearts are filled with hate. And the only way to combat that is to come back with stronger light. The Rebbe initiated then the campaign to build five new institutions for each of the interested who were slaughtered. And this has been the Rebbe's approach to addressing things of this nature. Has been said that the Rebbe himself came out of the Holocaust. He was a survivor of the Holocaust. And his voyage to America was with the last ship that sailed out of Paris before they shut it all down. Oh my goodness, talk about being lucky. And the Rebbe came to New York on the American shores. And in 1950, when he took over the leadership, he was dealing with a world or a Jewish community that has been decimated. And the survivors were broken, his body and spirit. Many of them were sole survivors of large families. So the Rebbe's approach was, as it's been described, whereas the Nazis hunted down the Jewish people with hate, the purpose of killing them. The Rebbe's effort was to search out all Jews with love and to strengthen them with love and acceptance and guidance. And that's how Habad was rebuilt after it was entirely destroyed and shattered. And that's been the motto of Habad. You've said that before here. And I'm sure Rabbi Goldstein, while he was articulating the same view of him, that is Habad. On the other hand, there are people out there who would like to arm have an armed guard. There was a discussion on the radio yesterday about this. I think it's very prudent, practical. I actually, we got a lot of emails from friends who said, you know, you have to stop playing around and you have to hire armed guards. We even received suggestions, as I know many other synagogues and Habad houses throughout the country have is to have someone in the congregation to have a concealed weapon. I don't know the laws in Hawaii. I know in other states it's permitted to have a concealed weapon. Yeah, there was a discussion on NPR was people were not disagreeing with the notion of having an armed guard. But they were not they were not really enthusiastic about arming the people in the congregation. It's complicated and it just seems too far. How do you feel about that? I don't, well, I mean the whole the whole problem is a very hard to believe problem that anti-Semitism has, you know, has reared its ugly head recently here in the States, you know, just six months ago in the synagogue in Pittsburgh and just this week in Habad that actually it's not just in the United States all over the world. There's a resurgence of anti-Semitism. Yeah, yeah, the Anti-Defamation League reported that there was another substantial increase. I forget what it was about 15 percent increase in attacks on Jews in this country in the past year. And my recollection is that that's what they've been saying with larger or smaller amounts but always substantial amounts of increase in anti-Semitism over the past several years. And then you get, you know, the whole gun issue and then you get what happened in the University of North Carolina just yesterday. A couple walks in and shoots up a class. Not clear why or exactly who he is yet, but we have a lot of guns on a lot of campuses and a lot of people being slaughtered. What troubles me is there's an intersection between that and anti-Semitism. Well, I think it really behooves us, you know, something as shocking and as painful as the shooting in the synagogue. When something like that happens, it almost like forces us to sit up and to think things, you know, very, very think, think, think through things very, very deeply and thoroughly. And specifically I'm talking about the red bean was a huge, huge advocate of having silent prayer in the public's it was a lot of pushback and it never, never really happened. What everybody was saying is that the goal of education is to shape and form and raise healthy human beings, not just to get a degree and to become a money machine so make money, but to become a mensch to be a decent human being. And the only way or a way for children to be able to absorb that is by having moment prayer, silent prayer. When children know that there's a supreme being that's real, that is watchful of everything that happens, you grow up in that kind of environment, then you stay in line. Silent prayer is part of the Jewish service. Island devotion, I forget the name, what's the name of it? Amida prayer. We're talking about not just Jewish, we're talking about the children who are in public schools that are Jewish, non-Jewish and old denomination. When you deny children this daily reminder of there's a God and there's justice and there's rules in how to live and expectations, in absence of that we have a whole generation that's growing up really believing that you can get away with things and morals are not, there's no absolute morals, it's just whatever, it's all relative. And we see the consequences when you were growing up, when I was growing up, it was unheard of to have people come shoot up schools, children shooting at children, it was unheard of. And after Columbine it keeps on happening, it's almost like one reinforces the next one. And in one, you know, one or two generations. So, you know, I would like to explore with you what this is, this increase in anti-Semitism. Now, at a time when, you know, you and I have both seen most of our lives, we haven't seen this. This country has been welcoming and tolerant to most of our lives. All of a sudden it's bubbling up from a dark place and now we have the people, you know, appearing with guns, appearing with the most outrageous statements, denying the Holocaust and finding words for Jews that are outrageous. I do not, frankly, do not understand it. Many people have tried to explain it to me. Many people have explained, you know, the historical process and the, you know, the continuing existence of this anti-Semitic viewpoint down there deep in a given culture or country. And yet I still honestly, Rabbi, I do not understand it. Can you help me understand? Well, as you said, it's actually inexplicable. Anti-Semitism over the generations has been explained for so many different reasons and contradictory reasons. In communist countries, the Jews were killed because they were the capitalists. In capitalist countries, Jews were killed because they were communists. Religious inspired anti-Semitism for the alleged claim that the Jews were responsible in killing Jesus happened for thousands of years. Yet, communist Russia, that was an atheist government. They still, they hated Jews also. Nothing to do with Jesus. So there really is no explanation, but, you know, there's an expression that says, you know, if you really want to get a clear picture about yourself, don't go talking to your friends. Go talk to your enemies. And you'll get a, you'll get a very clear picture about yourself. So if you read in my comf from Hitler, his name be erased, he writes there, the reason why he came up with the final solution is because the Jews brought a disease to mankind that he felt is his responsibility to cleanse humanity from this disease. This disease, he referred to as consciousness. Consciousness. Yeah, yeah. People have a conscience. Conscience. Yeah, conscience. And moral, you know, right and wrong. We don't want that. He felt that that was corrupting. Standing in his way. Standing in his way. So the Jew represents the world, basically God's message to humanity. And you know, people who have problems with the message take it out on the messenger. Yeah. One thought I've had from time to time is this, is that, you know, humankind is a political animal. And in our government, our structures, in our, you know, institutions, we have politics. We will always have politics. And part of politics is power, getting to the top. Maybe politics is, we start with power and politics is a way to get there. In order to get there, you need a scapegoat. You need a scapegoat. You always have to have a scapegoat. You have to climb on somebody else and put somebody else down in order to rise up. The human foible, maybe it's not universal, but it's in many places in many ways. And the Jews are handy. They're a handy scapegoat. We've used them before. They've been used before in history. So if you want to look for a scapegoat, there's a good candidate. You can get some, you know, get some traction that way. Just, just, you know, go scapegoat a Jew. It's something like that. Well, you're right. Jews have been scapegoats for, for so many of the world's ills that they blade, conveniently blamed on the Jews. The black plague, interestingly enough, where so many millions of people were killed, did not affect the Jewish community as it did affect the general hygiene, because of their hygiene, because part of ritual Judaism is to wash your hands all the time. They thought as proof positive that the Jews were behind it. And that's why they were not affected by it. That was in this background. Oh yeah, the Jews have been made to scapegoats. And, but the question is, what needs to be our reaction? We cannot control the hatred coming from others. What needs to be our reaction? So the first thing, as we just mentioned before, that we said, we have to push back with indiscriminate acts of goodness and kindness and love and all those positive stuff that eventually will, will, will, will have an impact. And that's pushing back to everybody, not just several Jews, but to everyone. Exactly. Imanides writes that a person has to view the world as, you know, a scale. And it's like even, even the good and the bad are even. And a person has to think that his one good is a her, one good deed, one good act, would tilt the scales for the entire universe. You don't know for sure, but it's possible. Possible. So therefore, you know, often we tend to think the problem is so big, you know, what will my little act of kindness... It's like climate change. What would my little act do? Well, something. You'll do something. Exactly. Not just something. So what do you do with this fellow? I want to say his name was Ernest, the one in the highway. The terrorist. The terrorist to me? The terrorist. He's an American terrorist. Yeah. The terrorists don't have to be from the Middle East. They can be American terrorists. And you judge them by their acts. And, you know, I mean, I consider him a nutcase and many ways a schmuck because he never really learned what the world is around him. He never learned that. And he does this for a living. Could that be an indictment on society, on how we were raising our young? It could be. We need to rethink, you know, the kind of environment the young generation is growing up in. You grow up in an environment in a godless society where anything goes and then step number two is you got to look out for yourself and yourself only and anyone that's perceived to get into your way is enemy. So, yeah, things like this will happen if young children are raised in an environment where it's an emphasis on, you know, living good and doing good and sharing and caring and then, you know, these things get reinforced in, you know, through the schools and the homes. And that will have an effect on the children. A harder question is what, and that's futuristic. And I certainly totally agree with that. You have to build a better educational system, a better way of teaching people so that we have a more responsible, more decent citizenship. But here, Ernest, his last name, I don't know his first name, his name be erased. Ernest has done this and when he went to court in the Arraignment, I think it was yesterday, he pleaded not guilty. 57 people saw him. He acknowledged his responsibility at the scene, but he pleaded not guilty. What? What's his loss? What's going on here? He isn't contrite in the smallest way. Can you fix him? What do we do with Ernest? Well, first of all, he probably has been advised by lawyers that his parents got for him, even though they, I saw, he gave out a statement, which was a very, I thought it was a good statement. They apologized and they said that their son sucked into this dark world. And he's now one in a line of any who have turned against the Jews in the final attacks. First of all, I do hope that society and the justice system will do justice and we don't have death penalty. We don't want the system to send a message that this is okay. We rather want the system to send a message that this is not okay and you pay a price for this. I'm so sad about this. I'm so sad not only because of the horror of that event, but that it is in a chain of events and Pittsburgh is only a year ago and not even a year ago. Not even a year ago, it's just months ago. Right, six months ago. Six months ago. And now this awful and we all have to make peace with ourselves living in a world like this. A, we also need to play our role in pushing back with, you know, with positive acts, you know, senseless hatred can only be defeated by senseless love. Just feel love for other people, you know, help out here and eventually becomes a chorus of acts of goodness. That teaches people that carries the message. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Thank you, Jay. It's a pleasure. We love having you. I'd like to say that in response to this horrible... You're going to have a service. Yeah, this shop is this Saturday at our Khabar House, like in the Rabbi Rabbi Goldstein when he was interviewed asked that the response should be that use of all stripes fill the synagogues this weekend, this Shabbos. Yeah, Saturday morning to show, you know, solidarity and pride and being Jewish and not to allow this to keep us down and saddened and depressed. We're here in Hawaii and I have this Saturday morning at Khabar House. Everyone is encouraged to come and asked to come and we will do our share in responding to this horrific thing. Thank you. Thank you, Rabbi, as always.