 Why does community matter? Because community matters. That's why. And I'm here, I'm Jay Feidell on a given Tuesday at the one o'clock clock with Rabbi Itchell Krasnijanski. We're talking about community matters. And specifically talking about Judaism 101 here at the end of the year with all the holiday season. One of the holidays of course is Hanukkah. So let's talk about Judaism 101. Welcome to the show, Rabbi. Well, thank you, Jay. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure. And yes, Judaism has something to say at the end of the year, at the middle of the year, at the beginning of the year. So it's always timely. What kinds of things does it have to say at the end of the year? I mean, there's a lot being said in religion at the end of the year. There's a lot being said in business, if you will. There's a lot being said in the newspapers, reflecting on all of that. But what is Judaism? What's the message? Well, interestingly, today is the day when, randomly, you've asked that we have this show. But because one of the foundational teachings in Judaism is that there is no random and there's no coincidence, everything is orchestrated by a higher power, by God. Today, Tuesday is actually a fast day. Before I came in, the gentleman in the office offered me a bottle of water. And I told him, thank you by decline, because today is a Jewish fast day. What's the name of the holiday? It's the 10th day of the month of Teves. Teves is the Jewish month. There are 12 months in the Jewish calendar. It's a lunar calendar. And today's the 10th day of the Jewish month. And today commemorates an event that is very, very significant in Jewish history, a negative event. And that is that in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, well over 2,500 years ago, at the time when the Jewish people had the temple in Jerusalem. And yes, Jews lived in Israel before 1948. So the Babylonian army surrounded the wall of Jerusalem and didn't allow any food to come in and no people to go out. They held it under siege. And that ultimately led to the breach in the wall, which ultimately led to the destruction of the temple. That was the first temple? That was the first temple. This is a very important moment for Judaism. Exactly. So our sages turned it into a fast day. A fast day in Jewish tradition is a day of not only not eating, but it's also a day of reflection. And it's a day when we actually, through prayer, spiritually work to turn around the negative into positive. Because all of Judaism, that's Judaism 101, all of Judaism is about turning the negative into positive, turning, transforming darkness into light. So how should we feel about Nebuchadnezzar? Was he a good guy? Can we forgive him? Well, those are two questions, two separate questions. He obviously was not a good guy. He destroyed the temple. He exiled the Jewish people from Israel. The first and biggest exile took place at that time. And I'm sure our audience has heard of the 10 lost tribes. In Judaism, there were 12 tribes. Our forefather Jacob had 12 children. They each became the heads of tribes. So the Jewish ohana consists of 12 tribes. And Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, exiled 10 of the tribes first, before he destroyed the temple. And they're lost to Judaism. They have assimilated over time and lost what was left of the Jewish people. Do we know where they went geographically? We know where they went geographically. And if you study the matter, there's so many theories as who are the descendants of the 10 tribes, the lost 10 tribes, to the point where even that some important person told me very seriously that he's convinced that the Hawaiians are one. That's a long shot. I'm just telling you what I was telling. Geography alone. Yeah. But what's interesting, though, is that you hear all this about 23andMe and Ancestry.com and these other DNA sites where you can get a history of your DNA and you can compare it. They will compare it against their profiles for given areas. And so if a given area is like my DNA, then we know I came from that area. And if that group that they're comparing it against, it's a Jewish group, then we can sort of connect that up and see how Jewish I am. It's really remarkable what they do now. And why do I feel that this kind of DNA sampling and modeling can help us find the 10 tribes? Perhaps, perhaps. But the history of the Jewish people is such because most of our history is we've been living in the Diaspora. After the destruction of the first temple, the Jewish people were exiled into Babylonia, which is modern day Iraq. But 70 years later, through the Persian King Cyrus, the Jews were called back to Israel and with Cyrus' blessing to rebuild the second temple. He was a more kindly fellow. He was a more kindly fellow. Correct. And not many Jews actually, history tells us that not a small percentage of Jews went back to Israel. Many of them were, got very comfortable in Babylonia, in Iraq. But several thousand, about 40,000, went back to Israel and they rebuilt the second temple, which lasted for another 450 years and then was destroyed by the Romans. And then we were dispersed again all throughout the world. And this Diaspora, this dispersion is something that is unique in our history, in the history of humankind, because the Jewish people are the only nation that has been dispersed through many nations without a land and a country and culture. And yet, 2,000 years later, are alive and well as Jews. And we haven't disappeared and become assimilated into the other nations. That is remarkable. That's unique. But the other thing unique about this is, what is with this Diaspora business? Why do these people insist on sending us away all the time? What is it about Diaspora? Why disperse us? Is there some threat? And why only the Jews? Well, that's a very interesting question. And I can answer it best as a rabbi, looking at it from the Biblical teachings. And what's interesting is that in the Torah, which is the Hebrew word for the Bible at the Old Testament, all of this has been prophesized in the Torah, where God says, where Moses says to the Jewish people, and we, meaning I'm an Orthodox Jew, an Orthodox rabbi, so we believe that the Old Testament is God's word, and Moses was like a stenographer, writing it all down. It wasn't Moses' thoughts and ideas. God spoke through him. God spoke through him. And it says that this is what will happen, that when we turn away from God, we will be dispersed to all four corners of the world. Now, so that part has been prophesized. But in the mystical teachings of Torah, where Chabad is a branch of the Hasidic branch of Judaism, which we'll talk later on. The Hasidic branch has a certain amount of mysticism. Yes, it's steeped in mysticism. And in the Hasidic teachings, we learn that ultimately, God is good, the absolute good. So everything that comes from God is good. So on the surface, the diaspora may seem to be as a punishment, may seem to be disruptive and destructive. But the truth is, there's a positive purpose behind all of this. And the purpose is something that the prophets have spoken about, which is basically to carry the message of the Bible to all four corners of the world. Had we been concentrated just in Israel, then there would have been a gap between the beliefs as articulated in the Bible and the beliefs that people in the world hold. But because we've been dispersed and we're like ambassadors, so to speak. Yeah, but we don't believe in proselytizing anybody. So you say carry the Bible to whom, to ourselves, because we're not out there in the street trying to convince you to become Jewish. Well, that's true. And that's very, very true. And that's what sets Judaism apart from other religions. We're not a proselytizing religion. The reason why in Judaism we're not a proselytizing religion is because we don't believe that Judaism is the only path that one has to connect to God. Every single person in the way they were created by God in the land and nation and religion, that they equally have a direct line to God. And we don't believe that you have to accept Judaism in order to go to heaven, unlike other religions. But in terms of of sharing the message of Judaism, because Torah, God has a message to the whole world. And it's a message of goodness and kindness. And the values, the biblical values that are the foundation of Western civilization, these are all gleaned from the Torah. So it's not necessarily exactly what's written in the Bible, the Old Testament. It's the essential message of the Old Testament. It's values of kindness, values of compassion, values of truth. And they are always under attack in our species. And so there is a real benefit in having the Bible around in terms of those messages to sort of set a standard wherever it might be. Correct. The other question I wanted to ask you, Rabbi, is this. So this is prophesied. And indeed, looking back on it, there is a rational and constructive motivation for the diaspora. But the guys who organized it made it happen, Nebuchadnezzar, for example, he wasn't doing the Jews any favors. He was punishing them. That's a very good question. So why did he do that? And why have others done that? Why have others dispersed the Jews that way? What was in their minds? Were they just trying to punish the Jews or what? So the short answer is that God works through many different agents. Some of them are forces for the good, and some of them are forces for bad and evil. And the reason why God created the world in such a way, and the reason why he set it up, that there should be evil in this world and suffering and bad people and bad stuff going on. I really want to know the answer to this one. So it's explained that this allows for another very important aspect in how God wanted the world to be. And that is the idea of free choice. There has to be freedom of choice in order for anything to have any meaning. For the good that you do, in order for it to be meaningful, it has to come out of your free choice rather than you being dictated to or like a puppet being guided. So if the world was all apparently, clearly, godly and good, then we all would be doing good because we would go with the flow. So God made it such that it's actually very hard to stay on the good and narrow path, because you have to fight off a lot of distractions and a lot of pressures or even worse, so that when you choose good, it has meaning and it has value to it. Oh, I really want to get this. So, okay, so we have the choice. Ideally, we make the right choice. But in the contention of choices, we are exercising, I'm making some of this up out of my own perception, we exercise our critical thinking, we exercise our awareness, our awareness. And it's that level of awareness that you want to enhance in people where they actually understand that there are choices to be made, and that gives them a better life, doesn't it? They're a more thoughtful life, and a more thoughtful life is a better life. Is this what we're talking about? Exactly. And not only that, it also relates to another principle in Judaism, which sadly is not from the prevailing thinking in our day and age, but according to Judaism, there's two things. Number one is Judaism believes, teaches that man is inherently good, meaning that at the very core, we all possess a soul, which is a part of God, which is the essence of good. We also have other forces within us that got also implanted in us, which are not so good, which are not good at all. And all of life is really the struggle between the inner good that we possess against the bad stuff that we have within us, that which draws us to destructive behaviors, selfishness and all things like that. However, what is man at the very core? Man at the very core is godly and good. So therefore, we have the ability to overcome and to almost like neutralize these forces of bad within us, and ultimately to transform them into forces for the good as well. In the secular way of perceiving man, like Freud taught, that man is inherently an animal, that at the very deepest level, we are no different than animals, we just cover up our instincts and our drives. So because Judaism views man in a whole different light, so therefore Judaism teaches that in this battle between good and bad, good will surely prevail, because good is what's real, and the bad is just placed there by God so that we should overcome it, and so that we have the free choice. Again, free choice. The free choice. Let's take a short break, Rabbi. I got to think about this and formulate some further questions for you coming out of a one-minute break. We'll be right back. Thank you. Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me, because security matters. Aloha. Aloha. I am Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tech Hawaii. I appear every other Monday at three, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. You know what we are doing during the break, don't you? We've been telling Jewish humor jokes. Yes, indeed. And actually, this is one of the, I don't know if the right word is genius, but beauty of the Jewish people, because our history, the Jewish history is actually a very, very tragic history. It's filled with the pogroms, most recently the Holocaust, the pogroms. And if you go back in history, we were always persecuted. But yet, we laugh and we, you know, one of the most important principles in Judaism is the sacredness of life. We celebrate life. We don't celebrate death. As King Davis says in the Psalms, that the dead cannot sing praise to God. It's us, the living in this imperfect and flawed existence that we actually can do what the dead can. So, Judaism is all about celebrating life. Celebration of life. But the other thing that came out of the diaspora is its history. And, you know, we have a show called the History Lens, and it means to look at everything through the lens of history. And I think that's part of the Jewish culture and religion, that, you know, you said, we carry the message, the message of Zora through everywhere. And it's a kindly message. It's a positive moral message. And it has had a huge effect on everywhere, including the Christian world, this message. But we also remember. We remember through our liturgy, our song, our writings, what happened. So, a lot of the culture, a lot of the history that you've talked about is actually history that's very important to the modern day Jew. He needs to understand this to be a modern, to be Jewish. And I think it's part of Judaism 101, isn't it? Correct. To know about all these things that happened, including the persecutions and all the awful things that might have happened over the years, so that we can fully appreciate it. It's that sense of history and appreciation, history that makes a Jew a Jew, isn't it? Correct. And if you look into the Torah itself in the Bible, Moses, before he passes away in the desert, speaks to the Jewish people about remembering the history, because the present is really a cumulative effect of all of the past. And the present is built on that. And the future is built on the past and the present and the past. So yes, while we live in the present, we are firmly attached to the past, not in the sense that we look back and not look forward, but in the sense that we look forward with the knowledge and the experiences of the past. And again, even though that our past is filled with difficult times and tragic times, but Judaism teaches us to find the positive within the negative and to focus on the miraculous outcome and not on the hardship that necessitated this miraculous outcome. And this is very, very basic to Judaism. Yeah, I really am coming up with questions in my own mind. I'm happy to have the opportunity to ask you about them. So one of the things that seems to me is that you don't dwell on death, you dwell on life. And you dwell on the book, the Torah, the Bible, you dwell on that. And it's central in the life of the Jewish community. And sometimes there are very unfortunate events that happen, very tragic events that happen, and Jews die as they did in World War II, tragic beyond description, beyond description. I can never forget about that, never. But there's a sense, it seems to me, of community that the religion itself is more important than even the people who were killed, that the religion goes forward, that the religion survives all of that. The religion exists beyond individuals. It is a very cerebral religion that forms a community, and the community goes forward no matter what. Can you restate that in the right term? Actually, you're touching upon many different points. So firstly, there's been after the Holocaust, there's been the raging question for many of the survivors, many of the observers were, can man believe in God after the Holocaust? If God is real and God lives, how can he allow for such a tragedy the Holocaust? And many people wrestled with this, especially the survivors. But many survivors actually came away asking the question in a different way, is can man not believe in God after the Holocaust, after so many miraculous stories of survival of individuals and many? Can man, or maybe the question really is can man have faith in man after the Holocaust? Because it was ultimately man, the Nazis, who perpetuated the Holocaust. Well, if the Torah and the Bible had been fully propagated in the Diaspora and accepted by the non-Jewish people to whom it was propagated, revealed, whatever, then the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. So it was an imperfect Diaspora, because there are some people who never ever got the message. Yeah, that's true for one vantage point. But there's an interesting story that a couple of rabbis got together, and they were each talking about, if I was God, I would just do this a little differently. And they had their thoughts of how they would do it a little differently. And one of the senior rabbis there at the time said, if I was God, I would do it the exact same way. The only thing is I would know why. Then I would know why. If I was God, I would know why. And what is basic to our belief is that God is infinite, we're very, very finite. And the fact that God gave us a brain, a mind to understand, and that we understand so much, that is an amazing thing. We're a tiny speck in the cosmos and in the universe, and yet we can master almost everything. But the fact that we don't understand everything should not come as a shock to us, because we are, after all, very, very finite and small. So it's not possible for us to comprehend God who's infinite. And we see only a teeny, teeny sliver of reality, which is the present, a little of the past. But the whole tapestry is much wider. It's the past, present, and future. So God's plan is only known to him. But what we need to do here in this world, that's very, very spelled out in the Bible. And it's basically, we need to do good in spite of some of the challenges that are inherent in life itself, not just tragedy, just life itself. But we're always seeking answers to these questions. And it reminds me of what you said earlier about the contention of good and evil in every person, the effort of finding the good and revealing that in yourself. You're also involved in an attempt to understand these things, to understand why God might have done something or not, to make peace with all of that. And it's part of the same thing, I think, isn't it? It's an awareness. If you didn't do that, you wouldn't have the same level of awareness, of mindfulness. For sure. So that is similar to the good and evil contention within us. For sure. As a matter of fact, what we're talking about is not only theoretical and philosophical, but it actually has very, very concrete applications in how one lives their lives. For example, today, many young people are taught that almost everything that happens within them is biologically, chemically created. So if you're depressed, it's because there's something wrong chemically. It's a chemical imbalance. If you're hyper, whatever emotion or whatever is going on inside you is pretty much almost like, it's almost like you're trapped and there's nothing really you can do about it. Try to tinker with your chemical DNA. It's free will versus determinism kind of issue. In Judaism, it's all about your willpower. So for example, many people are depressed. So in Judaism, we learn that depression comes from the bad within us that is seeking to trip us up. And depression is the most sure way to trip one up, because if you lose your enthusiasm, you lose your will to live, so then your game for anything and everyone. But if you're happy and you have the willpower and you have the knowledge that your willpower can overcome any sadness or whatever trait that you need to work on yourself, Judaism teaches us, that's Judaism 101, that we actually have the tools to fight and to overcome and to win these inner struggles. So it's not just an abstract, it actually translates into day-to-day practice. It's free will. Free will, exactly. And at this point, after our discussion, Rabbi, we have the free will to actually close the show. Thank you, Rabbi. It's your question, Jansky. Thank you to my pleasure. Thanks for having me on this discussion.