May 40 here I've been reading this fascinating book by Roddy Goldman, Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression, the Nature and Origins of Conservophobia. And he talks a great deal about how people on the left just love to educate. They just want to help us get out lives more orderly, all right? This isn't just express itself in hostility to the free market, but the left wants to extend their education to every sphere of life, all right? So Laura Ingram says, parents would be disturbed to know that it is common practice among pediatricians these days to tell the mums and dads to leave the room. So the professional can have private chats with children, chats that involve controversial topics like abortion, premarital sex, masturbation and birth control. Leave it. Experts, guys. Mum and dad need to leave the room so that these things can be left to the hands of the experts. All right, let's go to Tucker Carlson. Welcome to Tucker Carlson. Tonight the most important thing to keep in mind in a period of intense change is that things are in fact changing. Things weren't always this way. So memory, history is your best defense against manipulation. When you remember the way things were, you can fight to preserve them. When you no longer remember what was always this way, then you're at their mercy. So with that in mind, it's worth remembering that 100 years ago, Memphis was one of the richest, best organized cities in the country. It had a booming economy. It had beautiful municipal parks, a lot of them, more than 100. It had one of the most modern sanitation systems in the world, something we take for granted now. When yellow fever was real, no one took it for granted. Memphis was such a big deal that in fact was the informal capital of an entire American region, the Mississippi Delta, but not anymore. In fact, by the last year, if you went to Memphis, it was hard to believe that any of that had ever been true at any point, because by that point, and now Memphis had become a husk and a highly threatening one. In 2021, according to federal statistics, Memphis, Tennessee was the most dangerous city in the United States. Last year it recorded a total of 342 murders. Now, how many is that? Well, by comparison, San Antonio, Texas, which has more than twice the population, recorded fewer than half as many murders. So by any measure at all, Memphis was absolutely falling apart. But Liza Fletcher decided to make a life there anyway. After graduating from college, Fletcher moved back to Memphis. Both sides of her family had lived there for more than 100 years. She married a man she'd met in church. She grew up there too, and they had two little boys. She began teaching pre-kindergarten at a local girl's school. Here's a video that she made for her students at the beginning of the COVID lockdowns. It's only 15 seconds long, but you can tell immediately what sort of person Liza Fletcher was. Hey, girls, it's Miss Fletcher. I miss all of you so much. I'm just at home with my kids, missing you guys, wishing we were back at St. Mary's. But I wanted to touch base and say, hey. Hey, girls, it's Mrs. Fletcher. I miss you so much. So every year in their wedding anniversary, Liza Fletcher's husband wrote her a love note on Instagram.  But you can see why he felt that way. Her warmth and her decency shine through. Meanwhile in Memphis, seven miles across the city lived a man called Cleotha Abston. Like Liza Fletcher, Abston also grew up in the city of Memphis, but he could not have been a more different sort of person. Judging from his long public record, Cleotha Abston devoted his life to praying on people weaker than he was. Cleotha Abston was a predator. He was an evil man. At a young age, Abston was arrested for, among many, many other things. Stealing, aggravated assault, weapons charges, carjacking and rape. In 2000, he was convicted of kidnapping a local attorney at gunpoint downtown and forcing him into the trunk of his own car. Crimes like that are no common in Memphis. Last year, the city reported more than 100 kidnappings. But like most lifelong criminals, Cleotha Abston was never fully punished for what he did. He was released years before the end of his prison sentence, nor was he in any way since reformed by his experience behind bars. Abston was well known in his apartment complex as of last week for his sexual aggression and his perversity. He terrified his neighbors. But no one from any part of the justice system seems to have intervened. Early last Friday morning, Liza Fletcher and Cleotha Abston met for the first and last time. As her husband and two young children slept at home, Liza Fletcher went for an early morning run through her neighborhood. Cleotha Abston followed her, stalking her every move from a black SUV. According to the indictment, as Fletcher jogged by, Abston leapt out, beat her bloody, smashed her cell phone, then dragged her into his vehicle. Within an hour, Liza Fletcher was dead. She'd been sexually assaulted and murdered. Police arrested Abston soon after, based on surveillance video. But he refused to say what had happened to Liza Fletcher. So her family waited in agony, but he didn't care. He never spoke. Yesterday, authorities finally found Liza Fletcher's body. She'd been thrown like garbage behind an abandoned building in a city part of town. The whole story could not be more shocking or more horrible. But here's what may be the scariest part. Some people didn't seem particularly shocked or horrified by it. In the hours after Liza Fletcher's disappearance, Biden voters on social media seem to dismiss the crime on racial grounds. Why are we paying so much attention to the kidnapping of an attractive, privileged white woman? That's racist. Others seem to blame Fletcher for the atrocity committed against her. Why was she jogging at that hour anyway in Memphis? Come on. The point they were making was clear. Everyone knows the rules. Liza Fletcher violated those rules. You can't go outside at certain hours in certain places in America, obviously.  That's how things work in this country. So adapt, accept it, move on. To some extent, if we're being honest, all of us feel that way. Whether we articulated or not, we know what the rules are. We know what we can and cannot do in modern America. Nothing is ever spelled out. Nothing can be spelled out at risk of punishment. But everyone knows what the parameters are. Cities like Memphis or Baltimore or Detroit or Montgomery or Gary Indiana or Wilmington, Delaware or a dozen other formerly prosperous orderly little cities across the country were destroyed forever by the rioting that accompanied our last progressive social revolution more than 50 years ago. Politicized criminals started breaking things, torching buildings, stealing, and immediately anyone with a decent job just left. They pulled their kids out of school, sold the house or not, didn't matter, and they split for somewhere else. And mostly they have never come back. That is true not simply in Memphis, but in places all over the country. So it seems a little weird to a lot of people when someone like Liza Fletcher, someone who could live anywhere, voluntarily moves back to a place like Memphis. Not to some suburb of Memphis, but to the city of Memphis. That seems weird to people. But it's not weird. It's not odd at all when you think about it. Liza Fletcher was from Memphis.  This was her country too, just as it's your country too. An American citizen should be able to live or walk anywhere in America without being raped or murdered for it. Period. That is the baseline requirement for civilization. It's called order. But increasingly that is not what we have. What we have is a country where you just can't go some places. You're not wanted there and it's too dangerous for you to go. Most people accept this by default, but we should never accept this under any circumstances. To accept something is to concede that it is more or less normal. Once we acknowledge something as normal, whether it's children being castrated to the name of trans rights or women being murdered by rapists who should have been imprisoned but weren't because equity. Once we accept that as normal, we are stuck with it forever. It is the new status quo. It will never change except to get worse. The good people who lived in Memphis a century ago would never believe what has happened to the city they built. They would weep if they saw it. That will be the experience of every American before long. Our entire country will be Memphis. If we don't put a stop to this insanity right now with as much force as is required. So Joe Biden gave the most threatening presidential speech in American history last week.  Criminalized dissent, effectively ban the opposition and use the federal agencies to transform America into a one-party state. It's called authoritarianism. Here's what Biden said in his speech to White House advertised as non-political. Watch this. Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. The Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans. And that is a threat to this country. Maga Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.  Donald Trump has been banned from speaking in public. He has been censored at the behest of the Democratic Party. He could no longer go on social media, our electronic town square. He's been totally erased. And yet, Joe Biden says, Trump and his supporters promote authoritarian leaders and he says at exactly the moment that he is sending billions of dollars to Ukraine and its authoritarian leaders every month. Authoritarian? Oh, that just scratches the surface. Over the past year and a half, the government of Ukraine has jailed its top political rival. It has banned opposition parties and it has outlawed independent media. Oh, but that's not authoritarian. What's authoritarian is disagreeing with Joe Biden. Do that and Joe Biden will stand in front of the military he controls and declare that you were an enemy of the state. So watching the fanatical support of the White House for the actual authoritarians who run Ukraine, you can sort of see the template here. But of course, as is always true when Joe Biden speaks, you can't hold him entirely responsible because not only did he not write the words, he's not aware that he spoke them. Just the other day, he said after giving the speech, when we're quoting, I don't consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country. That was on Friday. Our media seem to ignore that. They'd be very disappointed if they heard it because they listened exactly to the words Biden spoke. And they love them. Watch. President Biden gave a really strong speech and I loved it. I believe everything he said. It was an urgent wartime address. And something else that really stuck out to me is that he almost seemed to sort of be reclaiming patriotism. If you look up fascism in the dictionary, you're going to find all of those things. So I'm really not sure what the Republicans are all upset about other than the fact that it was named.  We don't separate right-wing extremists and Republican Party anymore. Hillary Clinton told the truth when she said that there were deplorable people in the Republican Party supporting Donald Trump and that he was exciting a lot of racism and misogyny and bigotry. The Republicans who were like, oh, he's calling us fascists. If you're not a fascist, he's not talking about you. So lighten up. Oh, so if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide. Don't worry. It's amazing how Soviet the whole thing is. Joe Biden calls for political purges and law enforcement crackdowns on his political opponents and state media cheer him on. In his speech about the threats to our republic, Joe Biden doesn't mention anything but domestic threats. He doesn't mention China at a single time. He'd mention the border or fentanyl or crime. He only mentioned people who oppose him politically. And once again, like the obedient little servants they are, our media cheer him on. You have to wonder about their views on authoritarianism. Obviously, they're for it. In fact, one of these journalists wrote the speech. That would be John Meacham who wrote for many years at News Weekly and now is America's most banal historian. Apparently, he had a hand in writing the speech last week. He also redecorated the Oval Office at Joe Biden's request. He is now our propagandist-in-chief. And it's not hard to see what inspired Meacham to write that speech on Thursday. Meacham admires autocrats who silence their political opponents. Earlier this year, Meacham went on television to compare the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, to Winston Churchill and the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy. We want to prepare you now for a torrent of cliches because those are the only chunks of language John Meacham is capable of using. Now that you're prepared, here it is. It may sound sentimental, but it has the virtue of being true. Right. So at the same time, Zelensky, this Winston Churchill figure, was criminalizing dissent in his country. He shut down three television stations. As his spokesman put it, those media have become one of the tools of war against Ukraine. So they are blocked in order to protect national security. Oh! So the TV stations are sort of like Donald Trump or Fox News. We need to silence them in order to preserve our democracy. Democracy, it was the only one side gets to speak. So it really is democracy's circa 1972 Bulgaria. It's a democratic republic, meaning the people who live there have no representation whatsoever. The party decides. It's hard to believe any of this is happening, but it is. And on Thursday, Joe Biden's speechwriter made it explicit. So where's the pushback to this? No president's ever given a speech like this. So you wonder where are those pious defenders of our norms? Joe Biden announces that we need a one-party state and he says it flanked by active duty U.S. Marines and nobody says a word. Okay. Wow. This is Tucker. Hyperbolic is understating it. So let's say hello to Doovid. Doovid, how's it going, man? Brokashem. Brokashem. Okay. So extraordinary story out of Germany that you sent me. So what were some of the things that jumped out to you about this story about some Jews in Germany are concerned about the large number of non-Jews who are converting to Judaism and in part to assuage guilt over having perhaps Nazi ancestors, a whole bunch of factors working into this. But what do you think of that story? Yeah, I guess it was a 2016 book that was written in German. And so it was just an article in today's JTA that I saw and thought you'd find interesting. And I haven't seen the data, but it's not surprising that we could talk about some of the details, some of the history of conversion and the social dynamics and the role that conversion has in Judaism where Jews in general feel that we should be the gatekeepers of who could enter, but it's not necessarily that way. And that's why conversion is one of the most contested issues within Judaism, Israeli law, 75 years, more than 70 years after the creation of Israel, the who is the true question remains unresolved. Okay. And let me read some excerpts from this article here in JTA. Too many Germans converting to Judaism for debate is learning that this cancer avatar is better. And the first German born female cancer is now persona non-Graha in her synagogue. After she penned a column critical of conversion in Germany for a major non-Jewish newspaper. So some of the criticism she's received is that she publishes in a non-Jewish publication. So that's concerned when you're probably just making this inter-Jewish this is something that's a high emissive. So she wrote a column called Why the increasing number of converts in the problem for Judaism. She charges that too many people in Germany are converting for wrong reasons such as for a time for their families not to be passed or to identify with the victims rather than the perpetrators. And she criticizes the fact that converts increasingly fill numerous Jewish leadership roles in Germany. Anything there you want to jump on, Devin? Yes, I guess this is a popular canter and being a female canter, she's probably reformed by voicing these complaints. So for the purpose of the JTA story, they give a lot of these comments regarding this one specific woman. Okay, sorry, some technical issues here on my end. Let's try you again. Do you still there? Okay, hang on. Let me sort this out. Setting sound. Okay, here we go. Okay, David, we should be after you now. Okay, yeah, great. Yeah, your mic had minor issues, but it sounds like it's better now. Yes, I guess there's two parts of the story. One is this complaint about this popular female canter and she probably reformed being a female canter. And then there's others, this book from a few years ago. And you know, some of these details of conversion. So the history after the war, where you had mostly spouses of Jewish men who had married non-Jewish women, but it helped them survive during the war to the phenomenon that you're self-hating Germans don't want to identify with being German. And I guess, you know, in order to resolve the dissonance, there's an aspect of becoming Jews.  And then obviously they mentioned later in the article about rising to positions of power, which, you know, me as a half Jew, you know, experienced that and, you know, mentioned that in Metro Detroit all over is, you know, this concept that converts to Judaism can't have positions of power in the community, that you can't convert to Judaism and then become a leader among Jews. And I mean, to some extent you can. And many converts like, you know, do become somewhat prominent, but then there's going to be the pushback from the community is like, you know, we want to be led by Jews, not converts to Judaism.  Right. And this article talks about a book that was written on conversion to Judaism in Germany. Ironically, this book was written by a convert and the books called The Staging of Jewishness. And it's an examination of conversions to Judaism after 1945. And so it says that for most Jews who respond to prospective converts, the staging of Jewishness is secondary to questions of power, belonging and authenticity. So immediately after World War II, German Gentiles seeking to convert usually did so on account of their Jewish partners. Today, most converts do it of their own accord. So like everything else, time and place just plays an enormous role here. It's not like there's just one monolithic path to conversion to Judaism in different times, different places under different circumstances. Conversion is easier or more difficult. It is more encouraged or more discouraged. And obviously Jews who survived in Germany during World War II because they had a non-Jewish spouse, right? There are hundreds of Jews who survived in Germany during World War II because they had a non-Jewish spouse. It completely makes sense why the Jewish community would want to welcome them. And the article points out that there wasn't any formal rabbinic conversion process for about 15 years after World War II. The community would do it.  But like everything else, that's contingent. It changes with time and place. So for the first 15 years after World War II, conversion was done by the community. It wasn't done by the rabbis. There's nothing that only a rabbi can do in Judaism. So everything that you think is exclusive to rabbis, just not true in certain times, in certain places it may be exclusive to rabbis, but there's no distinctive, powerful prerogatives inherent in being a rabbi, a learned leju in different times, different places can do all the same things. Anything you want to add, Duvod? Yeah, I mean, presumably this article is referring mostly to reform, conflict, converts anyways, and it's not even referring to the right to return in Israel. And so a lot of this orthodoxy refers to specific Israel and because there is a factual control of even the Karate or ultra-orthodox control over conversion for Israeli citizenship and being accepted in Israel. And in America, there's the list of rabbis whose conversions aren't accepted. But the majority of conversions in America, I think over 90% of them come from non-orthodox rabbis. And I would assume also the case in Germany. And if you're trying to become part of an orthodox community or you just want the official, like, I'm a convert from the orthodox, I'm accepted by Israel. And if you're accepted by the orthodox, you're accepted by all Jews, which I said isn't necessarily the case because it's somewhat like joining a club. And like you said from the article, there's board of directors, there's prominent Jews. And if you've been accepted into the Jewish community, finding a rabbi to rubber stamp it is relatively easy in the wider Jewish community, especially if it's like keeping money Jewish intermarriage in the Jewish community where a prominent member marries a non-Jew and they want to keep, you'll say, the money or power within the community and corruption within orthodoxies. The orthodoxy, like there's going to be much more higher standards, but you'll certainly defend orthodoxy like Ivanka Trump never covering your hair, never doing many of what would be considered the mainstays of orthodoxy that very rarely do you hear Haredi Jews saying, complaining about Ivanka not covering her hair. And she's obviously a very prominent person. So it's an interesting dynamic. And you'll then also, they don't mention in this article, but there's probably an element of colorism where generally Jews, especially like in marriage or conversion, prefer God forbid, whiter people. And so if Germans want to convert to Judaism, you know, for example, it's illegal in Israel, it's illegal for Palestinians or people from certain nations there to convert to Judaism, period. Like there's no path to becoming Jewish if you're Palestinian. It's illegal under Israeli law, even if you marry a Jew and like a tree ends, it's also illegal for Africans who illegally migrate into Israel to convert to Judaism. So even if you're, so to say, a true convert from that nation due to larger economic laws that has a certain coloristic element to it, there's no path to conversion to Judaism. So presumably there's a lot more exceptions made for whiter people to convert to Judaism. Right, and by the color element, we're not just talking about skin color, we're talking about what skin color represents. So it's not the brown skin that prevents Palestinians from converting to Judaism because plenty of Ethiopian or darker people than Palestinians are converting to Orthodox Judaism. It's that they are Palestinians and there's a life and death struggle between Jews and Arabs. And when we talk about skin color in general, we're not talking about skin color, we're talking about skin color as a sign of certain generalizable traits. We recognize that in nature as with human beings that living creatures tend to be color coded. So in nature, if you see a living creature who is bright red, that usually signals danger, right? And so nature color codes for our benefit. And so when we talk about skin color, what we're talking about are signs and symbols for a whole bunch of character traits that are frequently generalizable with skin color. So for example, Jews tend to be much more comfortable with white people than with any other race. So let's have a look here. Just get an update here. Duva, just hang on, an update here on California. California is something called renewables and this is the future. How's that going to work? Well, just a few hours ago, California's grid operator delivered some stunning news. It issued an upgraded level two emergency alert. The grid operator is telling Californians to, quote, be ready for potential rotating power outages. Blackouts are expected tonight in our biggest state. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, just released a video telling residents to do their part to protect the energy grid. These triple digit temperatures throughout much of our state are leading not surprisingly to record demand on the energy grid. Everyone has to do their part to help step up for just a few more days. And today and tomorrow afternoon after 4 p.m., in particular 4 p.m., please turn your thermostat up to 78 degrees or higher and avoid to the extent possible using any really large appliances. Oh, so you run the state into the ground to make it look like Guinea-Bissau, our richest state is now our most dysfunctional state. You did that, Gavin Newsom. You and the one-party political machine in your state, but it's the residents fault. Do your part. Don't use your appliances. This is insane. Well, it happened. So yeah, I have my portable air conditioner set at 60, but my room temperature is about 83, 80, 84 degrees right now. But, David, what did you think about my point that it's not skin color as such that prevents people from converting to Judaism? It's skin color as a representative of other things. Yeah, I mean, you could look at... You could put it like that and say, you know, if you look at nations, that, you know, generally, Jews are prestigious people and even Israel's doing pretty well. And the few nations that you would put higher than Israel are usually northern European nations, which, you know, would be wider nations. I mean, there is a certain colorism, skin color element to it. I mean, the Israeli law would apply, even if you were blonde-haired, Palestinian, it'd still be illegal for you to become a Jew. But, you know, there is a skin color, at least a visual element to it.   And, you know, to some extent, just being German, you may be considered a steppo over being Jewish.   And the majority of the Jews would probably prefer to live, you know, in the whiter parts of LA. But, you know, you want to put, okay, white is just a correlate for other factors. So it's not necessarily like a racism, skin color. It could be, well, they prefer to live in the lower crime areas, the higher educated areas, the areas with more economic opportunity. But, you know, like here in Metro Detroit, the majority of people who want to convert to Judaism are blacks, you know, it could just be demographic and even Orthodox Judaism, the majority of people that, you know, apply or desire to convert to Orthodox Judaism are blacks. And it's possible or likely that blacks will have a harder time fitting in the Jewish community than white converts and that the community makes it easier for whites to convert than blacks. And I think you've mentioned that, like in LA, you know, Hispanics or whatever the case is, that there'll be certain communal factors. So, you know, if you're looking at this way, that they've made it really easy for Germans to convert to Judaism, so much that you're complaining now that there's like a demographic threat of, you know, a sizable amount of German converts to Judaism and they're taken over. They have positions of power in the community. Like it's okay, there's a handful of African American converts, but none of them really have positions of power. They've never seen like African American convert rise to be head of a Jewish organization.  And so they're rising to positions of power in the Jewish community. And then you're having to push back, you know, I know, you know, there's obvious reasons why they're, why they're, why we're making it easier for Germans to convert to Judaism. But like, come on, we can't let them take over our community. We can't let them have, you know, have positions of leadership. We want to be led, so to say, by ethnic us. Okay, so there's a comment in the chat that converts will always be outsiders. And along with everything else, that is contingent. So I, for example, I have lived in and around Bedley Hills for, I moved to Los Angeles in 1994. So for about 28 years, I have lived in and around Bedley Hills. I've been going to the same synagogues for 28 years. I'm a very known quantity. And so I have the, the hapture of some people, like I have their approval. And so for some communities and some people, you know, I am far more of an insider than all sorts of born Jews who they either don't know very well or they don't feel comfortable with. So yeah, all things being equal, people who are born Jewish, you're going to feel more comfortable with other people who are born Jewish, but all things aren't equal. So Jews also feel more comfortable with people who are at their approximate level of Jewish observance. They're also often more comfortable with people who are at their, say their approximate level of Torah learning, or they feel more comfortable with people who've been bribed the dorms, the rituals, the characteristics, the philosophies of a particular community. People feel more comfortable with those people who they've known for years and for decades. So it's not ipso facto the convert is always the outsider. If the convert is a valuable member of the community, he may very well be an insider in that community. All things being equal. Yeah, being born Jewish, right? You're more likely to be at ease with fellow Jews, but all things aren't born equal. Plenty of Jews have mental health problems.  Or would somebody who's born Jewish feel more comfortable with a Jew with an active drug addiction or myself who's emotionally sober? Would someone born Jewish feel more comfortable with someone born Jewish who has not been employed for 15 years or, you know, a hardworking person like myself? So conversion is just one factor in determining, you know, how much you're going to fit into a community. Generally speaking, among the Orthodox Jews that I mix with, my being a convert simply doesn't come up. Now, it may very well be there in the back of their heads. They may very well say something. But I don't think I'm an obtuse person. You know, I'm fairly aware. Now, I don't, I don't push myself forward. I don't try to take leadership roles.  I'm happy to do the equivalent of sweeping the floor and cleaning the windows. So I'm not looking to take a leadership role. As an example, you know, plenty of, plenty of people born Jewish feel more comfortable with me that they do with the dozens of acquaintances that they have who are born Jewish. I do have anything there you want to react to? Yeah, I mean, a few things. Like one on the list that I made for you of various things that you, I found surprising was that I would be able to play a unique role in the Jewish community as a half Jew. And there were certain points where it hit me. You know, where Jews or rabbis told people, including non-Jews, that I was a half Jew and it seemed to have a strategic role.  And like, even if I broke Sabbath, like people didn't really care that much. They had lower expectations of me.  And what I mentioned, like politics is somewhat like the problem of evil, but you could consider navigating systems and local politics that you have probably, most of your local synagogues, probably a board of directors and elections, maybe like Khabad or a handful of them don't, but probably like private synagogues. But I would guess the majority of the synagogues you go to probably have board of directors and elections. And you could have taken that route. You could have probably ran for position on the board of directors of your synagogue.  And then you might have had more issues. So you say you didn't have conflict, but you didn't choose that route. And we'll go back to talking about Germany and specifically the Holocaust angle and what it means for Germans. But I think just for you specifically, is that will you as a blue-eyed Anglo man have a position of power over Jews that typically Jews want to be you? We assimilate to you. We assimilate to Anglos.  But most Jews, if we try to blend in and obscure our Jewish identity, we're going to tear Anglo.  And especially in Hollywood, Hollywood is the most famous, you know, there's a lot of places of Jews who assimilated Anglo. So, you know, I think that that would probably be like a trump card over a lot of Jews.  And that's generally what Jews are caring to. And you mentioned that Jews didn't give Ivanka Trump a hard time for not covering her hair. And plenty of famous rebels have not covered their hair. This is a part of Jewish observance that changes dramatically depending on time and place. You have prominent Orthodox rabbis who didn't wear a yarmulke when they would go to university, for example. So, all sorts of things that we regard as an eternal part of Judaism are really contingent, like everything else, depending on certain times and certain places.  Like Lightning said, situational.  Right. So, it depends on time and place. And Jews, even religious Jews are incredibly pragmatic. So, plenty of Orthodox Jews are willing to make accommodations with people or willing to, you know, see the usefulness of another Jew or a non-Jew who's not religious. So, Christians that I grew up with often looked at people through an either-or prism. Either someone's a Christian or not. You know, either someone believes in God or they don't. But Jews are much more pragmatic. They don't see the world through a prism of, oh, does someone believe in God or not? You want to say anything about the pragmatism of Jewish life? And even the conversion is not based on belief. It's not really a belief test. It's a practice test and it's a commitment to practice. There's really no question of, do you believe? It's a question of, do you commit to allegiance to the Jewish people? And do you commit to following the Jewish law for the rest of your life? And it's not really a question of belief. And yeah, like I said, the practicality in the extent that if Jews want to get ahead, you know, someone was mentioning about the kind of reality that Arab nations treated Jews better than Christians. But the reality is Jews wanted to be in Europe because Europe was the powerhouse. And most Jews, vast majority, even Sparty Jews, preferred to be in Europe even under conditions of anti-Semitism because that was where it was at. And so saying if the power is in the wider community in the European nations, Jews tear towards Europe. And there's also like social activism and justice. But even a lot of people like social justice in America is under the mantle of being white, where your Jews are white and therefore have the ability to be from the majority class, power class to administer and affect social justice. But yeah, I mean, it's a practicality, like we've said many times when we were talking more about straight Jewish law, there's two things, you know, the reason why Jewish communities tend to blend in with their surrounding, because there's two things that trump Jewish law and that's safety. Basically all Jewish law could be amended for safety and getting ahead in business. Not all Jewish law could be amended for getting ahead in business. But the majority of Jewish law, besides for very strict things, could be amended for getting ahead in business. So, you know, like it's designed to be practical, like that Judaism wants you to get ahead and succeed.  So Panasa making a living is sacred in Judaism. The Bible is sacred certain times and places are sacred. There's a holiness to life in Judaism, not just participation inside a synagogue. So, yeah, there's a level of pragmatism and flexibility with Jewish law, and that's built into Jewish law so that you have statements like the fifth volume of the Shulchanarok, the 15th century companion of Jewish law, the fifth volume is common sense. And so you have Jewish law and you have commentaries on Jewish law, but Jewish law still has to be applied at different times and different places. And when those times or places change, how you apply Jewish law is going to change. Well, that's universal in saying that as an exception that if there's straight Jewish law, like this is what you're supposed to do as a Jew, these two exceptions of safety, security, and business are universal. In any place where Jews are living, they will make exceptions to Jewish law for getting ahead in business. That's less than safety. Almost anything could be a bridge for safety. But, you know, that's a universal from Talmudic times, Biblical times till today that getting ahead in business is important and certain aspects of Jewish law, if it conflicts with getting ahead in business, you know, because like getting ahead in business is like Jewish law. So if there's aspects of Jewish law that conflict with getting ahead in business, the Jewish law will try to, you know, make some sort of loophole or exception so that the person could get ahead in business. But again, that's contingent. So if Jews, it all depends on what's most likely to be for the welfare of the community. So if you're living at a time and place where Jewish business success is threatening the non-Jews and causing a tremendous blowback on Jews, then there are going to be fewer accommodations made for achieving business success. So rabbis at Jewish communities take into consideration, you know, what's going on in the wider community, what will be the repercussions of what we're doing. So success in business, that's contingent, all right? You're not getting to... It's secondary to security. Yeah, security. I don't know if it's contingent. Like in any case... Contingent is secondary, meaning depend upon. Well, it's like to security. But if it's a question like, well, can you... Not just strictly security in terms of life and death, but the welfare of the community as well, right? Sometimes the welfare of the community discourages certain, you know, free market, you know, acquisitions of wealth. So for example, there are limits on setting up a business next to a same business. Yeah, I mean, definitely. I'm just making the point that it's universal in all Jewish communities around the world that you could bend Jewish law to get ahead in business. There's other considerations, not just saying, no matter what you could bend Jewish... Like you said, the security of the community, you know, certain aspects of the community are more important than business. But, you know, getting ahead in business is also seen like the security of the community.  You know, that's like heredism. Heredism are extreme. And even heredim will make extreme exceptions to get ahead in business. Right. But again, it depends on the community and the time and place. So a German community, German Jewish community, the Yakey community is extremely strict on ethical dealings. And if you do business in an unethical way, that community wants nothing to do with you. You're very likely to be expelled. So a proper, polite, upstanding character is absolutely essential for being part of a Yakey Jewish community. Business ethics are much less flexible among the Lithuanian crowd than, say, the Hasidic crowd. So you're much more likely to get lectures in an emphasis on business ethics in a modern Orthodox synagogue than Hasidic synagogue. 100%. Yeah. But still the Yakey community will make exceptions to Jewish law to get ahead of business. I mean, you're not questioning that. You're just saying that ethics to them, they're not going to make exceptions in ethics, but they're certainly going to make exceptions in ritualistic things or various other things to get ahead in business. That's universal in Judaism. So there's a yes, as long as it doesn't act against the overall welfare of the community. So life in Judaism is very different from life just as an American because life in Judaism is much more group centered. So the focus for the average American is not the individual and becoming all you can be as an individual. The focus as a member of the Jewish community is the welfare of the community. And that means frequently repressing or sublimating the things that you want to do for the welfare of the community, making sacrifices for the welfare of the community. And that frequently requires that you hold back on your individual preferences. Now, Ani says in the chat, can I worship idols if it gets me ahead in business? And I'll take that question seriously. I heard this joke from Orthodox rabbis. So one man who operates a gift shop calls a supplier and says, you know, I need a thousand crucifixes. And the supplier says, well, do you want them with or without the momser? Meaning, do you want them with or without Jesus on the cross? So yeah, there'd be plenty of Jews who've released Christmas albums or who have some tangential or more visceral participation in idolatry and have done it to, you know, get ahead in their career.  We're supposed to choose death over that. But, you know, what's the exact case that you have to take death for? What's the case that you could do a little bit of idol worship for security? And what's the case you could do, you know, like a little bit of idol worship to get ahead in business.  So most Yekis wouldn't consider it on ethical to Anglo pass. So if you're a Yeki Jew and you go out into business and don't wear a yamaka and give over an Anglo name that you've taken on for the purpose of business and in people don't even know you're Jewish, that would be considered fine.  But I mentioned like the Anglo passing that Yeki Jews certainly would be very likely to Anglo pass. Right, so if Yeki Jews simply means a Jew of German origin, it doesn't necessarily mean a Jew who's ever spent any time in Germany. But it's a Jew who tends to highly assimilate to the Gentile culture in which he lives while at the same time maintaining various levels of Jewish observance but doing it in a way that fits in with the wider society. So Yeki Jews in America tend to be strong American patriots. Yeki Jews in England tend to be strong English patriots in addition to their Jewish commitment.  A Yeki Jew can talk to you about football. You know, a Yeki Jew feels, you know, very comfortable in America while a Hasidic Jew from Eastern Europe is much more likely to have, you know, more fears, concerns and even negative feelings about wider Gentile culture. So by and large, Jews who come from Germany towards Western Europe tend to have quite positive views of non-Jews and Jews whose origins are Eastern Europe. So East of Germany tend to have much more concern and fear and negative feelings about non-Jews. Anything you want to add, David? You know, that's the element also of the multiculturalism and anglo-passing because the Yekis basically hinge them themselves on white passing as opposed to the Qasidim who more hinge themselves on multiculturalism. So if you're a Hasid who kept your Yiddish name, kept your language, lives in an area where there's very few whites and didn't assimilate and now Americans became multicultural. So to say like, no, I mean, in Brooklyn, Hasidic guys feel just as comfortable with their Americanness as Yekis because New York's a multicultural place and they're one of the accepted New Yorkers. They know the law. They're on the government programs.  I'm just as American as you are the fact that you assimilated towards Anglo culture doesn't make you any more American than I am. Rashida Tlaib is my congresswoman.  So I like wait open. I don't have a strong opinion on what standards Jews should use vis-a-vis converts or whether Jews should be more encouraging or more discouraging. I think it boils down to what's in the best interests of a particular Jewish community at a certain time or place and there will be certain times certain places for certain communities where it's very much in their interest to bring in converts. It makes the community stronger there are more numbers, there's more money, there's more influence if you bring in the right type of converts and then at other times and places it's completely against the community's interest to bring in converts. So let me go back to this book and in particular I'm reading a review of this book by Barbara Steiner on conversion to Judaism in Germany after World War II. So what's generally true for all conversions whether Judaism or any other faith is conversion solves a biographical problem. So for example for me I yearned for a path back to God and I yearned for a path back to religion and a community and Judaism. Like wow this kind of makes sense to me and it offered a path back to God and to a concrete religious community that wasn't contaminated by my complicated relationship with my father the evangelical Christian preacher. So I developed an allergy to Christianity I encountered Dennis Prager he became a father like figure for me and so converting to Judaism solves some biographical problems. I had a path back to God that wasn't Christianity that wasn't Islam. I had a path back to God that made sense to me. I had a path back to God that was fascinating to me and I had a path back to God through a community in which I quickly found myself feeling very comfortable. So I tend to have an above average verbal IQ. When I joined an Ashkenazi Jewish community I'm mixing with other people with a high verbal IQ. I feel comfortable in Jewish life it resonates with me. So what biographical problems did becoming an Orthodox Jew solve for you David? It's probably similar to you where I had identity crisis a lot of personal issues and I needed to be recreated and Orthodox Judaism allowed me to recreate myself in a way that I felt comfortable in a community and style but for me being half Jewish and having even grandfather's grandfather that was a rabbi grandfather's father that was Orthodox like in LA my grandmother father was in LA and he married a secular woman and raised his kids secular but he put on Tefillin I think his whole life even he was born in the Ukraine and I felt on putting on Tefillin trying to be observant himself even though he married secular and raised his kids secular so like the Zionist dream there was some element of returning that I felt like I was returning to the path of my ancestors or I was rediscovering something but in that respect also was very similar because I was a troubled kid in many ways and had identity issues I didn't really feel part of anything maybe I was smart and had chances of getting head but it was kind of a loner didn't have many friends and Judaism provided me the structure provided me a community to get ahead in and like I was mentioning the things we've been talking about even womenizing God forbid even among the Orthodox Jews it's like men are men working out fitness almost anything the Orthodox Jewish community the Hasidic community provided me a strong network of people that appeared largely were interested in me getting ahead yeah and back to this book review here it says that solving a biographical problem does not imply a deficient personality because converting to Judaism requires psychic stability so I remember I had a girlfriend who kind of took it on herself she was not Jewish, she was a Filipina and she took it on herself to start her conversion to Judaism and the rabbis picked up that there was something a little off about her and so they made it a requirement very quickly to go to psychotherapy and so it's easy to become attracted to Judaism from all sorts of psychic disturbances but to actually pull off a conversion to Judaism it requires that you be psychically strong you're not going to pull it off if you're crazy any thoughts on that dude well there's different types of crazy I'm kind of crazy but in a stable you know like I said there's not really that many beliefs tests there's more practice tests and you're following the law commitment to the community so you could believe crazy things you could even occasionally have outburst about the crazy things that you believe but it's more action so if you have behavioral problems I think that would be more problematic than your beliefs or even occasional verbal outbreaks I didn't think about one girl a couple of women I know who are alcoholics and that they seemingly did everything right but their alcoholism in after years of going through the conversion program their alcoholism just blew up their possibilities of converting sorry dude I interrupted you yeah I mean that's a good you did okay so I have psychological issues let's say you're you know what is it? narcissistic you know narcissistic that's a psychological disorder that could cause behavioral problems but you know largely we could still control our behavior even though we have psychological problems so they put that I think it's more behavioral problems that and having psychological craziness might even help you converting to Judaism because you probably got to believe something crazy to go through it to switch your life system and to accept even though you don't have to take a belief test on the Jewish belief system and so either do you really believe it or can you make yourself believe it you know so having a little being a little crazy might even help as long as it doesn't cause behavioral problems because you know the community's eyes are on you and you're going to need extreme levels of self control to control your behavior that if you have behavioral outburst you're just not going to be able to make the cut you're not going to be able to you'll be an orthodox Jew that the there's two you know the community level of awareness of what you're doing is too strong to allow a you know a severe behavioral disorder right so one issue that we have right now is that the conception of mental illness is just so broad that it's hard to get your hands on it so I want to I want to provide a metaphor for mental health and mental illness that that I read it read about I think is a very powerful one so my wrist does everything that I need my wrist to do I can pick up a pen I can do push-ups I can do pull-ups I can you know carry 50 pound bags of concrete like my wrist is perfectly healthy right there's no normal part of life that my wrist is not up to handling and so too if your emotional life is congruent with reality if you're able to deal with you know good things happening and bad things happening but you can keep on trucking then you're mentally healthy no matter the various disorders that you may have no matter the various neuroses you may have if you are adaptive to life so if you feel sad it doesn't mean you take a week off work so that's what I mean by mental health and it does require a strong degree of mental strength to make it through a conversion process because it's not something you do primarily on your own it's something you primarily do with other people you have to essentially win the approval of the community and people who get to know you really well so this book review notes that converting to Judaism requires psychic stability now here's a little bit more from the book review so becoming Jewish in Germany does that reveal something deeper about the convert is that a problem that people are solving by say conversion and different people in different places they can have different incentives to make such a dramatic shift so much of conversion is just pragmatic people have a Jewish spouse or they have some Jewish ancestry and it's a very pragmatic thing now other people are on an ideological journey now people are on an ideological journey such as me I had a desperate need for meaning that Judaism met and people who have a desperate need for meaning they're trouble because if you have normal relations with other people you're not going to have a desperate need for meaning because you will get your meaning from your spouse from your family from your kids from your friends from your community from your coworkers from your colleagues that's the normal way to get meaning in your life through your relationships with other people but if you don't have satisfying relationships with other people then you have this huge desperate hunger for meaning because just dealing with reality your life isn't working and so you need some kind of transcendent purpose that redeems your suffering that comes from not being able to connect normally with other people any thoughts on the desperate need for meaning and how that's I see it as a tip-off of a lack of satisfying relationships that's probably accurate there could be people that are relatively normal and successful that fall into a meaning crisis and could come on to Judaism it doesn't have to be disastrous and even think my life was relatively on track I didn't have a disaster like I had an existential crisis I was still accepted into a good university and had a network in good grades and I didn't have any serious problems I had an existential meaning crisis and you found my answers in Judaism I was thinking you know a few things and Judaism you have to be able to constantly show your face especially if you're a male that means coming to Minion and okay like I've been doing a lot of things but most of the time really all of the time I was able to go to Minion go to synagogue and learn like you were mentioning Porn addicts God forbid is like well can you still go to Minion put on to Phyllian and you'll show up to learning and if there's if the behavior if you're still able to show your face to community usually you could work with the leadership and the rabbi and they'll try to help you I remember in your book God forbid you I think you said it was the Asia Torah I don't know if it was God forbid that rabbi from that other woman's book who like confiscated your to Phyllian but like you know even in your time with your blog or whatever you were still able to show your face put on to Phyllian go to Daph Yomi seriously study the Daph and so if other people ignore loop forward he's doing stuff that is not acceptable but that would you would be able to work that out with the rabbi and the community leaders and that's what you said about detractors I've got my problems but I'm talking with the rabbi and the leadership and you know the president of the synagogue we have an understanding and there might be other people in the synagogue that aren't happy with that understanding like no that guy's just bad I don't know why the rabbi and you know the leadership are willing to work together with them and I hate it you know every time he walks into here you know I just hate it and I'm a difficult person towards them but at the same time he's able to show your face and it's like well you know he dove and he put on to Phyllian today you know like if he was able to show his face and I think I mentioned this a few times this other facitic rabbi he said about America in general but you know thinking Judaism like the communal aspect normal means being able to hide your problems so as long as you could show up to the communal events and hide your problems the community leadership will work together with you and try to help you with some tale-bearers who will tell everybody and know about your problems but generally you're still normal if you could hide your problems and so like the behavioral aspect of not being able to hide your problems that's going to be too much if you can't show up or if showing up you can't show up and hide your problems then you know the okay you're repeating I got that so but when you had that desperate need for meaning you didn't have close friends at that time you were functional you were educated you were doing many things right but you didn't have close friends who loved you and who you loved or I would suspect you would not have had that desperate need for meaning I mean feel free to tell me I'm wrong Oh yeah I was throwing in all that other stuff and you know so yeah definitely like I didn't really have any friends and I had a disconnect I didn't have any specific issues like I was a good student I was relatively you know overachiever I almost got into I had applied to Harvard and MIT I was doing good at University of Michigan I had normal relatively social relations but I didn't have any close friends I felt completely disconnected from everything it was more an existential lack of meaning I just found no meaning I was almost suicidal where just like life is meaningless I should just kill myself God forbid and it was Judaism that I found meaning in and maybe because I was a little bit crazy that I could say well maybe this is actually true so it wasn't just like a stability structure or you know ability for me to reinvent myself as a new person you know in my own head even today like I still think that this stuff might actually be true yeah and another factor here is that everybody needs things that they're good at and so people who for example don't graduate from college or a prestigious college or don't have a prestigious job or don't have a prestigious hobby or don't have any prestige in their life they can often get a feeling of importance by a very strong commitment to religion so let's say you convert to Orthodox Judaism or you grow in your Jewish observance you can play an important role in your synagogue you can be the guy who's there every morning for Daphne Yermy you can be the guy who's there every morning and evening for Minion and so much of what drives people into religion is just that very human need for an opportunity to shine for a place to be important for a place where you're you play a substantial role where even some people look up to you some people are movie directors and so they don't need to feel important synagogue and other people are prestigious professors other people run a corporation but many people who don't have anything where they are standing out in life they can find a way to stand out at synagogue and take on a volunteer position or just be an assistant to the rabbi show up to doverning, to prayers and to Torah classes and become an important part of the synagogue and that fills the human need for importance any thoughts on that dude? definitely before I became Jewish born again Jewish I wasn't important to anybody my parents were workaholics and they pushed me to achieve largely they were workaholics they wanted to see my grades or updates on my achievements I knew people but I wasn't that popular I never got invited to parties or event I wasn't important to anybody even University of Michigan before I went to Israel they needed me for a minion University of Michigan has over 4,000 Jewish students over 2,000 Jewish men but they could hardly get a minion they had two rabbis a kabad rabbi and a hillel rabbi but they needed me for a minion literally this guy even picked me up at my dormitory like upperclassmen because literally I was number 10 but to the extent like they needed me and then when I was in went to Israel in Brooklyn I was always needed like I had regular skills maybe like a cush of a little bit educated so as they took higher birth from a upper middle class family I knew how to do a bunch of things speak English know how to write and in Israel I was recruited even big rabbis and youshivas and various people recruited me and they wanted me to study in their youshivas and pray in their schools and be part of their movements and I was in New York I was constantly being recruited and I was being asked things we've argued about this many times like beggar culture but being begged for money for small favors like as a kid no one ever asked me for anything even just asking for money it was unheard of even if I had money to give as a kid maybe less than five times before I was 18 did someone ask me for money or just culturally it wasn't the type thing people didn't ask each other for things so being part of the Jewish community it's very easy to feel important to be needed and to constantly have people reaching out to you yeah I mean the look of pleasure on your rabbi's face when you walk into his class or when you attend Minion or not just the rabbi but other people that look of pleasure enjoy the people have where they see you that's incredibly powerful that's incredibly intoxicating to go to a place where everybody has the same and where they're always glad you came I mean that's what people want do you want to talk about that element yeah so you wasn't like that in the secular world like University of Michigan your prep school public school maybe I had a handful of friends that were like next to me in class or would occasionally invite me to social events a time where I basically just had one or two friends and would hang out with them day after day after school but no one was ever glad I get in trouble like they took attendance but no one was ever glad I showed up to anything and God forbid I think the secular world is a cold impersonal place it's not communal you could develop friendships and relationships but generally no one's ever glad you came and they're not so warm or inviting and it's competitive but when you get a synagogue it's very likely that the rabbi will light up when he sees you he will be happy to see you and that's an intoxicating feeling there will likely be people there who know your name and they're glad to see you right? definitely man I would think even though okay my local young Israel or orthodox synagogues I try to be on good behavior not to cause any problems and various things you may be like there's a certain tire people don't really like me and there's always the element of difficult social interactions but like yeah almost definitely if I went to any of these local synagogues even in Brooklyn like the rabbi and say oh how's it going how you been if there's anything you need let me know at least to a minimal extent and most of the people I was given the example of needing $20 God forbid keep yourself cool but like like you said you're like oh I'm coming to synagogue and we're glad you're here and there'll be kiddish and kiddish club someone might invite me to their house for a Sabbath meal the rabbi probably you want to make sure everything's alright and try to get me more involved and that was definitely because I was somewhat like an elite I guess like the orthodox community was like social economically a step down saying like okay I live in a wealthier suburb in the orthodox community I was accepted into the best schools even New York that there's a certain element that but just a welcoming friendly community and it was like no we need you like I went back to Australia I got invited to rabbi's homes for meals I got invited to Jewish events people picked me up to take me bowling I mean it's a very warm community Jews tend to be very warm and the outside world it's frequently very cold making your way in the world today it takes everything you've got taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot wouldn't you like to get away think about all those nights when you've got no lights the check is in the mail and your little angel hung the cat up by its tail and your third fiance didn't show sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came you want to be where you can see our troubles are all the same you want to be where everybody knows your name you roll out of bed Mr. Coffee's dead the morning's looking bright and your shrink ran off to Europe and didn't even write anyone wants to be a girl we'll be glad there's one place in the world where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came you want to go where people know that people are all the same you want to go where everybody knows your name Portnoy is Jewish the author of that song is Jewish Portnoy I forget his first name it was a good song I looked into it and you know think that it's certainly a Jewish author definitely there could be okay like they're not necessarily going to say we'll bring you into leadership we're going to set you up with our most beautiful girl but certainly you're needed and there's going to be a task for you and you're going to be included at least the minimal standard even if it's overflow synagogue you stand you're going to get you a seat enough food for you at the kiddish if they know you're coming you're going to be fed a certain minimum standard safety net is there for you and even in terms of shittok like they might not have the girl you want to set you up with but they'll probably make an effort to set you up in your employment they might not have the job that you want but someone will probably have employment for you and you know God forbid the world's a cold harsh place there's con men in the Jewish community but the Jewish community has a safety factor too like you were mentioning like ben hapten and you're like rape and thievery and con men you're like bad things happen to people you could you go out into the world and ask for help or go to a bar regular places even university people take advantage of you you know there's levels of people taking advantage of you in the Jewish community but they're like no generally they're going to protect you from that and you know so that structure there I'd never been part of it and it felt good and also like you know as a venue to give back it feels good to be a good person and help other people especially if you're part of the group strategy so like and I'm a Jew now and I'm helping out the Jewish community myself because I know that this community that I might be doing well now and I'm giving to the community but if I was in a bad situation the community would take care of me you know some like oh hell or the you know the soup kitchen or all these various things that you're saying like god forbid I would never want to be on the dole of the orthodox Jewish community but you know think like well it's going to be there for me I'm glad and I'm happy to give something that I'm part of and you could try to find that in the secular world you know like what Hinduism or another religion a volunteer group camaraderie you know like sometimes a group of friends like at a bar you know you could be there for somebody you know like even like talk like strategies to being promiscuous and helping a person out with their strategy and you know so there is camaraderie and a thing of people being there for you but not the same way as like a religious group like that especially orthodox Judaism which is probably one of the strongest identities in the world right so when I've moved to a new Jewish community usually someone who takes me aside says what do you need do you need a job do you need an apartment do you need a car do you need a doctor like what do you need I mean or if you're you're moving from your community you can go to Minion and say hey I've got a car that I need to get rid of so people really pitch in to help out back to this article in JTA the headline is too many Germans converting to Judaism the debate is roiling Germany's Jewish community and the cantor who wrote the controversial article says I know that no one should talk about the gear meaning the convert so she's citing Jewish laws frowning on differentiating differentiating between converts and people who are born Jewish but again Jewish law is incredibly pragmatic if it's important to talk about differences between people who convert and people who are born Jewish the Jewish community is not going to shut that down so many of these teachings it's very hard to legislate ethics so you've got a lot of ethical teachings in Judaism such as don't remind a convert that he is a convert but these are sermons these are homiletics they're not really halakha in the normal sense like halakha meaning Jewish law like keep the Sabbath keep kosher so Jewish teachings about ethics are overwhelmingly of the homiletical variety meaning a story and so if you get a story saying don't remind the convert that he's a convert that's not the same as a halakha that you can't eat a pig obviously there's a time and a place where discussing conversion and converts and people born Jewish are completely appropriate so duvid you want to say anything specifically the case in Germany where me and you you may have been seeking meaning and running away from problems in our born biological identity but the German case is different in the sense that they're running away from Germanness and specifically from being the perpetrators of the holocaust to the victims of the holocaust so the nature of this article is taking a different turn and also mentioning that it appeared that there really been a huge amount of conversion there and so I don't know the exact numbers I looked up the book I couldn't find it I actually found it a free copy online in German but not in English so I don't know the numbers but it appeared that they're saying was pretty substantial in some of these congregations even like the downtown synagogue now at this point that they went liberal there's a huge element of people that aren't holocaically Jewish there's a huge amount of people that have done liberal conversions and if you went to the synagogue on a given period now that you know they've dumped Minion or the typical things that Orthodox Jews do probably less than half of the people there are holocaically Jewish and you know of those that aren't maybe half of those have done some sort of conversion process so there's going to be like a level like I'm actually a biological Jew and I should have more weight or bearing in this community and then if you're looking at the direction like what practical implication does that have and there might have been like well I wanted kind of a normal surrounding I didn't want to be caught up with a whole bunch of Jews that's why we had we invited all these going there but you know at a certain point there's going to be group strategy and it's going to become questionable for the community especially in Germany where you have what does it mean to be German in a perpetrator of the holocaust let me jump in so if you're looking at people that understand that when you're converting to Judaism you're primarily converting to a tribe not a religion so if Judaism was primarily a religion then the more converts the better but Judaism is not primarily a religion Judaism is primarily a people it is primarily a tribe when you have a tribe bringing in additions to the tribe is not necessarily in the tribe's best interest so tribes throughout history brought in outsiders and essentially adopted them into the tribe and mentored them into the tribe and these outsiders have become insiders and successfully assimilated into the tribe but Judaism is not Christianity without Jesus Christianity is a religion where the more converts the better but Judaism definitely does not follow that strategy it's primarily about what is best for the people meaning Jews, the people of Israel it's not primarily about saving souls and just getting more and more numbers into your congregation so going back to this German cantor she writes, a very large number of new Jews has led to a considerable change in Jewish life in Germany in some services during some speeches feel more reminded of an interreligious event of the visit to the synagogue I've been familiar with since childhood well, she's talking here about reform synagogues obviously you're not going to find many interreligious events at Orthodox synagogues I mean that's that's very rare and that's only going to happen in modern Orthodox synagogues so this is an article overwhelmingly about non-Orthodox conversion to Judaism anything you want to add, duvid? yeah we were mentioning like okay like I was useful to the community because I had more social economic status than the average Orthodox Jew and probably Germans have more social economic status than the average Orthodox Jew so if it's here in America in Metro Detroit your average Orthodox Jew even though they don't go to university may not even have more official high school diploma probably have more social economic status than African Americans but they have less social economic status than suburban suburban whites or educated whites probably the case with the Germans has some element like that and hence why they're able to raise the leadership and question about interfaith or representation so like a lot of times Orthodox Jews don't do interfaith they don't care about that they don't really have this representation they might have community liaisons that deal with certain aspects but it's more a secular thing so it's a little bit of a joke that it's the secular community that's so concerned about this that their fake converts or their converts in their social clubs and then they're looking at their social clubs like the reform here in America where at this point less than half of the reform are holochically Jewish anyways they allowed patrilineal dissent and minimized the standards of conversion and that's what you mentioned also of the people that do Orthodox conversion that's probably less than 10% of conversions because Orthodox conversion is difficult it's grueling you basically have to give everything over to it and make a lifelong commitment as opposed to lesser levels of conversion you can kind of just take like a six week course and have a minimal allegiance to a local synagogue of people that don't do anything really that Jewish and it's kind of just like joining a country club and so probably this case in Germany is like that but at the same time because Jews are a minority and most Orthodox Jews are insular that you could represent the Jewish community so you could take a six week course and you join like a reform social Jewish JCC social club and be Jewish and start representing Judaism and interfaith or to non-Jews or you're talking about the Holocaust and various things so I think in this case that's probably more the case and especially in Germany with the nature of the Holocaust where you have all these kind of like social club Jews Germans that are questionably Jewish and now they're representing the Jewish community non-Jews and even in LA where there's half a million Jews in a sizable Jewish community there's still probably one out of three, one out of four people in LA probably don't really know any Jews that well so you could convert to Judaism even though there's half a million Jews within your vicinity of you and all of a sudden you're representing yourself to non-Jews as you're like a leader in the Jewish community Okay, I want to deal with a comment in the chat by Gleb Medley he says some people find meaning in tearing up a roll of toilet paper before the sun goes down on Fridays. No, you misunderstand what's really going on the reason that some people find meaning in observing the laws of the Sabbath including the law of not tearing things so that they therefore prepare for the Sabbath by tearing up sheets of toilet paper so that they don't have perforated on the Sabbath the meaning comes from the signal that this gives to yourself and to others that you're a part of a concrete community of flesh and blood if nobody knew that you were tearing up toilet paper before Shabbat if you weren't part of a community of people who do this then you wouldn't find meaning in it even God God only has meaning to the extent that you make that concrete through participation with other people in reaching out to God or celebrating God or following God's will so I primarily get meaning from reading books because I know I'll have the opportunity to share it with you and to share it with my friends if I didn't get to talk about the books I read with other people reading those books would have about I don't know 40%, 30% of the meaning from other people so if you get meaning from doing a ritual it's not the ritual that's giving you the meaning it is the connection with other people that gives you the meaning so people can use religion to connect with other people people can use a dog park to connect with other people people can use live streaming and glib medley says if you can't get a Jewish wife it's all rather absurd well if you connect with other people it's not rather absurd I have good friends in the Orthodox Jewish community with whom I spend a great deal of my spare time with whom I have the most intense important conversations of my week with friends from various Orthodox synagogues that's where my life revolves my social circle within the Orthodox Jewish community that is the burning core of my life and that's there and that works and that keeps me warm even though I don't have a wife so human connection is absurd and pointless if you don't have a wife that's nonsense we need friends we need other people we need opportunities to be of service to other people we need other people to and oh my god I failed the first commandment oh my god there's a type of personality that glib medley is embodying right now where they just feel driven to knock down something that gives other people pleasure and meaning so if going to a dog park gives you pleasure and meaning don't allow people to knock that down there is nobody there's nobody from whom you can't take a certain angle and find failures in their life alright everybody has failures everybody has vulnerabilities everybody you can point a finger and say look you failed here at this fundamental task of being human everybody fails at some aspect of being human everybody looks up at the ceiling of their life and sees a missing tile certain people will fixate that missing tile not just their own missing tile but they will feel obliged to point it out to you how dare you be happy how dare you find meaning and sustenance in this particular community or activity don't you realize that you failed on this fundamental task of being human everybody fails at the fundamental task of being human in this way or that way everybody has gaping wounds inside them the rabbi with 12 children has gaping wounds inside of himself the rabbi with 12 kids and a beautiful wife and a flourishing career and friends and professional prestige he has deep wounds because there are fundamental parts of being human that even he fails at we never get to graduate from being human we never become invulnerable to life every single option and just get it all lined up you can always figure out a reason why oh you shouldn't be taking pleasure in your job because someone else is doing the same job that you're doing and they make 40% more money than you how dare you feel pleasure at your job how dare you have a sense of pride how dare you get purpose and meaning and human connection and friendship and feel happy belonging to a particular professional community when you're not even number one you're not even in the top 20% you're just a schlepper how dare you be happy that really bugs me that you're happy because I can see from the outside that there are 15 reasons why you should not be happy I can list off right now 7 things that you should feel thoroughly ashamed of how dare you stand up and say you find purpose and meaning and happiness in this activity or with this connection or with this group or following this procedure or obeying these protocols how dare you be happy can't you see that there are 7 things wrong with you that I can list right now that every group that you belong to guess what there are economists who are not particularly good at math there are porn stars who can't give a good hand job there are professional athletes who struggle with this or that aspect of their profession so nobody ever graduates from vulnerability duvid any thoughts some of this stuff has been well studied I largely agree as a convert or outsider you could become a full member of the orthodox community prominent purposeful but in terms of the internal community leadership it would be pretty rare for there to be a convert or even a bol chuva and because it is tribal there's the element of large families so you know there you know Yichas lineage is extremely important most rabbis even modern orthodox rabbis come from rabbinic families an impressive lineage of rabbis a lot of times even modern orthodox leaders like president of congregations organizations come from extremely large extended families and have connection into the orthodox community so like maybe like a bol chuva could become like ahead of the AJC but like the local federation or various Jewish power most of those people come from large extended family networks and because it's tribal they're almost seen as a representative of their family and also the nature of Jewish communal structure is that most events like people are constantly going to weddings and bar mitzvahs and family events and family shows up so you know if you're in LA you have 400 you know second third cousins and when you make a wedding you know you instantly have like 200 people or if you make a so Luke you might you know like if you got married I'm sure it would be a great blessing and lots of people would come to synagogue but you're not going to have 100 people they're your cousins they're going to come because they're your relatives and that's part of being tribal so if you're in Brooklyn or having been in the black hat orthodox system there's the marriage dynamics so a large aspect of Judaism focuses on continuity education Shadukim and generally converts marry other converts and even second generation the kids of converts marry the kids of other converts or Balichuva and I remember in Israel at Osamaic there was Rabbi Asher Wade who became Kositic and was a former German Christian minister and he became a semi-prominent Rabbi but it's always like the former Christian minister the convert and his kids may have intermarried within the community but it takes probably two or three generations till it would be normalized that you would have a prominent there would be a Jewish forward that if you had kids likely your kids would marry the kids of like a Balichuva or modern orthodox or other convert and maybe your grandkids could rise up to being like a position of power or being a Rabbi and it would probably even be great grandkids you'd be probably looking at the third generation so the aspect of lineage and marriage and internal representation of leaders being representative of larger family structures is inescapable so like you know Glybb's point and that like there is that aspect of the community but it doesn't mean that you're not a full part of the community it just means that leadership is tribal and in order to be a leader in the Jewish community generally you have to be a prominent leading member of a large extended family network and as a convert you know that will take multiple generations right thanks Stuart I'm going to move on for tonight thanks for coming by yeah great interesting talk and blessings yeah blessings to you so this is something that I work with and if you're normally you work with this too you get to choose where you put your attention so sometimes I stand up here and I run out of passion I run out of energy I think God this is a pointless stream I'm not contributing anything all I'm doing is being a content taker rather than a content maker and I'm not energized every time I get off a live stream I don't finish a live stream every time I go oh yeah what I want a powerful show boy 40 you really you know just knocked it out of the park on that show so when I when I say run out of energy run out of drive or just become frustrated with a stream and I shut it down like where do I go from there and one what place I go is am I doing too much live streaming so you'll notice reasonably often I'll take three days a week 10 days just completely off from live streaming so I think you know what the hell am I doing are there better ways that I could spend my time I think about are there better ways that I could do the show and you know as I participate in life you know I mess things up I say the wrong thing I do the wrong thing I tried to join a conversation where I'm not wanted and or I think oh my god you know I'm a bachelor I've never been after a longer than a year so I have all these opportunities to feel bad I don't know about you but I think back on the the the course of my life and there's so many ugly things that I've done there's so many gratuitously cruel things that I've done there's so many shameful and embarrassing things that I've done just the way I've conducted myself for years on and there's just but I don't want to live there I adopted certain attitudes that seem to be working for me so for example I don't tend to regret the past so you you be the judge you watch this show for two three five six years I don't spend time regretting the past that's relatively a minor role in my life I because I have adopted the attitude that I heard or read somewhere or I just developed it that given who I was at a particular point of time I could not have operated differently that I was doing the best I could at that time to meet my needs and those were all the tools that I had and therefore I made those embarrassing choices and that's an attitude that really helps me or sometimes there are certain women that I am highly attracted to and I may talk to one and it becomes very evident very quickly that she has no interest in me so as soon as I detect that I try to get the hell out of that that conversation because it's dispiriting and so I can think about that I can think about one woman in particular who's very smart very funny very pretty just just my type and if I think about her for very long I get sad so I choose not to think about her for very long like intermittently you know thoughts of her may come to mind and and then I choose to put my attention elsewhere so I don't focus on oh I'm not with this woman that I want right now and I don't focus on what I don't have in my life and I don't focus on oh I'm not eating out at the most fancy restaurants I don't focus on oh I wasn't invited to that cool party I focus on my God I love all the time that I have to read books so yesterday Labor Day what did I do it was stinking hot outside and I read a book by Ronnie Gordman his critical theory of academia so it took me about five hours and I powered through about 220 densely packed pages of his critical theory of academia and that was how I spent my day and I enjoyed it I took notes I added some key excerpts to my blog I highlighted some passages that I may want to revisit on a future stream and the primary meaning that I get from reading a book is not reading the book in and of itself just helping develop my understanding of life the primary meaning I get out of reading a book is that I get to share it with you and with you over there and with my friend at Citagog and my friend at the coffee house and my friend at the dog park and my friend at the dental office and my friend in this 12 step program and my friends in that 12 step program so at Citagog and 12 step programs and people from the dog park and people from the bar down the road where I spend time I take them with me I'm thinking about them often when I'm getting up at four in the morning it's not infrequently that I wake up at four in the morning and I'm excited as long as I've had sufficient sleep I'm excited to get up at 4am because it gives me two more hours of life two more hours to read books two more hours to exercise two more hours to write in my journal two more hours to do a live stream or to repair a live stream and so I keep my thinking generally speaking on what it is that I'm doing that I enjoy and that I want to do so I enjoy reading Thomas Hobbes and understanding more about his life and understanding more about his classic work Leviathan when I deal with difficult people I enjoy going through videos on YouTube on how to deal with difficult people how to classify different difficult people how to develop effective strategies for interacting with difficult people I love becoming more competent at life by reading a book reading an article watching a video listening to a podcast and I come into this with a problem then I get a solution it's like yes you know I feel good I feel good when I write a blog post that I like to read so occasionally I'll be watching a movie or a TV show or reading a book and it'll inspire oh I want to blog about this and so I start blogging and then I go read it in my browser and it's like oh this is good I get pleasure from writing I get pleasure from doing many live streams some live streams I think oh what the hell am I doing here 40 this is this is a waste 40 you you just turned into a content taker rather than a content maker you know what the hell bro or you know oh you let this person talk too much or you didn't allow this person to talk enough or you you didn't you know take that person's question with the seriousness that it deserved and on the other hand you took that person's comment with too much seriousness so keeping tuned in to certain channels right keeping tuned into a focus of what I am grateful for what I am good at what makes me feel alive and thriving and sitting back or standing up I do a lot of my reading standing up or lying back and reading a book that makes me happy now I could spend that time introspecting about what I'm missing in life but maybe you think oh I'm just lying to you putting on this performance and as soon as the show goes off I crawl into a ball and cry myself to sleep but the 40 you get on the live stream is a little amped up you know version of 40 through the rest of my life I'm a pretty happy guy about 90% of the time I'm average about probably 9% of the time and 1% of the time I'm relatively unhappy when particularly when I experience some you know dire form of loss when that you know occasionally you know people event circumstances losses you know they just take control my prefrontal cortex I can't Alexander technique my way out of it I can't meditate my way out of it I can't journal my way out of it I can't you know read a book out of it I you know sometimes you know events losses people you know will preoccupy most of the time life as I experience I get to choose what channel I tune into and so I choose to tune into the channel of love there are a lot of people in my life who I love I get to into the channel of you know intellectual excitement and that's a happy place to be I get to into the channel of emotional sobriety and that may mean prayer may mean meditation may mean a 12 step meeting it may mean sponsor sponsoring people it may mean reaching out to people it may mean picking up the big book like I did yesterday I took picked up the big book and whenever there was a sentence or a phrase that spoke to me I set it aside and just started journaling about why that phrase had so much meaning for me so I choose to keep my my conscious mind focused on those activities in life that that make me happy that make me feel good that make me feel excited that provide warmth for my soul for my Neshama and that I can then share with other people and when I think about the stupid things I've done and the ugly things I've done and the dumb things I've done I take an attitude to that I take the attitude of one could not have acted differently given who I was at the time and two I'm going to use that to be of service right because there are other people who've done similarly stupid things as me right and some of them a few I'm going to be a help right I'm not so naive that here I am speaking to this you know intoxicating crowd of 17 live people you know I'm not so stupid of thinking oh you know I'm changing 17 lives right now but I think you know the odds are that one two three people are going to get some benefit from this livestream that I'll run into somebody who's having a problem that I've struggled with and I can use my experience I can use my humiliation I can use my failure and I can just share my experience strength and hope you know I don't have to preach at anyone I don't have to say oh here's the holy book and if you just read chapter three of this holy book you know that provides all the answers that you need oh here's the guru if you just check out this guru if you just you know do this you know 17 point procedure you'll solve your problem no I can just share okay I had a problem similar to that my god completely knocked me on my ass I can't believe what a total tool I was and what a full I was and what I learned from the experience was XYZ and now when I encounter similar situations navigate them and if it's an appropriate interaction where the person's you know paying attention to me they're not just like tuning out and you know their body language is turned away from me and it's like oh hell you know I'm getting lectured at right now right since I picked that up I stop all right if I'm not getting getting that immediate feedback that someone's tuning in I stop but there are there are occasions when I say something useful some people have gotten benefit from the Fisher Wallace device some people have gotten benefit from what beef organ capsules some people have gotten benefit from you know a five-minute meditation practice some people have gotten benefit from a 12-step program that I mentioned some people have gotten benefit from reading a book that I've mentioned some people have gotten benefit from taking up the Alexander technique some people find a particular idea such as no need to regret the past because given who I was at the time I could not have acted differently I didn't have enough tools to deal appropriately with the situation some people find that a useful insight so it's not it's not a matter of being you know the ascendant guru it's a matter of living a life that that is consonant with the people who I like they're getting along with other people realizing when there's a time to speak up and when there's a time to be silent they're having moderate opportunities to help other people having opportunities to do the things that I find interesting and stimulating and even exciting that aren't bad for me a lot of forms of excitement are really bad for me so if I took up sports betting that would be really bad for me if I tried to sleep with every woman I could who was you know above a five that would be really bad for me but there are things that I can do like Elliot Blatt talked about the true crime documentary watching a true crime documentary late at night when you can't sleep that's 1,000 times better than watching pornography you still get the excitement you get the destruction right? Destruction sometimes gets a bad name destruction is frequently adaptive right? sometimes destruction is maladaptive if you should be doing your job and instead you are being distracted by playing some stupid game on your phone that's maladaptive destruction but my day typically starts about 5am my day typically is composed of about an hour of spiritual practice about an hour of sponsoring about an hour of exercise of about two hours also of reading books about eight hours of work and then after I've done all those good things come 7pm, 8pm I'll jump on my exercise bike but it's now 40 times I've done good things I've been of service for other people I've done the exercises I need to do to stay in shape I've done the exercises I need to do to stay spiritually aligned I have met my obligations to other people I have contributed I have given of myself I have stepped up to the plate and now it's 40 times


bum that I've had to miss some of them because it's fun to pop in and say hi to everybody. Yeah we have, it looks like seven or so people in the chat come in talking about what's going on all over with the weather. So we're counting down to wiki tree day if somebody doesn't know they're new to the broadcast we're counting down to wiki tree day and it's a free virtual genealogy symposium. I've got the help page up on the screen there and I've got pinned to the live chat the link to register. It's free to register so go ahead and go on out and do that and you're entered to win door prizes. It's kind of no brainer on that one. It's going to be great. I can't wait to see some of the presentations. We have a winner from yesterday's post about witches. Do you have witches in your tree? Oh you know I don't if I do I haven't come across them yet. I have a pirate and it goes to the winner. That's awesome. Okay here we go let's see who the winner was. All right so Kelly all you have to do is send an email to Aowyn. That's Aowyn at wiki tree dot com and she'll take care of you get your your prize. So congratulations to Kelly she responded out on mastodon. Hi. Yes. Yeah. Very cool. So we have the question for today for everybody to answer. Remember you can comment on the video you just scroll up a little bit on this video and just add a comment and then it's all going out live right now to twitter so you can just reply to the twitter post and then soon it'll be out everywhere else so you guys can answer out whatever social media channel you prefer. So today's question is what unusual deaths have you found? So do you have any unusual deaths that you've run across? I had one that for the cemetery I'm working here in return that the train it was a train disaster. My gentleman was. Oh yeah. Yeah we we've had a lot of those. There's so many train disasters. Yeah. I think it was in 2022 when we were doing the wiki tree challenge was like every every time it seemed there was some crazy train train incident. Like what it all started a space page about all the different train accidents like came up and all the challenges. Seriously. I was like look at your YouTube series on just train train incidents. So we're down to six days. Oh I can't believe it. So excited. Um yeah if you haven't seen it we're gonna have a discord party Wednesday night. So that'll be a night eastern. We should just pop in. Say hi. We had a lot of fun here when we did that I think everybody really enjoyed that last year. Yeah I thought so. Yeah. All right. Well that's all I have. Thank you everybody for tuning in and we will go ahead and sign out and say goodbye to y'all. See you tomorrow.


And if you don't heal what hurt you, you'll bleed on people that didn't cut you in the first place. I've done that in my life and I've had it done to me and I think we've all got to figure out where this lands for us. And beware the tendency to live, speak, react, make decisions, make choices. When you're in a wounded, open, wounded condition, it's not going to be a good outcome. Wait, heal, learn, grow. That's the book we want to read. That's the voice we want to counsel us. That's the wisdom we're looking for. It's from people that have allowed it to become a massive act of service to the rest of us that are going through stuff and need someone ahead of us to say, I went through that too. Here's what I learned. Pass it on to us.