This is Not The World I Grew Up In

The topic, the announced topic, this is not the world I grew up in, seems more suited to a conversation than a presentation, so if there are questions as we go along, they are certainly most welcome. Two weeks ago, the United States celebrated its semi-quincentennial. I don't know why someone couldn't have figured out a word for 250 instead of just calling it half of 500. But be that as it may. And the subtitle of my talk is the reminiscences and ramblings of an old man, so just to give a little context. I couldn't help but be struck by the difference in the climate in the United States surrounding the celebration this year of the semi-quincentennial and 50 years ago of the bicentennial. 50 years ago, when the bicentennial was celebrated, there was an almost palpable sense of excitement, enthusiasm, and a surge of goodwill. And there were celebrations which went beyond a little bit of extra fireworks and having people beat each other up on the White House lawn. And this year, it was mostly greeted with apathy. There wasn't any buzz, there wasn't any excitement, there wasn't any enthusiasm. 50 years ago, and just by way of disclaimer, I don't mean to, in pointing out some of the problems that have surfaced over the past half-century, I don't mean to imply that 50 years ago the world, or the United States, or lehavdil Medina Yisrael was a utopia. On the contrary, probably a careful analysis will show that the problems that have surfaced, the seeds and the roots date back to those years. So I'm not implying that hayamim harishonim were some kind of utopian era. But 50 years ago, be that as it may, there was patriotism was alive and well in the United States. And this year, I don't know, there's just a tremendous amount of apathy and even cynicism surrounding the semi-quincentennial. The country, the society was more idealistic. Now, is that change which is relevant to us? So all the changes we're going to talk about, even those in general society, are relevant. When the Rambam writes in perek vav of Hilchos Deios that דרך בריאתו של אדם, human nature is such that a person is נמשך בדעותיו אחרי ריעיו וחביריו ונוהג כאנשי מדינתו, that a person is affected by his peer group, by his colleagues, by the society in which he lives, he's clearly referring to non-Jewish society as well. So changes in non-Jewish society affect us. Sometimes we're conscious of it; more often than not, we're probably not conscious of it. But we don't live in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble that what happens in general society is not of relevance or concern to us. Patriotism, unless it's an evil country, patriotism is something which is valuable because it reflects idealism. Idealism in turn is a climate which is conducive to religion, religious belief, religious commitment. Because the essence of religious belief... religious commitment and religious life is living for something bigger and greater for oneself. Obviously if one is zoicheh to recognize amitoso shel Toyrah so that means living for the Riboyno shel Oylam and his Toyrah and doing his will. But the general climate is one if the general climate is one of idealism it's supportive and encouraging of religious commitment. When the general climate is one of cynicism and apathy so then that undercuts in a way religious commitment religious faith. Another very related difference when I was a kid growing up so many of my friends' fathers spent their entire career with the same company or firm or the like. And what made that possible in part I'm sure there are other factors as well but in part what made that possible was that the company the firm had a sense of loyalty to its employees. The bottom line was always money and still is money and I guess והכסף יענה את הכל and I'm not saying that people were not concerned with that. But it didn't preclude every other consideration every other factor. There was a sense of loyalty that companies firms had to their employees and because of that the fact that at age 50 or whatever you'll be entitled to a pension doesn't mean that they would then axe an awful lot of their employees you know on their 49th birthday. There was a sense of loyalty. Today's world my perception is that's very unusual. That someone will spend their entire career in the same company in the same firm is very very unusual. The world is much more transactional. It's the same the root is the same as in the lack of patriotism. And another change that's occurred over the decades which again in part is also reflective of the same essential shift in climate in mindset is the move within undergraduate education away from humanities and much more heavily to STEM. Now obviously it isn't our topic now and I'm not looking to comment on that in a from a Toyrah perspective or in any comprehensive way if we were to do so there are many many factors that would have to be weighed. But to the extent that what drives that move away from humanities and so much more heavily to STEM is that humanities doesn't translate into profit. It doesn't really increase the enhance the bottom line. And to the extent that that factor is driving it so then it is an unwelcome development. Another sea shift another major change that appears. I'm not a doctor and as such obviously I don't on any regular basis spend extended periods of time in the hospital. I had occasion to do so around three years ago where the previous time that I had been for an extended period in the hospital 25 years earlier. And the change in how medicine is practiced was absolutely staggering. 25 28 years ago so of course diagnostic tests whatever the state of the art of diagnostic tests were of course they were used but the doctor's physical examination of the patient was an important part of the doctor's diagnosis the doctor's Now when doctors make rounds, if they make rounds, when they make rounds, it's only to do the courtesy of answering questions, if there are any. And again, this was my experience. They don't even, they don't even examine the patient. Everything, everything is based on the diagnostic tests that they run. There's no tvis ayin of the doctor. There's no medical intuition. Everything is delegated to the computer. A contemporary of mine, a close friend, himself a very accomplished physician, said, \"You know when you see the doctors at the computers,\" says \"that's the way that generation practices medicine.\" The substitution of computerized tests, analyses, for the human dimension is something which le'aniyut da'ati is very troubling. Now obviously, an MRI can see what no doctor can see with his naked eye, that's obvious. But it's impossible for me to imagine that a doctor's intuition, honed and refined from years, from decades of practice, doesn't contribute a pivotal, indispensable element in many cases which can't be reproduced when everything is just delegated to the most, albeit the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art diagnostic tests. It's almost as if there's an assumption which has become axiomatic that if only you have enough information, you don't really need to think, that all determinations can be made automatically. In what may seem to be a stretch, but there is a, I think there is somewhat of a continuum here, you know in the Torah world, in the world of the beis medrash, so we have both literally the seforim as well as the phenomenon of the mesivta. Now the mesivta is an incredible tool for one in learning. Once upon a time, if you were learning a sugya and you had a kasha and you wanted to see if, I don't know, do the rishonim talk about it, the gedolei acharonim talk about it? So unless you had your own tremendous bekius, you could spend hours just pulling seforim off the shelves in the beis medrash. Maybe the Tzlach talks about it, maybe the Pnei Yehoshua talks about it? And occasionally, you'd hit pay dirt: ah, Chasam Sofer talks about the kasha. And now, you open up the mesivta, and within 30 seconds you know whether anyone
מהיום אשר ברא אלקים אדם על השמים מקצה השמים ועד קצה השמים
has spoken about this kasha. So that's an incredible tool. But it can be used also sort of as a substitute for thinking creatively, independently about a sugya. It can be used as, oh, so I'll open the mesivta and I see, look, here there's a machlokes between the Radvaz and the Rashba on how to learn pshat in the sugya, and here they have from one of the acharonim a mahalach on the sugya. So the shiur comes prepackaged. You can buy a prepackaged dinner, you can look up a prepackaged shiur. And then the next day in the next sugya, there's another prepackaged shiur. Ay, but the two acharonim had different darkei limud, and the type of explanation that's being said is totally different, there isn't even a consistency in the type of explanation, but again, it's the same. same operating assumption. No, if there's just enough information, so then you can just churn out automatically, again, the analog to the diagnosis and the course of treatment, you know, in medicine when you're talking in learning is the havana in the sugya. Me'inyan le'inyan, more or less be'oso inyan, not maybe a little bit more stream of consciousness than rigorously. On the one hand, one very beautiful and really holy development, what no W, and holy development has been that talmidim seek hadracha and have a yearning to identify מה השם אלוקיך שואל מעמך and they come and they seek out the rebbeim not only for psak halacha when needed, but for eitza, for hadracha, and that's a very beautiful, beautiful development. But sometimes there seems to be that people are looking for everything to be reduced to a formula, that they should have in hand a formula that will ensure that every situation they find themselves in, so they just know to plug it into the formula and then they'll know what to do. But life can never ever be compressed, and life's decisions and discerning right from wrong in countless situations and scenarios in which a person can find themselves, it can never be reduced to a formula or a set of formulae. Maybe this, the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed life that way very much aligns with the fact that Yahadus of course requires correct behavior, but that behavior isn't the ultimate. The behavior is intended to mold the person. And the goal is not a person who functions formulaically with every decision being lifted straight from the textbook, but a person who's developed a chush for Torah that allows him to figure out in any given context, again, based on a wealth of knowledge and teaching and yes, seeking out hadracha, but it's not going to be reduced to a formula. It's about developing a chush for מה השם אלוקיך שואל מעמך, for right and wrong. It's about being able to intuit, ultimately it's about being able to intuit correct behavior and making the right decision. You know, they tell the story about Rav Chaim that someone once quoted, I don't know it was one of the rishonim, I don't know if it was a Tosfos or a Ran, and Rav Chaim said, no, there's no such Tosfos. So the person who had just looked at the Tosfos very recently, you know, felt quite confident and held his ground and said, okay, so he brings the Gemara and they look and sure enough, no surprise, Rav Chaim was right and this person had misread the Tosfos. At which point Rav Chaim said, half of the following statement is true, the other can be chalked up to self-effacement. He said, don't think that I know every Tosfos in Shas. Don't think that that's how I knew that there wasn't such a Tosfos. It's rather that I know what Tosfos could say and what they couldn't say. And what was being quoted, Tosfos couldn't have said. Okay, so the first half of the statement you can leave aside, but the second half of the statement reflects the yesod that we're talking about. And no amount of information, and that's why no amount of information will ever automatically, formulaically, in every situation tell us right from wrong, because we're supposed to know, we're supposed to develop a sense for right and wrong and apply based on all that learning and all that hadracha that we've received. One of the most disturbing changes that has transpired over the course of decades is that once upon a time, certainly when I was growing up and I think even more recently than that, the identification with and support for Medinas Yisrael was overwhelming, not only amongst religious Jews, but even among our brethren who are not yet religious. People identified with and they supported Medinas Yisrael. And by and large, Jews voted as a block, which was why they constituted a, why they became a political factor and force, because they could swing elections. I remember in 1980, when Carter was running in the primary, he was the incumbent president and he was running in the primary. So shortly before the primaries in New York State, he said something, I forget what it was now, said, did something very anti-Semitic. And there was such an uproar in the Jewish community. So Teddy Kennedy, the senator from Massachusetts, was contesting Carter for the nomination. And until that point, his campaign really hadn't had any traction and Carter was steamrolling him. And then after Carter spoke out again in an anti-Semitic way, so Jews turned out massively and Teddy Kennedy won the Democratic primary in New York State. And that prolonged, this is what the political analysts later said, that prolonged the battle for the nomination. And even though Carter ultimately got the nomination, but the fact that it was contested weakened him in the general campaign and he lost his bid for reelection to Ronald Reagan. So fast forward to last year when de Blasio, no description of the individual, his ideology or his character necessary, when de Blasio was elected mayor of New York City, with the biggest Jewish population outside of Eretz Yisrael, partially, not exclusively, but partially with Jewish votes. It's mevatel hara'ayon. It's mevatel hara'ayon. We've gone from the Jewish community overwhelmingly identifying with and supporting Medinas Yisrael to a self-loathing, a self-destructive self-loathing. What's the, how do you understand that? Such self-destructive self-loathing? So I think the Rav zichrono livracha has this idea somewhere. A Jew can't, he can try, but a Jew cannot ever run away, can never escape his Jewishness. So we have two choices. There are two options, but only two. One option is to embrace the extraordinary gift of chosenness, of Bechiras Yisrael, the extraordinary gift of obligation, of תורה צוה לנו משה, and to live a life of eternal meaning. The alternative is to engage in an act of futility in trying to escape one's Jewishness, but it's futile. One can't run away from the fact that one is a Jew. And since escape is impossible, so one then loathes, one hates, one loathes that to which he remains involuntarily bound. And that's the sad and tragic and very, very disturbing reality that we see. What are we supposed to do about it? I don't know. Support kiruv. Those who have the kochos hanefesh, engage in kiruv, daven. But it's a maybe it's one, it's certainly one of the most painful major changes that has developed over the course of the years. You know, sheker is not a new phenomena. The Medrash in Bereishis Rabbah says that kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu was getting ready or contemplating kavyachol again, obviously all this is anthropomorphic, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu was contemplating whether to create Adam Harishon, so the מלאכי השרת נעשו כיתים כיתים. They broke down into different groupings, some advocating that Hakadosh Baruch Hu create Adam and others opposing Adam. Amongst those who opposed the creation of Adam was Emes. Emes, Emes protested the creation of Adam because he's a doveiv sheker. So sheker is by no means a new phenomenon. It's not something that's been invented with the fake news of the 21st century. That having been said, sheker has increased exponentially. It's also staggering to what degree it has increased and exponentially. Again, back to when dinosaurs were roaming the earth and I was young, before cable and before all the other alternate sources, so there were three TV stations, channels 4, 5, and 7, and there were three leading anchors for the evening news. And one of them, the one who was the anchor for decades for CBS News, was Walter Cronkite. I think now the Columbia School of Journalism is named after him. I think it's called the Cronkite School of Journalism. And he was, I think, belo guzma, one of the most respected people in the country. He was respected because he was objective, because what journalism meant for him was doing his best to suppress his own opinions, his own views, his own political leanings, and present the truth of what was happening in the world. And he was venerated because of that. Today, if you will contrast a write-up for the news from CNN with ich veis, I don't know, Fox or whatever, so you'd think that they were describing different planets. There's no tzad hashaveh to what they're talking about. There's no line anymore between fact and opinion, between the news page and the editorial page. And again, the proliferation of sheker is frightening. What reaction should that elicit from us? So the Gemara in Sanhedrin tells us that using this as not literally but as reflecting a certain yesod that can be transposed, not using this literally obviously, the Gemara in Sanhedrin has a Beraisa that says that בית דין מכין ועונשין שלא מן הדין. When Beis Din would detect a laxity, a serious and severe laxity in a certain area of Halacha, so then Beis Din had the prerogative, had the discretion to מכין ועונשין שלא מן הדין to administer a punishment which according to strictly speaking, according to Din was not warranted. And then the Beraisa illustrates it that bimei Yevanim there was a terrible hisrashlus, there was a terrible laxity in shemiras Shabbos. And the Beraisa says that מעשה באחד שרכב על הסוס. So what's the yesod again to be extrapolated, not to transpose the din literally? But what's the yesod to be extrapolated? The yesod is that when there is laxity in an area, when something is under an onslaught, so those of us who are committed to it have to be more scrupulous and more tenacious in our commitment and in our devotion. The more sheker there is in the world, the more we have to be makpid on middas ha'emes in everything, not just on big issues, not just not to tell big lies or inaccuracies on big things, but even on little things. Even on little things. Rabbeinu Yonah writes in Pirkei Avos on the Mishna of על הדין ועל האמת ועל השלום. He says that there are two mechayvim for why a person has to under all circumstances be emesdig. One is that a person can't compartmentalize when it comes to middos. If a person is not rigorous and not precise in being truthful and accurate, even if it's in things which seem inconsequential, דברים של מה בכך, but then he develops that tendency for a lack of rigor, a lack of precision, a lack of truthfulness. So there's no compartmentalization. This later became a big yesod in the Mussar movement, of course. Then additionally, Rabbeinu Yonah says that the mechayev to be emesdig is that emes is חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. So the principle of being emesdig is the same regardless of how inconsequential the inaccuracy, the falsehood, the lie might be. The more sheker there is in the world, the more we have to check and double check and triple check that everything we do should be emes la'amito, again even in matters which maybe objectively, inherently are inconsequential. The last change that I wanted to mention is the change in the tone and tenor and substance of political discourse. It's true in the United States and sadly, tragically, much to our dismay, it's true here as well. There were always sharp and major differences of opinion. כשם שפרצופיהם שונים כך דעותיהם שונות. People see things differently. People have different views, they have different shitos and because of that, there have always been differences of opinion. Once upon a time, generally, not purely, not exclusively, but generally, people would criticize the other side, they would polemicize with the other side. But today, they habitually demonize the other side. They don't just criticize the views, they don't just polemicize, they don't just have maybe a sharp retort, but they demonize. One of the ugliest expressions of that demonization is the use of the term Nazi. The abuse of the term Nazi. Once upon a time, people understood that for the common good, you needed to work together because if the opposite sides of the political spectrum or even the opposite sides of religious-secular on the secular divide, if they don't work together, so it just paves the way for—I don't want to finish this sentence. But it's not that one side's gonna win and the other side's gonna lose, both sides lose. So when Mashiach comes, so then truth and only truth will prevail. And until then, there has to be a way on different sides of the divide of knowing how to live together and knowing how to work together, the biggest and most major differences of opinion notwithstanding. Once upon a time, that kind of bipartisanship existed. I don't know, it's almost extinct today. Instead, what you get is vitriol and hatred and demonizing and it doesn't help anyone. It doesn't matter how right one is and how wrong the other person is, it doesn't advance anyone's agenda to engage in that type of political discourse. What can we do about it? I don't know, directly b'derech hateva, not too much honestly. But you know, there are two ways of exerting influence. There's a way of exerting influence on a natural plane, b'derech hateva, but there's also a way of exerting influence b'derech segulah. And again, our commitment to that type of modus vivendi of yes, disagreeing when disagreement is warranted, again, the disagreement can be with someone who has a valid differing opinion, it can be with someone who has an invalid different set of beliefs, but recognizing as Avraham Avinu did, with the Netziv's famous Hakdamah, recognizing that for the common good that we need to learn how to express that disagreement without demonizing, without vitriol, without hatred, without compromising on principle, understanding how to effectively, without resorting to ad hominem, put forth our position, our beliefs. Thank you very much.