Anti-Zionist Rabbi debates Judaism and Israel | Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro

[Music] Put it this way: the more educated you get about Zionism, the less possible it is to be a Zionist. Are Jews endangered? Why would you be in danger without Israel? You're in America. Well, lots of countries… wait, hold on. Lots of countries are… finish the story. On hold on. Yes, I want to understand your perspective about why Judaism is in conflict with the notion of Zionism, why the two are incompatible, and tell you why I think that they are not incompatible, that they are compatible. So that's what I… that's what I understand. So do you want to go first and tell… please, you go first.

Okay, so let's not go through Biblical verses because, you know, you're not religious, and so it's… um… you're kind of at a… you… you… you don't have an advantage over here. So let's just observe the Jewish people. How in the world could the Jewish people be an ethnicity if you have Ethiopian Jews, Yemenite Jews, German Jews, Russian Jews, American Jews? You have converted Jews. Ivanka Trump is a Jew. Uh, we… there are Syrian Jews. How are these all of the same ethnicity? Ethnicity, also besides descent, may… may not involve descent. It also involves some cultural aspect. How in the world is it possible that a Yemenite Jew… my son has a friend whose grandfather was a Yemenite, or perhaps Moroccan, I forget offhand, but the picture of this… this uh… guy's grandfather, he's sitting on a carpet, M, with a turban, with a hookah and earring in his ear, and he probably eats stuff like… he doesn't eat uh… hot dogs and apple pie. He also doesn't eat gefilte fish and cholent. They ate Arabic food; they spoke the Arabic language; they had Arabic dress; uh… they… they spoke Arabic language. What cultural—not religious—cultural or… or any… that's not religious commonality do they have with the German Jews in Germany?

So I think what they have in… to answer your question… in common with the German Jews in… in Germany… you know, the Je… from Ethiopia, Syria… so your question is how can it be an ethnicity? Well… well, most Jewish communities do trace their roots to ancient Israelites, right, which is a Semitic people from the… from the Levant. And so, despite centuries of diaspora and intermingling with local populations, that genetic and cultural thread connects lots of Jews. Well, you… the genetic or cultural? Which one? Look, both. Both. Where's the cultural? Genetic? We know that's not a question according to Judaism. We're all… grandchildren of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Although Abra… we also have genetic uh… relationship with the Arabs and the non-Jews because Abraham had two children, and… is the Arabs are descendants of Ishmael… not all of Abraham's children were Jewish; not all of Isaac's children were Jewish; but Jacob's children were. That's descent. Descent is not the same as ethnicity. Me and my grandchildren… me, my children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we're not our own ethnicity, even though we have our own descent. And according to Judaism, we all come from Adam. There are Jews and Arabs and non-Jews that come from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Tell me where you divide it up and say, okay, this common descent makes an… ethnicity is a complicated thing. How do you know someone's Swiss?

But exactly, but it's complicated. That doesn't mean we discard it. Comp… I'm not saying discard the concept of ethnicity. I'm saying just because you don't discard the concept of ethnicity, there has to be some reason why you believe that the Ethiopian… I'm saying the reason is… so the culture… well, four things: so common ancestry… so let me just answer really quickly. I'll be very quick, 30 seconds. So common ancestry: most Jewish communities trace back to the ancient Israelites. I mentioned the genetic and historical link despite the diaspora, despite geographic separation. Um… the second thing is shared culture and religion. So there's the… cortex… rituals… the Torah… who… where's the culture? Religion is the religion. Where's the culture? The… the… the local customs within the Jewish customs. Atheist Jews do not follow any Jewish customs. I… I… there's… I know many… I… I would say the 90% of Jews who are Reform and don't necessarily believe in God the way that… in Abrahamic God… still a lot of them still celebrate Shabbat, and a lot of them don't, and a lot of them do, and a lot of them… fun. But those that don't, they don't have that commonality. So it's not a cultural commonality. It is for many. So you're talking about many Jews are Jews. We're talking about the definition of a Jew, that means… but this… this a complicated, and… and there's diaspora adaptation. So Jews adapted to host cultures, and there's the idea… one second… one second. But if you would adapt to whole… the question is… is that if you talk about a definition, you mean two things: you mean that there's a population, every member of that population has a certain characteristic, and if somebody has that characteristic, they are a member of the population, which means what we are in search of is not something that… well, most Jews have or… or some Jews used to have or many Jews have. We're looking for a definition of a Jew. Now you can say it's complicated; you can say I don't know. I'll give you a simple definition of a Jew that's not complicated, that the Jews always used that, because you can't have a… you can have an exception to a rule, a cause and effect, but you can't have an exception to a definition. If the definition of a chair is… is um… something you sit on that has four legs, let's just say, then there are no chairs that walk around with trunks and are animals. In order to… to figure out the definition of a Jew, you need two things: you need one characteristic, a commonality that every Jew has or they're not Jewish; and two… is this your rule? No, this is what a definition is of a chair, but not of something like abstract. You need a definition of something. You could say something doesn't have a definition. Culture is abstract. Fine, but there has to be some commonality. But… but… and… and if you're going to say that everybody who imbibes in Jewish culture automatically becomes a Jew… mhm… if that's what you want to say, then fine. But if I ask you what Jewish culture is… so fine… the difference between the… the culture of a religious Jew and the culture of a non-religious… does two completely different things. But the… but the culture of a non-religious German Jew that went to University of Berlin, married a non-Jewish woman, had non-Jewish children, and celebrating Christmas with them… in fact, the culture of Jesus… he celebrated a lot of… the… he followed a lot of Jewish laws… MH… okay… um… and the culture of an atheist Yemenite Jew that doesn't follow the religion is nothing… is in your view… is Judaism not an ethnicity at all? Is it impossible to be an ethnicity? Eth… how could it… if… how could it be an ethnicity because all Jews of the same ethnicity? I think yes or no. I don't know the answer to that question.

Okay, so the answer can't be yes, because any… any definition of an ethnic… there is a shared ancestry. Ancestry is not ethnicity. I agree. I agree because I believe in Judaism that everybody shares a shared ethnicity from Adam. All Jews share ethnicity from Abraham, but the Jews and Ishmael's grandchildren, meaning the Arabs, also have that shared ancestry. So's children… Abraham had two children, Isaac and Ishmael, and Isaac had Jacob, and Ishmael… Ishmael's children, who are also grandchildren of… uh… Y… and grandchildren of Abraham, have that shared descent as well. The Jews are descended of Jacob. But if you… by Jewish law… um… if you have uh… a male of a certain tribe or family marries a female of a different tribe, familial affiliations follow paternal lineage regarding inheritance, regarding tribes. We have 12 tribes, but being Jewish follows maternal lineage. You're not half Jewish according to Jewish law; uh… there's no such thing. You're either Jewish or not. So if you trace your lineage all the way back to Abraham and your mothers all practiced the Jewish religion, and somebody comes with your family tree and says, hey, your mother's mother's mother turns out she wasn't Jewish… guess what? You are no longer Jewish, despite the fact that you believe in… yes. And that's the definition of Jewish that Jews have used throughout history. It's very simple. Jews have not had… and if you say that's what I believe and that's the Jewish law, then what you say Jew and I say Jew… homon… but… or if you convert to Judaism, that's the way you can become Jewish. Yes. Or you convert to Judaism, you can become Jewish, too. Do you have any doubt that somewhere along your maternal lineal line someone's not Jewish? Do you have any doubt? I… I… I don't have any doubts, but I do… what I do… why not account for that risk and just say… Let… Let me… Rabbi… I don't have… I don't have a reasonable doubt. Um… I put it this way: uh… I don't have any basis or reason to believe that uh… and therefore we have rules in Jewish law of evidence, just like everybody does. And if there's no basis to think such a thing, and if you have all the reason to believe that family… old… W… was Jewish, you have… what we assume that you are legally… why not cover your bases and convert to Judaism just to make sure? Because if there's even a 0.1% chance, 0.01% chance that God forbid someone along your maternal line wasn't Jewish… because according to God's law… I don't need to… the definition of a Jew that works 100% of the time, that's not fuzzy or complicated. Yeah… um… because I want to mention that the definition… the Jews are the only group of people… people as opposed to uh… Christians, Muslims, New York Mets members, um… soccer players, um… white people, black people… that what they are is complicated, even though they were around for thousands of years and they were literate and they wrote books about themselves. All Jewish literature… we don't have fiction literature until like the Enlightenment, and you know, foreign influence came. Jews don't have fiction. You know, Jewish literature is… it's about the Jews; it's about Judaism; it's about what being a Jew is. And… and it's a funny thing that those people are the ones that are complicated, and every Tuesday and Thursday there's another article: are they a religion? Are they a race? Are they something else? And you will not find these questions ever until a few hundred years ago. Instead, you will find that the definition of a Jew is very simple according to Jewish religion. You don't have to be a Jew to serve God. Judaism is a universal religion that says everybody on this planet has to serve God. Most people have seven Commandments… seven… Noahide laws: you can't kill; you can't steal; you have to create some kind of system of civil law; you can't worship idols. Okay, there are others who were at Mount Sinai when God gave the Torah to Moses, and those people… about that event, the Bible says… ha… um… on this day you have become a people. Now the word is… it means… best literal translation I can find is a society, because again, there were no nationalities in the… in the modern sense in those days. They became obligated to fulfill 613 Commandments. We don't need to convert people to our religion. Many people have asked me: why are Jews not proselytizing like other people? Why don't Jews welcome people into their religion like other religions? If you believe in your religion, you should welcome people into it. The answer is because in other religions you need to be a member of the religion in order to be saved or in order to get the benefits of serving God. Not in Judaism. You don't need to be a Jew in order to serve God or to get the afterlife, the reward in the afterlife. However, these people who are commanded in the 613 Mitzvah Commandments were enjoined by God to be… what that verse that you first quoted said… not just regular humans that are obligated in… regular citizens that are obligated in 63 Commandments… you are the… you are supposed to be a kingdom of priests. Kingdom means you follow a leader; it doesn't mean you have to have… you have a state; you follow a leader. Well, that would be God, and a holy nation, meaning a holy people, not necessarily nationality. And these are the Priestly class. It is an obligation. In other religions, similar… it's an analogy; it's not a comparison. It's like a calling. If you are… and the law according to Judaism, if you're born from a Jewish mother, you have that obligation. It's like a calling that you are summoned to now fulfill those 613 Mitzvot. Anybody who is obligated to fulfill those 613… those who are obligated to live a Priestly life, not merely a God-serving life… there's a short… there's a short word for those people: Jews. That's it.

But would you… want to… safe… would you want it as a security measure? I… or someone who is worried about whether they're truly Jewish, would it make sense to convert to Judaism as a… the answer is… is that… or is that just paranoia? When you say worry… well, if you're paranoid, then no. And that question is a valid one, and we have laws in these books regarding who should… um… who should do that. There are some people who should do that. If, let's say, somebody's ancestor on the mother's side converted, but the conversion was questionable for whatever reason, then yeah, they should. But not out of a paranoia that, oh, maybe… so, for example… and we have a proof from the Bible that we don't do stuff like that. So here's the case: the law is that if a person uh… wounds his father… yeah, he… he's obligated… there's a death penalty for that… um… not for… not for wounding other people, but for a person wounding his father. Now, in real life, we don't really… it's… it's theoretically a death penalty, but in real life, the Jewish courts, because of the… the… the strictness of the due process and the uh… level of evidence you have to bring that he really did it, and you have to make sure he knew it was prohibited, and he knew he would get the death penalty… they don't really… they didn't really kill people, but just symbolically to show the severity of it is… now here's a question: what if the kid goes to court and he says, well, I'm innocent till proven guilty, right? Witnesses come and they say, well, uh… we saw this guy kill… we saw this guy beat up his father; he was sitting on the floor, bloody heap. Kid says, could you prove that was my father? Could prove somebody was my mother? You can't ever prove somebody was a father. They didn't have DNA testing in those days. How do you prove they're the mother? Then there… somebody… someone being born… you could prove somebody's mother, but you don't know who the father is. The father could say, I prove I saw him being born. Yeah, no, no, no. But how do you know it's the father's son? Maybe some other man's son. How do you know it's the mother's son? The… the kid is born from the mother that you see, but you can never witness who the father is, right? I… sorry… I… okay… slow… yeah, it's all right. So does… that's… so now the kid could say, well, innocent until proven guilty. Sure, you can't prove me guilty, so how could the Torah ever base a person's guilt on the assumption that somebody's… somebody's father if you can never prove it? Yeah, the answer is it doesn't work that way. We have certain levels of proof that we assume uh… is enough to convict somebody, even in… even in regular courts. Uh… you know, if you have a certain amount of witnesses… witnesses can lie; proof could be… even if you have 1%… if you have this 1% doubt, you can still send… will you… as a juror would send somebody to the gas chamber if you have no reasonable doubt anymore, right? We have… we live our lives by levels of proof. If I walk in a street, I can't prove that I'm not going to get hit by a meteor, and even though there's a 0.00% chance, I'm not going to look… look up in the sky to make sure there's not a meteor there. Uh… we live our lives with a certain level of chutzpah, and that… and different levels of chutzpah allow you to take certain risks. According to Jewish law, the level of chutzpah that a person… the average Jew has… and his family up the line was all Jewish… we are allowed… not allowed… we are perfectly entitled… not 99%, but 100%… with that… that level of evidence… to be confident that the person's Jewish. So if… when… when your life is over and you're meeting with Hashem to go to the world to come, and we're tallying up your mitzvot, the 613… because of course you're Jewish… and then Hashem says, oh… oh, wait… it looks like, you know, 400 years ago your great-grandmother was not Jewish… you can't say… but there's not enough evidence… and in fact, I am Jewish because I didn't have enough evidence during my lifetime to know that I wasn't Jewish. I didn't have a reasonable doubt to know that I wasn't in fact Jewish. That would be 100% true, and it's the same thing if a guy um… hits his father, or a guy inherits something from his father, or any of these things happen, and it turns out that the evidence was not true. If you put… send somebody to the gas chamber and uh… turns out he was innocent, but you had 20 witnesses that said he did, and he saw fingerprints on the guy's throat… by the way, there is a… there is not 100% proof that you can't have two identical fingerprints. There's nothing in nature that requires uh… that one fingerprint cannot match somebody else's. Why… why is it worth it going in front of Hashem and being potentially wrong? And I'll… Dr… I'll move on to the next thing. I don't know how I… this up… it's… it's not because the potential of wrong… God doesn't expect us to worry about less than negligible. Because if that would be true… yeah… then forget about Hashem. Let's say you're an atheist; you're walking in a street. Why aren't you worried that a meteor hits you? Or if you're likely that my mother 400 years ago… fair enough. What's the threshold of likelihood that you would live your life confident… specifically… that I would be willing to convert. So if I truly believed in the Divinity of the Bible, that I'm going to meet with my Creator when my life is ended, and if I fulfill uh… to the utmost, and I get a higher place in the world to come, and that me not being Jewish would erase a lot of the mitzvot that I'm following, I would surely dedicate the… the… the… the minimal… you know, the negligible uh… four months of my life to go through a formal Orthodox conversion on the off chance that I'm not in fact Jewish, 'cause my mother 400 years ago wasn't Jewish. But in my situation, I don't particularly care whether my mother 400 years ago was or wasn't Jewish, and so I'm not going to convert on that off chance. But if I did believe in the… in the existential ramifications of my ancestral mother not being Jewish, I would spend the six months of my life or… to do an Orthodox conversion. You… anybody may… God forbid… have contracted a fatal disease between the last time he had his uh… last medical checkup and now, even though he has it once a year… if you really believe that you should, then why don't you have it every six months if you could afford it, or every three months? Because you only have to convert once in your life. No, no, but the… but that's not the question. The question is it's your life at stake, and you know that the chances are you may now have a fatal disease that you didn't have three months ago. Why don't you tomorrow go to the doctor, check that? The answer is because chances of a false positive are more likely… of a false… I forget if it's… it doesn't matter, but it still helps; it still increases the odds of you living. It's possible you could die because you didn't go to the doctor tomorrow and you waited a year, like the doctor say… the answer is we are not obligated, nor is a normal… does a normal human being live his life thinking that every little thing… you're talking about a paranoid person… people are allowed, and more than allowed… God expects people to be normal human beings. And if every aspect of my life… my health… my money… right… my money… my health… my relationship… it is possible that anybody's wife is cheating on him, and certainly there is a chance, and certainly he could have a private investig… follow her… private investigator follow her around 24/7 on the off chance, but nobody normal does that, and even though he trusts… do you trust 100%? These off chances that you're describing would not hold up in court. You would send somebody to the gas chamber on a lot less evidence than the odds.

Of me being not Jewish, and therefore we just don't bother with such odds because we're normal human beings. I'll leave, I'll leave that there. And can I talk to you about the underlying concept here? The and and then I want to ask you about Zionism in Israel, about the Divinity of the Torah. We're talking about thresholds of proof and evidence, and you're saying, you know, we can't live our lives with absolute certainties, so we have to piece together our best understanding of reality and live them. So why do you believe that that that God wrote the Torah, and that the Torah is divine and and written by God, and that we need to follow it?

Can you spend the night here? I pretty much have at this point.

Yeah, it that that involves a a a long discussion, but I'll start it for you. Um, let's just start: who created the world and what type of God it is, or what type of Creator it is, and does God exist? We could start with that, because that's a very, very big—let's say there's a let's say there's some there's a there's a we call intelligent design on the universe. Let's say that there's—we don't know how—not good enough. Intelligent design isn't good enough, uh, because well, if you have—it's more than intelligent design. We could know exactly—we can know a lot about the intelligent designer—not only intelligent design.

Um, I mean, if you ask me again, uh, that that's one question, but I think what you mean to ask me—correct me if I'm wrong—is how would I uh answer the question for other people, and well, for yourself.

Yeah. Well, okay. Uh, so first, did you ever hear of the uh they call it uh in English the cosmological argument from the Kalam?

I don't—don't know. I've heard of the argument from Sinai, Jewish survival, um, you know, all the all the the the all the things they teach you in—

That's not what they taught me.

Yeah. Um, the argument for the the Revelation at Sinai, there's the predictions of the Torah. You know, all religions kind of use the same basic argument to convince you. Say Judaism doesn't indoctrinate, but you know, I had my experiences where I was—people were trying to make an argument for how they, you know, knew that the Torah is divine, almost like the way you'd make a scientific argument. You know, if this—well, it's historical, not scient—scientific—will be for God—give me a moment, we'll get there—but there's historical and philosophical aru—arguments too. So I mean, I I want to go back to God, because that's step one, um, because one lead—one chapter leads to the next.

Take a stick. Theoretically, divide it up into two.

Okay. Okay, done. And divide that up into—the stick is 12 in, right?

Okay. Yeah. Now we have two sticks of 6 in, and again you have four sticks of uh 3 in. Right? Keep—how how many times can you divide up that stick?

A lot of times, probably.

How many to maximum? Physically—not physically. I say in theory. Say 100.

12, 12 times.

Yeah. No, no more. You could div—keep divid—100. Yeah, keep going, thousand more, a million, how more? What's the—how many—how many points can you divide up the stick into? How many points equal a stick if you keep going? How many points can you divide—how many times can you chop this stick?

As many as there are atoms in the stick.

Yeah. And you can divide up atoms too. I'm not—forget about that part. I'm not talking about a stick in specifically. I'm talking about, let's say, measurement of space. How many times can you divide up the measurement into space?

Infinite.

Yeah. Infinite. Okay. So 12 in consists of an infinite amount of points. Right? Okay. Take a football field of 100 yards. Okay, do the same thing. Now divide it up into 50, 50 yard—two, two fields of 50 yards, and then four fields of 25 yards. How many uh points can you divide up that field into?

Infinite.

Infinite. So you can have—so if a 12in stick can be divided up into an infinite amount of points—infin—amount of points—but the thing is—well, I can answer the question—so the infinite amount of points, they don't have the same size—so the—but divide them up—keep dividing them—keep dividing the points—but infinite amount of points, no matter what the size is, still an infinite amount of points—still Infinity.

Um, the size matters. So if you have a stick this long—how long—so I have a stick this long—this is an infinite amount of points.

True.

How long is that infinite—infinite amount of points? It goes point point point point point point point point point point point point times infinity to to here, and then how—point infinitely smaller and smaller and smaller—not—but how big is the—after you're done—how how big is the point? It's to the amount that the stick is. If you break up a stick—but let me let me ask you a question—if I have a stick of 12 in and I have a a razor sharp sword—it's the sharpest sword in the universe—and I break that stick up into 2,000 trillion pieces, how long is the 12in stick?

It's still 12 in.

Yeah, because you you don't have an infinite amount of piece—you can keep—stop chopping those billion trillion quadrillion—keep going—you' have—keep going—keep going—this long—but you said Infinity—so—but if inally small—the question—Ines—but I have the answer—but no no—but but the 100 yard football field is also infinitesimally small pieces—an infinite amount of infinitesimally small pieces—you can chop both of them into—can you not—and if so, they should be the same size.

Why? It's an infinitesimally small—it's a trick question, of course it is. It's not—no no—I just—it's not a trick question—it's an easy question—I just explained it—no, because you—okay—question—the denominator and the numerator are the same—infinite over infinite—there's an in—not the—it's a times—that's an infinitely amount—infinitely small um amount—infinitely large amount of an infinitely small pieces—correct—both of them are an infinitely large amount of an infinitely small pieces—you have the same equation—let you make your point because I know this is just a step towards your point—so I I want to just grant you this and let you—I don't want to like hold you up, you know, here—like—let me—I'll just illustrate a different way—Hilbert's Hotel. Hilbert's Hotel—you have a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms.

Uh-huh.

And they're fully fully occupied.

Yeah.

Guy comes into the hotel—I want a room.

Yeah—fully occupied—have no problem.

Yeah. Take the guy in room—you have an infinite amount of rooms—take the guy in room one, put him in room two, room two put them in room three—CU—you can always add to us something—and I'll go in room one.

Yeah. And people can continuously do that—so you can have a fully occupied infinite room Hotel okay where with more PE—where an infinite amounts of people can come—so what does it mean that it's fully occupied?

I don't—your question—it means it's occup—the question is if it's fully occupied, how could you add somebody into the hotel—because the notion of fully occupied exists inside of like the time and space Dimension that we—no—infinite—infinite—that's the amount of rooms—and that's the amount of people—infinite amount of rooms and infinite amount of people—right—so that's fully occupied—every room has a person—I'd say you can't add a person to that—but you can—because infinity plus one equals infinity—you can always add one—but that plus one has a person in it—you said put that person in the next room—and you do it infinite amount—because each infinite room has a person in—but you can infinitely add—you can infinitely switch room—someone—there's infinitely do it—but room one will still be room one—anyway—UL—the answer is is that Infinity—you cannot ever—yeah—chop up neither 12 in nor a foot field—I promise to move on from the stick—but I I I want to say one final thing—so if I again if I have a stick 12 inches long and I have and I can cut it up into uh I don't the amount of uh it uh for however many inches there are between here and the end of the Galaxy uh two and from uh 10 billion times—that's how small I can cut that stick up—how long is the stick?

It's exactly this long.

What if you cut them again—then it will still be this long—how smaller piece—if you if you if you have an at the end you will have an—correct me if I'm wrong—and I am going to be wrong—but correct me—tell me why I'm wrong—you have an infinitely small amount—infinitely small pieces times an infinitely large quantity—so look, I think your point is that the infinite—the universe is infinite and that's amazing.

No, that's not my point. And that's not—Infinity is amazing.

No, it's not. You listen—You've been talking—you've been talking to the wrong people about God—you really have.

But I don't understand—you're you're like—this isn't—so so—hold hold up. Okay, the answer is that you cannot be—you cannot um—you really—you've been talking to people about—I haven't been talking to any—no—whatever—you just told me—people been telling you—so so so what happened? I'll tell—infinite is amazing. So five years ago—five years ago I went to Yeshiva, and those are the people that that talk to me about God. I didn't talk to anything about whatever—but let's go to your definition—I asked you—we're getting there—you got how you know God wrote the Torah—so hold on. Okay, the the answer to all of these things is that you cannot chop that 12in stick—the 100 yard football field into an infinite amount of pieces. You cannot do that. You can continue chopping and chopping continuously, and you will never reach infinity. You will never have an infinite amount of pieces, no matter how long you chop—you can chop forever. Okay, but you will never reach infinity. The lesson—the moral of the story is uh actual Infinity in real life can does not exist—because no matter how many things you have, you can always add a number—and add one—and add one—and that's why you can—you cannot fill up a hotel with an infinite amount of people—it cannot have an infinite amount of rooms—and sticks or and football fields cannot be divided into an infinite amount of pieces ever—it'll just keep going. Now okay so let me just grant—let's just say I grant all that—Infinity is amazing and we can't fathom it—has nothing to do with—I say that—I didn't say it's amazing—and I said we can't fathom it—we can't fathom it—let me—I I didn't say that—nothing—but that's not what I said—you said—I'll grant you the point—that's not my point—what's the point? So listen, the point is that you cannot have an actual Infinity in the physical world.

Why not? CU—you can't imagine it?

No, because no matter how many things—can you have an infinite amount of uh uh—you cannot have an infinite amount of jelly beans in a big bowl.

You're right—it's not a rational thing—right—it's not a—yeah—you can—it cannot—you can't have—you can't have an infinite number of jelly beans in the bowl.

Yes. And you cannot have an infinite amount of of of sticks or chops or or points.

I disagree on that, but we'll leave that because I explain why—no no—you didn't explain why it—you can't—you didn't explain why—you said—I I don't think it's important to the bigger point—I don't know what the bigger point is—you got to give me a chance of—you thought—explain to the big point—if you cannot have an INF amount of of jelly beans in a bowl—yes—why? Because if the glass is only this big—no—what if it's bigger—what's infinitely big? So you're saying we—Infinity doesn't exist—not in the real world—you cannot have reached Infinity already—if you already have—not as humans—numbers can never reach infinity by adding one to whatever quantity you have—you can never reach infinity—you can never reach uh—you can always add another—you can never say okay it's a—no—Infinity is a notion—not a quantifiable number.

Yeah. Okay. It's mathematically usable, but it's not a Quantified number. Okay, which means that no matter how many times you cut that stick, you will never have reached an infinite amount of cuts. Right? So that's why you—the football field will never become an infinite amount of uh points, because it's not really an infinite amount of points. You can keep chopping those points in half and half and half and half forever, and it will never equal Infinity.

Yeah. Okay. Infinity can never be reached by adding 1 plus 1 plus 1 or one after the one—now—can never get—I am with you—we can—we cannot realistically reach infinity—I'm with you—got it—now—next thing—you know what they say—they say in the name of Albert Einstein—but all evidence it wasn't really he that said it—that um the definition of insanity is uh trying to do the same thing twice and have different results.

Yeah. Okay. The logic behind that—and it is definitely true—is that every effect has a cause—everything that happens happens for a reason—even accidents happen for a reason—nothing happens without a cause.

Okay. Important—well, like a physical cause. Yeah. When you say reason, do you mean a Divine reason or do you mean a physical reason? Everything—we live in a physical world—everything has a physical reason—forget it—doesn't have to be physical or not physical—but it has to be a cause.

Well, I can't—I can't escape—I can't escape the impression that you already think—you're already thinking of what the end game over here is going to—

No. No—I'm trying to address the specific PR—nothing to do with Divine—the premise is that that that if you have the same cause you're going to have the same effect—that's General—I look, I agree that we live in a physical world—everything has a Cause—right—there's a physical cause—can phys—nothing can happen without a cause.

Sure. Yeah. Nothing happens Without a Cause. Right. Right. Okay. So you having the laptop over there on your lap. Yeah, happened for a cause.

Sure.

And that cause also had a cause—and that cause also had a cause—all the way back in time.

Sure. Yeah. Question—the amount of causes—and we're talking about your parents getting married—and and and all of this has to do with this laptop being over here, right? We can go back in time with so many causes—the amount of causes that have already elapsed today—

Mhm.

That will go back in time for all the things that happened—are they infinite or finite?

Um—are they infinite or finite? Um—I could—I uh—either—you could say either or—I think you can—it's like—it's like—it's like the stick—right—so the stick—M—how many pieces is the stick in—you'll never reach—well hold on—so let's say I take a stick 12 in—break it in half—and you say how many pieces—I can answer you two different ways—I can say there's a finite number of pieces—there's two—one two—I can say—I can say simultaneously there is an infinite number of pieces—because each side I can break in—I could, you know, theoretically break in half again—there's there's atoms—there are comos—be—but you agree that you will never be able to actually reach that Infinity by continuously cut—because you can't reach it—one cut—another cut—and another cut—and another—by doing it that way—you will never—by adding Phil one to another—you will never reach infinity—you—that's fine—how many things am I wearing? You could say well shirt jacket—three things—or you can say—but if you count them—break up—but if you count them—you will never be able to count an infinite—infinite amount of things on you—because you can't reach infinity—so if you—all the causes from all the way back till today which have ended over there with your laptop.

Yeah.

Are they infinite or finite?

Uh—I could answer that either way—I don't have—I could give you either answer—but one happens that caused the other that caused the other that caused the other—things are packaged together—so that's fine—let's say that—want to categorize it—I could give you either answer—and I did—but you tell me—the infinity—I think colloquially and pragmatically it makes more sense to think of it in ter—in fi—in finite terms—but I could answer—mathematically—is it possible to have reached—already—to have had happen—to have had happen already an infinite amount of anything? We said you can't count to Infinity—you can't actually reach infinity—I let me go with—I don't know.

Yeah. Won—the quantity—yeah—that has already happened—of causes—yeah—in the past—today—he's infinite—can't be infinite—can't—okay—you understand why?

No—but let's go—no—it can't be infinite—because if you do understand that you can't reach infinity by—if you would count all of those causes—you consider a cause—divide each—you could—doesn't matter if whatever you want to consider a cause—if you count all those causes—will you reach infinity?

Count them? No.

Okay. So you can't—so by each one of those causes—if you put a check mark—you would never have an infinite amount of check marks—that means you can't have an infinite amount of causes—no matter what—right?

Why? If you—you can continue in the future—and you'll still never reach an infinite amount of causes.

Okay. Okay. If that's true, what was the first cause? If it was not an infinite—that means it's finite—if it's finite—that means there was a first cause. Tell me about that first cause.

Nothing caused it. That's very strange—but mathematically that's has to—it has to be the case—there has to be first cause.

Yeah. Now—something that's not caused—but caused something else.

Mhm.

How do we understand that? So it's God—well—not—not it's God—I grant you God—I'm not asking—how's the Bible written—by the Torah written by God—I'm getting ahead of us.

Okay. You're really getting ahead of us. Okay. You're really getting ahead of us. This first cause—what do we know about it? The the big bang—that nothing—the Big Bang—well—was the Big Bang—did the Big Bang—was it caused or not caused? If it was caused—what caused it—and if it wasn't caused—why did it happen?

No—I I I don't—I don't know if I have the ability—if we have the ability to understand time—understanding—we have the ability to understand that it's impossible to reach an infinite uh succession of things. Yeah, and therefore it's an impossible to reach a in infinite succession of causes—therefore we understand that the amount of causes that happened in the world were finite—that means mathematically there was a first cause. Okay, now the question is about this cause—it was not caused by anything—so it could not have popped into existence—because if it had a cause—then it's not the first cause—so it couldn't—time isn't its cause—so it has to be outside of time—space couldn't cause it—so it has to be outside of time—outside of space—nothing could have caused it—that means there's no reason—it means that there's nothing that makes it exist—now that's a very strange concept—because everything in the world has some characteristics—attributes—it has depth—it has breadth—it has Dimensions—but that would would be a cause—you know—I'll I'll show you what I mean—see—anything that is a certain way has a reason—has a cause—a reason why it's this way and not a different way—reason why you have black hair and not blonde hair—there's a reason for that—right? Okay—think in your mind of something that just pops into existence Without a Cause—go ahead—I can't—any—just imagine something popping into existence without a cause—you can't imagine a cow—boom—popping into existence—oh—you're you're saying in the world—okay—in my imagination—imagine it—yeah—that you're saying like imagine there being a case in which in the world something pops—you're saying

Just imagine, imag imagine it. Okay, okay. What did you imagine popping into existence? Uh, you mentioned the cow, so that's what I did. Okay. How many legs does that cow have? Four. Why four, not five? CU. You designed it that way. You decided that that cow should have four legs and not five. You decide it should be a cow and not a house. You decide it should be, say, brown and not black, whatever. So you can't even imagine something popping into existence without a cause, because you would have to design that thing. Okay. So something that's uncaused would have to have—can't be physical—would have no attributes, because anything that it has, you could say, "Why is it like this and not like that?" So it's not any particular way, because you could always ask, "Why is it this way and not that way?" So it has to be something that doesn't have any attributes such that you could ask, "Well, why is it not a different way?" Obviously, it's beyond our ken. And anything that—and the reason is because we've only experienced the cause-and-effect world, and anything beyond our ken we can't imagine. Mathematically speaking, one of two things have to be true: either space ends or it doesn't end. Either way, we can't uh conceptualize that, because if it doesn't end, again that becomes infinite, that doesn't make sense to us. And if it does end, what's beyond space? Nothing. So the fact that we can't conceptualize anything doesn't mean it can't be. And we cannot—just like we live in a cause-and-effect world—we cannot conceptualize something that we we we have lived in, because we live in a cause-and-effect world. We cannot conceptualize the first cause. It's above time, it's above space. It's not bound to time, not bound to space, yet it caused something—it caused everything else, or it caused the next cause that caused everything else. But what made it do that? What caused it to make something? Well, can't be anything, because it's impervious to any causes. And therefore, they have something without any attributes, beyond time, beyond space—or let's not say beyond, let's use a better word: not bound to time, not bound to space, with no actual attributes that works on free will totally, because no—because it acted, but it could not have acted because of something, so that acted on its free will totally.

Now, this first cause can never change, because if it changes, then two things: that means it's uh subject to time, because change means before and after, and two, that means that it has some attributes, because if it changes, something had—it also can't be more than one, because in order to have quantity, in order to have more than one, there has to be some boundaries that say, "This is the boundary of one, and now from here the next one is two." But if we're talking about something without boundaries, then it can only be one. There cannot be two, not because there happens not to be two, because there can also—this thing never could not have existed. When you say something—this shelf happens to exist, but in theory it could have not existed. Whatever was its cause is why it exists as opposed to not existing. But this first cause could never have not existed, since nothing caused it. It had to exist by its own, on its own merits, on its own nature, or whatever you want to call it. It could never have not existed. It can only be one, and it works totally on free will without any prompting. It so we have a name for that; we call that God. Um, no Trinity, because that's a quantification already. Um, really, obviously we can't imagine what this thing is, this first cause we'll call it, or the necessary existence. We only know really what it can't be, but it's not—it's not physical, it's not subject to time, it's not subject to space. Nothing affects it, cannot change, doesn't age, nothing, and could never have not existed. Different type of existence than—you can't even compare it to our existence. Our existence means—means it exists in the—it exists; it happens to exist; theoretically could have not existed. This could never have theoretically not existed.

Now, why did it create everything? Well, one thing's for sure: there are only two things in existence—this first cause and the things it caused. There's nothing else. The reason it caused it could not have been for its own sake, because it can't gain—it cannot change, it cannot be quantified, so it cannot—it makes no sense to have been created for a benefit. You can't benefit something that's totally simple without any quantifications. There's no place to put the benefit. A benefit isn't a con—isn't a concept that applies to this first cause. So the only other possibility—certainly the best philosophical explanation—is that it created it for the benefit of the creations. Say, created for no reason doesn't make too much sense. It wanted, on its own will—how could you possibly know what it wanted? It—because mathematically, when you say wanted, it means it wanted to create something. It wanted—it wanted to create something. Really, it did. What do you mean by want? Because why do you think that it has things like—why—why do you think that the the notion of want applies? Like, we don't even know what infinity is. Has nothing—I didn't say anything about infinity. It's not a question of infinity. This notion is so beyond our comprehension that—to—but we know what it's not. It could not have—it could not have done it. The first cause—the first cause things—the first cause could not have—one, it did create something, and two, it could not have created it for any other reason than total free will. It freely did it for no reason. I mean, nothing made it do it, nothing motivated it to do it, because it's not—it's impervious to motivations, and it's impervious to force, and it has—it has motivations—it doesn't—I mean, one thing we know—certainly not in the sense that we have, because motivations means something acts upon me and triggers uh a desire for me to do something. But this thing, nothing can act upon it. When I say motivated, means I gain something, even if I'm totally altruistic, I gain a feeling or I gain—I'm be—but it—nothing impacts it like that. This is a new type of of altruism, if that you could use that word. That's—we have—we we're—it's—it's beyond our imagination. But the fact is, the mathematical fact that it did create something, not because it gained anything, not because it felt anything, not because it was motivated in any way whatsoever, and it didn't gain anything by it—the most logical reason is because by doing so—forget the word want if you don't like it—all words we use in regard to this first cause are only a manner of speaking.

Right. Yeah. We could really—we should be speaking in terms of what this first cause did not do. It was not made to do it, it was not forced, it was not motivated to do it. It did—can't get out of that—and it gains nothing by it. If there was a reason that it did it, and it did do it—it did it. Yeah, I—then what—no, I think if I try to dissect this, like you said—you said the first thing you asked when I said, "Can you tell me how you know God wrote the Torah?" The first thing you said is, "Do you have all night?" And I don't—okay, no, I I I appreciate this. I mean, 'cause I want to get to the other um stuff. And as you're saying this, I think I appreciate this explanation. I think my point of disagreement—I'm going—I'm going to disagreement, soe because—well, no, my my disagreement would be like this philosophical thing—well, how do we know that—want—don't use want—don't use want—don't use need. I didn't use any of those words. I didn't say any of those—but I I yeah, I disagree fundamentally that we can't attribute motive, full stop. That we can't attri—we can attribute—we can't—I didn't say we can—no, you you said it's motivated. I'm not saying wrong—I'm not say WR—I did not say that. I said it was not motivated by anything. You're saying it wanted—wanted—I said if you don't like to use want, we won't use the word want. No, on the contrary, there are no human—was the the the idea that that God created people in order to benefit people—I I think I don't—I I I um—by process of elimination, did God create people in order to benefit God? No, by—I don't think the word benefit applies to God. Give me—I agree. I don't have a word that I can—I agree, but it had—but God could not have changed, so it could not have been for any reason that involves God, because he doesn't change. It can be a reason beyond our comprehension. It doesn't—it can't, because this first cause cannot change. It's not subject to time or space. Without time, there's no change. Without attributes, there's no change. So if there's no change, that means the creation could not have affected this Creator at all. Yeah. So the only thing it affected was the Creations. It did not affect the Creator at all. On the contrary, I'm not using the word want. I'm not using the word want. If I do put in quotation—okay, on the contrary, I am eliminating any human attributes—any human at all—from—and the only thing we can know about this is what it is not. I agree with you. It does not motivate, it does not want in the sense that we want. We want something because there's something called desire that we have, and if we get what we want, we accomplish something for us. Yeah, that doesn't apply to the first cause. It's impossible. That being the case, the only thing that could possibly have a purpose—purpose—the only thing that ends up with a purpose are the Creations. There is no purpose that involves the first cause for making the other causes. The purpose has to lie in the creation. I use the word benefit of Creations for that. You could say purpose if you want, but it doesn't make any sense to say that this first cause would make Creations to harm them, because—no, it doesn't make any sense. Why—none of it makes any sense. Why would it care if humans get benefited by—hold on—wait—wait—wait—hold on—harm them versus benefit—wait—wait—hold on—you're asking—you're asking—none of it makes any sense. It—I'm saying the idea that it wouldn't create it to harm them, but it would create it to benefit them. Why would it create it to benefit them and not to harm them? Well, uh, what—what purpose serves in harming—what purpose serves in helping? It serves the—it serves the Creations. What is it—but what is—what purpose—that say to serve the Creator? It doesn't—the Creator did it purely altruistic reasons, obviously. Why did he—what—but they're suffering in the world. I mean, I'm just saying—who—hold on—no, you—wait—so far—but they're suffering in the world—doesn't mean you disagree with the statement. You say you have a question about it? No, but he—he—he wants to create people for the benefit of creation. Let's—let's—let's be more precise. He did create a creation. He could not have created for purpose that involves the Creator. It—makes sense in terms of a purpose to create just to harm—only—ssts do that. It wouldn't make sense. Instead, the only sense that it makes is that there's some purpose—you can call it benefits—I'm not associating benefit with pleasure yet, but benefit—purpose—I'm using those two words the same. Okay, if you prefer purpose, we can use that. For the creation, there has to be a purpose for the sake of that involves the creation—a purpose that doesn't involve God. We can continue, but you're right, we will be here all night, and I apprciate—appr—that there is not—this is—this is not the fuzzy stuff that you've been—hear—no, and I appreciate this explanation. Infinity—I appreciate this explanation more. It's more philosophical. Really, want to get back to Zionism, 'cause that's—that's—that's—that's an area of your expertise. We could, sure. So my question to you is, is being anti-zionist the same as being anti-semitic? Let's say we have a guy named Bob. Bob doesn't know anything about geopolitics, and he hates Israel. And it might seem like Bob's hatred towards Israel is really just a facade for anti-Semitism, because why else is—I mean—so can anti-Zionism be a a dog whistle for for anti-Semitism?

Sure. Actually, Zionism can also be a dog whistle for anti-Semitism. There are plenty of anti-semites that want the Jews out of their countries and say all Jews should go to Israel. White nationalists say that uh whites should be in charge of America, Jews should go to Israel. There was an incident—it's on YouTube and it was in the papers—where in Texas A&M University uh it was Richard Spencer—Richard Spencer that was speaking—you've heard of him probably—uh alt-right guru. And there was a—after his speech um about white uh nationalism—supremacy—whatever you want to call it—uh neo-nazism—a rabbi, if I remember right, he was the Hillel Rabbi—you see him in the video from the back—he stands up, he asks a question, and the question goes something like this: he's wearing a yarmulke and he's holding a a Jewish book in his hand—it's about this size—and he—it's like this—and he says, "You're—you just spoke about radical exclusion. The Torah teaches radical inclusion and love. Would you learn with me Torah so you could learn about love and inclusion?" Something like that. So uh Richard Spencer says, "Really? You—you want radical inclusion? Do you think everybody in the Middle East should move to Israel? All the people in the world—include them?" Said, "No, you don't want that. You—you—I respect you Jews—" No, no country wants everyone. Yeah, that's true, but it's not just—you don't want everybody for uh overloading the economy; you only want Israel to be controlled by a certain type of people." Well, lots of countries—wait—hold on—lots of countries are—finish the story—hold on—people—and that's what he—and that's what he's saying that because I am a a a nationalist—a white—an ethno-nationalist—I want Israel, and I am for Israel. He even once said in an Israeli interview, "I'm a white Zionist." This guy doesn't like Jews because I respect Jews. He has lauded them—just on his country. I respect you guys; you have a sense of your identity because you had your own state and you made sure that that ensures your continuity. I'm par—this is an exact quote, but this is what he said. And—and I—you don't want radical inclusion because you have your own state, your ethnostate, that gives you a sense of identity, sense of continuity. I want the same for my people, the white people over here. And um guy says um he—and then Spencer says, "You're not answering," and he's standing there—H says, "I'm not answering." He says, "I'm not answering," and that was the end of that. And it's an amazing thing how a white nationalist could beat a rabbi—or I don't know if he's really a rabbi, but I'm assuming he is—uh in an argument about morals. And the next day he explained—I think it was in the Forward or the Algemeiner or one of these papers—that um he said, "I wasn't on the debating team in school." Okay. So there are anti-semites that say, "Sure, get the Jews out of our countries." Uh, Herzl said, "The anti-semites will be our best allies." They're anti-semites who are Zionists. Look at the evangelicals; they want the Jews to end up in Israel so they could either convert or get killed, depending upon what narrative you have. But there are people who don't like Jews, want them out of their countries and dump them in the Middle East. There are anti-semites that don't like Israel because they're Jews, but that's not anti-Zionism. That's—they're not against Zionism; they're against Jews. Right. You're saying it's—right—right. You're saying that there is anti-Semitism in the world, period. That anti—anti-Semitism represents itself and manifests itself in ways, and it could manifest in Zionism as such. How in the world does that become anti-m—well, I'll tell you, and I think it's proba—I think it's a problem for—for—if I think that if someone does really care about Israel, just like if you care about any place or person, you should be open to criticism of that place or person or country. Like, there—it shouldn't—beyond—it should not be beyond condemnation um—right, of course not. Now um I'm going to tell you why the Zionists say anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Now you're going to maybe give me a whole laundry list of reasons that Zionists have written about, but um the way Zionists work is that if they want to instill an idea in the public—so first they instill the—normally first you have an idea, and then the idea becomes action, the idea becomes an application. The Zionists often do it the opposite way. When they have an idea that's not really palatable, first they in—first they uh disseminate the application. In this case, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Why? Well, obviously, why would anybody hate Israel? It must be—he's an anti-semite, or there's a double standard—there's no other country in the world that's asked to dismantle—only Israel—so must be its anti-Semitism, or look—anti-Zionism results in anti-s—all these type of things—all of them are refutable—but there is a reason why they themselves—why they—meaning the prime minister of Israel—um the other government officials of Israel and the original architects of this idea that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism—why they say it is, and I'll show it to you in a moment. Why—why—why—why is it of such interest to you? Like you mentioned that this is a real area of focus and expertise of you—of yours. There's so much—you have—you said expertise—I said you have—you know—you have a wall of books here—I'm sure the Gemara and and and everything—and—and you—and you've read it all. Why is—why is critiquing Zionism so important to you? So let me—if after I tell you why anti—they say anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism, I'll answer that. And the truth of the matter is, there's one or two principles about Zionism that if you understand those principles, you'll understand a lot about what the Zionists do. There is a a problem where people look at Zionism and anti-Zionism in terms of the conflict with the Palestinians—that's not really the most helpful way to understand the issue of Zionism and anti-Zionism. Uh, why? Because, for example, let's assume that the Israel and the Palestinians work out a two-state solution, and let's assume that the Palestinians are happy—let's assume that the Palestinians get 90% of the land, and Israel is left with 5 10% of the land in the Negev desert—but Israel's happy—they wouldn't be happy with that—let's—okay, theoretical—sure—and let's say the Palestinians are happy, and everybody's happy—are the anti-Zionists now happy? Sure, I'm not happy because Zionism didn't change. There's an ideology called Zionism that existed independent and before there was any conflict with Palestinians. It wasn't even inevitable that there would be a conflict, because remember the Zionists had ideas about Uganda, Kenya today—um they had other ideas. There were even Zionists that didn't think they need a state altogether. Right? They're cultural Zionists. Um, there were all sorts of things, but Zionism is an ideology which—it does—the way Zionism was implemented, the Palestinians were in the way, but Zionism exists as an ideology, and that ideology is directly—well, put it this way—it's incompatible with Judaism, and not only incompatible, it's really designed as a poison for Judaism—to destroy Judaism. By the way, so we're in Far Rockaway right now. There's very religious Jewish communities around here in the Five Towns—lots of Orthodox Jews—most of whom, if I had to guess, strongly support Israel. How does that work for you? You live here, you're part of these communities—like, tell me how—how does that work? First of all, what do you mean support Israel? You think I don't support Israel? You think I want Israel to be bombed? Let me ask you, do you support Israel? What do you mean by support Israel? And see, this is part of this—this is part of the ambiguity here. Here's—here's what—here's what Zionists do. 90% of Jews—90% of Jews—you mean by Zionist, by the way? What do you mean by Zionist? So by some definitions of Zionist, you're a Zionist because you you support Israel, and that's what Zionists want when they say 90% of Jews are Zionist. What—when he say I support Israel—the labels—let people—there's a lot of Reform or even secular Jews in this country who—

Call themselves Zionists, and what they mean by Zionists, if you ask them—and I have—is they'll say, "I support Israel." But that doesn't—you didn't—you didn't ask them what it means to support Israel. Do you mean support Israel's bombing Gaza, or support Israel receiving money for an Iron Dome? They have a spum of answers. And some people, the more liberal, left-leaning people, will say, "I really care about Israel's survival, and I care about the Palestinians, and I want the war to end, and I want them to get the hostages back, and I hate Hamas." I mean, there's nuance to this, but there are lots of people that I know that call themselves Zionists, and what they mean by that is that they care about the prosperity of Israel, not at the expense of death and destruction for everyone else. But there's a spectrum to which, you know, I think the—the term Zionism originally meant a home for the Jews.

No, no. When do you think when Herzel was writing about Zionism, he's like, "Let me find a way to maximize—sorry—maximize death and destruction of all people?" He's saying no. Let's find—you just made a binary; you just made a Boolean. It's either a home for the Jews or maximize destruction. The answer is: see, none of the above. That's not to have a home for the Jews; they required maybe some level of explosion. I—I don't know what—no, nothing to do with explosions, nothing. First of all, there was disagreement amongst the original Zionists whether the Arabs—which is what they called the Palestinians—and the Jews did—um—accept them with open arms. MH. Uh, there are those who believe that—I'm just saying—there are Zionists; there's people who self-identify as Zionists, and what they mean by Zionism is that they support Israel. Meaning, what do you mean support Israel? And that has a spectrum of views. Some people, it's a very extreme view, and some people they're just saying, "Look, I care about the prosperity of Israel and the lives of the Jews in it, and the lives of the Jews in it, and the lives of the people in the surrounding countries." Therefore, I mean, what—what does his Zionism mean? I think it's—I—I think—and it's—I think it means different things to different people, frankly. Yeah, so—so therefore, so therefore, when somebody tells you—and I don't know if they told this to you, but I've heard this a thousand times—and so—so many people I know that, "Oh, 90% of Jews are Zionists"—that doesn't mean anything because it means so many different things to different people. So let's take the extremes. Okay.

Yeah, right. Because right usually right after they say, "Uh, 90% of Jews are Zionist," they say, "Well, 90% of Jews support Israel." Wait, hold on. Zionist and support Israel maybe two different things, but that's what they say. And support Israel means what? Support Israel? You want Israel to bomb Gaza and Lebanon and Syria and wipe every—carpet bomb people? Or does it mean, "I don't want—I think Israel should get money for the Iron Dome, so uh, Jerusalem shouldn't be blown up by missiles?" What do you believe? So when you say X percentage of Jews are Zionists, you—I agree with you—but based on what you said, it is a completely meaningless statement. That—yeah, so I think some people might say that meaninglessly; some people might say it in an anti-Semitic way because they might—if there—if—if someone says, "90% of Jews are," you know, in the utmost fashion—then I—I would not—utmost—they just say that statement. And two groups of people say that: anti-Semites and Zionists. They both say—the Zionists say it in order to delegitimize uh, Judaism by pretending it's Zionism, and the Zionists say it in order to legitimize Zionism by pretending it's Judaism. But both the anti-Semites and the Zionists want everybody to believe that Zionism is Judaism.

I once spoke—had a video after a protest we made, I think it was about 10 years ago—about 10 years ago in Manhattan, Foley Square, against the Israeli government trying to draft the—or Ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army. I made a video about it after—this video had a—now has a couple million views—then at the point that had, I think, 1 million. David Duke—I think we can all agree he's an anti-Semite—wrote an article about me and the video. Basically, he said, "Don't believe Rabbi Shapiro—that he's an ant—he's not really an anti-Zionist; he doesn't want the dismantling of Israel; he doesn't call for the dismantling of the settlements; he just wants his Jewish supremacist—um—uh, Ultra-Orthodox Jews not to have to serve in the Army." The—the anti-Semites—again, not 100% quote, but that's—that's what he said—uh, that was the gist. The anti-Semites want everybody to think Jews are Zionists; Zionists want people to think Jews are Zionists. They have a common cause over there, which should tell you something about uh, how bene—whether it's beneficial or not for Jews to be Zionists. Okay, so right away you ask me why it would be against Zionism. So first thing, it's—it's a hint; there's a little hint over here. If David Duke and the anti-Semites are all running around saying, "Yes, the Jews are Zionist, the Jews are"—the odds are there's something there that should motivate the Jews not to be Zionists, but we'll get there. There's an ideology called Zionism—that's what I was speaking about before. There's an ideology called Zionism. In order to understand a lot of what—what is real—does the way they act, what motivates them, you need to understand what Zionism is. When I say it means a lot of people—a lot of things to a lot of people, that's true, but there's something under the hood that—whether you realize that Zionism or not—is driving uh, Israel's actions. It's an ideology that has—it's a very, very uh, profound and complex ideology. And you don't want to call it Zionism, don't—but that's what it is.

Israel is different than all other countries in the world. Every country in the world is a country of its citizens. America is made for the American citizens—that's what I mean by that—Italy for the Italian citizens. You mentioned before that they are ethno-states. Ethno-states are made for a certain ethnicity of its citizens. Mhm. Israel's different than all of that. Why is Israel different from an ethno-state? I'll tell you what—much different than an ethno-state—because Israel claims that it is not only the state—because it's the state of all the Jews all over the world. Israel—Zionism presupposes two things: one, the Jews are a nationality, not just a religion; and two, Israel is the country of that nationality. That means two things. Thing number one: if you live in Israel, even if you're an Israeli citizen and you're not Jewish, Israel's not your country in the sense that—based on the 2018 uh, nation-state law—only Jews have rights to self-determination in Israel. How is that different from an ethno-state? Let me finish, please. That means two things. Thing number—the second thing is going to be how it differs, but you need thing number one to understand thing number two, please. Thing number one: if you live in Israel and you're not Jewish, Israel is not your country, meaning you have no self-determination rights in Israel, unless you're an Arab citizen—which there's no plenty—no—even if you're an Arab citizen, really, because they—there's people in the Knesset in the government who are Arab. I didn't say you can't be in the Knesset; I said you have no self-determination rights. What does mean self—self-determination rights means the rights to govern yourself. Meaning only Jews have the right to govern themselves in Israel. Meaning Israel has to be under the control of Jews. Is that not the same as any ethno-state, or no—wait—there's a second thing said; there's two things. This is thing number one. I'm impatient. Yeah, I'm going to be—you—you can be, but I'm not—it's not going to—it's not going to help. Do better. I'm—I'll be more patient. You don't have to be more patient; it doesn't matter. Uh, you could be whatever you want, but I'm going to answer your question um, to the best of my ability, one way or the other. That means only Jews have a right to control Israel. Now, right now, sure, you can be a member of the Supreme Court; you could do whatever you want; you have these civil rights as long—long as you're a minority, then you can do whatever you want, but you cannot control the country. That right belongs to the Jews. And so long as the Jews are a majority, no big deal; it's a slam dunk. But should there be—what Israel calls a de—demographic threat—should there be millions of Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza such that if Israel annexes it, now the Jews will be a—will be in danger of being a minority, Israel cannot allow that. What will they do? Will they make laws that the minority of Jews have control over the majority of non-Jews? Will they make some shtick to ensure that only the Jews are a majority? So far, it hasn't happened. I mean, that's part of the reason why they didn't annex the West Bank and Gaza. They can't make the Palestinian citizens of Israel the way, let's say, America uh, made the Texans—that they conquered—excuse me, the Mexicans that they conquered—into Texans. But only Jews have a—but—and that's—that's an ethno-state. Israel takes it one step further. Israel's not only not the state of the Jews who—of the non-Jews who are in Israel; Israel is the state of the Jews who are not in Israel. Like an ethno-state? No, no other—no other state—you've heard—I'm—no state claims to be the state of people who are not its citizens, never were its citizens, never live there. You—you've heard, I'm sure, the talking point—it's false—that there's only one Jewish state, and I think 25, 28, whatever, are Arab states, Muslim states. It's not true. There's not a single Muslim state that claims to be the nation-state of all Muslims in the world. Saudi Arabia doesn't claim it's the state of all—all Muslims. Not all Muslims, but there are states that have a Muslim identity or government. That Israel was past—Israel claims to be the state of all Jews all over the world. Meaning Netanyahu, before he came to America to speak to Congress regarding Barack Obama's Iran deal, he said, "I come to America to represent not only the people who voted for me, but all Jews all over the world." He's not the pope of the Jews the way the pope is the pope of the Catholics. We're not—I don't like that guy—I mean, things—but it's not—it's not just—all the way from the beginning of Zionism, Theodore Herzel, in his book *The Jewish State*, um, said that the Zionists have a right—a legal right—to speak in the name of all Jews, and he went around saying he did. The legal right was ancient Roman law called *negotium gesto*, which says that if you have a piece of chattel with nobody to take care of it, uh, you as a stranger could manage it on behalf of the owner. The Jews have nobody to—to take care of them, so the Zionists become the legal gors of the Jews, and they can speak in the name of the Jews. The—um—our president—President Trump—well, last time he was president, and few in a little while he will be again—he referred to—he—he spoke to a group of Jews, and he said, "Your prime minister"—referring to Netanyahu—"your country, Israel." No head of state would refer to any group in—country—those citizens of—of his country as a foreign head of state being your prime minister. Israel claims to be the state of all Jews; no other country does that. That's problematic of Donald Trump; that's problematic of Netanyahu; it's problematic of Zionism in general, because that's what Zionism says. The 2018 nation-state law says Israel is—not—not just that Jews in Israel have more rights; Israel is the nation-state of all Jews. Israel claims that the Jews are a nationality, and Israel—Torah—claim that they're national—no, no—it doesn't mean a society, not a nationality. You want to go off into that—what's the difference? Because it says women are a special arm—women are an arm amongst themselves; that doesn't mean nationality; it means they're like a society; there's a female point of view, etc. When we speak about the Kohanim in—in synagogue, we say they are a special—they're not another nationality. Doesn't mean nationality. These translations that Zionists give you that the word *Am*, any word in the Bible refers to—um—a modern nation-state or modern nationality—thing—that's a concept that did not even exist then—is not true. And none of these words refer to—you want to know what the Jews are according to the Bible? Rabbi Saadia, a thousand years ago, said—he was talking about—um—he has a *Sefer Amot*—book *Amot*—*vas*—and in there he's discussing—he lived in—in Egypt—and in there he's discussing um, uh, Islam, and there were these inter—um—religious debates, and the Muslims believe in something called *abrogation*, which means that God took the law from the Jews and gave it to the Muslims, and now Muhammad is the—the last prophet. And Rabbi Saadia wants to say, "No, that's not true, and I'll prove it to you from the Bible." And he says that he has verses in the Bible that says the Jewish people will exist forever, and he says, "If the Jewish people exist forever, they will always have the Torah forever, because the Jewish people—only the Jewish people—because they have the Torah. Without the Torah, they wouldn't be the Jews. With a Torah—Jews—there's no such thing as a Torah-ist Jews. The definition of the Jewish people are the people that have the Torah. If another nation would have had the Torah, they would be the Jews." And as I mentioned before, the definition of a Jew according to the Torah—somebody who's fulfilled 613—not fulfill—somebody who's obligated to fulfill the 613 Commandments. We are not a nationality according to the Torah in the slightest; we are a—a group of people who are deputized by God—who have a calling—you can call it uh—to be a verse—you—you described before—a priestly people. We have a job description, and we were uh, given this job by God. We accepted it on Mount Sinai. We have a tradition that the souls of all future generations of Jews did accept it. Those souls will be recognizable um, because they will be born of Jewish mothers. We have a tradition, by the way, according to Jewish law—the same law that says uh, being Jewish follows maternal lineage—says tribal and family um, affiliation follows paternal lineage. Therefore, being a Jew cannot be being a part of a tribe or a family because maternal lineage is what um, uh, determines it as opposed to uh, tribal lineage or familiar lineage. And look at a modern nation—what national characteristics did Jews ever have? Did we ever have a common language?

Yes. Yeah. Which language? Hebrew. Yeah. When did we speak Hebrew? A while ago. I don't know. Okay. Uh, so for thousands of years Jews have not spoken Hebrew, and now the Zionists have convinced themselves—a funny story about Netanyahu and the pope—this is also on YouTube. You Google Netanyahu, Pope. Pope comes to Netanyahu, and they're speaking to each other through an interpreter, and the pope—and Netanyahu says to the Pope that um, uh, Jesus lived here in Israel, and he spoke Hebrew here. So the—Pope corrects him; he says, "No, Aramaic." And the pope is right. The Jews spoke Aramaic then, and the Jews did in biblical times speak Hebrew um, but that's not what made them a people. The Jews were made into a people, as the Bible says. You asked if they spoke all the same language. No. There was a time they did, but most of the time they didn't. For thousands of years they didn't, and they were still Jews. They had no flag; they had no national anthem; they had no common land, language, or culture, and yet they're 100% Jews. There are no national characteristics to the Jews now—the—because the definition of a Jew is somebody that is obligated to fulfill the 613 Commandments as opposed to the rest of the world that's obligated to fulfill seven—that's it. Whenever you see the word Jew, you could put in brackets and replace that word with somebody who's obligated to fulfill the 613 Commandments. Was it—were Jews always identified as Jews through maternal descent? Yes. What about in the times of Joseph and Moses? They married non-Israelite women. Um, they converted them. They did. Yeah, oh sure. Um, they—just like Abraham did—why would you think they didn't? I—I thought they did. I know—because the Zionist—Benan—actually said—why do you think they did? Because that's what the Jewish law says, and the Jewish law says that it was always matrilineal descent. We derive it from a verse in the Bible, and therefore, if anybody—also, it's prohibited to marry a non-Jewish woman, and Moses doesn't do prohibited things, and Moses' children were Jewish, and therefore the only option available is that he converted them. So if it's a really good, you know, good righteous person, and they—there's evidence they—they—they attack someone—I could say, "No, they couldn't have attacked"—there's no evidence that he didn't convert his wife, but there—that's—that's a try—prove—just trying to prove a—no, I'm saying that there's no proof either way. So you said that you're negating uh, like there's a lack of evidence that—that she was converted. There's a lack of evidence anywhere. You don't need evidence she was converted because if there was—how would you know about it? What evidence would you like? Well, then, in the Torah you'd think it would say—no, it wouldn't. The Torah says almost—says very little about these people's families. Why would you think it would say—in the Torah—it says in the Torah everything Moses did when he woke up in the morning every day—no—why would you do that? Besides, it didn't need it to say in the Torah. I figured it out, right? M. So there's no evidence either way. So the idea that they married non-Jewish women without converting them—there's no evidence to that either. What we do know is that the Torah derives—from Jewish law derives—now if you want, you could say Judaism is wrong; you could say Judaism is the Jewish law that says that according to the Bible it follows maternal lineage as wrong because well, there's no evidence that Moses um, uh, converted his wife, and no evidence it should have certainly said it, and since it didn't say it, must be he married a non-Jewish woman, and therefore uh, the fact that—who says Moses' children were Jewish anyway? Not the Torah. So maybe it followed maternal lineage, and because he married a non-Jewish wife, his children weren't Jewish. Yeah, that's—that's what I'm saying. No, but there's no evidence for anything because it doesn't discuss it at all. The only evidence we have is the evidence that we have in uh, our tradition that we derive from a verse in the Bible that maternal lineage is—this is all neither here nor there; it's no evidence either way, and that's—that's fair. So why—and when—and how—did—did being critical of Zionism be—and I asked this question before—like, tell me the origin of why this became important to you and how—be—is that an offensive question? It's like I'm assuming it's important to you. No, I'm—I'm curious because—no, it is—it's not offensive; I'm just trying—and I—you're explaining this—you're expl—you're answering the question of why Zionism is—is—is you disagree with it. No, my question—question is what—so I guess here's my question: were you ever more um, Zionist yourself, and did you veer from that path? When I was a little kid—when and how did you veer from that path? When I was a little kid—it's not a question of when—you know—when I was a little kid. So I remember 1968, Israel's 20th anniversary, right after the Six-Day War. I was a little kid in a Yeshiva um, the principal made a whole speech about how when he was a kid he was jealous of the um, Spanish people—Spanish kids—because they had Spain—jealous of the French kids 'cause they had France, and the Jewish kids didn't have anything, and now we have Israel. And we had these little pins that they put on our shirts that said Israel with the new Israeli map—the ones that with the six—with the land that they took after the '67 War. So—and they took us to a trip to the United Nations, and we ended up with Israeli flags. Does that mean I was Zionist? No. That means I was 8 years old, and I was treated as if—as an assumption—I should be a Zionist. But as I grew up and uh, learned stuff, it was pretty obvious that the—

The reason I asked is because, like, I know I don't have a story where first I was a Zionist and then I had an epiphany or something like that. And like, but there had to be a point because this community, that largely that you're part of, is very—I think there's a lot of people that are very, very pro-Israel. First of all, every Jew is allowed to think for himself. Yeah, and the fact that my neighbor maybe voted for one person, candidate for president, doesn't mean I do. And if my neighborhood voted for one candidate for president and I'm in the minority, you wouldn't ask me, "Well, how did you decide that this guy is a good candidate because other people don't?" There has to be more of a reason why you would assume—assume that the default of people are Zionists. And usually they are; it's just the majority, but there are a minority of people. Uh, it depends what you consider Zionist. Put it this way: the more educated you get about Zionism, the less possible it is to be a Zionist.

And now I'm going to continue. And because I educated myself, it's pretty obvious. Not so. The Jews were—Jews always considered themselves—this is basic Judaism 101. And the Bible says, according to this interpretation of the verse, when the Jews got the Torah, Moses said, "Today you became a people, a society, whatever it is." Uh, the Jews never had a—if it didn't make any sense what nationality—the Jews had no—again, no common land, language, or culture. Yes, during part of their history they did, but they were Jews even without that. Um, and they had no—no indication in the Bible; it's just the opposite. It's the Torah that makes them uh, the Jews. And the Jews always self-identified like that. This—this statement was quoted all over the place; there's thousands of years—this was the bedrock of our—of our identity that the Torah is our identity, God is our identity. Uh, there is no—it's not like the Greeks that have a Greek nationality and they have a god, Zeus. It's without Zeus there were no—there would be no Greeks. In our religion now, the Torah is what makes Jews into Jews. The Zionists have another idea. And the Jews—Jews were always very happy with this identity.

Uh, the Jews, even though they were literate—compulsory education in the Jewish Community started 2,000 years ago under the, um, auspices of the high priest, um, at the time, Yeshua Ben Gamla. Um, but we didn't have fiction literature. Uh, Jews were not doctors, lawyers—at certain times they were not allowed to be, most of the time, but they were happy with that. The Jews—beginning to be segregated in ghettos because culturally we have our own—like, we—we're priestly people, and we need our own lifestyle, our own community. Loyal to—to our countries of residence, absolutely, but culturally—meaning religiously—the—lifestyle-wise, we have our own lifestyle. Then came the Enlightenment and the Emancipation, and there were Jews that said, "Well, we have freedom—not only of religion, we have freedom from religion, and we don't want to be religious. Maybe we don't even want to be Jews, and we assimilate." Russians—Russia where the story I'm going to tell you took place—they—they wanted to assimilate—Russian, German, France—uh, and they figured one of the benefits of assimilation is no anti-Semitism, right? Especially now this freedom of religion. They had a rude awakening in 1881. There was a succession of terrible pogroms in Russia that attacked not only the religious Jews but the non-religious Jews as well—"Kill the Jews" kind of thing. That was a big problem for them—"Why are they attacking us? Are we like those guys? We don't want to be Jews, but the Gentiles will not allow us to be Gentiles." Why? Well, there was a good reason they didn't want to be Jews, and it was not because they wanted to take themselves away from religion. Vladimir Jabotinsky said, I quote, "I have no doubt that I'm a Zionist because the Jewish people is a very nasty people; its neighbors hate it, and they're right." Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, another big Zionist thinker back in the day, "If the tables were turned and others were like the Jews," he said, "wouldn't we have good cause to hate them as well?" Uri Zvi Greenberg, another one of them, shares with us his opinion uh, about why the religious Polish Jews, who he made fun of, uh, were persecuted. Quote, "Those loathsome Jews are vomited out by any healthy collective and state, not because they're Jews, but because of their Jewish repulsiveness." There—there are a group of people who absorbed the anti-Semitic tropes against Jews; they were anti-Semites themselves. These people didn't like Jews; they thought they were disgusting, ugly, immoral, even, and they said, "We want to be out of this; we're at—we have no—we don't want nothing to do with these people." So they were the ones that escaped religion, and they were the ones that were attacked, and now they're in trouble psychologically. Now they have this identity crisis because, "We don't want to be Jews—ew, Jews, but they won't let us be non-Jews either. So what do we do?" So their solution was that we have to change the whole idea of being a Jew—what it means to be a Jew. They figured that the anti-Semites still associate them with those Jews—what's the picture of a Jew? Also, some of them believe, no matter what we do, the anti-Semites they just won't let us be non-Jews. So here's what we're going to do: we're going to change the Jews. We're going to change them from a religion to a nationality. This is—sorry—who—who made that decision? The original Zionists. We change from a religion to a nationality. So they—the original Zionists—they were Jewish, or they were not—they were—well, they're original Jewish Zionists. We're going to be a nationality, and then we're going to change the aspirations of the Jews, the values of the Jews, the personalities of the Jews. Instead of wanting to sit a whole day with all these books that you over here studying and praying and stuff like that, we're going to have—we're going to win gold medals; we're going to have a strong army; we're going to, um, be part of history again. "We're smart people, we Jews," they said to themselves, "we're going to win Nobel prizes; everybody's going to love the Jews, but we need, first of all, to change our personalities." To change our personalities, we need our own place. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi said, "In order to get a state, we have to change our personalities, but in order to change our personalities, we need a state." It was a social engineering project that the Jews will no longer be the—like the ultra-Orthodox Jews—the Jews will be like—well, let Amnon Rubinstein explain this: "We got to make the Jews healthy." That was the thing they decided—the Jews are unhealthy—erotic, psychological problems, all sorts of things. They absorb the stereotypes of the anti-Semites. Quote, Amnon Rubinstein was the—um, he was founder of this Shinui party in the 70s, and uh, later he became a chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in Israel.

To be a—was the dominant theme of Zionist philosophy in its formative period. The idea was so forceful that it united the warring factions and parties on everything else. Zionists, stiffer territorialists, ready to consider territories outside Palestine as a night shelter for the hard-pressed Jews, clashed with Zionists of Zion, who regarded any substitute for the ancestral Homeland, including the notorious British offer to settle Jewish refugees in Uganda, as high treason. Practical Zionists who believed in practical steps to implement Zionism railed against those who believed mainly in political and international action. Labor Zionists who saw the return to Zion inextricably intertwined with a socialist universal mission fought against the Zionist right, which gave precedence to the national cause. Even the very basic idea of a Jewish state did not escape dispute, and much doubt was cast on its soundness and practicality. One idea, though—one craving—one urge enjoyed a variable consensus: to be a new people; to escape the role that history had imposed upon the Jews; to become, in Herzl's words, "a wondrous breed of Jews which will spring forth from the earth." Ben-Gurion said, "Since our last national tragedy—the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion by the Romans—we have had histories of persecution, legal discrimination, inquisition, pogroms, dedication, and martyrdom, but we did not have Jewish history anymore, because the history of a people is only what the people create as a whole, as a national unit, and not the sum total of what happens to individuals and groups within the people. For the last 1,500 years we have been excluded from world history, which is made up of the histories of nations." They wanted to make the Jews into a nation. This was the power—the driving power behind the Zionist call for revolution—against passivity, against tradition, against all which, at the time, was synonymous with Jewish. They wanted to change the Jewish people from a—religion to a nationality. In particular, there are certain values and aspirations Jews had that the Zionists hated. Uh, we were peaceful people—peaceful people meaning pacifists. Jews don't like wars, especially in exile. We're not even allowed to wage wars against other people. Jews would—they—they made fun of the Jews for this because the warrior ethos—going down fighting better than living like a dog—and the Jews would run from fights, and they—they would—there were poetry—actually, Bialik wrote a poem called "City of Slaughter" about a pogrom and about how the Jews in the pogrom, the men, they hid behind cabinets or furniture watching the slaughter and the wives getting raped and all sorts of things, and they did nothing. And he writes this in real—in poetic uh, language, and then when it's done, okay, life goes on. And they went to the rabbi and say, "Rabbi, am I still allowed to be with my wife?" And life goes on as continued. And he portrayed them—not portrayed them—said clearly these guys are cowards and sick; they're not human beings; they're dogs. They once were Maccabees, which fought for the Jewish people, but now they—they're just dogs. And the poem towards the end says, "Let fists fly at God's throne—at God in the heavenly throne," and—and we kept us—they looked at Judaism as disgusting; they looked at Judaism as cowardly, unmanly—effeminate was a word that they used a lot. They wanted the Jews to be like the Cossacks; they wanted the Jews to be like the—the—the—like the Russians; they wanted the Jews to be fighters. And Zionism—the only way to do this was to just delete the whole thing—format the whole Jewish people—reformat it and start all over as a nationality. And it was a—it was a—it was a fight of values. People don't realize this, but—and they think that the—the enemy of Zionism—the other quote-unquote enemy of Zionism was the Palestinians—that came later; it's not—it was the Orthodox Jew, the old Jew. Everything Zionists do—everything—so many things they do are embedded in—it is: "We refuse to be like we used to be." You ever hear the phrase, "Well, new Jew—now we're a new Jew; we're not like that old Jews"? You ever hear the phrase "Exile mentality"? Okay, so let me—let me play you—let me, uh, play you a clip, please.

Yeah, please. Okay, to show you what's going on here. Now the truth is the Jews were the proudest people; we were proud to be good; we were proud to fulfill the will of God. And when we were persecuted, we were also proud that we were not our persecutors. The Zionists were ashamed; they were ashamed that the Jews were persecuted; they were ashamed that the Jews were pacifists; they were ashamed that the Jews were this way. They wanted the Jews to be like—they wanted to be like everybody else. It didn't work because the—now Zionism was Plan B, by the way. You can talk—you're just—now I'm—I'm listening; I'm—I'm trying to absorb what you're saying. They ascribe the old Jewish personality to sickness—to sickness was because of two things: one, the religion—Jewish religion—sick; two, the 2,000 years of exile was traumatic to the Jews, so they're not thinking straight. The Zionists, of course, were in the same exile, but they think straight, but the Orthodox Jews don't. This is not because they choose a different ideology or religion than the Zionists—no, you're sick in the head, and it's a pity on you because you're traumatized.

Not done. I have a book over here—1967, Tom Segev—it's talking about the discussion between the generals and the politicians in Israel regarding whether Israel should go to war and blow up Egypt—the Egyptian Air Force. So Levi Eshkol, who was the Prime Minister, said, "No." Why? "We have no reason to go to war—like, why would you want to do this? If anybody attacks you, wipe them out, and there's no reason now to go to war." Ariel Sharon said—and they decided not to—quote, "Today we have chopped—we have ourselves chopped off the IDF's deterrence capability; we have chopped up our main weapon—the fear of us." He said Israel was capable of destroying the Egyptian Army, but if they gave in on the question of free navigation—that was the Straits—we will open the door to Israel's total destruction. We also have to keep in mind the domestic consideration of not undermining the people's morale by deciding to wait. The people are ready for a just war. And here's the money quote: "All of our pleading makes us seem weak; the people understand this and feel that if they're going—they're going to have to pay the price; we have to fight for what's essential." Now what is this pleading? I don't know. Sharon's use of the word "pleading" reflected a Sabra's scorn for the old-fashioned Jewish way of conducting business in the diaspora and was probably intended to insult the Prime Minister. So if you don't want to go to war, you're like the goyish Jews; you're like those guys. We're not like that anymore. So this guy says the—the—that Sharon wanted to insult Eshkol—that's the insult they use—"We have to go to war, otherwise you're pleading," and that's an insult.

Um, I'm not done. Netanyahu—I have here an article from the Jerusalem Post, um, December 26, 2016, after um, the UN—the Security Council—all voted uh, that the settlements are illegal, except Obama—America—Obama's America uh, abstained, and they didn't even—they didn't veto it. So Netanyahu was really upset. He made some wild statements, and people told him, "You're going to start a war—a World War—what do you want?" He was—part of Netanyahu's um, response, referring to a headline Monday morning on the front page of Maariv, Netanyahu said that to describe Israel's reaction as a World War was absurd. Quote from Netanyahu: "I say enough with it—this diaspora mentality." Netanyahu said, "I say there's—I say there is no diplomatic wisdom in being obsequious. Not only will our relations with the world not be harmed in the long term, they will only improve because the nations of the world respect strong countries that can stand up for themselves; they do not respect weak and obsequious countries that bow their heads." So Netanyahu—so if—if a general wants to go to war, the—he insults the Prime Minister; he says, "You, Prime Minister, you're like the old—the diaspora Jews." When Netanyahu says, "No, I want to speak aggressively for the settlements, which the world just decided is illegal, I'm not one of these diaspora Jews." Okay? Not done. They're really trying to rebrand uh, Judaism; that's exactly what they're trying to do—make it into something it wasn't. This Exile Jew haunts Zionists. Zionism motivated by not wanting to be like the old-time Jew. You ever hear the phrase, "We're not a Jew—I'm not a Jew with trembling knees," which is attributed to Menachem Begin?

I have heard that. Yeah, yes. Menachem Begin didn't coin that phrase. Did—in that poem "City of Slaughter," he described those Jews as Jews with trembling knees. Now anybody who thinks the other guy is not Zionist enough and not aggressive enough, he's the Exile Jew, huh? Okay, so they have this boogeyman called the Exile Jew that really didn't exist because the Jews—the image of the—the Jews that they had—this weak, cowardly—that wasn't the Jews. The Jews did take up arms on Hanukkah, but that was because there was one thing that we would take up arms for because the uh, Syrian Greeks wanted to destroy our religion; they wanted to force us against—so our religion. By the way, the miracle of Hanukkah was not that just we won the war. The Jews said, "We're not going to give up our religion; we'd rather give our life." They took out their swords knowing they would die, and guess what? They won. That was the miracle of the war of Hanukkah. And the only reason they took out their swords is number one, in order to die, but number two, the only way they would go to war is only for our religion. What do you make of Jewish suffering over the last—I don't know—uh, you know, centuries—the pogroms in Europe, the—the—the Holocaust, the exile from different parts of the world—in Spain—um, the notion that Israel is a safe haven for Jews—I mean, how do you feel in a world without Israel? Are Jews at—at—in—in danger, do you think, given their history? Is your question regarding American Jews? You want to know if you would be in danger without Israel? Sure. Why would you be in danger without Israel? You're in America. Yeah, explain that; I don't understand the question. Well, the—so the question would be—Israel was founded in part coming out of the Holocaust, saying, "Gosh, you know, Jews had been safe in Europe, and then there were the pogroms, and then—" Question—first of all, you want to know if American Jews are safer without Israel or less safe without Israel? What is—who's safer—you, the Jew? How about European Jews? Let's say—given—given the history of the Holocaust, I get the—the question, and I think the answer is no. I think the question is—just some people view Israel as the response to the Holocaust and saying, "You know, the Jews are such a small people; they're inherently—" Three things—three things to that. Number one—um, I have over here in front of me an article from The Huffington Post, 10 years ago, I think it is—2015—this was after um, that attack in France—um, the writer says that um, Netanyahu called on all French Jews to immigrate to Israel while still on French soil. By calling on French Jews to immigrate to Israel while still on French soil, Netanyahu was rudely suggesting that they are no longer safe in France, and only Israel can provide a safe haven where they can live without fear and security. Netanyahu conveniently forgets that 80—80 times more Israelis were killed in Israel by suicide bombers and random acts of violence in the past 20 years than all Jews killed in Europe by terrorists in the same time period. Israel is the least safe place for Jews where Jews live. And this is before uh, October 7th. If the Holocaust proves that the—that the world—Europe—is not safe for Jews, what is October 7th prove about Israel? What is the fact that approximately 30,000 Jews were killed uh, in wars and terrorist acts in Israel—or Zionists because of Zionism—which is more than anywhere else Jews are in the world? So number one—how's that working for you? Number one. Number two, it's not true—that's not why Israel was founded. Theodore Herzl died 1904; the first Zionist Congress was 1897; it had nothing to do with that. In fact—fact—I thought—I thought it was Jewish suffering, you know. In fact, at the first Zionist Congress, Max Nordau made a speech, and he said, "Nobody should think that the reason why we're making Zionism is a response uh, to anti-Semitism." He said that anti-Semitism only made the Jews look at their relations to the nations. And by the way, you'll see a strange phrase—the Zionists are always referring to the nations—that—because the word for Goyim in English is the nations, so they really mean to say like the Goyim—the non-Jews—but that's the best word that they knew. In any case, um, uh, it—the last page of Herzl's "The Jewish State," he says that as soon as Zionism gets off the ground, anti-Semitism will disappear off the face of the Earth because remember, once the Jews change their personalities—or they're perceived to be working on—working on changing their personalities—nobody's going to hate the Jews anymore. So it didn't—number one, it's not a safe haven for the Jews; on the contrary. Why would—where would Israel be without America? Isn't Israel always coming to America for help? Doesn't Israel always ask America? Right now, aren't they asking America for help? Didn't they say—all the politicians—that Biden is going to destroy Israel because he wants to limit or condition the arms to Israel, so Israel can't stand on its own two feet? They're not independent; they're the biggest—they're a charity country—never.

Mind the Iron Dome. Never mind America's support for them. They here in America, we just had an election, and in this election, you have heard many times, "America must support Israel with weapons and whatever they want, otherwise Israel will be destroyed." I didn't hear Israel saying, "Hey, we don't need your weapons." They do, cuz they're at, you know, I think they would agree. I think Israel would say, "Yeah, we do want your weapons." Yes, of course they do.

Iran trying to destroy us? Yes, Iran's trying to destroy us. Everybody's trying to destroy us in that safe haven for Jews. I see what you're saying. Right, you're saying it's clearly not a safe—it's clearly not a safe—but there's something more to this, and that's the ideology of Zionism, which I didn't explain yet. So the ideology of Zionism says they came up with this ideology that the Jews are a nationality. This was a revolution. I have over here in front of me a book, *The Making of Modern Zionism*, by Schlomo Avineri—arguably, in my opinion, yes, Israel's best political scientist. He has a little chapter about each, I guess, the founding fathers of Zionism you can call them, and their ideas. One of them was Graetz, the historian. He wasn't a Zionist in the traditional sense, like Israel, uh, but what he did was he wrote a history of the Jewish people. He wrote—he educated the world—that the Jews are a nationality. The Jews are a civilization. And this was the first time the Jews heard such a thing. Maybe Spinoza believed it—it's a question—but he was ostracized. Uh, but the Jews, by and large, without perhaps some quirky exceptions in the couple last thousand—few thousand—years, they didn't look at themselves… Here's what he writes: "The programmatic significance of Graetz's position is enormous and revolutionary. The Jews are a people, a nation, not just a Community of Faith. They have a history, and Jewish National History has a meaning within the structure of world history. Judaism, moreover, has a political content as well as its religious belief system, and the Messianic dimension of Judaism has clear political connotations inextricably connected with Palestine…" Graetz's main impact and legacy was his monumental history of the Jews. Many Jews who became deracinated from their religious and traditional background drew their historical self-awareness as Jews from Graetz's volumes. Biblical Heroes who slumbered in Jewish self-consciousness for generations were revived and underwent a far-reaching process of emancipation, secularization, and romanticization, perhaps more than any other person.