Ep 7 - Rabbi Avi Kahan - Judaism and Finding God Through Debate of Law

[00:00:01] Josh Galt: Today's guest is Rabbi Avi Kahn. [00:00:04] Avi Kahan: A sage should be somebody who's acting out pleasantness and peacefulness. Be stoic in your learning. Be stoic in developing your process. Scream at your study partner like you want to destroy him and kill him and destroy his opinion, but act out as a good human. [00:00:24] Narrator: You're listening to the bad at my religion podcast, hosted by Josh Galt. [00:00:29] Avi Kahan: Yeah, so I have, I have. I probably grew up in a very similar fundamentalist understanding to a certain extent. To a certain extent. And part of the understanding is that the religion really started with law, right? Like if you read, if you read Exodus right after the Israelites got the Ten Commandments, the first, first conversations that Moses started having with them is, these are the laws I will give in front of you when you buy a slave six years, it shall work for you. Right? So, so it right away gets into monetary disputes. And there are commentaries that ask, like, why is that the first thing? And the commentaries try to explain that you also should believe there is a part of belief that religion tries to inspire that the laws are also divine. They're more than just practical. Okay, that's a huge conversation. And even among the school of thoughts where I went, it was a huge debate of how practical is law versus. [00:01:28] Josh Galt: How divine is law, especially in today's world. Right. Because some of the stuff in Deuteronomy or Leviticus, it's like, I'm not sure if you, if you have. Correct me if I misspeak because I'm. I'm not a scholar on every religion, but please, please. [00:01:42] Avi Kahan: Yeah, don't. No, at least, at least don't apologize, criticize, ask. I don't get offended. [00:01:46] Josh Galt: Okay, cool. But like, in, you know, that was always one of the jokes, even in, in, you know, growing up in youth group, in the church, it's like, do we really have to follow everything in Leviticus? You know, exactly to your point, how divine is it versus just how legalistic is it? And did, did Jesus come to do away with that? Or how does, how does Judaism view that in terms of older laws? [00:02:08] Avi Kahan: So that's another conversation, though. So the differences you see most, most legal systems, especially in Europe, were based on the church. The church had a tremendous influence. So if I was a really religious, dedicated Jew, I would be threatened to adjudicate my dispute in a court that I know is being controlled by the church. So therefore, you'll find in most religions, most religions, a frown upon someone using a court system that's not based on their religion. [00:02:36] Speaker C: Right. [00:02:36] Avi Kahan: So fundamentalist Christians wouldn't go to a secular courthouse as. [00:02:40] Josh Galt: As a Muslim courthouse or. Sure. [00:02:43] Avi Kahan: Not one that's inspired by another religion. Right. So, like, until democracy, until America, until the secularism of America, it was like, almost understood. Don't bring your disputes to your court because your court is based on religion. America was the first idea. It's like, well, what is America law based on? It's most. It's the first law that has a freedom of religion. But, like, is there such a thing? Like, you know, you know that. You know the famous Jewish celebrity Ben Shapiro? [00:03:08] Josh Galt: Yes, of course. [00:03:08] Avi Kahan: So he has, he has this saying that he loves saying facts don't care about your feelings. [00:03:13] Josh Galt: Right? [00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:03:13] Avi Kahan: It's like almost like law doesn't care about your feelings. And. And my question is like, well, somebody created law, and did that person have feelings? And how do you know that their feelings didn't inspire them to create that law? [00:03:24] Josh Galt: Yeah. [00:03:25] Avi Kahan: The facts really did care about somebody's feelings, and it's just masking itself as law. And the question is, is that true or no? Is like, law, like, again, the same question. How divine is law? How rational? Do you fully understand it when it's being applied? And one of the things. One of the reasons that arbitration exists is for those who don't want to adjudicate in a secular court because they believe their morals are governed by spirituality or by religion, and they want the arbitrators to respect it versus the first establishment. The first Amendment in the United States of America establish is that judges should not share their opinion about religion at all. So, for example, if you have a child custody dispute, and part of the dispute is like, mom's like, I want my kids to grow up like A, and Dad's like, I want my kids to grow up like B. And the judge even gives their opinion, it's almost favoring a religion or a definition of religion supposed to stay very far away from that. I'm not saying they don't cross lives. [00:04:18] Speaker C: Right. [00:04:18] Josh Galt: Well, the judges are still human, right? [00:04:21] Avi Kahan: They're still human. And I really believe religion, whatever the definition of religion is, which we probably should, we're probably going to unpack, but religion inspires law tremendously. Really? It really doesn't. And our job is to really study the law and find what religious aspect inspired that law to make sure we're not using that law in the wrong way. Exactly. It's religion. Religion is internal. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Right. [00:04:46] Avi Kahan: Laws are much more practical. Like, it's the opposite of the religious text is supposed to tell us how to Live in hundreds of years from now also. So maybe we apply it to a law, but maybe, maybe it needs to be changed. Like the religion can't be changed, but the law could. So these are all conversations that I've, I've struggled with throughout. I mean, more than struggle. I went to universities that struggled with these issues. The schools, I, I would say we spent our majority of our day in schools. The, in the, In Orthodox Judaism. It's not only me. The Orthodox Jews spend the majority of their day discussing exactly what I just said in monetary laws and marriage laws and divorce laws and in so many different aspects. And you really just practice debating and going to lectures and understanding more and more and more until really, until the day you die. But you don't stop studying. The question is, like, you can make it practical, you know, you can get a job like I did in arbitration. You could just. I have. I, I know people who just study for the sake of studying. Like, they just love studying these laws and see what they could develop. So that's what really inspired me to get involved in this line of work. [00:05:53] Josh Galt: Okay. One of my favorite quotes, I love the one that you just said, like, facts don't care about your feelings. That's. That sort of defines like the last decade of the US but another quote that I really like as a bit of a rebel is that legality does not equal morality. What do you think about that? [00:06:12] Avi Kahan: Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to think of an example. [00:06:17] Josh Galt: Like, because the state can have immoral laws. Right. Because then you. Then you do have. [00:06:23] Avi Kahan: Yeah. More than. The laws are like a rulebook. [00:06:25] Speaker C: Right. [00:06:26] Avi Kahan: You could use a rule book to hurt someone else. So, so was laws by. By a not pure person. Law is the most dangerous thing. I can destroy somebody using law. [00:06:38] Josh Galt: Exactly, exactly. [00:06:39] Avi Kahan: I'll give you. I'll give you a good example. Possession is fundamental conversation in all law. In all law. Like the terminology is possession is 9/10 of the law, but it could also be 9/10 of the problem. [00:06:51] Speaker C: Right. [00:06:52] Avi Kahan: Like, if I'm in possession because I manipulated you and I stole something from you, and now you're coming with me to court to prove that it's yours. And I'm like, hey, possession. You're like, shoot it. [00:07:01] Josh Galt: That should hurt me more. Right? [00:07:02] Speaker C: Right. [00:07:03] Josh Galt: Or police planting something on someone, then boom, nine tenths of the law. He had, you know, a baggie of whatever on him. [00:07:08] Avi Kahan: Exactly. So law could be. Law is only good for good people. [00:07:13] Josh Galt: So then how do you tie that back to the. The history of law coming from religion. Like you were saying that. That's been one of, One of my issues with it is like, because what you said is true law. Law is dangerous in the hands of people who are immoral. Law is just fine in, in the hands of someone who is just right. [00:07:33] Avi Kahan: Well, the question is. The question is that I think all great philosophers struggle with this. Everyone agrees that law could be used to, to be the elixir of life or be the poison that you'll die from. And the question is, who are you as a human? Because you also have a part of it. Like, I think it's foolish for people who honor law more than they honor the person who's interpreting the law. [00:07:57] Josh Galt: So honoring the letter of the law more than the spirit of the law. [00:08:02] Avi Kahan: No, it's a step different than that. Don't give respect to law. Give respect to the scholar who's telling you how to apply that law because he has the power. Really? The law doesn't have a power. The law is something that someone's going to make relatable. Be afraid of the person who's making it relatable, not of the actual law, because that person could use it to hurt someone or do great. And that's part of the. Every philosopher struggled. Like, how do you really know if you're genuine or not? But if you're not a genuine person and you have agendas while you're studying the law. Yeah, you're going to be a tyrannical individual, hurt people. No, 100%. And that's part of studying, is getting to know yourself. It's like when someone asks you a question that poke a hole in your idea. How do you respond? [00:08:44] Speaker C: Right. [00:08:45] Avi Kahan: Do you go to gaslighting right away, another person, intimidating. Are you ready to have conflict and have conversation? But yeah, law in the wrong hands is the most dangerous thing. But in the good, in the right hands, it's the best thing. So the terminology that I like saying is that when Moses gave law, he knew it could either be the elixir of life or the poison that you could die from. And it's really up to you if you're, if you're clean, if you're pure agenda lists, then yeah, please study law. You will, you will, you will help the world. But if you're coming in there with agendas, like when you went to school, they already indoctrinated you with why you're studying law. Like what's been going on in the universities the last couple of years. It's like they're pushing you to study more for a specific reason, then you're using law. I mean, you can destroy somebody. You can destroy, destroy communities and societies. [00:09:31] Josh Galt: And so how does Judaism in particular look at the legal aspects? Not legal as in state, but legal as in the church. Or do you call it the church? Or what would you say? The legal as the Torah, like the. [00:09:43] Avi Kahan: Legal as the Torah. [00:09:44] Josh Galt: Okay, how does, how does the religion look at that then in terms of. It's the elixir of life. And so you do these things, these are the things you must do, bringing. [00:09:55] Avi Kahan: Back from, like the know how to interpret it and you're a pure person as you're studying, then you will create for yourself the elixir of life. I mean, law, Law is so healthy for people because it allows me to trust you. [00:10:08] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:09] Avi Kahan: I, I'm getting on a zoo with you. I don't know what your intentions are, but I know that to a certain extent controls this conversation. I know, I know there's certainly. If we're in a room together, I know you can't hit me. Right, right. Because. Because I could sue you. So, so law allows me actually to communicate with you. So law are the boundaries that allow society to grow in a safe environment. So if you're a good person and you know, and you're giving the, you're given the power to be able to create law, almost to create law, and you're. You and you know how to interpret law properly, you could create a society that could actually function. And, and that's. There's nothing more beautiful than that. There's nothing more. And that's why you need law to crew to, to hold society accountable to themselves, to make sure that people who are wicked and taking advantage and hurting people and stealing and being corrupt and abusing people are held accountable. Because I want to live in a society that people aren't taking advantage of people and being. [00:11:06] Josh Galt: Absolutely, yeah. Do you think that that's happening today? [00:11:10] Avi Kahan: Well, law is not law. I don't believe you. See, again, all my beliefs that I'm sharing with you are as Orthodox Jews. Now, when I say I, it's not really I, it's what I've studied. I don't believe there's law yet that has been created. And I don't think the Jews believe that the perfect law exists yet. They believe Moses gave down the perfect law. Moses gave down the perfect world, but he understood it on a level that we've, we don't still don't understand it. [00:11:36] Josh Galt: And so how does that apply? That. That's a great point. How do you take that then as, as an Orthodox Jew, how do you live in the day to day? Because if it would be easy to rationalize and be like, well, we don't have the perfect lie yet because we don't fully understand it. So maybe doing this thing, maybe I just am misinterpreting what Moses said or, you know, looking at my neighbor's wife is not so bad or whatever it is. Like, how do you apply that in the day to day and say, okay, these are the things that govern my life. These are the guidelines that I believe are absolutely part of the elixir of life. And I'm going to stay between these. I want my kids to stay within these. I want my, my, you know, the people I'm around. [00:12:20] Avi Kahan: Well, I think with humility, that's a. And I'll tell you why. Why with humility? You see, law is the word of God to a certain extent. So to know law is to know God, right? Like this beautiful mystical expression, God and his law are one, right? Now it doesn't mean exactly like one because nothing is on the level of God, right? That's what Orthodox Judaism. But they're like one. The closest way of knowing God is through his Word, and the word is law. And therefore to be arrogant and say, I know God, right? Like the philosophers used to say in the, in the 12th century, to know God is to be God, right? Like you can't know God, then you are God. Knowing is being like. There's no differentiation. Don't be so arrogant. So to know law is to be law. To know laws, to be God, you're not on that level, but you're allowed to try your best, you know, as a human, you got to try your best. And you also have to realize that it's your perception of law. It's not law because it's just like it's your perception of God. It's your personal perception of God. And your perception is you should treat it as real, but don't ask anyone else to treat it as real. [00:13:30] Josh Galt: Does that cause problems though then, between people? Because maybe your perception of a lot. Let's say that I'm, I'm also an Orthodox Jew. Your perception of one law is one thing and mine is a different thing. I mean, I've seen this in, in the Christian church and to me it's absurd. But I grew up, you know, my parents were, were Pentecostal. So they were in this one denomination called Foursquare but they also, because they were missionaries, they also would speak in, you know, in Africa and Asia, whatever, in churches that were assembly of God. Now these are two different sects of the Pentecostal Christian Church, Evangelical Christian Church, and yet they're completely different. And there's thousands of churches all over the world because of one single verse in the Bible that they cannot agree on. That to me is crazy. But that's my opinion. [00:14:19] Avi Kahan: In the time of the beginning of Christianity. But I'm coming in the beginning way before the New Testament. The times of the end of the second temple, we're talking about 100 BC. So there were two major schools of thoughts. And these schools of thoughts are hinted in the New Testament. They were the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. And they argued on every topic that you could argue on. There was no agreement, right? And there was even a joke in the school of Shamai. They used to hang a sword in the front door and they said, any student of Hillel that comes in here should chop their head off before they come in. Like so. Like that. That's that. [00:14:53] Josh Galt: Wow. [00:14:55] Avi Kahan: Even the Talmud articulates that the schools of Shammai felt that based on the rulings of the schools of Hillel, that their children were bastards. [00:15:05] Josh Galt: Wow. [00:15:05] Avi Kahan: Right, that's. And they still married into each other and they were best friends. [00:15:10] Josh Galt: And so how does that work? I mean, that, that's a question that you could, we could go really deep on with other religions with humility. [00:15:17] Avi Kahan: I think you have to realize that it's your perception. And, and, and, and, and what makes you think that you understand the word of God better than someone else? If anything, if anything, if anything, this is what I'm worried about. You know, I'm studying the word of God and I'm worried I'm not as pure as I convinced myself that I am. And therefore I want to be honest and I want to know if the way I understood it is really the word of God or was it by my agenda, maybe a childhood trauma that caused me to think that this is what the definition is. So what do I do? I go to the study hole and I find someone else studying the same exact text. And I say, hey, are you studying the topic about lost and found? And what happens if someone loses something and you're not sure if he actually gave up on it? The guy's like, yeah, that's what I'm studying. Like, well, let me ask you a question. How do you understand A, B, and C? And they're like, I understood it this way. You're like, no, come on, what about this text? And you start going back and forth and now what you guys are doing is you're perfecting your argument because each of you are discussing the word of God and fighting each other's agendas. Because I'm going to push you. I'm going to push you to show you the unpure parts of your thoughts and you're going to push me. And if we're good people, we're going to maybe come up with a real answer together. A real conflict of how we both understand it. And that answer is the most godly experience. Yes. Now my agenda. So what Orthodox Jews do, and I would say if you google this, this is the majority of Orthodox Jews. You spend about 10 hours a day doing just what I just described. That's it. On numerous amount of topics for years. I've done this since I was in ninth grade, ten hours a day. [00:16:44] Josh Galt: But see that's, that is the way that we should be arguing and debating every issue. Right. I, I am very passionate about that specific issue in arguments of it's not about who is right. The arrogance that you alluded to. It's about what is right, what is the truth. So in the same like I disagree on this scripture, you disagree, but we're going to try and figure out what the truth is instead of saying I'm right or you're right. [00:17:09] Avi Kahan: You might not ever figure it out, but you're at least working on it. Libraries and you see the thousands of books on one topic that were written. I've gone to lectures on fascinating topics. I've debated with people and I don't feel I extinguished the topic. I mean I don't, I don't ever plan on extinguishing the topic because you want, you never know what you're going to derive as you keep on debating and debating and debating and clarifying. And yeah, this is what Orthodox Jews do the whole entire day. So much so that let's say in Israel right now there's huge politics between the Orthodox Jews and the secular Jews because the Orthodox Jews want to do this the whole day and they do not want to go to the army. They say we want to study and create law and create a society and we're not done. We don't have the time. And they're like, and the second Jews like, but there's a war going on. We got to protect the country. And there's a huge civil war going on in Israel. [00:17:57] Josh Galt: Interesting. [00:17:57] Avi Kahan: Where the Government's cutting funding from the Orthodox Jews. And in America also, it's the same thing. I mean, you go to New York, New Jersey, there are thousands of universities that all everyone does is you wake up early in the morning, you pray a little bit, you eat breakfast, and then you sit down, usually starting 9am and you sit down on a wooden chair. No, not a major comfortable place, with the text and the books that you want to debate that day with whatever topic you're going to lecture on. And you sit with a friend. In Hebrew, it's called kabuta. It's a friend. And usually you usually commit six months to studying with that person at a time. You know, you could always change. Sometimes you want to. You want to change up, you want to. You know, sometimes you go with the same study partner for years, you know, and you just sit, literally, and debate and debate. And you walk into some of these rooms, right, where there are a thousand students doing this. You feel a heat of passion that doesn't exist anywhere. It's like a taste of paradise that doesn't exist anywhere. Just to view it. Just to view people sitting and fighting. They look. They look like they want to kill each other. People are screaming at each other, but they're best friends. [00:19:04] Josh Galt: Yeah. And the. And the motivation is through understanding the law that connects them closer to God. Right. [00:19:11] Avi Kahan: The motivation is truth. To find the truth. Just to find truth. They're seekers of truth. [00:19:16] Josh Galt: Really Interesting. [00:19:17] Avi Kahan: Yeah. Like, they want to, like. And we. What is truth? I mean, we're seeking for it. We don't know what. We don't. We don't really care what it is at the end. That's not really the agenda. It's seek for the truth to seek. Because when you admit that, you know, now you failed. [00:19:31] Josh Galt: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned something else that. And I want to stay totally on the religious aspect, but you mentioned that there are secular Jews and Orthodox Jews. So this is something that I'm not an expert on. But Zionism, Judaism right now is a hot topic, especially in the US and in most Western countries. So can you explain a little bit more? Because this goes to the heart of being bad at my religion in that you have a country, you have a nation, that all, I guess, would say that we come from the same ancestry, we have the same beliefs, but one group is considered secular, one group is considered Orthodox. So to me, just out of the gate, I would be like, well, the Orthodox Jews are probably better Jews than the secular Jews. And that's because they're actually seeking God. And the secular Jews are just sort of giving token lip service. That's just like my, my idea, right? [00:20:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:31] Avi Kahan: Yeah. So it's, it's very, it's very complicated. [00:20:34] Speaker C: It's. [00:20:34] Avi Kahan: It's very complicated. And again, I'm. I'm sharing with you only my perspective. So this is my personal perspective. Zionism was a movement that, that, that was very controversial. It was a very, very controversial movement. It started in, in the 1800s by an individual by the name of Theodore Herzl. And his agenda then was just to allow a Jewish community to flourish without getting attacked for once. Because during those times, the Jews couldn't last a couple of years anywhere, right? Like you went in to build a business, to build a society, five years later, wiping. They're wiping out the community or they're kicking you out of their, of their, of their village. And he was fed up. And you should know originally did not even want to do it in Israel. He wanted to do it in Uganda, in Africa. [00:21:19] Josh Galt: Oh, wow. [00:21:20] Avi Kahan: Yeah. He's like, he found this country Uganda. We're all going to move there. We're going to create a Jewish state. [00:21:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:26] Avi Kahan: He wasn't gonna call it Israel, then he would call it whatever they could. People convinced him that if you really want to get the Jews on board, the more Jews on board, go do it in Israel. [00:21:34] Speaker C: Right? [00:21:35] Avi Kahan: That's, again, he just wanted, like, he wanted to stop. And the reason why people were opposed it was for. For, I would say for three main reasons. You see, reason number one is Jews. Everyone agrees Jews are in exile. [00:21:48] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:49] Avi Kahan: If you think about it, it's the craziest thing. The Jewish people haven't had a country since the destruction of the second temple. [00:21:57] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:57] Avi Kahan: We were exiled for 2,000 years and we still exist. [00:22:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:22:02] Avi Kahan: And that really makes no sense. Mark Twain wrote about it. Like, it makes no sense. You have no country, you have no homeland. Like, what do you. What belief? What's holding you together? [00:22:10] Josh Galt: Right, Exactly. [00:22:12] Avi Kahan: What's keeping you? Like, if you live in. If you live in one. And the Jews were like above that. They were able to stay together, which is a form of a miracle that I cannot explain. They were still able to stay together without a homeland. [00:22:24] Josh Galt: Do you think it's because of law? Because of their connection to that? [00:22:28] Avi Kahan: I believe it. I believe part of it is the connection to law, the connection to God, the, the, the different understandings. But it's more of a miracle. I would still say, you know, a promise. When Abraham, when God told Abraham that he's going to Send his, his children to exile, right? And he told him, but one day he's going to give them the land of Israel. When Abraham asked in, in Genesis, he says, how do I know, right? And God said, oh, you'll know, because there'll be strangers in other people's lands and people are going to pain them and cause them suffering, but after they're going to come out with reward. So I've always understood that to me, that God said, you know what, you know, how you know the Jews are never going to forget God? Because I'm just going to always put them in pain's way. They don't forget God. So Abraham said, how my children know? He's like, relax, I'm going to put them through enough pain that they're always going to need God. So maybe that's why things have never been good enough for the Jewish people. So they always remembered God. And then when Theodore Hatchel started the Zionist movement, which was like, let's get our own state, people were scared to like, so you're going to make it good for us. We're going to forget God. Like, if God decides that we're done with our punishment and we're done with purifying who we're supposed to be and he senses that sign, then every Jew agrees that we'll become a Zionist, right? Then what happened was World War I happened, World War II happened, and World War II caused a lot of Jews to start being like, okay, we got to go to Israel. And when they went up to Israel, a lot of Zionists went up with them. And they ended up creating the state of Israel with the Bellflower Declaration, with negotiating on previous negotiations that were done between Theodor Herzl and England. Then we could go through that whole history of okay with that tiny piece of land that nobody was using. And it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, but the land was owned by England. England decided to sign it over to the Jewish people, right? And that's what started the State of Israel. And then there were people right away who said, well, we don't want to be represented as a state. We want to be represented as what we're being represented in exile the whole entire time, which is by the word of God. Because you know what? To create a state is very difficult. And to create a state, to create a state without the word of God, an average Jewish person would say, well, that's wrong. God doesn't want us. If you want the blessing of Israel, you have to create a state that God's going to be okay with, with laws that gods are going to be okay with. But Jewish people, some Jewish people believe you can't do that until God does that for you. It's like the second coming of the Christianity by Jews. They believe there's going to be this coming of a Messiah who's going to be able to set order. So this fight between the religious and the secular Zionism is everybody believes in God. The secular Zionists believe it's that we're at a time now that God is redeeming us and he wants us to try our best and make laws and make the best laws. Some laws you're not going to be able to create perfect. And those law when God decides he's fully ready for us. But we got to do this movement on our own. We got to create a society, we got to create a law. And then other people like, no, we just got to live. Let someone else control the government. We just live and study law. And when God sends us the message and says, now I'm ready for you guys, then they're ready. So it's not anyone's good. It's just two different, different opinions. But these two different opinions, as they sound small, radically cause huge, a huge separation that an average religious and secular person in Israel don't even communicate sometimes. [00:25:50] Josh Galt: And so does that. Does religious law govern the nation of Israel then? Or is. Is that what the debate is about? Is sort of like in the US. [00:25:58] Avi Kahan: It'S the part of debate. I mean, some, some secular individuals claim that they went through all the law and they managed to be able to make the law. Religion in a religious way. And some individuals say, no, you misrepresented, like, I'll give you an example, like child, child support. Child support is not mentioned in the Bible. So the state now mandates that a father should pay child support. He's like, what obligation you giving me? This is not a religious obligation. So the state went and they said, yeah, they found the religious obligation based on charity laws. [00:26:26] Josh Galt: Well, wouldn't it be based on the. Oh, maybe, maybe this is just Old Testament in the Christian Bible. But like if a man sleeps with a woman and she becomes pregnant, then he needs to take her as his wife. Essentially. [00:26:38] Avi Kahan: Essentially. [00:26:38] Josh Galt: Meaning. There was a big argument about this on Twitter. I don't know, like a few weeks ago with Andrew Tate put out a video and then some writers, like wrote some really interesting stuff about it. It was like, no, look, like this is the way that the humanity has been for a very long time or civilization has been. [00:26:53] Avi Kahan: And this Is there's no place in the text that says if a man sleeps with a woman, he has to take his wife. The only option is if a man rapes a woman, he has to take her as a wife. Which means. Which means if you want to stop rape, tell every single guy who rapes someone that he potentially has to take this woman as a wife. Watch how fast you'll stop rape, isn't it? Also, those supporting the woman can say, no, we could walk away or seduce. If he seduces her, like manipulates her, then he has to marry her again. She could say, I want you to marry me, or she could walk away. He doesn't have the choice. That's the text you're referring to. It doesn't say because of the child, he has to take his wife, she doesn't want to get married, he doesn't want to get married. They have a child, he doesn't have to take her. Then New Testament. Yeah, but so child support. So, so, so, so the secular court wrote, no, it's a religious ruling, child support. And they based it on charity laws. [00:27:44] Josh Galt: Okay. [00:27:45] Avi Kahan: That a charity demands a person. And, and they're correct. [00:27:48] Josh Galt: They're correct. [00:27:48] Avi Kahan: But that's a subjective creation. I believe they're correct religiously. But other religious communities, like, who are you to impose that and how much child support should I be paying religiously? So the areas where secularism and religion. [00:28:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:01] Avi Kahan: In abortion law. So there were tremendous fights, but there look, before October 7th, it was a civil war going on in Israel between the religion, the religious people and the secular people, specifically about this topic about abortion, about how strong what the opinions of the courthouse should be. They were fighting about abortions, just like America abortions, all these. Should we go with the religious view or the secular view? And it was so out of control that most historians are saying that that's why Hamas felt it was a good time to attack, because there's. [00:28:35] Josh Galt: There was a weakness in infighting. [00:28:37] Avi Kahan: There was such a weakness in the country. There were people even were threatening that if there would be a war, if the Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't take the secular side fully right, then if there's going to be a war, they're not going to go to the army. That's what people are threatening. [00:28:49] Josh Galt: Then see that issue and not, not. I mean, that's an issue that never has a solution in any argument, the least that I've seen. But people get very passionate about it. But for me, I, I think the. The simplest solution outside of religion, for morality, I Learned from Ayn Rand in Objectivism, which is that you don't necessarily need. And this is just. This is one. One viewpoint, but you don't need a religious text or you don't even need a deity in order to have morality. Morality should be, for a conscious human, that which protects and promotes life as the baseline of deciding morality. And so then if you look at it that way, it makes a lot of decisions, including the abortion argument. It makes it simpler to argue on morality terms. [00:29:40] Avi Kahan: Correct. But I believe religious. In religion. There's this perspective that any topic that you want to convince me that morality will give me clarity. You could debunk a little bit. Like, even from killing. Right. We know, like, I mean, baby. Baby Hitler has been a conversation. [00:30:02] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:02] Avi Kahan: Is more the time machine. Right? [00:30:04] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:30:05] Avi Kahan: You'd have a time machine. And it's not. It's not only a time machine question. [00:30:08] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:09] Avi Kahan: There's a big question right now. How with America, how should America treat a lot of the. A lot of the people who are under Hamas's rule? Hamas has been in rule for 19 years right now. [00:30:20] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:20] Avi Kahan: Which means since kids were born, if their parents did not preach the Hamas anthem, you had the potential of getting beaten publicly. [00:30:30] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:31] Avi Kahan: So you have a nation that was indoctrinated. Not bad people, but they were indoctrinated. [00:30:35] Josh Galt: Sure. [00:30:35] Avi Kahan: They're all baby Hitlers because that's what they've been preaching. I live there now. It's a deep conversation. Some people say, well, give them a chance. Let's help them. [00:30:44] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:44] Avi Kahan: Other people say, no, fast. Kill the baby Hitler before they kill someone else. And so it's not like just a theoretical conversation. Morality doesn't answer for that. Morality doesn't answer Baby Hitler. Morality doesn't answer so many questions that are really relevant. So a religious person is going to push and say, no. No religion potentially maybe has the answer to these difficult questions. I'm not saying that I'm enough of an expert to actually tell you what I would do with a baby Hitler. I'm not telling you that. [00:31:11] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:11] Avi Kahan: But there is at least a potential versus morality abuse. Way too human, way too subjective to deal with these complicated questions. Look, I can tell you there is a text. There is a text, and this is a scary text. Very scary text. Abraham, who's the father of the Muslim community, the Arabs, Right. And he's the father of the Jews. [00:31:33] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:34] Avi Kahan: He had two sons. Abraham. He had many sons, but two sons that we know of. [00:31:38] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:39] Avi Kahan: Isaac, who was from Sarah, and he had Ishmael who was from Hagar. She was the princess of Egypt. He chased them away. Sarah made him chase them away. He got divorced. Abraham from agony chased him away. And there's a text here that they're in the desert and they're about to die. And she even gives away her child because she's too scared to see her child starve to death. She actually hides her child behind a tree when she. And she just leaves in the desert because they were dying and she was, she didn't want to see him die. An angel of God appears, right? An angel of God appears and shows her water and saves her and promises her that her children are going to be a huge nation one day. [00:32:19] Speaker C: Right? [00:32:20] Avi Kahan: And there is a Talmudic text that was written 1500 years ago, before Islam started, before Muhammad existed, right? A text that asks is, did God see his children killing the Jewish children one day? And the text says, yeah, so why did he let him live? He was dying anyways. And the text answers, well, God only punishes someone if they deserve it. Then. [00:32:48] Josh Galt: Speaking to the baby, then speaking to the baby. [00:32:51] Avi Kahan: How do you determine that situation? Yeah, I don't care if in years he would end up killing. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Right. [00:32:57] Avi Kahan: And, and that's a very interesting thing. That's. But that's a religious answer. That's not a moral answer. That's a religious answer. In spite, inspiring about a baby Hitler. [00:33:06] Josh Galt: I would look at the baby Hitler question from a morality standpoint outside of religion, as I, I would protect. My, my baseline is whatever protects and promotes life. And it is not for me to necessarily play God or determine what's going to happen 50 or 20, 50, 100 years from now, because all I can deal with is this present moment where I am, which is I have baby Hitler in front of me. And so should I or should I not? And so for me, the moral, the moral thing, the, the religious answer I think would be, you don't understand. [00:33:40] Avi Kahan: Let's make believe we don't have religion. Let's see if morality could help. [00:33:43] Josh Galt: Yes, so the, the morality answer for me is protect life. And so therefore I was gonna ask you this question. It's the Charlie question in a way. [00:33:50] Avi Kahan: Right, so that's what I was about to do. Charlie question. [00:33:53] Josh Galt: Yeah, but we don't know at that point. That, that's the, that's the difficulty, the trolley question. You do know, you know, you're either one person's gonna die or many people are gonna die. [00:34:02] Avi Kahan: Right? [00:34:03] Josh Galt: But with the baby Hitler, I guess if you had a time machine, you would know but it makes it a little more complicated that way. I would still say, I mean, I don't, I don't know that we should play God. [00:34:14] Avi Kahan: So let me, let me ask you this question. If, if a bunch of people are kidnapped and they say, guys, give us the boss, just one person and we'll save everybody. If not, we're killing, we're killing everybody? [00:34:26] Josh Galt: Yeah, I mean everybody's gonna give them a give up. The boss. But most likely. [00:34:29] Avi Kahan: But morality, but religious. Like, I don't think that what I'm trying to say is morally, I would. Morality is human. And humans are handicapped by humanity. [00:34:40] Speaker C: Right? [00:34:41] Avi Kahan: Humanity. Humanity controls our thoughts. [00:34:45] Speaker C: Right. [00:34:45] Avi Kahan: But I think we're smarter than humanity. Like Socrates said. Socrates said the reason why he looks forward to dying is because he'll become smarter than, because he's not going to be handicapped by himself. And that's why he said a real philosopher, Socrates said, I remember Socrates was denouncing all gods then that's what they were putting him to death. [00:35:02] Speaker C: Right. [00:35:03] Avi Kahan: It was almost a secular view, a moral view. But he said a real philosopher looks forward to the day he dies and dies. [00:35:09] Speaker C: Right? [00:35:09] Avi Kahan: Because he understands that he's handicapped by his human conceptions of right or wrong, of how he grew up and so many different things that are. So religion helps you take you out of that human experience. So it's like, okay, you know, I'm going to go follow a different rulebook that wasn't created by me by, created by someone by the name of Moses or rabbis in your generation. [00:35:35] Speaker C: Right. [00:35:35] Avi Kahan: And treat your mentors in your generation just like Moses. Right. Treat them on the highest level. Not better than Moses, not higher than the first book. You can never treat anything better than the first book. But everything almost a little bit lower than the first book, but almost, almost just as smart. And see, hey, I'm going to almost nullify, be humble to your opinion. When I'm debating, I'm debating with your rulebook. Like people always ask me when you're dealing with custody battles, I deal a lot with custody battles. [00:36:04] Josh Galt: That must be tough. [00:36:05] Avi Kahan: Battles are, are not fun to do, especially religious communities. [00:36:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:09] Avi Kahan: Because it's like you're fighting about religion and how wants what's best for the child. Like, who knows what's best for a child? Like, it's just such a difficult conversation. And what I try to always see with people is like, okay, you have your perception, but let's create a rulebook. What is our rules of when are we using religion to convince ourselves that we're Just correct that we're just better people that were moral, that we're superior, that the reason why I want to spend time with my kid is for a religious reason? Come on. Or is it for a practical reason? Like let's, let's create a rulebook. And if you create a rulebook. So I study the Talmud, right? The Talmud is our rulebook and the Talmud is filled with rules, rules of, of engagement, of studying. [00:36:50] Speaker C: Right? [00:36:50] Avi Kahan: And there are arguments on how to deal with the rules because the time was written 1500 years ago, so it's already subjective now. And, and you create these rules and you argue and you codify your laws, you codify your customs. And I think that's how you develop a society. Hopefully you do it well enough to one day you create laws that everybody wants to keep, not because they have to, because they want to. [00:37:11] Josh Galt: And do you think that that's happening in, in the, in the Jewish community today, where happening all over the world, but to where people are, are living at a higher standard? And I, I say hired, which is obviously subjective because Buddhists would have their view and Muslims will have their view, etc. But do you think that the, the, the more orthodox, the more legal, the more time that they spend debating and trying to know God through his law. Do you think that those people are closer to God? Do you think that those are the examples that, that we should look at? I mean, would you, would you, for example, I don't know if you have kids, but if you did, would you say like this rabbi, even more than your father, this rabbi is the person who is like following the law and you should look to him as an example. Yeah, if he's pure. [00:38:00] Avi Kahan: If he's pure. [00:38:01] Josh Galt: But how do you, how do you, how do you judge that? I guess that's that. And you judge in a good, good way. Like how do you determine that? [00:38:07] Avi Kahan: Yeah. No, no, no, no. So you need, you need, because you can't be stupid, you can't have blind faith because you could just lead yourself into a cultish life. And that's dangerous. I know, I know, I know unpure people, that they use religion to control people, to hurt people, create radical fundamentalists. And you know, and that exists everywhere. What I believe. You see, it's a, it's a very good question. It's a good question. And Maimonides, he was a great philosopher. And when he asked this question basically of who you should follow, he wrote a. The person you're following, he has to be wise. We could agree to that. He has to be knowledgeable, he has to be a smart person. It also has to be apparent the way he acts. His wisdom has to be acted out. [00:38:59] Josh Galt: Okay. [00:39:01] Avi Kahan: You are what you act out. And if you're not acting out the law, especially because you think you're superior, run away from that person. [00:39:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:10] Avi Kahan: The person has to act out and his actions have to be super pleasant. Pleasant, obviously super pleasant. Super sweet and pleasant. [00:39:20] Josh Galt: Interesting. Like explain more on that because that's, that's something that I would not equate with law. [00:39:26] Avi Kahan: Well, it's. I think it's. I think it's in Proverbs or maybe Psalms where it says the ways of. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. [00:39:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:35] Avi Kahan: And, and. And all her surroundings are peaceful. [00:39:38] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:39] Avi Kahan: My Manes uses that quote to understand that a sage should be somebody who's acting out pleasantness and peacefulness. [00:39:47] Josh Galt: Interesting. So do you think that you have to go through the debates and debates because that, that's not necessarily by definition pleasant or peaceful, but eventually you get to the point where be more stoics debates. [00:39:58] Avi Kahan: You can't become. Well, it's a contradiction. I don't think it's a contradiction. Be stoic in your learning. Be stoic in, in developing your process. Scream at your study partner like you want to destroy him and kill him and destroy his opinion. But act out public. Act out as a good human, your actions to be pleasant. If you finish studying and what caused you to study at the end of the day was to steal from somebody or to hurt someone's feelings or to treat someone as other as insignificant. [00:40:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:40:27] Avi Kahan: Not pleasant. And you walk around and say you're allowed to do it because you're studying in the name of God. I mean, that's the biggest desecration. I think someone who doesn't act out pleasantness is worse. I saw this quote that said someone who does not. Someone who's a wise person who doesn't act out as wisdom is worth less than spoiled meat. Now what the metaphor of spoiled meat is, I'm not exactly sure, but it doesn't sound like a pleasant. [00:40:55] Josh Galt: So something of it's something of value, I think that is then wasted. Wasted. So someone who is wise but is not acting it out is then wasting their wisdom, essentially. [00:41:03] Avi Kahan: Exactly. And a smart person is always acting out wise because he's not separate from his smartness. He's not separate from his wisdom. Like there's a story with Aristotle. Aristotle was, was, was manipulated one time by Alexander the Great's wife. I don't know what the Story is, I have to study it again. But he had Alexander the Great, who was a powerful person, who was a student of Aristotle. I think his wife did not like Aristotle. And she one time got into like to act out sexually. They were together in a room. She knew they were gonna get caught. And she had him on all fours and with a leash, eating dog food, like. And this is the great. [00:41:41] Josh Galt: And I haven't heard this story. [00:41:42] Avi Kahan: Yeah, don't Google it. [00:41:43] Josh Galt: Google it. [00:41:43] Avi Kahan: I'm sure. Yeah, you'll find. You'll find somewhere on Google. I don't know. I don't know if it's made up from thousands of years, because this is Aristotle's 2300 years ago, students came in and they were like, herb, this is our teacher. And he said, today I'm not Aristotle. [00:41:59] Speaker C: Right. [00:41:59] Avi Kahan: Like differentiating the wise Aristotle from the human Aristotle. [00:42:03] Josh Galt: Okay. [00:42:04] Avi Kahan: Don't follow such a person. [00:42:06] Josh Galt: Yeah, because then that's like disassociation where it's. You're a hypocrite. First of all, a wise person always. [00:42:12] Avi Kahan: Acts out wise because that's who is. It's not only. Not separate from. He acquired the wisdom. [00:42:18] Speaker C: Right. [00:42:19] Avi Kahan: Not like God. God doesn't acquire wisdom. God is by definite wise. They acquired the wisdom by work, by hard work, by toiling, by debating, by having conflict, by struggling daily until they came out this person. So the people who I tell my children to follow, and these are great rabbis, and I have pictures of them in my house. And I, yes, I have four kids. And then I bring them for blessings to our people who are. I would love to be them. I'm very far from them, but I study their actions. When I see them walk in the street, I say, hey, I know the way they're walking. They're acting out something wise. I might not know what it is, but there's something there. The way they smile at people. I mean, the. My. My Diamond University was over here in New Jersey. He's turned 90 years old. [00:43:05] Josh Galt: Wow. [00:43:06] Avi Kahan: It was a small town in New Jersey. Sac, New Jersey. I don't know where you live. It's a small town over here. I don't even know how many people live there. It's near. It's about 30 minutes from New York City. I would say there's not one person in that town that does not know who he is by now. Even people who are not Jewish, not religious. I remember when I was, When I was 19, I was one time, there was an apartment building, a low income apartment building behind the university. And we were smoking There we weren't allowed to smoke in university. It was bad. And we're smoking and two African American guys woke out. It was like three in the morning. And like you're students of this university, if I see you smoking, I'm going to tell the rabbi, I know him well. We ran and what hit us, us. Then it's like, wow, look at these guys. They're nothing to do with our community. And they know our rabbi. When he walked in the street, his. [00:43:52] Josh Galt: Testimony, yeah, who he was there was never. [00:43:55] Avi Kahan: I remember walking with him sometimes. And again, this is, I studied 15 years ago, so he was 75. Now he's 90. And I remember walking the street. There was not a person who he didn't say hello to before they said hello to him. There was not a person that I've ever seen got a hello in before he was able to get it. So I saw him act out stuff. I saw the way he responded, the way he dealt with monetary issues, family matters. I watched his classes, his lectures. And yet those are people I tell my children, like, just watch them, watch them and know that this is somehow the word of God and study and figure it out for yourself where the word of God is hidden. But ask him, hey, Rabbi, I see you acting out A, B and C and where is that from? And maybe he'll answer you and he'll tell you, oh, I'm trying to act on this idea of Maimonides, or I'm trying to act on this Talmudic passage message or this biblical text. And that's what Orthodox Jews strive for. We're not afraid of conflict, but we're proud to embrace wisdom to the highest level. [00:44:52] Josh Galt: And so are there a certain number of commandments or is it just the entire Torah that you have to live or that you seek to live on a daily basis? Like this rabbi is a perfect example of someone who would be good at their religion. Right. Like it's the opposite of sort of what we, most of us struggle with or most everybody that, that I've dealt with around the world in different religions in terms of being good or bad at your religion. So are there some specific commandments like give me some, some tangible day to day things or tell me about how the Sabbath works Shabbat, or is how I said how, like what are the things that, that are part of the law that help to guide you down that road of hey, I'm actually, I have a long ways to go. I'm not perfect, but I'm, I'm doing everything I can to Be good at my religion. [00:45:48] Avi Kahan: So my man means, I think, says it beautiful. My mind says that a person could go to sleep at night, a person could eat his, his, his, his dinner just because he's hungry and just because he's tired. And then there's a higher level human that they eat their dinner because they want to be healthy. They go to sleep because they want to be able to wake up. And then there are those people that say, hey, what does God want from you? Why does God want me to sleep tonight? And God wants me to sleep tonight because he wants me to be able to wake up tomorrow morning and do A, B and C. And my man, these quotes, the verse from Proverbs that, Proverbs that say everything you do should be for the sake of God. And the idea is that you can be rewarded. And not only for the reward, but every step of life you could figure out how God wants you to act. I mean, think about, think about not having anxiety, right? Think about having a life that you know what you're doing is what you're supposed to be doing right now. Again, I can't say. You could figure it out. Yes, there's laws of how to drink a glass of water. There's a blessing you make before you're supposed to hold it with your right hand versus your left hand is a blessing you make after you're supposed to pay attention to certain things. And I'm not saying you always do it perfect. And I'm not saying when I make the blessing, I'm having the right mind, right, right intention in mind. And I'm not thinking everything I'm supposed to, but I'm striving for that. And then I know that even a glass of water, I did what I was supposed to do. Because one of the ideas that exist in mystical Judaism is that of course to know God is to be God, but also you being you is God being God, right? Because you're acting out what you're supposed to. I want to know that I'm being God. I want to know that I'm acting out. [00:47:25] Speaker C: I know. [00:47:25] Avi Kahan: I want to know that what I'm doing is correct without having anxiety thinking, what am I supposed to be doing? I could use the law to allow that to govern me, but I could also use the law and allow that to convince me that I'm doing the right thing. So get yourself a mentor. Make sure have, have study partners who are able to criticize what you do and say, oh, you're keeping the Sabbath this way. Why is it Just convenient reasons. What, what is the convenient reason? Is it convenient for your, you, for your family? Is it, are you running out to prayer because you don't want to hang out with your wife and kids? Like, like what are you doing? Like, you know, like we used for the right reasons and debated and understand. Work on it. Like I know a guy, I know a guy who made, who made, who made, who spent millions of dollars, I think in promoting this idea of stop talking in synagogue. Synagogue is a holy place. Don't talk there doing events and everything. And, and one time I thought, like, I know there were people that maybe that were talking evil about him in certain places. So maybe he just wanted to ask people not to talk at all, right? Sanctifying the temple while he just didn't want people talking about him. Of course, that's just a joke. I don't really mean it. But I'm saying how do you know if something's genuine? Because it only works and it benefits your life and it's going to take away the anxiety if it's not your word, if it's God word, if it's genuine, if it's not mixed with your bias, right? And you have to be able to be comfortable to poke holes in your bias. That's why you need a study partner, right? Like without a study partner, you're just a narcissist. And you're going to use laws to become a fundamentalist and control people. You're going to see everything in your version and your understanding. And then it's not the word of God, it's the word of human. And then you can create yourself as a messiah or as a leader, but you're far from God. You're as distance from God as you could be. [00:49:10] Josh Galt: And so it, it sounds like. And it's really beautiful what you were saying because the motivation is super important. Rather than acting out of fear, you're doing it out of love and out of desire to is like the example of eating, right? You're doing it consciously. You're re recognizing how sacred, whatever this action is, but you're not doing it out of fear. And this is what I think a lot of religions use to control this. Like what you're saying of, you know, bad people will use things to, to hurt other people, but also to control. And if you are, you have, you're living out of love. It's going to be a very different motivation. Then it's, it's almost like, well, yeah, I'm doing this. You're not controlling me. Though, because I'm doing it for love, for God and for, for my own life. Gratitude. [00:49:55] Avi Kahan: So I think, I think, I think there's different levels, right? So, for example, when I, when I, when I see my kid running into the street and I want to tell him not to run in the street. Sure, sure. I could tell him, hey, I love you. So sad you're going to die and we're going to miss you. Or I could tell him, hey, you walk in the street, you get hit by a car, you're in the hospital, okay, and life is over for you. You know, you're going to be like, you scared the person. Not because you want to. Now, when they get older and your child's at an older age, you tell them, by the way, you should know the reason why I don't want you to cross the street is not because of the hospital bills and not because you're broken. It's because I love you and I want what's best for you and you want what's best for you. And of course, of course, the church is much more filled. The church, the church is filled with wagging the finger and telling people you avoid the road to hell because you're going to burn. Judaism doesn't have as much of that, and Judaism frowns upon that. They say that's the teaching for children. For children. You wag the finger at them and you say you're going to burn. But when you get older as an adult, you say, I want what's best for you. You see, humans only derive pleasure from doing what they want, not what they need to do. [00:51:12] Speaker C: Right. [00:51:12] Josh Galt: Like, for example, it becomes a conscious habit. [00:51:15] Avi Kahan: Well, correct. And like, for example, like, are you familiar with, like, the new movement in America? It's going, it's been going around for 10, 15 years of like breath work and the, and workshops that. [00:51:25] Josh Galt: Yeah, yeah. [00:51:26] Avi Kahan: So breath work for me, I was trying to figure out why people are loving it. And it took me a while to realize that breath work is convincing. Mincing people that they don't need to breathe, that they want to breathe. And all of a sudden you want to breathe, you derive inhuman pleasure, a not normal amount of pleasure. Look at these people market. It's like a change of life from this breath because they want to breathe. That's it. It is. Of course, if you could create yourself for your family law, that makes so much sense, that feels like advice that you want to do, you'll be the happiest person. But you need a lot of studying for that to reach a Level, to understand law that you want, it has to make sense to you. It has to be relatable. You have to be on such a high level. So sometimes we're children, so we wag the finger at ourselves and we say, hey, keep the law because you need to keep it. Why do I need it? To avoid hell, to get paradise. You know, these are all needs, these are not, not wants. No one. [00:52:20] Josh Galt: Does Judaism. Does Judaism look at that the same way as other religions of like the heaven and hell and sin being what keeps you, you know, separates you from God? Or is there a different way that the law looks at that? [00:52:32] Avi Kahan: Well, Judaism has a lot of those, A lot of those. And we could discuss the differences between different communities. Let's say in the Muslim community, they have this idea from their prophet. Her name was Rabia Bisra. She used to run around the streets of Babel. She used to run around the streets with water, a pail of water and fire. And she used to say she would love to burn down paradise and extinguish the fires of hell to only serve Allah, for Allah, right? Like not to serve God for paradise exist in all communities. And Judaism and Christianity, they all exist for thousands of years, these ideas. And each community has its own uniqueness. One thing I could tell you about Judaism, different than all religions, is one aspect, one aspect. This is super important. Paradise and hell, as great as they are for motivators. [00:53:22] Josh Galt: And I don't know how great hell is, but no, no, it's a motivator. [00:53:27] Avi Kahan: No one absolutely can motivate you not to do. When you have, when you, when one day you're in a bad place and you want to hurt someone and you want to hurt yourself, it can motivate you not to. Hell's a great motivator. [00:53:37] Josh Galt: Consequences. [00:53:38] Avi Kahan: And, and, and, and I believe hell exists. I really do. And if you don't believe hell exists, watch what happens to people whose lives fall apart. I mean, look at what's going on in Gaza right now. That's hell, Hell, more hell. Look what's going on in Iran in certain areas. That's how. I mean, I think a lot of places in the world are going through hell right now. So whoever tells me hell doesn't exist, I don't know, I don't know what that we just might have a different definition of hell. So I believe hell exists eternally also. I believe in paradise also exists, but I don't believe that that's why you should do stuff. I believe those are motivators and they cause you the need to serve God. There's a higher level that Judaism wants, which is I want to serve God, which is to create a perfect world down here before you die. So hell is a motivator for after death, and paradise is a motivator for after death. And death is a failure of a human. It's like you should be motivated to create such good in this world that we don't end up dying. That should be your motivator. [00:54:36] Josh Galt: Interesting fail. [00:54:38] Avi Kahan: You should end up in paradise and not hell. But you should try to create such a utopia, a beautiful world, that death is not even a conversation. Like Adam and Eve before the sin. Will you die? Will you die? But it won't be a conversation because like Freud, Freud discussed, Freud believes that we kill ourselves through the death motivation. We're motivated to die. He believes that was a subconscious drive. And we don't know if we take that motivator, if we take death out of our head. We don't even know us in humans how we'll act out. [00:55:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:55:05] Avi Kahan: Maybe we actually kill ourselves because we don't know how life exists after we're 150 years old and we, we, we, we allow our bodies to deteriorate earlier than they could. Maybe we could actually live 500 years. And like we, we don't know because we're cap. So we want to create a world down here that's perfect. Death exists and it's inevitable and it's a failure of a human, which most of us are going to fail. I believe I will die. So paradise is a motivator. I want to end up there and not in hell. [00:55:32] Speaker C: Right. [00:55:32] Avi Kahan: I, I want to leave over a memory of paradise and not a memory of hell. My children and my grandchildren, I want to leave over stuff that I could contribute that someone else one day will continue building the bricks that will allow for a beautiful society to exist. I believe we're very close. I believe the world's never been closer to figuring out how to have world, world peace. [00:55:55] Josh Galt: Yeah. [00:55:55] Avi Kahan: So I believe that's, that's the end game. [00:55:57] Josh Galt: 2, 2 questions then on that. So one is related to the heaven and hell, and what determines where you go? The second question maybe we can, we can follow up with this after is what does Judaism think about transhumanism? Because you're talking about creating that, that paradise on Earth. That's, that sounds like a very, very much in line with the transhumanists thinking of, hey, we're going to be able to upload our consciousness into a robot and we're going to be able to us as humans be sort of this transhumanist. We're going to be this new species of, of being here on earth that's going to create, you know, be able to live forever. So kind of the Brian Johnson don't die, that whole idea, which I like a lot of the things that he says. But my personal view is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. So I'd be happy to live 300, 400 years, however long I can like, because I love life and I want to enjoy it. But at the same time, I know that eventually for me, I believe that there is something else. There is a spiritual level to this. But specifically, first, I guess, first question, how does Judaism look at the heaven and hell issue? With Christianity, it's, you have to believe in Jesus, that he died for your sins, and you have to, you know, believe that he's your savior. Other religions have different views. How does Judaism look at the heaven and hell? [00:57:13] Avi Kahan: So Judaism, of course, as you know, existed before the Christian idea. They never change because one of the fundamental ideas of Judaism is that you can't. The Old Testament will never change. It will be everlasting and there's no additions to it. And then that's, that's a real. [00:57:33] Josh Galt: If law is God, then that would. That makes sense, right? [00:57:36] Avi Kahan: Exactly. So, so, so that existence, that, that mindset of heaven and hell has always been the same and nobody died for anybody's sins. In Jewish understanding, heaven, hell is like, I like it, like I. Like I explained it. Some believe it's a fundamental belief like that, that you're not a Jew, you're not a practicing Jew if you don't believe in heaven and hell. There, there are those great philosophers who believe that like Maimonides believes that Rabbi Alabo Rabies of alibi from the 12th century, he wrote a book on that that he believed you have to believe in punishment and reward, AKA heaven and hell, in order to be a believer, let's call it. But the how hell is gonna look and what hell is, these are, these are described as. With human metaphors of like fire as hot. Just because we're not going to be having the human experience. So it's undescribable really, hell and heaven, because we're only humans. So me and you are having a human conversation. I can give you a human metaphor called fire and hell and pain and real. We don't really know what those words mean. [00:58:42] Josh Galt: But how do you avoid it? That's. I guess that's My, my question is, how do you get to paradise and avoid hell as, as a practice? [00:58:50] Avi Kahan: By following, by, by believing in what you're supposed to believe and acting out your beliefs. [00:58:59] Josh Galt: So it's by, it is by the action. So this rabbi, for example, and I'm, I'm probably venturing into all kinds of sacrilegious territory, but this rabbi, that's a great example. Probably we could say that he's going to paradise because he is living the law. He is living his example. [00:59:14] Avi Kahan: Whereas we as students, I'll tell you the truth, we as students, we believe that he himself probably believes he's gonna end up in hell first. Really? Yeah. Judaism also believes hell is never eternal. Hell is just a cleansing process to get to heaven. [00:59:28] Josh Galt: Okay. So that, that, that's a big difference. [00:59:33] Avi Kahan: How is that eternal? I mean, for certain individuals, hell is discussed as being eternal. Like they can never get purified and they come back to this earth and they restart a process again. And this whole conversation is about reincarnation and all those interesting ideas. [00:59:45] Josh Galt: Really, even in Judaism, there's issues or conversation. Reincarnation, yeah. [00:59:49] Avi Kahan: Personalities. When those personalities weren't successful in accomplishing what that personality needed to accomplish. [00:59:56] Josh Galt: Yeah, interesting. Okay, so there's a, that's some interesting books about that. [01:00:00] Avi Kahan: There are a lot of mysteries, mystical books about that that like I, I think Mose, King Solomon was reincarnation of you, Moses, because Moses never made it. Moses never made it into Israel. [01:00:10] Speaker C: Right. [01:00:10] Avi Kahan: He died. [01:00:11] Josh Galt: Right, right. Joshua led them into the promised land. [01:00:14] Avi Kahan: The year of the Jews didn't make it there. So there's many, many, many different sources of, of. There was a great Talmudic sage who wrote most of the Talmud. He was a convert, actually. His name was Rabbi Ak. Akiva. He was a reincarnation. Joseph, the, the, the, the, the, the 11th tribe who ended up in Egypt, who ended up becoming the king of Egypt. Like there's so many. Again, these are, these are abstract non human ideas. I don't even know what I'm saying when I say reincarnation. Right. Because I don't know what a soul is without a body. [01:00:44] Speaker C: Right. [01:00:44] Avi Kahan: But I'm making up in my head it's like maybe a movie that I saw. Like a ghost, you know, or. [01:00:48] Josh Galt: Right, right. [01:00:49] Avi Kahan: Some idea, some idea that had a job to do and that idea went into a human and didn't accomplish it. So it's going to go again into a, another human to see if it could accomplish. [01:00:59] Speaker C: Right. [01:00:59] Avi Kahan: These ideas that righteous people don't pass away until a new righteous person is ready to be born and take over their mission. There's so many of these deep ideas that you could be busy with studying and I happen to enjoy reading about them. So I read a lot about them. But it doesn't. You don't really need to know or understand these idea to be a good Jew. To be a good Jew, really, you just have to act out your beliefs and search for God and search for meaning. Don't. You're not a Jew. You're not a good Jew because you're wise. You're not a good Jew because you're wealthy or strong or powerful. You're a good Jew because you're seeking out God and to understand him and you're acting out your beliefs. That's what Maimonides ends that my man is. Wrote a book called Guide to Perplex. It's a philosophical book beyond brilliant. Him trying to fit in with an Aristotle, an Aristotle understanding of God. Guide to Perplex was written in 1280, was banned, was burnt, it was. Went through a lot. But it's a really deep book that Maimonides wrote. And that is his philosophical magnum opus, right? And probably one of the first philosophical books that have ever existed after the great Greek philosophers. And he ends up. I think the last sentence is hitting this question after I spoke about hundreds of pages about God and everything. What's a good person? And he says a good person is not a smart person. It's not a wise person. It's not a strong person. Is a person who searches for me, who wants to know God and wants to act out those beliefs. And he says that a person should praise himself. He should never praise himself with wisdom or strength. He should praise himself. If he's a seeker for truth, a seeker for God, a seeker to do the right thing. That's really. That's really a person's job in life and in this world. [01:02:36] Josh Galt: See, that seems. There's like. There's so much overlap and that seems fundamental to. To. It seems like it would be fundamental to the, the religion for me to understand of. Okay, so I am. I'm here with a purpose that, that God gave me or that I am connected to God and this is my purpose to live out on this earth. And so the, the issue of heaven or hell is not so much the. The fear and shame and condemnation and control soul. It is. Look, if you mess up, then you may have to go through this, you know, on a different spiritual level, but then there is potential for continuing the journey. Sort of a Cloud Atlas type of thing. Yeah, like every crime and every kindness. [01:03:22] Avi Kahan: Few times, I thought a few times. What happens if we're in hell right now? We convinced ourselves that it's not purifying our. We're purified that our soul could go on to something else. That's really good. [01:03:33] Josh Galt: That's an interesting perspective. [01:03:35] Avi Kahan: Like, what happens if living is really dying? We died. Our souls died and went into this human body. We left planet heaven, let's call it, and we're dead right now. We think we're alive, and then when we're gonna die, when our bodies are gonna die, that's when we're gonna start living and we just purified our souls in hell. Like, I don't know if I'm not in hell right now, so I'm not so busy with the heaven and hell. [01:03:56] Josh Galt: That's a fascinating way to look at it, though. I love that. Honestly, I'm Googling right now. [01:04:01] Avi Kahan: The last I want to hear, I. I just googled the, the words of my 90s and here I want to see. Here I'm opening up to the last. The last I hear. And I want to. I want to read it. Let's see if I get an English translation. [01:04:15] Josh Galt: I mean, even the idea of struggle, you talk about the, the Jewish people in struggle over the. The centuries, the idea of, of hell on Earth and this, that struggle being a purifying, cleansing thing. And actually, like, real life starts the next level once we die. But we're going through the struggle right now. I mean, I think a lot of people would look at that and say, that kind of makes some sense because I feel like I'm going through hell. Right. And. Yeah, but in the, in the process, we have a choice to make. Right. Of purification or not. Like, that's. I think the crux of the issue is like, you can say, well, hell on earth. And you can just look at the material and you can just, you know, try and chase all this drug sex and rock and roll and forget about God. Or you can say, okay, look, if this is a purifying thing, then I'm going to accept whatever my lot is in life and I'm going to make the absolute best of it, because this is what I have to do to get through this purification process. [01:05:09] Avi Kahan: Yeah, I. I'll tell you the reason why I haven't looked down in my life. I really try not to look down at anybody who's living in hell, in my opinion. [01:05:19] Speaker C: Right. [01:05:19] Avi Kahan: Is because why would I want to do that if they're living in hell? So in the Outside, they managed to convince me in a marketing scheme that it's heaven. The guy can't cope without drinking, without shooting a drug, without having sex, without doing who knows what can build a family, has crazy anxiety. But convince me, and he's spending money on it and convince me that he's not in hell. I'm not, I'm not going to judge the person for being in hell. That's like the worst. He's already in hell. [01:05:45] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [01:05:46] Avi Kahan: And, and it's the worst thing. It's. I don't understand communities that start criticizing those people. It's like, if you think they're doing something that's going to bring them to hell, means they're in hell now. So you're going to preach against them. Like, like, like have compassion. Someone's in hell. So then did you get manipulated and think they're not in hell and they're in heaven? Like, did you by mistake get manipulated also? And then, then, then recheck your own values for a couple of seconds and then maybe check and maybe realize that your values of heaven are wrong. Because if you're, like, for me, anybody who criticizes strongly somebody who they think is going to end up in hell means that they really think what the person's doing is heaven and they're jealous of the person. Because if you believe that this rejection. Yeah. If you believe that this act is so bad that you're able to criticize it, then you should believe the person's in hell right now. [01:06:38] Josh Galt: Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. [01:06:40] Avi Kahan: He's in hell. And then if he's in hell right now, have empathy for the person. If you're preaching against it because you think he's in heaven. And if you think he's in heaven, that means you're thinking that being drunk is a heavenly. Like, that's what you think heaven's about. You think it's sitting there on a beach with a cocktail the whole entire day. That's boredom. Like, that's. [01:06:59] Josh Galt: I'm with you on that. That's the, the funny thing about the. A lot of religious views of heaven and hell and paradise or whatever. It's like sitting on a cloud playing a harp all day. I mean that. Honestly, the, the visions of heaven in some ways scared me when I was younger, coming up in church, because they'd be like, you don't understand how long eternity is. Like, imagine a ball of lead the size of planet Earth, and every day a mosquito comes and it lands on it. Eternity is longer than when the mosquito finally makes the ball of lead go away. And I'm just like, that sounds terrifying. What are we gonna do? Like, you know, it's. It is. [01:07:38] Avi Kahan: It is. It is. It is. It is terrifying if you understand it that way. But, yeah, but I do believe. I do believe that we're born. We're born. We're born into hell to a certain extent. That's what I believe. And we're here to make hell heaven. [01:07:52] Josh Galt: To read as a refinement process. [01:07:55] Avi Kahan: If you're not successful in that, you go back to heaven, right? If you haven't made hell and you're a failure, and that's okay, because humans throughout history, there's nobody been that successful and made yet this world heaven. [01:08:09] Speaker C: Right? [01:08:09] Josh Galt: So it's this process. Yes. Okay. So. So that brings us back to the transhumanist question then. Is, is there overlap with the transhumanist ideas of using AI and robotics and whatever to create this paradise on earth? Or is that a deception that. That Jews would look at and say, no, no, no, no, that's. That's close, but that's a deception because the reality is we have to go through building this paradise and this eternal, you know, this. This kingdom on earth through the law. [01:08:37] Avi Kahan: It's such a good question you're asking, and there's a big debate, and it really brings back to the Zionist question that you asked before. You see, because part of the Zionist fight, let's call it the Zionist and the anti Zionist, okay, Zionist fight, is that the process of redemption started already, right? And therefore electricity. Embrace it as the final thing. There's gonna be nothing deeper than electricity and therefore reality as it is. Start embracing it. It's almost like Aristotle, Aristotle had this criticism of religion. He said man made God in their own image, right? And what Aristotle was trying to say, like, don't say God made man in his image like it says in Genesis, because you're really just making God in your own image. You're projecting what you want God to be. And it's like, like the Zionist movement is like, Is sometimes criticized. Like, you decided that this is how reality should be, and you're trying to make that reality real. Maybe not. Maybe in 10 years, we're going to become so much smarter that we're actually going to look right now at what we are as so stupid. Just like we're paying attention to 100 years ago or 50 years ago, and we're like, how do they live then? Like, I have to explain my children of how I lived Before Google, right? I'm like, yeah, dude, I live before I'm on Google. No way. Google's so much smarter than you. I'm like, okay, oh, that's not a contradiction. But maybe in five years we're gonna find something that's gonna totally debunk Google. Maybe some AI is gonna, maybe in 10 years something even cooler than that. And this is the scary part, you call something God too early, you kill the potential of God. One of the criticisms that Judaism had on Zionism is that the anti Zionists compared Zionism to Christianity. [01:10:23] Speaker C: Why? [01:10:24] Avi Kahan: Because the criticism of Christianity is maybe making God exist too early. It's like, well, here's God's son. This is the perfect human. It's like, well, who said maybe the perfect human didn't. Doesn't exist yet. Well, all his ideas should be treated as ultimate truth. Well, if he is the perfect human, I agree. But who said he is the perfect human? Like, like, like don't take something that's not God and call it God is the second commandment of the ten Commandments. And part of Zionism is like, don't take things that are, that you decided are godly and call them God. So, so the way I look at it, because I'm an outsider to, to large fights, fights that are bigger than me, right? Fights that I wasn't hired to take on. I haven't received a phone call from God that said, hey, the Zionist, anti Zionist fight, you should lead the debate. So fights that I'm just observing, right? I'm an observer, right? I love how I watch like talk shows where people get so passionate between the Palestinian, Israeli fight. I'm like, who hired you to be a spokesman? Was it the Palestinians, was it the Israelis? Or are you just sharing your own opinion? But if you're sharing your own opinion, I can tell you that part of the fight between Zionist and anti Zionism is how real should you be making reality and how dangerous is it to make something that's not real, real? Like look at the world now in the therapy world, we, we, we, we think we understand the human brain already we're calling people narcissists and bipolar and schizophrenia and they keep on changing, right? Like schizophrenia used to be called precox dementia, which was a form of dementia, Sigmund Freud's time. And now it's a split personality. Like, like, so if we're, we're still in the phase of working. So don't make anything real. It, don't make anything real because one day it will be Real. And if you make it real too early, you're killing an opportunity for something to become real further on. And I'll give you a classic example of where there was a huge fight. So when they created the state of Israel, you have to create a language, right? So they took the language from the Old Testament to be the language. Beautiful. But there are certain words like electric that weren't discussed in the Old Testament. [01:12:28] Josh Galt: Ah, wow. [01:12:28] Avi Kahan: What do you do? So there was a poet, a philosopher by the name of Ben Yehuda who he was tasked to create the language of Hebrew. And he said he found this verse in Ezekiel that said one time the heavens opened up and through the heavens, Ezekiel saw in the clouds something called Hashmael. Like something like describing lightning. [01:12:50] Josh Galt: Okay. [01:12:51] Avi Kahan: Was like, that's the best way to describe electric, right? It's like some lightning song. We don't know how electric looks, but we describe it with a lightning bolt. [01:12:59] Josh Galt: Yeah. [01:12:59] Avi Kahan: And he's like, let's use that word from the Hebrew text to describe electric. And in modern day Hebrew, the terminology for electric, electric company electric, it's called hashmael. So some of the critic criticisms of Zionism was like, did you just destroy the definition of hashmael by putting it. [01:13:17] Josh Galt: Into something smaller than maybe what it actually meant? [01:13:20] Avi Kahan: Maybe what it is, maybe there's something deeper that the brain is not motivated to find out. Because if the brain is going to search through text and say, hey, we don't have a definition for this word hashmael, let's think now it's not going to do that. So there was a rabbi, a great rabbi who led a huge orthodox religious community over here in New York who wrote a book against the state of Israel, right? And this was one of his criticisms. He wrote, hey guys, I don't mind living there and let's protect the country, right? And let's do certain great stuff, but don't steal my words and make them mean something they don't mean. And he called it a form of stealing from Judaism. He called it a form of idol worship. He called it a form of desecration. Now, I'm not saying what my opinion opinion is. I dance in between. Because like you said, I believe we're hitting a time. This is not a normal time. They mentions, I believe a lot of these inventions are godly, but I'm still humble and I treat it with humility and say, I'm not going to call it God yet because maybe there's something that I'm killing before. It's like Cain And Abel, I think Abel, Abel was a better opportunity of Cain. And Cain killed him because he didn't want to have to reach the better opportunity, which is like giving the name to something that doesn't exist as a cane form thing of doing. It's like destroying the opportunity of what Hashmael could be. And this is just one example of thousands of ideas. So I believe, I believe is this the form of humanity which is going to be eternal, which is going to bring eternal peace? Could be. I believe when we're in an era that we could say could be. Do I know for sure? [01:14:48] Speaker C: No. [01:14:49] Avi Kahan: Am I going to leave myself open to see if there's an opportunity for something to be bigger? Yes, but that's my own personal belief. Other people believe. No, it's a time. We're at a time now since World War II. It's a sign of God. Look, World War II is definitely a sign for the Jewish people. Six million Jews were killed out. All my family comes from survivors. My grandfather was in Alcatraz. It was a sign. There's nobody who's around from Judaism wasn't affected from World War II. Everyone took it as a sign. And some people said, it's a sign that the redemption started. And the first the redemption started. Let's make the things that exist now real. That's what God wants us to do. And other people were like, no, no, the opposite. Let's not do that. It's way too early. And I'm more in the middle of like, I dance between these two people, these two school of thoughts, Zionism and anti Zionism, somewhere in the middle. So for example, myself personally, when I lived in Israel, I did not vote for government because I felt voting is asking government to make laws that aren't going to be divine. [01:15:47] Josh Galt: Right. [01:15:48] Avi Kahan: But I am very, very pro the state of Israel and people who are there. And I treat everybody with respect. And if I've worked for the government in Israel when I was an arbitrator, they would send me cases. I've helped religious political disputes and I'm a big fan of that. But I myself, I'm humbled not to participate yet because I don't want to make something that I don't believe is real. Real yet. [01:16:07] Josh Galt: That's interesting nuance, man. It's. The world needs more of that to where you can, you can go and say, I'm an arbitrator. I'm not going to vote because of my religious adherence to the word of God is the law, and I don't want man to make laws which are not divine. But I'm also still, at the same time I'm in favor of the state of Israel existing, etc. That kind of nuanced. [01:16:30] Avi Kahan: I want them to do better. I want them. I get involved in conversations about law with them. I sat on committees that discuss law, just like in America. And I believe that when Israel is going to be fully established, I'm going to live there. And I'm still here in America trying to help the law system. And I think America is still going to exist after the state of, after the Jews moved to Israel. We're going to still come visit America. Allah. Right? We might do business over here. [01:16:51] Josh Galt: Do you think that, that this, the idea of hell on earth is going to change then is. I mean that's kind of the, the goal. [01:16:57] Avi Kahan: Like I think post Messiah there's, there's not going to be. I think there's going to be ultimate peace. And when there's ultimate peace, there's going to be no more hell on earth. That's what I believe. [01:17:05] Josh Galt: And so in terms of the Messiah question, like the how. How does that or what does that look like? Just in a nutshell, like what's. [01:17:14] Avi Kahan: I don't think any difference between normal society. I don't think any difference. Look, when I say I, I'm quoting you. My mom is rights and chapters Kings in, in, in. In. In his section on Kings in chapter 10. It's really his end of his law book of, of his. Of his 14 books. He writes over there that there's going to be no difference between the days post Messiah and the days pre Messiah, except ultimate pieces the world. [01:17:42] Josh Galt: But does, does that require that everyone accepts the Messiah? Everyone becomes Jewish. [01:17:50] Avi Kahan: Anything? No, no. If anything, if anything, my man, since he's trying to. What he's really trying to do in that chapter is denounce people who believe that post Messiah is going to be a miraculous time. [01:18:01] Speaker C: Right? [01:18:02] Avi Kahan: So he asks on himself, he brings a verse. And I, I think it's in Isaiah that says that post Messiah the sheep and wolves will get along. Wolves referring to wicked people and sheep referring to good people. And my mom says that's not a miracle. It doesn't really mean real wolves and sheep will get along. It's a metaphor that Jews will be able to get along with wicked people. That means post Utopia, a Jew is going to be able to look at a wicked person and still get along, which means someone who's totally the opposite. Totally opposite. Does everything the opposite of what it Jubilees they'll still be able to get along with. So I believe that is a hint to us that know the opposite. Jews are not going to want anyone else to become Jews. Everyone else who can live in Israel. The only thing you need to live in Israel is accept upon yourself seven commandments to live in Israel. One is that there's a God. One God. Two is you're not going to eat for an animal when it's alive. Like the seven commandments that they keep. Before Judaism existed. It's called the seven no eyed laws. Laws. [01:19:04] Josh Galt: Okay, right. [01:19:05] Avi Kahan: The seven Noah laws that were that, that ex. That are the laws of Adam and Eve because it's the laws of what they kept from when Noah came after the, the flood. [01:19:17] Speaker C: Right. [01:19:17] Avi Kahan: So it's the laws of humanity. As long as they keep the laws of humanity which are only seven, no stealing. You know this. There are seven seven basic laws. The seven basic laws of humanity. They can even live in Israel. They can even join come on temple mountain and bring sacrifices just like any other Jewish. [01:19:33] Josh Galt: But do you think there's a risk of a false messiah? Is that a potential risk? Like maybe that could be an AI. False messiah. Right? [01:19:42] Avi Kahan: There are false messiahs every day. Some people believe Zionism is a false messiah. Some people believe Jesus was a false messiah. Throughout Judaism there have been hundreds of false messiahs. I think every person who gets up and becomes bigger than God is a false messiah. False promise. I think there are thousands of false messiahs. I think I can become a false messiah tomorrow. I get a group of five, six people and I. A cult leader is a full message. [01:20:04] Josh Galt: Yeah, exactly. [01:20:05] Avi Kahan: Yeah, I, I think, I think full size always exists. [01:20:08] Josh Galt: Just rationally. Like if I look at that, okay, so let's say the Messiah comes and there's peace on earth. But yet if the wicked people still exist and if there are still everyone else in all these other religions that still exist, what is going to keep peace on earth and make it. [01:20:27] Avi Kahan: I don't know how because if I would know how I would do it. But he's going to create some idea. Whoever's going to figure out the answer to that question is my Messiah. [01:20:37] Josh Galt: Got it. [01:20:38] Avi Kahan: How do you keep everyone together along? I think you're gonna have to come with some basic law, basic understanding. I think Jewish people are gonna have to be a role model and you're not gonna be able to find the criticism on them. The second there's something that they're doing wrong, which is constantly now, then they're not going to be a light to the other nations. I think, I think, I think humanity is going to have always evil in Judaism also. But they're going to be able to, you can be able to get along with evil. I think as a metaphor, figuring out how to deal with evil. I don't know what that. You see, I don't know what it is because it doesn't exist yet. But the person who's going to. There's going to be someone who's going to figure that out. There's going to be something. I don't know who it is. Look, there's an Orthodox community in the world, throughout the world, called Labavich. They exist in every. Where do you live? Which state? [01:21:24] Josh Galt: I'm in Mexico right now. [01:21:25] Avi Kahan: Mexico. [01:21:26] Josh Galt: But I'm from the west coast, from Oregon. [01:21:28] Avi Kahan: So wherever in Mexico, in the west coast, wherever you are, within probably 100 mile radius, there is something called a chabad house where there's somebody who offers food, free food, and somebody from a certain community. They believe that their rabbi was the Messiah. [01:21:44] Speaker C: They believed it, yeah. [01:21:45] Avi Kahan: Oh yeah. It was a huge fight in Orthodox Judaism. Some parts of Orthodox Judaism said we don't have a religion, we don't want to have a relationship if they think they have the Messiah. And then he died. [01:21:53] Speaker C: Right. [01:21:53] Avi Kahan: So the followers said, well, his ideas are messianic and his ideas are going to take us out of, are going to redeem us. His ideas, just like Moses didn't make it into Israel, his ideas made it into Israel. So the ideas of this rabbi will and now could be true, could be not true. It's not relevant to me. I'm just a small guy who's just studying these. But, but someone's going to come up with ideas and those ideas are going to be universally healthy, that everyone's going to follow. [01:22:22] Speaker C: Right? [01:22:23] Avi Kahan: And that person is going to be a king and he's going to rule the world. Not through force, through will. People are going to want to follow him. And then I think that's the utopia. Looking forward to that. [01:22:39] Josh Galt: So that leads me. I got one final question. We blew through an hour and a half here so fast. Fascinating conversation, but that, that leads to a really good challenge, which is from your perspective, without trying to convert the whole world. Because I like the idea that you're saying like the, the Jewish Messiah comes and now there's peace on earth, even though there are still people that believe differently, etc. But there still is peace on earth. Okay, let's just, let's just look at that as a target, as a secular Person or a spiritual person or religious person, like having peace on earth would be great. That's a good challenge goal to have. So where do you see that there is overlap or what. What would you say people can do in their day to day lives when dealing with people of other belief systems, of other faiths in order to adhere to their connection with God, their own relationship, relationship with God and also just on a modern secular level, help to bring a little bit of peace on earth. [01:23:44] Avi Kahan: I can tell you what I do personally, what I know, what I. So we all agree that God existed before the world existed. Because if he's the creator of the world, he had to exist before. And therefore we also then have to understand that there was an understanding of God without the world. God meant something because if it exists, means it mattered. Right? It existed. Maybe not physically because God doesn't have a physical, but metaphysically so it mattered. God mattered before the world. And when the world was created, he now mattered to humanity through human understanding. [01:24:21] Speaker C: Right. [01:24:21] Avi Kahan: Maybe to the other planets he's still communicating. So human understanding of God is like an example that God constricted himself to be understood by humanity, humans. [01:24:31] Speaker C: Right. [01:24:31] Avi Kahan: And that's almost oppressed by the by by God. So don't treat, treat your reality as real, but don't expect anyone else to treat your reality as real. So be treat your reality as real. I'm not part of those people who believe. Don't treat anything as real. Be so subjective and nothing matters. Because then I think you become way too libertarian if you go down that route. I'm not a fan of that either. So. So treat your reality as real, but treat it from your perspective as real. Don't think God is treating it as real. So your perception of God is real to you, but not to God. And if your perception of God is not real to God, then when you're talking to someone else, why would you want to push your perception on that person in any other way but through love and niceness and pleasantness? Because it's only your perception and God is not even looking at your perception as real. Yeah, God is like, that's not me. What you're understanding in God's eyes, you almost are making a false God. And that's okay. [01:25:37] Josh Galt: So it brings humility into the picture. [01:25:38] Avi Kahan: Just naturally gotta be so super humble. And therefore whenever you're talking to someone else, you gotta first share their. You first gotta tell them that you understand what they're saying. It's like, okay, in every conversation you're really telling the Person. Okay. And if this is including if someone's sharing with you their perception about stealing, abortion, any topic, it's like, okay, I'm going to treat for a second your perception is real. Oh, so let me know if I got your perception clearly to you. Do I understand it clearly? Okay, now let me share with you my perception. And maybe, maybe if you're humble enough and you share the other person's perception first, maybe you'll have the unique opportunity of purifying your perception in what, getting a third perception that this conflict created and that by me is called God. Because it's a perception without human inside. Because you only were able to create it by someone destroying your human experience and you destroying their human experience and allowing that, that for me is God. That is the definition of God. Finding someone who argues with my perception, having a nice healthy debate which we each treat our perception is real, but treat the other person's perception for them as real. And seeing what evolves, and whatever evolves that I treat, treat as divine. And I'm humble to that. And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll treat that new idea with humility and I'll let that new idea judge me. Because I know it's not me judging me. It's this new idea that was created with this non human experience because it was created with somebody who doesn't think like me. So I know it's more divine. And live your life with that, allowing that. So that means you need someone to argue on you in order to create what should judge you. [01:27:18] Josh Galt: That is beautiful iron, sharpening iron. And it creates something new, something that advances us as individuals and as a human race. [01:27:30] Avi Kahan: It's like, like in a marriage, people ask like, who controls the marriage, the husband or the wife? It's like the marriage controls the marriage. It's like the husband shares his conflict with the wife and they create a third opinion called the marriage. And that, that's God and that controls like. So who controls, who controls the marriage? The marriage controls the marriage, right? Who controls me? An idea that I know is not mine. So I need you, I need you desperately to want to have a debate with me in order to create that idea. So I need other humans who disagree with me in order to create something that should judge me and, and then be humble to that judge. Because you need to, you need to have a judge control. You need to be judged by something, but not by yourself. Don't judge yourself. You'll judge yourself way too harshly. Don't allow someone else to judge you. Allow a divine idea to judge you. And, and, and, and that's, that's, I think if you, if you can have the privilege of doing that in every idea and the way you want run business and the way you run your family and those ideas judge you, you'll have very little anxiety in life. You'll have very little depression in life, which are the two things I think humans need to battle. The only two things, the anxiety and depression. And then you live a very, you live a life of doing what you want to do, not what you need to do. Real happiness and joy and pleasantness and paradise. [01:28:48] Josh Galt: That's some, some good advice. Absolutely powerful. I, I really, really appreciate the, the candor and the, the passion that you bring to the argument as well. And yeah, thanks for coming on. It was a really, really great conversation, Rabbi. I appreciate it and I, I'm sure I'll reach out to you again maybe for a more specific conversation, but I appreciate having this conversation. [01:29:11] Avi Kahan: I really, really enjoyed, I really enjoyed