A Fascinating Conversation with Jewish Historian Yehuda Geberer on the War in Israel, Graphic News Imagery, Tragedy, and Esav's Hatred for Yaakov

Welcome in. We have for ourselves a big treat. Somebody who I look up to in the world of Hama and in the world of our, but the satira and definitely in the world of podcasting. It is with much a carcatove that we welcome into the podcast the great historian, the expert historian. You. Who to give her? Can you hear me Thank?

you. Yes, thank you so much for the warm introduction. It's a high bar to live up to. So I don't know if I'm an expert or a historian, but I I will, you know, do my best, and thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

I want to put forth right away that the reason that we're having this interview is because we're in an unprecedented time. This is a time where we're Clio sirl definitely feels like there is a meet us had in. It's a time of war and it's a time where we're not really sure how to react really, whether we should be reacting in ways of action, what to be thinking. So I immediately thought of well, doesn't seem like anything new, because ain't Hadash tachas I show much. There's nothing new underneath the Sun. So why not go get a historian who knows about what happens in wars and knows how this stuff kind of goes down and what we should be thinking? And luckily Mr Udegheber agreed to come on the show. I'd like to begin the interview with Just jumping at it and I'd love to hear Exactly what you thought when you heard of the brutal Attacks that were perpetrated I believe it was October 7th by this war in Hamas Between Hamas and Israel. What were your initial thoughts when you heard about what was going on and what happened?

so the initial thoughts, or rather what my stages of hearing, took place incrementally because the information was incomplete. We start to hear about it some chastira morning, basically because we had air raid sirens going off here in Bay Chamesh about seven or eight times that morning and we, you know, we had we carried out our hakafas and we kept on hearing rumors and we don't know how true they are and we Are struggling to keep our yantif as much as possible and at that point we're just more like clueless. So that's the initial. You know, something Looks, sounds like something bad. We're not really getting a picture, and a picture only becomes clear as we hear more and more information over the next couple of days. And immediately my first reaction was and by now it's Six weeks into the war, it's almost cliche, but I remember noting it like the first day or two that by sheer numbers it is the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And that immediately got me thinking that, wow, we have a real comparison to the Holocaust for the first time after so many times that We've been saying you know, you can't be careful when you use Holocaust imagery and you can't make comparisons and and stuff like that. And all of a sudden, we have a real comparison. And then, once the atrocities Started to come out, and then it became even more Validated that that feeling, because those sadistic atrocities that we started to hear about in the subsequent days as, as the picture became more and more clear, brought so many comparisons and and, and then you say like hey, you know 2023, something that I bring groups to Europe to teach about the Holocaust and things that I mentioned in my podcast and my articles and in lectures all of a sudden it's not the past, it's, it's part of the present as well. And obviously there are differences and I'm not saying it's the same thing, but those are the initial reaction that I had and and, like you said, it was unprecedented, and unprecedented as a phrase we like to throw out, throw around. Anything like any election is unprecedented or anything. You know, lunch is unprecedented, but but here it truly was, at least in my lifetime. So it was. You know. You go through the psychological stages shock and denial and anger, and and up to a point where in Hebrew and in Israel, we call it Shigrat Milchama. Eventually you come to this routine of war that your kids are going to school every day and your life is very difficult and you're kind of trying to be have a normal life and even though it's war and they Chamesh, fortunately the last few weeks Blyat and Harapupupu, we haven't had air raid, sirens and but you know, I have neighbors on my block who are Away for weeks at a time and their families are long because they're in the army. I know a person who's kidnapped. I know soldiers at the military, I know a person who's kidnapped. I know soldiers at the front. So the war is there, it's in front of you, it's part of your daily life, but you, you go from the initial horror and shock and anger to Trying to continue with your daily routine. That's basically my been my reaction.

I was on Simhastora. I walked outside, I was still in my tallest, it was in America and it was a beautiful sunny day, you know, like a classic Simhastora, where you know the Bahram are stealing the Torah's and probably drinking a bit too much and and the Balabat are, you know, fighting back and Trying to get to, trying to get on with it, and all of a sudden there was an Israeli guy walking outside and he had gotten news and he told me it was like a moment where you know where you are and you can picture it in time Israel's in a full-blown war, thousands dead. I wasn't even. I don't even remember like 9, 11. This was the first time that I ever had to process Emotions. You're a bit older than me, but tell me if I'm wrong here one of the things that made me enraged, um, and uncomfortably enraged, because normally Muster tells us not to be angry, but here, like it was confusing, because now I want it to be angry and Perhaps the Torah wants us to be angry or maybe we'll talk about that, but the fact that Is it. It's unprecedented that even you compared it to that scary h word of the Holocaust. But the Holocaust, the Germans still tried to hide Some of their actions until it became worldwide Information. But these people were broadcasting it. That's what made me so angry the fact that they're streaming it on tiktok and instagram and Promoting it. I wonder if you had that same reaction to it.

It did surprise me that they were so open about it. Generally perpetrators are a bit more circumspect about that. The Nazis hid their crimes to an extent. They definitely were proud of them. On the other side, they did document it occasionally. Sometimes it was doing it for their friends and families, sometimes it was for internal use. One of the most famous images of the Einsatzgruppe in Ukraine operating in Ukraine wiping out Jewish communities in Ukraine is Einsatzgruppe C who wiped out the communities of Northern and Central Ukraine in the summer and fall of 1941. One of the most famous images of the Holocaust is a SS soldier from that Einsatzgruppe who is aiming at a Jewish woman holding her child. I think most people who have seen Holocaust pictures are familiar with that. That was actually posed. It wasn't quite an action. He didn't even kill the woman at the time. He killed her later that day. He forced the woman to pose with her child. He stood there holding his rifle in a certain way and asked someone to take a picture of him. Then he made that picture into a postcard and sent it back to his family like here's what we're doing out in Ukraine. I agree with you that in general the Nazis didn't document what was going on in the gas chambers. They didn't have videos and go-pros in the gas chambers. They were definitely proud of what they did. They definitely did share it and documented occasionally, but they definitely were trying to hide the crime on a much larger scale than Hamas did with their go-pros and literally streaming everything. Yeah, it did surprise me a bit.

As soon as I reached out to you about the possible booking of this interview and the excitement of trying to get some perspective from you on this, I was a bit perplexed in how one of the things that you mentioned that you wanted to make a point about and talk about was something that I wasn't really familiar about. I'm hoping that you can shed some light about why you believe it's so crucial to talk about. That's the idea of bearing witness. Quite frankly, it's hard to do it. At times I've even been instructed to not look at the footage. Please do enlighten us as to why and what bearing witness is and why it's so important Again it's a great question and whatever follows is my personal feelings and opinion about it.

I know that there's many who disagree and I respect diverging sets of opinions. I think there's this dilemma between bearing witness to horror and tragedy versus not looking at it to avoid the trauma. I don't want to be traumatized. I don't want to be kept up at night. It's not healthy for me psychologically and it's dangerous, and especially if we're talking about children. Anything that I'm promoting to bear witness is obviously age-appropriate. I want to make that 100% clear. I'm not promoting any idea that children should be exposed to these things. Obviously it has to be age-appropriate for adults. I write for Meshpacha magazine together with my esteemed colleague and dear friend Davi Safir. I'm a weekly column, a history column, for the record. I was reading the Meshpacha last few weeks and I noticed this raging debate in the letters to the editor whether the coverage of the Meshpacha magazine should include graphic pictures. There are two types of people who were writing against this idea. There were people who signed their name with an LCSW. They're social workers and therapists who are engaged with this kind of work. They understand the damage that can be done to people. They were opposed to being exposed to graphic pictures, other people who were name withheld, so they obviously didn't really believe in their own opinions because they kept it anonymous. Question is should adults bear witness to the heart? My feeling of it is that you definitely need to bear witness to the heart, to the tragedy. You need to confront it. It's a form of denial that we can't confront the heart or we can't confront the tragedy. It's basically what a lot of these anti-Semites out there are doing. They're saying October 7th never happened and it's a propaganda and it's ripping down the posters. I see it as a person who says I can't look at it, so then you're ripping out these people's faces. You're not willing to recognize the tragedy. A lot of people when they spoke about it and it gets very emotional and very charged atmosphere they mentioned Naisi Ba'al. I don't even think the topic is Naisi Ba'al.

I'll get to it in a second.

Why not? Because I think Naisi Ba'al has its place here. I think there's a lot more to it than just Naisi Ba'al. I think it is Naisi Ba'al, but it's much more than that. Let's take it in stages, let's look at it as Naisi Ba'al and then let me explain how it's. Even beyond that, there's a great story. He wanted stories about Zadikim.

Love stories, we love them.

We have to be reactive to this. Ravbakh Berleibovich, the great commoner to Rosh Hashiva and world-renowned, respected one of the greatest Zadikim of pre-war Eastern Europe. He was a Qadish. He was a person who was completely a holy person, removed from the mundane world that we deal with. One of his things was that he disliked to almost an extreme newspapers those are full of Lush and Harah and worse. He had a tremendous dislike for newspapers when he would allegedly this is what they say that when he saw one on his table or something, he would pull down his sleeve and remove it from the table to the floor to be swept into the garbage because he didn't want to touch it. As if it was like a dead reptile Like a dead reptile.

Exactly, exactly.

Yet in 1933, after Hitler came to power in Germany, ravbakh Berleibovich in Poland, not in Germany. Hitler comes to power in Germany in 1933. For the next six years until World War II begins, the Jews of Germany are suffering ever more intensely under Hitler. There's the Nuremberg laws and they're stripped of their citizenship and they're kicked out of their jobs and kicked out of schools, and there's restrictions and there's Kristallnacht, and then and shuls are burned and and and Jews are arrested and sent to concentration camps and all these terrible things. At that point I don't know if it was the day after Hitler became to power At some point after Hitler came to power, ravbakh Berleibovich started to read newspapers the thing that he had disliked so much in exchange, and people were shocked what are you doing? He's a renaut, been Israel in Germany are going through with Sarah. I need to know what is happening to them so that I could be nice to bowl. I need to know what they're going through. I need the details, I need the stories. I can't just know it in an abstract way. It's the equivalent of today's, you know graphics and videos, obviously, and says I need to go out of. That's against my ideology, that's so against what I believe. Because that's my responsibility as another year, I need to be nice to them. In order to do that, I have to be reading the articles that describe in detail and graphic detail how Jews are beaten up on the streets, how Jews are stripped of their citizenship, how Jews are kicked out of their jobs, how Kristallnacht happens, how the laws are passed so that he can be properly nice of all. I think that that point is obvious, but I think that it gets past nice, a bowl territory. I think that and I say this as taking responsibility, myself and the community Jewish Holocaust educators, or perhaps even Holocaust educators worldwide, not even non Jewish that we've been focusing when we discuss the Holocaust, when we teach the Holocaust and trips, tours, lectures, books, museums and a lot of other things. Our focus is on inspiration. Our focus is on the story of survival, the miraculous story of survival.

That's what sells books. People want motivation and motivation.

They want inspiration, motivation, want to moon moon is good on humanity. They want the points of light. They want that one non Jew who risked his life to save another Jew. You see that even with all the evil there's still goodness. And we failed. We failed as Holocaust educators because we focused on inspiration and we didn't confront the horror and the tragedy of the Holocaust, this and the bitter-glorious survivor. And I asked him if he had ever seen people do tfilin or anything like that in the camps. And you know, because that's what you read in the books. So he said you know, you think that Auschwitz is some sort of stable that in this barracks they were putting on tfilin and in the next barracks they were davening mencha and in the next barracks they were lighting the chanikamner. He said you don't understand. It was a horror, it was a terrible, terrible place. And maybe once in a while there was someone who also, in the midst of that horror, with great, mysterious snafish and heroics, put on tfilin, maybe, and maybe even gave his life for it. Who knows?

But the point is, yeah, sorry, you know, go ahead, you're bringing up something that's already. As somebody who grew up in America, it's already hard to hear you talk about these things and it's because I feel like a very for lack of a better word desensitized for only peace and love. But I guess it's a perspective that you bring with history and you're right. Most of the Holocaust stories that I have heard are mostly about you know what Rob Dustin-Svies said and pushing your blanket to others and helping people and a lot of these types of somehow still happy and motivational lessons. But there's still millions of people hurt. And maybe tell me what you think about the following axiom, if you will, that I heard one great God that'll say that it takes bravery to have emuna, to not deny, but to see and be brave. Do you believe that it would take bravery to have emuna? Is that part of what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great way, that's a great. Yeah, I like that because it's exactly that it's. When I see the tragedy and I confront the horror and I see the evil, I look at the bad and in the eye and I say I don't understand it. It makes me angry, it makes me want revenge, it makes me feel all kinds of horrible feelings and emotions that I don't even want. I don't want to be angry, I don't want to feel revenge, I just want to feel love and peace and inspiration. But yet this is what I see and I don't understand it. And I want to understand. But I recognize my limitations and I don't. And I make that leap of faith to emuna. That's, emuna, what I'm inspired. And hey, there's a happy ending because the guy survived with the Tfilian. So then they hey, that's not a big deal to be in my image. Now, I'm not negating it, don't get me wrong. I'm saying put it in perspective, give it the right context, give it its place. It has to be balanced. You can't be over focused on it. And especially in the initial stage, the first few days after the massacre, the first few weeks after the massacre, there's a mitzvah to remember what Amalek did. It doesn't say remember to be inspired from how people survived. Amalek, it's a brilliant deal.

It's a brilliant analysis.

Right, and you know I'll tell you something a few years ago and I say this every single time I bring a group to Auschwitz on our way in, I say this story, and again about Tzadikim. So you like Tzadikim, right?

We love Tzadikim stories.

So several years ago I had the privilege there was a day, a yom iyun, a day of educators, a Charedi. Educators from all over Israel came to Yad Vashem, a Charedi day at Yad Vashem for Charedi Holocaust education, and the keynote speaker was the Hele Gettol Nerebashlita Zlang Zun Nishtar. He was a wonderful speaker, brilliant man. I really admire him. Not that he needs my asgama, and he spoke, and he said a vart there that I repeat every single time I bring a group to Auschwitz. He said that there's two mitzvahs of history in the Tyra one, a general mitzvah to know Jewish histories Chariah Meisai'ilim b'nushneis dar-v'dar, shalavichh yigetch hazak'inach v'imrulach and then one, a mitzvah, to remember the tragedies of Jewish history Zachariah is asher asul-chah, a maleikh with the erotism of Israel, and all the Svahar Magdai'shim speak about how a maleikh is shabchol dar-v'dar, aimdim alein al-chalisa'in. And it's not only that one specific time. So he said now I don't know diktuk, so I'm just taking his word for it. He said there's a difference between when the shiva sign the vowel is under the zayin zichariah yimaisi'ilim b'nushneis dar-v'dar, and when the kamatz vowel is under the zayin zachariah asher asul-chah maleikh. He said that when it's a kamatz, it's a stronger language, it's a stronger command. It's heavier as opposed to zichariah is a softer expression. That's what he said. So the question is, why? Why over here, is it? You know softer expression? So the Talmud Rabbah said that when it's zichariah, yimaisi'ilim b'nushneis dar-v'dar, it's a really easy mitzvah to fulfill. You know how. You just read the end of the pasak sh'al avichh kaviagad ch'azakaynah kaviayim-rulak. Go to your parents, find out the traditions, find out the messiah. Go to your abeim, go to your grandparents, go to this canum. He said what happens when a maleikh wipes out Clalius'ril or part of Clalius'ril, and you lost the tradition, you lost that generation. And you're wondering what is this? Where do I come from? Why did a maleikh come and destroy us? Why? What's happening here? What was this, khurban? So the Tairis says oh, you're gonna say, well, I don't have anyone to ask and I'm full of questions, so I'm just gonna move on, because it's too horrible, I can't confront the tragedy. So the Torah says Zachar, I raise Hashirah, I'm all like a very strong command. And the Torah then went on in his own words and he said the Torah is telling you go to Yad Vashem, go to Auschwitz, go read books about the Holocaust, go get a Holocaust education. That's what the Torah is telling you, because you need to confront the tree. You need to find out what I'm all like does and how he operates. It's very important. Now, if you look at the chazals of the Gmariz and Medrashim on Eichah the Tisha above time, everyone's very into that. Those are incredibly graphic. The chazals on the Tayiqah and the poor Mesamaikah they talk about people starving and blood and cannibalism.

And mothers eating children.

Others eating children. There's a chazal of nine carbon of brain on a rock from Jewish children were massacred. These are Medrashim, these are Gmaris. Now, they did not have video and pictures in the time of chazal, so the only way to convey a horrible image or a horrible video in the times of chazal was to create a text that's so graphic that you're horrified, and chazal went out of their way to do it. So you know. Luckily they didn't have people in writing to chazals letters to the editor pages telling them you know you're not allowed to write. You're not allowed to write such graphic descriptions because people aren't going to be able to sleep at night and they're going to be traumatized. Well, apparently chazal felt you're supposed to be traumatized On Tisha above when you're sitting on the floor and mourning the Besameikah when the tragedy happens, then you're supposed to be traumatized. The kinesis on Tisha above, about the crusades, were things that were composed I don't know if we say that on Tisha above or not about Takvata, the Chamel Niski massacres in 1648, 1649. They're incredibly graphic.

Oh, I heard your episode and I still can't sleep about it, with just something to do with cats. I don't know if you know what I'm referring to.

Yeah, yeah, and then rape and bedding and lynching all kinds of things. So apparently, these Gdailei Island, these great sadikim who wrote these kinesis and the chazal akadeshim who wrote it, they felt that we need to be traumatized, they felt that we need to confront the horror.

Or at least educated and informed about it. Maybe we'll just say that yeah.

Yeah, exactly, I agree I might be too provocative with my semantics and I agree that we can tone down. You know we can say educated, no, we never want to tone it down. Like you said, it's only natural, if you confront it with honesty and authenticity, that it will just naturally lead to such a grotesque and kind of chills type of feeling, yeah, and in war in general, war is horrible, tragedy is horrible, you have, you know, you have the Kilgore versus Kurtz approach to war, whether it's Charlie don't surf or becoming a friend of mortal terror. Is it right of the Valkyries or the horror? The horror, you know.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

to be honest, it's well, most ear listeners will, and if they don't, then they shouldn't be listening. The idea is there's two ways to look at war as war just a means to victory, and or inspiration, or finding the light within darkness. Or is there a tragedy there that I have to recognize? Is there, you know what? If you ask someone what happened in the Holocaust and they say you know, people struggle to survive. The Nazis dehumanized them, they put numbers on their arms and they struggled to survive, and some of them did. To me that's not what happened in the Holocaust. What happened in the Holocaust was that nearly six million Jews were killed in the most brutal, sadistic fashions, tortured, very often Killed in gas chambers and shooting killing pits and Kivriachem, and somehow some few, very, very few, miraculously survived. Then we owe those survivors everything for rebuilding the world that we live in and with the trauma that they witnessed. So bearing witnessed is much, much more than nice. They go oh, which which on its own merits is good enough. That's what we're very credit.

Right, that's extra credit.

Exactly what I'm saying is is that there's there's this idea of being engaged in the tragedy, of being a part of it, of of seeing it and look around the world. There's so much denial out there. You want to support that denial by saying it's too hard to look at, so I don't want to be traumatized. Or you want to say no, you know the, the, the. They want to show members of Congress the, the graphic, the most graphic, right, and what you've been seeing, apparently, is nothing compared to the actual, real, you know footage. So, again, I don't know. I don't know what each person should be viewing and I'm not going to say, going to tell everyone what they should be. Everyone decide on your own. I'm just expressing an opinion that the idea that we should be shot except for children, obviously, who shouldn't be exposed to that all. But you want to. You want to be able to be a witness, you want to be able to say I went through this stage in Jewish history and I didn't stand off to the side, I was involved, I understood what was happening and I'm here, to tell that story.

It wasn't even that long ago that I had, as I say, a bad day where I was just walking and I, you know, dropped my safari on the floor and I was walking to Yeshiva. I was wearing a regular, like my Shabbos shoes, because it was Sunday, and I didn't change it and I stepped in a puddle and socks got wet and then I spilled my coffee and first aid are on my shirt. It was those type of and I had no idea what the rub was talking about during sheer. It wasn't, it wasn't, you know, stuck in traffic. The list goes on. But I remember somebody told me, like it's all for the best, like it's good, and I wanted to strangle them, even though, you know, I tried to hold myself back. I went to a rub with this, with this feeling because, you know, maybe now I'm lacking faith. But he said that someone just says, yeah, it's so good. Most likely they're, they're kind of not acknowledging or recognizing that, whoa, your socks are wet, your shirts dirty and you're a half hour late home. But that happened and you acknowledge it and after you acknowledge C and are now informed, understand perhaps. Well, then you can maybe move into Patukhan from there. Perhaps that has to do with what we're talking about.

It's very good. I like that analogy, and are we allowed to say a word on this podcast or it's strictly?

history. No, well, no, this is strictly Tyra, with a little bit of history.

So. So the Baal Shem Teva Kodesh says that it says by the shalach, the he named it's Ryan. I say ah, charehan, as he says it's a, there's a muscle muscle, a mother, a woman, but try him as a lotion of serum C Ray, lady contractions. So the Baal Shem Teva says that Baal Shem Teva Kodesh says that there's a woman who's experiencing labor contractions. So the he named it's Ryan. I say ah, charehan, it's chasing after her and she feels this pain. So she says well, the pain must be because I'm in this particular home or with these people. So let me run to another place and the pain won't be there. So she runs away and of course it's labor pain, so it's still with her. So she's still experiencing the pain. So she said well, okay, maybe this town, maybe it's my job, you know, maybe something else. So she runs away, she keeps on running away and the pain persists Until finally she says, she says I realized that the pain is within me, it's part of me, this is part of what I'm experiencing and it's my own experience and I need to confront it. And the Baal Shem Teva says later on, in the parish, it says it says K'i asher re'isem es mitzrayim hayyoyim. Laisei si'fum l'roisim at eilum. So Baal Shem Teva says it's just say K'i k'i asher re'isem es mitzrayim hayyoyim. Why does it say K'i asher re'isem es mitzrayim hayyoyim? So he says K'i asher re'isem, by you looking at your sars, by you confronting it, by you accepting it and by recognizing that your pain is part of your reality and not running away from it, then laisei si'fum l'roisim at eilum. That will give you the strength to move on from it. So you know that follows in the same way. Totally, especially if it's glalia strolls pain.

No, no, definitely. The denial is definitely not a way that any therapist would say to go about recovery. So maybe this does segue into the next idea. Before we say something that may get us in trouble, the idea that the word perpetrator has come up quite frequently. I think it's that Hamas is Islamic terrorist group. I believe that's how they put it. I don't know if it's Hamas or Hamas. I don't know if it's Hezbollah or Hezbollah, but I don't need to make a joke, but I just don't. But the fact that you had mentioned you found it interesting how innocent or people that are born maybe just like you and I grow up to either believe and want to accomplish things that these horrible, hellacious insects, these monsters, accomplished. I'd like to ask you to expound upon that as well.

So it's a good question. I'd start with questioning how you phrased it. They're monsters, they're animals, they're subhuman. Not even animals would do such a thing. You know stuff like that. So that's part of what I'm questioning about perpetrators by calling them animals or monsters, we're distancing them, we're almost absolving them, actually, because monsters and animals don't have the hero. Really, what we should be saying was these human beings chose to do despicable acts with their own power of choice. And that's the way to understand perpetrators is that there's an ideology, there's an environment, there's an educational system, there's a political system, there's hate, there's evil and there's community. There's social interactions. That all come together, a whole confluence of factors. There's anti-Semitism, there's radical Islam, there's religious beliefs. All these things can come together to bring a human being to make a choice to go ahead and express his humanity by carrying out sadistic acts of cruelty, murdering other people and beheading and torturing and all those other stuff. And here's another thing I don't mean to make this like a confession for myself as a Holocaust educator or a behalf of I'm definitely not speaking in behalf of others in the Holocaust education community but, like Simulton I said before, I think we were negligent. I think we, as Jewish Holocaust educators across the boards religious, secular, american, israeli we were negligent in our focus in Holocaust education that our focus was almost entirely on the victims, because it's a Jewish story, it's a Jewish victim. How did the victims react? How did they maintain their humanity? How did they react to every stage of their dehumanization and how did they walk to their deaths? How did they try to live? How did they help others? How did they not help others? How did they all kinds of things that are completely victim focused, when we ignored pretty much the perpetrators and perpetrator research and educating what a perpetrator is.

I'm sorry I keep interrupting, but the idea that you're bringing up is hitting me in a very strong way and I feel like it's almost I'm just re, you know, like recycling the words and describing the tragedy, that it was animalistic and barbaric, like you're saying, and the great psychologist and Tom Lachom perhaps you read the book of the secrets of the soul. I believe it is Rabbi Hoffman or the psychotherapist, it's how many of you. Perhaps, but he talks a great deal about this idea of that. It's scary to acknowledge things because when you hear a tragedy you subconsciously relate to it in a personal way. You know you heard somebody maybe left the fold of Torah. Why is it so scary? Like whoa, look at what human nature or B'chira is, you know is possible to really do. And if I may continue down the path of some Torah, the Ram Bam does give it over to us in Halacha that free will means that one can choose to be as great as Moshe Rabbeinu or as wretched as Niyarovim Ben-Avot. That's a scary thing to acknowledge and further, but maybe this also sheds light. I felt if we flip the idea on its head, we maybe will also see something that this may be leapfrogging off of what you said. Sometimes I feel that even the challenges of the Ovos in a good way, abraham Isaac and Jacob, and what they stood up for and what they accomplished in the binding of Isaac and the Akheda, as if the story's almost told that there's somewhat Godlike and that Avromavinu never really had a struggle, he never really had a bad day, as if the whole idea of humanity and the whole idea of that these are not. God forbid not to bring them down in any way, but to actually bring them up that there are people and yet they still were able, with their free will, to choose to act so Godlike.

Exactly. Perhaps we'll just focus on the side of evil now, since we're already into the press state, so we might as well continue on that theme. But that's exactly it. They're human beings who made choices, and that's what makes it even more scary and much more of a learning lesson and learning experience, because it is about humanity. This is the essence of what humanity is and, incredibly enough, there's been a ton of research out there done so it's not like we would have to invent the wheel, both in social psychology and by historians, and some of these names are quite famous. People have heard of it and they're kind of like buzzwords the Stanley Milgram experiment on authority that was done in Yale in the 1960s, 1961. Actually, most people who speak about the Milgram experiment don't even know that the reason Milgram carried out his experiment on authority in 1961 was because of the Eichmann trial. He saw the Eichmann trial being reported in the news and Eichmann, as his defense given to the court was very similar to the Nuremberg defense, that I was just following orders and that would absolve him of responsibility. So Milgram was curious how does that work? How does authority work and how do people absolve themselves of responsibility by following orders? And then you have the Philip Zimbardo prison experiment, which is a controversial experiment in Stanford University in the 70s about how an environment can create a sense of cruelty, can affect behavior. My very being in an environment with a certain type of uniform, with a certain type of people, with a certain type of hierarchy in place, can actually impact my behavior, and guess what Way. Before Philip Zimbardo, the Rambam says that your nifalofis vivisum. So the idea is that there's all kinds of very basic ideas of human nature, very basic things in human nature, and historians have contributed to this as well the world-renowned historian Christopher Browning, the Holocaust historian excuse me, christopher Browning. He wrote one of his many books. That he wrote was about battalion 101 or something like that, about this group of German police officers who were not SS, and these people were shipped quite suddenly to the east. People were middle-aged police officers in Hamburg, like they had desk jobs or regular standard police work, Nothing to do with Jews or anti-Semitism or the final solution and they had to go actually and shoot Jews into pits and wipe them out men, women and children. Not only that, but they were given a choice. Their commanding officer said anyone who's not comfortable with this not capable of doing this. You can leave and nothing will happen to you. You won't be punished, you won't be reprimanded. You can leave, it's OK, and I think one or two did, but the overwhelming majority did not, and he follows them in this book trying to figure out what was their motivation. And he talks about how social pressures work and how, when you're part of a group and everyone's doing the thing together and you're identifying as part of that group, and there's a lot to say for it. There's a lot to say for how ideologies develop and how educational systems work, and all of this goes into purpose, how anti-Semitism develops throughout history and how it carries over, and I think that it will help us confront our confront tragedy, be prepared for it in the future, along with all the regular established of davening and learning, tyra and Amunah and the Tochen and everything. And, of course, if Hashem wants it to happen, then all our preparations are futile and useless. But the side of the perpetrator has value in understanding the story Right.

A lot of these are new perspectives. At least for me, a lot of this is uncharted territory, like you've said, I want to try to take the conversation to a more kumva assay type of take the information and maybe bundle it up and do something with a type of approach. Like we said, this isn't the first war that we're going through and the birds eye view that you can give us through your historical perspective as Winston Churchill, I believe, once said, who I like to declare as one of the top five most Yeshivish Gentiles amongst Carnegie and Lincoln, maybe, or Washington or Ayan Chum, but either way, the idea is that the farther that we can look back to our history is the further that we can actually look forward and tell time. History tends to repeat itself if we don't learn from it. So when you see this situation, the current situation that we're in the processing of it, and the reaction, can you look to a? I want to pinpoint a specific reaction from, like you say, we love Gdolam stories, from the ones that are that model student, the great rabbis that have been in this situation, how they reacted and maybe tell us a perspective, how you think in a positive way in our get up and do something type of way. You think that the great Sadikim would enlighten us as to how we should act?

So that's wonderful. I mean, the best way to try to learn how to act is to see how great people did it, and we mentioned Rebar Khabar. I think that's a great story in this context. That was the beginning of the Holocaust. Throughout the Holocaust we saw all kinds of reactions from different Sadiqim. There was the, you know, just this week they had this march in Washington. So they had a rabbi's march Orthodox rabbi's march in Washington during the Holocaust, which was an incredible story because these rabbis were Eastern European, they hadn't grown up in democracies, they were immigrants and who was a part of this march?

What type of Orthodox rabbis Like? Can you give us a name? Who went on this march?

Sure, Rebeli has a silver, the Capitian Cereba, all the big rabbis of the day, and I have a. There was a list out there. I think we're about to find it was there. There was all the big Sadiqim, all the big rabbis. Were there 400 rabbis, and I don't know if they had Omar Adams singing, but they had they had actors and actresses perhaps. They had Tehillim and Kel Mollay and a petition to Roosevelt to completely ignore the march and and the you know to be there for their brethren to try to save, to try to rescue all the rescue activism that took place by organizations in the United States. One of the organizations was the Vah-datsala, which had rabbis at its helm from Kalmanovich, rabar and Cutler or Blazer Silver and many others. And we just look at what Rabar and Cutler did. He didn't rest for all the warriors because he needed to rescue Jewish lives. He didn't devote himself to delivering Shiaura, he devoted it to rescue. He understood that this is a time that we need to be running to around to raise money, to intercede with different officials and and all that he did get delivered Shiaura. At the same time, he didn't neglect the Shiaura. He delivered Shiaura in New York and then it was the beginning of this white plane. So we later moved to Lakewood, but he understood that the priority is rescue. There are many others like that. The Garareba had escaped. The Mreyamez, the great Garareba, leader of Polish Jewry, had escaped the beginning of the war and when it became clear to him what was happening back in Poland, he called a fast day, he declared a fast day and he tried to organize a unified response amongst the entire rabbinid and Jewish communities in Rishalayim. He was almost completely successful. There was one faction who didn't want to join, which which greatly disturbed and hurt the Garareba that how could you not join together and put your political and religious differences aside when Polish Jewry is getting wiped out? Everyone should be united around this. That seems to be a cause that everyone should be united around. So he got almost everyone united around it and it was actually a fast day. They declared a fast day with sliechis and a kennis satvila, everything. That's a real public act to make a real fast day. I think that's something we can learn from as well. And then there's the people, the Tadikim, in the horror, who are experiencing it in real time. The people who are in Poland in the war, so ghetto. People like the Piotecs, nereba, who are giving their shalashid as shamoos to their chasidim, that's the ashkaidish. I mean, think about that. When people are starving, people are dying in the streets. You can imagine that the Reba would say let's take a pause from chasidim such shalashidim and and just dwell in our pain and our horror. And he says no, we're going to continue speaking. We're going to continue talking. We're going to continue inspiring. I'm not against inspiring.

I mean it just sounds like correct me if I'm wrong that it sounds like the approach is, with a certain bravery, acknowledging and recognizing and then strengthening yourself and galvanizing others around you to work positively and influencing for the good Exactly.

Exactly, there's another Tadikim in the war, so ghetto, the Alexander Reba. And he was also killed in Treblinka together with his chasidim, the last Alexander Reba, in the gas chambers in Treblinka. And when he was in the in the war, so ghetto, his chasidim asked him what should we do? What should we be doing in this situation? Exactly what you asked. So this is a direct answer from a Tadik what to do in a horrible situation like this. So he said that when we say and he said he said that in the, in Russian, we say and in all the Makhzayrim, it says a little little words on top, on top of the word, it says fasting and on top of the word it says the voice. And he said, on top of the word stuck, it says the money. So he said so let's look around at what we have. He said, mom, and no one has any money, no one has any money in the war, so ghetto, and so we can't do anything with with our money. He said we also don't have time because we're fasting anyway, because we don't have any food, so it's not like we're going out of our way to try to fast in honor of you know, to try to do Chuva, so that same doesn't count either. He said the only thing we have left is coil. Now we're recording this Arab Shabbos Part. Is told us where you took, says, a coil coil yeah, I could. Coil is the best thing we have, it's the most important thing we have. And he says that no one can take away from us. And no matter what the Nazis do and he probably say today, no matter what Hamas does or whatever anti-Semites worldwide do the coil coil yeah, I could always going to be around. And he said a beautiful thing. He said it says in Sheer Hashirem, he can make our rave. And usually we translate our event it's pleasant. It's pleasant right, because I'll even learn from that that coalition because it was pleasant. So it means. So he said our rave can also mean our ravus. It's a collateral. It's like for a loan you take in a guarantor an arbus right, a guarantor. So he says Kelech are when you don't have the same and the moment, don't worry about it. Don't don't think that, oh, I just have Kyle, it's not enough, I need all three. No, kelech are your. Kyle alone works when you don't have anything else. All you have is your Kyle. Don't worry, that's enough, that works. It's an arbus for everything else and that's what we have, that's our best thing we have. And in the weeks after this terrible tragedy, this massacre, so I and I think a lot of Jews around the world are all struggling. What can I do? What can I do to help? What can I do to help? Everyone's trying to help and you know, people of means are able to donate and some people aren't of means. And even if you are a means, after a while it was like it seems like they have everything they need. I mean, like, what else can I give? You know they need another barbecue. The soldiers, they need another hot dog, like so what am I going to do? And I could, you know I could fast for them. I guess fasting for some people is hard, but we should know that Kaili Haarev, the Kaili Yaakov, that's the most powerful instrument that we have, and Alexander Rebbe taught us that that's enough. That is the guarantee those are.

Those are a plethora and a bevy of stories that you've given us. It definitely seems very timely, like you mentioned, that Parshah's told us now a Kaili Yaakov by a Dayim Dei Esav. Even before these fetuses are born, they are arguing and going at it. It definitely seems like it's part of destiny for us to jostle about. I want to bring up something that is we did not discuss before the show and I wonder what your reaction is going to be. I haven't heard anybody say it and I don't want to sound like a Shabzai Tzvi or Bar Kakhba, but we are taught that the world is a 6000 year world. I believe it says in Talmud Bavli, and it's 2000 years of something and then 2000 years of something else and something to do with Tyra there, but it's 6000 years. I think we're somewhere in the good spot. Oh, 2000 years of Mashiach, I believe, is the last of the three. So I think we're getting close to that. I want to know am I off base that Jewish people are now after I believe it's 1000 years since we've been at the western wall and with all of the brisker Tyra, as to where the third and eventual temple will stand, on which mountain and on which plateau? And with everything going on, am I crazy to drop the word Mashiach here?

I don't know if I mean I don't think you're crazy. That's in general. I don't know much about Mashiach, so I don't have an opinion. I do know that we've had too many false hopes and we've become very cynical, so it's probably best not to flag those hopes again. But look, you and I, and hopefully all our listeners, believe Chakalai b'cholim shi'avei, whenever he decides is the right time. But I don't know. I don't know enough about the messianic era to be able to know, especially the future, much better at the past. I can tell you all about the times. He didn't come actually.

I hear we are, like you said, commanded to believe it and hope for it in a real way every day. So I guess that can't be denied and I can't be flagged for that.

Like you said about Shabzai tzvi, the high that the Jewish people experienced with the advent of Shabzai tzvi was so high that the low that was experienced by the Jewish people after he was exposed as a fraud, as a whole debacle that it was. That low is something that we, to a certain extent, never recovered from and we've become a bit cynical about it that we put them on the back burner, so to speak, that in an except for unique individuals like the Chavitzchai, and would sit actually by his window and wait for Mashiach. But for the masses you know I include myself in that you know we believe Haakalei, bechalei, mashiach, but you know there's an old awful Jewish joke, terrible.

Jewish joke. Most of the Jewish jokes are not.

And a guy yeah, a guy is telling meets his friend. He says, oh, how you doing? What do you do for a living these days in the shtetl in Eastern Europe? So he said, oh, the kahl hired me to sit at the entrance of the shtetl to be the first one from the town to greet Mashiach when he comes. So he said, oh, all right, nice job. Okay, how much do they pay you? So he said they pay me one ruble a month, so that's very little. So he said, yeah, but it's a steady job.

I think I understand the joke, but I the message is coming across. Definitely it's terrible. No, no, no it's not terrible, it's, it's powerful. And the jokes only have my late south. They used to say that many a truth is said ingest.

Exactly.

There's a great deal there. I want to try to wrap up the conversation with you know, we've spoken a great deal about the bravery that it takes to have betachen and moon and betachen acknowledging somewhat acceptance, and I wanted to close up the conversation with the. Maybe, if I paint the picture like this, you had an opportunity to give people you know two minutes. No, let's say less than that. You got 30 seconds where they gave you the microphone and Madison Square Garden by an Asifa setting the stage you know by. So if you could stand up and say you know to these people, some of their, some of like one final parting thought, what they should, you know, think of when they wake up in the morning and they are struggling and they're accepting and they're working through their emotions, what will be your parting message?

and on this great stage, Wow, first of all I'd be terrified. It also would take more than 30 seconds just to say all the thank yous you're supposed to say at the beginning of the speech, like that. But if I'd get past my fear and my trepidation then I think I would leave off with saying that history, all history, and specifically Jewish history, is very deterministic, is determined by the one above, and it flows with the ebb and flow of human life. God created certain parameters of nature, of society, of human nature. That makes history flow in a very deterministic way. And besides for it being deterministic, it's also cyclical. We think of history very often as progressive, in like a linear path. It progresses towards a certain goal and really it progresses in a almost like a spiral. In other words, it's progressing, it's getting there, but it's very cyclical. So take those two things together being that is deterministic and cyclical. So you expect things to happen again, expect things to appear in a new form and therefore be the way for you to be a part of it. The way for you to be engaged is by incorporating the timeless lessons of the past and recognizing that you're part of history and history is right now, instead of just standing by and being a bystander to history or ignoring it completely. You have the opportunity to write a chapter, and the chapter can be as glorious as all the previous ones, leaving your mark on it. So don't sit idly by. Be fully engaged and be fully cognizant that you're writing the next chapter and you want it to be fit in very nicely to the story of all the previous chapters.

That would definitely get a standing ovation. The idea that you're preaching here of human free will in Bekira and your ability to harness that gift that only humans have and write history is something that should empower any person listening to this. I hope so, mr Gever. How about you? To Gever, it has been a pleasure. I would like, before you sign off, to you are never going to plug yourself or your own podcasts, but I would like to jump in and say that history and learning Jewish history not only will it increase your emuna and make Judaism very real for you, but it will also eventually become somewhat of a very pleasurable pastime, to say the least. It's something everyone should know and I know of no better way than the Jewish History Soundbytes podcast. It's consistent. There are hundreds of episodes now, with 1.3 million downloads and 400 episodes in total. I believe Mazel Tov on that, thank you. I would tell everyone that go and subscribe and you'll thank yourself later. And I would like to thank you for your time. You were authentic, you were real, you had a message and I thank you for that.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me. This was a lot of fun and informative and you should continue doing the wonderful things you do. I'm really a fan of your work and your podcast and it should continue having lots of us. Thank you so much, amen.