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The question is how far back does the tradition go that a married woman would cover her hair? So in Jewish law a married woman would cover her hair and typically religious women who are married cover their hair. So the question [is] how far back does that tradition go? The woman’s hair is her ervah, it’s her beauty but it’s her nakedness, and therefore when she’s married her hair then is only for husband and of course the closest of family. So how far back can we trace this tradition and the answer is pretty far. Because it is even explicitly inferred, so explicitly inferred going all the way back to the Torah itself. And that’s to the laws of a Sotah. A Sotah was a woman who was accused, was suspected of being unfaithful to her husband, and that she insisted that she was innocent, that she did not commit adultery. So as it turns out [the] Torah says that you should, before she drinks from this water, this water that God’s Name was diluted in, if she was guilty would kill her and the person with whom she was having the affair. If she was innocent then she would be blessed with children. As it turns out we’re told in the Talmud that women who couldn’t conceive would do things to raise the suspicion just to drink from this water in order to conceive but I want to set that aside. So the Torah says that in fact when this event took place where she said, ‘I’m innocent to this charge’ that her hair was then uncovered. So the Torah takes it for granted in the text that married woman would cover her hair. So if you’re asking me if we’re tracing back the text, we’re tracing back Jewish literature to find where do we encounter that a married woman covers her hair? The answer is really early, goes back to the law of an adulterous woman, so thank you for your question.
You give in to your temptation and eat something not kosher, you can very easily atone for such a sin. I warn you, I warn you if you encounter someone who is a stranger and you oppress that person, it is going to be very hard for you to make yourself right by God. Because this is something that all the Prophets spoke about. There is a false security that people have and understandably that if they keep the commandments between them and God that somehow they’re okay. And God is saying, I don’t want that and there’s no, I don’t want that kind of ritual if you’ve stripped away the social justice. That message is clearly conveyed in the first chapter of Isaiah.
Non-Jews need to support and bless Israel for their own safety. It means Israel – so it’s very important that – of course pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for sure. But nations must bless Israel because without it, Hashem will destroy them. That’s how they are blessed. It’s for their good. Israel will [inaudible] but if you don’t, God will destroy you and use somebody else. So you don’t need to ask non-Jews to bless Israel. That means they should because it’s in their interest, not in Israel’s interest. The reason why it’s important to be a Zionist is for your own good, not for Israel’s good. God’s hand is upon Israel. [Inaudible]…And that’s Biblical. Genesis 12:3 so yes they should bless Israel for themselves, yes.
The question is, were the Rabbis in the Talmud halachically infallible? And the answer is, No. And that’s why we hold like one position and not another. The Talmud records the dissent and the majority rule. The Talmud records both sides of an argument, even the one which we do not hold by because there is something special even in the position that we ultimately don’t follow as law. So even the opinion that is not followed is recorded. We don’t disregard it because if an idea is emerging from a Sage, there is an idiom: eilu v’ eilu divrei Elokim chaim. Both the correct position which is the position we follow and the one in dissent, Divrei Elokim Chaim which means that there is a holiness in it. It comes from a holy place, and we want to understand, even though we don’t follow that position. But what did that great Sage see in that position. What could we learn from it? We don’t follow halacha so it’s not, it is not infallible. By the way, if people were infallible, think about this, because there is in the Torah that there is supposed to be a court, right? There is supposed to be a vote, right. But if someone had, was infallible, then why would you need a vote, why would you need a court? Why would you need a court of so many Rabbis? Why would the Bible require that? If there were people who were completely infallible, they are called Prophets in the Bible. Why do you need a vote? You just have one guy, one Rabbi who just says, ‘This is it.’ And follow… Why do we have a court? Why do you need that for? Why would you need a majority rule? They can’t be infallible. They are using tools that were given to us by Moses to be able to decode a passage and be able to rule on a new living law, a new problem that we haven’t encountered before but just think for a moment, if they’re infallible, why do you need a court? What do you need a vote? Just ‘This is it.’ Moses, the Torah of Moses is infallible because that is the word of God. So no, they’re not infallible in any conventional sense. Can we learn something from the minority opinion? Absolutely. And it is recorded, and we want to study it. But it is not infallible in a conventional sense. Thank you for your question.
[Was the Zohar given to Moses?] So the answer is no, not in our understanding. Alright so the Zohar. No one ever asked that question. So the Zohar of course was not given to Moses. The Zohar is a Kabbalistic commentary on the Torah, and the, so it’s a commentary on understanding a, the depth of Torah, and it’s, it was authored way, way later than the Five Books of Moses was authored. But in Traditional Jewish view that these understandings of the Torah were wrapped into the Hebrew Scriptures and into the Jewish Teachings which originally oral and then it was unpacked by the Sages of blessed memory. And then recorded at a much, much later stage. So that would be a traditional Jewish view. Ok, that’s a great question.
As far as teaching the Torah to non-Jews. Non-Jews have really about 70 Noahide laws, those are only categories of laws. Including not to harm people, not to steal, not to injure, not to… We have in the Talmud 3 tractates (Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, Bava Basra) all dealing with civil law and torts and damages and so on, all Bnei Noach have to keep these laws. Pay your employees on time. They all do so how would they be Bnei Noach without learning Torah?? Of course they do. They just shouldn’t say the Shabbes was given…to non-Jews, the Torah says it was given to the Jewish people. They should certainly celebrate Shabbat as the day that God rested and recognise it but understand it’s a unique covenant with the Jews. But how is a ben Noach going to learn the laws of what is appropriate to pay your employees on time. What happens if you damage someone else’s property? What is your obligation if you find a lost object on the street? Those all apply to a ben Noach. They have to know these laws. What relationships are permissible? Which are forbidden to a non-Jew? How will they learn it? From the New York Times?
Let’s stop using words that are anachronisms. Let’s not use the word Noahide because it is an unfortunate anachronism. The Jewish people are unique, we’re an ethno-religious group. We’re both a faith and a nation. Now there are people who wish to convert to Judaism but the question is which iteration? Do they want to join the Jewish faith but don’t feel a calling to join the Jewish nation. So they are really converting to Judaism (the faith of Israel). We call that a Noahide. It’s a really unfortunate term. A Noahide means (Job was a Noahide). Job was righteous in the Bible but he is never said to be righteous because he kept the Sabbath or kept kosher. Because he was a Noahide. So becoming a Noahide means converting to Judaism (the faith without joining the nation). I would encourage you to not be so sure of yourself when you call yourself a goy or a Gentile. Because as it turns out over the years (I have been doing this a long time), many, many people just like you are confident of their ‘Gentileness’ which is not a Jewish word, Gentile is not a Jewish word. Eventually [they] find out they have Jewish ancestry that they didn’t dream of.
In the Messianic age, what we find is that the world is in a state of perfection… and therefore, what we see in each and every messianic prophecy is really a picture, a moving portrait of what the world should be like in any given time; in any given time there should be peace and not war. In any given time, all the world should praise the God of Israel and no other name and every tongue should bless Him and praise Him alone, every knee should bow to Him, not just in the Messianic age; and therefore my holy brothers and sisters listen very carefully. The Prophets tell us that in the Messianic Age, what’s going to happen? The non-Jews are going to come to the Jewish people, and they’re going to grab the shirt of a Jew (Zechariah 8:23). And they are going to say, ‘Take us with you, teach us about God, because now we know that God is with you.’ Jeremiah 16:19-20, they are going to say, ‘Teach us about Hashem.’ Because that is the role of the Jew. The role of the Jewish people (listen like you have never listened in your life – When I say the Jewish people I don’t mean all the Jews – many of them who are not observant). I am talking about the role of the Jewish people who have undertook the covenant of God is to be a priestly nation (Exodus 19:5-6); right before the Ten Commandments. So therefore, if we see in the Messianic Age, that the nations of the world, that the non-Jews of the world, are going to come to the Jews to learn about the God of Israel, and to know how to worship God properly. What does that mean? Does that mean that’s only something that should occur only in the future? No, it’s a message to every single person who is not Jewish, that if you want to know what’s right, you want to know what’s correct? Go to the Jewish people. Not any of the Jews, but go to those who are faithful.
I think that Israel is incentivising this by their behaviour. I think that what they’re saying is that violence is going to be rewarded…Imagine if someone, if Cuba would launch missiles against Fort Lauderdale, what the response might be. Any country that would launch an attack. If I was in Indonesia and Malaysia attacked Indonesia, there would be an incredible response. Because you have to wipe out your enemy. And number two is you have to send a message to the enemy. And the message has to be that if you do this that there are going to be very, very severe consequences…They [Hamas] don’t care about their own people very much and they realise that the response is going to be very, very measured. All the things we do with these Iron Dome systems, I mean that’s crazy. That’s just to protect Hamas. It’s not really to protect us. And I know the listeners are going, ‘What are you talking about?’ But the entire Iron Dome system protects Palestinians, it doesn’t protect Israel. Because imagine for a moment (this seems surprising), I mean that’s why this came from the Left. The whole Iron Dome system was thought of by Amir Peretz. Imagine for a moment there is no Iron Dome system. Imagine it doesn’t exist. There is no anti-missile system. So what would Israel have to do? Israel would have to go in and deploy much more force against Gaza in order to destroy the enemy. But now Israel, because it has a way of shooting (essentially) projectiles out of the air, it [Israel] acts in a much more restrained way in attacking Hamas. The Iron Dome system protects Hamas. It only superficially seems to protect Israel. But it doesn’t because if Israel didn’t have it, it would have to respond much more aggressively to Gaza. And this would never happen in any other scenario. If you were on Interstate 80…and someone was shooting at cars, people wouldn’t invent a gun that could shoot bullets out of the air. You would find the guy whose shooting it and the people behind it and you would destroy them. So this kind of thinking is really, it’s quite deranged. I know Israelis have a love and affection for technology but this is silly technology. What really has to happen is you are dealing with a cancer and it has to be removed so people can live here in peace. I don’t mean just for Jewish people but there are people in this country who care about the Jewish State so we can all live in peace. All this incentivises the worst form of humanity in the Middle East.
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