When Judaism Began — Rabbi Steven Bob

When did ancient Paleo-Hebrew script start to look like modern Hebrew letters? When did Judaism as we know it begin to take shape? Rabbi Simcha (Steven) Bob joins Rabbi Lizzi to explore these and so many more questions found in his new book When Judaism Began: Exploring the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The music that opens and ends this episode is Micah Shapiro's "Mah Gadlu/Mikolot Mayim Rabim." We will be singing this tune at services tonight (8/7/2026) and over the High Holidays!

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:22:13
Unknown
Hello and welcome to this half hour dose of weekly Jewish spirituality. Jews have a tradition of praying three times a day, and at Mishkan we have a daily virtual minyan at 8 a.m. central to get your day started. Folks join us from across the country and across the world as we begin each day with words and songs of gratitude, inspiration, healing, and Torah.

00:00:22:15 - 00:00:56:22
Unknown
Without further ado, I invite you to breathe a little deeper, connect a little more with yourself, with God, with Torah, with this community, and with the world around you, wherever you are, whatever your time zone. Hello Rabbi Steven aka Simha. Bob, it is great to have you this morning. I want to introduce you to the minyan. Well, first of all, most importantly, you are the father of Mishkan and and your local rabbi.

00:00:56:22 - 00:01:21:20
Unknown
Here in Chicago. For 35 years, you have been the leader of congregation Aids came in Lombard. Not to be confused with the time I worked at for a year and a half in Glencoe. Although I'm sure that was a source of confusion for you and many people because yours existed first, right? Oh for sure. Oh for sure. I started in 1959.

00:01:21:21 - 00:01:54:00
Unknown
I mean, yes. So you're the the emeritus there now. And now you're your professor at Wheaton College and sort of the unofficial campus rabbi there. And one of the things that you do and that I understand, kind of gave rise to the book that we're going to talk about this morning is that you help the evangelical students there understand how Jews actually read the Hebrew Bible, which, by the way, many Jews don't actually understand how Jews read the Hebrew Bible.

00:01:54:01 - 00:02:14:23
Unknown
And so, you know what? Like this is going to be hugely, hugely informative and helpful even for people who know a little something about Judaism. You're the author of two books, both on the prophet Jonah. And your new book is that we're going to talk about today is about a part of the Bible that almost nobody talks about Ezra and Nehemiah.

00:02:15:01 - 00:02:43:16
Unknown
And his argument is that, like these books toward the very, very, very end of the Hebrew Bible are where Jewish identity, as we would recognize it today, actually begin the Hebrew letters on the page, the shape of the Torah we read from even the word Jew itself, all kind of traced back to this moment. The book is called When Judaism Began, and I'm so very glad that you're here to share about it with us.

00:02:43:18 - 00:03:04:18
Unknown
And so, first of all, just welcome. Thanks for joining us for The Minyan. It's a pleasure to be here. I love the minyan. I love the minyan so much. While we are diving, I forgot that I was here as a speaker. I feel like that's high praise. That's like when my dad said to me about Yom Kippur services, I was.

00:03:04:18 - 00:03:28:07
Unknown
I was so uncharacteristically not board that I didn't look at my watch. I said, oh, wow. Dad, I was so proud of you. But anyway, that's I feel like that's high praise coming from a rabbi. And everybody will just have to forgive me. The truth is, the more I speak, the coughing happens. So I'll just mostly ask succinct questions and let Rabbi Bob do the talking.

00:03:28:09 - 00:03:50:22
Unknown
So, okay, you wrote two books about the prophet Jonah, and this book is is a departure from that. What was the what was the impetus and the circumstances that gave rise to your desire to write this book? Why this book? So for many years, I worked on the medieval commentaries to the Book of Jonah, and we started before I started working on them.

00:03:50:22 - 00:04:12:08
Unknown
They didn't exist in English. To read the commentaries to Jonah, you had to read them in Hebrew, and I translated them. I wrote a scholarly book that's a translation of the commentaries, and I wrote a more popular book, the chapter in each of the verses in the book of Jonah. And it got to a point. I would go to some gathering of the Chicago rabbis, and someone would say, we're in the Bible just to say such and such.

00:04:12:08 - 00:04:32:21
Unknown
And I would raise my hand. And the people said, okay, besides the book of Jonah, where does it say this? So it became clear to me that I needed to learn a new song, that I couldn't play one song in my entire life. And it happened. I was about to retire from my position at a time, so it was a good time to take on a new study project.

00:04:32:21 - 00:04:55:12
Unknown
And the Ezra and Nehemiah appealed to me because they're dusty. They sit in the corner and no one opens them. If I would have wanted to write a book about family life in the book of Genesis, well, I would have to get in line. But I went to look into who has written about Ezra and Nehemiah for a general audience, and I found a wonderful answer.

00:04:55:14 - 00:05:24:08
Unknown
Nobody. That's crazy. I just want to say, I mean, like, these books have been around for a long time, so they're not part of the synagogue service. I tell my Wheaton students that as Jews were Torah centric. I mean, during The dolphin, you were as as as liberal as liberal. Jews were tourist centric, right? I feel like in maybe the very orthodox world, they focus on, like what the scholars learned is Talmud.

00:05:24:11 - 00:05:43:21
Unknown
But in any case, like in an American synagogue, what most people are exposed to, you're saying is mostly Torah. I mean, you fall during the diving, you follow the first commandment of being a rabbi. You said in this week's Torah portion. That's right. In this week's abortion. Yes, 100%. You know, so we we we we are centered on the Torah portion.

00:05:43:22 - 00:06:05:05
Unknown
We read the prophetic portions. We know are the are the prophetic portions that are part of a half Torah portion. We know some TLM Psalms from the liturgy and a little bit of a little bit of initially of Proverbs from the liturgy. And we know the medieval, but the, the other parts in the back part of the Bible, we don't read.

00:06:05:06 - 00:06:27:08
Unknown
They're not they don't come up in the annual life of a Jew, and they kind of sit there. The Christian world doesn't look at them either, but for very different reasons. And but there's a lot there, as you mentioned, there's a lot there. And I think it's the return from exile is a very formative time. Let me just say a word about the time that we're talking about.

00:06:27:09 - 00:06:56:22
Unknown
Some people will appreciate historic context. I know some people don't care. Some people will like the historic context. We made very clear in the description of this event that that this conversation was going to be for people who are into historical context. Good, good. Yeah, we know above, we recall the destruction of the temple in 586 BCE. The Babylonians destroy the temple, destroy the Jerusalem, destroy Jerusalem, and carry us off into exile in Babylonia.

00:06:57:00 - 00:07:32:01
Unknown
About 50 years later. The Persians come from the east, from what's now Iran, and conquer the Babylonians in what's now Iraq. And Cyrus the Great issues an edict that says to the Jews, you can return from the exile. You can go back to Jerusalem. And the books of Ezra and Nehemiah talk about that period of return, about the rebuilding of the altar, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the rebuilding of the gates and the walls, and the beginning of religious life during what we think of as the Second Temple period.

00:07:32:01 - 00:07:52:18
Unknown
So that's where we are in the Second Temple period. One of my arguments is a lot happened during the exile that bloomed during the beginning of the Second Temple period, and continues to direct our lives as Jews today. You want to do you want to tell us a little bit about or and you also sent. Yeah. Oh, yes.

00:07:52:19 - 00:08:19:04
Unknown
Oh yeah. Okay. So I start wherever you think is the most interesting. I mean, you work with you work with Jewish people and non-Jews. Like what? What is the most surprising or interesting, you know, kind of thing that you discovered as you looked at these books, you know, in the context of this time period. So if we take there's a portion that we say during the Passover Seder, our meal Veda V, my father was a wandering Aaron Meehan.

00:08:19:05 - 00:08:36:14
Unknown
And we say this during the Passover. We say it during the Torah portion at this time of year that we read from the book of Deuteronomy. It's a very well-known part of the of our tradition. And we say that we went down to Egypt small numbers, and God saved us, and God took us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

00:08:36:14 - 00:08:54:08
Unknown
And God brought us to the land, and God gave. And we we know who's going to come. Here we go. Here's the text. Right. Right here. Yeah. My text number two. So let's just look at let me read this out loud. Pay attention to what's there and pay attention to what's not there. Wandering here mean was my father.

00:08:54:08 - 00:09:12:16
Unknown
He went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number. And he became a there became a nation great, mighty and populous. And Egyptians dealt ill with us and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. We cried unto the eternal, the God of our ancestors. The eternal, heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and oppression.

00:09:12:17 - 00:09:33:14
Unknown
God brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terribleness, with signs, with wonders. And God brought us to this place, and God has given us this land, the land flowing with milk and honey. Now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which you, the eternal, has given me, and you shall set it before the eternal God, and worship before the eternal our God.

00:09:33:15 - 00:09:58:20
Unknown
Now this is a public recitation of sacred history. The person brings the first fruits and gives them to the priest, and recites the sacred history defining who we are as a people. Now there's something really crucial that's missing from this paragraph. I think that because many of us know this paragraph so well, we don't notice what is missing.

00:09:58:22 - 00:10:28:15
Unknown
So what's missing? There is no. So there was a real big event during that trip across the wilderness from Egypt to the Land of Israel. Mammad Sinai, the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And it's not mentioned in this Deuteronomy passage. If we only had this Deuteronomy passage, we would say we would understand that the way Jews connect with God is through offering sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem.

00:10:28:17 - 00:11:02:09
Unknown
And I think this is very descriptive of what happened during the First Temple period, that during the First Temple period, nobody read Torah. Touring is so much a part, important part of our lives. A central to our lives didn't happen during the First Temple period. So this sacred history in Deuteronomy leaves out Torah, the passage of passage number three here from Nehemiah, from chapter nine of Nehemiah also offers a sacred history of the people.

00:11:02:09 - 00:11:32:23
Unknown
But this sacred history mentions the Torah. So if you can, you look into the middle of the paragraph, after the after the three dots or the five dots, whatever I put in and it says there, Maya, the author of Maya includes you came down upon Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and laws of truth, good statutes, commandments, and made no to them your holy Sabbath, and did commend them commandments, statutes, and a law by the hand of Moses your servant.

00:11:33:01 - 00:12:07:10
Unknown
All right. This sounds like the Judaism that we know. So there's something happens during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah in which Torah moves to the front. Then in the Deuteronomy version, there's no mention of revelation. In my version, there is no what? It's also it's also just worth noting. You know, you're right. It leaves out Torah in Deuteronomy that that sort of critical identity forming moment in Jewish history.

00:12:07:12 - 00:12:35:05
Unknown
But the first part focuses on Egypt. You know, the first part focuses on labor and bondage and affliction and suffering and oppression. And there's something familiar about that, honestly, in the in the modern context as well. For many, you know, modern American Jews who would say about ourselves, you know, and I know many people like this, they're like, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual, I'm culturally Jewish.

00:12:35:05 - 00:13:01:15
Unknown
And what does it mean to be culturally Jewish? Often it means, you know, I identify with the suffering of my ancestors. I include that, too. I just didn't put it on the page. He's never my my acknowledged is our suffering as well. So what I actually what I wanted to say is I think that the correction of is a really important one, that that the average cultural Jew actually could use a little bit more of that because it's not healthy.

00:13:01:15 - 00:13:24:08
Unknown
It is not healthy to only focus on the oppression, as my, you know, the thing that identifies me as who I am, like, it's actually it's it's an important correction he brings. So yeah, you can quote me, I'm pro Torah. I know you're I know you're pro Torah, but I just, you know, it's like it's not it's not just what's left out of the Deuteronomy.

00:13:24:08 - 00:13:42:22
Unknown
It's it's what's put in is also identity forming and it's identity forming in a way that's a little bit that can that can warp, right. That can sort of warp us to focus too much on suffering and oppression and not enough on. But but what's the purpose? What's the thing that we what what proactively do we do? Do we study?

00:13:42:23 - 00:14:01:06
Unknown
Do we orient ourselves around? Do we dig into that gives us a sense of who we are in the world that's not just about backward looking, the backward looking suffering. So okay, so here it is in he brings it out. Yeah. So what what lifts us up. What lifts us up. Beautiful. No. We know we need to be lifted up.

00:14:01:06 - 00:14:32:17
Unknown
And if you don't feel a need to be lifted up, you're doing really, really well. Most of us people need to be lifted up. So in the my next section here is from Ezra chapter seven. The first six. Ezra doesn't come on stage in the book of Ezra until chapter seven, that the first six chapters are about the first waves of return, above the building, of the rebuilding of the altar and rebuilding of the temple.

00:14:32:19 - 00:15:02:06
Unknown
Now, in chapter seven of Ezra, Ezra comes on stage about a hundred years after the temple was rebuilt. The first. These two sections that are before you now are part of the Ezra's introduction. So sometimes in in novels and short stories, in opera, the character enters the story and they're introduced in opera it's called the and the the character comes the sentencing as an aria.

00:15:02:06 - 00:15:25:15
Unknown
So even if you've never been to the opera, you know, you know Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Figaro. And in that little aria, Figaro introduces himself. Here Ezra introduced as introduced to the people. Now my text number four. I'm not going to read it all out loud. You can look at it and you'll see that it provides a genealogy for Ezra.

00:15:25:15 - 00:15:52:06
Unknown
And that Ezra starts out by saying that Ezra, the son of Syria, and then it traces him all the way back, and he is a direct descendant of Aaron, that Ezra is a proper high priest. He's a direct descendant of Aaron. It mentions people like who we do know from. He was a high priest at the time of David and Solomon, and many names that are not familiar to us.

00:15:52:07 - 00:16:18:21
Unknown
Now. Ezra is not only a priest here in my text, number five. It also tells us that Ezra had dedicated himself to the study of the Torah, of the eternal, to observe it, to teach laws and rules to Israel. And this is what makes Ezra special. He's the first person in the Hebrew Bible described as an expert in Torah.

00:16:19:03 - 00:16:42:13
Unknown
All right, let's scroll down to the next passage. Wait. Hang on. There's a page two. Right. So not not just number five, but also. Yeah yeah yeah. Yep. Hang on one second here because it's kind of not showing up. So let me okay. If not I can I am somewhat familiar with it. I bet you are.

00:16:42:15 - 00:17:21:09
Unknown
Ezra is described as Maharashtra expert into the term. Maharaj has been rediscovered by the Jewish community in our time to use as a title. So he's an expert in the Torah. Now the key moment is described in chapter eight. In Nehemiah chapter eight, the entire nation is assembled outside of the city gates. The gate called the Watergate. And the people are the entire people.

00:17:21:09 - 00:17:28:04
Unknown
Everybody, men, women and children are assembled outside the Watergate. It is a.

00:17:28:06 - 00:17:46:07
Unknown
A moment of convocation, of rededication. There's a moment that Mount Sinai, where the entire people stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. When Joshua Joshua leads the people back into the land, there's a moment of convocation between.

00:17:46:08 - 00:18:15:23
Unknown
Ball and hard. Greasy monk greasy, a dedication ceremony, and here to rededicate the land, rededicate our presence in the land. There's a new dedication ceremony. It takes place. It's important to note it takes place not in the temple, but outside the temple. And what happens? Ezra brings forth the Torah before the people, and he reads from the Torah.

00:18:16:01 - 00:18:40:04
Unknown
Now Ezra is a high priest and a scribe. But this rededication ceremony does not take place. Thank you. It does not take place in the temple. It takes place outside the temple. The ceremony could have been Ezra, the priest offering a sacrifice in the temple. But no, it's Ezra the scribe, reading Torah to the people outside the temple.

00:18:40:09 - 00:18:53:15
Unknown
Let's look at this text. I think that this my text. Number six, these three verses are the moment that the that we know began.

00:18:53:17 - 00:19:13:08
Unknown
At the top of it. So here, listen, listen. All the people gathered themselves as one person in the broad place that was before the Watergate. And they spoke unto Ezra the scribe to bring the safer of the Torah of Moses, which the eternal had commanded to Israel, and Ezra the priest. So I mentioned that he's a priest, but he's not he's not bringing a sacrifice.

00:19:13:08 - 00:19:34:22
Unknown
He's bringing Torah, and is where the priest brought the Torah before the congregation, men and women and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. Now, the first day of the seventh month is Rosa Shana. We call it Rosa Shana. So this is the entire people on Rosh Hashanah gathered together. And what happens?

00:19:34:23 - 00:19:58:12
Unknown
They hear the Torah and he read it facing the square before the Watergate from the first light until midday. And some people complain about a long Torah portion of Toro reading. This is a long term reading, you know, but I just I think to myself, like, what else did these people have going on? Like they're this is the first reading of the Torah, and we're going to get more than, more than the past, more than for sure, right?

00:19:58:13 - 00:20:33:17
Unknown
Yeah. We're going to want to hear Torah. Okay. Get comfortable to the men and women and those who could understand the ears of all the people who were given to the scroll of the Torah. This is the first time that the Bible recounts the reading of the Torah. This is the first place that somebody reads it in a ritual way, like Moses kind of like exhorts Torah to the people, but it's not in the scroll form being read kind of in the way that we are familiar with reading it now, correct?

00:20:33:21 - 00:21:11:12
Unknown
Yes, Moses, the content of the Torah comes out of the mouth of Moses, but the actual reading from a Torah scroll. This is the first time. This is the this is the first ritual reading of the Torah. And what year are we talking about? Roughly four 5450 BCE. Yeah. 2500 years ago. And I think so during the whole of the Second Temple period, people still relate to God through the offering of sacrifices, but they also relate to the God through the hearing of Torah.

00:21:11:14 - 00:21:40:16
Unknown
The rabbis, the early rabbis traced themselves back to Ezra and Nehemiah, the early rabbis, the rabbis that we know from rabbinic literature see Nehemiah as the first rabbis of the Great Assembly, whether that there's historical validity to that, that's another question. But the rabbis see themselves as following Ezra's footsteps, and as soon as the Torah is read, the interpretation of the Torah begins.

00:21:40:18 - 00:22:06:01
Unknown
And that's what we've been doing ever since then. Now I want to make one more point about the importance of Torah during the Second Temple period. Do you want me to pull the screen down? No, no, no, I want to use these texts that are right here. Okay. So text number seven describes the Ark of the covenant. So I can say imagine what the Ark of the covenant looks like.

00:22:06:03 - 00:22:35:10
Unknown
I imagine many of you are seeing an image from a certain Steven Spielberg movie. So the Ark of the covenant was brought into when Solomon completed the dedication of the first temple, the Temple in Jerusalem. The last step was to bring the Ark of the covenant containing the commandments into the Holy of Holies. And in the First Temple period, the Ark of the covenant was in the Holy of Holies, was in the Holy of Holies when the people returned from exile.

00:22:35:10 - 00:23:06:21
Unknown
In my text number eight, there's a description here of everything that is given to the Jews. Bizarre. Mentioned here is the leader of the first wave of return, and everything that was taken out of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus the Great gives back the bizarre. So the images that Nebuchadnezzar took all the temple treasures and kept them in a museum of some sort, or a treasure room in Babylon to show off what he had taken from Jerusalem.

00:23:06:21 - 00:23:29:23
Unknown
So he was still there for Cyrus the Great to give to bizarre, to take back to Jerusalem. Now there's a description here of what is given to to take back. And there's no mention of the Ark of the covenant in the Second Temple period. The Ark, the Holy of Holies was an empty room. There was no Ark of the covenant.

00:23:30:01 - 00:24:09:04
Unknown
During the First Temple period, the people could be assured of God's presence in their lives by the knowledge that the Ark of the covenant was sitting in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. In the Second Temple period, the Holy of Holies was empty. So what replaced the whole the Ark in the lives of the people? It's my understanding that it was the Torah that reading from the Torah was the way in which people from the Second Temple, up until our, up until our very day, felt God's presence in their lives.

00:24:09:06 - 00:24:22:16
Unknown
Rabbi Bob, the ark of the covenant that we understand was carried through the desert by the Israelites with the broken tablets and the new tablets.

00:24:22:18 - 00:24:40:19
Unknown
What happened to that? Did it just get destroyed? I mean, is it like mythic to begin with and maybe never existed or it did exist, and who knows? It's sort of like all of the, you know, the implements from the temple that the Romans carried off, that we don't know where those are either. You know, over the course of time, they've been pillaged, they disappeared.

00:24:40:19 - 00:25:11:12
Unknown
And what filled the empty space then became the Torah scroll. Right. So we don't know what happened to the archive of the covenant. There are many theories. Yeah. So there is during the First Temple period, Pharaoh, she comes from Egypt and raids in Jerusalem. And the Bible tells us he takes treasures off back to Egypt. So it's possible that one of the treasures that Pharaoh took back to Egypt was the Ark of the covenant, and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is based on that theory, that it was hidden someplace in Egypt.

00:25:11:14 - 00:25:31:16
Unknown
There's a group in Ethiopia that says they have the Ark of the covenant, and that the Queen of Sheba brought it back to Africa. And it's it's in a shrine there. Anything. And the shrine is so holy, no one can go into the shrine. But there is sure that the Ark of the covenant is sitting there.

00:25:31:18 - 00:25:53:01
Unknown
Dan Brown imagines that it's in a church in Scotland. The the novelist Rosalind Chapel in Scotland. It may have been hidden by the priests. As the Babylonians approached the temple. It could have been hidden in a cave by the priests, and by the time of the return, no one remembered where it was. Or it could have been as you suggested.

00:25:53:01 - 00:26:21:21
Unknown
It could have been destroyed. And there's also the possibility that that it never existed, that that it was only mythic, let's say. But it's great in it, in its in its absence. You can kind of imagine it can it takes on it, it takes on like the mythic of it takes on the ability then to be everywhere. If it's not in one place, then it kind of its, its power can be like everywhere.

00:26:21:21 - 00:26:45:20
Unknown
In the same way, we don't know where Moses was buried, you know, so that that way we can't, like, Revere one place where this guy was buried. We kind of have to we have to expand our religious interest and abilities to not just worshiping a thing in a place, but actually it's intent. It's inspiration in all places where it's being studied.

00:26:45:20 - 00:27:13:07
Unknown
So like the Torah scroll ends up embodying that, right? Oh, yeah. So when we take the Torah out of the ark and carry the Torah around among the worshiping congregation, we feel many of us feel God's presence in our midst, or certainly we feel connected to everybody else that's reading from the Torah. So my text, number nine is a is a very well-known verse from from Isaiah.

00:27:13:09 - 00:27:38:06
Unknown
That is recited in synagogues all over the world during his career service. He meets the state to deny me a line For Torah shall come forth from Zion, and the word of God from Jerusalem. Now if we stopped there verses that we know so well, we don't think about the manifest meaning of the words too often. Right? But if we stop to look at what we're saying when we when we sing this, we wait.

00:27:38:07 - 00:28:00:10
Unknown
Taurus I'll come forth to Zion. Torah was not given in Jerusalem. The Torah was given that Mount Sinai, it should say, For Torah shall come forth from Sinai. But it doesn't say that. It says, From Zion, and the word of the God from your line. And it's my argument that this verse became true when Ezra read the Torah on that.

00:28:00:12 - 00:28:22:14
Unknown
And that that Ezra read the Torah on 2500 years ago. And at that moment, at that, on that very day, Torah began to come forth from scion, from your Russia lime, and that the Judaism that we know began. What else? So.

00:28:22:16 - 00:29:02:07
Unknown
Oh, there's lots more. I'm happy to answer your question. Anybody else's questions or I can, I can. So actually, Roberta, Roberta had a question here about the language. Was it was what Ezra and Nehemiah were reading out loud when they were reading Torah, the same language that the people spoke like, were they, you know, like now in a in a Jewish congregation where Torres being read out of the scroll, unless you're in a heap, like unless you're in Israel, where people are speaking the Hebrew language natively and even then ancient Hebrew is, you know, foreign language, but to most, to most diaspora ears, hearing Torah is a foreign language and it requires translation.

00:29:02:09 - 00:29:23:11
Unknown
What were Ezra and Nehemiah doing? Were could people understand the ancient Hebrew? It was already ancient, sort of, relatively speaking, at their time. How were they doing it in a way that people could understand? So I am pretty certain that they read the Torah in Hebrew. Later, in the Second Temple period, a need arises to translate it into Aramaic.

00:29:23:11 - 00:29:43:15
Unknown
But I think at this time, at the beginning of the return from exile, the Hebrew was still sufficient. But there is something, really, something really special has happened to the Hebrew during the years in the wilderness. Now I have to say something about my Hebrew education, and I think it will echo with other people who had a Hebrew education.

00:29:43:15 - 00:30:01:17
Unknown
I grew up in Minneapolis. I went to the town of Minneapolis four days a week. I was resentful I wanted to be out playing baseball. My parents said to me, you know, your Hebrew education is going to be more important to you than baseball. And at the time, I thought they were wrong. But as it turns out, they were right.

00:30:01:19 - 00:30:21:09
Unknown
Well, who knows, maybe if he had gone to the baseball diamond four days a week, you'd be a professional baseball player. But, you know, I think this. I think this profession suits you. Yes. I'm a better talker than an athlete. Using my mind is better than using my hands. Do you appreciate these doses of Jewish inspiration and wisdom?

00:30:21:09 - 00:30:49:18
Unknown
Then we encourage you to become a builder. Creating down to earth inspired Judaism is a group effort. Mishkan Chicago relies on builders, people who have chosen to invest in the long term sustainability of our community. Learn more. Join or renew at the links in the show notes. Thank you. When we we met Thomas Harmony was a modern Hebrew.

00:30:49:19 - 00:31:14:11
Unknown
We learned Biblical Hebrew. We spent a lot of time on prayer book Hebrew. And when we got to the cottage, my well-meaning Hebrew teacher said, The Kaddish is in Aramaic, but you can read it because it's written in Hebrew letters. Now, this sentiment has been expressed the generation after generation of Hebrew, of Hebrew learners, children and adults. There's only one problem.

00:31:14:11 - 00:31:51:10
Unknown
It's wrong. They're not Hebrew letters. They're Aramaic letters. That Hebrew was originally written in an alphabet that we now call Paleo-Hebrew. And during the exile, we stopped writing in Paleo-Hebrew and started writing Hebrew in Aramaic letters. Now the Paleo-Hebrew, it's more straight lines. It was. Paleo-Hebrew was a fine alphabet. If you were writing with a stick into a clay tablet.

00:31:51:12 - 00:32:28:02
Unknown
But if you can, if you can use a a pen of some sort, a sharpened feather, perhaps to write on parchment or papyrus, you can make fancier letters. So the there's a shift in writing technology at that time. And we brought in and began to speak write Hebrew in Aramaic letters. The people to the Torah that Ezra read from was written in Aramaic letters, what we now think of as Hebrew letters.

00:32:28:02 - 00:32:53:13
Unknown
But they're not the Aramaic letters. Is is this right? Steve, are these where it says every these kind of these straight lines here. Is this Paleo-Hebrew right. So it's this this is exactly Paleo-Hebrew. So people can see this. This is what this is what the Ark of the covenant, we assume was written on, and what Torah was written on before it started to be written on the scroll as we know it in Aramaic letters.

00:32:53:14 - 00:33:13:03
Unknown
Right. So if you look at the pick one letter. So let's pick the hey! So if you go from right to left, it's the fifth letter. This one right here. So you can see the the hey that we use the hey we're familiar with. And you can see the Paleo-Hebrew. Hey, that's much that's very different, but you can see how writing with a stick and a clay tablet, it works.

00:33:13:03 - 00:33:36:01
Unknown
So if we. This is wild. You're telling us the original like like on on every ark. You know that in, in, across the world where they have the Ten Commandments written and it says and that it's written in the Hebrew that we recognize. If we read Hebrew, that is an anachronism. It was not if it was written, if it existed on a clay tablet, that is not how it looked.

00:33:36:07 - 00:34:21:18
Unknown
100%. So the. Oh my God. Stone inscriptions from the First Temple period are all written in Paleo-Hebrew. Now in the. During the first section, during the Second Temple period, there was a memory of the Paleo-Hebrew. So in many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the four letter name of God is written in Paleo-Hebrew stop. So like the you'd have of you might, you might actually you might break me here so you'd have of hey this this funky looking letter here and then and then this one and then the this one and then this one.

00:34:21:19 - 00:34:46:21
Unknown
Yep. OMG! So in also in the Baquba rebellion, in the second century of the common era, they minted some coins and in the on the Baquba coins they use Paleo-Hebrew and they've found those in like archeological digs in Jerusalem and stuff. Yeah, right. We've seen that in the shrine of the book and downstairs in the shrine of the book in Jerusalem.

00:34:47:03 - 00:35:12:06
Unknown
They have they display barcode coins and you'll see on the inscription of coins is Paleo-Hebrew. It's like we want to be. We're authentic. Yeah. So. Right. So the switch during the exile we switched from. So it's called a here. It calls it Asher. Right.

00:35:12:08 - 00:35:37:23
Unknown
In the book of records that actually read that all also the, the the Hebrew what we see is Hebrew letters are called here Asher which would be Assyrian. So there are Syrian and Babylonian and Persian, but it's the Aramaic alphabet. They make alphabet. Which was that just an evolution of this, or did it come from somewhere else? Was it an import from Babylonia?

00:35:38:01 - 00:36:09:10
Unknown
Persia? You know, somewhere else in the ancient Near East? So you can see, if you look at the olive, you could see the olive in the, the it has parts of the it's connected, you know, it's got it's got legs and arms. No. It's true. You know, Lexi made a really interesting point, which is the way that Judaism developed post Ezra and Nehemiah with the Aramaic alphabet.

00:36:09:12 - 00:36:35:07
Unknown
You know, the rabbis really have a field day. They have fun with interpreting the shapes of the letters. And so the olive is a great example that it connects us with the Earth, and it points to the heavens. It's the human form that connects the earth and heavens. It's pointing downwards, it's pointing upwards. And this Paleo-Hebrew kind of sort of, but like it's a much easier case to make with the with the rebooted one.

00:36:35:09 - 00:37:04:22
Unknown
Anyway, as, as people on the more liberal side of things, we can understand that Judaism is ever changing. It's ever changing. And we don't have to say that the Judaism that Moses did it, Moses and Miriam did it one way, and it's been that way ever since. No, it constantly changes and it shifts for a variety of reasons, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways.

00:37:05:03 - 00:37:12:13
Unknown
I'm arguing here that the that the time of Ezra was a time of big shift.

00:37:12:15 - 00:37:49:11
Unknown
And part of it is just the. It's just the letters. Yeah. All right. Do you want me to take the letters down? Yeah. It's just all right. I'm going to I'm just going to drop the link for anybody who wants to, you know, keep studying them, you know? Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Oh, one of the fun parts about studying our texts is if you take a text with focus in and dig deep, you can discover all sorts of new things that we tend to move quickly through the calendar year.

00:37:49:11 - 00:38:11:18
Unknown
And our attention is here in our attention is there for me. In retirement, I was able to splurge in terms of how I spent my time and focused. I'm going to spend all my time on Ezra. Nehemiah. Some of my friends thought I was ridiculous, spending all my time on such an obscure, such obscure books. But the deeper I dug, the more I found.

00:38:11:19 - 00:38:38:22
Unknown
And I think that there's a lot here that we can learn from and understand how we got to where we are today. There's also, you mentioned, like the platform they stood on in order to read the Torah publicly has been like, when we think of a bema, well, what are we imitating? You could say, right? You could say, oh, it's just a stage like any, any ancient like that's, you know, in order to be seen and heard, you would be elevated.

00:38:38:22 - 00:39:14:00
Unknown
But yes. And Ezra says something before he read the Torah, there's a part that sounds a lot like. And and it's a it's really it's it's there. It's right. Which, by the way, you know, if you think about what's happening there, you know, the that call the response, it reminds me a lot of, you know, in a, in a big outdoor gathering when you don't have a microphone and somebody needs to project and they want to know if people are listening, they might say, like Mike on or like on Mike.

00:39:14:01 - 00:39:33:21
Unknown
And then everybody responds, Mike on Baku. But you know, if you're if you're climbing a rock, if you're going rock climbing and you want to know that, you know, somebody got you at the bottom, you say on belay ballet on, you know, and so that the blessing thing that we do is, is actually performing a function. Are you all here with me?

00:39:33:21 - 00:39:59:10
Unknown
Yes. We're here and now. Yeah. You know more. You know, you know better than I of the power of this call and response music. You're. You're a wonderful musician. I have I can recognize music as music and. But there's a power when when the thing, when you sing something and the congregation repeats it, there's lots of a powerful conversation.

00:39:59:10 - 00:40:30:17
Unknown
And that's. And that's a little bit of the kind of the choreography of sacred moments that they are creating in as they read Torah for the first time back in Jerusalem with these traditions that did they develop these traditions in diaspora, in Babylon and in Persia? Is that part of what the argument is? Or that, like these people being having been in diaspora and they came back to Israel and they had forgotten, you know, they had forgotten their traditions, they had forgotten their ancestry.

00:40:30:17 - 00:41:05:00
Unknown
And so part of what Ezra and Nehemiah are doing is reintroducing them to a forgotten ancestry. Well, you're now moving me from what I know to be true to what I think to be true. All right. Well, you know, the speculation is fun. You know, there's my speculation, your speculation. And so I think that the Torah, as we have it today, took form, took its final form at the end during the exile, so that one of the questions that people can ask is, what?

00:41:05:01 - 00:41:23:21
Unknown
What was our religious life like in Babylonia? So the honest answer is we don't know. We know from the Psalms that the Babylonians say, sing us one of your songs. And the people say, how can we sing a song? How do we sing God's song in a strange land? We know this, but what were they doing? They don't.

00:41:23:21 - 00:41:50:22
Unknown
They don't want to do temple stuff in Babylonia. It seems that they understood that the temples in Jerusalem. Not not by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It's. We're a mountain people. We know where to worship God on top of a mountain in Chicago. We're a bit challenged, but we are like a little hill near near the shed aquarium, you know, like that's that's our mountain.

00:41:51:00 - 00:42:18:22
Unknown
When we first came to Chicago, we lived on Ridge Road. Oh, yeah. Okay. There. There's a rich ridge, right? There's the ridge. Sinai. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So for Chicago, it's a ridge. I think that during the exile, the people were writing what we now think of as the book of Leviticus and the book of Leviticus were exiled from Jerusalem because we weren't doing things properly.

00:42:18:22 - 00:42:46:19
Unknown
We weren't offering the sacrifices correctly, and we weren't leading proper lives. So the US contains a very detailed description of how to offer the sacrifices. Sometimes when we look at it, we go, you know what? What does this have to do with me? However, if we look at it as having been written in exile as a commentary on why are we in exile, we were being punished for not doing the stuff properly.

00:42:46:19 - 00:43:05:18
Unknown
So let's let's write down the instructions how to do it properly next time. One day we will rebuild the temple and in fact, they do. They go back and they do it. Yeah, I think the people in Leviticus are saying to God, if you give us a second chance, we'll do it correctly. And then there's the whole holiness code part of the book of Leviticus.

00:43:05:20 - 00:43:26:03
Unknown
It starts on the 19 Holy you shall be by the Lord. We got him holy. And it is in great detail how to lead a proper life. So I think that also that people are saying during the end of the First Temple period, we had allowed ourselves to become corrupted in every way, and that if we get a second chance, we'll do better.

00:43:26:04 - 00:43:57:09
Unknown
And I think that this also expresses a basic human need, and that comes to the fore here during the upcoming High Holidays that we're seeing. We want another chance. And if we can have another chance, we'll do better. I mean, and and what's interesting is after the second chance and the Roman destruction, and this is not really the focus of your book, although you do have a little section on political Zionism.

00:43:57:11 - 00:44:20:02
Unknown
At that point, the Jews who go into exile, you know, in the second version of going into exile, which we understand to be a commentary on not having lived according to God's ways. And, you know, like, sure, we can blame the Romans, but really, the way our tradition wants us to understand is to blame ourselves. You know, and then to examine our deeds and do better next time.

00:44:20:02 - 00:44:46:09
Unknown
But there is not the instinct immediately to set the wheels in motion to return and rebuild the temple. Jews actually, at that point have embraced a new experience of Judaism that is portable and that does not rely on temple sacrifice. And that's the Judaism we practice today. Yes. Yeah. So after you get a second chance, you want a third chance?

00:44:46:13 - 00:45:14:07
Unknown
Well, I mean, look, there are people in Jerusalem today creating the implements, the golden menorahs and the basins and the sinks and the altars for the rebuilt Third Temple in Jerusalem, which, like I hear that and I'm like, at a certain point, maybe one learns or we learn. You don't actually want another chance at the thing that was your demise, that was, you know, the source of your greatest suffering and trauma.

00:45:14:08 - 00:45:36:06
Unknown
You actually need to write a new story, but do you want to say anything more about that? So when I first learned about this group in Jerusalem, working on the preparing for the Third Temple, reaction was, oh, okay, I don't have to worry about that. Someone else is taking care of it. But really, no, I mean, sort of in a funny way.

00:45:36:06 - 00:45:57:03
Unknown
Sure. Okay. I don't have to worry about it. Somebody else is taking care of it. It's frightening. Yes. Yeah, I think about it in a more serious way. It's frightening. And I think that it's missing the point. What do you think is the point? Oh, we're in charge of our own lives. And if we want to please God, we can please God by leading proper lives.

00:45:57:06 - 00:46:15:00
Unknown
I would like to I would like to heal the world. And I have a line. I'm very involved politically. I'm very involved in my community. I'm very involved in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. I wanted to do all sorts of good deed. I'm a good deed doer. I want to redeem the world. But I'll we'll do our part.

00:46:15:01 - 00:46:53:11
Unknown
Let God do God's part. I mean, it's worth saying, actually, that there were a couple of different versions of your bio, and some of the things I did not read actually have to do with some of the the activism. You could say whether intellectual activism, creating the Holocaust education program at Wheaton College or being being an instructor at Hebrew Seminary for the Hearing and Deaf, but also but you were named as one of the 36 American Jews who helped shape the 2008 presidential election, and rabbis for Obama that, like, you're not a person who sits on the sidelines waiting for God to to shape the world.

00:46:53:11 - 00:47:20:00
Unknown
You believe in shaping the world. And so what's the difference here, actually, in terms of, you know, because, right, those Jews in exile, they rewrote the Jora to create the context for the the next temple for the Second Temple in exile. Now, I mean, it's a fringe. Let's be clear. The people who are preparing for the Third Temple for the return, you know, the not just political return to Jerusalem, but for God's.

00:47:20:03 - 00:47:39:06
Unknown
You know that the next kingdom to, I don't know, descend from on high or maybe be built by a construction company and and for worship in the temple to commence and for us to return to our glorious past. And so why, Steve? Why, Rabbi Bob, is is our glorious past not actually the direction that we're meant to go now?

00:47:39:06 - 00:47:59:02
Unknown
Why is that not actually walking in God's ways? I'm. When I when I dive in in a traditional setting, I recite prayers for the rebuilding of the temple and the reestablishment of the monarchy. And I say those words with a full heart. Perhaps I understand them poetically, but you know, before the end, what's going to happen before the end of time?

00:47:59:02 - 00:48:21:17
Unknown
I don't know, unfortunately, I'm not in charge of that. I'm willing to know. There's that part which is in God's hands, and that part which is in our hands, and we're going to worry about the part that's in our hands. And that during the return from exile, that we're talking about Ezra and Nehemiah, it's not we don't return to sovereignty.

00:48:21:19 - 00:48:45:22
Unknown
There's there's there's there's one significant person of Jewish history who's never we don't read Ezra, but a descendant of King David. There's no reestablishment of the monarchy. At the time of Ezra and Nehemiah were a province in the Persian Empire. And that's not lament. And the Persians are seen as much more beneficial and supportive of us than were the Babylonians were seen as the enemy for good reason.

00:48:46:00 - 00:49:13:08
Unknown
Right? But the Persians, the Persians gave the Jews permission to to reestablish connection with the land and to rebuild the temple, I guess until Akash. Right? I mean, like so it wasn't always good. No, no, no. So this is already after. So this is after Akash. So the Persian. Okay. In the in the sacred historical mythology, the the mess of actual history and mythic history.

00:49:13:11 - 00:49:41:13
Unknown
Yes. There's a there's a whole other discussion we can get into is how do the events in the book of Esther fit together with the book events of the Book of Ezra, you mentioned. I'll quickly mention a house for a rock's name occurs in the Book of Ezra, so the traditional sources want to try to tie together the Purim story with the events in the Book of Esther, and they want to know which of the Persian kings was the rock and which one was married to Esther.

00:49:41:13 - 00:50:12:14
Unknown
So then which of the Persian? Which of the children of the Persian kings was actually a Jewish Persian king? Which I think is standing the whole thing on its head. So I think, in truth, that the author of the book of Esther, which which I take as a story, not as history, saw the name of rock in the book of Ezra, and mind that name from the Book of Ezra, to use it in their story of Esther and a Persian king.

00:50:12:16 - 00:50:44:06
Unknown
So the prophet Jonah is mentioned in Second Kings The Book of Jonas, written hundreds of years later during the Second Temple period, as a story, not as history. Right? The author of Jonah sitting in Second Temple Jerusalem, or thereabouts, mind the name Jonah from the Second Book of Kings, and then came up with the story about Jonah. Because we know the Jonah story so well, we would tend to say Jonah's also mentioned in Second Kings, but I think that is backwards.

00:50:44:09 - 00:51:08:14
Unknown
That dimension in Second Kings is the original mention, and the Book of Jonah is the sequel. Got it. And I think that's so you have over here, Ari is just commenting on kind of the resilience of Judaism as a tradition, reinventing itself in different places, in different contexts. And one of the ways this is language from Rabbi Benny Lap.

00:51:08:14 - 00:51:36:21
Unknown
It's like the wisdom of Judaism was to invent a new religion, but call it Judaism. You know, it was like great marketing to to everybody who identified as Jewish to say like, no, no, no, this is the natural continuation of the thing that we, you know, that you call yours. And we're drawing on this and that reference from the original books, but we are massively reinterpreting in order to make this plausible for your life and context today.

00:51:36:21 - 00:51:59:18
Unknown
And it is authentic. It's we're not we're not it's not reinventing, you know, it's not our reinvention. This is what God wants us to do now, right? So do we pray the same way people prayed a hundred years ago? No. Do we say most of the same words? Yes. You know, during the diving this morning, I was very taken with your confident guitar playing.

00:51:59:18 - 00:52:15:18
Unknown
So, I mean, I know people hear your voice and you're doing a million things all at the same time, but you're playing the guitar without reflecting on it? Probably. Yes. It's it's reflexive. I'm not. I'm not thinking too hard about it yet. No, no, you could you, you know, you pick up the guitar, but I'm a banjo picker.

00:52:15:18 - 00:52:35:21
Unknown
But I've remained a beginner banjo picker. I got to a certain level, and I'm happy that my left hand, the fingers of my left hand, can just go to the chords without me thinking about it. But I was admiring your guitar playing, and it was reminding me of Don Everly from the Everly Brothers that this really strong, confident guitar playing, the confidence of the guitar playing is power is a powerful message.

00:52:35:21 - 00:52:57:22
Unknown
But this is new. Before a hundred years ago, no one played the guitar. No one played the guitar. And the melodies that we're playing guitar in today, people in the hills of West Virginia were creating country music. No. That's right. And it's worth saying a lot of the music that that for us feels most beloved that we sing at, you know, that we use for worship.

00:52:57:22 - 00:53:28:00
Unknown
Some of it was imported. All right. Look, some of it we've inherited from generations of people passed down all across the world. Some of it was written back in Germany or in Poland, you know, or for that matter in Iran or Iraq. But most of it, most of the stuff that we sing at Mishkan has been written in the last like 50 and even 15 years here in America by people whose musical influences were shaped by American music.

00:53:28:01 - 00:54:05:05
Unknown
At your point, like inspired by unknowingly, you know, people who are developing in the hills of Virginia and and it's a callback to, you know, they in the in the ancient text, they talk about playing on the lyre and playing on the flute. And for a very long time, the instincts to play in synagogue with musical instruments was considered basically sacrilegious, because it was adopting, because it was adopting certain features of the temple service that rabbis thought were inappropriate while we're in exile.

00:54:05:05 - 00:54:26:15
Unknown
But actually, they were just choosing different features of that ancient temple service to bring into exile and incorporate into the service. We make it holy by the way in which we use it. That's right. There's when they dedicate the the temple is rededicated, they sing songs. So I don't have time to get into an hour. I know a round of time.

00:54:26:16 - 00:54:44:22
Unknown
Right. And and will, I promised everybody to close out the minyan with the tune from from Michael Shapiro. So that's how we'll close out. But but finish your thought. I'm kind of leave us with what you want to leave us with. Yeah. So the question is, what song is these things? Songs. What do they sing? They sing the temple Psalms.

00:54:45:02 - 00:55:12:04
Unknown
They sing the temple psalms. And they were because there was only 50 years. There were people who saw the rebuilt temple, who had who had as children seen the original temple. And they knew that they sang the right songs. They may have sang, perhaps they sung them in a different way. We I think we do this today. And there's the creative among us come up with new melodies, and the melodies connect us with the people with whom we worship.

00:55:12:05 - 00:55:53:05
Unknown
So I heard you sing this morning, and I spent my I still go to summer camp. And so you're saying this morning is very popular in Wisconsin. And I was hearing your voice. I was also hearing my teenage friends in my in my in my mind. But we're connected across time and place. That's a beautiful place to end and to think of every time we walk into a synagogue, or every time we show up on this zoom minion, that the presence of Ezra and Nehemiah are with us, connected across time and space, and that what we're doing was shaped in many ways by those spiritual activists doing something really unprecedented for their time that

00:55:53:05 - 00:56:13:00
Unknown
we've just come to take for granted as part of what it means to be Jewish in our time, everybody. Rabbi Bob's book is called When Judaism Began. Look at that. Look at that, and you can find it online. Is there a place that you want people to get it if they're going to get it online? Is there a particular bookseller?

00:56:13:02 - 00:56:32:00
Unknown
Obviously two words. One, if you can buy it from the publisher with in stock, you can buy it from a a company named after a large South American river if you have to. And if you would like a personal if you'd like a personally autographed copy, contact me. I'd be I'd be happy to autograph a copy for you and sell it to you directly.

00:56:32:02 - 00:56:54:08
Unknown
I'm Bob, I'm able. I've had one email address since email addresses began. Because I have such a distinctive last name, I'm really easy to find. So if you want, if you want to copy autograph for you or for some member of your friends or family, I'd be happy to do so and find a way to get it to you.

00:56:54:10 - 00:57:20:17
Unknown
You even mail it to you if I had to. Amazing. All right, well, here's our here's our closing out. Here's our closing out tune for the morning. Thanks, everybody for joining us and hope to see you all on Friday night. Here we go.

00:57:20:19 - 00:57:25:17
Unknown
May I'm cool.

00:57:25:19 - 00:57:30:15
Unknown
Man I'm cool.

00:57:30:17 - 00:57:42:18
Unknown
May. I'm cool. Marsha voted for me. I'm cool much about.

00:57:42:20 - 00:57:49:09
Unknown
I got I got all my time.

00:57:49:11 - 00:57:59:09
Unknown
Come out of Texas. My God, my God, my satire.

00:57:59:11 - 00:58:03:17
Unknown
I'm cool. My.

00:58:03:19 - 00:58:09:06
Unknown
Own. I'm cool. My.

00:58:09:08 - 00:58:14:06
Unknown
I'm cool. My.

00:58:14:08 - 00:58:19:22
Unknown
I'm cool. Much of a Texas.

00:58:20:00 - 00:58:25:18
Unknown
I got, I got my say.

00:58:25:20 - 00:58:36:11
Unknown
May come out to find my God, my God my I.

00:58:36:13 - 00:58:56:20
Unknown
I'm cool. Much of a test for me. I'm cool. Massive attack for me I'm cool. Massive attack for me. I'm not sure to try.

00:58:56:22 - 00:58:59:15
Unknown
By.

00:58:59:17 - 00:59:03:06
Unknown
My side.

00:59:03:08 - 00:59:13:13
Unknown
Don't come out to fight. My God, oh my God, my my.

00:59:13:15 - 01:00:14:07
Unknown
I'm cool. Much of a I may. I'm not sure, but if I may. I'm cool I should, I may, I'm cool. Several.

01:00:14:09 - 01:00:24:01
Unknown
For love by rugby I delete me straight.

01:00:24:03 - 01:00:33:20
Unknown
I did I my I know I.

01:00:33:22 - 01:00:53:15
Unknown
Me for love my rugby I believe Mr. AI I did I arrive at don't know.

01:00:53:16 - 01:01:03:13
Unknown
Me for love my be I did me Mr..

01:01:03:15 - 01:01:34:07
Unknown
I did I I I I don't.

01:01:34:09 - 01:02:01:00
Unknown
Thank you everybody. Great to be with you this morning. Thank you Rabbi Simha Steven Bob for your book, for your learning, for your teaching. It would be great to learn anything with you. You are obviously super knowledgeable about a lot of things and you model continuing to learn, which is something. In rabbinical school. I asked one of the one of the elder instructors, Rabbi Dan.

01:02:01:02 - 01:02:19:08
Unknown
I said to him, like, how do you know all this stuff? And he said, I did not learn in rabbinical school. I just kept learning. I just I never stop learning. And so it's really it's always beautiful to see a model of somebody who never stops learning. And thank you for that. It's an honor being here. Thank you for having me.

01:02:19:09 - 01:02:42:03
Unknown
And I'm certainly happy to be a model. I'm proud to be a model for Torah learning. I mean, I mean, may we all follow in your example. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right. Lots of love, everybody. See you soon. You've been listening to contact Kai, a production of Mishkan Chicago. If you were inspired or informed by this episode, please leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts so that others can encounter our work.

01:02:42:03 - 01:02:53:22
Unknown
And if you appreciate what Mishkan is doing, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website at Mishkan Chicago. Shabbat shalom.

01:02:54:00 - 01:03:07:05
Unknown
Ago night and sharing changer. You cannot be king by name, as old as.