Can I marry a shiksa? Please, can I?

Seth: That's it. The rise and the ruin of the first temple. It's hardly a secret that the Jewish ego is well-developed, Lio.

Lio: Hardly secret.

Seth: Some will say it is too developed, but there are benefits to having a big ego, provided it is used correctly. Be that as it may, vowing to unite as one man with one heart is one thing. Living out that vow is a very different story. It is the ultimate test of human nature. And although the ancient Hebrews were bold enough to take on the challenge, they failed left and right. That is everybody. It reminds us.

Lio: This is what we're up against, I think, isn't it? This question, I think, if you bring it up to any Jewish person—look, you're chosen to do this thing, to unite above the growing ego.

Seth: What a mistake God made, right? Choosing these people who constantly didn't even know, couldn't you have picked somebody better? Wasn't there anyone better to do the job?

Lio: Well, that's the question, really. I mean, can someone do this job and can this someone be Jews? Were they actually at any point in history able to do it? That's what I hope we'll see today.

Seth: Where is this thing of, like, okay, he picked you and so just do it. Like, what is the thing about even the mistakes, right? Like, if he picked you. So, I mean, that's kind of the way I think that the world sees the Jews. Like, okay, you keep screwing up. You're a failure. You're bad because he told you to do it and you're just not doing it. What's wrong with you?

Lio: Well, if it was so simple, that would actually make things very easy if that's what the world...

Seth: Isn't that kind of the complaint against us, though? Like, just do it. Why don't you do it?

Lio: I don't know. I'm looking on Twitter. The complaint is that the Jews are spreading the coronavirus. The Zionists were behind the coronavirus.

Seth: That's the kind of complaint. It only took them three weeks to accuse us.

Lio: Yeah. No, it's been a couple of months, I think, since the beginning of the year. It took some time, but, you know, so that's usually the kind of finger-pointing that you get. It's not the creator or some higher law in nature compelling you to act a certain way towards the rest of humanity and you're not. That's not usually how people talk about it, right?

Seth: I think that there is that, actually. I think that that happens in some religious communities. They look at the Jews like, OK, look, you had your chance and you failed. Now it's our turn. Now we get a run at this.

Lio: Well, by all means, if anyone knows how to put things in order here, I, for one, would love to see it. I think now the world is thrust into a new era, really, with this virus. We're not going to make this podcast today about the virus, but it is there. It is literally in the air, metaphorically in the air. And yet, I don't see anyone rising to the occasion. I see more of the same bickering. In fact, they ran a simulation a year ago in some political institute outside of D.C. They ran a simulation on potential things that could happen in the world in the next year. One of the simulations, believe it or not, was the outbreak of a strain of coronavirus from the east that would basically spread around the world and what would happen, how countries would react to it. And they said that the main conclusion of the study was that countries need to communicate, but they will fail to do so because they don't trust one another. So that's exactly the place where a hub of some sorts, a communications hub, someone who can act as a mediator, as a connector between the pieces, can play a very good role. For example, I don't see anyone doing it. I certainly don't see Jews doing it. I know some people, some Jews who are trying to do it, but it's like one of those places I think time will tell that we need to do a better job. It's as if humanity has been running towards each other in this—

Seth: With commerce and travel and, you know, we're vacationing here and we're going there and we're getting goods from there and everything is crisscrossing the world so quickly, so fast. Everything's going everywhere, and then stop—everyone back to your places, everyone. You go back to your nest, you go back to your cave, you go back to your hut, you go back to your tree house. Everyone settle down. Now all these pieces are back intact, and now we have to, like you're saying, connect them. Now we have to have a coordinated effort between them. Now we all know each other, we all—

Lio: Know what's going on everywhere, and now we're back at home. Yeah, I think once the dust settles a little bit and people realize that this is not a two-week forced vacation, but it's actually a change in attitudes and behaviors and habits, I think then there will be some sort of maybe an unconscious, or again, an irrational kind of yearning for someone to fix it, you know, fix it, put the pieces back together somehow. And I know right now it sounds like a big leap of the imagination. Maybe in our next episode, we'll devote a bit more time to this virus. What does it say about how we are interconnected, negatively interconnected, how we are negatively impacting one another, but how it's also forcing us to start considering one another in new ways? Again, all the hallmarks of a network that is either working well or is failing miserably.

Seth: Yeah, when we've been reading this book, I was getting the feeling that if you can kind of almost strip the personalities, strip the characters off, you can redress them in different generations, it's like patterns. Let's read a little bit here, because I want to ride on this story with what we're talking about, because I see all kinds of places where we can slide in and out between current events and these kind of...

Lio: Yeah, I think this chapter is going to touch on the temple, right? And what it symbolizes.

Seth: The temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem, which we now recognize as the first temple, symbolizes the highest level of unity within the people of Israel. But the decay set in rapidly after the conquest of Joshua, writes the above-mentioned historian Paul Johnson. It again appeared under Solomon and was repeated in both northern and southern kingdoms, especially under rich and powerful kings when times were good.

Lio: Those were Israel and Judea, by the way, just the northern and southern.

Seth: The northern and southern kingdoms, right, of Israel. Okay. In other words, even at times of peace and abundance, there was constant strife and division, which eventually led to the ruin of the temple. First, the nation divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judea. Israel abandoned their vow of unity and mingled heavily, especially the leaders, with the neighboring nations. The Talmud describes the leaders' malevolence towards each other very poignantly. Rabbi Eleazar said, thus, even though they were close to one another, they were filled with hatred for each other. However, the Talmud emphasizes that the hatred was only among the leaders of the nation, while the majority of Israel did not hate one another.

Lio: Before we continue, they talk about how Israel abandoned their vow of unity and mingled heavily. I think it's worth mentioning that maybe if you're a Jewish person listening to this and you live in America, and maybe your wife is not Jewish or maybe your son married someone who's not Jewish or your daughter married someone who's not Jewish, you're thinking, well, is he talking about this kind of mingling? Is this what it's implying? I just want to make clear that I don't think, you don't think, nobody thinks that any of those acts in and of themselves have anything to do with the attitudes of people toward Jews. Rather, these things are simply a symptom of our move away from this ideal of unity. And it's just being expressed in this way. When it becomes less important to maintain this inner ideal, then also externally there's no real reason to remain connected, because as we said, this is a group that was established around an ideology. So what's the big idea, what's so important about marrying someone within the community if we don't have this ideal that's tying us together? Then, forget it, you know, why do I need to marry within the community? Actually, even less of a chance for some weird genetic mutation, right? Let me just, you know, open up the gene pool a little bit. So I just wanted to make that distinction. You could even go further than—

Seth: That. I mean, Moses married a Midianite, but she joined it. You're absolutely right. So, okay. But, but just from what you're saying, it doesn't matter really where someone's from. We're talking about Israel here as an inclination, right? So when you say the community, you're talking about the community of like-hearted, like-minded people, not a community of gene pool. Exactly. I think that's what just—

Lio: That's exactly what I'm saying. So although there has been a lot of—

Seth: People need to get to know you, Lio, you know? You have to understand what you're saying.

Lio: I'm stuck in Israel right now, by the way. This is important to say that The Jew Function today is intercontinental. Seth, all the way out in New Jersey, and I'm all the way out in Israel somewhere. So that's interesting. What I'm trying to say is that all that talk about who should marry whom, it's not about that. It's simply an expression of a departure from an idea, an ideal. That's what we're talking about right now. We're talking about a specific hypothesis.

Seth: Let's set it. The absolute hatred was to come in the second temple, and its horrific consequences would become a symbol of the cost of internal hatred. But even the level of separation and hatred of the ancient Israelites toward their brethren in Judea that appeared during the first temple was enough to lead to their complete disappearance. Indeed, all ten tribes that were part of the kingdom of Israel are lost today, as is the kingdom they had built. The Jews of today are the descendants of the Hebrews who occupied the kingdom of Judea, which was but a fraction of the original people of Israel.

Lio: By the way, they just did a genetic study. Apparently, 25% of all Latino people, Latin American, 25% of them have Jewish genes.

Seth: I don't want to say this, but I'm wondering if maybe all the Taliban are going to turn out to be Jewish or something.

Lio: It's possible. You know what they say—the people you have the strongest feelings towards, even if they're feelings of animosity, you're probably the closest to.

Seth: If all the Jews we know today are from two of the 12 tribes—

Lio: Yeah.

Seth: Right?

Seth: We're the other ten, right?

Seth: Pre-World War II numbers, you know, times that by—if that was 20%, no, that's less than 20% of the total Jewish population. So there's got to be a couple hundred million.

Lio: Yeah. Picture this. We figure out—picture this. We figure out what makes this, you know, what is the function of the Jewish person in this world. And suddenly in a heartbeat, suddenly hundreds of millions of people wake up to that, saying, oh, hey, I feel that too. And then, you know, later some professor is going to do the genetic study. He's going to find out that they're somehow related to these tribes. And we're so clueless about how these things work. So clueless. Just again, this virus is in the air. So, you know, just like the virus, everybody's like, where did it come from? Well, you know, some bat soup. Yeah, no, not where did it make its first appearance, but where did it come?

Seth: How did it appear suddenly? How did it, you know, materialize in nature? Why? What is it pushing us to realize?

Lio: These are the questions we don't normally ask because we don't think there are answers because we think we're delusional. We think reality started yesterday. Yeah, we're like kids. Oh, stuff just happened. And I think the funny thing is that we're willing to acknowledge that there are laws in nature, that we live in a closed system, interconnected, and there are laws. But we're not willing to maybe ask the next question, where those laws come from? Not a person, an entity, but like, are they leading to a sort of a general law or a general plan? Let me tell you about this.

Seth: You know, Joe, Joe D.

Lio: Yeah. He's talking to him about this virus.

Seth: Very, very interesting insight. Just like this virus, you know, it's quarantining people, right?

Seth: And then you see how you can infect other people.

Seth: Imagine it's not a viral kind of virus. It's maybe like a thought virus. What if we're poisoning each other all day long—we get close to somebody with our certain kind of negative thought, or we get close to somebody with our certain kind of negative attitude or something like that, and it infects them. And we all feel sick all the time. We all feel like crap all the time. We all feel like our life is meaningless all the time. We all feel, you know, we're in a rat race all the time because we're constantly being infected from all sides.

Seth: No question. By this kind of negative thing, right? No question.

Seth: You kind of can see from this viral virus how if you just stop, nature kind of puts you back in your home—relax, chill out, stay put. Everybody just stay put, stop infecting each other. It was so clear when it appeared there—the way the germ passes. I heard today someone said, you can hold the cart at the supermarket with your hands and it won't get into you. But if then you touch your eye, it gets into you. So it's like we're all coming into each other's space and then we bring their viruses into ourselves. I'm losing the focus a little bit on this, but I think you got what I'm trying to say here, right?

Lio: Yeah, I did. I did. It's tempting to get into it, but I think it would make us spend a whole show just on that. And we will do it in the next episode for sure. We'll get deeper into the virus. But just to add to what you were saying, do you know what the word "virus" comes from? I don't. It's interesting. Everybody's using it. It's a Latin word and it means something like a liquid, slimy thing. It means the venom of the snake. So interestingly enough, as we discussed in earlier episodes, it's the same venom that can also yield the remedy, right? The antidote. So something about the virus, something about how it makes us relate to one another, somewhere there is also the solution to that. So I know it's a bit of a metaphysical leap, so we're just going to leave it as a thought exercise for the diligent listener. But let's go back to the first century with Titus Flavius Josephus.

Seth: Jewish turned Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus, in his meticulous style, details the misconducts of our forefathers. While the list of misdeeds is far too long for the scope of this book, it is important to realize how brutal the hatred of the Judeans for their brethren was. In the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus offers some gruesome... So he wasn't an antisemite, he was a historian.

Lio: No, he was a former Jew, by the way.

Seth: Everybody should know. Josephus offers some gruesome details on the foul manner with which, especially the kings of Israel, treated one another. When, for instance, Josephus writes about the anointing of... What's his name?

Lio: King Yehoram.

Seth: Yehoram.

Lio: Yehoram.

Seth: Ruled merely nearly 70 years after King Solomon, who taught that hate stirs strife and love covers all crimes, this other king says that as soon as he has taken the government—

Lio: Josephus says, as soon as he had taken the government upon him—

Seth: Yoram betook himself to the slaughter of his brethren and his father's friends, who were the governors under him, and thence made a beginning and a demonstration of his wickedness. Nice. Yoram's fate, by the way, was no better than that of his victims. He too was overthrown by...

Seth: Yehu.

Seth: Yehu. Yehu, who drew his bow and smote him in the back.

Seth: Smote him in the back.

Seth: The arrow going through his heart, so Huram fell down immediately and gave up the ghost, details Josephus. From here, matters only go downhill. When Josephus describes the atrocities that King Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, perpetrated against his own fold, he writes, he barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews. Nor would he spare the prophets, for he every day slew some of them till Jerusalem was overflown with blood.

Lio: Now, it's just to say, people might say, well, you know, everybody at that time was killing everyone. Maybe, perhaps, but this is not a commentary about everyone. This is a commentary about a group that was founded on brotherly love, right?

Seth: Seventy years ago reached the highest level of unity and built the temple in Jerusalem.

Lio: Yeah, so the temple was a symbol of that. Again, not the temple itself, not the rocks. But as we read earlier, it was a symbol of this unity, of this love. It was an expression of that, let's say. Let's put it this way. But let's read on. Maybe there's hope. So the ego is growing.

Seth: We also read at the beginning. Okay, here we go. Clearly, this demeanor was not suitable. It did take a couple more centuries of depravity for the system to finally collapse, but in the end, matters plunged to the point where calamity was clearly on the horizon. Realizing doom was near, King Josiah sent the high priest Eliakim to prophetess Deborah to ask if there was anything they could do to avert the blow. But as Josephus reports, when the prophetess had heard this from the messengers that were sent to her by the king, she bid them to go back to the king and say that God had already given sentence against them to destroy the people and cast them out of their country and deprive them of all the happiness they enjoyed. Once again, internal hatred had inflicted a catastrophe on Israel and the people—

Lio: Were exiled to Babylon. Back to Babylon—it's almost like to Babylon again. Monopoly. I always grew up—

Seth: Thinking that and learning that the Babylonians destroyed our temple. Didn't realize that we—

Lio: Destroyed ourselves. Yeah, that's—again, just a word, every time you say the word God, we should remind ourselves and everybody listening that we're not talking about some vengeful or merciful God, but rather a law of nature. That's the only thing we're talking about. A law of nature, a law of connection, a force. Okay, if you have doubts, if you say a law, what does it mean? A law to someone. A law means equals a force, right? A law of gravity is the force of gravity. We call it a law because it basically binds us in a certain way. It puts a certain condition, certain restriction on the elements in the system. So the same way here, there's a law of love. You break that law. You don't abide by that law. Get out of my house. Get out of my house, exactly. And society just falls apart. Again, why? Because I think, and I think this book is showing a little bit, that this is something that's left to our own choice. Unlike rocks and plants and animals that are within the system, we were given, it feels like to me at least, a little bit of free choice there. I could choose to exercise it or not, make efforts in that direction or not. And that's what kind of separates me from an animal. Otherwise, we could all just be animals. Why do we need all the headache, right? Just stay monkeys.

Seth: And what a process it is, because if you were to take the best monkey possible—

Lio: The best monkey.

Seth: And the best one you could find. You're like okay listen monkey, you're gonna do anything you want in this whole life, you can have anything, but it's gonna take some time for him to cultivate himself and figure out how to use tools and then how to think and how to engage other people. And he's going to seemingly make a lot of mistakes as he, like, okay, he figures out one thing, he figures out how to organize people and then he gets mad at them and he kills them and then he does this and—you know, I'm looking at these people now with a little bit of sympathy because—

Lio: You mean your fellow Jews, the people we're reading about in this story here.

Seth: Yeah. At first I was, you know, five minutes ago I was really angry at them, kind of stupid idiots, that they, you know, kill each other so brutally. And now I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking, well, who were these people? You know, who are people, as people are developing, and how do you get to a certain level? It's not like we have software we just update the—

Lio: —software. No, right, it's not updating of the software, it's an organic process, analog, organic process. It's like your kids. If you think about it, we're kids, except that, you know, we're given—everything is open before us. Like you have the keys to the liquor cabinet, the gun safe, the car keys, everything, but you're still like a kid. Part of it is also reassuring because that's just kind of like—maybe it's wishful thinking—but because we don't have real answers on it, but it doesn't seem like nature would create such conditions if the purpose would just be to destroy. You know, it's set up to contain these kind of behaviors, I think. We don't know enough about life and death and the mistakes and everything because this conversation, this one—

Seth: —little book right here could open up so many different topics.

Lio: It could.

Seth: And even what you're saying now, if you look at life, not just as the 80, 90, 100 years that you live, but it's a whole rolling process, we're so, like, we were just talking about, where you said, "Oh, the virus came from some bat." You're like, no, but where did it come from? If we look at everything as these big, you know, this whole process and not just, you know, my life started right now and that's how it is and that's all there is, but we're part of this.

Lio: What's the purpose, right?

Seth: Say it again.

Lio: What's the purpose? You're in Israel and New Jersey. I didn't hear you all. What's the purpose? I think that's what this virus is making us question a little bit. You know, when you sit isolated for two weeks, unless you're binge watching every stupid thing ever made, which is fine. But for other people—

Seth: You should be listening to our podcast.

Lio: Yeah.

Seth: Well, that's a perfect thing to do in quarantine.

Lio: Listen to the podcast and think about the meaning of your life.

Seth: But the strength of the Jewish people was never measured by their number, but by their unity. The exile in Babylon lasted just as long as the Jews remained apart. The story of Esther tells us how the exile was to be overcome. First, the arch-antisemite Haman said to King Ahasuerus that the Jews were separated. There's a certain people scattered and dispersed among all the peoples in the provinces of your kingdom.

Lio: Scattered and dispersed, right? Right there. Scattered and dispersed.

Seth: 17th century commentary on the Torah, Kliyakar, writes that a certain people scattered and dispersed means that they were scattered and dispersed from one another. Likewise, the prominent interpretation of Jewish law, Yalkut Yosef, takes separated to mean that there was separation of the hearts among them. Adding that the Jews do not observe the king's laws, it was a no-brainer for Haman to sway King Ahasuerus into granting him permission to exterminate them. Yet each year on Purim we celebrate the miracle of our survival because in the very last minute, Mordechai the Jew united all of the Jews. "Go gather all the Jews," meaning tell them words of blandishment so that they will all be in one unity. "Go gather as one the heart of all the Jews." This telling 18th century description by Chaim Yosef David Azulai, the Chida, demonstrates the desperation of Esther and Mordechai at the prospect of seeing their entire fold obliterated.

Lio: It's very specific.

Seth: Go unite them quick or we are going to die.

Lio: Yeah, but use words of blandishment, which means flattery.

Seth: What does that mean? It means flattery, pleasing.

Lio: When you want to sweet talk someone into doing something—it's like, don't just say, you know, unite or die. So we're not, in this podcast, we're not suggesting that we unite or die, although this may be a subtext. What we are saying is that it's so much nicer to be together. And maybe sitting in isolation pondering the meaning of life alone might give you a little pinch and remind you how great it is to be together. You know, funny thing, I was at the beach yesterday and my son threw a frisbee and it landed on the back of an Arab fisherman who was tending to his stuff. This was near Jaffa. And I run over, and I was like, "Hey, sorry, bro, about that." And he turns around and he's like, "No, let that be the worst that could happen, as long as it's not Corona." And we're about to hug there in tears. I mean, it's amazing how easy it is to just apply pressure on us humans. I mean, really, in moments. And suddenly everything disappears. And suddenly we're brothers in—what do you call it? Brothers in arms, in sorrow, I guess. Point is that we always wait for the calamity, for the virus to come. Yeah, we have to proceed. We have to run before the cart.

Seth: Man, I'm thinking now, before the virus, how could you get everybody to slow down and chill out? Impossible. Like, it feels impossible to get people to pay attention without something like this.

Lio: You know, reading these old quotes, I'm reading another one here. The Torah Temet book says—it warns—when all of Israel are in complete unity, no harm will come upon them. Indeed, wicked Haman complained about Israel that they are a scattered and separated people—that there is separation of hearts among them. Therefore, Esther suggested that they would all gather in one place, become one bundle, and their salvation would quickly come. And as was said in the previously mentioned Midrash Tanchuma, if a person takes a bundle of reeds, he will certainly not be able to break them all at once, but taken one by one, even a small child can break them. This is the power of Israel. When they are all one bundle, when they are united together, they are rewarded and delivered.

Seth: The first line, when all of Israel are in complete unity, no harm will come upon them. But I'm thinking about one of the interviews you did recently, and you were talking about these issues that are coming. And I don't remember the guy you were talking with, and he said, no, everything is fine, there's no problem. And it's like not seeing the virus or something like that. It's not seeing—how can you expect somebody to—so you said we need to run ahead of the problem, right, not wait for the blow to come, but if you don't even acknowledge that there's an issue, how do you even know? It's like the kings we read about are killing each other, you know? It's like if you don't even know what you're supposed to do, if you don't even know what game you're playing, how are you supposed to even do anything?

Lio: There's no easy answer to that. What's the line that says ignorance of the law does not excuse you, absolve you from keeping the law? Like, okay, a law is a law. We have to educate—

Seth: Yourself. You're right. Okay, that's it. That's the answer. That's it. You don't know, you don't know. Okay, well, well stop, stop, stop for a second. Don't do anything. Don't, you know, don't go anywhere.

Lio: Don't buy stuff. Oh wait, that's what's happening now. Great, so let's use that to sit back, relax, and think for a second—what the hell is happening? If we're not going to think for ourselves, then nature is going to force us to think. That's how kind and benevolent nature is. This is a great opportunity, I think, to do just that. We have a few more minutes. I'm thinking of a couple more quotes here. He keeps making the comparison to Egypt: how they were delivered under Moses' leadership, brought out of Egypt, and then given the Torah—the instructions for uniting—when they agreed to be as one man with one heart. Then they were given sovereignty over the land of Israel. Now, under Mordecai's leadership, they again regained their sovereignty and were sent back to Israel to build a temple. People often forget about that as well. It wasn't just that they were saved from Haman, but it was a big step. If you turn this whole historic tale into an internal or social commentary on what's happening between us—forget about the historic thing—and really look at it as these separate desires, a separate force, separate inclinations pulling in different directions as opposed to uniting, think of the peace it brings inside a person, inside a society. This story could very well be about a person coming to terms with all his conflicting desires: I'll go there, I'll buy that, I'll do this, and all that. If I just follow each and every desire and fulfill it, then I'll be happy and

Seth: complete, forever and ever. But it never happens. It ends in a bloody mess every time. It ends with

Lio: a bloody mess—civil war, or a Black Friday on the floors of Walmart. Someone gets hurt. Let's read—can you read the declaration of King Cyrus? It's in the middle of page 41, second paragraph.

Seth: Cyrus declaration—

Lio: Let's see.

Seth: "Every Jewish survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem." Wow, nice.

Seth: It's like a young gang.

Lio: Give everyone free college, and after that—After this was carried out, what did it say?

Seth: After his order was carried out, King Cyrus brought out the utensils of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from Jerusalem,

Lio: and put in the house of his gods.

Seth: Oh, he took the things from the temple in Jerusalem?

Lio: His temple? Yeah, he brought them back to the Jews to take home. Just like when they left Egypt—they borrowed all those vessels from the Egyptians, and here again they receive all those utensils. I mean, there's something about those utensils. We're not going to get into it. This is, again, a reminder of what could be.

Lio: Going down into a well and coming back up.

Lio: Yeah.

Lio: Going down into a well and coming back up.

Lio: We're only going to say this, and we'll get into it next—in the next chapter—

Seth: We're going to get into more blood.

Lio: More blood. There's going to be some blood, yeah, some blood—the Romans and all of that. But there's also going to be an interesting chapter here about the 70 translators who almost saved the world. So that's interesting. Maybe this is kind of fitting our time. Maybe we need a group of people to save the world. So maybe that will give us some...

Seth: I want to binge-listen to this podcast. I want to eat everything. I want to understand everything. I want to keep the conversation going. I want to understand life through the story.

Lio: Whoever you are, if you're a Jew or not a Jew, listen to Seth—binge-listen to this podcast in quarantine. Then read Seth's book, Jew and Antidote to Antisemitism. And then binge-listen to the podcast again, because there's probably stuff you missed out on. We're going to be back next week and get into the story of the 70 translators who almost saved the world. And you'll be with us. This is The Jew Function, the only podcast brave enough or stupid enough to find out the roots of antisemitism and the solution to it. And I dare say maybe the solution to all the world's problems.

Seth: It seems everything is kind of interconnected.

Lio: I'm saying it. It's the solution to the world's problems. So we're going to try to do it here.

Seth: Shalom from New Jersey.

Lio: And goodbye from Israel.