/w Ariel Whitman, Host of "The Western Spirit" podcast

Ariel • 00:00 Western civilization in the UK is crumbling. On the other hand, you have people who live in Florida who feel great. There are a lot of challenges, especially among young people. We speak a lot about that on my podcast — the disenfranchisement of young Americans and young Europeans, the loneliness, the lack of friendship, the lack of spiritual meaning in life. We saw that in the protests against Israel, where you had literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people coming out and protesting — let's not say against Israel, but pro-Hamas. There were these videos where they don't know what river, what sea. But I think that's not the point. The point is that these people felt alone. They were searching for meaning, and the meaning that they are finding is perverted. We have an entire generation of people that cannot find something that holds them together. When we say "unite" — and I've been in tons of symposiums here in Israel about how do we unite — everyone gets into this room, and it almost always happens. Actually, always. Not almost. Always. When they talk, everyone agrees we have to unite. But when it comes to practicality — unite around what? The Jews saw them all, beat them all, Seth • 01:21 ...and is now what he always was. All things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? Lio • 01:33 Hello everyone, and welcome to TheJewFunction. I'm Lio. Seth • 01:37 I'm Seth. Hi everyone. Lio • 01:39 And we have a very special guest today. It's really going to be an interesting conversation because he's also a host of a podcast. He's an op-ed editor and senior reporter at Israel's financial newspaper Globes. And he's also the host and creator of The Western Spirit — a podcast and media platform broadcasting from Israel, not far from where I am. Seth • 02:05 Yeah, we're neighbors. Lio • 02:06 They explore cultural, political, and ideological forces shaping the West today. And this is great because we're all about exploring the cultural, political, ideological, and — might I add — spiritual forces that are shaping the West today. So it's a great pleasure to have Ariel Whitman with us. Hi, Ariel. Ariel • 02:31 Hi, nice to meet you guys. Amazing to be here. Lio • 02:35 Great to have you. So just so everybody knows, we're recording this on a somewhat tense evening, waiting to see if the US will strike Iran — where, when, and how — and what Iran will do in return. And we all know that no matter what anyone does, it's always the fault of the Jews. So it's going to be interesting. Well— Ariel • 03:03 But you're recording in your safe room, no? Lio • 03:07 Yeah, I'm in my safe room. Ariel • 03:08 You don't have to go anywhere. I have to run with the kids. So if I disappear, it's because I'm taking three little babies down — we're on the fourth floor. We have to go all the way to the basement because we live in an older building. We don't have a mamad here. Lio • 03:21 Yeah. Well, we've had a few episodes here under missile attacks. Actually, right after October 7th, we started doing lives and brought a live panel. We did a few panels, brought maybe six guests. And in the middle, they were shooting missiles. Everybody was scurrying. It was great. It's good TV. Ariel • 03:40 Yeah, it's good TV. Lio • 03:42 So, Ariel, I think it would be great to hear a little bit from you. First of all, for people who don't know what the podcast is about. But more specifically, I would preface it by saying that you talk about Western culture and politics and ideology and values. And we know that a lot of those values — in fact, a lot of what are considered universal values — were brought on by the Jews. So by speaking about Western values, it's another way of saying Jewish values, to some great extent. I'm curious — who are you talking to on your podcast? What are you trying to get out of this? And what did you learn about the state of the West right now, in these tense days? Ariel • 04:37 Well, I'll just say one thing: Melanie Phillips, in her new book, says that pretty much everything in the West is Jewish. Without Jewish ideas, you wouldn't have anything that we now know as the West. I'm not sure if I agree with everything about that, but you can definitely say that all of Western civilization is built on Judeo-Christian values. Human rights, democracy, the self-worth of every human being — that's created in the image of God, not like some servant of someone else that's expendable, like we see now with our neighbor up north in Iran, where human life is just a tool. The way Jews have looked at it since ancient times is that everyone is created in the image of God, so everyone has self-worth. That's something that comes from Judaism. There's no ifs and buts about it. She says, for example, that democracy actually comes from the Jewish Bible. Her reasoning is that when the Jews appoint a king, the king gets his legitimacy from the people. God says, through the prophet, "You're the king, but you have to listen to your people." It's explicitly said. And the idea, she says, extrapolated from that throughout the ages, became democracy and the rule of law — God commands to make the judges and all this kind of thing. So what we see in the West today is definitely building off of ancient Judaism. And it's something that we should be proud of. I think a lot of Jews, whether you're religious or not religious — and I know that your podcast talks a lot about what it means exactly to be Jewish — I don't think there's one answer to it. But in general, we should be so proud of where we are, what we made. And I think a lot of Jews aren't, especially in the diaspora. My family's from New York. I was born in New York City, in Brooklyn, to a Hasidic family in Crown Heights. And when you speak with a lot of Jews that aren't in Israel — and we can talk about the difference between Jews in Israel and Jews outside — there's sometimes a sense where you think they're almost apologizing for being Jewish. They feel a sort of need, like, "No, but yeah, well..." I don't want to stigmatize any one specific neighborhood or place, but you hear it a lot. Sort of like, "We're Jews, but we're not like — we're okay. We're not like those other ones. We're the nice kind." Seth • 06:45 Yeah, yeah. Ariel • 06:46 Or, I grew up in a Hasidic neighborhood, so people that left are like, "We're Jews, but we're not like we used to be. We don't wear this and that, so we're normal." But you don't have to apologize. On the contrary, you have to be proud of where you came from and what you're doing. And your next question — how is Western civilization doing nowadays? I guess it depends where and what Western civilization means for who you are. I was speaking with someone in the UK today, and Western civilization in the UK is crumbling. On the other hand, people who live in Florida feel great. So I don't think it's one thing. I think there are a lot of challenges, especially among young people. We speak a lot about that on my podcast and in the articles I've written — the disenfranchisement of young Americans and young Europeans, the loneliness, the lack of friendship, the lack of spiritual meaning in life. We saw that in the protests against Israel, where you had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people coming out protesting — let's not say against Israel, but pro-Hamas. Most people — there were these videos where they don't know what river, what sea — but I think that's not the point. The point is that these people felt alone. They were searching for meaning, and the meaning they are finding is perverted. We have an entire generation of people that cannot find something that holds them together, that keeps them grounded. They don't go to church anymore, or to synagogue, by the way, in America. You have churches in the UK that are becoming mosques now in London. And they don't have anything. Seth • 09:17 If we were to see a silver lining in everything, what would be the benefit of kids not wanting to go to church and synagogue anymore? Ariel • 09:22 I don't see any silver lining. I think it's important. We're talking on a Jewish podcast, but I would just say— Seth • 09:28 Let's say it's really important. In the natural progression of things, when kids don't have meaning and they don't want to do that, what are they still missing? Ariel • 09:39 I think it's just human nature. For millions of years — and if you're really Jewish like me, 5,000 years — we have to have a community. People are looking for a community and they're finding it. They used to find it in church. They used to find it in community events. Seth • 09:57 Why can't they find it in church and synagogue anymore? Ariel • 10:00 That's a good question. I think they should. That's one of the things Jonathan Haidt and all these other social scientists are looking at — where are people finding community nowadays, especially young people? Why are they not where they used to be? And what does that mean for society? I think that's something we don't really understand. Even the best scientists still don't understand why it's happening. But anecdotally — and I'm not someone who's really a scientist in this field — I think it's horrible. But if you ask for a silver lining, we do see a revival among the youngest generation of people finding God. I'm not that religious in the sense that I'm not someone going to preach to people to believe, and if you don't believe, it's fine. I have lots of friends who aren't religious. But I do think that most people need meaning in life, and if they don't find it here, they'll find it somewhere else. And I think the alternative to religion, whether it's organized or not, is something very bad. It'll be something else organized. Seth • 10:55 Yeah, we see it all over. People are looking for something. They're finding it here or they're finding it there. Ariel • 11:01 And the silver lining is that you see now in polls of younger people — I'm very bad at the Gen Z, Gen X and everything, but the lowest generation — in the polls, they say... well, the worst gen, actually — they're a very good gen. Seth • 11:15 No, no, I'm kidding. Ariel • 11:17 We used to have people rebelling against their parents. The parents were religious, so the kids didn't go to shul — like me, I sat outside and smoked cigarettes at high school yeshiva. But now the parents are anti-religious. The parents are anti-West a lot of times. The parents are anti-whatever. So the young kids, the way they rebel is to go and do the good stuff. I think that's a true dynamic. You see it in the polls of the younger generation. So silver lining: I think we're seeing a revival of healthy communitarianism. For me, that's important. I'm a liberal at heart. I think freedom is important. I think the state should be as little as possible involved in our personal lives. But on the other hand, I think that community should take the lead. And when community leaves, people go looking for a state. You can see that in New York City, by the way. Mamdani provides all these single, lonely people a feeling of community — "We're going to take care of you, we're going to give you houses, we're going to give you even free tickets to the World Cup now." And I think besides the fact that things are very expensive in New York, which they are, it also gives people a feeling that they're part of something bigger. You saw it in Mamdani's campaign — people were coming out, and it was almost a religious thing for a lot of these young people. Lio • 13:04 You bring up a lot of good points, but I want to take a half step back. I think it would be nice to know — why did you start your podcast? Was it just a hobby? Did you have financial aspirations? Why did you start this in the first place? Ariel • 13:32 So, like I said, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I came alone to Israel at the age of 15 to study in yeshiva and was thrown out after a little less than a year, and stayed. Good story there — a long story, and we can delve into that along the way, along with my criticism about the way the ultra-Orthodox community treats younger people within its community. But I guess what happened was, I worked in a bunch of newspapers, then I worked in the Knesset. And then at some point — I don't know if we spoke about this before or you guys read about it — I'm now legally blind. I lost my eyesight almost entirely due to a rare mitochondrial disease. One of the things is that I continue working. I think I'm the only editor and writer at a print newspaper who doesn't see. So you're talking with — I think — the Guinness World Record holder. There's no other person. I'm pretty sure. But what happened was that I felt I needed something for myself. My wife said, "You're talking to all these interesting people at work because you're writing about them or they're writing op-eds for you. You seem to enjoy talking to them beyond the work itself. So why don't you just record them? You like it." And it started literally like that. It was just audio at first because I didn't think I needed video — I can't see anyway. But then one day, Professor Niall Ferguson came to Israel about a month after October 7th. And a friend of mine said, "This is one of the biggest historians in the world. He's here. I can give you my studio in Jerusalem, and you can invite him." So he came, we put it on video, and it got like 60,000 views. I was like, oh, there's potential here. And that's basically how the audio started, and the video started by mistake. I was like, this works, so let's go with it. Lio • 15:46 First of all, this is great. I saw the list of people that you've interviewed, and some of them we've interviewed too — some similar guests on our show. But you also had some great names that we didn't have. You spoke to Mike Pompeo, right? And Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin and Douglas Murray — a lot of great, interesting people. The question I think we have is: you speak to them, I imagine, not just about Western values, but the Jewish angle naturally comes into the conversation. I'm really curious — how do they see the problem of anti-Semitism, or the Jews as a whole, as a group? Do you get a sense that people see Jews from the outside as this unique, unusual group? Or simply as some sort of slightly special minority group that has to be brought back into the fold and that's about it? Or do they feel that there's something special about this group, something different? Ariel • 16:56 I think everyone's different. But the people I talk to are usually the type of people who will — first of all, a lot of the people you mentioned are Jewish. Dave and Ben — I think that's it of the ones you mentioned who are Jewish. The others aren't. Most people I talk to aren't Jewish, I think. And most of the ones that agree to talk to me — I'm not a giant podcast — are doing it because they want to speak to Jews, and especially to Israelis. The reason is that those people usually believe that Israel is important and the Jewish people are important for the West. Douglas Murray pretty much says that Israel is the blueprint for the way other Western countries should be. He said when he was here that he looks at young Israelis — like my friends who went to Gaza on reserve duty and left their families, maybe not to come back, to protect their country and their people. He looks at that and says, "Why are my British friends not doing that? Why are Americans so different?" So in a way, they look at — especially conservatives and religious or conservative Christians look at Israel with a sort of envy. If you think about it — and I'm going to be recording after this with someone from America who is a Christian Zionist, a Christian conservative — besides the fact that they love Israel and they think it's biblical to love Israel, they look at Israeli society and they see a number of things that they wish they could instill in their people. For example, community is something that they feel is lacking, to say the least, in America. Number two, religiosity of the younger generation. All Israelis, except for a small minority, consider themselves traditional in one way or another. As you can attest, Lio — someone who lives next to me — on Yom Kippur, even the most secular, anti-religious Israeli will go for Kol Nidre or Ne'ila to hear it at the synagogue. You're not religious, but you'll go. And then you'll go back to eat pork or whatever, but you'll go to hear it. Or you'll drive to the synagogue, and you'll be on your phone, but— Lio • 19:23 Actually, on Yom Kippur they won't drive. That's also an impressive thing. I'm saying this in parentheses to anyone who hasn't been to Israel and is not Jewish — if you can come and be here on Yom Kippur, it's phenomenal. It's very quiet. Just the sense of everybody agreeing on this one thing. It's the silliest thing — "We're not going to drive for 24 hours" — and it's mind-blowing. People don't realize what's happening here. Ariel • 19:53 And 97% of Israelis, for example, do a bris for their children, and things like that. Religiosity is something they are very envious of. And then the fact that Israelis have a lot of kids, which is something that is definitely falling in the West, and people in religious communities are very alarmed about that. Patriotism is another thing. So they look at Israel and say, "Oh" — and by the way, even secular Israelis are pretty much not what we call "woke." They might be secular, but they won't be with their pronouns in their bios, so to speak. The Christian community, even the Islamic community sometimes in some Western countries — I've met Muslim leaders from around the world, some of whom are too worried to take pictures with us because they don't want their congregations to know they've been here — they look at us with a lot of envy. So I think in that sense, they look at the Jews as something very special. On the other hand, I assume a lot of people who don't come on my podcast don't really look at us as special. But I think that makes us special in and of itself, because they hate us especially. Jews usually evoke either extreme love or extreme hatred. There's not a lot of ambivalence. So I assume we're very special. Lio • 21:25 It's true. So I think the next question — you brought it up, and usually we reserve it for later in the talk. But since you brought it up yourself, I will ask you: if you had to define a Jew to someone — we usually ask about aliens just to make it more objective — but if you had to define a Jew or Jews, that group, to a total outsider, how would you define them? Ariel • 21:52 So we spoke about it before, and I was thinking to myself, what do I say for such a question? The thing is, I don't think there's one answer. It's a good question. When people think about it, you stop in your tracks. What does it actually mean to be a Jew? They say there's one — three Jews and seven synagogues, or whatever the saying goes. And in Rosh Ha'ayin, there's literally one family, five synagogues in their backyard. I think basically what I would say is that we're a people. We really are. We're not just religious, because we're also a nation. We're not an ethnicity, because obviously there are lots of ethnic variations — even in Israel, you have Ethiopians, Russians, and everything in between. My wife's Persian and Iraqi. I'm all different types of Ashkenazi. I'm not exactly sure what, because they all died in the Holocaust, so I don't know. But I think it's like who said about — you can't define pornography, but when you see it, you know it. Le'havdil — the same thing. You can't define exactly what a Jew is. Lio • 23:13 It was a Jew that started pornography, so it's okay. Ariel • 23:17 And it turns out that that makes anti-Semites angry also. But also the fighters against pornography are Jews. So everyone hates us because we're on all sides of all issues. That's also a problem. Lio • 23:27 It's hard to pin you down. It's hard to put a target on you. Ariel • 23:33 But what I mean is that you basically know what a Jew is. You don't have to put a name on it, but you know. You see a cow, you know it's a cow. You see a Jew, you know it's a Jew. I think that's basically it. Lio • 23:43 Is that what you would tell an alien? "Listen, I'm looking around, there's this group that draws a lot of attention, that has unusual representation in everything." Seth • 23:54 You'll know when you see them. Lio • 23:56 Yeah. Ariel • 23:57 Well, I don't know if I would say "like a cow," but I would say — when I studied in yeshiva, we spoke about people that have something to say to the world. People that have a ye'ud — what's called in Hebrew— Lio • 24:09 A destiny. Ariel • 24:10 People that have a destiny and a message, something that people can look to and say, "Okay, that's what they're telling us." But when you get older, I think you realize that a lot of people have different things that they're trying to tell us. So maybe the optimal version of what a Jew is, is a people — someone, or a people — that are trying to build societies, build a way of life that's a "light unto the nations," like they say. But we have our own criminals, we have our own bad people. Lio • 24:50 Oh, you need everyone. That's not the point. I think the question is — okay, I'm just rushing through some of the formalities so we can get to all the fun stuff. I'm curious to know: did you experience anti-Semitism directly, personally, when you grew up in Brooklyn? Ariel • 25:13 Not really, which is one of the interesting things — that now some of my friends in Crown Heights have been... First of all, there have been protests outside 770, which is right where I grew up, which is very weird. The fact that they say it's not anti-Semitism, it's anti-Zionism — and then you go protest outside a synagogue? What does that have to do with it? Especially since Lubavitch and Chabad are very anti-Zionist, just putting that out there. People have been physically attacked. But I myself have never — maybe, you know, one time when I was a kid walking to school. I was actually born, and at two years old, we had the Crown Heights riots. For those who remember, I think it was '91 or '92. There was always a tension between the African American community where I grew up and the Jewish community. There were always things said back and forth, but it was sort of a both-sides type of thing and sort of on the fringes. I never — it's very weird also. I spoke about this with Ilya Shapiro, who was at Georgetown and then had to resign — he's a legal scholar, Jewish person. The fact that we used to think in America that anti-Semitism was relegated to some neo-Nazi in Iowa or Idaho — because there was like an Idaho neo-Nazi community when I was growing up and we would all talk about it. But no one ever saw them. That was it. And then suddenly they're all over the place. And then you realize all these people who were my friends — under the surface, they really hated us. But they didn't feel confident enough. And now it's accepted. So I think I didn't experience anything like what it is today. No. Lio • 27:11 Are you troubled by it? Ariel • 27:13 Very much so. Lio • 27:14 Of course — any sane Jew is. But are you troubled enough to ask really why it's happening and how to solve it? Or are you satisfied with the run-of-the-mill solutions? You know — we have to stand up to it, sue those, ban the others, shame these guys, put those in prison, form coalitions. Seth and I call those band-aid solutions. Did you ever consider that there's maybe a deeper thing at play here? Ariel • 27:54 Yes, I think it is a deeper thing. First of all, anti-Semitism is not one phenomenon. I think we're seeing it coming from a bunch of different types of people, and each one has its own deeper meaning. First, there's Islamic anti-Semitism. We can put on a TV from our neighbors here and their TV shows are literally Jewish stereotypes. It's not even hidden underground. You pretty much have to be a Jew-hater to live in Egypt at this point. There are 80 million people — I forget exactly how many. They all watch TV. They all see propaganda that's 100 percent Jew-hatred. The Jews are depicted with large noses, Hasidic stereotypes — it's overtly anti-Semitic. So when that type of culture comes into the West, and it's coming in more and more over the past decade or so, you're going to get more anti-Semitism of that type in the West. You're going to see it more and more on the streets. Why is it deeper? I think Islam — especially the Arab states that are poor and not successful in any sense and very frustrated, and their peoples are mostly illiterate — they're looking for a scapegoat. They feel very jealous of the Jews in Israel or in general. When you feed them the stereotype that says the Jew is the successful, wealthy person, the doctor and the lawyer, the person who's running all the banks — the deeper thing, I think, for that ideology is, number one, Islamism, which hates Jews, compacted with a sort of extreme envy for Jews. And that, by the way, comes with a spiritual dimension — a sort of feeling that "we're not as good," which is sad. I think they are as good if they had done the right things. But it's become a feeling of inferiority — rikshei nekhitut — but on a spiritual level. "Our prophet told us that if we do everything right, we will live with riches and women and all of this overwhelming prosperity. And yet the Israelis, who are the kofar, who are literally doing everything against what our prophet told us, are succeeding so much." It's a spiritual catastrophe for them on a theological level. Lio • 30:36 It's an alien in the eye of the average Arab person. There's no question that Israel is that. In the context of the Middle East, anyone who has eyes in his head — sadly, not many do. I'm not talking about you. I'm trying. Ariel • 30:50 We're working on it. Lio • 30:52 They see that it's a religious war. It's a religious conflict at its heart. Those who tried to make it into something else brought us the Oslo Accords and all those other things, which failed because there's something really — a religious rift happening. It's been leveraged by the extreme, radical factors in all those countries. I think that's clear. The question is more maybe in the West, where Jews were more assimilated — relatively speaking — since World War II, the 20th century. They've been there, they've been part of society, helping, contributing, being accepted into society. And yet people are turning against them in droves. What's that about? Ariel • 31:46 I agree, but I was just saying that the more Islam and Arab Islam especially comes to the West, you'll see more of that on the streets of New York. So that's one part. The second part — I would like to do two types. One is the more left-wing anti-Semitism we've seen. Those are the people who are actually marching with the Islamists in the streets. And that, I think, goes back to what I said about the search for meaning. Because those are people who are literally like atoms in space that have no one to talk to. They're usually, in the universities, very rich kids — $60,000, $70,000 a year to go to Columbia. They're all alone. They have lots of time on their hands, it turns out. And this is their meaning. Their spiritual awakening is to hate the Jews and Israel. We've had a few people on my podcast who were students at Columbia and had participated in the past in protests like the ones we've seen. They explain — and I'm just giving an example — you go to school the first year, you get situated in your dorm at Columbia. Specifically, Coleman Hughes told me he was at Columbia. You get a knock on the door the first day. "Hi, I'm from Students for Justice in Palestine. We're having a protest against genocide." "Oh my God, I don't know anyone here. Genocide's horrible. I'm not into genocide. I'm against genocide. And this is something where I can meet girls, I can go out and find friends, and we're all going to be against genocide together, which is amazing. We're all going to be so moral, and we're going to be part of something bigger than us." So when they go in the streets and say "What river, what sea?" and people don't know, a lot of people think it's so weird— Seth • 33:47 Let me play a quick game. If we were just really good at what we do and really organized and had 15 years to prepare — first day of school at Columbia, we send our guys out to knock on the doors. What do we have to offer? What can we tell them? "We're going to have a..." Ariel • 34:07 Nothing. For people who — it's very weird, because when you think about it, why were Jews successful? Leave out the spiritual side — you can't really, but leave it out. Just leave in the cultural side and the historical way Jews were treated over the years. The reason, I think, is that Jews were never handed something for free. Jews had to work hard. They had to insulate themselves in their own communities and make something of themselves without help from others. So what is the Jewish message for someone who's spoiled, who wants an easy way out, and is looking for something to rally against the system? A Jew comes to him and says, "Listen, if you work hard and you keep at it and you marry and have children and go to school and work hard, you might succeed. A lot of us have, a lot of us haven't. But that's the Jewish message. You can come to the synagogue or church, whatever. You'll meet people. But I can't promise you'll succeed. It's in God's hands. Maybe you'll succeed, maybe you won't. But you have to work hard and be moral." Lio • 35:23 What's certain is you're going to be conflicted. Ariel • 35:26 That's what I can promise you. You're not giving them any certainty. First of all, what are the universities themselves teaching kids on a basic level? "You can never be wrong. You're always right. And even if you lose, you actually win." That is so antithetical to anything Judaism ever taught anyone. Judaism is for meritocracy. Judaism is for winners and losers. Judaism is for — at the end of the day, with certain caveats — free markets and people having exchanges of ideas. Judaism doesn't tell people, "You have your safe space, go there and cry and then come back, and we won't talk to you about certain things that might hurt your feelings." So what are we giving these people? We're giving them — and I think at the end of the day it's the biggest present, but I don't know if they'll accept it — that you're responsible for your life. We will leave you alone. We will give you a community behind you, we'll support you if you need to. But you're on your own. Work hard. Seth • 36:30 Different game then. What if there was a group of people who created that Shabbaton feeling? Everyone's singing, everybody's included, everyone feels good. And then all those people on the fringes — say there's a core of a hundred people doing that somewhere, and it's very vibey and very warm. Then you have some stragglers on the outside walking by and seeing that. They would probably be drawn into something like that, right? So if we can't cast a wide net to everybody, maybe what we can do is create this core with the people who are capable of doing something, and it will then naturally draw in those on the fringes. Not everyone is an organizer. Not everybody is capable of being in that inner core. So what if we start with the inner core? What would that look like? Ariel • 37:32 I'm not sure about the exact form, but look at Chabad. I grew up in Chabad. They're not — I would say — Zionist. Not "I would say" — they're not Zionist. The fifth Rebbe — the last rebbe who passed away was the seventh — the fifth one actually left Agudat Yisrael because they were talking to Zionists. So it was that bad. But they are very good at outreach. They know how to give you the warm and fuzzy feeling in a good way. They're inclusive. They don't judge. They bring you into the fold. I think there's a lot we could learn from giving that warm feeling to people. We have a lot to offer on that front. But even Chabad — and this I can tell you from the inside — once someone becomes a Chabadnik... Let's say they go to a campus and they have the Shabbat meals and the songs, like you said. People come. And by the way, the Hillel houses — some of them are very good at this, others are not. It depends on who's running it and what type of person and how he looks at the world. But in Chabad, people come and then let's say you feel so close and you start learning Judaism with the Chabad shaliach that you actually become a Chabad person. At that moment, you're out of the fuzzy area. That moment brings with it a commitment to do all the mitzvot and to dress like a Chabadnik with the hat. You can't shave your beard anymore. You have to wear the whole thing. With your wife, you have to have certain — the total commitment to every one of the mitzvot. Your children will go to certain schools. What I mean to say is that we can give community, songs, the beauty of Judaism — but Judaism without commitment is something that won't work in the long run. Lio • 39:36 I want to get to the chase a little bit here, because it seems like you have all the right answers, so— Ariel • 39:42 No, no— Lio • 39:43 No, look. We've spoken to a lot of people on the right and the left, Jews, anti-Semites — we spoke to everyone. And you spoke to anti-Semites? Ariel • 39:52 Of course. Lio • 39:53 Were the anti-Semites on your show? Ariel • 39:55 Lucas Gage. He was a big name from X, or something. He had a different name. He changed his name, got banned from all the platforms, got into Alan Watts, then came back more relaxed, then lost his mind again. Seth • 40:18 If someone's really interested in finding a solution, we're into talking. We're not interested in talking to thugs. But if somebody really wants to get to the solution of the Jews — yeah, exactly. Why is it— Lio • 40:33 Be careful how you said that. But I'm going somewhere. My point is, everything you said — I think there's a baseline that we all agree on. But we want to take it a step further. When we look at historic patterns, when we look at words of Jewish sages — we've been talking about this issue. Not about the "wear this hat" or "do this mitzvah, that mitzvah." No. Talk about what's happening in the system of humanity and where the Jews fit into that. When you look at that — and then we also add network science to it, just to be sure. Not that we doubt the Jewish sages, but for those who need some additional logical reassurance. We have that in as well. We have seen that there's a much bigger thing happening here, which is not about keeping certain external actions in place. It's about connecting with what's happening inside a person. What we saw, what we read, and what we are actually trying to do every day — Seth and I and a lot of friends that we have — is to deal with that thing inside of a person, which is, I would say, the culprit in everything that we see around us, around the world. Which is the unbridled egoism — a desire to receive pleasure at the expense of anything and everything and everyone. Ariel • 41:45 What's that? Lio • 41:46 Unfounded hatred is one expression of that. You find it in the sources. In Hebrew, it's called ratzon lekabel, be'al menat lekabel — a desire to receive pleasure in order to receive it, meaning egoistically, not for the sake of anyone else. And that thing is not a spiritual thing in the "woo-woo" sense. No, it's a quality that exists in humans, does not exist in animals. It's a more evolved form of the living. A monkey doesn't have it — still vegetative, animate. The animals don't have that. They are bound by the laws of the system. You don't see a cow tripping in the field because it was chasing some other cow. It doesn't happen. It's a human quality which evolved in us in order to get us to the next degree in our evolution. And that degree has to include our own conscious participation. In other words, there's a process here that all humanity is undergoing. And Jews simply — for whatever reason, as Jordan Peterson says — we have to lead the charge in that direction. We have to be the example, as you sort of alluded to. The microcosm that will do it first, and then everyone else will be able to learn and follow. And it has to do with really where humanity is going. So the question is: you yourself, did you ever feel — did you ever ask yourself why we're not able to shake those things? Why all that good feeling is not enough? Unless we tackle something fundamental about how we relate to each other, we're not going to be able to change anything. So I'm curious if you feel that there's something about this that we should be talking about. Because we could talk about politics and this and that— Ariel • 44:10 I'm not exactly — to tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure what — why do you — so I agree that a lot of the world now, especially in the West, people are very egotistical, looking for immediate pleasure and not the long-term benefits of being less egotistic. Looking at things in a more holistic, "the world around me" type of way. But why do you think those people hate the Jews? Lio • 44:43 Good question. First of all, we have 22 episodes to talk about it, and I invite everyone — this is a good place to plug our first season. Listen to the first season because everything unfolds in those 22 episodes. But in short: like every system in nature, every big change has to be preceded by a small group. When you hit puberty, there's a bunch of hormones that have to run through the body and kickstart all these processes that will get you to the next level in your development. You see it in nature. You see it in a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly — you need a group of cells called imaginal cells to kickstart the next step in that evolution. That's just how nature initiates big changes — through a small group that starts it. So nature needs that. It makes sense that humanity also needs that. And Jews — because someone had to be selected to do it — are simply representatives of all other nations that gathered around Abraham at a time in Babylon 3,000 years ago, when there was a similar eruption of that egoism, that individualism, that inability to stay connected to the community. And they learned how to work with that, how to rise above it, how to connect above it — not to eradicate it, not to eliminate it. That's a good engine of development. But how to rise above it. And that group kind of split from humanity, and they had their own timeline. Seth • 46:20 Represented by leaving Babylon. Lio • 46:22 Exactly. And they had their own timeline that they followed — sort of an accelerated path. While humanity was slowly evolving, every once in a while Jews helped humanity make these little jumps in its own development of its own egoism. The Jewish thing is not that Jews bring good things or bad things. Jews simply accelerate the natural development of any society. And you see it from history. Wherever you brought Jews in, they're like fertilizer. They're like catalysts. They go in and they accelerate things. Suddenly you have economy and entrepreneurship and all kinds of ideas, good and bad. They simply are able to feel what much is missing and provide for it. Jews have been doing it very well to satisfy the needs of the ego. But now nature has kind of shifted gears. Seth • 47:22 Meaning we developed science, we developed medicine, we developed entertainment — we developed to this level. And now, as a world community, we've hit a wall. It doesn't matter what we have, we can't be happy. And now it forces us to— Lio • 47:42 To tackle the last thing that's preventing us from being happy. In other words, you have the technology, the medicine, you have everything you need to live an amazing life. But something is preventing us from doing it, from connecting on a deeper level. And that thing is something that the Jews learned how to do. We actually reached a very high degree of connection in the First Temple, fell from that. Second Temple, fell from that. Spread around the world. Now we have to sort of remember that and collect all those sparks and become almost a magnet for the rest of humanity to rise to that level. Ariel • 48:21 Are you saying that the hatred of Jews today is different than the hatred of Jews 50 years ago? Seth • 48:28 Not the manifestation. Lio • 48:33 The manifestation changes — it could be religious, racial, political, geopolitical, whatever. But the root of it is the same. If I feel that somehow my fate, my own destiny, is dependent on you fulfilling your destiny, your role, then I'm intuitively going to resent you until you show me the way. Seth • 48:54 And it could be completely unconscious on the part of the Jews and on the part of the non-Jews. Ariel • 49:01 So you're saying that if I'm some protester at Columbia, I hate Jews because I feel in myself — whether consciously or unconsciously— Lio • 49:18 Well, it's not — let's say for someone who is not even conscious about it, who's not thinking about it, they're probably not going to make that connection at all. But the deep thinkers — and you see them in the writings — the higher the thinking capacity of these people, even anti-Semites, you see them referring to that directly. Talking about the need to look up to the Jews. From Henry Ford — and we quote a lot of different people throughout history who were anti-Jewish but talked in very endearing terms about Jews and what they expected of them. But forget them. I'm looking at our own sources. You look at what the Sages said. What is "light unto the nations"? What is unfounded hatred that brought the Temple down, that destroyed the level of connection that we had? And unfounded love that we have to discover. Seth • 50:18 Let's do one more thought experiment, one more game. What if, in addition to all of the great innovations in medicine and technology and entertainment and finance — if we put these forces into creating a brotherhood of man? Not through communism or something like that, but somehow put all of these forces into disseminating a feeling of love amongst humanity? What would people's reaction be if they felt that they were being loved and cared for and given an opportunity to be a productive part of society? Lio • 50:57 Or even more specifically — what if they actually saw the Jews doing it? As long as people are exasperated, despaired of that potential in society — as you said — they're like, "We can't bridge all those gaps, so screw it, I'm just going to go yell and break down everything around me, because that seems to be the only sane alternative. This doesn't make sense — the pursuit of this and that, the competition. I just want to belong to something. And if that something is about just destroying everything, sure, I'll be part of that. It's better than feeling disconnected." But if I had the hope — if I could see a group of people actually doing it, able to bridge right and left, religious and secular, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, poor and rich, all those different polarities that exist in Israel and among the Jews in general — if we could actually do it, apply it on ourselves first, that would suddenly give a different example. Ariel • 52:06 Maybe, inshallah. I don't see it happening, but I'm all for it. I know where I'm living and I know where we're going. Very good ideas on the spiritual level. But I'm more of a practical person — trying to think about how things work and what we're doing. When you spoke to anti-Semites and when you hear them speaking, maybe a lot of it does speak to what you were saying — a sort of spiritual hate because of all the things you just mentioned. But I think a lot of it is also very practical, coming out of an ideology and how they look at the world. You asked me — I mentioned the Islamists. But more in the West, we can talk about just the big ideas that bring people to hate Jews. What the Jews need to do by themselves is important. I would love to live in a country where people hate each other a lot less than they do here right now. And in America, the Jews are more dispersed. But I would love for every Jew to feel, like you said, a sort of brotherhood with other Jews. But I'm realistic. Maybe that could happen. I just don't think we're there yet in the near future, or maybe even the long future. Seth • 53:28 What could be more important than that? Ariel • 53:31 Nothing, but sometimes... Seth • 53:33 In the land of Israel, what could be more important than the unity of the Jewish people and brotherhood between one Jew and another? What could help our future? We're going to keep the missiles, okay? We're going to keep the Mossad. We're not getting rid of any of that. We're going to keep the startups, we're going to keep whatever we have now. Besides that, what could be more important than the unity of the Jewish people? Ariel • 53:54 So you're getting into more of what I think about Israeli society, which is interesting— Seth • 54:00 Well, I would say I think we'd see a reflection in anti-Semitism if this happened. Lio • 54:09 In other words, Ariel — we're a drop in the ocean. If the world truly unites against us, we're doomed. Barring upper providence. But the question is, you're not able to really change the minds of every anti-Semite by directly working toward them, by PR-ing the hell out of it. Ariel • 54:31 But I don't want to — maybe I don't want to convince anti-Semites not to hate me. Lio • 54:35 No, not going to. No, please. But at least— Seth • 54:41 Let's go all the way. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. You had mentioned that the entire Western civilization was birthed out of the Jewish ideal, right? Ariel • 54:52 A lot of it. I don't know if I agree that everything. But okay. Seth • 54:59 Okay. So let's say that somehow this tiny group of people — what they do somehow flows out and influences the entire world. So what flowed out to all the world was what came down from Sinai — the purest essence of what we have to give. So let us now reach that point of "one man with one heart" — how they stood around Sinai, all the men, all the women, all the children, together, as close as we can to that uniting principle — and let that flow back out to the world. And that's what we're talking about. Ariel • 55:37 Again, I agree. I wish. I would just say — I wish, but— Seth • 55:42 "I wish, but." Ariel • 55:44 No, no, no. We see — looking at... No, wait, let me finish my thought. So obviously I wish everyone in Israel would be a lot more united. But on the other hand — I think it's important to say that Israelis have groups: secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox. I don't think the ethnic issues are really playing a factor right now. Lio • 56:07 Sure, whatever. Ariel • 56:08 I'll talk more about secular and ultra-Orthodox, and even religious opposed to ultra-Orthodox. You want people to unite. The question is what they're uniting around. When we say "unite" — and I've been in tons of symposiums here in Israel about "how do we unite?" — everyone gets into this room. It almost always happens. Actually, always. Not almost. Always. When they talk, everyone agrees we have to unite. But when it comes to practicality — unite around what? What are we going to do about— Lio • 56:59 I'll tell you. Ariel • 56:59 It's very, very simple. Lio • 57:01 First of all— Ariel • 57:02 It's simple for you. Others don't agree with you. Lio • 57:05 No, no. Listen, all I'm saying is let's first agree to talk about it. Ariel • 57:10 Oh, I think everyone's talking about it. No one can stop talking here. Everyone's talking. Talking isn't the issue. The issue is — at the end of the day, I know it's very annoying because I agree with you on principle that everyone should be united. Everyone, by the way, wants what's best. Everyone here in Israel — if you're in Israel, you're not here because it's easy. Especially if you're someone who's educated, has an ability to have a job outside of Israel to make money. Someone who can change things, who can go to a podcast like this and talk, who can speak at a panel at some university. Those people have a choice and they choose to be here, not because it's easy, mostly, and not because they feel like this is where their parnasa is. They're here because they love Israel and they want the Jewish people to be here. Seth • 58:04 Let me ask: is this possible? Is it possible that we can all keep our opinions, but first things first, we agree that we're going to make efforts to love each other? That's the first thing. Keep our opinions. We're not going to change anything in public policy. First things first, though — we're going to try and figure out how we can love each other. Ariel • 58:24 Can I just say something that's really — I know it's counterintuitive — but I think Israel is one of the most loving peoples toward each other. There are. I mean, I go every day outside, take the bus, take the train — I go on public transportation because I can't drive. People are, on the one hand, very gruff and very mean to each other sometimes and very rude. But they do it because of a familiarity with each other. Lio • 58:51 I want to stop you right here. Because on October 6th, that love was lost. Ariel • 59:00 I don't agree. I disagree. Lio • 59:02 I disagree. Did you go out on the street? Ariel • 59:04 Did you go out on the street? Yes, I live here. It's very weird. Family members wouldn't hug each other— Lio • 59:10 I disagree. Ariel • 59:11 No, I was here. Let me give you my opinion. I think that even among families that love each other, you have very stiff disagreements. As someone who's from an Ashkenazi family of Holocaust survivors — dor sheni, the second and third generation — we're so small because everyone died. But even among those few, we have so many arguments and fights. Sometimes we don't talk to each other for months. But when something happens, when someone is in trouble — even the smallest things — I don't want to go to October 7th. If anything happens, we're all there for each other. And if you look at the protests before October 7th and all that — and we also had five elections, one after the other. Regardless of your political opinions, elections are meant to bring out the most anger in each side to attract voters. You're actually, nowadays, going to vote against the other side and not for your side. So the whole point is to make people very angry and hate each other. And yet, with all of that hate that was brought out — people were angry at each other in the streets, there were protests. But if you look at protests in the West compared to the protests that were here, where literally people felt — I disagree that it was based in reality, but people literally felt that their ideals were being taken away from them — I'm not judging them for that, because that's irrelevant to what I'm saying. People who felt that in other countries of the West were burning down buildings and shooting at cops. We saw that in BLM in 2020, the "summer of love" or whatever they called it. Literally people were destroying neighborhoods. And those people — their whole claim was that cops were too violent to Black people. But no one there was saying that the entire society was being destroyed and America wouldn't be America. It was an important issue, but compared to the claims being made by the protesters in Israel, it was a nothing issue. And yet in Israel — and I had a lot of very strong disagreements and criticism of the people who were organizing the protests, and I'm giving you my political opinion behind the scenes. But you look back at it and say, these are two groups of people that supposedly so hate each other. And yet when it came to the clash, there were a few times they blocked traffic. There were clashes with police where after an hour or two it finished. People went home. The next day they went back to work with people they disagreed with. At my work, I sat desk next to desk with everyone who disagrees with me — because when you work in the media, usually everyone's on the left and I'm not. The point I'm trying to make is that with all this extreme tension among Israelis, still — people were not shooting at each other in the streets. And the reason is not because Israelis are such nice people. It's because we are brothers. No one was going to pick up a weapon and shoot at an Israeli soldier because the policeman was Jewish. Lio • 01:02:55 First of all, I love it that you're very nice— Ariel • 01:02:59 Yeah, I love it that you're not nice. Lio • 01:03:01 It's true. I was very depressed about what was happening here. Seth • 01:03:04 I think you speak very nicely and you bring out a really beautiful point. Lio • 01:03:11 It's true. And by nature I'm also less of an alarmist in this sense. But the feeling that I have — and I think it harkens back to what you said at the very beginning — is that as long as there's some sense of solidarity, some foundational thing — "Oh, we're all brothers, we're all Jews, Zionists, we want this country to remain, we want our tradition to be part of it" — that's okay. When you start to break away from that ideal, that's when things happen. And that's the part that was troubling to me on October 6th — that there was a group that was advertising, advocating for that. And it's the same pattern that you saw throughout history. When these groups start to break away from the ideal, from saying, "You know what? Yes, we're all brothers — but not with them" — that's when you cross a line. You can argue, you can fight, you can do whatever you want. And what Seth and I are constantly talking about with guests is: we are tired of only coming together when the shit hits the fan. When we're threatened. No, we want to reverse that. I don't want to wait for the body to get cancer for the cells to be like, "You know what, we got to work together for the body." No, you've got to maintain homeostasis. The body's full of contradictions — you have soft and hard, acid and base, all that stuff living together. Why? Because they maintain homeostasis. And that's what we need. And I don't think we have that. Ariel • 01:04:53 Can I be a little more optimistic also about what you just said? If you look at the history of the modern-day State of Israel from the beginning, you had groups that said things like you just said. Even in the '50s — and even before that, in the Yishuv, before Israel was founded — you had groups that wanted to kick certain groups out of being part of the Israeli experiment. After Israel was founded, you had groups like the Canaanites, and obviously ultra-Orthodox groups, and groups that said we should split — Yehu da V'Yisrael. There were a lot of different groups. You had academics promoting certain partition plans. So in that sense, you always had a certain group of people that that was their thing. I understand. Let me put it this way: I understand why in the heat of the moment, certain people felt — and still feel, by the way — that they are left out. Their interests are not being considered by people who run this place. And if you feel like that over time, that's going to grow whether we like it or not. Which is why it's a responsibility — not maybe of mine and yours, but more so of our leaders (which is a problem here, because they're the same leaders). But putting that aside, it's the responsibility of our leaders to make everyone feel — even those who don't vote for you or who don't feel like you're part of their interest group — that you hear them and that they're part of the greater project of what Israel is. I think that's something our leaders from both sides — we had the Bennett-Lapid government. We live in Petah Tikva, you and I, and we had the protest near Orbach's house, which is not too far from here. People on the right felt disenfranchised, and I assume they were saying things that were sometimes similar. And then you had people in the protests you mentioned now who felt like that. But it was always — and still is — on the fringes. When you look at polls of Israelis, they feel very Jewish. When you ask Israelis, "What are you more — Jewish or Israeli?" — overwhelmingly, Israelis on the left and on the right, secular and religious, call themselves more Jewish than Israeli. They want to be part. They're happy to be Israeli. They are one of the happiest people in the world, even today, by UN measures. By the way, I'm not saying this to say everything's great here. We have a lot to fix, and a lot of it we're talking about in the newspaper I write for. But I think we should also not lose sight of the fact that Israelis are here because they want to fix it. Seth • 01:07:57 Ariel, I think you're 100% right. I also think — and just because we have to say this — we're 0.2% of the population. In everything we're talking about, we're not held to the same standard. Even if you're saying that the love is 10 times more than everyone else and the brotherhood is 10 times more than everyone else, we're not talking about the same standard. The people who brought the entire Western civilization its foundation — they're held to a totally different standard than everyone else. It's not like we're third in happiness, behind Jamaica or whatever. Ariel • 01:08:29 No, my point is that even by the toughest standard — a society that started at COVID (the whole world was there), then five elections where no government was founded. You were in America, right? You went through an election just now. It was horrible. Imagine five, one after the other. The amount of pressure that puts on people hating each other is unbelievable. So you went through that. Then we went through the year and a half of the judicial reform protests. Then October 7th. Then the hostage protests, which became political whether we like it or not. And then we're still going through — since our founding, but now especially — the draft issue with the ultra-Orthodox. We are under extreme societal pressure. And through all that, we are still a very happy and very united people. With all the problems that we just mentioned, that's something remarkable by any standard. Lio • 01:09:31 The problem — I'm not — the problem is not the problem. The problem is only one. And that is — I don't want to say "commandment" because it freaks the non-religious people. But there are laws. You can agree that gravity is a great commandment — if you break it, you get broken. I just came back from my son's social activity and a kid fell and dislocated his elbow because he broke the law of gravity, or the "mitzvah" of gravity. So if we agree, to your point — and I think we can end on that — if we agree that maybe there's one quality that we should all unite around and not leave, one commandment to keep, that would be the one of love. If the Creator is that quality of love and we try to be more like that — above everything, all the problems, all the disagreements, all the friction — just maintain that one quality. We all want to connect to that quality. If we can do that, I'm willing to take the person who thinks the exact opposite of me. Why? Because I know at the end of the day, there's that one point of love that binds us. Would you buy into that? Ariel • 01:10:54 I wish. It's a high standard, to tell you the truth. I walk in the street, I get angry at people. What am I going to do? I don't love everyone. I wish I could love everyone. But one of the things — just to finish off on a funny note — I remember, I think it was Leibowitz, who one time went to Ben-Gurion and they were talking. I think I saw a video of him saying: Ben-Gurion tells him, "We're finally kekhol ha'amim." Lio • 01:11:32 "We're like all the nations." Ariel • 01:11:33 "Finally, we're regular people. We have a country. That's it." He said they caught two robbers stealing from the supermarket. "We have our own robbers here." So, you know, it depends what we want to be. Like everyone else? We want to be different? But I feel like we are special. I think most people know that and have a basic level of love. But I don't know if we can get to the level you're asking for. We can all try, I guess. Lio • 01:12:01 I think we have to. Not because Seth and I think so. I'm just looking at 3,000 years of Jewish sages saying it over and over and over again. And historic patterns showing over and over and over again what happens when we leave that last bit. Seth • 01:12:16 Let's leave with that thought. What is the goal of the Jewish people? Let's not answer it now. Let's just think: What are we here to do? What is the goal of the Jewish people towards all of humanity? And what would that look like? Lio • 01:12:31 And you're amazing. Seth • 01:12:32 You challenge us in a wonderful way because it's not just a blanket on or off. You're getting into the real beautiful details of where the solution is. I really enjoyed this conversation. Lio • 01:12:44 Thank you so much. Are you able to read the chat? Ariel • 01:12:48 No. Lio • 01:12:49 No? Sorry about that. Is there any way I could send you something that you could read? Ariel • 01:12:56 Yeah, send me on WhatsApp. I have a special thing that allows me to read it. Lio • 01:13:00 Okay, hold on. I'm sending it to you because we always ask our guests to read a quote from the sources. Let me know if you can read it for us. That would be phenomenal. Ariel • 01:13:11 Oh no, it's too long. Lio • 01:13:13 Too long? I'll read it. Is that okay? Ariel • 01:13:15 I can read it if you help me. Yeah. It's by Chafetz Chaim. Okay. Chafetz Chaim, In Remembrance of Miriam, Chapter 11: "When does creation find favor with the Creator? When all Israel are bundled together and there is no jealousy, hatred, and competition between them whatsoever, and each one of them thinks only about the correction and well-being of his friend. Then the Creator rejoices in his creation, as is written, 'The Creator rejoices in his works.' And this explanation is in reference to 'love thy friend as yourself.' I am the Creator — to tell us that if one loves his friend as himself, then I, the Creator, am in your midst and love both of you." Oh, I'm proud of myself that I was able to read that. Lio • 01:14:08 Amazing. Thank you so much. Ariel Whitman — that has been a pleasure, a great ride. Everyone, please head over and listen to The Western Spirit. Some great guests there. Good luck on your next talk, which is coming up for you shortly. Thank you for giving us your time and your passion and your heart. We'd love to have you again on the show if you'll indulge us. Ariel • 01:14:40 Yeah, next time in person. We'll come to you. Lio • 01:14:43 Oh my God, we're neighbors. Literally walking distance. Seth will be here in a few weeks. Maybe we'll do it. Ariel • 01:14:49 So anyway, coffee is on me. Lio • 01:14:52 Then we have to come. Everyone, this was TheJewFunction with Ariel Whitman. It was great. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate us on Spotify — it helps. And we'll see you all next week. We have a lot of great guests coming up. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ariel. Have a great night.