w/ Virág Gulyás | Almost Jewish

Lio

This is TheJewFunction, Episode 110, I believe. Yes, we made it this far. How are you, Seth?

Seth

I'm good. It's... what a journey we've been on. I just got back from Brazil on Monday morning, 5 a.m. And as we were being held up in customs, you can see on Fox News behind us... I mean, Trump was entering the Knesset. Yeah. And we started this before October 7th, didn't we?

Lio

We did, like a year before or something. Dude, oh my god. You were... we started this while you're still in Brooklyn. We started while I was still in Brooklyn. It was 2020. We started the podcast when Jews started to wake up to the fact that antisemitism has taken a turn for the worse after many years where the U.S. was just the golden Medina for the Jews, as some of them said to us.

And we started the podcast. We went through the mystery book, which, by the way, if you're new to TheJewFunction, you are more than welcome to sample the first 22 episodes. I would just binge the whole first season, 22 episodes.

Seth

Explain what's there for anyone who doesn't know.

Lio

Well, we're simply going through a timeline, a chronological timeline from the times of Abraham, really all the way to the establishment of Israel. We're trying to unpack, era by era, what was actually happening, what was happening in the world, and in parallel, what was the Jewish history like. We're trying to show that if you connect enough dots, you start to see patterns. And those patterns help you explain what might be the root cause of antisemitism.

The historic patterns themselves are not enough. As we go through, we are reading from this mystery book, which you can follow, and we reveal in the end what it is. And we read great quotes from historians who've explored this, from Jewish leaders, from notable anti-Semites, and also from Jewish sages. We're putting together, I think, a novel picture of the relationship between the Jews and the world.

What we're trying to show is that Jewish hate doesn't happen in isolation. It's a recurring phenomenon, so much so that it conforms to laws of nature. It's part of the laws of nature that govern the system we're in.

Seth

It requires understanding who the Jews are, who we are, but also what the goal of humanity is. If we're just here, like, pushing carbon around into a shape of a solar panel, now let's shape it into a computer chip, now let's shape it into a car... we're not getting to the root of what the goal of humanity is.

And if we understand what the goal of humanity is—that we're all moving towards being one family together, governed by love—then this unique, weird third wheel called Israel enters the picture and what role do these people play? And without asking that question, "What is the goal of humanity?" we can't even begin to understand the problem and how to solve the problem.

Lio

Precisely. Precisely. So we're taking a bird's eye view. It's not even a bird; I think it's more of a space shuttle view of humanity and this unique grouping in humanity called Jews. When you take the emotion out of it and when you take a longer view of things, then you start to see the picture beyond the current conflict, the current hateful flare-up somewhere, even beyond terrible things like the October 7th massacre and just the recent release of the hostages—all momentous events. But how do they fit within the big picture? That's what we do here on TheJewFunction podcast. And that's the only place where you'll find this information.

So if you like it, please give it a listen. If you really like it, comment. Like, comment. This really helps to bring this conversation to the forefront, which is really what we want. We want more people to hear it, to consider these ideas. And together, maybe a new picture of us will emerge, and with it, a new picture of humanity and the world. So that's really the main thing we're asking for. I think this is something that people who are following us, they see the value in that, and they support us in these ways. So that's really what we're asking people to do.

And as we were going through this, we're meeting on this show all kinds of really interesting people, amazing people who are part of this growing circle. Because for us, Jews are not simply those who have a certain something written in their birth certificate.

Seth

DNA.

Lio

Yeah, exactly. It's not a DNA. It's something you could call a spiritual DNA. If you're inclined to think in this way, you can think of it as something more holistic. That's why you have people who are not Jews at all waking up with this feeling of identification with the Jews. You have people who are not Jews at all in the weirdest places around the world.

Seth

Maybe it's time to mention at this stage of history that when the first temple was destroyed, 10 of the tribes were sent into exile. As much as in modern history, as much as Jews try and assimilate, it's impossible. Impossible.

Lio

Not only is it impossible, it's also unhelpful. It's not like assimilation helped us. None of the things we do to fight antisemitism, by the way, helped us, which is another interesting point.

Seth

But back when the first temple was destroyed and those 10 tribes went into exile, a completely different phenomenon happened. They completely disappeared. And so today, there must be several hundred million or a billion people who wouldn't show up on a DNA record as Jew, but all over Asia, all over Europe, all over Africa, all over the world, South America, there's people from these tribes that were exiled all those years ago.

And we're at the point now where we start to see as this feeling starts, like this dormant sparks start to rise, like some kind of magnet above humanity pulling them out. We'll start to see this kind of ingathering of the exiles kind of thing.

Lio

Precisely. And if you're still scratching your head about it, you can think of it differently. All of humanity today, everybody alive today, can be traced to almost one original set of parents. So we are already related and interconnected, and that feeling of interconnectedness is bubbling to the surface. Again, not the genetics of it, but really the deeper feeling that we are somehow related on a deeper level to one another. We influence each other immensely, and our lives are really dependent on one another in many, many ways.

So there's a lot of that that you can also hear on the show. And I think that is why it's not surprising when every once in a while we have on the show someone who has this unusual passion for the Jewish people. And we see those people get up and stand up by the Jewish people, the Jewish nation. Almost... they go out on this crusade for no apparent reason. Also, it seems, I'm sure there's a reason.

And today's guest is one of those people. She's actually someone that I've been following for a while. She's many things. She's a journalist. She's a commentator. I think she was a former diplomat. She survived two terror attacks in Europe before she moved to the US, and she speaks on immigration and human rights and cultural issues. But most of all, what's interesting to us is she's very vocal about the Jewish issue, the Jewish question. And she's a tremendous ally to Jewish communities in Israel and abroad.

She lives now in New York. I think she was named among top Zionist voices in America by Hadassah organization. She lives in New York and she works for the JNF. And we're really, really happy to bring her to TheJewFunction podcast to talk about the future of humanity and the Jews in it. Virag Gulyas, please join us.

Virag

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me.

Seth

Thank you for coming.

Lio

Yes. So, as I mentioned in your bio, you have a really interesting bio, really diverse, like it's quite unusual.

Virag

Not that I'm telling you, that's for sure.

Lio

Exactly. But I'm wondering, at what point in your life did your life converge with... Jews? Yeah, with the Jewish line. I mean, why on earth? Maybe you can tell us about that. That would be very interesting to hear.

Seth

Maybe even start a little bit before.

Lio

Start before you were born. And then slowly move into it.

Virag

Okay, so let's get started somewhere. So, look, I was born in 1985. And it matters for the perspective and the complexities of one's life, right? 85, Eastern Europe, post-communism. The Russians just left us. We don't have internet. We barely have television. And I grew up in this era. So I was six, seven when the Russians left.

And in hindsight, you know, you grow up with what your environment is projecting onto you. And eventually in Hungary, you grew up on three type of jokes: the Jewish jokes, the blonde women, and the Polish jokes. And it is engraved in you, and it doesn't make you hateful. It's just make you... stereotypical.

So fast forward and how your question started... I was 26 when I lived in Brussels in the capital of Belgium, and there was an Israeli fellow I worked with. I worked for an Israeli company at that point, and he asked me on a date. And I was like, calling my mom, "I'm not sure, he's Jewish. On top of it, he's Israeli." It's like, you know, I'm filled with all the stereotypes.

And today it's hard to imagine because, you know, today everything is on social media. So only people who really don't want to know things don't know things. But back then, how I grew up, it was very different. We didn't grow up with knowing who was a Jewish author or who is a Jewish poet. We just knew Hungarians, and that's it.

And also it took me a lot... you know, I did a master's in Jewish studies. And there I understood more and more about why Eastern Europeans have this underlining antisemitism, even after the Holocaust. And we can get into that. But to stay with the question, so I was 26 when my life pivoted. And eventually I did go on a date with that fellow. I was in a relationship with an Israeli for six years. I give credit to him for my first domino falling in my life regarding Israel.

But the relationship didn't work out. I didn't turn back to be a stereotypical anti-Semite, regardless of the heartbreak. It definitely changed and pivoted my life. Look, he took me to Israel for the first time. Since then, I was back 26 times. And every time, you know, there is something that I'm peeling off of my onion. And the first two times, I was so reluctant to even go to Israel. So he would attest to that, that I was like, "There are too many Jews there."

And again, here for you to understand where I'm coming from, I was a classical ballet dancer first and foremost. So that was my first.

Lio

Ballet school ballet dancer?

Virag

Yeah. So like with a tutu and a pointe shoes and everything.

Lio

No, ballet, not belly.

Virag

Yeah, not ballet, but ballet. I know it's an excellent computer. I mean, heaven's up. I know. So my school, the ballet school was in the heart of the Jewish district in Hungary. So my idea of Jews were, everyone is an Orthodox Jew.

Lio

Pina Bausch was a Hungarian, right? Yes.

Virag

And so that was, you know, my idea and I didn't know any better. So I didn't even want to go to Israel, but I went, and I think that was the... that was a huge milestone in my life. Something shifted there, and the rest is history.

Lio

When was that, by the way? The first time you came?

Virag

That was 2010. Yeah.

Lio

Okay. Okay. So a lot has happened. Even in the years preceding that, you have the Intifada and the wars and the Oslo Accord and the Second Intifada and all the other stuff. So you came to a very... already a very turbulent Israel. And yet, so are you... I mean, okay, it's a nice, I'm biased. Okay, but it's a great place. It's great. You can say all those great things about it. But, you know, there's one thing to say, "Okay, these guys are okay," and another thing to go to war for them, you know, what pushed you?

Seth

And take so much heat for your support of it. Yeah. And probably your parents also. "What are you doing? Why do you have to keep it?"

Virag

I always say, like, I probably was raised to be a masochistic person. You know, when you work on pointe shoes all your childhood, you just need some kind of continuous pain in your life. That's how I explain.

Lio

It's very Jewish, by the way.

Virag

I know, I know. I did a DNA test whether I have any... any Jewishness in me. And guess what? I probably... I am the only one in Eastern Europe who doesn't even have a 0.01 percent Jewish. No. Yeah. It's great. So I didn't believe the DNA test. So I hired someone to go after my family's history back to the 160s. Nothing. So I kind of like, "Okay, God, you are funny." Like anyway, so, you know, that was a little disappointing in a way. It would have been easier to explain, you know, what I feel and why I feel things.

But to answer your question, you know, like I went to Israel, and you are right. First two times, it was like I was a tourist. The beaches are nice, the love is cool, Jerusalem is exciting. And then the more I went back, the more I started to ask questions. And each time I returned to Europe, I started to, you know, pay attention more on the Israel-related news.

And then I saw that in Brussels, beside the Jewish schools, there's always like a big police presence. We went to a Maccabi match, and that's the first time I heard BDS because they were looking for signatures to boycott Israel. And I was like, "Damn guys, I just came to a football match." And I was so already there. My conviction started to grow more and more.

And actually my ex-partner, I think I outgrew him in this sense. And I ask you how PC we need to be. So my experience is that there are those Israelis, you know, who leave Israel and they come to Europe or the U.S. And their Jewishness kind of stops there because they say, "OK, I served in the IDF. I did my duty for the country." And then they go into the ivory tower and they just... they don't understand that there's still antisemitism just because they don't want to see it.

So what happened is that we went to a supermarket and... in Europe, you have this international food sections with all the flags, and the Israeli food section was always hidden or the flag was torn down. And so every time we went to the grocery, I started my little activism there. You know, I put back the Israeli flag. I reorganized the challah and everything, the hummus and... it's not there, it's not... it's not Spanish, it's Israeli.

And then I remember a pivoting moment was when I was applying for a job in Brussels, and the HR person told me that if you would like to have better chances to get a job, please take out your Israel connection from your resume. I was sitting in the park in Brussels and having a conversation one-on-one with God or the universe or whoever, you know, is out there. And I was like, "Okay, I need to make a decision."

And I understood there that I will face closed doors and I will lose a lot of opportunities. But something deep inside me said, "You just need to go on this way." So I said, you know, "F off. I'm not going to change who I am. I'm not going to work for a company where I cannot say I'm going to have a vacation in Israel or I cannot say, you know, that I have an Israeli partner or Israeli friend." Like, come on. It's just... such a moral dissonance that on a daily basis I can't deal with it.

So I said no. And then I started to write about my experience and myself, thinking about why I was raised to be an anti-Semite. And it was not a conscious raising by my family or my society; it was just the general environment, you know?

And I think here we can go more into the depths because after all, your podcast is about, you know, the roots of antisemitism. I think people... they don't really understand the nuances when it comes to antisemitism. And you can say that antisemitism is just wrong. Sure. But as long as a_s people are people, antisemitism will exist because you can't kill it out. There is no chance.

However, what you experience in Eastern Europe, now let's focus on my country, Hungary, you will have verbal... antisemitism. And if we go back to history, we can understand also in a way why—not justifying it by any means, but you need to understand the psychology.

Let me give you an example. My dad was vehemently against the Russian regime. So, you know, he was one of those who went against the regime and sent flyers against the regime. And so he did this activism against the Soviets. And he had two close friends. He trusted them. And now we can go to the archives and see who reported about him. Guess what? Those two friends. And both were Jewish.

Which doesn't mean that every Jew was spying on someone. But what I'm trying to get to is that you need a level of intelligence to understand that, "Okay, just because there's two Jews reported about me, I choose not to be an anti-Semite," right? But if we are very honest with ourselves, we know that most people are not emotionally intelligent. So they're going to have one bad experience with a Jew and they're going to group all the Jews to that.

It's the same with me. So many Hungarian... hatred is flying around in the US. And so wherever I present as a Hungarian, and not only there as Virag, for most people, I will be the first connection to Hungary. So how would they judge me? They're going to judge most of the Hungarians. And you need to have intelligence to cross that.

So you have this level of antisemitism in Eastern Europe, which is primarily rooted in ignorance. And then you have the other type of antisemitism, which is rooted in ideology. And that is what you experience now in Western Europe and in the US, where you have a conscious, ideology-driven hatred towards the Jews. The first one is easier to manage, easier to change through education and conversations. The other is way more difficult.

Lio

And first of all, this is a very nice analysis of those things. Well, obviously, we go way back in our exploration to really see, like, "Okay, what was before that, right? And what was before that? And what came before that?" We're trying to go to the first instance where Jews were singled out as a group.

And it seems like from the very beginning, the very root of this group, which started with... you could go back to... this person called Adam, the guy in the Bible. It wasn't the first person in the world. It was just a guy named Adam. He was the first one who discovered something different about the system of nature. Let's put it this way. That's also something that most people don't know. Also, a lot of Jews don't know that. They don't read the Bible in this way.

But put that aside, if you fast forward to just Abraham living in Babylon, this very advanced society, for its time, right, three million people living together and having a very intricate social life. And suddenly something happened, which caused this rift between them. And most people chose to just go their separate ways, sort of this mass divorce.

Seth

They went from a more simple kind of people. All of a sudden now you have writing and sailboats and the wheel and agriculture. And so it's like, I guess for us today, the internet or something. It was a big...

Lio

Yeah, very advanced, very advanced. But they were not able to reconcile these new feelings that awakened in them toward one another. This feeling of mistrust. Suddenly this feeling of familiarity and this familial sense of like, "Okay, we..."

Seth

It's like social media now. It's like trying to sit at the table with your relatives on a holiday when, you know, half your family is being fed other social media. Seemingly nothing changed, but everything changed.

Lio

Suddenly you feel like you can't trust the other person and you're suspicious and... you resent them and you have all these feelings toward them which you can't explain. And we collectively call those feelings... simply... the growing of the human ego. That... that desire... for maximum pleasure at minimum pain, if you will, but at the expense of everyone and everything around you. And it always starts very small. It grows. It keeps growing. And this is like an engine of evolution.

And out of all those people, one group chose not to run away and... separate, but to actually come together even more, above... this force pushing them apart. And that was the... group that rallied around Abraham at the time. And those... those people already were really just like everyone else. They were just part of all the clans that lived there. They were not genetically different, right? There was no genetic difference to them. In fact, they were united by an ideology.

You said ideology and you're spot on. Ideology is the problem, but it's also the root of the solution because the ideology of the Jews, at the time there were Hebrews, later Jews, that ideology was an ideology of... of love that covers all crimes, right? Love above the friction.

Seth

...that naturally pushes us apart. It's not obvious to everyone that... that like world peace or... loving the other one... it's not just a natural... it's a man-made... well, you know, it comes from somewhere, but... it's not in every single person everywhere just naturally. We were totally instinctual apes and we evolved... but there was one group of people who... the first world peace group who said, "We all have to..." first hippies... "love the other as..." yeah, "love the other as yourself." And...

Virag

...that's... that's who we're saying. This group... what is the biggest stereotype against you guys? Is that you are behind all the wars and behind... bad in the world. Absolutely. Now, so... so... so open it up. So yeah. So, you know, just see Charlie Kirk and what's going on around that. It's insane. And I am still sitting on a video about that. It's... it's such a... such a BS blood libel, if you think about it.

And people, again, they love conspiracy theories, and again, it's easy to scapegoat the Jews. But if you think about this, what goes on back and forth... Candice Owens, Tucker, but even the Jewish parties in this equation... honestly, none of them were friends to Charlie because if they were, they would not have opened up personal discussions just to prove their own ego. They would just let life do its own course, and the truth will prevail eventually.

And what Charlie is saying in those messages... "Okay, I might need to step away from pro-Israel niche," it's nothing anti-Israel or nothing antisemitic. It's business as usual. If anyone has ever worked with Jewish non-profits and they understand how fundraising works in those organizations, you see the same thing. Fundraisers bring in the money, and they want to manipulate the way the organization works. Easy. It's not... rocket science.

And it's up to the organization whether they say, "Okay, no, you are just bringing in the money... and I am the boss." And maybe you're gonna lose that money. And maybe you're gonna say, "Okay, I'm just gonna do as... [you] say." So when Charles said, "I'm stepping away from... pro-Israelism," he meant pro-Israel donors. And that's totally fine. It doesn't make him an anti-Semite. It doesn't make his whole perspective on Israel or what he believed in changes. Even if sometimes you disagree with Bibi, it doesn't mean you hate Israel. That's meaning that you have... critical thinking.

It's mind-boggling to me how this absolutely business-as-usual equation that we see day after day in the US with non-profits was blown out of proportion and now Charlie was "murdered" because he says something against Israel. I mean, how many people would be murdered by now? Come on.

Lio

Well, but that's exactly the thing. I mean, that's exactly what we're saying. I mean, what you call "business as usual" is human nature at work. Okay. And by the way, this is not even a judgment. I guess this is... the starting point. Okay. Everybody wants maximum pleasure, minimum pain, right? That's the formula.

Virag

I totally disagree with that because I'm such an opposite... and this is why I have this masochistic instinct... like when I first started to talk about Israel, it was so easy to label me that, "Oh, you just love Israel because you dated an Israeli." So I said, "Okay, I don't want to be labeled like this." So I did a whole master's in Jewish studies as the fourth non-Jew ever at Touro University.

And the dean was interviewing me for three hours, not understanding what I want there when I have no background in this. I have no yeshiva education, no bachelor. And he said after three hours, "I just understand I need to let you do this." ...And then he offered me a scholarship, which I'm forever grateful for, because that is how I could attend the university. But I'm always choosing the hard way. And you won't see me...

Lio

Yeah, by the way... just so we're clear... pleasure means... it doesn't necessarily mean... it could be whatever gives you pleasure. So if you enjoy a little bit of... that's okay. That's you. That's your pleasure point. That's okay. Nobody's... again... but the point is we all function on that. Some more, some less. You know, the higher up you go up the... the corporate ladder, the political ladder, the bigger the ego is, right? The bigger the ego that will demand this kind of fulfillment.

So some people are satisfied with... with food... "Give me good food and I'm..." you know, sex, family, money, honor, power, knowledge. That's kind of... like how those desires grow. And that's how people are motivated. And so that's the starting point. So we are not surprised by anything that's happening. None of it is surprising. People are simply gradually revealing their nature.

And that, by the way, is a good thing. We call it, in what we study, we call it "revelation of evil," but you can call it a diagnosis of the illness. At least you have a clear diagnosis. This is the issue. That's what makes it very difficult for humans to get along. That's why the rate of divorce is rising. That's why we see this friction in every area of human endeavor.

Seemingly, you could argue we're at a point where we have all the resources. We could be living like kings, right, all over the world. What's stopping us from doing it? Something, some internal engine that takes different shapes, right? ...can call it politics, religion, doesn't matter. It takes a shape whereby a person or a group say, "You know, we want to feel good our way... at the expense of everybody else's." And those clashes...

Virag

It's fascinating how you approach it because I don't hear many people do that. For that, you need, again, a lot of pausing and the ability to listen. I need to tell you... I come across as very outspoken and harsh on my videos... but behind the scenes, I have so much compassion that sometimes I don't know where to put it.

Like, I sat with a guy from Gaza in the car for three hours trying to make sense of how he's thinking, why is he thinking that way. And even though he is finding refuge in the U.S... He is in the US because of Hamas, and yet he could not say a bad word against Hamas. And so trying to understand why.

When I did interviews in East Jerusalem with Arabs, they all said they have a good life. They had a job, they have housing, blah, blah, blah. And yet they said, "We hate Israel." And I'm like, "You just listed all the things that you have good in your life." And the ultimate common denominator was that it was a principle to hate Israel.

And that point, you know, these were the nuances which led me to my next milestone in my own allyship or conviction and how I talk about this. Because what we saw in the last two years, you know, people going behind that pseudo-compassionateness of... "how the Palestinian kids..." If you would understand anything about a situation, you would understand that by your stance against Israel, you're not saving those Palestinian kids. You are throwing them under the bus. And you are part of the problem.

Seth

If we look at hydrogen, which is a combustible gas, and oxygen, which is a flammable gas, nobody would ever think that if you can make them fit together correctly, you're going to get liquid. It's like this emergent quality. Life-giving liquid. Yeah, it's like an emergent, it's like a next level thing.

And what we're up against is this next emergent level for humanity because we will all bang our heads into the wall 24/7 with our list of facts. It seems that we're in a reality now where it doesn't matter how many facts we have. It doesn't matter how much evidence we have. It's almost like whatever fact we have, it turns against us fivefold and comes back in our face. And so somehow these... like hydrogen and oxygen, these things have to turn it into water.

And it led us both on this journey of trying to understand what's going on and how many times we can bang our heads together until we emerged into something almost like a spiritual answer to what's going on. But you can call it spiritual, but it's really the most natural thing for us as well.

And that's why when you say, "I didn't find any Jew in me," to us, we didn't visibly laugh, but it's clear it's in you. So your flesh doesn't have some marker. It doesn't say anything about the quality of what's going on in your soul. Because like you said about this guy who you dated for six years, in his soul, it's not as bright as in your soul. Right?

So we're not even talking so much about the flesh body, although we have to consider it on some level. But if we look at that from that level, and we realize that using facts is not going to get us to where we need to get. And of course, we still have to do it. We still have to do all the things in this world.

But where is humanity heading? And what do people expect of Jews, for lack of a better word? If humanity needs to get to a point where we're not like... there's plenty of money, there's plenty of food, there's plenty of land, there's plenty of everything for everyone. And yet every new invention, it just is used to exploit people. Every new invention, it's just used to make profit off of people. And the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. And... people are asking themselves, you know, "Why?" And who are we going to turn to?

So the world is unconsciously turning towards the Jews with a demand like, "There needs to be some emergent thing that happens in humanity. We need to get beyond just, you know, it's insane that at this point in history, we're still just fighting each other with guns." And it's like, it's so childish, right?

So then it begs the question, like, what is it that the world is demanding of Israel or Jews? And what is it that Jews and Israel have that the world needs? And I'm not talking about technology and I'm not talking about Nobel prizes. I'm not talking about that. What is the inner thing that the world needs that the Jews don't even realize that they have, or some maybe realize that they have, that that demand, that antisemitism will not stop. That pressure will not stop until that quality. Yeah, please.

Virag

I tell you what, I mean, my take on that. First of all, everything you say... my brain is 100% in circulation here. But the first thing that came to mind is the love of life. It's something that you can't express and explain to people.

The fact that I went to Israel a couple of months after the war broke out. And my biggest takeaway from that trip, which was, as I said, not my first trip ever, but definitely a very meaningful one, is that regardless of what happened, nobody had an eye filled with hatred and wanting revenge. Not even the people in the kibbutzim. Was it hard? Were they in pain? Yes. And they said, "Okay, now we need to pause... rebuilding trust towards our neighbor is going to take times if ever possible again." But there was no seeking revenge that, "Okay, let's kill them." Instead, you chose life again.

And for me, as a non-Jew, this is something I always envied in the purest, most beautiful sense of the world, that Jews have that. Why is that? That regardless of you being shot at from four different directions, you're still one of the happiest nations out there. People don't like happy people. When you are successful and happy...

Lio

If they can't be happy like you. Of course. If they... think that there's a way for them to get some of the happiness or all of it eventually, it'll be a different story.

Seth

But also like you said about East Jerusalem, it's not just a house and a job because even if I have a house and a job, there's something else as a human that I need, some other fulfillment that I need.

Virag

Yes. And you ask me why I do what I do. And I think here it comes into the picture. In order to have a fulfilled life, you always need a bigger cause than yourself. And the moment you don't have that, that's when depression comes in.

Seth

So what is that? What can that be for people?

Lio

Hold on, let's save a watch. This is something good. This is good. A lot of people don't see that.

Virag

You know, on my personal level, people say, "Oh, you get paid..." Let's break the news. I never got paid. And in fact, you know, I have my personal frustration within the pro-Israel niche, which I hate calling it that way because that would automatically mean I'm anti-Palestinian, but it's a whole different topic.

But I never got money. I never got paid for my views. I'm not in the influencer market because I detach myself from that because it's a dirty world at the moment. Let's be very frank and non-PC again. The war benefited many.

Lio

Oh, yeah.

Virag

On both sides. And as long as we're not okay to say this, you are sustaining the problem. So I lost primarily because of my stand with Israel. I lost friendships, relationships, work opportunities. But I let, you know, our higher self or the universe to equate the situation for me... And I know that I get a lot, and I get a lot of love also. So I'm not going to diminish that or minimize that.

But at the end of the day, to circle back... what Israel has, it all comes down to the psychology of jealousy. And people really, really minimize that aspect in people... that people are jealous for Israelis or Jews because they can be happy regardless of what. You can live in the moment. You can be successful and live in the moment, in the middle of a war.

Lio

I would reframe that to say that maybe it's an even deeper feeling of unconscious feeling of dependency. I would say it this way. Dependency. That you feel that somehow your good fortune, your chance of reaching a higher degree in life, not materially, but internally, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, somehow depends on this group. Not that they're happy and they can be happy here and I'll be happy there. No, that somehow there's a connection between my level of happiness and well-being and their level of happiness and well-being. But that connection is broken. Something is not letting us be part of this thing.

Virag

Maybe, but I think in general, psychologically, most people who are lacking a level of healthy self-confidence and... groundedness, they still feel that the more you drag the other person down, the higher you get.

Lio

No, no, that's a natural mechanism of the human ego. Absolutely. I'm always intuitively, automatically... at any moment, I'm always... I have an internal calculator that always tries to keep me somehow above some other person. I can be above everyone, but I can be a little better than this one. I can bring this one down and fill myself a little up. That's a natural mechanism of that same egoistic engine that we discussed. So that's working in humans.

But you know what the difference is between humans and animals?

Virag

I mean, obviously the cognitive ability is that you have a choice.

Seth

Is this a joke or is this like...

Lio

No, no, no, no. I'm going somewhere with this. It's not a joke.

Seth

Off the air, we tell a lot of dirty jokes.

Lio

Yeah. First of all, cognitive abilities, you know, dolphins have a bigger brain. So it's hard to say that cognitive abilities. And plus, we have some people that clearly their cognition lacks. So maybe it's not cognition. What else do you think it is?

Virag

Honestly, for me, I'm a very pragmatic person in the sense that you have a choice.

Lio

But do you have a choice? Let's talk about choice just for a second, just in parentheses, because you mentioned the environment earlier on. No, we're actually products of our environment. So you have very, very little choice in what you do.

Virag

But you do have a choice. I am a clear example of that. And I'm always saying that you are the product of your own environment. But you have the choice to stop that.

Lio

Well, again, I will make it more precise. You respond to the environment, sometimes for, sometimes against. But you always bounce against the environment. That still doesn't make it a choice. You will always choose what feels good to you over what doesn't feel good. If you think you have a choice, it just means that you don't know what will be the better option. What will give you more pleasure? Because if you knew what will give you more pleasure, you will always 100% choose what gives you pleasure.

So we can't say that we honestly have free choice. We can say that we're confused and that gives us the illusion of choice. However, I'm not taking away from the agency of people. I'm just saying... that's a necessary illusion. What I'm saying is that what separates us, that we are products of the...

Seth

Parentheses, we'll do a whole other show on that another two.

Lio

Close parentheses. I'm saying we have very little free choice. We do have a choice, and you are right about one thing. As humans, unlike rocks or plants or even animals, we can put ourselves in a different environment. We have just enough energy to... I can go plant myself elsewhere, right? That's a very meaningful choice.

Virag

So what's the main difference between the animals and the human? I'm still saying.

Lio

No, that's not the main difference. It's a... what is speak.

Seth

That's the point. Get to the point.

Lio

I'm getting... I'm trying to use stuff. And no, so... so there's two... there's a few things. You can say that that's one thing, but that's... that's not a huge... that's... that's more like a feature. The difference, the fundamental difference is that first of all, animals don't ask about the meaning of their lives. Okay. That's not a cognitive thing. That's a much deeper quality, right? "Why do I live? Why do I suffer? Where is it going? Where am I coming from?" All those things. Animals don't have it. Animals live and that's it. In fact, many people still live without that question. Right? Okay. But they have the potential for that question.

Seth

If our podcast will reach them.

Lio

Yeah. It was extinguished... and then it awakens, you know, when someone close dies, the question come up, you bury it again. Right? So that question is there. But the other thing that really... the thing that really, really works in us, even when we're not... even when we can be as... as dumb or as base as... as we can... still, humans have a feeling of the other. That's something that... no other thing in nature has. Okay? Everything just exists...

Virag

...animals also feel. Yeah, dogs... horses feel things.

Lio

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Everybody feels things. Everybody feels things. But... I have the ability to feel your suffering or feel your pleasure. Animals don't have it. They have a feeling that there's another... you know, a horse knows there's another horse here...

Virag

...and I can know that... I'm fearful. Yeah.

Lio

...but that's not... that's not an empathy. I can actually... right... I can... I can feel through you. I can also learn from you. Again, animals have very little of that. Really, the feeling of the other, the feeling that I can derive pleasure from caring for the other, that doesn't exist. It exists instinctively between a mother and a baby, again, as a mechanism. But beyond that…

Virag

On this premise, let's ask the question, what happened to the world in the last two years when this was absolutely missing from our societies?

Lio

So, I don't think it was missing. I think it was like everything else, it was misused. It was misused. People... the thing is that, you know, as humans, by the way, this was also the main difference between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthal... Everybody was human. Yes, but they were not quite there. They still lived life much like animals, right? Very... practical, pragmatic. ...But Homo sapiens was able to harness that feeling, that sensation of the other, that natural feeling of belonging to something greater, as you said. That doesn't exist in other creatures.

And in Jews, it's even more heightened. This is a quality that was evolving, developing over the years. And so, all of humanity needs to get to a place where we really feel the other as ourselves. Jews are already a step ahead of that. We're not fully there yet, but we're the ones leading the pack in a way. We need to lead the pack there.

But right now, what's coming to the surface is the sense that I feel like I can't live independent of you. That's what's happening. That's what we're seeing in the world. We have these strong emotions about others, people in other sides of the world. We get riled up by all these things that have to do with other people where we should naturally not... I feel that somehow my life is connected to your life.

Virag

I think what you're saying is absolutely obviously true and an axiom in and of itself, but most people are lacking the level of emotional awareness that would need to actually comprehend what you are talking about here. And where I would lead back the last two years... and why I do feel that the level of compassionateness was missing... is because people were not here [points to heart], they were here [points to head].

And in their brain, they were told the very black-and-white worldview that you have the white people, the people of color, the colonizer, the colonized, the rich, the poor. This is the only narrative that you could hear, especially in the United States. And people couldn't even find the shade of grace in between. Nothing.

And I always say as a non-Jew, you can hate Israel as much as you want. You can hate the Jews. What do I care? You know, in a sense? Like... at the end of the day, be selfish and love yourself enough to understand that the people who are killing the Jews would kill you on the spot as well. So at least be selfish to get this point. You know, like you don't need to love Israel the way I love, but be a little bit more self-aware.

...just the other day I... I made the video that went pretty viral... about the fact that all these pro-Palestinians out there, honestly... your hands are filled with blood because you were cheering for the people who now, two, three days after signing a treaty, are killing their own people, cheering for it, shooting their own people who were okay to have peace. And so for me, again, your hatred against Jews and Israel was stronger than the minimal common sense.

And I don't understand... when ISIS came up, you know, with the videos back then, beheading people, everybody knew what was okay and what was not, what was good and what was bad. But when the same jihadist cult is doing something against Jews and Israel, suddenly your moral compass is broken.

Lio

Because, and this is the great... this is, I think this is the sort of the…

Seth

We need to like polish this whole thing Virag that you just said because here... you really clarify very, very clearly what's going on here. It's like, they would kill me. I almost had this... idea for... like a show... where you have people who are supporting something, and then you allow their worldview to actually play out... and you go... three years into the future and they're prisoners or they've been killed...

Virag

...sorry to interrupt, but most people would still remember... those two British girls who went to volunteer to ISIS. Yeah, yeah. What happened to them? That in and of itself should be the story to tell in every high school.

And you know, I get DMs... all day long, "Why I'm not getting invited more to speak?" I tell you, and here... you told me that you are looking for the solution also against antisemitism... I am way too harsh for most of the Jewish organizations. They want people, and they loved inviting me as long as I was saying what everybody wanted to hear.

Seth

And again, what do they want to hear, by the way?

Virag

...First of all, we are in America. ...People love Hollywood, right? So the end always needs to be hope and good and stuff. But you cannot say out things loudly. You cannot say "Islamization" because you are an "Islamophobe." You need to say "radicalization of a certain group of people." That's just not going to take us from one to two.

And most conservative voices in this niche are absolutely put on the side since the war has broken out. I never... and here I want to clarify something... in the introduction you said I still work for JNF. I don't work for JNF. So before anyone wants to sue me for working for JNF and saying what I'm saying... I'm not working there anymore. Noted.

You have never met a group of people who will say, "We don't invite that... speaker because they are too liberal." But you will find lots of Jewish organizations saying, "We are not going to invite XYZ because they are too conservative and they don't necessarily hate Trump or, in my case, my government, Orban." And it doesn't matter that both of the governments are actually doing a lot of good for the Jews... And so this dichotomy...

...Having conferences about antisemitism from Jews to Jews, that's when I usually laugh out loud. Because... what is the purpose of that conversation? Jews know what antisemitism is. The people who don't understand what feels antisemitic to a Jew is the non-Jew. So you can be a journalist and write these big words out to the world that "another blood libel happened." Most non-Jews have no freaking clue what blood libel is. Absolutely understandable. It's not in your proxy. It's not an interest to you.

But what the LGBTQ and the black community did perfectly is that they went from spot to spot explaining... what feels racist to them, what feels homophobic to them. And the Jewish community needs to have this kind of conversations and educate the non-Jewish people. "This feels antisemitic." But again, not in a way that also happens in this sphere that whoever says something is automatically an antisemite, because that doesn't work. Most people are ignorant and they don't know better. Explain them. And then we can take it from there.

Lio

I have a prediction. First of all, if you can land a job doing it, more power to you. We'll support you. But I have a prediction that none of it is going to work. Why? Because the relationship to Jews is different. That's the one thing that we're able to see and show. When you look at history, look at historic patterns... Jews have a specific role to play, again, not because they're special, but because you need a group... you need the representatives from all the nations to unite around Abraham back then to start this process, right? ...that will now come to completion in the complete world.

...humanity has matured. The egos have reached their... level... that everybody is now able to... recognize the illness, that egoistic... "My voice needs to be heard the loudest." That feeling that you're unable to see that you're part of something bigger, as you said. So that illness cannot heal itself in the same way that everybody else is kind of securing their spot at the table, because the hate against the Jews is not the same kind of hate. It's a hate that comes from, as we said, this unconscious feeling that somehow Jews have something going on and I need to be part of it and I can't. Subconsciously, again, most people don't know that.

Virag

"You need to be part of it, but I can't," I think is very much an important factor that lots of people don't talk about. And during my 10-plus years journey in this, do you know how many times my non-Jewish friends told me, "How are you still not an anti-Semite?" And it's a joke, but also not a joke. Tell you why.

I speak better Hebrew than most American Jewry from the Upper West Side, okay? They know their shul Hebrew. Okay, fine. I know more about Jewish history than most of them. And it's not to be cocky, but just as a pure fact.

Yet, obviously, I am never going to be part of the group. I can be admired to be an ally, but eventually... it's the Jews together. I can get mad. It hurts sometimes, obviously, as a human, but I can get mad or I can understand the beauty of it and actually wish that my own people, even just the Hungarians, would be such a close-knit...

...most people... would translate it as... negative instead of saying that, "Hey, actually I'm freaking fucking jealous of the Jews that they can... meet in the middle of Nicaragua and then have a Shabbat dinner and become friends for life." I wish we would have that... So it's very important how people translate things into themselves, but it goes back to the psychology. How much self-awareness do you have? Because it's my choice to get mad that I'm never going to belong fully, or it's my choice to understand.

Lio

So here's where the magic happens. You can't raise the awareness of everybody individually. It'll take too long and there's no need to do it. We're actually... already interconnected and interdependent and we already influence each other in profound ways. This has been shown, already demonstrated by network science.

Seth

If your friend smokes, you're more likely to smoke. If... all these kinds of connections that you don't even realize.

Lio

Exactly. So this goes way deep, like to the point that you can't really measure it directly with the instruments that we have. But we are interconnected in immense ways. And I'll say now that I'll drop the bomb. I'll say basically this: The only way to change what's happening in the world and to change the negative attitude toward the Jews is not through incessant explanation like the LGBTQ and the blacks. No. If the Jews actually play that role of being united to perfection, or almost to near perfection, this will automatically raise them and the whole world with them to that higher level of awareness that you're talking about.

Virag

So the explanation part, I think there was a little, maybe I conveyed it badly. What I meant by the explanation is if you go online, most... Jewish influencers will complain how the non-Jews are not understanding this and how the non-Jews are not getting it. That's where you need the explanation. And I'm not talking about... Hasbara, but the fact that you... you would need more conferences, which are interfaith.

And again, rocket science... interfaith doesn't mean that everyone in the States needs to be evangelical, because what the conferences are about are either Jews to Jews or Jews and evangelical. What about with the other millions of people who don't fall into any of them? Right.

And so you would need this kind of discussions like, "Okay, if I tell you this, that you have a big nose, do you get hurt? Does it feel antisemitic? And if so, why?" And then you can go back, you know, to... explain why. But most people are so ignorant that they would just say anything to be heard, but they don't even understand what they are saying. So that is where the explanation comes in.

And in and of itself, the Hasbara business, I think it's faulty from the first up. It's the biggest mistake I think Israel has ever done in terms of its own PR. And as I said, explaining why you need to love Israel, that gives me the ick. Because the more I tell you to love something, the more I'm going to... hate it. Because that's how we are. Of course. I'm not going to love Israel because of the cherry tomatoes. No, no.

Lio

We used to say, if you love someone, then you look for reasons to justify that feeling. And if you hate them, you look for reasons to justify it. So it's a... [moot] effort. Which is why, like I said, which is why we put our efforts on explaining, first of all, to Jews, that Jews need to live up to that word "Jew." Jew from the word Yehud, unity. That's where it comes from. That's the deeper meaning of that word. And it's only a group that can show that above the growing ego, above the friction... If you can form a bond of love above it... "I don't like you, but I love you." ...If you can show that and then be an example to everyone around you on how to do it, that's it. You fix all the world problems.

Virag

What is your message to people like Gabor Maté?

Lio

What about Gabor Maté?

Virag

Like what would be your message to a person like that who is now a poster child of the Palestinians and he is a Jew himself?

Seth

I wouldn't bother talking to him in the meantime. I think the whole thing is...

Lio

No, no. First of all, I know of him very well. We all thought of inviting him to the show, but frankly, we don't have the time to talk about childhood trauma from now until eternity. Everybody's traumatized. That's not the point. ...We're talking about a more subtle, but much deeper form of change, of correction. You see, you're not going to go and correct every single person's unique set of flaws. No. We just need to create an environment that... that champions that over everything else. Just like our environment today... celebrates, you know, riches and wealth and power, we want an environment that celebrates this ability to love above all the little crimes...

Virag

Isn't that too utopistic of a view? Like, I'm not disagreeing with the... the vision here. It's just like, is it something... a utopian dream?

Seth

Oh, absolutely. 100%.

Lio

100%. But we have a secret weapon. We have nature on our side.

Seth

The concept is this is where it's going anyway. Right. The concept is this is the unfolding, but the value that we have now... when we look at this small group [Jews] that went through the cauldron of the development of humanity, they got churned through Egypt, they got churned through Persia, they got churned through Greece, they got churned through Babylon, they got churned through Rome...

...like a pressure cooker. You know, instead of having to keep the food for eight hours overnight, you do it in the pressure cooker. And in 45 minutes, the meat is like butter. ...so that's all we're talking about. We're talking about now and how important it is to connect to people like you into the system, because... we're looking at you as more of a Jew than this other clown you just mentioned a few minutes ago.

...Everyone serves their role in the network. So there's no way of getting around that. Even Hamas and everyone will eventually... have to come to this thing. But we have the ability now, those who are awakening to it, to not have to be pushed forward by another couple centuries of ass-kicking and nuclear bombs and... shit like that. That we can now consciously... come together.

And if we do it even in a small group at first, it ripples through the whole network. We don't understand, for example, the power of thought. We don't understand how... because... there's nothing to measure it...

Lio

...but we are the tools. You are the tool. He's the tool. I'm the tool.

Virag

I'm so loving this approach. It's just... something came to my mind... how we evolve as people. You know, like when you are in your 20s, you always think... the louder you are, the more truths you are conveying or you're going to convince people. As I turned 30, I was like... less online, more one-on-one and how we can actually change that one person, that one neighbor. And then it's a ripple effect. And I just recently turned 40. And again... priority shift. And again, how I look at the world...

...I absolutely love the approach you are presenting here. Obviously it's very Orthodox... You put it out in the organizational world and the hospital world, people will be like, "What are you talking about?" After all, as you said, it's an ego game and the algorithm is driving everyone.

Lio

It's the next step in what you described. At first, you think you need to... change the world. Then... "I'll change my city." Then... "I'll change my building." ... "Maybe I'll change a neighbor." Then you said, "You know what? Maybe I'll change myself." ...And when you change yourself, the whole world changes. And that's... and how true it is...

Virag

The cliches are cliches for a reason.

Lio

...but it's not a cliche. Like... like we said at the very beginning... we... encourage you, everyone else, to listen to those first 22 episodes because we... we really break down the laws of the system of nature... The laws exist just like gravity, electromagnetism. They're all there. They govern human relationship and human evolution... So if you see them, it becomes very easy to... to start moving in that direction. You already have that inner compass. And we believe... we see a lot of people have that inner compass already awakened...

Virag

So... on this... something came to my mind... like when you face... hardship, the first instinct is to fight back even more. And eventually... the solution comes when you just, you know, lay back. And I'm... thinking on the big picture here... if it would cut out all this anger now towards Hamas or the people who are not getting the bigger picture and we would just... collectively... like drop it, maybe the resistance would just... you know, lead to the solution. Anger against each other.

Lio

You know how much anger is in Israel right now? That's always... if you look at history, that's the one point I'll make... whenever we are apart, that's when... that's when the... the trouble comes. That pressure cooker is sealed off and turned on until we... we just let go... And then we get... 40 years of quiet or whatever. And then again, if we don't consciously work on that, our nature is going to... you know, take over. That "me against everyone else."

Seth

The problem that we have right now is that... you know, before... microscopes, you couldn't explain to someone that there's germs on your hands... Then you get a microscope, you say, "Oh, my hands are covered in bacteria and viruses..."

So right now it's the same kind of thing. We're looking... like through a microscope at reality and we see something, but nobody else has a microscope yet. So it's not clear to everyone that we're all connected. ...

There is also, on the one hand, it is all about this interconnection and this relaxing into it. There is another piece that... you do have this role, Virag, to get out there and keep saying it. Because otherwise, no one's going to know about the microscope... you know, like the germs. ...So our inner work is one half, and the other half is also just constantly trying to spread it out there so that eventually when everyone's ready, the answer will be there for everyone.

Virag

I know we are short on time, but just... I had something really... on my tongue and then I just forgot.

Lio

First of all, you know, you can always come back. Yeah, please come back. Yeah, we'd love to have you again. ...And the other thing is, as Seth was saying, there's no coercion in love. You can't make someone love you. ...you lead by example.

Virag

...I thought came back... my experience during the last two years was a little bit of a catch-22. The most hateful people online were the ones who were in meditation, yoga, and mothers. So the wellness industry... And mothers who are there to raise the next generation and who should be filled with compassion. ...I did my own little statistics about that... And the last two years showed me that these people were the most hateful online during the war.

Lio

And again, it's not their fault.

Seth

...do you have any reason why or some... hypothesis why that is?

Virag

...especially mothers. Like, you know, when I saw that they have a newborn... I was just thinking that, "You have a newborn and you have the desire to comment something hateful about the hostages?" And I... I just... no matter how I approach it, I could not explain.

Lio

Again, it's a twisted... you have to... this is really one of the features of the ego... It's called "the will to receive"... pleasure. It gets twisted... like... cancer, right? So we got to the point... It was the engine of development for humanity... And it was good. ...All the friction, all the wars, that's how humans evolved... That cooking... that was the fire...

...And now we've gotten to a point where if we don't change how we use it... it starts to eat itself. And that's how you're seeing exactly those who were supposed to lead the pack actually doing the opposite because they don't have that answer.

That answer exists only in very few people in humanity. And like I said, Jewish sages have it. Even Jews themselves don't know who they are and what their role is.

Seth

Like Gabor, this guy.

Lio

Like Gabor. They're trying. They have a strong... They have immense feelings. This Gabor guy is very sensitive. ...That's why you said, "Oh, Jews, why did they start all the revolutions?" "Oh, we love peace, but we start all the revolutions." That's that dichotomy that exists within the Jew because they feel so much. But without the education, the knowledge of their true essence... it always comes out misguided. That's why you have the biggest anti-Semites are Jews.

And it's because they really try hard. I can't blame them. I'm blaming myself for not getting the message out that the only solution is to change ourselves, to start loving because it's in us. It's in our essence.

Virag

And that goes for everyone, not only Jews.

Lio

It goes for everyone who feels it. We say it out loud. But first and foremost, for those who are externally considered as Jews. Because again, the system needs someone to lead the pack.

Virag

If you ever mention that out to a non-Jewish world... That sentiment in and of itself can be taken as why I hate the Jews.

Seth

Of course. Lio, you're not so good at delivering that line in a way that's…

Lio

That's why we have Virag. She's a great writer and speaker. She will package it nicely.

Seth

...basically, in the most natural way, anybody who feels it needs to do it first and then the whole... the whole system will naturally...

Virag

...honestly, even with me... I had... writing to me something the other day that, "You know, we the Jews have this saying..." ...and eventually the saying is literally just "be a decent human being." So it's nothing to do with that. So even me as a non-Jew reading that, I'm like, "Dang, it's like, don't make yourself so different than us because we have the same saying." So I'm just telling you that people who are... less involved... it is when you talk like that.

Lio

But I'll tell you, we shouldn't be afraid of that. You should... We had... Jonah Platt... he said, "Go full Jew." Meaning... don't try to hide it... it is what it is. But it's not from a place of superiority. You actually need to serve humanity. You need to be the first...

Virag

...again, you know, just as I know that many will misuse... it fuels more antisemitism... If everyone can be a decent human being, I think we would have a better future than...

Lio

So we have the small advantage. There's only very few Jews and so many others. So if we work really, really fast and we get all the Jews on board, everybody will also flip before they have a chance to kill all the Jews. So that's our master plan. That's our master plan. In a nutshell, that's the plan.

I put a quote in the chat. We ask every guest to read a quote from the sources. This one is from Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag. He was one of the great sages.

Seth

By the way, that's where our whole worldview comes from, is these kind of teachings.

Lio

Yeah, we study Kabbalah. It's not a secret.

Virag

I study Kabbalah too. I can sense it from you.

Lio

Okay, so there you go. So... Kabbalists were those... those scientists of human desire... Humanity wasn't ready. Now everybody's ready. So... if you do us the honor of reading this quote, and then you can say whatever you want, and then we'll close.

Virag

Sure. "When all human beings agree to abolish and eradicate their will to receive for themselves and have no other desire but to bestow upon their friends, all various... parties in the world would cease to exist, and we would all be assured of a whole and wholesome life."

...We got chills. You know, just in brackets, whenever I'm going through hardships, I still go back to these people as the non-Jew as well.

Seth

We would consider you a Jew.

Lio

Yeah, 100%. Inside and out. That's TheJewFunction.

Seth

Thank you so much for being with us today.

Lio

Yeah, Virag.

Virag

Thank you.

Lio

Wow. Such a special person. Such a great friend, I hope. Moving forward. And please, please follow Virag on her social media. We'll put all her links in the description. She's doing amazing work. Go support her. Give her a job. If you can. We need her employed and in full health to support the Jewish cause.

And obviously, if you're new to TheJewFunction, listen to the first 22 episodes. And most importantly, leave a comment. It shows the algorithm that it's an important conversation. Just leave a few words. Just leave a comment. You like it, you dislike it, just leave a comment. It's good on YouTube, on Spotify, everywhere we have videos. It helps. It will get the message out and the technology is here to support us. So it's on you.

And we're TheJewFunction. We'll see you all next week. We have a great line of guests coming up this month. So stay tuned. Thank you so much. Bye everyone. Have a great day. Bye, Virag.