70 to 1
Exploring the many expressions of Jewish peoplehood by speaking to dedicated Jews living a growth-oriented, and unique Jewish life.
70 to 1
What is 70:1?
Welcome to the 70:1 podcast, the podcast where we explore the many expressions of Jewish peoplehood by speaking to dedicated Jews living a growth-oriented, and unique Jewish life.
Join me, Aaron Levitats, on this project as we navigate the depths of Jewish identity and speak to those individuals actively committed to writing the next chapter in Jewish history.
In this introductory episode, I share my goals and motivations in beginning this project, and delve into the symbolic power of the podcast's name, 70:1.
If you enjoy the pod, please like and subscribe!
Feel free to engage and connect over on our 70:1 Substack.
What's up everybody? Welcome to the 70 to 1 podcast, the podcast where we explore the many expressions of Jewish peoplehood by speaking to dedicated Jews living a growth-oriented and unique Jewish life. At 70 to 1, our cornerstone is dialogue, engaging in conversations to enhance our understanding of the various facets of Jewish identity, torah and enduring Jewish wisdom. My goal is to create a space for the unfolding story of the Jewish people and speak to those individuals actively committed to writing the next chapter of Jewish history. What is 70 to 1 and who am I? Your host, aaron Levitatz, you know.
Speaker 1:I think this project really emerged out of a few different areas. I think for so many people and I include myself in this in the 21st century don't fully understand and appreciate or are grappling with their own Jewish identities and they struggle with Torah and with Judaism and some of the stories that we were raised on and what it means to be a Jew in the 21st century. And I really just hope to create a space to speak to individuals that have grappled with their Jewish identities, that continue to grappled with their Jewish identities, that continue to grapple with their Jewish identities, that have confronted difficult questions, and I want to hear their thought process, I want to hear their perspectives and hopefully create a space where we can learn, where I can learn from such people and in doing so, I'm really guided by a teaching, by a story that really comforted and reassured me in realizing that maybe I'm not crazy for not accepting certain stories that I grew up on, or certainly believing in God, necessarily for a chunk of my life, or believing that whatever it means for the Torah to be divine not necessarily knowing if I believe in that either and the story that has comforted and guided me and reassured me is the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel. And, for those of you, jacob is renamed to Israel after he wrestles with an angel of God and a teaching. A takeaway from this story and why he was renamed from Jacob to Israel after this event, is because what is the word Israel translate as? What does it mean?
Speaker 1:Israel means to wrestle. It means those who wrestle with God, those who confront certain challenging aspects of themselves. And us as the children of Jacob, us as the children of Israel, the Jewish people are, by definition, those who wrestle with God, those who wrestle and grapple with their Jewish identities. So if you've ever felt, like I have, that certain things don't make sense or certain things are confusing and that you're having difficulty with your Jewish identity or certain aspects of Torah and whatnot, then welcome to the ballgame, because that's, by definition, what it means to be a Jew, to be an Israelite. So I think that's the first thing. It's about creating a space and speaking to individuals who are actively engaging in their Jewish identities and engaged in this grappling process.
Speaker 1:I think the second thing is really, you know, I'm living in Jerusalem right now and I'm surrounded by so many cool people, so many inspiring people that are living such unique Jewish lives and are engaged in this grappling process, and I've made many new friends, and it's not just in Israel that people are doing this, but I think I have such a unique opportunity to sit down and speak to people who are actively writing that next chapter in Jewish history, living in the heartbeat of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, in the land of Israel, and many of these people I've met over Shabbat and we sit down on Shabbat, and one of the beautiful things about Shabbat and I didn't grow up with traditional Shabbat observance, but one of the beautiful things about Shabbat is that we have our technology away. At a purely pragmatic level and practical level. We don't have our phones out and we engage in higher level discussions. We engage higher levels of our consciousness and have deeper, deeper discussions and a lot of times I learn about people's unique stories and the way they see the world and it gets started at the table and we may take the conversation to the couch and have a few l'chaims and I get to learn from so many interesting people and certainly I'm not going to be able to replicate the energy of Shabbat, because that is a very unique energy that only comes once a week. But I would like to create a space with the podcast to have discussions that otherwise are kept on to Shabbat, because we don't have technology, we can't record certain things. So I've been able to learn from so many of these really interesting people and I just want to start creating a space and hearing from people's stories and hearing their perspectives. So I think one and two really go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:And I think the third thing that I would like to you know goal in creating the 70 to one podcast, this project is hopefully and I don't know if I'm necessarily, I'm certainly not the best person to be able to bring about this outcome, but I really would like to bring about a deeper unity, a deeper appreciation for the different stories, the different individuals of the Jewish people. And you know, there's the old joke that you know, you ask someone, you know, what do they think of the Jewish? You ask a Jew what they think of the Jewish people and they're like oh, I love the Jewish people, I absolutely love the Jewish people. And it's like but what do you think about your lawyer or your doctor, your accountant? They're like oh, I hate my lawyer, I hate my doctor, I hate my accountant.
Speaker 1:We love the abstract idea of the Jewish people and there's such unity, but sometimes it can be difficult to love each and every individual Jew and I think the best way forward to create a unity, and not a uniformity, but a deeper unity, is to appreciate the different perspectives and the different stories and be able to hold both, to be able to have strength in the way that I see the world, be open to learning from other people, certainly, and not being closed off, but to be able to hold my own identity and learn from other people and appreciate and value and respect them as another expression of the beauty and depth of the Jewish people. And I think one of the reasons I'm launching this podcast on Rosh Chodesh Av on the first day of the month of Av, where we should be emphasizing a greater Ahavas Yisrael, a greater love of the Jewish people, because on Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, it says that the second and the first, but really the second temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, because of baseless hatred. So during this time of year on the Jewish calendar, we focus on increasing our love of the Jewish people. So I really want to create a deeper sense of unity by speaking to people, by opening ourselves up and hearing different perspectives and perhaps revealing the many different faces of the Jewish people. Which leads me to why the name of the podcast, why the 70 to 1 podcast podcast.
Speaker 1:You know, in Jewish tradition, numbers have a very special meaning and really can convey crucial insights into our understanding of reality, of Jewish history, of Torah, of many of the teachings of our tradition. And there's really something special about the number 70. It comes up many different times in Torah and our oral tradition and in a lot of the mystical Kabbalistic literature, and I think, first, the idea that I just touched on, which is there are in the Midrashic tradition and the oral tradition it says that there are 70 different faces to the Torah and what this means is that there are 70 valid perspectives, 70 different ways of viewing and understanding the Torah, and on top of that there are 70 nations of the world that, after the story of Noah's Ark, that it says that there are the sons of Noah, make up the nations of the world, and there are 70 sons of Noah. So again there are 70 different expressions of humanity. It says that when Joseph was the viceroy, was the second in command to the Pharaoh in Egypt. It says that Jacob and his sons, jacob's descendants there were 12 sons of Jacob, but Jacob's descendants, 70 members of Jacob's family came down to Egypt. It says that there are 70 elders.
Speaker 1:There are 70 judges on the Sanhedrin, the high court in the times of the temple, because in order to adjudicate on a case, you had to account for every different perspective to see the case in its fullness. To be able to give a valid and a just outcome to the case, to rule on the case properly, you needed to account for every different possible way to see the case. So there had to be 70 judges to make up for the 70 different expressions of humanity, of 70 different expressions of the way to see the world. You know, on top of that there are 70 holy days. The Midrash calculates that there are 70 holy days in the biblical calendar. There are 52 Shabbats, seven days of Passover, one day of Shavuot, one day of Rosh Hashanah, one day of Yom Kippur and eight days of Sukkot. There are 70 divine names and in Torah it says that there are 70 names at Hashem that God calls the Jewish people.
Speaker 1:And in addition, the mystics explain that any number times 10 represents the completeness of that number. So 7 being the completeness of the natural order, because in the biblical tradition the world was created in seven days, that seven times 10 is the completeness of that number. So if seven is the natural order, seven times 10, 70 is the completeness of the natural order. And it encompasses, like we said, the many different ways to see the world. It's the full expression of humanity through the 70 nations of the world and it's the full ways to see the 70 faces, to see the Torah and reality itself. And there are many other expressions of the number 70, but I think the idea here is that 70 represents multiplicity, it represents depth and breadth and it represents the entirety of human experience and that's the essence of the number 70.
Speaker 1:And on top of that, and what we're trying to do here in the 70 to one project is to always look deeper, to hear a person speak, to hear their expression and their understanding and why they choose to grow in a certain direction and try to look deeper and understand the beauty and depth of Jewish wisdom and the Jewish people. And another goal of this project is really just to look deeper, to look deeper at other people's experiences and at the world around us. And in the Hebrew language, each letter is prescribed a certain numerical value called gematria, and if you add up the letters in a given word, you can glean certain insights into that word and the depth of that word and reality itself. And, interestingly enough, the numerical value for the letter I in I in meaning I as in the I that we physically see with is the numerical value 70. Because we use our eyes to look, to look deeper at the world around us.
Speaker 1:Don't get confused by some of the shallow things in our life. Rather, there's always a depth. There's always a depth that we can use and we can use our eyes to look deeper and that is captured by the number 70, which, we said, encompasses the many different ways, the full expression of ways to see the world around us. So the goal is always to go deeper. This is what we pride ourselves on at 70 to 1, looking deeply at the many expressions of Jewish identity, whether through, among other things, torah, spirituality, business, politics or philosophy. And through the depth of 70, the goal is to emerge in the world of one, the world of unity, one people, one nation, one heart, one land, one Torah and the ultimate unity, the unity of all things, the universe itself, shema Yisrael, hashem Elakenu, hashem Echad, the oneness of reality. We have the most beautiful and deep tradition, we're a part of the most beautiful and incredible people, and I'm fully aware that with two Jews comes three opinions. Unity does not equal uniformity. We at 70 to 1 will do our best to elucidate the 70 to reach the 1.
Speaker 1:And another caveat I have a deep respect for the rabbis that came before me and my current rabbis, and the tradition that the Torah world stands on. I am not a rabbi and I just want to give a little legal disclaimer here, not to rely on my investment advice or my legal advice, not acting as a lawyer or an investment advisor. So, too, in the discussions that I have, I hope to explore with other people, through shared art, their experiences and, to the extent that we share Torah, I will do my absolute best to speak truthfully and honestly, with the proper respect and admiration for Torah and for the Torah greats that came before me and that currently are my teachers. Today, I sincerely hope that I will not misrepresent anything with respect to Torah and objective truth.
Speaker 1:If I can be vulnerable for a second, I have an immense amount of anxiety and fear in undertaking this project and putting myself out there, because of the level of respect that I have for Torah and my rabbis and my teachers and the people that came before me, and because I will be using this platform to discuss very, very deep and potentially difficult topics. I hope to speak from the heart and speak mindfully and truthfully to the best of my ability. So, with that being said, I hope everyone really enjoys the project that I'm undertaking and, to the extent that they're comfortable, please feel free to reach out. We can connect over Substack, ask questions and let's really build a community. Let's build a community to try to take the 70 different faces, the totality of all of reality itself, and bring it out in one. Bring it out in a more unified way, a more unified manner, a more unified Jewish people. Thank you.