S1E17: Parashat Fancyman Part 1

This podcast is extremely pro public schooling, pro justice, and pro latke (no matter how you say it). Join us this episode as we eat the rich, pee in front of the bathhouse statue, count to 18, and talk about ranking levels of charitable goodness!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Drop some coins in the pushka and inhale that scent of leather teddy roosevelt and wistfulness. It's ParaShot Fancy Man Part One this week on Jew Girl. Hello and welcome to Jew Girl, a New Girl podcast for the Jew Curious, in which I make my brother watch my favorite TV show New Girl for the first time and learn some stuff about Judaism. My name is Robin.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

My name is Jay. And that actor at the phone store in this episode, that was John Krasinski. What a nice celebrity cameo.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Wait, really?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

No.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Did I miss that entirely? Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Do you get the joke?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Oh my gosh. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Okay. So John Krasinski plays Jim in the office.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And there's that part of the office where Jim pulls a prank on Dwight by having their friend played by Randall Park, famous, funny comedian. Sure. Asian, notably, not white like John Krasinski. Right. To pretend to be Jim and go into the office. Oh. Do you remember this? And Dwight's like, you're not Jim. And felt like they swapped all the photos out in all the picture frames. And they're like, wow, Dwight, you just don't see race or whatever. Oh my god, I do remember that. That is so funny. So Randall Park, he was in this episode, but there's an ongoing joke on the internet that that's John Krasinski.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Thank you for that office trivia.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

And that was my trivia for this episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

And I had none. That was me. I just had to pause to make sure. I was like, oh no, I forgot to Google if Russell was Jewish. He is not Jewish.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So I have no trivia this episode. Spoiler alert. Really, you should have you should have Googled is John Krasinski. Good point.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Click, click, click, click, click.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

There is a website called Jew or Not Jew.com. What?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I also used to follow uh an Instagram account that would do like Jewish or not Thursdays or something, and their stories would just be a string of people, and you're everyone's guessing if they're Jewish or not.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

So well, the verdict for John Krasinski on this website is not a Jew.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

But what about Asian John Krasinski? Click, click, click, click, click.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Well, no, Randall Park is also not Jewish. Anyway, should we jump into a recap?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yes, let's do that. Okay, so on this episode, Jess meets Russell, the titular fancy man, who is the wealthy father of one of her students. He comes to the school to criticize Jess's teaching and just criticizes his parenting in response. The principal tells Jess she needs to apologize because he is a major donor to the school, but Jess is all riled up. But when her car breaks down, she's gonna like give him a piece of his mind. Her car breaks down, and Russell ends up helping her out and even loans her his car and invites her to a barbecue. Anyway, Cece thinks Russell might be romantically interested in Jess. Jess does go to the barbecue, but only so that she can give him a piece of her mind. Or so she plans. And she brings along Nick for support because he's also in an eat the rich mood for this episode because his credit score is too low to buy a phone. But when Nick finds himself in Russell's luxurious wood-paneled study, he's immediately hypnotized by its like gentlemanly rich person sophistication and how everything, quote, smells like leather and Teddy Roosevelt and wistfulness. You can tell I love that quote. And Jess's resolve also starts faltering because turns out Russell's actually pretty nice and generous. He gives Nick a phone and the cashmere sweater that he catches him wearing in the study. Anyway, Jess does eventually stand up to him, but Russell was never planning on pulling his funding in the first place. And they have a little heart to heart about his insecurities about parenting, and Russell asks Jess out, and Jess agrees. Meanwhile, Schmidt's been going to bar trivia with Winston and Shelby and making Winston look bad because he's so much better at trivia. Winston memorizes a bunch of trivia with the help of Alvin, the kid he part-time nannies for. Remember Alvin? Growback. And the memorization just makes him yell random answers to the wrong questions at the next trivia night, so that doesn't work. But at the end of it, Shelby assures him he doesn't need to try impressing her. And she confirms they're officially an item. Yay!

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Shelby. Good for Winston.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

So that was this episode. Uh let me pass you the feeling shtick, Jay, and tell me, how did you feel about this episode? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I really appreciated the throwback to the kid that Winston babysits. When that scene started, I was so confused because I completely forgot. Completely forgot that that was something that was set up in the story. Also, I love that you said all the eat the rich discourse that happens in this, you know? Viva la nickzistance is the is the phrase I think we should use instead of resistance, nickens, because he seems to be heading up that front. But also, I do love the irony of him being so like, you know, eat the rich were the 99%, but also him like loving Russell as soon as he like is in his home and and sees that study, which leads me to my main thesis for this episode, which is that Russell is who Nick wishes he secretly was. And maybe not even that so secretly. They like the same stuff, but Russell has more money to actually get those things that Nick really likes. And it almost is the flip side of what if Nick had continued with law school and was now Mr. Moneybags, right? Maybe it's a glimpse to him. And them liking the same things. Well, we find out that Russell does like Jess. And I think Nick likes Jess. But him encouraging Jess to like, you know, go after this guy. What are you doing, man? You're complicating the plot. Russell, no offense to that actor. I don't know if he plays a believable 42-year-old. And so that was throwing me off for a little bit of the episode. But I shouldn't judge. And also that bidet scene where the bidet is going crazy, she turns it up to six smiley faces, and he's never gone past three or whatever. That's hilarious that the bidet is measured on smiley faces. That scene is fantastic. This whole episode felt kind of meh to me on the whole, but that scene felt iconic. I really liked that. That was very good. Good gag. So those are my feelings. I loved, in terms of specific jokes, I loved when simultaneously Nick says we are the 99%, and Schmidt says, does it have a push start? Referring to the car that Jess is now driving. Russell's car. I loved the joke where Russell says, or or they say, Russell, come tell so-and-so about the time you delivered that baby. And as he's walking away, he says, It was twins, actually. Just you know, trying to put him on this pedestal. So funny. And then Jess falling into the quay pod caught me off guard. That was that was great.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Glad you liked that.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

I'm glad you found some things to like in this otherwise meh episode for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah, yeah. Not not their best episode, but it was it was alright.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

I, for one, love a lot of jokes in this episode, honestly. I love when Nick is without phone and he's deciding to write everyone letters instead. And his letter is, What up, Kev?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

You in Nick Miller. I also I am obsessed with the way Nick becomes obsessed with Russell's study.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Like everything he does at the desk. You watched the post-credit, not post-credit, but like during credit scene too, right? Like because it just cuts back to him and he's just doing more money bag stuff. It's so funny. But I like, I love, I love when he's like, I think I understand hunting now because of the wooden duck.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

I want to kill you because I respect you. I love when he's like, he smells like star strong coffee and going to see a man about a horse. I love at the end when he's talking about buying China for five cabillion dollars. I just, I love everything that he does at that desk. It is so funny to me. Very good riffing. Oh man. Very good, probably improv. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Good point, probably. And is there anything you uh didn't like about this episode that maybe we should drop some coins in the Tsadaka box for? The douchebag Tsudaka box.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, um the only thing I have I put two things, one of which I is a joke and doesn't actually, they're not actually HD bags, but like when they were all laughing at him for his credit score, I was like, oof. If this were the real world, they'd be jerks. But also, it's just a joke, and I don't know if anyone can have a credit score that low. Maybe, maybe you can, no offense. Hey, if you have a credit score that's 250, write into us at CheGirl podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Doesn't just say something like, you get so many points just for being alive or for writing your name or something. Right. She says, I can't remember. Right. Yeah, that's funny and sad.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Uh yeah, but that's not that's not really that deserving of coins in the Sadaka box. And my credit score is not 250, so I was not personally attacked by that. I was personally attacked by Schmidt judging public school education. True. I went to a public school, I went to a decent public school though, you know, and the education was quite good. So get off your get off your rich high horse, Schmidt.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Yeah. We're on record in this podcast as being extremely pro-public schooling. Exactly. Well, Jay, shall we see how observant we were this episode in the segment we love to call observant Jews?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

We shall.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

This, of course, dear listeners, is the segment in which we find out if we two Jews observed some stuff. And that stuff that we are trying to observe is Jewish jokes or content, and the bear of the episode. Which, you know, every episode has a bear except that it doesn't, but a lot of them do. So, Chay, for that first one at least, did you find any Jewish jokes or content this episode?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

I do, but now without the without the context, I don't remember why it was funny. But it was it was Jewish kid with a keyboard.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Yes. I luckily I wrote parenthetically the people she's getting together to fundraise.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

So I guess yeah, because I also was like, I'm not gonna remember what the context was for this.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

In my notes, I specifically wrote Jewish kid with a keyboard dash me. Because I, growing up, was a Jewish kid with a keyboard.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Oh my gosh, so true. It is you.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yi da die.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

How about a bear? Did you catch any bear?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I did not.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

I saw the fridge bear. Okay. I think that's all there was. Okay. Well, good. We were pretty observant, except there just wasn't too much to observe. Yeah, but we got there.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Just a little tiny itty-bitty fridge bear to observe. That's right. Just the smallest bear. Little tiny itty bitty.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Tiny little tinbit of a bear. A tiny little tidbit of a bear. And just like other little tidbits, we like to find, like the schmid bit, folks. That was our just absolutely flawless segue. Never been a better segue in the history of segues.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

This is now the part of the episode in which we do a little schmid bit. That's right. It's a tidbit of something Jewish inspired by something that Schmidt, our canonical Jew of the Loft, said or did this episode. And this week we are hearkening back to when Schmidt knew a lot about Greek mythology at Trivia Night. You know, he's talking about Perseus, Icarus, Medusa, Medusa Deuce, as he says to follow up, Medusa. And we're gonna talk about how ancient Jews were no strangers to ancient Greek culture. Okay. So Jerusalem was under Greek rule for almost 200 years, 332 to 152 BCE. So as you can imagine, there was a lot of interaction between Greeks and Jews in the ancient times. I'm going to hit you with five fun facts about the relationship between ancient Greek culture and ancient Jewish culture. Okay. Actually, this is not counting as one. Pop quiz! Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, this one's just a callback. Do you remember in what context we already discussed Greek culture versus the Jews?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Oh no. I don't. I don't. Can you give me a hint?

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yes, it was both uh festive and warlike.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Were the Maccabees fighting off the Greeks?

SPEAKER_02 13:12

You got it. You got it. The Hanukkah story, all about Hellenized Jews, you know, Greek influenced Jews versus the anti-assimilation Jews and against assimilating Jews, putting up statues of Greek gods in the temple. So, okay, that was technically a sixth fact, but it was a callback because we already talked about that one. Congratulations, you got the pop quiz. You got a B because you needed a hint, but that still counts. Yeah. You cheated just a little bit. So these are the new fun facts, all right? I'm gonna, I hope they're fun. Number one. Woo! The Passover Seder, the Passover Seder, as we know it, was actually modeled on the Greek symposium. Did you know this? There the Greeks had these structured intellectual banquets slash drinking parties. And so the Seder, we know it, the rabbis borrowed things like the reclining. You know how there's that whole thing. Like we recline because that's what free people do. Oh. And the multiple cups of wine at prescribed times, the ritual order of the courses of the meal. Basically, they just swapped out the discussion topic from Greek philosophy to the Exodus story. You know, the Greeks would talk about philosophy and the arts and things like that. So it's like the same template, but they swapped in the content of, you know, the Passover story. Wow. And fun fact, attached to this fun fact, this is all one, this counts as one. The word aphikomen, which of course you know is the little bit of matzah that is the last thing you eat at the Seder, but it's you know the thing that you hide, and the kids go off and try to find it and ransom it back. The word ophikomen comes from the Greek word epikomon. I don't know how the Greeks, ancient Greeks spoke, but epikomon meaning dessert. Because it's the last thing you eat. Afikomen, epikomon, dessert. Fact number two. And this also has to do with Greek words. Synagogue. Sunnagoge. That's a Greek word. Synagogue, Greek word. Sunnagoge. Soon sun synagogue. Something like that. Uh yeah, it basically means the place of assembly. But yeah, synagogue, Greek word. Number three. Some Jewish philosophers were influenced by Greek philosophy, particularly Platonic ideas of dualism. So, in other words, dualism like a body and a soul being two separate opposite things, and a baser material world versus a holier spiritual realm and the binary nature of good and evil, all that dualism stuff was really Greek in its origin, and it did it sort of filtered into some Jewish philosophy via the Greeks. So, for example, there was a Jewish philosopher named Josephus. He tried to basically adapt and map Jewish theology onto Greek dualisms, probably because he was trying to pitch Judaism as like a respectable philosophy to his Greek audiences, the Greeks around him. He's like, Yeah, we Jews can believe we we have that too. Uh just trying to fit in, you know? Philo of Alexandria, another big one, big Jewish philosopher that is, he incorporated a lot of Platonic dualism into his interpretation of the Torah. So some of this seeped into mainstream Judaism a little bit, but there was also actually a lot of resistance to dualistic ideas. Judaism tends to be a little bit more holistic. The mainstream rabbinic thinking was always a little bit resistant to dualism. It usually is more embodied, holistic, like not necessarily splitting up the soul from the body, if that makes sense. It sort of treats the physical world and the enjoyment thereof as good instead of good versus, you know, holy spiritual realm versus base bad material world. Exactly. And instead of the good versus evil idea, as we know, they've got those ideas of yetzer harrah, yetzer hatov, which are just sort of all mixed together into a soup, you know, not really like bad or good or bad, and um, not really like a separate spirit in your body. Anyway, nevertheless, you can now still find traces of dualism in certain areas of Jewish theology, certain crowds today, and that comes from the Greeks. Oh, neat. Number four. Greek culture involved a lot of nudity, as I'm sure you know, particularly during athletics. And so, Jews participating in Greek athletics low-key had to visually uncircumcise themselves. That's right, folks.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Visually uncircumcised themselves?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Visually uncircumcised themselves wearing little strings. I don't want to go into detail. I wish I had not clicked into the Wikipedia page for the technical word. But anyway, Greek athletes actually wore them too for modesty, I guess. Okay. Google this on your own if you're interested in more. But um, so the Greek athletes did it for modesty, but Jews obviously had a little more exposure to compensate for in this quest for modesty while you're doing athletics naked. They were a little bit more exposed in certain ways, so they had to sort of visually they had a little bit more to compensate for, is what I'm trying to say. Okay. Um, because they were different. They were different than the masses because they were circumcised. That was a standout thing back in the day. And number five, the rabbis enjoyed Greco-Roman bathhouses. They liked a schwitz. And uh there's even some Talmudic discussion about them. So interestingly, this is a fun one. For example, it is recorded that someone challenges one of the big rabbis, and they're like, Hey, why are you bathing in a bathhouse that's dedicated to Aphrodite? I think this was technically in Roman culture, but like Aphrodite, Greek, right? Sure. You're not you're not supposed to do stuff like that, right? You're not supposed to like fraternize with pagan idols or whatever. And the rabbi's response is like, I did not come into her domain. She came into my domain. They don't say, Let's make a bathhouse for Aphrodite, they say, let's make an Aphrodite statue for the bathhouse. And plus, and now I'm now I'm paraphrasing, if this were really a pagan temple, people wouldn't be coming in here naked and peeing in front of her like they do in here. Like she's even standing over the water pipe where people pee, I guess. So, like, yeah, it's prohibited to engage with things that are treated like a pagan god, but if they're not treated like a god, it's fine. And obviously, the Aphrodite statue is not treated like a god here. So everybody chill out. It's fine that I'm here having a schwitz in the Greco-Roman bathhouse dedicated to Aphrodite.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

All right then.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

So that's fun. So Greeks and Jews, ancient Greeks, ancient Jews, a lot of overlap, a lot of infiltration, a lot of mixing of cultures over the 200 years they were superimposed on one another.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

This is reminding me that one of my friends who is Greek said that they do something very similar to the Hora, the Jewish dance where you're in a circle, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Right. Opa.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah. Apparently, I don't know the details, but I guess there is an equivalent or very similar dance in Greek culture.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Yeah. Yeah, you know, it would be interesting to to uh seek modern day similarities. I mean, I guess in a lot of senses, they also both have influence from just the Mediterranean cultures generally, the Mediterranean world. I mean, I know off the top of my head, another one I can think of is that the the evil eye, those amulets, the evil eye amulets that are sort of blue, and you find them in a lot of Middle Eastern cultures and Jewish culture and also Greek culture. I think that that amulet is similarly found in in modern Greek culture as well. So I guess the Mediterranean world, a lot of mixing back in the day and in more modern times too.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

It was the place to be back in the day. Place to be.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

I mean, arguably the place to be now. Greece, take me to take me to Athens.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

I want to go.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

I always love seeing all of the images of those towns in Greece where like all the buildings are white, you know. Always looks very inviting and and cool to walk around.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

I know against the blue water of the ocean, too. Uh, that's on my bucket list. Athens is really on my bucket list. I love the old stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

They got some good aesthetics.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Well, how'd you like that Schmidt bit? Was that good? That was a fantastic schmid bit. And now I've got more Jewish stuff to talk at you about, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Not in the slightest. Not in the droshiest.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Not in the droshiest.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Let's talk about this week's drosh theme. It is gonna be generosity. I know. Wantist. Kind of positive for an Eat the Rich episode, isn't it? But we are choosing in this moment at least to talk about Russell's generosity, in fact, because he donates to the school and most importantly, would not retract his donation just because of his little tiff with a teacher, right? It's that's solid.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yeah, that's generous.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

He does order Jess a tow truck, gives his car to her, and gets her car repaired. He gives Nick a phone like it's nothing. I mean, easy to do when you are so rich and it is nothing, but gives Nick a phone very generously and gives Nick the sweater that he finds him wearing, the chair sweater, because Nick tried to thought it was a chair sweater. So anyway, uh, you know, eat the rich, etc. But there is also a way we can look at this episode through the lens of generosity. Russell does do some generous acts, arguably. So that's the episode. Let's basically, I just wanted an excuse to sort of talk more about, can you guess?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Tedaka.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Tudaka! Exactly. I thought we would get into the the weeds of tsadaka a little bit more. Ooh, fantastic. So, of course, as the listeners know, we've got our douchebag Tsadaka box, and that's always just been framed as, you know, it's the little charity box that uh Jewish kids will drop a few coins in on, you know, as a weekly tradition before Shabbat or something like that. And then you donate money to charity. So we think of it an easy translation is charity, right? But the idea of tzdaka in Judaism is not actually entirely charity like we think of it in English. It is uh derived from the Hebrew word for justice and also righteousness. But there's this famous line in the Torah that's often quoted by like Jewish uh social justice movements, and it is uh Sedek, Sedek Tir Dof, which means justice, justice you shall pursue, which is a line out of the Torah. And you know, that's an idea. So there's this idea that justice is social justice has a long and strong tradition in Judaism, and it's because of things like that, ideas of pursuing justice. So, but that's sedek or justice. So tsaddaka, it's coming from the same root. It's a it's an inherently related idea. The idea being that tsidaka is sort of justice in action, right? So based on certain tithing obligations that are found in the Torah, the rabbis determined that there's an obligation to give like 10% of your earnings to charity. That's sort of derived from a few different things laid out in the Torah, this 10% number. And if you want to go beyond that, interestingly, you shouldn't go above 20% so that you yourself don't fall into poverty. Except they do have an exception for like very wealthy people for whom that's not a concern. Like if you give a lot, you're not gonna fall into poverty. But like for the average person, it's kind of interesting. It's like, okay, well, you have to give at least 10%. If you want to go beyond the prescribed 10%, go up to 20%. But like we have to be realistic here. Like, you don't want to become the next person tomorrow who needs the tsudaka. Right. Right? Let's let's keep this, let's keep this charity sustainable here. So it only go so far so that you're not at risk of that.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Nice that there is a progressive uh pay scale, though, in terms of donation scale, you know, in terms of uh if you're a billionaire, maybe maybe you don't even just stop at 20%, you know? If you're that's right.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

You're you're certainly not at risk of falling into poverty yourself. So, you know, draw your own conclusions, everybody. If that's if that's the guiding idea here, draw your own conclusions about where you should be stopping. But moral of the story is that you know, this 10% baseline, it's not voluntary, like modern sort of Christendom's idea of charity, maybe, or just modern general ideas. It's not voluntary. And by extension, it does not have to correlate to the goodness of your heart. So this is like a mind shift here. There's this there's a modern Jewish thought exercise that lays out this situation. I'm gonna give it to you here. Okay two people in the same financial situation are approached by a beggar. I don't know if we use the word beggar anymore, but in the thought experiment said beggar. Okay. The first person listens to this guy's life story, is super moved, he cries, and out of the goodness of his heart from being so moved, he gives him five dollars. The second person doesn't cry, and in fact, he has to rush away. So he doesn't hear the whole story, right? But he knows he's commanded to give 10% of his income to the poor. So he like throws $100 at this guy. So the person who sort of formulated this thought experiment asked a bunch of teenagers, he polled a bunch of teenagers, you know, which person did the better thing. And like 70 to 90 percent of the respondents said that the $5 guy who gave from the goodness of his heart did the better thing. But Judaism kind of disagrees. Uh, here's a quote from the guy who poses this thought experiment in the first place. He says, Judaism would love you to give 10% of your income each year from your heart. It suspects, however, that in a large majority of cases, were we to wait for people's hearts to prompt them to give a tenth of their money away, we would be waiting a very long time. Ergo, Judaism says, give 10%, and if your heart catches up, terrific. In the meantime, good has been done. So that's interesting, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I mean I'm actually shocked that all the all the teenagers said that the person who did five and listened a bunch to the better thing. Right. Because I I don't I wonder when this was done, because I I wonder if and maybe I'm just putting my own perspective on this too much. I wonder if teenagers nowadays would say the same thing. That's a good question. Because I feel like I would think that most teenagers nowadays would be able to look at that and be like, well, you know, the person who has no money, like that hundred dollars materially does way more for the person than the five dollars, right? Like, yeah, it's great, you listen to them, but unless you're listening to them and then like taking them into your home and finding them a job and getting them back on their feet, you know what I mean? Like, that's not actually as materially helpful. I mean, not to poo-poo human interaction. That's very valuable too, right? And maybe the teenagers are thinking that, but yeah, I don't know. I don't I wonder if you did that today. I don't know if you would get the same result.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

That's a good point. Yeah, maybe kids are a little more objective now, maybe we're all a little more woke and so we can step back a little bit more. I would I like to think so. Yeah, but I do think that, you know, teenagers are not teenagers. You know, one of the this is going a little political here. Wee woo, wee woo, watch out. But like, you know, there's obviously a debate when we're talking about social safety nets in society and the role of helping the poor, people in poverty. And, you know, on the one hand, people think it's the role of government, right? Like the other side thinks, you know, both sides want to help the poor, or so they would have you believe, at least, right? But the uh the other side thinks, no, this is the job of community, like your neighbors, people actually caring for you, the family, your church, they might say, uh, um, or you know, or synagogue, or you know, any any any institution that you're a part of, your community.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

That should be the social safety net. It shouldn't be this, you know, paint with a broad brush, no personalized care, like the government stepping in and doing it for you.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

And, you know, tipping my own hand here. I would say that, hey, it would be nice if everybody's community did that and cared for people out of the goodness of their hearts. But if we're waiting for that to happen realistically, we'll be waiting a long time, as this guy says, right. And so this is sort of my rationale for saying, like, this is why I think personally that the social net is, you know, it is good to provide it from the government because it is sort of like a mandated justice tithe, you know? It's it's a it's a tithe to justice. Yeah. Um, and it would be, I love the idea that communities could do it. I just am a little bit more pragmatic and I want the good to be done, definitely. And not and not hopefully, not hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

And not based on people you know or or sometimes the luck of being in a community that would do that personally, you know what I mean? Like Exactly. We don't always get to determine our circumstances. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Neat. That's great. So I think that's a Jewish take. Yeah. Sorry, all the conservative Jews out there, conservative with a small c who might disagree, but you know, it's just it's different ways of of thinking of what giving is, whether it's mandatory and you just gotta do it so that it gets done, so that good can objectively happen, or whether it's, you know, more important to feel charitable and love people with your heart face to face. You know, would be great if we could have both, but you know, Judaism, I think, is a little bit pragmatic in the sense that it knows you're not always gonna get both. So bottom line is yeah, the justice, the goodness has to happen. You have to give, whether or not your heart is in it.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Totally. And you know, the other thing you could argue is that they're the same thing, just on different scales. And why should one scale only exist when the reality is there's eight billion of us and millions in most countries, and you know, the scale that that the small scale that we're talking about is very small comparatively. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 32:48

That's actually a great point. That's a really great point. And right, they are, it's just matters of scale. I mean, at the end of the day, I think both camps are feeling the same way. It's just, you know, one is like, well, yes, our community is our nation. Right? Like we are sort of doing this on a national scale, but that is the community caring for itself. Right. So yeah, it's it is like everyone agrees. It's just different scale. Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

And it's like, I can understand how it feels less personal if it's coming from a government, right? But ideally a government is for the people, by the people, and it's just a different scale of community. And and just because they don't live in your town and aren't your immediate neighbors in your immediate community doesn't mean they're not.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

You know, you probably see them when you pass them on the street.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Right. So we all want to help. Look at us building bridges. Building rainbow, rainbow over arching over cue the music. Building bridges, bridges together.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Maybe I'll do something with that.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

All that being said, however, isn't there always a however? Memonides, our dude Memonides, great rationalist thinker, philosopher, scientist, bro, had a lot of thoughts on a lot of different things. He did actually have his own thoughts on the matter, and he ranked eight levels of charitable giving. He like was like, this is the best kind of charitable giving, and this is, you know, and then it gets progressively worse from here.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

We love a list.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

We love a list.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

And in that ranking, he did decide that the least meritorious was giving unwillingly. So, okay, that's fine. If we're ranking things, I mean, right, we all sure. It would be great if we all were super, super motivated.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

So, question for you. So, this the this money that we're talking about was not a voluntary thing. In those communities, were they collected that 10% of your income similar to a tax? Like, yep. Are we are we basically just talking about taxes, except it was just like taxes on Jewish people in a Jewish community?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

I think so. Yeah, I think in biblical times it was like a tax. And then I know in later times as well, you know, social pressure or whatever, but like there were the boxes in synagogues, I think, that got filled up. But yeah, this is it's a it's a legit thing that it's held on to. You know the 10% thing is real because a lot of Christians will cite that and don't like it. So you know it was real. It was a real thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

They cite it and don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Yeah, they sort of have a reaction against it because it, I don't know, maybe sounds stingy, like doesn't sound like a lot, maybe, or maybe it is tied into the fact that it's like, oh, you're not giving because you love the person on the other end. You're not giving them your time and your love, and you're you're just like, it's a cold-hearted sort of a tie, right? It's a cold-hearted taxing, basically. And so it's a different spirit of giving, right? You might argue.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Well, because I have heard of communities like don't quote me on this here, but I want to say like the Mormon church has some pretty strict rules, I'm pretty sure, about percentages of your income going to the church. Do we want to click, click, clack, click, like that for a second?

SPEAKER_02 36:01

I was actually going to um check because maybe the reason I know that Christianity is talking about the 10% is because actually, in some circles, maybe that is still a guide that's used, even though it's a quote, Old Testament rule. It's possible that some still look to it as like, okay, well, what's a guide? If what should we be expecting of people? So maybe some don't scorn it. I've just heard some scorn thrown at it. Sure. Um, but yeah, so it doesn't surprise me that other other faith communities would have very strict giving requirements. Shout out to the Mormons. Sorry, the LDS, LDS Church, Latter-day Saints. Shout out to the Latter-day Saints. They don't like to be called Mormons, I'm told. Really? If you also have strict giving requirements just to get the job done. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Uh and make sure you're using the money for good and not just That's right. Not just using it to grow or or something else.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Oh, good point. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Because you're not a tax system or or a food kitchen inherently, you are a middleman. It's possible.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

I don't I don't know enough about how the Church of Latter-day Saints handles their funds, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Do good.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Moral of the story, do good. Nice people. Nice people. Some Amonides, he's like, yeah, the worst. You know, of all the kinds of giving, sure, that one's not the best to give unwillingly. But um, by the way, at the top of his list, if you're interested in like what the best kind of giving is, according to Memonides, it is helping someone become self-sufficient through a business partnership or a giving him a job or money to start a business. So, yeah, that's the best kind of giving, I guess. Teach a man to fish or whatever. Nice. And the other levels all have to do with permutations of like how anonymous the giving is and if you're giving before or after being asked, like stuff like that. It really just gets into the weeds of like, this is better than this, but this is better than this. So there was also, you know, as I was looking up Tadaka, reading up about it, there was an interesting little quote I found from Hasidic Judaism. And it is that a Hasidic rabbi once told his followers, quote, everything in God's creation has a purpose. And one of his disciples asked, in that case, what is the purpose of heresy? Of denying that God exists. And uh they used a another word for apicors or something, but um the the rabbi says apicorus. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Heresy, basically, he says heresy is indeed purposeful, the Rebbe replied. For when you are confronted by another who is in need, you should imagine that there is no God to help, but that you alone can meet the man's needs. Oh, oh nice. So, in other words, you know, the Hasidim are sitting around talking like, does everything have a good purpose to exist? Even denying that God exists and the the rabbi, the rebe, he's like, Yeah. Because when you see somebody in need, you should act as if no god exists to help that person out. You are the person to help that person out.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

That's great. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

It's a cool story, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Super, super wise, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

I know those Hasidic Rebbe, they're good. They they get they know what's up a lot of the times. A lot of great tales from them. That's great. By the way, I feel like I should mention before we stop talking about donations, if you ever get a lot of gifts from Jewish people, perhaps for your wedding, maybe you experienced this, you will notice that Jews tend to give in increments of 18.

unknown 39:50

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Like you might get a check for $18 if you're a charity, or a check for $36, etc. And do you know why? You don't know why, right? This is pretty esoteric. Not at all. It is because of numerology. Okay. That's right. Plot twist. Jews like numerology because in Hebrew, like all the letters are numbers too. Okay. So this 18, this number 18 in Jewish numerology, it equates to the word high. So like the word high, when you sum up its letter numbers, is 18. Okay. And do you know what high means? No. How about if I say lechayim? Well, that's weird because it's got a plural ending. Life? It means life. That's exactly right. So if you give in multiples of 18, it's sort of like wishing the recipient long life.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Oh wow. Is high also the name of that character that I would call hei, the Hebrew letter?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

No, no, that's just hei. That's one just one letter. But hai is two letters.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Okay, okay. Do they use do they use hei to represent life sometimes? Did I make this up that fact?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Well, if you look up the letters.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Or like hey with the with the little apostrophe before it or after it.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

There you go. There you go. It's actually not an apostrophe, it's the letter yud, and that's the word for that's high. That's the word for life. It's two letters.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Oh, okay. Okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Yeah, so you're right. You've probably like seen it on a a little necklace or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

So hey with hud.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

It's actually, so if we're getting real technical here, there's two letters that look almost the same. It's hei and chet. Hey and chet, they look exactly the same, except that in hey, the two lines are like not connected, and in chet, they touch. So it's otherwise exactly the same. So high actually has the touching ones. Oh, so it uses the other letter that's not hey. But as you can tell by the way I'm pronouncing them, hey is like a huh, and ch is like a huh. So that's where we get the high instead of high. You get it. Okay. But yeah, good eye, because it looks like it looks like the hey.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

My untrained eye.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

That's right. And also, also fun fact that I cannot not mention, and I'm gonna be honest, I did not know this word. The Yiddish word for tzadaka box is pushke. There's like a word for it in Yiddish. Pushke. Pushke. This whole time it could have been the douchebag pushke. But I I guess that feels a little esoteric there. Also, some people say pushkey. Pushke. And this is this this is a sidebar.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

I bet I know where it's going. Go ahead. Do you? Tell me. You tell me. Lotka versus Lotke.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Exactly. That's exactly right. And Chachka versus Chachki. That's another one.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

When I was in like sorry, this is a J aside. When I was in like kindergarten, we had this woman come in to talk to the class about Jewish stuff, right? She was Jewish. And I was like, oh, cool. This relates to me as like the only Jew in the classroom. And she called them Lockkeys, right? You eat lock keys for Hanukkah. And I was like, what?

SPEAKER_03 43:12

What?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

They're lockkas. What do you? And and you know, she being an adult was very politely like, oh, well, both both work. But me as my little kindergarten self was like, no, I'm right. I don't think I said that, but I know.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

I felt betrayed. I felt embarrassed when I first I was like, am I saying this wrong the first time I heard that? And people who say tchotchki, I'm like, why do they say tchotchki? They sound so weird. But my understanding is, and I honestly, I did not do a ton of like re researching this to confirm this. This is like my memory of I feel like I heard this on a podcast once as the explanation. I think it's because in Yiddish, the sound that's like eh, it like it like that's the ending for all of these, but that's a sound. That we don't really use that way in English. We don't end words with like an eh sound, right? So it would be like latke, exactly. Latke. And but because of so two different communities of, you know, pronunciations trickled down from that once you start getting Yiddish speakers who are now speaking other languages like English. Right. Well, I mean, I guess specifically English, right? Because we don't have that end sound. Sure. So some communities that morphed into the uh, right? Like more natural to say latka in instead of lotke. Because we don't really do a lotke. We do lotka. It becomes latka in the one. And then on the other hand, some communities it morphed into an e, lotke. Lat ki. Because it is kind of like in between the two, right? It's like latke, latke. So latke, latka, lotke.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Latke. Lat ki. Yeah, I could definitely see, especially how like maybe uh I don't I mean, I don't know what regions or what communities picked up what thing, but almost if you imagine it with a New York accent, maybe you could picture the E sound. Yeah. Lakki. Right. That's right. I don't know. I just offended all of the New Yorkers who listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

No, no, no. No, and I think also, you know, pushke, the Tsadaka box on pushke, when I was looking up how to pronounce it, because I wanted to make sure I'm pronouncing it right. And oh my god, I hope I'm pronouncing it right. I'm really sorry if I'm not. But a note I saw was that some people, of course, it many people say pushke, you know, but also that first syllable can sometimes sound more like pish, pishke, pishkey. So, you know, you can just see it's all Yiddish and we're filtering it into English and and vowel shifts happen, et cetera, et cetera. But anyway, that's my understanding. I felt validated once I learned that, once I could see it from a linguistics perspective. Sure. I was like, okay, you can see the the trails of both paths, and they both kind of make sense. And so it really is, you know, they both are, but like you can also see the logic for both of them, too. And it's all because of that and eh sound that we don't really do in English. Neat. So push kiff. Yeah. So, you know, Memonides' levels, if we're going back to the episode here, all of Russell's acts of generosity are on level five, if you're interested. Five out of eight. So it's pretty low down there, but not the worst. You know, it's because this is this is Memonides' number five, when both the donor and the recipient know who the other one is, but the gift precedes the request. So, you know, they they both know who's giving and who's receiving, but the gift is made before the poor person asks for it. So in this case, he gives him the cell phone. You know, Nick's not asking for the cell phone, he's not asking for the sweater.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

He lends the car without her asking for it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

But yeah, I mean, so okay, what do we what do we think of Russell's Tedaka? What do we think of Russell in general? Do we like him? Do we trust him? Do we just eat him with the rest of the rich? Is he giving in the right spirit, or is it just to get to Jess? And is that okay if it is just to get to Jess? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

I thought that Nick was gonna turn on Russell as soon as he said, Why are you being nice to me? And Russell said, Well, you're Jess's friend. Because I didn't interpret it in a good way. I interpreted it as I'm only being nice to you so that I can get to your friend, so that I can sleep with her, or you'll put in a good word with me. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's how I interpreted it, but that's so not how he reacted. It was, I guess, meant to be interpreted as uh you're a friend of a friend, so of course I'll be nice to you. But I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's both. I mean, that's I interpreted it the same way that you did. It feels like icky, and the only reason that it doesn't feel engulfingly icky is because of the way Nick reacts to it, sort of like neutral to positive. Right. It actually makes me think about giving with the right spirit. Like, it's almost like Nick is like, well, yeah, you gave not out of the goodness of your heart, but because you felt like you had to, you had to give that 10%, right? Just because even if you're grumbling while you do it, but the good has been done.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Like, I guess he still gets the stuff out of it. So maybe that's his take, you know?

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah, yeah. I guess when it feels like you're then like urging your friend to be with someone who they're on the fence about being attracted to, then it's like feel zicky again. It feels zicky again. And Nick should do better.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Although maybe it's not even like the good that's ultimately happening is Nick getting the stuff out of it. Maybe we could also read it as the good that's coming out of it is just being with somebody. Jess being with somebody. Sure. You know, giving her a chance at at a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Like you are you've got a skeptical face on your look.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

This, you know, look on your face. With the track record of relationships on this show, I give him I give him three episodes max. Like being broke up with in the third episode, if not sooner. Okay, alright. We shall see. So you don't like Russell? No part of you likes Russell. Okay. I mean, like, I think they wrote him to kind of be likable a little bit towards the end, you know. By the end you realize he's not. He doesn't have a stick up his butt totally. But yeah, I don't know. He's not the one for Jess.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Do we hate him because it's rich? I mean, should we just think a little bit about like, do we hate rich people because they're rich, or do we just hate it if they don't use their wealth? You know? And is he using his wealth? He's donating to the school.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

I hate him because I think he isn't 42.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

It all comes down to that.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

It's the answer. 42.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

42.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Um, all right, fair. No, I don't know. I don't know. I just I I ship Nick with Jess and this, you know. Which is bad, because then I'm going into this whole thing. Like, if either of them are with anyone else, ooh. Instantly, instantly they have a target for me. Target on their back.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yeah, that's fair. We'll give them a chance.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Give him a chance.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Justice for Russell.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Justice hashtag justice for the rich. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

This podcast is not pro justice for the rich. We are pro-justice.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

We are pro-justice. Tedek, teddek, tier doof. Justice, justice, you shall pursue. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Well, thank you for listening. Thanks for uh entertaining the idea that we could talk about Russell and generosity in the same breath, Jay. As a topic. If anyone out there wants to get in touch with us, you can do so at JewGirlpodcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

And until then, I look forward to next time when we talk about what Judaism has to say about eating the 1%.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Join us next time when we we eat the rich. We just eat them all. We find them, we eat them.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

But don't worry, it's like like small chocolate models of rich people. We just like chocolate molds, and then and that's what we mean when we say eat the rich, folks.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Join us next time when we put chocolate statues of billionaires up in the bathhouse and pee in front of them. But it's okay, because they're not gods.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Join us next time in which we take rich people's money away from them in increments of 18 until we get to a reasonable salary.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

Join us next time when I, a Jewish kid with a keyboard, plays accompanied by uh the lovely Dulcet Tones of John Krasinski.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Join us next time when we buy China for five Kabillion dollars. The steal.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Our episode about this episode is better than the actual episode.