Name: Rabbi Mordecai Finley | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
Uploaded: 2023-11-08T15:00:19.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rabbi Mordecai Finley | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rabbi Mordecai Finley | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-08. Transcript available.

Rabbi Mordecai Finley | You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

what's happening weirdos this uh this is an uh an incredible episode i'm so
glad you're here
when rich roll had uh rabbi finley on his podcast they called the episode the
black belt rabbi
and that is that would be a good name if it wasn't already taken because what's
going on here this is
one of the most interesting people i've ever talked to it's fascinating it's
captivating it's
it's strange it's surprising and i'm so glad you're here it's uh it's one of
those episodes
that i told val i was like you're gonna have to listen to this one it is uh
really interesting
and i'm so glad you guys are here uh all of you to check it out thanks for
listening um for
everything rabbi finley because i have a feeling if you listen to this you're
going to be interested in
more go to rabbi finley.com he mentions he teaches some classes uh that we've
been checking out
incredible just everything everything that he's got going on is at rabbi finley.com
as for me please
watch my please watch my special it's on netflix.com as my mom calls it and it's
called i am not for
everyone i'm also dc sold out thanks everybody that's incredible i'm looking
forward to those shows
we also have the brea improv here in california and some other dates uh chicago
comes to mind they're all
at pete holmes.com hope to see you out there it's a new hour not the one that's
on netflix but the one
that will be on after that one so i hope you guys can make it out means a lot
not a lot to plug up top
uh we i just checked out my own hair it's looking nice for those of you
watching it on the video it's
looking nice thanks thanks modern mammals uh but our friends at living libations
are the wonderful
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support the show living libations.com weird all right everybody i'm not for
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pete holmes.com for tour dates rabbi finley.com for everything related to the
uh man you're about to
enjoy get into it we need these hot takes on your beverages okay what's the
official beverage of
judaism because there isn't one no they all have one christianity's wine uh
that's that's more of a
sacrament i'm calling it the official beverage yeah i you're damn right i can't
you know it used to be
uh give us this day our daily beer do you know that no and it was a psychedelic
beer no so just
regular beer give us this day our daily well let's get the immortality key down
and you know how they
change it wait wait oh so it wasn't bread it was beer is this real no it's a
joke then the bread company
came in with a better offer you are i underestimated you and i apologize
i forget who said the i think it was ramdas who talked about the official
beverage he didn't call it
the official beverage but uh you know hinduism would be milk islam i think is
coffee okay buddhism would
be tea christianity's red wine judaism well i mean look at that i mean if that's
the no no
it's not islam it's the middle east where they first began to drink coffee sure
so if you were
christian jewish or muslim you drink you drink coffee yeah i would say tea is
uh subcontinent india
and and the in the that's fair yeah so christianity inherits from judaism sacramental
wine yeah and
you have sacramental wine in judaism but i don't think jews are big wine drinkers
well i know right
yeah and that one's taken well it doesn't really matter we don't we don't
really think that way
no i know yeah that's very silly you know they got the cross that's so simple
you actually can't
outdo a cross right cross is a i mean start can you imagine a star of david
everywhere it's very hard
to do yeah that's got a 70s chest hair connotation yeah it's very simple two
pieces of wood like isn't
the star of david like a sacred geometry there's something kind of no no it's
all fab made up that's
all made up yeah no i mean someone made it up it's not sacred geometry right
but i mean are we sure about
that yeah okay i don't i'm in addition to being a rabbi i have a doctorate in
religion social ethics and
i'm a historian and a scholar okay so you are usually when i say things i've
looked it up
not always and if i'm not sure i like it i will say i'm not sure well i'll tell
you where my uh
resistance to that idea came up is whenever i'm in a temple whenever i'm in a
cathedral i look around
and i see a lot of the shapes that we see when we you can close your eyes and
rub your eyes really
hard you don't have to be on a psychedelic but these images that are associated
with visions stuff
like that which is really a trip like i the first time i pun intended first
time i took mushrooms
and i saw kind of like what i would consider to be sacred geometry this kind of
language of creation
and then i went to a cathedral i was like oh my god they were they knew what
they were doing and that's
why i was kind of saying like even if someone made it up couldn't they have
been dipping into that
well look when you look at the the the um architecture churches it is very well
planned
out that a uh a church a cathedral especially is sacred geometry that's very
overt from the
from the designs from the very beginning yeah uh now the ancient temple in jerusalem
definitely was
sacred geometry yeah the predecessor the tabernacle in the desert clearly
sacred geometry but there's no
evidence of a six-pointed star being involved in any of it so the question is
you don't see it any
iconography you don't see it in any synagogues where does the six-pointed star
make its first
appearance as official an official jewish uh shape yeah that's the question
right and and me saying it
could be something someone saw in a vision as sort of moot because you could
see anything we basically
know the people made it up and they didn't talk about a vision right well now
we're getting into
something that i think is pretty interesting is what is making it up means yeah
someone designed it yeah
but i mean like you like this sort of stuff collective unconscious like it was
there well
there is a thing called mageen david meaning the shield of david i don't think
we have kohav david
the star of david i don't i don't recall that occurring anywhere but clearly
the zionist movement
needed a symbol yeah and there are probably some background somewhere but it
was more or less
the zionist movement needs a symbol we need a flag yeah and that was that was
decided upon so it might
have some roots somewhere in jewish history nothing dominant that anybody else
would notice it right
and where's the sacramental wine in juda shabbat for the the sabbath okay the
bless the blessings for
the sabbath that makes sense i knew that no yeah i feel like i knew there's
only one holiday where we
don't have a blessing over the wine which one i want you to guess uh rosh hashan
no we have a blessing
over the wine aren't you fasting you don't want wine that's yom kippur yom kippur
there you go
that's what i was trying to think of the fasting one and i blew it yeah because
you don't want to
drink wine when you're fast you're not allowed to you're also not allowed to
yeah but that's very
so they those come together not allowed to not wanting to because right which
is very jewish if
i may what's that meaning like when you look back at some of the the the uh levitical
kind of ideas
like don't eat shellfish for example the laws of uh kosher yeah and then modern
science kind
of catches up and goes like these things are feeding on the bottom theaters
which is which is probably
the reason right uh you know uh pork for them was probably wild boar uh shellfish
were bottom
theaters the probably wild boar is they eat garbage eat garbage yeah so the
laws of kosh fruit of you can't
eat vultures you can't eat birds that eat carrion so there really was a disgust
at animals that eat
uh excrement and you know dead animals yeah clearly is a part of the the the
the laws of kosher are
not only found leviticus but we can call them levitical laws if you mean laws
of uh purity
and ritual as opposed to the moral laws right yeah yeah and that is what i
meant okay you're very good
sure yeah i've been teaching this a long time i believe it i can feel it yeah i
had a friend come
to see me do stand-up recently and i have a joke about uh and it is just a joke
i was like why do
we eat pigs but we don't eat dogs no and i go i think it's hooves ah and i was
like hooves are the
evil feet and the evil feet and she said after the show she's a jewish woman
she goes it's very levitical
good it's the split hoof for an animal to be kosher it has to have a split hoof
and chew the cud
i forgot i didn't know what you meant yeah yeah which is trying to uh set up a
a taxonomy you know
which basically farm animals and and animals you can tame yeah so they looked
at all the animals that
that you could tame and would be on your farm and those that you would not tame
and be on your farm
and they came down to what they had in common was split hooping and and chew
the cud
okay yeah have you seen that i believe it's in um chinese medicine they're like
if it stands on one
foot like a plant like eat it all the time two feet uh chicken you're like eat
it some of the time
four feet like they did it by feet which i thought was very interesting where
do storks fit in
storks you can flamingos strangely you can make out with a stork yeah but you
can't eat it
so what so um just like making out yeah yeah you know my wife bosses me around
a lot uh-huh and i
used to do this flamingo in a um imitation she told me to knock it off and i
finally put my foot down
that time i knew you were doing a joke that's not bad right it's very it's not
too bad we're getting
will you speak a little to comedy yeah sure it's so funny obviously i work in
comedy yeah so
i i work with a lot of jewish writers producers directors obviously there's a
cultural scope that
we can't speak to but you personally when it comes to helping people which at
the end of the
day being a spiritual teacher is i think guiding helping in my counseling
practice counseling and
in my teaching a lot of it is about um you know my niche is wisdom and inner
transformation okay and
of course all the regular things rabbis do for counseling bereavement etc but
that's the main
part of my teaching and wouldn't wisdom be helpful yeah i think it's the most
important thing human
being can learn any human being on the face of the planet needs wisdom and one
reason people suffer
is because they don't have wisdom right so that's i've taken that on as my the
main thing that i teach
well let's do a wisdom question and the