#109: Ephraim Herschmann

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together. We are back. I'm going to do a solo episode. I've actually tried to do a couple of these in the last couple of weeks and for some reason, it's been really challenging for me. I just had, I just went 16 minutes and realized that none of it sounded good and it was all just a bunch of incoherent rambling. So hopefully on Take Two, I'll have my thoughts a little bit more in order and can have a little bit better content for myself and for you guys. So I haven't done a solo episode in a long time. Like I just said, thank God the podcast has been doing really, really well.

0:51 It's been busy. I haven't needed to do solo episodes. I've really been stocked up with guests and I'm really trying to make the most of that. And I'm really trying to use that as an opportunity to, you know, I mean, again, the, the reason why I wanted to pull back on solo episodes a little bit is because I didn't want, I didn't want the listeners to have to scroll through a ton of my own solo episodes in order to get to the interesting guest episodes. I consider my guest episodes to be way more interesting and way more useful than my solo episodes today. I mean, it's going to be kind of a stream of conscious episode, I think. And those are always, I think a lot of fun if as long as you're able to keep your thoughts in order, you know, and kind of keep a train of thought for for an extended period of time. And there's a lot of things that I feel very emotionally strongly about that it's just going on and the world is crazy. You know, the news is crazy.

1:55 I was just travelling for the last bunch of weeks in and out of the country, Florida, NY, Israel, Amsterdam, Barcelona. And, you know, I have a two-month old daughter. I think that the last solo episode that I recorded was prior to her being born. So, you know, just, there's so much going on and there's so many different things in my head, and I haven't really had the opportunity to kind of, you know, articulate any of it and to really be eloquent about it. And I've kind of just been living in and going through all these motions, but I haven't been really able to kind of sit and really soak in them and really try to, you know, feel them out and talk them out. So I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll start with the fact that my, my, my family, my wife and my kids have been to New York most of the summer for the last month and change a month or so, I would say. And it's hard for me to be back in New York. It's hard for me because the way that I feel like my time is spent here is super different from the way that my time is spent in Florida.

3:14 And, you know, and, and I mean, aside from the fact that I just have to see that things are literally further apart from one another, like my life in Florida, my, the circle of what my life consists of is a much smaller, like actual physical space. But I mean, in New York, you know, New York is a mass, a massive state and we have family and friends all over, right. So if I want to go to my sister for a weekend, it's a four hour drive, you know, I mean, that's the equivalent to go to Naples, you know, in Florida for me. And I, and that's something I, I do very often because it does throw apart my whole schedule and it's hard for me to, you know, to kind of get back into things. The other, the other factor, of course, is that I'm not in my own home and I'm not in the and I think that all people, but especially myself, are very, very much a product of their environment. And different environments have different associations within our own heads and with our own selves, you know, And so for me to be in Florida, I have that kind of association. I have my, my, the spot where I sit, where I work, and I have the spot where I sit where I record my podcasts. And I have, you know, I have XY and Z in certain places in certain times.

4:28 I do this and this and this and I have a home routine that allows me to kind of, you know, I, I, I work within the confines of a routine in order to be the most productive of that routine in that whole, in the whole schedule kind of gets thrown out the window here. And instead it's just chaos and I'm trying to navigate and be productive within the chaos. That being said, you know, this is not the first time that I'm having this issue and I'm having this challenge in my life. You know, I've, I've periodically, you know, moved away from home and then come back for different periods of time. And every single time I come back, it does take me time to kind of get back into the swing of things and really kind of overcome that.

5:08 And one of the things that I always have to tell myself and that I'm saying out loud now is the notion that, you know, is the notion that if I'm really as productive as I think I am, and if I'm really as disciplined as I think I am, then, you know, my, my source of productivity can't come from the outside, from where I am. It's got to come from the inside from who I am, you know, which is why I'm doing take 2 after talking for 16 minutes straight of another podcast that I will hopefully go on for another about half an hour or so for 40 minutes or see, and I think there will be a lot to talk about. But that was just one thing that was that's on my head, that's on my mind. That's always on my mind is, you know, kind of your environment where you are and also the people that you're with too, the people that you talk to and the people that you spend time with, you know, and that's why at different points of my life, depending on what I was going through, I've had to talk to some people more and some people less.

6:05 And there's very few consistent friends that I've had that, you know, that kind of stick with me throughout any kind of path on life. The path in life from high school to college to, you know, took my professional career to living in New York or Florida, getting married or having kids. And, you know, and I have, and I find different friends almost based on like what aspects of life, what part of life that I'm in. And I'm always looking for friends that I look up to, not that look up to me, but people that, you know, that I that I could really try to benefit something from that. You know, try to benefit, learn from their, from the healthy marriage or a healthy relationship with their kids or a good, you know, or that they're very driven in terms of work or creative.

6:49 And I like to surround myself with those type of people. Yeah. So anyway, so one of those friends is my buddy of Remy Krone, Charles Krough, as he now goes by. And you know, he has been there my whole life, not my whole life, but since my 7th grade in high school. And he just got married. And even though I just had a daughter two months ago and when I went to his wedding, she was a month and a half old, I could not not be there. I absolutely had to go.

7:31 So my buddy Zach and I, Zach Alexander, friend of the pod, also been on the pod two or three times. Zach and I flew together to Israel for the week to have his wedding. And I have so many different thoughts about, about the war and about what's going on in the news and even about visiting there because I've never been to a country that's been in a war, you know, And when 911 happened, I was, you know, I mean, I, I was, I think 4, maybe I was four or five years old. I, I, I literally have no recollection of, of anything happening.

8:13 I don't remember my parents taking me home. I don't remember the school talking about it. Like certainly, you know, a lot of my friends remember everything for some reason. I really don't remember much. And I was too young and, you know, not conscious enough to realize, you know, the kind of, you know, feeling that there was in the country that the national mood of, you know, of, you know, mourning and the national mood of wanting to fight back. And the national mood of, you know, let's get those sons of bitches that got us, you know, like they, you know, I, I wasn't there for any of that. And so I've never really been in a country that has that's been in a war. And so, you know, it was really, really, really, really fascinating. Before I get into that, I wanted to, and I think, and I want to preface my take, I think, or my opinion or my experience with a couple of different thoughts or ideas. So right now it's I feel it's a scary time to be Jewish and a supporter of Israel in today's world. And part of the reason, and there's a couple of different reasons for that.

9:38 There's the obvious first reason, which is blatant anti-Semitism, which sucks. Obviously that's always there. Then you have the second another reason, which is you know, people that and you know that, that that have no skin in the game that are let's say all American or all European or all South American and have no relationship to Palestinians or, or Israel or anything like that. And Israel has by far lost the PR war since October 7th. And no matter and, and, and, and people unfortunately, and the typical spokespeople for Israel unfortunately don't haven't really been giving emotionally satisfying answers to people that have no skin in the game and that are only emotionally invested in the war.

10:31 So for example, right, you know, if someone does not care about Israel, doesn't know anything about Israel, it does not care about Gaza, doesn't know anything about the Palestinians, and they're just tuning into the war. You know, what you're going to, you know what they see what, what, what, what objectively is happening is there's been a, you know, there was an attack, a terrible, terrible terrorist attack. And that attack was, was subsequently responded to by two years of absolute demolition. That's what they see, you know, and, and the two years of absolute demolition has, you know, has, has been covered like really almost no war before, obviously, except for maybe Ukraine while it's going on. But you know, the, the, the you know, some of the footage is real and some of the footage isn't, but enough of it is. And enough of it is off putting enough and scary enough to people that in this war you're like, OK, there's nothing left to Gaza.

11:27 What are you, what are you still doing there? And people like and people that have been representing Israel have done, you know, the big public voices have been representing Israel, I think have done a pretty terrible job at stepping up and providing both emotional and intellectual, political, whatever the word, you know, just whatever facet you want to tackle this by. I don't think that the usual crew of pro Israel people have been doing the job well and I don't find myself very convinced by them either. You know, and as someone that does support Israel and does love Israel and is Jewish and you know, I mean, I, I love the people, I love the place. And I, I don't know anything about the I, I never knew anything about the government until a couple of years ago. I didn't even know how it worked until a year ago or so. You know, I mean, obviously I'm not very invested in the government of Israel, but I'm invested in the well-being of it.

12:28 And, and I, and I, and I really, really consider it a home. It's a place that I would absolutely, I would absolutely move to in my life and it's something that I actually hope to do and to accomplish is to is to move there and live there. That being said, we're doing a really, really, really bad job in the PR war. And so you have anti Semites that are just going to always be there. And then you have people that are not anti-Semitic, they're just not sure what to take what, you know, what the story is. And they've had no history, no involvement, No, no, you know, they've never been invested before. They're just getting social media updates on TikTok and on Twitter, on, on X and on Instagram, whatever it is.

13:14 And they are. And then and you get someone who, and I don't even blame him for having his opinion, like Theo Von or like Dave Smith or, you know, that, that, that are that are that are openly, you know, talking about how, you know, how terrible this is and, and, and making. And unfortunately, people also have a hard time differentiating, you know, between Israel and the government and then the Jews around the world and the people that live there and all. And, you know, and the rhetoric and this and the slope starts getting slippery and the rhetoric starts changing from the Israelis or the Israeli government to the Jews or, you know, from Israeli government to Israelis think this. And, and this becomes an enormous danger that I think that we're all guilty of, which is we when we label an entire country or a city or a town or state as just a state as opposed to an individual name, it becomes a lot, it becomes a lot easier to treat them as though they're not humans. This goes both ways in this war with Palestinians and with Israelis.

14:20 You know, and I've and, and I'm always making this point and I always try to make this point, you know, which is like when you hear a case about something about, you know, someone dying and you say what happened, you know, and like, if the answer is who cares? They're a Palestinian, That's not a good answer to me, you know, And if the answer is who cares and Israeli, that's not a good answer. Or they're a Jew, that's a terrible answer to me, you know. And so you always need the context. You can't we lose the individual by the labeling. What if the Palestinian was just a regular dad and daughter and son and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and, and they were just, you know, just trying to live their lives and have a job and, you know, try to and just try to live regular lives. And they don't have it, you know, and, and they didn't have this.

15:07 And, and, and just because they live where they live or they're born where they're born, they get blown out of existence. That's a tragedy. That's a tragedy. And the Israeli and, and then the Israeli soldiers and the kids that you know, that the 18 year olds that have to get sent to war and they come back and they never come home. And you know, the country of Israel is so small that everyone that they're related to like one out of every, or, you know, like either personally known or related to like one out of every, like four or five people on the street. Every single death is a national tragedy. And like it's, you know, my hands, like I see my family feels that very strongly. My dad, my dad will take time. He isn't, he's very invested. And you hear news about death, you hear news about an accident, you hear news about something like that. You know, you our immediate response, unless we feel personally invested, is almost to protect ourselves and to push aside that, you know, that that thing you just say, oh, what happens in the world?

16:06 You know, I know that that happens to me, right? I hear about a kid, God forbid, that died and, you know, was left in a hot car in the summertime. And, you know, God forbid, God forbid a million times, you know, and like, I can't feel that too strongly, you know, like you have to separate, like in order to, because there's so much tragedy in the world and there's so many bad things that happen. If we settled on every single bad thing that happens to every single person in the world, we'd never be able to function. We'd never be able to live, you know, And so like we have, so human beings have, you know, almost like a hierarchy of, of, of emotion of how much you're willing to get emotionally invested in something. And my dad gets emotionally invested, you know, and every single time that he hears about an 1819 year old that gets, you know, that, that that doesn't get to come home or you know, that who, you know, hears about his family.

16:54 My dad thinks about it and talks about it for far longer than anyone really around him is really comfortable talking about, you know, and and that shows how it shows how I, I, you know, how terrible, how sick, how awful war is. It shows how, how careless we become when we start talking about the death of people in numbers as though it doesn't mean any, you know, as as, as though it's just a number and it's not each in each one of these deaths isn't a best friend, isn't a parent, isn't a kid, you know, from, from every side of the conflict, from from every conflict. And you know, you kind of hope and, you know, and almost like what we dream for is this world. And, and obviously this is romantic and obviously this is naive and obviously, you know, you call this stupid, but I don't think that I don't think that having a lofty goal is a bad thing.

17:49 I think it's a good, I think it's a really, really great thing to have a lofty goal because then you could then you never had, then you could really never stop working until you're able to achieve it. And you're always trying to get better and better than where you are now. And I think that we could be any better off than, you know, the answer is that's just what this is. Does not really make me or anyone else, I don't think feel better. A lot of the times it's just what it is. Because when someone says that like, well, how would you feel if it was your family? Would you say that's just how it is? You know what, if it was me, I know that I wouldn't be OK with that. I know that I wouldn't be OK with the fact that if Florida got blown up right now because of this action, you know, that because of a war, let's say that Trump started or that Biden started or, you know, if something happens that that my politicians or someone else decided and my family gets blown up because of that.

18:42 I don't want that, you know, I don't want any of that. And unfortunately, I don't think there's been enough representation on is on the Jewish Israeli side that says this, you know, and, and instead a lot of the response is this, you know, you're missing the bigger picture, you're missing the context. You don't really get what this is. And maybe like, I'm not even saying that that the response is not right. What I'm saying is that it doesn't help. It doesn't help the argument. It doesn't help the case that you're trying to make, and it certainly doesn't help you make any friends. And, you know, and that's why Dave Smith is wiping the floor with everyone that he argues against. That's why that's why, you know, people like Ben Shapiro are starting to, you know, like Ben Shapiro is being forced to acknowledge Dave Smith at this point because he's just rocket shipping in popularity because no one has anything to respond to him and no one has anything to say. And it's something that's so dramatically different than the status quo because Israel and America have always had such a great relationship as far as you know, as far as I've seen. And, you know, and Ted and Tucker Carlson making, you know, Ted Cruz looking an idiot, you know, for two hours is like, that's a that, that that is not good. It's not, I don't think it's good for anyone. And, and I think that even refusing to acknowledge that Dave Smith is winning arguments and refusing to acknowledge that Ted Cruz sounds like an idiot,

20:12 that Lindsey Graham sounds like an idiot when they, you know, when they talk about war if we don't acknowledge that. Then we're losing, then we lose the favor of from what I've seen a lot of my generation say the 45 and under, the 50 and under, even the 40 and under. Let's just say because I'm, you know, between 30 and 40 and the whole young generation, like the, the, the, the, you know, the below 25 year olds have the have a worse perspective on Israel than I think in the last, I think ever, you know, I think in the last 50 years for sure. But you know, like there's very so so I think it's a very scary time to be Jewish and to be Israeli and to be pro Israel and to be, you know, to support and love the lands.

21:05 Because I think that we're going through a lot of challenges right now. And I hope that and you know, and I hope that we can kind of get our act together and do a little bit of PR repair. I think that it's really, really terrible. And I think that the people that are the current spokespeople are doing a bad job and I think that they should be replaced. I think that if anyone if if a couple of people, if a couple of people that no one had heard of a couple of years ago, they have no political history or no anything like that. And the podcasters that have millions and millions of listeners together and they're going and, and these are the same people that helped, you know, kind of reshape not only the election, but the national, like the the national mood in America.

21:48 IA podcasters had an enormous, enormous influence, far more than far more than news outlets or typical corporate media. If they're all turning on on Israel, we got to get new representatives that are going to that, you know, that that could say, hey, man, you know that, that that'll work with that, You know that that will work. Because I do think that because I love Israel, I love, you know, and, and I want us to have a good relationship with America for everyone's sake, you know, and for the people that say that Israel doesn't provide anything to America, I would strongly urge you to do just a couple of quick googles and just see what Israel provides in terms of technology, in terms of resources, in terms of what do you, I guess, research in terms of even like they have a good relationship with Russia and China too. Like it doesn't hurt to have a mutual friends with other world superpowers.

22:44 So I think that I really would, I think that we just need to, I think you have to be very careful as to what the public perception, especially in America and Europe is of Israel. And I think we have to be very, very weary and very, very careful. And we really have to do a lot of damage control, which obviously leads me to the next, I guess topic on current events and that is this war with Iran. And my take is this could be another potential, this already is, but could be even more an enormous blow to the America Israel relationship. And I know that a lot of people, a lot of Jews, a lot of, you know, pro Israel people are cheering on the fact that America got involved on Saturday and and bombed those three nuclear facilities.

23:52 And maybe it is a good thing. I want, I hope and I pray and I want to hope that that the legitimacy of the urgency of this attack is whatever what everyone says that it is, or at least what, you know, what Trump says it is. I really, really want to believe that because if because right now what, you know, what we're looking at is Iran has to retaliate, retaliate against America. In fact, I just saw just a minute before I started recording this in America that Iran did retaliate.

24:37 But apparently it was only like a quote UN quote formal retaliation that they actually called America and said, hey, this is where we're going to bomb or send a missile and it's going to be at this and this time. So just get yourself ready for it because we do have to respond to your attack. And hopefully that's considered a de escalation and not taken by other people as an escalation. And I think that the fact that, you know, it's being already circulated around, you know, both online and on Twitter and in the news media, I hope that means that everyone will accept this to be kind of OK, now we're even and let things simmer down. If that's not the case and Iran continues to strike at American bases and ends up killing Americans or servicemen or servicemen or women, it could obviously escalate and escalate to the point of boots on the ground.

25:35 Once you get boots on the ground, we do. The country as a whole, America as a whole does not have an appetite for another Middle Eastern warrant. They really don't. And if Americans now feel, which they almost certainly will if boots hit the ground, if Americans feel that this war happened strictly because of Israel and there's no reason why America should be in it, then that is going to completely fracture at least generations worth of relationship with Israel, in my opinion of America's relationship with Israel. And it's going to do so much. It could do so much potential harm. On the other hand, it could be, and I'm praying and I'm hoping that this is the case.

26:18 It could be an amazing sign of legitimacy of Israeli intelligence, you know, and one argument, you know, and I actually been hearing it's so funny because it's funny how like bits of information kind of comes together throughout your life and you kind of realize and like you kind of start putting things together on your own. When I was growing up, my Saba, who is staunchly, staunchly pro Zionist as a, as a Holocaust survivor. And I don't know anyone on this planet that would not, that would not blame him or support him in his Zionist or understand his Zionism for being a Holocaust survivor. And you know, understanding that, not understanding his perspective that, you know, the Jews need a home in case something like this happens.

27:02 My grandfather used to tell me periodically for my almost I literally for maybe 10-15 years now, he used to tell me he only died two or three years ago. Sorry about that. My wife just walked in with my baby. I had to cut out. But I'm going to continue my train of thought and say that this is an opportunity If I'm praying and I'm praying and I'm hoping that Israel is able to provide that. Oh, I'm so sorry. So the context. And so my grandfather used to tell me throughout the rest of the throughout my childhood about the systematic attacks that that Israel has taken on Iran's nuclear facilities and potential and capabilities.

27:46 And, you know, he used to talk to me about how great their how great their intelligence was and how, how coordinated they were and how incredible it is. And it is, you know, and so when people like Dave Smith or, you know, people on X make the talking point or Tucker Carlson, I think made this argument, although I don't, I don't 100% remember. So if he doesn't, if he didn't make that argument, I, I do apologize then, you know, but I thought I heard it. But you know, one thing they point to is that Bebe has been saying since 1995, I ran his XY and Z close to nuclear potential to create a bomb and we have nuke and we don't want that.

28:33 And they are right that he's been saying that all along. But all along Israel also has been carrying out strikes against scientists and at different locations. And so it keeps on having to set them back. So I think that that, and unfortunately, I don't hear that, I don't hear that from Dave Smith or Glenn Greenwald or anything like that. And, and, and as much as I do appreciate that they, they, they usually do have excellent, excellent points and really, really fair perspectives. This particular, I think case and point, I think is not a correct 1. And I don't think that it's necessarily fair to say, Oh yeah, Bibi's been saying for 25 years that isn't that Iran can't have a bomb.

29:17 Bebe's been doing things about it for 25 years. You know, I mean, Israel's been doing about it things like that. And I just remember from hearing my whole life that, you know, that that Israel's, that Israel's just going and doing these operations. So I don't really know. So you know what I really would love and what I think really would be really super beneficial for America's relationship with Israel and Israel's credibility in the younger Americans eyes is to actually provide documentation and proof that that they were intending on building a nuke and that they were planning on, you know, using it. And again, you know, the, the, the issue that most Americans have right now is not whether or not Iran should have a nuke. Most Americans think that Iran should not have a nuke.

30:00 But what they do think is that they that they don't want America involved in getting rid of that because it does not pose a threat necessarily to America at the moment. Iran can't really shoot a nuke further than France at the moment. So, you know, so it's not as much of A threat to us, sorry to Americans. But that being said, from from an Israeli perspective, everyone understands that you can't have, you know, that having your neighbor with a nuke that historically hates you for being you and, you know, for being the the largest state sponsor of terrorism, You know, with Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis and everyone, you know, and, and, and just throughout the years, you know, obviously everyone, I think everyone understands that Israel can't afford to have that and can't tolerate to have it. The big push back is not that Israel should do it. It's that we don't want Americans to get America to get drawn into another war.

30:57 You don't want American troops to die and we don't want, and we want an end to, to funding current wars. That's generally the degrees that like that's what people cared about when Trump won and that, you know, people wanted peace. People wanted people wanted the Ukraine war to be over and people wanted the Israel war to be over. And for some reason the deep, you know, I mean, the forces that the forces that pushed this war and that pushed war in general, I think are just far more difficult to get rid of than I think anyone had imagined. So all this is really a premise to my trip to Israel because I've never been to a country that had actually been through a war before.

31:41 And now again, I spent, I visited Israel a dozen times in my life. I've spent a year and a half living there. I have family there. I have some of my best friends in the world there. I have some of my best friends plan on moving there. I hope to move there, at least buy property there in my life. And you know, and when I went, I've never been to a country in the middle of a war before. And there was something that was really, really, really fascinating because. You can really see, and I think Americans are missing out on this. I mean you have such a small country and 1500 people die. And I know this is a point that people have heard a lot, especially right after October 7th, but almost everyone in Israel knew someone that gun kidnapped killed her on October 7th because it's such a small country that everyone is. So, you know, everyone's only one or two steps removed from the other, you know, and I mean, and, and you can go almost anywhere and find people in common that you know, by one or two degrees.

32:55 And it's really, really cool that way. But all over the all over the country, there's just, excuse me, size and street art and posters that translate, you know, it's English. Together we'll, you know, together we'll be successful. Bring them home now, you know, And there's a real sense of, it's so interesting. There's a sense of soberness that even when you know that even when people are partying and having a good time, it almost feels like it's out of a state of defiance. It's really, really fascinating. And maybe this is just my own head. Maybe this is just me misunderstanding and misinterpreting what I was seeing. But I was all over Israel.

33:42 I was in Rehovoted, I was in Beit Shemesh, I was in Jerusalem, I was in, I was in Tel Aviv. I was on the beaches. I was, I was there for like 5 days. I was all over the place and we had a car. And Israel's a really easy country to get around when you have a car. Public transportation just tends to get a lot, take a lot longer, of course. And, and, you know, and so we got to see a lot of different people in a lot of different environments throughout the country at different points in the day, You know, during the day, you know, at the restaurants or bars or cafes and coffee shops and, you know, little shooks or marketplaces. Then at night with the clubbing scene and during the day, there's kind of a sense of family, community and sobriety, it feels like.

34:28 At least that's what it felt like. And then when people are having good times Thursday nights or you go to a bar, you know, there's there's always a sense and awareness in everyone's mind that a siren could go off, which it did. You know, like I was in, I was in Jerusalem with with my friend Zach and Novummy. And you know, we're, you know, having a great time, had a bunch of beers with a couple of, you know, I'm rocking bad vodka shots and we're sitting down. That's # a, you know, a couple of boxes of wings and poppers and, you know, we're having the best time in the world and music's blasting and there's a DJ and kids are, kids are dancing in the street.

35:13 And then a siren goes off. And, you know, there's obviously 2 reactions. There's one reaction is to go to the nearest shelter. And then the other reaction is screw this man. You're not going to, you're not going to scare us into, into going. It tends to be more of a younger person and older person's perspective, I think, you know, the youth out of ignorance and the elder out of defiance, I think. But you know, you're not going to make me, you know, live XY and Z live like this and run out of my bed every, you know, every night of my life. But there's a sense of, it's just, it was really, really fascinating to spend 5 days living like a local among, among people that were in a country in war. And, you know, and like, and, and, and it's a topic of events. It's that, you know, I mean, for example, the day of my, the day of Emmy's wedding, my, my buddy, you know, that's, that's where I went to Israel for Dave, his wedding. We went to get, we went to grab brunch, grab a coffee. And on the way back, we saw another car that was decorated for a wedding in Israel.

36:22 They just take any car that you have and just decorate it with, you know, they paint on it and they put some ribbons and some, you know, I forgot, they just decorate it. And I was like, oh, and I said he because I speak Hebrew. I was like, oh, that's for, that's for my friend over here. And he's, he's like, ha, ha, I'm like, no, really. He's getting married today. He showed her his invitation and she was, you know, and she was giving, you know, and she was, she was laughing and, and she was wishing the best. And she, you know, and she was, you know, and she, and, and like, and just the mood changed while she was talking, you know, while, while we're talking to you, you know, just like, you know, when you get married in Judaism, it's like you're starting your life over again and you're starting with a fresh clean slate. All your sins have been forgotten. And when you pray, you're praying as if you're a new person, a new human being, because you're about to start a whole new life and a new entity and a new family. And so you're starting from scratch and she's like, and you should just pray that like all our family comes back and no one else gets hurt anymore and that this war should end. And, and it's, and that was just one, you know, and, and everyone just got emotional and everyone kind of, you know, and, and I, I, I'm never going to see her again. And I've never seen her before.

37:30 But there was this real sense of like camaraderie and love and sadness and, you know, and, and just a desire for, for peace, you know, that it was really, it was really, really overwhelming and it was really, really beautiful. And I think that and, and I don't think that enough people kind of hear that or see that or, or, or really feel or experience that real depth of, of just communal and family pain that a whole country could just feel at one time together. It was really, really, really, really beautiful. But enough about that, because that's a charge topic that I am always, I always feel like I'm falling over my South when I'm talking about it because I don't want to say the wrong thing, upset the wrong people, even though, you know, I don't know why I should be entitled to my own ideas.

38:19 But, you know, whenever you have your own idea, you end up pissing off someone. So yeah, we. So, you know, we flew actually. So the day before Israel responded to Iran, Zach and I flew to Amsterdam for two days. And I've got to say, man, they're doing something right over there. I love that. I love Amsterdam. You know, I've been to, I've been to more than half the states in the country at this point. I've probably been to like 6570% of the states, if not more. And I've been to Italy, I've been to Greece, I've been to Israel. I've been to, I spent the day in Barcelona.

38:59 Granted, it was after Amsterdam, but I have never, I've never had a place visited a place that just like resonated with me. First of all, I think it's super underrated and no one talks about the fact that Amsterdam is on canals and you know, and everything there is just bridges. And there's such a amazing poetic, romantic feel to the place that you know, you everyone has, everyone goes everywhere on bikes because the roads are extremely thin and they're all cobblestone. And, and I don't think the infrastructure was really ever built for car to support as many cars as you would need for the amount of people that live there and everyone just travel, everyone goes everywhere on bikes. And so just the combination between all these little bridges that go over canals every couple of blocks and, you know, families biking together and kids on the street by themselves.

39:53 And then you have all you have a ton of these little cobblestone alleyways between these, between these cities. It was just, it was just so magnificent. It was so cool to go to. And that's all aside from the coffee from the coffee shop scene, which obviously I had a great time with the architecture I thought was beautiful. And like as far as the city goes, it really did a cool. It does a cool job blending the feeling of suburbia and being like kind of family oriented or at least, you know, being comfortable having kids walk around and being, you know, being by themselves and and actually being a city.

40:36 I did take a river. I took a river tour, a riverboat tour, whatever it's called is Zach. And while we were on the tour, we were talking with, we were talking to, I guess the tour guide who is a new university graduate. And she was telling us a little bit about Amsterdam. And one of the problems that she was telling us that exists is that apparently housing is a nightmare there in that there's really no more land to kind of build on. And there's people keep on coming to be there and, you know, there's wait lists for apartments and there's wait lists for homes and, you know, they're just an absolute fortune. I don't really know what to think about that to really make of that. I mean, I guess it's not too different from like a place like Manhattan where just because how, you know, it's not really due to a shortage of apartments.

41:28 It's kind of due to a an enormously expensive cost of living, but that people are kind of forced to live together. And I didn't think really that it works so well for people living in Manhattan. I feel like it kind of makes New Yorkers a little bit. What makes them crazy is part of just like being confined to such a small place with so many people around you constantly, but apparently on a little bit of a smaller scale, it does not drive you all crazy. And, and the, and the people from Amsterdam were so kind and so nice and so friendly. You know, we went to a coffee shop and got, you know, got a tea, got a, got a smoke.

42:11 And, you know, and I was like, she was, and I asked the, the barista, should we smoke inside or she said outside. He's like, he said whatever you want. And I said to I said to Zach, oh, I'd love to go outside. And the people outside heard and there's only one table outside with four seats and there's two and there's two women there. And the women heard and just moved over. And then when he poked your head outside to see if there's any place to sit, they're like, oh, we heard you say want to come outside. You know, we just made some room if you want. And that was it. And I was like, that never. I mean, I don't know, maybe maybe I'm crazy, but maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong places. But that would never happen in the States, you know, So I'm walking away with raving reviews about Amsterdam.

42:57 I love the place. People told me to be careful about being Jewish there. I didn't really get that 50. And the Heineken was awesome on tap. Awesome, awesome, awesome. You know, obviously not the most craft or you know, the most complex or complicated, you know, beverages out there, but phenomenal on tap and everything was pretty decently priced. Oh, except for these health snacks that I bought. I bought like healthy chips. That was with avocado oil and a pack of mixed nuts. And I didn't even look at it because when especially so in Israel, I think it's like 3.7 or 3.5 shekel to a dollar.

43:43 So everything. So, you know, you're paying 12 shekel for a Coke, even though it's really 3 bucks. It just feels like you're giving a lot of money over for that. And so I don't think my brain had completely finished translating. They're trying to translate the currency over from one cost to another. And so I saw like 38, and I thought that was like, oh, wow, OK, so it's like 1215 bucks. That's not bad. And I realized it was ���38. And I was like, oh man, what for three? I don't know how it happened exactly. And if you think that's crazy, I'll have to get up with Zach, who wouldn't let me return it. So that's just some thoughts for my newest, my most recent solo episode. I kind of wanted to get this stream of consciousness out. I wanted to get some of my thoughts out. And we're going to have another episode tomorrow. I'm really, really excited.

44:34 Super cool dude from what I can tell. My buddy introduced me to him. He's an aviator, he's a martial artist, he is a health nut and really excited to talk to him. And a couple of more fun episodes coming up for you guys this week. Hope you enjoyed and bye for now.