Hebrew Voices – Inside Season 1

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon with Hebrew Voices, and I have a very special episode today, a behind the scenes special. I’m here in Atascosa, Texas with Devorah Arndt Daniel. Shalom, Deb.

Deb: Shalom, y’all.

Nehemia: I love that accent. You know, I’m actually looking out your window here, Deb, and I see this field where before I saw a heifer in that field, or some kind of young cow. We’re really in cowboy country.

Deb: Yeah, and that man right over there is cutting hay right now.

Nehemia: Cutting hay. This is the real deal out here in Atascosa, Texas. I want to share, you know, we finished 30 episodes of Hebrew Voices, and we’ve come to… I’m calling this the “end of Season 1,” and there’s going to be a Season 2. We’re going to take a little bit of a break, and during that break, we’re going to be working on further episodes. We’re going to be working on some support team studies, and we’re going to be doing re-runs of some of the old episodes, especially the ones that were either really, really popular or were amazing and not enough people listened to.

But I’m just so humbled. I’m looking right here in front of me at the statistics. We’re at the end of 30 episodes of Season 1, and Hebrew Voices has been downloaded 1,420,000 times, which is unbelievable.

Deb: That’s amazing.

Nehemia: That’s an average of over 47,000 per episode. Do I have your permission to say it’s about 50,000 per episode?

Deb: Absolutely.

Nehemia: We are close. And if we include everything, not just Hebrew Voices, we are at 2.6 million, and this is only in the last eight months. This only goes back to September when Hebrew Voices started. So, in the last eight months, the Nehemia’s Wall podcasts, which includes Hebrew Voices, Torah Pearls, Prophet Pearls, and other things, as well, the specials that we put out from time to time. Altogether, 2.6 million, nearly 2.7 million, and Hebrew Voices alone, 1.4 million. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m actually saying that to congratulate the audience.

Deb: Amen.

Nehemia: We didn’t do this. We worked hard…

Deb: You worked hard.

Nehemia: …and we put out the information. And we put it out in a professional way, and did tons of research, spoke to people, and reached out to people.

Deb: And people love it.

Nehemia: And people are loving it. And it’s you, the audience, you guys accomplished this. I looked up statistics because I didn’t know if this is unusual. I have no idea. And these kinds of stats, they put us in between the top five and top one percent of all podcasts in the world. And we’re talking in the world, there’s hundreds of thousands of podcasts. Wow, that’s amazing that we’ve had the opportunity to do this. Our top episode was… I called it, “The Palestinian Bicycle Refugees of Norway.” It was downloaded over 184,000 times to date. And guys, if you missed that, you should go listen to it.

Deb: It’s really good.

Nehemia: Talk about behind the scenes. For me, that was one that was totally not planned. I was speaking in Norway last November, and I had spoken before that on the same trip in Holland and Sweden. I finally arrived in Norway, and the whole time I was in Europe, the one thing everybody was talking about was the refugee crisis. How they were, in their words, “Being overrun with refugees.”

And so, I had a day off in Norway after speaking. I think I spoke like three times there in Norway over three days, and then I had a day off before returning to Israel. And they said, “Do you want us to take you to this museum, or that famous spot?” I said, “I want to see these refugees that everybody’s talking about. I’ve heard about them on the radio before I left Israel. Everybody I’ve met in Europe is talking about the refugees. Where are all these refugees?”

So, they did some research and found out there was a refugee camp in town. And we went and we spoke to the people, and the things that we found and discovered there were amazing. It was totally unexpected. The biggest surprise is, most of the refugees, at least the ones I met, were Palestinians. They weren’t Syrians. And so, I called it the “Palestinian Bicycle Refugees of Norway,” because they arrived in Norway by bicycle, and that thing went viral. Like I said, it downloaded over 184,000 times. If you haven’t heard it, go listen to it. It really is a chance to speak to some real refugees, or at least some real migrants who are coming into Europe and what they’re really about. And I’m not saying it represents all of them, but it’s the people that I encountered.

Deb: Tell what happened on the bus in Jerusalem, about the podcast.

Nehemia: Oh, so I was on my way to the dentist and about to get off the bus in Jerusalem. And there was this woman standing next to the door where I’m about to depart the bus, and she starts giggling as she’s looking at me. And I’m thinking, “Oh man, did I forget to part my hair this morning? What did I do? Why is she laughing at me?”

Deb: It is crooked.

Nehemia: Yeah, I hear you. And then there’s this woman behind me who taps me on the shoulder and says, “Are you Nehemia Gordon?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Oh, me and my friend recognized you, and my friend was afraid to ask if it was you.” And she said, “We listen to your podcast, and that’s where we know you from.” And that’s really what caught me off guard, because I’ve had people before who said, “We’ve seen your video,” or, you know, “We saw you on television,” or whatever, or we get your newsletter. But here was somebody… they heard about it from Hebrew Voices. Like, “Wait a minute. How do you even know what I look like if you listen to Hebrew Voices?” And I guess my picture is there, and when you go to iTunes.

And by the way, before I forget; people, we need your help to help get out this message. And one of the things that’s really, really helpful in spreading the message is, go to iTunes. Number one, subscribe to the podcast, either through iTunes, or if you’re like me you use an Android, you use Pocket Cast or something like that, or what was the one that you said was on your phone? Podcast Republic. There are all these different ones that are free that you can download on the Android. On the Apple it’s built in. On the Android, you’ve got to download something. But go there and subscribe. And that actually helps us, because then the powers that be out there, like iTunes and whoever, Stitcher, they see, “Oh, there’s x-number of people subscribed,” and then they put it in front of more people.

And the other thing that’s really, really helpful is, go to iTunes, especially iTunes, and write a review. Write a one-line review. And what that does, again, is the powers that be they see, “Oh, it’s been reviewed so many numbers of times, we’re going to let more people see it.” We’re not going to hide it at the bottom of a list somewhere. So, it really helps us get it in front of people.

Deb: Right, so subscriptions and writing a review, even if it’s just a couple of words. Those are the things that these companies, these larger companies that give the statistics, these are the things they use. And they’ll say, “Okay, we’re going to put this podcast out to more and more and more people.”

Nehemia: Right. And by the way, they don’t actually know the statistics that I just shared with you. That’s what I can see from our servers. I mean, they don’t know it’s necessarily downloaded 1.4 million times, they only see a portion of that. If you download it from our website, iTunes doesn’t know that. But what they do know is if you review it and if you subscribe to it. So, even if you’re downloading it from our website, go subscribe and write a review, because it helps us get it in front of more people through iTunes.

Deb: It does. It does. And we’re just talking about totally free. Just if one person tells this person that tells this person, and on and on, so that more and more people can hear these wonderful podcasts.

Nehemia: And ultimately, we want to get this message out to people. The other thing you can do, and I’m stating the obvious, but maybe it’s not obvious. This is such a big deal, you don’t realize. If you go to the website, or on Facebook, and then you share it through social media, which, as we’re recording this, Facebook and Twitter, those are the two big things. Maybe in years to come, it’ll be things we haven’t even heard of. But if you share this through social media, that gets the message out. And that’s such a big deal, you have no idea how much you’re participating and helping to spread this message by simply sharing it.

If you have a blog, talk about this on your blog. Write about it, put a link to it. We want to get this message out; 1.4 million people, and that’s only in the last eight months, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. We have the potential to get this message to so many more people who I really think need to hear these Hebrew Voices.

Deb: And the whole point about Hebrew Voices is, there are so many varied topics that there is something for everybody out there, no matter what your situation is. I’m going to tell you; I didn’t think I would like Holy City Soccer. I love it. I was so shocked when I listened to it. I’m a girl, what do I care about soccer? I was so surprised when I listened. It was great.

Nehemia: Yeah, that was an amazing episode that I recorded with Arieh Lewis, who’s an Israeli sports blogger. And we ended up going to this soccer game in Jerusalem, and we’re sitting there at the soccer game talking about things like the Messiah and Zionism, and all kinds of amazing topics. You could only have that happen in Israel. And I don’t know, maybe that kind of thing that only happens to me, but I love it, it was a great episode. Yeah, so guys, go listen to Holy City Soccer.

One of the things that we’re actually going to be doing in the coming months as we’re working on more episodes and we’re putting on re-runs, repeats, is, we’re going to ask you, what were your favorite episodes? Because we’ve broadcast 30 episodes, we’re not going to repeat 30 episodes. So, we have got to decide which ones we’re going to republish. And so, we’re going to post a thing on Facebook or something like that, and there’ll be a link. And we’ll ask people, “Tell us what was your favorite episode.” And based on that, we’ll decide which ones to repeat. Yeah, pretty cool.

Dev, I didn’t even introduce you. For those who haven’t been following, if you’re not part of the program, people, Dev is the one who runs Makor Hebrew Foundation. That’s my ministry. We are here at the world headquarters of Makor Hebrew Foundation. Tell us about that, Dev.

Deb: We’ve been doing this a long time. Makor Hebrew Foundation is what helps you do what you do. We could not do anything without the support of all these wonderful folks who want to hear more. I mean, they obviously want to hear more, and we just keep trying to crank it out. You can support Makor Hebrew Foundation, which supports just what Nehemia does, by going onto the website, nehemiaswall.com. There’s a yellow donate button there.

Nehemia: I didn’t know it was yellow.

Deb: Yeah. There’s a big donate button there. You can do it that way. You can call me, I can take a credit card over the phone, or you can mail something into Makor, if you prefer to use the mail. We have wonderful folks who set us up in their bank account…

Nehemia: Oh, wow.

Deb: …their online banking, as a monthly bill.

Nehemia: Oh cool, and they make a monthly donation that way.

Deb: Yes.

Nehemia: And it’s 501(c)(3).

Deb: Yes, we’re a 501(c)(3). You will get a contribution receipt. Your credit card statement is your contribution receipt, because Makor Hebrew Foundation is a 501(c)(3).

Nehemia: Pretty cool.

Deb: Yeah, so there’s lots of things you could do. Let me give you the 800 number, if you want to call me

Nehemia: And when you call, you will reach this bank of telephones. We have people standing by right now, 24 hours… No, it’s really just you, Deb, right?

Deb: It is, it’s just me. Don’t make these people think that.

Nehemia: What’s the number?

Deb: And I might be cooking dinner too, so you’ll have to stand at the stove with me while I talk to you.

Nehemia: So, what’s the number?

Deb: It’s 800-420-8206. You can call between 9 and 6 during the week.

Nehemia: In Texas time.

Deb: Central Standard Time.

Nehemia: Central Standard Time.

Deb: Nehemia, we could have all the contributions in the world and we’re very thankful for them. But if people aren’t praying for us, it’s for nothing.

Nehemia: I do want to say one thing. I was telling somebody recently about “Yeah, we’ve had over a million downloads.” And he said, “Well, if only every one of those million people gave $1.” And I’m like, “Not even close.”

Deb: No. And it’s so cool, the way we’re able to do what we’re able to do.

Nehemia: It really is a blessing; I’ve got to tell you. So, I want to share some of the behind-the-scenes things that happened in the recording, you know, 30 episodes. For example, I had this one episode. I had it in my mind, I wanted to talk to an Assyriologist, a guy who’s an expert in ancient Acadian, the language. It’s a Semitic language, the language of Babylon, written in cuneiform. And so, I contacted a few people, got a hold of a guy I’d studied with at Hebrew University. We were students together. And he said, “Yeah, I don’t really know why anybody would be interested in that, but I’ll…” That’s the attitude of a lot of scholars. Why would anybody ever be interested in that? “But okay, I’ll talk. I’ll do an episode with you.” And I honestly didn’t know what the people’s interest would be, either, because it really is an obscure topic. I had no clue.

The day before the recording, I spent the day at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, where they had this exhibit about cuneiform documents, about Acadian documents. And I went specifically, thinking, “Okay, I’m going to go with him tomorrow. Maybe there’ll be something here we could talk about.” I had no idea what it was going to be. They had this giant display there about the names of the different people mentioned in the documents. And one of them is this man named “Joshua,” which in Hebrew is “Yehoshua,” and they showed how that was written in ancient Acadian as “Yahu’ushu’u.” And I thought, “Wow, this is something a lot of my audience is really interested in, the Hebrew name behind Jesus, Yehoshua. And here’s a way it was recorded around the year 500 BC in cuneiform documents.”

So, I wrote an email really quickly to this guy, and I said, “Would you mind talking about this tomorrow? I just went to the museum.” And he’s like, “Absolutely, I can talk about that.” We ended up calling this episode, “The Name Yeshua in Ancient Babylon,” and it is our sixth most popular episode out of the 30. And it really was very cool, because people have written whole theories and doctrines and started denominations, based on the way that that name and the name “Yehovah” are written in cuneiform documents. And here we are, talking to this expert, and I ask him, “So if it was pronounced ‘Yeshua,’ how would it have been written by the Babylonians?” He said, “Yeah, it would have been written the same way,” because they’re hearing this foreign word and trying to… You guys can go listen to it, it’s a fascinating discussion with an Assyriologist, whose only axe to grind is he loves little wedge writings. He’s got no agenda. You know, he’s just sharing his information with us. And what a blessing that we had the opportunity to speak to people like that.

I mean, this is really what’s blown me away, is that I’ve had the opportunity to speak to people that I probably wouldn’t normally get to talk to about these topics, or in some cases, I get to talk to those people, but the audience would never hear from that type of person. For example, if you asked me what my favorite interview is of those published so far, no question, hands down, it’s the one I did with Professor Emanuel Tov, who was the editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was one of our most popular episodes, I’m looking here at the statistics. It’s called “The Bible of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” That’s actually number seven, after “The Name Yeshua in Ancient Babylon,” of the most popular episodes.

And I don’t know that he’s ever done an interview like that. I mean, he’s written hundreds and hundreds of journal articles… And it was funny, because when I met with him before the interview, he was like, “So what do you do?” and I was explaining it to him. He knew me as his assistant years ago. He didn’t know that I’m doing this podcast thing. I explained what I’m doing, and he says, “Well, how long are the interviews?” I said, “Well, I try to keep them to between 30 and 45 minutes, but sometimes I go over.” He said, “I can’t imagine what we would have to talk about that would interest people for 30 minutes.”

This is the guy who’s the editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean, he wrote the definitive book that’s been translated into many languages called “Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.” It’s what they study in every university and seminary in the world, studying what’s called “textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.” He wrote the book, and he can’t imagine what would interest normal people. You know, he knows what would be of interest to scholars, to academics, but laymen, he can’t imagine. And having the opportunity to sit with him and bring out some of those things that I know my audience is interested in, because I’m interested in it, and I’ve talked to people around the world when I go places, and I hear their questions. I thought, “Now I get to ask him those questions.”

Deb: Is it fair to say that a lot of this information wouldn’t get to somebody like me?

Nehemia: Oh no, you could get it. You could read his 500 or so-page book, and you could get this, all the information he shared. There was nothing in there that wasn’t there. But the reality is, you’re not going to read his 500-page book. And no offense; if you read it, you wouldn’t understand 95 percent of it. I had to read it in preparation, and here’s an example of something. When we first spoke about this, it was eight months ago, or nine months ago. We did a little recording in which we told people our intentions of what I was planning on doing. I said, “I’m going to record 50 episodes, one a week.” I didn’t know that I would be spending three weeks reading a 500-page book, and this is an academic book. Every page is full of information that you could give an hour-long lecture on, literally, and this is a 500- page book like that.

And yeah, so we recorded like, I don’t know, a 35-minute interview or something. So, to get that same level of information, you’d have to read the 500-page book. And the reality is, if you read it, you might not even understand it. I understood it because I had taken a course specifically on that book and studied that material for years at Hebrew University, doing my master’s degree in biblical studies, partially under Emanuel Tov. So, I understood it, but it is not an easy book to understand. You can’t be reading this while you’re multitasking and checking emails. This is an intense thing.

Deb: Look what you’re bringing to the lay people, or even whatever’s below a lay person, somebody like me. That’s just amazing that we’re getting this information that, you know, maybe it’s available, but we wouldn’t even know where to look.

Nehemia: Yeah, it’s kind of like a needle, not in a haystack, but in a pile of needles, the information. And so, having the opportunity to share that with people in a way that’s accessible… to me, that’s the big blessing of what we’re doing.

And I’d share another example of an episode that hasn’t been broadcast yet. For years, I’ve been getting the question from people about the Book of Jasher. And I thought, “Wow! You know, whenever I’m asked that question, I say, ‘Well, the scholarly consensus is that it’s not an ancient book, that it’s from the Middle Ages.’” And then, every once in a while, I’ll get somebody who actually thinks very critically, and they’ll say, “What’s that based on?” And my honest answer is, “I don’t know.”

And so, I decided to do the research and say, “Okay, the scholars say…” The Book of Jasher is mentioned in the Bible, and then we have this Book of Jasher that was translated in 1839 into English. Is that the same book? You know, I could give people the textbook answer, and literally, the textbook answer is that this is a medieval Midrash, and that’s the scholarly consensus. But that’s a very vague thing to say. So, I decided to find out. That textbook answer; who wrote it? What’s it based on? Let’s go back to the source.

And I ended up finding this retired Professor in Jerusalem, a man named Professor Joseph Dan, who won the Israel prize. That’s the Israeli equivalent of the Nobel Prize, but for Jewish scholarship. He wrote the definitive study on this in 1986. And I contacted him, thinking, “Well, he’s not going to talk to me about this. Is he even alive?” And I ended up finding his email and contacting him. We sit in his living room. We sit for about 20 minutes, and within the first 20 minutes, he gives me definitive proofs one way or another about whether this is the original Book of Jasher mentioned in the Bible. But then, he leans across his living room coffee table, and he says to me in Hebrew, “Nehemia, let’s not waste my time or your time.” And he hands me a 350-page book. He says, “Read this and get back to me.” And it’s all in Hebrew. All of this is in Hebrew.

And I read the book in Hebrew, and I contact him again, and we end up doing this amazing hour-long interview. And when I was finished with the interview, I realized, he talked, but I had all this stuff that I had learned from the 350-page book which I thought was so important. So, I decided, on top of the Hebrew Voices episode which hasn’t been broadcast yet, to record a support team study, which I go into even more detail for those who want more information.

Deb: That’s what I want to get another plug in for, for Makor Hebrew Foundation. I think this is so cool. Makor Hebrew Foundation, because it supports your research, you have always wanted to thank people. And one of the ways we came up with for you to be able to thank them, is to do an in-depth study for them called a “support team study.” And right now, these studies, there are approximately 30 hours’ worth of study audios available for the support team. These are to say thank you to everyone who supports you through Makor Hebrew Foundation, and we appreciate it. And you’re still coming out with more of them. I mean, they haven’t ended.

Nehemia: Well, and I kind of had to put those on the side, because I had underestimated how much work the Hebrew Voices was going to be. And I have these support team studies where I want to record them, I just haven’t had time. Literally, I would wake up in the morning in Jerusalem, start working on the Hebrew Voices stuff, and when I went to sleep, I was still working on it, literally. And that’s pretty much all I did, and I realized the support team studies have kind of suffered. I’ve done some pretty cool research and things I want to share with people.

Deb: Can we give a sneak preview of one?

Nehemia: My favorite one…Oh my gosh, there’s so many. My favorite one is really the one on the pronunciation of the Hebrew letter “vav.”

Deb: That’s going to be exciting.

Nehemia: And I was going to put it out in December, and then I had a computer crisis and lost a bunch of data. I have a computer tech friend who says there’s two types of people in the world, people who have lost data and people who haven’t lost data yet. So, now I’m one who’s lost data, even though I do obsessive backups. I have a backup in the cloud, and I’ve got a backup… It didn’t help. I still lost all this data.

I was in Jerusalem a few weeks ago and found a notebook which had my original handwritten notes, from the old days when people wrote handwritten notes, and I was able to retrace some of that data, and it’s really, really cool. Can I share one of the things there that I found? Here’s the bottom line, and don’t take my word for it, guys. Listen to this study when it comes out. But the bottom line is, I can prove to you definitively that tracing back as far as we can trace back, because we don’t have a recording from the time of Moses, but going back to biblical times that the Hebrew letter vav was pronounced “vuh” and not “wuh.”

Deb: Amen.

Nehemia: And that’s, of course, important for the name “Yehovah.” And that’s contrary to what many scholars will tell you. I actually met with a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Languages, and I said, “Is it possible…” because all the Jewish communities have pronounced the letter as a “wuh,” they all lived in Arabic speaking countries. I said, “Is it possible that the Arabic influenced them?” And by the way, the Academy of the Hebrew languages, that is the official body of the State of Israel in documenting and preserving the Hebrew language. Like when they need to come up with a new word, they turn to the Academy and they say, “Give us a word for font. Give us a word for computer,” and they come up with it. I mean, they’re considered the top people in the world in the Hebrew language. He said, “Not only is it possible that the ‘wuh’ is influenced by the Arabic, it’s 100 percent certain.” And here’s the way he put it, that if the ‘wuh’ is original, it was only preserved because the Arabic language has the ‘wuh.’

Deb: So, you’re going to bring these definitive proofs in the support team study…

Nehemia: I want to bring one of them right now. Maybe I shouldn’t, I don’t know. Should I?

Deb: I think you should save it.

Nehemia: You think I should save it?

Deb: I think you should save it.

Nehemia: So, I’m looking here on my laptop.

Deb: This is going to be a phenomenal study.

Nehemia: This is so cool. I have these manuscripts, handwritten documents. And, you know, people will tell me, “Oh no, but everybody knows, I read in the encyclopedia that it’s ‘wuh.’” And so, my question is, what’s that based on, what the encyclopedia says? I’m looking here at manuscripts. These are handwritten documents written by Jews. These are the definitive proof that the encyclopedia is supposed to be based on, not the other way around. These are facts. You could ignore the facts if you want, but it’s pretty cool. Okay, I won’t bring it.

Deb: No, no. We’ve got to save something…

Nehemia: I love this stuff. I want to share it.

Deb: …for the support team. But you can get these support team studies right now and be signed up so that, as you put out new support team studies, they’ll be ready to go. There are several ways you can do that. You can write to me, and I can send you all the information. You can call me at 800-420-8206. You can email. On nehemiaswall.com there’s a contact page, and it’s a form that you fill out that will come straight to me. You can fill that form out. So, there are all kinds of ways to get in touch with me and find out what you need to do to get on the support team, get these support team studies that have already gone out. There are approximately 30 hours’ worth of stuff in there from the last two years, ever since you got back from China.

Nehemia: No, I think I recorded the first one in China, a few of them. I did the “Shavuot Feast of Oaths,” which is one that’s really fascinating, guys. It’s kind of relevant, with Shavuot coming up.

Deb: It is.

Nehemia: And the other one, I think, was on “Netanyahu Schools the Pope.” That was in China, as well.

Deb: That was in China.

Nehemia: And then a few of them were about some amazing experiences I had in China and the Far East and tying that into biblical things. And you know, look, some of you are listening to this and are saying, “I don’t want to be on the support team. I just want the stuff I can go to iTunes and download for free,” and that’s totally fine; 90 percent of the stuff I put out there is on iTunes for free. But if you want to help me to get that stuff to other people, what allows me to do the 90 percent, what enables me to do that, gives me the time and the resources to do it, is that 10 percent that I share with people, and people support through the support team studies.

Deb: Right. Our content is 90 percent out there, videos, audios.

Nehemia: Yeah. Oh, we haven’t even talked about videos. There are all kinds of videos, and some people have said to me, “You’re crazy. Why are you putting out literally 20 hours of video for free on YouTube?” And you have to understand, these are professionally recorded videos that cost tons of money to produce, and we’ve put it up there for free because we want the message to get out. And look, I’ve had people who’ve written to me, who said, “I saw that video about the tower that still stands,” for example, “and it changed my life.”

Deb: Right. We’re about information. That’s what we’re about.

Nehemia: Empowering people with information, that’s what the ministry’s about. By the way, one of the things we’re doing right now, if you’re hearing this in the next few weeks, is we’re compiling a list of Q&A, questions and answers. If there’s a question you’ve always wanted to ask me, go to my Facebook page, I’ll include a link, and post your question. I’m not guaranteeing I’m going to even get to every question, but I’m going to do some special thing, in the near future, in which I’m going to relate to some of these questions. And the other thing is, we’re going to be putting out a thing where people can come and, like I said, share what your favorite episode is, of the last 30 episodes of Hebrew Voices.

I want to share a story. You know, we’re saying this is behind the scenes, so here’s a behind the scenes thing that happened. I did two episodes with Professor Gerald Schroeder, who is an absolute genius. He’s an MIT physicist. I did an episode called “A Physicist on the Nature of God,” and the second episode, “A Physicist on Creation, Evolution and the Human Soul.” And the story behind that is, when I first came up with the idea of Hebrew Voices, he was one of the people I thought, “I would love to interview this guy.” I had no idea how to contact him.

I’d read a book of his years ago, and I had no idea. I was sitting in Aroma Cafe on Emek Refaim Street with a couple of people who had asked to meet with me when they were in Jerusalem, and they mentioned something about Gerald Schroeder. I said, “I would love to meet that guy.” And the woman said, “Oh, I’ll write him an email right now, or send him a text message,” and within 15 minutes he was there at the Cafe. And I’m telling him about my podcast, and you know, he’s a physicist, he’s not really paying attention to what I’m saying. So, he says, “Yeah, call me. Here’s my number.”

So, I call him a few weeks later, thinking we’re going to schedule something and, based on that, I’ll start reading his material and doing the research. And he’s looking at his schedule and telling me, “Look, I just don’t have time, unless you come over right now.”

Deb: And you went.

Nehemia: So, I walk. He lives close enough in Jerusalem. I was sweating bullets by the time I got to his apartment. I go up there and he’s like, “Look, I don’t have that much time. My grandson is coming over and I’ve got to babysit for him.” So, what you don’t know, because it was edited out, is, in the middle of the interview, his daughter calls and he has to go downstairs and get the grandson, and the grandson’s in the other room. And after the interview… it’s really interesting. Sometimes, the most interesting thing happens after the recorder is turned off. I forget how it happened. Oh, I think his grandson said something about minions.

Deb: Oh, the cake.

Nehemia: Well, there were cupcakes. Something is mentioned about Minions, and I say, “Yeah, I love Minions. And I tried to buy these minion cupcakes for my nephews and nieces for Shabbat dinner this past Friday, but this woman got there before me and got the last set of Minion cupcakes.” And he says, “That was my wife.” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” He says, “We’re going to call her right now.”

Deb: What are the chances?

Nehemia: What are the chances? He says, “I know it was you, because she told me you took a photo. Show me on your phone, there’s a photo.” I’m like, “How did you know that?” I took a photo of the Minion cupcakes. I don’t know if I posted it on Facebook or not, but I meant to. And so, I’d never met this woman before. I think I saw him give a lecture once, but I never met him. And I end up getting there seconds after his wife. She gets the Minion cupcakes. I take a photo and then a few days later, I’m in his apartment interviewing him.

We talked so long, it ended up being two episodes, which are two of the most popular episodes. I’ve had people who contacted me, who said that after they heard those interviews, they went and bought his books and read his books. And it’s changed their whole view of all kinds of things, and greatly enriched their walk with the Creator of the universe. And that, to me, is such a blessing to hear that kind of thing.

Deb: That happened to us, too. We did get Dr. Schroeder’s books. Somebody else’s books we bought a few of, and I’m enjoying them tremendously…

Nehemia: Who’s that?

Deb: That’s Rabbi Dr. Twerski. Boy, he’s really good. He’s really good.

Nehemia: He really is an amazing person. That was, I would have to say, my second favorite interview, after Emanuel Tov, was Rabbi Twerski. He really is an incredible man. The guy’s a Tzadik.

Deb: A prolific writer.

Nehemia: He’s written over 80 books, or 70 books, something like it. I said, “What do you mean, over 70? How many did you write?” He said, “It’s 72 or 73, I’m not sure.” Look, guys, I really want to thank you, because this wouldn’t have been possible without you, the listeners. And again, we need your help. We need you to write reviews, we need you to subscribe. Even if you’re downloading it from the website, subscribe to iTunes. iTunes sees that. Share it with your friends and your family on social media, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Reddit, on things like that. We need to get this message out there. And we really want to hear from you what your favorite episode was, so that we can do more stuff like that in the future.

You know, one of the episodes that I’ve had people tell me was their favorite… And it’s surprising because I’ve had Orthodox Jews walk up to me and say, “You know, my favorite episode was the Nazarene Grape Pickers.” Really? I wouldn’t have expected that. So, this episode talks about these Christians who are out in Samaria, picking grapes and olives for Jews who live out in a really dangerous part of Israel, a part of Israel that some Jews have never been to. And I’ve had Jews walk up to me and say, “This is my favorite episode.”

Deb: I bet they never knew that that was even going on.

Nehemia: Yeah. When I had heard about this, years before, I didn’t really know that much about it either. And it’s actually really, really important what these people are doing. And having had the opportunity to go and share that was a real blessing.

Deb: All of these Hebrew Voices have just been great. And Nehemia, this is about folks who have done this. I mean, you’ve done a lot of work, but without everybody’s help and support, we would have never been able to get all this out.

Nehemia: Right. Yeah, guys, this is on you. These 1.4 million downloads we’ve had, this is your accomplishment, because without you this wouldn’t have happened. We really want to thank you and again, just remind you how you can continue to help. You can continue to help, obviously, by supporting Makor Hebrew Foundation, but also sharing the podcast on Facebook, sharing it on Twitter.

Deb: Reviews. Write a review.

Nehemia: Reviews on iTunes, on Stitcher. Subscribe to it. Even if you download it from the website, subscribe to it, because that tells iTunes that you’re accessing the information. It really helps us get this before a bigger audience and get more people involved and spread the message.

Deb: Season 2 is coming. Season 2 of Hebrew Voices is coming.

Nehemia: And I am so excited about that. Can I share one episode that we’ve recorded earlier, and we haven’t had chance to broadcast? One of the most amazing episodes that I was really blessed that I had the opportunity to share was, I went to this place called “Sderot,” which is a place in Israel that has been bombarded by rockets for something like over 15 years, some ridiculous length of time. And most of the world has no idea what’s going on. They make this moral equivalency where they say, “So many people died in Gaza in the last war and such a smaller number died in Israel. And so, therefore, the Israelis are evil.” And what they’re not telling you is that the reason fewer people died in Israel is because we spent millions and millions of dollars on bomb shelters, and they spent millions and millions of dollars on terror tunnels.

But what they’re also not telling you is about what life is like for the Israelis who live on the border of Gaza. Sderot is a city that’s been bombarded for years. I ended up recording something like 3 hours and 37 minutes of interviews. A lot of them are in Hebrew, which is going to require a lot of some sophisticated, complicated editing, where first we have to create the Hebrew version, and then we have to transcribe it by hand, “we” meaning “me.” And then, it has to be translated. And then there has to be a voiceover, and there are several different voices there. So there has to be several different voiceover actors. It’s a lot of work, very complicated stuff.

So, we recorded this some time ago but haven’t had a chance really to edit it yet, or the time or resources to edit it yet. So, if you want to get involved in that, let us know. We really need your help with that. But let me share one story. I was crying the whole day when I did that episode. And the one story that really touched me is, I was taken by a social worker in Sderot. She said, “Let me show you what the people really go through.” You don’t hear about this, even on the Israeli media we don’t hear about this. And the reason the Israeli media doesn’t talk about it is it’s too painful. If they talked about what really goes on in Sderot on the Israeli media, the government would have to do something, and the government doesn’t want to do something. If it happened in Tel Aviv, they’d be doing something, but in Sderot, they say, “Who cares?”

Deb: Is it a poor area?

Nehemia: It’s one of the poorest cities in Israel. Yeah, it’s a very poor place. It’s off the beaten track, it’s out in the desert. It was a difficult place to live before these rockets started. So, I was taken by the social worker to meet with this woman who had been walking through the street when a rocket landed. This is a woman who came from Uzbekistan, who had to flee persecution for being a Jew. When the Soviet Union fell, she lived in a place where the whole area was Muslim, and there were a few thousand Jews, and they started attacking the Jews. The Soviet Union didn’t allow them to do that, and when it fell in 1991, the Jews were being massacred. And so, she fled to Israel as a refugee, from persecution. You don’t hear about that in the media. She ends up in Sderot, not for any ideological reasons, but because she was poor. She came with nothing to Israel. She’s walking through Sderot about 10 years ago, when the siren goes off. The siren is this calm voice in Hebrew that says, “Tzeva adom, tzeva adom.” It is sort of surreal; it means “color red, color red.” They used to have sirens, but it was too traumatic for people, the constant sirens, so now it’s just this calm voice.

So, she hears the calm voice, and she knows she has 15 seconds to take cover, and she can’t get to cover in time. She wakes up in the hospital and looks down at her stomach where her baby had been, and says to the doctor, “Where’s my stomach? Where’s my baby?” She lost the baby. This is a woman who was a shut in. She can’t leave her house because she’s traumatized by Arab rockets. You don’t hear about her, she’s not even a statistic. On the statistics, they would say, “No one was hurt. The rocket fell, and no one…” That’s how they would report it. Because a baby died, they don’t count that. And this woman didn’t have any permanent physical damage, but the psychological damage is… I’ve never seen anything like it.

So, I’m there with the social worker in this woman’s apartment, and this woman is so traumatized, she locks her door at 5 pm every day, and the little girl is locked in until she goes to school the next morning at 7 am.

Deb: Her little six-year-old.

Nehemia: Her little six-year-old. So, the social worker says to the six-year-old… And all of this is in Hebrew. This is what we have to have translated. So, she says to the six-year-old, pointing to me, “What would happen if that man went and made peace with the Arabs?” And the little girl is bouncing off the walls, and she’s laughing and giggling, there’s a man here with a big microphone. And she stopped suddenly, and she has this very serious look on her face, and she says, “Wow, can he really do that? Why doesn’t he go do that?”

And I was in tears. I can’t do it, but the little girl doesn’t know that. She doesn’t understand the concept of a hypothetical question. So, the social worker talks to her a little bit more and says, “Okay, he can’t do it, but if he did, what would happen?” And the little girl says, “I would go out and play until 100 at night.” And the social worker corrects her, and she says, “You mean 10 at night?” And the little girl says, “No, me’ah balayla,” “100 at night,” because she’s locked in the house at 5 pm. That’s the life she’s known. She can’t have friends over. She can’t go and play with friends. That’s the only life she’s ever known.

Deb: Little kids love to play outside.

Nehemia: We don’t hear about this in the media, even in Israel, but this is what real people are going through. When we hear about, “Rockets were fired at Israel and they fell on open ground, and no one was hurt,” this is the reality behind it. And it’s only when this intensifies to a certain degree, that Israel then does something about it. Most of the time, we don’t even do anything about it. You know, we had the last operation… I don’t even remember what it was called, we’ve had so many wars with Gaza. But the last Gaza war, we went in and destroyed a bunch of terror tunnels and proved to the world that these people, they could be building bomb shelters. Instead, they’re building terror tunnels.

Deb: This story of these people needs to be told.

Nehemia: It does. It’s a Hebrew Voice that needs to be told. So, guys, if you want to support this, like I said, you can do the things like write reviews and share this on iTunes and Facebook. But here, you can actually contact Dev, 800-420-8206 and make a tax-deductible donation to Makor Hebrew Foundation, so we can get this message out. This is not going to be such a simple message to edit and produce. You know, there are definitely episodes where I sit down with the recorder and I send it off to our editor and I say, “You don’t need to do anything. Just cut out the bells ringing, and the slurping of the coffee.” Basically, it’s not that much. This is going to require a lot more work than that, which is why we haven’t had the time or resources to do it.

Deb: You talked to so many people that day.

Nehemia: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like I said, 3 hours and 37 minutes of recording. It may end up being two or three episodes on Sderot, I don’t know. Anyway, I really want to thank you guys for 1.4 million downloads. That’s on you, the listeners. Thank you very much…

Deb: Thank you. Thank you.

Nehemia: Toda raba for helping us get this information out to people. It really is on you. And I just want to close with this. I’m now here in Texas, and I’m about to get in my car and drive to Tennessee. And I’m going to be speaking in Tennessee in two different places. Later in the summer, I’ll be speaking for sure in Detroit, and possibly in… what is that place? Oklahoma or Kansas, or someplace like that, and maybe Virginia, and Ohio, and a bunch of places. I don’t even know where. But we have some openings, so please contact Deb if you want to set up an event and organize one. And even if we can’t do it this summer… We had some people contact us and say, “Well, would you come to California?” Well, not this time, but maybe I will in December. Maybe sometime next year.

Deb: Right, we’re always putting together what we can when you’re going to be here. We’re always putting that stuff together. So, contact us. Get on the list.

Nehemia: Let’s get the ball rolling. You know, if we have enough people in a certain region, then we can put on a tour and actually go and share with people. And it really is a blessing, face-to-face, to be with people. There’s just no replacement for that.

I love doing this Hebrew Voices. I’ll do an episode, and if it’s a real disaster, 10,000 people will download it. That’s a complete flop for an episode. And it’s happened. I’ll be right up front and tell you that’s happened. And then, we have other episodes which are downloaded over 180,000 times. But going and speaking to even small groups of people, there’s some blessing in that, that a podcast can’t replace. So, please contact us and let’s get some events going.

Deb: Now, you’re traveling first class as you’re leaving here…

Nehemia: In my car, which is a Mercedes. No, it’s a 2002 Honda Accord.

Deb: I hope you make it.

Nehemia: No, it’s for ideological reasons that I drive that, because Zephaniah 3:9 says that “When you all call upon the name of Yehovah with one Accord…”

Deb: Oh, boo. All I can say is, please folks, pray for Nehemia as he drives in the central and east part of the United States.

Nehemia: Well, I’m probably going to put like nearly 10,000 miles on that vehicle, and I’m just hoping it makes it.

Deb: Yeah, me too. I’m really nervous, so y’all pray for him. Y’all pray for him. And anything that we can help you with, let us know. And we just want you to know how much we appreciate you.

Nehemia: We really appreciate you, guys. And look, you can call Deb, not just if you want to make a donation. If you want to call and talk to her.

Deb: Say, “Hi.”

Nehemia: Say, “Hi,” talk to her while she’s making dinner.

Deb: Yeah.

Nehemia: 800-420-8206. And don’t forget to share those reviews on iTunes and let us know what your favorite episode is. Let us know so that we can do more of it. We can know, “Okay, this is the type of thing that you guys appreciate,” and we’ll try to do more, if we can.

Deb: And thank you, so much. Absolutely, thank you.

Nehemia: And thank you, Deb, for doing this with me. Shalom.

Deb: Shalom, shalom.

Nehemia: From Texas, shalom y’all. Yeeha.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

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