Ep. 7 // "Do I Really Belong Here?" with Captain Mendy Avtzon

00:00 Speaker 1 Growing up, it was even from a young age, it was always where, where are you going to university? Like, which grade school are you gonna get into? What career are you gonna pursue? What-

00:07 Speaker 2 Right

00:07 Speaker 1 ... profession are you gonna do? How much, you know, what, what type of opportunity are you gonna create for yourself? And as the rabbi's son, I was alway- I was always laughing it off and be like, "Yeah, I'm never gonna go to university. You don't need to go to university. There's no need for it." But I think that question was lingering in the back of my mind as like, what am I gonna do when I'm, when I'm done with this?

00:27 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2023. My name is Bentzi Avtzin, and I will be your host. Let's begin. This week I'm joined by my brother, Mendy Avtzin, who serves today as a lawyer and a captain in the United States Air Force. In our conversation, we discuss the journey of growing up on shlichus in Hong Kong and then going on to yeshiva in a faraway city. This is, of course, uh, an experience that is not unique to us. Many shlichim's kids have a similar experience, which is why I think it is a very important conversation to have, even if it's sometimes a difficult conversation to have as well. In the course of our conversation, uh, Mendy talks about some of the challenges of the transition, of the journey going from shlichus to yeshiva. But, um, over the course of the conversation, and especially towards end, he also talks about, uh, the parts of the Lubavitch identity and the shlichus identity that have, if anything, become stronger over time and have come to play an important part in his service today as a lawyer and a captain in the United States Air Force. So with no further ado, Captain Mendy Avtzin. Let's start with your decision to go into law.

01:58 Speaker 1 Um, my decision to go into law was born of, like a moment of self-reflection when I was-- when I decided that I was-- saw the end of my journey in, uh, within my religious education program, um, yeshiva. And I wanted-- I had various ideas of what I wanted to do in life and which pr- profession to pursue, but I also wanted to get some sort of education, official education to have some sort of insurance plan, some sort of degree, street cred, credential to fall back on if things didn't work out. Um, 'cause I felt like coming out of yeshiva, n- I, I gained a lot of things from those years, but there wasn't a lot that I could really take from there, um, at least officially, and translate that into the professional world. So I start-

02:52 Speaker 2 Oh, oh, one second. So y- you're my brother. I, I- ... I know you from, from a, a ways back, let's say. Um, let, let's go back a little bit, like before that. You know, yeshiva wasn't exactly the easiest journey for you either, right? So it wasn't like you were in yeshiva and that was going swimmingly and then, then you decided to pivot to law. When was it that you began to wonder about what yeshiva had to offer you in the first place?

03:32 Speaker 1 What yeshiva had to offer me in the first place, I started to wonder and explore my first day in yeshiva. Um, I, I boarded, I went away from home to go to school, um, in, in seventh grade, um-

03:50 Speaker 2 In Chicago, right?

03:50 Speaker 1 In Chicago.

03:51 Speaker 2 Yeah.

03:52 Speaker 1 Um, and nothing against the school or the people I was with, but having grown up in a less conc- less of a religious community, um, and just having, f- frankly, for lack of better words, like just a different upbringing, um, different friends, uh, different access to kosher food, um, and just an overall different experience in terms of what I was exposed to. Already in seventh grade, I kinda realized that I was somewhat of a misfit and I didn't fit in. Um, and that was actually really kind of emphasized when they didn't have a class that was caught up to speed on my English education. So coming from Hong Kong, um, growing up there, um, the school didn't necessarily provide as much of a religious education, um, or Jewish education as, as the school in Chicago and the yeshivas I went to after, but they did provide a very, very strong English education. Um, and I came in far advanced in, on the English side, English study side of things than a lot of other people, and I already realized that it was not that a misfit, but I was different than everyone else. Um, but I didn't really start to wonder what it, it had to offer me at that point because I was still on track to get a high school-- uh, sorry, an elementary school diploma and work that trajectory, so that kinda worked out for me. But then when I went to-- So I skipped eighth grade 'cause I finished English, my

05:33 Speaker 1 English program with the, um, the, with the eighth graders when I was in seventh grade, and I also wanted to transition into more of a dorm setting, um, so that I was with more of the guys that I was in school with. Um, but that transition also included a tr- transition into a school and educational curriculum that was 100% 7:30 in the morning till 9:45 at night religious/Hebrew studies. And at that point, I was still excited about it. I was still eager to see what I learned. I always took on the extracurriculars. In fact, like my first year in Yeshiva, I took on the extra credit program they had for memorizing the, the Masechta that we did that year, which was happens to be the longest one in, uh, of all of them.

06:22 Speaker 2 Which one?

06:23 Speaker 1 Um, Bava Basra. So I did that by heart, and I did it kind of, A, to push myself. Also, there was a monetary incentive to do it, so it worked out both ways. Um, so I was fully engaged, fully involved, but almost right away, I would say probably a couple weeks in, I was like, "What are we doing here? What are we working towards? Is there gonna be a high school diploma at the end? Is there anything that I'm going to be able to really take from this that I can translate and turn into something tangible to benefit from either monetarily, professionally, um, more than just like you're learning a lot of Jewish stuff for the sake of learning a lot of Jewish stuff?"

07:12 Speaker 2 Right. So I, I, I think, and I think for people listening to this, you know, I know where you grew up 'cause I grew up there too. But for people listening to this, they don't know where you grew up. Why don't you describe a little bit Hong Kong, you know, the city that you grew up, the community that you grew up in, what kind of world you grew up in? I think that will help people understand what you're talking about in terms of the difference between how you grew up and the setting you grew up in versus the people and the setting that you found in Yeshiva.

07:48 Speaker 1 Right. So I mean, growing up in Hong Kong, um, was a very unique upbringing, very unique childhood. Uh, Hong Kong is, is the center of, or at least at the time, was the center of e-commerce, uh, kind of that transition point from China to the Western, to the rest of the world. Um, it's the Asian hub of finance, um, huge, uh, diamond, uh, industry going on there, uh, very big manufacturing, um, industry going on there. Uh, so from a very early age, I was very fortunate to be exposed to many, many different successful, very successful individuals from various different sectors, very different-

08:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

08:32 Speaker 1 ... um, d- very different fields and professions. A- and growing up in school, we went to a private Jewish school, uh, called Carmel School, um, a little bit smaller in size than a typical day school here in America, but a, a school that provided a very strong, um, education. But given that a lot of my friends, probably 95% of them, not really religious at all, um, we were very focused on our English studies, very focused on our, on getting good grades. Um, and I think it's just a natural thing that when a lot of your fellow classmates have parents who are successful in whichever career they've pur- pursued, I think it's very natural that all the kids around you are kind of pushed to excel, um, and do great things in school, get good grades, and really also push the school to provide a very stellar top-notch education for, for, for, for us, for us around, for the kids in the school. Um, so i- it's a very different kind of environment and background than when you go to Yeshiva type of thing, where you're going from a place where people are, are killing it, crushing it, some working for some of the biggest corporations and senior in these corporations in the world, um, and kind of motivating their kids, which in turn my classmates motivated me to do well, um, and be focused on my studies and things like that. And then to go and transition straight into a world and an environment that's

10:15 Speaker 1 just fully 100% Jewish religious studies, that was kind of a shock of a transition, for lack of a better word, um, that took some time to adjust to, but also raised some questions. Because growing up, it was, even from a young age, it was always, "Where, where are you going, um, to university? Like, which grade school are you gonna get into? What career are you gonna pursue? What-

10:37 Speaker 2 Right

10:37 Speaker 1 ... profession are you gonna do? How much, you know, what, what type of opportunity are you gonna create for yourself?" And as a rabbi's son, I was alw- I was always laughing it off and be like, "Yeah, I'm never gonna go to university. You don't need to go to university. There's no need for it." But I think that question always lingered in the back of my mind. It's like, "What am I gonna do when I'm, when I'm done with this?" Um-

10:53 Speaker 2 Right.

10:53 Speaker 1 "What am I going to do, um, once it's time for me to support myself and support a family?" Um, and I think-

11:03 Speaker 2 But I wanna, I want to, I want to examine this a little bit more because, you know, if someone from the outside comes and asks and says, "Well, weren't you on shlichus in Hong Kong? Like, weren't you, weren't you, like, growing up in a Lubavitch home with, you know, that would be more similar to the people in the, in the Yeshiva that you were, in the Lubavitch Yeshiva you would end up in later on? Like, wouldn't you feel more akin to those boys in the Yeshiva once you met them than you would to your classmates in Hong Kong? Or did you grow up in this kind of modern home that was not very Lubavitch?" Like, I grew up in the same home, and I know it was not a very modern home. It was a pretty typical shl- shlichas home, where we knew very distinctly that we were different, and, um, that was emphasized both by our parents as well as our friends and their parents. Like, it was very clear that we were different. You know, so someone can come and ask and say, "Why would you feel more, why would you feel more similar to your friends in Hong Kong than to your future friends in Yeshiva, than to your later friends in Yeshiva?" What would be the answer to that?

12:23 Speaker 1 I mean, 'cause your friends growing up are your friends growing up, and at the end of the day, you develop strong relationships from an early age and from a young age. And I think you're right when you say that, yeah, our parents had a very typical Shlichus Chabad home, and we did things very differently than a lot of folks living around us, whether it was the people we went to school with or the people who lived in our building. Um, we didn't know at all. Um, we looked different. We had a much bigger family than everybody in the city. Like, that was a big, always a big thing that people would ask about. Um, but at the same time, there's just a limit to what your parents can control and what they do when you're growing up with your friends in school. Like, we still went to school. I was still going on school trips. Oh, like one-

13:09 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

13:09 Speaker 1 We had these school trips for one week a year. Um, still playing sports with the, with my classmates and good friends, uh, my entire, you know, every recess, um, going to after-school activities with them. Uh, yeah, I might have taken bags of cereal and shelf-life milk with me, but I would still go and, you know, go on s- go to sleepovers with my friends. They'd come sleep over by us. Um, and obviously, when they were at our house, there was a little bit more of a religious Chabad-focused environment, whereas when I'd go there, n- there was nothing wrong. We didn't do anything wrong, but, you know, played PlayStation, Xbox, um-

13:48 Speaker 2 Watched TV.

13:48 Speaker 1 Watch TV, sports TV, watch movies. Um, kind of an incentive as to why sometimes I wanted to go to these sleepovers. And I think that, you know, you look at playing Xbox, playing PlayStation, back in the... Now it doesn't seem crazy. It seems like every home has those type of devices. But if you think back to when I was growing up, was it 18 to 20 years ago in Hong Kong? Like, when I came to Chicago, and I, my good friends from Hong Kong who were in my class bought a PSP, a PlayStation Portable, or Port- a PlayStation Portable for me for my, for my bar mitzvah. I was like, nobody in my class had ever seen one. They didn't even know what it was. In fact, I had to hide it from my teachers and my principal because they heard about it, and they threatened to take it away because they thought that being exposed to that and spending time on a portable electronic device that you're just literally playing nothing but Madden NBA sports games, that it could somehow corrupt your mind. So I had to hide that from them. So, you know, that kind of takes you down a different discussion in terms of, like, already being thrown off early on about, like, what's, what's so wrong with playing a couple sports games on a portable PlayStation device? Um-

15:06 Speaker 2 Uh, I, I think what I'm trying to drive at, you know, your, your point is well taken, which is, you know, your childhood friends are your childhood friends. Um, and in a sense, there was a difference between you and me in that regard because when I was growing up in Hong Kong, the school was much smaller. I had a much s- smaller group of friends in Hong Kong. I never had a circle of friends the way you did. Um, so in that sense, I, I did not have that, them, that exact experience growing up in Hong Kong. Uh, but I think, I think there's a larger s- there's a larger dynamic at play, which is, like, we have these kind of abstractions where, like, you know, you're going Shlichus, you're a Lubavitcher, so, like, we put you in Hong Kong, right? You know, we, we literally birth you in Hong Kong, you're born in Hong Kong, but you're born a Lubavitcher, and then at a certain age, we'll kind of just take you out, extract you, move you to Yeshiva, and you'll fit right in. And, like, complete... And in the abstract, that can make sense, you know? Or, like, you know, the same way that, I suppose, you know, if you're born in Hong Kong an American citizen, one day when you grow older, you can move to America and enjoy all the rights, you know, of, of a citizen that was born here, right? That, but that's a very abstract thing. In terms

16:34 Speaker 2 of worldview, in terms of culture, in terms of the way... Yeah, I think worldview is the most appropriate thing. The way you see the world is not an abstraction. It's, it's a, it's a sum total of thousands and thousands of interactions and with different people and moments that you experience with different people and things that you see as a child growing up. At the very basic level, forget about the differences in religiosity. Just the experiences that you had as a child in Hong Kong is something that nobody growing up really anywhere else in the world can comprehend. But certainly in a more kind of close-knit religious community, they have no concept of what that is. Like, it's not a matter of better or worse or more right or more wrong. It's just completely different. And it's just like, well, okay, I'm from a Lubavitch family. My parents are Shlichim, so I'm a Lubavitcher. Okay, fine, but I'm a Lubavitcher who grew up in this different world. It might as well be a different planet. And you didn't grow up in that world, and so there are things in the abstract that connect us, but in the more kind of lived reality of that form your worldview, it's couldn't be more different, right? So, so I'm saying, like, of course, the idea of having childhood friends and that making a difference, that's for sure. I'm not arguing with that. But I think it's even deeper than that. I think it's...

18:11 Speaker 1 No, I, I think you're 100% correct. There's a couple things to unpack in what you said is that, like, first of all, I mean- Irregardless of if you grow up, if you take the example of growing up Chabad, and being extracted, and put, being put into yeshiva, or you grow up born an American citizen because your parents are American, I mean, gr-br-you're bring, bring bought... You're coming to America. Sorry. You're bring, you're being brought to America. You grew up in a completely different universe. You're exposed... I mean, uh, when people-- Almost any single time somebody hear-hears that I grow up, grew up in Hong Kong, the first question is like, "What's it like? What was it like growing up in Hong Kong? What was your childhood like?" So first of all, there's your answer right there. There's a reason why that question is the first question that comes off every single person's tongue when they find out that you grew up in Hong Kong, 'cause everybody knows it's different. Um, but take the... Put religion aside, take the example you gave of an American born abroad and being brought to America. It's still very foreign to them. They might have those rights. They might be able to vote.

19:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

19:12 Speaker 1 But they don't have a state that they can call home. Like-

19:14 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

19:14 Speaker 1 ... they don't have a place that they can apply and go to law school, and not have to pay for their living expenses 'cause their parents live somewhere close. They don't have somewhere where it's a two, three-hour flight to go home for Thanksgiving or whatever other holiday. They might be an American citizen, but home is somewhere else for them. So the same thing-

19:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

19:32 Speaker 1 ... for, for yeshiva. You're, you're, you're not... When you're the only kid coming from Hong Kong to yeshiva, you're arriving to yeshiva alone. You're coming... Your home is, whether you're in yeshiva in Israel or you're in yeshiva in somewhere in America, your home is further away. You're 10, 12 hours, sometimes 16 hours away from home. You're also-

19:54 Speaker 2 Right. S- uh, we have to clarify. Sixteen-hour flight away from home.

19:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

19:58 Speaker 2 Not a 16-hour drive.

19:59 Speaker 1 No, 16-hour flight away from home, 8,000 miles across the world. Like-

20:03 Speaker 2 Twelve hour t- 12 hour time zone difference.

20:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. 12 to 13 hours time zone difference sometimes. Yeah. It's, it's pretty... It, it's-

20:10 Speaker 2 Very hard to get further. I mean-

20:12 Speaker 1 Yeah. It, it, it-

20:12 Speaker 2 You could if you push it, but, but very hard.

20:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, and, and also, given that you're the only kid coming from Hong Kong to yeshiva, you also have to take into account that you are the only kid coming to Hong, from Hong Kong to that yeshiva.

20:25 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:25 Speaker 1 Whereas every other kid is showing up with his at least two or three friends that he grew up with, that they have been through the same experiences. They grew up a couple blocks from each other, whether it's in Crown Heights, or Miami, or some other Jewish community.

20:35 Speaker 2 Right.

20:35 Speaker 1 They've decided together to come to yeshiva. They're not just, like, going somewhere because they thought it was cool, or their parents thought it was a good idea for them. They kind of made a decision together, and they have that group of friends. So that's the first difference in terms of, like-

20:46 Speaker 2 Yeah

20:47 Speaker 1 ... you know, you're coming with that built-in network. A, you're closer to home, but you have those friends. You don't, you're, you're not coming there alone and needing to make friends.

20:54 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:54 Speaker 1 I mean, I have some great friends from days in yeshiva, but there was definitely a more of growing, there was more growing pains, and there was definitely more differences between me and the other folks there. But another, like, big difference is, like, as the way I answer people when they ask me if it, what's it like growing up in Hong Kong, or when I applied to law school and business school, and when I interview for any job that I've taken on, people always ask me what it's like growing up in Hong Kong, and my answer is like, "It's, it's different." But not only is it different, it's like you get such a unique perspective of the entire world-

21:26 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

21:26 Speaker 1 ... in such a small geographic space. Like, Hong Kong is the, or at least was until a certain point, the most overpopulated place in the world. And, you know, people growing up in New York, people growing up anywhere in America, they have to fly to Paris to get a French experience. Um, they have to fly to Israel to get an Israeli experience. They have to fly to North Africa to get a Moroccan experience. They have to fly 18 hours across the world to get an Australian experience. In Hong Kong, you can come to shul, or you can go to school, or you can go to the... watch the soccer game, and you have all those experiences right there in front of you. You walk into shul, and there are people from... Or you go to a Shabbos meal, and you have people from 10 to 20 different countries around the world, all bringing their different experiences, bringing their different cuisine, uh, different, different types of d-different types of, of customs and things like that, um, whether it was regarding to religion or not. We didn't need to go fly anywhere. We di- we needed to go to the neighbor next door, drive down the street to get that culture experience. And growing up in such a diverse, um, setting, um, definitely broadens your-

22:43 Speaker 2 Yeah

22:43 Speaker 1 ... your exposure and also your thoughts on how the world-

22:46 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

22:46 Speaker 1 ... um, works as a whole because you're able to see so many different perspectives, not just while you're there, but also I think from the, the fact from do-doing so from such a young age contributed to that, like, viewpoint of the world a lot.

23:02 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I, I, I guess a way to put it is in Hong Kong, you don't really need to study the globe to know about the globe. You b- it's like a, it's like an instinctive awareness you have as a kid. First of all, the fact that you live on this small island, so you're very keenly aware that you, that there's a whole world around you.

23:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. By the way, an island that's belongs to China, not Japan, right?

23:24 Speaker 2 Uh-

23:24 Speaker 1 Like how many times have people asked, "Did you speak Japanese?" Or, "Are you... Like, what's it like growing up in Japan?" Like-

23:28 Speaker 2 Well, when, when we were, when I was growing up, and even when you were younger, it was, it belonged to England.

23:33 Speaker 1 Right.

23:33 Speaker 2 But yeah. But now it belongs to China. But the point is that, like, in America, a lot of people, like, I live in America, like the world outside of them, the world outside of America, forget about outside their state, but for sure outside of America is an abstraction, right? Um, 'cause there's such a big space arou- like immediate space around them, and everything seems so similar to them around them that the idea that there's something different has to be learned. Whereas in Hong Kong, the idea that there's something the same has to be learned. Everything is so different that you're innately aware almost that there's a globe, and that you're a speck on the globe, and there's all these different places. And certainly... But, you know, in terms of this conversation, like, I think you said a line earlier that was really fascinating, which is you come to yeshiva, and you have all the rights, let's say, to use the analogy of, of, of the American citizen. You have all the rights. You, you have the birthright, you know. My, my grandfather is a Hasid. My other grandfather is also a Hasid. I'm geze from all four sides, however you wanna phrase it. But you don't have a home there, right? Like, and we're not talking like a home in some kind of abstract sense. We're talking about a home in a very real lived sense, right? In the abstract sense, you have a home like everybody else. That's the idea of a birthright. But

24:53 Speaker 2 it's not your lived home. It's not a home that you're comfortable in. It's not a home where you kind of plop on the couch, and take off your socks, and relax, and feel like, you know, you can let, you can just let go. That you don't have because... And not just because, of course, on a simple level. It's not really a simple level. On a, on a very obvious level, yeah, your parents aren't there, your family isn't there. Your, your, your space that you're, that you're nur- that you were nurtured in growing up isn't there. That's a very, very big thing in, on its own. But I would say even, I don't know if it's deeper, but on a larger, on a, in a, in a larger sense, just your, your, your sense of belonging, like it just doesn't exist, like on, really on any, on any level. Like, like you're, 'cause you've been, the way you've been articulating, it's like how do you feel at home in a place where everything feels alien to you, where everything feels very different to you, and the people around you don't understand how you see the world and couldn't understand how you see the world.

25:58 Speaker 3 Right.

25:58 Speaker 2 Right?

25:59 Speaker 3 So like n- not to get negative or hate on any particular system or anything, but just one of the glaring things that always stuck out to me is how when you arrived at a yeshiva, there was no, there was never, ever some sort of intake. There was never, ever some sort of e- evaluation as to what you've been exposed to, what level of knowledge or education you received, and what different concepts you've been on, um, or what type of concepts you know, um, and things like that. You know, every high school, every university has some sort of entry exam or-

26:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

26:33 Speaker 3 ... some sort of application where they accept certain types of, of students, um, and they kind of know w- where each person is holding and what, what they know, what, what they don't know, not necessarily in particular detail, but at least, at least they know kind of what level they're on and, and, and what their abilities c- are projected to be. There are definitely flaws in that system as well, but there's some sort of analysis. There's some sort of intake. There's also some sort of mentorship that has happened in every school I've been to for someone to s- somewhat understand your passions and understand what your background is to know how they can best help you to fit in, um, and succeed in the environment that you're in. But again, it's not to point out a flaw, but going back to your point, you kind of feel alienated because you're kind of thrown into the deep end when you arrive in yeshiva. Nobody ta- ever takes you aside. Nobody ever thinks to like ask, "Hey, this kid who grew up in Hong Kong, who did not go to a typical cheder until-

27:34 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

27:34 Speaker 3 ... through eighth grade where he was learning Chumash Gemara from second, third grade. Like I barely touched that stuff. It was like maybe an hour extra a day where I would get, you know, a tutor or learn with, with, with our father and type, and st- and stuff like that where I got exposed to these things. There was definitely a higher learning curve, but just that idea that there was this assumption that everybody kind of knows all the terminology. We, we both went to yeshiva. A lot of the yeshiva education is kind of founded on using use of certain terminology that a lot of people don't even know the actual definition for.

28:10 Speaker 2 Right.

28:11 Speaker 3 But it's just used 'cause you, you know what it is, and like you, you use-

28:13 Speaker 2 Right

28:13 Speaker 3 ... those different terms. And the fact that there's never some sort of like even an opportunity to ask is like, "Hey, I've never heard of this. I never learnt this. I've never been exposed to this style of learning." You're kind, you kind of feel like you're behind the eight ball the entire time, and it's very hard to make up that ground. And that's when I think some of the questions start to come up.

28:35 Speaker 2 Hmm. Look, I, I, I think, I think it's fair to say that it is a flaw. I think you can say that it's a flaw without dunking on a particular person or a particular yeshiva. Um, it's a flaw because it's, it's, it's a much bigger flaw than any particular institution. It's, it's a f- it's, it's just the fact that I think as a, as a community, we've lived in an abstraction for a very long time, where, you know, you went on, your parents went on shlichus, and you were born on shlichus, therefore, you will automatically fit in when you kind of re-enter or come back later on in yeshiva. And I mean, like how can you expect the yeshiva to make a evaluation, an int- to, to make an intake evaluation if they have no clue about what they might be looking for? Like they, they don't even have, they, they don't even have the first idea of where people grew up because that's never really been, it's never really been accounted for. It's been like, okay, everyone on shlichus, they, but they were all out there for the same mission. Their kids all grew up with the same mission. And they all come to yeshiva with a black hat 'cause they come after the bar mitzvah, and they kind of all look the same. Like, and, and the abstract on the surface, it works, right? But like just you start drilling deeper, and, and the math does not, does not add up. It's like

30:09 Speaker 2 how, how is it possible you could grow up in the most devout shlichus home, um, if your, if your family was at all involved with the community that you served, especially if you went to school with the kids that you were, that were in your community. And, and we should clarify that the school that both of us went to was a school that was initially founded by our parents, the shluchim in Hong Kong. Um, they made it a community school s- so that all the Jewish kids in Hong Kong would feel comfortable going there. But the Jewish standards were, were very, very carefully set up to, to not compromise. So it's not like we went to some kind of free-for-all Jewish school. You know, th- this was a very carefully calibrated attempt to impact the community, um- Which, which inevitably means that you're involved with the community, that your kids are involved with the community, right? The, the idea that those kids would just come back and somehow seamlessly... You know, we, we say the word reenter, but it's not reenter 'cause they were never in the f- in the first place. Their parents were, but not them. But to enter a completely different culture and just seamlessly fit into that because they're also wearing a black hat, the math just doesn't add up. The math just doesn't add up. It just doesn't make any sense, and we've been... I say we, I mean, I can't speak for anybody else, but what I've seen is,

31:46 Speaker 2 like you say, there's no intake evaluation. There's no consideration for these, for these things. So that leads me to believe that there's been no real attempt at figuring out how to deal with this, which either means that they know that there's an issue, and they don't deal with it. I think the more generous way of understanding it, and I think the more accurate way from the exposure that I had, is that they don't even know that there's an issue. It's not that they ign- that they don't wanna deal with it. They don't even realize that there is an issue, at least at the time. But, you know, to, to move it along forward, 'cause we're not, we're not here to solve those kind of problems. Um, so now that we have this back- background of, you know, what we're up against, so you're basically... Yeshiva ends up, you know, if I could speak for you a little bit, yeshiva ends up being a bit of a, uh, torturous road. Is that accurate?

32:47 Speaker 3 Yeah, for many different reasons. I don't know how much-

32:50 Speaker 2 Yes. I don't-

32:50 Speaker 3 -you want me to-

32:51 Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't care

32:51 Speaker 3 ... get into that.

32:52 Speaker 2 I, I, I don't know. You know, I don't know. I mean, if you want to, we can go down that road. But yeah, like I, I, I, I don't, I, I don't know that like kind of griping about or like reliving the ups and downs of yeshiva, like, I don't know. I, I don't, I don't know what's edifying about that. I, I think, I think the, I think the edifying part of it, I think, I think that we've covered. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to downplay.

33:18 Speaker 3 No. I, I know you're not. I think one thing I want to just worth touching on is I think one of the... You asked me earlier what drove my decision to go into law and pursue a, a different degree, and one thing I failed to mention earlier is I think one of the things that drove me towards trying to go to school and get some sort of degree, eventually law school, um, was the lack of accountability that was, that was going on in yeshivas, and I think it started off with the fact that-

33:46 Speaker 2 Hmm

33:46 Speaker 3 ... there are no tests in yeshiva. There... And if there are tests, there are no grades, and there are some yeshivas that you're in where people try to-

33:54 Speaker 2 And if there, and if there are grades, it doesn't make a difference.

33:56 Speaker 3 Right. And-

33:57 Speaker 2 There's no fa- there's no failing a, a year.

33:59 Speaker 3 There's no failing a year. There's no report card that goes back to your parents. There's no... And there's no... That there are places where even if, if there are grades, because there's no accountability, there's almost a competition between the guys who can get a lower grade on, on a particular test. And I think that lack of accountability goes a little bit further in terms of the lack of accountability to the faculty because without going into any particular instance or particular person, 'cause that's not what I'm here for, um, like I think our parents did what's best or what they thought was best, and we were being told something without any proof to it. So if I was in yeshiva doing whatever I wanted or wasn't getting good grades, um, which wasn't happening because whenever I took a test, I was, um, just happened to be a pretty decent test taker when I put my mind to it. Um, they were kind of telling our parents a different story. Um, so I was able to say one thing, and my parent... And they would... The faculty would get something, would give a completely different story, and, you know, to the point where, where I was busted breaking the rules on certain different things. I don't care to talk about it. I started smoking cigarettes early due to peer pressure, and my principal found out 'cause someone told him about it, and he called me in and made a deal for me to be held accountable to

35:32 Speaker 3 him for smoking cigarettes, but in a way that my parents would never find out. Um, and then without going into too much detail, like I was very... I, I think I'm gracious in saying mistreated by a particular faculty member sometime down the road in my yeshiva years, and there was nobody on that faculty. They would tell me to my face and be like, "Yes, this person so and so," who happened to be the head of the yeshiva, "is absolutely wrong, and what he's doing to you is wrong. But there's nothing we can do about it, um, because we're gonna lose our, lose our jobs, um, or face other consequences type of thing." So without going into too mu- too much detail, the lack of accountability, because what they would do is they would tell me one thing, tell our parents something else. I think it's-

36:21 Speaker 2 So let, let, let, let, let me... I, I see where you're going here. Let me try to frame it in a way which, which I, I to try... I think that, I think I know what point you're trying to bring across, and I, I also understand that you don't wanna start naming names, and that's not the point here. I think it goes back to what we're talking about earlier, you know. Of course, the, the... Of course, the more cynical way of defining what goes on in yeshiva is that it's all one big joke, and nobody's serious, and there's no accountability. It's just a hashgachah belt. Um, it definitely does feel that way at times. There's no question about it. But I'm not going to say that everybody working in yeshiva or even the majority of people working in yeshiva don't take it serious. Um, I think there is seriousness in the yeshivas. However- It doesn't at all match the seriousness that you see elsewhere, right? So, you know, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. You know, you grow up in Hong Kong, and you have kids that from the age of 12 or 13 are working very, very studiously on their middle school grades, if not their elementary school grades, so they can get into a good high school, so they can get into a good university, and they know that there's no calling up their uncle who knows... You know, like, yes, I know that some people get into college because

37:44 Speaker 2 their father. These are-- That's extremely, extremely rare. It's not the rule. It's a massive exception, right? The kid that wants to get into the Ivy League school and doesn't have any billionaires in his family, and his parents don't have any real connections there, knows that his only or her only shot is to work extremely hard and get amazing grades and kind of force their way into that school's consideration, right? Now, you could say that that's not the most important pursuit in life and that there's more important things, but you cannot deny that it's very serious and that there's accountability, right? And that there's, and that there's some kind of... There's a sense of there's a system here, and if you play by the rules, you know, you may, like, you may have a chance to succeed, right? Okay, we could talk about how that system's also rigged, and I'm not some big admirer of that system in the first place. But there is a system, and growing up, at least, until you become more cynical and jaded, there's a feeling that if-- that this is a very big system, it's massive competition, a lot of people are competing here. It's, it's kind of daunting, but if I put my head to it, I may have a shot. You go from there to yeshiva, where in the best-case scenario, it's serious, but it's serious in a much more parochial way. Like, there's no larger system. Like you said earlier, there's no real tests. If you fail

39:11 Speaker 2 the te- if there are tests for whatever reason, and you fail them, it doesn't really have any consequences down the road. You know, learning from one year doesn't really af-affect the next year. There's no standardized curriculum that you have to complete and, and kind of show, um, show at the end of the day that you finished over however many years you're in yeshiva. So even if it's serious in a spiritual way, and you find a spiritual mashbe-- uh, you know, a very serious mashbia, a serious rosh yeshiva, but the system as a whole does not feel very serious.

39:44 Speaker 3 Absolutely. I-

39:45 Speaker 2 Right? And I think that's a point you're trying to make across. Like-

39:48 Speaker 3 I think... Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

39:49 Speaker 2 I think that's a point you're trying to make across. Like, it feels like... I mean, okay, let's be blunt. It feels like one big joke.

39:54 Speaker 3 Yeah. At times, it does feel like one big joke because I, I agree with you. There are a lot of people who take it seriously, and they mean well. No, I don't think most of the people are ill-intentioned or, or don't take it seriously. But I-- w- the point that I was trying to get is, like, I-- going through that system and not being held accountable, not being kind of evaluated-

40:12 Speaker 2 Right

40:13 Speaker 3 ... made me desire to put myself in a situation where I was evaluated. And when I walked out of a particular program, I know-- I knew that I earned that kind of-

40:23 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

40:24 Speaker 3 ... that, that, that credential or that title that I, that I received. So, you know, when you walk out of yeshiva at the age of 19, and you've received smicha, and it's just like, "Yeah, whatever. I basically made it through the system seven years, and I survived, and I lived, and I got a page that says that I'm a rabbi and received smicha," it, it... To be honest, it didn't really mean much. It just meant that I sat there, I learned, passed a, I passed a couple tests in the eighth year of my eight years in yeshiva, and I moved on. Whereas-

40:51 Speaker 2 Yeah. Smicha, unfortunately, in many, many instances, is like the pinnacle of cynicism.

40:56 Speaker 3 Es-especially in the, in the Chabad yeshivas, 'cause it's taken... It's approached very differently in other, in other communities.

41:02 Speaker 2 No, no, but I'm s- I'm talking about smicha in our circles.

41:04 Speaker 3 Yeah.

41:04 Speaker 2 Like, I know many people who took smicha very, very seriously, and they're very serious smicha programs. But I also know many instances where people joke about how the rabbi came and was half asleep when he tested them, and they just got asked one question, and with that, they became, you know, on a, on a very complex, um, set of halachas, and they got o- asked one or two questions, and if they didn't know it, their friend covered for them, and with that oral examination, they passed. And there are many s- programs, at least at the time, that their, their goal was to take guys who are really mediocre students, not really able to at all understand the material that they were supposed to be learning, and still somehow get them from point A to point B. You know, the equivalent in the world, I would, I would think is, like, the university system that churns out communication degrees. Like, they... Basically, it's a party school. You go, and you party, and you come out with a meaningless degree.

42:00 Speaker 3 Yeah. But even there, you have to go through the tests. You still have to take tests. You still have to write essays. Regardless of how you do it, there's something-

42:07 Speaker 2 Well, the-

42:08 Speaker 3 You do need to do the time, and you do need to do, do your thing. I think-

42:11 Speaker 2 Perhaps, but, but you don't even have to go that far. In that world, those degrees are known to be a joke. They're not, they're not the pinnacle of achievement of becoming a rabbi.

42:22 Speaker 3 Sure.

42:22 Speaker 2 Whatever. I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna bash on the smicha program. I, I think the more, I think, I think the more relevant point here that you're bringing out is that, is that a person, you know, it's like people think, "Oh, guys don't wanna be held accountable." No, people do wanna be held accountable. They wanna feel like they actually truly succeeded, like that they, that... You know, you know, like there was nothing that irritated me more than like, you know, always the famous kind of discussion of like, "Why don't Lubavitchers go to the Israeli army?" And then like... And I, and I know I'm oversimplifying the subject. I'm not very familiar with the subject, the ins and outs of the politics and the, you know, the, the policy and so on. But- A lot of times, like, the go-to answer was like, "What do you mean? You're in yeshiva, and like, in yeshiva, a bachur is just as disciplined as a soldier." And like-

43:13 Speaker 3 No, they're not

43:14 Speaker 2 ... and it's like, no, they're not. They farbreng till 3:00 in the morning, and now they don't have seder till 4:00 in the afternoon. That's not how it works in the army. In the army, when, you know, when for whatever reason you're up late at night 'cause you're on some kind of exercise or whatever-

43:27 Speaker 3 You still-

43:27 Speaker 2 ... you still have to be up in the morning, and you learn how to deal with life being tired. And like, like, you know, even to give a very simple example, in the army, and I know that there are exceptions, but as a rule, in the army, you have guys that go in extremely unfit. Like, they're physically unfit, and within a short amount of time they are fit. Like, they go from not being able to do a pushup to being able to do a lot of pushups.

43:53 Speaker 3 You're, you're looking at one of those guys, I mean, Air Force, but-

43:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, we're gonna get to-

43:57 Speaker 3 ... we have to, we have to make that correction real quick, but-

43:59 Speaker 2 We're gonna get to that in a second.

44:00 Speaker 3 No, but I, I think what you're saying is accurate, is that, you know, there's a desire amongst people in yeshiva to work towards something and to be held accountable for your actions, and I, I learned it the hard way when I went to law school. I w- wanted to work for something. I wanted to earn something. I wanted to be evaluated and really know what my effort was being considered, and there were times where I didn't put in the effort that was necessary, and I didn't fail any classes, but I definitely didn't see the grade at the end of the semester that I may have hoped for or wanted for. But then when you do some self-reflection, and you'd be like, "Yeah, I didn't put in the r- required work for it," you realize why that A+ that you wanted is not an A+. And that type of feeling, which at times can be very deflating, but also is a feeling of recognition and a feeling of growth and a feeling of how do I improve moving forward, that does, in at least in my experience, does not exist in yeshiva at all. Um-

45:04 Speaker 2 Right. But I think al... but just to t- you know, to tie it back to what we've been talking about, you know, people could take it as like, okay, it's a criticism of yeshiva, and fair enough. I mean, it is a criticism of yeshiva. But I think in this conversation, the, the more important point is not so much the criticism of yeshiva, but the fact that when you come from a world that is outside of the yeshiva where there are standards, and you could say that the standards are misguided, and they're making something that's unimportant important and so on, they're secular, they're not religious, fair enough, but there are standards. There's, there's seriousness, right?

45:48 Speaker 3 And there are consequences.

45:49 Speaker 2 And there are consequence. Right. There's accountability, right? And you come into a world where everything feels a lot more like, you know, the expression, it feels like a melava malka, right? It's not even a matter of criticizing whether or not a melava malka is good. I mean, I don't personally think it's good, okay? But even if you can defend that and say that, but if you didn't grow up with that being your kind of concept of reality, right, and you come into that situation, it's, i- it's, it's, it's hard to explain how big of a joke it seems, right? It's hard to explain how big of a joke it seems. It's hard to explain the feeling when you, you know, l- let's say you go to yeshiva, you live in that world, and then you come back home, and you try to explain to people back home what it is that goes on in yeshiva, and you either just start realizing this sense of embarrassment of, like, you can't really explain what's going on, or you have to start covering for it and kind of masking over what's going on. Like, "What do you mean there are no tests? There are no tests?" Like, "And what happens after you're done with yeshiva? Like, what's the step after that?" And so people are like, "Well, so where was your pride? Where was your gehen un yakov of being in yeshiva?" And it's like, no, no, you're missing the point. You're missing the point. Like, give me

47:13 Speaker 2 something serious to defend, and I will defend it. But I cannot defend something that feels fundamentally unserious. And again, to tie it back to earlier to the conversation, even if you're going to argue that it is serious on some level, okay, uh, I... hard for me to see that argument as, especially as I get older, but okay fine, make that argument. But how does the, how does the young bachur who's coming from a world that doesn't see it that way just come in, you know, enter this world that has a fundamentally different understanding of what is serious and what isn't serious, right? How, how does it... how do you adjust? It's impossible.

47:54 Speaker 3 I think, like, the best example that came up most frequently in this kind of explanation that I would have to give is, like, when you'd go back home and have to explain to either folks in the community who were very supportive of us as a family, being the rabbi's children, or your classmates, and you tell them, like, "There's no such thing as homework in yeshiva." And it's like, when I was in sixth grade in Hong Kong, like, we finished school at 4:30, and we usually... by the time you made it to middle school, there were two to three hours a day of homework, and there were deadlines for assignments, and, like, you had to do things on your own, and you were held accountable if you, if you didn't put in-

48:29 Speaker 2 But you know what people would answer to that, th- that, "In yeshiva you're in yeshiva-"

48:32 Speaker 3 Right. So that's what I was-

48:32 Speaker 2 "... from the beginning of the night"

48:32 Speaker 3 ... that's what I was getting, getting into. It's like you give this whole spiel and this whole story, how you start your day at 7:30 in the morning, and you go until 9:45 at night, and then there's s- seder sichos until 10:15, 10:30, and then you have to go do your laundry, Eretz at 10:30, finish at midnight. It's like the, th- there's such discipline, and there's such, like... there, there's such discipline, and you're in school from 7:30 in the morning till 10:45 in... until 9:45 at night. Nobody mentions the fact that four... out of the 14 hours, 12 and a half of, of those hours are spent bullshaming about- ... what's going on back and what you saw on COL the night before. But, like, you, you give this whole spiel, and yes, I think that there's something nice about it. Like, if somebody comes in and does study from 7:30 in the morning till 9:45 at night and is fully dedicated and learns and really grows as a person and is focused on his religious growth and his religious knowledge, I think there is something really nice about it. But the problem is, is that you're in a system where you're taking 100% of the populace and, and putting them in a system where maybe 10% of the populace belongs. Because if you think about it, a- and nobody's re- willing to acknowledge this, but all our yeshivas today are based on a system and a curriculum that was built back by the Reb

49:42 Speaker 3 Yehoshua back in Russia. And what everybody fails to mention is that it was only the top, like, 10, e- even less, 5 or 10% of the folks who went... who were allowed to go to yeshiva. If you weren't, like, fully committed, a full, like, full-time learner, fully engaged, you weren't allowed into yeshiva. There was a very high standard, and that made sense where you're taking the 5 to 10, top 10% of the religious community, the people who are gonna become the next group of leaders, and you're putting them into a very intensive, um, and extensive system. But to go and take that exact same system and then throw it on, and then that becomes the norm, and you're sticking 100% of the community in there, and on top of that you're taking kids who are now growing up in a world where there's modern technology. I mean, from when I was starting to go to yeshiva, there were already... Smartphones started to exist very early on. People had access to the internet. We're, we're no long... Regardless of what was available, we're no longer living in the shtetl in Russia to now decide that this is the norm, this is 100%, you have to do it. And if you don't go to yeshiva, and then if you don't get s- don't finish the system, you don't go on shlichus, then you don't get semikhah. Like, oh my God, you're not gonna get married, you're not gonna, you know, all, all that stuff. Like, that's where

50:54 Speaker 3 it all comes from. Like, it comes from this fear of things not working out down the line, but what about now in the moment? What's best for this pr- kid, this 14-year-old right now? Not what's best for him when he's 22, 23 years old. What's, what's good for him now? Instead of trying to f- make everybody fit into this cookie cutter mold that everybody fits in, because it's just, it's just impossible.

51:16 Speaker 4 I mean, but it, but you just, you just nailed it with the cookie cutter thing. It's like the argument to do something now for 10 years down the line, even like ignoring your argument that like that's a, that's a crazy argument. You have to some... Like, you cannot always postpone. Like, sometimes you have to do things right n- for right now. Like, not everything can be for something 10 years down the line.

51:37 Speaker 3 Yeah. I, I think just-

51:38 Speaker 4 But even, even of, even leaving that out, when somebody comes from a... The fact that you could say that because you wanna get married or whatever in 10 years' time, or you wanna like fit into the system in 10 years' time, maybe we should do it now, that's assuming that the boy who's you're talking to wants to be that in 10 years' time.

51:58 Speaker 3 That, that's-

51:59 Speaker 4 Which doesn't add up, which doesn't work if you're coming from an entirely different world, and you feel foreign, right?

52:07 Speaker 3 That's exactly what I'm saying, 'cause like what I said earlier and what I said now can kind of sound contradictory, because I said like you come from this world where it's very serious, and you want... You're, you're motivated to do that. You're kind of aspiring to do that, where you're working on something from middle school to go to high school to go to college, and, and it seems like a 10-year trajectory. But the difference is, is like that's the young kid in s- just like you said, that's the young kid in sixth grade who wants to go to college and wants to end up there-

52:32 Speaker 4 Right

52:32 Speaker 3 ... and wants to pursue this degree and get, and go to college and, and get this job. Going to... I, I don't, at least for me, I don't see that same connection or that same maybe correlation between going to yeshiva when you're 14 and where you went to yeshiva and who you went to yeshiva with, and how you might be personified and viewed as in terms of for marriage and things like that. I don't see that same connection as a kid working hard on his tests in sixth grade to go to college and university.

52:59 Speaker 4 Okay. But again, you're talking in the general about a critique of a system. I, I'm not, I'm not trying to avoid that conversation, but I feel like when you start going generally so that it becomes a more like, "I have an opinion, you have an opinion," every, you know, it, it, it just becomes a matter of opinion. Whereas we're talking here about concrete experience, right? Your specific experience, which isn't... Which is specific to you but also shared by many others. I feel like that's a much more interesting place to discuss, right? You could say, "Well, you know, can... Is the motivation of yeshiva really something that works?" Okay. I mean, that's a, that becomes a theoretical discussion, and you will have one opinion based on-

53:38 Speaker 3 Fair enough

53:39 Speaker 4 ... and someone else will have another opinion, and you just go around in circles. Whereas if you say, "Look, we're talking here about integrating boys from a... who grew up on shlichus, grew up in a different environment, and they come back." Well, they don't come back 'cause they were never there in the first place. They come to a place... I mean, think about it for a second. The idea of come... A, a teenager, 13 years old, coming back to yeshiva, that whole framework only makes sense in the abstract, where the boy is a, is a, is like a continuation of his father, is a continuation of his grandfather, and like nothing has changed in between. But everything has changed in between.

54:16 Speaker 3 They're different people.

54:17 Speaker 4 They're different people, and they grew up, they grew up in a completely different world, right? Not just even different generations, different world. On top of the generational divide, there's also a divide of circumstances. Their father grew up in one community, most often, uh, in a very f- in a frum community, and their child has grown up in a, in a non-frum community on shlichus, right? And so there's no real continuum here. So it's like he's not coming back to yeshiva. He's coming to yeshiva as a complete foreigner, and it's just like, you know... So the, then the thing is not whether or not y- the motivation of yeshiva works in the abstract or in general. It's more like if this kind of person, how can you tell them that the motivation to fit in now is because then in 10 years you'll really fit in? And it's like, who says I wanna fit in? Like, that's not... I'm not sure. At the very least, you know, if you're talking about a neutral boy who's not, hasn't set up his mind one way or another, it's like, "Wait a second. Hold on a moment. Like, first convince me that I wanna be here in the first place. Like, assuming that I wanna be here in 10 years' time, I, I don't even know that." Right? Yeah. I mean, it... Look, it's, it's a fascinating... Uh, it w- My experience was, was, was, was, was very different, um, you know, obviously. I mean, you know obviously to

55:41 Speaker 4 you my experience was different. For whatever reason, um, I kind of ignored that whole difference and just kind of threw myself into, into the world of yeshiva and tried to act and think like I had always been there and had, you know, alway- that had always been my world. Um, you know, in some ways I was successful, and in some ways It was entire, it was so absurd. Like, you know, I, I could chazar a Maimon Bal Peh for 45 minutes, but my Yiddish was still broken, you know, like, and I would chazar it in Yiddish, you know? Like, like, I, I, I, I was trying to make as if that's where I belonged, and that's where I'd always belonged. And I, and I really believed that for, for a very long time. But for me, it was more in the reverse as time went on, and as, you know, I'm not sure exactly where and when it happened, but, you know, it became more and more apparent to me that I could not run away from the fact that I grew up in a different place, and I saw the world differently. And, you know, I, I, I guess at some point, just the conversations I was having with my classmates and the friends of mine, it was like, "Okay, we see the world differently." And, you know, for all the effort that I put in, and God knows that I put in a lot of effort to fit in, I still didn't succeed.

57:16 Speaker 4 At least that was my experience. But let, but let's, let's move a, let's, let's move forward a little bit. Let's, let's jump ahead a little bit. So we started off with you going to law school. We backed up kind of, I think now people understand why you went to law school. Very, a very robust explanation for that, a very interesting one as well. Um, but then you decided at some point in law school to, to veer off course yet again and, and go into the Air Force. So talk a little bit about that.

57:48 Speaker 3 I wasn't sure where you were going with, uh-

57:51 Speaker 4 The off course

57:52 Speaker 3 ... with, with the off course, whether it was law school and going to do, to do a second degree or my job with-

58:00 Speaker 4 The Air Force. Let's stick to the Air Force.

58:02 Speaker 3 We'll stick to the Air Force. Um, but so yeah, I, I, I still don't know who may listen to this, how many people may listen to this. Hopefully-

58:12 Speaker 4 Well, we're 55 minutes in, so.

58:14 Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. But I, I hope you, you, you, you, you get the crowd, um, and, and, and your message gets out there from the series. Um, but just in general, every time I speak about the Air Force and my experience in the Air Force, I have to give a disclaimer that my experience with the Air Force and what I do in the Air Force, um, and why I decided to join the Air Force is my personal view as Mendy and not the view of myself and my capacity as an officer, nor the view of the Air Force or the Department of Defense. I know that sounds a little bit official, but it's kind of required to make sure that that distinction is there. Um, but I think joining the Air Force goes back to growing up on shlichas. Now, I, I think we talked a lot about growing up on, you know, growing up on shlichas, how it was, might've been hard being away from home and going to school where you didn't necessarily fit in, and how there were different times where we felt very different from our friends at home. But I think there, more so than not, there were a lot of beautiful things that we got from shlichas. And when I first started law school, uh, I was chasing and pursuing that big law job that I was gonna get paid a lot of money for and go to a big fancy law firm and wear the suit and tie and,

59:36 Speaker 3 and do the whole thing. And then I, I went to business school, and I was like, "I'll either stick with the, I'll either stick with the big law firm, or I'll go into consulting and, and try to get one of these big jobs." But then eventually I just, there was a moment of realization where I was like, "What am I working towards? What, what am I doing?" And I wanted to find something that I was gonna come out of school and start serving and doing something bigger than myself, something that I was, that, that I was giving back to bigger cause. It wasn't just all about Mendy. Um, I was gonna use my school, my education, and my skills to, to, to pay it forward and give it back to something else, whether it's for a limited amount of time or it turns into a longer period of time. I, I wanted to do something that, that was bigger, and I didn't want also to get involved in that whole like kinda rat chase where it's just like getting into the corporate world right away. I wanted to take a step back and do something a little bit more fulfilling, and it's something that was a little bit more team-centric and not, and not necessarily focused on my career. Um, also, there's... We're far into this, and I don't wanna spend too much time on it, but at that point in law school, I'd also been at, after a very big transformation, and I still

1:00:59 Speaker 3 am on, so I don't say the end, but on, on a very long health journey, g- going from over 300 pounds to under, at the time, 220 when I applied to the Air Force. And there's, you know, what people say about young lawyers, that because of all the long hours and the culture and the stress that's involved, people gain a lot of weight. They get, they become dependent on alcohol, et cetera, things like that. Um, so I wanted to make sure that, A, I was taking a job that I was, uh, giving back, but also something that would incentivize me and motivate me to stay fit and not lose track with my fitness journey that incr- that included a bunch of different accomplishments. Um, but most of all, it just made me feel more healthy and more of a person, which is a completely different subject and a can of worms I don't wanna open too much regarding my experience with that in yeshiva. But coming across the JAG Corps and applying to the Air Force and working for the Air Force provided both of those opportunities. It provided a great opportunity to give back, serve the country. There's, in my opinion, there's no higher honor than that, to, to serve your country and give back and protect the freedoms that each and every American citizen enjoys today in this, in this country. Of this great country, if I may say so myself, and also being in a program or framework that ensured that I'm

1:02:26 Speaker 3 being held accountable to fitness standards, giving me time to do PT every week, and making sure that I, I don't kind of go back, um-

1:02:36 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

1:02:36 Speaker 3 ... and, uh, why is the word skipping my, um-

1:02:40 Speaker 4 Regress?

1:02:41 Speaker 3 Re-regress. I was looking for a different word. I don't know why I can't think of it right now. Um, on, on all the progress that I, that, that I made up until that point. Um, but then also there was just very unique litigation and, in general, responsibilities that are given to young judge advocates in the Air Force that are not found anywhere else for a young lawyer. So those three things coupled together really made it an attractive opportunity. You talked about Chabad kids going to yeshiv- to the IDF and serving the Israeli Army. I always wanted to be... I always wanted to wear a uniform. Sometimes I joke about myself, I just-- I went to the Jag Corps 'cause I never grew up, and I still wanna pursue that dream of wearing the uniform and being in the military. But mainly those two things coupled together pushed me to put in an application to the Air Force. It's very competitive to get into the Jag Corps. Some- for some reason, they picked me up. Um, and now I, I look back with, with no regrets.

1:03:37 Speaker 4 Yeah. It's interesting you brought up the idea of service, 'cause I, I, I remember seeing your... I think the letter that you sent. I think it was a letter that you sent. Like, you sent some kind of letter to them explaining yourself. Was it-

1:03:51 Speaker 3 Yeah. It was a one-page motivational statement, yeah.

1:03:53 Speaker 4 Yeah. And like, you know, it's interesting how, how you did speak about growing up as a rabbi's son in Hong Kong, right? You did.

1:04:00 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:04:02 Speaker 4 Right? And, um, you know, it, it's interesting because, you know, you-- there's this... When you zoom out from the journey, and there's like, okay, you grew up on shlichus. Um, the natural or what people thought was a natural progression of that was that you'd go to yeshiva and kind of just kind of almost fit right back in. But as you... You know, which, which doesn't really make sense when you think about it, like we discussed before, 'cause you were never there in the first place. But you fit right back in and kind of just eventually probably go back on shlichus somewhere else, right?

1:04:40 Speaker 3 That was the plan, right?

1:04:40 Speaker 4 Right. Right. I'm saying that's, that's what people expect, right? Um, that didn't work out for the reasons that we outlined. But even though that didn't work out that way, y-you went to the Jag Corps in many ways as a continuation of that shlichus, right? It's, it, it's, it's interesting how... It's interesting how, how some th... You know, some parts of us survive even when the, you know, the outcome is very different than expected, right? And like, you think, well, you know, a person is like, "You're completely off course." And I'm not even... It's not always in religious terms like is he more religious or less religious, but like, you know, the way of life is very different or not what was expected, right? And yet there are things that survive, and sometimes they are surprising, right? Like... And, and so... I mean, that, that's probably something that everybody knows. But I think what's worth emphasizing is that, like, I think that just, I think that just brings home yet again how a lot of categories that we assume, they're not quite so simple. So it's like, you know, like we were talking earlier, the abstraction of the Lubavitch kid. You know, you say you're a Lubavitch kid on call. "Okay. Perfect. You're a Lubavitch kid. You'll fit right in. Tell the terrorists." Like, "No. No, I won't." Right? So like, that, that category maybe doesn't work, right? But the category where if you're not on shlichus growing up, therefore you have no feeling for shlichus

1:06:23 Speaker 4 or none of shlichus has kind of survived in you, that's, that's also a category. That's also an abstraction, right? The same way that the positive abstraction of like, "Hey, you're a Lubavitch kid. You just fit right in," doesn't work. The negative where like, if it doesn't work for you, then nothing works for you also doesn't. Also not real. None of it's real. These, these kind of very simple categories that are so abstract, they don't work. They don't work. And, you know, in many ways, when it comes to the question of Lubavitch identity today, and I'm not even trying to ask you like do you consider yourself one way or another. But the question of Lubavitch identity, you know, it's like in many ways like all bets are off on that question because nobody really knows where, where things go. Kids, you know, kids grow up on shlichus in very, very unique circumstances, you know, in a un-un-an unprecedented times of history. And where their life takes them, not in defiance of how they grew up, in defiance of their identity, but in many ways because of their identity and in complete consonance with their identity, will take them to unexpected places, right? So the idea that like identity is like this, you know, very simple, you know, you're this or you're that, that, that's, that's an antiquated assumption.

1:07:54 Speaker 3 No. Hundred, 100% I couldn't agree more. Um, obviously you're a product of the circumstances and, and the environment that you grew up in. You-- everybody has that opportunity to grow out of that and pursue other opportunities that nobody should be limited to any particular opportunity or any kind of experience because of where they grew up or, or what they were born into. But that said, even if- Even if you do pursue something else, you pursue a slightly different path. Whatever you were exposed to as a young kid or a teenager or young adult, different life experiences, everything's gonna have an impact on you s- one way or another, positive, negative, some more significant than others. And just because you didn't necessarily see yourself fitting into that mold of being a rabbi, and providing religious services, and giving back to a community in that kind of religious rabbinic way, doesn't mean that you can't find a different avenue in which to say, "I still think that it's pretty cool to do something, that you're giving back to a bigger cause. You're giving-- You're living life for something a little bit bigger than yourself. Um, and you are taking, you know, some sort of pay cut. You're taking some sort of... You're putting some sacrifice on the line. You're giving up some conveniences. You're living s- further from friends and family, things like that. I still think that you can still take that quality and kind of mold it into your life how you see fit and

1:09:37 Speaker 3 how it works for you. Just because somebody lives a completely different life f- from you doesn't mean you can't... It, i- in the same vein, just because someone lives a completely different life from you doesn't mean you can't learn anything from them and take lessons. You could be like, "Hey, that person could be doing something completely different, could be in a completely different industry, completely different profession, practicing a completely different religion, come from a completely different background. But, A, what they do on this particular thing that I saw them doing or this theory that they have is really cool and really unique. I wanna see how I can incorporate that into my life." And I think that that's a lot more powerful and a lot more important than trying to incorporate your own personality and your own life into the way that it's been set out for you. I think it's more important to develop your life and develop, and to incorporate the things that have been set out for you as you see fit and how you connect to it.

1:10:34 Speaker 4 That's a, that's a, that's... That would be a great way to end this conversation, a great note to end this conversation. But there is a question that I can't help myself but ask. Um, I'm not sure if there's a, if there's a answer on the ready, but you said that, you know, you, when you came to yeshiva, you were there, but you didn't, you weren't at home. There was no home there. So along the lines of what you just described, you know, basically is, like, figuring it out for yourself almost, so where is home now?

1:11:10 Speaker 3 Like, physically or like-

1:11:12 Speaker 4 No. No, no, not where do you live. You live in St. Louis.

1:11:14 Speaker 3 Right.

1:11:15 Speaker 4 But, like, where is-

1:11:16 Speaker 3 For now.

1:11:17 Speaker 4 Right. Exactly. So where is, where is home? Like, if you didn't feel at home in yeshiva, where do you feel at home now?

1:11:23 Speaker 3 I, I, I feel at home in what I do on a day-to-day basis.

1:11:27 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:11:27 Speaker 3 I feel at home because I have myself, personally, with advice and support and encouragement from many others, but me, in my own personal capacity, made this affirmative decision to pursue a particular passion and particular journey that I wanted to pursue.

1:11:51 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:11:51 Speaker 3 And because it was my decision, it was... And because it was my, my, my passion and what I wanted to do, I feel a lot more comfortable with what I'm doing now. I- if you're gonna ask me, "Are there challenges on the day-to-day?"

1:12:10 Speaker 4 Of course there are.

1:12:11 Speaker 3 100%. Also, people are gonna say you have the, can have the exact same gripe that you had with yeshiva back in the day with being in the Air Force, right? So I walk around base now every single day with a yarmulke on my head. Um, I look different than everyone else. I have, I have, I might look like many other people o- outside of the yarmulke, but I have very different religious practices. I have very different customs. I come from a background and have parts of my life that are completely foreign to everybody else. For many people in the military, I'm the first Jew that they've ever met. Um, for many people in the Jewish community, I'm the first person in the military they've ever met. And you can say that the same way that you're upset that you took this one kid from Mm-hmm. Because at the end of the day, it goes back to that accountability. You're the person who takes ownership for it. It's your decision, and you're the one who benefits or suffers from the consequences in life. Uh, fr- fr- sorry, from that decision. And because of that, you feel a lot more comfortable and at peace with what you're doing because I have no one else to blame if things go wrong, and I have no one else to thank if things go right, despite all the support and motivation I'm getting, besides for myself.

1:14:08 Speaker 4 Right.

1:14:08 Speaker 3 And because of that, I feel at home, because that's the person I wanna be.

1:14:15 Speaker 4 So wait, that's an even better note to end that conversation.

1:14:18 Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to answer other questions if you want, but-

1:14:21 Speaker 4 This was great. No, this was amazing.

1:14:22 Speaker 3 Fair enough.

1:14:23 Speaker 4 Loved it. Amazing. Thank you so much.

1:14:25 Speaker 3 Any time.

1:14:29 Speaker 4 The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Zorn and Davar Bahar, and is used with their permission.