Ep. 15 // “Chabad Munt Pnimius” with Rabbi Dr. Reuven Leigh

00:00 Speaker 1 You see, in the history of Hasidim, not everyone stayed within a very narrow frame. These radical ideas of Tanya-

00:06 Speaker 2 Right

00:06 Speaker 1 ... um, of individuality, it's got the potential to be very disruptive. Chabad want pinimius. That's what, that's what we're trying to get people to do. And all of a sudden someone says, "Okay, I'm gonna be a pinimi. I'm gonna be just like my-- I'm g- I'm gonna only do-- I'm g- I'm gonna be me."

00:19 Speaker 2 Right.

00:20 Speaker 1 And then everyone, "Oh, no. Oh. We didn't mean ad dechak. We didn't mean so much."

00:28 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-three. My name is Bentzi Hofatsen, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. Um, this is very exciting for me. This is, uh, very exciting for Homesick for Lubavitch. Homesick for Lubavitch is going international. Um, the epidemic has now become a pandemic. It's official. So, um, I'm here with Rabbi Reuven Li in Cambridge. Uh, it's not part of London. Cambridge, United Kingdom. It's its own s- nice little beautiful city.

01:16 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:17 Speaker 2 North, two hours north of London. He's a shliah at Cambridge University, and the story behind this trip is that I bought this book that was printed by Bloomsbury Press, a book by Reuven Li, and the book was so expensive that I found out later it included a ticket to England. But the bad news is, is that all those tickets have been used up, so now you just buy the book by itself. But, um, kidding aside, um, I really wanted to speak to Reuven about both what he wrote in his book, but a lot of the ideas and the experiences behind the book, behind the book. So, um, one of the things that you spoke about in the book that was really, really beautiful was your relationship with Rabbi Greenglass in Montreal, and very touching was how you described how Rabbi Greenglass wrote down the entire Hemsha Habronot before he ran away from Otwock. I'd like you to tell that story, but I think, I think maybe first give a little bit of a background of how you ended up in Montreal in the first place. Where do you come from? Whence does your British accent originate? And, uh, we'll get going.

02:43 Speaker 1 Okay.

02:43 Speaker 2 Uh, just one, one, one short disclaimer for those watching. There is a bottle of L'Chaim on the table, and that's not something common to the podcast, um, on purpose. It's usually, usually k- stay away from the need for L'Chaim or anything that would assoc- would be associated with that. But tonight is for 10 Kislev, and, uh, we felt that it made sense to have a shtickel fabrayon, so let's start off with L'Chaim.

03:09 Speaker 1 L'Chaim. So thank you very much for coming all the way. Um-

03:18 Speaker 2 Pleasure. Thank you for having me.

03:20 Speaker 1 I'm a big fan of the podcast, um, one of your dedicated listeners. Um-

03:25 Speaker 2 Oh, no

03:26 Speaker 1 ... so I consider it an honor.

03:27 Speaker 2 Oh, no.

03:28 Speaker 1 And also slightly, uh, nerve-wracking to become exposed in this way to, uh, a wider audience. Um, so yeah. So where did it all start? I'm-- I grew up in a suburb of London called Ilford, which technically is part of the county of Essex, and at a young age, I became baal teshuva. I was about 11 years old.

03:54 Speaker 2 You or your whole family?

03:56 Speaker 1 Myself individually.

03:57 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

03:57 Speaker 1 Um, some members of my family later also became baal teshuva, but, um, at the time it was, uh, a personal choice. And through a whole string of events, it was fortunate that I was able to be by the Rebbe for-- before my bar mitzvah, um, in Tishri Nun Bais, which was a transformative moment.

04:17 Speaker 2 For your bar mitzvah or before your bar mitzvah?

04:19 Speaker 1 Just before. I went a couple of weeks before my bar mitzvah.

04:21 Speaker 2 So it was like a trip-

04:22 Speaker 1 Yeah, a bar mitzvah-

04:23 Speaker 2 ... to prepare for your bar mitzvah

04:24 Speaker 1 ... yeah, a bar mitzvah trip.

04:24 Speaker 2 And that happened to be Nun Bais.

04:26 Speaker 1 That was, yeah, Nun Bais. Cheshvan Nun Bais.

04:29 Speaker 2 Wow.

04:30 Speaker 1 Um, and at 16 I went to yeshiva. So I was in a regular local school, um, a state school, um, and I managed to, uh, persuade my parents to let me, uh, give up on a, uh, give up on all the trappings that come with being in the school and going through that trajectory. And I went to Manchester for a couple of years, and then from Manchester I went to Montreal for another couple of years.

04:59 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

04:59 Speaker 1 So I did four years of zal before going on shlichus New Haven, some 70, marriage, shlichus.

05:06 Speaker 2 Oh, so you also did shlichus in New Haven.

05:08 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

05:08 Speaker 2 You're, you're the second alum on the podcast.

05:10 Speaker 1 Oh, 'cause who else?

05:11 Speaker 2 Moshe Leib Boswell.

05:12 Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

05:12 Speaker 2 No.

05:12 Speaker 1 He w-- Yeah, he was after me, I think.

05:14 Speaker 2 Yeah.

05:14 Speaker 1 Uh, he's the year after me, I think.

05:16 Speaker 2 Wow. Look at that.

05:18 Speaker 1 Um, yeah, so I was in Montreal. Um, I, I, I've been trying to think how I ended up in Montreal 'cause none of the, none of my class in Manchester were going. I went pretty much by myself.

05:27 Speaker 2 But b- before you go there, why don't you just... I, I don't know if you wanna turn-- if we wanna make this whole conversation about, about your origin story, but I think it is important. I think it will be important for later on. Why does an 11-year-old in Ilford, uh, England-- Ilford you said, right?

05:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

05:41 Speaker 2 Why does an 11-year-old get interested in Yiddishkeit and Lubavitch in particular?

05:47 Speaker 1 Um, it's pretty hard to analyze an 11-year-old.

05:52 Speaker 2 Sure.

05:52 Speaker 1 Um, and to remember even. Um-

05:55 Speaker 2 Right

05:55 Speaker 1 ... it seemed very normal and natural at the time. Um, I'm not, I'm not entirely sure what the thought processes were.

06:02 Speaker 2 Your parents were at all traditional or?

06:04 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah Traditional. I went to a Jewish day school.

06:07 Speaker 2 Right, okay.

06:08 Speaker 1 So, and my teacher was a Lubavitcher.

06:11 Speaker 2 I see.

06:11 Speaker 1 Um, and I mean, the, sort of the, the spark that triggered everything. We were, we were a very good class. A lot of my class became baal teshuva.

06:19 Speaker 2 Mm.

06:20 Speaker 1 Not through Lubavitch necessarily, but we were a very, uh, my class, the class above and class below me, that-- those years in the school were very, um, I don't know, successful, if you wanna call it that, um, of kids coming through, um, becoming much more interested in Yiddishkeit. Um, we had a few, a couple of Lubavitcher teachers in the school, and, uh, they had a big impact. And we had like sort of a-- Because we were doing so well, we had an advanced class. Like, we, we had a special class for the advanced students-

06:47 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

06:47 Speaker 1 ...um, of like 10, 11 year olds. We were learning Chumash Rashi. We were doing things that day school kids weren't doing. We were learning with Rashi script and everything. We were, we were a little bit more-

06:57 Speaker 2 Right

06:57 Speaker 1 ...into things. And we had like a end of year Shabbaton, and I remember on the, on the coach, we went to Bournemouth for Shabbaton. On the, the coach home-

07:09 Speaker 2 Who taught you Lubavitchers or nothing to do with Lubavitch?

07:11 Speaker 1 Nothing to do with Lubavitch.

07:13 Speaker 2 Right.

07:13 Speaker 1 Um, and my, my teacher came to like the back of the bus, we were all hanging out, and said, "I, I set you a challenge to try and keep Shabbos this coming week the same way you did this week.

07:24 Speaker 2 This is a Lubavitcher-

07:26 Speaker 1 Yeah

07:26 Speaker 2 ...teacher. Do you wanna say his name?

07:27 Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. Uh, Rabbi Zali Unsdorfer, who I'm eternally grateful for.

07:31 Speaker 2 Uh, he lives in London today?

07:32 Speaker 1 He now lives in, uh, yeah, Northwest London.

07:34 Speaker 2 Hmm.

07:35 Speaker 1 And so that's what the challenge he set to us-

07:38 Speaker 2 Mm

07:38 Speaker 1 ...to a few of the kids. And as I say, quite a lot of the kids became baal teshuva then. So I remember coming home, so we, we used to always have like a challah Friday night.

07:45 Speaker 2 Right.

07:45 Speaker 1 We'd have like one challah.

07:46 Speaker 2 Right.

07:46 Speaker 1 So I had to make, to get my mother to buy two challahs. Um, we'd have kiddush and, and stuff, and it just meant like not watching TV that Shabbos and-

07:53 Speaker 2 Right

07:53 Speaker 1 ...going to shul, just doing a, a bunch of things that, um, adjusting and adapting.

07:58 Speaker 2 Right.

07:58 Speaker 1 And I liked it, and that continued. And we had a-- When we finished school, we continued having a shiur with Rabbi Unsdorfer in his house, a shiur gemara.

08:07 Speaker 2 Hmm.

08:07 Speaker 1 So it was a whole bunch of kids that came together, and we had a shiur gemara in his house.

08:10 Speaker 2 Wow.

08:11 Speaker 1 Um, I remember, um, we had a Shabbaton in his house. This is one of my, a very strong memory, and it was during Shnas HaTzadik, and he made an effort to teach us all Shuva.

08:25 Speaker 2 The, the Negina Shuva?

08:26 Speaker 1 So we all had like siddurim and ma- and tehillims out, and he's like teaching us the words, and he's getting very excited and, and just the chayas, um, about Shuva-

08:34 Speaker 2 Hmm

08:34 Speaker 1 ...was, was very, uh, I don't know, it was just inspiring. I also went to Gan Yisroel.

08:39 Speaker 2 Right, so-

08:40 Speaker 1 Gan Yisroel was also very inspiring.

08:41 Speaker 2 That wasn't Chavze-- That was before Chavzeh Hadar, no?

08:43 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

08:44 Speaker 2 That was before Chavzeh Hadar.

08:45 Speaker 1 That was the year-

08:46 Speaker 2 Before?

08:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

08:47 Speaker 2 And you went to Gan Yisroel here?

08:49 Speaker 1 No, no. I went to Gan Yis- Yeah, Gan Yisroel overnight camp was also very, um-

08:52 Speaker 2 Here in England?

08:53 Speaker 1 Yeah.

08:54 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:54 Speaker 1 That was also-- We had a, it was a camp reunion. I remember camp reunion. This was already after, um, after my bar mitzvah, so-

09:00 Speaker 2 Right

09:00 Speaker 1 ...this was, um, a, a winter camp reunion in Manchester, Tosh Mime Base.

09:06 Speaker 2 Wow.

09:07 Speaker 1 Um, the atmosphere, it was, it was very, it was very special. So I, I was already, I was already in by then. But-

09:13 Speaker 2 No, I-- Look, I, I, I don't, I don't think it, it makes sense to necessarily dwell on this for too long. Um, but, you know, just what strikes me right away is, is, you know, that, that, that story, that recurring theme of the teacher and the child, and it's painstaking work. Like it's, it's-- there's no event with a lot of people, you know. It's, it's like there's one, one, one teacher and one individual, but it's also so often the most enduring.

09:42 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

09:42 Speaker 2 And like the amount of, the amount of Yidden today that are shluchim or f- you know, very, very devoted Lubavitchers-

09:50 Speaker 1 Yeah

09:50 Speaker 2 ...very proud Lubavitchers that literally just a student of a teacher who cared. Uh, it's just such an amazing story. I mean, it's an amazing thing to think about. So, so yeah. So, so, so you were, so you were kind of on your way. You-- One thing led to another, and then eventually your parents realized they'd lost you.

10:11 Speaker 1 Right. No, it was difficult. Secondary school, I went to, um, uh, a sort of a non-Jewish school.

10:18 Speaker 2 I understand, but the, the, the-

10:19 Speaker 1 That was a different problem

10:19 Speaker 2 ...goal was to eventually-- the goal was eventually for you to go to college, I imagine.

10:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

10:23 Speaker 2 So eventually they, they realized, okay, they lost you. You're off to Montreal.

10:27 Speaker 1 Right. So first to Manchester-

10:29 Speaker 2 Off to Manchester

10:29 Speaker 1 ...then off to Montreal. Um-

10:31 Speaker 2 Right.

10:31 Speaker 1 And yeah, Montreal was a, I don't know. Montreal for me w- I mean, I feel anyone who knows me is watching or listening to this, they're gonna just like laugh, but I, I have a very ro-romantic view of Montreal. It, it did something for me.

10:49 Speaker 2 Don't go back is my suggestion.

10:50 Speaker 1 I actually was there a few weeks ago. I went back for the first time in 20 years. Um-

10:55 Speaker 2 We'll, we'll get to that in a second.

10:57 Speaker 1 It's still special. They say-- And everyone warned me and says, "It's not like it used to be."

11:01 Speaker 2 Right. In, in general, going, like revisiting romantic-

11:04 Speaker 1 Sure. Yeah, sure

11:05 Speaker 2 ...uh, years of your, of your youth are, is always dangerous, but yeah. So, so go ahead.

11:09 Speaker 1 So there, there was a lot of characters in Montreal that really, um, really affected the way I th-- I mean, I, you know, I, I'd had this background. I'd been to the rebbe, so I had like sort of at least like that type of-- I wasn't like a fresh baal teshuva that didn't have any-

11:26 Speaker 2 Right

11:26 Speaker 1 ...awareness. Um-

11:27 Speaker 2 And by the time you get to Montreal, it's already after Yom Ha'Atzmaut?

11:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:30 Speaker 2 Right.

11:30 Speaker 1 We were the, um-

11:32 Speaker 2 Oh, 'cause you had been through the whole high school, right? Right.

11:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I went to Montreal '97.

11:36 Speaker 2 Right. Right. A few years after Yom Ha'Atzmaut, okay.

11:39 Speaker 1 And yeah, and I got to meet and engage with Rav Wolf Greenglass, and he took a liking to me. I, he, I was a, I was like a shtikel a mashgiach. He-- I helped him walk back and forth to yeshiva. It was slippery with the ice and-

11:54 Speaker 2 Right

11:54 Speaker 1 ...he just, he was just very kind, generous, um, and, and loving and caring, very caring.

12:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

12:02 Speaker 1 Um, I'm not saying, I mean, a lot of the other people in Mount Holyoke were also. I'm just, w- we're focusing in on that relationship.

12:08 Speaker 2 Right.

12:09 Speaker 1 And I just found him to be, um- Such a unique type of character. He had such... First of all, he had such personality-

12:19 Speaker 2 Hmm

12:19 Speaker 1 ... and such individuality. The way he dressed, you know, like he didn't lose his Polishness, you know, or we call that his Polish guy. You know, he was, he was still very much, you know, an outsider, if you know what I mean.

12:33 Speaker 2 Mm.

12:33 Speaker 1 But such an insider, you know?

12:35 Speaker 2 Mm.

12:35 Speaker 1 He was, he was the real deal. He was like, uh, uh, you know, so engaged with the Rabbi, such a close relationship. But there was a certain, you know, he retained his personality, his individuality. It wasn't the version of Lubavitch which, um, so many people talk about, which is like sort of this absolute Kabbalah cell to the point of the erasure of self.

12:57 Speaker 2 Hmm.

12:58 Speaker 1 It was a, a Kabbalah's own, which was, um, honest about who he was, what his personality was like, and it was utilized. And he, I mean, he was a totally Ibogagain. It wasn't like a lack of Ibogagain kite.

13:14 Speaker 2 Right.

13:15 Speaker 1 But it was, it was in a partic- it wasn't in a, you know, in a very, it wasn't in a narrow style. He had a certain way to cook.

13:23 Speaker 2 Right.

13:23 Speaker 1 When it came to sort of the types of nigunim he would sing or the types of, uh, stories he would tell or just, um, you know, how he functioned as a Hasid was, um, very attractive.

13:35 Speaker 2 Right. It's almost like there's, there's Kabbalah sale as, as a, as an idea, and then there's Kabbalah sale as a demeanor, right? It's like two very different things. Like, how many people are happy in concept? Right? But not very happy in demeanor. And it's like, you know, like that guy who like every time you see them, they have to give like this goofy smile 'cause they're happy.

13:58 Speaker 1 Right.

13:58 Speaker 2 And it's like, yeah, but that, that doesn't, that doesn't resonate, man. It doesn't feel real.

14:03 Speaker 1 I mean, he was a real Baal Avodah.

14:04 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:04 Speaker 1 I mean, he was a Baal Yeshurun.

14:06 Speaker 2 Right.

14:06 Speaker 1 He endured tremendous suffering over his life. Was always the simcha, um, working on himself. Um, yeah, and he just showed me a lot of, lot of attention, um, and I appreciated that.

14:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

14:19 Speaker 1 Um, so one day I was walking him home, and he invited me into the, into his, uh, into his, into his house, and he picks off the shelf this like little booklet. Um, and in it, he has the, the first four and a half Ma'amarim of Ranat. So he got to the middle of Lulav Ha'arava-

14:39 Speaker 2 Yeah, Lulav Ha'arava

14:40 Speaker 1 ... before they had to leave in the morning.

14:41 Speaker 2 Right.

14:42 Speaker 1 Um, and he described how like, you know, he knew they were gonna leave, and he didn't wanna go without Hasidus. He needed to have... He felt like he... And so he started writing out the Ma'amar. And so just when I was in Montreal-

14:52 Speaker 2 But one second, one second. Uh, 'cause I, I know I mentioned it earlier, but set the table a little bit. He was in the Dvinsky Yeshiva right bef- right in Poland when the Nazis came into Poland, and they all basically escaped to Shanghai, right?

15:03 Speaker 1 Well, eve-eventually.

15:04 Speaker 2 To J-Japan, Japan or Ja-

15:05 Speaker 1 From Vilna.

15:06 Speaker 2 Vilna.

15:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, they-

15:07 Speaker 2 But that's when they started escaping, eventually ending up in Shanghai, right?

15:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

15:10 Speaker 2 How long had he been in Lubavitch at that time?

15:17 Speaker 1 He... I don't know. I don't know the history.

15:18 Speaker 2 Right.

15:18 Speaker 1 You can look it up in the books. He probably came to Dvinsky in, what, Tzadok Dalet, Tzadok He.

15:23 Speaker 2 So, so not that long before.

15:25 Speaker 1 Five years.

15:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

15:25 Speaker 1 Something. He was, he was already five years-

15:27 Speaker 2 No, I think it's important to the story, not just like to be like pedantic. It's just like, I think it's important to the story. Like, here's a guy who-

15:32 Speaker 1 Maybe later. I don't know

15:33 Speaker 2 ... in a way, obviously different, but in a way kind of f- like went through a similar journey as you did. Maybe not as extreme, but also like came to it from the outside, and-

15:43 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

15:44 Speaker 2 ... I think it's just important to point out. Um, talk about a cliffhanger, ending up, end-ending in middle of Lulav Ha'arava for five years.

15:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Um, and so he showed it to me. And one of the beautiful things about this little thing, and, and he showed me a few of his other books, you see as well, like he was very artistic.

16:01 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

16:02 Speaker 1 And so in between the Ma'amar, he would do a very like creative sort of divider-

16:08 Speaker 2 Hmm

16:08 Speaker 1 ... um, as part of his just artistic expression. This is like the bombs are, the, the-

16:12 Speaker 2 Wow

16:12 Speaker 1 ... he's being bombed and everything-

16:13 Speaker 2 Wow

16:13 Speaker 1 ... but he still, he still had time to do a little bit-

16:15 Speaker 2 What a story

16:15 Speaker 1 ... of artistic expression. And so when I was just now in Montreal, I was... I'd been nudging, um, his son-in-law for a while that I wanna... I didn't know if I made this whole story up.

16:24 Speaker 2 Right.

16:24 Speaker 1 You know, sometimes you, you think up to... Am I just like a fan-fantasor?

16:27 Speaker 2 Right.

16:27 Speaker 1 I could have made this whole thing up. 'Cause I kept asking, and he's like: "I don't remember where this is," and so on. And he event-- And so when I went to Montreal, I pushed him a bit further, and he found it, and he sent me pictures.

16:35 Speaker 2 A picture?

16:36 Speaker 1 And it was as I remembered it.

16:37 Speaker 2 Wow.

16:37 Speaker 1 So I thought at least I wasn't, uh-

16:39 Speaker 2 Beautiful

16:40 Speaker 1 ... just making up stories.

16:41 Speaker 2 Why don't, why don't they publish it, like the picture? I mean, I guess it's not that interesting. Like it's the same Ma'amar that everyone sees, but it'd be interesting to see like that flourish and... What a great story.

16:50 Speaker 1 I'll show you some pictures after.

16:51 Speaker 2 What a great story. I mean, just... Like when do you see what's precious to someone?

16:56 Speaker 1 Mm.

16:57 Speaker 2 Like when they stay up the night before they're about to escape and run for their lives, it's like: What do I need to take? Like what would I take if I had to leave everything behind? What would I take? I have no idea. I'm trying to think right now. Like what-

17:12 Speaker 1 It's like the bespoke story of Chaim Orazov.

17:14 Speaker 2 Which is?

17:15 Speaker 1 When there was the fire.

17:16 Speaker 2 Right.

17:16 Speaker 1 Saving the Kesavim.

17:18 Speaker 2 Right. Or his kid. Okay. I mean, so, so, so that, so that, that You know, let, let's leave, let's leave that Maccaber, um- ... you know, dilemma aside, yeah, I, I, I most probably... Not most probably, I most definitely would, would take my child first.

17:35 Speaker 1 I'm glad to hear that.

17:35 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean-

17:37 Speaker 1 You passed that test with flying colors.

17:38 Speaker 2 Let, let's also be honest. Nobody... Like there, there are too many Sefarim printed as it is. You know what I'm saying? There are not enough kids. Like let's, let-let's get real. Um, but I'm just, I'm just trying to think like, what would I take? What would be my like-

17:58 Speaker 1 Isn't it, isn't it the same that... I don't know if you're familiar with Desert Island Discs, this sort of famous radio show in the UK where they take-

18:04 Speaker 2 No, I'm not familiar

18:05 Speaker 1 ... So they, they have a... They bring on a celebrity or someone of public interest, and they have this thing. If you were, uh, end up on a desert island-

18:13 Speaker 2 Right

18:13 Speaker 1 ... which seven songs are you gonna take with you? As they, they describe seven songs that are meaningful to them, and they explain why. And it's a way of telling the story of their life. Right. And then at the end, they have to sort of say, "Okay, um, you have to break it down to just one song." Right. You know, and what is the quintessential s- uh, quintessential song of your life? Right. Um, if you only-- if you're gonna be on a desert island, and that's all you're gonna have for the rest of your life- Right, right ... which one are you gonna pick? Which nigun are you gonna pick? Right. Right. I mean, uh, is it the same? I, I guess the same to, to, to a large extent, for sure. But this, this has the added, the added urgency and the added, like realness of like a young boy, you know, hoping... It wasn't-- They were lucky to get out at all. Many, most people didn't get out. It was like a whole story. I don't know the whole history, but they were lucky to get out, and like Poland was utter, utter chaos. Nobody expected- I mean, they went first to the, to the, to, to Warsaw. They went to Warsaw first to see the Friediker Rebbe before they left. Right. So they had to like get into the crazy situation in Warsaw, and then- Oh, they left before the Friediker Rebbe was rescued? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I

19:23 Speaker 1 guess that's how they got out. One of the other things they did on the night before was they were boxing up all the Csabim and, and Sefarim, which ended up later coming- The Friediker Rebbe's Sefarim. Yeah, which ended up getting taken by the Nazis and then taken by the Soviets and stuff. I mean, that, that whole story is just, yeah, that's, that's for another episode with somebody with a lot of guts. But, um, and somebody who knows what happened. But yeah, I mean, it's just like, well, I'm j- Yeah. I guess, I guess, I guess, um, I'll think about it and get back to everybody on the next episode. Uh, what would, what would you write? What would you like record if you, if you had... If you like, if you knew... You have, you have only six hours. 'Cause what's also interesting about that story is that he had like six, seven hours to get his stuff together, right? So you have limited time, you have limited resources. What do you take with you? I mean, that's what's so special for me. What was impactful about the story is how it gave me a completely new sense of priorities- Right ... about the role that Hasidus plays in a person's life. Mm. That it's, it's not just this sort of nice additional adornment to the way you are- Mm-hmm ... but it's something that is so fundamental. Mm-hmm. That the, you know, like the idea of being on the road for, for such a

20:43 Speaker 1 long time- Mm-hmm ... um, and detached from those Peysas HaRav and the, the, the Peysas HaKsav just, just was like that, that's a shocking sort of future to think of. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, it, you know, it made me seriously think in a way that I'd never done before, and, uh, you know, about the, the importance of Hasidus and, a-a-and how to sort of like treat this thing. You know, I, I found it interesting. I enjoy Hasidus, and it, it sort of was meaningful to me. You know, I mean, I, I'd made significant changes in my life because I, I found Hasidus attractive. But there was a sort of way in which it can just be compartmentalized as part of your broader- Right ... uh, just trying to, just trying to, um, indulge yourself- Right ... in a way, like being the best type of person you want to be, but it's all about who you want to be. Right. It's not saying that Hasidus- It's just a safer, it's just a safer at the end of the day, right? That's how you say it. It's just a safer. So- Well, even if it's more than that, but it's a safer that's, uh, you know, that I'm, uh, that it's, it's all about how, how the safer can im-improve, enhance my life. Uh-huh. Whereas I, what I got from this is like, there's not even a Cheshbon. Right. You're not considering a... It's just about this is, this is who I am. Right. This is

22:02 Speaker 1 me. Right. I mean, I'm not leaving without myself, so why am I gonna leave without Hasidus? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I have to tell you- And that made me rethink. Yeah, I mean, I have to tell you, when, when I read that story in your book, it, it like it gave me goosebumps. It, it, like reframed the whole thing for me. Um, did I start learning a Maimer right after that? No, no, I didn't. I have learned a little bit of RaNaT since then, but no, it's just, it's, it's what a story. So, so, so you, so you, this, this Rabbi Greenglass leaves a, leaves a very large, um, imprint on your life, not just with that one story, but in general, the relationship that you had with him. Um, I mean, I, I don't know if you wanna speak more about your time in Montreal, or we can just go, like using that as a background. Well, I think the relevant as... I mean, I'm, I'm not sure exactly where, where we're gonna end up. I think the relevant- Nobody knows. Nobody knows. That's the beauty. I think the relevant, the strong relevant component of Montreal was I got to see a whole range of Hasidische characters. Mm-hmm. Um, and what was very prominent in all of their lives was a seriousness. They were, um, constantly trying to figure out the best way to be a Hasid. And they were coming up with different thing. They weren't all doing the same thing. They weren't coming up

22:22 Speaker 1 with the same answers, but there was a certain sense of struggle. Right. But not in a, not in a negative way, but like, um, engaged. Right. People that were very engaged. Right. I'm not saying the whole Montreal were very engaged, but the people that I was- Right ... um, impressed with, and I, I saw that as like a, a model. Do you have any examples besides Rabbi Greenglass? So there's R- Rabbi Greenglass and, and Rabbi Guerari. Rabbi Chaim Guerari I found to be a fascinating character. Still is. I, I just Yeah, I have to tell you- And that made me rethink ... yeah, I mean, I have to tell you, when, when I read that story in your book, it, it like it gave me goosebumps. It, it, like reframed the whole thing for me. Um, did I start learning a Maimer right after that? No, no, I didn't. I have learned a little bit of RaNaT since then, but no, it's just, it's, it's what a story. So, so, so you, so you-- This, this Rabbi Greenglass leaves a, leaves a very large, um, imprint on your life, not just with that one story, but in general, the relationship that you had with him. Um, I mean, I, I don't know if you wanna speak more about your time in Montreal, or we can just go, like using that as a background. Well, I think the relevant as... I mean, I'm, I'm not sure exactly where, where we're gonna end up. I think the

22:58 Speaker 1 relevant- Nobody knows. Nobody knows. That's the beauty. I think the relevant, the strong relevant component of Montreal was I got to see a whole range of Hasidische characters. Mm-hmm. Um, and what was very prominent in all of their lives was a seriousness. They were, um, constantly trying to figure out the best way to be a Hasid. And they were coming up with different thing. They weren't all doing the same thing. They weren't coming up with the same answers, but there was a certain sense of struggle. Right. But not in a, not in a negative way, but like, um, engaged. Right. People that were very engaged. Right. I'm not saying the whole Montreal were very engaged, but the people that I was- Right ... um, impressed with, and I, I saw that as like a, a model. Do you have any examples besides Rabbi Greenglass? So there's R- Rabbi Greenglass and, and Rabbi Guerari. Rabbi Chaim Guerari I found to be a fascinating character. Still is. I, I just He's-- I spent some time with him just recently. The Mashpia in Montreal, Rabbi Guerari. Yeah. He, um, just, I mean, his, uh, struggle and, and his yearning to get to the depth of the meaning of the Peysas Hasidus was, you know, inspiring. Mm-hmm. And i-in a way, it's like it's, it's not even about like always figuring it out. It's just being so engrossed and engaged, which was, uh, you know, uh, a guide. I, I saw that as a, as a model that the

24:32 Speaker 1 goal is not to sort of like make sure everything makes sense at the end. Mm-hmm. The goal is to sort of go deeper and deeper and deeper. So once you figure something out, that's just a, a platform to show how there's actually a better understanding. Every understanding is, uh, a means to get to a better understanding. Right. And that was very impactful. Rabbi Mochkin was a... I mean, I remember a particular farbrengen that, you know. Yeah, okay, so I'd, I'd been by the Rebbe. So I, I had a, I had a musag, but his kashah, I was still a kid. When I went to farbrengen, I was before bar mitzvahs. It was, I was still childish. I mean, I, I think I got the, the etzem of what it means to be a Hasid. I mean, I, you know, I was by the Rebbe, so I, I g- I, you know, I got that whether I liked it or not. Um, but the processing and the, the hagasham, the what it means to be a Hasid, how to feel those, h- what that looks like, the expression of those feelings, um, he re-- I, you know, I think w- it-- I got a real sense of, of a completely new level of his kashrus, um, relationship, um, and something that is personal. You know, he was a bachur in the Yutz. These are people who have personal relationships with their Rebbe. And just vicariously, in a way, seeing how that played out in farbrengens and

25:48 Speaker 1 what that meant to them-

25:49 Speaker 3 Hmm

25:49 Speaker 1 ... um, was very instructive. Um, you know, I'm, it's not like a, I'm an embodiment of any of those things, but I have a-- I feel like I, I gained a, um, a vocabulary-

26:01 Speaker 3 Right

26:01 Speaker 1 ... a glossary maybe even-

26:03 Speaker 3 Right

26:03 Speaker 1 ... of these, what these words mean.

26:05 Speaker 3 Right.

26:06 Speaker 1 You know, if I was to end up in a good place, a lot of it would be, um, shaped by, um, by that exposure that I had there.

26:15 Speaker 3 Sure. And you said also earlier you were talking about Rabbi Nathan Gurary also.

26:19 Speaker 1 Yeah. So we-- learning chassidus with Reb Nathan, um, was an eye-opener.

26:25 Speaker 3 Right.

26:25 Speaker 1 Um-

26:27 Speaker 3 He was a businessman.

26:27 Speaker 1 He was a businessman.

26:28 Speaker 3 For, for, for those who don't know, just d-describe him a little bit 'cause he wa-- 'cause there's the famous Rabbi Gurary's mashpia in the yeshiva.

26:34 Speaker 1 Yeah. So this is, um-

26:35 Speaker 3 This is his uncle now. No, this is his cousin.

26:37 Speaker 1 This is his cousin. So Reb Nathan was a businessman. We used to see him go to the train station every day carrying his, uh, his briefcase.

26:45 Speaker 3 Right.

26:45 Speaker 1 Um, very put together, you know?

26:48 Speaker 3 Right.

26:49 Speaker 1 And then we, we managed to arrange... His grandson was in yeshiva with us, so he was able to arrange for us to be able to, um-

26:57 Speaker 3 Oh, Moishy?

26:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

26:59 Speaker 3 Moishy Gurary in Townsville?

26:59 Speaker 1 No, Moishy Katzen.

27:00 Speaker 3 Moishy. Oh, Moishy Katzen. I know him too, yeah.

27:03 Speaker 1 So a group of us went and learned with him. It wasn't for long, and we used to go Friday night in the winter, so we had a lot of time after, after the meal, and we'd spend a good two and something, you know, even longer hours sitting there learning. And to this day, I don't think I've ever had a more intense intellectual experience than sitting at that table those Friday nights.

27:28 Speaker 3 And we're sitting in Cambridge here.

27:30 Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm just the, the, the... Firstly, his teaching style was unique. He would-- We'd read a-- He'd make someone read a passage from the Maggid.

27:40 Speaker 3 Right.

27:40 Speaker 1 And then he'd go around the table asking everyone to explain it.

27:43 Speaker 3 Right.

27:44 Speaker 1 And so you knew it was gonna come to you, and you don't, don't wanna look like an idiot. So you sort of-

27:47 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

27:47 Speaker 1 ... you're racking your... You, you hope you're not the first guy.

27:49 Speaker 3 Right.

27:49 Speaker 1 So you're the first guy to say something, and here it is. You don't know what he's talking about. So it's like, so Nathan was like, "Mm, okay. Goes well." And you knew you, you had to, like, perform at your best. Your, your, your brain is now in hyper mode.

28:01 Speaker 3 Right.

28:01 Speaker 1 Just you might embarrass yourself in front of your friends and everything.

28:03 Speaker 3 Right.

28:03 Speaker 1 Even, even you want to impress him as well. Imagine you could say something, and Nathan would say, "Oh, yeah."

28:06 Speaker 3 Right.

28:06 Speaker 1 "Good pshat." So you're working so, so hard, and then after he goes around the whole table, he then gives the pshat, explains it. But in the meantime, you've exhausted all of your intellectual capabilities, and you've become this like a clean moksha-

28:20 Speaker 3 Right

28:20 Speaker 1 ... because every angle has now been exhausted-

28:24 Speaker 3 Right

28:24 Speaker 1 ... from the whole table, and then, like, a new air comes in.

28:29 Speaker 3 Right.

28:30 Speaker 1 And it was, and it was just, you felt, uh, enriched, enlivened-

28:34 Speaker 3 Sure

28:34 Speaker 1 ... and to concentrate for two hours on a Friday night when you're exhausted, you probably farbreng the whole Thursday night as well.

28:39 Speaker 3 Right.

28:39 Speaker 1 You, you weren't in a good space physically-

28:41 Speaker 3 Wow

28:41 Speaker 1 ... but the... it was so good that it wasn't like you were tired or falling asleep. It-- And I remember, so you come out of Montreal in the snow, and, like, we'd been talking for two and a half hours about atzilus, and you walk out, and it, like, it looks like a winter wonderland.

28:56 Speaker 3 Right.

28:57 Speaker 1 And you're like, you feel like you're floating. Like, I remember saying, it's like, "Am I in atzilus or am I in..." It's like it w- it was that type of arresting experience.

29:04 Speaker 3 Hmm.

29:05 Speaker 1 Um, yeah. That's, um... It gave me an inkling, um, probably at the time you're an arrogant bachur, you don't-

29:13 Speaker 3 Right.

29:14 Speaker 1 You, you think this is normal, right? This is, this is where I belong. This is how life is.

29:18 Speaker 3 Right.

29:19 Speaker 1 Um, you don't have that sort of, um, foresight to think, "Wow, this is going to be a foundation for the rest of my life." But-

29:25 Speaker 3 Right

29:25 Speaker 1 ... um, you know, I think back, it, it, it gave me a sense of, first of all, these different types of chassidim, that the common denominator of all of them was, and all of their diversity in the way they ex- they experienced being a Hasid was grounded in chassidus.

29:43 Speaker 3 Right.

29:43 Speaker 1 And there's n- there's none of this fluff. If you're not learning chassidus, then the whole, you know, like you, you've got nothing to talk about.

29:50 Speaker 3 Hmm. Yeah, I mean, there's so many things that you've, just from that experience that, that just from the description of Montreal that you're telling me that I'm, that I'm thinking about. Um, I mean, the, the last thing you were talking about, Nathan Gurary's class, you know, there's, there's this thing of-- there's this thing about mastery that is at once so humbling to witness, 'cause if you're not a master, you recognize it, you're not very quickly. But it's also, in a way, what's most enticing. Even though it humbles you and sometimes humiliates you, it entices you to like, "Wait, if this guy can be a master, maybe I can be too." Like, we have this kind of... Well, it's a, it's, it's a-- I think it's, like, a kind of a cultural thing around the world today where, like, we're scared to make students feel inadequate or make people feel inadequate, so everything's kind of dumbed down and softened and, like, you know, let's, let's make sure that nobody feels out of place. And look, I understand there are sensitivities and, and it's wrong for a child to go through school always feeling like it's over their head. I get it. But you wonder at what cost, right? Like, I'll give you an example from, like, a different discipline that just, I think, makes it a, a little bit more emotional stick, like what you just said, although maybe you don't even need to add. It seems pretty self-evident what you're saying, but pretty, pretty well

31:18 Speaker 3 described. But a f- a friend invited me the past couple weeks to come to a jujitsu class, you know, and the jujitsu class is being led by a fellow who's been doing jujitsu for, I don't know, 30 some years, a master. You know, you call him sensei. Like, this guy's a master. At the end of the hour and a half or so, the last 20 minutes is basically everybody gets a chance to, what they call, roll with the sensei, and he's at, like, he's operating at ten, twenty percent, and you can't lay a glove on him. And the second he decides it's over, he has you in an armbar. He could, he could kill you, literally. He has-- He can kill you in multiple ways. And when you're fighting with him, you're like, "Oh my God." Like, I'm literally like-- It, it's humiliating. Not just because other people are seeing you being beaten up, just humiliating when you realize, like, like, there's this, there's this f- there's this thing where, like, this guy is literally light years ahead of you. His 30 years of work has put him in a place that you are just unfathomably behind. But it's interesting that the feeling that I got and everybody else there got was not, like, brokenness.

32:30 Speaker 1 Right.

32:30 Speaker 3 It was, like, an excitement. So, like you said, arresting, like, look at this thing that you could possibly get up to if you put yourself to it. Okay, probably won't, but it's like, it, it-- There's something alluring about something like that, and that's what-- that's the thing that came to me. We talked about Nasim Gurari, where like, you know, on one hand, you felt like, you know, you, you shiver maybe, you're learning a Mimar, and you understood the Mimar, and you feel like a hotshot. Look like I'm the guy that people come to ask me what this means, right? Like, I, I have a piece of dos, and I come to this guy's house, and he wipes the floor with me. But instead of making you feel like an idiot or instead of, like, telling you-- like, instead of y- making you close a book, it makes you open the book even more, right?

33:13 Speaker 1 Well, yeah. And it's just, it's the hafla. You sort of get a hafla, the wonderment-

33:19 Speaker 3 Right

33:19 Speaker 1 ...of like, where the possibilities. Like, my-- like, the, the, the ceiling of my intellectual world-

33:26 Speaker 3 Right

33:26 Speaker 1 ...was just blown open.

33:27 Speaker 3 Right.

33:28 Speaker 1 And that was just, you know, fascinating.

33:31 Speaker 3 Right.

33:32 Speaker 1 But I think what you were saying made me think of, like, the difference between apps versus mergers.

33:36 Speaker 3 Right.

33:36 Speaker 1 Like, it's-- in a way, it could be the same feeling, but it's the, it's how you react to that feeling.

33:40 Speaker 3 Right.

33:41 Speaker 1 Is it inspiring? Is it motivating?

33:43 Speaker 3 Right.

33:43 Speaker 1 Or is it gonna be something that's gonna drag you down?

33:45 Speaker 3 Right.

33:45 Speaker 1 And I think there's different personality types. Not everyone is up for that type of encounter. Um, it just happened to work for me.

33:53 Speaker 3 Yeah. It's possible. It's possible that it's your, it's your, it's your personality. But I, I do feel like, you know, i-i-in a time where-- It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? People, people-- We, we decide that young people or people in general don't wanna work hard at a discipline for a, for a, for a long amount of time, therefore they're gonna be turned off by something that needs a long amount of time. Therefore, we're not gonna show them that thing in the first place. Therefore, they're not interested. It- You see what I'm saying? They never saw it. Like, like, they're-- Like, a-and what is Hasidus if not a decision to choose a certain preoccupation and develop a mastery over it?

34:37 Speaker 1 Kind of, and you say, I'm, I, I, I'm, I'm-- I'd push back on the idea of a mastery. It's about-- I think it's more about, um, just having a degree of hence and feast in the base methods. You know, like, just to not be a foreigner. I don't, I don't know. Mastery is already maybe-

34:56 Speaker 3 No, no, but, but mastery doesn't mean that you're done. Like, this, this, this guy, this guy in jujitsu, he, he, he, he practices three hours a day.

35:04 Speaker 1 Right.

35:05 Speaker 3 The, the, the more they know, the more they know they don't know.

35:07 Speaker 1 Right.

35:08 Speaker 3 But, but, but mastery-

35:09 Speaker 1 Okay, that's what you meant. Right

35:09 Speaker 3 ...mastery is a proficiency that you kind of-

35:12 Speaker 1 Proficiency. I like-- Yeah, a proficiency.

35:14 Speaker 3 But I think the word mastery, like, master is like someone who's ahead of you in a very obvious, clear way.

35:19 Speaker 1 No, but it's always gonna be relative. You're gonna be ahead of someone.

35:21 Speaker 3 But in a very clear, obvious way.

35:22 Speaker 1 You know Alef Bet, and you might not know Gimel Dalet, but you know more than someone else, so you are a mastery of Alef Bet.

35:26 Speaker 3 Okay, look, I, I, I'm not trying, I'm not trying to separate-

35:28 Speaker 1 Mastery implies, I think, a little bit too much of a, um, you know, you're on top of it.

35:35 Speaker 3 Ah, okay, that's not what I meant.

35:36 Speaker 1 Uh-

35:36 Speaker 3 Okay, fair enough, though. Uh-

35:37 Speaker 1 But proficiency, a strong proficiency.

35:40 Speaker 3 Um, yeah. Okay. Yeah. A mas- a mastery to me describes someone who, who when you look at, when you look at someone who has mastered the art of tailoring or has mastered the art of filmmaking or... Like, these people, they don't feel like they're done. That's what-

35:58 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah

35:58 Speaker 3 ...they, they keep on coming back for more. So why, so why are they called a master at it? It just seems that at, at some point, there is a un- there, there is an underst- there, there is a level where you reach where, where you are, where, where your investment is undeniable.

36:18 Speaker 1 Right.

36:19 Speaker 3 A-a-

36:19 Speaker 1 That's, that's the thing, right? And it requires-- And you realize that what that requires is investment. So something Rabbi Jameel told me that I would just-- It just, I mean, it shocked me. Um, he-- When he was a bachor, he wanted to learn with his, with his uncle, Rabbi Moshe Gerari.

36:36 Speaker 3 Right.

36:36 Speaker 1 He went to Eretz Yisrael for a year, and he used to go and learn with his uncle.

36:39 Speaker 3 Right.

36:39 Speaker 1 His uncle was a businessman, just like Nasim.

36:41 Speaker 3 Right.

36:42 Speaker 1 What was the seder? He would meet, he would-- They would meet up three times a week, twice in the week, once on Shabbos. Each time they'd sit for three hours.

36:49 Speaker 3 Wow.

36:51 Speaker 1 I mean, like, who does that? Like, that-

36:55 Speaker 3 But you know how many-

36:56 Speaker 1 Why, I mean, why would you even do that for your nephew? Like, what are you, what are you, what is going on? What is, what is the context where that makes sense? It makes sense-- I mean, for them, I don't think that was strange. I don't think they would think, "We're gonna do something, like, really cool. We're gonna sit-

37:07 Speaker 3 Right

37:07 Speaker 1 ...and learn this seder for nine hours each week for a whole year." And like, no, this is a serious... You know, you're not gonna-- It's not a game.

37:14 Speaker 3 But, but, but-

37:14 Speaker 1 It's not like a-

37:15 Speaker 3 But you ask who does that, everybody who does jujitsu does that. I, just for, just to be clear-

37:20 Speaker 1 I agree

37:20 Speaker 3 ... I don't do it. I don't do jujitsu, but not yet, at least. But I'm just saying, like-

37:24 Speaker 1 That's right. The people who go to the gym, the people who do all... Any, any people who learn a language, they're spending hours and hours and hours.

37:30 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

37:30 Speaker 1 It's a serious engaged activity.

37:32 Speaker 3 Right.

37:32 Speaker 1 So this is not something you sort of tick a box and you, and you do before davening every day-

37:37 Speaker 3 Right

37:38 Speaker 1 ... just to sort of feel like you've done chassidus.

37:40 Speaker 3 Right.

37:40 Speaker 1 It's a, it's an ambition. It's a project.

37:42 Speaker 3 Right.

37:43 Speaker 1 It's... There, there's a lot to get through. Um, and there's even-- It's not about even about kamus. It's just about the ichus, how much you can challenge yourself and, and, and, you know, the goal is to really transform the way you think, the way you feel, the way you experience life.

37:58 Speaker 3 Right.

37:59 Speaker 1 And that is a full body experience. It's a whole-

38:02 Speaker 3 Right.

38:02 Speaker 1 It requires thinking, it requires, requires reading stuff, but it's... More of it is about adapting.

38:10 Speaker 3 Grappling.

38:10 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:10 Speaker 3 Fa-failing, failing, flailing, embarrassing yourself.

38:14 Speaker 1 Is, is it, is it-

38:15 Speaker 3 Making mistakes.

38:16 Speaker 1 The question you have to ask yourself, I think, is, is this gonna be part of my-- Is this a project of my life?

38:21 Speaker 3 Right.

38:21 Speaker 1 Do I take this seriously? Is this, is this what I'm... Is this what I koch in? This is what I care about. And I think I was fortunate to be exposed by people who were like that.

38:32 Speaker 3 Right.

38:33 Speaker 1 And it gave me, uh, it gave me a model of what that might look like-

38:38 Speaker 3 Mm

38:38 Speaker 1 ... if I tried.

38:39 Speaker 3 Mm. It's, it's, it's so powerful. Yeah, because it, it's so... Like the example, it's not to take anything away from Rabbi Greenglass or Rabbi Shmarya Gourary. Like, it's clearly not the point here, Rabbi Mutzkin. But like, there's something about the fact that you said, you know, like you were madge shit, that like Nelson Gourary was a businessman. His father, Re-Re-Rabbi Moshe Gourary, was also a businessman. It's like, what's the difference? Like, it's because a mashpia, we kind of assume, yeah, that's his job. That's what he's paid to do, so that's what he does, right? Whereas a businessman, it's like, like, wait a second, he's not paid to do this. He also, he's paid to do something else, so like he's carving out private time, right? Even if the mashpia also carves out private time, but that's just why it's sticking in our, in, in the conversation.

39:25 Speaker 1 He's not a professional Jew.

39:25 Speaker 3 Right. He's not a professional Jew, and it's like, it's like, it's like, wait a second. So this is something that we, that we, that we do outside of the job or outside of the kind of, um, practice of being a labosh where like you learn chassidus before davening for a half hour or something, which I'm not trying to take away from that.

39:43 Speaker 1 Right.

39:43 Speaker 3 You know, beautiful. If that works for you, more power to you. But it's the same thing between a guy who does jujitsu two hours. Like I, I had friends, so I went to the jujitsu class, and I'm using this as a mashal. I, I'm not, I, I haven't done any of it to like talk about it, but I was-

39:58 Speaker 1 I'll sign you up for jujitsu.

39:59 Speaker 3 No, not, not yet. Not yet. But I'm just saying, like, so I went to this class and I'm like, "Okay, I stink at this. Like, how do I get going?" And I asked a couple friends who are much deeper into it, and they're like, "Okay, you basically need to go two, three times a week for three hours, and after six months you won't feel like a total fool." Right? And so like learning chassidus a half hour a week before davening, yeah, beautiful. I'm saying like it's, it's better than nothing, like to use that very-

40:30 Speaker 1 Right

40:30 Speaker 3 ... ill, you know, um, ill-begotten phrase.

40:33 Speaker 1 But it's not a plan.

40:34 Speaker 3 It's not a plan, and, and it's also not the same as really taking it seriously. Like, don't confuse the two. And that, that kind of leads me to the main point that I got out of your whole Montreal ex-experience, which I think will lead very nicely into our, the next part of our conversation, which is something that I've felt for so long is like it's, yeshivas are so important, right? There's no question about it. Um, and there's no way that you can really avoid the fact that a yeshiva is ultimately dominated by the majority of the people in the yeshiva, which is bochurim at that age. So there's a bochurim, and there's the s-small number, relatively speaking, of dan hala. But in many ways, the atmosphere is dominated by 18-year-olds, which, okay, we were all 18, so we can make fun of them. Like, they're 18. I was also 18. You were 18, and so on. But there's something about the way you're describing Montreal, where you saw a mature adult milieu around the yeshiva, and maybe they c- some of them were in the yeshiva also, but there was also outside the yeshiva, and then the inside yeshiva is interacting with outside yeshiva. I'm sure there were farbrengens where there's like a kind of bleed between the two. And what that does, I think you even mentioned it, what that does is it teaches you that it doesn't end when you leave these doors, right? And that's... I mean, I, I hate to say

41:53 Speaker 3 I feel like that's something that, that's, that's missing today, and it's certainly something that I felt when I was in yeshiva. It's like, I would always say in yeshiva like, it's important for the mashpia to talk to us or to talk... When I was a shliach, so I was kind of looking in from the side. It's important for the mashpia to talk to the bochurim about chassidus. But you know what's even more important? For the bochurim to see the two mashpiyim talking to each other about chassidus.

42:16 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

42:16 Speaker 3 Right? Right.

42:17 Speaker 1 No, I see that. And I, if we're gonna, if we're gonna then move on to sort of, you know, the experience outside of yeshiva, um, for life, um, it took me a while to adapt. Um, and I think especially when you're on shlichus, everything is for the shlichus. So it's like normal domnas, the lamid, right?

42:34 Speaker 3 Right.

42:34 Speaker 1 Everything you're learning is how, you know, like the magid, everything he learns, he thinks, "Oh, that would be good for a drash," and stuff. So you're learning in the context of what you're gonna teach.

42:41 Speaker 3 Right.

42:42 Speaker 1 And so you then lose your own sort of projects.

42:44 Speaker 3 Right.

42:45 Speaker 1 And, and you can become stale.

42:47 Speaker 3 Right.

42:47 Speaker 1 Because it's, uh, you're disconnected from the material. Um, and this wasn't just in, in chassidus. In general, in learning, um, I felt, um, especially in a place like Cambridge, which is, you know, everyone's studying, everyone's quite scholarly.

42:59 Speaker 3 Right.

43:00 Speaker 1 There's a scholarly environment, and I'm... I didn't feel scholarly. I felt, I felt jealous. I was like, these people are sitting in libraries-

43:07 Speaker 3 Right

43:07 Speaker 1 ... for hours on end, reading books, thinking about ideas, writing essays and stuff, doing stuff that I find stimulating.

43:13 Speaker 3 Right.

43:14 Speaker 1 And I'm like organizing Purim parties.

43:16 Speaker 3 Right.

43:16 Speaker 1 Which were great, and I, I, I don't resent it or regret it, but there was a, there was a part of my life that wasn't being, um, activated and, and, um-

43:26 Speaker 3 Mm.

43:26 Speaker 1 St- and, um- You know, appreciated.

43:29 Speaker 3 Utilized.

43:30 Speaker 1 So I, I know, I, I, I, I remember the moment where I sort of said, um, it was coming up to Pesach, and I was like: "I'm gonna spend the next month preparing for Pesach." And all that means is that it's ridiculous. Pesach will happen however much I prepare for it. I'm gonna take a Gvir Hashem, the Maral.

43:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

43:51 Speaker 1 And I'm gonna spend two hours a day learning Gvir Hashem.

43:54 Speaker 3 That's on the God or that's on the s-superstition side? It's on the God, is it?

43:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

43:58 Speaker 3 On the God, yeah.

43:59 Speaker 1 So, and I just sort of, I would, I, I, I made a kfius, I'd go out to a coffee shop with my Gvir Hashem, and I would just engage in something I'd never read before. I mean, I read the Hakdoma because of the Hakdoma about Tosha v'Tachas v'Shitzis.

44:12 Speaker 3 Right.

44:13 Speaker 1 That was connected to Chassidus. But I just thought, "You know what? I'm gonna just broaden my horizons-

44:17 Speaker 3 Right

44:17 Speaker 1 ... read a new book." Everyone talked about the Maral. I've never really engaged with it. Um-

44:22 Speaker 3 Right.

44:22 Speaker 1 And that, that sort of like sparked this, like, whole new thing where, yeah, I... And actually, if I'm engaged intellectually in, in things, I actually became, I think, a more interesting person-

44:34 Speaker 3 Mm

44:34 Speaker 1 ... shlichus-wise. So I didn't have to, like, prepare a sicha before an event or-

44:39 Speaker 3 Right

44:40 Speaker 1 ... before a Shabbos meal.

44:41 Speaker 3 Right.

44:41 Speaker 1 'Cause I'd been spending the whole week thinking about ideas and stuff like that.

44:44 Speaker 3 Right.

44:44 Speaker 1 And so it, it just sort of, you know, Neglas Chochmah. It, it, it spilled out.

44:50 Speaker 3 Right.

44:50 Speaker 1 Sicha of Talmi Chacham. If you, if you become engaged in learning-

44:52 Speaker 3 Right

44:52 Speaker 1 ... then your, y-your, your small talk becomes elevated, enhanced.

44:58 Speaker 3 Right.

44:59 Speaker 1 And yeah, and I think that was a sort of a, you know, I think I had it in, in, in, in, in, you know, invested in me from when I was younger about this seeing what I saw, but it took me a while to, uh, express that in my own life-

45:15 Speaker 3 Mm

45:15 Speaker 1 ... afterwards, 'cause I think you just get, shlichus can become all-consuming.

45:18 Speaker 3 For sure.

45:19 Speaker 1 Um, and carving out sort of a, a personal identity on shlichus, um, took time. But, but I th- that I think is at the core of it.

45:27 Speaker 3 Right.

45:27 Speaker 1 About taking, um, these learning pursuits seriously, having a plan.

45:34 Speaker 3 Right.

45:35 Speaker 1 Um, and not just, it not just being a, as you were saying, like a, a, a box you tick.

45:42 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah, I mean, that, that's the story of life, right? I mean, I think you, you go out of yeshiva, you start something new. Y-you know, maybe you think that it's such a, such a seismic change. It's like it's such a seismic shift where, like, your daily schedule, your priority list, like everything changes so drastically that it's hard to f-see how does yeshiva continue in this, right? Like how, how, how do-- is there any through line from that life to this life? And so, so like in terms of format, the format's kind of gone. Yeah. What was the story? I remember hearing in yeshiva something about how like there's like a balabos who would like, like every time Seder would happen to, to him, like he would change, he would do something different, and it was like, it's hard. It's hard.

46:34 Speaker 1 Yeah, but that, that sounds like-

46:35 Speaker 3 Yeah, it sounds silly

46:36 Speaker 1 ... kind of nostalgia. I mean, I, I have no nostalgia.

46:38 Speaker 3 I'm saying like it sounds-

46:39 Speaker 1 Like my, our whole discussion about Montreal is for me not a nostalgia.

46:42 Speaker 3 Right.

46:42 Speaker 1 I don't, I don't wanna go back there. I don't wanna go back there.

46:44 Speaker 3 Right.

46:45 Speaker 1 It's not like some-

46:45 Speaker 3 But that's 'cause I, 'cause I just-

46:46 Speaker 1 ... ideali-idealized past. I feel like, um, I'm fascinated by the way that can, you know, engage with my present.

46:54 Speaker 3 Right.

46:54 Speaker 1 I think I learn Chassidus now with much more maturity-

46:58 Speaker 3 Of course

46:58 Speaker 1 ... and sensitivity.

46:59 Speaker 3 I would, I would hope so.

46:59 Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, you... I don't think it's a given.

47:02 Speaker 3 No, I would say I would hope so, though.

47:03 Speaker 1 I, I also hope so, but I don't think it's a given.

47:05 Speaker 3 No.

47:05 Speaker 1 It's something that-

47:06 Speaker 3 No

47:06 Speaker 1 ... you either... Some people-

47:07 Speaker 3 You either develop or you don't. Right.

47:09 Speaker 1 Precisely.

47:11 Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, we were talking earlier about my favorite, um, cultural critic or writer in general, if I was being honest, um, Christopher Lasch. And in many ways, this kind of helped me formulate the idea of homesick for, homesick or homesick for Lubavitch 'cause he has this wonderful, um, kind of bit in his book that differentiates between memory and nostalgia. And he says m-memory is like what you just said, that, that past that's very real, that's firmly in the past, but it's integrated into who you are. It informs who you are. It nurtures who you are. You go back there for, for, for, for wisdom, for, for connectivity. It's, it's part, it's, it, it, it's, it's part of the organism that is life, and, and it, it's, there's c- there's, there's healthy connected tissue there. Whereas nostalgia is a place where we escape. He says a wonderful line: "Nostalgia evokes a past only to bury it." Right? And, um, yeah, I mean, I... And, and so, so where does that come from? Like why does one person remember something and one person be nostalgic for something? It essentially boils down to do you have any connective tissue or not? Like had you gone back to Montreal after basically abandoning everything and just like wishing that you could go back, you know, like, "I wish I could learn, but I, I don't have time," or, "I don't feel motivated," or, "It doesn't talk to me anymore, but I remember the days." You would go back with

48:46 Speaker 3 nostalgia.

48:47 Speaker 1 I guess.

48:48 Speaker 3 Most, most probably. I, I can't tell you, but most probably. Vaharaya, that's how a lot of people talk. Vaharaya, a lot of people, "If only I could be back in yeshiva. I wish to go back to yeshiva." And it's like, okay, nobody in the history of ever has gone back, so I call, I call BS.

49:04 Speaker 1 Right.

49:04 Speaker 3 But, but I'm saying that nostalgia, memory is, you know, holding onto the p-- or not holding onto the past, connecting to the past and then, and bringing it with you, and that's the most beautiful thing. So you're saying that you, you basically started by, by something very almost small. Like you, it doesn't seem like you had a whole massive project. You're like, "Okay, I'll learn Gvir Hashem." Like who can't learn Gvir Hashem? But then you realize all of a sudden, "Wait a second, I have this brain here. It works. It feels good to activate it." And then suddenly there's all this other opportunities, right?

49:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I, I, I saw it as... I mean, obviously I was, I wasn't like I was just doing Purim parties. I was teaching.

49:43 Speaker 3 Right.

49:43 Speaker 1 I mean, I, I would teach people serious Chassidus from the very outset. I wasn't doing sort of very, um, watered-down material.

49:50 Speaker 3 Right.

49:50 Speaker 1 I just thought these people are clever. They're in, they're, they're, they're, they're stimulated by ideas.

49:56 Speaker 3 Right.

49:56 Speaker 1 They'd find Hemshuch Taf Shin Gimel fascinating.

49:58 Speaker 3 Right.

49:58 Speaker 1 Different levels of ratzon.

49:59 Speaker 3 Yeah.

49:59 Speaker 1 You know, like-

50:00 Speaker 3 Isn't, isn't that an amazing Hemshuch?

50:01 Speaker 1 It's fantastic.

50:02 Speaker 3 I don't know, man. You're my soul brother. And not Taf Shin Gimel. That was the first Hemshuch I learned.

50:07 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. And like-

50:08 Speaker 3 I taught it to myself in yeshiva

50:09 Speaker 1 ... and Taf Shin Chaf Gimel. I love teaching Taf Shin Chaf Gimel, the Rabbi's Hemshuch on Taf Shin Gimel.

50:13 Speaker 3 And Lamed Hey?

50:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. I think it's a-

50:16 Speaker 3 That's on, that's on Tav Shin Gimel?

50:17 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:18 Speaker 3 I never... I guess I didn't realize that.

50:21 Speaker 1 Gimel Dag is in Ratzon. So it's-

50:23 Speaker 3 Yeah.

50:23 Speaker 1 You know, I just felt like-

50:24 Speaker 3 It doesn't talk so much about Achtarus and Machus, though. Does it? Or, or Ravid, Ratzon... Like, openly it's on Tav Shin Gimel?

50:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:33 Speaker 3 All right. My bad. I gotta go learn it again.

50:35 Speaker 1 I mean, you-- Okay, we'll talk about it afterwards.

50:38 Speaker 3 Off camera.

50:38 Speaker 1 Off camera. Um, I think, you know, I think I found these things fascinating.

50:43 Speaker 3 Tav Shin Gimel is a beautiful Hamshich.

50:45 Speaker 1 And so-

50:46 Speaker 3 Tav Shin Chaf Gimel also, just for the record.

50:47 Speaker 1 If you isolate the ideas, obviously they're not... They're gonna get struggle with the Dibra Matzkl and some of the, some of the, the stylistic of a Ma'amar.

50:53 Speaker 3 Sure.

50:53 Speaker 1 But if you're able to, um, engage them with thinking about how will, um, and, and pleasure and everything is... You take, like, the Ma'amarim in the beginning of Sanhedrin in the, in Lach L'chan by Yera, about-

51:06 Speaker 3 Right

51:06 Speaker 1 ... Tayneg and Ratzon.

51:07 Speaker 3 Right.

51:07 Speaker 1 You know, which is, which is-

51:08 Speaker 3 Which, which goes first, right.

51:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's fascinating.

51:10 Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a fascinating topic.

51:11 Speaker 1 So why would I, why would I start talking about-

51:13 Speaker 3 Freud.

51:15 Speaker 1 No, just like, you know, why would I... You know, the, the, the sort of the, uh, the market of Lechilets is, is actually not as stimulating as that. Why are we hiding the, the Ma'yanes in that way? So I was always a little bit crazy about what I was teaching people. Um, and I found that engaging, and I, you know, I, I gained a lot from the people I was learning with. I mean-

51:34 Speaker 3 Right

51:34 Speaker 1 ... these were really clever people, and they, they were able to f- you know, feedback information. And sometimes I'm learning with these people, and they're telling me, "Oh, this is like in this philosophy, this is like in that philosophy." So I'm starting-- I hadn't studied philosophy, and I'm starting to get, like, sort of feedback about how this, um, aligns, how it's similar, how it's dissimilar, and we were having these conversations about the, the range-

51:54 Speaker 3 Right

51:54 Speaker 1 ... of things. And so I realized that, you know, there's an opportunity here. That if this-- They don't speak the language of Lechilets.

52:00 Speaker 3 Right.

52:00 Speaker 1 They speak other languages.

52:01 Speaker 3 Right.

52:02 Speaker 1 So I just have to learn... I mean, I speak to them in English, so I-- it's, it's just another way of... It's just a language.

52:07 Speaker 3 Right.

52:07 Speaker 1 It's about figuring out, um, in the, i-in sort of the paradigms that they're familiar with, how to communicate. How can I do Achchas and Ma'yanes in those, uh, in that, in that container, so to speak.

52:20 Speaker 3 Hmm.

52:20 Speaker 1 And, um, so I started, you know, reading a bit more, um, expanding my, my ideas. Um, and then I started writing. I started, um, writing some, some essays and some academic pieces.

52:35 Speaker 3 You didn't start with this book, though, right? 'Cause in this book-

52:36 Speaker 1 No, no

52:37 Speaker 3 ... you, you referred to a few other essays you did.

52:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I did some earlier material, um, where I sort of developed my writing skill. I didn't really know how to write.

52:45 Speaker 3 Certainly not academically. That's a whole different language.

52:46 Speaker 1 For sure, not.

52:47 Speaker 3 That's a whole different language.

52:48 Speaker 1 Um, so I had to learn that skill, and I'm still not very good. I still need to... It's, it's a struggle. I find it difficult.

52:54 Speaker 3 No, your writing is thankfully understandable.

52:56 Speaker 1 Okay.

52:56 Speaker 3 Please do not, please do not get more academic than I was saying. Thank you.

52:59 Speaker 1 I'll try. Um, no, but I, I'm not saying I have an inferiority complex. I just find it not a pleasurable act to write. I don't enjoy writing.

53:08 Speaker 3 I don't think anybody does.

53:09 Speaker 1 I think some people do.

53:11 Speaker 3 Yeah.

53:11 Speaker 1 That people who are trained to write-

53:13 Speaker 3 Yeah

53:13 Speaker 1 ... from a very early age, they can write and write and write. It just flows. Once they get into the, into the-

53:19 Speaker 3 Every writer, every, every famous writer says they hate writing. But I don't know, maybe they're, maybe they're lying.

53:25 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I, I, I, you know, I, I had to learn a little bit how to do that. Um, and also to think in categories.

53:32 Speaker 3 Right.

53:32 Speaker 1 Like I, I think that, you know, there's, there's lots of things, uh, in the academic system which are not desirable or we shouldn't seek to replicate them in any way. They're just functions of a, an old bureaucracy that just is the way it is. But, um, it definitely helped me sort of, um, clarify my thinking, um, learning how to create, to make arguments that are s- more solid. Um, and, um, yeah, so I found that to be enriching.

54:02 Speaker 3 Right.

54:02 Speaker 1 And again, it opened up doors. It meant, meant I was engaging with people that otherwise wouldn't treat me as seriously.

54:09 Speaker 3 Right.

54:09 Speaker 1 There's a lot of snobbery-

54:11 Speaker 3 Right

54:11 Speaker 1 ... um, in these parts.

54:12 Speaker 3 Sure.

54:13 Speaker 1 And it, uh, opens doors. It gives a credibility, um, which you can argue whether-- I mean, I would argue that it's, um, it's a failing of the system, that it's not open to people who take alternative, uh, routes of education.

54:28 Speaker 3 You argue that in the book?

54:30 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a, I think it's a flaw in the system.

54:33 Speaker 3 How have people taken to that argument?

54:34 Speaker 1 If you can't beat, join them, sort of.

54:36 Speaker 3 How have people taken to that argument?

54:38 Speaker 1 Um, I think that, that you have the people who are open and the people who are not open. It's just-

54:41 Speaker 3 Right

54:41 Speaker 1 ... I mean, I don't, I don't... It's not really an argument. It's just a-

54:44 Speaker 3 Right

54:44 Speaker 1 ... a declaration of war. Like, you know, this is out of, this is out of, this is out of order. I, I didn't feel that I'd spent eight years in yeshiva, um, and attained a certain degree of scholarship, both in Nigla and in Lechilets, to come here and be looked at as if I was like, had just like never, never opened a book or like was not a, not, not, not a worthy intellectual sparring partner.

55:10 Speaker 3 Right. It's almost like, it's almost like, you know, the famous kind of immigrant story where, like, you have the guy from Russia who's an engineer, and then he comes to America, and his degree is worthless, and he has to, like, clean the toilets.

55:18 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

55:18 Speaker 3 'Cause, like, his engineering degree wasn't given by the right accreditation society. In the meantime, he's a smarter engineer than everybody else, right? And so it's like you're saying, you come to Cambridge, and now all your Lechilets counts for nothing. But if you learn a few books by Nietzsche, then you're all of a sudden you're, you're, you're a chacham, right? And it's like, it's like, what's that? Like, it's, it, it-- I, I learned a body of work. It's int-- What, what I have to say, it's very interesting because before I met you and I read this book, I wouldn't say I felt it was apologetic, but it certainly, like... 'Cause I didn't know you, it sound-- you are playing on their turf, so you, like, you're constantly having to, like-

56:00 Speaker 1 Justify myself

56:01 Speaker 3 Justify. So in a sense, it is a, it is an apologetic, right? It has to like e-e-explain it, so like why you belong here, right? And, and so it's, it's, it's really interesting to see how like, like you're in many ways the book do-does in a way misrepresent you. No, I'm saying, it, 'cause like the book is-

56:20 Speaker 1 It wasn't written for-

56:21 Speaker 3 It's not, it's not written for-

56:21 Speaker 1 It wasn't written for Lubavitcher.

56:22 Speaker 3 No, it wasn't written for the Lubavitchers. It was written for people who are like skeptical from the outside, and it's... No, it's just interesting to see like how this doesn't-- Like you, it's very clear that this book is, is written one way, and you're thinking of it a different way.

56:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:38 Speaker 3 It, it's very, it's very interesting. It's very interesting. Do you wanna, do you wanna describe a little bit, um... Do you, do you feel-- Let me ask the question this way. If the book wasn't written for Lubavitchers, and, and it's clear that a lot of it isn't, right? 'Cause like no Lubavitchers, maybe some Lubavitchers heard of Levinas and Derrida. I don't know if any Lubavitchers heard of Kristeva or... I'm saying like there's a lot of stuff in there Lubavitchers don't know about and probably don't care about. But is there a part of the book that you feel is for Lubavitchers? Like is there something relevant to this conversation?

57:11 Speaker 1 Um, I think there's-- I would say that, and this is just anecdotal, uh, I think there are some people who, um, study Chassidus, study Torah, Nigleh Chassidus, and to a decent level, and they, they have an inferiority complex in the wide intellectual world, um, because the way that they've learned Chassidus has not been so sharp-

57:47 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

57:47 Speaker 1 ... maybe not so intellectually rigorous, and, and maybe they have a good reason to have an inferiority complex.

57:53 Speaker 3 Right.

57:53 Speaker 1 Um, but, and, and that can elicit a behavior pattern where they sort of say, "Ah, it's all nonsense. Oh, I can't," you know, like all this academic stuff, they're, they're a bunch of idiots. They don't know what they're talking about.

58:06 Speaker 3 Right.

58:06 Speaker 1 They, it just-- You, you see they just like act like kids. They, they, they're sort of, um, fighting against that. You know, I, you know, I don't wanna speak for your Torah. I-- The academy gave me a lot of training, um, and understanding of how to think about Chassidus in a way that I didn't get from other places.

58:23 Speaker 3 Right.

58:24 Speaker 1 It, it forced me to, um, think in certain terms, which I think have been fruitful and helpful in, in, in my avodas Hashem, in my limud HaTorah. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna bite off the hand that's fed me.

58:38 Speaker 3 Would Nosson Gurary have benefited from academia?

58:40 Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. I mean, I think he was a superior intellectual.

58:43 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

58:43 Speaker 1 Um, I think he got there by himself. Um-

58:45 Speaker 3 Because the reason I'm asking you is not just to play some kind of a silly, um, th-thought experiment. It's more do you think that for people who-- Do you think it's possible, even an extremist, for like Lubavitchers who, who want to reach that kind of rigor that you're talking about, with-- can they reach it without academia?

59:07 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes, definitely. With it-- And, and as you say, like what is gonna, what could be useful within Lubavitch context of what the book's done is it's, it's shown, I'd like to think, the, um, the profundity, the insight that the Rebbe Rashab had, such that it's become, you know, people are, for whatever reason, are impressed by the broader world and, and, and what's, uh, you know, what's considered important in the broader world. And to be able to appreciate that Chassidus has a depth of understanding and insight, um, such that, um, it's not to be like, "Oh, we're better than everyone. We don't, we don't need the rest of the world." Just to, just to put it into that context, just to lift it up as a, um, um, as like sort of something substantive. And I think there's a... Deep down, when the, the inferiority complex that people have reflects a sort of a, a lack of confidence in Chassidus.

1:00:11 Speaker 3 Right.

1:00:11 Speaker 1 It's like the same thing with Torah. It's the, the, in, in Torah in general, like Torah and science debates and all these types of things, like they're scared.

1:00:18 Speaker 3 Right.

1:00:18 Speaker 1 They're scared they might be shown up.

1:00:19 Speaker 3 Right.

1:00:20 Speaker 1 Like I think people should feel, um, tremendous confidence in this body of material, um, that we're zeich to have, um, and to go far with it, not, not just be... I, I think some of the reasons why people learn it in a slightly superficial way is that they don't believe it could-- What, what's the, what's the point of putting the effort in?

1:00:41 Speaker 3 Right.

1:00:41 Speaker 1 What are you gonna get if you, if you dig and dig and dig? What are you gonna get? Another Gematria. Like what?

1:00:45 Speaker 3 Right. Right. I mean, I, I, I accept what you're saying for sure. Um, it rings true, but I have to tell you that in a way I, I see something else in the book. You, you, you're saying that the book... Oh, I can just tell you what my experience reading the book. I read most of the book, and I actually read a big chunk of it twice. Um, what you're saying is that you've heard back that Lubavitch, like Lubavitcher see how impressive or how profound Chassidus can be, and that talks to them. And yeah, no doubt some people feel that way. I can see why they'd feel that way. But what-- In my experience, I didn't really need anybody to tell me that it or not profound, 'cause I remember having that experience myself when I learned it. Um, what I, what I did feel-

1:01:27 Speaker 1 But do you think-- One second. Do you think you're from, um, the majority of people who've studied Chassidus in that style?

1:01:34 Speaker 3 Uh, no, if I'm being honest, no, no, no. That's why I'm saying what you said rings true.

1:01:37 Speaker 1 Right.

1:01:37 Speaker 3 But my personal experience is that that's not what impressed me. What impressed me was the ability of, your ability as an author to take it seriously and to talk about it in an English or in a, in a language that I usually can only find outside Chassidus, right? And, and I think that's-- I don't know if it's equally as important, but it's also important. Like I, I think it's great for some people who maybe never had any Yiddishe experience of like seeing a Meimar talked about in a serious manner for them just to see that happen. Yes, for sure. But I think for a lot of people, and for those people too, it's also important to not just see that the Gemara's taken seriously, like, "Oh, this Gemara is really, really special," but that someone can engage with it on a serious level and bear fruit. Like, the Gemara can bear fruit. That I think... Also, the Gemara bearing fruit can also be like chalked up to belief. Like, if the rabbi said it, it's important, it'll... But what about the fact that you can engage with it and, and kind of tussle with it and come out with something of your own and something profound and something gripping and arresting, like you said earlier? Like, it's something muscular, like, like, going back to jujitsu, but- ... I think it's important. I think it's a-- Like, I, the reason I keep on going back to that is because it, I think it's very... Like, when

1:03:02 Speaker 3 you kind of give the analogy in something so different, that's what a mashal is. Like-

1:03:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's bizman v'azal.

1:03:07 Speaker 3 A Gemara, yeah, Gemara's in your head, right? So it's like, "What does it mean to be muscular in your head?" Well, okay, so it's the mashal is, is, is the physical activity that everybody can understand is muscular.

1:03:15 Speaker 1 You know, my, my, my, my-- One of my sons-

1:03:18 Speaker 3 So just to finish off the mashal, like, everybody can understand that jujitsu is a amazing body of knowledge, but it's something else when you see somebody engage with it and like, "Okay, now, now I get it."

1:03:31 Speaker 1 I hear. Thank you. I appreciate that feedback. Um, one of my sons said to me, um, having read it that, um, um, "It's nice to see Chassidus spoken about in English, and it doesn't sound stupid."

1:03:43 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:03:45 Speaker 1 Which, I mean, I feel bad because I don't, I don't want to critique other people who write about Chassidus in English, but there's a certain, um, stuck in two worlds-

1:03:54 Speaker 3 Right

1:03:55 Speaker 1 ... when people are, are writing. And so-

1:03:57 Speaker 3 Right

1:03:57 Speaker 1 ... you could have-- You, you can hear them thinking in Hebrew instead of writing-- when they're writing in English. And so that's what I tried to do, um, to varying degrees of success, but I appreciate hearing people say-

1:04:07 Speaker 3 Well, you, you write about it in your book. One of the things that really interested me, even though it wasn't really been a g- uh, to the actual... I, I don't know if we clarified, this is a book about Sefer Ha-Tanit.

1:04:16 Speaker 1 Yep.

1:04:16 Speaker 3 Um, and, uh, the rabbi-- story of Rabbi Green Glasses, Pardes Ha-Adamah, which explains why Rubin's so interested in Tanit in the first place. But the book is about Tanit and how the Berishab's, uh, philosophy, Berishab's Chassidus can speak or has something to offer to the world of philosophy and so on. But, um, what was I say? Oh, one of the things you talk about is a problem of translation.

1:04:41 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:04:42 Speaker 3 Right? And, um, uh, it's actually something that got me in a bit of trouble recently, where I suggested that if I was to be asked for a quick fix for the, the Babage, for, for in general, the yeshiva system, in general, I don't offer for the peanut gallery. Like, I think it's silly for me to, but this one actually could be enforced relatively cost-free. I suggested that they start davening in English out loud, not, not just like in their mind.

1:05:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:05:08 Speaker 3 Like, that's the language we speak. Articulate yourself in that language. Like, learn to articulate yourself in the language that you speak so that you don't live in two different worlds. This idea that you can just kind of toggle between Hebrew and English on a dime is, is not how it works.

1:05:26 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:05:26 Speaker 3 Right? Because what ends up happening is you have people with a very primitive Hebrew and a sophisticated English. When they translate the, the primitive Hebrew, or even if a sophisticated Hebrew gets translated into a primitive English, and the sophisticated English is only experienced in varum acher, it's not healthy.

1:05:47 Speaker 1 There was one Chassid who used to daven. When he would daven, he would translate into Yiddish.

1:05:51 Speaker 3 That was precisely the story I said when I, when I gave that example. I still got in trouble, but it's okay.

1:05:56 Speaker 1 So what was his word? He said even in, even Birkat Shemecha when you're not supposed to speak.

1:06:00 Speaker 3 It does for Nevash Bahamis.

1:06:01 Speaker 1 Yeah. For Nevash Bahamis, what steht now Yiddish?

1:06:03 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:06:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. So-

1:06:04 Speaker 3 But Yiddish is okay. English is, uh, English doesn't work.

1:06:08 Speaker 1 So you're saying that the, the-- you can toggle between Hebrew and Yiddish in a way that you can't do between Hebrew and English?

1:06:11 Speaker 3 No, I'm saying the critics see the wisdom of that up to the extent of Yiddish, but, uh, but English, English starts getting kind of touchy, and, and I, and I-

1:06:20 Speaker 1 I've always encouraged my talmidim, my children, so when I-- before I was here, I was working in Mesivta. Um, I made them, yeah, daven in English.

1:06:31 Speaker 3 That's really interesting. So you taught at Mesivta before you came here?

1:06:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:35 Speaker 3 Um, what would you tell your, your s- your mesh- your Mesivta self g- not, you know, if you went back in time? Or it seems like you kind of left. You kind of... You're on your way out.

1:06:46 Speaker 1 I've moved on. I've moved on.

1:06:46 Speaker 3 You're on your way out. You weren't there for too long.

1:06:49 Speaker 1 No, I've moved on. Um, I don't have an expertise in that. I, I mean, if I have an expertise in anything, I definitely don't have an expertise in that.

1:06:56 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:56 Speaker 1 I think the only... Obviously, I homeschooled my kids and stuff, so I, I care about Chinuch. Um, and I think the, the most valuable thing in Chinuch has been m- me on the receiving end, and I've seen the impact of, uh, being on the, on the teaching end, is actually treating people with respect, um, being ma- treating them as mature people.

1:07:22 Speaker 3 Right.

1:07:23 Speaker 1 If you, if you treat someone maturely, they behave more, more maturely. Um, taking someone seriously. I was just recently, um, uh, uh, I went to Toronto to farbrengen with the, uh, girls' high school.

1:07:36 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:07:37 Speaker 1 And it was a very, very engaging experience, and some of the feedback was, um, reflect-- what we reflected was like, I just didn't look at them as like little girls. I taught them as serious people.

1:07:49 Speaker 3 And this was reflected, like, in a positive way?

1:07:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. They, they, they-

1:07:52 Speaker 3 They appreciated it.

1:07:52 Speaker 1 They appreciated it, and sort of, I think at the core of it was-

1:07:56 Speaker 3 Mm

1:07:56 Speaker 1 ... I don't think I said anything particularly interesting-

1:07:58 Speaker 3 No

1:07:58 Speaker 1 ... or extraordinary, but it was just, if you interact with people in a way that you take them seriously, um, it's meaningful. It builds their self-esteem. They, they care about... They'll begin... You could say it's quite manipulative, but they all care about the things that you care about. Um, and I just, I just think it's a m-- I think it's a A polite way of treating people.

1:08:18 Speaker 3 It's not-- I don't think-- I don't see it manipulative at all, at all. I, I, I mean, it's, it's, it's respectful.

1:08:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:08:24 Speaker 3 It's respectful. I mean, I, I've been going on this for years. I mean, whoever listened to me before I had a podcast, but saying I've been talking you know, whoever listens to me now, but, but, you know, God bless all of you. But, um-

1:08:38 Speaker 1 I'm just here so people can listen to you a bit more.

1:08:41 Speaker 3 No, no, I'm just saying, like, I mean, th-this is, this is, like, right up there all-- This is right up on my list. Like- ... uh, we actually mentioned it earlier in the podcast. It's, it's a, it's a cycle. Like, when you, when you, when you talk to-- when, when you decide a priori that people are not up to it, and so you give them less-

1:08:57 Speaker 1 Sure

1:08:58 Speaker 3 ... then, then they don't hear anything, then they're not interested, then there's no one to talk to, then you don't give them anything more, and it's like you're, you're, you're caught in this vicious cycle of shallowness. Like, a lot of the people, you mentioned there's like a, you know, a lot... Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. You open up a, a essay on Chassidus or a translation of a Mayim Rabim, and it's like, why do I feel like I'm back in high school? Where is the material that I can read that makes me need to read it again, and with the, with the confidence that this-- that it's worth reading again because I have to process what this writer is writing. Like, he's really thought it through. Like, and, and, and to your point, I think what you find every time that you speak elevated, and not elevated pretentiously or arrogantly, elevated that I... You know, I make videos for a living. The simple rule of making videos or really any art is you have to appreciate the work that you're making. Right? Not because you're the most important person in the world, but because if you don't care about this piece, and the story that you're telling doesn't talk to you, why in the world would you assume it would talk to anybody else? If it talks to you, there's a chance it'll talk to other people, right? And you hope that you develop a, a, an instinct to know what that

1:10:10 Speaker 3 it is, but it has to talk to you. So just talk about Chassidus in a way that engages you. Don't dumb it down for this imaginary crowd. Try to talk in a way that talks to you, and hopefully, that elevates the crowd, right? And especially in today's world where we're talking before the podcast about how, like, it's so hard to get people to come to an event because they can come to an event, or they can watch a video on YouTube of, uh, the world's most proficient violinist in a concert. It's like, you know, how-- It's very hard. Our youth or whoever you're concerned about are swimming in a world of access and ideas. People are talking to them in sophisticated fashion. People are talking to them and making them feel smart. If you're not gonna talk to them on that level, someone else will and is, right? And like, and so much of the paranoia about like, "Oh my God, people are listening to this, to that," it's an ins-- it's a, it's a realization that we're not giving out the goods. If you were giving-- If you believed that Chassidus was sophisticated and deep and profound, and you believe that you're communicating it that way, why are you so worried that they're gonna... They got the goods. You've got the goods.

1:11:27 Speaker 1 But I think that, that this, on the part of the people who are trying to express, exude, you know, share Chassidus, there's... You know, it's difficult, and it's, it's, uh, um, it requires a lot of introspection. I, I was very, uh, affected by the story of the-- one of the French shluchim who was translating the sichas into, into French, and he asked the Rebbe, um, "How should he go about it? What should be the process of translation?" So Rebbe said, "You learn the sicha, good, and then you should close the book and write it in your own words."

1:12:00 Speaker 3 Really?

1:12:01 Speaker 1 And this-

1:12:03 Speaker 3 How did that story get forgotten so quickly?

1:12:05 Speaker 1 It's on, it's on one of the gem videos.

1:12:07 Speaker 3 But what I'm saying, like, it's not a practice.

1:12:09 Speaker 1 And, well, you think like Jonathan Sacks, that's sort of one of the ways he, he, his Torah studies, which-

1:12:15 Speaker 3 No, but I'm talking in, in our circles, it's not the feeling you get when you read a, a translation.

1:12:20 Speaker 1 For sure. For sure. Um, I mean, it's just thinking about in different-- As you say, like thinking in different... I, I was going into a particular direction, talking to people who are familiar with, um, you know, continental philosophy.

1:12:33 Speaker 3 Right.

1:12:33 Speaker 1 That was, like, my audience. I was trying to help them engage with Chassidus.

1:12:38 Speaker 3 Right.

1:12:38 Speaker 1 But everyone has to think about their audience, and, like, just the very act of thinking about your audience is already, you know, that, that, that should be a, a basic-

1:12:48 Speaker 3 Prerequisite

1:12:49 Speaker 1 ... expectation, a prerequisite of how you enter into any sort of farbrengen, any speaking engagement, any, any activity.

1:12:55 Speaker 3 Right.

1:12:56 Speaker 1 Um, doesn't matter what I have to say or what I want to say. What do they need to hear?

1:12:59 Speaker 3 Right.

1:13:00 Speaker 1 Whatever they need to hear, I have to figure out a way that is meaningf- can be meaningfully communicated to them.

1:13:06 Speaker 3 Right.

1:13:06 Speaker 1 And I think that's my sort of challenge as an educator, what I need to do. And you've got to... I think the-- It goes back to sort of the earlier discussion we had about the variety of Chassidim and about how people are able to, um, really think about Chassidus in, in-- on their own terms.

1:13:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:13:26 Speaker 1 And then it, and it, and it comes up, it then becomes individualized. The sort of the zeh kevil hamvehu rather than eleh kevil v'areh menhu-

1:13:33 Speaker 3 Right

1:13:33 Speaker 1 ... type of approach. Do we have to explain these types of things or our audience is, uh, is Bachant?

1:13:39 Speaker 3 Our, our audience is ready four l'chaims in, and we're behind.

1:13:42 Speaker 1 Right. Okay.

1:13:42 Speaker 3 So l'chaim.

1:13:43 Speaker 1 L'chaim. Um, yeah, I think that-- So, so one of, one of my inspirations, um, in this regard, um, which gets me into a lot of trouble with the, the more, um, hardcore furchtige of the crowd is my, my obsession, and I would call it an obsession, with Avraham Chein, who is, um, who I did some research on before the, before the book, and I'm hoping to do more research going forward.

1:14:10 Speaker 3 Who was Avraham Chein?

1:14:11 Speaker 1 Avraham Chein was the son of Radatz Chein, David Tzvi Chein, and he is a-- He was a very individual style Chassid.

1:14:21 Speaker 3 When did he live?

1:14:23 Speaker 1 Uh, 18, 1877 to 1957.

1:14:27 Speaker 3 So that is from 1877.

1:14:30 Speaker 1 Tofish lambachas till tofish yud ches.

1:14:33 Speaker 3 So he was born in the times of the Rabbi Maharash.

1:14:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:37 Speaker 3 Grew up. He was, yeah, he was a little boy when the Rabbi Rashab-- when the Rabbi Maharash passed away.

1:14:42 Speaker 1 He's the same age as, like, sort of around the Friediker Rebbe Z"L, yeah.

1:14:45 Speaker 3 So he was, he was at any time considered a Chassid of Rabbi Rashab? Like, he went to-- Like, what's the story?

1:14:51 Speaker 1 It's complicated. It's probably not the time now to do a whole biography of Avraham Chein.

1:14:54 Speaker 3 Okay, fine. Fair enough.

1:14:55 Speaker 1 The, the sort of-- I think the interesting component of, of him and why it interjects with this sort of homesick Lubavitch thing is that a lot of people are very uncomfortable with him. He was very of kiklet.

1:15:07 Speaker 3 Right.

1:15:08 Speaker 1 He had his own, his own gang.

1:15:10 Speaker 3 So he was in and out, basically.

1:15:12 Speaker 1 Well, he w- he was out.

1:15:13 Speaker 3 He was out.

1:15:13 Speaker 1 He was out from the perspective of institutional Lubavitch.

1:15:17 Speaker 3 Right.

1:15:18 Speaker 1 On the, on the, on, on, on the whole. Uh-

1:15:21 Speaker 3 He went to Ten Chaf Tzvi?

1:15:22 Speaker 1 No.

1:15:23 Speaker 3 Did he consider himself a Lubavitcher?

1:15:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:15:26 Speaker 3 He did?

1:15:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's a Chabad, yeah.

1:15:28 Speaker 3 Okay. Understood. I-

1:15:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

1:15:30 Speaker 3 ... I've not-- I've never heard of him.

1:15:31 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:15:31 Speaker 3 I think that's your point.

1:15:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. My next book, you'll find... You'll, you'll, uh, hopefully.

1:15:35 Speaker 3 All right. I'm-- I'd be happy to come back to Cambridge, but, uh.

1:15:38 Speaker 1 Hopefully it'll be cheaper. But he talks about Chassidus in his own shprach, in his own language.

1:15:46 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Mm.

1:15:46 Speaker 1 And it's, it's, it's like, uh, it's so beautiful to see somebody who's learned the same books that I've booked, right?

1:15:53 Speaker 3 So which Chassidus is he talking about?

1:15:55 Speaker 1 He's talking-- I mean, first of all, other than early J-- all the Alter Rebbe, Mitteler Rebbe, Tzemach Tzedek stuff is-

1:16:00 Speaker 3 Uh-huh

1:16:00 Speaker 1 ... for him, normal.

1:16:02 Speaker 3 Right.

1:16:03 Speaker 1 Um, but the themes of Chassidus which he's teaching or he's writing about, um, they, they k- they, they, they're, they're like, they're original.

1:16:14 Speaker 3 Right.

1:16:14 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm reading this stuff. I know this stuff, but I'm reading it in such a style-

1:16:19 Speaker 3 Right

1:16:19 Speaker 1 ... that is getting me really excited.

1:16:20 Speaker 3 Yeah. He's a mind now. He-- there's a mind now that like, let's say when you read, like, an author o-on your shelf, and like-

1:16:26 Speaker 1 Right

1:16:26 Speaker 3 ... there's this new mind, right? Is now populating your s- your mind. Like, that's the same thing with him, you're saying.

1:16:31 Speaker 1 For, for him, obviously it's very unattractive to the, the people who want there to be such a bittle, the Matzias.

1:16:39 Speaker 3 A monopoly on ideas.

1:16:40 Speaker 1 And that everyone is just a, uh, I don't know, you know, a word from the book. You have this diaphanous-- uh, you have this, like, sort of transparency. You just look at someone, and you just see the Rebbe's words. You see Chassidus. It's like, it doesn't go through any filter.

1:16:55 Speaker 3 Right.

1:16:56 Speaker 1 And, you know, I can see something beautiful in that.

1:17:00 Speaker 3 But is that even possible? Is that-

1:17:00 Speaker 1 On one level, when you talk about Reb Yael being the Rebbe's typewriter, you know, like, that type of, um, bittle, I, I'm not saying it's not a, a beautiful thing.

1:17:08 Speaker 3 But that's not true. But that's not true.

1:17:09 Speaker 1 It can be a beautiful thing.

1:17:10 Speaker 3 But that's not true. Reb Yael, Reb Yael is not the Rebbe's typewriter.

1:17:13 Speaker 1 No, absolutely. It's-- I'm talking, I'm talking about the-

1:17:14 Speaker 3 Everybody, everybody, everybody that listens to the Rebbe said and sees how Reb Yael writes it, how is that a typewriter?

1:17:19 Speaker 1 I'm not saying he was, but the, the... That's, um, that idea-

1:17:25 Speaker 3 Uh-huh

1:17:25 Speaker 1 ... of wanting to just be, you know, the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's mouth, the Rebbe's feet.

1:17:29 Speaker 3 Right, right.

1:17:29 Speaker 1 Give him, give him what's left, top from base, right?

1:17:32 Speaker 3 yeah.

1:17:33 Speaker 1 Being like, "Give him what's left, top from base." That, that, that goal, that role that you're playing.

1:17:37 Speaker 3 Give him what's left, top from your base. I don't know.

1:17:39 Speaker 1 The Rebbe talks about the Friediker could speak, and therefore he needed someone to be his mouth and his-

1:17:42 Speaker 3 Oh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

1:17:42 Speaker 1 So we, we are the hands and the feet of the Rebbe, and the mouth of the Rebbe.

1:17:45 Speaker 3 That's what he meant?

1:17:47 Speaker 1 But I think for some people, they read that-

1:17:50 Speaker 3 Uh-huh

1:17:50 Speaker 1 ... as being, therefore, you're just sort of a, a makover.

1:17:53 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:53 Speaker 1 You're bottled to the ratzon of the, of the Rebbe.

1:17:55 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:17:56 Speaker 1 But, you know, Shliach Eis is-- Mashiach Eis is Shliach with Esei Keyich Hanefesh. This Esei Keyich Hanefesh.

1:18:02 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:03 Speaker 1 This is the struggle. Do your Esei Keyich Hanefesh come and just become, um, narrowly defined by a set of priorities? Or is there something unique about you? Is, is there something individual about you that only you can contribute?

1:18:21 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:21 Speaker 1 See, I, you know, I think when you, when you start talking about what was the Alter Rebbe's Chassidus of Chabad, that once you start... And why everyone was so against it, the other Chassidus. Once you enter into Chabad, that means you're, you're bringing your subjectivity.

1:18:33 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:33 Speaker 1 Individuality.

1:18:34 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:35 Speaker 1 There's no...

1:18:39 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:39 Speaker 1 So if we all, if we all think differently,

1:18:42 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:43 Speaker 1 And we're focusing on Chabad, then what we're actually opening up is a can of worms of people, you know, being different.

1:18:51 Speaker 3 Yeah. Fragment-

1:18:51 Speaker 1 And not being identical.

1:18:52 Speaker 3 Fragmentation.

1:18:53 Speaker 1 And, you know, I see in Chaim, yeah, I'm not saying he's perfect.

1:18:58 Speaker 3 Right.

1:18:58 Speaker 1 The reason why I like him is 'cause he's a bit more relatable. I mean, he's... You know, it's like when you start talking about, you know, certain types of Chassidim or Rebbeim and everything, you don't feel that a-attachment and connection because you realize it's beyond your means. But this is a person who, you know, learned a wide range of stuff, and he was able to blend it, integrate it, and meaningfully communicate Chassidus in a, in a, in an inspiring way-

1:19:21 Speaker 3 Right

1:19:21 Speaker 1 ... to an audience that otherwi-- you know, he was Mekarev, uh-

1:19:25 Speaker 3 Who was he writing for?

1:19:27 Speaker 1 He was writing for the intelligentsia.

1:19:29 Speaker 3 Oh, so he was like, he was like a prelude to some of the Lubavitchers today who write for the... write to the academics and so on. He was doing that back in the day.

1:19:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. He was Mekarev of Zalman Schacher.

1:19:38 Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

1:19:39 Speaker 1 He was Mekarev of the Ein Steinsaltz.

1:19:40 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:19:41 Speaker 1 He was Mekarev of all these people. Hugo-- Professor Hugo Berg, Bergmann-

1:19:45 Speaker 3 Wow

1:19:45 Speaker 1 ... came to Shiarim. He, he was able to access people-

1:19:48 Speaker 3 Right

1:19:48 Speaker 1 ... because they respected him.

1:19:50 Speaker 3 Right. He must have read other books also that most Lubavitchers wouldn't read, like he must have been-

1:19:54 Speaker 1 Right. No, he was, he was-

1:19:55 Speaker 3 But it-

1:19:56 Speaker 1 First of all, Lubavitchers in those days were not as, uh, you know... It, it wasn't-- In Radaz's house, there was Tolstoy.

1:20:06 Speaker 3 Right. But, but, but you're saying that Lubavitch was more open-minded then?

1:20:10 Speaker 1 I'm not saying... I, I think those categories don't make sense, uh, being open-minded. I just think-

1:20:14 Speaker 3 Tolerant?

1:20:15 Speaker 1 Um.

1:20:17 Speaker 3 The Radaz read Tolstoy.

1:20:18 Speaker 1 I didn't say Radaz read Tolstoy. I'm just saying in the house-

1:20:20 Speaker 3 He allowed it in his house.

1:20:21 Speaker 1 He-

1:20:22 Speaker 3 Well, look, he, he was lucky to live before the advent of Feldheim Press, so. You know, just didn't have a brain. I mean-

1:20:31 Speaker 1 No, I don't wanna, I, I don't wanna start analyzing what books they had in the house or what they didn't have.

1:20:34 Speaker 3 You know, you know the, you know the famous riddle: What time would you rather live in? Under, under, under the tsar without Feldheim Press- ... or not under the tsar with, with Feldheim Press?

1:20:49 Speaker 1 Oh, wow. This is why you shouldn't have l'chaim while you, while you podcast.

1:20:54 Speaker 3 I'm just gonna start. Um, no, so.

1:20:58 Speaker 1 See, I re-- I, I respect people who are complicated people And Aphal became the Habaderer

1:21:06 Speaker 3 Right

1:21:06 Speaker 1 Like the Derer doesn't come from them being parrots

1:21:11 Speaker 3 Right

1:21:11 Speaker 1 But with, with, with all of the exposure-

1:21:13 Speaker 3 It's not inevitable. It's not inevitable. It's n- it's not inevitable. There's a, there's a ayin bemzo, right? They, they could have gone a different way

1:21:21 Speaker 1 Totally

1:21:22 Speaker 3 And that is, that is, that is almost to me, that is like the foundation of the struggle of general ident-- like Yiddish identity, because how do you b-- you know, you quoted the Shalov, Zechariah ben Veio. How do you make the Eibescher yours without, for a moment at least, considering him not being yours? Like, on one hand, like, what am I gonna be a koifer? Am I gonna throw it off? But if I never ha-- I don't know, I don't know how that works. I don't know how that mechanism works. 'Cause if I never have a moment of true beginning or true ending of what was passed, then how do I have a, my own beginning?

1:22:03 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:04 Speaker 3 And that, that, that, uh, but are you, are you allowed to seek out the ending of, of your, of the moonah that your parents gave you? Like, where do you, wh- wh- where do you end up in that space? Like, it's, it's such a... Like, how does that work? Like, how do you make identity yours without being a koifer or a nifchar-

1:22:22 Speaker 1 Well, I think like-

1:22:22 Speaker 3 Or a very bad thing, let's say, in between. Like, what's the ayin bemzo? What's the ayin bemzo look like?

1:22:28 Speaker 1 Well, I think like, for example, with Cheim, what's fascinating is that it wasn't automatic that he was a Hasid of the Debarishab. First of all, he had a big father.

1:22:36 Speaker 3 Right.

1:22:36 Speaker 1 So he was a Hasid of his father.