Ep. 17 // "To the Promised Land" w/ Zevi Slavin

00:00 Speaker 1 To me, the rabbi, who's my Moshe Rabbeinu, led us to the Promised Land, and like Moshe Rabbeinu did not enter the Promised Land, and said, "It's now your turn to stand up on your own two feet and to walk in for yourself. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna carry you anymore. I'm not gonna be your mother," which is the way that Moshe's described, and carry you into the land. You have to stand up and do it. And if the rabbi faced himself a challenge of taking the tradition that he was raised on and colliding head-on with modernity and emerging with something powerful, meaningful, inspiring, empowering, and redemptive, then I have the responsibility to do the same.

00:36 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-four. My name is Bentzi Offson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. This week's guest is Zevi Slavin, who I first heard about online from his YouTube channel, and most of the stuff that he talks about on his YouTube channel are topics that are quite unfamiliar to me, and I would expect unfamiliar to most people listening to this podcast. But while that's the case, there were a few times where he spoke about his Lubavitch identity, where it felt at once unique to him, as one would expect from the way he discusses things on his YouTube channel, but at the same time, very familiar, surprisingly familiar, and resonant. I thought it would be very interesting to have him on this podcast to talk about how he has figured or thought about managing the tension between the intellectual pursuits that he is involved in and engrossed in, but at the same time, holding on to his Lubavitch identity. How does he manage that tension? How does he manage that seeming contradiction? How does he make it work? Does he make it work? And so I invited him onto this podcast. We had a wonderful conversation. I hope you enjoy. All right. We're here n- today with, um, a new friend, Zevi Slavin. Zevi Slavin is from, uh, Sydney, Australia, and, uh, I got to know Zevi by, by watching him online for, for a little bit, as Zevi

02:18 Speaker 2 has a channel online on YouTube where he disc- discusses his, um, intellectual pursuits, the ideas that he's thinking about and talking about, and covering a little bit of his intellectual journey. Most of it is stuff that I don't really understand, but we'll get to some of that later. Maybe not to the ideas themselves, but to how he ended up there in the first place. Um, yeah, so, so why don't we begin, why don't we begin with, with, with your story? I always like to begin with a story.

02:53 Speaker 1 Sure.

02:53 Speaker 2 So you, you, you-- Like I, I, I introduced you enough that you grew up in Sydney, Australia, but that's about all I know. So why don't you tell me a little bit about growing up in Sydney, Australia, what it was like?

03:08 Speaker 1 Growing up in Sydney was delightful in many ways. I grew up as a proud child of proud Shluchim, and I grew up with a real sense of mission and purpose in that, that, um, we-- There was a real sense that we weren't just here to enjoy life and to make the best of the beach, which was near our house, but that we were there with a real sense of objective, that we were sent there to achieve something, to achieve something global and cosmic. And, um, that's something which I've, which I cherished a lot as a child, and I still hold on to it today. Um, I'm very, very grateful to my parents. I think they're the most wonderful parents that this world has produced, and I may be a bit biased in that. But, um, I really did think they, they were-- I think they were like into conscious parenting before it was a thing, and I think they did a phenomenal job instilling us with a lot of, a lot of self-respect and self-love, unconditional love for us. Um, so if we're gonna begin in childhood, there was... It was a very beautiful one, which I think is important to say 'cause a lot of people, when they see someone doing something which is, you know, a bit off the beaten track, they assume right away that there was something wrong. They try to point and blame. Where did-

04:23 Speaker 2 Right

04:23 Speaker 1 ...Where, where was this person messed up that they're now doing something creative and and original? Uh, and I-- and that wasn't the case for me. And, and what I'm doing now is not coming from a place of rebellion or angst or, or anger or trauma. Um, that's, that's where my story begins.

04:38 Speaker 2 Yeah. I think that's a very good-- I mean, it's a great s- a great beginning to the story, but also a good disclaimer. I, I agree. Um, yes, it's, it's sad that it has to be bevarned, but it, it, it does need to be bevarned. So you grew up, you said you were-- you grew up with a proud sense of Shlichus. Uh, that is something I can identify with. I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents were also Shluchim. And yeah, I mean, there's, there is a sense of why are we here? Well, we're here to, to change things. We're here to make a-- to, to, to, to... For a big reason, very big reason. You know, as you're a child, maybe you don't really know how to articulate it, but it's big. And you know that you're unique and different at the very least, right? So, uh, but in your case, it was slightly different to mine. Uh, not slightly, very different to mine. You had other Lubavitchers there as well, right? Sydney does have a substantial Lubavitch community. Um, so what was that like? Um, I guess to frame the question a little more specifically, you know, I would suppose if you grew up in Australia and you're the only Lubavitcher, you automatically like there's a peculiarity. There's like it's a contradiction, and you kind of just or-- and maybe you just like kind of shut off the other side of it, right? But here you see a bunch of other Lubavitch Australians,

05:52 Speaker 2 some of them a couple generations in, right? So how did you think of or did you think of what it means to be or like are you Australian? Are you Lubavitch? What does it mean? I have American cousins. What was that like? How Australian did you feel, and how Lubavitch did you feel? Make this... Uh, make, make the answer simple. Make the question simple.

06:14 Speaker 1 Right. A pointed question helps. It's funny because I, I know I'm Australian in many ways, and there's a specific brand of Lubavitch which is Australian, which is different than Lubavitch anywhere else. And people that know Australian Lubavitch know what I mean by that.

06:31 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:31 Speaker 1 Where there's a certain, a bit more both laid-backness and worldliness in some sense.

06:37 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

06:37 Speaker 1 Those are... I mean, maybe if th- if those words, if those words hold any meaning. So within a Lubavitch context, I feel Australian, but within a general context, I don't particularly feel very Australian.

06:49 Speaker 2 Interesting.

06:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. I think that's because, because we were there as missionaries, to put it frankly. We were, we were there as... There was the sense that you're like the child of the ambassador, right? And you're not, you're not of the locals, right? And we didn't... In many ways we weren't. We didn't engage. We didn't have, you know, the, the cuisine that our neighbors were having. We didn't celebrate the s- the, the festivals they were celebrating. In many ways, you're, you're in them and amongst them, but you're not of them when you're there-

07:18 Speaker 2 Right

07:18 Speaker 1 ... on a mission. And I think that would be the same for any religion. If you're children of Mormons in Africa, you don't necess- even if you're born there, you don't necessarily identify as such.

07:25 Speaker 2 But you had classmates who were Lubavitchers and weren't shluchim, no?

07:29 Speaker 1 Most of... A lot of the Lubavitchers that I grew up with were children of shluchim.

07:34 Speaker 2 Okay.

07:35 Speaker 1 Yeah.

07:35 Speaker 2 So Sydney is different than Melbourne.

07:36 Speaker 1 Sydney... Yeah. Sydney does... Sydney now has, and even then to a degree, had a large... Do I need to translate words here? I can-

07:44 Speaker 2 No, no.

07:44 Speaker 1 Okay. Had a large Anash community. And, um, M- so Melbourne had a large, has a large Anash community. In Sydney, although there is one now, growing up, at least in my mind, there was not so much Anash. It was, it was... There's a ton of shluchim in Sydney.

07:59 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:00 Speaker 1 Chabad got in very early, and they, they set up in important places, and almost all of my classmates, or, or even all of them that were Chabad were children of shluchim.

08:11 Speaker 2 Okay.

08:11 Speaker 1 We had, we had other kids. We had, we had kids that came in from-

08:14 Speaker 2 Right

08:14 Speaker 1 ... children of Russians and South Africans and, and locals and whatnot. Um, but the Chabad, it was a very shlichus Chabad. There wasn't, there wasn't so much of an Anash end.

08:22 Speaker 2 I see.

08:23 Speaker 1 Yeah.

08:23 Speaker 2 No, so it's, it's interesting because in a way, almost, you were like, you were cocooned within the world of shlichus. Like you're, you're on shlichus, but all your friends are also shluchim. So it's not even like... You're not even like a shliach Long Island who comes to ATERA. Like your whole concept of Lubavitch all around you, and is reinforced by the people around you, is shlichus.

08:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

08:42 Speaker 2 It's interesting.

08:42 Speaker 1 Yeah. Also, when you're in such a remote outpost, even if someone's Anash, they're also shliach in some sense as well.

08:49 Speaker 2 Yeah, but in Melbourne you wouldn't say that, right? 'Cause it's large enough of a community that, that-

08:52 Speaker 1 That you can live within that community-

08:54 Speaker 2 Yeah

08:54 Speaker 1 ... and not have to... If y- Yeah. If you're, if you're not interacting with the outside world-

08:57 Speaker 2 Right

08:57 Speaker 1 ... then you don't have, you don't have a shlichus mentality necessarily.

09:00 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, shlichus mentality is a whole different, a whole different question. Um, yeah, I mean, so, so you, you grow, you grow up in Sydney. Um, your, your concept of being Jewish is being a Lubavitcher. Your concept of being a Lubavitcher is being a shliach. That's all there is to it. Um, how long does that hold? Because we... And, and I, and I'm not saying like, when did it crack? That it has to crack. It doesn't have to crack, but in a way, it kinda does because you've, you've layered three things on top of one another and said that this is what it is, when no, it's a subset, right? So a subset of Yidden are Lubavitchers, and a subset of Lubavitchers are shluchim, but from what I understand from you is that you understood that sh- shluchim are Lubavitchers are Yidden, right? Correct?

09:51 Speaker 1 Growing up, yes.

09:52 Speaker 2 Correct.

09:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

09:52 Speaker 2 So, so when did that begin to, like, begin to fall apart? Or did it fall apart?

09:59 Speaker 1 There's, you know, there's an interesting moment I had as a child, and I, and I wonder how many humans have this as children, when for the first time I realized that there were countries outside of Australia, and that other people lived in different time zones and different cultures and languages. As a young child, I mean, I think we were flying overseas, and just like seeing a map and understanding that there were other cultures. There's, there's a real... A child grows up in a space where they're really the only thing that exists, and, and they... I mean, the ego feels that way about itself, and then when you-

10:26 Speaker 2 Just, just... You're, you're talking about every New Yorker that- ... flies out to Israel the first time, but go ahead.

10:32 Speaker 1 That's the moment for-

10:33 Speaker 2 Go ahead

10:34 Speaker 1 ... for the local context.

10:35 Speaker 2 Yeah. Go ahead.

10:35 Speaker 1 The, the out-of-towners, you're saying, the rest of

10:38 Speaker 2 The first time a New Yorker finds out about Israel. Anyway, go ahead.

10:40 Speaker 1 It's a fascinating thing-

10:41 Speaker 2 Yeah

10:41 Speaker 1 ... to, to realize that there are entire populations of people, millions, billions of people, that have nothing to do with your life, and you're t- absolutely insignificant to them, is like a big thing to discover as a young child.

10:50 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:51 Speaker 1 And it's an important, I assume, developmental phase to go through, right? If you don't go th- And perhaps some people don't go through that phase in Israel ways. But, um, so I think, I think the, um... We, we begin to understand that we live in a context, and we begin to understand that that context is both contemporary and historical. Um, and if you're a curious person, you wanna understand how that comes to be and what the context is. To me, I would add another layer. The discovery that one is a Lubavitcher and a, and a Jew. I would say discovering that one is a human-

11:22 Speaker 2 Mm

11:22 Speaker 1 ... is a really, really pivotal discovery to make.

11:25 Speaker 2 Right.

11:25 Speaker 1 Um, and I think there are even discoveries beyond that, because discovering that you're human might still remain anthropocentric, and there's discovering that you're, that you're part of nature, and that may already take us-

11:35 Speaker 2 I don't know

11:35 Speaker 1 ... into mysticism.

11:36 Speaker 2 Right.

11:36 Speaker 1 But, but, um, discovering, discovering... For me, for me, it's, it's interesting, and I, and I appreciate you saying that it doesn't necessarily have to have a moment of rupture, because I still, I still do identify and feel deeply as a shliach, as a Lubavitcher, as a Jew, as a human.

11:52 Speaker 2 Oh, interesting.

11:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. Um, and we can talk about that, I'm sure.

11:55 Speaker 2 Yeah, we are gonna talk about that. That's all we're gonna talk about.

11:58 Speaker 1 The, the moment that I, the moment that I realized that there was a larger context to my own religiosity was... which changed my life, frankly, was a novel that I was reading as a teenager, which the novelist, who was quite well-known ... kind of painfully popular, um, employs some very basic ideas-

12:20 Speaker 2 Do you want to say who it is?

12:21 Speaker 1 I'm embarrassed to say because of how popular it is.

12:23 Speaker 2 Harry Potter?

12:24 Speaker 1 No. It's almost as bad. Um, Dan Brown.

12:29 Speaker 2 Oh, sure.

12:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

12:30 Speaker 2 Is it like "The Da Vinci Code"?

12:31 Speaker 1 Not "Da Vinci Code." That, uh, the saving grace is it's not "Da Vinci Code." "The Lost Symbol" is-

12:35 Speaker 2 Okay

12:35 Speaker 1 ... is the book that I read, where he basically employs some very basic ideas of biblical and Christian mysticism, and seeing those ideas for the first time, I'm like, "One second, how did Dan Brown know what I'm studying in Hasidus in the morning?"

12:47 Speaker 2 Right. I know what you're talking about.

12:48 Speaker 1 How, how did he... Where did he get that from? Who's his informant, you know?

12:51 Speaker 2 I think a lot, a lot of Lubavitchers today get that when they listen to Jordan Peterson.

12:55 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. So that's, that's where it's happening for people.

12:57 Speaker 2 What's that?

12:58 Speaker 1 That's where it's happening for people now, I guess.

12:59 Speaker 2 Yeah. I, I think that's probably, like, the more common place where-

13:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, and I have, I have friends who have, who have had that moment for them.

13:05 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, how did he know this Pirush on the, on the Nachash and Gan Eden?

13:10 Speaker 1 That's right. That's right.

13:11 Speaker 2 Like, did he learn it with Torah or something?

13:12 Speaker 1 Right. Is he, is he, is he learning Sanhedrin base? Like, where, what's happening here?

13:15 Speaker 2 Right.

13:15 Speaker 1 So that was... And then, and then realizing that what I had been studying all along had a name or had been given a name in a complex historical process called mysticism, and that the phenomenon of mysticism had be- has been identified across religions and, uh, and that there's a comparative study of mysticism, and that, um... So that, that really blew my mind, and I-

13:36 Speaker 2 As a teenager?

13:36 Speaker 1 As a teenager, yeah.

13:37 Speaker 2 And, and where were you at at the time? You were in a yeshiva? You were in a school?

13:41 Speaker 1 I was. I was in... I was-- The school that I was in had, had ceased to be as a legal entity, and we-

13:50 Speaker 2 That sounds really Lubavitch.

13:54 Speaker 1 Uh, we-

13:55 Speaker 2 You're way more Lubavitch than I am.

13:58 Speaker 1 I'm trying to be delicate here, and I don't want to be sued by anyone-

14:00 Speaker 2 I got it

14:00 Speaker 1 ... for defamation.

14:02 Speaker 2 I got it.

14:03 Speaker 1 Um, a group, half, half of the class went to go study in a more Veltish school, let's say, uh, Moriah, and, and, and the rest of us, the children of Shluchim, went to study in a very ad hoc, chaotic, homeschooling, de facto form of cheder. Um-

14:17 Speaker 2 So maybe that's where the rupture happened.

14:20 Speaker 1 It, it-- In that space, because of how unstructured it was, it certainly gave me the, the passion and the, the tools to, to study on my own, which I did for the next decade or so-

14:30 Speaker 2 Interesting

14:30 Speaker 1 ... and continue to. So that was an important moment for me. It was while I was in Mesivta, in, in that cheder, um, I was living in a dormitory, so I was out of home, but near home, um, still in Sydney, that I, that I read that novel, and, and that sort of reopened my eyes to Hasidus. Until then, Hasidus had made no sense to me.

14:45 Speaker 2 Interesting.

14:46 Speaker 1 Literally no sense.

14:46 Speaker 2 Interesting.

14:47 Speaker 1 And then seeing the ideas of Hasidus being put in such a foreign, um, religious, cultural, linguistic register allowed me to be like, "Oh, that's, that's what we were saying when we were talking about X, Y, Z."

14:59 Speaker 2 Interesting.

15:00 Speaker 1 Um, and that, that very much blew my mind and, and began me... Began a process of, of, of looking at Hasidus, um, Yiddishkeit in, in a very new set of lenses.

15:12 Speaker 2 Hmm. Fascinating. There's so m- so many lanes there that I would love to explore, um, but I gotta pick one here, at least for now. You know, there's... I mean, the, the, the last thing you said is, is, is a fascinating topic, which I hope to discuss with one of my upcoming guests as well, is the question of translation. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of seen as, like, as just, like, a technical process. But you're not, you're not translating from, like, one language to another. I mean, or maybe you are, but do you know what a language is? A language isn't just an ability to know that this is a wall. It's, it's a set of series of contexts and, and, and layers built up over time that w- nobody even knows anymore what it reflects, but we all know deep down, like, right? And so you, like, like Hasidus is taught w-with certain words, maybe in words that don't tickle you, that you don't even know they're t- But then you see it from somewhere else, and it's like, "Okay, now I get it." Right? But at that point already, you're getting it from a different space. Okay, but let's leave that for a moment. I just don't want to leave it... I, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to make believe like I didn't, like I, like that that wasn't fascinating to me. I, I want to go a little bit to

16:31 Speaker 2 what you said earlier, which is, um, the realization that these ideas-

16:38 Speaker 1 Do you want to wait for the siren?

16:39 Speaker 2 I don't care. I mean-

16:39 Speaker 1 Me too

16:40 Speaker 2 ... we could. No, I'm talking. It's fine. Nobody needs to listen to me anyway. Uh, anyways, yeah. So-

16:47 Speaker 1 The realization

16:48 Speaker 2 ... the realization that, that these ideas are from a long, from a, from a long tradition, and that a lot of these ideas can be traced back. I mean, this is not just a unders- This is not just a moment of awakening for a child. This is, any serious thinker realizes sooner or later that the Rambam got ideas from the... What was that? Oh. The Rambam, the Rambam got ideas from, from philosophers.

17:19 Speaker 1 Leilinu.

17:20 Speaker 2 No, but I'm saying he did, and, and, and, and, and Kabbalah has ideas that can be traced back to other places. And the reason why I'm focusing on that is not to go into a whole theological debate of what that means or, or, like, what the implications of that are, but more I feel like it does frame, like, a certain... You... I feel like there's, there's, there, there's a fork there that you, there, there's a fork there that you can take. One is that you can deny it or say that really... And, and, and there are very, I think very, I think even the Abarbanel makes this kind of claim, where really old ideas started in Torah. They got lost. They were held onto by different traditions and then reclaimed b- later by Torah. I, I'm not g- I'm not gonna be the one to argue with Abarbanel, okay? I can assure you that. But I'm saying he's not, he's not... Like, there are... He's an opinion, but he's n- that's not universal, that's for sure. But saying there is... I'm just giving, like... I'm just trying to steel man the fork, you know, that path where it's like, "No, no, it's still the same. Every- everything's included in Torah." The other path seems to be where you understand that the reason that Torah is special to you is not because it is the only avenue of thought and the only place where good ideas come from, right? The reason you learn Chassidus is not

18:36 Speaker 2 because it is the smartest book in the world. It may be, but that's not why, right? It's a-- it's like the reason I love my parents is not because my mother is the most beautiful woman in the world. I could think that, but that's not why she's-- that's not why I love her, right? It's just 'cause she's my mother. It, it, it's, it's an affiliation. It's not, it's not a competition, right? If, if I, if I judge my mother against other people's mothers, something has failed in the parenting, right? So I, I, I, I didn't wanna go on, on, on, on a long tangent on my own, but I feel like, I feel like that's why it's such an important point to kind of go down a little bit because it could be, you know, somebody listening could say, "Okay, so you had this moment in school where you read this book that you shouldn't have been reading," right? You see, this is what happens when you read books. No, maybe, maybe you shouldn't have. I'm saying, like, like from a pure you shouldn't have, and you have this realization that ideas came from somewhere. You see, now you diminish the entire... This is already the beginning of Apikorsus, and it's like, doesn't-- I don't think it has to be. I don't think it has to be. Like, why does our, why does our faith or our fidelity to these, to, to our tradition have to be based on believing things that aren't true or,

19:53 Speaker 2 or things that are historically just ... Like, and, and you know, I, I hate to like... I, I don't-- I'm not gonna say this is what the Rebbe thought, 'cause I don't know what the Rebbe thought or what his real opin-- But, uh, like I'm not gonna use the Rebbe's opinion to s- to solidify me, but I've read similar things in the Rebbe's teachings where it's like Torah is true, period, end of story. I'm not gonna argue with you on that. Let's not-- I, I don't believe in Torah because I've outsmarted every argument. Anyway.

20:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. I think, I think we make a mistake when we fail to distinguish between that which is unique and that which is exclusive.

20:30 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:30 Speaker 1 And we think that to be special, it has to be exclusive. And I think it-- I'm not sure where it comes from, and I think, I mean, the, the lazy answer is to say that it comes from insecurity, and maybe it does, but I think it des-deserves more attention. Like, if someone's married to a spouse or has a parent, for example, you don't need to believe that your parent is, is b- is fantastic and, and, and love them and/or love your spouse. You don't need... For that to be true, you don't need to believe that no one else has a beautiful relationship with their spouse or parents in the world.

20:58 Speaker 2 Right.

20:59 Speaker 1 That would be an exclusive, "I'm the only one that's allowed to have that." But-

21:01 Speaker 2 Right

21:01 Speaker 1 ... you can have a unique relationship.

21:03 Speaker 2 Right.

21:03 Speaker 1 My relationship with my spouse is, is unique and, and, and it doesn't need to be compared, as you're saying, that to compare it is, is, is like why even are you doing that? It's, it, it raises questions. A helpful metaphor which I've-- A metaphor which I've found helpful has been language. I speak English amongst other languages. I speak English not because English is the best language in the world. It's not, it's not the most grammatically brilliant language. It's not the oldest language. It's not-- I speak English because that's the language I was raised on, and English has a lot of beauty. English has a lot of-

21:33 Speaker 2 Right

21:33 Speaker 1 ... poetry and melody and, and clarity and precision, and there's very good reasons to speak English.

21:38 Speaker 2 Right.

21:39 Speaker 1 Does that make me more articulate or a better communicator or, or more human? And I mean, speech is so integral to being human. It's the-- For Aristotle, the human is the speaking animal, right?

21:48 Speaker 2 Right.

21:49 Speaker 1 The medaber, right? Does that make me more human or a better communicator than, than the Spanish speaker, than the Chinese speaker, than the... Like, that, that would be ludicrous.

21:58 Speaker 2 Right.

21:58 Speaker 1 And yet, when it comes to religion, we're not able to make that distinction. We think that my religion, my form of communication with, with the divine, with transcendence, with r- with absolute reality, whatever we... however we conceptualize God, that, that has to be the only way that, that, that can be done, or else there's, there's a, there's some sort of pagam, there's some sort of blemish in my relationship. If we could, if we could instead, which is, which is-- As you, you had brought up the idea of language and translation. If we can instead see that this is... A Yiddish speaker, right, is not gonna abandon their Yiddish because they now speak English. There's, there's a real depth in each one of those languages, and I think we have to learn how to cherish the uniqueness, the genius, the, the beauty of every single language without it needing to be superior or, or exclusive. And, and it, it seems to me like that position can come from a place of deep comfort. If you're deeply, deeply confident and comfortable in the language you speak, your literal language or your religious language, your, your religious mother tongue, then you're not threatened by someone else's religiosity or spirituality.

23:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. I, I, yeah, no, I understand what you're saying, but I, I feel like most... See, m- if I had to guess, most religious people, when they think about, when they hear about other religious ideas, I don't know if their instinct is they're scared of it. I think their instinct is more, "This must be a traif." And I, I don't think that they're, I don't think that they're based on nothing. I mean, there is, there is a, there is a tradition to this where, you know, Judaism was opposed to Christianity. This whole concept of Judeo-Christian values is, is kind of bonkers when you think about it. Like, how did that happen, and when did that happen? Like, like in many ways, all of Christianity, I mean, I, I don't know much about it, but I know enough to know that it's kind of built in opposition to Judaism. It's taken stuff from Judaism, but a lot of it was oppositional. Now, are there-- So I'm seeing, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not qualified to have an argument about it. Um, I'm sure there's overlap, and I'm sure there's ideas that have made their way into both. Um, but, but, um, my, my point, my point is merely that, that it's, it's a tradition of that's where people are getting it from, I think. It's, it's, you know, we don't go into a church. We're, we're not allowed to go into a church, right? We're not, we're not allowed to. For many years, we were not-- Like,

24:22 Speaker 2 people did not read philosophy, like, at all. Uh, it got relaxed a little bit with time, but that itself was a massive fight in the Jewish world, right? Um, so again, I don't, I don't know if it's, if it's so much that people are scared of these ideas for the ideas or are insecure about it. I think people probably have a point or for sure have grounds to say like, "This is not what Jews do." I think, well, to me, what's interesting, 'cause I, like I don't wanna, I don't wanna put you on the spot or like, like, you know, "Why do you think you're right?" Or, "Why do you think they're wrong?" I don't think that's a p-- And I'm not the, I'm not the judge of any of this, and that's not the goal here. Like, I think what's interesting is that, you know, a lot of... Like I-- That tradition that I just spoke about was in a world, for the most part, where Jews were in a ghetto, and the lines of demarcation between the Jewish and the non-Jewish were enforced at the point of violence, right? So what do you-- what happens when you move into a world where ideas are accessible to all, like the internet, where people, at least in concept, believe in everyone's a human being, right? You know, when you grow up in that world, what do you do then? You know, do you, do you hang on to, um, this is how it always was,

25:54 Speaker 2 this is how, this is how I'm going to be, even though everything around me has changed, I'm going to be the same way as my grandparents? Or do you say, "Look, I, I, I need to... I live in the world, I'm aware of the world, I need to integrate it"? Like, that to me seems to be the question that I... Like, tell-- Okay, fine, you're telling me that, that, that, like, we were never allowed to read these things. Okay, but we were also never allowed to, to work. We were never allowed to be rich. Uh, uh, you know what I'm saying? Like, 'cause I, I feel like, I feel like we could easily go down the rabbit hole of, like, whether it should be right or shouldn't be right, and then it becomes like, "Oh, well, I don't believe that, so..." It's like, but so, so take out theology for a second, the scary thing of theology. What about practice? What about, what about the way you live? What about the fact that many Jews, Baruch Hashem, have done very well in this country and live a life that, that is almost-- that's coming closer and closer in terms of luxury and, and, and amenities to s- to, to, to, to wealthy America. When did that become, become okay? You know what I'm saying? Like, like, you see what I'm saying? You see where I'm going with this. I feel like that's the... Like, how do you deal as a child? And, and I'm, and

27:17 Speaker 2 I'm, I wanna, I wanna keep it to your story. How do you deal with, you know, you're this kid growing up, and you, you've, you've become aware of this world around you, like you said, and the plane image is a fantastic one. It talks to me to this day. Every time I land on a plane, and I see all these houses, and I'm like, "My God, my own neighborhood is massive." Like, or my city. It's like, this world is massive, man. Like, you know what I mean? Um, how do you deal with that recognition without hunkering down-

27:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

27:50 Speaker 2 ... and at the same time, without losing yourself?

27:54 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are, those are two very natural directions to go, right? To, to say we've encountered-- We've, we've seen land, we've encountered modernity, and it's terrifying as a traditional society, so we're gonna circle our wagons and turn in, and we're going to, the best of our degree, with all the tools we have, economic, cultural, theological, theological, political, religious, to, um, to make sure that the outside world remains on the outside and the inside world remains on the inside. That's certainly, that's certainly a direction, and a perfunctory knowledge of contem- of modern and contemporary Jewish history is, you know, is evidence of, of that attitude, um, which, which I'm, which I'm not here to ridicule. I think, I think there's good reason to do that. There's... If, if one wants to maintain the values of their society, and, and they see a foreign, a foreign society which is antithetical to their values, there's, there's good grounds to do that. Um, there's also problems with it, certainly. The... And then another approach is, is assimilation. Let's take down the walls. Let's become like, uh, like, you know, every other German, and s- and that's, you know, the beginning of, of a different trajectory of Jewish-

29:09 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

29:09 Speaker 3 ... of modern Jewish history. I think, I think-

29:15 Speaker 2 How do you deal with it?

29:16 Speaker 3 How do I deal with it?

29:17 Speaker 2 How did you deal with it?

29:18 Speaker 3 How did I deal with it?

29:19 Speaker 2 Yeah.

29:19 Speaker 3 Well, I'm, I'm-- I dealt with it within a, within a context, and that context is, is Lubavitch.

29:24 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

29:25 Speaker 3 Um, so I think it helps to give a bit of, give a bit of context of, of how I understood, at least, how Lubavitch responded to that, and then how I responded to that in- independently within that structure.

29:36 Speaker 2 Sure.

29:37 Speaker 3 Um, I always think about this moment when the Frieda Rebbe came to, to Ellis Island, arrived here on the shore and said famously, "America is Nishanos. America is no different." And, uh, and then the Frieda Rebbe, son-in-law of the Rebbe, went on to affirm that in speech, but in practice, very much show that America is gorandish, and that Chabad is gonna be gorandish in America, in, in, in very, in very profound American ways, and really tapping into, to, to the best that America had to offer, and, and very proudly so. There's a sense that I, that I get that what-- the, the way that Chabad responded to modernity, um, and was not the same that, that the rest of the Hasidic world or the-

30:17 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

30:17 Speaker 3 ... the liberal Jewish world responded to modernity, responded to modernity with a real sense of purpose and mission.

30:22 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

30:23 Speaker 3 Saying that where we are here, and particularly in the Rebbe's mission statement, Bas Li Gani, we're here as the seventh generation to bring Mashiach. We're here with a purpose. We're gonna do it in America precisely, and there was no ignoring of that theologically. There was no, there was no downplaying of it. There was a full-- There was a complete embrace of that mission statement, which allowed, in my estimation, Chabad to, to remain the, the movement that it was without being washed away and without becoming insular, by showing up with a purpose in the outside world. Um, you know, something which, which I'm sure we've heard a hundred times in Farbrengens, that, that in, uh, in Hilchos Kashrus, if a piece of, if, if a piece of meat is, is expunging, it do- doesn't have any time to absorb. So as long as we're expunging, the model of Shlichus, we're here on a mission to give, to give, to give. There's no time to absorb and to be assimilated. We're here for a purpose. And I s- as, as a child, I, I very much took that line of thinking and, and continued with that. And I think in, in encountering... And, and so that's just a general encounter between tradition and modernity, right?

31:27 Speaker 2 Right.

31:27 Speaker 3 When we have-- when we, when we, when we encounter a commonality in our metaphysics and our theology, which happened to me as a teenager, it became-- it, it no longer was a question of us and them, that we have this special thing called Hasidus, uniquely special, exclusively special, um, and the rest of the world has lies and falsehood, and we're gonna be here, a light among the nations, to, to share our light and to bring Mashiach. What-- That was-- I mean, maybe I'm strawmanning that a little, but, uh, but, but I think to some degree accurate, at least. What, what pivoted for me was that there's a human component here. Humans throughout history have described encounters with something, with a, with a, with a way of being that seems to be beyond or deeper than our ordinary state of being. Those, those encounters and what we, what we now call experiences, maybe mystical experience, have been codified into traditions, into practice, into poetry and philosophy and mythology, narrative. And, and those traditions go on to give birth to religious structures that try to aspire and live up to and perpetuate those values of that s- that, that recognition, that state of reality. And to me, I understood Hasidus as, as an articulation of that experience, the Jewish artic- a, a, a, an, a Jewish articulation, not the only Jewish articulation. There have been many forms of Jewish mysticism throughout history.

32:54 Speaker 2 Mm.

32:54 Speaker 3 Um, and, and also one amongst many, that, that, that many traditions have had that articulation. And it began a process of looking at those traditions, our, our neighboring traditions, and trying to understand where that commonality was, where the difference was, what parts legitimately felt unaligned with, with that core of Judaism that I, that I, that I had been raised on and experienced, and what parts of that felt deeply aligned with it. And instead of seeing myself as an, as a lone ambassador, part of this lone tribe of people that, um, that are here with a specific mission, but instead as seeing, like, humanity at its finest being champions and torchbearers to that same truth and that same, that same encounter, and trying to move to a... A lot of my work is trying to move to a theological place where it's not about us engaging alone in a redemptive process that's gonna affect us alone, and the rest of the world, who knows, will be raptured, and they'll be annihilated. But humanity as a whole coming to, to, to, to come to that shared beauty and understanding, which in my estimation leads to a transformed, redemptive messianic world, the world that I was taught as a child to aspire to and to believe in despite all the odds against it.

34:15 Speaker 2 Hmm. I mean, what's fascinating to me, and I said so much there, but what's, what's so fascinating to me is that, uh, uh, again, a, a few things. But one of the things is a question of the ideas of Hasidus versus the limitations placed around Hasidus, right? Like, there's-- Like at the end of the day, Hasidus is an, is a part of Torah, and part of that Torah is the Psukim, Peshat, Remez, D'rush, Sod, et cetera, but also Halakha, right? And, and, uh, and everything else. And so you have this kind of, like what you're talking about, the, the, the Mis- the idea that every being is part of the-- is Abish's creation. Every being has a purpose. This is something that Hasidus says on the daily. But then what do we say in Birchat Sha'ar, just for example, Shelo Asani Goy? There's, there's a whole codification of Halakha separating Yidden from Goyim, not to mention, not to mention intermarriage and all these things. But even just on a much more superficial level still, like we don't do this, Lo Secholbo Choq La'asidim, and so on. And so it almost seems like we're, we're set up for tension. And again, I'm not advocating that Hasidus sh- uh, that, that, that, um, that we shouldn't be going against Halakha. I, I don't believe that, and I'm not stupid enough to suggest that here. Uh, all, right, I'm saying, like, all I'm saying is, all I'm saying is, is that when you, you, you, you have this

36:00 Speaker 2 problem again, where if you take the ideas of Hasidus seriously, like, like what, where do I go with this? Well, I go here, but then wait, you c- I can't go there. And so, so that, that's-- And, and, and, and I don't wanna dwell so much again on like the th- the theological component here. What, what I'm more curious about, especially in this podcast, is how do you deal with that in terms of like your story, right? Um, like we, we just have this-- It, it's, it's this... And I wanna tie back to what I mentioned earlier. It's, you know, a lot of these things in many ways are, are kind of new. Someone will be like, "No, no, no, Hasidim always thought about this." Did they really? How many Hasidim in Lubavitch were thinking about engaging with a Goy, like in an intellectual conversation? Not too many, okay? 'Cause most of the Goyim, especially we, we read about them all the time, are employers and, and, and, and, and landlords, and intellectuals were anti-Semites, right? I'm just saying like, the, the, what-- It didn't exist. The, the, you know, it didn't exist, and Like, I'll give you even an example. I think this-- I think, I think my grandfather said this story in public so many times that I can chazer it over anyway. Um, my grandfather had the idea of bringing the vice president, or I don't know if it was bringing the vice president to Monara or reaching the vice president. He's

37:33 Speaker 2 like, "You know, if it's the vice president, I may as well try for the president." But such a big move, he's gotta get permission from, from the boss, right? So he called up the office, and Khaliqov answers the, the phone, and Khaliqov says, "President of America? Goy. We don't want him. What, what are we, what are we doing with him?" Fifteen minutes later, Khaliqov calls back and says, and my grandfather always says he, he, he was like, made as if, like, you know, he was having a whole conversation, and then, like, kind of in the middle of the conversation, he drops, "By the way, the thing that you mentioned about the president, yeah, it, it would be a glei gezach." Okay. Draw your conclusions of how that, how, what, what was going on behind that, okay? And but, like, that's such a fascinating story because that's a turning point.

38:20 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

38:20 Speaker 2 Right?

38:21 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

38:21 Speaker 2 This wasn't possible until now. That's h- that's how we thought about things, that Goyim are there, and we're here, and suddenly it's not like that anymore.

38:29 Speaker 3 America is gar anders.

38:31 Speaker 2 Yeah. We're both gonna get canceled for saying that, but it's interesting 'cause the rebbe himself would always chazer over the 4th of July saying America is nisht anders.

38:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

38:38 Speaker 2 Right?

38:38 Speaker 3 I think they're both true, by the way, and I think they're both true in the rebbe's theology.

38:41 Speaker 2 Yeah, so, so actually, that's what I, that's what I wanted to go back to 'cause you had started off with that, about the Lubavitch way of dealing with America. Because I think it was, you know, like, sometimes we think of things, ideas, and images, and I, I used to think, like, to me, there's no question that Lubavitch identity is going through a stage of fragmentation. Like, I, I, I don't know how you disagree with that when you see it all around you. But okay, if people wanna disagree, gezuntheit. To me, it's obvious. It's not like it's an intellectual idea. It's like I see it. The question is, how do you see that frag-- like, how do you view that fragmentation? How do you describe it? So I used to describe it as like a shattered egg. Like, an egg drops, the shell smashes to pieces, the, the yolk is oozing out. It's ugly, it's gross, it's sticky, it's pathetic, right? What, like, the, the, the sh- like the, the shape is gone, and what it was holding is, is, will be no, will be no longer.

39:45 Speaker 3 It's parad haChavilah.

39:46 Speaker 2 Right. Right. But with an egg, and with a, a stick, a, a sticky Chavilah, right? And now I'm thinking it more and more, and maybe I've just gotten sentimental because of this podcast, but I'm thinking of it as like an exploded, uh, c- uh, comet-

40:01 Speaker 3 Hmm

40:01 Speaker 2 ...or meteor.

40:02 Speaker 3 Hmm.

40:03 Speaker 2 Where some collision of nature, however that works, took this massive thing of energy and sh-- and, and caused it to shatter. And now this thing that's going at who knows how many miles an hour has now been broken up into a bunch of pieces that are now s- crisscrossing and zigzagging and going in a million other directions, also full of energy, all of them so dangerous that they could ignite the whole world on fire.

40:27 Speaker 3 Hmm.

40:29 Speaker 2 And why do I bring that up? Because you talked about coming to America. You know, one way to come to America is to say, "We're not really in America. We're in America, but we're not in America." Right? One way to say it is like, "Well, we'll try to, we'll try to fit our way into America." You know, you could say, if you wanna generalize, the first way is like the Satmar way. We'll... And I, I r- read it in the book about the Satmar Rebbe. We're gonna build Hungary, or we're gonna rebuild Satmar in America. We're gonna make money, and we're gonna rebuild that in America. We're gonna recreate it here. Modern Orthodox, you could say, "Let's not assimilate, but let's fit into America." It's a-- Lubavitch is like, "Let's crash into America. Let's collide with America. Like, let's not, let's not, let's not be nice. Let's not, let's not avoid it either. Let's just collide." Right? And, and I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like when, when you, when you, when you f- when, when you have, when you have that happen, all kinds of things change. Everything's, everything's different-

41:42 Speaker 3 Hmm

41:42 Speaker 2 ...after that. You know what I'm saying?

41:44 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

41:44 Speaker 2 And so back to your story. It's like, you know, you're, you're, you're i- you're in this modern world. You're confronted by the modern world. You collide with the modern world. What do you do with the broken pieces?

42:03 Speaker 3 It's beautiful. It's... Firstly, it's a beautiful image. I love that. The idea of being a, a shattered metaphor that's going off to-

42:12 Speaker 2 Shatter, shatter meteor.

42:13 Speaker 3 To... Right. A shattered meteor. To go and to make further, uh, further collisions and combustions and set off a chain reaction to God knows where.

42:23 Speaker 2 Yeah.

42:23 Speaker 3 It's, uh, it's empowering. It's, it's-

42:25 Speaker 2 I think it's, I think it, I think it's ama- I think it's very empowering.

42:27 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah. I prefer it than being a splattered egg yolk.

42:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, man. Well, you were never the egg yolk. You were the piece of shell.

42:33 Speaker 3 Oh, I get it. I couldn't even be made into an omelet, you're saying.

42:36 Speaker 2 No. The egg yolk had nothing to do with you. That's the whole point. You can do it.

42:41 Speaker 3 I think, um, it's a very, it's a very fresh moment, right?

42:46 Speaker 2 Right.

42:46 Speaker 3 It's, it's barely... I mean, it's not even a century. It's, uh, it's... And, and, and in, in more recent ways, it's not even a few decades, right?

42:54 Speaker 2 Right.

42:54 Speaker 3 Where, where, where that explosion really, where that, where that agent really-

42:58 Speaker 2 Right

42:58 Speaker 3 ...that, that cataclysmic moment which-

43:00 Speaker 2 You're talking about Gilat Tal?

43:00 Speaker 3 Yeah. We don't need to say that it's... I think it goes without saying that that's, that that's an active ingredient in this, in that, in that-

43:07 Speaker 2 For sure

43:07 Speaker 3 ...in that shattering.

43:09 Speaker 2 Yeah.

43:10 Speaker 3 The... For me, for me, it's a fascinating moment, and, and I appreciate you bringing your, your, your fine podcasting lens to it. For me, it's a moment which is very Rich with new possibility. For me, it's a moment that opens up avenues that we never had the ability to, to explore before. And the richest moments in human civilization are where societies collide into each other. We think about the Renaissance as a fantastic moment in, in human history. It's only-- It's precisely because of the, of the access that was then had between Muslim scholars, and Greek scholars, and Jewish scholars, and Greek texts that, that emerges one of the, you know, some of the most fecund, beautiful, inspiring moments in, in human history. So to me, to me, there's a lot of power there, and to me... I mean, I think that there is also a sort of silent, um, like hidden tradition within Judaism that's always been pushing for this, sort of these peren-perennialistic thinkers emerging from the Renaissance until today. Uh, and someone who I think in a contemporary sense also was a, a, a chunk of the l- of the Chabad meteor is Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who I think really was a, um, a forerunner in a lot of, in a lot of this fascinating theological direction that, that I've been heading in, and that others have been heading in as well. One which, which I think is very far from the, the, the main gravity and mass of the meteor, which, which

44:33 Speaker 3 is why I was kind of surprised to be-- that, that you invited me to join with you in conversation here. To me, to me, it's a, it's an important moment, and to me, without being too grandiose and making any sort of Hegelian historical prognosis about it, I think if we're truly to move to a messianic world insofar as we believe that's possible, um, which I think is core, not just of the Chabad and Lubavitch identity, but of the Jewish identity and the soul of Judaism, if we're, if we're to move to that world, we can move to it in, in one of two ways. We can move to it in a-- 'cause there, there are, there are a plethora of messianic ideas in Jewish history from Tanakh onwards, and even within Tanakh. We can move to it in a way that's highly isolated and parochial with, with very tight blinders on, that, that redemption is for this small group of humans, uh, and the rest of the world maybe will have some story, part of that story or not, or kind of who cares. And that's a very strong voice in Jewish history and theology, and I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm not gonna ignore that. But simultaneously, there's a real Jewish voice from Tanakh onwards that, that redemption is a global narrative, is a global story, and that includes, that includes all of mankind, all created in the image of God, all there to reveal divinity in this world from the perspective of Hasidus. And

45:57 Speaker 3 if we're, if we're gonna take those prophecies seriously, that , that there's a sense that we're here to serve God in harmony, in unison together, there's-- It, it, it makes us ask different theological questions, and as a chunk of that meteor, I still feel the, the inertia of the meteor pushing me in that direction. I, I haven't given up on, on Messianism. I haven't given up on what I was raised on, but it's moved in a direction against my will, where I can no longer exclude billions and billions of people from that narrative. And, and when I read-

46:35 Speaker 2 Hmm

46:35 Speaker 3 ...when I read the great mystics of other traditions, I'm, I'm moved and touched by their beauty and their profundity and their intimacy with the divine as much as I'm moved when I read Hasidic texts, but which, which explores the, that same profundity, profundity and intimacy and, and moral vigor and conviction that emerges from that moment. To me, that's, that's undeniable. And for, for people that haven't encountered that and haven't experienced that, in some ways they may be better off. They, they may be in a more comfortable place where they don't have to face that, that this entire world out there that's also engaging in this quest of, of intimacy with divinity. To me, to me, that's been a real-- To me, that's been a, a great blessing. It's been, it's been-

47:15 Speaker 2 It almost sounds like a, it's like a mixed blessing, or it's a blessing and a curse almost.

47:18 Speaker 3 Yeah.

47:18 Speaker 2 Because, 'cause what you're saying is, at least if I'm understanding correctly, is that, um, what you're saying is that for you to hold on to your tradition, for you to hold on to your Yiddishkeit, like knowing what you know now, you have to recalibrate, right? That's what you're saying.

47:41 Speaker 3 Yeah.

47:41 Speaker 2 So it's like I wanna hold on, but I can't hold on with the simplistic terms of before. No. Tell me I made a mistake engaging this in the first place, have at it, but this is where I'm at now. This is the language I speak now. What do you want from me now? So it's almost like, it's like, it's like there's a beauty to it, but there's also, there's a heavy burden there too. And it's interesting you brought up the, the, the example of Zalman Schachter, because in a way like that, that kind of cuts right, right through it. 'Cause on one hand, it's no secret today that Zalman Schachter is viewed by many, many, many Lubavitchers, many very frum, ardent Lubavitchers, because he's a very interesting man, and he, he explains things in a very interesting way, right? But there's also no question that in terms of Halakhic acceptable practice, he veered, and he went away. Like, like it's not debatable, I don't think, right? Like, and I think he was pretty open about that too.

48:43 Speaker 3 Yes.

48:43 Speaker 2 Right? So like, so that b- that brings us back to the question of it's a very painful dilemma when you think about it, because it's easy for someone to say, to wave a wand and say, "Yeah, okay, this is, this is all off-limits." Kind of, "You see? This is what happens when you wade into this kind of territory. Now, now you made things complicated." And it's like, "Well, I grew up in this world. I don't know what you want from me. I wanna hold on to it. I wanna hold on to this." And we're gonna get in a moment a little bit to what you're trying to hold on to in your, in your relationship to the Rebbe, like on an individual level, which I thought was really beautiful when I first heard you talk about it. You wanna hold on to something, but like, I can't hold on to it like my grandfather. It's not gonna work. Like h- like what do you think is the, what do you think is the solution? Because like it's almost-- Like the way you're describing it, it's like how do you have a figure like Zalman Schachter, whoever else like him, how do you have a figure like him as being a, a, an, like a, a way forward when you also know that he isn't really a way forward? I mean, he's a, he's a way somewhere else. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, he's not... Like, how-- Like, w-what do you do?

50:03 Speaker 3 Yeah.

50:03 Speaker 2 Like, what, what do you do? I don't know if you wanna talk about this.

50:07 Speaker 3 No, I'm happy to. In, in certain ways, I'm very grateful for my own trajectory, and, and I, I feel like there was a lot of Hashkafa practice in, in, in the, in the thinkers, in the text that I encountered, um, beginning with Brown, and I, and I, I do mention his name 'cause I have a Karat for him for, for sending me off on that journey. Uh, and then later, people like William James, and Aldous Huxley, and, and, and the list goes on and on. Um, Jo-Joseph Campbell particularly, um, Richard Eliade, many, many important thinkers who I'm very grateful to have encountered. It's a shame, part of me doesn't wish it on anyone else.

50:43 Speaker 2 Hmm.

50:43 Speaker 3 People that were raised with a traditional religious belief of any sort, of any religion, because it, it, it introduces a great deg-degree of complexity, and unless you exist with-- I mean, there are certain established religious communities that have taken this theology and made it mainstream. Uh, you s-see it amongst Unitarians and elements of, in Baha'i and other places that have a more modern universalistic element from the get-go, and kids are being raised on that, which I think is frankly beautiful. But for those that are raised in a, in an exclusivistic form of religion, I don't necessarily wish it on them. And I, and I try to be careful in my own teaching, my own material, to know who I'm speaking to, to know what might be helpful for them to hear, what might be just confusing for them to hear. When I produce material on my channel that I think would not be-- would, would, would be upsetting, um, upsetting in a literal sense of upsetting, of, of turning over the, the ideas in, in young impressionable religious minds who I know are consuming my content, I put really serious disclaimers and I ask them not to watch it. I don't know if that helps, because sometimes that just makes it more enticing. But I genuinely don't want... I have specific people in mind that I don't want watching my stuff. I-- 'cause I don't, 'cause I don't wish my own complexity and my own struggle, particularly in, in the way that we have it

51:53 Speaker 3 now, where I did not have peers and mentors that were following this so much. Now I do, but growing up for many, many years, it was excruciatingly isolating. Isolating. You know, Plotinus, the father of Neoplatonism, a very important strand of philosophical Western mysticism, calls the, the spiritual and mystical life, the journey of the alone to the alone, and there's something very lonely in that.

52:13 Speaker 2 Hmm.

52:13 Speaker 3 Which, which always bro-- which always brought to, to mind the language of Chazal, that, that, that God is Yachbe Lame, and Avraham is Yachbe Lame, and therefore, they, they found each other. They were both lonely in some sense, which, which to me is a beautiful metaphor, that Avraham really is every. He's maver. He's, he's, he's separate. He's alone. My middle name is Avraham, and I, and I, I resonate with that.

52:32 Speaker 2 We also have to smash the idols of the past.

52:34 Speaker 3 Absolutely. Absolutely. He's, he's, he's, he's the, he's the iconic iconoclast, right?

52:39 Speaker 2 Right.

52:39 Speaker 3 Um, so, so there's, there's, there's a sense that, there's a sense that I don't, I don't wish it on people. However, for those that, for those that the original structures of exclusivistic religiosity are not working, um, I, I do hope that they, that they in-in, like, come upon this form of religiosity. I also believe, as far as I can tell, I'm, I'm, I'm persuaded logically and historically and rationally by, by this form of religiosity that I, that I espouse and that I tr- that I explore, you know, most of my days. And, and to me, I'd, I'd like to see that perpetuated and, and grown. The, the question of, the question of characters like Reb Zalman and the question of what happens-- how does this interface with traditional forms of Jewish life, of Halakha and whatnot, um, is a very important question, is a rich question. And, and I wanna maybe, like, Bavar and something here a little, which is that in embracing a universalist, a, a universalistic conception of divinity, which I think-- I mean, how else do we read about Shamtev? I, I just don't-

53:48 Speaker 2 Right

53:48 Speaker 3 ... I don't understand it. But in embracing that, there-- that does not-- there's, there's no logical, emotional, spiritual, religious necessity that that comes at the cost of one's particularism, at the cost of one's own mother tongue. For me, the capacity to see my own truth reflected and espoused by mystics and philosophers across the centuries, across cultures, from Greek thinkers in, in pre-Socratic times, to people off in the Far East, to Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages, to me, that gave my religiosity such a firm grounding in, in humanity, in human experience, in history, in fact, in logic.

54:31 Speaker 2 We're not off the wall.

54:32 Speaker 3 No, and, and to the contrary, this is, this is a profound realization, a true realization, which if discoverable, if if, if truth is, if God is discoverable, and then we should expect this to be discovered. We shouldn't be the only ones who discovered it. So to me, there was a logical... During my teenage years when I was going through a lot of theological and philosophical questioning, that was, that was actually a salve. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a place where my, my faith was able to ground itself. There was no further moments of, of questioning and rupture of faith and, and whatnot. But for me, firstly, on a, on a logical level, it, it strengthened my belief. And the, the notion that I'm hanging on to my Hasidishkeit or my Judaism or my whatever it is because I have to, because it was what, the burden, because of some sort of moral responsibility or parental, is fur-- like there couldn't be anything furthest from the truth. I, I'm, I, I identify as, as a Hasid so deeply and so proudly, and it's a-- the relationship that I have with Rab is a primary relationship with my life, in, in my life.

55:40 Speaker 2 I wanted to ask you about that.

55:41 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

55:41 Speaker 2 'Cause I, I, I wanna just give a little bit of prelude. I don't wanna... I, I, I know I'm cutting you off, but... 'Cause the first time that, like, like I s-- I don't know if I said this after we started recording, but when you really piqued my interest is, you know, here's this guy talking about traditions that I never heard of in a, in an English that, you know, I could only dream of having, and, like, very, very well read of co- clearly.

56:02 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

56:03 Speaker 2 And, you know, he's sit- he's sitting on a Zoom call with a bunch of guys, and, like, and he says Something to the effect of, like, my intellectual hero is a Rebbe. I think you said, "My intellectual hero is a Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav," because you were talking to a little bit more of a cl-- you know, kind of outside the Lubavitch audience. And I'm like, "Hey, what's up with this guy?" You know, either he's full of crap, but who's he trying to impress? There's no one here . I was like, his parents aren't watching this. Or maybe... Does your mother watch every one of your videos?

56:35 Speaker 3 She only checks to see if I was smiling and if I-

56:37 Speaker 2 Okay

56:37 Speaker 3 ... if I looked presentable.

56:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, so she wasn't watching that part of it. It was already deep into the video. Like you said, your mo- your, your parents aren't watching this. Your friends, your friends, even your good friends, I can't imagine they're all... Whatever. I'm saying, like, who are you trying to impress? I, and, and that didn't make sense to me. Okay, and so if you mean it, wait a second, like, how does that add up? Like, you know, like you, you, you've clearly gone on a journey of opening yourself up to all kinds of other thinkers and ideas, and you genuinely opened yourself up clearly. Why are you still holding on to the Rebbe? It's c-- I'm not, I'm not asking, like, like out of s-- like out, like, like why would you? It's more like, it's clearly not because that's how you grew up. There's clearly something more to it. Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not calling BS on you. To the contrary, it seems to me that there's a very important connection there, and I... So that, that's, that's why-

57:29 Speaker 3 Yeah

57:29 Speaker 2 ... it's so fascinating to me.

57:31 Speaker 3 Yeah. I certainly went through moments where I was questioning everything.

57:35 Speaker 2 Mm.

57:35 Speaker 3 I went through serious stages where, as an angsty philosophical teenager, I was deep in Nietzsche and Sartre and Kierkegaard and general existentialism, and I was questioning my own existence and everything in between, right? Um, I went through, I went through, like a, a very wild intel-- in-inner intellectual journey.

57:55 Speaker 2 All in yeshiva?

57:57 Speaker 3 All... Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, I only, I only... I went, I went all the way through, and this happened as, as a teenager. This is while I was in yeshiva, while I was in yeshiva through-

58:06 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

58:06 Speaker 3 ... throughout, yeah.

58:06 Speaker 2 So this is, like, basically undercover. You're not supposed to be reading this stuff in yeshiva.

58:10 Speaker 3 It's, it's... No, it's very private. No, no, no. I also went through, like a real early Christianity phase, where I was really reading a lot of, like New Testament scholarship and ended up writing something on that. Like, that, that was also a whole-

58:19 Speaker 2 While you're in yeshiva?

58:20 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

58:21 Speaker 2 Mm.

58:21 Speaker 3 Um, a journey which, which I've kind of navigated away from, but, but still... And, and that, that certainly brought moments of conflict when, when like my parents were not particularly happy that I had New Testaments in my bedroom, and-

58:32 Speaker 2 Oh, they knew about it?

58:33 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could tell you about that as well. Interesting-

58:35 Speaker 2 Yeah

58:35 Speaker 3 ... interesting story there. Um, for me, for me, I ended up coming back to... On, on-- And I don't-- My, my intellectual journey, I hope, is not finished. That would be boring. But where I am right now, I speak from like . I found a lot of moral, aesthetic, and logical conviction and persuasion, um, in, in a specific articulation of a theory of mysticism that I find persuasive. Um, for those that are interested in a technical terminology, it's, it's known as a perennialism or today a sort of a neo or soft perennialism, 'cause it's perennialism that's taken on, you know, the criticism of the contextualist and constructivist, whatever. I won't get too nitty-gritty here. But I've come back to that position after my-- after an extensive intellectual journey, and, and that's where I am right now. Tomorrow may be different. For me, what I had been raised on was an exquisitely profound and beautiful articulation of that tradition, one of many. And for me, that-- being raised in that was a tremendous gift and blessing. I couldn't be more blessed to have been raised in a profoundly beautiful culture, community, and philosophy. And-

59:50 Speaker 2 You're saying Lubavitch-

59:51 Speaker 3 Lubavitch, and-

59:52 Speaker 2 ... articulated-

59:53 Speaker 3 I'm saying, I'm saying-

59:53 Speaker 2 ... a flavor of this perennialism that-

59:56 Speaker 3 Yeah. So the, the, the basic belief of perennialism, just to, just to share, is that, and this is what I've been saying all along, is that, is that mystical-- mystics or humans around the world across time have come to sim-- the same or similar realizations-

1:00:10 Speaker 2 Mm

1:00:10 Speaker 3 ... and have expressed that in their own language and their own cultures. So the Basyan of Jewish mystic, um, a-learning and receiving from early mystics articulates his form of mysticism. He's not doing this necessarily in a perennialistic context. He doesn't know that there are other mystics necessarily. He's not doing it in a universalistic sense, but he's articulating that truth, and the truth which today still speaks to me, and I, I can speak to, to why that still speaks to me. But the point is that, that coming to where I am now, I'm so grateful that I was raised within that. A lot of people come to mysticism from the outside. They're raised secular, or they're raised, you know, atheistic, whatever, and, and they stumble upon... And I, I really, I really think it's happening more and more today, where it's becoming a really dominant theology. You know, spiritual but not religious is one of the largest growing sociological demographics for this, for this, for this, uh, question. And to me, to me, the, the-- all the ways that we speak about Torah as a gift, as a blessing, as a, as a treasure, for me, those are really t- those are really true, and my Torah is, is so precious to me. But it's not, it's not the only ... It's no longer exclusively precious. It's, it's, it's a, it's a precious articulation of a truth that's a universal truth. So for me, the lineage that I belong to, and, and in, and in mystical

1:01:21 Speaker 3 traditions, the lineage is a very important point, a very important piece of the puzzle. To me, the lineage of Kabbalah, the lineage of Hasidut, the lineage of Hasidut Chabad, the lineage... And, and, and the Rebbe is my Rebbe. The Rebbe is, the Rebbe is more than my intellectual hero. The Rebbe is, the Rebbe is my, the Rebbe is my spiritual father, and the day that a Hasid encounters their Rebbe is, is their spiritual birthday, which is more important than the physical birthday. To me, that's a very real reality. Which is, which is not to say that, that there isn't room for intellectual honesty and questions and critical exploration of, of our spiritual pedigree and our, and our, our-- We, we know we question our fathers too. But to me, the Rebbe is a mystic, a philosopher, an activist, a, a, a general who, who is working within that tradition, and I am, I'm his shliach. I'm, I'm his child, carrying on-

1:02:12 Speaker 2 Mm

1:02:12 Speaker 3 ... his mission insofar as I understand it. And that insofar as I understand it is where- My meteor is shattered, but, um, but it's, but it's 100% within, within that context, and I'm, I'm so, I'm so lucky to, to be able to say that.

1:02:27 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's so, so beautiful on so many levels, and also so heartbreaking on so many levels. Um, I, I-- I should-- Maybe the word's not heartbreaking, but is, uh, yeah, I think the word is heartbreaking. At least that's what's coming to my mind, um, because you said, like... 'Cause it, it's, it, it's, it's heartbreakingly beautiful is, is what I'm trying to say. It's heartbreakingly beautiful because it's, it's, it's someone... The way you're on one hand talking about the Rebbe being your spiritual father, but also coming from a place of intense loneliness. There's something so heartbreakingly beautiful about that. I don't know how else to put it.

1:03:12 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:03:12 Speaker 2 Right? Um, and in many ways, in many ways, you know, that's what dark yeshivas is meant to protect, that we're supposed to come to it as a group, not a, you know, as, as lonely individuals, but that wasn't meant to be for you, apparently. But what I did wanna ask you is you said the Rebbe was a mystic, the Rebbe was an activist, the Rebbe was a, a scholar, and so on. But the Rebbe was also a Frum Jew, and the Rebbe was also a, you know, just a ish halakhah, and a very zealous ish halakhah, one who believed that halakhah came before any political considerations, any, any considerations, frankly. Like, you know, you know, the, the- there's, you know, when you, when you read the Rebbe's Or Shimus that he wrote during the war, which I'm sure you have-

1:04:05 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

1:04:05 Speaker 2 ... and there's so many fascinating things that he writes there, especially when you realize it's during the war, and there's, like, this... A lot of the Or Shimus doesn't have dates to it. It's just, like, entries, but then there's this whole series of speeches, I don't know if you ever came across them, where it says the date, the parshah, and where it's given.

1:04:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:04:23 Speaker 2 And the Rebbe basically prepared notes for his speeches that he gave in Nice and Vichy and, and, and you know who he's talking to, and actually Zalman Schachter, that's where Zalman Schachter-

1:04:34 Speaker 3 Correct. Correct

1:04:34 Speaker 2 ... met, met the Rebbe as well, and he recalled some of the talks there.

1:04:38 Speaker 3 Correct.

1:04:38 Speaker 2 Just imagine, like, here's this, this, this man who had kept himself for the most part his whole life, and now suddenly giving these speeches trying to, uh, give hi- give his fellow Jews some kind of confidence, some kind of comfort, and, uh, it's just astonishing. Um, you know, but so, you know, you get carried away with the Rebbe's intellectual brilliance, but then you hear a story at the same time of the Rebbe being much too nervous to go by Calabria Ezrig, right? It's the same man, and we can't really separate the two. And, and, and, and this is where I'm not tr- I'm not trying to challenge you 'cause that's not the pla- this is not what this podcast is about, but I'm trying to s-still kind of steer according to the lines we had earlier, where, you know, when you have this collision with modernity, you look at the Rebbe as a figure who, if he didn't overco- like, if he didn't beat modernity, he certainly collided with it pretty well. You know what I mean?

1:05:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:05:39 Speaker 2 Like, I don't see modernity being solved anywhere, but, but, but the Rebbe took it on.

1:05:45 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:05:45 Speaker 2 Like, he wasn't scared of it. Uh, parenthetically, like, one of my favorite stories of the Rebbe that I heard, I heard from Rabbi Krinsky. Um, uh, he said that he was driving the Rebbe, I, I don't know when and where, but it was... All I know is that he was driving, they were driving past the World Trade Center, so probably in Brooklyn with a view of the World Trade C- World Trade Center, the old World Trade Center, the Twin Towers across the river. And I think Rabbi Krinsky pointed out to the Rebbe, "There's the World Trade Center." The Rebbe asked him, Rebbe looks up at the World Trade Center, these two Twin Towers, at the time the two tallest buildings in the world, gives it a look, and said, "Ah, not that tall," and back to- And look, the one thing I will die on my sword for is the Rebbe was not cynical.

1:06:32 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:06:33 Speaker 2 The one thing the Rebbe wasn't was a cynic.

1:06:34 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:06:34 Speaker 2 Like, "Eh, no big deal, eh?" No, no. He knew what the engineering was to build the tallest towers, and he wasn't all that impressed. Like, that's not-- Like, "Modernity is not going to wow me."

1:06:46 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:06:46 Speaker 2 Okay? So, like, I feel like he co- at the very least, the Rebbe collided with modernity pretty well, like, like robustly.

1:06:55 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:06:55 Speaker 2 And... Right? But you, you c- so you, as you collide with modernity, you look up to him as an example, as a role model, right? But the problem is, and I'm not saying for you, but the problem for all of us is that the Rebbe was able to deal with it as an intellectual, as a mystic, as an activist, as a ish halakhah. And even though all these things, like we've discussed a little bit earlier, some can feel contradictory, and they pull you in different directions, the Rebbe was able to manage it. Why? That's why he was a Rebbe. Come on, man. Hello. Like, like he was a special man. That's the whole point, isn't it? But the problem is when we try to copy it or try to model ourselves after it, it almost begins to feel like, "Wait a second, these contradictions are too big for me."

1:07:44 Speaker 3 Hmm. Hmm.

1:07:49 Speaker 2 Like-

1:07:54 Speaker 3 Firstly, um, this might be important to say for depending on who's listening, that, uh, in no way am I interested in, in undermining Halakhah. I think Halakhah, as the Rebbe saw it, is the expression of not just divinity, but, but particularly profound degrees of, of divinity. Um, the Rebbe would often speak about how «foreign» that when we speak about general disputation-

1:08:21 Speaker 2 Sure

1:08:21 Speaker 3 ... we, it's, it goes, uh, it's associated with Shem HaMeforash, associated with nature and whatnot. Um, but, um, «foreign» and I, and I, and I feel that way and, and I f- I feel strongly that, um, that Halakhah is Halakhet Olam ... they're, that they're the paths, the eternal paths that bring us into eternity, the present moment. We-

1:08:39 Speaker 2 No, so I'm sorry, I'm sorry-

1:08:40 Speaker 3 We could talk more-

1:08:40 Speaker 2 I'm sorry, I'm sorry for characterizing it-

1:08:41 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:08:41 Speaker 2 ... if I any way characterize it, you're somehow against Halakha. What I meant more is the, the particularities-

1:08:46 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah

1:08:46 Speaker 2 ... of, of, of, of, of, of living as a frum Jew.

1:08:50 Speaker 3 Yeah. I think that... By the way, I think there's a lot of theological work that the Rebbe did, um, and that each of us has to engage in, in recontextualizing Halakha. I think a lot of the Rebbe's Torah about, um, mitzvot beteyrot laset lavei bring a radical re-understanding of what Halakha means as an expression of an innate will as opposed to external. But we-- this might not be the, the place for a theological discussion of Halakha. I mean, it's, it's work that I-

1:09:13 Speaker 2 I'm not the person to have it with, so.

1:09:14 Speaker 3 Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's work that I'm actively engaged in, and-

1:09:17 Speaker 2 Okay

1:09:17 Speaker 3 ... I have an upcoming series on my channel, which is looking at ritual and Halakha, and trying to re-understand it and, and-

1:09:22 Speaker 2 Hmm

1:09:22 Speaker 3 ... and, and, and, and collide with it, frankly.

1:09:24 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:09:24 Speaker 3 Um, and, and, and make something beautiful out of it, hopefully. So, so, uh, so in no ways am I, am I throwing, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Um, when it comes to... He- here's, here's a more important point, though, and that, and that was a very important point, so, so that tells you how important this is.

1:09:39 Speaker 2 No, it's very, it's very important.

1:09:40 Speaker 3 The more important point is that the Rebbe had-- the Rebbe expected a lot from himself and expected a lot from us, and, um, whether we like it or not, and, and, and whether we're gonna feel comfortable as, as modern millennials with, with this approach that the Rebbe took, whenever someone comes to the Rebbe and say, "I've accomplished X, Y, and Z," the Rebbe's response, we know, uh, we could have predicted, you know, with 100% success, success rate was, "Okay, so when's the next building happening? When's the next million dollars being donated?" Like, this is... That-- the Rebbe was... And in, and in a very American way, in a very expansive way, in a sort of the logic of, of modernity, which something which, which the Rebbe collided with in a very... I just wanna add, in a very beautiful way. The Rebbe's aesthetic, which was a modern aesthetic. The Rebbe, the Rebbe threw off, in many ways, the l'vush that he was expected to wear, which is very challenging for a Chassidim. The Rebbe, the Rebbe put on a Borsalino and a short jacket. The Rebbe's, the Rebbe's... I'm very attracted to the Rebbe's, to the modernism of the Rebbe's physical aesthetic. But, but putting that aside, to me, to me, the Rebbe demanded a lot from us, and that is from the very first ma'amar, which is the Rebbe's mission statement, the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's, um, manifesto, Bas Lagani, where the Rebbe says that it's been seven generations since, since the beginning. The same

1:10:58 Speaker 3 way there were seven generations from, from Abraham to Moses, from Abraham to Moshe, we are now seven generations from the Alter Rebbe, and it is upon us to bring Mashiach. Not upon me, but upon us, upon this generation. And we need to ask ourselves, without fooling ourselves, we need to ask ourselves, "Ma sai g'ilamait l'maase avotai?" Say, "When will our actions parallel those of our patriarchs and matriarchs, of Moses, in a cosmic sense, that they were able to bring down Shechinah? They were, they were, they were able to bring down divine presence into their lives and therefore this world." We... Our mandate, my mandate as the Rebbe, is to charge us, this generation, with doing the same, and that theme continues all the way until VaEtchanan and Chavzei Na'ar, and every single moment where the Rebbe impressed upon us that the mission statement was, was an immense one, and it was upon us to do it. I think, I think that the Rebbe, the Rebbe wanted us to be rebbeim. There's, this is... There's a, there's a lot of Torah this where-- a lot of Torah behind this, where the Tzemach Tzedek referred to his children as Admorim. He has-- he had a few different children, which did go on to spawn other Chassidic movements, um, and based on a ma'amar of the Friediker Rebbe, the Rebbe r- the Rebbe basically extended that not just to the Chassidim, but to-- not just to the children of the Rebbe, 'cause the Rebbe did not have biological

1:12:12 Speaker 3 children, but to all of his children, which is the Chassidim, demanding that each Chassid be a rebbe, be an Admor. Um, it's a sicha. I could find... It's a sicha on, uh, Shmini Atzeret, I think. I could find it for you if, if, if people are interested in, in the source. The Rebbe, the Rebbe basically showed up, and this is, you know, Jonathan Sacks immortalized this famously in his eulogy of the Rebbe, when he said the Rebbe was a great leader because he didn't make followers. He ma- he made leaders. To me, the Rebbe, who is my Moshiach Beno, led us to the Promised Land, and like Moshiach Beno, did not enter the Promised Land, and said, "It's now your turn to stand up on your own two feet and to walk in for yourself. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna carry you anymore. I'm not gonna be your mother," which is the way that Moshe is described, "and carry you into the land. You have to stand up and do it." And I think that demand upon us may be unfair, it may be wrong, it may be, it may be, it may be, um, misguided, it may be beyond our capacities, and, and, and, and it seems that the Rebbe, to some degree, questioned our capability of that in, in very agonizing ways, right? But I take that seriously, and if the Rebbe faced himself a challenge of taking the tradition that he was raised on and colliding head-on with modernity and emerging

1:13:22 Speaker 3 with something powerful, meaningful, inspiring, empowering, and redemptive, then I have the responsibility to do the same, and I think the Rebbe taught us how to do this. The Rebbe's, the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's hermeneutics, the way that the Rebbe read a text, was to take, was, was, was to take a text and read it against itself often to, to, to reveal its messianic redemptive purpose. That, that's what the Rebbe does, and the Rebbe wanted us to read a text the way he does. Mmm, and I'll just drop this as, as a hint, maybe even to read the Rebbe's text that way.

1:13:54 Speaker 2 But here's my question, though. I mean, it's beautiful what you're saying. It's really beautiful. And, and look, I mean, yeah, I mean, that, that is how you translate VaEtchanan. I mean, that, that's what it says in the ma'amar there, and insofar as that can be considered the last ma'amar that the Rebbe chose or happened to gi-- you know, like ended up giving out, I don't know exactly what the process was, but the Rebbe certainly would say it was bashkar hapratis, right? So it was the last ma'amar that went out. That's clearly the, the, the, the gist of what the ma'amar is saying. But the, the, the challenge that I see is, on a practical level, again, trying to bring it more to a practical question, is if you're, if you're also a rebbe, how are you at the same time a Chassid, right? And, and to put it in more practical terms, let's say we suppose that we can believe that our intentions or, you know, our intentions are pure, and what we're doing, we're doing for the right reason, but what we're doing is new.

1:14:54 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:14:55 Speaker 2 We are entering the Promised Land that nobody else has entered before.

1:14:58 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:59 Speaker 2 How do we know that that is... Right? How do we know that that is what the Rebbe wants?

1:15:07 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:15:07 Speaker 2 Like, that's always a danger, and that's why I have deep sympathy for people who say, "All of this talk is dangerous. We ought to just be following directives, period, end of story."

1:15:19 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:15:19 Speaker 2 "We don't have the capacity to start coming up with our own ideas." You know, a, a lot of people will listen to this conversation and be thrown off by words that you use that they don't realize it's just the English for the "" that they usually use. So that part, whatever. But you are saying new ideas. I mean, can't get around that. Right? This whole idea of, of trying to see everything from a mystic... No, that's not so new. But, like, to basically translate and take the, the, the, the, the logical next steps of where does it, all this lead?

1:15:52 Speaker 3 Right.

1:15:52 Speaker 2 If we say that, like the Baal Shem Tov said, that everything is "" of, of the-- What does that mean?

1:15:59 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:16:00 Speaker 2 Does it-- Like, how can you have that, right? It d- And okay, this is actually discussed in and all these things.

1:16:05 Speaker 3 Sure.

1:16:05 Speaker 2 " and all these things, how you deal with the other and so on. But it's complicated, right? And, and so it's much easier, and in a way, it seems more recommendable to just say, "Okay, whatever the Rebbe told me, like, I, I'm gonna follow, even if the circumstances don't match."

1:16:27 Speaker 3 Yeah. I, I'd love to. It's too bad the Rebbe didn't make us sheep. He made us-- He, he, he, he charged us to be Rabbeim.

1:16:34 Speaker 2 No, but I under- I understand where you're coming from, believe me. I'm just-- How do, how do, how do you, like, how do you... It almost feels like, like, it, it's even becoming more impossible because, well, you could say, "Look, the Rebbe wanted us to be our own people," or, "He encouraged us to be our own thinkers. Now I don't know what to do anymore, so I'm just gonna be my own guy. I'll be Zalman Schachter."

1:16:57 Speaker 3 So let me push back on that a second, and, and appropriate that you brought that up, 'cause I wanted to, I wanted to say something that, that he had said, which really hit me very powerfully, which, which is an important, honest thing to say here. Um, Reb Zalman, in one of his autobiographical works, he, he begins it with an introduction. Um, I think the, I think the name of the book is "My Life in Renewal." Um, he begins it with a very beautiful story, which was co-written with a s-some creative writer, um, which was an attempt to ca-encapsulate his autobiography in this sort of mythological register. And, um, he tells a very beautiful story that he had a dream, and in the dream, he, his, his soul was, went up to, to the heavenly realm, and it was being-- There was a, a court case which was trying to determine which way,

1:17:51 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:17:51 Speaker 3 Does it-- Like, how can you have that, right? It d- And okay, this is actually discussed in and all these things.

1:18:24 Speaker 2 Sure.

1:18:25 Speaker 3 And all these things, how you deal with the other, and so on. But it's complicated, right? And, and so it's much easier, and in a way, it seems more recommendable to just say, "Okay, whatever the Rebbe told me, like, I, I'm gonna follow, even if the circumstances don't match."

1:20:30 Speaker 2 Say it in Greek or Latin, "Mutalis mutandi." Isn't that how we say it? Mutalis mutandi.

1:20:36 Speaker 3 I don't know. That's just Russian.

1:20:37 Speaker 2 That's like... I think, I think, I thought that's a word. I was trying to impress you. I didn't know. Go ahead.

1:20:44 Speaker 3 I-- So I'd be curious to know whether in the, in the Rebbe's pre-Nusyas writings, there's any q- space of this ambivalence of, of... 'Cause the Rebbe's certainly doing something new and revolutionary, both in his methodology and his, and his metaphysics, and his theology. It-- There's a radical, radical departure from the previous six generations.

1:21:02 Speaker 2 So I didn't, I, I spent quite a bit of time with the Shulms. I actually, I actually did a project on it that- Is why I spent so much time on it to where I basically made like a, this small kind of documentary, um, tracing the Rebbe's journey through the Rishonim with also footage of the time and-

1:21:18 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:21:18 Speaker 2 -the place that he was-

1:21:19 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:21:20 Speaker 2 Uh, during the war. Um, if anything, my impression was the Rebbe was, was radical then already. No, uh, and, and I say that, I hope I, I hope that's, uh, in the most respectful way possible. Like, like, in many ways it was, it was almost like it was, it was, it was so interesting to see how, how, how so many ideas that would later be so dominant in the Chabad were already planted back then-

1:21:50 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:21:50 Speaker 2 -when presumably the Rebbe wasn't planning on being the Rebbe. I mean, because he didn't want to be, uh, you know, Tosh Yud. This was 10 years before that.

1:21:58 Speaker 3 Right.

1:21:58 Speaker 2 So, and he, you know, he certainly wasn't thinking passive Fidegra, that I think everybody can say with utter confidence. And he was sp- and he was... Here he was writing with that same kind of messianic vision, but, but it was... I mean, and there's a famous letter where I, I've been dreaming of Moshiach since I was-

1:22:17 Speaker 3 Right.

1:22:17 Speaker 2 -since, since when I'm a child.

1:22:18 Speaker 3 Right.

1:22:18 Speaker 2 But here you could see already where... And also the unique kind of almost Rugachover like bringing Midrashim, uh, the, the kind of the way of the recipe of, of the Tzar Tara was, was that it was already astonishing back then.

1:22:34 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:22:34 Speaker 2 Like the, the just... And, and of course on top of all that, the Rebbe was traveling without a library. So this-

1:22:39 Speaker 3 Let me, let me be a bit more specific in the question. The Rebbe, there was messianism and radicality certainly there, and, and I love those things about the Rebbe. Is th- there's a departure that happens in the Rebbe's Tara. There's... Maybe departure is the wrong word 'cause it, it-

1:22:53 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:22:53 Speaker 3 -implies that it's different. It's sort of if we see Chabad going, I'll do it for the camera, going like this, then the Rebbe goes like this, right?

1:22:59 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:59 Speaker 3 And the Rebbe does that with his Teres Atmos, and, and we won't get theological here. But do you see, do you see that move, that, that-

1:23:06 Speaker 2 Oh, so-

1:23:06 Speaker 3 That, that takeoff having any, um, sort of Rebbe, Rebbe questioning whether that's the right move, whether we're ready for it, whether how do we act on that?

1:23:14 Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's interesting. I, I was interviewing someone for another project, and they were also talking about the Teres Atmos. I mean, I, I didn't think, I didn't think of it in that way, so I don't know if I paid attention to it, but that's what I meant by radical.

1:23:25 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:23:28 Speaker 2 That's what I meant by radical. I mean, th- th- at least this is the impression I got, and I'm not, I'm not... This is not re- this is not recent. This is a few years ago. But, you know, the, the Rebbe, the Rebbe had always seemed was like he took everything to its furthest conclusion.

1:23:49 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:23:49 Speaker 2 Right? There was no letup.

1:23:51 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:23:52 Speaker 2 So Teres Atmos is, it's always there. I mean-

1:23:57 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:23:57 Speaker 2 You, you're gonna find the word Atmos in Sanhedrin, I don't know, uh, 10,000 times. I mean, it's there.

1:24:02 Speaker 3 Sure, sure, sure.

1:24:03 Speaker 2 Right? But it, it, it's, it's part of the story. Like it's kind of, it... We get to it, but we don't... Moti V'lei Moti. We're there, but we're not there. Whereas Rebbe's like, "No, no, that, that, that's where we're going. Let's go."

1:24:12 Speaker 3 Every, every Ma'amar.

1:24:13 Speaker 2 Let's go, right? That, that, that's, that's what we're talking about here.

1:24:17 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:24:17 Speaker 2 I, I, I didn't think of it in like an academic kind of Teres Atmos versus the other Rabbeim. Um, you know, I always think about like the obvious kind of example is that like Basili Gani, the Basili Gani that the Rebbe used as a foundation for their Shvi.

1:24:32 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:24:32 Speaker 2 But the one delivered by the Fidegra Rebbe. What's the Moser Haskell in Basili Gani, the first five Perakim? That Abba Isaac should make fear sit on the tear and die with a minyan. Pray, please tell me, like, like where did that go? It, it just got swallowed up in a much larger... Like the Fidegra Rebbe was begging Baal Batim to be for me then.

1:24:58 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

1:24:58 Speaker 2 And I was like, but look at the Ma'amar. The Ma'amar is talking about much bigger, like we're changing the world.

1:25:04 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:05 Speaker 2 Right? And it, you know, it goes back to this, the same cup. I'll give you another example. Like there's this beautiful poem, or it's, it's an... It was a speech, but also it's kind of poet- poetic from, from Rabbi Soloveitchik, I'm sure you read it, called Idea Defec, right? It's, I think it's the Six Day War. And, and he's talking about the knocks that Hashem makes and how it's his Man of Syria since time. Beautiful. You know how Rabbi Soloveitchik writes, just gorgeous.

1:25:31 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:31 Speaker 2 You wanna read it again and again-

1:25:32 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:32 Speaker 2 -and again. It's the-

1:25:33 Speaker 3 With, with a dictionary on the side.

1:25:34 Speaker 2 Yeah. But I'm just saying that-

1:25:36 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:36 Speaker 2 It, it's more just the mix of-

1:25:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:38 Speaker 2 -Chaz... Of Midrash with Gemara and Halakha, and it just, it, it's just the mind is just exploding the whole time, right? And beautiful. What does he demand from the people listening to him? That they should all give like $180 to Israel. They're a bunch of like upper middle class doctors, modern Orthodox doctors in, in New York.

1:25:58 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:58 Speaker 2 And he's like, "Instead of going on vacation, give some money to Israel." It's like all of that for this? Right? And like, yeah, 'cause that's how most leaders used... were. Like you, you speak, you inspire, inspire, inspire, and then you make, you make your pitch.

1:26:15 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:26:16 Speaker 2 And there was a like, no, no, no, inspire, inspire, inspire, and then like the pitch doesn't like descend back down.

1:26:21 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

1:26:21 Speaker 2 It's like, no, no.

1:26:22 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:26:23 Speaker 2 It just-

1:26:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:26:23 Speaker 2 The... It just flows.

1:26:25 Speaker 3 Right.

1:26:26 Speaker 2 So like you have, for example, now that I'm thinking about it, you have, you have, you have a speech that the Rebbe gave while the Jews were in South France, which was a desperate time for them 'cause they, they, they were cornered. The Rebbe was from the handful of people who survived that. And he's telling them, I think it was Shaul Nachamu about the double Nachama for a double, for a double Kallah. Like it's a whole, a whole Midrash, and the Rebbe built the whole thing where this whole thing is an Assayan, and it's, it's, it's just they were sure trying to be even closer to the, to Eden, and we have to, we have to, we have to find Avodah Zarah even more. Like it, it's... This... How, how do you say that to people who are... Because like how, how... Like how do you give that message of Nachama- To people that are, that are, that are worried that this is their last day.

1:27:15 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:27:16 Speaker 2 Well, anybody that sees how the Rebbe spoke, that that's h- that's how he thought.

1:27:20 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:27:22 Speaker 2 So yeah, I, I, I mean, in a way, in a way, I guess it's a departure, but like I don't know if like you see adsmas become a, become a thing. But the interesting thing to me is, 'cause I'm not such a academic, academically inclined person, it's more like i- i- what, what's so precious about the way you're describing it to me is, you know, I, I, I can, I can anticipate if this is published, it will get flak, okay? And, and I understand why. I understand why, okay? Here's someone who took a journey, read things he wasn't supposed to, and has ideas that come from elsewhere, okay? And, and I, and I say that with a lot of respect, okay? Not in any judgmental way. I mean, I'm saying what you said. So how could you, how could you platform this? And I say, "Look, here's a guy who, who this, this was his journey. Question him for why it went and happened, but he is holding on. He's con- he, he... You said a son coming back trying to hold on and trying to live up to the Rebbe's model." And what's so, to me, heartbreakingly beautiful about it is i-i-it's, I wanna... I-it's, it's almost like this, this attempt at the impossible. You know what I mean? A-and maybe someone comes and says, "Okay, you're just making things complicated for no good reason. Guy, get a grip. Just trying to be sophisticated. It's all there. All the truth is there in the

1:29:04 Speaker 2 13th Torah error." No, no, and I, and I'm saying like, maybe someone sincerely means that. I get it. But, but I, I don't know. Like, like that image of the, the meteor, does it... Like I can't let go of it. Like you grew up in Sydney, Australia. You didn't grow up in cocooned Crown Heights. And by the way, we're in Crown Heights now filming. Take a look at what's going on in Crown Heights. This ain't Lubavitch of Russia. I'm sorry, like we live in this world. People are get-- people collide, whether they should have or shouldn't have. Are you really gonna judge this? Are you gonna really judge someone now for what they read when they were 13 years old? I'm s- I'm not going to, right? And then y-y-it... The rest of your life now is trying to somehow find a model in the way the Rebbe s- the Rebbe spoke, the way the Rebbe thought, the way the Rebbe believed, and, and, and trying to live up to that, and to you, and to s- and through that, to overcome a series of impossible contradictions. I, I, I, I-

1:30:11 Speaker 3 I appreci- I appreciate, like I feel seen in, in you saying that. I appreciate it. I will also say that I'm having-

1:30:17 Speaker 2 Am I overdoing it?

1:30:18 Speaker 3 No, no, no. No, I don't think so. I, I also wanna add that like I'm having a hell of a fun time doing it. I know I, I spoke about how it's, it's, it's, it's lonely and, and those are true, and it's painful and, and those are true as well. There's also, there's also a tremend- this tremendous amount ofِ tainog, like there's a, there's a, there's a shashua in, in this Torah, in this new wave that I understand Torah and I, and, and I don't wanna paint it as if I'm, uh, some sort of afflicted, oppressed, um, you know, child.

1:30:42 Speaker 2 You're Australian, you can't be afflicted if you tried. But you, but my, my-

1:30:45 Speaker 3 I, I love this. I-

1:30:46 Speaker 2 I, I know. You're not afflicted, but you, but you said earlier that you don't wish this on anybody else.

1:30:52 Speaker 3 It's... Yeah. Because, because the, because both sides are true. Because, because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's terribly exhilarating and, and enlivening and, and empowering and, and the people that I get to interact with and the, and the, the things I get to hear from people and, and help people in their, in their journeys is, is beautiful. And it's also... I, I also spent, spent years and, and, and, and, and now, you know, days and, and just really, really confused and really lost and really not having... Now having some people that I can turn to and trust and speak to honestly about it, but for many years did not have that. So, and, and that I don't wish on anyone. It's a, it's a really, it's a really bad thing to wish on someone, even if it comes with a lot of beautiful perks as well.

1:31:35 Speaker 2 Right. Right. I mean, it's, it's like any, any time that you see someone who has, let's say, succeeded, whether it's in business or sports or whatever it is in life, and they're, they're enjoying themselves, it's like, "Hey, do you really wanna be Michael Phelps?" Okay. Ev-everybody wants to be the guy with 24 gold medals or however many gold medals he ended up getting. Okay. How many people wanna wake up every single morning for six years, every single day without vacation for six years, and like work out at 5:00 in the morning for four hours? Like nobody else. That's why he's Michael Phelps and nobody else.

1:32:07 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:32:07 Speaker 2 Like, you know, it doesn't exist.

1:32:08 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:32:09 Speaker 2 Right? And so in general, there's always that thing where like, I'm sure he had a great time doing what he did in the end.

1:32:14 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:32:16 Speaker 2 Right? But yeah, I mean, it's just like in a, in a way, I've kind of hijacked the conversation and like-

1:32:24 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

1:32:24 Speaker 2 ... No, 'cause it, like I, I almost, I, I'm, I'm kind of like I, I'm already anticipating the, the, the pushback or the kind of skepticism of like, you know, what's this conversation about? And it's like, like I, I don't know what, I don't know what to tell you. Like people, people are trying to find their way.

1:32:48 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:32:49 Speaker 2 Like, like let me ask you a question this way. W- if someone tells you, "Okay, it's very enjoyable," but you also said it's, it, it's, it could be excruciating.

1:32:56 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:32:57 Speaker 2 So why don't just dump it? Why don't just become full on balchuvah, forget it, or full on like I'm not, I'm not touching this anymore?

1:33:07 Speaker 3 I'm, I'm only gonna say this because the Rebbe gave us permission to say it and, and demand that we say it. And otherwise I would, I would never say this, but Avraham grew up in a home where he had his thing going. He was-- He could have continued, he would have had a really cushy shlichas, and he would have done just fine. And he was, he was-- He encountered divinity. He encountered truth. For Rambam, he did that as a philosopher. For Chassidis, he did that as a Chassid. You know, however you wanna read history. But, um, and he was a, he was a m- he was a ish ha'emes. He was a man of truth, and he couldn't, he couldn't deny that truth once he encountered it, and he went ahead, and he broke his father's idols. And, and we're told that story because maaseh avot siman labanim, right? There's-- I, I think when you encounter something which feels so good and so true and so beautiful, taam v'rooh ki tey voHashem, that y- in a sense, there's, there's a k- you know, kaf l'eim hachagigas. There's a kefia. You're forced to pursue it at all costs, and costs that are, that are, that are, that are really detrimental, that are, that are not good for your shidduch resume and for, for whatnot. Um, a, you know, a price which-- I mean, that, okay, that may be... Um, I think, I think that we're compelled to. I think that when we, when we encounter something

1:34:28 Speaker 3 so beautiful, we're, we're captivated and, and, and, and fixated by it. When, when, when Moshe Rabbeinu encounters the sneh, he has no choice but to, he, but to n- he can't, he can't look, he can't not look at it, and he's, he's drawn closer to it. It's, it's, it's a, it's a terrible thing to come close to, right? And, and, and God, who's the consuming fire, is not a good thing to get close to. It's, it's-- You're gonna get burnt, right?

1:34:53 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:34:53 Speaker 3 Which is why Chazal say that how can you say, "V'lach l'bidrachav"? Isn't God a consuming fire? And, uh, and yet Moshe Rabbeinu takes off his shoes and approaches the fire. Like, I don't, I don't feel like it was a choice, to be, to be, to be frank. I felt like I f- I encountered something so beautiful, um, within the depths of my tradition, which, which allowed me to make sense of my tradition for the first time as a young adult.

1:35:14 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:35:15 Speaker 3 And, um, and, and the achraiut when we encounter beauty is to share it. That's, that's what beauty demands of us. When we encounter a beautiful, beautiful poem that moves us, we're forced to, to, to repost it, to share. When we encounter a painting, we're, we're f- we're forced to tell our friends about it because it, because it moved us, and, and we-- and in our love for them, we want them to be, to encounter that same beauty. To me, to me-- And that's a, that's a te- that's a, it's a terrible-- Moshe Rabbeinu, it's a terrible journey, and, and he spends the next excellent sukkot saying, "Whoops." Like, "Shlach na b'yad tishlach. Like, don't-- Actually, actually, can I go back to my sheep? Like, please don't, don't send me. I don't, I'm, I don't wanna be your shliach." And, but, but he does because, because we're compelled by, by that reality. We're compelled by that truth and beauty, and, um, and it's a very, it's a very compelling thing. And, um, and it, and it comes from a place of care. Like, we, we, we care about the world around us. We, we look at the state that we're in. We look at the state of Lubavitch. I spoke to a, a young man today that grew up in a secular household that was niskarev to Lubavitch. His father's not Jewish, and I, I'll keep his name anonymous for his own privacy. But he was telling me what it's like to live here in Crown

1:36:22 Speaker 3 Heights, um, going through his own theological questioning when-- And, and the way that, the way that we in Chassidus and in our communities speak about non-Jews with, with ungodly, ungodly amounts of racism and xenophobia. And this, this guy's-- His dad is Jewish. His dad is, his dad is not Jewish, right?

1:36:42 Speaker 2 Oh.

1:36:42 Speaker 3 So, how's that being, how's that being received?

1:36:43 Speaker 2 Right.

1:36:44 Speaker 3 Like, let's think for a second. Like, like who, who-

1:36:46 Speaker 2 Right.

1:36:46 Speaker 3 Like, dalef ni mi atah omeid. Who are you speaking to, right? He told me that, that, that he, that he got royally, royally, like, messed over financially by a local Chassid. He didn't tell me the name, and, uh, it's not my job here to, to-

1:36:59 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

1:37:00 Speaker 3 And, and he-- and if he had a choice now to do business, he'd rather do business with the people he grew up with, with the non-Jews. When, when-- And, and he doesn't see-- You know, when, when, when you reached out to me about the podcast, I know that your, like, part of the mission statement is asking what is Lubavitch, and I don't, I don't know what Lubavitch is, but I know what it can be. And as someone who enjoys histo- like history and academia, we look at etymology as the meaning of the word Lubavitch. We know the etymology is, is a city of love, right? Is a, is a, is a town of brotherly love, right? Philadelphia. That's what Lubavitch ought to be, right? And, and what, what a tragic state we're in that, that someone says that they'd rather go and trust their hard-earned money with, with, with people who they can just trust to be good, decent, normal humans that don't have layers of Chassidus put on top of them, which have done all kinds of bizarre things to their, to the way that they can treat another human. And it pains me. It pains me. And, and I, I can't, I can't, I can't aban-- If I, if I was to walk away, which is, which would have been much easier, it would have been, it would have been an abandonment. It would have been saying that this community is... And I, I wanna qualify this as well to say that there's,

1:38:09 Speaker 3 that there's-- the, the amount of chessed, the amount of kindness, the amount of beauty and truth, and the amount of, the amount of selflessness that I grew up and I experience on a daily basis are simultaneously present. I'm not trying to castigate all of Chabad as, as saying it's lost its way.

1:38:23 Speaker 2 Right.

1:38:23 Speaker 3 God forbid. Like, that's stupid. It's precisely the beauty that, that, that is there that allows me to to, to wanna-

1:38:29 Speaker 2 To fight for it

1:38:30 Speaker 3 ... to wanna fight for it and say we're-

1:38:31 Speaker 2 Right

1:38:31 Speaker 3 ... we're, we're so much better. We can be, uh, we can be a shining city on the hill. We can be a, a model to, to, to the world of what it means to live inspired by, by a deep, profound, mystical tradition.

1:38:43 Speaker 2 Right.

1:38:44 Speaker 3 And to me, that, that possibility is something which I can't walk away from.

1:38:47 Speaker 2 Mm. You know, it's so, it's so interesting because in general, like, people think that art criticism is all about making less, right? And really, what it's about is making more. Now, of course, an art critic or any kind of critic can just be an idiot or be, you know, and just tear down out of jealousy or insecurity or whatever. But, like, an art critic, his job or her job is to point out how this thing accomplishes something but falls short on something else. We're all chasing this ideal of beauty or art or, or, or, or, or film or whatever it is, right? Architecture. And there's this ideal, and we try to see how can we live up to that ideal. When, when, when someone, whether it's myself, whether it's you, whether it's anybody else, sits down and tries to critique ideas and critically think about ideas and think about story and where are we c- where are we coming from? Where are we going? It's not an attempt to tear this down. If I wanted to tear it down, I'd leave. Like, how bored do you think I am? How self-destructive do you think I am? I'm gonna stay here and bring the whole thing down with me? Why would I do that, right? Why would you do that? Of course, that's not what it's about. What it's about is, is, is, is, is people, whether it's yourself in your situation, myself in my situation, others of course, who are convinced that there's something here

1:40:25 Speaker 2 worth fighting for, and very often racked by doubt, um, not sure if what they're doing is the right thing, not sure if, not sure if this is where it ought to... You know, like I have a better idea than other people. Maybe, maybe the old-timers got it right. Maybe I'm wrong. Very large chance. But what else am I supposed to do? Live the rest of my life with a what if? Not even going to explore, not even going to ask a question and say, "Imagine if it could be even better. Imagine if I could give my kids something that I'm excited to give them, and I'm excited to teach them about, and I'm excited to see them take it even further, not something that I'm worried is just slipping away." That's the impulse. Anyway, on that cheery note. On that cheery note. Well, it's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure talking. Maybe it's been a bit, bit of a, bit of a, bit of a vent, at least from my end. But, uh, it's been a pleasure, pleasure meeting you. It's always the joy of the podcast- -is to meet people, interesting people, and I hope I have the guts to publish this one day. All right, man. Thank you.

1:41:43 Speaker 4 Likewise.

1:41:45 Speaker 2 The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Zorn and Nadav Bahar, and is used with their permission.