Ep. 25 // "The Line Between Good and Bad" w/ Eli Nash

00:00 Speaker 1 There is good and there is bad, and it's not as obvious to what meets the eye, and the time we're in is kind of exposing that. You know, going back to the sexual abuse conversation, what we found from those stories coming out more and more is that just because someone a Rab- is a Rabbi doesn't mean they're good. Very, very fixed idea. Good, bad, right, wrong. Right. You know? It's let's see, let's see what's going on over here. It's exploding in the world, and then here you see someone. I've seen marriages saved because of a psychedelic journey. Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2024. My name is Benjie Afsin, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. So we're here with Eli Nash. Thank you very much for agreeing to come on the podcast. Um- It's a return of the favor. Yeah, I was gonna say that, uh, uh, I was gonna say that you're returning... Yeah, I am, I am returning the favor to you, but, but I wanted to say thank you for your favor in the first place. Um, uh, it was very nice of you to have me on the podcast. It also gave me a bit of a kick in the pants to launch my podcast finally. Oh, 'cause you spoke about it on the podcast. I had the id- no, no, I had the idea of the podcast before. I had already recorded a few episodes, but you

01:19 Speaker 1 know, like, should I launch it? Should I not launch it? The kind of that, you know, hesitation at the p- of going public with it. And then once you asked me on your podcast, I'm like, "Well, if I'm gonna be... If, if I'm, if you're gonna put out my episode, I better have my podcast going already." Right. "It'd be silly if I didn't." So I had no choice at that point. So you kind of forced my hand. You, you and Yossi kind of forced my hand. But, um, I was very appreciative of that, and it was also... You know, I was, I was, I was quite amazed, to be honest, of the feedback that I got on that episode. I don't know what kind of feedback you got on that. Yeah, I got a... It was very different than a lot of the other episodes I do. Yeah. Like I go, like, deep into Lubavitch- Right ... kind of stuff. I would talk about healing, growth- Right ... whatever, you know? Right. Go through the directions, and here we went into the guts of the system a little bit, so. Yeah. I got... Because it was so unique, I got a lot of feedback. Interesting. Right. 'Cause like th- I told you about at the time, like, um, there's a guy who's related to both of us. Yes. To, to me family, and by you, uh, to you by marriage. Some people will figure that out. But, um, yeah, he called me up, and I

02:22 Speaker 1 hadn't spoken to him for a while, and he was, you know... We, we, we... It was really interesting to hear the kind of questions that he, that he had and the kind of thoughts he wanted to share with me. And, you know, in general, it's one of the very encouraging things about podcasting is you kind of put an idea out there, and there is a vulnerability to it because you don't know how it's gonna be received- Right ... if people are gonna even listen to it or if they're gonna stomp all over it, and some people will, and some people do. But after kind of that initial phase, you start s- hearing from people, and you realize that these ideas are out there, and it's very encouraging. It's, it's, it's... I don't know if the word's rewarding, but it, you know, it, it feels nice to, to, to, to realize that your ideas have company, you know? And there are other ideas out there and other people thinking similar things, and people joining in the conversation. And- Yeah, as I recall, he was intrigued by the idea of davening in English. Uh, well, I think that's what I shared with you. We had an hour-long conversation. Okay. He's related. Now, now I could tell you he's related to me. My guess is if we collected all the conversations I had with him throughout the course of my lifetime, our lifetimes, it probably... All the other conversations together probably would not amount in duration to that

03:36 Speaker 1 one conversation- Right ... we had after the podcast. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that, first of all, you know, the podcast kind of gave an opportunity for both of us to lay out some ideas at length so that when someone's listening to it, you know, th- there's, there's, there's time for them to kind of, "Okay, this is what they're saying. I think about it." Listen to it at their own, you know, at their own pace. But I think also it probably has to do with, like, age. You know, like, we've both grown up. We're both kind of, you know, at different points in our lives but certainly both along the journey of life and, you know, the kind of i- the kind of conversations you can or can't have at 20 change as you get older into your 30s, right? Yes. So yeah. But it, it was really wonderful. He was o- it was one of many people that reached out. And, um, so anyway, thank you for that, and I appreciate- Absolutely ... I appreciate, I appreciate that you're returning the favor to me, and I'm returning the favor to you, however we look at it. Right. Favors all around. Okay. So let's see where it gets me. Yeah. So anyway, um, you know, when I was on your podcast, you were the one asking the questions. I, I, I, I, I had some questions that I wanted to ask then. Okay. I kind of held off

04:46 Speaker 1 on it, and thankfully I have the chance now. Okay. But I, I wanna go a little bit back just for the beginning just to give a bit of background. Um, what's your backstory? Like, t- tell me a little bit about growing up. Your, your, mainly your Lubavitch backstory. Like, where do you, where do you come from and, and, uh- Where my parents come from? No, I think, I mean, you could go back that far if you'd like. I mean, if, if you feel that's part of who you are, then sure. But more like, more like who is Eli Nash for people that don't, that not, that don't know him. From, like, a Lubavitch perspective? Yeah. I mean, I grew up in Crown Heights. Okay. Children of, uh, Baal Teshuva, but it wasn't the typical Baal Teshuva 'cause my mom was Sephardic. Right. So Sephardic don't consider themselves, um, non-religious. Right. Right? It's not in or out the same way. Yes, exactly. Right. Which is in many ways a beautiful, uh- Absolutely ... something beautiful we can learn from. My father-in-law's also Sephardic. Oh, neat. Yeah, so from my mom, she chose to enter a path of Chabad, but it wasn't... Even though practically it went from things that she wasn't keeping to things that she was keeping, it wasn't ideologically viewed that way. Right. From her family, it wasn't viewed that way. Right. It was, "Okay, so your husband has a beard. Why?" I mean, it wasn't- Right. Uh, I don't think the whole transformation

06:00 Speaker 1 was seen as that. Um, my dad Um, was more of like a died in the world baal teshuva, but he, he embraced it in a more... Like some baal teshuvas like wanna be viewed as a baal teshuva, you know? They're still kind of, they were hippie-ish in some way.

06:17 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:17 Speaker 1 My dad wasn't. He was, um... Does that make sense? Does that distinction amongst baal teshuvas make sense?

06:23 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely.

06:24 Speaker 1 Like one who kind of like wants to like find the road and sit on that one versus how do I bring some of my old life into this?

06:32 Speaker 2 Yeah, did he keep his motorcycle or not is the question.

06:33 Speaker 1 Right. That kind of... Right.

06:35 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:36 Speaker 1 Right. I think my dad was like his old life was gone, and this is his new life. There wasn't-

06:39 Speaker 2 Right

06:39 Speaker 1 ... um, the old stuff that, uh, that came in. So what ch- what was maybe different for me than others, maybe your upbringing, is none of my relatives were Chabad.

06:51 Speaker 2 Hmm.

06:51 Speaker 1 So we had a view into a, a lot of life-

06:54 Speaker 2 Sure

06:54 Speaker 1 ... that, um, that wasn't, which maybe put a, a little bitterness I think sometimes for us as children. Like, why can they do this and we can't, right?

07:04 Speaker 2 Right.

07:04 Speaker 1 Whereas if s- if all of someone's relatives are that way, then it's all we see. It's all you know.

07:09 Speaker 2 There's for sure a tension there. There's no question.

07:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

07:11 Speaker 2 A few people that grow up in those situations, for sure.

07:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. But as a kid in yeshiva, I took it seriously. I was, uh, I was on the path, um, very much. I think I detoured a little bit, uh, my teenage years, but like when I was in yeshiva, I took it seriously always.

07:27 Speaker 2 So when you detoured, um, at the time, 'cause you're a bit older than me, right? I'm 36.

07:33 Speaker 1 I'm 38.

07:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, a couple years older than me. Like at the time, that was still quite novel, right? To detour. It wasn't... Did-

07:42 Speaker 1 Yeah. Maybe the way I did it was, so I had-

07:45 Speaker 2 I, I have no idea

07:46 Speaker 1 ... but at that time-

07:46 Speaker 2 I have no idea, I have no idea how you did it.

07:47 Speaker 1 Right.

07:48 Speaker 2 But even the word, like even the word, like the idea of dropouts, for example, or like not going, not finishing the yeshiva system the way you're supposed to.

07:54 Speaker 1 So I actually did finish the yeshiva system.

07:55 Speaker 2 Okay. So what do you mean by detour?

07:58 Speaker 1 Meaning I s- I started, like I had one foot out the door a little bit.

08:02 Speaker 2 I see.

08:02 Speaker 1 I really enjoyed the learning. I had one foot out the door in, uh, in my mind.

08:05 Speaker 2 Religiously?

08:06 Speaker 1 Religiously, yeah.

08:07 Speaker 2 Okay.

08:07 Speaker 1 But at the same point in time, for me, it was I started this path, I'm gonna finish it.

08:12 Speaker 2 I see.

08:12 Speaker 1 And if I have choices afterwards, I'll go, but I didn't want to like drop... I didn't drop out of school.

08:17 Speaker 2 Oh, so you were in yeshiva throughout the system?

08:19 Speaker 1 I was in yeshiva throughout. The only thing I didn't do was, um, after Yeshivat Gedola, I went straight to semikhah.

08:27 Speaker 2 Right. And that was your, that was your, that was your finale.

08:30 Speaker 1 Exactly, yeah. The same year I was learning semikhah, I started my business.

08:36 Speaker 2 I see. So you always wanted to go into business. You knew that's what-

08:40 Speaker 1 No, actually, I wanted to go to school.

08:42 Speaker 2 Oh.

08:42 Speaker 1 And I did, I was going to school. I thought I'd be a lawyer.

08:44 Speaker 2 Really?

08:45 Speaker 1 Actually, yeah.

08:46 Speaker 2 Okay. And then from-

08:47 Speaker 1 Business, I was, I was doing as a way to put a little food on the table.

08:50 Speaker 2 Sure.

08:50 Speaker 1 To have some money in my pocket. I wasn't doing it to-

08:53 Speaker 2 Sure

08:53 Speaker 1 ... build a career. I thought I'd go to law school.

08:57 Speaker 2 Right. And then you f- then you realized you're a Sefardi.

09:01 Speaker 1 Right. I had the tension inside me.

09:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. Sefardi-

09:03 Speaker 1 I couldn't run together

09:04 Speaker 2 ... Sefardi is Sefardi. Ain't, ain't no Sefardi lawyers.

09:09 Speaker 1 I agree.

09:09 Speaker 2 Very few of them at least. Yeah. I mean, I can't say that I, you know, that I have a similar background, nor do I see the need for, to, to make that attempt. But I, I did grow up in Hong Kong, so while all my cousins, most of my cousins but besides one or two, were religious, um, everybody around me immediately-

09:31 Speaker 1 Right

09:31 Speaker 2 ... was not.

09:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. You had a window into a world that was not.

09:34 Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If anything, like I had a window into a world that was what I was. I got like, I got a window-

09:40 Speaker 1 Exactly

09:40 Speaker 2 ... to the religious world, but the world that I swam in, I mean, in terms of just the world around me, I went to s- my, my parents opened up a school when I was a few years old for the community, but really, I mean, they, they were spurred to do it because they had kids that they needed to put into school, and they built a sc- school for the community, which then made, me- meant that we had to go until we were older, 'cause it was their baby. And so I, all my classmates were, were not religious. I even had some classmates that, that were not technically Jewish.

10:09 Speaker 1 Right.

10:09 Speaker 2 Because their parents were intermarried. Um, that landed me in some hot water at some point even. But yeah.

10:16 Speaker 1 Right. In some ways, the opposite tension.

10:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, but it was just, you know, it, it's, it's certainly something that I can conceptualize. So, uh, so you finish the system, and I, I don't mean to paint this like in or out, but it, it... From what I, from what I gather, there was a time where you kind of, after the system, you kind of went away.

10:35 Speaker 1 There was a time where I moved away completely.

10:37 Speaker 2 Right.

10:37 Speaker 1 I mean, the way I say it, to put it, uh, to put it gently, the only mitzvah I was connected to was tzedakah.

10:44 Speaker 2 It was like, you're religious in your wallet. Religious in your wallet.

10:48 Speaker 1 Hey, it connected me. You know?

10:49 Speaker 2 Again, that's Sefar- that's Sefardi, man. This, this is us.

10:53 Speaker 1 Right. I can see what you mean there.

10:55 Speaker 2 Yeah. But okay. So, so, so, so you, so, so, so you, you kind of drifted away, let's say. What, what pulled you back? The reason I, the reason I'm asking these questions is not just to kind of put you out on the table, um, it's 'cause, like, to me, it's fascinating when someone... Because... Okay, so let me first ask a different question. What would you say or how would you define your relationship to Lubavitch today?

11:23 Speaker 1 That's an excellent question.

11:25 Speaker 2 Like, uh, you say, "I'm a Lubavitcher"?

11:28 Speaker 1 I mean, I'm definitely connected, like certainly to the rabbi, like I'm definitely very connected to his institutions, his organizations, his-

11:34 Speaker 2 Right

11:34 Speaker 1 ... um, his learning, his teachings like that. I'm very connected to it. Am I a Lubavitcher? Like I'm not putting my kids in Lubavitcher school, right?

11:42 Speaker 2 Right.

11:43 Speaker 1 But-

11:43 Speaker 2 Well, neither do I.

11:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

11:45 Speaker 2 They're homeschooled now, but...

11:48 Speaker 1 Right. So I, that goes back to a lot of the podcasts that we had, was what makes,

11:53 Speaker 2 Right

11:53 Speaker 1 ... what makes someone a Lubavitcher. So I'm kind of, let's say it this way, you know, if I'm deviating from something, right? I've deviated from something, so me- which means I'm tied to what I'm deviating from.

12:07 Speaker 2 Right. In a-

12:07 Speaker 1 That is why I'm-

12:07 Speaker 2 ... in a negative sense.

12:08 Speaker 1 Yes.

12:10 Speaker 2 Right.

12:10 Speaker 1 Yeah.

12:11 Speaker 2 So you're Lubavitch inasmuch that you are not fully Lubavitch, is what you're saying?

12:16 Speaker 1 Exact- me... Right. What I'm deviating from is that.

12:18 Speaker 2 That's, that's kind of your anchor, but your, your, your, you, you're... You've let the kind of chain w- unwind a little bit more than perhaps most, but it's still your anchor, is what you're-

12:29 Speaker 1 Correct, yeah. And it's been a, um... I mean, I'm still very much on the path. I'm still very much on the... I guess we all are.

12:36 Speaker 2 Right.

12:36 Speaker 1 But my journey still isn't finished in this, uh, in this regard.

12:40 Speaker 2 Right. I mean, I'm, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, like, put you in a box. I, I, I felt I should first hear what you... H- how you think about it before I, before I suggest that. To me, it's fascinating when... Or, or it's certainly s- in- intriguing when someone chooses. Like, you left, you deviated, or you deviated hard, let's say bes- you know, besides for financial support, you know, with donations and s- and such, and you could have stayed there. Like, like, like you were there, right?

13:15 Speaker 1 Right.

13:15 Speaker 2 And now, you know, and then you, then you come, you, you come back, and you choose it. To me, there's, um, there, there, there's, uh... That, that, that opens up a whole new, to me at least, understanding of what is this thing that you're choosing, right? Because until now, or when you just kind of go with the flow, in many ways, it's status quo, right? So-

13:39 Speaker 1 Right. But it could be by rote. It's not necessarily intentional.

13:41 Speaker 2 Right. It's like my, kind of my quip, which is regrettably quite cynical, and like what's the definition of a Lubavitcher? Someone that marries a Lubavitcher, right? And so, like, it's like this kind of endless loop where like, you know, I'm a Lubavitcher. I'm a Lubavitcher 'cause my wife is a Lubavitcher, and she's a Lubavitcher 'cause I'm a Lubavitcher. And it's like, what is this Lubavitch thing? It, it's everybody just kind of like pass a hot potato, and there is that kind of like status quo where like, you know, we d- I, I just don't want to intermarry out. You know, I just want to marry a Lubavitcher, and we'll raise Lubavitch kids, but we're never gonna figure out what this means. A- and maybe sometimes you don't need to. Maybe sometimes identity just is kind of who you are, you know? But when you make a hard break from it, and you come back, at that point, it's a choice. At that point, at that point, it's not just... You can never go back to status quo, right?

14:30 Speaker 1 Right. I mean, there's definitely something intentional about it, like I said, and what's interesting is in the coming back, I sometimes say that as I'm coming back, I'm rejecting things from my childhood more forcefully than I ever did.

14:41 Speaker 2 Mm.

14:43 Speaker 1 You know? Meaning previously I rejected it in its... I, I rejected the totality of it.

14:49 Speaker 2 Right.

14:49 Speaker 1 And it's-

14:49 Speaker 2 The baby with the bathwater.

14:50 Speaker 1 Exactly. And now I'm intentional about what I'm rejecting.

14:54 Speaker 2 Okay.

14:56 Speaker 1 Like that, like that's not a good one. You know what I mean?

14:58 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Yeah, I mean, look, this is, this is like, you know, I, I... There's always the question of how much of it's individual in the anecdote, and how much of it is more of a pattern, which of course is ultimately what a podcast is about because, you know, you don't want it to be just about the specific individual. And to me, that's like, that is like, that is the crossroads of Lubavitch, at least as the way, as I, I see it is today because as people make more and more choices, and it becomes more and more conscious, almost by definition or more intentional, like you said, by definition, it becomes more fragmented because everybody's intentions are different.

15:40 Speaker 1 Right.

15:41 Speaker 2 By definition. Right.

15:43 Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think it's, it's also looking at a leaderless system, essentially.

15:49 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

15:50 Speaker 1 Some would argue there is a leader, but even that, it's a-

15:54 Speaker 2 Right

15:54 Speaker 1 ... um, like a, a, a leader from a distance or in a way that's subject to the interpretation of the person.

16:03 Speaker 2 And you have to choose to believe that-

16:05 Speaker 1 Yes

16:05 Speaker 2 ... he's present the way he used to be present. Although-

16:07 Speaker 1 And then how are we interpreting the message from then to 2024?

16:10 Speaker 2 100%.

16:11 Speaker 1 Right? Things, things and times change. So in that leadership, leadership-less role, I kind of feel there's the opportunity for each person to embrace their own path. Like, I don't have a model that I'm following.

16:26 Speaker 2 Right.

16:27 Speaker 1 I have a... Like, I'm my own model. I'm creating it as I-

16:31 Speaker 2 Right

16:31 Speaker 1 ... as I go.

16:32 Speaker 2 Which is both a very exciting chapter, right, in one sense, but also in a way, a very lonely and kind of, uh, scary place to be, I think, or, or, or at least an uncertain place to be, right? But it's-

16:49 Speaker 1 Scary and exciting are exactly the same thing.

16:51 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. You, you have to have both, right? They, they're the... Right.

16:53 Speaker 1 They're, they're two sides of the same coin.

16:55 Speaker 2 Right.

16:55 Speaker 1 I saw a sign once at a conference that said, um, "Fear is excitement without breath."

17:00 Speaker 2 Okay.

17:01 Speaker 1 Or ex- or the, or the other way. Yeah.

17:03 Speaker 2 All right. Without the, without, without-

17:04 Speaker 1 Right. So it's exciting, and we're breathing through it a little bit. And there's fear, and we're breathing through it a little bit, so it becomes excitement, but it's that same thing. It's, it has all the same-

17:12 Speaker 2 Right

17:12 Speaker 1 ... feelings, the unknown, the uncertainty, something might go wrong, we may hurt ourse- selves.

17:16 Speaker 2 Right.

17:16 Speaker 1 The danger, the risk element, all of that is what makes something exciting.

17:20 Speaker 2 Right.

17:20 Speaker 1 The potential for something bigger.

17:22 Speaker 2 Right.

17:23 Speaker 1 Something beyond, uh, anything else that we've seen. Yeah.

17:26 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's really, really interesting because, you know, people, uh, people come and say, "Okay, you're, uh, you're, you're just kind of... You're, you're, you're making too much of it." And it's like, wait a second. How do you explain the fact, and this just kind of leads us into I think your public work that I, at least that I'm aware of. Like, how do you explain the fact that so many, quote-unquote, more typical Lubavitchers come to you for advice-

17:56 Speaker 1 I know. It's an interesting thing

17:57 Speaker 2 ... and guidance? No, and it's like... Well, so, so, like, is it really, like, can you really define anymore who's in and who's out, is what I'm saying. It's become so much, so much more fluid and so mu- You know, like, people, people are asking you, people are asking you like, "Okay, so h- how do you figure it out? How do you connect?" And it's, uh, like- And, and, and so w- it's not even a matter of, like, i- if one agrees with that or not. It's a fact that the, the, the lines have for sure blurred, and, like, nobody... You know what I mean? Like, the lines-

18:30 Speaker 1 Yeah

18:30 Speaker 2 ... nobody, nobody, nobody really knows where the lines are anymore. And so this is not a conversation about you or me, and, like, you know, for me and you it's, it's an uncertain thing, and we're just making up too much of it. I feel like it's much, much larger than that, and I think it's larger than most people imagine. I think there's so much in flux now. Like we were discussing earlier, the kind of feedback to the podcast, like, it, it staggers my mind both the quantity and who it's coming from. People reaching out to me and telling me, "Boy, I've been thinking the same thing," you know? Or, "Thanks for kind of articulating it this way."

19:06 Speaker 1 Right.

19:07 Speaker 2 Or like, people you'd never imagine. People that, like, you thought were straight buttons, and just like, like, this guy doesn't think about this kind of stuff. This guy, this guy has no interest in this. And it's like, wait, you know, they do.

19:17 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:18 Speaker 2 And it's, you know, so it's a much bigger... It's much more, much more in flux right now than I think people comprehend. So, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about that. Um, do you wanna, do you wanna, do you wanna def- do you wanna define a little bit how you see your public work? 'Cause I don't want to, I don't, I don't wanna define it for you.

19:38 Speaker 1 I think that it's... I, I'm not targeting anyone or anything specific. I think that it's... I have a chocolate cake, I experience it, and I wanna share it. Like, that's my, that's been my way.

19:52 Speaker 2 Whatever you're up to is...

19:54 Speaker 1 To a degree, yeah. Always in... I'm, I'm very rarely talking in the moment, 'cause I don't wanna talk from figuring, like, while I'm figuring it out, 'cause you can have two steps forward, one step back. You can have-

20:05 Speaker 2 Right

20:05 Speaker 1 ... you know, all these false starts. So for example, and there are many, many aspects of this, but when I talk a- talk about working on child sex abuse and, like, when I was healing from that, it took six or seven years of working on it before I spoke about it. My porn addiction, six or so years of working on it before I started speaking publicly-

20:22 Speaker 2 Mm

20:22 Speaker 1 ... about it. Uh, psychedelics, I was on the path for three or four years before I spoke about it. It's not something I'll just do and-

20:30 Speaker 2 Right

20:30 Speaker 1 ... then speak. So I'll be intentional and careful about what this actually is. Try to make sure that I'm, I'm not... We're, we're always speaking, and there's a little bit of our, um, schmutz kind of coming through. That's, that's always gonna happen. I don't know that we can clean ourselves up completely. We're in the real world. But as much as possible, make sure that I'm not sharing, um, too much crap when I'm, when I'm putting a message out.

20:54 Speaker 2 Right.

20:54 Speaker 1 'Cause the early processes, we're trying to figure things out, and something that feels like it works doesn't actually have staying power. So we wanna kinda understand. But the feeling is that once I experience something positive, I wanna share that.

21:06 Speaker 2 Mm.

21:06 Speaker 1 That's why I ca- I call the podcast In Search of More, meaning it's not, it's not dest- not a destination that I'm now sharing with. I just try to be as open and honest about my journey and what I've learnt, and if I've been given a gift, I wanna share it with others. I'll give you an example. I'll put some meat on the bone.

21:22 Speaker 2 Sure.

21:22 Speaker 1 So the very first thing I started speaking about, and what's interesting is I actually had a intense, intense fear of public speaking. And perhaps my work with, um, Rosh Lowe and Mike Drop and-

21:32 Speaker 2 Right

21:32 Speaker 1 ... helping people speak, uh, came across your radar at some point. The-

21:35 Speaker 2 For sure, yeah

21:36 Speaker 1 ... way that came about was because I had a very intense fear of public speaking, and I still haven't met anyone with a fear as intense as mine was-

21:42 Speaker 2 Really?

21:43 Speaker 1 ... at the beginning. Yeah, it was ridiculously intense. I was very comfortable in a one-on-one, you know, three or four people conversations. But once something clicked in my brain that this is a public talk, I folded. I completely-

21:56 Speaker 2 Sure

21:56 Speaker 1 ... folded. And it really wasn't until, um, going to addiction recovery and having that meeting setting where I was advised to speak that some of that started loosening. Where sometimes the only thing I would say was, um, "Hey, I don't have anything to say, but my sponsor suggested that I say something in each meeting because it'll help people get to know me, so I'm sharing that."

22:21 Speaker 2 Hmm.

22:22 Speaker 1 And eventually through talking, I got, I got over the fear. But what happened was, was through the, through my journey of, um, recovering or healing the sexual abuse I went through as a child, I had an opportunity to meet with the guy who abused me. And when I did, and I have the story on YouTube for those who are interested. It's under Secrets. I called it... Eli- if someone puts in YouTube, "Eli Nash secrets for Jewish Community Watch," um, it's, like, my story of confronting the person who abused me. And when I did, it kind of p- flipped the whole narrative on its head, where-

22:56 Speaker 2 Hmm

22:56 Speaker 1 ... he was the powerful one and I was the weak one-

22:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, I saw that somewhere.

22:59 Speaker 1 I was the one overpowered.

22:59 Speaker 2 Yeah, I saw you talking about that.

23:01 Speaker 1 Yeah. So when I had that experience, I, I left with compassion for this man. I mean, it was a very bizarre experience. I left with the feeling that I'd rather be, I'd rather be me than him.

23:14 Speaker 2 Right.

23:14 Speaker 1 Which my whole life I felt like he overpowered me and I was the weak one. And after meeting with him, I said I'd rather my memories than his memories. Like, his memories are much worse than mine. He has to sit there and figure out how to wrap his head around sexually abusing someone.

23:30 Speaker 2 You were-

23:30 Speaker 1 And how to-

23:30 Speaker 2 You were his only victim?

23:31 Speaker 1 What?

23:32 Speaker 2 You were his only victim?

23:32 Speaker 1 He said there was one other one at the time, but he was a teenager. He was a teenager, and I was, um... From eight to 10. Like it went, it went on for a number of years. But he now had to reconcile-

23:45 Speaker 2 Right

23:45 Speaker 1 ... how he can look at himself in the mirror m- knowing these memories. That wasn't as tough for me. For me, I had to confront it and deal with the pain of it.

23:53 Speaker 2 Right.

23:54 Speaker 1 You know, this is what happened to me.

23:55 Speaker 2 Right.

23:55 Speaker 1 But he was the-

23:57 Speaker 2 I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah

23:57 Speaker 1 ... right, the doer of that. And I was like, "Wow, I'd much rather be me than him in this scenario." So it kind of flipped the power on its head, and I felt like I tasted a, a slice of the universe very few people taste. Most people never reconcile with their abuser, never get this moment-

24:14 Speaker 2 Right

24:14 Speaker 1 ... to be able to sit across from them and have a conversation and humanize their monster, so to speak.

24:20 Speaker 2 Right.

24:20 Speaker 1 And I j- I was... Inside was this overwhelming desire to share this, share this with the world.

24:28 Speaker 2 I see.

24:28 Speaker 1 Like, it's possible to heal from this. This... If you really, if we really understood what was going on here, we wouldn't be dehumanizing the experience. We wouldn't see ourselves as a victim. I saw all these gifts that were aspects of this-

24:40 Speaker 2 Right

24:40 Speaker 1 ... beautiful gifts that were within that story that after I met him I was able to unpack, and I felt like, "Hey, I wanna share this."

24:45 Speaker 2 I see.

24:46 Speaker 1 So that's kind of where the podcast and how I view my story. It's not about anything other than-

24:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

24:50 Speaker 1 ... me sharing what's been gifted to me.

24:54 Speaker 2 I see. Uh, the cup, the cup overfloweth, basically.

24:57 Speaker 1 Basically, yeah. And it can go in any direction.

24:59 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

25:00 Speaker 1 So today it's healing, great. Then if, uh, at some point in time I embrace fitness as a way of life and I see that this is something that's-

25:07 Speaker 2 Then you're encroaching on my space.

25:09 Speaker 1 Right. That's true.

25:11 Speaker 2 Okay.

25:11 Speaker 1 Can I start talking about that?

25:12 Speaker 2 I'm kidding. By all means. By all means. The more the merrier. The more the merrier. Um, yeah, it's, it's... It, it just, it just, it just comes back to that, it just comes back to that same point where, where as, as the lines kind of, I don't have the words blur, 'cause in a way that makes it sound like, like it's like, like, like, um, something wrong about that or something weak about that. But as the lines shift or as, as, as, as the lines move to different places, as we see the lines differently, like the, the whole model of mashpia and Mekubal kind of changes, right? In the sense that like when everything is very ordered, there's a hierarchy.

26:00 Speaker 1 Right.

26:00 Speaker 2 So this guy is, is the Hasidic master, and he's a person that we have to learn from. And I'm not making fun of that. I mean, it makes sense, right?

26:08 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:08 Speaker 2 There's a hierarchy. But as things get decentralized, and as things kind of get more, um, more messy or just, yeah, more, more decentralized and, and more varied, suddenly who's a mashpia, who's a Mekubal? We don't know. I mean, I, I hate to like, you know, um, I hate to like, what's the word? You know, bring up a source to kind of prove myself right. So I, I, I don't mean to do it that way because for every source one can quote, there's a source that says otherwise. Like-

26:38 Speaker 1 Right

26:38 Speaker 2 ... um, but there's certainly an idea in, in... There's a strain in Hasidic thought about this, this very kind of subversiveness where, you know, like for example, the idea that like, I mean, uh, one example that jumps out is like Simchat Torah we dance with the feet, and that's like the happiest Yom Tov, right? The feet are, are the lowliest part. Like the head is, you know-

27:03 Speaker 1 Right

27:03 Speaker 2 ... the head is the, the... No, but Simchat Torah we, we don't use our head, we use our feet, right? There, there's, there's something very subversive about that, right? Where, where, where the, the feet suddenly they become the leaders as opposed to the head, right? And that of course, if that's taken too far it becomes anarchy.

27:21 Speaker 1 Right.

27:21 Speaker 2 Right? It's like, uh, you know, every person's ideas should be... No, it's a dis- disaster. But the idea is more that what you think is a Mekubal could also be a mashpia. What you think is a person who's receiving wisdom also has wisdom to teach you, right? And there, there's something very exciting about that as a time in, in, I think in Lubavitch life, whatever that means, right? 'Cause on one hand it could exclude both of us, on the other hand it could include both of us. That's what's so exciting about it-

27:51 Speaker 1 Right

27:51 Speaker 2 ... is that as we all kind of in our own ways figure out where exactly this, this, where exactly this leaves us, there's all kinds of new opportunities to learn from each other and learn from different people things that, like we would never have, we never have had that kind of opportunity before because we would've just kind of, "Oh, that guy, no, no, he's not, he doesn't check the boxes," so.

28:14 Speaker 1 Right, 100%.

28:15 Speaker 2 Yeah.

28:15 Speaker 1 I had someone by me for Shabbos this week, so he's a, a friend of mine for a number of years who the first time I met him five or six years ago, he said he had got married, he has a child, but he'd really would like a Jewish wedding. Okay? And do I know a rabbi who I, who-

28:30 Speaker 2 Okay

28:30 Speaker 1 ... can help officiate a Jewish wedding? So I said, "Sure," and I introduced him to Rabbi Schneur Kaplan in, uh, Fort Lauderdale.

28:36 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

28:37 Speaker 1 Since then, he's become, um, very frum. And Erev Shabbos-

28:41 Speaker 2 What did you do, man?

28:42 Speaker 1 What?

28:42 Speaker 2 What, what did you do?

28:43 Speaker 1 Nothing to do with me. E- Erev Shabbos he was here, and then he's a yarmulke, tzitzit. Um, and while... I mean, I, I hadn't davened like right up until Shabbos started, so I was putting on tefillin while he was davening Mincha, right? You know, it was like for me, like that was the, where each of us are at, right? On our place. Like he's, he's very, very, very into it. Um, and I mean, he was coming to me like all Shabbos long with, "You know, the Shulchan Aruch writes this, and the..." So he had like names and Torahs and different apps that he's learning from, Yossi Paltiel and everyone else. He knew a lot. And, um, at some point he asked me if some sort of board game... Where he lives there's no, there's no Jewish community, so he's home with his family, and his wife has embraced it. I don't know how, embraced the Shabbos to some degree, but it's been difficult because they live alone.

29:38 Speaker 2 Right.

29:38 Speaker 1 And, you know, kind of in the middle of nowhere, and he's wanting to keep Shabbos more and more, and his wife and children have kind of come on board, but he's kind of figuring, you know, how much to push, how much not to push.

29:49 Speaker 2 Right.

29:50 Speaker 1 And, uh, he's definitely embraced more of the fire and brimstone message than, you know, I would, uh, I would love. In any sense, he asked me about, he said, "I just learnt about, uh, this idea of boreh, and I was wondering if on Shabbos you're allowed to separate Uno cards or stuff like that." I was like, "Okay, like this is getting a little dangerous."

30:08 Speaker 2 It's g- it's getting out of hand.

30:08 Speaker 1 It's getting dangerous. But, so I have, I bought, you know, Yaakov Goldschtein, he has like his whole like, uh, question, answers sh- um, on, uh, Sha- on the laws of Shabbos.

30:18 Speaker 2 I don't know him.

30:18 Speaker 1 Okay, it's, whatever. It's like a seven-part publication.

30:21 Speaker 2 Okay.

30:21 Speaker 1 So I bought a while ago, 'cause as I get closer to Shabbos, uh, I, I don't wanna read the whole book 'cause I don't wanna know too much.

30:27 Speaker 2 Okay.

30:27 Speaker 1 But I, if I have a question or something, I go there. Anyway, so I pulled it up, and he didn't go into much detail, but he did say that chess is okay on Shabbos, right? Which chess is potentially separating, right?

30:36 Speaker 2 Yeah.

30:36 Speaker 1 The white pieces from the black pieces, but he said it's okay. And in there he said something that, um, like in this section on games, we were reading two different sections, one was swimming on Shabbos and one was games, and it said something that it's advised not to instruct women and children too much on some things, uh, because they're not gonna listen anyway, so it's better they do it out of ignorance than they do it-

31:00 Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember that.

31:01 Speaker 1 Right?

31:01 Speaker 2 I remember that. It's from Shulchan Aruch, yeah.

31:03 Speaker 1 It's, uh, anyway, so I showed it-

31:04 Speaker 2 Shulchan Aruch, yeah

31:04 Speaker 1 ... so I showed it to him there, like, "Go easy on your wife and kids," like, you know. I-

31:07 Speaker 2 Yeah

31:08 Speaker 1 I've experienced some of that, and I, I pushed back against it. Like-

31:11 Speaker 2 You experienced that as a kid?

31:12 Speaker 1 Yeah, I experienced it. There was a... W-why does someone's negativity have to be put on-onto Shabbos, put onto-

31:18 Speaker 2 Right

31:18 Speaker 1 ... these things? It's, it's, uh, shared in oppressive way, and then my association is oppressive.

31:22 Speaker 2 Right.

31:22 Speaker 1 And then I have to unlearn that to reconnect, which has-

31:24 Speaker 2 Right

31:24 Speaker 1 ... been my journey. Anyway, so after Shabbos, I'm making a long point, but after Shabbos, my thought was that he's teaching me something very powerful-

31:34 Speaker 2 Right

31:34 Speaker 1 ... about how I can be, right? Like, he's embraced it, and he's not too worried about pushing his wife and pushing his kids, and I'm oversens- over-overly sensitive to that.

31:43 Speaker 2 Right.

31:44 Speaker 1 I gotta... I take something on, I don't even wanna tell my wife and kids anything.

31:47 Speaker 2 Right.

31:47 Speaker 1 Right? Just, you know, I'll do it in the most minimally abrasive way. Don't inconvenience them-

31:52 Speaker 2 Right

31:52 Speaker 1 ... at all, because I felt like I was.

31:54 Speaker 2 Right.

31:54 Speaker 1 So I felt like he was teaching me that I can learn something from him.

31:56 Speaker 2 Right.

31:56 Speaker 1 And then I felt like I could teach him to dilute some of his intensity.

32:01 Speaker 2 Right.

32:02 Speaker 1 You know? So meaning that idea of who is learning from whom, when I was reflecting on the Shabbos, was like, we're both... We both should be learning from each other, and that's kind of the idea, like the mashpia-mekabel that you're saying. And in other, in other environments, it probably had very much as hierarchy. Okay, I go to him, what's the answer? He's above me. He's one step, you know, higher up the food chain, closer to the Rabbi, let's say.

32:22 Speaker 2 Right.

32:23 Speaker 1 Or, you know, been at this longer.

32:25 Speaker 2 Right.

32:25 Speaker 1 His, his grandfather was closer to a previous Rabbi or whatever.

32:28 Speaker 2 Right.

32:28 Speaker 1 And here it's, I think, an opportunity to learn from, uh, each other.

32:32 Speaker 2 Right. Absolutely. Yeah, it, it's ultimately, it, it... It boils down to a, to a, to a, a sense of humility, I think. Like, because to accept, to... I-in a way, it's so much more secure to have that kind of hierarchy, to know where you stand, to know where others stand, to know how, how do I get to that next rung. Like, like the corporate ladder almost. You know, like if you work X amount, you'll get up to there. You'll, like, you'll, you'll... There, there's a system here that makes sense. There's a security to that, or at least a-

33:06 Speaker 1 100%

33:07 Speaker 2 ... and a, and a, it's, it feels secure, more secure. Whereas when things start getting wild and, like, unpredictable, it's like, "Wait a second, I have to learn from this guy?" Like, like, like, where does that put me, you know? And there, there is, there, there is something unsettling about that. There is something humbling about that, where suddenly you have to, "Yeah, yeah, this guy has something to teach me," and like, even this guy, and even that guy, and this other guy. But, you know, I, I feel like, I feel like, I f- I feel like that's, that's, that's, that's where we're at today. That's where we're at, and-

33:43 Speaker 1 Right. Whether we like it or not, it's where-

33:45 Speaker 2 Yeah

33:45 Speaker 1 ... it's what's happening.

33:46 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. It's where we're at, because-

33:47 Speaker 1 It's like fighting against the internet.

33:49 Speaker 2 It's f- Exactly. It's like fighting against the internet. It's like the, there's... When, when you live in a time, and I, I don't know if there's an analog in Jewish history, I'm sure there are, there are similar times or times that we can learn from, but when you live in a time where the, the whole hierarchy of community breaks down, and people have at least a seemingly unlimited choices at their disposal of how they're gonna live their life, um, there is, on one hand, like, like we've been talking about, all this opportunity to do different things, but there's also this, this, this uncertainty that comes with that. Like, they, they call it the paradox of choice, right?

34:27 Speaker 1 Yes.

34:27 Speaker 2 Where, where, you know, i-in a way, when you have too much choice, you end up being paralyzed by that choice. And, and so we have, we have... When we have so much choice, we have no choice but to learn in new ways and, and, and, and, and grow in new ways. And I, I, I, I, you know, I, I'm, I, I, I am learning more and more. And, and I... It should be clear, this does not come naturally to me. It doesn't come... It doesn't... Like this, I was not always... I did not always think this way, and I still have to kind of remind myself this, where, you know, like, "There's, there, there's what to learn from this person. There's what to learn from that person." It, you know, what does that do to my identity if suddenly this guy who I thought was here is now up here?

35:13 Speaker 1 Right.

35:14 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. That, that's what you're gonna figure out. That's not, you know... Like, it, it's better to have that challenge of figuring out what that means and how that changes you than to shut it all out and be stubborn. Because, A, you're closing yourself off from all kinds of opportunities, but B, you're not, you're not, you're not... You're, you're closing yourself off from the, from your reality, right? We're all kind of, we're all kind of navigating this uncertain world together, and you trying to, you know, or a person trying to, like, do it the way it was always done, you know, and just, like, have it the straight and narrow way, it-it's not gonna be to your benefit.

35:56 Speaker 1 Well, it's exactly what you're saying. The, the amount of choices that we have today is much larger than someone else had, which means because we have more choices, defining success for each of us is so unique. So for example, someone born 200 years ago, if their father was a rabbi, probably their grandfather was a rabbi-

36:15 Speaker 2 Right

36:15 Speaker 1 ... their great-grandfather was a rabbi, and as soon as they passed, they'll be a rabbi also.

36:19 Speaker 2 Right.

36:19 Speaker 1 And success is, was defined from them the moment they were born.

36:24 Speaker 2 Right.

36:24 Speaker 1 Following this path, this is what success looks like. It's kind of binary. You're gonna go here-

36:28 Speaker 2 Right

36:29 Speaker 1 ... or you're gonna fall off. Like, those are your only two choices.

36:30 Speaker 2 Right.

36:31 Speaker 1 And if there was no pogrom coming to town, it was actually gonna be in the same city that their father and grandfather-

36:35 Speaker 2 Right

36:36 Speaker 1 ... did it in. And now it's just not like that. We're not gonna live in the same place. We may not marry someone from the same community.

36:41 Speaker 2 Right.

36:41 Speaker 1 Our, our job may be completely different. It's just-

36:44 Speaker 2 Right

36:44 Speaker 1 ... there are many, many, many more choices.

36:46 Speaker 2 Right. No, you also could choose to not be part of your community, and you... There's much more possibility of you still making a good life for yourself.

36:55 Speaker 1 Sure. Choose to do what you want.

36:56 Speaker 2 Right. You don't need a community as much as you used to to survive, and so there's, there's that sense of, you know, "If I, if I don't like it here, I can go somewhere else." So ultimately, w-we are all forced into this kind of existential search of, of figuring it out for ourselves. The, the, to me, the hopeful, the hopeful idea in all of it is that there are others going through the same journey. Most people around you are going through that same journey. Some people are more open about it, some people are more, you know, let's say, um, exotic about it. But, but this is, this is the times. This isn't anything strange, and someone... You're not strange for, for realizing that, that something's afoot, and that you have to kind of, you have to, you have to, you have to be very present to what's going on. You can't just let things s- you know, kind of coast along. There's nothing wrong with you, and there's everybody... Not everybody else, but a lot of people around you are also going through that. I, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna beat the drum of that too much. I, I, I do, I, I do wanna ask you a little bit about... 'Cause y- you spoke about your, your, your journey with, um, your journey with... I, I think, I think your ta- your, your, your work on, on, on, um, what's, what did you ca- on sexual abuses-

38:17 Speaker 1 Yes

38:18 Speaker 2 ... is well-documented and well-known. I think your, your work on, uh, porn addiction is also quite well-known. Um, I think your, your work on psych- or your, your talking about psychedelics is becoming more well-known. It's a more recent thing you're talking about. So I don't want to rehash things that people can research online, uh, or people have heard about online, but I, I do... I am curious to know what's your take on why... W- what would you ascribe this ki- to what seems to me to be an explosive growth of psychedelics use, psychedelic use-

38:55 Speaker 1 Yeah

38:55 Speaker 2 ... in the Chabad community in the past few years? First of all, is that, is that, is that an accurate statement?

39:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, 100%. It's not only the Chabad community. So it was already for, um, years before that in different part, like different Hasidish communities.

39:08 Speaker 2 Yeah.

39:09 Speaker 1 B- Borough Park, Williamsburg, etc.

39:10 Speaker 2 I heard about it.

39:11 Speaker 1 But if you look at it more broadly than that, it's, it's in the whole world.

39:15 Speaker 2 Right.

39:15 Speaker 1 You know? And I'll make one point from, that you were saying before about, um, you know, like someone can, can move to a different location, right? That like the whole world's at their fingertips. Like, that's looking at the technology of the universe. It's not like, it's not that Judaism changed-

39:32 Speaker 2 Right

39:32 Speaker 1 ... and suddenly we're able to travel to different places.

39:34 Speaker 2 Right.

39:34 Speaker 1 It's, there's a technology now of airplanes and-

39:37 Speaker 2 Right

39:37 Speaker 1 ... you know, cars, and it's just very easy to get from one place to the next. And for-

39:41 Speaker 2 Right

39:41 Speaker 1 ... someone to say, "I wanna move from New York to Miami," they can make that decision very, very quickly.

39:47 Speaker 2 Right.

39:47 Speaker 1 And they have a whole community there, and they'll find their kosher food and kosher restaurants and, and a job and everything else if they put a little work into it. So, um, with psychedelics, it's not just like the Chabad and Jewish community. It's, it's, there's something-

40:03 Speaker 2 Sure

40:03 Speaker 1 ... happening on a much more grander scale, where these are becoming more and more mainstream. They expect this year, for example, there's an organization called MAPS, which focuses on studying MDMA, MDMA therapy, which they're mostly focused on, uh, its work with PTSD.

40:20 Speaker 2 Right.

40:20 Speaker 1 You know, really patients suffering from more. But that was, I think, really their push to make it acceptable to the American mainstream, because if you talk about psychedelics, the left loves it, and if you talk about helping veterans from war, the right loves it. So they figured out a way to kind of bring that into the mainstream. But they expect that as soon as this year it'll be fully legal to, to do MDMA therapy.

40:40 Speaker 2 Okay.

40:41 Speaker 1 Right? So meaning it's not just something happening in Crown Heights, there's a much larger-

40:43 Speaker 2 Oh, for sure

40:44 Speaker 1 ... larger thing in play. So I think what it, 'cause-

40:46 Speaker 2 I read, I read, I read the book by Michael Pollan a few years ago.

40:49 Speaker 1 How to Change Your Mind.

40:50 Speaker 2 Yeah.

40:50 Speaker 1 Yes. So if I had to explain it in this way, so my understanding of psychedelics amongst other things, I mean, it's a broad world, but one thing it certainly does is force you into the present moment.

41:02 Speaker 2 Mm.

41:02 Speaker 1 It, it, with... There's nowhere to go but here, and sometimes it brings like the intensity of the present moment that you can feel almost... You almost feel like you can feel the new energy that was just introduced into the universe with this collective breath that everyone has an opportunity to take at this moment. Like, you can feel it, that, like the sensitivity on that level. But that push towards it, I think, is coming from the other side, this relentless distraction that we have at all, at all times.

41:32 Speaker 2 Mm.

41:32 Speaker 1 So it's like that thirst is suddenly becoming very, very apparent.

41:38 Speaker 2 Do you feel though that there's something unique? I, I, I... Point taken that, that like Lubavitch isn't an island. Like, so like we're part of the world and, and, uh, the mobility and the social mobility and the financial mobility has a lot to do with trends that are much larger than Lubavitch-

41:54 Speaker 1 Right

41:54 Speaker 2 ... itself. I, I... Point taken, but there's still, there's still particular flavors to community that help you understand specifically on this communal level why, why things are happening, even if they're happening in other places as well. Do you think there's something-

42:10 Speaker 1 Specific about Lubavitch?

42:11 Speaker 2 Yeah.

42:14 Speaker 1 So I, it, it li- again, it'll likely follow the trend in other communities. What I think happened here is like this. Take my story, right? How did I come back, so to speak? Like, what, what was that U-turn that I made? So the U-turn that I made was that when I went to 12 steps, I w- it was communicated to me kind of point blank, "Eli, where are your addictions at? You kind of have two choices. Either you embrace a spiritual life or you give in to your addiction." Like, those are... The choice-

42:43 Speaker 2 Right

42:43 Speaker 1 ... has pretty much been made for you.

42:45 Speaker 2 Who, who made that for you? Who, who made that clear to you? A rabbi?

42:48 Speaker 1 No. No, within the 12-step recovery. So essentially, if you look at 12 steps when it was formed, there's some early communication between Bill Wilson, Bill, known as Bill W., one of the founders of AA, with Carl Jung.

43:01 Speaker 2 Okay.

43:02 Speaker 1 And in one of those communications, Carl Jung said something to the effect of, "For these kinds of alcoholics, I've seen no other cure other than a complete spiritual transformation."

43:11 Speaker 2 Right.

43:11 Speaker 1 Right? They had to adopt a worldview of there is a higher power.

43:15 Speaker 2 Right.

43:16 Speaker 1 Essentially, I'm not in control, 'cause if you look at addiction at its root, it's trying to control ... the little we could control. So it's feeling so out of control-

43:25 Speaker 2 Right

43:25 Speaker 1 ... that saying, "Hey, if I can control just this sliver of my existence, then everything will be okay."

43:30 Speaker 2 Mm.

43:30 Speaker 1 And the way out of that is to say, is to give up control. So you're gonna give up control to, to a higher power. So the 12 steps, even though it, um, was originally introduced through Christianity, stripped, stripped it of its Christian origins and just said, "Let's focus on the spiritual aspects of it, and let's make it available to everyone." You know, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or non, or, or non-religious at all, just embracing a spiritual worldview. And what, and that point that Carl Jung made is now through, like, embedded in the 12 steps, which when people come there, they say, they'll tell you, it's like if, if you've had to come here to figure it out, to try to get a hold of your addiction, that means you've already gone to therapy, you've already tried to stop yourself, you've already done everything.

44:18 Speaker 2 Right.

44:18 Speaker 1 So we're kind of the last-

44:19 Speaker 2 Right

44:19 Speaker 1 ... the last house on the road. No one's walking into 12 steps-

44:22 Speaker 2 Right

44:23 Speaker 1 ... as the first , as the first option on how to deal with this uncontrollable addiction.

44:28 Speaker 2 Right.

44:28 Speaker 1 It's the last option, in a way.

44:29 Speaker 2 We, we know where you're at if you're here.

44:31 Speaker 1 Exactly. So for those people-

44:33 Speaker 2 Yeah

44:33 Speaker 1 ... for those people, the way out is through embracing spiritual life. And I remember when I saw it, you know, the first step just says, "We admitted w- um, we were powerless over addiction. Our life had become unmanageable."

44:44 Speaker 2 Yes.

44:44 Speaker 1 It's okay. The second step was a little bit like, okay, now you're touching spirituality, "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Okay, power greater than ourselves, maybe a sponsor can help me. I can, I didn't have to embrace anything. But then you see the third step is, "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God." And I remember being super intimidated by this word God. I had just walked away from everything associated with, with God, and now you're introducing it to me. But I kind of had no choice on the one hand, like I knew I wanted out of this life, and on the other hand, it was the third step. So I said, "Okay, like, um, there's a reason it's third and not first. Let me just do the first, do the second, and then I'll worry about the third when I get to the third. Maybe there's something that I'll understand, um, a- understand afterwards." But eventually, as I came to that, it was embrace the spiritual life or don't. And there was a point in time, it's interesting, that I had a, I had a Christian sponsor, and it was a Christian monk who a lot of them would love nothing more than to convert a Jew. I mean, it would be a very exciting-

45:43 Speaker 2 Right

45:43 Speaker 1 ... thing. And I'm not saying that I, I was there in my mind, but I was saying is that I was desperate and open enough to look at anything.

45:51 Speaker 2 Right.

45:51 Speaker 1 I just knew I wanted something different than I was getting. And he, he told me, um, he's passed away since, but he told me something. He said, "Eli, you'll know your recovery has taken root when you reconnect with Judaism."

46:02 Speaker 2 Really?

46:03 Speaker 1 Which, which was very special for him to say. It's not... Like, had he, at that time, had he suggested, "Hey, maybe we can find something there," I don't know that I would've had much to resist him-

46:15 Speaker 2 Right

46:15 Speaker 1 ... for. I just, I wanted a different way of life, and maybe there was some, maybe there's somewhere else. And I saw it, by the way, I saw it with other Jews in recovery who came in and started going to church, and started going to other things because they were desperate for-

46:26 Speaker 2 Right

46:26 Speaker 1 ... they were desperate for something.

46:26 Speaker 2 And they associated their Judaism with some negative things also, probably.

46:30 Speaker 1 Correct. Correct.

46:31 Speaker 2 Right.

46:31 Speaker 1 But for whatever reason, he was kind enough to plant that, and that's certainly been the case, is that I've, um, reconnected and continue to reconnect in different ways with Judaism. But at the same point in time, forcefully rejecting certain things-

46:44 Speaker 2 I mean, even, even-

46:44 Speaker 1 ... from my childhood

46:45 Speaker 2 ... even that anecdote that you just said, I think you want to make a larger point, but I, I, I... Even that anecdote that you just s- spoke about, I mean, it, it just takes the whole idea of like, who are, who is giving and who's taking, and just makes it even more complicated, right? Because here you have a, a, you're telling a story about how in many ways your return to Yiddishkeit is now thanks to the advice of a Christian monk.

47:13 Speaker 1 Right.

47:14 Speaker 2 Right? And like, you go back 100 years, and that is such a mind twist, like it's incomprehensible. One second. Your Yiddishkeit, your, your, you're thankful for your Yiddishkeit to a Christian monk? And you, and you still, like, what are you even talking to a, like, what are you even talking to a goy for? Like-

47:34 Speaker 1 Right

47:34 Speaker 2 ... the whole thing is like it's incomprehensible to the, to the old way. Like-

47:38 Speaker 1 Yes

47:38 Speaker 2 ... a- and like, like, a- and you're okay with having your Yiddishkeit kind of having a Jewish gratitude to the goy of all pe- you know what I mean? To the priest of, to the galach. You know what I mean?

47:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

47:50 Speaker 2 To the galach. And I, I'm not making fun of that time. In those times that's, that's what made sense. The lines were so sharp and, and, and, and the, the antagonism was so obvious, and, and the in and out was so clear that that's how life made sense. But today it just, it just, I just, I just want to point out like how, like the theme just gets even more complicated as you think about it.

48:13 Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.

48:13 Speaker 2 Not to mention that you have a whole recovery community that's inspired by these ideas. It's not just you.

48:17 Speaker 1 100%, yeah. And I mean, the amount of people, the amount of Jews who found God here-

48:23 Speaker 2 Right

48:23 Speaker 1 ... it's unbelievable.

48:24 Speaker 2 In recovery.

48:24 Speaker 1 Like, tell, tell-

48:25 Speaker 2 What do you mean by here? In recovery.

48:26 Speaker 1 Here, in recovery. Yeah. So if you look at my story-

48:28 Speaker 2 Right

48:28 Speaker 1 ... it was, I was, I went to yeshiva system for years, and I left not believing in God.

48:33 Speaker 2 Right.

48:33 Speaker 1 And I found God, it wasn't a church basement, but figuratively it was a church basement, 'cause most meetings are in church basements.

48:39 Speaker 2 Right.

48:39 Speaker 1 This happened not to be.

48:40 Speaker 2 Right.

48:41 Speaker 1 Right? It was in a, just a, um, like a little community center, but it may as well have been.

48:46 Speaker 2 It could, it could well have been.

48:47 Speaker 1 Could well have been, yeah. A couple of the meetings were. Like, at one point in time, I remember the, uh, the meetings we would go to closed, so they said, "Okay, for the next month, the building was undergoing construction. For the next month we're gonna be at this church on Lincoln Road."

48:58 Speaker 2 Well, at that time it seems like you didn't care.

49:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, but even, even if I did, right-

49:02 Speaker 2 You would've walked into, you would've walked into a church, you said

49:03 Speaker 1 ... but even if I did, it would've been okay.

49:05 Speaker 2 Right. I see.

49:05 Speaker 1 Right? I mean, there is permission not to go into the main sanctuary-

49:07 Speaker 2 Right, right. I see

49:08 Speaker 1 ... but to, to go into the s- side rooms. Like, that is-

49:11 Speaker 2 Right

49:11 Speaker 1 ... that is already okay because addiction is viewed as a, a life-and-death situation.

49:15 Speaker 2 I see.

49:16 Speaker 1 Certainly. But yeah, the, there's a lot of irony here that's very, very rich. I'll tell you something else. So when I got married, my wife and I got married, we got married in Italy at this place called Villa San Michele. It's outside of Florence, right? In Florence

49:29 Speaker 2 Oh, I've traveled to Italy. I've been to Florence.

49:31 Speaker 1 Okay. So sh- Florence is, like, one big church.

49:33 Speaker 2 Yeah.

49:34 Speaker 1 Right?

49:34 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh, funny story. I don't mean to cut you off, but, um, just to amplify that note, my wife and I were, we were visiting Milan. We went to Florence for one day, and it turned out to be, like, the coldest day in, like, Italian history for, like, 50 years. It was freezing cold, and we had a baby with us. It was our first child, and we were desperate to stay out of the cold. Like, it was just freezing outside. And the building we walked into, it took me two seconds to realize I'm in another church.

50:02 Speaker 1 Right.

50:02 Speaker 2 Get the hell out of here, back into the cold. We're like trying to find some warmth. Anyway.

50:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, like, that's how it is. The whole place is one big church.

50:10 Speaker 2 One big church.

50:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:12 Speaker 2 Like, even the museums, everything's a church.

50:13 Speaker 1 Everything. So, and like when, this was like just outside of Florence, like on a mountaintop, and it's looking down, and you have that main cathedral-

50:21 Speaker 2 Right

50:22 Speaker 1 ... you know, that's kind of like the-

50:23 Speaker 2 Right

50:23 Speaker 1 ... the highlight of the, um, landscape. In any sense, so the building the, the hotel was in was a 15th century monastery.

50:32 Speaker 2 Okay.

50:32 Speaker 1 That they then converted to a hotel, and today's a hotel. There's not much monastery. There is a cross on the top, so when we came, we said, "Hey, we're renting it out for the wedding. Do you mind-"

50:41 Speaker 2 Covering

50:41 Speaker 1 ... "removing it or covering it?" And they were okay. And then there was, uh, like a Sistine Chapel or something, like the, The Last Supper that was painted-

50:48 Speaker 2 Right

50:48 Speaker 1 ... in one room, and we said, "Hey, can we cover it?" And they were very accommodating in that place.

50:52 Speaker 2 Right.

50:52 Speaker 1 But what was interesting that over the weekend, we had a weekend wedding, that over the weekend, so we had, uh, it was Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night was the wedding. So over Shabbos and all the minyan, the people who were talking or anything else, and we actually made a very Jewish wedding. Even though my wife and I at the time weren't very observant, we did a lot of things that were very, very, um, it was a very, very Jewish wedding. So a lot of people were saying, almost every speech s- someone pointed out that here we are bringing light and holiness to this depraved place.

51:23 Speaker 2 I see.

51:23 Speaker 1 You know? And there was something like continuously just rubbed me the wrong way. I'm like, "That's not my story." Like, I don't know what story you're... This is not my story.

51:31 Speaker 2 Yeah. Fascinating.

51:32 Speaker 1 It's not my story at all. So I got up at my wedding and I said, "Listen, I, I respect everyone's pos- position. I don't know, like, I don't know what's light and what's dark. I'm not pretending to, to know, so maybe this place was darkness until we did a mitzvah here. I have no idea. I'm just telling my story." And I said, "To me, it's very symbolic that I'm having a very, very Jewish wedding in a 15th century, um, monastery, 'cause without that Christian monk sponsor, I'm not here."

51:54 Speaker 2 Huh.

51:55 Speaker 1 So that's, you know, it's like that.

51:57 Speaker 2 How about that?

51:58 Speaker 1 Right. So it's, like it's further. Like what you're saying is very, very, very deep, and it does throw a lot of stuff on its head at this point.

52:04 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. It- it's, it's, it's frightening. It's really, like, 'cause even now I'm thinking about it, it's like, okay, we're talking about this, and I mean, I can speak for myself as much as it's worth, I feel like I'm talking in good faith. I'm not trying, I'm not, I'm not a Christian missionary, okay? I, I don't believe in Christianity. I am certain that you don't either.

52:23 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

52:23 Speaker 2 I mean, certain as I can be, right? And yet I could see why someone listening to us is saying, "Oh, wait one second. You're, you're kosherizing, you know, kosher Jesus kind of thing. Like, you're, you're, you're kosherizing this thing." Like Christianity has a dark history in Judaism, like-

52:40 Speaker 1 For sure

52:40 Speaker 2 ... like they've done some really, really dark-

52:42 Speaker 1 No question

52:42 Speaker 2 ... depraved stuff to, to Yiddish guy. Like it's, to Jewish people, to, to, to your grandparents, my grandparents. You know, it- it's, it's real. So, like, no, that's of course not our intention. Our intention is not to say that like Christianity somehow now has become kosher. It, it's just to point out that in a world of, that's so intermingled, there will be, there will be situations where you can learn, you, you can learn, and you can, in, in your case like you're describing, you can have your life changed for the better by an interaction with the most unexpect- and from the most unexpected place.

53:18 Speaker 1 Right.

53:19 Speaker 2 That's the point. You're not trying to say now the galach is, is a rabbi.

53:23 Speaker 1 I'll tell you something-

53:23 Speaker 2 You're not trying to say the monk, uh, you can call him a galach. You're not saying the monk now is a rabbi, and that like so he should be a rabbi.

53:28 Speaker 1 Right.

53:28 Speaker 2 That's not what you're saying, right? You're saying that he's a monk. He stays a monk.

53:33 Speaker 1 I was telling my story.

53:34 Speaker 2 Right. He stays a monk, but my Judaism is thanks to him.

53:37 Speaker 1 In some part thanks to him. I'll tell you even, the story gets deeper, right? As you speak about it, it gets a little deeper, 'cause when I came to the meetings, I was introduced by my th- by my therapist, who was a Frum guy, to, uh, one of his other patients who went to meetings also.

53:50 Speaker 2 Okay.

53:51 Speaker 1 His patient was a Jewish guy, but very, very secular. And when I was speaking to him about the program, and he was helping me at the beginning get sober, and when I was speaking to him, he stripped out all spirituality from recovery. So he was a Jewish individual, but when I said the word God, he's like, "It doesn't mean God. God is also acronym Group Of Drunks." You know? It doesn't have to be God, you know? So he stripped out all spirituality from it, and I'm like, "You're rereading the language," you know, when-

54:18 Speaker 2 Who, who, who did? The other guy?

54:19 Speaker 1 My sponsor. My first sponsor. My first sponsor-

54:21 Speaker 2 The therapist?

54:22 Speaker 1 No.

54:22 Speaker 2 The other guy that you were introduced to.

54:23 Speaker 1 My first sponsor was a Jewish guy, very secular Jew.

54:25 Speaker 2 I see.

54:26 Speaker 1 And he stripped out all spirituality.

54:28 Speaker 2 Right.

54:28 Speaker 1 So, and it was bothering me because-

54:30 Speaker 2 Well, Jews are, Jews are quite adept at that.

54:32 Speaker 1 Right. So it bothered me because, you know, growing up learning Gemara a lot, you can sit there, like analyze a word for days.

54:41 Speaker 2 Yep.

54:42 Speaker 1 And the, the, the thought process that, you know, you're reading something like the 12 steps, is that they probably agonized over every single word-

54:50 Speaker 2 Right

54:50 Speaker 1 ... in this thing.

54:52 Speaker 2 God is God.

54:52 Speaker 1 Right. God is God. And they say very specific things about Him.

54:56 Speaker 2 Right.

54:56 Speaker 1 "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God."

54:59 Speaker 2 Right.

54:59 Speaker 1 Why not just say will? Why not just say lives?

55:02 Speaker 2 Right.

55:02 Speaker 1 So what's the difference between will and lives? What, why say to the care of God to say to God? Right? So it's like very specific things-

55:07 Speaker 2 Right

55:07 Speaker 1 ... that I was drilling into that I felt like the 12 steps was trying to communicate about God, and here I am talking to the sponsor who's just, is taking everything out of it.

55:17 Speaker 2 Yeah.

55:17 Speaker 1 Anyway, so I speak to, when, when someone goes to recovery meetings, so it's kind of like the old-timers, right? It's like the hierarchy. They're kind of like the older timers who become the sponsors. And then you have the people who are coming in at around the same time who start, you know, we're kind of in the same place.

55:32 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

55:32 Speaker 1 So we're finding our footing, and then you, you create a, kind of a camaraderie with them, and then looking up to the old-timers. So I was speaking to one of the, these guys, non-Jewish guy, who was, who was a guy who had come in around the same time that I was, so he was sharing my, my struggle. And I told him about my interactions with my sponsor, and he's like, "Oh, I gotta introduce you to my sponsor. I gotta introduce you to mine. He really helped me with my spirituality." And that's how I met the Christian monk.

55:59 Speaker 2 This monk.

55:59 Speaker 1 Right. So meaning, like the story gets richer 'cause I was actually working with a Jewish individual.

56:03 Speaker 2 It didn't work for you.

56:04 Speaker 1 It didn't work. Why? Because the spirituality was missing.

56:07 Speaker 2 Right.

56:07 Speaker 1 And who introduced it to me?

56:08 Speaker 2 It's fascinating.

56:08 Speaker 1 And I was introduced to him under that context, "This guy can help you with your spirituality."

56:13 Speaker 2 That's fascinating.

56:13 Speaker 1 So what it kind of does, it blows your mind open a little bit.

56:16 Speaker 2 Right. And s- listen to the story of Baal Shem Tov, 'cause I, I know there's something in my head that's, that I'm being reminded of. There's a story of Baal Shem Tov where, like, they saw the guy making a cross out of the ice, and he challenges, told them, like, "What's the lesson here?" And they couldn't figure it out, and he said that, like, with the right passion, even ice can become something holy, like sacred or something. Like, a- and maybe I'm wrong with the story. I, I'm not trying to blame our-

56:42 Speaker 1 Right

56:42 Speaker 2 ... conversation on the Baal Shem Tov, that's not my point. But like, certainly stories that I've heard that kind of speak to that, where maybe in the olden days, you know, or maybe still today, you need a tzadik to kind of give a stamp on that kind of transformation. You know, like the Alter Rebbe taking Napoleon's march and turning it-

57:01 Speaker 1 Right

57:01 Speaker 2 ... into nigun. You know, maybe, maybe we should... Maybe, like, just 'cause Alter Rebbe did it, we don't have the right to do it. But what's, what's so rich about your story, it's not that you are advocating for something. You're saying what happened.

57:13 Speaker 1 Right, I'm just saying what happened.

57:14 Speaker 2 And, and, and it's like the Gemara says, "Ma asim bechol yomyim." These are not... This isn't a one-off that happened. Th- this is things that happen all the time, where you have stories where, you know, there's a business partner who happens to be a Christian, and you know, he kind of says something. He helps you with your marriage.

57:30 Speaker 1 Right.

57:31 Speaker 2 Uh, uh, not you you, but like-

57:32 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

57:32 Speaker 2 ... there are stories where people's marriages are helped out because their Christian partner told them something that they heard who knows where. I mean, we know where.

57:40 Speaker 1 Right.

57:40 Speaker 2 And it's like, wait so one second. So we, we don't know anymore the origins of things, and where does that leave us? That leaves us in a very uncertain place. Now, to me, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the question or like the, the, the pro- the, the line, where does it become a problem? It becomes a problem where we fall into, like, moral relativism. We're like, "Oh, okay. So if, you know, if, if everybody's looking for everybody, so everything's kind of equal, and like there's, you know, like-"

58:05 Speaker 1 Right

58:05 Speaker 2 ... "there's, there's nothing absolutely true." We're all kind of just, you know, uh, where kind of spirituality becomes the thing, where like, you know, everything's just another flavor of spirituality, and that's where this can lead, right? But I don't think it has to lead there. I don't think it has to end up in a place of moral relativism or spiritual relativism. I think you can be secure in like, "I'm holding on to tr- to a tradition that I believe is true, that this is my tradition. This is, this is, this is my truth. This is my, this is, this is what I believe to be the ultimate truth." But the, I, in the world that I live in, I, I, I'm taught lessons, and I, and I, and I'm returned to that truth in all kinds of inconceivable ways. Like, God's ways are mysterious.

58:49 Speaker 1 Right. I think the lesson I take from it is that, like, there is good and there is bad, and it's not as obvious to what meets the eye, and the time we're in is kind of, um, exposing that, so to speak.

59:03 Speaker 2 Right.

59:04 Speaker 1 So meaning in much the same way a lot of people said, you know, going back to the sexual abuse conversation, that when people are talking about it, it's lashon hara and everything else. What lashon hara? Like, what are we talking about? It's such a, such a crazy response-

59:17 Speaker 2 Right

59:17 Speaker 1 ... to someone protecting themselves or protecting other-

59:20 Speaker 2 Right

59:20 Speaker 1 ... uh, other people. It's like completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

59:24 Speaker 2 Right.

59:25 Speaker 1 You know? It wa- it was like, uh, I don't... It would be like, I don't know. I'm trying to think of an example. But it, like if someone borrowed someone's phone to call someone from Gaza when something's going on, right? Or like at the attack in Israel.

59:40 Speaker 2 Right.

59:40 Speaker 1 They took their phone without asking. It's like, but you're calling from a stolen phone. I mean, like-

59:43 Speaker 2 Right

59:43 Speaker 1 ... it has nothing to do with, we're dealing with very, very serious issues, and you're talking about-

59:47 Speaker 2 Right

59:48 Speaker 1 ... um-

59:49 Speaker 2 Right

59:49 Speaker 1 ... someone talking negatively about someone, like completely disconnected from anything. But what, what we found from those stories coming out more and more is that just because someone a Rab- is a rabbi doesn't mean they're good.

59:59 Speaker 2 Right.

1:00:00 Speaker 1 Right? Like, there's, there's good and there's bad, and it's not immediately recognizable-

1:00:06 Speaker 2 Mm

1:00:06 Speaker 1 ... based on, um, based on, uh, their title.

1:00:11 Speaker 2 Or their credentials.

1:00:11 Speaker 1 And I... Exactly. And I think that that's kind of where this is, um, falling out is, yes, this person is a good person. Like, at the end of the day, I don't know what his teachings were, right? And I'm not saying he was a, he w- in other ways, he hurt me. I go to other parts of the story, but he's, that in other words, he hurt me and wasn't, wasn't perfect for me. But in this way, in reconnecting to my Judaism, that aspect of my story, like he was a very unhealed individual.

1:00:37 Speaker 2 I see.

1:00:37 Speaker 1 Right? And I did-

1:00:38 Speaker 2 He wasn't the perfect sponsor.

1:00:39 Speaker 1 No, and I did meet him in recovery from, uh, sex addiction, and he earned every bit of that title.

1:00:44 Speaker 2 I see.

1:00:44 Speaker 1 However, however, in terms of my Jewish story, he was very important to it. Like, there was something that was good that he delivered to me. Like, he didn't get lost in the other message. He says, "Eli, for you, I'm gonna give you this message. What is best for you is to reconnect to your roots."

1:01:00 Speaker 2 But, but when good and evil become so, or good and bad becomes so confusing or so confused-

1:01:07 Speaker 1 Then we have to do the work

1:01:08 Speaker 2 ... how, how do, how do you, how do you s- how do you not lapse into moral relativism or say like, you know, Judaism's just another flavor of good?

1:01:17 Speaker 1 I think that's, that's why we have to do the work. It's very similar to, I mean, the psychedelic conversation-

1:01:21 Speaker 2 Mm

1:01:21 Speaker 1 ... right, where a lot of people throw it, like, out immediately and say, "Avodah zarah, avodah zarah, avodah zarah," right? They'll just, boom, throw it out, or they're waiting for the therapist to get on board. Not therapist, they're waiting for the, um-

1:01:33 Speaker 2 Rabbis?

1:01:34 Speaker 1 ... the, like American legal system.

1:01:35 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:01:35 Speaker 1 Like, oh, when, when they say, when a doctor says, "This is the method," what does I need it? This made-up credential that's given by a made-up university- ... right, to, to say that now this is healthy, but here's my lived experience.

1:01:48 Speaker 2 Right.

1:01:48 Speaker 1 And here's, it's not only mine.

1:01:50 Speaker 2 Right.

1:01:50 Speaker 1 Right? Person after person after person after person-

1:01:52 Speaker 2 Right

1:01:52 Speaker 1 ... has this experience of transformation under medicines, and I'm not saying it's a panacea. It doesn't solve everything, and there's a lot of danger. It's very, very powerful tools, so I'm not, it's, I don't, I don't know if we wanna go into a whole conversation on that. But what I do advocate for is just an open-mindedness around these, around these things.

1:02:10 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:10 Speaker 1 This very, very fixed idea, good, bad, right, wrong.

1:02:13 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:14 Speaker 1 You know, it's let's see. Let's see what's going on over here. It's exploding in the world, and then here you see someone. I've seen marriages saved.

1:02:19 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:20 Speaker 1 Marriages, like literally marriages saved, families which were preserved ... because of a psychedelic journey, and you wanna throw it out because it may be a way of the Zohar, which no one has been able to define for me yet, by the way.

1:02:31 Speaker 2 I mean, it has kind of associations with other stuff.

1:02:34 Speaker 1 Of course.

1:02:34 Speaker 2 That doesn't mean a definition. Yeah, I'm not-

1:02:36 Speaker 1 And it's... No, and we should be careful with it.

1:02:38 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:38 Speaker 1 There's no question. We should be careful.

1:02:39 Speaker 2 But by the way, yoga does too, and people have less of, people have less of a kind of a allergy to yoga. Yoga has all kinds of associations as well. And so the, you know, I, I think I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, I think that just points to there are plenty of people who are more okay with yoga who are scared of psychedelics. I think what's going on here is more just the fear of the unknown, frankly.

1:03:02 Speaker 1 Of course, yeah.

1:03:02 Speaker 2 I mean, to be honest, I'm not into psychedelics. I'm not into... So like-

1:03:06 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:03:06 Speaker 2 ... I'm, I'm speaking from a... I'm not speaking from a place where I'm, I need to defend-

1:03:10 Speaker 1 Yes

1:03:10 Speaker 2 ... to defend it. I, you know, I, I'm not into it, but I, I, I wouldn't say I have an issue with it, but I sort of like I, I, I just think that like this kind of slapdash, like you said, by the Zohar is, is, is, is more indicative of a deep-seeded fear of what is this? What is this? You know?

1:03:31 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:03:31 Speaker 2 Like, what are you, what are you doing here? And so I wanted to, uh, that's where I wanted to go next with the conversation, 'cause I did listen to one of your recent episodes and, um, I don't wanna s- I don't wanna say the name of the person, although people can look it up if they'd like. Uh, and, you know, you were talking with, you were talking with your guest about, about the use of, about the use of psychedelics, and her use of psychedelics, and in general, something that was really interesting to me was she was describing... It was a very moving encounter that she was describing, and I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I, I can't do justice to it. But it was a whole story of like how she was, she was with her father, and-

1:04:12 Speaker 1 Is there a reason you're avoiding the name? I mean, it's public.

1:04:15 Speaker 2 Okay. Leah Rabaschin.

1:04:16 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Okay.

1:04:18 Speaker 2 Um, I... Okay.

1:04:20 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:20 Speaker 2 Yeah, Leah Rabaschin. I, I don't know her personally.

1:04:23 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:24 Speaker 2 But I did watch, I did watch, I did, I did, uh, I did watch, I did watch the episode. And she was talking about how she, she had, she, she had confronted her abuser, but the abuser was dead, so it was at the abuser's grave. And her fa- this was the first that her father was hearing about, or at least in detail, or hearing about it from her. Am I getting it right?

1:04:46 Speaker 1 I recorded a while ago, so I don't remember the details myself.

1:04:47 Speaker 2 Okay. It, it was the first time that she was hear- he was hearing about it in such detail, and it was, it... I don't wanna, I don't wanna go too into detail for it, because it's, it's, there's no way I can do justice to it. The point that, the point that was really in a way evocative to me was her... There was this, there was this very cathartic moment for both her and her father, where they both kind of... Some- something was opened up, and they... she described afterwards this three-hour drive that they had back from the cemetery to where they were staying upstate in New York, and this conversation with her father. And, and now that I said the name, everybody knows who her father is. You know, he's a very kind of strong Hasidi-

1:05:27 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:05:27 Speaker 2 ... you know him, right?

1:05:27 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:05:27 Speaker 2 He had a strong kind of personality. And she's describing how she's basically teaching him all the things that she's learned over the years, like things that he perhaps didn't pay attention to or didn't realize that were so important. And he's like open now to hearing... Now that he's heard what she's gone through in such detail, he starts opening up to how she's dealt with it, and all the ideas, and Hasidic ideas, and psychedelic stuff, and all this. And to me, what was so interesting about that was it, it goes back to our original theme, the tables turning.

1:06:02 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:03 Speaker 2 Where it's not... Like, one way of seeing it is, okay, so, you know, it's a power struggle, and until now, one generation was ramming it down the throat of the other generation. And now she basically, you know, tables turned, and she rammed it down her, the older generation. I do think that that happens at times.

1:06:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:23 Speaker 2 I think sometimes that's what's going on. But that's not how, that's certainly not how I interpreted her story. How I interpreted her story was it comes back to the same theme, where there's this moment of s- of such upheaval in this, in this, in this family's life, where a father realizes the depths of hell that his daughter has been through, and also the, the heights of heaven that she's been to as well, like the healing and the things that she's encountered.

1:06:54 Speaker 1 Right, and the wisdom she's received.

1:06:55 Speaker 2 Like the, the, the-

1:06:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, experience

1:06:56 Speaker 2 ... the enormity of her experience. And the father realizes that he do- he no longer is right now expected to teach. He now, it's time for him to, to receive and to study.

1:07:10 Speaker 1 Right.

1:07:11 Speaker 2 Right? And that, that once again, you know, kind of speaks to this kind of shifting or, or overturning of the age-old hierarchies, right? And, and, and, and, and, and she could still... I, I don't, I don't know if she spoke about this during the conversation. I'm sure in many ways she still learns from her father.

1:07:31 Speaker 1 Right.

1:07:31 Speaker 2 Like, it didn't seem like now I don't, now I d- don't respect him anymore. To the contrary, right?

1:07:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a very, it was very important for her to be, for him to be part of that.

1:07:40 Speaker 2 Right. I still respect my father. I still learn from him, but now he, he learned from me. You know, I wonder, I wonder... So, so that was my main takeaway from it, but there was also a larger takeaway that I had from it, where like I wonder if, going back to the, the particular flavor of psychedelic use in Lubavitch, or kind of this whole exploration in Lubavitch, is, you know, the new... Like, people want to, people don't want to only receive. Like, they don't wanna live completely on... The same way that people even if your parents have means, most people wanna make it on their own.

1:08:21 Speaker 1 Right.

1:08:21 Speaker 2 They, they wanna kind of make a name for themselves, right? And to me, there's this, this sense where like, you know- You're Lubavitchers, you grow up, and you basically, your whole identity is defined for you by your parents, right? They tell you how things used to be and how things should be, and like, all of the kind of the Lubavitch lore is in the past, and you're just kind of getting it secondhand. And suddenly, the psychedelics and/or these new kind of modalities open up a new, a new r- a new experience in the present that is yours.

1:09:00 Speaker 1 Correct.

1:09:00 Speaker 2 I think it, it, it's not like a-

1:09:02 Speaker 1 And the information... One thing about psychedelics is that there are messages that I've received from psychedelics that if someone else gave it to me, would've been too abrasive. I would've pushed it away.

1:09:13 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:13 Speaker 1 But under there, I was able to receive it as my own.

1:09:16 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:09:17 Speaker 1 So that is certainly part of the, part of the journey. Where it's like I... Even though someone can say, "I didn't work," psychedelics is actually a lot of work.

1:09:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:26 Speaker 1 Because i- essentially what it does, like, it, it heightens the present moment, and then you can choose. Do you wanna fight the present moment? Do you wanna surrender to it? So some people will, they'll take a lot of psychedelics, but they'll, they, they won't surrender to the moment. So they'll fight, and they'll fight, and they'll fight, and they'll find different ways to, um, miss the point, so to speak.

1:09:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:09:49 Speaker 1 And then the real question, psychedelics is essentially like a breathing lesson. Like, could we drop you into the full experience of the present moment, and you still breathe through that, and you still breathe through it? And if you could, and that's a lot of work, and if you could, then you can be granted a bunch of, like, gifts, experiences, wisdom, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's not just work. It's not just, "Oh, I took something and I had a crazy experience." That's part of it, but then afterwards, okay, now here's a message. What are you gonna do with it?

1:10:19 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:19 Speaker 1 What are you gonna do with it? Like, I remember one person, he's like, "Oh, Eli, I've been taking psychedelics way longer than you." Um, I said, "I understand. I'm not, like, we're not competing. If you think there's a competition here, you take more psychedelics. You know, you'll under- Like, no one's competing. We're on the same team, but, um, I don't think we take it the same way."

1:10:37 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:10:37 Speaker 1 He said, "What do you mean?" So I said, "Well, let's say you have two people go to shul," right? And they both sit there through the whole experience. There's this, there's the davening, there's the sermon, there's the kiddush afterwards. One goes through and says, "It was beautiful," right? Then really leaves with, "The food tasted pretty good." The other, during the sermon, the rabbi says something about being nicer to your wife, and he commits from that week, "You know what? I'm gonna be nicer to my wife." And his life actually changed right?

1:11:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:03 Speaker 1 From the, from the shul.

1:11:05 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:05 Speaker 1 So they're not both going to shul in the same way.

1:11:07 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:08 Speaker 1 They both were there, certainly.

1:11:09 Speaker 2 They're certainly not leaving in the same way.

1:11:11 Speaker 1 Exactly. One took kugel and one took a life-changing lesson.

1:11:14 Speaker 2 Right, right.

1:11:15 Speaker 1 So that's the real work afterwards, is if someone is given that message, will you or won't you-

1:11:22 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:22 Speaker 1 ... choose that path that it, that it kinda gives you? But it's definitely a sense that, um, uh, that it's your own message.

1:11:30 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:30 Speaker 1 Like, I've, I've worked, I breathed through this moment, that's why I was making that point, and I received some information. It is now mine. It was difficult for me to-

1:11:37 Speaker 2 I earned it

1:11:38 Speaker 1 ... work... Right.

1:11:38 Speaker 2 I earned it.

1:11:39 Speaker 1 I earned it in some way. And I understand that it's not earning in the same way as, uh, you know, meditating for 30 days on a rooftop, but there is a sense of-

1:11:47 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:47 Speaker 1 ... it's mine, and then doing something from there. But I'll, I'll kind of wrap this, I'll kind of, like, tie it all together because I believe in our first, in our podcast, which was the reverse, I gave a suggestion at the end, which I said, "Don't kick kids out of yeshiva."

1:12:01 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true.

1:12:02 Speaker 1 Right? So what was I saying there? And this will kind of tie into, like, what's happening with psychedelics and the wave there, is that we assumed that the fry outs had nothing to tell us.

1:12:12 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:12 Speaker 1 That's why, so we kicked them out.

1:12:14 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:14 Speaker 1 We said, "You have nothing for us. You're not one of us."

1:12:16 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:16 Speaker 1 "Go leave." And what's actually happened, what's actually happened is a lot of these kids and families, and every family has, you know, one or two or more that have gone. And if it's not a brother, it's a cousin certainly.

1:12:28 Speaker 2 At this point, for sure.

1:12:29 Speaker 1 Yes. And many of them, what they've said is, "Okay, listen, at the end of the day, what are we... We're all searching for the same things, peace, love, freedom, purpose, fulfillment," right? We're all searching for the same things, and some people are finding it in this way. You know, I remember telling my mother once, and I said, "Ma, you don't think, you don't think I would love feeling endless fulfillment at washing Negel Vasser in the morning? That I truly felt like if I read Tehillim or Chafetz Chaim, I was affecting my life, my children's life, my grandchildren's life? I just don't."

1:12:57 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:58 Speaker 1 "Like, I don't. So I'm out trying to find another way to feel that fulfillment." And because, um, usually because of a fair amount of suffering, right, that some of us have, have gone through, we've embarked on our own journeys, right? Where we said, "Okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not looking through the classic people for answers. I'm gonna go knock on, uh, the doors of 12 Steps," or, "I'm gonna go try psychedelics and these experiences." And then suddenly, these same people went back to their families. Like, they were the early adopters, so to speak. They went back to their families. And then who was messed up and who was the teacher, like, who had something to learn from who was turned on its head.

1:13:34 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:13:35 Speaker 1 You know? And it's the child who was considered the sick one because he was abused or because he was in rehab or because he was no longer religious, all of a sudden had all this information to, to share back with the family. And that's something that I've seen on a smaller scale in many, many families, is that there's been one child who's gone through an incredibly difficult experience, and they found the medicine.

1:13:59 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:59 Speaker 1 Whatever it was, right, 12 Steps or psychedelics or something else, and now they're bringing it back to their family.

1:14:05 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:05 Speaker 1 And instead of being viewed as a pariah, they're being viewed as someone who actually went on that kind of hero's journey and has a-

1:14:12 Speaker 2 Mm

1:14:12 Speaker 1 ... an element of wisdom-

1:14:13 Speaker 2 Mm

1:14:13 Speaker 1 ... to bring back for the collective community. And then I think for, for those listening to this, if by chance, who, um, are not on the path of, meaning they've, they've gone off that path, the hero's journey always brings us back home.

1:14:29 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:29 Speaker 1 Like, I don't think my sponsor was, my f- former sponsor was giving me some truth about Judaism. I don't think that was the message. I think the message was, he was, he was giving a blanket message, like your, your upbringing matters. It's part of your story.

1:14:44 Speaker 2 You can't run away from yourself.

1:14:44 Speaker 1 Exactly. So come back home at some point. Like, yes, you've had-

1:14:47 Speaker 2 Right

1:14:47 Speaker 1 ... to take a detour away, but come back home and figure out why was that part o- why was that part of your story.

1:14:54 Speaker 2 Yeah. Beautiful. I, I, I would just, I would just wanna add to that, that I think that that really, that really points us to the power of family, right? Because I've seen, I've seen what you s- I've seen it in my own family. I mean, I don't, I don't, uh, I've seen it in my own family, where I have siblings who, who have, like you said, go- gone on their own journeys. And, you know, it's made... And I, I've seen it in other families, but my s- you know, we, we see it all over now. And, you know, the closer you are to it, the more you're able to see how the people around it are, are dealing with it. And, you know, there, there's a, there, it, it's difficult because it, it, it forces, it forces families to reconsider so much about what it means to be a family, right? It's, right? There's like, uh, you're still family even though, even though, and the even those get bigger and bigger.

1:15:48 Speaker 3 Right.

1:15:48 Speaker 2 And y- you're challenged. But what you're really doing is you're digging deeper and deeper to figure out what does it mean to be a family. Like, you know, you, you can be a family, and you can love your child even though things that you never thought possible, right? You thought that it was conditioned on XYZ, and you realize that, no, family is stronger than that, and family is stronger than even more than that. And, you know, th- that to, ultimately, to me, that's, that's a very hopeful message about families, about, about the Jewish community, which is all about family, right? In Yiddishkind in general, where it, it's all, it's... That's why, to me at least, right, it's all, it's all, it's all based on the premise of a family. There's forefathers, there's shver. It's all family, right? It's, it's biological. Because that kind of tells you that, like, despite all the things that happened, you still have to love that person as part of your family, right? It's, it's... A- and, and, and, and the love is there. That's the hopef- that's the hopeful message. It's there. It's possible. It's real. It's more real than anything else in the world. And like, you know, coming back to the conversation about Lubavitch, when I started this podcast, a couple people sent me a message. Uh, you know, people that I hadn't spoken to in years, and some of them were, were quite nervous about it. I don't know what they thought I was doing. May- I

1:17:09 Speaker 2 didn't know myself. But even, even in some of the more cautious and cautionary kind of messages I got, I felt, for some reason, this sense of family. These people are not related to me.

1:17:22 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:23 Speaker 2 But, like, you know, this, this is something very dear to me. It's like, like we're connected in this somehow. Like, you know, just, you know, I, I, I, like I, I believe in what you're doing, but, but, but, you know, treat it with, treat it with love and treat it with respect. And to me, that's, that's very touching because, because th- that, that, that, that, that shows me and that, that reminds me that at the foundation of this search, you know, you, you, you have your search of more.

1:17:54 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:54 Speaker 2 But in this search that we're going, and, and sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes we go too far, but at the, at the foundation of it is family. At the foundation of it is a relationship that is, that is bio- that's real. It's as real as anything else in the world. It's as real as blood. And, uh, maybe I shouldn't use the word blood to end off. That doesn't sound very hopeful. But it's as real, it's, it's as real as anything, as anything else in the world. Uh, more real than anything else in the world. And, and to me, to me, that's the, that's the, that's the core. That's the ultimate hot core of hope that, that, that, that resides at the bottom of all this. That all these journeys and all these kind of ins and outs and, and, and, and, and con- confusion, we have to remember, we have to find at the core of it, the love for, for one another, that love of family.

1:18:44 Speaker 3 Yeah, and I think that the love creates an openness to see that, A, if we're connected to this person and they've deviated in some way, then we're also... Like we're connected to that deviation. There's something inside us that's also-

1:18:58 Speaker 2 Absolutely

1:18:59 Speaker 3 ... there on a smaller family scale and a larger one. And you know, Shaig Taub talks a lot about these subjects of children who kind of move away from-

1:19:07 Speaker 2 Right

1:19:08 Speaker 3 ... um, their parents' ways. And one of the points he makes is that, um, and he can correct me if I'm misquoting him in any way, is, he can come back on the podcast and correct me. He can s- he said, uh, that a child who's going off, for parents not to believe that God is in that story too, you know, that this is the direction God is choosing for their life, is not believing in God in some way.

1:19:34 Speaker 2 Right.

1:19:35 Speaker 3 Like this is their journey.

1:19:36 Speaker 2 Right.

1:19:36 Speaker 3 This is 100% their journey. And I'll, I'll share, you know, two thoughts, and I think we can wrap this up. So they both... I don't usually like to share concepts that, um, were introduced to me through psychedelic journeys because I feel like it's a cheap way to make the point.

1:19:52 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:19:52 Speaker 3 Like if it's become part of you, then make the point. You know, you don't have to quote your teacher every time he says-

1:19:57 Speaker 2 Right

1:19:57 Speaker 3 ... something. Like you've become the knowledge, you've become the information.

1:19:59 Speaker 2 Right.

1:19:59 Speaker 3 Doesn't... But I think in this context-

1:20:01 Speaker 2 Okay

1:20:02 Speaker 3 ... I feel it, uh, appropriate. So one was really connecting me to, okay, like I'm Chabad. Like what does this mean? What does it mean I'm Chabad, right? And I didn't remember this when he asked the question, and one was that, you know, there's a sh- a, a long lineage of fighting for their beliefs with a, like a, a real fierceness, and willing to risk everything. I mean-

1:20:24 Speaker 2 Right

1:20:24 Speaker 3 ... you know, I was just watching before, uh, while you were setting up, I was watching your podcast with Dovid Bernstein. He spoke about how every single one of the Rebbeim besides for the Ba'al Shem Tov and the Rebbe were arrested.

1:20:33 Speaker 2 Right.

1:20:34 Speaker 3 Right? They like sat in prison. There was a, a very... Like there was a lot of courage-

1:20:38 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:20:38 Speaker 3 ... in these people in the way they lived and fought for their ideas.

1:20:41 Speaker 2 Right.

1:20:42 Speaker 3 And to me, um, that was one of the things is like what it meant to me in that moment, like on this experience, is giving me the strength to fight for my ideas in that way. That, yeah, sometimes everything was risked in order to, in order to do that, and maybe we live at a time critical enough, and we probably do, that we're going to have to fight for some i- of, of our ideas, and it's willing to risk. The willingness to risk everything, if I have that, doesn't come from my Sephardic side. It comes from the Chabad, right? The Chabad side of me. That's one. The second one was I was really dealing with- Um, and the experience was like, uh, like struggling with acceptance, knowing that some of my family didn't fully accept my path, right? And still don't completely. Um, it's kind of weird for them. You know, if someone's struggling, sure, call Eli, hopefully that he'll have an answer, right? But I'm still not considered, like I'm not gonna necessarily eat in my house. I'm not as kosher as, as they are, et cetera. So-

1:21:39 Speaker 2 They don't know, they don't know where to place you.

1:21:41 Speaker 3 Right. Exactly. So for me, there was a sense of, um, a lack of acceptance, right? Like that feeling, and kind of struggling and working through it. And one of the ways the message came to me to, like, put it to bed was that, um, in chronological age, parents are older than children.

1:22:04 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:04 Speaker 3 But as far as a soul coming into the world, the soul is more pristine the younger it is.

1:22:12 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:22:13 Speaker 3 Right? So if you have kind of two 30-year-olds who are, you know, they've been in the world for a long time, they're sullied, they're dirtied by-

1:22:20 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:22:20 Speaker 3 ... all these thoughts. So a soul comes in and says, "You know, I'm gonna help these people out."

1:22:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:25 Speaker 3 Like, "I'm gonna shine my light on these poor couple-

1:22:29 Speaker 2 Right

1:22:29 Speaker 3 ... to see if they can, you know, reach their mission." So it comes into, you know, comes into body form-

1:22:34 Speaker 2 Right

1:22:34 Speaker 3 ... and says, "Okay, here I am to teach you."

1:22:37 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:37 Speaker 3 Right? Obviously you need my message. And then a second child, a third child, a fourth child, right? Then on and on, each one, right, sharing more and more, like, closer to the truth that everyone is meant to embrace. It's like the last one to the party kind of has the most to-

1:22:53 Speaker 2 Mm

1:22:53 Speaker 3 ... the most to show. And usually we don't feel rejected by our younger siblings, right? It's not tr- really, it's like our older siblings, our parents, stuff like that. So it was a, um, like being very comfortable. The, the way I arrived at a self-acceptance was saying that any re- any rejection I may be picking up on is a failure on their part to fully receive the God-given gift that I was meant to deliver to them.

1:23:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:23:19 Speaker 3 Right? And I s- that it kind of, I think, puts this idea of children and parents in this very-

1:23:25 Speaker 2 Right

1:23:25 Speaker 3 ... yes, there's a lot that parents have to teach a child about this world, but there's also a lot that children have to teach their parents. And I'm not saying this only as a child, I'm saying it also as a parent.

1:23:36 Speaker 2 "V'hayshiv lev avot al bemav lev banav," and that's, that's part of the messianic time where, where, where the hierarchies get upended, and the, the, the hopeful message is, is that family is strong enough that it can survive that kind of two-way traffic, where the child learns from the parent and the parent learns from the child.

1:23:56 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:23:56 Speaker 2 And the family is strong enough to become even stronger and closer because of that. And that's a wonderful, hopeful message to, to end this off.

1:24:04 Speaker 3 Beautiful.

1:24:05 Speaker 2 It's, it's late, it's late. Appreciate your time. This has been wonderful.

1:24:08 Speaker 3 Thank you so much.

1:24:09 Speaker 2 And, uh, thank you again. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Sorn and Nadav Bakar, and is used with their permission.