Ep. 30 // "My Struggle With Chitas" w/ Fitz Rabin

00:00 Speaker 1 Over my life, I really never wanted to do chitas and never did it much at all just because of the way in which I experienced it being demanded of me.

00:10 Speaker 2 Right.

00:10 Speaker 1 Just because the way in which, um, it felt to me, together with a whole bunch of other, uh, you know, Hasidish stuff or that it was like some kind of like rite of passage or that that somehow made me a good Hasid. Uh, you know, there was a long time, long time where actually I would go to the oil and just say to the rabbi, "I don't know who you are."

00:32 Speaker 2 Hmm.

00:32 Speaker 1 "And I don't know what you want, but I know I should be here."

00:40 Speaker 2 Welcome to "Homesick for Lubavitch," a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2024. My name is Bentzi Offson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. As you can hear, we are here in Crown Heights. We are here in Crown Heights, in the main streets of Crown Heights with the beeping.

01:09 Speaker 1 It's, um, spirit music in the background for you.

01:11 Speaker 2 That's acapella, acapella music. That definitely does not give a- anybody any joy. Or maybe it does, I don't know. I don't understand New Yorkers anymore. I don't even think I do. Maybe it does give them joy. The fellow sitting across the table from me is smiling, seems to have a lot of joy even though he lives in Brooklyn. And, uh, out of everything about you that, that may be the most intriguing right now. Yeah.

01:40 Speaker 1 I'm smiling 'cause I'm with you, Bentzi.

01:42 Speaker 2 Oh, I'm touched. Anyway, I'm here with Fitz Raven. Um, I don't think we went to yeshiva together at any point.

01:49 Speaker 1 No.

01:49 Speaker 2 I don't remember you in yeshiva, but you're, you know, close enough to me in age that I know plenty of people that know you. Um, and, uh, you know, been following each other's paths or seeing where each other has been going the past few years. Um, Fitz is a master sofer or was a master sofer for many years.

02:08 Speaker 1 Emeritus.

02:09 Speaker 2 Emeritus. Um, and he taught many people sofrus. Um, there was a time in my life that I was very interested in the letters.

02:18 Speaker 1 Hmm.

02:19 Speaker 2 I think we spoke about it once, but, uh, the whole parshah of the letters, but I never became a sofer, but that itself was, uh, enough to kind of point me towards you. And, uh, today-

02:30 Speaker 1 No

02:31 Speaker 2 ... today-

02:31 Speaker 1 You once, you once reached out curious about the intersection between consumerism and religion.

02:37 Speaker 2 It-

02:37 Speaker 1 Like the way people buy-

02:39 Speaker 2 That was later on

02:40 Speaker 1 ... Sefer Torah and do-

02:41 Speaker 2 That was-

02:41 Speaker 1 ... lavish parties around it and so like-

02:43 Speaker 2 No, no, no. Okay. I mean, that, that sounds like I'm a, like I'm a socialist or Marxist, um, green party. No. The, uh, that, that was a separate thing. That was not to do with the letters. That was a few years ago, and maybe one day we will make that doc. Um, I think what it was, was we were talk- I don't know why we were talking. We were talking about something else, and then we had a conversation about why is sofer so expensive.

03:09 Speaker 1 Hmm.

03:11 Speaker 2 Like, why is a mezuzah so expensive? And you started telling me, "You think it's expensive? It's subsidized. It's cheap."

03:17 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

03:18 Speaker 2 Like, you start ex- You laid out the numbers of, you know, if you have a guy who needs to not live it up, but just to pay his bills-

03:26 Speaker 1 Certainly in, in Brooklyn

03:27 Speaker 2 ... anywhere in America-

03:29 Speaker 1 Yeah

03:29 Speaker 2 ... from what I remember, the numbers... Yeah, but Brooklyn for sure, right? And you were explaining how like, you know, just if you break, if you break it down, a, a person who keep- writes consistently like a machine, the numbers just don't add up. And so-

03:44 Speaker 1 Well, a, a big part of it is also is not, it's not even possible to write consistently like a machine. Most people can't write eight hours a day.

03:50 Speaker 2 But I'm saying e- lo- even a pr- okay, so let's say not eight hours a day, but meaning a person who doesn't slack, a person who writes as much as is possible, right? And isn't lazy, 'cause God knows that, you know, p- in other professions they're not lazy at all. Right?

04:09 Speaker 1 Okay.

04:09 Speaker 2 And they don't take any, and, and they don't take lunch breaks in the office. But I'm saying like even someone who, who, who, who, you know, is very, very earnest about it and, and, and, and, and, and, and puts in the hours simply will not, will not, um, will not be able to make a living, and that to me was fascinating, and that got into a conversation about, um, the spike of, uh, the price of mezuzahs because Sefer Torah got Sefer Torah. So-

04:35 Speaker 1 Yeah, especially during COVID and post-COVID.

04:37 Speaker 2 Right.

04:37 Speaker 1 A lot of things changed.

04:38 Speaker 2 So that, that was fascinating to me because it im- it was a microcosm of so many interesting topics. You know, the topic of inflation at the time, the topic of, um, you know, spiritual consumerism where like-

04:55 Speaker 1 Religious commerce.

04:56 Speaker 2 Right. N- no, but spiritual consumerism where like, you know, I wanna indulge in a Sefer Torah kind of thing where like you-

05:03 Speaker 1 Right

05:03 Speaker 2 ... see a shift where like the upper class or as wealth kind of diverges and the rich get richer, which is across the board what's happening in this country, um, you know, so there's more money to spend up there, and so the Sefer Torah industry becomes in a way more prominent than it was in the past and kind of, what would be the word in economics, displaces-

05:27 Speaker 1 Hmm

05:27 Speaker 2 ... the mezuzah industry and causes... Yeah, they call it displacement, I think.

05:32 Speaker 1 Well, that, that was a big one, especially after COVID. Sefer Torah exploded.

05:36 Speaker 2 Right.

05:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

05:37 Speaker 2 But in a ma- in many ways, the most interesting thing about it was, you know... Okay, now that we're talking, I gotta make this doc. Yeah, we'll talk about it afterwards. We gotta make this doc eventually.

05:48 Speaker 1 Yeah. We'll make a doc 100.

05:49 Speaker 2 Yeah. No, 'cause to me the most interesting part of it is that, you know, the world talks about the shift to digital, digital, digital and AI now, and like, "Oh, you could, you could render..." And there's something about the fact that like there is this Like Alpi Torah, there's this need to... Certain things have to be made by hand, and it's not, and this is where we're really talking about then. It's not enough that they're made by hand, they have to be made by hand by someone like you. And that in so many ways goes against, I don't know if capitalism per se, but-

06:24 Speaker 1 What do you mean by someone like you? Meaning what?

06:25 Speaker 2 A fellow Jew.

06:26 Speaker 1 Right. Someone who's obligated in the mitzvah, et cetera, et cetera.

06:29 Speaker 2 Someone who's raising a family like you, you know, without getting too grub about it.

06:33 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

06:33 Speaker 2 Right? You cannot, you cannot, um, out- you cannot, uh, outsource it, and, uh, there's a better word for it. My English today is not great, but you cannot, you cannot, uh, you, you cannot-

06:45 Speaker 1 Relegate it?

06:46 Speaker 2 No, no, you cannot outsource it to, to China or India. You know, find a country where people-

06:52 Speaker 1 Right

06:52 Speaker 2 ... have a completely different history than you, and therefore different rules of economics, and say, "Okay, for a buck you'll make me mezuzah." You cannot do that. You have to go to a fellow Yid. Okay, I understand that Yidden in Eretz Yisrael will, will do it for less than Yidden in America, but only a certain amount less, right? You, you're not going to ever be able to... You certainly can't give it to a machine.

07:14 Speaker 1 Right.

07:15 Speaker 2 And so in many ways that runs so counter to the way capitalism, I know I'm sounding like a Marxist now, but-

07:23 Speaker 1 Scaling

07:23 Speaker 2 ... no, no, but yeah, exactly. Capitalism is all about scaling, like commoditizing everything to the point, like how do I make this thing scalable? You know? And in many ways, that's something that hits my line of work too, where like, you know, how do you make storytelling scalable? And the answer is you don't.

07:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

07:42 Speaker 2 Storytelling that's scalable is-

07:45 Speaker 1 Right. Loses its quality. It evaporates.

07:47 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's what you find in the Judaica store today.

07:53 Speaker 1 Okay. That's out.

07:54 Speaker 2 Okay. End the podcast. Bye.

07:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. Mic drop. Boom.

08:00 Speaker 2 Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, which, yes, is my video production company. At Yuvala Media, we believe in the same principles as this podcast, namely that in our communities there are just so many stories worth sharing and worth telling, and that in the end, a good story is always so much more. Over the past few years, we have helped dozens of nonprofits, companies, and families share their very precious stories with the community. If you're looking to share your story, please don't hesitate to reach out to us for a free consultation at hello@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that's hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found below as well. For now, let's get back to the podcast. Yeah. Anyway, I've been talking a lot. Okay. So why don't you... So-

08:45 Speaker 1 By the way, that happens a lot in this room.

08:47 Speaker 2 That I talk a lot?

08:48 Speaker 1 No, people talk a lot.

08:49 Speaker 2 Yeah. So why don't... So getting to that point, so yeah, I gotta carry with the doc. Um, we'll do, we'll do it, God willing, and now it's public, we have to do it. So you were a sofer. Now you're no longer practicing sofer. Why don't you talk a little bit about that, like where you are now and how you got here?

09:06 Speaker 1 Hmm. Now I'm a full-time professional life and leadership coach.

09:13 Speaker 2 Okay.

09:15 Speaker 1 I work with people to help them create their dreams, what they desire for their future, for their purpose. Um, how did I get from, from soferus to coaching? Is that your question? Well, it's, it's interesting because soferus was a childhood dream of mine. Talking about dreams, you know?

09:36 Speaker 2 Right.

09:36 Speaker 1 Um, it was a childhood dream of mine since I'm like four or five. I don't know if I shared it with you when we were talking about the Ois U'Lafitz but I was absolutely fascinated. Books like "Mezuzah Land" really inspired me. Do you know that book?

09:51 Speaker 2 Um-

09:52 Speaker 1 It just came back to print recently

09:53 Speaker 2 ... raise a bell.

09:54 Speaker 1 Anyway, when I was a kid, it was, there was this book, "Mezuzah Land," and it really inspired me. It depicted a sofer, a very sagacious looking, full serenity and light.

10:02 Speaker 2 Right.

10:03 Speaker 1 Did, did, did the job, you know?

10:05 Speaker 2 What happened, man?

10:05 Speaker 1 The book did the job.

10:06 Speaker 2 What happened?

10:09 Speaker 1 Um, and, and other books also that would have like images of the Alfitz and the Sefer Torah, the crowns on the letters. I was, I was absolutely enamored and fascinated by, by soferus, and it was a childhood dream, and then I became a sofer beginning at age 14 actually, um, which I, I don't recommend, which is why I don't teach guys that are that young actually.

10:30 Speaker 2 Why, why don't you recommend it?

10:33 Speaker 1 Um, because, um, soferus, first of all, it's very Halakha heavy.

10:39 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

10:40 Speaker 1 Um, you, you have to... There's a lot, a quantity of Halakha-

10:43 Speaker 2 Right

10:44 Speaker 1 ... to be proficient in, but also some of the Halakhas are, are quite distinct and, and very, um, not popular at all. A lot of people don't know anything about the, the nuances, the intricacies of the Halakhas that govern the field of stam.

11:01 Speaker 2 Right.

11:01 Speaker 1 And some of them are hard to understand. Literally, the way they're brought in the Shulchan Aruch, even in the Altrei HaShulchan Aruch, they leave a lot of questions. Uh-

11:08 Speaker 2 Right

11:08 Speaker 1 ... there seem to be some inconsistencies and holes, like if you're trying... So it's, it's laborious to be proficient in the Halakha.

11:15 Speaker 2 Right.

11:15 Speaker 1 14-year-old usually getting into the craft is more excited about the calligraphic, well, how do you say, calligraphic elements of it, or the artistic elements of it, or whatever, or even if he's drawn to this, uh, you know, to it for, from some place of inspiration or s- you know, sincere piety or something. But it's, it's, it's gover- You know, it's a, it's a field of Halakha.

11:41 Speaker 2 It's not a hobby is what you're saying.

11:43 Speaker 1 Right. And so-

11:43 Speaker 2 It's a cr- it's a very, very serious craft.

11:46 Speaker 1 Right. And I, and I know for myself that that was hard for me as a 14-year-old to fully align myself with the way-

11:50 Speaker 2 Right

11:51 Speaker 1 ... in which this is not a fun and ga- Like this, yes-

11:54 Speaker 2 Right

11:54 Speaker 1 ... the craft is one dimension of it, but there's a lot to really master and understand. That was hard.

11:59 Speaker 2 Right.

11:59 Speaker 1 It takes discipline. It takes maturity.

12:01 Speaker 2 Right.

12:01 Speaker 1 So for that reason, you know, generally speaking, I, I prefer to teach only guys, you know, that are older, but I learned then, it was interesting.

12:08 Speaker 2 Are you s- do you still teach now?

12:09 Speaker 1 I have a couple of students this year, but I'm on my way out of it as well.

12:13 Speaker 2 On your way out.

12:14 Speaker 1 Especially there's another program that opened up that's-

12:17 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

12:17 Speaker 1 ... you know, a colleague of mine he- is heading and, and, and taught, t- teaching many people, including online, so.

12:23 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

12:24 Speaker 1 Um, and I've created a video course as well.

12:27 Speaker 2 I see.

12:27 Speaker 1 At least on the Oisios. So I... There's other aspects to the skill, like carving the quill and how to hold it.

12:33 Speaker 2 Right.

12:33 Speaker 1 But at least on the way I build the Oisios of the Al Trei Ois Klal, which is a unique, a very unique niche, and I've acquired a reputation for doing that very well. So I've turned it into a video course so people can access that from around the world, and, and, you know, future generations as well can benefit from that.

12:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

12:49 Speaker 1 But at, at 14 I learned, um, it was actually interesting because my older brother was the one who got my parents to, to hire the local sofer, uh, in Detroit where I grew up, to, to tutor him in sofer like over a summer.

13:03 Speaker 2 Oh, so your older brother was also into sofers?

13:06 Speaker 1 Initially. And I said, "I wanna be part of that class. I wanna be in." And, and my o- and my brother was like, "No, you al- you always think you know everything." And I can't say that he was wrong, but he didn't want me there. He thought I would just be an obstruction, you know? So I said, "Okay, fine. If, if I'm gonna do that, then I'll be kicked out of the class," you know. In the end, I became the sofer, and he didn't.

13:24 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

13:25 Speaker 1 Um, and then, you know, I just... But people would ask me my whole life, "So, you're gonna be a sofer when you grow up?" And I, I was never able to answer that question definitively. I was never able to say, "Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm gonna be."

13:40 Speaker 2 Interesting.

13:40 Speaker 1 Never. There was always some awareness in me that like I love sofruts, I'm fascinated with stam, not just the craft, and the Al Trei Ois Klal in particular, which is beyond elegant and, and, and special. But also the Halakha. I f- I, I'm very drawn to this stepson of Halakha, so to speak, you know. We... I call it a stepson because most Rabbonim are not proficient in it, and yeshivas don't learn it. It's like it's very unique. I'm very drawn to it. I'm fascinated by every Kuntras Achrin in Siman Lamed Beis-

14:08 Speaker 2 Right

14:08 Speaker 1 ... uh, which doesn't have any commentary whatsoever.

14:10 Speaker 2 About the shapes of the letters or more the Halakhas of writing a Sefer Torah?

14:14 Speaker 1 The Halakhas of writing, the process of writing.

14:16 Speaker 2 Right. Not the shapes specifically.

14:18 Speaker 1 No. Haket Vil, Hok Teches, Kasidron, these fascinating, interesting conversations.

14:22 Speaker 2 Right.

14:24 Speaker 1 So, uh, but I never, I, I kind of never felt like, "Yeah, this is what I'm, I'm gonna be. This is what I'm gonna do."

14:32 Speaker 2 Nice.

14:32 Speaker 1 It never felt like that.

14:33 Speaker 2 Interesting.

14:34 Speaker 1 It became like that. You know, I was in my young 20s, and I was, "This is what I had to do," and I was getting better and better at it, so it became s- bread and butter for me. But it, it never, I never identified with it as m-

14:47 Speaker 2 I'm a sofer

14:48 Speaker 1 ... I'm a sofer.

14:49 Speaker 2 Hmm.

14:50 Speaker 1 Even, even w- even in the last bunch of years, um, I say I practice stam. Uh, when I created branding, I called it Craft Sofer. Like I was always like trying to like come up with some creative, um, new way in to like speak of, of this work and of this craft because it was something about, "I'm a sofer," that just didn't fully align for me.

15:13 Speaker 2 Interesting. Yeah, I mean, the identity with what you do is a very, is a very complicated question, I feel. Um, you know, I think Chassidus talks about it. It's ringing a bell now. I'm forgetting now. Is it Shem HaPo'al and Shem HaPo'el or something like that, Shem HaTayar, where only certain peop- there are many people who are like described as an adjective, like this is what he does, right? He's a sofer craftsman, like he's a sofer cra- craftsman. That's what he does for a living. Very few people are described as a Shem HaTayar, like he is a sofer. Or I think like with Gibor, like, you know, people have Gevurah, but very few people are a Gibor, right? It's very hard to make that jump from something that you do becoming who you are. Um, and very few people find it. Um, so in general, I think, in general, I think it's a, it's a complex question. And the, I think the, you know, the, the first question is, is it necessarily a good thing to fully identify with what you do, right? Um, you know, th- there is a lot of romanticism around, you know, those stories of like, "I knew I was a drummer from the day I was born."

16:30 Speaker 1 Right.

16:30 Speaker 2 Or you see it a lot in art. But you also, you know, "I knew I was gonna be a doctor from the day I was born." And there's a lot of romanticism around that.

16:39 Speaker 1 Sure.

16:39 Speaker 2 But first of all, is that, is that really even a possibility for most people? Like c- it's possible that that's just a fluke. Um, I think there's also a lot of revisionism there. When someone is successful at something, they kind of rewrite their whole history that, "Of course, everything led up to this, obviously." Um, but you know, even if it's totally true, one wonders if it's, if it's really, if it's necessarily a positive to, to identify fully with what you do. You know, because this podcast is about, uh, Lubavitch, you know, I think the extra kind of oomph to that question is that like Lubavitch, at least f- for a long time, it was pretty straightforward that, yes, you are a Shliach, you do Shlichus. So you do Shlichus, but not only you do Shlichus, you are a Shliach.

17:29 Speaker 1 Yes.

17:30 Speaker 2 And so that kind of fully totalizing identity that, you know, where like you, what you do is everything that you are, you sleep it, became a norm. And, you know, so in many ways, what that does is that anybody who doesn't accept that kind of role for whatever reason feels like they need to because that's the way you li- like the same way that guy's a Shliach, I need to be a sofer. Like it needs to be full.

18:02 Speaker 1 But I, I wouldn't say that that's the source of that. I think a lot of people, Lubavitch or not Lubavitch, Jew, Gentile, uh, the c- the discourse in, in Western civilization, Western society-

18:14 Speaker 2 Right

18:14 Speaker 1 ... is to identify your accomplishment-

18:17 Speaker 2 Right

18:18 Speaker 1 ... with your worth. You're what you do-

18:20 Speaker 2 Absolutely

18:21 Speaker 1 ... with you're who you are. So I think-

18:22 Speaker 2 I, I said extra oomph. I didn't say, I didn't say it's, like, only a Lubavitch problem.

18:25 Speaker 1 But I would say ‹punkt farkert›-

18:27 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

18:27 Speaker 1 ... that actually the whole I am a ‹shliach›, a context is a gift because a- anyone can borrow that. Like, let's say you're a professional, but if you're willing to o- expand your context and your view to say, "I'm a ‹shliach› of the ‹Haboster› in this, to this world-

18:46 Speaker 2 Right

18:47 Speaker 1 ... to do this and this for the betterment of society of the world. I'm a ‹shliach› of the Rebbe. I bring the Rebbe's ideas and teachings into my relationships at work," then you can literally borrow the I am a ‹shliach›, which is, which is so pervasive-

19:01 Speaker 2 Right

19:01 Speaker 1 ... and profound and leaves no h- it's airtight in terms of identity because of how connected it is with the Rebbe, with the ‹yechida haklalit›, uh, w- w- like, with the essence of being a Yid in this world, the way the Rebbe taught us and the way Chassidus teaches us. So then you can actually borrow that and, like, allow for whatever you're up to-

19:19 Speaker 2 Right

19:20 Speaker 1 ... to fill you up on an identity level actually powerfully.

19:24 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:24 Speaker 1 So I would ac- I actually see that as, as a gift, whereas if you're, if you don't have that point of reference of being a ‹shliach›-

19:31 Speaker 2 Right

19:31 Speaker 1 ... then you, you are more pigeonholed into... You know? That's how people meet each other. "Oh, what do you do? What do you do?" It's another way-

19:38 Speaker 2 Right

19:39 Speaker 1 ... of saying, "Who are you?"

19:40 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:40 Speaker 1 Which is bizarre, right?

19:42 Speaker 2 No, they really wanna know is how much money you have.

19:45 Speaker 1 But Lubavitchers have a certain edge of person and say, "This is my ‹shlichus›. This is who I am." Because if you can associate it with ‹shlichus›, and you can get how this-

19:53 Speaker 2 Right

19:53 Speaker 1 ... is fulfills on your purpose, and every Yid is fulfilling a purpose, right?

19:56 Speaker 2 Right.

19:57 Speaker 1 That actually becomes very expansive.

19:59 Speaker 2 I w- I wasn't trying to be critical of ‹shlichus›. I wasn't trying to be critical of ‹shlichus›. I, I, I just think that it's, you know, whenever you, whenever you talk about a general kind of condition or, or problem or just question about, like you s- like connecting what you do with what your worth is, I think especially on this podcast, but in general because it's a big part of my life, I like to see the extra or different element in it that comes from the Lubavitch experience. It doesn't mean to say that therefore it's a Lubavitch problem more than another problem. It doesn't mean to say that L- that ‹shlichus› is an issue. It means to say that, that, uh, it means to say exactly what, what, what, what was said, which is I think that there is a, there is a sense, and I think there is tremendous po- there is tremendous potential in, in this, in this idea that the, your, your, your idea of the world and your idea of this, of your place in this world is totalizing. Like you said, it's airtight, right? Um, there's no, like, like Chassidus doesn't give a space out... There's no space outside of it, not because it's, not because it's, uh, greedy, I don't think, but simply bec- or because it's jealous that, like, you know, you, there can't be someone else with any kind of Chassidic-

21:28 Speaker 1 Or, or authoritarian.

21:30 Speaker 2 I don't think that's the ‹vort›. I think the ‹vort› is that, like, you know, when you, when you, when you develop a theology that s- that b- that starts, but, like, it starts from the ‹Haboster›, it starts from the one creator, and it goes all the way to the individual without any dilution in between, you end up with something totalizing. It just has to be that way. But it's also... So there's tremendous potential in that. It's divine, but it's also extremely demanding, and I think it does affect the way we look at ourselves in general. So even if you don't go on ‹shlichus›, you kind of expect a life where, where everything makes full sense in the same way that it makes... You see what I'm saying?

22:14 Speaker 1 Mm.

22:17 Speaker 2 Like, uh, I mean, I brought it up in a recent podcast where, where a ‹shliach› once told me... Is that my phone? That is my phone. Sorry.

22:29 Speaker 1 Do you wanna cut this section out?

22:31 Speaker 2 No, it's just, just a second. Let me just, let me just turn it off real quick. Sorry about that. So, you know, I, what was I saying? That ‹shlichus›-

23:00 Speaker 1 You're saying if there's... What I'm hearing you say-

23:02 Speaker 2 Yeah

23:02 Speaker 1 ... and tell me, correct me if I'm wrong, is that if there's a break in the chain-

23:07 Speaker 2 Right

23:07 Speaker 1 ... like you're not on ‹shlichus›-

23:10 Speaker 2 Right

23:10 Speaker 1 ... formally, then you, a person could end up struggling a little bit more because they, they don't, they kinda know about that to- that totality, that possibility of totality, but there's a break in the chain, so they don't necessarily get to enjoy that as much?

23:24 Speaker 2 Um, no, no. Again, I, it sounds like I'm posing it as a problem. I, I think what, what, what I'm saying... Like, I once, I was speaking to a ‹shliach›. I, I mentioned this on a recent podcast. I was speaking to a ‹shliach› who told me, "Look, um, you know, when I, I went on ‹shlichus›, you know, with my wife, they, we both came from families that had businesses, meaning we had an opportunity to go work for a family business, and our parents wanted us to come work for the family business. We made a choice to go on ‹shlichus›, a very deliberate choice." And he's like, "One of the beauties of ‹shlichus› is you make that choice once in your life, and then that's it."

23:58 Speaker 1 Mm.

23:59 Speaker 2 You don't have to choose again. There's something very totalizing about that.

24:03 Speaker 1 Again, that's not true for everyone, but-

24:04 Speaker 2 No, I understand. But a lot of sh- no, there is something. Like, in the narrative of ‹shlichus›, that's how it is. You choose. You go to a city. There, especially he was old enough that he feels that they were sent. I don't know, maybe they actually did send him to that city. I don't know exactly. Uh, he wasn't one of the first guys where it was literally... But you know, may- I'm sure he asked the Rebbe for a ‹bracha› to go to that city. And so he feels like that's his ‹shlichus›, and that's it. Doesn't have to make that question again of, am I gonna be a ‹shliach›? Where am I going to have my ‹shlichus›? Right? And so there's something very totalizing about that, like this is what your life is about. Um, yeah, so I, I, I feel like there is a, um... It's interesting when you bring up, like, "I wanna be a sofer." I, I'm probably reading too much into it. It's probably, it's probably like what any kid... You know, my daughter today, every day she wants to be something else, you know? But I think there's a, I think there's an interesting, um, you know, thing there to consider, like, a-about the Lubavitch, the Lubavitch need for f-

25:07 Speaker 1 But it's interesting that you're calling it a need. See, I, I, I get that you're not complaining about anything. It's fine. But, but I think that you are saying something-

25:14 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

25:14 Speaker 1 ... which is actually, like, worthy of, like, actually pulling out and taking a closer look at because you mentioned before... And this to- this topic, I maybe didn't intend to go into this topic, but it's interesting 'cause it's close to my heart. You said before the demanding nature of it.

25:32 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

25:33 Speaker 1 Which is interesting 'cause I, uh, 'cause, um, uh, to me, what's more present, at least conceptually, like maybe practically, like it's really demanding, like being

25:44 Speaker 2 Right.

25:47 Speaker 1 But everyone in the world, everyone today is seeking meaning, is seeking happiness, is, is seeking, like, peace. Is, uh, there, there's a certain equation that people are looking for.

26:01 Speaker 2 Right.

26:01 Speaker 1 To, to have the insanity of being alive in this world-

26:05 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

26:05 Speaker 1 ... let alone in this time.

26:07 Speaker 2 Right.

26:08 Speaker 1 Uh, and I say this time because I don't think that the anxiety and the distress was on the same level in previous times.

26:14 Speaker 2 It's a different anxiety, yeah.

26:15 Speaker 1 Okay. Um, so there's an equation that everyone's looking for. In a, in, in so many ways, the totality of the, you know,

26:29 Speaker 2 Right.

26:30 Speaker 1 From

26:30 Speaker 2 Right

26:30 Speaker 1 ... down to the, you know, lunch that you're having with the balabos, um, is the lottery. You, you won the jackpot. You-

26:41 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

26:41 Speaker 1 ... you can live in this world with, with that airtight, bulletproof clarity, confidence, certainty that a majority of the world is, is kalishing to have that experience.

26:57 Speaker 2 Right.

26:59 Speaker 1 And what's in-- So that's like, to me, that's the prize of it. What's interesting though is precisely because of the total nature of it, the very radical total nature of it, it, it, for some people, it can be traumatizing. If it, you know, for some people, it can, like... If, if it's not absorbed appropriately, right? Like, you know, if you water a plant, right? The, the, the earth or the soil is not, like, set up to absorb it, then it just ends up flooding the thing and, and killing it. A message of such totality, a message of pure truth like that sometimes can be received, right? Depending on the, the, the constellation of variables that make up the psychological, emotional, spiritual personality, could be received as w-wh-where's me? Where, where, where... The, the, the desire for individuality, the desire for autonomy, the desire for experience of a self can sometimes feel very threatened when you're born into a situation where before you even-

28:09 Speaker 2 Right

28:09 Speaker 1 ... get to be-

28:11 Speaker 2 Right

28:11 Speaker 1 ... autonomous and independent and have the question of what's the purpose and what's the meaning, you're already told. The truth's already been found-

28:17 Speaker 2 Right

28:17 Speaker 1 ... for you. And it's like, and it's total.

28:20 Speaker 2 Right.

28:20 Speaker 1 So that, that, that, that's, that's where I was going when you mentioned that.

28:24 Speaker 2 Fair enough. That's not at all, though. I understand what you're saying, but that's not at all the binary that I'm talking about, meaning the choice I'm talking about is not... The, the, the, the problem or the, yeah, the choice that I'm talking about is not to be yourself or not be yourself, or to have individuality or not have individuality. There is such a choice. But pres- to me precisely, it, to be an individual in a totalizing, um, way of looking at things, it must be demanding because there are many ideologies that are totalizing. By definition, ideologies are very, are, are, ideologies are totalizing. They basically take an idea that's complicated and, and, and limited, and they turn it into a entire worldview that allows you to live your, like, to see the entire world. I mean, the, the famous kind of concept, conception of it is, I think, Hannah Arendt's idea of, you know, the origins of totalitarianism, which is ideology is how you s- basically simplify. You know, the world is complicated. It's confusing. To come up with a very simple idea that an- you know, kind of answers everything, whether it's today, sadly, we see a lot anti-Semitism, but she was talking about communism and fascism and, like, you know, the whole world basically revolves around a very simple set of principles, and that explains everything. And that has to, by its force and its nature, has to totalize. It has to include everything because that's its whole point is it explains the

30:02 Speaker 2 entire world. It allow, it leaves no room for competing thought. What's the difference between that and what you talked about, you know, Hasidism? Right? You said people are desperate for, for clarity.

30:16 Speaker 1 Well, is that, is that demanding?

30:17 Speaker 2 Oh, it's not demanding. That's a point. That's a point. It's not demanding. The, well, it, it's not demanding. It's, it, it absorbs you. What it demands of you, if, if, if you can even call it demand, is basically obedience and just, like, you know, acceptance. This is accept this, this, this, this, this identity, and we'll take care of you. Further than that, we will not demand. Right? So, so the impulse, the impulse to join that kind of totalizing worldview is not the impulse to accept a demanding way of life. It's

30:53 Speaker 1 As opposed to Yiddishkeit or Hasidism-

30:54 Speaker 2 Right. So-

30:55 Speaker 1 ... or Lubavitch

30:55 Speaker 2 ... what Hasidism can be and should be is demanding. You know, but we have to be careful when we, when... Like, that-that's why, that's why I insist on the word demanding. I, I don't mean it as a bad thing or like-

31:09 Speaker 1 So say more about that.

31:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

31:10 Speaker 1 Because when people hear demanding, they could, they could hear something threatening. So say more that, about demanding, and you don't mean it as a bad thing.

31:17 Speaker 2 Well, because in today's world, what people want is they want a way out of the confusion of the world that has become so r- narcissistic and revolving around the individual. They w- you know, uh, let's, let's take a step back. You know, the, the world as, uh, okay, the, uh, I don't know if there's one theory that explains it all. That itself would be an ideology, right? But there's kind of an un, I think, a common understanding today that as especially the Western world and the, quote-unquote, "modern world" has become more, uh, more prosperous and more comfortable, people's, people's minds have been fixated less on their external needs of food and shelter, and become more and more introspective and personal, right? Eventually leading to a point of m-many people consider narcissism, right? You know, the famous book, "The Culture of Narcissism," was written in the '60s or '70s. It was w- it was written many, many years ago. And the problem with narcissism, besides it being obnoxious, is that it hurts the person, and the person eventually gets, goes crazy because he ha- he or she has to live with themselves the entire day, and that's unbearable, right? There's no world around them. You know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's... They live in a loop, right?

32:41 Speaker 1 Right. They're fundamentally, i-inwardly, they're not embedded within the context that they're meant to be.

32:46 Speaker 2 Yeah. They're, they're, they're always, they're, they're, they're basically just revi- They're, they're, they're, they're, they... It, it's a circle. They, they, they, they constantly return to themselves-

32:54 Speaker 1 They're chasing their own tail

32:55 Speaker 2 ... chasing their own tail, right? To put it, to put it nicely, right? And, and so eventually you, you just, you need a way out, right? And so people want a way out. They want a way out of like, you know, "Yes, I, I, I wanted to be able to choose anything and everything, including my," you know, of course, in the extremes, "my, my gender, but even if I'm not going so extreme, my identity, my way of life, who I am, my authenticity. I wanna be me." And it becomes an unbearable weight. And so like, "Give me, give me something to make me feel like just, you know, to, to, to feel solid again," right? "But I don't wanna ever go back to the old-fashioned way-

33:35 Speaker 1 Of hard work

33:36 Speaker 2 ... of dis- of discipline." Okay? Um, and so-

33:41 Speaker 1 So when you say it's demanding, you're saying it in this way. It's the, it's, like, it's the discipline. It's the-

33:46 Speaker 2 Of course

33:47 Speaker 1 ... it's those, those qualities that plug a person into something out beyond themselves.

33:52 Speaker 2 Yeah. Demanding is that this is something that is worth hard work, right? And there's a simple, you know, "Chazak el tamul esh einei chezeh esreikhem," right? That, uh, how do you ex- how do you understand that? You know, is it because it's like a, a, a guarantee, a ch- haftacha from the Abishr that if you work hard, you'll, you'll get something out of it? Yeah, but what if you're working hard and just, you know, taking sand and taking it from one place to another? I, I think, I think the vort is that real tamule is, is eventually it only lasts when it's for something that deserves tamula, right? Effort, effort eventually latches on to something that demands effort and deserves effort. And when you find that, you, you will, you will be rewarded.

34:47 Speaker 1 Interesting.

34:49 Speaker 2 Right? You'll be rewarded. Something that's, that's worth effort, something that actually takes effort, and if you, and you give it effort... Or e-even simpler, something that demands effort is, is what you will give effort to. So if you give effort to it-

35:03 Speaker 1 Well, I, I, I, I thought you were saying, and I, maybe this is also ano- another meaning, that, that if a person, if a person, you know, exerts effort, that will eventually, it'll eventually latch onto something that's worthwhile during effort.

35:20 Speaker 2 It has to. Right. It has to, right? And so, and so by definition, it won't, it won't be empty-handed 'cause that's what you're gonna come up with. Like, "Chazak el tamul esh einei chezeh esreikhem," if you work hard, what's, what are you, what's chez- what's, what's the "na reikhem"? What's the f- the, the, the r- the what you receive is the, is the, um, is that you don't have to work anymore? Or is the chaz, like, is the "chazak el tamul" that, that one day you'll basically be bought out, as they say, and you'll make an exit, and n-now you can go, uh, drink mimosas on the beach, quote-unquote? Not that I find that enjoyable. I'm just saying. Right? Or is the "chazak el tamul" that, that if you put in the hard work, you will find something that deserves tamula? You won't, you won't, uh... You know what I'm saying?

36:09 Speaker 1 Right. Right. And then the tamula becomes more fulfilling and more joyful and more purposeful.

36:14 Speaker 2 Saying, "Adam lamul yulad."

36:15 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

36:15 Speaker 2 You know?

36:16 Speaker 1 Right.

36:16 Speaker 2 And anyway, so I'm not, I'm not trying to impart a whole philosophy about this. I don't really have one. I'm just, I'm saying when I say the word demanding-

36:23 Speaker 1 Why you say that? It sounds like you do have a philosophy and you wanna impart it.

36:26 Speaker 2 Um, okay, maybe, uh... I'm saying I, I...

36:34 Speaker 1 I like it.

36:36 Speaker 2 Thank you. I... What I, what I mean is, what I mean is, what I mean is that, uh, I, like, like I don't... I guess by philosophy, I mean an agenda. Like, I don't have like... What, what I'm telling you today, I didn't necessarily think about yesterday. I... You know what I'm saying?

36:52 Speaker 1 Oh, but, but this is a theme for you, this thing about this. So I, I've heard it from this conversation come up in other podcasts.

36:59 Speaker 2 All right.

36:59 Speaker 1 You're a stand for the value of hard work. You're a stand that chasidus is hard work.

37:05 Speaker 2 Could be. Yeah.

37:06 Speaker 1 Um, these are things that are the, you know, you, you value hard work.

37:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

37:10 Speaker 1 You abhor cheap thrills and-

37:14 Speaker 2 I don't know. I mean-

37:14 Speaker 1 ... you know, easy passes. I mean, this is, it's come up before. I mean-

37:18 Speaker 2 I mean, I-

37:19 Speaker 1 You work hard lifting those weights.

37:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. Fair. Fair. Yeah, I'm a bit of a, I'm a bit of, like, an extremist in that way-

37:27 Speaker 1 But that's a-

37:27 Speaker 2 ... per- personally

37:28 Speaker 1 ... but I, listen, if you're asking, that's a gift. Like, I think the world, the world needs to hear that, that message and that voice, and some people-

37:35 Speaker 2 I'm not embarrassed of it

37:36 Speaker 1 ... may hear it through. Great.

37:36 Speaker 2 I'm not embarrassed of it.

37:37 Speaker 1 Good.

37:37 Speaker 2 I'm talking, I'm talking about it.

37:38 Speaker 1 Good.

37:39 Speaker 2 Yeah. No, just, yeah, I guess, I guess you're right. I mean, I, I, I'm-

37:42 Speaker 1 You're inclined to talk about it now, I get that. But, but it lives in you.

37:46 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, look, I mean, look, um, Yeshiv- Yeshiva was, Yeshiva was, like, for me, was, uh, a taste of what Hasidus with hard work looks like.

38:01 Speaker 1 Mm.

38:02 Speaker 2 Um, in many ways, that burnt me. That burnt me, and I, you know, I think that, you know, that I think we'll have plenty to discuss on that too. Um, you know, I kind of... Like, I saw, I don't know, in my own head or I don't know if I saw an example. Like, like when you, when you read what Hasidus says, when you learn what Hasidus says, and you read the history of Hasidus, like we were talking earlier, like if, if there, if we're talking about a God, right? And then we're talking about Averes HaTefilah, and then the idea is to be Mispalel in the God of Sabara. There's no frigging shortcuts. Like, what, what are you-

38:47 Speaker 1 Right

38:47 Speaker 2 ... what are you talking about? Like, like, oh, if I, if I, if I do it in five minutes 'cause I'm a millennial, then somehow it's gonna work. You know, like, like-

38:58 Speaker 1 Right. But, but, uh, there's something I'm sensitive to here in what you're saying.

39:02 Speaker 2 Which is?

39:03 Speaker 1 Both the way in which you said you were burned and also the way, what you're describing right now, which is I- in my experience, and this is just my own personal experience, it may not be something collective at all.

39:14 Speaker 2 Right.

39:15 Speaker 1 These things were never communicated and taught to us, um, in ways that were expansive, in ways that inspired our imagination. Like, w- w- we never, I was never communicated, like, about this... L- l- let's just go back for a second, okay? Again, we're gonna come back to the world. The world today is hollering for some kind of transcendence, some kind of out-of-body experience, um, he- uh, some of it, sometimes it's called healing, right? Um, spirituali- like... And really, it's like there's been this tradition for as long as we know, certainly within Hasidus and really within Yiddishkeit for, for all the, for, for millennia. And, and there are rituals, and there are disciplines, and there are practices, right? For really being Misdabbek in the Avester and, a- a- and, and pulling out of the world and duality and the temporal reality that we're embedded in and the survival instinct and knowing, making contact within, right? With that which creates it all. And really, it's like it c- it couldn't be, it's like what everyone's looking for, really. Like, there couldn't be a, a better way to live. In my experience, that whole context wasn't necessarily communicated to me. So it, it take, it just took on a quality of, like, a religious duty, a must, should, have to, some God up in heaven and a- a- another, another chore, another burden. As I've become older and went on my own journeys and seeking and looking, and particularly to rediscover my own tradition, right?

41:04 Speaker 2 Right.

41:04 Speaker 1 Hasidus and Lubavitch, to rediscover it anew, to see how is this really beautiful, 'cause that's what I'm after.

41:10 Speaker 2 Right.

41:11 Speaker 1 I, I'm after discovering everything that I was raised to believe in and taught. Torah, Mitzvot, Yiddishkeit, Rebbe, Hasidus, the gamut. I'm not looking for something else. I'm looking for it, but i- in a way that, that, that inspires and extends and, and ignites the, the heart, the mind, the imagination. Not something that's, um, romantic, like without hard work.

41:34 Speaker 2 Right.

41:34 Speaker 1 But s- but something that comes along with, with, with, with, with the, with the promise, right? Uh, something that, that's sound, like something that's wholesome. So then I've discovered like, oh, like this is a whole different, different thing. Really, these, these things, uh, at least in my ex- and maybe a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old raised cloistered up in, in, in, in, in, in our community, right?

41:59 Speaker 2 Right.

42:00 Speaker 1 Is not even exposed to the reality of being a human being in the world enough to then have the, "Oh, this is the problem that this is designed to actually answer." Maybe that and, or maybe it's the way it's communicated. Maybe it's become tropes, and maybe it's just become must dos and have tos, and maybe it's just become, "You wanna be a car-carrying member, you gotta do this, this, this." This is-

42:20 Speaker 2 I understand what you're, I understand what you're saying. That, that wasn't my experience, though. That wasn't my experience at all.

42:26 Speaker 1 So, but-

42:26 Speaker 2 That's not what I'm saying

42:26 Speaker 1 ... so I'm just picking up on the way you said it, it just sounded like that to me. So I'm curious what, what was the burn?

42:32 Speaker 2 That wasn't my experience at all. Far kered. Far kered. My experience was that I, I did not feel, uh, just obligated to do things. I, I, I wanted and I felt that there was something like you're talking about, like there was a deep answer here.

42:48 Speaker 1 Okay.

42:48 Speaker 2 Okay? Like I, I wanted to do it not the right way to check off the boxes, like the right way that I didn't have, I didn't have to check off boxes. Like, that's not what I was doing it for. You know what I mean? Like I, we... Like when you, when you, when you look at the philosophy for what it is without kind of any dilution, right? Like, yeah, I mean, there's an Avester, and the same way there's an Avester. We learn a lot about this Avester. We have to think about it a lot. Um, and the same way that Hasidim of old spent a half hour or an hour or however long before davening being Mispalel, me with my- ... crazed, distracted, modern head, you know, whatever other maladies I may have, I have to do that too. And I did.

43:34 Speaker 1 But what, what's, what's the context though for, for that?

43:37 Speaker 2 Um, why, wh- why would I do it? Because, because it's true. Not because I have to. I, I, I, I, I my parents did not push it on me, my shiva didn't push it on me. Um-

43:51 Speaker 1 But what problem does the "it's true" actually resolve? Well, well, well, I just wanna add-

43:59 Speaker 2 Okay. I mean-

43:59 Speaker 1 I just wanna add some meat to that bone for a second. Because-

44:02 Speaker 2 Right

44:02 Speaker 1 ... because the "it's true," there's a very strong "it's true" streak, especially in our community, a very tr- strong truth streak, which a little bit feels to me a little bit on the conceptual side of things, a little bit on the philosophical side of things. But we both know, Benzi, that being a human being in this world is, is, is not at all limited to the domain of conceptuality and philosophy.

44:29 Speaker 2 It's not a conceptual problem, no.

44:31 Speaker 1 So, right. So if you say, "It's true, it's true," I'm like, "Okay, I hear that," and that's meaningful in the very, what I consider very constricted, although important and valuable domain of conceptuality. But if someone doesn't have, like-

44:44 Speaker 2 Okay, so I should-

44:44 Speaker 1 ... what about the rest of your humanity? And like you say, even the way you say it-

44:47 Speaker 2 I see, I see what you're saying

44:48 Speaker 1 ... "There's an abish there," you say it with such a ferociousness. I love that, by the way. That's like a, that's like, "There's an abish there." And, and I'm like, "Okay, okay, but there's a human being here sitting in front of me."

44:56 Speaker 2 I said what I used to say. I said, I said this is what I used to say.

44:59 Speaker 1 Okay, but I'm picking at it for fun-

45:00 Speaker 2 Okay

45:01 Speaker 1 ... because I think there's something here, like, I think that's significant. Like-

45:04 Speaker 2 Yeah

45:04 Speaker 1 ... "There's an abish there," and it's like, whoa, whoa, like it's beautiful, it's true, and Well, I, but I think this is universal, and I think that-

50:14 Speaker 2 Could be

50:14 Speaker 1 ... and I think that it's kind of the design, right? You get put into the crucible, and then you, you get put into the kiln, then you get spit out, and now it's your turn to figure it out on your own.

50:24 Speaker 2 I don't see, I, I don't think that it has to be that way. I mean, maybe, you know, thinking about the story of Gan Eden where, you know, Adam and Chava were in this Eden, and then they got thrown out, so maybe that's how it is for everybody, that they have their Eden, and they get thrown out, um, you know, uh, you know.

50:41 Speaker 1 And, and, and I wanna go even further. I wanna argue the case the opposite.

50:44 Speaker 2 That what?

50:46 Speaker 1 That's, that's, that's where the, the full richness of, of things begin to emerge. Whatever you rediscover, whatever you reclaim, whatever you repurpose, um, on the path of, of grappling and struggling and saying, "What? Th-th-this doesn't, this doesn't add up at all," or, "It's not working for me," or, or, you know, "This is not meeting my needs." Whatever it is, and whatever you, you could then, like, come back around to in a, in a more meaningful way or rediscover, that's the real pri- that's what, that's the real, that's where it's really going on.

51:19 Speaker 2 I wanna get back to that, but I, I do feel, I do feel in some way that-

51:24 Speaker 1 Tell that it's Chinuch.

51:25 Speaker 2 I, I, yes, but I think Chinuch is supposed to be in a way that gam, gam ki yaskem le'osrim min hamenah, like you, you, you teach someone in a way, like, haneich hanar pi darkei is, is what? Haneich ha-dar- hanar pi darkei is you educate a child according to his path. Now, what's a pshat according to his path? The way I've always, uh, the way I always, you know, the basic understanding that I, that I picked up was a child has a certain aptitude for X, Y, Z, meaning you look at the child's past, you see, you see where the child is coming from, and you educate according to that, which would be a good start. I think that, uh, I think in many case, in many cases, you know, the kind of the, going back to the question of, uh, c- you know, mass production versus the craftsman. You know, education today has become a lot more mass-produced, and it's, if, if, if you're lucky enough to go to a school where they take your past into account, that's already a good step. But I think the real pshat is haneich hanar pi darkei is you educate a child according to where they're going, not to where they're coming from. You educate a child according to where they're going, right? Where, where are they going? Like, education is a forward-thinking enterprise. It's not a, it's not a past-preserving enterprise. I mean, of course, you have no future if you forget about the past, but

52:54 Speaker 2 the reason you educate is because you understand that time moves in one direction, and if you want your past to survive into the future, that's where education comes into play, right? So it's, it's a forward-thinking enterprise. And so who, who... Like, is it enough to think about the child, where he came from? I would say that no, you have to... Where's the child going? Where's the generation going? Right? And why did I bring that up? Because, you know, a lot of times people will be like, "This is how it g- this is how it works. This is just how it is. It's a, it's by design." I think you just said that. It's by design. Like, yeshiva is basically, i-it's, it's intense and kind of, you know, over the top, then it breaks, and then you have to rediscover the pieces.

53:40 Speaker 1 Doesn't break for everyone, by the way.

53:41 Speaker 2 No, but you said it's kind of by design. You thr- you thrown to-

53:44 Speaker 1 I think so. I think even the best educator in the world, um, can't forecast and prevent, and I don't think they should 'cause I think that that really strips the emergence of individuality in, in a, in its most purest form.

53:59 Speaker 2 I'm not suggesting-

53:59 Speaker 1 I don't think, I don't think they can mitigate that.

54:00 Speaker 2 I'm not suggesting prevention. I'm not suggesting to make life inevitable. Um, but I, I, I, I, I think, you know, there's one thing to kind of try to pr- you know, baby, uh, to wrap life up in, you know, in enough bubble wrap that nothing goes wrong, and that's a problem. But there's also this other problem, which is this kind of fatalism that like, "Yeah, yeah, it's just gonna break, so let's just, let's just give it a whack and see what happens, and then hopefully enough guys will pick up the pieces after." And I don't, I don't think that's by design. You know, yes, I understand Gan Eden, they were thrown out, but I don't think that's a, that's a example that we try to emulate.

54:40 Speaker 1 But Benzie, it used to be not everyone went to yeshiva, right?

54:43 Speaker 2 Right.

54:44 Speaker 1 We're now in an age where everyone goes to yeshiva.

54:47 Speaker 2 Right.

54:47 Speaker 1 Yeshiva's a, yeshiva's become a-

54:50 Speaker 2 Right

54:50 Speaker 1 ... talk about the religious consumerism.

54:52 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.

54:54 Speaker 1 So yeshivas have become, they have become m-mass business. How, like, h-how, how do you, how do you, how is it in any way, like, realistic to, to envision a quality, uh, of education so profound when, when, when you have mass yeshiva systems? And, and, and le'itach, if you would admit that it's, that it's, it's more of a, a desire or a wish than a, than a reality-

55:26 Speaker 2 Right

55:26 Speaker 1 ... would you, are you suggesting that, that guys would be better off not going to yeshiva? I'm curious.

55:32 Speaker 2 Here, here's an idea. Here's an idea.

55:35 Speaker 1 I, I wouldn't say you're wrong. I'm just curious to hear your whole philosophy on it.

55:39 Speaker 2 Uh, I don't have a philosophy for this. I mean, I do. All right. We're gonna come out on the

55:46 Speaker 1 Every time you say, "I don't have a philosophy on it," I know you do 'cause if you didn't, you wouldn't have to say that.

55:54 Speaker 2 Yeah, fair. Fair. Here's my idea. My, I've, I've... I'm not gonna talk about whole philosophy. My, my simple idea is- You have a, mashbim should go work for two, three years before they go into yeshiva. Outsi- they should work outside yeshiva-

56:13 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

56:13 Speaker 2 ... before they go into yeshiva. Now, I know that, I know that sounds clever and uh, funny. I'll explain myself. You know, a few years ago, uh, I was in Pomona for Shabbos, and I bumped into, after davening, um, a fellow who was my mashbia back in the day in Monsey, when I was in yeshiva in Monsey. Um, and you know, I just got to talking with... I hadn't seen him in years. You know, I, I, I had quite a bit of respect for him then, and in retrospect, in, in many ways even more. Uh, he, he, you know, he took his job very seriously. He took Yiddishkeit very se- seriously. He came on time to say the, like he was a... In what he believed, like he, you know, he, he was very into Kabbalah soil and, and, and, and, and like, and discipline, and he was an extremely disciplined person. Came on time, his shiurim were prepared, farbrengens were not, were not have, like, like time was never inval- like time was always valuable and very measured. Um, yeah, so, so I met him in shul. I said, "Hello, and how you doing?" It turns out he's not in yeshiva anymore. I, I don't know what the parsha is. I don't know. Uh, he was in business. He's gone, he went into business. So I didn't ask him why or exactly what, whatever, fine. I asked him, "If you could go back in time to when you were a mashbia, what would you

57:38 Speaker 2 tell him given what you know now?" You know what he told me? He said, "If I went back in time, I would tell my mashbia version, 'You cannot demand anything of the bochurim. You don't know what they're going through.' Like, how can you make, how can you make demands?" Like he's like, "I'm in business now. I see what life is. Demanding things from these boys? Well, what am I, what am I even talking about?" I go, "It's hard enough for me." And it was, it was a very serious conversation. It wasn't like a joke or like, ha ha, funny. Like, you know, like look how, look how real we are now compared to back, back then, how naive we were. That wasn't the point. It was dead serious. And to me, that's a very kind of powerful, um, observation of the disconnect between yeshivas and the life that comes after.

58:35 Speaker 1 Hmm.

58:36 Speaker 2 You see what I'm saying? And that's where I say that there's a fatalism where we basically have kind of accepted as a, as just a f- as a, as just a way, a fact of life that yeshiva is yeshiva, and there's a truth of yeshiva, but that truth of yeshiva kind of i- is bound to yeshiva, and then what happens happens. That's so fatalistic, and it goes against the very essence of Hasidus.

59:03 Speaker 1 Uh, but I think that the Rebbe does talk about, for example, a sei l'harav. If someone makes himself a sei l'harav, that will help them take yeshiva and, and m- and re-ca- and-

59:12 Speaker 2 I, I understand, but-

59:13 Speaker 1 There, there, there's a way, and for a lot of people, it's a seamless transition.

59:15 Speaker 2 But the yeshiva, the yeshivas... But okay, we, we, we, we admit, we accept, most people accept, I think, that, that, that there's this kind of you go up, you fall, and you kind of, you, you, you, you, you, you, you've-

59:30 Speaker 1 I actually like your idea.

59:31 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I-i it's-

59:32 Speaker 1 Question is if we would have any mashbim.

59:35 Speaker 2 Uh, I think, you know, I, I think we would, yeah.

59:39 Speaker 1 After three years in the real world.

59:41 Speaker 2 Look, you see, so i- in a sense, you are totally right that this is actually a philosophy because it's, you know, by definition, philosophy is not really connected to practical It's a, it's, it's more, it's more I feel like it's a thought experiment that, that just kind of illustrates the point that I'm trying to make, which is I, I, I think that, you know, I think that yeshivas need to have a vocabulary and just a mindset of like, you know, this is a place where we're educating people for the future.

1:00:10 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:00:10 Speaker 2 This is not a place we're trying to hold... We're not, yeshiva is not a place that holds onto the past. I'm sorry, that's not what a definition of a yeshiva is. Now, of course, tradition means that you educate for a future that's connected to the past, but the goal of the yeshiva is not to hold onto the past. W- we are not against time. You wanna ask me what my philosophy is. I didn't come here for this podcast to talk about my philosophy, but, uh, we're here. We're here.

1:00:37 Speaker 1 Why did, why did we come here?

1:00:38 Speaker 2 We're, we're gonna get to it in a second. We're here. Um-

1:00:42 Speaker 1 By the way, what about a podcast of your philosophy? Where, w- w- why isn't that happening?

1:00:48 Speaker 2 I don't know.

1:00:48 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:00:48 Speaker 2 'Cause nobody asked me on it.

1:00:50 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:00:52 Speaker 2 I don't, I don't-

1:00:52 Speaker 1 Okay

1:00:53 Speaker 2 ... I don't invite myself on things. Like I don't invite myself on my own podcast, you understand? No, but I'm saying if you wanna ask me about my philosophy, we cannot be against time. We cannot be against time. Uh, i-it's preposterous. It's preposterous to be against time, right? As so long as we are creations in this world, we are bound by time. Now, Torah is a I just wanted to acknowledge that because I think that, look, I think that language actually creates-

1:02:22 Speaker 1 Right? The way we contextualize something adds mass to it.

1:02:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:27 Speaker 1 I'm sensitive to what you're saying. I think there's truth to it, but I also just want to acknowledge that the, the more it's languaged, the more it's articulated, then the more distinct it becomes, you know? And the more of a, the more of a life, of a more of a, an autonomy or a life of it own, its own it assumes, and then it could almost be, like, not so much in context.

1:02:49 Speaker 2 I think I, I say amen. It should be, it should be... I think it should be spoken about, and I think it should be, uh, confronted head-on because in my opinion, that is the most debilitating thing going on today.

1:03:00 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:03:00 Speaker 2 The most debilitating thing going on today is this idea that we can be against time, uh, because that is, to me, the, the k- the kind of first step, the f- the ground zero of a lot of the pervasive cynicism that we experience. You know, when, when, when, when we think that we can be against the one thing that, you know, the, the one fact that no one escapes, we can be against that. We, we don't... You know, death doesn't apply to us fully. Um, time doesn't apply to us fully.

1:03:29 Speaker 1 I think Lubavitch overall has been really evolving in that regard.

1:03:32 Speaker 2 I... Fair. Fair. I, I, you, you know, I, I, I, I would be happy to find out that I, that my views are 10 years behind and that the problems that I'm diagnosing are so 2010.

1:03:46 Speaker 1 You'd be happy to find that out, huh?

1:03:47 Speaker 2 2010? Yeah, man, the problems that I'm diagnosing are, "They're so 2010, bro. Like, we're so past that." I would love to hear that. I am ready to put money down that it's not true. All right. Okay. N-now that we're an hour deep into this, uh, whoever's been putting up with my ramblings, um, no, we did come here for a reason. You asked why, why are we here? We, we... And I, I def- I de- I definitely wanna get to it, um, be-before, before, you know, before the conversation's out, I think. And I think what we did the past hour really set the ground for it.

1:04:21 Speaker 1 It has to.

1:04:22 Speaker 2 Yeah. You know, we were speaking of-

1:04:24 Speaker 1 By the way, do I ha- We need to wear these?

1:04:26 Speaker 2 Is it bothering you?

1:04:27 Speaker 1 It hurts my ear a little bit.

1:04:28 Speaker 2 Do you want... Oh, maybe I can lower it.

1:04:29 Speaker 1 No, physically it's hurting my ear.

1:04:31 Speaker 2 No, it helps you lock in, but if you don't, if it, if it's bother- if it's, if it's bothering you, it's being counterproductive.

1:04:36 Speaker 1 All right. We can just talk like this.

1:04:38 Speaker 2 Yeah. It, it helps me lock in.

1:04:39 Speaker 1 Oh, okay, good.

1:04:39 Speaker 2 And if it, if it's bothering you, then, then you're, then it's not locking you in, it's bothering you. Yeah. So what was I gonna say? You know, we were discussing on the phone, um, when we were originally talking about this idea about Chitas and Rambam. So why don't, why don't you talk a little bit about that? Give the, give a, give a little bit of the background for that. I think, I think, you know, um, my ramblings are not, you know, notwithstanding, uh, I think, I think we, we, we laid the ground for that conversation in the past, uh, you know. So if you wanna talk a little bit about what that was about.

1:05:16 Speaker 1 Um, yeah. Today is the, I think, 1,064th consecutive day.

1:05:25 Speaker 2 You think or you know? You know.

1:05:26 Speaker 1 Uh, well, I don't know if it's, like, 63, 64, 65. I have to check.

1:05:30 Speaker 2 Uh-huh. Okay.

1:05:31 Speaker 1 Um, that I've learned Chitas before Shkiya. That I've learned Chitas without missing before Shkiya. Um, so what we were talking about on the, on, uh, when we were on the phone, and it's a little bit of a painful conversation to have, but I think a necessary one because I, I know because people reach out to me individually-

1:05:58 Speaker 2 Right

1:05:59 Speaker 1 ... and appreciate when I talk about this and, and have, have expressed gratitude for, for me being a voice for this, um, is that o-one of the very significant aspects of this for me, there's a bunch of things that are very significant to me about this, but one of them is that over my life, I really never wanted to do Chitas and never did it much at all, um, just because of the way in which I experienced it being demanded of me.

1:06:31 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:31 Speaker 1 Just because the way in which, um, it felt to me, together with a whole bunch of other, uh, you know, Hasidish stuff or that it was, like, some kind of, like, rite of passage or that that somehow made me a good Hasid-

1:06:45 Speaker 2 Right

1:06:45 Speaker 1 ... uh, valuable, worthy, um... I mean, No kidding. And so at a certain point, it was like I didn't want to, I didn't want to disconnect from the Rebbe because somewhere in me knew that the Rebbe must not be That, that traumatization, right? I knew-

1:08:28 Speaker 2 How did you know that? 'Cause it's very few times that you're saying that you always knew you were gonna come back. Like...

1:08:33 Speaker 1 It's an interesting question. People ask me this all the time. I just, I just, uh... You know what? I don't know if I knew that or I decided it.

1:08:40 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:41 Speaker 1 Or I just, I decided that, that, you know, there's just, there's just no way... Well, you know, I-- Look, I, I don't, I'm not an idiot. I mean, the Rebbe's a holy man, you know. Like, uh, you don't have to be such a genius to just stop for a minute and realize, okay, this is a holy man, a godly man. Um, you know, uh, I mean, it's the same is true with Terry Mitchells and Yiddish guy. Like, person has to ask the question, like, "Do I believe that God Almighty-

1:09:10 Speaker 2 Right

1:09:10 Speaker 1 ... um, and authoritarianism, and abuse, and control, like, do I believe, like, those go together?" Like, it's-

1:09:19 Speaker 2 Right

1:09:19 Speaker 1 ... it's really, you know. I couldn't.

1:09:21 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:21 Speaker 1 It was, it, it violated my sensibilities to believe that, that they were synonymous, but I couldn't experientially, and even, like, in terms of my conditioning, I couldn't pull them apart.

1:09:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:09:31 Speaker 1 I had no other point of reference.

1:09:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:09:33 Speaker 1 And these experiences and conditioning was very deeply entrenched.

1:09:37 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:09:38 Speaker 1 So for a while, I would just go and say, "Here I am. Uh, you know, I, I, I wanna be here. I know I should be here. It's a good place, but I don't know anything else." You know? Even a pan I couldn't write. Like, the, the whole pan, the whole ritual was just associated with so much shame, and guilt, and intensity, and, and, um, and it was just like, "Listen, if the Rebbe could read my pan, then he could hear my words," you know? Like-

1:10:01 Speaker 2 Right

1:10:02 Speaker 1 ... it had to go in a, in a place of

1:10:27 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:40 Speaker 1 ... um, so, so therefore really it's not coherent. But I think, I think what actually is occurring is it's a hack.

1:12:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:12:27 Speaker 1 It's, it's a way into God for people.

1:12:30 Speaker 2 What does that mean?

1:12:32 Speaker 1 That means the Rebbe, first of all, was incarnated in a human body, in a human being-

1:12:37 Speaker 2 Right

1:12:37 Speaker 1 ... which, which m- which allows people to associate with him as a person. Um-

1:12:43 Speaker 2 He was a person.

1:12:44 Speaker 1 Right. I'm saying but it allows for that connection which is not allowed for with a deity.

1:12:51 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:12:52 Speaker 1 Um, in the same way, and there's relationship.

1:12:59 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:13:00 Speaker 1 And it occurs within the context, the human context.

1:13:04 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:13:04 Speaker 1 So, so it's, it's a way in which people can link in, in truth to, to divinity and godliness and everything that, that Yiddishkeit really believes in. Um, it's a way that they can link into it. It's a way in.

1:13:20 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:13:21 Speaker 1 It's a way in that they could still be connected with that, with that tradition and with their neshamah. Now, to be h- in all honesty-

1:13:28 Speaker 2 That, that's a very, very, very, like, Raditchiver kind of take on it.

1:13:33 Speaker 1 Well, I always like to think of things from a perspective of, like, from a contextual perspective. In other words, the person himself might say, "No. Heck no. No." But if you just, but if you, if you just zoom out for a second-

1:13:44 Speaker 2 Subconscious

1:13:44 Speaker 1 ... and you think about what's happening at a more meta level, you're like, "What?" Like the Yiddish there, th- there is no Rebbe without the Yiddish.

1:13:50 Speaker 2 But even there it's a-

1:13:51 Speaker 1 So, so how do you... You know, uh, you're not even saying something coherent.

1:13:53 Speaker 2 Even there it's-

1:13:54 Speaker 1 Elokai. At the end of the day, people don't wanna, in truth, disassociate or forfeit their identification with their own neshamah, with divinity, with, with, with God itself. But their ideas of God, their ideas of God are very asinine, are very distorted, um, so they have to throw them away.

1:14:15 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:15 Speaker 1 It's a g- it's, it's, it's a much, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a cumbersome philosophical, theological, spiritual, and emotional journey to then find God.

1:14:26 Speaker 2 No, but I think-

1:14:26 Speaker 1 But the Rebbe isn't accessible.

1:14:28 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:28 Speaker 1 Now, they don't say it that way, but I think that's what's occurring.

1:14:31 Speaker 2 But I think, I think you're, I think, I think the... I, I still think from a meta level you're looking at it from a very Raditchiver place, and that doesn't make it untrue. I think though that, I think though that if we're gonna be brutally honest, which I appreciate you talking about this topic, and I remember the way you phrased it on the phone. I hope you don't mind that I repeat it. You said, "It wasn't that I didn't do chitas. I, like, def- like I absolutely-

1:15:01 Speaker 1 I rejected it

1:15:01 Speaker 2 ... I re- like I definitely did not do it."

1:15:04 Speaker 1 Like

1:15:04 Speaker 2 Like I abso- like I was against chitas, right? And, you know, like, I think, you know, that's a very honest kind of, that's a very honest statement, And not that-

1:15:15 Speaker 1 But I should point out, not philosophically.

1:15:18 Speaker 2 I understand.

1:15:18 Speaker 1 I never had a philosophical-

1:15:19 Speaker 2 I, I, I understand

1:15:19 Speaker 1 ... claim about anything, just from a psychological place.

1:15:22 Speaker 2 I understand.

1:15:22 Speaker 1 From an emotional place. It was like, ah.

1:15:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. I re- yeah. I, I can't do it. And I, and I, and I wanna add the caveat, I don't believe in honesty for the sake of honesty. Like, just because, like if you say something, if you say something to someone that's hurtful, you can't say, "Oh, I'm just being honest."

1:15:37 Speaker 1 Right.

1:15:38 Speaker 2 It's, you know, honesty is not a cover for being a schmuck or being an, being an idiot, right? But I, I, I, I appreciate the honesty in the sen- 'cause I don't think you're, you're, I don't think you're, I, I, I don't think you're saying it just so you, just to be honest. I think, I think you have y- there's a point that you're trying to convey, but a lot of people don't convey it because they're scared. So it's more I appreciate the, the courage to say it more than, quote-unquote, "the honesty." Um, and-

1:16:04 Speaker 1 And by the way, I just wanna be clear, like, uh, cl- I don't know what's gonna happen through me sharing this publicly, right?

1:16:09 Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:10 Speaker 1 Um, who's gonna re- react to it negatively? Who's gonna reject it? Who's gonna say, "Oh, Fitz, you know, I'm not gonna wear his talon anymore." Uh, who knows what. I have no idea. But what I will say is what matters most to me is if one person hears this-

1:16:24 Speaker 2 Right

1:16:25 Speaker 1 ... and they, and they say, "You know, he's really, he's really saying something. I've, I've, I've wanted that. I, you know, I wanna heal my relationship with Hashem. I wanna heal my relationship with the Rebbe. I would like to heal my relationship with the Chabad guys. I can relate to this guy." If I can, if I can, through sharing this, bring even one person one step closer-

1:16:45 Speaker 2 Right

1:16:45 Speaker 1 ... to, to the Rebbe, to the which by now in my life means to, to... is the same as to who they really are.

1:16:56 Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:56 Speaker 1 Like, th- their true self, then, then I will have fulfilled my purpose. Uh, you know, I think all the time, like I don't need to... That's my, that's, that's what I'm interested in. That's what I'm concerned about. Let me die knowing that someone, someone was able to re-engage with Chitas or anything else of the Rebbe-

1:17:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

1:17:19 Speaker 1 ... and, and enjoy that, and grow through that, through this being shared. Like, that's really, that, that, that's, it's not a mic drop. It's not like, you know, because it's like it's become almost popular to be like honest nowadays, you know?

1:17:32 Speaker 2 That's what I'm saying. Uh, honesty per se is not, is not, honesty for the sake of honesty is not what's speaking to me here. It's like-

1:17:37 Speaker 1 And I was sha- ashamed of this for a long, long, long time. As a matter of fact, when I started doing Chitas every day, doing, I don't like that expression, learning it, um, I didn't share it until I was 40 days in.

1:17:48 Speaker 2 It's just saying it. We say Chitas, say it out loud.

1:17:50 Speaker 1 I learned it. I, I didn't share it publicly-

1:17:53 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:17:53 Speaker 1 ... until I was 40 days in.

1:17:54 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:17:54 Speaker 1 I was too humiliated. Like 40 days was like-

1:17:58 Speaker 2 Right. Like who-

1:17:58 Speaker 1 ... enough of an achievement

1:17:59 Speaker 2 ... like who, who do you think you are that like 40, I've been doing it for 40 years?

1:18:02 Speaker 1 No, I was too humiliated to expose that I hadn't been doing it.

1:18:06 Speaker 2 Right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

1:18:06 Speaker 1 If I would say, "Oh, today's the first day I'm doing Chitas." No, but if I said I did Chitas for 40 days in a row-

1:18:12 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:18:12 Speaker 1 ... uh, there would be something else to kind of like something notable over here-

1:18:16 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:18:16 Speaker 1 ... to notice other than and before that, like what?

1:18:21 Speaker 2 Right.

1:18:22 Speaker 1 It's, it's not easy.

1:18:22 Speaker 2 I, I wa- I wanna get to how, why you changed, but I, I first feel like, you know, if, if this is already gonna be the podcast where I, where, where I air all my grievances, um, you know, I thought, I, I, I, I, I don't, I, I say that as a joke. I hope it's not grievances. But, you know, I, I, I, I feel like I, before we get to what turned for you, I, I, I feel like I wanna push back on this idea that, yes, I hear what you're saying that people are, are looking to hold on to their relationship with, with, with God, um-

1:18:58 Speaker 1 With truth.

1:18:59 Speaker 2 Yeah. And-

1:18:59 Speaker 1 With life

1:19:00 Speaker 2 ... they're angry at this, so they feel, for whatever reason, that the way they can hold on, the way they kind of position themselves is if so long as I hold on to the Rebbe, even if I am angry at God, I'm somehow, without accepting that I'm still holding on to God, I'm holding on to God. Something is, something to that effect.

1:19:17 Speaker 1 I don't think they think that consciously.

1:19:18 Speaker 2 No, no, I understand.

1:19:19 Speaker 1 But yeah.

1:19:19 Speaker 2 But that, that's what's going on. I'm not... Look, it's possible. It's possible. I think that's a very favorable way of looking at it, and that doesn't disqualify it. But I, I think it would be wrong to ignore a, I don't know if it's a simpler explanation, but-

1:19:32 Speaker 1 Okay

1:19:32 Speaker 2 ... to me, a more obvious explanation, 'cause it goes to what you were saying before that, which is how did the Rebbe end up this way in our minds? Because what you're describing, I, I, I agree with you that not everyone listening to this or every Lubavitcher or the majority, I don't have, I don't have numbers. I didn't poll this. I understand that not everyone feels this way, but the idea that this is some kind of rare condition that people feel this kind of cumbersome trending towards negativity, towards complete exhaustion with Chitas and all these takanas, that it's rare, it's, it's, it's totally not true. It's totally not-

1:20:10 Speaker 1 I think there's a difference between exhaustion and tiredness-

1:20:13 Speaker 2 No, I'm talking about-

1:20:13 Speaker 1 ... and, and trauma

1:20:14 Speaker 2 ... I'm talking about spiritual exhaustion, not just tire... Like where you, you go, I remember being a bachur in yeshiva, seeing a lot of bachur, whatever, like, like remembering to learn Chitas and Rambam at night, which indicates the level of priority and enthusiasm-

1:20:27 Speaker 1 Right

1:20:27 Speaker 2 ... they had for it in the first place.

1:20:28 Speaker 1 Right.

1:20:28 Speaker 2 I don't care, like your actions tell you something about what you care, like why are you waiting? You, you didn't wait the whole day-

1:20:35 Speaker 1 Right

1:20:35 Speaker 2 ... to eat breakfast.

1:20:36 Speaker 1 Right. Or to do anything.

1:20:37 Speaker 2 Right. And you waited all the way till your eyes are drooping, and then we say Rambam.

1:20:41 Speaker 1 Right.

1:20:41 Speaker 2 Like, come on. We, we, we know what's what, what's what. Like, let's stop being silly about it. Did everybody feel that way? No. But a lot of guys did. It was not rare, okay? And, and, and so how did that happen? How did we get there? How did we get to a place where what you, you know, the Rebbe who's a tzadik and also, parenthetically, a brilliant man- Right? How did we get to a place where his takanos became caricatures?

1:21:09 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:21:10 Speaker 2 How, how did, how did the man who loved to learn a Rambam in the greatest aimik possible, how did we get from a takana that came from that man about learning Rambam turn into something called saying Rambam? Which-

1:21:25 Speaker 1 And I wanna point out that what you're, the issue that you're raising, though, it's good, we can talk about it. It's a little different than my issue that I had with it.

1:21:31 Speaker 2 No, I, but I don't think it is. I mean, I'll, I'll get to it.

1:21:33 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:21:33 Speaker 2 I don't think it is.

1:21:34 Speaker 1 I'm curious about that.

1:21:34 Speaker 2 How did we get there? And what I was... How did we get there? Because like you said, if a, like, if you think of it as the Rebbe's a individual with certain perspective and certain ideas and a certain worldview, how did we get from that p- that person, that worldview, to this? Makes no sense. Make, makes no sense. It doesn't map out. So how do you explain it? How do you account for it? And what I would, what I would suggest is something went wrong along the way. Something broke or something changed in between how it was conceived by the Rebbe to how it became a public practice. And in general, that's how the world works. There's an idea. That idea c- could be very private and individual and, and very, uh... A- a- and, and, and I hate the word nuanced because it's, it's used in the least nuanced way.

1:22:32 Speaker 1 Textured.

1:22:33 Speaker 2 No, yeah, but it, it just has that kind of, that, that complication of, of, of a person where, where it, it's, it's, it's, it's so connected to the person's, uh, the person's own shape that it, that it, it's, it's very intimate to him, right? And as that idea becomes popularized, it loses that in some way, right? And it becomes a popular thing. It becomes, it becomes something of the masses, and at that point-

1:23:01 Speaker 1 But he taught it to the masses. He wanted it to become something of the masses.

1:23:03 Speaker 2 One second. One second. One second. This is already, this is already Lubavitch pushback. I, I, I'm happy to accept it. One second. We'll get there. I'm not, I'm, I'm not, I'm not-

1:23:10 Speaker 1 But exactly, in this case, I don't agree.

1:23:12 Speaker 2 I'm open... I, I, I'm open to any pushback.

1:23:16 Speaker 1 I agree with you that the way-

1:23:17 Speaker 2 But let's first diagnose-

1:23:17 Speaker 1 ... the Rambam was illuminated for the Rebbe-

1:23:19 Speaker 2 Let's first diagnose-

1:23:20 Speaker 1 ... in his mind and in his heart, it will be different for you.

1:23:22 Speaker 2 Let-- One second. Let's first diagnose what's going on before we, before we push back on it. I- I'm, I'm totally open for it to be pushed back on, okay? It's, I think we have to diagnose it for what it is.

1:23:33 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:23:33 Speaker 2 Right? Something to me changed over there, and what changed there was that, you know, the, the Rebbe had ideas, the Rebbe had visions, and then as it got popularized, those ideas came under tremendous pressure.

1:23:51 Speaker 1 Oh, can I, can I... I, I wanna add. I wanna suggest something here-

1:23:54 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:23:54 Speaker 1 ... that I think. Have you ever heard the Rambam song that I wrote in Detroit?

1:23:57 Speaker 2 No.

1:23:58 Speaker 1 Do you know about... Oh, okay. So th- this I think might be, might actually be connected with what you're saying. It was, let me say this. So when I was in, in Detroit camp, there was a Siyum Rambam.

1:24:07 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:24:08 Speaker 1 And I wrote a Rambam song.

1:24:10 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:24:11 Speaker 1 It was a very painful experience for me 'cause I wasn't learning Rambam. Right? But I was being asked to write this song, and like I've shared with you before, I believed in it deep down somewhere. Somewhere I wanted to.

1:24:23 Speaker 2 Right.

1:24:24 Speaker 1 I believed it was truth and our Rebbe's takana.

1:24:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:24:26 Speaker 1 Like, I believed that it's a good thing and the right thing, and I-

1:24:28 Speaker 2 Right

1:24:28 Speaker 1 ... somewhere in me I knew that.

1:24:30 Speaker 2 Right.

1:24:31 Speaker 1 But I wasn't doing it, and they asked me to write this song. So a fascinating thing happened. Uh, it's, it's, the song was recorded. Anyway, maybe we can link it in the bottom of the video.

1:24:41 Speaker 2 Hit it live.

1:24:41 Speaker 1 I'll give you the link to it. So I wrote the song, and there was this big debate that erupted amongst the staff. What should the song bring out? Should the song bring out the reasons that the Rebbe provided for the takana?

1:24:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:24:59 Speaker 1 Or take a guess.

1:25:04 Speaker 2 What is the feel, the skashas that you, that you get through doing it?

1:25:07 Speaker 1 Skashas.

1:25:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:25:09 Speaker 1 What's Rambam really about? This was a raging debate.

1:25:12 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:25:13 Speaker 1 And the song that I wrote, by the way, had both.

1:25:17 Speaker 2 Precisely what I'm talking about. Very good.

1:25:18 Speaker 1 Put, put, I, I put both in, and I, I, we'll actually link the song. I put both in. The beginning of it is the reasons that the Rebbe gave-

1:25:25 Speaker 2 Right

1:25:25 Speaker 1 ... for the, the context that the Rebbe offered for this.

1:25:27 Speaker 2 Right.

1:25:28 Speaker 1 And then the last paragraph is, it's a skashas connected to the Rebbe, and it doesn't matter In a more animated moment, you would say that.

1:26:15 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, 'cause I, I think, I think- ... I think 'cause I think when you're more se- Like, I, I'm trying to be more considerate now. I feel like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's too dismissive to say there's nothing to it. It, it's very possible that that's, you know, why do you care what the Rebbe says? Like, why would... The Rebbe says to do this very hard thing every day. Why do you care? 'Cause he's a smart man? No, because you wanna be connected to him. You, like, the reason that you're going to choose this commitment when there are many other commitments to make is in many ways because of his skashas, right? So it's, like, it's, it's easy to, to kind of dismiss it like a bunch of, you know, silliness, but I, there's definitely s-

1:26:50 Speaker 1 That is not what I'm gonna-

1:26:51 Speaker 2 I think there's, I think there's for sure something there, but I, I certainly think that, that even if they're not two separate or opposite things, they are two distinct things, and they get mixed up as if they're one thing, and then what ends up happening is saying Rambam, which, which is just a total act of cynicism. Like, it's like historic levels of cynicism Like, we're-- like, the Rambam's a book of understanding. That's the whole point of it. The whole point is to make, make Torah understandable and legible, and then we say it. Well, what? Like, it gets like people reading off-

1:27:24 Speaker 1 And that's why the rabbi chose Rambam 'cause it's the only book that covers-

1:27:26 Speaker 2 Precisely

1:27:27 Speaker 1 ... all Torah and mitzvot.

1:27:28 Speaker 2 Precisely. So, so, so you see a p- you s- when you see a situation that the people that are doing Rambam presumably for good reasons, I... or presumably for a righteous reason of his kasherut are doing Rambam upside down, 'cause no one's gonna convince me that saying Rambam is normal on any level.

1:27:45 Speaker 1 Saying it.

1:27:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:27:46 Speaker 1 Right. Lipping it. Lips, lipping it, yeah.

1:27:47 Speaker 2 No, reading. Like, you gotta bring in-

1:27:49 Speaker 1 Right

1:27:49 Speaker 2 ... like, say-

1:27:50 Speaker 1 Right, right, right, right

1:27:50 Speaker 2 ... what is that?

1:27:51 Speaker 1 It's the strange thing, yeah.

1:27:51 Speaker 2 It's ridiculous. It, it's, it's strange on historic levels, okay? So when, when, when... how did we get from his kasherut to that? So like, like, like, like, like-

1:28:00 Speaker 1 I just wanna say a devil's advocate for one minute.

1:28:03 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:28:03 Speaker 1 If you go from the opposite direction, there's virtue to it, meaning if a person looks from the bottom up and they see a kid falling asleep on Rambam, you say, "Thank God he's got Rambam to fall asleep on, not comic."

1:28:13 Speaker 2 I don't buy... That, that, that, that I-

1:28:15 Speaker 1 But I think there's validity to it.

1:28:16 Speaker 2 That I don't buy.

1:28:16 Speaker 1 However, personally, I think there is value to that point.

1:28:19 Speaker 2 Possibly.

1:28:20 Speaker 1 But what, but you're pointing out, "Okay, yeah, but how did we get here?"

1:28:23 Speaker 2 No, no, it, it's worse than that because, because it's very, it's very nice and, and feels right. It feels right and righteous to point out that, you know, at least he's falling over a Rambam and not over a magazine.

1:28:34 Speaker 1 Doesn't just feel righteous. There's validity to it.

1:28:36 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yes, yes, perhaps. However, however, we, we often only s... like, if you wanna go there, if you want to bring that into the equation, then you are also forced to accept what about all the damage that it caused in the sense that what has it told a entire generation or two generations of bachurim that there's actual value in, in mouthing words off of paper and not bothering to understand them? What does that tell them not just about Rambam, but learning in general and about their use of time in general? It, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's an act of sheer cynicism that this is somehow a productive use of time.

1:29:15 Speaker 1 But how are you connecting this with the Rebbe Eiberstadt?

1:29:17 Speaker 2 Well, one second, one second, one second, one second. I... we're, we're kind of going out, we're kind of, you know, we're, we're-

1:29:22 Speaker 1 I'm waiting, I'm waiting for that

1:29:23 Speaker 2 ... we're vibing here.

1:29:24 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:29:24 Speaker 2 Now I'm saying if you're going to... if you wanna point out the upside in it, you have to also accept the downside, and, and it's very unclear to me that, that nec- the upside necessarily... Uh, like, yes, it may be better for this bachur if he wasn't doing Rambam, who knows what he would be doing? But what about the other bachur who if not for this kind of futile Rambam-

1:29:44 Speaker 1 Correct

1:29:44 Speaker 2 ... would be more serious about life in general? So-

1:29:46 Speaker 1 Okay, but that's harder to... that's, that's, that's a little bit of a... I just wanna say in, to be honest, that's a harder case to make, in other words like this. It's a s- it's an easier case to say, "Look, we all know how many distractions there are in the world today."

1:29:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:29:59 Speaker 1 "We all know what all the options are of what to fall asleep over."

1:30:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:30:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. Um, someone who comes up, grows up in the system, and they're inundated with all these things that for whatever reason, good, bad or ugly, they're busy falling asleep on their Rambam, it's a win. To, to argue that because of that there's a fallout or damage is a I, I, I don't... You see, I don't... I, I- No, I'm saying, I'm saying to be strictly if you wanna be-

1:30:25 Speaker 2 I disagree. I disagree.

1:30:26 Speaker 1 But I, but I, b-but, but I just wanna acknowledge that regardless of that-

1:30:30 Speaker 2 But I dis- I-

1:30:30 Speaker 1 ... regardless of that, you're asking a fundamental question that has to be addressed.

1:30:34 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:30:35 Speaker 1 How did we get here? Now that we're here, you can be „melamed zechus" in some way.

1:30:39 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:30:39 Speaker 1 Okay, then, yeah.

1:30:39 Speaker 2 Yeah, let's put it aside.

1:30:40 Speaker 1 But how did we get here, and what's actually happening?

1:30:43 Speaker 2 Let's put it aside. How did we get here? And I, I think, you know, I think it's worth a lot of thought. But I think to me, the, the obvious example that would jump out is that there, there is a massive challenge or prob- like a problem, but not a problem like... Sorry, I shouldn't use the word problem 'cause it'll be misunderstood. There's a, there's a almost impossible challenge of taking the Rebbe's ideas and popularizing them without them losing their original intention. Like, in general, in life, when something... A-and, and, you know, mysteriously sometimes conversations just like they, they kind of, they fall back on, on itself even though you never expect it to. The way we started about sefaras, it's so perfectly... it's such a perfect example, right? You cannot, you cannot mass produce sefaras. Sefaras is that kind of that hill that you die on, that some things, the Eiberstadt's words must be written by an individual who is individual as you, no less. Not some faceless dude in, in China, right? It has to be an individual, right? And, you know, be- why? 'Cause some things cannot be re- cannot be popularized to the point that they lose their individuality, right? And yet, when you have a, a, a, a situation where the Rebbe's no longer a Rebbe of a few Hasidim, where everybody knows who he is, and they feel this kind of individual connection, and they have... the Rebbe told this person to learn this Sefer. You know, you have

1:32:14 Speaker 2 these beautiful stories. Rebbe tells Reb Yael to learn this, and he tells someone else to learn that, and this is your, uh, maidah of, uh, batvey. And, and, like, there's this a yu goshlachas here, a yu goshlachas there. There's very individual kind of connections. But, you know, there's a takanah that's public and, and for the public, and ma- and, and for the masses. It's very hard for that to be accepted and as... by the masses and popularized without losing the original intent. And I would argue that that's, that to me is precisely the challenge. That's precisely the challenge. But before I, before I get there, 'cause I, I think that's where we're gonna come back to why-

1:32:52 Speaker 1 I just wanna say that there was one year where I learned Sefer HaMitzvos.

1:32:55 Speaker 2 Ah.

1:32:56 Speaker 1 Didn't miss a day. I learned Sefer HaMitzvos in the original Sefer HaMitzvos. It was a very rich experience for me.

1:33:01 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:02 Speaker 1 But I was ashamed.

1:33:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:04 Speaker 1 And I thought to myself, "How sad is that, that I'm here, I'm doing something good."

1:33:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:09 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm... not only it's something better than nothing-

1:33:12 Speaker 2 Right

1:33:12 Speaker 1 ... but moreover, I'm literally learning every day the mitzvahs. I'm learning the klalim. I learned the klalim.

1:33:17 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:17 Speaker 1 I actually learned the klalim.

1:33:18 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:20 Speaker 1 And it was interesting for me that like, that like, yeah, you know, because the Rebbe once said like, uh, uh, um, or it, something like Ɣbiddiyaved one perek, if you remember.

1:33:31 Speaker 2 Remember.

1:33:31 Speaker 1 All those are learning three perakim. Ɣize shibba shetiya the Rebbe said.

1:33:34 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:35 Speaker 1 They're only learning one perek. You know, and I remember that like being like, like almost like turned into like a trope in yeshiva. Like, you know, are you a bit Ɣize if in shetiya kind of Hasid, you know?

1:33:45 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:45 Speaker 1 Like it was like... And like it just becomes like more and more like you're just caught up in some kind of... I just wanna acknowledge and, and share that for people, like, like if you're not doing it, like yeah, like if you come back to the, to what the Rebbe had to say about it, and what the Rebbe had to say about everything, like, uh, Ɣmaiseh hu 'ikkar, uh, uh, something, you know, do something good as a mitzvah. If you, if you take everything the Rebbe had to say about stuff, it would w- what might lead you to, very well lead you to the conclusion, "I'll learn Sefer HaMitzvos today."

1:34:15 Speaker 2 Right.

1:34:15 Speaker 1 You know? But if you, but if you are caught up not in what, in, in the Rebbe's message and the Rebbe's love and the Rebbe's light, but y- y- through the translation and through the commercialization and through the, you know, the, the groupthink and everything, that could, it could take courage to do that.

1:34:32 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

1:34:32 Speaker 1 It could be-

1:34:32 Speaker 2 Oh, it-

1:34:33 Speaker 1 ... hard to do something like that, and you might even keep it a secret.

1:34:35 Speaker 2 Right.

1:34:36 Speaker 1 So I just wanna be a voice for that.

1:34:37 Speaker 2 Absolutely. No, absolutely. I, I, I, I, I, I think, I think what you're pointing to here is very important. I think that, I think that what I was mentioning earlier about the challenge of taking a inspired idea and Ɣkolshe kem kalchem rey, holy ruach ha-kodesh-dik idea, and for it to become popularized without losing that original inspiration is hard enough. Th- that was before, or that's even in a situation where the society as a whole is not positioned to shame one another and hold turn this holy idea into a bludgeon to, to knock people around them a p- down a peg. But... And I don't think this is necessarily a Lubavitch thing, and certainly we don't have to go into that in this conversation if it's a specific Lubavitch thing. I think it's a society thing, and I th- certainly a, is, is, is around and prevalent in Lubavitch, where on top of the, the inherent challenge of, of living up to an inspired idea is this communal pressure, right? That's part of the challenge, or it's an added layer of the challenge, where it's not just that I have to hold onto this inspired idea even though I don't necessarily have that personal relationship that would, like, I have to kind of figure out my place in it personally in the first place. But I, I, I... This idea has now been kind of co-opted by the masses and shaped by the masses, and very often the masses are intolerant. They have a, they, they

1:36:16 Speaker 2 kind of masses work in funny ways, right? And they kind of coalesce around certain ideas very often in ways that none of them as individuals would ever come around to. But because of just the way masses work-

1:36:31 Speaker 1 I, I, I wanna question that, though. That's, that's an interesting philosophy to, to throw out there, and it sounds sophisticated, but I think it's worthwhile asking the question, and maybe not h- necessarily here and now. But, like, the question is, when there is something that happens amongst the masses, is can it really be said that none of those people individually would have ever come up with that, and there's something about the sum total of the mass that creates that or precipitates that?

1:36:54 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:36:55 Speaker 1 Uh, okay. I think that's worthy of looking into because I-

1:36:57 Speaker 2 I, I can, I can, I can break it down for you.

1:36:58 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:36:58 Speaker 2 I can break it down for you. I can break it down for you. There are many things that if you, if you were not worried about what the person next to you thought about what you, uh, you believe a certain thing, you would be very open about that belief. But be- but because you're worried about what the other person thinks, you hold in that belief, and you say, "Okay."

1:37:18 Speaker 1 You don't think there's shared sentiments amongst groups of people?

1:37:23 Speaker 2 The problem with, the problem with masses is that you can very quickly have, like, you can very quickly have an idea that is held by a few, but because you're the most adamant, th- that, that will quickly become the-

1:37:40 Speaker 1 I hear-

1:37:41 Speaker 2 The, the... I mean, this has been history-

1:37:42 Speaker 1 I hear that as a possibility, but it's not necessarily a necessity. It cou- there is a possibility of masses who actually sh- share a common vision, no? There's no such thing?

1:37:53 Speaker 2 I-

1:37:53 Speaker 1 Every time there's a mass-

1:37:55 Speaker 2 It's a cha- it's a challenge. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. It's a challenge.

1:37:59 Speaker 1 I hear you.

1:38:00 Speaker 2 By, by, by definition.

1:38:01 Speaker 1 I hear you.

1:38:01 Speaker 2 By definition.

1:38:02 Speaker 1 I hear you.

1:38:02 Speaker 2 Because the masses w- the, the, the mistake is not that the masses aren't, uh, like, the, the problem doesn't begin that the masses aren't able to live up to it. The problem is that it became a masses thing in the first place. Why is this something that belongs to the masses? Why is my learning the Rambam something that's been filtered through the masses? W- going a, a step further, why is my relationship to the Rebbe something that belongs to the masses? Why the hell do they get a vote? Why... It's not something, it's not-

1:38:38 Speaker 1 Well, they, they only get a vote if you, if you, if you, to the extent that, that you-

1:38:42 Speaker 2 Allow them to

1:38:43 Speaker 1 ... allow them to.

1:38:43 Speaker 2 Right. But, but until you make that break-

1:38:45 Speaker 1 Yes

1:38:45 Speaker 2 ... and say, "I'm going to learn Sefer HaMitzvos-"

1:38:48 Speaker 1 Right

1:38:48 Speaker 2 ... "because that's what works for me, and that's how I connect to this."

1:38:54 Speaker 1 Until I can get my friend on board.

1:38:55 Speaker 2 You, until then you are, until then you are held hostage by the masses, 'cause the masses have told you-

1:39:00 Speaker 1 But a lot of people are not held hostage by it.

1:39:03 Speaker 2 Well, okay, one second. We're dancing, we're dancing back and forth here. I'm talking about your story.

1:39:06 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:39:07 Speaker 2 And there, yes, there-

1:39:08 Speaker 1 Yeah, but I can't have a grievance on masses. I'm saying masses do their thing-

1:39:11 Speaker 2 It's not a, it's not a, it's not a-

1:39:11 Speaker 1 ... and it's very good for lots of people

1:39:12 Speaker 2 We're not talking about... F- first of all, first of all, I don't think that's true. But we're not talking about grievances. We're talking about your st- like, we're talking about-

1:39:19 Speaker 1 Yes

1:39:19 Speaker 2 ... diagnosis.

1:39:19 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:39:20 Speaker 2 We're talking about diagnosis here.

1:39:21 Speaker 1 My story, it was very difficult being caught up in the system, in the masses, in the groupthink, in, it wa- it was, and it was very difficult.

1:39:28 Speaker 2 Right. And, uh, uh-

1:39:29 Speaker 1 Very, very difficult

1:39:30 Speaker 2 ... and, and, and, and it's, it's not uncommon. So the fact that some people, either the masses work for them or they don't Ɣbecholal work according to the masses, God bless. God bless.

1:39:41 Speaker 1 God bless.

1:39:41 Speaker 2 Uh, like, uh like, like, like this idea that I'm insisting on looking or, uh, that I'm looking for problems where there aren't-

1:39:48 Speaker 1 No, you're, you're just, you're distinguishing a phenomenon for certain individuals, yes.

1:39:51 Speaker 2 It, uh, diagnose, diagnose what it is. If we're gonna be honest about it, let's be honest all the way. Like, or, or as far as we can go in this conversation, as far as we're capable of going ourselves. You know, of course I, I am biased in many ways.

1:40:04 Speaker 1 At our current age.

1:40:05 Speaker 2 Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And put on the internet-

1:40:08 Speaker 1 Right

1:40:08 Speaker 2 ... for us to laugh at in 10 years. But I'm just saying, like, like, like-

1:40:13 Speaker 1 Listen, it may be the only kosher comedy in 10 years on the internet, by the way.

1:40:16 Speaker 2 What's that? This? Yeah, it's very possible. God knows.

1:40:20 Speaker 1 So it's a service.

1:40:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, let me think of it that way.

1:40:25 Speaker 1 Is that a bit that you ever take?

1:40:26 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. But I'm just saying, what, like, what, why, like, why, why does it belong to the masses? And the reason it belongs to the masses, the reason it belongs to the masses is because the masses, the masses are much bigger than you. But I think the problem is, the problem is that, that, that these things... Meaning, the problem is not that the masses end up going sideways, the problem is that these things go to the masses in the first place. You know, I, I, I do wanna hear from you more why, like, when you decided... I mean, we already touched on it a little bit when you decided to kind of-

1:40:57 Speaker 1 I, I wanna share about that, but-

1:40:59 Speaker 2 To sh- to sh- to shove it

1:40:59 Speaker 1 ... I, I still wanna come back to the Eibishter Rebbe thing.

1:41:02 Speaker 2 Oh, how, how-

1:41:02 Speaker 1 You had a more simple explanation-

1:41:04 Speaker 2 Oh

1:41:04 Speaker 1 ... for how and why people say reject the Eibishter but embrace the Rebbe.

1:41:09 Speaker 2 Yeah. So, so, so-

1:41:10 Speaker 1 We can say it that way. I wanna hear that. Then we can come back to what, what happened when we broke up.

1:41:13 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes. So, so h- so I, I did forget that that was... We got lost in the conversation, but yes, it, so, so the, the reason that the, the-

1:41:22 Speaker 1 By the way, if I was viewing the podcast-

1:41:24 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:41:24 Speaker 1 ... and we wouldn't come back to this, I'd be so annoyed. I'd be like, "He said he had a more simple... Where did it go?"

1:41:30 Speaker 2 After locus. After locus. We're not gonna get to it. If you come to this podcast 'cause you think that you're gonna get satisfaction, and I'm gonna write the kind of book.

1:41:40 Speaker 1 That was spoken in the most quintessential Lubavitcher fashion.

1:41:43 Speaker 2 Bro, bro. Bro, you don't pay for it. Get lost.

1:41:52 Speaker 1 Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

1:41:55 Speaker 2 Anyway, um, uh-

1:41:56 Speaker 1 Here, you gonna land it or no?

1:41:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, no.

1:41:58 Speaker 1 Now go for it.

1:41:59 Speaker 2 I, I, I kind of lost my train of thought, but I, but yes, I, I... The, the, so to me, what, what, what I was getting at is that the Rebbe became a, a kind of a possession of the masses. Now, you have to be careful because, you know, pe- I can imagine wasn't the whole fight of Hetevis that the Rebbe belonged to the Chassidim and so on. I think that's a very delicate line, right? The Rebbe belonged to Chassidim is different to me than the Rebbe belonging to the masses. I'm talking about masses here. I'm talking about mass think, group think. The Rebbe became part of group think, group identity, and in a way that God did not. In a way that God did not. Why? Why? Because Lubavitchers don't have a monopoly on God. It's not their group. It's not their group think.

1:42:47 Speaker 1 This is a more simple explanation?

1:42:49 Speaker 2 Yes, it's very... No, no, it's, it's, it's more obvious. It's meaning it, meaning it's, it's-

1:42:53 Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. I think this is way less obvious-

1:42:55 Speaker 2 Well, I, I, I, I-

1:42:55 Speaker 1 ... more convoluted, but I'm curious by it.

1:42:58 Speaker 2 I, it's not convoluted. I, uh, I don't understand why-

1:43:00 Speaker 1 I'll tell you why I think it's convoluted, because God is, is in the DNA of every Jewish person.

1:43:04 Speaker 2 Like, again, you're talking spiritually. I'm talking ab- I'm talking about so- I'm talking about sociologically. I've-

1:43:09 Speaker 1 Even sociologically, if you look closer and closer to Earth.

1:43:13 Speaker 2 That's a spir- that, that, that's a, that's a, that's an assessment that the Rebbe makes of a Yid. It's a very holy assessment. I, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not denying its validity. I'm not denying its truth. But when you look at, when you look at-

1:43:25 Speaker 1 I would be quicker to say that I would question whether it's true for everyone or whether there are exceptions, but, but I'm... I think that, but that God is part, is like, is like part of the collective Jewish consciousness for millennia.

1:43:39 Speaker 2 You as a, you as a-

1:43:40 Speaker 1 Even their not believing is a form of believing, as the old trope goes, but there's truth to it.

1:43:45 Speaker 2 Yeah. That, that-

1:43:47 Speaker 1 Anyway, that's my pushback on your take.

1:43:49 Speaker 2 I hear your push. I-

1:43:50 Speaker 1 I don't think it's a more simple explanation.

1:43:51 Speaker 2 I think-

1:43:52 Speaker 1 I don't think it's a more obvious explanation.

1:43:53 Speaker 2 No, I... Meaning, the, the... If the problem is, let's go back to the problem. If the problem is how is it that you negate God, and you somehow think that you can, you can negate God or you-

1:44:03 Speaker 1 Okay, but the simple explanation is because you look at the horrors of the world, and you attribute it to God, which is an expression of your belief in God. You go ahead and you reject that God because you ultimately believe that-

1:44:13 Speaker 2 But you hold onto the-

1:44:14 Speaker 1 ... God has... You hold the Rebbe 'cause he didn't do anything bad to you.

1:44:16 Speaker 2 But, but the Rebbe's, but the Rebbe's whole status is-

1:44:19 Speaker 1 No, but now you're entering into, into a level of thought that a lot of people don't, don't, don't engage in.

1:44:24 Speaker 2 No, so I, so, okay, I hear you. I-

1:44:26 Speaker 1 That's what I think would be the most-

1:44:28 Speaker 2 I think-

1:44:28 Speaker 1 ... linear, simple explanation.

1:44:30 Speaker 2 I think, I think the most, I think the most lo... What I meant was, I guess, the most logical without, without having to resort to, like, spiritual understanding of people.

1:44:41 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:44:42 Speaker 2 That's what I mean by obvious.

1:44:43 Speaker 1 I hear, but I think it's divorced from, from the collective experience.

1:44:46 Speaker 2 I think, I think, I think there's a sense that I can remain a Lubavitcher, my group, meaning I can remain Lubavitcher putting God to the side, but my identity has become so inter... Like, my, my identity and my group identity has become so hardened around the Rebbe that that is something I cannot, I cannot-

1:45:07 Speaker 1 Interesting

1:45:08 Speaker 2 ... I cannot, I cannot let go of. If I let go of that, my whole identity is to the, is to the garbage.

1:45:13 Speaker 1 Interesting. No, I hear what you're saying.

1:45:15 Speaker 2 I'm, I'm left, I'm left with nothing.

1:45:16 Speaker 1 I don't think it's accurate or true, but-

1:45:18 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:45:19 Speaker 1 As the explanation.

1:45:20 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:45:21 Speaker 1 But I hear, I hear it. It's interesting.

1:45:23 Speaker 2 Like, like I said-

1:45:23 Speaker 1 It's interesting.

1:45:24 Speaker 2 Like I said, I appreciate your honesty.

1:45:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. Count on me for that.

1:45:28 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:45:28 Speaker 1 I- it's interesting. It's interesting. I, I think it's a, it's interesting spin. I hear.

1:45:36 Speaker 2 I, I-

1:45:36 Speaker 1 I hear.

1:45:37 Speaker 2 I, I, I think, yeah, I think... Look, I think if, if, if you had, i- if you, if, if, if... And I, I think we have to be, I think we have to put the opposite. An individual relationship with the Rebbe would, would necessitate a relationship with God. The, like, it would-

1:45:55 Speaker 1 If you're-

1:45:55 Speaker 2 'Cause that, that, that's a way to prove it

1:45:56 Speaker 1 ... but that's, but that's on- on- that's only if you're a thinker.

1:45:58 Speaker 2 No, no, that's not true. Uh, uh-

1:45:59 Speaker 1 It is true.

1:46:00 Speaker 2 No The, the, okay.

1:46:02 Speaker 1 Why can't you have a relationship with the Rebbe?

1:46:04 Speaker 2 If you like the Rebbe's-

1:46:04 Speaker 1 Rebbe's a good man

1:46:05 Speaker 2 ... okay, so if you... I'm, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about the liking the Rebbe's humor.

1:46:08 Speaker 1 Spiritual teacher.

1:46:09 Speaker 2 I'm not talking-

1:46:09 Speaker 1 Made a big impact in the world. Like, you can look at-

1:46:10 Speaker 2 I'm not ta- I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, I'm not talking about the Rebbe and his blue eyes. I'm talking about, I'm talking about a, a, a appreciation of the Rebbe, the way the Rebbe defined what the Rebbe was, and that is a tzadik.

1:46:22 Speaker 1 I, I don't, I don't think that's necessarily... The people who say, "I reject God and I embrace the Rebbe," I don't think they're tuning into... I think it's the blue eyes, proverbially. It's not the blue eyes, it's-

1:46:30 Speaker 2 Why, why do you care about-

1:46:31 Speaker 1 It's Rebbe's love

1:46:32 Speaker 2 ... why do, why do you-

1:46:32 Speaker 1 It's Rebbe's power

1:46:33 Speaker 2 ... why do you care about, why do you care about that? Why do you care about that? Why are you so stiff about that? Why, why, why is it that so many-

1:46:40 Speaker 1 Oh, here's a good guy that's on my team

1:46:41 Speaker 2 ... so, so, so many Lubavitcher kids... Let's be honest, so many Lubavitcher kids don't put on tefillin but they go to the oil.

1:46:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:46:48 Speaker 2 Why?

1:46:52 Speaker 1 Again, I, I, I will offer you two explanations. One that I think is the pastos, and one that I think is the oymek. But what you're saying, I don't... It, it falls somewhere in between, and I feel like it falls out.

1:47:06 Speaker 2 What, uh, what I, what I-

1:47:07 Speaker 1 I think that on some l- I, I, I, I believe either the pastos because you're saying they don't put on tefillin but they go to the oil. I, I think somehow, I sincerely believe that somehow the truth of God comes through the Rebbe for a lot of people without the, without the trauma, without the side effect. They can, they can, they can connect. There's something about divinity and godliness and truth that comes through the Rebbe, where the Rebbe will be, "You know what? I stand with you in my claim against God for 16, for, for, in your claim against God for killing 6 million people. I stand with you." You have someone who stands with you, a saint, a righteous man, a tzadik, a Rebbe, who stands with you in your, in your, in your claim against God.

1:47:53 Speaker 2 Right.

1:47:56 Speaker 1 Well, I mean, th- th- this, there's nothing more... I mean, this is what people need. This is what we all need-

1:48:01 Speaker 2 I-

1:48:01 Speaker 1 ... on some level.

1:48:02 Speaker 2 I mean, I'm thinking-

1:48:03 Speaker 1 So we're not getting philosophical. You, life is hard.

1:48:06 Speaker 2 I'm thinking-

1:48:06 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe is seen by a lot of people as someone who, "You know what? When it comes, the Rebbe's gonna be on my team."

1:48:11 Speaker 2 I'm thinking about it now. I'm thinking about it now. I, in many ways, I, I hope this doesn't sound like I'm backtracking. I think in many ways I am saying what you're saying in different words. So meaning it's the same kind of view, but just I guess using different vocabulary.

1:48:25 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:48:25 Speaker 2 In the sense that, like, if, if, if Lub- if, if this Lubavitch boy had been brought up with an idea of dancing a kaffees with the Eibishter, let's say, like, like you're saying this kind of warm, then perhaps he would look at the Eibishter differently, right? 'Cause there would be this, there would be this kind of warm communal experience with God that would, that he would hold onto, like you said, without the trauma. Whereas the Eibishter is, is not dancing a kaffees in that literal sense. That's defini- that by definition, right? And so the Eibishter ultimately is a choice that you make to basically discover for yourself and figure out God for himself. What do I believe? What, what do I believe in? How do I believe? And it's in my head. It's in my gut. It's in my soul, and it's my soul, not his soul, right? I, I can't... I, I'm not with the Eibishter with my other, with my other friends by a kaffees. Yes, there, there are ideas of davening with a minyan and, and, and, and serving the Eibishter together, but ultimately the Eibishter is a, is a belief that you have inside you that you have to reckon with. You cannot, I don't think, fully... You cannot even convince yourself that you have a group Eibishter, I don't think. I think it's much harder, and I think it's... Or at least at, at least, at least I think it's easier to, to basically neg- like, put, put away that

1:49:59 Speaker 2 group Eibishter. Like, you know, davening with a minyan or whatever, it, it's... If you don't like, like, like you said, it's, it's, it's missing the humanity of or missing the warmth. Whereas the tradition of a Rebbe-

1:50:12 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm, I'm curious because what- whoever I've heard this thing from-

1:50:16 Speaker 2 Right

1:50:16 Speaker 1 ... like this is how I've heard it or some variation of it. I mean, it's very vulgar. "The Eibishter ki- killed 6 million."

1:50:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:50:26 Speaker 1 "My Rebbe didn't." It's either this or some variation of it.

1:50:31 Speaker 2 That, that, that's too cheap, bro. That's too cheap. I mean, I, I, I, I'm not talking about the one individual that said or whichever individual said it to you, the specific individual that said it to you. I don't know what his, what his real things are. But, like, I bet you he drives a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. So give me an effing break. Give me an effing break. Give me an effing break. Like, you care so much about the Holocaust you're ready to throw off God with your theological questions that, by the way, everybody else has, but you drive the f- You know what I'm saying. Like, it, it's-

1:51:05 Speaker 1 Right

1:51:05 Speaker 2 ... it's too cheap. It's, and it's too cliché. It's too cliché. Like, it's, it's like, it's like... A- and wait. So you have a problem, you, you have a problem with God who, who let the Germans kill 6 million Jews, or I don't know, however you phrase it.

1:51:19 Speaker 1 Right.

1:51:19 Speaker 2 But you have, you're okay with the Rebbe who adamantly believes in that same God.

1:51:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, but the Rebbe's willing to-

1:51:26 Speaker 2 Challenge that God

1:51:27 Speaker 1 ... to challenge that God.