Ep. 41 // "More Needs To Be Demanded" w/ Rabbi Levi Avtzon

00:00 Speaker 1 Barry's podcast resonated a lot with people, like the idea of the guilt that comes with the money, and then there's like, "Okay, so let's not money at all." Instead of saying, "No, I see you. I see your incredible value, and I'm demanding of you." There's no reason you can't go through Likutei Sichos. There's no reason you can't go through Shas. There's no reason that you can't learn Liyyonah. Whatever it is that your skills are, there's no reason you can't go to take over a business and take it over. You can't go do a shlichus. I see you, and I hold you accountable for the chushim that you have. You could do so much more. I'll be honest, for me, if I had a mashpia like that, that would see me, my ma'alos and kesones, and hold me to account, that would be a gift.

00:44 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. We are here with Rabbi Levi Offson, uh, currently rabbi and shliach in Johannesburg, South Africa. What's the name of your shul?

01:14 Speaker 1 Linksfield Shul. It's a Ashkenaz shul.

01:16 Speaker 2 The Linksfield Shul in Johannesburg, South Africa. Um, you grew up, he grew up in Crown Heights, um, in fact, in this home, and we are now in the basement of the home, in the bunker, which, uh, makes me as a Shemtov very, very, very comfortable. Um, this is, this is where I flourish. Um-

01:38 Speaker 1 The bunkers.

01:39 Speaker 2 Yeah. And for, for anybody who is concerned that we're having too many Offsons on the podcast, I-- you can rest assured that there are many more, so we are not going... W-we-- that problem, that problem will persist indefinitely.

01:55 Speaker 1 Please, God.

01:55 Speaker 2 There's about 100 of us, I think.

01:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

01:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh-

01:59 Speaker 1 Maybe more than 50

01:59 Speaker 2 ... and I, and I, and I'd like to get to that at some point. Um, I, I know that you've done a lot of research on our grandparents, on, um-

02:07 Speaker 1 Fascinating story

02:08 Speaker 2 ... Rebbe and Chanah Offson, and I think that'd be very interesting to get to.

02:12 Speaker 1 Especially after in a previous episode you said that you have no ancestors in Nevel.

02:17 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.

02:18 Speaker 1 And that, and that triggered a lot of Offsons.

02:20 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. I did say that I have no, no, I've no connection to Nevel. Um, yeah. I don't know. My father never me- my father never mentioned it. I mean, I guess in Hong Kong that's not like y- it's not a distinguishing factor . Like we're from Nevel. I mean, like

02:43 Speaker 1 True, the Crown Heights way I'm not sure it says much either, but okay.

02:45 Speaker 2 No, but I, but I'm saying like, "You berim zich from Hong Kong, you're from Nevel." I mean, that, that, that, yeah. I think, I think, I think we, uh, I think that was a subject that was covered already with, with your brother, with, with Shmulie, the difference of growing up in Hong Kong. You know, but I suppose, um, I suppose... I mean, let, let's, let's start with, let's start with your story, and then we'll see where it, where it takes us. But let's start with your story. Um, you know, how did you end up in South Africa? How did, how did you end up doing what you're doing? Was it always something that you expected to do?

03:24 Speaker 1 It's a good que- a good question. Um, grew up here in Crown Heights, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do shlichus or not. Um, it's actually a very unusual shlichus story, but I basically got married to a South African girl. Um, and I was torn. In other words, shlichus, well, I, I didn't grow up with that. I didn't go to those yeshivas with shlichus. I didn't... A-and it was just, it was an option, but it wasn't necessarily the only option. And I, I remember I was just sitting in kollel, and I was just pleitering. It wasn't going anywhere. And just a, just before a year before, after my wedding, I remember standing in 770 talking to a brother-in-law of mine, and we're chatting, and he's like, I don't know who said what, but someone's like, "Why don't you just move to South Africa and try see what happens?" And that idea of just moving to South Africa and just moving into my in-laws at first glance sounded crazy, but literally it clicked in my head right away, and just f- I was living at the time in Crown in Kingston, so it's a three-minute walk from 770. By the time I came home, I was convinced it's the right decision, so I came home and spoke to my wife. I think our firstborn was just, was, was about to be born, and I said, "Chaya, let's move to South Africa." She already had a job lined up. This is like Seven Tammuz time

04:48 Speaker 1 for next year. That was Sunday. By Tuesday, I informed my family, her family. We got permission from her f- parents to move into her home in Johannesburg, and literally we made the decision. We-- she canceled her job. I canceled with other things I was doing.

05:03 Speaker 2 Sounds like she had planted this idea in your head earlier.

05:06 Speaker 1 No. Not at all. It was-

05:08 Speaker 2 It does sound like

05:08 Speaker 1 No, not at all. That's what often people assume. None of her sisters have come back since, and it was totally... When I met her it was moving to South Africa was bachara an option.

05:18 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

05:19 Speaker 1 We moved into her parents a few months later after Tishrei and started from the bottom. Got a job at a shliach working a few part-time day. Got a job in the local high school.

05:27 Speaker 2 Right.

05:27 Speaker 1 And slowly but surely, uh, learned the lay of the land. Which, by the way, a podcast of its own, I believe there's a lot of value in doing shlichus in that way, that you come to a place and the place learns you, and you learn the place.

05:40 Speaker 2 Right.

05:40 Speaker 1 And slowly but surely you find the shlichus that's appropriate to y- to you and your spouse, rather than sitting in Crown Heights in kollel. You don't know the place. The place doesn't know you. You get a job with official titles, a dotted line, and then you come to the place, and you find out that it's not a g- it's like a shidduch. You, you're marrying somebody without actually dating.

05:58 Speaker 2 Uh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's a broader conversation. Um, you know, the, the, the natural instinct is to talk about, um, the politics of shlichus, which, which, which deserves a conversation, um, you know, and just the challenge of- You know, landing somewhere and figuring your way out, um, figuring your way up. Shlichus isn't, doesn't have that corporate structure really, and so you're either in or you're out. It's been discussed on this podcast even. Pini and Druzy spoke about it a-at length. Um, and so I mean, there's a politics of it, but I think, I think more interesting, for me at least, is that, you know, the whole model of Shlichus, the conception of Shlichus is that... And someone, a Shliach once put it to me this way. He said: "Look, Shlichus is you make a decision at a young time in your life, you make one important decision, and then you never have to make that kind of decision again." Right?

06:53 Speaker 1 That was not my journey.

06:54 Speaker 2 Exactly. But that's the model. That's a, that's the mental concept of Shlichus is we, we know, you know, after figuring it out with the powers that be, we know where our sheteach is, we know where our city, neighborhood, island, country, continent, depending on how sparse you know, the place is, right? We know that that's where we belong because that's where it's been figured out, um, and-

07:19 Speaker 1 Migates

07:20 Speaker 2 ... and then, and we staying there to the end, to the bitter end, right? Or the happy end, God willing, right? And of course, that comes from Yesh Das B'ari Kedes, right? 'Cause it used to be that the Rebbe would say your Shlichus is here on the map. That's it. Like it-

07:36 Speaker 1 And that story is partially true. There's a lot of Shluchim, even in the s-70s and '80s, that would say that they had to give the Rebbe multiple-

07:42 Speaker 2 No, I'm saying in the beginning, in the beginning

07:43 Speaker 1 ... messages. Begin again.

07:43 Speaker 2 I'm saying in the beginning, beginning, it was very like, "This is your place, take it or le-

07:46 Speaker 1 Scripted

07:46 Speaker 2 ... take it or leave it," right? And, and, and there's a s- there's, there's something very nice about the certainty there. And even later, there's Shluchim that you're talking about that gave a number of places. Once the Rebbe said, "This is your place," that was your place, right? Um, and what you're talking about is, is not just navigating the corporate structure of, or corporate ladder of Shlichus, the hierarchy of Shlichus. What you're talking about is letting Shlichus find you.

08:15 Speaker 1 Correct.

08:16 Speaker 2 Right? And, and there, there's something... And it's a very interesting question about Shlichus, right? Like... And, and, and, and, and it really goes, it goes beyond the official capacity of Shlichus, the official, um, vocation of Shlichus, right? Even if you're, let's say, a businessman-

08:35 Speaker 1 Exactly. That's where I wanted to go.

08:36 Speaker 2 Eh-

08:37 Speaker 1 In other words, in any area of life, I would say every part of adulting, um, being-

08:42 Speaker 2 They, they use that word in South Africa? How far do I have to travel from this country to get away from that-

08:47 Speaker 1 Sorry. I'm sorry

08:48 Speaker 2 ... that word?

08:48 Speaker 1 Apologies. My, my whole-

08:49 Speaker 2 Oh, no. That word, that word's terrible. Yeah.

08:50 Speaker 1 Okay. Anyways, the, uh, part of that idea of becoming o- my o- our own person is taking ownership, right? Taking Balabat Ishkai on our life and our, uh, and our decisions. And whether it's Shlichus, whether it's our marriage, whether it's how we're raising our kids, we find a lot of comfort when we're younger in the script. People call it the system. I hate that word. Um, there's a script.

09:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

09:14 Speaker 1 And y- whether you follow the script or don't follow the script, there's a very strong script. Obviously, once you're an adult, the, the script is still there. There's, there's Shachris, Mincha, Maariv, there's Limud HaTorah-

09:23 Speaker 2 Right

09:23 Speaker 1 ... whatever it is, there's Chassidus, but the script is much looser. There's a lum-- a lot more hours of the day that you have to fill in the, the text your own.

09:29 Speaker 2 Right.

09:30 Speaker 1 And that idea of finding your own way in it is something that I think a lot of us resent. I was just talking to a younger man yesterday-

09:40 Speaker 2 I, I, I have to interject with a story. I have to interject with a story, but hold the thought. It's just too good. I ha- I, it's-

09:45 Speaker 1 Go for it.

09:46 Speaker 2 I remember distinctly a classmate of mine remarking to me, I think it was like the first... He, he had, for some reason, uh, I guess he had just gotten older or something. Maybe he had just finished Yeshiva. It was the first stretch of a week that he had gotten up pre pre 6:30 a.m. for a week, and he's like, "A poshet didn't realize..." This is a guy in his 20s. "A poshet didn't realize how long a day is."

10:13 Speaker 1 Poshet didn't realize how long a day is.

10:15 Speaker 2 Like, a day goes on forever. He's like, "Ahhh, I don't know what to do with myself." Like there's a morning, an afternoon, and a evening.

10:21 Speaker 1 Who would have known?

10:21 Speaker 2 Who would have known? Yeah.

10:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. I always joke that when I was in Yeshiva, I wasn't a great Shomer Negiah, and when I was in Shlichus, so was a Mashpia, all of us Shalom Zalman Notik, and he wasn't impressed with my Shomer Negiah, and he says, "Levy, I can do Sog Neenzach." Every bachur that doesn't take Shomer Negiah seriously gets a job later on in life that he has to be up at 5:00 in the morning. And I remember looking at him and saying, "Are you kidding me? You kidding me?" Anyways, my, my, my minyan every morning, 6:00 in the morning.

10:53 Speaker 2 You're up at 5:00 in the morning.

10:54 Speaker 1 5:00, 5:30 latest, um, up in the morning, I have to say, and it's very fulfilling. But yeah, that journey-

10:59 Speaker 2 And the, and the Yekkes over there.

11:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, like the rabbi will seem like they're not impressed.

11:02 Speaker 2 No.

11:03 Speaker 1 Um, and so like that journey of, of, of, of going on your own path is something that I think a lot of us struggled, and m- for me, the Shlichus journey, it's, it's my story, but I think it's a lot of stories. There's other Shluchim that, guys my age that went on a similar journey, moved to a place, saw how they've evolved. And I always say, even in South Africa, many of the Shluchim that what they're doing now is not necessarily what they moved down to do 30 years ago. They came down for one role, and it evolved. That evolution of life versus the script of life is something that I find a lot of times we don't create space for, and we, we, we almost like resent the fact that life didn't set us up for that. And I'm not here to go to the system conversation, but I do believe there's a stage in life that has to be mostly scripted. Maybe they could do a better job at preparing, but mostly scripted. And then there's a stage of life where a person has to get, um, the memo, and that is figure it out. I saw this, uh, this letter came out today. I'm sorry for, uh, grabbing out my phone, but literally, so it was posted today, and it really, um, struck a chord th- this is Taf Shin Tezayin, and the Rebbe's talking to, um, the, the Tzirya HaKodesh Chabad. Okay? Go for it. Here is, here's what the Rebbe

12:18 Speaker 1 says When it comes to Polish and Shetech in the area of Chabad, everyone's fighting with everybody, but everyone agrees on one thing, that everyone needs to be the, the Y- the Yiddish word is piachechen, like in other words, like to massage the cheek, give him a hug, un eyn betn and beg him, vechulai hayva ulai, maybe at the end, yaseh toevet l'rabim val yadam l'kodesh baruch hu. He'll do a favor to the Rabim and maybe through them to the, the Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and he'll start thinking about how to do a fayetsis ma yanes chutza, et cetera. In other words, o- one of the hardest things that, that you see the Rebbe doing throughout the Igros Kodesh and, and whatever, in each one of our life, is to take people and sit there saying, "Agency."

12:58 Speaker 2 Right.

12:59 Speaker 1 Take ownership. Take ownership and, and encourage people to take ownership. And I just wanna give a gripe. One of the things that bothers me about so many of the narratives, if that hasn't come across on the-

13:08 Speaker 2 What makes you think that on this podcast we do gripes?

13:13 Speaker 1 We're both accents. Um, one... It hasn't come across on the podcast so much, but there's been a few, is we live in an area today that the most powerful narrative you could give is compassion.

13:24 Speaker 2 Right.

13:27 Speaker 1 Rather than accountability, holding people a-accountable in a loving way, which whatever you could call loving accountability if you just wanna give-

13:34 Speaker 2 Right.

13:34 Speaker 1 And, like, that's-- I, I feel like it's a huge challenge of our time, and that is that it's all about compassion. Shame you went through Gimel Tammuz. Like, again, I could, I could do an episode on my journey in Gimel Tammuz, but I don't want to.

13:46 Speaker 2 Right.

13:46 Speaker 1 And I have to say tribute to your, some of your episodes that have helped me in my own head work through some of that stuff. But it's like, it's compassion. "Okay, shame. You've been through so much, so hard." Um, chsidus mansufil, chsidus demands so much. And, like, we've gone to the other extreme now where a lot of the narratives throughout the, the, the YouTube, you know, s- podcast world and, and speeches and various things is compassion, love, versus the greatest act of love, I believe, is to hold people accountable and sit there saying, "I believe that you are capable of figuring life out. I believe that you can figure out shlitas."

14:23 Speaker 2 Right.

14:23 Speaker 1 "Yes, the system needs changes. Yes, we have to figure out this. Yes, we have to figure out, but stop feeling like such a victim. Make a world for yourself." W-we don't believe in socialism, we don't believe in communism, not only in, like, in terms of finances, but even in terms of the movement. So much of... So many of us often see Lubavitch as this, like, we almost crave a socialistic kind of narrative, where basically there's this benevolent government that's making the decisions for you, which at some stage it doesn't work. At some stage, capitalism, and I'm using those words, but I mean that idea of taking agency on your life and sit there saying, "Okay, I can't sit there blaming the fact that me and my wife are not talking the same language because she had a different chinuch. I have to figure it out. I can't blame the fact that shlitas is not so easy and no one's calling me in kollo. I have to figure it out." That shift. Yes, we could talk about what the movement needs to do to help that, but I don't believe in movement change. Um, not I don't believe in that, I think it's almost impossible. But to, to remind people there is something you could do. And I, I don't-- I feel like that's not a narrative that's getting enough attention.

15:29 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh, I, I think I know what you're saying. This week's episode is brought to you by This World Is a Garden, a new film and concert production by UVLA Media. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Basse LeGani, the production tells the story of the Chabad vision lasting over 300 years, to see this world as God sees it, as his garden. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance of a string quartet, This World Is a Garden is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision as time passes by. This production is now available to be shown at your Chabad House and community. Share the message and vision of Basse LeGani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. The word script definitely feels appropriate, and I think, I think to riff on that a bit further, um, you can think of it almost as even in a script there is the rehearsal, you know, for a play. There's a rehearsal or, you know, if, if it's sports, there's a rehearsal of a, of a play that you draw up, and then there's the real, there's a real, uh, beginning of the play when, uh, when the, when the curtains come up and you have an audience, and things go haywire. You don't know exactly, um... Th- things, things, things change. You cannot call time out. There's an opponent in sports. There's an audience that's watching it and, and, and not gonna give you that kind

16:59 Speaker 2 of grace that you're, you know. And that's when the magic happens, right? That's when the magic happens. And, you know, my contention has been, I don't know if it's exactly what you're saying here, but my con- my contention has been and still is, um, that as much as it's necessary in yeshiva or chinuch to ingrain a certain idea into students and to... They're, they're impressionable, they're young, they're not, they're, they're not really ready for game time yet. The, the purpose is for game time, right? The, the, the, the coach is coaching his team for game time, right? The, the, the, the purpose is not the rehearsal. A team that's great at rehearsal but doesn't... can't think on their feet and can't react to what's thrown at them is not gonna be very good. They're gonna be-

17:50 Speaker 1 Famous expression, I'm sorry if I get it wrong, but something the Rebbe Dashef didn't trust the Bachrim. In other words, until you're a Balabus-

17:56 Speaker 2 Right

17:56 Speaker 1 ... I don't know who you are.

17:58 Speaker 2 Right. I, I didn't-- I never heard that. That's very interesting. And, you know, and I think, you know, bringing it back to Derech Shvi, I think... A-and I think this has to be interrogated 'cause I don't think it's just simple. I don't think it's... Or the right or wrong here is not so simple, but I think the narrative that's been crafted for Derech Shvi is that it's all the Bachrim, right? The famous stories of, like, um, hey Tevis, you know, what the Bachrim going to say and, and just the, the general kind of motif where, like, the Bachrim It, it's again started in the early yutz where, like, the Bochurim were the ones that were right away going home with the Rebbe-

18:33 Speaker 1 The first ones to buy in.

18:34 Speaker 2 They bought into the Rebbe's vision and the Rebbe's enthusiasm and just whole, whole gang. And the older people were a lot more like, "Well, what's going on here?" And set in their ways. And that immediately set up... Look, y-you can blame it on this guy, the other guy, plenty of them are related to me, I get it. But, uh, anyway, I'm not guilty for them anyhow. They came before me. But I, I'm saying, like, I'm familiar with, with, with those, with those, with a lot of the people.

18:58 Speaker 1 That it created a divide.

18:59 Speaker 2 But, like, you could say they're bad, you could say they're good, you could say it's this guy, it's that guy. You, you could say whatever you want. The fact is that that chasm or that schism was-- came almost immediately. Bochurim versus the older Chassidim, right?

19:14 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

19:14 Speaker 2 And that is a divide that's persisted. The divi-- And people are like, you would think that once those Bochurim became the younger light, they would, they would be fine with the new Bochurim, right? Because officially, uh, that supposedly the whole idea was that the old guys didn't buy into the Rebbe's vision and the young guys, the young guys did, right? But once the young guys are the older guys and the young guys and the older guys are both buying into the Rebbe's vision, everything's okay. No, it was not.

19:42 Speaker 1 Mm.

19:42 Speaker 2 Right? Es-especially as the younger guys got older and older, it again became a schism, right? And, and certainly in the mems, certainly in the mems where, where, where, where in the '80s-

19:55 Speaker 1 Mm

19:55 Speaker 2 ... where the Bochurim and the, and a lot of the first generation of Shluchim who had been those Bochurim 30 years earlier-

20:02 Speaker 1 Suddenly they're the establishment

20:03 Speaker 2 ... it wasn't just establishment, there was a schism again. It, it, it's not even so important to me to label one way or the other. It, it was just there was, there, there was a schism, right? And, and, and what that does is, is that creates a separation between the rehearsal and the end game time, right? There's this... It becomes like the, the whole world. And I think another ingredient also is that because the world around the Rebbe was so rich and so saturated, which hadn't existed in previous times. A lo- you know, for s- for so many years of Lubavitch prior, the Rebbeim were, were, were away a lot.

20:41 Speaker 1 Mm.

20:42 Speaker 2 Right? This idea of, of like s- Bechor wasn't the yeshiva for until the Tenchietimim. Even by Tenchietimim, they didn't-

20:49 Speaker 1 They didn't live with the Rebbe as much.

20:51 Speaker 2 In good times, you saw him once a week for the Maimer, and that was it. There was no Farbrengen. There, there were a few Farbrengens. I don't even know if the Bochurim were invited to those Farbrengens. I do- I don't... I, I'm not su- I'm not so familiar. But Torah Shalom doesn't talk about this large... It doesn't seem like it's said in this large Farbrengen. Here and there, there were a lot of times the Farbrengens were, were the Bochurim themselves without the Rebbe or Shav, right? And like-

21:10 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

21:12 Speaker 2 So-

21:12 Speaker 1 Which tells you what?

21:13 Speaker 2 No. So what it tells me is that you, you have, first of all, this, this, this, this persistent schism between the Bochurim and the, and the, and the, and the older than Bochurim.

21:24 Speaker 1 Right.

21:25 Speaker 2 And then on top of that, the Bochurim are in this world that is magnetic and has its own center of gravity, the Rebbe's world. And so they are-

21:38 Speaker 1 Closer to the source

21:39 Speaker 2 ... you know, yes. They, they know what's cooking. They know what's cooking. The old fogies, even the, the ones that went on Shlichus and were the first ones to buy in-

21:46 Speaker 1 They're not updated

21:47 Speaker 2 ... they're not updated.

21:48 Speaker 1 They haven't gotten the most recent upload. Download.

21:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. What do you know? What do you know, right? And, and, and, and there's this kind of, like, there's this, the center of gravity shifts towards the Bochurim. Now, I'm not even here in this particular conversation trying to make a point whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

22:03 Speaker 1 Rather?

22:04 Speaker 2 I mean, you could pro-- I mean, you could probably gather that I don't think it's a great thing. But I, I, I think at the ver- uh, uh, one of the consequences of that is, one of the... Even if you're neutral on that taking, of that happening in the first place, one of the consequences of it is that the, that the rehearsal to, to game time continuum gets disrupted.

22:29 Speaker 1 It's a backwards transition.

22:30 Speaker 2 You know, gets disrupted, right? The idea of seeing Bochur life as a prelude and solely a rehearsal towards real life is, is completely disrupted, right? Because instead, what we have is when you're a Bochur, that was game time, and once you're married, you're that retired-

22:51 Speaker 1 You're playing game time

22:51 Speaker 2 ... you, you're that retired sports player who's now a, a has been and like, "Oh, back in the gute zeit." And it's like, no, no, this is the game. That was just a j- that was a joke.

23:01 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

23:02 Speaker 2 Right? That was a joke.

23:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's part of the explanation. It, um-

23:05 Speaker 2 I, I, I heard it anyway

23:06 Speaker 1 ... no, I mean, like, in other words, that's... But I do think that when a person, you know, I j- I'm just going my, me and my friends and I are going through the stage of 40.

23:17 Speaker 2 Right.

23:17 Speaker 1 Which is a weird stage of life. Um, and you're trying to make sense of the journey, and you realize that, yes, being a Bochur is a magnificent time. And I don't think it's only a means to an end. Like, you know, I, I work on a shul that's on a school campus, and often there's this slogan that goes around that says, "Children are, are the future." I always say I find that problematic. I think the children are also the present and not just the future. So in other words, I do think the, the Bochur sheyar is not just a means to an end. I do think it has inherent value.

23:48 Speaker 2 Right.

23:48 Speaker 1 Um, it has value even not what it leads to. But I do think that there is a big part of it, and that is to prepare the person and to give the person the fire, right? The famous mashal that if you have a big fire, then later on you'll have a smaller fire. Um, but it's, it's a much more Ɣrės bəqélēm, whatever. It's the, the, it's, it's the m- not that word that you don't like, but it's the maturation. It's going into becoming your own person. And I just find that so many of us and so many of the, the conversations that many of us h-have are griping about that transition instead of embracing it. Uh, okay? In other words, like, like, yes, they didn't prepare us, and yes this, yes that. But ultimately, in every society, at some stage, that movement from being a kid, a teenager, okay, in the secular world, you're then going to university, and at some stage you get your graduation paper and you have to make it on your own. That transition, I work in a, in a shul where pretty much that's the whole world. Everyone's getting degrees. That transition is hard. But that resentment to the transition t- is, is, is, is a bit baffling. In other words, it's, it's a, it's a gift. Do you really want someone holding you by the hand for the rest of your life rather than embrace the fact that at some stage, yes, no one's gonna... Very few people are

25:05 Speaker 1 getting a phone call in kollel saying, "We have a perfect shlichus for you and for your wife with the perfect salary in the perfect locale, and everything's gonna be taken care for you."

25:13 Speaker 2 I'll, I'll take, I'll take the other side of that though.

25:14 Speaker 1 Okay, please.

25:15 Speaker 2 I don't, I don't, I-

25:15 Speaker 1 I'm setting it up so that we can have the conversation.

25:17 Speaker 2 I don't... I, I'll take the other side of that. I, I don't think that most people, like, uh, that, that to me is a bit of a caricature. I don't think most people want to be led by their hand their whole life.

25:28 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:29 Speaker 2 Okay? I think, I think, and I think there is an impulse of when things get hard, you're like, you know, "I wish it was easier."

25:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

25:40 Speaker 1 We've asked.

25:41 Speaker 2 But, but i-in fact, that's what, that's what I can't stand about the word adulting, because adulting implies that being an adult is something almost like this challenge that you have, when really it's a natural course of events. And, and so that, that's a flip side of, "Oh, I wish I could be a child, but I have no choice. I have to be an adult." And it's like, no, I don't wish I could be a child. What, are you nuts? Why, why would I wish to be a child? Like, who wants to be a moron? Like, a child is an idiot by definition. Like, they don't know anything. Who wants to be a child, right? This idea that like, "I wanna be a child, but I..." So, so there, there is, there is that kind of, there is that kind of, um, mentality in, in, in society where people, where people in... You know, whenever it gets tough, they kind of f- there, there's this language of weakness, which I agree with. Th- which I agree with you that that's not a good thing.

26:33 Speaker 1 Do you feel that that's a very strong narrative that's coming out? In other words, that when you listen to a lot of these speakers that are really... Again, I don't, I don't wanna be specific. Um, a lot of these very popular speakers that are getting the message-

26:46 Speaker 2 It's not a Lubavitch, it's not a Lubavitch thing. It's, it's a world-

26:48 Speaker 1 It's world, uh, worldwide.

26:49 Speaker 2 It's a, it's a world thing.

26:50 Speaker 1 I'm not saying Lubavitch.

26:50 Speaker 2 It's, it's, it's a world thing. It's a world thing. It's, it's-

26:52 Speaker 1 We've gone extreme on the compassion versus accountability.

26:56 Speaker 2 Okay. But, but, but I, I think... So, so, so I agree with you on that. What, what I would take the counter on here is that I don't think people really want that. I think people fall back to that because it's easy.

27:07 Speaker 1 Okay.

27:07 Speaker 2 I don't think people want that.

27:08 Speaker 1 What do they want?

27:08 Speaker 2 I think most people want to grow up. Most people want... Every... At the end of the day, who are the heroes? You wanna see what people really want, look at who they, look at who they look up to. They don't look up to the coddled person who, who never got, who never did anything in their life or, you know, was taken care of by their father-in-law. Okay? Nobody celebrates... There, there are people who say, "Oh, wouldn't that be cool if I married into money?" But nobody celebrates the guy who married into money. Nobody, nobody w- like-

27:38 Speaker 1 So what's the issue then?

27:38 Speaker 2 Well, they, they wanna be... They celebrate the guy who was successful on his own, right? That's what they wanna be.

27:43 Speaker 1 So how do you make sense of it?

27:43 Speaker 2 Okay. So you, to talk about the world at, at, at large is, is a, is a, is a-

27:48 Speaker 1 Yeah

27:48 Speaker 2 ... is a, is a, is a very big question. But I think the counter that I'm taking on is that you are placing it all on the individual to basically, you know, um-

28:00 Speaker 1 Figure their life out

28:00 Speaker 2 ... to basically, uh, impart his will and, you know, take his will and put it on reality, right? Um, shape reality to his will. And you could say, "Okay, that's what being a, a person, a man is," you know. This is what you want, make it happen. I think, I, I think at least in Lubavitch's case, which I'm more familiar with, I think to ask someone to do that when they've also been educated not to do that is, is, is already playing a cruel game. I think there is importance of pointing out what's up with the system, not for the sake of abdicating agency and say, "Oh, well, it's the system's fault, so okay, now I can... Now, now I have an excuse. I don't have to do anything about it." No, because again, I believe that people don't want it. Um, so I, I'm not so concerned about excuses. I don't think people want it. I don't think... Most people are not satisfied when someone gives them justification. Most people want clarity. They, they want to feel that what they're thinking is not ludicrous. They want to... They don't wanna be gaslit.

29:12 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:13 Speaker 2 They w- they want, they wanna f- they wanna feel clarity, right? They wanna feel clarity and, and especially wanna feel moral clarity.

29:19 Speaker 1 Okay.

29:19 Speaker 2 Right? Okay. So when you have a, when you have a community that basically says, and a, and a education, you know, an educational s- an educational, um, direction that basically tells people that, you know, "Kabbalah, Kabbalah, Kabbalah," you know, you're, you're going to go to a place at the age of 22, 23, and that's gonna be your place for the rest of your life, and it's all figured out for you, right? When that's the narrative and that's how you've been taught, and now you say, "Well, wait one second, you have to do opposite to that," based on what? Based on what? Like you have-

29:56 Speaker 1 Can I counter that?

29:57 Speaker 2 Of course you can counter it.

29:58 Speaker 1 Okay.

29:58 Speaker 2 All right.

29:59 Speaker 1 So, so first of all, yes, in case in any way my messaging didn't show compassion, and I mean that, I'm not being cynical. In other words, I do think the transition is hard. I do think on the other hand that when you look at the Rebbe's Torah, especially in the later years, but the truth is from that's right from the beginning from when the Rebbe says right after that first right after he finishes and he says, "We're not here to... I'm not here to do that for you. I'll take the you have to do the work for you," which is, you know, famous where the Rebbe really explores it to , to literally... Fundamentally, the Rebbe was tr- The, the way I see it is Moshiach comes when people take agency. Now, the fact that the system, certain fellows in the system don't push that narrative, we, we could gripe, we could, we could time it, but I believe it-

30:53 Speaker 2 No, it's not, it's not certain fellows. Come on.

30:55 Speaker 1 No, I know, and I mean it.

30:56 Speaker 2 It's, it's, it's not certain fellows. You have to, you have to... Look, you could disagree with me, but my argument is not certain fellows. My argument is not that they're certain fellows. My argument is that structurally this is how things are. And, and, and, and this is-

31:08 Speaker 1 So the-

31:09 Speaker 2 This, this is, this is the issue with... This is the issue for me at least with, with this idea of, of, of therapy in the sense that you'll have a situation where one younger man after another has the same problem to the point where it's clear that it's systemic. And instead of turning our eyes to what's the cause of this, why is this happening on a systemic level, we tell the individual to figure it out on their own.

31:32 Speaker 1 Oh.

31:32 Speaker 2 Say, "No, no. Fix the problem."

31:34 Speaker 1 So I hear you. So I'll be honest, and I do believe that there's incredible room for the conversation on system, and I do believe that that's been given a lot of platform and it will be given platform. What I feel, again, I maybe I'm not listening to every podcast. I'm not saying yours. E-every year what I feel like there's this like group think-

31:52 Speaker 2 Right

31:52 Speaker 1 ... that's coming onto almost every year is it's, it's just an incredible amount of compassion, which I understand. In other words, having grown up in Gimmel Tammuz and growing up in that chronites, I needed the compassion. I'm not-

32:04 Speaker 2 You, you talking about Lubavitch specifically?

32:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, Lubavitch. Uh, the world, but specifically Lubavitch. There's an incredible amount of it's, "It's hard," validation. "The system has let us down." Um, "Gimmel Tammuz was a chaotic time." Um, th- you know, "The, the mashpiyim didn't necessarily prepare us." That, that narrative gets... So I'm not coming and saying that narrative is false. I, I just feel, and again-

32:27 Speaker 2 I-

32:27 Speaker 1 I put it this way. If I grew up today-

32:30 Speaker 2 Right

32:31 Speaker 1 ... with today's narratives-

32:32 Speaker 2 Right

32:33 Speaker 1 ... but with the circumstances I grew up with, which was chaotic, the world I grew up with, with today's narrative, I wouldn't be frum today because I would feel very validated in my journey of dropping everything because that's a, it... And, and I don't think anyone's intending that. I'm not blaming anyone for intending. But when the narrative moves so much to where did the system go wrong and the, the world of compassion, and I see you, and I needed that. I'll be honest, in my own journey, the word healing, just like adulting, I don't like. But in my own journey of trying to find myself in this world, I needed it at some stage. But at this stage, and maybe because I'm at a different age of my life, and maybe other people are different ages, and they, they won't resonate with that, and that's fine. But I feel like at some stage, I wish someone could look at me in the eye and actually remind me how much agency I have, because I'm not hearing enough of that. So yes, the other narrative's important, but this narrative is not getting airtime.

33:34 Speaker 2 But y- so I, I... My feeling, I... Okay. I, I, I hear what you're saying. My feeling is that the narrative hasn't changed at all fundamentally. It's all, it's all window dressing. It's all window dressing. Um, at the core, there's a lack of trust.

33:52 Speaker 1 Between who and who?

33:52 Speaker 2 Between the older generation and the younger generation, right? So when you and I are growing up, there is this... I mean, you... I'm, I'm oversimplifying obviously, but the older generation is panicking about what the younger generation's gonna look like 'cause they're gonna grow up after Gimmel Tammuz.

34:10 Speaker 1 Sure.

34:10 Speaker 2 And so there's a deep lack of trust of the future, what, what's the younger generation gonna do, what are they gonna look like. And so you see this like locking down immediately. Like, you know, the, the... Literally a couple months after Gimmel Tammuz, white shirts in yeshiva only. Oh, what's that? W-what's that?

34:28 Speaker 1 Okay.

34:29 Speaker 2 What are you doing, right? You're freaking out is what you're doing, right? The guy with the yellow shirt or the striped shirt two months ago was fine, and now you're freaking out.

34:37 Speaker 1 Okay.

34:38 Speaker 2 And so you're, you're, you're, you're, you're-

34:39 Speaker 1 You're consolidating

34:40 Speaker 2 ... yeah. It's worse than consolidating. You're panicking is the word, right? And there's a lack of trust, and everybody that grew up in our times knows e- knows exactly what, what that, what, what that lack of trust is, right? You, you... Anything that you said that was not exactly like what was said 20 years earlier was knocked down as, as, as misapik courses and, and, and HFKers, and we, you know, "We know better. They know better," or, "They were by the Rebbe, you weren't." There's a lack of trust. A lack of trust. Um, and that, and that lack of trust expressed itself in conformity. "We're not gonna trust you to do your own thing, so we're gonna tell you exactly how to be. You're gonna wear a white shirt every single day and only a white shirt."

35:17 Speaker 1 Okay.

35:17 Speaker 2 You know, to the point of absurdity. I was once in a yeshiva, and I, you know, I, I, um, I was visiting. I was already, I was already f- I think I was getting married, uh, or whatever. I don't remember. Like, I was already, I was already a chassan bachur, I think. The timing doesn't work out. Anyway, I was at a yeshiva, and I, and I hear the mashgiach making a new rule that he had been in the dormitories and the bochurim were wearing colored boxers, and it's terrible, lei oleinu. Black and white boxers and tighty whities. What's, what's that? What's that? What are you exactly... That is conformity.

35:52 Speaker 1 Okay.

35:52 Speaker 2 That is, that's conforming to the nth degree, where you walk into the dorm of your yeshiva and you see bochurim expressing themselves, you know, in the one place that they're allowed, which is a colorful boxer and your underwear, and you don't like it 'cause it, 'cause... So it's conformity. It's all conformity all the way to the absurd degree. Now what you have is a flip. "We still don't trust you to grow up, so now we're just going to shower you with, with... We're gonna, we're, we, we're going to say we can't trust you with agency, so we're just gonna say that you don't have any, and it's not your fault."

36:25 Speaker 1 Patronizing.

36:26 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes. It's the same exact thing.

36:29 Speaker 1 100%.

36:29 Speaker 2 We don't trust.

36:30 Speaker 1 On that.

36:30 Speaker 2 We don't trust. It's just window dressing.

36:33 Speaker 1 I agree.

36:33 Speaker 2 And, and, and, and both of those attitudes come from, in my opinion, fear. We are scared of what's going to happen, and we are scared-

36:42 Speaker 1 Can I give you an example of that?

36:43 Speaker 2 Of course. You, you-

36:44 Speaker 1 It's a weird thing. I know it's gonna trigger some bochurim.

36:46 Speaker 2 You don't have to ask any permission.

36:47 Speaker 1 Um, so I sat... I pretty much went to American yeshivas all my life, and besides one year. And American yeshiva farbrengens, I'm sure things have changed. I can only talk from my reality. I'm always reminded by my younger siblings that, like, the reality I grew up in and the reality of today is different. I've been on my own side of the plantation for the last 15 years. Um, but from all the farbrengens I ever sat in, I... in here in America, I literally could not recall one farbrengen that someone actually spoke about life. And I, I landed in Eretz Yisrael, and the funny thing is 'cause I'm not a big fan of the Israeli mentality, in other words, whatever, the, the yeshivas is Chabad yeshivas in Israel. But the one thing I was a huge fan, I remember just sitting at the first farbrengen, and the guy's talking about life. He's talking about, uh, uh, Neveh Sha'ar HaAmos, and he's talking about, um, uh, you know, a, a bachur growing up in this world and making sense of reality and, and context and narrative-

37:39 Speaker 2 So what did they talk about in America? What were they-

37:41 Speaker 1 Sichas and Kabbalas HaOhr and how does Yiddish Kitz Liv is this-

37:45 Speaker 2 Rabbi's stories

37:45 Speaker 1 ... and Yiddish Kitz Liv is this-

37:46 Speaker 2 Rabbi's stories

37:47 Speaker 1 ... and that's what, and, and that's what Masechet on Yiddish Kitz Liv is what, what's demanded-

37:50 Speaker 2 Right

37:50 Speaker 1 ... and that's the Avodah, and this is what we're gonna do, and Afos Tamayonos-

37:52 Speaker 2 Right

37:52 Speaker 1 ... and what did the Baal Shem Tov mean? Very much stay within the script-

37:57 Speaker 2 Right

37:57 Speaker 1 ... and don't actually interpret the script.

37:59 Speaker 2 Right.

37:59 Speaker 1 Don't give me anything. And I remember just sitting there at the Israeli yeshiva the first time and saying, "This is Gan Eden."

38:05 Speaker 2 Right.

38:05 Speaker 1 "This is Gan Eden. Someone's actually talking life."

38:08 Speaker 2 Right.

38:09 Speaker 1 In other words, I don't have to open up like, you know, a lot of bachurim, uh, you suddenly discover the seven habits or whatever thing is in, in the, the, you... of the, the, the guys fight now. Like, you could talk about life within a Chassidisha framework, and you could... That's what farbrengens are set up to do.

38:23 Speaker 2 Right.

38:23 Speaker 1 The idea of... So I agree with you that that interpretation and that preparation for life doesn't exis- is at least when I was growing up, was almost non-existent. Um, and I, I, I validate that story. In other words, I validate the story, and I think it's an important story in that when I was a bachur, um, in the first few years after, whenever I would farbreng with bachurim, I would try to give them that language. Like, and I would try to-

38:47 Speaker 2 Right

38:47 Speaker 1 ... create a validity of that narrative, that there, that the, that there's Chassidus and there's a way of interpreting Chassidus. Well, the, the role of a mashpia, whatever. And at the same time, I just feel like the, the, the me- the message has to be, "I trust you enough to figure it out." In other words, I remember-

39:10 Speaker 2 It's more than that. I trust you enough to make a mistake.

39:12 Speaker 1 Understand. Understand. I, I trust you. That fundamental idea that... You know, I'll give you an example. I often would f- when I taught in high school, I would encourage the boys to, to go search. Search, go, go find, discover Yiddishkeit. You know, rather search when you're home and your parents have-

39:26 Speaker 2 In South Africa.

39:27 Speaker 1 In South Africa. Go search. I'm not saying search by like you have to paint your hair green, but try to... And peop- the, they would always counter and sit there saying, "Rabbi, but what if I search and I discover it's false?"

39:37 Speaker 2 Right.

39:37 Speaker 1 I said, "I have enough trust that it's MoSheh Emes as said, 'Asah Emes.'"

39:41 Speaker 2 Right.

39:41 Speaker 1 And I've literally made the deal with hundreds of kids over the years that if you go and search for real, and you discover that Yiddishkeit's not real, come back to me, I'll give you $1,000. Now, not that I have the money.

39:52 Speaker 2 Right.

39:52 Speaker 1 But the point is, Baruch Hashem, so no one's ever approached me, and I don't know, hopefully they won't approach me. But that idea is I, I truly believe that the story is true. I truly believe that the narrative is true. I truly believe that MoSheh Emes as said, "Asah Emes," and that we're given enough to figure it out. We're given enough to figure it out. And that trust, you know, one of the core of our conversation, the, the core of the conversation is the trust in people that they could figure it out, the trust that they could fail, the trust that they could take agen- agency. The fundamental idea of you can figure this out, people. You can make a plan. You can figure out how to f- take the stuff you learned, the, the Maimon you learned about Atzilut and, and Bi'ah, and you could figure out a way to interpret it in your life. You could figure out if you wanna go on shlichus if that's your kav, you could figure out a shlichus for you. It might not be a straight route. There might be, uh, derech erucha ktsarah. You'll figure it out. You wanna go in business and be a Chassidishe yungerman, you could figure it out. You wanna r- r- raise children, obviously, akovei d'shmayim, in other words, chutz m'yirash Shmayim, there's things that are not in your control, but there's a lot in your control. There's so much. Other words, other than Hashgacha Protis, number two is Bechirah Chofshis.

41:04 Speaker 1 So there's Hashgacha Protis, and right under that is Bechirah Chofshis, the, the ability to remind people that you have choices, that you literally can make choices. If you're working, living in a place, and the place is not working for you, you can, you can either change the place, you can move a place. Obviously, there's certain things about your life you can't change, you're married, your kids. But fundamentally, this idea of just sitting back and, and griping, so going back to that word, while there is so much understanding, and yes, there's the point of the system, I do think there's room for the narrative to look at people in the eye in a loving way-

41:38 Speaker 2 Right

41:39 Speaker 1 ... and sit there saying, "Man, you're... You can do this. You can do this. It's hard. It's not pretty. It's a, it's a messy journey. You could do it."

41:47 Speaker 2 Look, I'm, I'm, I'm all for the message. I just... You know, I, I'm, I'm not... You're not talking to somebody who is... I, I don't believe in the, you know, the therapeutic, um, mindset, which is that everything needs to be, um, you know, c- made comfortable and everything has to be, has to be softened. Um, I, I personally am, I personally am fine with the message that you're talking about, but I, I, I, I, I, I, I... What I, where I disagree is that, where I disagree is that at the end of the day, and this is what this podcast is really about, has always been about, is that, you know, we cannot present ourselves, we cannot present others, we cannot present our children with an option where the only way you can have an identity that's real and coherent and, and constructive, excuse me, the only way you'll have that is by basically abandoning your collective identity, like your community's identity.

42:56 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

42:56 Speaker 2 Right? And at the end of the day, we all have different layers of identity, who I am as an individual, who I am as part of a family, who I am as part of relationship, who I am as part of business, who I am as part of a community, right? Here, we're talking about who I am as an indivi- individual versus who I am as part of a community, right? And if the community and the structures of the community have created a systemic sense of Uh, distrust in our, in our own selves and in each other, coming and telling people, "Buck up, you can do this," is not addressing the problem. In a s- in a way, it's exacerbating the problem.

43:37 Speaker 1 Okay.

43:38 Speaker 2 B- in a way, it's exacerbating the problem because you're telling the individual, you know-

43:42 Speaker 1 They're responsible for collective

43:43 Speaker 2 ... they're, you're responsible for what was done to you, right?

43:46 Speaker 1 No.

43:46 Speaker 2 What was done to you. And-

43:47 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no, no

43:48 Speaker 2 ... no, I'm not... No, no. I'm not-

43:49 Speaker 1 That's not fair

43:49 Speaker 2 ... I'm not saying, I'm not saying that's what you're saying. I'm just saying that to me is the, is, is the, the whole, right? The message I agree with. I'm not suggesting that that's what you-

43:59 Speaker 1 Okay

43:59 Speaker 2 ... that, that, that that's what you intend to say. But what, what I see is that there's a, there's a, there's a gap there, right? There, there's a, there's a skip there, which is you cannot ask an... You cannot... You are essentially telling the individual to abandon their-

44:14 Speaker 1 No

44:14 Speaker 2 ... their, their, their, their fundamentals.

44:16 Speaker 1 No.

44:16 Speaker 2 We, we, we have to, we have to... Why... A-a-ask ourselves a question: Why is there a lack of trust in our community?

44:24 Speaker 1 Listen, no one's denying the fact-

44:25 Speaker 2 Why is there, why is there a lack of trust?

44:27 Speaker 1 No one's denying the world we grew up in, um, the trauma of Gimmel Tammuz, but if you don't mind, let's go reverse. You mentioned at the beginning we might go to-

44:35 Speaker 2 It started well before Gimmel Tammuz

44:36 Speaker 1 ... One second, one second. So I wanna go, I wanna zoom out even further.

44:39 Speaker 2 Yeah.

44:39 Speaker 1 I wanna zoom to, you know, you mentioned maybe we could just go to our grandparents' story. I wanna go to that story 'cause I think it has a lot of, uh... I'm not gonna go through all the details, although it's a, it's a beautiful story, and I was begging you a few months ago if we could do a film together on it. Um, who knows?

44:53 Speaker 2 I didn't refuse.

44:54 Speaker 1 I know. Who knows, I said. Um, so the Aft name every- I often get in South Africa who... Like Aft is the strangest-sounding, uh, surname, last name. And, um-

45:07 Speaker 2 Strangest-sounding surname

45:09 Speaker 1 ... for them in South Africa, I'm saying. It's, it's a very strange sound. Like, what does it mean? I always get the question of what does it mean?

45:13 Speaker 2 What it mean? What it means is a question.

45:14 Speaker 1 What it means? I'm saying, what does it mean?

45:15 Speaker 2 There are some strange surnames out there-

45:16 Speaker 1 Fair enough. Um-

45:18 Speaker 2 ... in South Africa. Yeah.

45:20 Speaker 1 And a few years ago, I tried to-

45:21 Speaker 2 You just read the names of the s- the national soccer team.

45:24 Speaker 1 True story. Um, but, uh, we started doing... I, I, I wanted to do research about Zaidy's family, where he came from, et cetera. Some was known, some wasn't known. And fundamentally, he grew up in a small little town in Ukraine called Mirgorod. And I'll start by the end. He ended up raising a family together with Bubby of 15 kids and gr- many hundreds of gr- over 100 grandchildren and many, many great-grandchildren. And the rest of his siblings were stuck behind the Sov- Soviet Union, and he didn't know they existed, and pretty much they didn't know he existed. And they all lived... None of them died in the war. They all lived into their 60s, 70s, and the last sister of his died in 93. By the time he discovered that he had siblings alive, it was 1999, '98, '99. At that stage, it was two years before he passed away, and they had all passed away. But literally, just before he was alive, he discovered that his siblings had all survived, and that his mother, who he named after in the '50s, had lived till the '60s. But how is it that a fellow that six siblings got stuck behind the Iron Curtain, I'm in contact with some of their descendants, there's almost nobody left.

46:39 Speaker 2 Right.

46:39 Speaker 1 There's a few, a few do- a dozen or two, some Jewish, some not. And how is it that he, Baruch Hashem, built an empire? What was the difference?

46:53 Speaker 2 What was the difference?

46:53 Speaker 1 He made a different choice. Okay. And, and, and, and fundamentally, that was... And it's, it's not unique to his story. I was talking, I was talking with a relative of mine. They were telling me their grandfather's the same story. He was the only one that ended up, um, from and out, uh, came out of the former Soviet Union. In other words, at all stage, from the first generation of Chassidis, you know, the guys being b-beaten up. You read the story of the Dashpatz-

47:17 Speaker 2 Yeah

47:17 Speaker 1 ... the way the Friediker Rebbe writes it. That idea of having to become a Chassid and being an independent player is, is at the core. It was from the beginning, and at some stage it did become systemized. And I'm not saying the system doesn't serve a function and the collective doesn't serve a function, but we've gone so extreme to that, where your argument is now holding water, where your, your argument is coming and saying, "You can't blame the individual for the collective." But fundamentally, Chassidis was always an individual journey. The famous expression of the Friediker Rebbe, "Teyvah habdidis bemney adam", it's good to be alone amongst people. It's a, it's a, it's a solitary journey amongst other people going on their own solitary journeys, with holding each other side by side rather than one person walking in front of you. And I do believe that that journey, that narrative of what Chassidis is, is something that w- that we do have to talk about. I'm not claiming that I have the answer, but I, I just don't feel like the, the stories of the Dashpatz and the stories of the first generation Chassidim, the Meislish and all these fellows that came and, and had to fight their family and the f- the, the, et cetera, and go on this hero's journey to become closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu through the ways of Chassidis.

48:29 Speaker 2 But that's because Chassidis used to be a hero's journey. That's really-

48:31 Speaker 1 It still is.

48:32 Speaker 2 No, but, but, but you see, but that's what I'm telling you. That's what I'm telling you. You, you c- you, you, you cannot, you cannot come and tell people that Chassidut once is, is conformity and a lack of-

48:44 Speaker 1 Oh, I agree with you

48:45 Speaker 2 ... Chassidism. Okay. So-

48:46 Speaker 1 That story of the sh- the, the, that, that... It's a horrible story, that story that when you go to visit a yeshiva and he starts telling them exactly what, what they have to wear. It's, it's, it's a very uncomfortable story.

48:54 Speaker 2 Right. No. A-and, and, and so, so there's a lack, there's a lack of trust, and it, it goes all the way to that absurd extreme, and it goes in all kinds of other absurd places. And there's a lack of... And with girls in sneers, it's, it's, it's, it's off the wall. It's nuts, right? Everybody knows it. But, but... And so it's like, so, so, so then the question becomes why... If everybody knows it, why are we doing it? Everybody's idiots. No, they're not idiots. Why is it happening?

49:22 Speaker 1 There's a fundamentally stru-

49:24 Speaker 2 Well-

49:24 Speaker 1 There's a fundamental struggle that happens when you take a bunch of frum people and try to build a community of it. It's a... And it's, it's, it's a issue that exists within Chabad, but it exists everywhere. In other words-

49:33 Speaker 2 But it's... But we're talking about Lubavitch here. I, I-

49:35 Speaker 1 No, and I'm saying within Lubavitch. Th-this idea because, well, it happens. Once a person moves out, you live in a small little place, there's not that many Lubavitchers around you. I move, I live in my own little universe. That competitiveness of, of, of, of who's outdoing who-

49:50 Speaker 2 That's not, that's not the issue

49:51 Speaker 1 ... that's a part of it.

49:52 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's not the issue. The lack, the lack of trust, the lack of trust in, in Lubavitch i-is, is what needs to be interrogated. The lack of trust and, "Oh, this is a bunch of Stalinist Soviet, uh, you know, c- or communist. We're paranoid." I don't think that's what it is. I don't think that's what it is. Um, I, you know, I, I think... I mean, the, the... Because why don't I think that's what it is? Because when you hear stories about the Chassidim in Russia who were under the Soviets, suffering under the Soviets, they trusted their kids more. They trusted their kids more.

50:26 Speaker 1 Yeah, I hear that. In other words-

50:27 Speaker 2 They, they, they, they, they, they... And, and the person-

50:29 Speaker 1 So the question, okay, so Bentzi, why don't we trust?

50:31 Speaker 2 Why don't we trust? And that's, that's, like that's where you have to train your fire because you could, you could shout at an individual from day till tomorrow-

50:39 Speaker 1 So y- so but, but the truth is we're saying the same thing. I'm asking why don't I trust myself, and you're saying why does the system not trust me.

50:44 Speaker 2 No, well-

50:44 Speaker 1 But fundamentally, you're putting it more on the system, and I'm putting individual, but we're both saying the narrative that-

50:49 Speaker 2 No, because-

50:49 Speaker 1 ... at some stage there has to be a trust.

50:51 Speaker 2 Well, you could, you could, you could tell an individual that they have to trust themselves, right? But then the question, if, if that's in opposition to the, to the-

51:01 Speaker 1 Collective

51:01 Speaker 2 ... system and the culture and the collective that they're living in, then you're basically telling them to abandon that, right? You're telling them to become their own person and leave their, their home. And that's in general a, a, a question about Yiddishkeit. You know, we always say, you know, right? And well, that's obviously he has to leave Terah. Yeah, but if I'm learning it, my father's not Terah, and it still tells me right?

51:31 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:31 Speaker 2 My father is a shliach. My grandfather's a Chassidish, my father's a Chassidish, you know? What, am I gonna leave? Yeah, you have to. It's, it's a course of... You have to. You cannot, you cannot hold people in a grip. Time does not allow you to, to, to, to, to freeze things and say, "You're gonna be exactly like me." So-

51:50 Speaker 1 So Bentzi, so let me ask you a simple question. We're talking over here, what's the average demographic of people listening to this podcast?

51:54 Speaker 2 No, but I'm s- but I have no idea.

51:56 Speaker 1 On average.

51:57 Speaker 2 Uh, demographic.

51:58 Speaker 1 Age, age group.

51:59 Speaker 2 The... It's, it's, it's men between 25 and 45.

52:02 Speaker 1 Okay.

52:02 Speaker 2 But I, I'm not talking to individuals. I'm not-

52:04 Speaker 1 Why not?

52:05 Speaker 2 Because I, I... This, this podcast is not about me, um, telling people how to think, mainly because I keep on changing my own mind what to think, right? Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not like... I don't have like... Okay, I- we go down to if, if you believe me or not, but it's irrelevant. I don't have this kind of, "Here's my philosophy. I must impart it to the world. Let me bring some people on the podcast to, to spice it up." No. It's... The question is wh- why are we at where we're at, for good or for bad, right? Th- there's, there's so much good, there's so much beauty, so much in, in, in our community, in our tradition, right? And, and the more, you know, talking earlier about trusting students to go search, the more I search in Lubavitch, the more, the more good I find, okay? It's almost like you pick up a stone, you pick up a stone, you're gonna find something beautiful. You may also find worms crawling there, but there'll be something beautiful too. It, it, it's all over the place.

53:07 Speaker 1 And over 40 episodes, what have you found?

53:10 Speaker 2 No, I found, I found... I'm saying, so the, the, the... How did we, how did we end up here, right? And one of the questions of... Really the first question is: Where are we in the first place? Like where are we? Like, right? Like where are we? Where, like... And then how did we end up here? And then one of the big questions is, you know, now that it's apparent to me that there's this fundamental lack of trust, the question is why did that happen, right? Why, why is there a lack of trust in our, in, in, in our, in our community? Why... Where did that come from? Is that a, is that, is that like built into Lubavitch and Chabad, this lack of trust? Like is that, is that just part of the, the, the Rebbe-Chassid model, or is it something new? And if it's something new, where did it come, where did it come from? I think it's entirely... I don't think it's, I don't think it's built into the model. The whole idea of Chassid Chabad is that you don't just, you don't g- you don't distrust yourself and place it all on the tzadik. You-

54:16 Speaker 1 You can't.

54:16 Speaker 2 He trusts you, right? There is, you know, there just, the, the, just... I mean, it almost, it almost like doesn't need to be said, but it, it needs to be said. It's so, it's so, it's so out in the open about how the entire project of Chassidis is to entrust and empower Chassidim with ideas and- Right. Right. And your brother Shmuely was talking about this, where in his mind the Ari is en- entrusting Chassidim with something that up to this point had always been entrusted with tzadikim and, and rebbeim, right? That's the ultimate of trust. And then, and my sense of it is, is that it came to a point, for one reason or another, where the trust became so enormous that it, the... To truly trust ourselves at that level was so scary and so daunting that we s- we claim to trust, but we don't really trust. We don't trust ourselves to trust at that level. And so that language of trust became almost like a, a cover for a growing lack, a growing distrust, right? So we're saying that, uh, you know, we're conquering the world and the Rebbe, you know, the Rebbe, you know, the famous Sachs line of like, Rabbi Sachs line that the Rebbe didn't make followers-

55:36 Speaker 1 He made leaders

55:37 Speaker 2 ... he made leaders. And then the, the ultimate irony where like one time a year everybody parrots the same exact line, and it's like which leaders repeat a line every single year about leaders? Like that's not- Like it, it's, it's complete parody at this point, right? And, and, um, w- we say that, and I think a lot of people believe that, but it's almost like a cover for what's going on underneath, which is a, a growing distrust. Like a growing distrust, like do we really have it in ourselves to do this, right? And I think, and I think when you talk about 30 years after Gemara Talmos, one of the ways of understanding it is, is this growing gap between the trust that we say that we have in ourselves, and look at Lubavitch slept, and the post, you know, growing, growing, growing, growing. But then internally, you're speaking, and it's like, "Wait a second. Do we have it? Do we have it?" And, and, you know, one way that people would describe that is imposter syndrome, right? Where you, you, you present a certain way, but inside your... there's this festering doubt, right? And, and so I... That, that's one explanation. It's, it's complicated. It's complicated. Trust in general is a hard thing. The idea-

56:48 Speaker 1 Trust between who and who?

56:50 Speaker 2 Well, to me, to me it, to... What I'm talking about here is mainly older generation, younger generation, but that's, that's on a communal level, on a, you know, it, it plays out in different ways. There's the trust of the hanhalah to the bachur. There's a trust of a parent to a child, and then ultimately there's a trust you have to yourself.

57:10 Speaker 1 Fair, but I would say that the, just like the word, the word trust that we're sitting on, also there's a idea of earned trust. In other words, I don't trust my four-year-old to cross the street.

57:19 Speaker 2 Of course.

57:20 Speaker 1 Okay. So it's a, it's a complex, it's a complex thing. It's not just saying, "Trust me." It's coming and saying, "I'm gonna give you, hopefully through, in, in the right way, I'll teach you values, and I'll teach you," um, I like the way Shas once time put it, "Teach you how to think, not what to think." Um-

57:36 Speaker 2 But that's g- that, but that's hinuch.

57:38 Speaker 1 Okay, fine. And at some stage then I trust you, and that transition I 100%, like pretty much often I don't trust you, and then I marry you off, and then I hun- of course I trust you. What do you mean? Like, now you're on your own and you'll figure it out. And-

57:50 Speaker 2 Right, but I haven't trusted you at that point. Now I've forgotten about you.

57:53 Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. Whatever. And like ends up, "Oh yeah, you'll figure it out." Like, "You're in Kolnow, whatever. I'll s- I'll give you a few hundred dollars a month, but like I trust you to figure it out." And I agree, and that's why ha- having sat at many farbrengens as the recipient and at many, many farbrengens trying to farbrengen, for me the overall, whoever's ever heard me farbrengen is like I, I, maybe I'm a broken telephone or maybe I'm even wrong in it, but the narrative I always try to remind people is their journey. So yes, in other words, there is room and we, we are doing it, and you're, you're expressing the idea of like how we can get the system to change, and how do you convince a mashpia or hanhalah or parents to trust their kids? Um, but fundamentally it's, it's each one. The parent has to believe in stop people living with so much fear, and the child, stop imposing your... So I'll give you a mashal from a totally different world. Um, so as I mentioned, I'm South African, and I'm a rabbi of a very, very, um, secular community. People are like very much into their education and sort of h- more middle upper class. And over there, the, the lack of trust it manifests as if, if I don't push you to get your high school degree, and over there it's called a matric-

59:09 Speaker 2 Right. Right

59:09 Speaker 1 ... then like, uh, it's like literally I'll invite a family for a Shabbos and they'll say, "Sorry Rabbi, my kid's in their matric year. All of us, like the house has to be like full on free zone. He's doing his matric." And then it's like he's going to university. And like at some stage I'm like, "If your kid doesn't wanna do much with their life with their high school diploma, why you've..." I said-

59:25 Speaker 2 Right

59:26 Speaker 1 ... "I grew up over here. I didn't have a high school diploma. My sister had a high school diploma. It was the most non-event ever." Over there, they put it in the newspaper every year at the beginning of January, all the marks of the kids, how many distinctions they got. So every culture creates the, the, the standard of what is considered success.

59:42 Speaker 2 For sure.

59:42 Speaker 1 And then everyone becomes the vanguards of have a hold that, uh, many people buy into this thing of being the vanguards of success. And at some stage it's like, "No. Trust your kids, that if it's their journey and you've given them the values and you've given them the love and the support and the encouragement and the agency, they'll, they'll make it." So yeah, for me, for me that's an extremely important message to the parents amongst us, to mechachim amongst us, is to explore in your own head, do you trust yourself? Do you trust them? And if you don't trust them, is it a block in your own head or is it a certain skill that you haven't injected yet as a parent into your child so that you could trust? But the point is, the goal is to one day set them

1:00:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:00:30 Speaker 1 They're gonna stand on their own two feet, and they will, and they will make their mistakes, and they'll get it right. They'll figure this thing called life out to the best of their ability for their journey, 'cause their journey is not your journey. HaKadosh Baruch Hu sends us all on different journeys, and even though you're the parent and you love your kid dearly, they're gonna have to go on their own journey and trust the values. And if you didn't give them the values, then start giving them the values now so that at some stage let them fly. At some stage let them fly.

1:00:56 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:00:59 Speaker 1 No.

1:01:01 Speaker 2 I, um, I agree with you. The, the, the-

1:01:03 Speaker 1 And yet

1:01:04 Speaker 2 No. The, the, the, the pr- the problem is, the problem is that, again, I come back to the thing we're, we're talking here about a systemic... I said-

1:01:14 Speaker 1 It's, it's fancy

1:01:15 Speaker 2 It's, it's, it's structural. It's structural. So y- you are telling people to basically pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and that's fair. But to go back to your example of, you know, the world of go- getting a college degree, right? So yes, there, there is a noticeable, in this country too, probably more than South Africa, there, there's a noticeable, and this is not Lubavitch, it's a, it's a world over, a noticeable uptick of parents more worried about their kids' chances and the helicopter parents and, and we're... And, and, and kids don't trust themselves and, and professors are re- are seeing more and more kids that are unwilling to, to suggest an answer if they're not 100% certain, and lack of confidence and so on. But a lot of that can only be fully understood when you look at a world or an economy where, um- ... the people have a harder and harder time getting started, right? And, and there are bigger forces at play, and, and there are, there are, there are, there are... Meaning it's, it's easy to look at the individual behavior and say, "What, what's wrong with this parent? What are they thinking?" Right? To me, the more interesting question is why did they end up here? Because maybe this is a very naive kind of perspective, but my sense is whenever I talk to people on an individual level, they all want the same things. Yes, there are exceptions, but as a rule, they want their kids to be functional

1:02:48 Speaker 2 adults. They want to be functional adults. They want to have a fulfilled life, right? So, uh, l-let's go away from, from like education and growing up for a second. It comes to, let's say, healthy habits and healthy eating, right? And you're gonna meet someone who is clearly unhealthy. He's overweight, she's, you know. "You have to eat healthy. It's in your, it's in your mind. It's in your mind, and it's up to you." That's true. But what it doesn't take into account is that one of the reasons why so many more people are overweight today than compared to, I don't know, 60, 70 years ago, is a lot of the food supply is less healthy. Uh, there's also a lot more calories available to you in tastier ways. If you're a kosher-eating Jew-

1:03:31 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:03:31 Speaker 2 ... you have much more snacks.

1:03:32 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

1:03:33 Speaker 2 Right? And it's always in front of you. Like, I remember walking into an office once. I was working on a video project, and, you know, they, they're like, "Do you want a snack?" And I'm like, I don't know, I was hungry. I'm like, "Maybe." And they open up, like, this room of snacks. It was, like, a fruit company. And I, like, the guy that opened it for me was, you know, gezundhest. And it's like, if I worked in this office at a job sitting at a computer screen that I, you know, I, I get bored at, I would look exactly like him, right? So you're telling him, "Control yourself, control yourself, control yourself," but there's an environment here at play that's, that's making it harder and harder.

1:04:07 Speaker 1 And your question is how to change the environment?

1:04:09 Speaker 2 Right. It's not even... I'm not sitting here... Look, it, it would be very appropriate for a conversation in a Crown Heights basement to- ... let's fix the system.

1:04:18 Speaker 1 But?

1:04:19 Speaker 2 But I think even on an individual level, you have to first understand what you're up against. It's not just your mind. It's not just your willingness. In many ways, the will is there. People want to change. People want to grow up. What, what, what, what, what, what they're up against is also this, this narrative and structure that they've grown up in that tells them that that's the wrong thing to do.

1:04:43 Speaker 1 Oh, 100%.

1:04:43 Speaker 2 Okay? And so you have to start identifying what that is, and you have to start seeing, wait a second, is that actually correct? Is that actually correct? Is that actually something that I can hold on to?

1:04:55 Speaker 1 So let's tackle a few ideas.

1:04:56 Speaker 2 But, but, but you, but you see what I'm saying? Like, like, that to me is what, is why you cannot just settle at the kind of focusing and training on the individual. And, and I, and I, and I, and I think-

1:05:08 Speaker 1 I, I, in fact, I remember when I was 20 years old, I remember saying... 'Cause I, whatever, I had my own interests, but I was still a white shirt kind of guy. Not that I have anything against colored shirts, but that's just what, uh, I b- whatever. And I remember saying-

1:05:20 Speaker 2 You're colorblind. It's okay.

1:05:21 Speaker 1 100%. I remember saying, "Based on the personality and interests I have, the only way people would help m- make sense of me is if I put on a pink yarmulke." In other words, 'cause then they're like, "Oh, he's alternative. He thinks on this other thing."

1:05:34 Speaker 2 He's an artist.

1:05:35 Speaker 1 "He's an artist." And I was like, and I was like, "Why can't I be a black hat, black shirt, I mean, white shirt, black pants kind of guy, and still have a brain of my own?" But, and, and you see that and understand. And, and again, I think things have changed, or maybe they haven't, but, like, in the w... I'm going back to myself 20 years ago. I'm thinking to myself and saying-

1:05:54 Speaker 2 But that's a perfect example, actually

1:05:55 Speaker 1 ... like, like, "Do you see me beyond the penguin outfit?"

1:05:59 Speaker 2 No, but that's exact- It's a perfect example where, where you are asking now the individual to see you in a way that goes exactly opposite to how you're dressing. And the reason you're dressing that way is because your community, for whatever strange reason, right, after going to town, has decided that we're gonna-

1:06:15 Speaker 1 It's fine

1:06:15 Speaker 2 ... it's like we're all black and white.

1:06:16 Speaker 1 And, and, and it wasn't worth my time to fight it.

1:06:17 Speaker 2 No, no. But see, I'm not blaming you.

1:06:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, I know.

1:06:19 Speaker 2 But in this, in this instance, you know, you're asking someone to identify you opposite to how... You, your intention may not be to be a conformist, but the way you're dressed is part of a-

1:06:32 Speaker 1 Seems to be saying something.

1:06:33 Speaker 2 It is saying something. Even if you're not saying it, it is saying something. It's saying that you're dressed like your community, which is all into conformity, right? That, and you just never, you, you, you decided to non-conform or to be different in your mind as opposed to your clothes. It wasn't worth the hassle of buying new, new shirts.

1:06:50 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:06:50 Speaker 2 You just... Right? Fine.

1:06:51 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:06:51 Speaker 2 But, but, but you're... Why should someone make that assumption? The easier assumption that, and the obvious assumption, we all make a statement with the clothes that we're wearing. We, eh, that's just, that's just inevitable. You could, you could make a statement that you don't care about the clothes that you're wearing by wearing some washed out sh- You could make that statement too, but you're making a statement.

1:07:07 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:07:07 Speaker 2 Right? And the statement that you make when you wear a white shirt and black pants every single day is that you're not fighting conformity on this level. In other words, you're being a conformist on this level. So-

1:07:19 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:07:19 Speaker 2 ... okay, that's what someone reads into it. And, and you're asking them to read into it more than they... And it's like-

1:07:27 Speaker 1 I know, but at some stage, I, I, I, I evolved in my own thinking where I sat there saying, "Levi, why are you waiting for other people to see..." In other words-

1:07:34 Speaker 2 No, but I'm talking about the other person.

1:07:35 Speaker 1 I get it. I get it. No, no, it's-

1:07:36 Speaker 2 I'm talking about the other person. It's a perfect example of, like, you're r- you're right and he's right. You're both right.

1:07:40 Speaker 1 I know. And at some stage, instead of me resenting the fact that I wasn't seen, I just decided, "Okay, go on the j-" So all I'm saying is systems by definition are created to take a lot of people... It's from a, it's, it's more sociological than psychological. It's about taking a lot of people and making sense of a community, and some... It's, it's control, but it's not so much control. It's just a way of organizing the world in a structured way, what's in the community, what's out. Okay? And, and for some people it does work, and it used to work for a lot more people than it works now.

1:08:19 Speaker 2 When? When?

1:08:24 Speaker 1 When I was growing up, a lot of the guys didn't resent it. I think, uh, uh, what happens is a lot of people started questioning it once they were married and in different space.

1:08:33 Speaker 2 In, in-

1:08:34 Speaker 1 But-

1:08:34 Speaker 2 The, the Lubavitch around for three hundred years.

1:08:36 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:08:36 Speaker 2 How many years did this conformity model work for? On a community-wide level.

1:08:41 Speaker 1 I, I'm scared to answer that question. I do think-

1:08:43 Speaker 2 You know the answer. It's twenty years.

1:08:46 Speaker 1 No, it's longer.

1:08:46 Speaker 2 No, it's longer.

1:08:47 Speaker 1 It was, it w-- And not longer in a consistent way. I do think that the of the original-

1:08:53 Speaker 2 That, that, that was a, that was a niche

1:08:53 Speaker 1 ... that's what I'm saying. That's a sliver of time.

1:08:55 Speaker 2 That's-- No, but that was a niche of Lubavitch. That wasn't the community of Lubavitch. That was a niche. They selec-- they-- It was self-selecting top Bakrim from the entire world of Lubavitch around the country.

1:09:06 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:09:07 Speaker 2 A handful, a handful of Bakrim.

1:09:09 Speaker 1 At the beginning. Eventually, it became more democratized, but yeah.

1:09:11 Speaker 2 No, but compared to the, the, the size of Lubavitch itself, like how big Lubavitch was-

1:09:16 Speaker 1 Kind of

1:09:17 Speaker 2 ... it was a handful. A lot of Bakrim were, were turned down even to the end.

1:09:20 Speaker 1 That's right.

1:09:20 Speaker 2 Right? Even to the end.

1:09:20 Speaker 1 And most of them fell off.

1:09:21 Speaker 2 And most of them didn't even show up in the first place.

1:09:23 Speaker 1 I'm saying most of them have lost to history.

1:09:24 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Right. Exactly. So, so L-Lub-- L-- Like you look at the times of the Alter Rebbe, there was a cheder of the or the two hadarma of the top student.

1:09:34 Speaker 1 And are you suggesting that that was a better system?

1:09:37 Speaker 2 I said-

1:09:37 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm suggesting. I'm not saying and saying.

1:09:39 Speaker 2 I think it was, I think it was an anti-system. I don't think... I mean, not anti, just 'cause-

1:09:42 Speaker 1 I get it

1:09:42 Speaker 2 ... it, it was a system that wasn't a system in the sense that e-especially in the beginning, each Hasid had his own protocol that the Alter gave him. He would go work on, on his own, on his own for ten years in his village and come back.

1:09:54 Speaker 1 Three years before the-

1:09:55 Speaker 2 That's not a system. That's the opposite of a system, right? And, and, you know, again, I, now I'm riffing. I'm not some kind of historian here, but maybe where the kind of idea of a system starts coming in is with the Tanya, and Alter Rebbe telling people that you should, you know, you, you can... This is like a manual. But really, if you read that kadama on a very simple level, what the Alter was saying is it's the opposite. Like, this is a c-- this is a conversation starter-

1:10:23 Speaker 1 With your rebbe

1:10:23 Speaker 2 ... and you ought to be conversing with one another.

1:10:24 Speaker 1 You, the book, and your mashpia.

1:10:26 Speaker 2 'Cause if you're not conversing, forget it. It's, it's game over. Like, 'cause again, Lubavitch cannot work on a manual. It, it, it's oppo- You cannot trust people if you give them a manual, right? It's like, it's like if you ever, if you ever, if you're handy yourself or you hire a handyman, the first thing they do when they come to assemble something in your house is they throw out the manual. They're like, "That's not for me. That's for idiots." And they have a point. Like, somebody... Like, we're not... We're talking about rocket science here. We're bui-building a, a, a cupboard. There, there's pieces of wood with nails. I'll figure it out, right? And, and, and, and usually the manual has stupid ideas anyhow 'cause it's talking to idiots.

1:11:00 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:11:01 Speaker 2 Which by the way, I'm one of those. I'm not handy. I'm just saying. I'm, I'm not looking down on anybody. I'm one of you. But my, my point is that like manuals are in many ways for... are fundamentally for people that don't know, that don't know what they're doing, right? And so maybe, maybe that's where it started, but, but it wa-- never really took hold. Not to mention that, like, maybe time itself. I think I don't have such good f-- I don't, I don't, I don't-

1:11:25 Speaker 1 But basically, but, but-

1:11:26 Speaker 2 But, but, but Lubavitch kept on splintering, and-

1:11:28 Speaker 1 Let me ask you a simple question

1:11:29 Speaker 2 ... the last few came.

1:11:30 Speaker 1 Like a simple question. When you describe the Lubavitch you know, are you describing it to the... And I don't have the answer to that 'cause I'm not in the system now. Are you describing it to what the world we grew up in or the world that you know that your kids' age are going through?

1:11:42 Speaker 2 Well, I, I didn't grow up in your world. I grew up in-

1:11:44 Speaker 1 Okay

1:11:44 Speaker 2 ... Hong Kong.

1:11:45 Speaker 1 Fine. But at some stage, you went to the Yeshiva world.

1:11:47 Speaker 2 I was never a conformist, but, um, so-

1:11:50 Speaker 1 The Yeshiva world you were... Not your story.

1:11:52 Speaker 2 It's-

1:11:53 Speaker 1 In other words-

1:11:54 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:11:54 Speaker 1 ... are you so sure-

1:11:55 Speaker 2 That's still going on

1:11:55 Speaker 1 ... that the system is as rigid and untrusting as it was? 'Cause I'll be honest, when I talk to my brothers and talk to my nephews about the journeys they're on, I think that the worst is behind us.

1:12:07 Speaker 2 Um, so, so here's the thing. I, again, I'm not, I'm not... Like if I, if I wanted to talk about the system, I would talk to someone from the system. Um, uh-

1:12:17 Speaker 1 In other words, a lot of what we're... guys our age are struggling with is narratives we were told fifteen, twenty years ago, okay? And then we basically went and moved to our own little corner of the planet and are trying to make sense of stories we were told and matching them to reality. So the... And, and so the, so the, so the question that you're really... Um, um, I'm s-- I'm not answering, I'm not... I'm just-- I'm trying to understand this. Are we trying to explore the stories we grew up with, and are we trying to explore the stories that are still being told? Are we trying to... What are we exploring?

1:12:46 Speaker 2 So your question, in other words, the way I understand it is that am I, am I talking about something that's basically irrelevant at this point? Like-

1:12:55 Speaker 1 No. Or, or... And it's not irrelevant 'cause it-

1:12:57 Speaker 2 It's our problem, but not their problem.

1:12:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:12:59 Speaker 2 Okay, look. I, I'm not feel... What I, what I do know for certainty is that-

1:13:04 Speaker 1 Because then the conversation changes

1:13:05 Speaker 2 ... well, I do know for certainty that some would say yes, it's the same problem, if not worse, and some people say no, it's gotten better. So I, I don't have enough knowledge to make my own decision. I know that I'll hear, I'll hear opinions of both ends.

1:13:15 Speaker 1 No, in other words, for me, the value that I could... found in your podcast, again, and I'm a guy in a certain demographic, in a certain age, which you said, mentioned is the majority of the listenership, is making sense of my own journey. In other words, it's not so much prescriptive, um, of, of where we're going, and it's, it's more we're here now. Like it's so-- You always repeat the idea that time is some- is something that just moves on. We're here now, however, we have a story of our past that has not been fully explored, and the fact is it's still affecting our present because we haven't-

1:13:50 Speaker 2 Right

1:13:50 Speaker 1 ... made sense of it.

1:13:52 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:52 Speaker 1 So if, if that's the conversation, it's a different conversation. Not-

1:13:55 Speaker 2 Well-

1:13:55 Speaker 1 It's, it's an important conversation, but then the question is, what's the final message? In other words, what do you tell a guy that's thirty-five, forty years old?

1:14:02 Speaker 2 Well, so, so to answer your first question, I, I certainly think that the, that there is a, um, a resonance that one around my age, give or ta-- I'm thirty-six, so ten years up, ten years down, you will f- in many ways resonate with what a... a lot of things that are being spoken about more than if you're a different age or a different gender, right? I mean, uh, you know, my wife has no idea what, what's going on here in the podcast. Like, the, the, the historical one's very interesting, but like this kind of, this kind of-

1:14:37 Speaker 1 Gribbling

1:14:37 Speaker 2 ... this kind of like trying to unta-- this untangling is like, okay. Um, and it, it's, I think that's healthy. But it's healthy to kind of to, to keep it, to com-compartmentalize. But, um, but so there's certainly like resonance that, that, that, you know, e-every, every group of people within a certain age, they will resonate to something specifically that they can all kind of relate to, you know, the, the time that they grew up in, the kind of the trends and so on. But, um, the, the, the second thing that you mentioned, which is understanding where this came from is, is relevant to more people, right? Because even if you s- even if you came, even if you came into the story earlier than me, meaning you're much older than me, you s- chances are if you're listening, you are young enough that you came from the same place, especially if we're talking about the older guests, right? Or talking historically, you came from there too. And if you're younger, you certainly came from there. Now, the question that you can ask is, did something happen in between our age and the people that are younger than us-

1:15:44 Speaker 4 Yes

1:15:44 Speaker 2 ... that, that changed everything fundamentally? Now, even if it did, it still came from the same place.

1:15:50 Speaker 4 True.

1:15:50 Speaker 2 It still came from the same place. Now, co- right. So, so the... A lot of the fundamentals are still there, right? So the quest- unless you say that it's changed so drastically and so fundamentally that the fundamental issues and tensions that we're talking about no longer apply, I have very little reason to believe that such a fundamental change has happened. And the reason that I've, that I don't believe it's happened is because when I speak to people my age and older, they... the shift hasn't, hasn't taken place. The, the one shift that has taken-

1:16:21 Speaker 4 So how could they educate their kids differently-

1:16:22 Speaker 2 Right

1:16:22 Speaker 4 ... if they're still in the narrative?

1:16:23 Speaker 2 Yeah. The one, the one shift that has taken place, which is what you spoke about earlier, is that the language is a lot softer. It's a lot more understanding. And now, I would give a caveat. I would give a caveat. One caveat I would give is that I think that... Maybe it's two caveats, but let's start with one, is that there, there is a power dynamic. I, I, I, I, I trace back to a story that, that was, was, was, was shared on the podcast by Rabbi Neu, Rabbi Moshe Neu, and he was speaking about his grandfather, Reb Isser Klugant, when he was, you know, Moshe Neu was growing up in, in Australia, and at the time, his parents didn't keep Chalv Yisrael, right? His parents were frum, he didn't... But his, his wife- his mother came from a Lubavitch family, but his father did not. And, and there was also no Chalv Yisrael to be had in Australia, so their family didn't keep Chalv Yisrael. And his grandfather, who was a Hasid with the divisive part, you know, like one of the, one of the old-timers, didn't say anything. And in a way, even more surprising was eventually when Moshe Neu came on his own accord to Lub- like to became... They're always affiliated with Lubavitch-

1:17:38 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

1:17:38 Speaker 2 ... but became part a bochur and joined the yeshiva and basically became a full-blown Lubavitcher bochur. His grandfather never, um, like said, "Oh, finally." It w- he was very stoic about the whole thing from beginning to end. And I can't read into his grandfather's mind.

1:17:54 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:17:54 Speaker 2 And, and he didn't. But to me, first of all, that's an e- that's an example of trust. That's an example of trust, okay? It'll figure itself out, that's number one. That's, that's objectively true. But I think there's also just a, there's a... You can suggest into that story, and there are many stories like that, where at that time there was a handful of Hasidim in Australia. A handful. Just a handful. And so the chances of their grandkids being frum at all was already very low. So you take what you can get, right? There is a realistic part of ourselves that when we, when we expect less, we're ready to make do with less, right? When our expectations are lower, we're happier with less too.

1:18:42 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:18:42 Speaker 2 Right? And, and so there is, in that sense, there may be a fundamental shift in the sense that people today no longer assume or expect their kids to be frum the way they did when we were growing up. And so the older generation has had to basically come to terms with, if we press too hard, these kids are gonna drop out, so we have to be h- we have to be more welcoming and h- like we don't have that kind of leverage that we used to have where, you know, you, you know, "If you don't behave, we're gonna p- we're gonna pat you." Uh, you know, "And then you're gonna come back for more." I remember, I remember, uh, when my wife and I got married, we were in Eretz Yisrael for a few months, and we overstayed our visa. And, uh, when we were leaving the country, in passport control, they look at our visas like, "You overstayed." I said, "Yeah, I'm sorry." So she says, "When you come back, we'll scream at you." Right? "You're gonna come back, and we'll scream at you." We came back, and they didn't scream at us. But th- there was that mindset back in the day of where, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna harass you and, and, and, and make you conform, and you're still gonna stay. But people don't do... People don't stay anymore. So now the chinuch has had to kind of become softer because it's been forced to. They don't have that kind

1:19:58 Speaker 2 of leverage anymore. You understand what I'm saying? They, they don't have that kind of, they don't have that kind of a grip. Um-

1:20:05 Speaker 4 I know, but that... Fine.

1:20:06 Speaker 2 So in a way, that's a hopeful kind of change. Or, you know, counterintuitively, that's a hopeful kind of change because it forces people to trust. It forces-

1:20:17 Speaker 4 No, that's actually not trusting.

1:20:18 Speaker 2 But it's... No, it's a forced trust. It's not, it's not the real trust you want, but you take what you can get.

1:20:23 Speaker 4 Yeah, but it's not account-- it's not holding people accountable.

1:20:25 Speaker 2 No, no.

1:20:25 Speaker 4 It's, it's basically saying, "I'm terrified of my kid."

1:20:28 Speaker 2 No, but you have no choice but to trust now. You have no choice but to trust.

1:20:31 Speaker 4 No, 'cause what they're doing is just l- l- compassion and absolute-

1:20:34 Speaker 2 Okay

1:20:34 Speaker 4 ... non-judgmentalism without any, uh, holding them accountable.

1:20:37 Speaker 2 Again, that's window dressing. That's window dressing. But I, I agree with you that in that sense, nothing's changed. That's what I'm saying. The, the language changing doesn't make me feel any better if that's what you're asking.

1:20:46 Speaker 4 So, so, so let me-

1:20:47 Speaker 2 But that, that, that component-

1:20:48 Speaker 4 Let me suggest what I think has changed

1:20:49 Speaker 2 ... that component does make me feel better.

1:20:51 Speaker 4 And again, uh, I'm, I'm walking a bit blindly, but I do think... You always talk about that the change, the, the big shift that needs to be explored is not so much Kimu Tamuz, it's the transition from the old world to the new world, right? It's, it's, it's a theme that you, you sit on. At the same time, there's no question that 40 years into the Rebbe's light, um, in other words, there's a big bonfire, a small little match doesn't do it, it doesn't do much. And at least locally, I mentioned earlier about Israel, where I found a, a different journey, but locally, the people that were being on the most part, the w- it wasn't for independence, it was for soldiers, for .

1:21:35 Speaker 2 Right.

1:21:36 Speaker 4 And that inevitably has to change more than 30 years after because there's a limit how much you can hold onto the-

1:21:44 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:21:44 Speaker 4 ... charisma and the, the the big, the, the big flames. That's why I do believe that something is shifting because when I see the Rebbe and like I mentioned earlier with and and many other throughout the years, forgive me for putting words, I see a, a, a strong frustration, especially in the later years where the Rebbe's like, "We set up a movement of people that could figure it out on themself." Take a the famous story of Shloime, uh, uh, of Shloime Zalmen Hecht or whichever Hecht it was.

1:22:15 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:15 Speaker 4 The Hecht that I sent you and I, uh, and you have the capability to figure it out. And like, especially in the like guys, like the narrative a- and the mission was that you guys are gonna bring Mashiach. So the Rebbe says, and everyone starts saying, "could do it themself, but..." A-a-and you're like, yes, there is a the Rebbe says that the, the, the, the, the Rebbe spoke about the the Alter Rebbe took him, it could have ta- knocked down the prison, et cetera. But fundamentally, Mashiach has to come, friends, through . In other words, y- we individuals bring Mashiach. The point is . The point is not . The point is that the, the Rebbe has the that goes bring Mashiach. And even that statement somehow becomes controversial when I sometimes say it. Like the, the plan always was that we're bringing it. The Rebbe's guiding us, the Rebbe's giving us the the Rebbe's giving us the mandate, and he's giving us the, the, the intellectual and practical tools of how to do it, the, the moral founda- the, the foundation of, of, of thought and practice. But fundamentally, we have to do the job. And that's why I'm saying I feel like the worst is m- hopefully behind us, that that story that we grew up, I grew up in the nuns, in the early Samach's, those stories are much harder to hold onto. And then evitable, like you always say, time changes. I do think that there is, uh, something. Now,

1:23:37 Speaker 4 has the, has it evolved-

1:23:38 Speaker 2 But why, but why have people suddenly come to the recognition?

1:23:42 Speaker 4 Because you can't fight, fight reality.

1:23:44 Speaker 2 Oh, that's what I'm saying. Realit- reality is a very-

1:23:47 Speaker 4 It's the best teacher

1:23:48 Speaker 2 ... reality is a very hopeful thing. And, and, and, and to me, that has been, that has been a, a, a more recent kind of recognition-

1:23:57 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

1:23:57 Speaker 2 ... which is, you know, reality is something that, that is good for you.

1:24:02 Speaker 4 It's the best thing.

1:24:03 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Y- right. It, it, it's good. It's good. Reality is m-m... In, in a way, that's a famous of like you have to go to the or something. Like you wanna talk about if I lived in this time, there'd be somebody else, and I should go to the... If only I lived then, there would be a better leader. Uh, so there's a Gemara that you go to the, the g- the, the, the, the in your times, that's all the time.

1:24:30 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:24:32 Speaker 2 This is what it is. This is what it is. This is where you're meant to be. This is how, this is, this is, this is when you're meant to be. Deal with it, right? Otherwise, you're stuck in your own head.

1:24:43 Speaker 4 Can I give you a personal example? So I went through a stage five years ago in my shlichus where, um, I had a terrible break-in. I know every South African shlich. So I'm not gonna go on that story, but that was a pretty nasty business. And then my father died suddenly a few months later, and then I dealt with a hectic suicide of a 19-year-old boy that pretty much made waves around town, and I had to officiate. Well, it was, it was a nasty business. And this all happened within 13, 14 months. And it hit me that, that awareness like, you know, 'cause I remember sitting griping with a friend of mine, like they really prepared me in yeshiva for this kind of stuff, like dealing a 19-- burying a 19-year-old suicide. And then within the next year, I was at eight suicide funerals, not all of them my kehillah, but somehow I somehow became involved in a lot of these stories. And suddenly you're like, you're looking and sit there saying, "Yeah, they did prepare me. They didn't prepare me." this is the world you're living in right now, and this is where you have to show up, and this is what you have to do. I mean, just literally a few weeks ago, I buried a five-year-old kid, um, in the, in the, in the most h- devastating circumstances. And you suddenly at s- you... I, I know I've come across harsh in this conversation on this topic. It's, it's... When I was

1:25:59 Speaker 4 20, I was the griper at everything. In other words, I was the one that was like the kid in the black and white s- uh, shirt begging everyone to sit, at least quietly saying, "See me."

1:26:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:09 Speaker 4 "See me." And, and then I had to go on this journey. I moved to the other side of the world and find the shlichus in, in a unique way and find a shul that's not a typical Chabad house. It's a very... Whatever, it's its own together. And at some stage, I, I, I wake up and I realize, "Levy, Hashem designed your life to be where you're at now." And stopped at the saying, they did give me training, they didn't give me training. In other words, I b- I agree with you that we have to go through that process of what led us, but the goal, that's what my, my, my, my, my... Crystallizing this conversation, my-- the goal that we all have to reach to at some stage is Hakadosh Baruch Hu placed you where you are.

1:26:48 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely.

1:26:49 Speaker 4 Okay? And, and, and whatever you got and whatever was done right and whatever was done wrong in your . You are where you are. Hashem designed your steps, and now grab it. Grab it and do something with this world, whatever world you're living in. And I'll be honest, like I was the rabbi that when I joined up, uh, when I showed up to the Rabbonis, I had a s- a senior rabbi above me And he was dealing with funerals, and I was relieved 'cause I was the most awkward guy to do a shiva houses. I was the most awkward to do with death, and no idea. Unfortunately, now, I had a lady walk over to me a, a few, a little while ago in a shiva house and say, "Oh, you're the rabbi that does the deaths." Like I show up to the Chevre Kadish in So- in Joburg and like you again, you get all the crazy cases. I've literally gone from one extreme being awkward to literally having to sit, and most of it happened after my father's death and me having like finding meaning in that grief and somehow offering value to others. But the point is, at some stage in somebody's life, in all of our lives, you ac- you don't accept reality, you embrace and you see that whatever journeys and whatever st- Hashem placed me in the world I had to live, and for whatever reason, I grew up in the, in the late mems and nuns and early

1:28:01 Speaker 4 samachs, and I didn't have the mechachim I believe I needed, and I didn't have the, the journey that I would have designed for myself, and yet it brought me here. So yes, we can talk about designing a healthier system. But I do believe, and that's why I brought up the idea of capitalism, this, that at some stage in a person's career, if they really wanna be an entrepreneur, if they really wanna build something, if they wanna make something in their life, they have to look and sit there saying, "Yes, I grew up in Mir Gerer, then all my brothers are communists." I think Zayde had an older brother that there's a bunch of versions that happened, but somehow he was killed in a very graphic way during World War I-

1:28:37 Speaker 2 Right

1:28:37 Speaker 4 ... for being on the wrong side of the fence. Um, at some stage, this is it.

1:28:42 Speaker 2 Right.

1:28:43 Speaker 4 And our Zayde had to go through them, Bubby had to go through, and your, your grandparents on the other side, my grandparents on the other side. That agency... Like I, I, I'll say one more thing on that. During COVID, I spoke a lot about my grandparents, um, from both sides on the pulpit in the shul, and I remember one of the guys in the community who's like the n- the one that literally is every community you need to have at least one guy that's there at the push to terrorize you. It's like, "Rabbi, what's this rabbi just giving stories about his family?" But like for me, I get incredible chizzok when I think about the mesirus nefesh they had when they... When I think about how much that my other grandparents were able to raise a family of 13 kids in Moscow, Russia, stuck there after the s- after the Holocaust, after my grandfather losing every single family member in the Holocaust. He still, together with my grandmother, managed to raise a family of 13 kids. Baruch Hashem, I have a l- over a thousand descendants today. That like... And everything in the system was screwed up. Everything in his life was miserable, but he had that, that, that hero's journey that I just feel we need to talk about more. So yes, , we have to respect the story of the narrative. But I do think, and I'm coming back to it, and I'm sounding like a broken telephone, but like, guys, I'm saying

1:29:54 Speaker 4 to me- No, and I'll be honest, uh, uh, on that, before I went on shlichus to, to yeshiva, um, and I spoke to a mashpia of mine, and he told me something and it's, it sounds silly, but I, I take it to heart. I said, "How am I gonna go from right now?" I was... Went to yeshiva gedola with kids a year younger than me or my age. "How am I gonna do it?" He said, "Talk to yourself out loud." I know it's often repeated for me-

1:30:20 Speaker 2 It works

1:30:20 Speaker 4 ... it works. In other words, I, I have to give a lot of shir, and I have to do a lot of talking. That's pretty much my whole job. And like, you can't always talk about stuff that you're at because literally whatever, you're there I'm, I'm not there. But if I'm only gonna talk about e-exactly where I'm holding this moment and what my journey is, my speech is gonna get very boring very soon.

1:30:41 Speaker 2 It sound, it sound like a podcast.

1:30:43 Speaker 4 Yeah. So at some stage you're like, "Okay, talk to yourself out loud." In other words, where... It's like I'm not saying I've mastered the art of self-agency, but I'm resenting how much, how little of it I'm hearing. How little, how very few frum brains I'm showing up to or listening online for a Yom Im Achladah is the mashpia coming and like I, I want someone to mun from me in a loving way, not like, you know, "You failed, you shtick garnish. Who do you think you are?" But I want someone to sit there saying, "Levi, are you doing it?" "When was the last time you learned Tasichah?" Like how, uh, have you gone through Likutei Torah this year? And not like this, like patronizing very bistu kinda guy. I want someone to demand. And I'll be honest, I, I've had a few mashpiyim in my life, um, and unfortunately, most of them I had to drop because at some stage I w- I just felt like there was... It was useless. Like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Schlep some lemon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, you know, do a little achladah." And I'm like, "I'm a little achladah, I'm an adult. Can you push me a little harder? Like, push me. Tell me to do something with my life. I could do more. I know I could do more, but you're not telling me that. You're telling me play achladah once, sichah once a month."

1:31:51 Speaker 2 Right.

1:31:51 Speaker 4 That's cute when a guy's literally, you know, having a rifion and like that's what-

1:31:54 Speaker 2 Right.

1:31:54 Speaker 4 But like you could... I can't mun him for... And that's what I'm saying. We've gone from one extreme where mimun to mimun, but of course, we do it with guilt, and that's why, you know, Barry's podcast resonated a lot with people, like the idea of the guilt that comes with the money. And then there's like, "Okay, so let's not mun at all." Instead of saying, "No, I see you. I see your incredible value, and I'm demanding of you. I'm demanding you because you could do so much more. There's no reason you can't go through Likutei Sichos. There's no reason you can't go through Shas. There's no reason that you can't learn Lilium. Whatever it is that your skills are, there's no reason you can't go to take over a business and take it over, and you can't go do a shlichus." You're made... Not everyone's made for it, but I see you as the individual, I see your koichos, and, and, and I believe in you. That belief, like for me, when they talk about the lead- that made leaders, for me, it's the idea that I see you, and I hold you accountable for the chushim that you have. You could do so much more. I'll be honest, for me, if I had a mashpia like that, that would see me, my ma'alos and chosainas, and hold me to account, that would be a gift.

1:33:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. How many mashpiyim see themselves that way, right? Th-th-th-that, so yeah. Uh, look, at, at the end of the day, in terms of if, if you're ask- if you're suggesting or we're, we're talking about what's actually the way to, to, to f- to, you know, fix the problem, yeah, if you're gonna wait for the system to correct itself- You're gonna be waiting a very long time, right? You're gonna be waiting a very long time. So ultimately, the, the only solution that you have in your hands, right, is, is to, is to d- is to essentially do it yourself. That's what, what you, you have in your hands what you have in your hands, and that is yourself, right? And, um, yeah, at, at some point, at some point, at some, uh, uh, at, at some point, that's the decision they have to make. Are you going to... I think, I think Bobby Avnaim used to have this phrase. Like, "Do you wanna be right or do you wanna be smart?" Right? Do you, like, uh, yeah, you have... You wanna, you wanna win the argument and say, you know, every- "I was screwed and, and my chinuch wasn't the way it should've been, and therefore I have an, a, you know, a, you know, I win the argument." Okay, good for you, but now you're a loser.

1:34:06 Speaker 4 I remember, I, I, I heard it once-

1:34:07 Speaker 2 Now you're a loser or do you wanna be... Do you wanna, do you wanna get a, a... There, there's... What's that?

1:34:11 Speaker 4 I heard it once put this way. They said, "When you come to Shamayim," it's obviously not true, but it's a good imagery. I, I enjoy it. "People who don't need excuses go straight to heaven."

1:34:21 Speaker 2 Right.

1:34:22 Speaker 4 "People who don't have excuses-"

1:34:23 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:34:23 Speaker 4 "... go to hell."

1:34:24 Speaker 2 Right.

1:34:24 Speaker 4 "But what do people who do have excuses do?"

1:34:27 Speaker 2 Right.

1:34:28 Speaker 4 So the imagery the guy used, I forgot who I heard it from, is you go into this room and it's exactly like Gan Eden. Everything's perfect. The only thing is that you have to watch a screen every day for a few hours which plays the life you could have had if you stopped having excuses and you took agency.

1:34:43 Speaker 2 So it's hell.

1:34:44 Speaker 4 And, and, and they say the screams that come from there are louder than hell.

1:34:47 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:34:47 Speaker 4 Like, like that idea, like that... Like, and I'll say more than that. I have a guy in my shul who's done very well financially. Well, and, and he, he one time told me something very profound. He says, "Look around this room. Every guy that's had that incredible atzlacha in their business has a chip on their shoulder. They have something to prove." And, and in other words, not guys that inherited money or a guy had incredible mo- guys that mamash went from the bootstraps have a chip on their shoulder. And when he told me that, that reframed something in my head that instead of me coming and sitting saying, "Oh, I have a chip on the shoulder, my chinuch, my this, my that." Instead of saying, "Maybe that chip on the shoulder, let it be your driver. Let it..." Obviously... And I remember hearing it from Chaim Shalom Deutsch when I, uh, he said that, I think he or somebody else came into the Rav for yichidas and he said, "I have da'avka."

1:35:32 Speaker 2 Right.

1:35:33 Speaker 4 So the Rebbe said, "Use it like a horse to a carriage to let it move you where you want." Like-

1:35:36 Speaker 2 Right

1:35:36 Speaker 4 ... and I remember the imagery he said was that if the bachur next to you is learning more than you, Shem Hashem, he's embarrassing you.

1:35:44 Speaker 2 Right.

1:35:44 Speaker 4 In other words, use it. So this idea like, yes, a lot of guys our age have this stuff they're working through, and we have to work it out. In other words, and I wanna just say at this moment, I'm not trying to be patronizing, but I really appreciate a, a lot of what this podcast has given a, a, a v- verbiage. It's given words to be able to express. It's given, uh, literally prose for me to, to make sense hearing other people's journey. At the same time, I would tell myself and tell all of us is like at some stage that chip on your shoulder, that imperfect chinuch, that messy gemara Talmu's error, that, that mashpia that I remember walking over to my mashpia once and I really was going through a tough time and he says, "Ich bin nisht dein mashpia. Ich bin dein melamed chassidus. Frag a tzaddik." "I'm not your mashpia, I'm your teacher of chassidus. I'm not here to answer your question." Like for me, I was like, like I finally mustered... I'm a lonely tavern, like finally mustered the courage to be vulnerable.

1:36:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, but he, he doesn't trust himself.

1:36:35 Speaker 4 Understand. But from... Okay, now I can make... I, I have totally com- like I could understand it-

1:36:39 Speaker 2 Look-

1:36:39 Speaker 4 ... but at the time. But the point is like, guys, I could really do amazing stuff even with that chip.

1:36:45 Speaker 2 Look-

1:36:46 Speaker 4 Even with that unsolved business.

1:36:48 Speaker 2 Look, at, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it's very possible that the ultimate answer to the problems of the system is the fact that there is a system in the first place, right? And that ultimately, the only way, the only way forward, um, is to basically leave the system behind. Um, you know, it, it's a very drastic kind of idea. It's, it's very radical. It has, you know, it, it has its roots in, in, in Yiddishkeit and, and, and I-

1:37:24 Speaker 4 Unpack that.

1:37:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. Look, you know, the, my favorite, my favorite entry in their shivas, I think I mentioned it a couple times on the podcast, is, um, the, the Rebbe basically breaks down a few of our Chazal, and long story short, the, the nub of it is, and, and Rebbe, uh, like articulates it almost as a math equation. I'll... Like there's step one, step two, step three. Basically, everything in this world is created by the Yiddisher for a purpose. Every e- everything, every moment, every encounter, everything is created for a purpose, right? The-

1:38:00 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

1:38:00 Speaker 2 ... tzaddik v'rata. The way you, the way you coming into this circumstance decide if it's for purpose or not is whether or not you, you utilize it for-

1:38:14 Speaker 4 Mm

1:38:14 Speaker 2 ... for, for, for something of kedushah.

1:38:17 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:38:18 Speaker 2 The way you make this moment purposeful is by, is by using it for something of kedushah.

1:38:27 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:38:27 Speaker 2 Right? And so in that moment, the entire purpose that was created here, the entire purpose that God invested into this moment and this encounter is entirely up to you. And so in that moment, it's just you, and I think the Rebbe underlines this a couple times, it's just you and the Havishter alone. That's it. That's it. This entire creation that you're existing in, there's nobody else. There's nobody else, right? Everything comes down to this move that you make, and only you can make it, right? And so it's just you and God.

1:39:08 Speaker 4 Correct.

1:39:08 Speaker 2 Right? And-

1:39:10 Speaker 4 What do you take from that?

1:39:11 Speaker 2 Well, I mean, that is an extremely radical idea in the sense that... And it, it go, it, it goes so far that the Rebbe's... Like s- uh, later on their Shiva, you can see the Rebbe's grappling with how does this their... How does this account for the idea of, obviously, in other words, not just you, but other, other people. If you're in this world by yourself, right, then how would other people come in? And it's like there's a whole pilpul there. It, it... In other words, it's a, it's a philosophy of, of... I don't wanna try to give it a category, I mean, 'cause I don't really understand these categories properly, but it, it, it, it, it basically takes individual and says, "It's just you. It's just you and, and, and forget about everything around you. Forget about the situation. Forget about... Forget, even forget about the past. Forget about the surroundings. Forget about your chinuch. Forget it. Right now in this moment," right? It's a very subjective way of looking at, at life.

1:40:13 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:40:14 Speaker 2 Right? And yeah, I mean, the, you know, the-

1:40:18 Speaker 4 My favorite part on that is about, you know, the f- the m- the holiest place on earth is Kodesh HaKadashim, and the holiest time is Yom Kippur, and the holiest person is the King Godol. And then on Yom Kippur, they went to the Kodesh HaKadashim. And it's I don't know where it comes from. I'm sure someone could t- say. But the, the... in, in many ways, the holiest place is where you're now. The holiest time is this moment, and the holiest person is you. In other words, where you are right now, in this moment, that n- that... where you're standing. So yes, there's room to go through and make sense of our past, and there's room to understand how we ended up where we are, and the conversation has to continue. At the same time, we also have to remember we are so not victims of it. We, we have a lot more agency than we, than, than we were told we have.

1:41:11 Speaker 2 Yeah, but I... Okay. Look, I, I, I, I don't-

1:41:13 Speaker 4 It, it doesn't resonate with you.

1:41:14 Speaker 2 No, no, I'm not disagreeing with you. I just, I just don't believe that people disagree with that. I think everybody agrees with that. I think, I think the language that bothers you and the therapeutic kind of, you know, basically all the, the, the, like the overflowing of therapeutic language, or at least that you feel is too much, I think is people coming to terms, trying to come to terms with this problem. And so one has to locate what the problem is, right? And if they are addressing the same problem, uh, as long as a problem is diagnosed, it is a right? I- i-if, if that's what everyone's a-agreeing on, I'm okay with it. I don't think they, I don't think they are, is my point. I don't think they are.

1:42:00 Speaker 4 So, so, so if-

1:42:01 Speaker 2 But, but, but, but, but to keep on... You know, like I don't think people-- I don't think there's a lack of will there, is my point. I think reality is very, very solid. I think people want to-

1:42:10 Speaker 4 Benzi, if I was listening to the narrative say, and I'm not saying I'm sure many people or all people know this, but if I was listening to the narrative today that, that use w- uses words addict, trauma, hectic childhood, overwhelmed, not coping-

1:42:27 Speaker 2 Okay

1:42:28 Speaker 4 ... et cetera, et cetera. In other words, at some stage, even if deep down I know I have agency-

1:42:33 Speaker 2 There-

1:42:33 Speaker 4 ... I'm not convinced I do.

1:42:34 Speaker 2 Look, look, it's a whole can of worms. In some cases, that language is appropriate. In many cases-

1:42:39 Speaker 4 Of course it is

1:42:39 Speaker 2 ... in many cases it's not, right? And the, the argument is going to be how often is it appropriate and how often is it not appropriate? And I, I mean, personally, yes, I, I am, I am less on the kind of everything is therapeutic side. I, I don't... I, I... It doesn't resonate with me. But that's not the point here. The point here is not to-

1:43:02 Speaker 4 Why isn't it the point?

1:43:03 Speaker 2 Because I, I, I, I mean, it's not... I can't say it's not the point. The, it's a point that you're making, but to me, to me the... I, I don't think that that's the, the debate. If you're talking to people who are listening to this podcast, I don't think the debate here or the reason that people are talking about therapeutic stuff is because they believe that everything needs to be now nice and soft like honey. Okay. We are trying to come to grips here with what does it mean to be a Labavature? What does it mean to be a Hasid? What does it mean to be a Yid? Right? W- that on one hand is fully empowered and fully trusted when everything we've been told kind of works in the opposite direction, right? And, and, and, and, and you're saying, "Well, just buck up and-

1:43:55 Speaker 4 I'm not convinced-

1:43:55 Speaker 2 ... buck up and figure it out."

1:43:56 Speaker 4 No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm not convinced that was the whole story. That was maybe the story that we understood, or that was the story that maybe-

1:44:03 Speaker 2 So that's-

1:44:03 Speaker 4 ... someone was being focused on.

1:44:05 Speaker 2 So that's what we're unpacking. That's what we're-

1:44:06 Speaker 4 The Rebbe's, the, the Rebbe's narrative is much more complex than that.

1:44:09 Speaker 2 So that's, so that's what we're unpacking. In other words, everybody agrees, I think, or most people agree that we don't wanna live in therapy la la land. You know, maybe some people disagree, but I think most people, when you speak to them, they want... Like, like I said earlier, they... You know, sometimes they, they, they wanna just be happy, you know, whatever it takes. But really what people want is to feel, um, accomplished, right? They wanna feel accomplished, right? They, they, they wanna feel like they, they, they, they made something of themselves. Most people that I know, most people, and my, my... I would hazard a guess that most people listening to this podcast are not looking for an easy way out. So what are they looking for? We're, we're trying to understand this whole kind of like ball of string that's become our identity. Like what exactly made it this way? Let's unravel it a little bit and understand how we got here in the first place.

1:45:07 Speaker 4 Why they didn't trust us.

1:45:08 Speaker 2 Yes. Why don't we trust ourselves? Why don't we trust ourselves? Why is it that 30 years after Gematons and 70 plus years from Yitzvat, are we erst beginning to publicly talk about these ideas? Okay. It's not because I'm a genius, right? Why is this still after a full year and obviously resonating with people, why is this still the only conversation, public conversation on this topic, right? And, and people... That is a question that, that, that is being addressed in this podcast, and I think it's being addressed in general, right? I think that's a question that people are asking is like, why are we so hesitant to, to think about these things? And at the same time, where does it go if we think about these things? Like, maybe there is a reason. Like, it's easy to say, "Oh, no, screw it. Let's take the table and flip it over." No, no, maybe there's a reason why the table is the way it is, right? Maybe... So it's a cautious, it's, it's, it's a, it's a careful, I don't know if the word's cautious, but it's a careful, hopefully respectful, um, process of trying to understand why these things are the way they are. But I, I'm not at all convinced. I, I understand your frustration with a certain kind of language of, you know, you know, they were, they were harsh and tough on you, so now let's be soft on you. But like I said, I believe that's window dressing. It's all covering up

1:46:43 Speaker 2 the underneath lack of trust, right? And, and, and so the, the key question is: Why don't we trust ourselves? Why don't we trust ourselves?

1:46:52 Speaker 4 And your answer to that is? Your su-suggestion.

1:46:55 Speaker 2 No, I, I, I, I posited a few, a few, a few theories earlier. Uh, we're not gonna get to the bottom of it now.

1:47:02 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:47:02 Speaker 2 We're not gonna get to the bottom of it now, but I, I think really I, I don't, you know... If someone were to say, "Look, you know, you have fifty episodes, figure it out." Nobody told me that, so maybe it'll go for three hundred episodes. I, I, I don't, you know, I don't know that the question will ever be fully answered, frankly. That's a bit of a cop-out possibly, but I, I, I don't, I don't think the question will ever be answered. I think, I think ultimately, ultimately, we never fully understand why we are the way we are, and I think that's a good thing. I think it would be very boring if we understood all of that. I think the mystery is good. Um, there's just endless kind of depth to probe and history and, and psychology and just social... Everything, you know? Re- uh, religious ideas. There's so many things to probe, um, and they I think could go on endlessly. But that in itself, to me, is a very worthwhile endeavor. That in itself because reclaiming that process, reclaiming that, that, that, that discussion is part of giving yourself agency.

1:48:07 Speaker 4 Okay, so let me make it very clear. What I was trying to do and w- and h- and why I do believe it ha- it still has to be part of the conversation 'cause we... I love the push and take on this. I believe that telling people they have agency is not saying forget the narrative and focus on the agency. It's saying, "I believe that was the narrative always." In other words, I believe that if you would have to ask me what's one of the Rebbe's most f- biggest frustrations based on the sicha, especially in the later years, is the fact that people didn't take agency. In other words, something went wrong in that system of, of, of agency. The Rebbe Tafkidd took Ame- you know, American boys who were technically, that's the American mentality, take over the world. Rebbe send American boys to Israel, et cetera, and all over the world. And Rebbe was there tell... I mean, my father took over Sichas in English at twenty years old.

1:49:06 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:49:07 Speaker 4 And three years later, the Rebbe, th-there was another Moise that wanted to publish a sefer in Engl- in English, and the Rebbe said, "Did they ask permission from Sichas in English to publish it?" And my father start- got drunk from l'chaim that night 'cause the Rebbe trusts him to be the one that's a ‹Hadoi› on, on... The Rebbe was an incredible truster. ‹Vadla fatza sichas, vada nadan naches.› Um, the shluchim, the head shluchim the Rebbe sent out, all these guys were in their young twenties. The Rebbe was the ultimate truster.

1:49:32 Speaker 2 Right.

1:49:35 Speaker 4 And f- in yeshiva, w-we'd... Many of us didn't hear it, specifically the, the, the Mashpiyim we had the na... In other words, you boil it down, it's the farbrengens we heard. Like, in other words, if you ask me, my father didn't trust, I think my father was one of the most trusting fathers I can, uh, bless. Um, specifically the Mashpiyim, the farbrengens kav was very much not there. In other words, w- it's a... For me, at least in my head, like when we talk about the system, it's like this, you know, massive Illuminati. It's not. It's, it's-

1:50:01 Speaker 2 No, no, I mean-

1:50:01 Speaker 4 It's a story... No, I'm saying it's the stories that we heard.

1:50:04 Speaker 2 Right.

1:50:04 Speaker 4 And for whatever reason, the Mashpiyim didn't choose to share those stories. And the, and the point is, I do think that some of the other stories are being told. More of the other stories need to be told. It... Like everything in life, it's, it's a balance of a lot of stories. It's not a single narrative, and that's why my gripe with the therapeutic model is not that it doesn't have validity. It's that it's becoming a single narrative. It's becoming an over... And obviously, because of the pendulum swinging back and forth, we've gone from one extreme to the other. But the complexity of the narrative is what I, what, what, what really I wanna advocate for. That, that it, it, that, that there is no single thing that needs to be said now to, to create a human being. That's accompanying a human being-

1:50:45 Speaker 2 Right

1:50:45 Speaker 4 ... is multiple narratives working in tandem and creating this kind of mix that hopefully creates a functional, you know, decent human being. I do think that a lot of the narrative we heard was valid. I don't think, uh, it, it was mixed in a healthy counterbalance and a, a multiple narratives. It was a, a very single narrative, and now we've gone to another single narrative. And if we could create a more complex narrative and not be afraid of multiple stories and trust, I could talk about back trust. I could learn from you, and I could give you the therapeutic, and I could sit there t-telling you, you know, Kabbalah soul, and I could tell you that the Kabbalah of the oil is important itself, that you have to be Mekabel the oil. Kabbalah soul, we often-

1:51:27 Speaker 2 Right

1:51:27 Speaker 4 ... focus on the oil, on the Kabbalah. I could give you multiple, the whole ‹alum ha-chasidus›, the multiple stories of different Abbaim and different Tekufos, and together create a soup that, that gives a narrative that's healthy.

1:51:41 Speaker 2 Yeah. There's nothing, nothing, nothing to disagree with that or nothing to disagree with over there. Like at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the, the trust, trust boils down to, especially trust of yourself boils down to being open to uncertainty, and uncertainty comes from a lack of- Of like, um, so uncertainty comes from the fact that you're not hinged to one and only one way of looking at things. It, it, like you said, complexity, um, the, the, the, the, there, there are competing ideas here. There are competing ideas. There are potential mistakes, right? That, that all leads to potential... There are potential successes. That all leads, that all, that all creates an environment of uncertainty. And, you know, ultimately, yes, it is up to us, it's up to each person, I can only speak for myself, to, to allow themselves, um, to, to, to, to, to, to allow themselves to have uncertainty, to allow themselves to, to open themselves up to uncertainty and to, and to, and to, and to different ideas and different possibilities. Uncertainty doesn't mean sfekes, like people make the mistake. Uncertainty means, uncertainty means that you... It's an openness to different possibilities, right? So-

1:53:09 Speaker 4 And not everything has to be resolved now.

1:53:11 Speaker 2 Uh, no, nothing, nothing will be resolved now. Look, I, I was talking to somebody the other day, I forgot how it came up. Forgot the context of the conversation. Oh, he sent, he sent me a, a, a cl- a, like a quote from some Russian author about how the, the, the goal of art is to present the problem and the questions, not necessarily to answer it. And I said, "Yeah, absolutely." Look, I, I think that's what chasidus is also. Like, chasidus is, is, is, is not so much, it's not so heavy on the answers, it's heavier on the questions. It's heavier on the questions. Like, the answers in a way are, are very poshit. Yeah, the Ohev Yisrael, Get over it. Like, that's it. But what are the thousands of Maamar? It's the questions. It's the constant... But there's still a question, there's still a question, there's still a question. Still a question, right? It never, it never, it never gets resolved, right? So chasidus is framing the questions, right? And if, you know, talk about the therapeutic model, a lot of times you'll go online and the way chasidus is presented is, "We have all the answers." What's the point of having all the answers if you don't have the right questions? The right-

1:54:25 Speaker 4 And also life is very boring when you have all the answers.

1:54:27 Speaker 2 But it's not even the point. The right answers to the wrong questions are by definition the wrong answers, right? You need to have the right questions. And the right questions I don't decide.

1:54:37 Speaker 4 And I'll be honest, and-

1:54:38 Speaker 2 The right, the right questions is, is the-

1:54:40 Speaker 4 And in my opinion-

1:54:41 Speaker 2 Is the point

1:54:41 Speaker 4 ... it's a bigger accomplishment if, if through these conversations we allow ourselves to have questions than rather if we could sit there answering what, what happened. In other words-

1:54:51 Speaker 2 Well, that's, that, that's why, that's why-

1:54:52 Speaker 4 The permission to ask

1:54:53 Speaker 2 ... that's why I keep on telling you that you asked me, like, what did I discover? I, I don't-- I'm not gonna give you an answer, right? I'm not, uh, I'm not looking for that. I'm not even looking for the answer, to be honest with you. Like, uh, what's the reason this and this happened? I'm not looking for the answer. There's no answer. There's no answer. There, there are theories, and then that theory gets questioned, and then there's a whole other theory, and there's another theory.

1:55:13 Speaker 4 Hypothesis.

1:55:14 Speaker 2 You know, and, and you have this idea, and then someone says, "Well, maybe not. Maybe not. And maybe there's another thing, and did you consider this?" That's the point. Like, there's no, there's no answer. I'm not looking for an answer. Frankly, if there's an answer, I'm probably gonna ignore it. It's, it's, it's- No, it's... No, is not ignoring it. I'm saying like I, I'd rather, I'd rather not know the answer. I don't, I, I don't believe there is one.

1:55:34 Speaker 4 And yet the search is for the journey.

1:55:37 Speaker 2 No, it's just poshit fascinating. It's fascinating and, and so enriching to, to, to keep on probing the question, how deep does this question go? How, how, how rich does this question get? And, and, and with that, I'm happy. With that, I'm happy. Like, with that, I'm happy. I'm not, you know... Like what are you trying to do? You're trying to undo fifty, sixty years of... No, 'cause that would go against what we were discussing earlier. You and I and anybody else belongs in this place coming after however many years and however many mistakes that were made up to this point. That, that's what you have to believe, right? Uh, my, you know, our parents' generation screwed up, and their parents' generation screwed up, and the teachers were crap, and everything was a disaster. Yeah, okay, that's exactly how it was meant to be, right? But so then, so then, so what is it? So just man up and, and buck up and, and just make your own way? I feel like that's, that's missing the point. So what am I saying? Figuring out the, like, like figuring out what, what, what this problem was and what this problem is, is to me enough. Is to me enough.

1:56:49 Speaker 4 Enough.

1:56:50 Speaker 2 Yes. It, it, it, yeah. Well, it's, it's-

1:56:52 Speaker 4 So it has to lead at some stage to agency.

1:56:55 Speaker 2 That is the agency. The agency is, the agency is the recognition. The agency is a recognition of I am, I am able to understand where I am and, and why, why I am and how I am. That is, that is-

1:57:10 Speaker 4 And, and therefore?

1:57:12 Speaker 2 And, and-

1:57:12 Speaker 4 What do I do with it?

1:57:13 Speaker 2 What do I do with it? Well, we, we all know what we ought to do. We all know what we ought to do, right? Like what do I do with it? No, no, I think, I think that in itself is an act of agency. I think that in itself is an act of agency.

1:57:25 Speaker 4 Okay. So that's where we'll agree to disagree.

1:57:27 Speaker 2 That, that's not... Uh, wait, wait one second. You're saying what? Put on tefillin in the morning.

1:57:31 Speaker 4 No, I didn't say that.

1:57:32 Speaker 2 No, no, no. No, that, that in itself to me is an act of agency where, where you are... I don't, I don't think that I need to... I don't think the agency necessarily has to be cr-- like I, I... Everything before me was a mistake or all this was a mistake, I'm going to revolutionize, I'm gonna, you know, basically destroy, destroy, destroy that and, and, and, and, and create my own future.

1:57:56 Speaker 4 No. No, but the agency, at least the way I see it, is while working through it, not after, while working through it, I also counter it with the narrative instead of saying, "As I'm gibbling and making sense of the past-"

1:58:09 Speaker 2 That will in itself liberate you-

1:58:11 Speaker 4 I-

1:58:12 Speaker 2 ... to make your own choices is my point.

1:58:13 Speaker 4 I will remember the n- the, the narrative that the devil wants me to believe in, and that I believe life itself demands of me, is to show up to my life and make the best life possible.

1:58:22 Speaker 2 But that is... But, but by, by do- by, by asking the questions, and by unpacking the past, and by exploring the past, and opening yourself up to, to what happened, what should have happened, what, you know, the rights, the wrongs, that complexity, that in itself, that active agency allows you now to make your own choices. That, that is the first step. That is, that is, that is how you start. That's, that, that is how you get there. Otherwise, what you're doing is you're just rebelling and you're, you're, you're creating a rupture from the past, right? And in a way that's also an act of cowardice, in my opinion, where you basically say, "Okay, it's all screwed up. I don't wanna look at it. I don't wanna confront it," because I'm basically... 'Cause you're also scared that you might find out that you're wrong and they're right. So to me, the real agency is, this is who I am, and that's also the philosophy that you're talking about. If you wanna believe that you belong in the place that you are right now, and that that's where the Amesh have put you, he didn't just put you for the person you can become, he also put you for the person you are right now.

1:59:29 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:59:30 Speaker 2 Right? So it's all part of it. You have to be able to deal with all of it. Everything that came, everything that you don't like about it, everything that you do like about it, you have to be open to it, right? And that act of agency, that act of trusting yourself to navigate it allows you to, to, to, to, to, to move forward with it. Ultimately, moving forward, uh, uh, to me, that is an act of moving forward. That is an act of moving forward. That's a, that's a, that's a enriched, empowered way of moving forward, 'cause you're not moving away. You're moving forward. Forward is with the past. You're moving forward with it. You're not stuck in it. You're not trapped in it. You're not moving backwards with it. You're moving forward with it. Otherwise, you're moving away. Anyway, that's, uh, that, that's, that at least has been-

2:00:15 Speaker 4 Okay. So I guess fundamentally, I mean, first of all, I think it's beautiful that you've articulated it that way because I think it's the first time in the episodes I've listened to that, uh, y- that I've understood from you what you're trying to do. Um, again, I'm saying for me, I can't, um, maybe it, uh, maybe I'm slow and it clicked on me.

2:00:30 Speaker 2 No, no. Am I, no, am I trying, am I trying to do this? Like, was that what I was setting out to do? I don't-

2:00:34 Speaker 4 No, I'm saying now, this is where you're at. In other words, that the journey-

2:00:37 Speaker 2 Yeah

2:00:37 Speaker 4 ... that, that, that you see the value in the journey of this exploration. Um, right? I- in, in the healing, in the, in the, in the unpacking, in the, the agent... That's the agency. In other words, that's the, that's the purpose. That's your mission statement.

2:00:55 Speaker 2 Well, there's no que- there's no question that, that starting out, there was more a sense. If I had to, if you had to, if I had to, if I had to guess where it was gonna go, it... And, and I think a lot of people also made that assumption, and understandably so. It's like, if you're going to talk about this, you're talking about it as an outsider, as a critic, right? And in a way, when a system is seen only as conformist, then any kind of exploration of it, in a way, is inherently a critique.

2:01:26 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:01:27 Speaker 2 Right? So if you're gonna come and talk about identity to a, to like... I actually was invited on another podcast and, you know, we, we wanna talk, uh, I come to the podcast, we're gonna talk about Jewish identity, and he's like, "Oh, yeah, that, that's been answered six years ago." Like, uh, you know, "Only narcissists and confused souls talk about, talk about identity," right? Which, you know, if, if, if you don't let me explain myself, you know, may- maybe that's, maybe there's... And maybe I am a narcissist and a confused soul, but like, like it's not, it's not a given. The, like, it's not logically for cer- uh, it's not a logic- a logical certainty, right? And but I can understand why people would assume i- in a fixed identity that's already been settled, you're coming and talking about it, you're, you're just critiquing it and basically griping about it. And I think, and, and, and I, in a sense, I also kind of felt that like, basically, I'm just going to show people the, you know... Or I'm just gonna kind of talk to people that are kind of on the, on the outs almost, kind of the, the, the kind of the, what, what, the outliers and the, the people that don't fit in, the misfits. You know, I'm gonna have a podcast of misfits, and we're gonna talk about why we-

2:02:38 Speaker 4 Misfits of the world unite

2:02:39 Speaker 2 ... you know, homesick for Lubavitch. We, you know, we wish we could be there, but we were, you know, we were basically kicked out, and now we wish... Right. And instead, what, what, what, what, what happened, and I would say it's pretty organic, and it's still a, it's still a work in pro- a work in progress, right? Is that I realized that that line of in and out is so much less stable. That line of like, oh, uh, the people that are more like w- with the, with, w-with, with the, with the, with the program, they're boring and, like, they don't think. And the people outside, they, they have all the wonderful ideas. And it's like, I don't know. Talking... Like, basically, anybody with... A- a- like anything in Lubavitch that's, or any person that I speak to that's thoughtful, um, in, out, however you classify them, the, the, the question is not anymore to me, like, are you c- are you in the system or out of it? Are you, you know, are you, like, are you in that fixed identity or out of it? It's more like, what do you think about this identity? And if you think about it, there's bound to be something interesting there. There's bound to be something interesting there, right? And so what that, what that did for me was, is that suddenly, you know, you're having a convers- like the, the con- the... A conversation about something that, you know, could, could feel so, like, in the

2:04:01 Speaker 2 box and pa... That itself could also be a very thoughtful conversation.

2:04:04 Speaker 4 Correct.

2:04:04 Speaker 2 Do you see what I'm saying? Like the, the, the, the, the split of in or out became a lot less solid for me, right? And so what, what, what I, what I realized was, and what I'm realizing is that, that, you know, you, you don't have to, to, to... And this is maybe where I'm disagreeing with you. You don't have to create rupture to be your own man. You don't have to... You know, the, the hero's journey very often is leave the, you know-

2:04:37 Speaker 4 Left behind

2:04:37 Speaker 2 ... backwaters behind.

2:04:38 Speaker 4 Left behind.

2:04:38 Speaker 2 Leave the backwaters behind, the impoverished ghetto that you grew up in. You know, go make a man, go make a name for yourself in the city. And, and there's a truth to that, right? You know, like, like, like, like you have to leave, you have to leave the bosom of the, of your, of your m- of your mommy to become a man. It's just a fact, right? Um, but it, it, it, very often, it's, it, it, we, we, we, we mistake that with, with, with, with more like, with, with like more objective kind of boundaries, geographical boundaries, like a white shirt, not white shirt kind of splits that are moreyou know. And, and it's a lot more complicated than that. To leave, to leave your childish thinking behind, you don't only have to talk to the misfits and the outcasts.

2:05:25 Speaker 4 Correct.

2:05:25 Speaker 2 You could talk to the people who, who maybe look like they're still very much part of it, but they've thought for themselves. And even if they haven't thought for themselves, maybe they have interesting ideas, right? And that in itself is reclaiming your agency. You're, you're not necessarily leaving, right? Uh, so in a way, you could, you could... By finding agency, you're in a way becoming closer, or by becoming closer, you're finding your agency, but you're, you're, you're doing it on your terms.

2:05:57 Speaker 4 Yeah. I don't think we disagree. In other words, like I was never advocating, let me just be clear, I was never advocating hero's journey as in break the system. I was saying a- a- I was advocating hero's journey as in at some stage, live the life based on the chasidus that you learnt, live the life that the HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants you to live without so much resentment. But, uh, we basically agree. And, and what I loved about this conversation, as we're wrapping it up, is fundamentally we're saying the same thing from two different angles, uh-

2:06:27 Speaker 2 Which is terrible, w- to agree. Very terrible.

2:06:30 Speaker 4 That's terrible. Bentzi would not let agree on anything. Um-

2:06:33 Speaker 2 I'll edit it. I'll edit, I'll edit that out.

2:06:37 Speaker 4 Um-

2:06:39 Speaker 2 Because the only thing I edit out of this podcast is slander, and so that's...

2:06:46 Speaker 4 So yeah. Um, I think we all have to work through our journey, and remember at the same time that HaKadosh Baruch Hu placed us where we are, and we had the journey that was right for us, and we are exactly where we need to be at this moment, at this time. And, uh, the, the HaKadosh Baruch Hu chose right. If, you know, obviously the HaKadosh Baruch Hu chose you and I to be in this place at this time, and this is where we belong.

2:07:11 Speaker 2 Amen. Amen.

2:07:13 Speaker 4 Lechayim, Bentzi.

2:07:13 Speaker 2 It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Dror and Nadav Bachar, and is used with their permission.