Ep. 46 // “Taking the Rebbe At His Word” w/ Rabbi Dov Yona Korn

00:00 Speaker 1 One of the things that I definitely teach, and I definitely resonate with, is the Rebbe's incredible love for each of us, right? There's this-- And like, and the profundity of that, and like the klal it gives me to feel, you know? Like, like here I am, this-

00:14 Speaker 2 Right

00:14 Speaker 1 ... Rabbi Yonah Korn. The Lubavitcher Rebbe believes in me immensely. And the, and the, and the pride that you give me, and it's obviously uncomfortable, and it's intense, but like... And the, the, the gaon Yaakov that it, it affords a person. And, and, and a lot of that, like a lot of Lubavitchers will say me, "Oh, you're a general Hasid." You know? Like you're, you're just taking all the cute moments, but like Lubavitch is the answers of the Rebbe, like hayetach and then three bracha, and a lot of this... Again, I, I run into this tension.

00:45 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. I'm here with Rabbi Yonah Korn at, uh, NYU University at Bowery, right over the Manhattan Bridge in the city. I feel quite at home on my way in here. I'm from Hong Kong, and passed by Chinatown.

01:20 Speaker 1 Yeah.

01:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. Um, I filmed a couple things here in the past as well. Anyway, thank you for making the time.

01:27 Speaker 1 Thank you for being here.

01:27 Speaker 2 Pleasure meeting you.

01:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. You too.

01:29 Speaker 2 Um, one of the stars of the podcast, uh, Moshe Leib Gray, has been on my case, um, to have you on pretty much since he's come on. So shout out to Moshe Leib.

01:40 Speaker 1 Please. Moshe, we love you.

01:42 Speaker 2 Yeah. And now, uh, now Moshe Leib has a little bit more time on his hands. He doesn't have to bug me anymore.

01:48 Speaker 1 It's very quiet up there.

01:49 Speaker 2 He doesn't have to bug me anymore. You're on, so.

01:50 Speaker 1 I see. Also, like, we live in different worlds. Hanover is the opposite of New York City.

01:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, man. That's right. That's right. Um, yeah. I mean, it's Sunday now, so it kinda-

02:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's nice

02:02 Speaker 2 ... it's a little bit, it's a little bit more, more calm.

02:04 Speaker 1 New Yorkish.

02:04 Speaker 2 And yeah.

02:05 Speaker 1 And also down here is much more calm than Midtown.

02:07 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

02:07 Speaker 1 It's definitely the calmest part.

02:09 Speaker 2 Uh, Chinatown's pretty hectic.

02:10 Speaker 1 Yeah. So between that madness and this, between Downtown and Uptown-

02:14 Speaker 2 All right. Fair

02:14 Speaker 1 ... the Village area is pretty-

02:15 Speaker 2 Yeah. But yeah, it's a little bit different. Um, you know what, and in many ways kind of jumping up, jumping into the deep end right away, I mean, that's kind of what this podcast is about, um, highlighting the, the individuality of different people and different circumstances and, uh, bringing out hopefully the, the beauty that come... The depth and the immensity that comes out of that, you know? Like, uh, if everybody was the same, um, maybe it'd be kind of impressive, but it'd be much less impressive, I feel, and it certainly would be boring.

02:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

02:46 Speaker 2 You know? I mean, famous communist kind of architecture, impressive but boring-

02:51 Speaker 1 Yeah

02:51 Speaker 2 ... and, and without life.

02:52 Speaker 1 Homogenized. Yeah.

02:52 Speaker 2 Yeah, without life. And so that's really what this podcast is about. Anyway, so I'm here with Rabbi Korn, uh, shliach of NYU.

03:01 Speaker 1 And a few other schools too.

03:02 Speaker 2 And a few other schools.

03:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, a lot of kids. It's not just NYU. A lot of Downtown schools that come, uh, that come here.

03:06 Speaker 2 Like Baruch?

03:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. So the... We're not the shluchim at any of these schools officially.

03:10 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

03:11 Speaker 1 But a lot of the chevra from these schools live Downtown and participate in our community very heavily.

03:15 Speaker 2 Right.

03:15 Speaker 1 It's-

03:15 Speaker 2 And you also have a community outside of the schools, like-

03:18 Speaker 1 No, just comm-

03:18 Speaker 2 No young professionals?

03:19 Speaker 1 Just students. We had a massive, Boruch Hashem, a massive young professional before COVID. Since then, it's just chugging along. I have to, we have to put our teeth back into it.

03:26 Speaker 2 They all left?

03:27 Speaker 1 Yeah, COVID did on a day. See, the students regenerate, right?

03:29 Speaker 2 Right.

03:30 Speaker 1 But the young professionals-

03:31 Speaker 2 They had no reason to be here

03:32 Speaker 1 ... we built, we built for seven years. It's not easy. We built seven years, a strong community, 200 paying members, its own board of 10 people.

03:38 Speaker 2 Really?

03:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, we had a big-

03:39 Speaker 2 All here in the same building?

03:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, so we had it across the street, a different place. We had-

03:43 Speaker 2 Right

03:43 Speaker 1 ... we had a restaurant there and a, and the shul there for these kids. It was amazing.

03:46 Speaker 2 And it shut it down.

03:47 Speaker 1 Amazing time. Had to.

03:48 Speaker 2 COVID shut it down.

03:48 Speaker 1 Had to.

03:49 Speaker 2 Yeah.

03:49 Speaker 1 And so now... So I have... I can get numbers here, 200 kids for an event. But in order to build something, I'm not just looking for young... This thing got a lot of young professional stuff in the city. Our brand is very much our chevra-

03:59 Speaker 2 Right

03:59 Speaker 1 ... and their friends. And so to do that, I need a couple kids that are re- willing to say, "Okay. I'm gonna make this one of my three top life missions this next year or two, is to build this," and I haven't found it yet.

04:08 Speaker 2 Right. Okay, so, um-

04:10 Speaker 1 But yeah, student life

04:11 Speaker 2 ... student life here in, you called Bowery or?

04:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, Bowery.

04:14 Speaker 2 Bowery.

04:14 Speaker 1 So NYU primarily.

04:16 Speaker 2 Right.

04:16 Speaker 1 The other schools, and we have two parts. We have more Jewish day school kids, which is a huge part of our life, and then we have more secular kids, which my daughter and son-in-law run. They ru- they run it out of their location, which is a few blocks away.

04:27 Speaker 2 And they are more tr-

04:28 Speaker 1 More secular

04:29 Speaker 2 ... more secular kids?

04:30 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's a more... So we made a decision very, very early on to embrace... We had, we had, when we first came here, very secular kids, and the Modern Orthodox kids started coming to us. And, uh, and I realized that if we let them in, that all the secular kids are gonna go away, 'cause these kids start... These are the-

04:49 Speaker 2 Really?

04:50 Speaker 1 This is a time, 2001, where a lot of Modern Orthodox kids started coming to secular colleges and to NYU, and we started meeting them, and these... We fell in love with these kids. They're very geshmakah kids. Very sweet, very... They have Jewish background, but they were suffering here. They weren't... The Hillel wasn't right for them. And, and so this particular personality type within the day school kids that we were like our little bit cooler chevra, and they were just withering away here without a community. And so I had to make a big decision, is do we let these kids in? And we knew the secular kids are all gonna leave, and we're gonna have a primarily Jewish day school affiliate.

05:26 Speaker 2 Why are they gonna leave? Because, like, they're not interested in minyan and then all-

05:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, not just that. These kids all know each other. They grew up together. They have a-

05:33 Speaker 2 Right

05:33 Speaker 1 ... it's a whole different shlichus for them.

05:34 Speaker 2 Right.

05:35 Speaker 1 It's reigniting a flame, a new kind of flame for them.

05:37 Speaker 2 Right.

05:38 Speaker 1 Siddurs, a new, a, a refreshed Judaism. And so we made a, it was a big, it was a decision that would change our life. And, uh, at the time, I asked a, a good mashpia, and he said, "The Rebbe's mission is obviously Israel. It's not Kir- We're not Kiruv, decidedly."

05:52 Speaker 2 Right.

05:52 Speaker 1 And I said, "These Jews need us, and we love them." We felt a great synergy with them. And so we said, "One day, we'll, we'll build this community, and one day this community will help us fund a community for the secular, secular kids," which is exactly what's happened. This community, which is now today in this building, is 400 or 500 kids from Jewish day school backgrounds And that's what's really pumping in this building. So now we also helped birth what my daughter and son-in-law do, which is a, a project very much focused on only secular kids.

06:18 Speaker 2 Beautiful.

06:19 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:20 Speaker 2 Beautiful. So I, I think I told you on the phone that, um, I, this is the first time we're meeting, but, uh, I, I... You, you caught my eye, uh, it was probably close to 10 years ago now. Um, there was a Kinus. It was a, it was like one of the sessions at the Kinus, probably the last Kinus I went to personally. It was in the armory.

06:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:43 Speaker 2 Right?

06:44 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:44 Speaker 2 And, um, I was walking through those different sessions here and there, and I walk by a session where there's this guy, I think you were wearing your small hat, very passionate. Maybe w- could it be you were wearing shlikas?

06:56 Speaker 1 Maybe, yeah, probably.

06:57 Speaker 2 Do you wear shlikas?

06:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe.

06:58 Speaker 2 Like your suspenders?

06:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

06:59 Speaker 2 I think, yeah, I think you were wearing suspenders with the hat, going on and on. Definitely made an impression. And then right in the front row sat Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt. He's a tall man, just kind of spread out, and he's, like, looking at you and just taking it all in. And you're going on and on about Mashiach, and I, I don't know what. I didn't, I don't think I listened to anything you said. I'm like, I'm like, "This scene," like I, I don't know how many people Rabbi Grunblatt, I know from Argentina, is a big, big, big, big, uh, figure for me. I don't know how many people he sits and listens to that way, and why is he listening to this fellow who I never heard of before? I probably should've stopped and listened, but whatever. I guess I was immature then. But anyway, uh, so that, that kind of, that kind of, that kind of leads off into this, into this conversation, um, because I think you were talking about really taking the idea of Mashiach seriously, which I think is in general a, a question about language, and taking language seriously, and developing a vocabulary that's real and, and honest. And, uh, maybe give a short kind of back... I don't wanna dwell too much in the backstory. Maybe we'll come back to it, but I know we could probably spend hours talking the backstory, and that's not what we decided we're gonna talk about. So maybe just give a short background

08:21 Speaker 2 how you ended up here, and then we'll, we'll get back to this idea of language.

08:25 Speaker 1 It's a hard story to tell briefly.

08:26 Speaker 2 All right.

08:26 Speaker 1 We, we tell-

08:27 Speaker 2 Make it, make yourself at home.

08:28 Speaker 1 You know, we know it's-

08:29 Speaker 2 This is your office

08:29 Speaker 1 ... we tell this once a year to our students. It happens to be this Friday night. So after Shabbos dinner, we sit down and tell the whole story. It's like an hour and change, and it, and it's intense. It's... I don't tell it... A lot of people always say, "You don't tell..." Especially I speak for a lot of Bais Rivkah, and I just try to do a little bit in Crown Heights 'cause I'm so close, and everybody wants the story, the story. I said, "Oh, it's, it's, it's intense." But, but kitscher, I grew up in Morris Plains, which is right outside Morristown.

08:53 Speaker 2 Okay.

08:54 Speaker 1 And when I was nice Jewish boy, very secular. I mean, I didn't know Alef Beis, you know? Uh, n-nothing. And, uh, I had a bar mitzvah, but it was, as we say, more bar than mitzvah.

09:05 Speaker 2 Like Reform?

09:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, very Reform.

09:07 Speaker 2 Okay.

09:07 Speaker 1 And, um, and when I was about 14, I started... I was a professional actor. I was good in school. I, my mother wanted me to go to Cornell with her, like her family did. I had a very secular path ahead of me. And, uh, and I wasn't happy, and I was looking for more. So 13, 14 years old, I started reading books about philosophy. I started listening to hippie music. I grew out my hair. I started experimenting with drugs. And I, like 15 years old, I said, "I'm out of here." So I told my parents I want them to sign me out of school, and so they did, which was very emotional. They signed me out of school, and I went. I studied religion all over America. I followed the Grateful Dead. I studied Buddhism, and Hinduism, and Christianity, and everything. Uh, in my, in my path, I eventually ended up in the yeshiva in Morristown one night 'cause my aunt and uncle were Chabadniks there. They moved. Um-

09:59 Speaker 2 Oh, your aunt and uncle were Chabadniks-

10:00 Speaker 1 Yeah

10:00 Speaker 2 ... for a while before?

10:01 Speaker 1 Yes, my uncle, m- my uncle became Lubavitcher.

10:05 Speaker 2 What was your relationship with him-

10:06 Speaker 1 Both of them, we, we, we-

10:07 Speaker 2 ... beforehand?

10:08 Speaker 1 Not great because they couldn't come to my bar mitzvah 'cause it was in a Reform synagogue and on Shabbos with microphones. So we all, like, like belittled them. But, uh, we had a connection.

10:18 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

10:19 Speaker 1 So I, so I, I would go there occasionally visit my cousins, and he, he schlepped me one time. He... I, I said I wouldn't go, but he stopped out. He parked his car. He said, "I have to go get a sefer for my daughter. You pl- wanna come into yeshiva?" "No, no, I don't wanna come in." And this is crazy 'cause I did every other religion. You know, I would do anything. Didn't wanna be engaged in the, these crazy Orthodox Hasidim. And eventually, I went inside, and I walked into a Yudez Kislev farbrengen. That's what I walked into, into Farres. And I'm wearing a purple hat, and dreadlocks, and my whole outfit. And this was in the time Fitzy was there, Rabbi Fitness was there, alav ha-shalom. And, uh, Rabbi Avraham Olitzky came up to me and kissed me on the lips and said, "What's your name?" I said, "My name is Butterfly." He said, "Welcome home." And we farbrenged that night, and it's a long story. It's crazy. If there was a way... I farbrenged. For a week, I stayed in yeshiva, and they farbrenged every night. Like he, he literally farbrenged every night just for me. I was... I, I mean, if you, if I have a lot of personality, imagine when I was against it all, you know?

11:14 Speaker 2 By the way, I have to say, I love how you've taken farbrengen and turned it into a past, uh, verb, farbrenged-

11:20 Speaker 1 Farbrenged

11:20 Speaker 2 ... in English.

11:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

11:22 Speaker 2 Right? I love it.

11:25 Speaker 1 Anyways.

11:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

11:26 Speaker 1 I put on my tefillin for the first time, and I left.

11:27 Speaker 2 And the first time in your life you put on tefillin?

11:29 Speaker 1 Yep, at the yeshiva the morning after I drank cups of vodka with these guys, Yudez Kislev.

11:33 Speaker 2 And then you left?

11:34 Speaker 1 And I stayed for a week, and then-

11:35 Speaker 2 And then you left?

11:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. I took with me a Tanya, a pair of tefillin, and I went to California, and I studied more religions. It's a long story, but, uh, eventually it ate away at me, my kesher there. And, uh, and I, I begged God. I always believe in God. I begged God for guidance, what's the right path for me. And I kept saying, "I hope it's not with the black hats, and the wigs, and the whole thing." But He, He like, He won, and it, it, it felt very... Like I couldn't get out the feeling in my heart, unlike anything I'd experienced of-

12:03 Speaker 2 Mm

12:04 Speaker 1 ... Yiddishkeit and, and specifically the Rebbe and Hasidus, and, uh-

12:09 Speaker 2 What year was this?

12:10 Speaker 1 So anytime you're gonna ask me years, it's fuzzy.

12:12 Speaker 2 No, but like approximately.

12:13 Speaker 1 This is, this is... This, um, I'm sorry, actually, I figured it out recently, so I wouldn't be fuzzy. It's six months after Gimel Tammuz. This was Yud Tes Kislev.

12:19 Speaker 2 Right.

12:20 Speaker 1 Tav Shin Nun Dalet.

12:21 Speaker 2 Well, that's the, that's why I'm asking.

12:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

12:22 Speaker 2 It's how you're talking about relationship with Rebbe. You, you're, you're meeting Lubavitch just after the Rebbe passed away.

12:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. Totally.

12:28 Speaker 2 So, so what, what's the Rebbe mean at that point?

12:31 Speaker 1 So, I mean, c- in many ways it's still what the Rebbe still means to me is it's-

12:34 Speaker 2 No, but at that point, I, I wanna understand-

12:35 Speaker 1 Yeah

12:35 Speaker 2 ... like what, like you're meeting this movement.

12:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. The, the Rebbe's, the pictures, the ideas, the stories, the teachings, the sichas in English, the, the interface I had with the Rebbe at that time was, was left a mark on me.

12:48 Speaker 2 Uh, wha- was this similar to other experiences where you met the idea of a person after they have passed away? Like-

12:55 Speaker 1 That's a good question. Um, it wasn't. It wasn't because... That's a good question. Bu- Buddhist, Lab, the other different leaders that I re- I, I read about and were in centers that were paying homage to them. It was different. I'm trying to think about why. It definitely, the whole experience was different. It felt very deeply wedged in my spirit against my will. I can't even... It's hard to explain. There was something... I guess the, the simplest answer, although it's not incredibly helpful, is that the connection I had with Torah and Hasidus also afforded me a connection with the Rebbe that was very intuitive. It just felt very real for me.

13:31 Speaker 2 Mm.

13:31 Speaker 1 It just... I remember even being in 770 just watching the Rebbe. It's just, it's unlike any-

13:37 Speaker 2 Watching the Rebbe on, on a video screen?

13:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Video. Yeah, yeah.

13:39 Speaker 2 Right.

13:39 Speaker 1 And unlike anything, any leader I've ever seen in my life, the malchus, you just can't... It's «be'ein ha'orech» It just, it just blew me away. It's really, that's the word. I experienced malchus. It's also what I loved about Yiddishkeit, is the malchus of God that it really highlights, and but a different kind of malchus, maybe we should bring about it later. But also the Rebbe, I felt the Rebbe's pashut like power and, and, and the kingship. You know, it's a big deal. It left a mark on me.

14:06 Speaker 2 Right. I guess what I'm also asking is, you know, you're, you're coming... You're, you're looking for a path. You're ki- You're... It seems like you're open, at least in your mind, you're open to anything, and you settle on a path with a group of people who had just suffered a catastrophe.

14:24 Speaker 1 Yep.

14:25 Speaker 2 Like, you know, why would you... You know, the question that they ask the «ger» like, "Why would you choose us?"

14:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's so funny. I, it's my entire association is n- I have no, I have no relationship with Gimel Tammuz, and even when I came to Yeshiva, it was... First of all, you're still in the, in the fiery flames of Gimel Tammuz, right? The Chayas and Morristown was very right-wing at that time, and like there's just a... It was 11-

14:50 Speaker 2 By right-wing you m- mean Messianic?

14:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

14:52 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:52 Speaker 1 When I walked in there, it's... There wasn't, there wasn't a sense there of chesed, you know, the, the, of the Rebbe's being gone, and I just never, to this day, I don't... I only know one Rebbe , you know? I don't know. My memory's... Many «mushpiyim» mindset, if you met the Rebbe, your soul will leave your body, just 'cause of my personality, so maybe it's better I didn't. But, um, I, that's all I know. To this day, just like then, I didn't have like a, a sense of mourning and loss. I don't, I don't know loss about this.

15:17 Speaker 2 Right.

15:17 Speaker 1 I know gain.

15:19 Speaker 2 Well, that's what we spoke about on the phone, uh, briefly. We're not rehashing that conversation, but that, that, that is very interesting because, um, a lot of Lubavitch, a lot of Lubavitch kids are, are, were born after that happened. Forget about... Like, they weren't even teenagers then, and they are brought up with a sense of loss.

15:39 Speaker 1 Mm.

15:40 Speaker 2 Right? And it's interesting how you're-

15:43 Speaker 1 Because their parents ha- had experienced loss or their teachers or-

15:46 Speaker 2 Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yeah, their, their parents, their teachers, their grandfather, their, their, their uncle, whoever it is along the way that kind of creates this sense of, "Oh, I'm missing, I'm missing something." And the more... Yeah, but it, it could also be explained, I th- I suppose organically. You know, you, you read, you watch farbrengens. You know, you're told that this... You hear stories about people that were at farbrengens, which you also I'm sure heard.

16:10 Speaker 1 Of course. Oh my goodness.

16:11 Speaker 2 Right.

16:12 Speaker 1 Endless.

16:12 Speaker 2 Right.

16:13 Speaker 1 And, and, yeah.

16:13 Speaker 2 Right.

16:13 Speaker 1 And by the way, it would always, it would... I would, I've, you know, I've, I've been outspoken at farbrengens like camp Kinus Hashluchim farbrengens, campus Kinus where I'm, you know, I'm one of the earlier «shluchim»). And, you know, I'll be yelling at everyone, "Stop talking about what was and the stories. Talk to these guys now. Where's the Rebbe going? Not where was the Rebbe."

16:33 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

16:33 Speaker 1 Even yelling at Moshe Kalersky, «bashelem» just, you know, «zecher tzadik l'vraka» whatever.

16:37 Speaker 2 Oh, oh, oh.

16:38 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:38 Speaker 2 And what did he, what did he say?

16:39 Speaker 1 We would get into it. I'd sit next to him and wrestle with them, and he'd... You know, he was, you know, it was always a back and forth.

16:44 Speaker 2 All right. He took you seriously?

16:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:46 Speaker 2 All right.

16:46 Speaker 1 We, we had a really special relationship, but, uh-

16:49 Speaker 2 Well-

16:49 Speaker 1 ... it's, I can't say how it's... Yes. Yes.

16:50 Speaker 2 No, I'm trying to understand if like he took your argument seriously.

16:52 Speaker 1 Yes. Always. Yeah.

16:53 Speaker 2 So that-

16:54 Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm, I was, I'm a loud guy, so I go, I would command-

16:56 Speaker 2 He had no choice. He had no choice

16:57 Speaker 1 ... I would command these conversations at the Kin- at these farbrengens.

16:59 Speaker 2 He had no choice.

16:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:00 Speaker 2 Right. And that's what you were talking in front of Zvi Grunblatt, right? If I remember correctly. Like the idea of talking forward, um, I, I think that's a very... I think it's worth exploring how, like the genealogy of that. Like how did that happen? Because, because there, there, there is ample reason for people to kinda get stuck in the past or look backwards, and you're saying that you came, and right at the beginning you're kind of latched onto this forward-

17:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. All I... Again, I'll repeat. All I had was gain. I didn't have loss.

17:37 Speaker 2 Right.

17:37 Speaker 1 Think about it. It makes sense.

17:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, but other people also are born-

17:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:39 Speaker 2 I, I, I also... I mean, I was born before Gimel Tammuz, but I-

17:42 Speaker 1 But you were born into Lubavitch culture. I wasn't.

17:44 Speaker 2 Right.

17:44 Speaker 1 I entered the culture. For me, it was only gain. I definitely benefited from the like the very Messian, like Mashichist environment that I found myself in in the early days, 'cause there, there wasn't a lot of «kachan» loss, although I would personally wanna like find myself more central than that as far as where I would land. But like more, I, whatever.

18:01 Speaker 2 Your entryway was-

18:02 Speaker 1 Yes

18:03 Speaker 2 ... was not focused on what was lost.

18:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

18:06 Speaker 2 Right.

18:07 Speaker 1 I would ha- I, you know, I would... Eventually I would find lo- li- like I would eventually find I, I have all these voices, right? So in the first, I was hearing about very mashichas. Then I'm hearing a lot of ohel-centered, very like, you know, more on the left side or whatever, however you, uh-

18:20 Speaker 2 Right

18:20 Speaker 1 ... structure it. And I would find issues in both, you know? And I, and I've throughout time tried to figure out how to, how to root myself. But, but, but yeah, it d-I definitely benefited from that, my early days being in a mashichas environment, for sure.

18:33 Speaker 2 But when you hear peop- so, so you're talking about the kinnus. You're having this kind of debate or conversation for bringing about these different opinions. That still doesn't leave a mark on you. Like, you're, you're not, you're not... You don't accept that, right?

18:45 Speaker 1 No. There, I mean, obviously there's no to, there's no question to interact with people that have stor- I mean, again, I would make fun of them. "Your uncle was standing by then." They said, "Oh, that was your cousin, and he stood right there by the dollars, and you would say," and then, "And the for bringing, you know my nephew always," uh. I'm like, "You guys, it's like a big, it's like a big, um, mafia-"

19:04 Speaker 2 Right

19:04 Speaker 1 ... "type deal." But I, so I would make fun of it, but to, to be able to hear someone who had a, an, an interaction with, with Lubavitch, with the rabbi, also I have a lot of kavod for that. I mean, I lo- It's also incredibly moving, right? As much as I like to make noise in the other direction, to, uh, I'll sit and listen to stories forever. I mean, you're talking about a person who had entirely, you know, a, a much more first-person account, at least in Olam Hazeh Hagashmi than I have, you know?

19:28 Speaker 2 Right.

19:29 Speaker 1 So like, so I, uh, you know, I'm, I don't... I think, yeah, for me, I, for me, I'm, I like, I'm very... I'm like surprisingly s- Like, there's a lot of things in the world where I'm like in the middle of, and it doesn't make sense. Like, I'm... Whatever. I'm just saying there's a lot of, you know-

19:41 Speaker 2 Right

19:41 Speaker 1 ... more to bring. But like that, so therefore, in this, I'm also, I give a lot of, I pay a lot of, um, like, you know, kavod, homage to that. You, I mean, so they, someone who has, who's interfaced with that, I don't care if they're living in the past.

19:52 Speaker 2 Right.

19:53 Speaker 1 How powerful it is to experience that. On the other hand, you know, I wanna move it forward.

19:56 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, in, in some ways, openness, it's, openness surprisingly leads you to the center.

20:03 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly.

20:04 Speaker 2 I, I-

20:04 Speaker 1 Beautifully said

20:05 Speaker 2 ... right. I, I just had this conversation with someone earlier. Like, when you're, when you're open to different ideas, it kind of sorts itself out in the end, right? You're like, "Oh, you hear from this side. Okay, I hear what they're saying, but some of it doesn't vibe with me." And then I go to the other side, and the same thing, and eventually it sorts itself out. I think people find themselves on sides when they ki- when they, when they're, when they don't wanna be open, they close themselves. "Okay, I just wanna know what it is and be done with it. I don't wanna..."

20:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

20:31 Speaker 2 Openness is open-

20:32 Speaker 1 Yeah

20:32 Speaker 2 ... you know, is, is, is leaving room for uncertainty and, and change and-

20:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's right. Exactly. It's what you were saying earlier about, about this kind of creativity of this op- this project.

20:41 Speaker 2 Right.

20:41 Speaker 1 It's very fluid. You have to, you have to-

20:43 Speaker 2 Yeah

20:43 Speaker 1 ... be willing to live in that kind of fluidity.

20:44 Speaker 2 Yeah. People come to me, they're like, "Oh, we, we were listening at the beginning of the project, and you spoke one way, and now you're speaking another way." And I mean, I don't, I would hope I don't spend time thinking about that too much myself, about how I'm thinking, but I believe them.

20:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

20:58 Speaker 2 And, and that's part of it. I, I don't see that as like a detriment. People are like, "Oh, you see? You started off with a thing, and now you changed your mind." I'm like, "First of all, thank God."

21:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:07 Speaker 2 "Thank God. That means I have a mind."

21:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:09 Speaker 2 Right? And second of all, like, it's, it's not a got... It's not a, it's not a gotcha. Like, like, what else are you, what else do you want to happen? But I, uh... Yeah. So you talk about being centered. I think a lot of times people see centered as like moderate and oatmeal.

21:24 Speaker 1 Right.

21:24 Speaker 2 Like boring.

21:24 Speaker 1 Canella.

21:25 Speaker 2 And I don't think that's what it is.

21:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:27 Speaker 2 I, I, I think, I think, I think like indifference is that, you know? Like when you don't care or like, you know, oh-

21:35 Speaker 1 They say hafrada.

21:35 Speaker 2 S- the, the-

21:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:36 Speaker 2 Right. Exactly. There's a difference between saying the truth is somewhere in between-

21:40 Speaker 1 Right

21:40 Speaker 2 ... which I actually don't like.

21:42 Speaker 1 Right.

21:42 Speaker 2 I feel that's a cop-out.

21:43 Speaker 1 Right.

21:43 Speaker 2 And saying that the truth is, is every-

21:47 Speaker 1 Multifaceted

21:47 Speaker 2 ... is, uh, is all of it-

21:48 Speaker 1 Yeah

21:48 Speaker 2 ... in a different way.

21:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:50 Speaker 2 That's different.

21:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:50 Speaker 2 You know? And that, that's openness.

21:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:53 Speaker 2 Anyway, uh, so, so it's interesting. Um, so, so, so what, what, what would you say... You know, you, you, you, you, you have this, you have this, um, experience of, of kinda coming into Lubavitch in a way without the baggage that other people are carrying. Um, for, rightfully or wrongfully, it's, it's kind of irrelevant to this conversation. Um, how does that, how does that... In your experience, how does that put you at odds, or how does that make your vision different than other people?

22:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I, I'm, I'm actually writing something about this right now, and I'm thinking about it a lot. Um, listen, I think that, that the Rebbe's ideas and the Rebbe's direction and vision just takes root in my mind in a, in a much less, um, with less baggage, like you said, with less complexity. I just, I, I have the ability to listen, like innocently, you know? It's, again, it's, like I said, much, most of my Lubavitch life I've been outside of Lubavitch, right? I, and I- I've been sitting here for the past 27 years, thank God, working very, very hard to try to build this Chabad house. And, and so therefore-

23:08 Speaker 2 What do you mean outside Lubavitch, though?

23:10 Speaker 1 Means I didn't e- I, I, I wasn't in the... I was in Ballei Teshuva yeshivas.

23:14 Speaker 2 Right.

23:14 Speaker 1 Okay? I don't have any sons, but I have daughters. Thank God, a lot of daughters, and eight daughters, Baruch Hashem.

23:19 Speaker 2 Oh, wow. I got, I got three.

23:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

23:21 Speaker 2 Eight's a lot.

23:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's a lot of estrogen. And, uh, thank God I have a couple son, grandsons now, but male progeny. But, um, but I just... So they... And I was never... They didn't go to all the mesifahs, and I, and, you know, just I'm not... And I've been... I'm, my, I'm very focused here. Like, even, I don't even know what's going on in Lubavitch politics. I don't know anything.

23:39 Speaker 2 Right.

23:39 Speaker 1 I'm just-

23:40 Speaker 2 You gotta pay your bills.

23:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's not just that. The, the... Thank God we have a very immer- emotionally-

23:45 Speaker 2 Right

23:45 Speaker 1 ... and spiritually, a very immersive environment here. And so, um, so therefore, I, I just, I, yeah, I have a lot of, uh, shluchim and I have a l- you know, a lot of close interactions, so that's a, that's a chance for me to have that exposure. But really, I, I'm just, I'm j- I just... The Rebbe's ideas, I, I learn them and I try to apply them, and I'm j- you know, I'm not saying... Again, that has, there's lacking there, but-

24:06 Speaker 2 So give me an example of a difference, I mean, if you, if one comes to mind, of a difference of, you know, you're at a kinnus or you're just having a conversation with a friend and you realize that like, "Hey, I, I learned this mimra or whatever, and this is what I understand to be," and you're like, "What is... Wait a second. I'm completely s-something-"

24:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's, I'll give you an example, although I, um, I, um, I don't wanna make a generalization of dismissing, uh, you know-

24:34 Speaker 2 Sure

24:34 Speaker 1 ... FFBs and their application of the Rebbe's ideas, Chas ve'Shalom.

24:37 Speaker 2 I'm an FFB. I can ha-I... You're talking to me.

24:39 Speaker 1 Okay. You, you'll be, uh, you'll be the representative.

24:41 Speaker 2 Yes.

24:42 Speaker 1 So, um, and this-

24:44 Speaker 2 I'm gesher from all four sides, by the way.

24:46 Speaker 1 Wow.

24:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

24:46 Speaker 1 By the way, I found out later in life that I have a great-grandfather, last name Rubin, who was a rav in Lubavitch. I can't find anything about it. My, my grandfather's grandfather. Anyways. Anyways, um, my-

24:59 Speaker 2 My respect went a little bit down just then.

25:01 Speaker 1 Sorry. I f-I apologize. I also, my, my mother's name is Tanya, so when I came into Lubavitch on Yud Tes Kislev and I told them my name is Tanya, they were like, "Lev Tavya ben Tanya."

25:11 Speaker 2 Butterfly ben Tanya.

25:12 Speaker 1 Butterfly ben Tanya. Anyways, um, so I... So let's take sichas from the later years, from the last years, non-Alpha base. So when the Rebbe speaks there about, um, a way that we're spar- supposed to s- start living, right? The Rebbe's, the Rebbe's ideology there is not just of one of announcement. It's definitely an invitation to a changed consciousness, which is complex, right? It's, it doesn't sound like classic Chabad ideology. It sounds some sort of like, you know, shift and jumping into and-

25:44 Speaker 2 Sure

25:44 Speaker 1 ... like a lot of, uh, futuristic language. But it, but a lot of those things I've heard Mishpachim say, "In the last years, what the Rebbe said, he didn't mean or didn't mean. That was an opportunity. The Rebbe's try-" I mean, things I can't even imagine that came out of their mouths. But for me, it's a poshtah zach. Our Rebbe said that we can, we can start living differently. The world will react to us if we start living differently. And I'm not saying I'm doing it. I'm doing it a little bit. I'm not doing it in nearly as much as I wanna be. But I see that when I try to live with those ideas of acting differently and expecting the world to respond differently, I see differences.

26:18 Speaker 2 Mm.

26:18 Speaker 1 And so I'm just saying that may be an example. I'm not saying that other people aren't applying that. But for me, I just... The same Rebbe that said n- that, y- you know, pushed the Rambam is the same Rebbe that's talking about our ability to live with the avir of the neshema and, and, you know, uh, non-utilitarian godliness, and to express it in our, as we're walking around as, you know, b'nai malakut of existence. This stuff is, you know, it's heavy stuff. And so I, for me, I'm definitely as- aspiring to living with a Mashiach consciousness. And I, I, I always say, it's not like I'm, you know, wanna be in a field doing psychedelics or something. I'm talking about in a real practical way, trying to shift the way I interact with the world. Because I heard the Rebbe tell us, I read the Rebbe telling us, "This is an invitation to do so." I don't know if that's a good example.

27:00 Speaker 2 That's a very good example. So, uh, but I'd like to, I'd like to explore it a little bit.

27:04 Speaker 1 Please.

27:05 Speaker 2 Um, because one of the things that I think about a lot and speak about a lot on this podcast is the challenge of, of, of internalizing or, yeah, internalizing these kind of messages. And at what wavelength do you internalize them, right? Because like you, you said, like the, the same Rebbe that said to learn Rambam is saying to live with Mashiach, which is indisputable. It's, I mean, it, it was the same person who said those, both of those things. But like learning the Rambam is, is a very tangible, concrete-

27:42 Speaker 1 Right

27:42 Speaker 2 ... task, right? You do it or you don't do it. Um, you know, you could quibble what does it mean to learn. I would say it means to learn, not to read. But I mean-

27:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

27:52 Speaker 2 Past the basic cynicism or, or a, a very kind of basic, uh, bar, we know what, we know what it is. And we know, and y- a person knows if he did it or didn't do it.

28:03 Speaker 1 Yeah.

28:03 Speaker 2 And one also knows going into it that he has a capacity to do it. He just has to choose whether or not he wants to.

28:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

28:09 Speaker 2 When it comes to these other things like Mashiach, you're talking about it's a whole different wavelength, right?

28:14 Speaker 1 Yeah.

28:14 Speaker 2 It's we don't really know what it's like. We can't really measure what it is. We can really get kinda carried away in our own subjective fantasy that, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's how it is," but it's not really how it is, or we don't know if that's how it is. Uh, yeah, I give a kind of maybe cynical example, but I think it's a telling example. The amount of friends that I had who told me that after they got married, they for the first time understood what spirituality was. And I was like, "No, no, no. That's, that's, that's not spirituality, man. Sorry to inform you, it's something else going on in your body."

28:48 Speaker 1 Right.

28:49 Speaker 2 It's a beautiful thing, but that ain't spirituality. I mean, maybe in the, in the sense that it's not tangible it is, but that's not what Chassidus was telling you about ruchnius and God. That that's not what... It's something else.

28:59 Speaker 1 Right.

29:00 Speaker 2 Right? And, a- and, and I say that not even to make fun. It's more like, 'cause once you enter that realm, it's very hard.

29:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:07 Speaker 2 Like, right? Feelings are very mysterious. And so the question then becomes is: how do we internalize that kind of language in, in this kind of straightforward, literal way that you're talking about without losing a grip of, of, of reality a- and honesty really? Like-

29:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:27 Speaker 2 The-

29:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, it's great. I mean, first of all, I gave a dangerous answer. You know what I'm saying?

29:30 Speaker 2 I, I liked it.

29:30 Speaker 1 If we, if I talked, if I talked about his kashrus or munah peshutah or some other things that might be, that, that might, that might have a different framework for someone who comes from the outside, that, I, that would've been an easier conversation. I walked right into a bigger-

29:42 Speaker 2 But I have the, I would have the same question, frankly.

29:43 Speaker 1 Right.

29:44 Speaker 2 I have the same question. I like the way you put it because it's more obvious.

29:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:48 Speaker 2 But the question is true there too.

29:49 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, yeah. So again, I really, I think a- age, I've benefited from age to try to, to, to not be on either side of the extremes. And day in and day out, I'm living my life trying to work for the Rebbe. I think that, I think that the reason... Like when we, my wife and I, when my wife and I became frum, and I, and I... It was obvious to me we should go on shlichus. It's a, it's a story there how we w- I was studying psychology at Yeshiva University and why we decided to, to shift to shlichus.

30:23 Speaker 2 You came frum together?

30:24 Speaker 1 Uh, s- so we met before we were frum. It's also a whole story.

30:27 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

30:28 Speaker 1 And then she became frum after me.

30:29 Speaker 2 Okay.

30:31 Speaker 1 Um, but shlichus was o- an obvious choice for me, and I think it's because of this kind of like fervor. I, I definitely came into Lubavitch hearing about the Rebbe that's speaking about, and I love talking about this phraseology even though it's a little, um, fantastical, the end of creation. Like-

30:50 Speaker 2 Right

30:51 Speaker 1 ... like the Rebbe said in "Bava D'gani," like, uh, the-

30:53 Speaker 2 Right

30:53 Speaker 1 ... what's it? "L'gmor hamshachas hashechinah." I mean, it's, he's a closer.

30:57 Speaker 2 Right.

30:57 Speaker 1 It's an incredible phraseology. Like, yeah, who says that?

30:59 Speaker 2 Right.

30:59 Speaker 1 Who begins their nesius, "We're gonna close up creation"?

31:02 Speaker 2 Right.

31:02 Speaker 1 I've talked to my students about it a lot. And it's crazy. But I definitely, like, I was enchanted by that, you know, that message, and also how practical it... Like, how that, that shocks me till today. The Rebbe's speaking about such things, and therefore have another farbrengen, and give more tzedakah, and help the orphans. It's just incredible. And open a Chabad house, and spend time with each Jew, and give them attention. So those opposites moved me back then, and they still do. This-

31:28 Speaker 2 Yeah

31:28 Speaker 1 ... the, the dream of the Rebbe's global vision and the practicality of-

31:31 Speaker 2 Mm

31:31 Speaker 1 ... the Rebbe's mandates. Fine. Let's go. So that for sure, me being a shliach for me is me- very Messianic. M- my wife and I being, coming as baal teshuva and, and again, really, like, you know, spiritual orphans and, and coming into the Rebbe's dadamahs, and h- then being able to be lifted up to be, uh, you know, very, I mean, a humbly prominent shluchim, having a massive impact, and to the people that we're close with were massive Jewish leaders. It's crazy. It's a, it's a mashiach story, and I, and I feel it. And the, and the-

32:04 Speaker 2 It doesn't get normal for you.

32:05 Speaker 1 No. And, and the, and the finances, and I don't wanna make this about finances, but the finances and the, the structural responsibility, and every year there's new students. It's just, it's been a wild journey here in the middle of Greenwich Village in a very expensive area, in a very high volume area, raising our, our large family in the village as two baal teshuva. Our life is really only driven by the Rebbe's vision-

32:27 Speaker 2 Mm

32:27 Speaker 1 ... of, like, of changing the world. And I, and it's very... And, and it's... And if anything, my life has definitely challenged me pragmatically, you know, my, my wet-behind-the-ears ideas of when I thought when I first would start as a shliach and how Messianic it would be. So what I'm trying to say is that I think that the Rebbe's ideas very much pushed us forward as far as how ready the world is. And, and the sifros are complex, right? They go back and forth. They're, we're already there. Are we there yet? Something le- something's left to be done. Nothing's left to be done. It's very, it's a lot of whiplash in those last two years especially. But, um, but I think that, that our premise has always been that we're doing this because the world is ready for us to. And even though we see a lot of obstacles, that's what drives us, is that this is the time, this is the, the world's ready for us to think big. In fact, I don't think we're thinking nearly big enough over here. And so, uh, that-

33:20 Speaker 2 Over here or in general?

33:21 Speaker 1 Me. Well, I don't think Lubavitch is thinking big enough, and I don't think that we're thinking big enough for sure. Um, but, but that kind of ideology definitely is a way that I interact with the Rebbe's, these Rebbe's, like, mashiach opportunity of co- mashiach consciousness. I hate this word 'cause it sounds, like, so flaky. But mashiach, a mashiach perspective in a way that's also very tangible.

33:43 Speaker 2 What is big enough?

33:45 Speaker 1 Okay, so now we're go- it's a different topic.

33:46 Speaker 2 Not really.

33:48 Speaker 1 Um, I mean, I-

33:50 Speaker 2 Because I, I'm, I'm trying to drill down-

33:51 Speaker 1 I would-

33:51 Speaker 2 ... on, on, like, how do we define things?

33:53 Speaker 1 So I have a very specific-

33:55 Speaker 2 Okay

33:55 Speaker 1 ... like ideology on where if I had the opportunity, where would I... You know, if I had a bigger opportunity or the opportunity I'd like to have, what I would try to do.

34:04 Speaker 2 Okay.

34:04 Speaker 1 I think-

34:04 Speaker 2 No, but, but how, how do we define big enough is my question. How do we-

34:07 Speaker 1 I mean, it's gotta be global. I mean, it's gotta be... And I mean, I know, and this, I'm, I wanna be conscious here. Lubavitch is global. I want it to be, I want it to be the pr- primary conversation in the entire culture of humanity.

34:20 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

34:20 Speaker 1 And I... It, it c- it will be, and it can be.

34:23 Speaker 2 Uh-huh. No, it, it's interesting 'cause one of my, one of my, one of my earliest childhood memories for whatever, uh, you know how it is with those memories. They're very strange why, why this one sits in your head and not the other one, and then that comes to you at different times. One of the early memories I have is asking, I think my mother, it was my fa- one of my parents in Hong Kong, "If Chabad is so important," which is what I was taught, and, you know, it was kind of my parents' existence as well, um, in Hong Kong, "why is it never in the newspaper?"

34:56 Speaker 1 Mm.

34:56 Speaker 2 You'd get the newspaper, you know, uh, and I'd be like-

34:59 Speaker 1 It's a great-

34:59 Speaker 2 "Why, why, why is-"

35:00 Speaker 1 ... innocent question.

35:01 Speaker 2 Yeah, right? It, it's, it's, it's, it's like, it wasn't, it wasn't cynical. I wasn't quite a cynic yet. It took me some time. But right? It's a, it's, it's a straightforward question, and, and it's interesting how you're kind of talking about it as well. Like, at the end of the day, you know, if, if it, it's... There's almost, there's almost, uh, there's, there's, there's, there's, like, a, a sense where like, no, no, no. Okay, Lubavitch is important at a spiritual level.

35:27 Speaker 1 Right. And so it's-

35:27 Speaker 2 Yeah

35:27 Speaker 1 ... the, I think it's beautiful 'cause when you asked in that innocence as a child is where I entered.

35:33 Speaker 2 Right.

35:33 Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying? So I'm still here.

35:35 Speaker 2 Right.

35:35 Speaker 1 And so whatever you may have been educated by your peers and by your parent, like, listen, I mean, uh, of course, but in actuality, X, Y, and Z, I never accepted that premise, and that's a great example of your question.

35:44 Speaker 2 You, you jumped, you jumped off-

35:45 Speaker 1 I'm still living there

35:45 Speaker 2 ... you jumped off at that point, and you had nobody to moderate it for you.

35:48 Speaker 1 Exactly. And other, other Rebbe, thank God, the Rebbe should give us a lot of opportunity to implement it. So every day we're, we're bu- building and reaching and inspiring people and watching baal teshuva come out of our place and changing people's lives, and so it's only reinforcing the ideology that we have.

36:01 Speaker 2 Yeah. You know, I, I know we're, we're not kinda sticking to a specific thing, but that's okay.

36:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, you're advanced.

36:06 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, it's, it's, it's okay. I don't mind it as, as long as you don't.

36:09 Speaker 1 No.

36:10 Speaker 2 I, I, I feel like you said something earlier about, like, being out, being outside Lubavitch, right? And it's a very interesting way of, of thinking about it because what decides in and out of Lubavitch?

36:24 Speaker 1 Right.

36:25 Speaker 2 And a lot of, like, let's say the Lubavitch narrative, if we had to settle on, like, what's the kind of mainstream Lubavitch narrative for whatever that's worth, is what it is essentially is the Rebbe's ideas seen through countless filters and diluted and, and, and shaped and colored, uh, and formed by, by God knows-

36:46 Speaker 1 Yes

36:46 Speaker 2 ... what interventions along the way.

36:48 Speaker 1 Yes.

36:48 Speaker 2 Right? And what you're talking about is, well, what happens? Like, let's, let's play an experiment where we take what the Rebbe said literally.

36:56 Speaker 1 Yep.

36:57 Speaker 2 Like, without any filters.

36:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

36:59 Speaker 2 And just, just, just, just rock with it.

37:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

37:01 Speaker 2 What's gonna happen then?

37:02 Speaker 1 100%.

37:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. Wait, but one second. Why is that outside Lubavitch?

37:06 Speaker 1 Right.

37:06 Speaker 2 May- maybe that's inside. Maybe that's inside and everybody else is outside.

37:10 Speaker 1 Yeah.

37:10 Speaker 2 See what, see what I'm saying? Like, like how do we-

37:13 Speaker 1 It's okay. So first of all, I just wanna rem- remind myself, I wanna say something that's, uh, on the s- at the sidebar that you made me think of, but I wanna say this first. Um, I think... So I always say the Baal Shem Tov decentralized Judaism, that it should be about the Jew, not about the Torah, which is true. It's one of the things we say about the Baal Shem Tov, is that "" about the Yid. And the Rebbe decentralized Jewish institutions by making the Jewish institutions about these Chabad houses around the world, and really the, the center of Judaism is in every Jew. It's a crazy idea. You know what I mean? Meaning-

37:42 Speaker 2 You mean not in the Torah, you mean not in, like, the, the study-

37:44 Speaker 1 The yeshivas

37:45 Speaker 2 ... of yeshivas

37:45 Speaker 1 Well, I'm saying is to the Baal Shem Tov, I love the, it decentralized, disrupted, right?

37:49 Speaker 2 Right.

37:49 Speaker 1 You talk about disruptors. The Baal Shem Tov disrupted the infrastructure of, of scholarship as the prime-

37:55 Speaker 2 Right

37:55 Speaker 1 ... and therefore Torah as the primary center of Jewish ideology. He made it that the Jew is the primary center of Jewish ideology.

38:01 Speaker 2 Right.

38:01 Speaker 1 The focus of Judaism.

38:01 Speaker 2 The Torah reveals the, the-

38:03 Speaker 1 Yeah

38:03 Speaker 2 ... essence of Jew-

38:04 Speaker 1 Meaning the Torah's working for the Jew, not the Jew for the Torah, right?

38:06 Speaker 2 Right.

38:06 Speaker 1 'Cause it's like the Rebbe's whole idea of Simchas Torah, right?

38:08 Speaker 2 Right.

38:09 Speaker 1 Uh, the breaking of the luchas, ve- very famous sicha. And so, um, and so the Rebbe took that further, and didn't just say it's about the Jew. He said Jewish institutions are not just kept in Crown Heights. It's i- every... It's in Vegas and Tokyo, wherever it is, and the Bowery. And the truth is that every shliach, and really every individual Jew, becomes a command center for the future of Judaism.

38:31 Speaker 2 Right.

38:31 Speaker 1 Like, I really ca- I farbrengen a lot about this when I get a chance, especially to farbrengen with Lubavitchers, 'cause I'm pushing against this thing. I'm like, it's like the Rebbe-- It's like you come to the melech, right? Of the whole kingdom, and he's like, "I'm leaving. Here's the keys. You figure it out. It's in y- The whole future of the kingdom's in your hands." Guys, this is it. No one somewhere else is figuring out the Jewish future. You figure it out.

38:53 Speaker 2 Yeah, the cavalry ain't coming.

38:54 Speaker 1 Right, and that-

38:54 Speaker 2 There's no cavalry. Yeah.

38:55 Speaker 1 And that... So that... And I think that we benefit from not having the same us and them that can exist with Lubavitch, even as much as Lubavitchers love every Jew. I re- I resonate more with them, right? And so our, I think our shlichas really benefits from that kind of, like, leadership from the tachrein. Anyways, I'm off topic. Uh, whatever. But, but you asked about... Oh, so you said what defines Lubavitch. So to me, when I will go, when I go to Crown Heights, or I go to, I go to a farbrengen of a, of a proper mashpia, it, it's funny to me how, um, how differently I communicate and think. And there's the stories and the min- little nuance in the hug him. I, it, it, you know, it's, it's just, it's... Even interacting, I have my, uh-

39:40 Speaker 2 It's parochial for you.

39:42 Speaker 1 Yes. And so I have... And I interact. Look, I have, uh, in-laws. You know, I have, I, I have one of my, my, one of my, the grand, the sons-in-laws from a, is, uh, Yisroel Keepman. He's from, uh, Liverpool. His father is Avraham Keepman, is a geshmakah Yid. But, like, I'm interacting with people from the Lubavitch universe, and I'm like this crazy guy. And so when I do, I say, "Listen, I'm outside of Lubavitch." I don't... Even my c- many of my close friends live, uh, my good friend Simcha Levenberg, who I'd love you to talk to one day, he, uh, he's in, he's in, uh, Los Angeles. He's in the therapy space and a lot of other spaces. But he, um, but he lives in Hancock Park in a nice Lubavitch community, right? Shaking it, shustering it. And he, and I'm like, I'm just, I'm just alone out here , you know? So it's definitely, when I say I've been out- outside Lubavitch, yeah, I, I really ... I mean, I'm outside the, the traditional... Listen, the seat of Lubavitch. I heard a geshmakah from my, from my wife, that the Rebbe Rashab was establishing the Tomchei Temimim was really, he was not... The reason why Lubavitch never had that, it was because it would create a community around Lubavitch, the likes of which we never had.

40:42 Speaker 2 Right.

40:42 Speaker 1 And so, you know, it's timely to say-

40:44 Speaker 2 There, there's a tension there.

40:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:45 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

40:46 Speaker 1 And so that, in that community, that court of the Rebbe, you know, I, I never really interacted with the Rebbe's court in that way. I, I, I was very early in the game, took the keys to the kingdom and ran, ran off-

40:57 Speaker 2 Yeah

40:57 Speaker 1 ... to go try to, try to save the, the, the, the kingdom in a different way.

41:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh, it was, I think Rabbi Pinson spoke about it on the podcast also. They say there, there is a tension between Lubavitch and then the Rebbe, a- as strange as that sounds. And a lot of people, uh, you know, a lot of people take it to mean, "Oh, so you're, you're, you're making Lubavitch less than the Rebbe, or, or you're..." Like, there, there's almost like, it's almost like a security blanket. Like, you want to, like you wanna touch... You, you don't wanna see the sun without all the protective layers in between. You don't really wanna look at it at all. It's gonna hurt your eyes. So you have to all the, you have the whole distance of, of the sun to the Earth, and the atmosphere, all these protective layers, and then you finally can appreciate and, and gain from the sunlight, right? And so, like, you want to get, you want to see the Rebbe through Lubavitch.

41:46 Speaker 1 Right.

41:47 Speaker 2 Right? There's a reason why people... It's, it's, it's, it's, it's more comforting, it's more secure. If everyone else is doing it, they probably didn't get it wrong. That's probably, you know-

41:55 Speaker 1 Right

41:55 Speaker 2 ... that's probably what it is. Uh, but, but like you're saying, what ends up happening sometimes is, like, you'll come to a farbrengen. You know, going back to Rabbi Grunblatt for a moment. I hope, uh, I doubt he listens, but, uh, if he does, I hope he doesn't mind. I, I was in yeshiva in Argentina. That's when I first met him. And I remember in yeshiva, you know, yeshiva's typical farbrengens. You know, we're talking to Bachrim, you know, uh, you know, a little bit more resembling, um, a Beit Shammai. And I love the mashpiyim there, Rabbi Farkash, great, great, great guys. But it was like the, you know, it's like the yeshiva language. And then I remember, like, you know, and it would take hours of nigunim and l'chaim and, like, you're kinda, like, inching along.

42:34 Speaker 1 They go crazy.

42:35 Speaker 2 And, and Sri Grunblatt would show up, I think, like, twice a year, and, like, he would farbreng for, like, an hour. And for whatever reason, at that point, I don't know if he ever used to drink, but he didn't even, like, look at maybe a touch of l'chaim, nothing. And for an hour and a half, just boom, like, like, like, like, like a locomotive engine just rolling through the room. And I remember as a bachur, like, "What's go- like, what's going on here?"

42:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's it.

42:56 Speaker 2 Like, like, like-

42:56 Speaker 1 That's it. That's the juice

42:57 Speaker 2 ... you know what I mean? And, like, there's this kind of, like, there's this disconnect almost of, like, this, this high-frequency energy, and then this kind of the way the community kind of lets it rest and lets it sit.

43:11 Speaker 1 Yes. I mean, I do wanna say, again, talking about opposites That, that there is-- the Rebbe does have different, a different approach when he speaks about the, the, the projects you can have in a Chabad house and, and how he wants Beis Rivkah run. You-- it's, it is real.

43:25 Speaker 2 Right.

43:25 Speaker 1 There are different standards for a Chabad community and a Chabad house. So I'm, I'm cognizant of that. You know, I'm cognizant of different answers the Rebbe gave when it, when it was to a Ba'al Teshuvah, to a FFB or to, you know, to, to a Nash, and to this kind of universe-

43:40 Speaker 2 Right

43:40 Speaker 1 ... and to... So I don't wanna, don't wanna deny that, that it's not like this is the Rebbe and this is, you know, kind of, um, the concretized, like, c- c- communal, um, infrastructure. But I, I do think there's a lot of value there. There's a lot of this, the Rebbe-- there's a lot of the Rebbe there. There's a lot of the Rebbe's personalities expressed in Lubavitch, in the Rebbe's court. But I definitely think that everybody benefits, especially today, from, from some of that fresher energy the Rebbe directed towards the more outward facing.

44:12 Speaker 2 Unfiltered.

44:14 Speaker 1 And I, and I-- what I wanted to say before is that someone once said to me, because I-- one of the things that I definitely teach and I definitely resonate with is the Rebbe's incredible love for each of us, right? There's this... And like, and the profundity of that, and like the koach it gives me to feel, you know. Like, like here I am, this-

44:34 Speaker 2 Right

44:34 Speaker 1 ... Dovid Hacorn. The Lubavitch Rebbe believes in me immensely. And, and the, and the pride that should give me, and it's obviously uncomfortable and it's intense, but like... And the, the, the gaon Yaakov that it, it affords a person and, and, and a lot of that, like a lot of Lubavitchers will say to me, "Oh, you're a jem chassid." You know, like, "You're, you're just taking all the cute moments." But like Lubavitch is the answers of the Rebbe, like hayetacha and three bracha. And a lot of this... Again, I, I run into this tension, and I, I do understand that, again, there's many faces of the Rebbe. But for me personally, I'm incredibly driven by the Rebbe's very raw and empowering love of the individual, and that's how I teach it also. And it's, it's, it's not... Uh, my, my point is I'm not unaware of all the different faces Tatti has, but the, the face of Tatti that I feel that, that most of Lubavitch needs that I should bring forward, and certainly the outside and myself, is the smiling face.

45:30 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Well, I'm, I'm not gonna disagree with that. I will disagree though with, with the, with the premise of the people arguing with you that that makes you a jem chassid. I mean, forget about if I think it's a good or what... I don't even know. I'm not sure exactly what a jem chassid is. I think I know what they mean, and, you know, I don't think it's... Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not a big fan of that either, the kind of like the smiley Rebbe thing.

45:53 Speaker 1 Right.

45:53 Speaker 2 I don't know if that's... You know, I don't wanna get into stor- into what I... If I think that that's an accurate depiction of jem. I don't think that's relevant here. But-

46:03 Speaker 1 This-

46:03 Speaker 2 But I, I don't think, I don't think you have... I don't think that's even the point. Like, the point here is not... You know, jem is making clips of the Rebbe, and they want to... There, there's less context, so they're going to obviously-

46:14 Speaker 1 Yes

46:14 Speaker 2 ... they're obviously going to skew for, for clips that are more pleasant on like right away.

46:19 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.

46:20 Speaker 2 They're like, okay, obv- so that's not on jem. The, the, the, the point is even if the Rebbe's stern, that's not, that's-

46:27 Speaker 1 That's the Rebbe. Right

46:27 Speaker 2 ... that's still trusting.

46:29 Speaker 1 Yes.

46:29 Speaker 2 That he's stern because he b- because there's a trust factor here.

46:32 Speaker 1 Oh, he said on your podcast, uh, what's his name? From Oregon or something, that he became a therapist.

46:37 Speaker 2 Uh, Barry Farkas.

46:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. He said-

46:39 Speaker 2 That's what we were talking about

46:40 Speaker 1 ... oh, beautiful. A beautiful nekuda. I was playing it for, for my wife, I believe. Incredible. He said, "If, if the Rebbe gives a, a gefura energy or a stern energy, why? What's that about?" That's also a deep expression of love and faith.

46:53 Speaker 2 Right.

46:53 Speaker 1 Very strong, very powerful.

46:54 Speaker 2 Right. Right. There's a trust thing here, you know, and, and, and there's-

46:57 Speaker 1 There's also a lot of Russian, like a lot of Russian ideology and like kind of rough and Russian, this kind of-

47:03 Speaker 2 I don't-

47:03 Speaker 1 ... this kind of persona-

47:04 Speaker 2 I, I-

47:04 Speaker 1 ... personally can't, I can't buy that

47:05 Speaker 2 ... you know, I mean, I, I know... Look, I, I, like I told you, I, I grew up with, with Russian roots from all sides. I, I'm very familiar with the kind of Russian paranoia and like if we don't talk about it doesn't exist, and all the kind of stuff, all, all like the de- the s- the Stalinist debris that we brought over from, from, from, from there, or they brought over, and, um, and my generation's still trying to escape. But I, I don't... I, you know, I don't know that it's so much Russian. I, I, I think there's, I think there... I think it's more of anything. I think it's a lot the collision of Russia with America-

47:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:41 Speaker 2 ... and the sense that... I think, you know, people... I think it was talk... Oh, I forget who I was talking about. I forget. The episodes have become one big blur. But, you know, as the Rebbe's message and mandate became bigger, the, the, the, the disbelief in ourselves can also grow bigger-

48:02 Speaker 1 Mm

48:02 Speaker 2 ... and make sense to grow bigger.

48:03 Speaker 1 Mm.

48:04 Speaker 2 Right? And so this... A lot of like p- people don't trust themselves.

48:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

48:09 Speaker 2 Right?

48:09 Speaker 1 100%.

48:09 Speaker 2 They, they don't trust themselves because as... It's one thing, uh, the, like we were talking earlier, the Rebbe trusts you to learn Rambam. Okay, I believe he trusts you to learn Rambam. Whether or not I do it or don't is a different question, but okay, it makes sense. Yeah, he wants to learn Rambam, he thinks I can, and I think I can too, and the question is if I want to. But then, uh, the Rebbe trusts you to finish history or end history.

48:30 Speaker 1 Right.

48:30 Speaker 2 Okay, come on. Like, like, like, like-

48:32 Speaker 1 Yeah

48:32 Speaker 2 ... like seriously, like hello.

48:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

48:34 Speaker 2 And, and, and that's when a lot of time I see this kind of like, kind of split language where people will say that's what the Rebbe said, but then deep d- like then on a re- like then there's a cynical kind of s- you know-

48:47 Speaker 1 Yes

48:47 Speaker 2 ... simultaneous-

48:48 Speaker 1 Yes

48:48 Speaker 2 ... soundtrack of like-

48:49 Speaker 1 Yes

48:49 Speaker 2 ... yeah, but not really.

48:50 Speaker 1 Yes.

48:50 Speaker 2 Come on. Like-

48:51 Speaker 1 And that's, you asked me earlier what, what do I think that there's a, I can point to a difference, that's the difference.

48:56 Speaker 2 Right. The cynical, the cynical sidetrack or cynical like, uh, like mixtape that comes along with it.

49:02 Speaker 1 Like you can... I can really say that I believe the Rebbe is looking at me, Dovid Hacorn, and expecting me to bring the Gula in a real and authentic way, and I believe I could. It's crazy.

49:13 Speaker 2 All right. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I c- yeah. There's no, there's no, there's no two ways about it. It is crazy. But, but that, but that, but ultimately, ultimately that's, that's what it is. Ultimately, that's what it is. And, you know, uh, every person's gonna put it in their own words and maybe experience it their own way.

49:31 Speaker 1 I, I asked on a other podcast, I said recently, I said, "I wanna know how many Lubavitchers have gone to the ohel and then write a letter to the Rebbe, 'Rebbe, p- can you please help me, activate me, that I should be able to bring the Gula?'" And I'm not putting anybody down, and I'm-

49:44 Speaker 2 Right

49:44 Speaker 1 ... first of all, people have di- problems in their lives and different kinds of problems, and we all go to the ohel in, in all sorts of ag- uh, states of agony and pain, and Hashem should just heal Am Yisrael from all suffering forever. Amen. But, um, but I... It's a, it's a... I'm not saying, uh, uh... I'm just saying it's a really interesting question is how much are we leaning into that relationship to, to focus on this next stage of where the Rebbe's going?

50:07 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, the realization came to me... I mean, I, I'm, I'm not... Look, I wanna make it clear for everyone listening or watching, I'm not claiming to, to be living at your frequency.

50:23 Speaker 1 I'm not claiming that either.

50:23 Speaker 2 I, I, I, I can, I can accept what you're saying without claiming that I'm there. I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, false valor or whatever that's called, is not, is not, is not something I, I, I'm a fan of. Um-

50:36 Speaker 1 And I also wanted to say, um, that, that, that I can f- bring you about a fr- frequency. I'm striving for it, and for sure-

50:41 Speaker 2 Same there.

50:41 Speaker 1 Yes.

50:41 Speaker 2 But I'm saying I'm not even, like-

50:42 Speaker 1 Yes

50:42 Speaker 2 ... I'm not, you know-

50:43 Speaker 1 Yes

50:43 Speaker 2 ... I'm not, I, I can accept what you're saying, and I'm going... But with the, with, with, with the disclaimer that, that, you know, I, I accept the truth of it without-

50:53 Speaker 1 Yeah

50:53 Speaker 2 ... making believe. But where I had, where I had the feeling was, was there was this project I was working on, uh, around Pesach time. But it, it's... The, the germs of it, the germ of it started earlier. It was on the Mayim A'Bas HaLegani. I wanted to take, I wanted to take the Mayim, or the first Bas HaLegani, and turn it into a, uh, film and music production, and I wasn't sure exactly how, but I-

51:23 Speaker 1 Did someone... Did, did someone did this, no?

51:25 Speaker 2 This World is a Garden.

51:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's you?

51:26 Speaker 2 That's me.

51:27 Speaker 1 Oh, beautiful. Someone just mentioned it on a podcast, and I asked my secretary to figure out which, where it is, and we could find it.

51:32 Speaker 2 Oh. Yeah. All right.

51:33 Speaker 1 It, it, it sounded-

51:33 Speaker 2 That's why I'm here

51:33 Speaker 1 ... it sounded beautiful.

51:34 Speaker 2 That's still business.

51:35 Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

51:36 Speaker 2 Yeah. So This World... So let, so let me explain to you what happened.

51:38 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

51:38 Speaker 2 So This World is a Garden is me. Um, is... Yeah.

51:42 Speaker 1 The ad was beautiful. I got so aroused.

51:44 Speaker 2 Thank you.

51:45 Speaker 1 I can't.

51:45 Speaker 2 Thank you. So This W- This World is a Garden, um, so I, I... Something about Bas... In general, Bas HaLegani, Mayim Aram are my favorites.

51:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

51:56 Speaker 2 My favorite. Um, uh, like, uh, for whatever reason, since I'm a Bolcher, I always just loved those Mayim Aram. And then the first Mayim Aram, Bas HaLegani Dalet, I kinda came to... I came back to it later on because in the beginning it, it, it's, it's... It, it doesn't really have the same kind of structure. It's hard to figure out exactly what they were saying. It feels more of like a... It's more like a manifesto.

52:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. I was gonna say. Yeah.

52:20 Speaker 2 It, it, it's... Yeah. It's like, is this really a Mayim or even, like, half it doesn't even feel like a Mayim.

52:24 Speaker 1 Right.

52:24 Speaker 2 It feels like a personal kinda-

52:26 Speaker 1 Captain's speech.

52:27 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's like, what is this? And then, anyway, I'm like, "There's something here." And then I listened to the recording of it, and I always remembered that the Rebbe cries-

52:38 Speaker 1 Mm

52:38 Speaker 2 ... at, at the end, or, or not at the end, but the line of like-

52:41 Speaker 1 Few lines

52:41 Speaker 2 ... "We're here with, against our will, and against our..."

52:44 Speaker 1 Right.

52:44 Speaker 2 That, I, I, that always... No one that made sense to me. But I'm listening it to now, and I, and I, uh, now a few months ago, and I realized the Rebbe's crying also, um, where he's talking about that "Al Tikra Ve'ikra Ela Ve'akher."

52:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

53:00 Speaker 2 Right? He's t- where he's talking about the idea that in today's day and age, you have... You cannot suffice yourself with learning for yourself. You have to teach others.

53:08 Speaker 1 Right.

53:08 Speaker 2 And he's crying. Like, why is he crying? Like, what's the emotion here? And then I think about it for a second, I realize, "Wait a sec." I, obviously, you know, the Rebbe didn't wanna do this. He didn't want this job.

53:21 Speaker 1 Mm.

53:22 Speaker 2 He fought against it.

53:23 Speaker 1 Mm.

53:23 Speaker 2 And I take him at his word.

53:24 Speaker 1 Mm.

53:25 Speaker 2 I, I don't believe there's this whole game that he's trying-

53:27 Speaker 1 Right

53:27 Speaker 2 ... to get you to play- ... hard to get. I, I don't, I, I don't, I don't, I don't see that. I don't think that's how he... I just don't see it. Uh, he didn't want the job. And, and all the years before that, he, he kind of left. Talk about being outside Lubavitch, the Rebbe didn't learn Torah Tumim.

53:42 Speaker 1 Right.

53:42 Speaker 2 He got married to the, to the Freeziker's daughter. They, they left.

53:45 Speaker 1 Right.

53:45 Speaker 2 They weren't there.

53:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

53:47 Speaker 2 They... He wasn't, he wasn't interested, right? And-

53:50 Speaker 1 They private.

53:51 Speaker 2 Yeah. And he want to learn.

53:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

53:52 Speaker 2 Everybody knew, everyone knows he loved to learn.

53:54 Speaker 1 Yeah.

53:54 Speaker 2 And here he's basically saying, "If I accept this job, it means the end of my... I don't have, I'm not gonna-"

54:00 Speaker 1 Privacity.

54:00 Speaker 2 "No, I'm not gonna have the time to learn the way I used to."

54:03 Speaker 1 Right.

54:03 Speaker 2 "I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to give up a lot."

54:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

54:05 Speaker 2 And he's crying. And you realize, wait a second, here's a person who, who is basically taking the message of his father-in-law, his rebbe, taking it literally-

54:15 Speaker 1 Mm

54:15 Speaker 2 ... to the gut-wrenching conclusion.

54:18 Speaker 1 Mm. Beautiful.

54:20 Speaker 2 Right? W- and where does that leave me-

54:22 Speaker 1 Mm

54:22 Speaker 2 ... on the other side of it, right?

54:24 Speaker 1 Mm. Beautiful.

54:25 Speaker 2 Right? And this is not something else we're talking about with, with, with, with Dovid Pinson. Like, at the end of the day, like, the Rebbe is, like, the first, like, I think he, the way he coined it was, like, the first Hasid Rebbe. Like, he, he's... He... 'Cause he wasn't part of, like, the-

54:41 Speaker 1 Right

54:41 Speaker 2 ... he wasn't, like-

54:42 Speaker 1 Right

54:42 Speaker 2 ... he married into it.

54:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

54:43 Speaker 2 And he wasn't, like, brought up that.

54:45 Speaker 1 Right.

54:45 Speaker 2 But he was a Hasid who became a rebbe, right? And, like, anyway, that led me down the line of Lubavitch doesn't end with the last rebbe.

54:55 Speaker 1 Mm.

54:56 Speaker 2 Lubavitch ends with the last Hasid.

54:57 Speaker 1 Mm, mm, mm. Love it.

55:01 Speaker 2 And that, that's a gut... When you, when you, when you sit with that, man, when you sit with that, it, it-

55:06 Speaker 1 That's delicious

55:07 Speaker 2 ... it's delicious, but it's heavy.

55:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:08 Speaker 2 It's heavy as hell, you know? And I shouldn't say hell. It's heavy as whatever. Uh, heavy as, heavy as... It's heavy. It's heavy as it should be.

55:17 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:17 Speaker 2 And yeah, I mean, like, that, that's what trust is. That's what trust is.

55:22 Speaker 1 Mm.

55:23 Speaker 2 So not, so not, so not quite, you know, the Moshiach frequency that you're talking about, but, uh, to me-

55:28 Speaker 1 It's the same, it's the same

55:29 Speaker 2 ... it, it's about trust.

55:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:30 Speaker 2 It's about trust.

55:32 Speaker 1 It's the same, again, same rebbe, same, same fabric of what you're talking about, just... But it's thinking about where is this going next, right? Where, like, what's... When you say the last Hasid, the question is, in, in, in what behavior are we bringing this to its completion?

55:50 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Because the last Hasid, the, the, the logic of that is, is that it's not good enough for the last Hasid to just be hanging on to what the last rebbe said.

55:58 Speaker 1 Right.

55:59 Speaker 2 'Cause who said you're the last Hasid? Maybe the last Hasid is your child or his-

56:02 Speaker 1 Right

56:02 Speaker 2 ... or, or, or his child-

56:04 Speaker 1 Right

56:04 Speaker 2 ... or her child, grandchild. You don't know who it is.

56:06 Speaker 1 Right.

56:07 Speaker 2 Right? So- So this idea of like, this, this idea of despondency of like, well, you know, we shouldn't be here the way we are, so, you know, s- there must be a plan of like, this is gonna happen in X, Y, Z timing, that is a cop-out.

56:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:24 Speaker 2 That is a cop-out.

56:25 Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree.

56:26 Speaker 2 This week's episode is brought to you by This World Is a Garden, a new film and concert production by Uvlamedia. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Basai 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 onto 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 Basai Legani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. Yeah, so I don't wanna, I don't wanna get too lost in the, in the feels over here 'cause I think, I think that's precisely, precisely the risk that, that we were talking about earlier.

57:22 Speaker 1 Mm.

57:23 Speaker 2 You know, so how, how does one, in your experience, how do you check yourself, or do you check yourself to make sure that give it... You know, you, you don't have that filter or reassurance feedback loop of community and what's everyone else doing, and I'm doing enough if, if I'm doing what everyone else is doing, right? How do you make sure that you don't get carried away in your own head? Like, like how do you check yourself that you're being real with yourself? I'm Mashiach. I'm, I'm bringing Mashiach. Okay, good for you, like...

58:00 Speaker 1 I think the first thing is, is hiskashrus, like hiskashrus today. And again, we, you know, each person defines it differently, but for me, and, and, and I, I work with a lot of our Baali Tshuva, Baali Tshuva that became Lubavitch or people that are in Lubavitch, and trying to refresh ourselves and feel are, do we have hiskashrus today? And again, that becomes an issue of whether people feel the Rebbe's... They're connected to the Rebbe or the Rebbe's accessible or not. But I definitely koch in feeling that the Rebbe is very present in my life and very involved, and so that's just, it's, that's not an answer to your question, but I'm, it definitely helps to, um, to frame what I'm doing is I'm, I'm tr- I h- I'm, I'm working with the Rebbe's kochos to try to achieve something. Something in myself and something around us in the world. So for sure, and I think it's a real beracha that the gave me such a massive shlichus, that's, that is where we are on a daily basis implementing these ideas. In our shluga, again, to frum kids, not frum kids, Lubavitch, not Lubavitch, that, that is where we have a chance to see the Rebbe's ideas and approach come to life. And in as much as this feels to me like an expression of messianism is to be running such a big Chabad House and doing, and reaching for what we're reaching for, so I definitely feel that that is one very basic, um, affirmation

59:23 Speaker 1 of what we're doing is, is our ability to be building from that place. I'm not saying that, that, that, that just ach, every Chabad House is, is purely, um, is purely geulah consciousness, but for me it, th- that's definitely why I'm here. Again, because I'm from the outside. This, that's the only thing keeping my wife here, and not just here, but growing what we're doing. But the, I think the question you're asking is a little bit more personal about how do we ask ourselves if we're really changing the way we're thinking. And definitely learning, for sure. Like when I l- when I refresh myself and learn especially the Sichas about this, obviously there's so many other Sichas I'm on to learn. I'm not talk- That's not all of my learning or my focus. But when I learn Sichas about the geulah, asking myself w- like, uh, why am I making myself suffer by not living with the Rebbe's ideas? Sai in fundraising, sai in relationships, sai in leadership. W- like w- why am th- how do I help myself more and more begin to fee- feel the way the Rebbe's asking us to feel? The Rebbe's talking, for example, I ha- I don't like to only talk about fundraising even though it's a consuming part of my life, but I know for sure that when I actually honestly believe when I go into a meeting, th- to think of the world and the Jew and the era that we're in, the way the Rebbe articulates

1:00:39 Speaker 1 it, and I come into a meeting with that, um, that awareness, I see a whole different experience. Not just that we end up getting more resources, but also I'm positioned in a different way. I notice my own consciousness. I go in like, uh, I go in with my own psychological deficiencies and I'm nervous and I'm scared and I'm looking for whatever it is, so that's nerve-wracking. And if I can change my consciousness, not just classic, which is amazing, Ein Maamad Ani and everything that we, a chasid should be meditating on, achas Hashem to be able to confront life's challenges, but also thinking this guy has been given resources to bring the geulah now in this time, and I'm their conduit to help access these resources at this incredibly important time in world history. And not just does every Jew love the , every Jew is ready for the geulah inside, as a nation we're ready. I'm going to ask for an outsized matter of money because of that awareness. It's a different experience, I'm just being honest. So that, and then yes, that does, there is affirmation there, for sure. And I'm, again, I'm I wi- I wish I was... You know, if I'm doing this 15% of the time, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thankful and I'm trying to do more. And when I speak to my students, when I interact with the students, when I, when I get up in the morning and I'm trying to go about my day and confront the stresses

1:01:52 Speaker 1 and the complexities within me, trying to see if I'm taking advantage of, of the Rebbe's invitation to live differently because of the time we're in. That's it. It's very simple. There's, a chasid, before the Rebbe's announcements about the geulah, a chasid has a whole different way that they should be living. A, a chasid should be rooted in a certain ideology, for sure, and I'm still working on that. And all of us, that, that's how, that's how all of us should be coping with life. But there's something that's highlighted in the Rebbe's where we're going next ideology, and that really excites me I don't know if I answered your question

1:02:26 Speaker 2 No, I think you started to answer it.

1:02:28 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:02:28 Speaker 2 Well, I'm gonna, gonna probe a little bit further.

1:02:30 Speaker 1 I hope you do.

1:02:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, like a dentist. Uh, um.

1:02:35 Speaker 1 Opening up a root canal.

1:02:37 Speaker 2 Yeah. Slight- slightly more comfortable than a root canal. No, 'cause what I'm thinking about as you're talking is that, um, you know, Peretz, I, I'm sure you know Peretz Kahn from Brandeis.

1:02:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:02:48 Speaker 2 So he was talking about how at the end of the day, you have to, you have to accept that Lubavitchers are mystics. It's like you can be... You can run marathons, you could, you could have a b- you could have a nice button-down shirt, you could look presentable, but the philosophy doesn't make any sense. The way of life doesn't make any sense on any other level besides mysticism.

1:03:08 Speaker 1 I love it.

1:03:09 Speaker 2 Right? And, and I think he's right. The thing is, though, that in general... Like, when you're talking about, like, spiritual things, you know, or, like, ostensibly spiritual things like davening and belief systems and so on, you can kind of, you can kind of create this framework where, okay, it's to begin with spiritual, so it's never gonna have the tangible, it's not gonna have the tangible quality of a table. So I'm gonna have to work with, with, with that in mind, I'm gonna have to figure out a way how to make sure that I'm progressing and, and not c- not fooling myself. Like Tanya calls them ‹foreign language›, like these kind of false illusions and so on. But when it comes to Mashiach, I feel like there's a... And this is not just about the idea of Mashiach. This is ide- This whole... The question about ‹foreign language› and the whole idea of bringing Mashiach is that you no longer have that escape route into spirituality, right? The- there is a feedback loop there in the sense that, like, Mashiach isn't here until he, he's come.

1:04:09 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:10 Speaker 2 In which case, everyone knows.

1:04:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:11 Speaker 2 Like, if you have to convince someone that Mashiach is here, then he isn't here, right? Not full-

1:04:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:04:17 Speaker 2 ... well, not, not the way he's supposed to be here.

1:04:18 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:04:19 Speaker 2 Right?

1:04:19 Speaker 1 For sure. It's not, we're not done with him being here.

1:04:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay, right. And so, and so that's precisely the... Or like you said earlier, you know, at the end of the day, if Mashiach's here, it would be on the centerfold of the newspaper.

1:04:29 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:29 Speaker 2 He's not.

1:04:30 Speaker 1 Right. For sure.

1:04:31 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:31 Speaker 1 For sure.

1:04:31 Speaker 2 So, so then the question becomes is how do you live... Like, how does that feedback loop work when you're talking about something that's mystical and spiritual, but in a way isn't real until it's, until it's tangible and physical? Until such... Until that point occurs, how do you, how do you, how do you get... How do you create a l- a feedback loop that isn't just inside your own head? I-

1:04:59 Speaker 1 So let me, let me put the question back to you for a second.

1:05:01 Speaker 2 Sure.

1:05:01 Speaker 1 Go back to the, the first part of what you said as far as, like, classic ideological mysticism. How does a person know if they're being affected by the concepts of Hasidus? Let's just take Achdas Hashem for a second. How does a person know... I ask, if I ask... We, you know, I- we teach a lot of Tanya around here. Teach a lot of ‹foreign language›. How do we know if we're actually being affected by the idea of Achdas Hashem?

1:05:24 Speaker 2 That's a good question. It's a good question. How, how does someone know if they're, if they're actually being affected by it? What, what would be the metrics that are, that are the classical metrics? I think the classical, the classical metrics would probably start off with how much do you think about it? Um, how, how... Is your, is your understanding of it becoming clearer and, and, and more pr- like deeper? How do you respond? Like, d- is there any kind of emotional response? And then eventually, the ultimate barometer would be, you know, do you put it on your bank statement or not?

1:06:00 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:01 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:01 Speaker 1 Right. So I think yes. I think that the... How much you think about it is, uh, to me, a little bit less of a metric and more of a, a method.

1:06:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:08 Speaker 1 But as far as a metric, I think for sure your experience of life. Like I'm very, I'm very into therapy and into how we ex- how we experience life emotionally 'cause I deal with so many mental health. I mean, I'm, I'm not with-

1:06:20 Speaker 2 You're a campus le-

1:06:21 Speaker 1 Yes. My-

1:06:21 Speaker 2 It's enough said.

1:06:22 Speaker 1 Yes. And right. And, and so my-

1:06:24 Speaker 2 And you have eight daughters.

1:06:25 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. I was just thinking that. And myself and all of us. But, um-

1:06:31 Speaker 2 I was talking about your eight daughters, Scott. For a bit, I was talking about the father of eight daughters.

1:06:34 Speaker 1 Oh, I was thinking all of them are all crazy. Anyways, um, yeah. So I, I, I think a lot about mental health and about life's experience. And to me, one of the first metrics of Achdas Hashem affecting me is, is it affects my, my operating model of existence. It helps how I live my life.

1:06:53 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:53 Speaker 1 If I'm spending time, even a little bit each day, thinking about the ideas that we're learning about in Tanya, for example, it affects generally my, my triggers, my reaction to the world around me, et cetera. That's a, that's one practical s- way of saying, "You know what? I call my wife, such and such happened, but I, I'm not nervous. I'm not upset. I'm not worried. I believe really that this is from the ‹foreign language›." And, and you could talk about this stuff, but if you're not meditating on it, and you're not implementing on it, you're not contemplating it, it won't affect you as much. So I'm just saying... And yes, and that will have effect on the people around you because ‹foreign language› when a donor says no to me or a student challenges me and I don't react like a animal, but I react calmly and with a sense of trust, it causes different outcomes. So I just... Before we get to the bigger question about Mashiach, I wanna agree with you that we could say that when it comes to s- to a certain ideologies, you can see how it changes your consciousness, and therefore how it changes the way the wor- world responds to you.

1:07:45 Speaker 2 Right.

1:07:45 Speaker 1 Agreed?

1:07:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:07:46 Speaker 1 Great. So now let's move on to the Mashiach topic. So I, I believe that, that Mashiach is a heightened sense of Achdas Hashem, right? It's, it's not just saying that, that Achdas Hashem is emes, but the world is not really ready to receive it. It's saying the world's actually ready now and by and large has begun to receive a gully of Achdas Hashem in how the world responds, right?

1:08:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:08 Speaker 1 So we're not polarizing or bifurcating existence anymore. We're seeing now existence as ready to express that reality. So again, if we're aga-- And this is preliminary, you know, this is something I'm still exploring, and I think anybody that's learning this stuff is. I'm trying to, just like I would meditate on Achdas Hashem, I'm trying to meditate and think about even a little bit the Rebbe's- ... presentation of how the world is changing or has changed, and try to react to myself and the people around me differently because of it. And I think that the more that we do that, the more we'll speak about Mashiach more comfortably. The, like for example, uh, one of the ph- the phrase that I love the most is Jews of the future. This is a phrase that, like, I bought the Instagram account even though I've done nothing with it, Jews of the future. Because, and that's-

1:08:56 Speaker 2 Oh, and the domain also .com?

1:08:57 Speaker 1 Uh, no, I don't think so.

1:08:58 Speaker 2 Come on, man.

1:08:59 Speaker 1 I know. I may, I think I maybe tried. Maybe I did. I don't know.

1:09:01 Speaker 2 15 bucks a year.

1:09:03 Speaker 1 I know. Who knows? Maybe I did. It was a long time ago, unfortunately. I haven't used it. But-

1:09:08 Speaker 2 Jews of the future is now in the past.

1:09:13 Speaker 1 That's good. Yeah, man. Anyways, it's honest. So, but at least in my, with my farbrengens, my students always talk about Jews of the future, and I'm saying that days are coming where we're gonna have a different kind of Judaism. Right, and we're in it.

1:09:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:26 Speaker 1 We're no longer looking backwards, looking forward, and where are we going? It's not just populating Eretz Yisrael, which is incredibly important and incredibly powerful, and I would love to live there if I wasn't on shlichus. But there's a, there's a spiritual evolution and a human evolution we're supposed to be going through. This is what the Torah teaches, and it's now. And I say to the kids, "If you're just..." To my students, "If you're not, if, if you're not being transformed by your relationship with Torah and God, then you're not gonna have something that's gonna be exciting enough for your kids and grandkids to participate in."

1:09:55 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:55 Speaker 1 So that kind of language and excitement, and everybody in the Chabad house here is talking about Mashiach. I mean, I'm just saying not nearly enough, and, and my wife's teaching about it in depth. I try to teach about it in depth, not because we're so Mekushah, because we're, we're excited about it. We're genuinely excited about it and how it's... And we believe it's changing us, it's changing the world, and that this Chabad house, and again, every Chabad house is, I'm just saying for us, our life is a revelation of the availability of global transformation because of the Gula. That two simple fryiden can come and, and be where we are.

1:10:30 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:30 Speaker 1 And, and, and every baal teshuva and every FFB, and all the, the, the whole movement of the, of Lubavitch is a Gily of Gula, but I'm just speaking for myself. That is the, the, the dreams that we have and that we try to implement, and the way we run our lives in our Chabad house is very much how we're expressing our understanding of where we are in this time, and that's, that's what brought us in the first place. I don't know if it satisfied you, too.

1:10:53 Speaker 2 No, I'm just saying I'm thinking about it. Uh, this idea of, of thinking about the future and dreaming about the future i- it's, it's, you know, there's s- there's so many, so many layers to it, and I, uh, talking about just beginning to think about it, you know, the, you know, future... Is future in opposition to the past? Is it in continuation of the past? Is it in tension with the past? You know, a lot of people talk about the future, but how many people really, really mean it? Like, i- i- is a future just like, well, t- today, but we don't know yet. Like, we don't know how it's gonna, how it's gonna turn out, but it's not truly new. It's not, it's not really a step forward. Um, is it, is it... Are we, are we really looking for change, or are we, you know... Are, are we... How many people or how often is the future that's articulated truly a future that, that, that, that beckons and, and is a, a real thing on its own, not just, not just a continuation of now and, you know, just rearranged, rearranged, uh, slightly to make it feel different? There's so, there's so many ways to think about it. Um, what we're talking today about is, like, the future I- I- I it's, that line has been brought in politics and, and has some dark origins, but, like, a future that you know, the, the, the people, there are people that talk about the

1:12:23 Speaker 2 future unburdened by the past.

1:12:25 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:12:26 Speaker 2 Right? It's the communist, you know, statement that's been popularized by, by, by one of the politicians today. But what we're talking about in our conversation is more a, a future unburdened by the present almost.

1:12:37 Speaker 1 Mm. Beautiful.

1:12:38 Speaker 2 Right? And, and-

1:12:39 Speaker 1 Gorgeous

1:12:39 Speaker 2 ... I'm not sure that's, I'm not sure that's what Mashiach is, though. I'm not sure that's what Mashiach should be, but, but what we're... But, you know, i- it's, it's... The question that we're talking about is how do you, how do you reach for something, for something new when you're, when you're weighed down by all the, all the filters and, and, and re- reinforcing mechanisms of, of right now? Can you truly step into something new, right? Um, but I agree with you that, that, that, that seems to be the only, the only way out at this point.

1:13:16 Speaker 1 Right.

1:13:17 Speaker 2 You know, like, so much of the, you know, like, the kind of, the, the kind of existential crisis of religious Judaism a- and the non-religious Judaism in a way, they're kind of past, they're, they're kind of past the breaking point anyhow.

1:13:32 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:13:32 Speaker 2 I wouldn't call it an existential crisis. But now the Frum people are, are dealing with it, is that, you know, we cannot, we can no longer, uh, s- stake our identity on how things used to be. Like, they-

1:13:46 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:13:46 Speaker 2 ... holding onto the past-

1:13:47 Speaker 1 Of course, yeah

1:13:48 Speaker 2 ... nostalgia is no longer a, a winning recipe.

1:13:51 Speaker 1 P- PTSD Judaism.

1:13:53 Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. It's no longer a thing, right? And so, and so, uh, and so, like, when, when you're in America and you're not, you're no longer refugees or children of refugees or whatever it is, you're, you're, you're here and, and now you ha- you're basically in a, in a... Jewish-wise, you're in an open land. You have very little history here. You have very little history in this kind of culture where you're allowed to be who you are. You c- the past and present are, are, are only va- are only valuable in as much as they lead to a future.

1:14:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

1:14:28 Speaker 2 And the future has to be its own distinct thing.

1:14:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:31 Speaker 2 It cannot just be this kind of dr- sludging along, like, "Hopefully in the future, the present that we have today will still be there." That's not a future, man.

1:14:40 Speaker 1 Right, right.

1:14:40 Speaker 2 That's not a future.

1:14:41 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:42 Speaker 2 That's like, that's dystopian, right?

1:14:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:43 Speaker 2 That's, that's a future that's in the past.

1:14:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:48 Speaker 2 And, and that, that, that I think is, is, is, is a nub of, of the conversation here, and, you know, I mean, you can see the way that I'm talking. I, I haven't thought this through fully, but-

1:14:59 Speaker 1 I think that, that, that one simple way of thinking about this is let's look at the most Messianic Jew we know, the Rebbe.

1:15:06 Speaker 2 Okay, fair.

1:15:07 Speaker 1 Right?

1:15:07 Speaker 2 Fair.

1:15:08 Speaker 1 And let's look at what the... Let's just say the Rebbe from day one, Taf Shin Yud Alef, is living the Messianic dream, okay?

1:15:17 Speaker 2 Right.

1:15:17 Speaker 1 The one that he's inviting us to by example in speech throughout his whole messias and really chiseling it in the later years. The, the Rebbe... What's the Rebbe do? He starts off... It, is, is the Rebbe's future is definitely not disconnected from the past, but the Rebbe's future paradigm is totally different, right? You take Lubavitch, they're sitting in a community, and the Rebbe literally reframes the, the very fabric of Judaism, the focus of Judaism, that w-how do you, you h- that to be a Jew, you have to Vayikra Vayhakri. You, you, how, what, where, what is our obligation, and how do we reframe what it's supposed to look like? And to think that the Rebbe envisioned Chabad around the world and the, and the global responsibility, and even things like a moment of prayer in school, et cetera. The Rebbe's acharius, push it, one person who feels acharius for the totality of existence-

1:16:06 Speaker 2 Right

1:16:06 Speaker 1 ... and implemented it. This is a... And, and, uh, and cl- obviously, the Rebbe's consciousness is, you know, very, very different than ours. But I'm saying the Rebbe with, uh, without fear and with faith in God Almighty, from obviously what we see and we know, just u-unravels, you know, the tzimtzum around him and, and reveals the Habosher and over and over again, and, and with, with, as, as publicly as the Rebbe, as the, as was possible at that time. So, excuse me. So to me, we have an example of what we're talking about. We're not talking about, like, crazy ideas and I'm walking through the street and I have, you know, my, I have something written on my forehead. We're talking about something very practical. W- If every one of us could be able to continue in the Rebbe's clear mission of like More Hamshacha Shechina in or, in, in, in a way as bold and as public and as verbal and as optimistic and as unabashed, then, then this would be, this would be... The, the world would be looking, continue to look shockingly different.

1:17:13 Speaker 2 Right.

1:17:14 Speaker 1 And so I think that, that, I think that when we talk about the future of the Jewish people, we're in... The Rebbe's already begun that process of, of a Judaism of the future. I just think what's most exciting is where we take it from now, from here.

1:17:25 Speaker 2 Right. No, no, I, I agree with that. I, I, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just thinking about how, how when you talk about, you know, the Hasid taking, thinking, thinking about the future, the future I think by, uh, future by its true definition, especially when you're talking in terms of Mashiach, at the very least, Mashiach ori- like orients time in a way where future is no lo- is not just a, a survival of the present or a continuation of the present. It has to lead... There, there, there, there is a, like you said, an end of history, an end of creation.

1:17:58 Speaker 1 Yes. There's an achievement.

1:17:59 Speaker 2 There-

1:17:59 Speaker 1 There's a goal.

1:18:00 Speaker 2 But not just, but not just a mile... Like, like you talk a fundamental foundational, you know, where, where the entire world is reworked.

1:18:08 Speaker 1 But I, I do wanna say 'cause you kinda touched on this a few times. It's, Mashiach is not an all or nothing game. You can have, you can have a gilye Mashiach in a person-

1:18:18 Speaker 2 Right

1:18:18 Speaker 1 ... in an environment. Like it's insufficient, like the Rebbe says in VaEtchanan. Obviously, it's insufficient until it's completely done, yes.

1:18:24 Speaker 2 Right.

1:18:25 Speaker 1 But there's no question that, that the, like you were saying, you know, since this is something that ha- that we can only know it's working once it's worked, I think that's a little bit of a, a limiting way of thinking about it.

1:18:36 Speaker 2 No, f- it's, it, it's final working. It's final-

1:18:38 Speaker 1 I'm just thinking, yeah, but I'm saying that, that, that-

1:18:41 Speaker 2 Okay. Fair. Fair, fair, fair.

1:18:42 Speaker 1 I think it's dangerous to think that way.

1:18:43 Speaker 2 Fair. Fair. Fair. But at, at the very least, it's, it's a, it orients time in a way that's, that's no longer just, um, future as present, as present continuing. It, it, it, it, it all, it does create a kind of... There is... Well, this is, this is what the Rebbe wrestled with a lot, the discontinuity where, where, you know, the, the future is, is distinct from the present, but it does take from the present at the same time.

1:19:12 Speaker 1 Look at Parshas Pinchas, the famous Sicha in Taf Shin Alef Beis. The Rebbe's talking about how it's in the moment. He brings a mes from the Rogatchover there that, that it's, that's why the girl spoke, right? Is because in the moment of this moment is where the geulah hacharis took the Rebbe's shout. They were rushing him through a, um, Meyer, Meyernigan. And so there's something in that I, that I am attract- attracted to in those Sichas about the, the, the gilye of Mashiach in this moment being what unlocks the next moment. So really, I think a focus very much on the present and of the totality of... It's almost like Mashiach is a reality that will, that will soon be behis galus in all of existence, but that we have the opportunity to access it now, l'chero, in a way we never did before 'cause of the things the Rebbe says, the videos of Rebbe has been finished, the ba- the Guf is healthy. We, uh, we have access to this, uh, Yemos HaMashiach, whatever. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of charting to do with all the different things the Rebbe said. But it seems to me that, that the, we have access to the Mashiach reality in the moment, and obviously enough of living in that consciousness on a personal and a communal and a global level will help us be zocheh that that reality will bec- will merge with our s- you know, spatial reality permanently.

1:20:33 Speaker 2 I guess what, I guess what I'm, what, what I'm, what I'm thinking about is that how do you, how do you reconcile, how do you reconcile the fact that people live in the present, the reinforcement mechanisms are in the present? We look around, you know, the famous kind of, you know, the kids running up to the pool to jump, all kind of making sure that we, they, everyone jumps in together. There's this kind of sense of like, "I wanna make sure I'm on the same page as everybody else." That is the reinforcing of the present.

1:21:03 Speaker 1 Circumstance orienting.

1:21:04 Speaker 2 And how do you... It, it, it locks you into the present, right? How do you, how do you break out of that- And move to a future that, that, that, that, that, that, that really, that really i-it-it-it breaks o- it breaks open the present.

1:21:19 Speaker 1 But why can't it just be... Why can't... Just like we talked about achas Hashem that changes the way you experience life, why can't this... w-why can't there be more available to you in the present because of the f- of, of the time we're living in?

1:21:33 Speaker 2 'Cause I think, I think, I think, I think people live as part of a community. I'm talking more from a lens of let's... You wanna c- for lack of a better word, the Lubavitch identity.

1:21:41 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:21:42 Speaker 2 Right? Like, how do we, how, h-how do we think of... Like, your circumstance is very unique in the sense that you came in kind of on your own terms. You know, if you come in as butterfly-

1:21:53 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:21:53 Speaker 2 ... you can essentially do whatever the hell you want after that.

1:21:55 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:21:55 Speaker 2 Like, like, you, you know, you don't have to play anybody else's games.

1:21:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:21:58 Speaker 2 For good or for worse.

1:21:59 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:21:59 Speaker 2 You know?

1:21:59 Speaker 1 Correct.

1:22:00 Speaker 2 Um, and in a way that's a, that's a wonderful gift. And like you said, you know, you went on shlichus, and in a way you're kind of like riding that wave, and in a way you're set. You know, you just have to make sure you don't fall. But, but, but the wave is there. But, you know, on a, on a wider lens of community level, iden- wider identity level, you know, how do you... H-how does, how does, how does one go from... Or how does a community, how does an identity go from being one that has that kind of reinforcement mechanism and the, that, that keeps you up on the present to, to being one that breaks from the present and goes to the future?

1:22:37 Speaker 1 Right.

1:22:37 Speaker 2 That, that, again-

1:22:38 Speaker 1 I think I understand. I think, I think I understand your question, and I think what you said is very astute, that, that, that it's not a particular issue I deal with. Meaning I like, I, uh... To me, this entirety of Yiddishkeit, and Hasidus, and Rebbe, and Shlichus is all out of the context of, of like-

1:22:52 Speaker 2 Right

1:22:52 Speaker 1 ... of circumstance-based reinforcement for me.

1:22:54 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:54 Speaker 1 So therefore, the whole thing is shocking to, to-

1:22:56 Speaker 2 Right

1:22:57 Speaker 1 ... to, to my natural consciousness and upbringing. And to the people I'm talking to, it's also shocking. Meaning, we're talking about a shocking reality, like reality awakening for anybody that in my life both the Ba'al Teshuvah like myself and my wife, and the Talmidim that we have. The, the whole thing is a shock out of the reality they know, and an invitation to start defining reality differently. So I think that, that, that, um, I... We don't have exactly those same, those same struggles as how to reconcile a present with a future that's totally outside those parameters, 'cause we haven't s- we're not settled in the present with, with Yiddishkeit in general is not settling.

1:23:35 Speaker 2 Right.

1:23:35 Speaker 1 It's also shocking.

1:23:37 Speaker 2 Right. Right. So I mean, that-

1:23:38 Speaker 1 And that's a... And by the way, I have no... And that's not an answer I understand. I don't understand, I don't understand very well how to invite a Lubavitcher who's part of that community and, and, and, and embedded in that, in that basic ideology to think as crazy as we do and as we teach people to. It's just different.

1:23:59 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think it's fair to place that burden on you anyhow. I, I, you know, it's not your, it's not necessarily your job to figure out how everyone else should think. And, you know, prob- if you thought y- it was your job, it'd probably be a problem, frankly.

1:24:11 Speaker 1 Right.

1:24:12 Speaker 2 Right? But I, I, I think, I think it's worth highlighting that, that, that in a way, that in a way is, is-

1:24:19 Speaker 1 The tension

1:24:19 Speaker 2 ... is, is, is a tension here.

1:24:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's very well-

1:24:21 Speaker 2 I mean, it, it, but-

1:24:22 Speaker 1 ... well-

1:24:22 Speaker 2 It's one-

1:24:22 Speaker 1 ... well articulated

1:24:23 Speaker 2 ... it's one, it's one of the tensions at least. It's one of the tensions. You know, there's, there's all kinds of, there's all kinds of tensions. I think, you know, as much as I probably dislike the kind of overfocus on identity, I think there is identity as it's a fact of life, where people identify with a community and identify with a group of people. When it becomes too much and too much about who you are, it becomes a problem, but it, to some extent, it's a fact of life. And, you know, this, this, this, th-this radical idea that you're talking about, in a way, and, and we've, we've spoken about a few times already, it, it demands a radical kind of accountability as well. There... It doesn't really work as a communal mechanism. I cannot trust what other people say about me to know if what I'm doing is true. Like, if I'm true to myself, I might be crazy. You know, I, I might, I might be crazy to them. So how could I ask them if... Like, how could I figure out from them if-

1:25:22 Speaker 1 You probably would say a similar thing in the early days of the Rebbe introducing the Shlichus movement.

1:25:26 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, possibly.

1:25:27 Speaker 1 The people that were doing it were c- everybody's cr- thought they were crazy. How do you explain to your nephews, and aunts, and uncles who, who... In the early, early days of Rebbe-

1:25:35 Speaker 2 Right

1:25:35 Speaker 1 ... saying, "This is what's next."

1:25:37 Speaker 2 Right.

1:25:37 Speaker 1 Is the whole... Every... What, who are these fanatics that are picking up and traveling? Obviously, with the Rebbe directing people, there's a sense of, of basic affirmation of, of that being like an absolute direction from the Rebbe.

1:25:47 Speaker 2 No, but family mem- there were family members who were upset about-

1:25:49 Speaker 1 Famous. Yeah, yeah

1:25:50 Speaker 2 ... who were upset about it. And yeah, I mean, I, I think, I, I think-

1:25:53 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe there introduced a new paradigm of, of, uh, understanding life and reality, and that now has become totally normalized.

1:26:02 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:02 Speaker 1 So I believe that what the Rebbe did i- uh, of introducing a, a Mashiach paradigm is now still being normalized.

1:26:07 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

1:26:08 Speaker 1 And by the way, it is most beautifully in the past couple years-

1:26:10 Speaker 2 Right

1:26:10 Speaker 1 ... by, by mainstream Lubavitch, and Merkaz, and the Mashiach office definitely.

1:26:14 Speaker 2 The, the que- the question is if it can be normalized, and if it should be normalized. In a way, I think-

1:26:18 Speaker 1 You said it. You said when you first came in my office, you said-

1:26:20 Speaker 2 Let's not normalize normalizing.

1:26:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:26:22 Speaker 2 Let's normalize not normalizing. No, but I, I feel like, I feel like in a way, uh, uh, uh, there's, there's, there's some depth here that I, that I'm grasping at that I can't articulate.

1:26:31 Speaker 1 I like it. Keep going.

1:26:32 Speaker 2 But, but there, there's something, there's something, there's something about, you know... 'Cause one of the e-existential crisis of the, of the frum c- frum community today is where are the gedolim? Like, the, the European giants are no- the-

1:26:47 Speaker 1 Right

1:26:47 Speaker 2 ... there are none.

1:26:48 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:48 Speaker 2 Okay? And yeah, you could have what they call like a lot of cope. "Well, this guy is re-" Okay, come on. It's not, it's not the same.

1:26:56 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:56 Speaker 2 We would know it if we saw it.

1:26:57 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:58 Speaker 2 Right? We're, we're not, we're not looking to bash. It's just not there. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's systemic. Like, every community has the same exact problem.

1:27:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:27:05 Speaker 2 And everyone acknowledges it. So then the question becomes, okay, so what does that mean, right? And, and, and the ex- the existential crisis is we are no longer able to replicate the past.

1:27:19 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:27:19 Speaker 2 The past is, the past is no longer... It's like, you know, like, like, like a certain species went extinct. It's, it's not-

1:27:26 Speaker 1 It's gone

1:27:26 Speaker 2 ... you cannot bring them back to life.

1:27:27 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's gone.

1:27:28 Speaker 2 Right? It, it's not there anymore.

1:27:29 Speaker 1 Yep.

1:27:29 Speaker 2 It was there. It was very real. It was just as... It w- The, the dinosaurs were real. The, the, the mammoth was real. Whatever they were, they're, they're gone. You cannot bring them back to life.

1:27:37 Speaker 1 Good word, good word.

1:27:38 Speaker 2 Right? And, and, and, and there's that, there's... That's an existential crisis of, "Okay, so then where does that leave us?" Right? Where does that leave us? And, and, you know, so then the response, I don't think the response can be, "Oh, let's normalize and kind of mainstream these, these radical ideas." 'Cause I, I think that just, that just brings more things into the lifeboat when, when the goal is not to stay in the lifeboat. The goal is not to sur- the goal is not to hold onto this fes- you know, vestigial past. The goal, the, like, like you have to embrace this new future-

1:28:15 Speaker 1 Yes

1:28:15 Speaker 2 ... by definition.