Ep. 52 // "Cosmic or Homesick" w/ Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin

00:00 Speaker 1 The way that Chabad has always kept, at least from my perspective, that question so central. What are we alive for? What is existence for? Why does it feel so uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time? You know, homesick. You- we're, we're, we're in the right place, but we don't have the right feeling, and why do we feel this way? And, like, that, the cosmic-ness of Judaism is something that I have seen flourish actually since the death of the Rebbe. The fact that Judaism might actually be real, and I think that's the question that's been lost for- by the non-Chabad Orthodox community more than anything. Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-four. My name is Bentzi Hafson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. L'chaim. L'chaim. L'chaim. L'chaim. I'm here with Rabbi David Bashevkin. Da- You can call me David. David Bashevkin. And I didn't even ask you how to introduce you. What are your credentials, sir? What are my credentials? Yes. The, the main credentials is, um, I'm married to my wife, Tova, and I have three children, Zevi, Kira, and Gavi. That's the main thing. And my professional credentials is that I am, uh, I got... I learned in Yeshiva Ner Yisroel. I have smicha from yeshiva universities. I did a master's thesis comparing Rebbe Tzadok and Rav Nachman. I wrote a book on sin and failure in Jewish thought, uh, which is also a sefer called Baruch She'racham

01:56 Speaker 1 Tizkor. Been a columnist for Mishpacha, for Tablet. And I am-- I did a PhD. Can I, can I mention that? Sure. Did a PhD in public policy, and I teach public policy at Yeshiva University now. And finally, I'm the host of a podcast called 18Forty. Wonderful. Wonderful. Certainly more credentials than I have. Which is I guess why I'm interviewing you- Right ... and not the reverse. But, um, I think, I think I'm gonna start with the elephant in the room- Yeah ... if that's okay with you. Um, people listening to this podcast will probably wonder why, why I asked you to come on, and I wanna make clear that I asked you to come on, and- Oh, that's very kind. You didn't ask me to come on. I wanna make that clear. It's very kind of you. Yeah. They're not gonna believe you, but it's still very kind of you. Okay. I mean, yeah, I mean- Don't tease them ... it is, it is a cynical bunch, but- ... but, uh, they're not gonna believe that you didn't ask to come on. Yeah. Not if they're cynical in the other way, I think. But, um, I asked you to come on, so people-- I think people are gonna ask why. Yes. Um, at the end of the day, it's Homesick for Lubavitch, and, and most of the people, if not... I mean, there was one person who was on it that wasn't a card-carrying Lubavitcher- Mm-hmm ... and that was just because he was a

03:11 Speaker 1 photographer that took an important photo of the Rebbe back in the day. Yeah. So, you know, people will ask why, why I have, why I asked you to come on. The basic technical reason, uh, is that at the end of the year, Spotify releases these wrapped icons- Yeah ... and a bunch of people sent to me these images where their top five podcasts, and then a whole bunch of- We were always next to each other ... a whole bunch of them that were sent to me- Yeah ... whereas like, you know, 18Forty was one of them, and I was one of them. Um, HFL was one of them. And, uh, you know, so I thought, "Okay, there's obviously some people..." And they weren't all Lubavitchers, by the way. Yeah. Some people that sent to me were Lubavitchers, and some of them were not. Yeah. And I found that quite interesting. So I figured, you know, for those people, it'd be interesting to have like a crossover episode. But I think the deeper reason, I don't even think I mentioned this to you, um, it happened so quickly, is that, you know, at least as far as I'm interested or my curiosity, um, this podcast is all about, um, this state of homesickness, which is hard to define specifically, but, you know, part of the exploration is what precisely does that mean? Mm-hmm. This feeling of not being at home, right? Even if you don't really have a specific home that you wish to be in.

04:34 Speaker 1 You know, Lubavitch in America actually discussed this on the la- on one of the la- late, uh, one of the recent episodes with my father. You know, it was very interesting how he discussed his childhood, where his parents were refugees from the Soviet Union, and how his father did not feel at all at home in the United States. But then where was home? 'Cause the Soviet Union was a place that he was desperate to get away from. He didn't miss it for a day. And so there was a, there was a s- there was a homesickness then too, and there's a homesickness now as well of, you know, where exactly are we from? Um, you know, where exactly... W- what exact... You know, so in Lubavitch, a lot of it has to do with time and wishing that we were back in a certain time before the Rebbe's passing, um, or a simpler time, like people- Mm-hmm ... like to say, the gute tzeiten. So anyway, there's this condition of homesickness that I'm very interested in. And for the most part, at least on this podcast, it's been discussed in the Lubavitch context. But I think it's important even for the Lubavitch exploration to see if that condition is not just a Lubavitch condition, but also something that other Jews in America or Jews in general experience, and to explore it from that, from that vantage point. At least that's what I'm curious about. I'm not sure that that's where the conversation's gonna go entirely.

05:54 Speaker 1 We'll see where it goes. But I think I... That's, that's, that's what my interest is here tonight. I'm beyond fascinated by that, and it's not what I expected Uh, and it's not why I thought you invited me. Uh, I, I, I d- I also thought that you were gonna begin with the elephant in the room, like, "Why am I here?" And I thought, you know, like, I'm not, uh, if I'm a Nash, I'm not Geja, I'm not any of the, uh, any of the good stuff. Um, and I was originally planning on actually making the case for why it makes a great deal of sense for why I'm here on different grounds, on grounds of, I think 1840, and what I'm trying to do on 1840, um, is that search for authenticity, organic, that organic at-homeness. Um, and I also was gonna... I was prepared to like m- my Chabad connections, my connections to Lubavitch run fairly deep because my, the principal of the school I went to, which was South Shore, which knows Yeshivas Toras Chaim, uh, the assistant Menahel wa- is a, is a famed Lubavitch educator, Rabbi Newman.

07:07 Speaker 2 Right.

07:08 Speaker 1 Um, and he-

07:09 Speaker 2 But back in Long Beach? You're f- which Rabbi Newman?

07:13 Speaker 1 Rabbi Newman, I think he's w- like a seasoned, uh, principal in, uh, in, in a Chabad school after, as soon as he was in South Shore.

07:19 Speaker 2 Where... No, where is this? W- Rabbi Newman from Long Beach, is that Rabbi Newman?

07:23 Speaker 1 I'm not sure.

07:23 Speaker 2 In California?

07:25 Speaker 1 No, he's in Long Island.

07:26 Speaker 2 Okay.

07:27 Speaker 1 And he was like my intro to J- to like s- the introductory course to Judaism.

07:33 Speaker 2 Mm.

07:33 Speaker 1 He used to go around our classroom, talk about Mashiach. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm seven years old, I'm eight years old. It was like really formative years, and he would go around to every classroom and give out, give out jelly beans so people could make berakhahs, and give out coins so people could give tzedakah. And like my earliest memory is like that wondering of like, "I don't get it. Like, you're giving me the coin so I could give tzedakah. Like what, what are we doing here?"

08:02 Speaker 2 Mm.

08:02 Speaker 1 And the way that he ingrained like the reality of Yiddishkeit into my life, my brother talk about him constantly. It, it, it was the years, and we can come back to this, where Yiddishkeit, whatever you wanna call it, Judaism, it was like, it was like real. God existed. God existed in a real... It was this very embodied sense of Judaism being real, where you are not yet even exposed to the concept of insincerity. You're not yet exposed to the concept of being performative.

08:38 Speaker 2 Mm.

08:38 Speaker 1 Like, like it's so real. It's like the jelly bean we ate was Olam Haba. It ta- like it was in our hands. Like you, you felt it. It was so tangible. It was so real, the stories that you would hear. So I, that's where I thought we were gonna start. But you opened up with, uh, the title of your podcast, which I, I know, and I gave zero thought to un- until you said it right now, um, and you emphasized the homesickness. And if you'll bear with me.

09:07 Speaker 2 I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen as much as you want. I, I might, I may look at this just to make sure-

09:11 Speaker 1 Yeah

09:11 Speaker 2 ... we're running, but-

09:12 Speaker 1 If, if, if-

09:12 Speaker 2 ... I'm, I'm listening

09:13 Speaker 1 ... if, if you'll bear with me. Um, so A, there's an 1840, uh, overlap here in, in our, uh, podcast, what, what we call it, and it's different than what, well, you say. We call it being hashkafically homeless.

09:28 Speaker 2 Hmm.

09:29 Speaker 1 Hashkafically homeless.

09:30 Speaker 2 Hmm.

09:31 Speaker 1 Being homeless and homesick are very different things-

09:35 Speaker 2 Yeah

09:35 Speaker 1 ... I think.

09:35 Speaker 2 Yeah.

09:36 Speaker 1 But it's interesting that we're trying to find language to describe, I think, l- the identical experience, where it feels like you look up at your teachers, at all the institutions and communities, and you're no longer, I think this is what we're talking a- what we're talking about on 1840, you're no longer as trusting. You're no longer a... There's that built-in cynicism that's almost like the price of doing business in our community, where you're not as trusting, and you're always... I, I mean, I am both the recipient of this, and I use it myself. Like I know when people interact with me online, because I have such a big following, that it's like th- th- there must be s- there, there must be a consciousness of the experience. I'm conscious of the, I'm, I know what I'm doing. You know? Like y- you're trying to build an audience or all of that stuff, which, which sucks away at the sincerity. And that's, I think there's a homelessness because there's a lack of trust-

10:39 Speaker 2 Hmm

10:39 Speaker 1 ... in, in that there are real homes that have your best interest in mind. Like, like i- i-- like in the, in the hecticness, in the chaos, and the pain, and all the difficulty, and all the logistics that go to making a Jewish house run in 2024, and there's a lot. And everybody to different degrees is struggling and suffering, and e- every- to, to kol chadavi masha, who everybody's dealing with that a little bit. And I just feel we're at a moment where that sense of trust that Jewish institutions are looking out for me in my life has totally been eroded. I think that's gone. I think that's the thing that... I think that is something where people feel homeless. But let me get to the main point in your opening, 'cause it, it hit me in such a real way. Uh, you used the term homesick.

11:30 Speaker 2 Mm.

11:30 Speaker 1 It's different than homeless. Like I think we on 1840 think about like the world where like people are like, "Do homes even still exist?" 'Cause I certainly don't have one. You know, like, you know, going to whatever national organization convention that would give you this sense of belonging. I'm a part of a movement. I think a lot of people feel, feel pretty homeless now, or they're building their niche little, you know, corner pocket-

11:53 Speaker 2 Right

11:54 Speaker 1 ... chevra. But homesick, the reason why it hit me so much is, and I never put it in these terms ever in my life, I really mean this, but anybody who knows me knows that my deepest struggle and embarrassment for the first 14 years of my life was a crippling homesickness. Crippling. Never went, able to go to sleepaway camp, never went to any sleepaway bar mitzvahs. The term sleepaway, I'm 39, still makes me nervous.

12:28 Speaker 2 Really?

12:28 Speaker 1 I still feel it. Sleepaway camp. It's still, my body reacts to it. Like, my body reacts to that term. It was the scariest thing in the world to me. I went to one weekend bar mitzvah, Helen Novak, God bless him, lives in Lakewood now, and, um, I needed to be coached by my mother for, for like the whole week before.

12:50 Speaker 2 Hmm.

12:50 Speaker 1 And it was a stretch that I was able to, um... It was a stretch that I was able to go on my eighth grade Washington trip. I, I had a crippling homesickness.

13:01 Speaker 2 Wait till you hear what age I left home.

13:05 Speaker 1 It was, it was like, it was like so c- And I like think back at it and like what was the, the... I, I think a lot about the psychology of it, but I never think of the theology of feeling homesick.

13:15 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

13:15 Speaker 1 What does that mean? And I think, I think homesickness, when people feel it, and there, there, there's two types of homesickness. There's a homesickness when you're living at home and you're afraid to leave home, and then there's a homesickness after you've left home-

13:33 Speaker 2 Right

13:33 Speaker 1 ... for the home that you came from and can still visit. Like, I can still visit my home.

13:37 Speaker 2 Right.

13:38 Speaker 1 But, you know, there's a, I don't know. Do we do movie references? I'm gonna do one.

13:42 Speaker 2 Not your style.

13:42 Speaker 1 I'm just gonna give the answer.

13:43 Speaker 2 Not your style.

13:44 Speaker 1 Zach Braff has a line in the movie Garden State.

13:48 Speaker 2 Not familiar.

13:49 Speaker 1 Uh, it's okay. Uh, starring, uh, uh, I think he's Jewish. Natalie Portman's in it. There's a, there's a lot of Jewish actors. It's okay. We'll make a reference to it. But he talks about part of, part of growing up is the sense of being homesick in your own home.

14:03 Speaker 2 Hmm.

14:04 Speaker 1 Meaning, and I know what that's like. Like, those were my single years where like you're still living at home, but you're homesick. Like, it's not the home of my childhood. And I think, I think when I think of being homesick and like the, the, the theology of like what, what is that, it's, it's... I think it's people who are able to give absence presence. I think it's people who, who whe- even w- when they're not home, the absence, what is missing, what is not there, is still tangible. And you want to be able to hold something and interact with something, but you know that it is limited, it is terminated at some point. It's not forever. And then you gotta be able to find it and conjure it, and the only way to conjure it is through homesickness, is through recognizing an absence.

15:08 Speaker 2 Hmm.

15:08 Speaker 1 Recognizing we're missing something. So something is not here with us right now. You know?

15:13 Speaker 2 Right.

15:13 Speaker 1 And when I would, when I would go away from home, like what was I afraid of? I wasn't afraid that my parents were going to die.

15:20 Speaker 2 Right.

15:20 Speaker 1 That's not the fear. It's not like a fear. It's not afraid that like my, my house is gonna burn down. It's a sense that every moment that I am not sleeping in my house, everybody I interact with is a reminder of where I'm not.

15:35 Speaker 2 Hmm.

15:37 Speaker 1 Ev- e- every person, every... You go through a Shabbos and you're not in your parents' home, and you're prone to homesickness. You're worried you're gonna break down crying during Shalom Aleichem because all you can think about is where you're not, who's not there, who's not singing. And, and it's the homesickness that actually, and you're away from home, but it's what actually creates. It's through that absence, it's through what you're recognizing what's not there-

16:05 Speaker 2 Right

16:05 Speaker 1 ... that you now have a connection to it.

16:07 Speaker 2 Yeah.

16:07 Speaker 1 But it, it has to come, unfortunately for a lot of people, it comes through feelings of sadness rather than, I think we sanctify that sadness with a term like nostalgia, which I don't know what the Jewish parallel to it, but I think, I think we're living in the, in the era of nostalgia.

16:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's definitely connected to nostalgia. It's interesting how you're connecting a homesickness. I've never even, even though I've called the podcast Homesick for Lebovitz and said that words who knows how many times, I've never really connected it to my own experience, personal experience of homesickness. I left home-

16:40 Speaker 1 I never did either

16:41 Speaker 2 ... uh, yeah, but I-

16:43 Speaker 1 Until, until right here

16:44 Speaker 2 ... I'm the, I'm the one with the podcast-

16:45 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

16:45 Speaker 2 ... called Homesick. And I, and I, I, um, you know, I left home at a very young age.

16:51 Speaker 1 How old were you?

16:52 Speaker 2 Uh, eight. Eight.

16:54 Speaker 1 Wow. That is-

16:54 Speaker 2 And it, it started off at a, as a couple months at a time, and then eventually it was longer period, longer periods.

16:59 Speaker 1 When you're eight years old and you leave home, like what do you think is happening to you? Is it, is it scary?

17:07 Speaker 2 Um, I... Okay. I haven't really thought about it for a long time. Thinking about it now, um, I, I don't, I don't think the word was fear. I mean, 'cause I wasn't, I wasn't being dropped off in places where like I was, I was safe, let's say. Like I-

17:25 Speaker 1 Oh, you were going to relatives or-

17:26 Speaker 2 Relatives or friends of family. Like, I wasn't being dropped off on the street.

17:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:30 Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Um-

17:31 Speaker 1 But weren't you like, wasn't there like an overwhelming sadness to leave your-

17:36 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. There, there, there was at times sadness. I think, I think the word that I would describe is confusion.

17:42 Speaker 1 Okay.

17:43 Speaker 2 I think the word is probably confusion. Um, and I think that at least describing it as confusion probably is more accurate, especially as I got older. The interesting layer of confusion also is that as you get older, at least in my experience, and I beca- I became less sad or, or like a- angry. Not, I wasn't angry, but less like, less anxious about being away from home. I wasn't worried about going away from home.

18:10 Speaker 1 Yeah.

18:10 Speaker 2 There's still confusion in the sense that when you spend- Especially when you're younger, when you spend long times, long durations away from home, your concept of home gets distorted-

18:20 Speaker 1 Yes

18:20 Speaker 2 ... because you have this idea of home.

18:23 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

18:24 Speaker 2 And this idea of your parents, and this idea of your siblings, and the idea of your bedroom. And one of the hardest parts for me of being away from home actually was the first day being back at home. Like, you know, I'd come back at least twice a year even later on in life with the, you know, with Teivim, and the first day was always the hardest because that's when my idea of home came into the crashing-

18:47 Speaker 1 Into the reality of home

18:48 Speaker 2 ... the reality. Yeah, and look, I think it happens even when you're married and an adult.

18:52 Speaker 1 I was about, I was about to say-

18:53 Speaker 2 Yeah

18:53 Speaker 1 ... for me, like what I think of is the transition, and I think most couples make this transition that in j- like it could be the whole Shanah Tovah in the first year of marriage when they say, "We're going home for Shabbos," they're referring to their parents' home.

19:08 Speaker 2 Right.

19:09 Speaker 1 And then at some point your house where you live, 'cause you still say, "We're gonna go to our house."

19:16 Speaker 2 Right.

19:16 Speaker 1 But we're gonna go back home.

19:17 Speaker 2 Right.

19:18 Speaker 1 But at some point that switches, and I think that's usually when you're still with-

19:23 Speaker 2 No, but I meant, I meant that when you leave home as a married person, you very often if you go on a business trip, right, and you, there's a, there's a c- the famous jokes like there's the idea of your husband-

19:33 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah

19:33 Speaker 2 ... or the idea of your wife.

19:34 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:35 Speaker 2 And then you come back home and it's like-

19:36 Speaker 1 The reality

19:36 Speaker 2 ... "Can you please take out the garbage?"

19:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:38 Speaker 2 And it's like wait, this whole like-

19:39 Speaker 1 Yeah

19:40 Speaker 2 ... the idea comes crashing down.

19:42 Speaker 1 Yes.

19:42 Speaker 2 You know, like a pi- like, a- and, and the, I mean, that's, that's normal and you get over it. You're like, "Okay, yeah, that was a, that was m- my mind playing games."

19:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:50 Speaker 2 "This is home and this is what I love. I don't wanna live in fantasy, I wanna live in reality."

19:54 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:54 Speaker 2 So, you know, I, I think that's an interesting element of homesickness, at least from a personal experience, where, you know, part of, part y- you, you, you, you, you put a nice, um, what would be the w- a nice gloss on it where homesickness, there's a positive aspect to homesickness-

20:11 Speaker 1 Yes

20:11 Speaker 2 ... where to, if someone who leaves home and isn't homesick, um, forget about if he's, if he's burying the feelings deep inside which, and paying the price in a different way, he's also missing out the opportunity to transform those, take those feelings and build a new home for his children-

20:30 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

20:30 Speaker 2 ... or for himself or herself, right? So, like homesickness is in a, in a way like a, a spur for growth and a, like a, um, uh, something that causes growth and forces growth if you, if you pay attention to it, and I agree with that. But I think another aspect of it is homesickness does play games with our minds, you know? And, and a lot of times I think, at least on a communal level, we talk about the past. You see it, you see it all the time. Like, "Oh, we miss the past."

21:00 Speaker 1 Oh.

21:00 Speaker 2 Really? Really? Really? W- what we... Like, do you really- ... wanna crash into the reality of 1940s Europe-

21:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah

21:06 Speaker 2 ... or 1930s Europe? Like-

21:07 Speaker 1 Or 1830s Europe.

21:08 Speaker 2 Yeah, like, like, yeah. Try walking through that door.

21:12 Speaker 1 I, I could not agree with you more.

21:14 Speaker 2 Like- This week's episode is brought to you by This World Is A Garden, a new film and concert production by UVLA Media. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Baser Agani, 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 Baser Agani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com.

22:01 Speaker 1 But, but this to me, it's interesting because l- because, uh, you know, Lubavitch in my mind, my relationship with it is actually, um it is the ultimate embodiment of both extremes of this. Meaning when... I'm trying to f- I'm trying to formulate, I'm trying to formulate this thought properly. In one sense, like Chabad is the ultimate embodiment when I think about it of what I call singing with your eyes open.

22:45 Speaker 2 Mm.

22:45 Speaker 1 Where it's like the reality that we're contending with and trying to transform is right in front of us. That always has to be the reality. That, like on the lowest point, the most, like right in front of you. Like the r- like sing with your eyes open. Like we're, we're not trying to get someplace. So in, in one sense, the people who I most lovingly, um, I wouldn't even say associate with Chabad, but like who have had an impact on my life, you know, we were talking ear- like Valley Rubin, why not give them, you know, the credit they deserve? That-

23:19 Speaker 2 No, he's a good friend

23:19 Speaker 1 ... that idea of like, you know, what his book is called, Social Vision, of like seeing the holiness and the divinity and all of the nostalgia, but like it's right in front of you.

23:31 Speaker 2 Mm.

23:31 Speaker 1 And not, we're not trying to get somewhere. We're not trying to escape. And on the flip side, there's another part of Chabad which is, to me at least, like very escapist. It's not escapist to the 1940s or, you know, which, which I think the yeshiva world, the non-Chabad yeshiva world is like always looking, I mean, they're called the yeshiva world. Yeshivas are a fairly modern invention. Chabad, like the, the trauma of the absence of the Rebbe.

24:01 Speaker 2 Right.

24:01 Speaker 1 Where like it makes it impossible to really, m- like so to speak, th- there's no moving on from that.

24:09 Speaker 2 Right.

24:09 Speaker 1 Like that's al- we're always living in that moment.

24:12 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, it's g- there's a Groundhog Day over there. Um-

24:14 Speaker 1 Yes.

24:15 Speaker 2 Yeah.

24:15 Speaker 1 Yes. And it makes it like so much more challenging-

24:19 Speaker 2 Yeah

24:19 Speaker 1 ... to, to, to be eyes wide open.

24:21 Speaker 2 Well, that's at, that's at the heart of this podcast.

24:23 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:24 Speaker 2 Um, the heart of this podcast in general has been, you know, exploring, exploring that contradiction 'cause it is a contradiction.

24:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:34 Speaker 2 It is a contradiction, and one of the ways that that contradiction is resolved is that, you know, kind of the dancing rabbis meme where, you know, like Chabad are dancing rabbis.

24:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:45 Speaker 2 And like, but, you know, like a, like all memes, like it's, it's, it's, it's just a meme. It's not, it, underneath that layer there's something else, right? So they're, they're, they're dancing almost as a meme, but, but, but when you probe, there's a lot of heartache and a lot of grief that hasn't-

25:06 Speaker 1 Yeah

25:06 Speaker 2 ... been dealt with.

25:07 Speaker 1 For sure.

25:08 Speaker 2 You know? Or like, you know, you-

25:10 Speaker 1 Not in a critical way. Like it-

25:11 Speaker 2 Well, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just a fact.

25:14 Speaker 1 It's the reality.

25:14 Speaker 2 It's a fact.

25:15 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:15 Speaker 2 And, and it, it's, it's... a lot of it hasn't been, a lot of it, a lot of it is just, uh, h- is stuff that hasn't been resolved, hasn't been really thought through-

25:24 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

25:24 Speaker 2 ... hasn't been discussed for whatever reason. Um, you know, I'm not a psychologist, so like I don't know what the clinical terms would be, but-

25:31 Speaker 1 It's hard, it's scary because the movement is, on the one hand you have people, and I know them, and I've spoken to them, I'm not gonna really mention their names, who like they've got their head screwed on exactly straight. They know what the reality is. You talk to them, they say it straight. They, they know what's what. But there is like a fear, like there's an inherent insecurity that like, what like, what, what if like can we move past this? Like, if, if we really take that next step, I do feel like there's this like genuine anxiety of like w- like can we do this by ourselves? Can we... Are-

26:14 Speaker 2 Right. Right. I, I-

26:15 Speaker 1 It, it's scary for all the Jewish people because as Chabad goes, and I think there's been like a holy, um, Chabad also plays with both extremes of like, um, a, a holy, a, a gaavah d'kedushah.

26:31 Speaker 2 Right.

26:31 Speaker 1 Like w- Let's talk about that a different time, how Chabad interacts with other.

26:36 Speaker 2 Right.

26:36 Speaker 1 Um, but leaving that, l- leaving that aside, like there, there is this se- There's a, at least as I, as I see it, like there's this moment in 2024 where like Chabad has never been stronger and more like present, like in the headlines. Like everybody's cheering on Chabad now post-October 7th.

26:56 Speaker 2 Right.

26:57 Speaker 1 But at the very same time, it makes these conversations, I'm not talking about me and you, but what you were talking about so much more urgent, but so much harder to have.

27:08 Speaker 2 Well, it's the, the, like I was saying, the, the re- the, the way that people resolve this contradiction is like the outside inside, you know? So towards the outside react one way, but towards inside-

27:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

27:18 Speaker 2 ... you know, like it's, it's, it's a mess. You know, like the, it's like, you know, y- it's like when you see the guy, uh, you know, y- I, I've seen it myself in movies very often. It's very, like, it's dramatized, but you know, that, that clown who like knows how to make everyone else happy.

27:34 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

27:35 Speaker 2 But then like the moment the show's over, you can see how depressed they are-

27:37 Speaker 1 The sad clown. Yeah

27:38 Speaker 2 ... how sad they are, and like they have to go back to some sad, miserable life. They're, 'cause how much money are they earning as a, as a, as a clown or as a magician-

27:45 Speaker 1 Yeah

27:46 Speaker 2 ... whatever. And-

27:47 Speaker 1 That's a real thing that I have been, I have an interesting lens to a lot of that, um, in, in, in two places. A, meaning I see both. I inter- I, I'm deeply enmeshed in both of those realities. In the headline reality-

28:04 Speaker 2 Right

28:04 Speaker 1 ... you know, like-

28:05 Speaker 2 Right

28:05 Speaker 1 ... you know, the, the show, the brochure-

28:07 Speaker 2 Right

28:07 Speaker 1 ... so to speak.

28:08 Speaker 2 Right.

28:08 Speaker 1 And also like the, the inner reality of, of the individuals' lives because, um, a- originally, I, I... There was a program in Ner Yisroel where they would send yeshiva bachurim like all around to teach, and they sent us to Sydney, Australia, and we taught. It was very unusual. We taught Limudei Kodesh in a Chabad school.

28:32 Speaker 2 Hmm. Hmm.

28:34 Speaker 1 And I formed, like this was like, this was like at the peak of my own yeshivishness, which wasn't that yeshivish, don't get excited. Uh, but it was on this. But, but it was at, it was at peak, and I was interacting not with like Chabad rebbes or this. I was interacting with like 10th graders in Chabad in Sydney. I'm a third year, fairly ve- you know, very strong yeshiva guy in learning, and all of the, um, contradictions in the way Chabad, I'm not ca- calling it good or bad, like deals with the other, particularly other Orthodox Jews-

29:16 Speaker 2 Right

29:16 Speaker 1 ... in a non, a lot of that came to the fore, and it was a great learning experience for me. It was amazing. So now in YU, I, v- not very often, but at least one a semester, have students who are from serious Lubavitch families, either children of shluchim, shluchim or, um, or people who like went off, or people who like-

29:40 Speaker 2 Right.

29:40 Speaker 1 So I, I, I am invited into the very nitty-gritty of the, the word you used I think was bullseye, is confusion. I don't wanna give away like who the students were, but like-

29:50 Speaker 2 No, no need

29:51 Speaker 1 ... had like-

29:52 Speaker 2 I mean, this isn't much of a secret.

29:54 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:54 Speaker 2 Like that's why I'm talking about it, um, on a po- I mean, I'm like 50 episodes deep at this point. I-

30:00 Speaker 1 Are you controversial in Chabad circles? Are you like 1840, but in Chabad?

30:04 Speaker 2 To be honest, I, I don't follow, uh, Modern Orthodox controversies that closely. I, I-

30:08 Speaker 1 They're so much nerdier than other kind of-

30:10 Speaker 2 We-

30:10 Speaker 1 We have the nerdiest controversies.

30:12 Speaker 2 I mean, I live in a relatively Modern Ortho- Orthodox community, but-

30:15 Speaker 1 We don't have geshma- I, I, like when, when wa- when there's a controversy in YU, like Rosh Yeshiva are fighting something, I'm like, "Baruch Hashem." Like finally we're like a little bit yeshivish.

30:25 Speaker 2 I don't know if I, I don't, I don't know if I'm, I don't, I don't know if I'm important enough to be controversial. Look-

30:29 Speaker 1 Uh

30:29 Speaker 2 ... I mean, like, like I, look, it's, there are people who are upset about what I'm doing. There are people-

30:34 Speaker 1 What's the, what is the, what's the, what's the pushback against you? How would you articulate it?

30:39 Speaker 2 Well, the pushback has changed also.

30:41 Speaker 1 Oh.

30:41 Speaker 2 Pro- probably because I've changed, the podcast has changed-

30:43 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

30:43 Speaker 2 ... or the perception of it has changed. The pushback at the beginning was, is that, um, I think the, the initial pushback was, what's this idea of Lubavitch identity? Like, you know, what's this idea of talking about, you know, Lubavitch in this time as opposed to another time? Like, what are you, you know, what are you-

31:02 Speaker 1 What are you getting at?

31:03 Speaker 2 What are you getting at? You know, what are you getting at, and, and what are you ... Like, what ... You're stirring the pot.

31:07 Speaker 1 Okay.

31:08 Speaker 2 Okay. And then-

31:09 Speaker 1 That's like the, that's like the first reaction to anything.

31:11 Speaker 2 Yeah. Fair, fair enough. Fair enough.

31:13 Speaker 1 It's like you're probably gonna be called anything but with the word Lubavitch in it. It could've been like, "I love Lubavitch and think about it every second," and there'd be a couple I'd be like, "What, what are you, what are you trying to do here?"

31:23 Speaker 2 Fair enough. Fair enough. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't take it very seriously.

31:26 Speaker 1 It's like hitting the knee of the-

31:27 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah

31:27 Speaker 1 ... of the communal leadership.

31:28 Speaker 2 Yeah.

31:29 Speaker 1 It's like the first question.

31:30 Speaker 2 It was, uh, yeah, it wasn't even the communal, the communal leadership wasn't-

31:32 Speaker 1 What are you trying to do?

31:32 Speaker 2 ... it wasn't even plugged in.

31:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. Did you ask Mishailah? Did you ask Mishailah?

31:35 Speaker 2 You know, the communal leadership is not aware of our podcast, but it was, like, people who-

31:39 Speaker 1 Okay

31:39 Speaker 2 ... you know, maybe aspire to want to be-

31:41 Speaker 1 Yeah

31:41 Speaker 2 ... leaders or whatever it is, and, like, they're burnishing their, their resumes somehow.

31:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

31:45 Speaker 2 Um, you know, but whatever. With time, you know, then it was like, okay, so we, we're not sure what your agenda is, but we're sure that you're framing questions. Which is like, okay, that's, that's how an interview works, I'm sorry, especially when I'm talking to people that are not-

31:59 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

31:59 Speaker 2 ... they're not, like, professional ... They're not like podcast circuit goers.

32:03 Speaker 1 Correct.

32:03 Speaker 2 So they're not-

32:04 Speaker 1 They're not on the s-

32:04 Speaker 2 I'm not like, you know-

32:05 Speaker 1 You're just in someone's living room.

32:06 Speaker 2 Yeah, no, but I-

32:07 Speaker 1 Where we are now. Like-

32:07 Speaker 2 Right, but I-

32:07 Speaker 1 That's what I like about this actually

32:08 Speaker 2 ... right, but r- I don't ... Like, it's not people that I can, like, say, "Press play, give me your spiel."

32:12 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:12 Speaker 2 It's more like I have to kind of elicit it from them-

32:15 Speaker 1 Pull it out of them

32:15 Speaker 2 ... and, and pull it out of them and tell them where I'm going with the conversation. People didn't like how I was framing it. Look, I mean, there was ... I'm sure there's legitimate criticism. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm human. I have my biases. Sometimes those biases come-

32:26 Speaker 1 1,000%

32:26 Speaker 2 ... come through. Um, you know, I, I'm definitely, you know, I'm t- probably, probably not as hot about certain topics as others are, and so they feel that, like, I'm not kind of living up to that.

32:39 Speaker 1 What do you have in mind when you, when you said, "hot"? What topics w- like you must-

32:44 Speaker 2 No, I mean, like-

32:45 Speaker 1 You must have had something in your ... What are you talking about?

32:47 Speaker 2 No, look, there are, there are things that are very near and dear to some Lubavitchers, whether it's, whether it's the-

32:53 Speaker 1 Moshiach?

32:54 Speaker 2 Mm, you know, that's, that's very low on the-

32:56 Speaker 1 Definitely, yeah

32:56 Speaker 2 ... it's very low on the list today to be honest.

32:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, what's-

32:58 Speaker 2 I mean, that's, that, that, that's lost its intensity in the sense, like, people, they think one thing or another. They're not gonna get so upset if you go one way or another.

33:05 Speaker 1 But what's, like, the-

33:07 Speaker 2 No, it's ... Look, at the end of the day, the, this podcast basically, the, the, the underlying thesis of the podcast, if you wanna put it that way, is that Hasidim are a topic worth of their own discussion, and what that does inevitably is it takes Hasidim outside the glare of the Rebbe's light and says, okay, we need to kind of see them for them s- for who they are. So I can understand the Hasid. I can hear his stories and his encounters with the Rebbe, and of course the impression the Rebbe left on him, but I'm not only interested in hearing about his encounters with the Rebbe, right? Um, I'm-

33:49 Speaker 1 There's a world of the Hasid that's, it's shaped by the Rebbe but is, it, it is independent-

33:56 Speaker 2 Yes

33:56 Speaker 1 ... so to speak.

33:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, so like in, in Lubavitch-

33:58 Speaker 1 The inner world

33:58 Speaker 2 ... so in Lubavitch there's this concept called hiskashrus, which-

34:01 Speaker 1 Yeah

34:01 Speaker 2 ... which I'm sure is-

34:02 Speaker 1 But isn't this the, isn't this ... Isn't what you're doing ... I mean, I- I'm, Moshiach's always number one on my poll. Like, I am, I don't wanna use the word obsessed 'cause then people get the wrong idea. I am so fascinated by the concept of Moshiach, what it means, what it could mean, what's it supposed to mean, and whatever.

34:22 Speaker 2 Well, it's a fascinating topic.

34:23 Speaker 1 It's just, it's beyond fascinating. It's my number one thing, but where I am now is, like, don't people ... There must be somebody. Like, w- we're ... Th- this is the Dor Hashmini or Shemini and a half.

34:37 Speaker 2 Well, that, that would piss off a lot of people, but you gotta pass-

34:40 Speaker 1 Who, who, who would get angry?

34:42 Speaker 2 No, because I mean-

34:43 Speaker 1 Why?

34:44 Speaker 2 Because, 'cause-

34:45 Speaker 1 Give me the inside stuff. This is what I love

34:46 Speaker 2 ... because Dor- the, the seven Doros are, are defined on one hand by the Rebbeim but also defined by, by the, by, by what ha- by what happens at the end of them.

35:00 Speaker 1 Okay.

35:00 Speaker 2 Right? The, the, the idea of the seven Doros and Dor Hashvi is that the Dor Hashvi-

35:05 Speaker 1 People don't like the term Dor Hashmini?

35:07 Speaker 2 Well, according to that narrative, there is no such thing as Dor Hashmini. That's where the Lubavitch theology becomes murky. That's precisely where it becomes murky. Like, the Rebbe was basing out a Midrash where the Shevi is the one that brings it down into this world and brings Moshiach, right? There's the same way Avraham Avinu was the first-

35:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, okay

35:24 Speaker 2 ... and then Moshe Rabbeinu was the seventh. So you draw the same conclusions.

35:28 Speaker 1 This is, this is the opening, yeah.

35:29 Speaker 2 It says the Alter Rebbe was the first, and then there's seven Rebbeim, and-

35:31 Speaker 1 But nobody stepped in. Look, there's gotta be somebody who stepped in and-

35:37 Speaker 2 No. No

35:37 Speaker 1 ... developed a theology of the Dor Hashmini.

35:40 Speaker 2 No. I, I mean, according to the way the Rebbe understood the seven Doros, as far as I understand it, there is no such thing. The question is what does Dor Hashvi look like after Rebbe's passing?

35:53 Speaker 1 That's so interesting. I, I-

35:57 Speaker 2 That's-

35:57 Speaker 1 I'm not speaking on behalf of literally anybody. As somebody who takes the Rebbe extremely seriously, and the

36:03 Speaker 2 Yeah

36:03 Speaker 1 ... Mesorah of Chabad extremely seriously, but not the one that like this is what you have to believe.

36:09 Speaker 2 Right.

36:09 Speaker 1 Just, like, engaging in their words. I'm j- I'm so fascinated that that would be a controversy because my-

36:19 Speaker 2 I, I, I don't ... Not controversy-

36:21 Speaker 1 ... that crisis

36:21 Speaker 2 ... that I always says controversial

36:22 Speaker 1 ... let, let, let me get to the, to the point.

36:23 Speaker 2 No, it's, it's, it's murky.

36:24 Speaker 1 My read of the Rebbe was, like, he was, like, trying to, like, shake himself out of the Hasidim and almost saying, like, "You guys need a podcast about the lives of Hasidim." Like, I genuinely ... I know you're gonna hate that, but I, I-

36:40 Speaker 2 No, I, I-

36:41 Speaker 1 Maybe you don't

36:41 Speaker 2 ... I don't know

36:42 Speaker 1 ... I genuinely read the, the Messianic theology of the Rebbe was sh- the Rebbe begging his own Hasidim to learn how to develop, move on, and have the agency without him, and was z- z- that is the redemption, that is redemption I, I don't know.

37:03 Speaker 2 Right, right. So, hey look, I mean, I, I think, uh, this is worth it. This is a conversation-

37:06 Speaker 1 Remember we're talking about this is Chabad

37:08 Speaker 2 ... this is a con-

37:08 Speaker 1 Am I getting too, I'm getting too, okay, I'm getting too spicy.

37:11 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no, no.

37:11 Speaker 1 That's above my pay grade.

37:12 Speaker 2 This is a, no, this is a-

37:13 Speaker 1 Drop it

37:13 Speaker 2 ... this is a conversation I'm happy to have. It's a very, it's a very long conversation, you know.

37:20 Speaker 1 What do you think? I mean, like-

37:21 Speaker 2 What do I think?

37:22 Speaker 1 What do you think is the, in the theology-

37:24 Speaker 2 No, so, so-

37:24 Speaker 1 ... of Chabad, what do you think was intended?

37:27 Speaker 2 I, I don't think that the Rebbe wanted us to be Rebbes. I, I, I think that by definition that that doesn't work. I, I, I, I have had people on the podcast who have made similar kinds of assertions.

37:37 Speaker 1 That he want us to be Rebbes?

37:39 Speaker 2 Yeah, like that, that the Rebbe was shaking the reb out of each person, and like that you should be the, the, the next door, and you should be-

37:45 Speaker 1 Shaking any kind of Rebbekite out of the next person.

37:48 Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't, I don't think-

37:48 Speaker 1 You don't think so

37:49 Speaker 2 ... I mean, I don't... Because I think a Rebbe is... I, I, I like definitions.

37:53 Speaker 1 Okay.

37:53 Speaker 2 I think a Rebbe is a Rebbe, right?

37:55 Speaker 1 Okay.

37:55 Speaker 2 And I think, um, I think if, if there was a person who was a Rebbe, he would know it, and others would know it. That's by definition what a Rebbe is. A Rebbe is not a tzadik nishtane. He's someone who has-

38:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure

38:06 Speaker 2 ... is recognized as a Rebbe, right?

38:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:08 Speaker 2 And that, that's a tradition of Lubavitch as well. And there is, you know, there were different eras in Lubavitch where things got, you know, there were forks in the road kind of things.

38:16 Speaker 1 Sure, sure, sure, sure.

38:18 Speaker 2 But there, there, there is this, there is still a form-

38:20 Speaker 1 But what now?

38:20 Speaker 2 There's a formality. Well, first of all, a- an uncomfortable or even an impossible question does not force me to come up with an answer that I'm not, that I, you know, that I don't believe in. So yeah, it's an uncomfortable question. You know, if, if I have to force-

38:36 Speaker 1 I don't think it's uncomfortable. I think it's the most exciting question in the world. I think it is-

38:41 Speaker 2 For a Lubavitcher, it's an uncomfortable question. It's an uncomfortable question-

38:43 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

38:43 Speaker 2 ... because, because you are asking them that, like the foundat- the, the foundation of a Lubavitcher's identity is that, as a Lubavitcher, right, is that there's a Rebbe who is in Oraych from him.

38:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:59 Speaker 2 Right?

38:59 Speaker 1 For sure.

39:00 Speaker 2 Okay, so-

39:00 Speaker 1 I agree with that

39:01 Speaker 2 ... right, but not just that this Rebbe is in Oraych from him, the idea of a Rebbe is in Oraych from him.

39:06 Speaker 1 With you.

39:06 Speaker 2 Right? So, so you're not a Rebbe, right?

39:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

39:07 Speaker 2 So this idea of like trying to, well, you're a little bit of a Rebbe and you're-

39:11 Speaker 1 No, no, no. I wanna explain. My concept of Mashiach is from the last Gemara in Tinies where everybody is a machal shel tzadikim. You have a circle where everybody's equidistant, and everybody's pointing inside the Zach Keili. This is my... This is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The concept of Mashiach to me is where we finally break down hierarchies. It is non-hierarchical. We're able to see each other as equal expressions of the, of, of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the divine. That, to me, is the ultimate revelation, and the Jewish people represent-

39:48 Speaker 2 Right

39:48 Speaker 1 ... this for the rest of the world, and the world begins to act as if there's a God in the world. That, that's the whole thing. The whole thing is what, what would, to me, Mashiach, redemption, th- is, is a reaction to one question: What would life be like if we had absolute certainty that there was a God and lived that way?

40:14 Speaker 2 Okay. I, I accept that. So is this-

40:15 Speaker 1 That's where I am. Am I getting too off, far off field?

40:17 Speaker 2 No, no, no. I'm comf-

40:18 Speaker 1 Could shut this down

40:18 Speaker 2 ... I, I, no, no, I'm comfortable.

40:19 Speaker 1 Shut it down.

40:19 Speaker 2 I, I, I'm comfortable to swim in these waters, but I, I think, I, I think what, based on what you're saying, you asked about Derashvi, Derashmini.

40:28 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:28 Speaker 2 The way I understand it is, is that Gmar Tamuz w- is a time in the Lubavitch kind of history.

40:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:37 Speaker 2 The, the Lubavitch narrative is can there be Hasidim after, after a f- like after a stalkless with no replacement? And that itself is Derashvi based on what you're saying. Precisely based on what you're saying.

40:53 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:53 Speaker 2 Can there be people who assume agency of what it means to be a Hasid wi- without a Rebbe looking them in the face in a physical way-

41:02 Speaker 1 Present

41:02 Speaker 2 ... and telling them what to do? And that itself is Derashvi.

41:05 Speaker 1 Why is that itself Derashvi? Isn't that-

41:07 Speaker 2 Because the way you described it, precisely the way you described it, is that if the whole idea of Derashvi is to bring the world to Mashiach and to bring-

41:13 Speaker 1 Yeah

41:13 Speaker 2 ... the Jew to Mashiach, and the whole point of Mashiach is agency-

41:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

41:17 Speaker 2 ... and not just being told what to do the whole time. So you, at some point, you need to have that moment of truth, which is to bring Mashiach, you need to be able to take that agency.

41:28 Speaker 1 Yeah.

41:28 Speaker 2 So that is Derashvi. That is Derashvi.

41:31 Speaker 1 Okay.

41:31 Speaker 2 So, so that's, that's, that would be the answer-

41:34 Speaker 1 Yeah

41:34 Speaker 2 ... of why even after the seventh Rebbe passes away, it's still Derashvi, at least theologically, right? I'm not say- I'm not saying on a socio-

41:43 Speaker 1 Okay. Also, the more-

41:43 Speaker 2 I'm not talking, I'm not talk- I'm not talking on a sociological level.

41:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

41:46 Speaker 2 At the end of the day-

41:47 Speaker 1 I look at the Derashvi- shmini as the generation who was born into the world without the Lubavitch Rebbe.

41:53 Speaker 2 Right. But, but the, the Derash were never conceived as a people, as a people who were born, and that's, that's pr- that's part of... You asked about the push back on the podcast.

42:01 Speaker 1 I think that's the shift.

42:02 Speaker 2 Well, it's... You see, that's... I, I, I, I, I-

42:05 Speaker 1 Do you think Mashiach is gonna come in your lifetime? Do you think there's a Mashiach who's gonna arrive while you are alive?

42:12 Speaker 2 I don't, I don't see it as like a in my lifetime kinda question. Do I believe in Mashiach coming?

42:16 Speaker 1 Do you believe that the Mashiach is going to arri- a person is going to arrive that will announce themselves as Mashiach in your lifetime?

42:25 Speaker 2 On a religious level, I do, the same way I believe in God.

42:29 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

42:29 Speaker 2 But, like when you say believe, you know, it-

42:32 Speaker 1 What does that mean to... And when that person in your mind is the Rebbe, or you think it might be somebody else?

42:42 Speaker 2 Do I believe it's the Rebbe? Um, I, I b- I feel that as a Lubavitcher, from what I've seen-

42:53 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

42:53 Speaker 2 ... and what I've taught, that he was a tzadik of this generation. I do, I do, I do believe that. I do feel that.

43:00 Speaker 1 1,000%.

43:01 Speaker 2 I do feel that You know, if, if that means he's Mashiach, then, then great. If, if he's not, then God knows what he's doing. That's how I think about it. I'm not trying to be coy with you. It's something that I've consciously decided not to grapple with.

43:16 Speaker 1 Interesting. Why? Why don't you grapple with this?

43:18 Speaker 2 Because, because-

43:19 Speaker 1 You don't think there's any gain from it, or?

43:20 Speaker 2 Like who... W- why, who's Mashiach? And like, who's actually going to be Mashiach? And-

43:24 Speaker 1 Because the question of who is Mashiach-

43:26 Speaker 2 I mean-

43:26 Speaker 1 ... is really the question of what is Mashiach.

43:29 Speaker 2 I don't... Well, I mean, there's, there's-

43:30 Speaker 1 That's the ear- that's the first question.

43:31 Speaker 2 I don't-

43:32 Speaker 1 To me, that's the more important question. What does it mean to, to be redeemed? What, what is going to happen? What is-

43:39 Speaker 2 I mean, I don't know that Mashiach is defined spec- ne- necessarily by who it is. I, I don't think that it changes. Um, I don't think it, by who it changes, but you also have to understand that I grew up in a Lubavitch milieu where the question of who Mashiach is and how exactly you think of that is a question that, um, consumed people, and consumed friendships, and consumed families, and consumed, uh, communities.

44:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

44:08 Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm not interested. I'm not interested. Like, the, the rebbe's my rebbe, right? The rebbe's the rebbe.

44:13 Speaker 1 It's, like, sad to me to hear, I'll be honest with you. The, uh-

44:16 Speaker 2 I, I, it's not that I don't think about Mashiach. I don't think about who's Mashiach.

44:19 Speaker 1 But, but, but, but the, that, that the emotional baggage, I mean this is the trauma that we spoke about, that the emotional baggage of the weight of all of these question marks in the '90s, it still weighs on people. And I get that.

44:34 Speaker 2 Well, I didn't grow up in, I didn't grow up in the '90s. I grew up after the '90s, and I'm speaking for myself, to be clear.

44:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

44:38 Speaker 2 I'm speaking for myself. Um, you know, there are some people who are still very adamant one way or another. There are some people who, you know, feel that it's their mitzvah to say who it is.

44:47 Speaker 1 I know about this because on 18Forty, when we did our series on Chabad, so I, um, the episode I did with Eli Rubin, we entitled-

44:56 Speaker 2 Right

44:56 Speaker 1 ... um, "Is the Rebbe Mashiach?" or something like this.

44:58 Speaker 2 Right.

44:59 Speaker 1 And the reaction was fascinating.

45:03 Speaker 2 I remember. I remember.

45:04 Speaker 1 I was fascinated by that.

45:06 Speaker 2 I remember.

45:06 Speaker 1 I did not expect any of that. Like, Eli called me up in advance. He was like, "You know this is gonna be a huge headache."

45:12 Speaker 2 Right.

45:13 Speaker 1 Like, he's like, "I'm not telling you what to do." 'Cause Eli's a tzaddik, like really a tzaddik.

45:17 Speaker 2 Right.

45:17 Speaker 1 So e- he's a gem of a person. He's like, "Well, but you just, FYI, you, you're in for a headache." I'm like, "What are you... Well, what's the issue?" And it was so fascinating to me that people's reaction to this Dovid Bashevkin, a non-Chabad Jew who's committed, who's clearly has bona fides of I'm not an adversary, I, I come in peace, and who immediately their visceral reaction was like, "That's an inappropriate question." And I'm like, my, my first reaction was like, "Wait, what? The... Is it-"

45:49 Speaker 2 You have to, you have to understand how they've been attacked for it by so many people. I think, I think you're approaching it from a very, um-

45:55 Speaker 1 It was almost-

45:56 Speaker 2 ... in- innocent place.

45:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

45:57 Speaker 2 Where you're thinking of it, like, almost as, like, a concept. That like, you know, based on what the rebbe stands for, if you say that he's Mashiach, then you're saying that Mashiach is embodied by what the rebbe stood for, right? Something like that.

46:08 Speaker 1 Something like that. Okay. Sure.

46:09 Speaker 2 Something like that. That's not how the ar... That's not how the debate was, was assured back in the day.

46:15 Speaker 1 Oh, I know that. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:16 Speaker 2 You know, it became very much, like, on the body of the rebbe. Like, you know, is this person Mashiach?

46:20 Speaker 1 For sure.

46:21 Speaker 2 Right.

46:21 Speaker 1 But, like, I don't know. It's 2024. I just thought that, like-

46:24 Speaker 2 Right. There's a lot-

46:24 Speaker 1 ... and there is a split between the younger and older generation

46:26 Speaker 2 There's a lot, there's a lot of scars

46:27 Speaker 1 ... something very generational.

46:28 Speaker 2 There's a lot of scars. No, there's a split within Lubavitch as well. I mean, this was a massive schism for, for, for many, for many years. It's healing-

46:35 Speaker 1 Wow

46:35 Speaker 2 ... in terms of a relational level. I don't know philos- philosophically if it's healing.

46:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

46:40 Speaker 2 People still have different ideas. But, you know, for a Lubavitcher when you ask that question, it's not an innocent question. Like it's, it's a very real question. And then it becomes a question of, like, is, is he the-

46:51 Speaker 1 I was surprised at how quickly people assumed me... I'm not like-

46:56 Speaker 2 Right

46:56 Speaker 1 ... I always say, like, if I'm the villain in your story, you're the one who's broken. Like, I, I'm not saying I'm perfect-

47:02 Speaker 2 Right. It's Twitter, man. I mean, it's, it-

47:03 Speaker 1 You know how Twitter is. But there's, there is chevra who, like, the embodiment of evil in this world is me, and, like, that chevra I don't respond to. But there was chevra who were, like, reasonable chevra, like good pe- good pe- I still, I love them. I love everybody. Like, for real.

47:17 Speaker 2 Right.

47:17 Speaker 1 And I was just surprised that that was, they, they jumped very quickly to that conclusion. I was like-

47:23 Speaker 2 Well, that's very diff... Well, it goes back to what you were talking about earlier. I mean, I don't know. I can't speak for every response.

47:28 Speaker 1 Yeah.

47:28 Speaker 2 But, you know, there is a, there is a Lubavitch inside versus outside, or like, you know, klapi prim, klapi second.

47:34 Speaker 1 Sure. Yeah.

47:35 Speaker 2 And so there's a v- very quick knee-jerk reaction to like, "Wait, is this guy attacking us? Do we need to, like, do we need to, like, reject him? Do we need to, like, put, tamp down the argument?"

47:46 Speaker 1 It's a-

47:46 Speaker 2 "Do we need to tamp down the attack?" Like, like, "Do we need to, like, neutralize him right away?" And a lot of it, by the way, is unconscious. Like you ask a person-

47:52 Speaker 1 For sure

47:52 Speaker 2 ... where it's coming from, they don't even know where it's coming from. It's just there.

47:55 Speaker 1 I mean, that's trauma. It's unco- uh, of course it's un-

47:57 Speaker 2 It is, it is trauma. It's, it's, yeah, it's trauma. It's, it's defensive mechanism. Look, you know, to the-

48:02 Speaker 1 Can I just say something interesting about the, the, the inside/outside component? So I teach in YU. I teach a course called Jewish Public Policy, and th- in the, in the beginning of the course, one of the things that we do is I map out, there's an... I- i- it's a, there's an economic model where you talk about, um, a right-wing/left-wing economics, and authoritarian and libertarian.

48:29 Speaker 2 Right.

48:29 Speaker 1 So it's like a four quadrants.

48:30 Speaker 2 The four... Sure. Sure.

48:31 Speaker 1 Right? Four quadrants. And there are different economic thinkers, like whether you put Ayn Rand is, like, you know, in the bottom, um-

48:38 Speaker 2 Anarchist, right. Yeah

48:39 Speaker 1 ... yeah, anarchist. Right. Okay, beautiful. So what we do in the class is we classify Jewish leaders.

48:46 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

48:46 Speaker 1 Where would you put them? You know, are they... This is, like, in terms of, like, right-wing/left-wing is are you, um, like a, a Halakhic elitist or like, like everybody has a place, and, like, let's be as inclusive as possible? And over here, authoritarian/libertarian is, like, how institutional are you in bringing about change?

49:08 Speaker 2 Right.

49:09 Speaker 1 So we classify everybody. We classify the w- like Rosh Yeshiva in YU.

49:13 Speaker 2 Right.

49:13 Speaker 1 You know, uh, Rav Moshe Feinstein, all the rabbis. And every year somebody says, "Where would you put the rebbe?"

49:20 Speaker 2 Mm.

49:21 Speaker 1 And my response every year is, "It depends. Are we talking to anash, like the-

49:27 Speaker 2 Right

49:27 Speaker 1 ... like to the insiders or outside?"

49:30 Speaker 2 Right.

49:31 Speaker 1 'Cause you, I would place... Again, I hope that's not seen as disrespectful. I do it with, I do it to Rav Moshe Feinstein also. Everybody, everybody gets the-

49:37 Speaker 2 No, that's, that, that's a disrespectful thing you said about Lubavitcher.

49:40 Speaker 1 Well, no.

49:43 Speaker 2 Comparing.

49:48 Speaker 1 That's a good shtickel. I like that. So but, but, like, to me, like where you would place on that quadrant, and I usually say, like, I think for insiders, I would put the rebbe top right. But, like, for outsiders, the rebbe shifts. He's le- he's still very institutional, but much more inclusive in the messaging, much more-

50:10 Speaker 2 Yeah, I, I think, I think that's a tragedy of Lubavitch getting a little bit carried away with its PR, to be honest with you. Um, I think, I, I, I think the Rebbe was the same person. I, I don't... As a Lubavitcher, I don't really buy this split. Um, you know, the Rebbe was very tran- from what I can tell, very-

50:28 Speaker 1 I, I don't know if it, it was a conscious decision of the Rebbe, but I would say the experience-

50:33 Speaker 2 Yeah, but I don't know

50:33 Speaker 1 ... of the Rebbe was different for insiders and outsiders.

50:35 Speaker 2 No, but it was, Lubavitch was made, like Lubavitch was made that way. I, you know, I don't, I, I don't know that people chose to make it that way. I think, you know, I think it just happened, and little choices along the way. You know, to me, the, the bigger tragedy is for Lubavitchers themselves. You know, I feel that there's... You know, if you have it in Lubavitch as well, you have, um, you know, people that will feel that they're, they're, you know, when, when they go to Chabad House, they're loved as a Jew, but when they're in Lubavitch, they're seen as an out- you know, like a failure of the Yeshiva system. And like where's obviously Srol that you have in the Chabad House for me? And that's changing. That's been changing over the past 20 years.

51:11 Speaker 1 Oh, I see that a lot. I, I-

51:12 Speaker 2 That's, that's been changing where Lubavitch recognizes to, to... I mean, a lot of people in Lubavitch, and to their, to their eternal credit because they were not, they, they were, they were looked, they were, they were looked at funny in the beginning.

51:25 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:25 Speaker 2 They said, "Look, I mean, you ... The, the, the Rebbe's message of obviously Srol doesn't stop at Crown Heights, you know? It, it-

51:33 Speaker 1 Yeah

51:33 Speaker 2 ... includes us as well." And, you know, uh, look, the way I see it-

51:38 Speaker 1 But that's h- the reason why it's so hard is because in this generation where you don't have, the Rebbe is not present in a physical sense, so the, the emotions that you imbibe from Chabad are really just coming from the Hasidim. And I do think in any movement, it's true for a lot, like the way that we deal with insiders like verse outsiders, this is also true in the Yeshiva world.

52:08 Speaker 2 But this problem was more profound before the Rebbe passed away. It didn't get less profound. It was more-

52:12 Speaker 1 Re-

52:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was more profound before the Rebbe passed away.

52:14 Speaker 1 Oh, really?

52:15 Speaker 2 Yeah.

52:15 Speaker 1 I didn't know that.

52:15 Speaker 2 Yeah.

52:15 Speaker 1 Interesting.

52:16 Speaker 2 It was more profound. It was more profound. Um, you know, people will point to exceptions where, where the Rebbe made everybody feel welcome, but no, I mean, they c- like this, the, the split, the split of the, the Rebbe as like the world leader-

52:31 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

52:31 Speaker 2 ... as Rebbe, like there was this ... You know, obviously it was one person, so maybe everybody knew it was the same person.

52:37 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

52:38 Speaker 2 But no, I, I, I, I think the split was, I think the split was there before, in many ways, in many ways more profound. I, I think, I think, I think a lot of these things have been sorted out and are being sorted out to this day. Um, and I think that goes back to what you're talking about, Derech Shvi. You know, as you can tell, I am no gung-ho, you know, um, like messianic to, to, for lack of a better word, of like the Rebbe's still alive and nothing's changed. I obviously don't-

53:05 Speaker 1 Yeah

53:06 Speaker 2 ... believe that. Um, and I still believe that theologically, Derech Shvi, it, it's, it's, it's ration- no, I don't, I don't, I don't need to be rational, but it makes sense to me, and it works for me that it's still Derech Shvi because I believe that today Lubavitch is still sorting through what the Rebbe was talking about. Um, I think the world in many ways is finally assimilating ideas the Rebbe was talking about. Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuval Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening 10 years ago, Yuval Media has pushed the boundaries of artistic and thoughtful storytelling in the community with an insistence on there always being a memorable story as well as a beautiful and striking visual image that we believe is second to none. Over the years, we have worked with Chabad organizations around the country, as well as large organizations like Bonioyalom, Torah Mesora, and Atalahon, guided by the belief that your story is absolutely worth telling with depth and creativity. If you are looking to tell your story with a video, please reach out to us at hello@yuvalmedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalmedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast.

54:24 Speaker 1 Well, that's why I think the beauty is because I think the end to this story is actually that like the ultimate Yefutzu minor sechachutza is when the inside needs to turn towards the outside. And the, we're seeing in this moment that in order to restore the present vitality of the movement, um, there's a willingness to engage with outside, not outsiders, but outside ideas in new and very interesting ways that I don't... I think is what injects the living vitality of it, where we're not just preserving, uh, a shadow or an image of the past, where it's like, okay, like we, like we have this much oil in the jar that got sealed, you know, on Gimel Tammuz, and like we just gotta preserve the oil in the jar. But the people who are going out and through their work in bringing the Torah's Chabad outside of Chabad are actually also assimilating a lot of non-Chabad ideas and reinterpreting them or translating them in the Chabad theology, which I think is what adds to its vitality.

55:40 Speaker 2 Well, look, I mean, throughout, throughout history of, of Jewish learning and Jewish thinking, you al- you see many, you see many, uh, writers. Uh, by writers, I mean Rishonim-

55:51 Speaker 1 Yeah

55:51 Speaker 2 ... and, and, uh, all kinds of, all ki- all the way down. Um, they talk in many ways in the contemporary language, and they bring in ideas-

56:00 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Exactly

56:01 Speaker 2 ... from the contemporary philosophies. Yeah, just because they did it doesn't give me or someone else necessarily a license to do it, but the idea is there. Um, but that's not r- that's not specifically what I'm talking about here. I agree with you that that adds vitality and adds color, and like, you know, the story of immigration, right? Like it changes, it, it makes society in a certain way, when done right, enriched, uh, or can enrich society. But I feel like Lubavitchers have enough... I'm not, I'm not saying that we shouldn't look at other ideas.

56:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:32 Speaker 2 But we don't, like, there, like there's an idea that w- it, it says in the Gemara, I think, that it takes a Talmud 40 years to assimilate-

56:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

56:41 Speaker 2 ... the idea of a Rav-

56:42 Speaker 1 Sure

56:43 Speaker 2 ... and to, and to, uh, fully appreciate it. Like, we don't need to take the Rebbe's ideas and find the psychological language that makes it work or the clinical language that makes it work. If that, if that's what helps you, God bless you.

56:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's not what I was talking about.

56:59 Speaker 2 Well, right, right.

56:59 Speaker 1 But what do we need to do, in your opinion? And then I'll try to re-explain what I was saying.

57:02 Speaker 2 I, I think, I think, I think when a Rebbe speaks, taken on face value, it's inherently paradoxical, right? The Rebbe's talking in language that, that, that, that, that demands things that don't seem to make sense because where he's at, things work in a way that doesn't work for most people.

57:22 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

57:22 Speaker 2 That's in many ways the definition of a Rebbe, right?

57:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

57:25 Speaker 2 And so Rebbe will say, "Do this, do that, do this, do the other." Okay, how does it all work? How does it all make sense? How does a society work out that places a priority on shlichus, but also places a priority on chinuch, but also places a priority on XYZ? And it's like these things don't seem to work out, right? And because in, in our minds they don't. They're paradoxical. And that, that needs to be sorted out. That can't be ignored and can't be moved on from. That needs to be sorted out, and that, that's work of years. Now, can other language help you? Yes, but only-

57:59 Speaker 1 See, what I was saying-

57:59 Speaker 2 ... but only if it holds a paradox. A lot of times people will take the language and basically find another lang- another, another framework which basically allows you to kind of dissipate the paradox, you know, and dissipate, dissipate the heat of what the Rebbe's saying almost. And it's like, "Oh, you know, well, if we translate the Rebbe of talking about this as self-

58:21 Speaker 1 He really meant self-

58:22 Speaker 2 ... as self-help.

58:23 Speaker 1 Self-help, self-care-

58:24 Speaker 2 Like that's, that's something-

58:24 Speaker 1 ... self-esteem

58:25 Speaker 2 ... that's something that I'm hearing a lot, and it, I mean, as, as a unqualified, uncredentialed person that lives in-

58:31 Speaker 1 Yeah

58:31 Speaker 2 ... Philadelphia, it pisses the hell out of me. It does. It does because like, you know, like the Rebbe's not self... I was just talking about it the other day with someone. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts about it 'cause I know you talk a lot about this topic.

58:42 Speaker 1 Yeah.

58:42 Speaker 2 But, uh, you know, I was, I was talking to someone the other day, and I'm like, "You know, every t-..." I, I heard, I heard some people, it was even on your podcast, I forget who.

58:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

58:50 Speaker 2 Talking about how, you know, the Rebbe's like main theme or con- consistent theme was mental health. Um, uh, I don't know if you said it or not, but I've heard that from other people.

59:01 Speaker 1 Okay. I don't remember if that was on ATW or-

59:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, the, the Rebbe always-

59:03 Speaker 1 Okay

59:04 Speaker 2 ... the Rebbe always spoke about mental health-

59:04 Speaker 1 Spoke about mental health

59:05 Speaker 2 ... and it, and it's like, wait a second. Sending people on shlichus to the other side of the world by themselves, which mental health professional thinks that's- ... thinks that's a good idea or that's good for your mental health? Nobody.

59:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, we'll pause, pause. What I meant was not translating the words into the language of other disciplines.

59:24 Speaker 2 Right.

59:24 Speaker 1 But what I actually meant, and I, and this is really where like Eli Rubin had such a profound impact on me, is the idea of allowing not just the words of the Rebbe, 'cause it's not about the Rebbe, but the system of Chabad to engage and be in dialogue with the present moment, with all of its deficiencies, with all of its complexities, with all of it. But like allow it to be in dialogue with the outside world, and I think that was harder in the Rebbe's lifetime, and I think it has... We've seen, what I've seen, and I don't wanna mention anybody's name. I mean, I mentioned Eli Rubin a thousand times already. But a- aside from him, like that idea that Hasidus is a real system, a real system. It's not make-believe. It's not politics. It's not, uh, it's not institution building. We're not trying to make money. This is a real revelation of something real, like, like coming back to where we began of like m- maybe God Taka exists. Maybe like God is real and Judaism is real, and we're alive in the short... Like you and I are gonna die in the next, I mean, 70 years on a, on a good shot.

1:00:43 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:00:43 Speaker 1 And neither of us know for certainty what happens the moment after we die. That's the great mystery. But like what if it's real? Like what if we were... What if this short life of ours is actually meant to be in service of the divine? And what would that mean and how would that transform our lives? And the way that Chabad has always kept, at least from my perspective, that question so central, like so like what are we alive for? What is existence for? Why does it feel so uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time? You know, homesick. You... We're, we're, we're in the right place, but we don't have the right feeling, and why do we feel this way? And like that, the cosmicness of Judaism-

1:01:26 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:01:26 Speaker 1 ... is something that I have seen flourish actually since the death of the Rebbe. The fact that Judaism might actually be real, and I think that's the question that's been lost for, by the non-Chabad Orthodox community more than anything, where in the non-Chabad community, we've become so focused on our own self-preservation, meaning we only... It's the opposite. Go, go to the ends of the earth and... I went to the ends of the earth. I moved from the Five Towns to Teaneck.

1:01:58 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:01:58 Speaker 1 I'm mamish „lech l'cha me'artcha." Like, like, like I, I'm in a different world right now.

1:02:04 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:02:04 Speaker 1 And we're so tethered to this specific moment and this specific culture, you know, Five Towns culture, Teaneck culture, Lakewood culture, like- We're so tethered. It's so modern. It's so inorganic. It's s- the, the realness, you have to dig so much deeper.

1:02:24 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:02:24 Speaker 1 And to me, what is so, like, phenom- like, so awe-inspiring about Chabad is it begins with that basic question. Maybe God is real. Maybe w- in this short life of ours, there's an actual purpose, and that purpose is not just communal self-preservation. W- the moises, you know? The moises, the moises. I heard from a very hush of Rosh Yeshiva, whose name I don't wanna mention, but you can probably guess who it is.

1:02:53 Speaker 2 I probably can't, but

1:02:54 Speaker 1 Well, you can't guess who it is, but I'm sure there's some listeners. He's a non-Chabad, extraordinarily hush of Ro- He said, he one time said, he said, he said, uh, he said that, he said the, sometimes the yeshivas, like, they would sell their children into slavery just to save the moises. Like, anything for the moises. Like, he was mak- Like, it, it's, it's crazy. It's insane. And, like, what Chabad, I think, or, and what the Rebbe specifically articulated and reminded the world is, like, maybe this is real. Maybe it's not just about preserving place, the Five Towns, Lakewood, Yerushut.

1:03:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:03:29 Speaker 1 M- maybe there's a common Judaism that can reach beyond ourselves. Maybe there's a common Judaism, not just reach beyond ourselves, the Orthodox community towards the non-Orthodox, but, like, maybe we have a role to play in the world.

1:03:44 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:03:44 Speaker 1 The Jewish people. Th- that type of thinking, which is, like, it's unfortunately almost, like, taken for granted that, like, Jews are being invited to, like, White House Hanukkah parties or whatever it is, and, like, we should have a seat at the table. Like, it was the Rebbe, in my mind, who reminded the Jewish people, like, maybe this is actually real.

1:04:02 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:04:02 Speaker 1 Maybe of co- w- we don't have a na- Like, you-

1:04:06 Speaker 2 Well, I have to say my, my grandfather's the one that brought the menorah to the White House.

1:04:12 Speaker 1 For real?

1:04:12 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:04:13 Speaker 1 That's very holy.

1:04:14 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:04:14 Speaker 1 But, but, like-

1:04:14 Speaker 2 It, it, it, it was crazy, yeah

1:04:16 Speaker 1 ... I, I'm coming from the opposite. C- can I be cathartic for a second? You spoke about your traumas. I'm t- My frustration, my frustration is that in the non-Chabad Yeshiva world, which is, has certainty and realness and all these amazing qualities to it, and, like, pro- like, put Torah central, it is so anathema for the community to reach an inch beyond itself, an inch beyond itself. I find it very frustrating. I just got an email from a very hush of Rosh Yeshiva who I love, who I love, who I invited onto 18Forty.

1:04:52 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:53 Speaker 1 It really pained me. His response was, "I would love to come on, but I'm gonna get so much heat from the f- from the frum world."

1:05:00 Speaker 2 That exists on, that exists on the still.

1:05:02 Speaker 1 It, it does. N- not to the same degree.

1:05:05 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:05:05 Speaker 1 Not at all to the same degree. And I was like, "It, what are we doing here, man? What, what, what, what are we doing here?" W- let me just finish my rant, if you'll allow me. It's late enough at night. What are we doing here? Are we just trying to preserve our reputation and our status and our, whatever it is other people think we're on the frum side of things? Like, it's so got so barf political. Like, how am I not supposed to react cynically to that?

1:05:32 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:05:33 Speaker 1 We have our thumb on the scale the whole time of what's Emes and what's舍刻.

1:05:38 Speaker 2 Well, look, I-

1:05:39 Speaker 1 Our thumb has been on the scale the whole time. That really bothers me. It really, really bothers me. W- w- we're not seeing the reality. It's like the famous experiment with Abraham Wald. Do you know the famous Abraham Wald experiment?

1:05:52 Speaker 2 Not mine.

1:05:52 Speaker 1 There were planes coming back after World War II that they kept on getting shot down, and they need to figure out, where do we bulletproof the planes?

1:06:00 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:00 Speaker 1 Do you know this? It's a famous meme online, but I'll explain the story.

1:06:04 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:05 Speaker 1 Where do we bulletploof-proof the planes? And, and, um, and everybody was bullet... They were looking at the planes that came back, seeing where the bullet holes were, and they said, "Okay, we gotta armor these areas." Abraham Wald, who was a child of an Orthodox rav and hush of a person, statistician, he said, "Azara." It's the exact opposite. Put the armor on the places where you see no bullet holes. Why? Because you're only evaluating based on the planes that come back. The planes that come back and where their bullet holes are, we need to be thinking about the planes that never come back-

1:06:38 Speaker 2 Right

1:06:38 Speaker 1 ... that get shot down. They're in the bottom of the ocean.

1:06:40 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:41 Speaker 1 As a community, I think we make this mistake over and over again.

1:06:45 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's-

1:06:45 Speaker 1 All we're thinking about are the planes that come back.

1:06:48 Speaker 2 Well, like, the, the, the-

1:06:49 Speaker 1 Sebra. There, there's, there are planes on the bottom of the ocean, and we keep on gerrymandering the lines-

1:06:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

1:06:55 Speaker 1 ... for every community, whether it's the Yeshiva world or the Chabad world or whoever it is that we're just-

1:06:59 Speaker 2 Yeah, but that's just a, that's just a logical fallacy where you-

1:07:02 Speaker 1 We gerrymander the lines of what success is, so every commun- Like, and it just, it's all barf politics to me. I'm sorry to be- It's late. It's ramah shvat. I'm getting a little unhinged.

1:07:11 Speaker 2 Hey, look, in Yeshivas you have the same thing, right? Where the Yeshiva will be very concerned about the bakra who are falling through the cracks. Understandably, that's a big problem, right? But what about the guys who are, have potential to be the next, uh, you know, Rosh Yeshiva, if that's your thing, or just in general to be much, much more, um, capable and successful-

1:07:31 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:07:32 Speaker 2 ... in their lives? You don't see that, right? You, you see the people, you see the casualties. Like, you see, you s- a little bit the reverse of the-

1:07:39 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:07:39 Speaker 2 ... example you gave. But in the Yeshiva, we're worried about the casualties. We're not worried about the lost potential, 'cause the casualties you can see. The lost potential, you can't see.

1:07:48 Speaker 1 I don't know if it's different in Chabad. I have never in my life bought into the narrative that any Yeshiva or any institution is cultivating greatness.

1:07:58 Speaker 2 Well, that's my point.

1:07:59 Speaker 1 I think they think too highly of themselves. I mean-

1:08:01 Speaker 2 Right

1:08:01 Speaker 1 ... let's talk about all the greats. Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish. I mean, greatness comes not as a product of institutions. I think the great fallacy that all Yeshivas made that we are gadolim factories. And like, we- we're willing to sacrifice people falling through the cracks in order to produce gadolim. At least as non-Chabad yeshivas, I think, I think it's a total joke. It's the biggest joke that I've ever... Where are all the gadolim? The, the more str- the stro- yeshivas have never been stronger, as institute w- 'Cause we, we haven't had serious world-recognized gadolim since the mid-'90s. I would say the Rebbe-

1:08:43 Speaker 2 Right

1:08:43 Speaker 1 ... '94.

1:08:44 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:44 Speaker 1 Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky. I don't know who the... The gadolim now, they, they get appointed by magazines. I have no idea who they are. It's very, very frustrating.

1:08:53 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:08:54 Speaker 1 I... Our finger is on the scale. We are not engaging with the reality of our community.

1:08:59 Speaker 2 What do you, what do you think it is? What do you think it is? Is it, is it, is it... Can you chalk it up to just, uh-

1:09:05 Speaker 1 Self-preservation.

1:09:06 Speaker 2 Right, but the Jews weren't worried about self-preservation in Europe. What happened when they came to America, in your opinion?

1:09:18 Speaker 1 I have an interesting perspective because my family is deeply American. We're pre-war.

1:09:23 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:09:24 Speaker 1 We're pre-war America. I think that what happened is the success of the Orthodox community, which I'm talking about the post-war Orthodox community, which is not where my family is from. My family is from my bubbe, my zeide, from North Adams, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. My bubbe drove an hour to buy kosher meat.

1:09:52 Speaker 2 Sure. Sure.

1:09:53 Speaker 1 The Price Chopper in Albany. But my zeide worked on Shabbos.

1:09:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:58 Speaker 1 But my bubbe, her lifeblood was an emunah in God, a preservation of the Jewish people. I, I, I, I, I don't have access to her pinky. I think the biggest change... There, there are two changes that take place in the world, in my opinion, in America. Change number one is that modernity, and this is not just America, modernity reshapes the way we think of God. The, the greatest trauma of the world is the progress of science, and the more explanations we have, the more obscure the concept of God becomes. I'm not saying, God forbid, chas v'shalom, that God does not exist. I believe with every fiber of my being that there is a God.

1:10:44 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:44 Speaker 1 But the God that we once saw viscerally when anybody got sick-

1:10:49 Speaker 2 Right

1:10:49 Speaker 1 ... or anytime there was a plague-

1:10:51 Speaker 2 Right

1:10:51 Speaker 1 ... no longer exists. I mean, we say Tehillim when people get sick, but we also go to the hospital.

1:10:57 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:57 Speaker 1 And we go to the doctor.

1:10:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:58 Speaker 1 And we think about the diagnosis. My father takes care of cancer.

1:11:01 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:01 Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying? Like-

1:11:02 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:02 Speaker 1 ... it's a real thing. Our, our understanding of God has changed dramatically in the last 100 years, thousand years, two thou- dramatically.

1:11:12 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:13 Speaker 1 And a lot of it's a product of modernity. Specifically in America, it basically filtered Judaism into two lanes in the 1950s, and I see this. My, my family home, you know, where we're home is North Adams, Massachusetts. It's not the Five Towns, it's not the Tri-State area. It's where all of my ancestors are buried, all the Bashevkins are there. And in North Adams, it divided up into two groups. There was one group who could imagine that Judaism was real and worthwhile preserving, and that eventually became what we call, um, what I call either the conservative or, um, Judaism, not the Jewish people, Judaism. Conservative, the conservadox, and the Orthodox community. You know what I'm saying? In those worlds.

1:12:05 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:12:05 Speaker 1 Like, my bubbe sh- wh- when, when my, um... I had a cousin who intermarried. It was, this was when I was either a baby. My bubbe would not go. It was visceral. She didn't ask a shaila. My bubbe didn't have a rabbi. She would not ask. There's no Chabad there. Like she, she would not go. She's not participating in that. My bubbe had an instinctive, organic emunah that I am deeply homesick for. I don't think it's possible to have the emunah that my bubbe had, she was born in 1921, in 2024.

1:12:35 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:35 Speaker 1 That's just the reality of where we live. I, I, I'm not-

1:12:38 Speaker 2 You're also, you're also counting the planes that are coming back in that regard, I think.

1:12:41 Speaker 1 And what do you mean?

1:12:43 Speaker 2 I mean, in many ways, the people who stayed from, in those days in America, were people who were really, really, really pure. Most, like-

1:12:52 Speaker 1 Oh

1:12:52 Speaker 2 ... most of the Jews did not stay.

1:12:55 Speaker 1 I could not agree more, meaning it-

1:12:56 Speaker 2 Right

1:12:57 Speaker 1 ... the Jewish community divided up into two.

1:12:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:59 Speaker 1 The planes that came back-

1:13:00 Speaker 2 Right

1:13:00 Speaker 1 ... and the planes who were totally lost.

1:13:01 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:02 Speaker 1 I see this in my family.

1:13:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:03 Speaker 1 Right?

1:13:04 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:04 Speaker 1 There, there are, there are many non-Jewish Bashevkins. You understand what I'm saying?

1:13:07 Speaker 2 Yes, I do.

1:13:08 Speaker 1 Right? W- w- we saw this. We lost a great deal of planes. But the problem is, in the early eras of the Orthodox communities, the 1950s, the 1960s, 1970s, we knew there were planes that were missing. We knew that. Of course, we knew that, because they were our siblings. They were our uncles. They were our first cousins.

1:13:31 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:31 Speaker 1 They were our nephews. And as we got stronger and stronger in the '80s, in the '90s, and this was v- s- you could map this out step by step in the Orth- American Orthodox community. We forgot more and more that the planes were missing, and Orth- Orthodox Judaism, whatever the boundaries of that are, became synonymous with Klal Yisrael. So when we would talk about, you know, like, like, nebuch, like there's a crisis, like k- kids are falling between the cracks, and you know, they're not schtigging or whatever we got obsessed about in the '90s when the OTD... W- the, the first time those words were used, being off the derech, because the, the boundaries of the derech were not that clear.

1:14:19 Speaker 2 No, I remember.

1:14:20 Speaker 1 Right?

1:14:20 Speaker 2 I remember when people started talking about it.

1:14:22 Speaker 1 Right? It was in, uh, the Jewish Observer, 1999, had a, had a famous, uh, two i- two different issues on it, but whatever it is. This is all taking place in the '90s, where, like, now the Orthodox community is like, "Okay, we're, we're Klal Yisrael." Like, when you close your eyes, this is such a Orthodox, I'm non-Chabad Orthodox, thinking like, like, like, think of Klal Yisrael. It's everybody from, like, whether or not you wear a kippah sruga or a shtreimel or a black hat.

1:14:49 Speaker 2 Right, there's no Reform or Conservative or Assimilated, right. Right.

1:14:53 Speaker 1 Or women.

1:14:53 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:54 Speaker 1 I mean, I don't, I don't wanna be like the freaky progressive dude. But like, you're like, you're like at the convention. They're like, "Every Jew is counted, whether or not you wear a kippah sruga or a black hat or a shtreimel." I'm like, "Okay." That's like-

1:15:06 Speaker 2 What, what about the Shaitels?

1:15:07 Speaker 1 ... half the po- half the population is missing.

1:15:09 Speaker 2 Right.

1:15:10 Speaker 1 And of that population, you're talking about... You're basically saying that Teaneck, the Five Towns, Lakewood, Boca, Chicago, and LA can all get along.

1:15:18 Speaker 2 So how does the Orthodox community getting stronger make the Or- Orthodox community more, more lame?

1:15:25 Speaker 1 Because any time that you do not have a dialogue of ideas, it's the same reason why I think Chabad can struggle with internal critiques of lameness. Do you know what I mean?

1:15:38 Speaker 2 Right.

1:15:39 Speaker 1 When the ideas are not in conflict.

1:15:42 Speaker 2 You need crisis.

1:15:42 Speaker 1 When you're not trying to-

1:15:43 Speaker 2 Jews need crisis.

1:15:44 Speaker 1 We need to r- we are always resolving something because we have an underlying commitment that we are part of a cohesive whole.

1:15:53 Speaker 2 Right.

1:15:53 Speaker 1 I would call it the Derech of the Baalei Tosafot to the Shas is our approach to our lives. T- the Baalei Tosafot developed a very innovative Derech Halimud. Am I allowed to use these terms? Sure.

1:16:09 Speaker 2 Oh, we're Protosis in Lubavitch.

1:16:11 Speaker 1 What?

1:16:11 Speaker 2 We're Protosis in Lubavitch.

1:16:12 Speaker 1 We're Protosis, okay. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. No, I just, I, I, I, I, Toisus, Derech Halimud, these, these terms are clear.

1:16:20 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:16:20 Speaker 1 I would translate these on 18Forty.

1:16:21 Speaker 2 No, no, we're good.

1:16:22 Speaker 1 Oh, you're comfortable, okay.

1:16:22 Speaker 2 We're good.

1:16:23 Speaker 1 The Baalei Toisus w-

1:16:25 Speaker 2 By, by that time in this podcast, they're, they're gonna have burned it, so it's all good.

1:16:30 Speaker 1 But, but, but what was the Derech Halimud of the Baalei Toisus? What was different about the Baalei Tosafot is that when there were sugyas that were arguing on one another, they created a conceptual answer rather or not, rather than saying, which many other Rishonim did take this approach, "These are sugyas that are arguing, and we are posking like this-

1:16:49 Speaker 2 Right

1:16:49 Speaker 1 ... sugya over that sugya." The Tosafot, I forgot who it was, maybe the Anto Shlomo, um, says that the Tosafot made a one big bowl out of the entire Shas, and it should all agree with each other.

1:17:01 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:17:01 Speaker 1 I think Jews approach their lives and Yiddishkeit with that desire. We want it all to cohere. We want it all to make sense. And the way that we make sense is being Miyashiv. Miyashiv kushyes, being Miyashiv shilas.

1:17:18 Speaker 2 Right.

1:17:18 Speaker 1 We, we answer, and every jagged edge, every question becomes another layer that tries to include more.

1:17:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:17:26 Speaker 1 And I think that once an institution or a movement or a revolution or idea is no longer engaging with outside ideas, then it's not gonna have the stamina or the conceptual b- um, strength to smooth over those edges. Now, every layer that we add to the bowl, it's like a rubber band bowl, every... is gonna lead to a new layer of cracks and crumbles.

1:17:54 Speaker 2 Sure.

1:17:54 Speaker 1 It's not gonna be... It'll never be perfectly smooth. I mean-

1:17:56 Speaker 2 Until Mashiach comes, yeah.

1:17:57 Speaker 1 Until Mashiach comes. .

1:18:00 Speaker 2 Right.

1:18:00 Speaker 1 So, but, but that's why I think it's so important, whether it's in the Orthodox community or in Chabad or wherever it is, that we're always engaging with that tension. We shouldn't hide from it. You know, the, the analogy we use on 18Forty, and I'll, I'll finish with this.

1:18:14 Speaker 2 No, go ahead.

1:18:15 Speaker 1 I know this has been... Has this been a disaster?

1:18:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, of course. Keep on going. Keep it going.

1:18:20 Speaker 1 The, the analogy we use on 18Forty is that the imagery, not analogy, the imagery we use is when a car is spinning out of control.

1:18:30 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:18:30 Speaker 1 Your instinctive reaction is-

1:18:32 Speaker 2 Is pull the other way

1:18:32 Speaker 1 ... to grab the steering wheel-

1:18:33 Speaker 2 Right

1:18:33 Speaker 1 ... and point it the other way.

1:18:34 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:18:34 Speaker 1 On 18Forty, and what I believe what we're talking about is you steer into the controversy.

1:18:39 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:18:40 Speaker 1 Hiding from the questions that make us uncomfortable-

1:18:43 Speaker 2 Right

1:18:43 Speaker 1 ... is a recipe for disaster.

1:18:45 Speaker 2 Yeah, and on that I, on that I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree on that. I, I, you know, uh, I, I think I mentioned it earlier.

1:18:51 Speaker 1 Lean into the controversy.

1:18:52 Speaker 2 No, I'm not, well, I'm not so much-

1:18:54 Speaker 1 Do you ever try, do you-

1:18:55 Speaker 2 No, what's that?

1:18:56 Speaker 1 You, you, do you ever, do you ever step onto the ice without ice skates?

1:19:00 Speaker 2 Have I done it? I've done it. It's not a good idea.

1:19:02 Speaker 1 It's not a good idea. Why isn't it a good idea? What do ice skates add?

1:19:04 Speaker 2 No, it goes into the ice.

1:19:05 Speaker 1 Friction.

1:19:06 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:19:06 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:07 Speaker 2 No, no, I, I'm s- I, I don't court controversy, but I, I do believe fundamentally that uncomfortable questions-

1:19:13 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:19:13 Speaker 2 ... that's what you dive into.

1:19:14 Speaker 1 Controversy is just the word that the, the, the status quo uses-

1:19:19 Speaker 2 Right

1:19:19 Speaker 1 ... to describe the c- the ever-present change in the world.

1:19:22 Speaker 2 No, but there's something called c- there is clickbait, there is sensationalism. But, but when you have an uncomfortable question, in many ways, uh, you know, sensationalism you go... is very fun.

1:19:31 Speaker 1 Can, can, can I just, I wanna dispel this, 'cause I get the same, I get the same accusation on 18Forty.

1:19:37 Speaker 2 No, nobody accuses me of that.

1:19:38 Speaker 1 Oh, nobody does? I hope they don't.

1:19:39 Speaker 2 No, 'cause I, 'cause I don't do it. I don't do s- I don't do it.

1:19:41 Speaker 1 Of course you don't do it, 'cause w- how long have we been talking for?

1:19:44 Speaker 2 I don't know, about an hour, 15 minutes.

1:19:46 Speaker 1 An hour and 15 min... You'd have to be a meshugganah if your idea of clickbait is an hour and 15 minute conversation. In my... Look, this is the opposite of clickbait. I mean, the, the, when people accuse me of easy, like, "You're just leaning to sensationalism," I'm like, if people are listening to my podcast in order to access heresy, my podcasts are an hour and a half long, an hour and a half long, and I use big words and I mispronounce all of them. Th- th- we're not tr-

1:20:14 Speaker 2 Right.

1:20:14 Speaker 1 Neither of us are trying to do this. It, it, to me, this is the s- the way the status quo tries to make sense out of change that is inherent to existence.

1:20:25 Speaker 2 I mean, while you were talking, I was thinking about it. A lot of times, you know, the, a lot of times the answer given what's wrong with America or Jews in America, um, is, you know, well, is Jews are too comfortable. Jews are too comfortable, and so, you know, they, they're not, and so they're not struggling for survival like the Jews did in the past. But I think what you're talking about is a more kind of positive way of looking at it, in the sense that, you know, galus, gal- there's two ways of looking at galus. Gal- I mean, Hasidus talks about this at length, but I'm sure, I'm sure it's, I'm sure this is-

1:20:56 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:20:56 Speaker 2 ... I'm sure this is everywhere. I think this is from the Gemara. But galus is, on one hand, of course, a punishment.

1:21:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:21:02 Speaker 2 Right? And a pu- a punishment that you have to survive, right? And it's all about survival. But galus is also growth. An opportunity for growth, right?

1:21:12 Speaker 1 For sure.

1:21:13 Speaker 2 Right? And, and, you know, uh, I, I don't know if this is from the Gemara, but-

1:21:15 Speaker 1 But

1:21:17 Speaker 2 Right

1:21:17 Speaker 1 ... when the Talmud Bavli-

1:21:19 Speaker 2 The Talmud Bavli

1:21:19 Speaker 1 ... looks to understand itself-

1:21:20 Speaker 2 Exactly

1:21:20 Speaker 1 ... it looks to a passage in Necha.

1:21:22 Speaker 2 Right, right. And Talmud Bavli itself is a, is a, is a, is, is a Gemara that is a, a product of Galus. And it ha-

1:21:29 Speaker 1 1,000%

1:21:30 Speaker 2 Right. And it has a certain-

1:21:31 Speaker 1 The mission statement-

1:21:32 Speaker 2 Right

1:21:32 Speaker 1 ... of the, of the Gemara is all found in the first Mishnah in Berakhos. A world where time is unclear, where you are trying to access a world that is no longer accessible, and trying to find unity, kriat shma, in a darkened world.

1:21:49 Speaker 2 Right.

1:21:49 Speaker 1 Pa'arvitz.

1:21:50 Speaker 2 Pa'arvitz.

1:21:51 Speaker 1 And the concern is that in the comfort and freedom of this world, we will forget the urgency of the stakes, which is the end of the Mishnah, that you will go to a wedding and you will forget zman kriat shma, and you will be over in Aveira. And keep in mind, this is, in the opening Mishnah, they are using an invented term. I wrote a book about this.

1:22:15 Speaker 2 Which one?

1:22:16 Speaker 1 Aveira.

1:22:17 Speaker 2 Aveira. Aveira's an invented term.

1:22:19 Speaker 1 Does the word Aveira as a noun appear in the Torah? No.

1:22:22 Speaker 2 No.

1:22:22 Speaker 1 We have great nouns for sin: Chet, Avon, Pesha.

1:22:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:25 Speaker 1 Aveira is a rabbinic invention.

1:22:27 Speaker 2 Av- Avon is, is-

1:22:29 Speaker 1 Lavor is a verb.

1:22:30 Speaker 2 Right.

1:22:31 Speaker 1 But the, the-

1:22:32 Speaker 2 Right

1:22:32 Speaker 1 ... noun of sin-

1:22:34 Speaker 2 Uh-huh, uh-huh

1:22:34 Speaker 1 ... was never Aveira till rabbinic literature. And poof, the word makes an appearance in the opening Mishnah of all of Shas.

1:22:41 Speaker 2 Oh, interesting.

1:22:42 Speaker 1 Because Lavar is in the world of Galus, like we ha- we, we feel our boundaries.

1:22:48 Speaker 2 Right. So, so it's all about, it's all about growth. It's all about growth. And, and growth, of course, comes from what you said, friction. It comes from challenge. If you're not challenged, you're not gonna grow. You're just gonna stay stagnant.

1:22:58 Speaker 1 1,000%.

1:22:59 Speaker 2 You're going to reinforce and, and stagnate. And, you know, that goes a little bit back to what you're talking... You s- you, you asked about dirshmini, dirshvi. I think ultimately dirshmini would be an escape. Dirshmini would be, uh, turn the page, let's not deal with this particular challenge. Let's, let's-

1:23:16 Speaker 1 Interesting.

1:23:17 Speaker 2 Right?

1:23:17 Speaker 1 I didn't mean it that way, but I understand what you're saying now.

1:23:19 Speaker 2 But dirshvi is can, can there be a dir that exists without its manig alive? Right? At least in Lubavitch, right? The rabbi passed away. Is his dir still vital? And that's, that's-

1:23:33 Speaker 1 My eyes are wide open

1:23:34 Speaker 2 ... that's an existential question.

1:23:35 Speaker 1 This might not mean a- anything to you or any other Chabad Hasid. My answer is that in the present moment, regardless of what you think or what you feel, what you're anxious about, «Kol ot mosse tomarnah» is a resounding yes. Here we are. Here we are.

1:23:48 Speaker 2 Yeah. No, I, I-

1:23:49 Speaker 1 Here we are

1:23:49 Speaker 2 ... I agree. But that, but that's a-

1:23:51 Speaker 1 How could the answer not be a resounding yes?

1:23:53 Speaker 2 Well, no, that, that's a quest- that, that's a question. There's no... The moment that we think that we've answered that question with a resounding yes-

1:23:59 Speaker 1 I don't think there's anything we're waiting for. I think we're here. You know what I'm saying?

1:24:02 Speaker 2 No, we're still going. We're still... There's obviously reason to still be going. Moshiach isn't here yet.

1:24:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:24:06 Speaker 2 Right? But, but that, but that is, but that is the q- if it's-

1:24:09 Speaker 1 For some

1:24:09 Speaker 2 ... is it possible? It's definitely possible. Will it continue? Well, it's up to each of us. I mean, I... The way I phrase it sometimes is, you know, Chabad doesn't die with its last rabbi. It dies with its last Hasid.

1:24:22 Speaker 1 Ooh, is that yours?

1:24:24 Speaker 2 I made it up. That was-

1:24:25 Speaker 1 Say it again. That's a good line.

1:24:27 Speaker 2 I got it.

1:24:27 Speaker 1 Say it again. Nachrapet.

1:24:28 Speaker 2 No, I'm not, no, I'm ready, no, I'm ready-

1:24:30 Speaker 1 Nachrapet. Say it again

1:24:30 Speaker 2 ... no, I'm, now I'm already squeezing my, my ego over here.

1:24:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, say it again.

1:24:33 Speaker 2 No, but I-

1:24:34 Speaker 1 Say it again.

1:24:35 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:24:35 Speaker 1 It's a beautiful line.