Ep. 62 // "Roots of Identity" w/ Rabbi Shlomo Elkan

00:00 Speaker 1 Especially as a baal teshuva, there was a time where I had to, like, double down on being a Lubavitcher.

00:06 Speaker 2 Mm.

00:06 Speaker 1 So it was like an adolescence of sorts. Like, I have to, like, exert my identity.

00:10 Speaker 2 Right.

00:11 Speaker 1 Now, whatever, you know? And my kids, I mean, like many, and you can relate, live in, like, such a wacky world. Like, on one hand, they're Lubavitchers. On the other hand, they go to a Litvisher school. On the other hand, they live on a college campus that's-

00:27 Speaker 2 Right

00:28 Speaker 1 ... you know, totally upside down.

00:30 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

00:31 Speaker 1 So, so, you know, identity is important. You have to be very well-rooted. Once you're well-rooted, you can spread the branches really far and wide.

00:42 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2025. My name is Bentzi Yafetz, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. All righty. Uh, we are here tonight in Oberlin, Ohio, with Rabbi Shlomo Elchanan, shliach and director of Chabad of Oberlin College. Um, uh, to describe Oberlin College, I think it's best that you Google it. It's definitely, um, it's definitely a unique place. Uh, and, um, yeah, I think that, I think, I think Google it is the best way.

01:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

01:31 Speaker 2 Right. Do you think so?

01:32 Speaker 1 I-

01:32 Speaker 2 Would you like to describe it?

01:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, on, on one foot, I mean, the history of Oberlin's very, you know, like many colleges in the middle of nowhere, started as a Christian college.

01:40 Speaker 2 Right.

01:41 Speaker 1 Uh, and a music conservatory for let's say Christian l- liturgical music.

01:45 Speaker 2 Okay.

01:46 Speaker 1 And, um, but always it was a Christian utopia. That's what they called it.

01:52 Speaker 2 Okay.

01:52 Speaker 1 And it was very idealistic. They would only paint their houses white out of, uh, service of, of the Lord. I mean, that's what the founding documents, uh-

02:00 Speaker 2 So almost Amish in a way.

02:03 Speaker 1 In a... Yeah, I mean, maybe in certain senses, and but they were also abolitionists. So they were anti-slavery.

02:09 Speaker 2 Okay.

02:09 Speaker 1 This is 1833. And so there was a huge part of the Underground Railroad was here in Oberlin.

02:15 Speaker 2 Huh.

02:16 Speaker 1 And so there's a lot of his- It was the first college in America to admit and graduate both women and Black people.

02:22 Speaker 2 Right.

02:23 Speaker 1 So it always had a very progressive, uh, bent to it.

02:27 Speaker 2 Okay.

02:28 Speaker 1 The '50s, '60s, '50s, they disband the seminary completely.

02:32 Speaker 2 The religious seminary?

02:33 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Christian seminary. It becomes just a liberal arts college. The '60s... And there were Jews here from the 1920s, actually. Uh-

02:41 Speaker 2 You're saying Jews accepted here?

02:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, they never had quotas, so students that couldn't get into-

02:45 Speaker 2 Right

02:46 Speaker 1 ... you know, Ivies and things like that-

02:48 Speaker 2 Yeah

02:48 Speaker 1 ... would come here.

02:49 Speaker 2 I mean, a lot of people listening to this, uh, probably don't know that in schools like Yale, even 40, 50 years ago, not that long ago, had serious quotas-

02:58 Speaker 1 Serious quotas

02:58 Speaker 2 ... for Jewish students. It was very, very hard to get into Yale as a Jewish student not so long ago, just maybe two generations ago.

03:07 Speaker 1 Correct. So Oberlin never had quotas.

03:09 Speaker 2 Right.

03:09 Speaker 1 So they were here. Um, the '60s, by, like, the hippie revolution goes, the numbers skyrocket.

03:17 Speaker 2 Yeah.

03:18 Speaker 1 Uh, number of Jews that start coming. By the '80s, say Oberlin was about 40% Jewish.

03:23 Speaker 2 Wow.

03:23 Speaker 1 Um, now it's, it's, it's down slightly. We're about a third Jewish.

03:27 Speaker 2 Well, that's still pretty Jewish.

03:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. We're between 800 and 900 Jewish students out of 3,000 students.

03:32 Speaker 2 So it's a very small college with a very dense Jewish population.

03:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. Coastal Jews, big cities, you know, from also a very specific, uh, demographic.

03:43 Speaker 2 Right.

03:43 Speaker 1 So a lot of our students maybe didn't have bar or bat mitzvahs, didn't go to Hebrew school, you know, things like that. Not e- not, don't have both parents who are Jewish. I mean, it's a, it's a very specific-

03:55 Speaker 2 Right

03:55 Speaker 1 ... Not all, obviously, but so that was kind of the history of Oberlin that's carried forward. In some ways, it's, it's gone its own way from its tradition, and in other ways, it's always been an activist college. It still remains an activist college. So after that, you can Google it.

04:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, still Google it. Uh, you will, you will, you will definitely, yeah, learn a lot and, and, uh, find a lot of interesting stuff there. Um, yeah, so, uh, first, you know, we're sitting here. I think this is a record for the latest that I've ever started a podcast.

04:28 Speaker 1 Oh, really? Okay.

04:28 Speaker 2 It's 11 o'clock at night.

04:29 Speaker 1 Almost. Getting there.

04:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, we're getting there. We're burning, we're literally burning the midnight oil over here. Um, the reason we're starting so late is we just came back from, uh, and also kind of the reason I'm here, um, at least tonight, is that we're coming back from a concert of This World is a Garden, which if you listen to this podcast, you've, uh, heard some short advertisements before. Um-

04:55 Speaker 1 So at least you know the advertisement worked at least once.

04:58 Speaker 2 Oh, is that how you heard about it?

04:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so.

05:00 Speaker 2 Okay. Lovely. All right. All right. Amazing. We'll keep, we'll ... But, um, yeah, so we, Shlomo was, um, kind enough to bring the program to Oberlin in, in, in collaboration with the Oberlin Conservatory, which is a world-renowned music school, um, with that trains, you know, some of the most successful musicians and famous musicians in the world, um, classical and so on. And yeah, it was a, it was actually the first time that I got to see it in a, in the program in its entirety, and in the right kind of setting, in the right ki- like, in a proper theater. And yeah, it was, uh, it was quite something, I have to say.

05:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was beautiful. I mean, I spoke at the event at the end. Uh, you know, I, I go to our students' recitals and stuff just to support them.

05:49 Speaker 2 Right.

05:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's music I've never heard, never thought of, never necessarily need to hear again.

05:54 Speaker 2 Right.

05:54 Speaker 1 Uh, we go for, to support the student, and this was just so beautiful sitting watching students that we know- Like I said at the end, playing my music, you know, music that first of all I can anticipate the next note. I know what's gonna happen.

06:06 Speaker 2 Right.

06:06 Speaker 1 You know? It was really s- it was really sp- it was quite moving actually for me to sit there and watch it.

06:10 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. The, you know, uh, the, the music was written as, as some other programs that I've arranged and it, uh, it, somebody that I've collaborated with in the past, uh, Maestro Israel Adelson, um, who's a, who's a good friend of mine and, um, very talented, uh, very talented c- arranger and, uh, and conductor. And yeah, there's something about how he... I've always found with his arrangements that, like, for all the stuff that he puts in and all the techniques, which most of them I don't fully understand, I just like them-

06:51 Speaker 1 Right

06:51 Speaker 2 ... I, the, what, what comes out at the end is a Nigun. Like, it's not, they're not, they don't cover over, they don't like, they don't pile on top of the Nigun. They, they open up the Nigun and, you know, i- there is, there, there are techniques there that are just amazing, right? And, and, and, and you're hearing the Nigun that you've heard, like you said, who knows how many times before, and you're hearing it in an entirely new way. And also, like you said, you know, I don't know these students, but, you know, you've described to me the kind of student that comes to Oberlin, and to see them playing a Nigun and, or to see a Nigun, or to hear a Nigun being played by them and to think, I'm sitting in the front row and I'm looking and I'm thinking, you know, "Where, where does, where did this Nigun start?"

07:38 Speaker 1 Yeah.

07:39 Speaker 2 You know? How is it sung a hund- the Capella Nigun, you know? Sung by the Mitla Rebbe's choir 200 years ago.

07:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know if the Mitla Rebbe thought it would be played at Oberlin College, you know?

07:49 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and like, and like now it's being played by these Jewish students, and, you know, it was just a, it was just, in a way, just a very moving moment to, to be part of it.

08:01 Speaker 1 It was also really special that one of the, two of the students that played in the quartet came over to me afterwards. They, they were just so appreciative to be a part of it, which of course I was appreciative that they were-

08:11 Speaker 2 Right

08:11 Speaker 1 ... they were a part of it. But, um, you know, they expected, "Whatever, something like Jewish music," you know? And they said, "We opened up the sheet music for the first time, and it was like, oh, this is really complicated, beautiful stuff." Um, and the arrangements were, were really sophisticated and, and so I think they gained a greater appreciation. I mean, the dean of the, the dean of the conservatory, who's no musical slouch himself-

08:37 Speaker 2 No

08:37 Speaker 1 ... was very much, you know, appreciating a lot of the, the musical component, a-aside of the message that was brought out through the film and everything else.

08:46 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it was really, it was really interesting to talk to him after, and he's, like, telling me these different nuances in Basse Legani, but-

08:55 Speaker 1 Right

08:56 Speaker 2 ... well, look, I mean, this is, this is the power of, of, a-and, and the, the, the usefulness of, of art.

09:03 Speaker 1 Right.

09:03 Speaker 2 You know? And of a- of any art form. Like, y-you know, there, there is, there is, you know, there are these beautiful things out there, and they're beautiful ideas. You have a Maamer Basse Legani that, you know, in many ways is a very abstract, like the first cha- the first, the opener, the really first half of Basse Legani is a ver-

09:28 Speaker 1 Deep dive in Shekhinah

09:29 Speaker 2 ... is a very complicated pilpul in Shekhinah and dir batachtonim and, and, and, and, you know, it's like, whoa, what... You know. But, but to me, yes, that's, that's a part of it, and, and not something to jump over. That, that is the Maamer, but there's, the, the, it's also a, a, a personal, um, it's a very personal, uh, statement by the Rebbes. You could, you, when you listen to it especially, you hear how personal it is. It's also a kind of historical sketch of Lubavitch leading up to Dyrshiv, laying, laying the background of, of, of, of the seven Dyrs. The Rebbe framing the en- in a way, the entire Avoda of the, of the, of the Rebe- of all the Rebbeim, he pr- he f- he frames it or focuses on their Avos Veshoral.

10:20 Speaker 1 Well, w- I mean, the whole Basse Legani, but really most Maamerim, if not all, the first half is always quite dense, and it's a scaffolding-

10:29 Speaker 2 Right

10:29 Speaker 1 ... that holds up the rest of the, the, the personal part.

10:33 Speaker 2 Right.

10:34 Speaker 1 And the Maaseh Bepel that, that we as the Hasidim have to take away from it.

10:37 Speaker 2 Right.

10:38 Speaker 1 So I, I think that's at... But, but it came through.

10:41 Speaker 2 Right.

10:41 Speaker 1 It comes through in the film, and it comes through in the, in the-

10:43 Speaker 2 The music

10:44 Speaker 1 ... uh, yeah, in the music. This is not an advertisement, though it's an advertisement.

10:47 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:47 Speaker 1 Um, you know, and it, it really, and you see these students, and the, the audience was, was tot- People... I, I, I kinda got a chuckle, you know, right? Like I felt some of the people in the audience, like the dean of the conservatory, probably felt how I normally feel in these recitals. Like, uh, although he can appreciate the musical nuance in a, in a different level, but a little bit removed from it, but he was completely pulled in, as were many others. And then obviously you had, you know, students and people from the Jewish community that came, and-

11:18 Speaker 2 Right

11:19 Speaker 1 ... I was watching the faces. It was really, there was something really magical, and you even watch during the arc of the, the whole production how the whole, the whole tenor of the room changes.

11:30 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah? 'Cause, uh, it's, it's nice to hear. I, I, I, I'm too self-conscious, uh, yeah, 'cause at the end of the day, it, it's my work.

11:38 Speaker 1 Right.

11:38 Speaker 2 So I'm too self-conscious. I'm scared to turn around and see what people are like. Like, are, are they dozing off? Are they looking at their watch? But, uh, you know, it's nice to hear.

11:46 Speaker 1 No, it was really... A-and I think that's the whole, what hits the whole point home of the rubber meets the road in a really unique way. And I mean, that, that type of pr- this type of program was t- in my mind, is made perfectly for Oberlin because it fuses-

12:01 Speaker 2 That's amazing

12:01 Speaker 1 ... it fuses something like music, which they take so seriously, gives them a whole new look at it.

12:07 Speaker 2 Right.

12:08 Speaker 1 Gives them an appreciation For Hasidus and Cha- and Chabad

12:12 Speaker 2 Right

12:13 Speaker 1 And, and it's, it's like playing on two fields at the same time.

12:17 Speaker 2 Mm.

12:17 Speaker 1 We're playing on their field, and we're playing on my field-

12:20 Speaker 2 Mm

12:20 Speaker 1 ... simultaneously.

12:22 Speaker 2 I- interesting. I mean, I, I you know, it's very nice to hear. I, I, I was never in Oberlin before. If someone had told me that I'm making a program that's perfect for Oberlin, I would have laughed. Like, like, like really laughed. Um, but you know, in, in many ways for me, coming up with the program was, was, was also playing on two fields in my own, in my own world, right? It, it... I wasn't, I wasn't thinking of like how do I convey this mayim to a non-frum or non-Lubavitcher or maybe an Oberlin non-bina-binary- ... student. You know, like no. Um, to me it's like there's a side of me that, that, you know, is happy to like just go on f-full, full Hasidus pilpul for like, you know, two hours and just get lost in complete abstraction. And then there's a part of me that like wants something that's more visceral and like, you know, you wanna visualize it. You, you wanna feel it.

13:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:22 Speaker 2 You know, I was, I was telling the dean that, you know... So I had this idea already probably for like a year, like Basse LeGani, I, I need to make something like out of it. And then, you know, it just, it kind of percolates, and you're like, "Okay, this, and then okay, I'll... maybe the, the mayim and then the nigunim, and then okay, but I, I'm str- I'm str-" Like, so at the beginning I'm like thinking, "Okay, am I going to like make each part of the f- film about one of the rebbeim to correspond to the nigunim or..." It was, it was too dense. It's very... It, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a balance exactly how to get it, and what, what gave me the like the key to or, or the path into the, the way I ended up doing it, um, was last year, the last days of Pesach, we went to Pomona. My parents took a house there, and we went, and we spent the last days of Pesach in Pomona. And by the Sedei Nigunim, by Sodas HaMashiach, um, I was sitting next to, I think his name is Reitzis, maybe not. The, the, the guy who runs Sedei Nigunim usually in 770, he's a baal menagen. And you know, so he was, he was running the Sedei Nigunim with the rebbeim. And I, you know, out of curiosity I asked him, you know, "How, how did it work by Fab- like by Fabregin? Like, how did this work?" And

14:43 Speaker 2 he said, "You know, the way it worked was is that they would wait till the clock showed that it's, it's shkiyah, the sun's going down, and that's when they would start singing the nigunim." And for some reason, the second he said that to me, it like it clicked.

14:57 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:57 Speaker 2 Everything clicked because... And that's how the film starts.

15:00 Speaker 1 Right.

15:00 Speaker 2 That like when the sun is setting and Yom Tov is ending, we're, we're going to start singing the nigunim.

15:06 Speaker 1 Mm.

15:06 Speaker 2 Like when, when the day's coming to an end or Yom Tov's coming to an end, and there's always that, that sense of you're losing something, we're going to hold onto something. A- and so I was telling the dean that, you know, we're always, we're always letting go of stuff. That's what time does to us. It forces us to let go. There's no way to hold onto everything. You know, you... as you get older, you, you let go of your childhood innocence. You know, as you get even older, you sadly have to at, at different points let go of loved ones. Like you're forced to.

15:41 Speaker 1 Right.

15:41 Speaker 2 Right? And you, you constantly have to let go of stuff. And so the question is not if you're gonna let go, the question is what you're gonna hold onto.

15:49 Speaker 1 Right.

15:50 Speaker 2 What are you... Right?

15:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

15:51 Speaker 2 And-

15:52 Speaker 1 And listen, it, it grabbed people. There was a... at the end, I, you know, told anybody that wanted to learn Basse LeGani, you should contact me. There's one student, we learn every week together. Their grandfather passed away a couple years ago. So we started learning. First started Pirkei Avos. We finished Pirkei Avos. We started learning some other mayim. Last week we, we... or a few weeks we've been working, uh, uh, finished the Ras- uh, Rashi Sikha last week, and they texted me, uh, right away, "Let's start this, uh, next week."

16:19 Speaker 2 This mayim.

16:20 Speaker 1 So-

16:20 Speaker 2 Good luck.

16:21 Speaker 1 No, but you know-

16:22 Speaker 2 Good luck

16:23 Speaker 1 ... one thing I actually meant to say at the end of the... You know, I was talking about paradoxes. So I've taught this mayim-

16:27 Speaker 2 That, that, that was a beautiful speech. Yes

16:29 Speaker 1 ... uh, I've taught, I've taught this mayim on campus before. I've taught this mayim in prison to inmates before.

16:34 Speaker 2 Really?

16:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, so I'm, I'm in prison every week, uh, with a, with a handful of, uh, guys. And, uh, so I've taught it there and I, uh, you know, so, uh, yeah, it's meant to be taught everywhere. It's, it's, it's, uh-

16:49 Speaker 2 It's, it's a powerful mayim. It's a powerful mayim. Anyway, that, that's the end of the-

16:53 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:53 Speaker 2 That's the end of the advert for this program. That's how, that's now-

16:56 Speaker 1 You don't need to run your, uh, your advertisement

16:59 Speaker 2 No, this, this is precisely where I'm gonna run it. Spring is here, which means that in two months many communities will be looking for a way to mark Gimmel Tammuz, the Rebbe's Yahrtzeit. If you're looking for an event that is memorable, meaningful, and affordable, let me recommend This World Is a Garden, a film and live concert production created by us here at Yuvala Media inspired by Basse LeGani, the first mayim the Rebbe said. If you're a regular here at HFL, you know that Basse LeGani is something that we think about and talk about a lot. And in this production, we use the power of cinematic filmmaking and a live concert by string quartet to bring the beauty of Basse LeGani to your community and your audience in a way that they've never seen, heard, or experienced it before. The production has already been hosted by Chabad houses around the country and has drawn wonderful reviews. Our package comes with everything that you need to put on the production, the film's original arrangements for string quartet, publicity materials, everything besides the string quartet, which we recommend that you hire locally to save on travel costs. To find out more about this production, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. Again, thisworldisagarden.com. And now, back to the show. All right. So, so back, so back, so back to you. And, uh, uh, anyway, it also explains what I'm doing here. Uh, so back to you now that we're here. Now that we're here, so why don't you give a little bit

18:21 Speaker 2 of background how, uh, a good Jewish boy ends up, um, from New York, you started?

18:28 Speaker 1 Originally New York.

18:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

18:29 Speaker 1 But I left New York when I was seven.

18:30 Speaker 2 New York by way of Marietta, Georgia, ends up in, in the, the fair weather town of Overland, Ohio.

18:38 Speaker 1 Corn- the corn fields and soybean fields of Ohio.

18:41 Speaker 2 It's the weather that pulled you here.

18:43 Speaker 1 Uh, I say we ran out- ... of gas on the way to Chicago is usually what I tell people, but, uh- ... 'cause we're right off the 80. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, you know, it really is this, uh, small rural town. Our, our Walmart has horse and buggy parking.

18:57 Speaker 2 Really?

18:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, we're at the edge of Amish country over here.

18:59 Speaker 2 Oh, so you really are near the Amish.

19:01 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, we have Ami- I mean, Amish helped build this house. Uh-

19:05 Speaker 2 Really?

19:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. So-

19:06 Speaker 2 Yeah, we have plenty of Amish here in Philadelphia, too, but-

19:08 Speaker 1 Right. So, um, how did we get here? Um, I'm not sure where to start exactly. Um, yeah, originally from New York, Westchester. Uh, the Yonkers area is where I was born.

19:21 Speaker 2 Sure. The beginning of Westchester.

19:22 Speaker 1 Yeah, right in the beginning of Westchester, and, uh, the not so nice part of Westchester. Um, and then-

19:30 Speaker 2 Working class

19:31 Speaker 1 ... when I was seven, we, my parents really... Then New York was really not great. It was the pre, pre-Giuliani years, and, um, parents really wanted to get out of New York, and whatever they thought they were gonna move to Florida, we ended up in Atlanta due to my father's job. Uh, he worked for AT&T, corporate guy. So they took us there. So, uh, we ended up in the suburbs of Atlanta, and, um, Lubavitch was not something that was on my radar, uh, at all.

20:03 Speaker 2 Was Yiddishkeit something in your family's radar?

20:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, we always knew we were Jewish. Um, my father's parents, um, from Germany, came out. My, uh, my grandmother came out of Germany on Kindertransport. My grandfather came out in '39 s- uh, straight to New York, so fairly late. Um-

20:23 Speaker 2 But your parents took you to shul?

20:26 Speaker 1 Yeah, we belong... You know, so I, I ran the whole gamut. In New York, we belonged to a Reform temple.

20:31 Speaker 2 Okay.

20:31 Speaker 1 When we moved to Atlanta, we joined the Conservative temple.

20:33 Speaker 2 Okay.

20:34 Speaker 1 And after that, I went rogue on my own, um, and explored a bunch of other, you know, uh, uh, not a bunch of other. Within Yiddishkeit, uh, you know, just, uh, started learning a lot. But I, in... So New York, whatever, I, I, I don't really remember too much. I was seven, so-

20:50 Speaker 2 Right

20:50 Speaker 1 ... when we left. Atlanta, we went to shul, Rosh Hashanah.

20:55 Speaker 2 Chabad was there already, this is before?

20:57 Speaker 1 Uh, Chabad was there, came shortly after we got there.

21:00 Speaker 2 Okay.

21:00 Speaker 1 A little bit aft- a little bit after. Growing up a little bit, you know, as a young teenager, the only thing I knew about Chabad, 'cause it was down the street from the Conservative temple where, where we went, that's the place you don't go. Um-

21:13 Speaker 2 But your parents were-

21:14 Speaker 1 Not my parents. My, m- I o- I often joke that, you know, everybody has that one Orthodox cousin or whatever. Um, we didn't have that, so I became that for the rest of my family. Um, my parents weren't anti anything. Um, it came from the pulpit, came from the rabbi. Uh, um-

21:34 Speaker 2 Oh, he was, he was intimidated by Chabad.

21:36 Speaker 1 Big time. Anti-Orthodox, anti-Chabad, especially 'cause it was in his backyard-

21:40 Speaker 2 Right

21:41 Speaker 1 ... and it was impacting him. Uh, and at the same time, through him, I was exposed to a tremendous amount of Jewish learning, and if-

21:49 Speaker 2 Through the Conservative rabbi

21:50 Speaker 1 ... yeah. If not for him and his encouragement and, uh, and I definitely wouldn't be where I am today.

21:56 Speaker 2 Right.

21:56 Speaker 1 I mean, at one, at one point, actually one Rosh Hashanah, I was already frum at this point, he was speaking from the pulpit on a, a- about really anti-Orthodoxy, and my mother went to his office afterwards and complained like, "Wait, you're talking about my son and his friends, you know? That's, and it's not true." And he said, "Well, I take responsibility, you know, for Shlomo being where he is today." My mother got offended by that and told me about it. I said, "I think he's 100% right." Uh, he was very encouraging of me.

22:23 Speaker 2 To become Orthodox?

22:24 Speaker 1 No, to learn about Ju- to learn Judaism I- within a framework maybe of the Conservative movement.

22:29 Speaker 2 Right.

22:30 Speaker 1 But, um, yeah, we grew up... You know, it was interesting, we were very proud Jews, and certain things were non- non-negotiables, right?

22:42 Speaker 2 Right.

22:42 Speaker 1 Two days Rosh Hashanah, absolutely. You know? Uh, Yom Kippur, uh, we always made a Pesach Seder, and unironically, 'cause we didn't know better, like, our favorite meal was, like, pepperoni p- matzah pizza, you know?

22:56 Speaker 2 Right.

22:56 Speaker 1 Growing up. Uh, slowly, slowly, my sister, I have an older sister, she got involved with the Jewish youth group in the Conservative movement called USY. So my parents encouraged me to get involved with it. I didn't wanna go 'cause I thought it was for nerds.

23:12 Speaker 2 All right.

23:12 Speaker 1 Maybe it just says more about me. I, I went, and I loved it. Um, and I got really, really involved. And w- almost, by the time I was, like, uh, in 10th, 10th grade, almost every Shabbos I was away at some kind of Shabbaton with USY.

23:28 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

23:29 Speaker 1 Again, learning very much, a lot of Jewish learning within their context.

23:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

23:34 Speaker 1 Then between my 11th and 12th grade year-

23:37 Speaker 2 Were you, were you a, like, a very, uh, um, a big student in general? You liked learning in general? Or was it just, like, some Yiddishkeit bug that you had?

23:48 Speaker 1 I always loved learning. I always hated school.

23:50 Speaker 2 Okay.

23:50 Speaker 1 Um-

23:50 Speaker 2 No, that, uh, I mean-

23:51 Speaker 1 Yeah

23:51 Speaker 2 ... that's fair.

23:52 Speaker 1 Um-

23:53 Speaker 2 You liked reading, basically.

23:54 Speaker 1 Loved reading. I would get mad at my teachers in high school-

23:56 Speaker 2 Yeah

23:57 Speaker 1 ... because the books-

23:57 Speaker 2 You loved-

23:57 Speaker 1 ... they were assigning, I read when I was in third grade.

23:59 Speaker 2 You loved reading, and you hated dis- ... and you hated discipline.

24:01 Speaker 1 I hated structure.

24:02 Speaker 2 Yes. Okay.

24:04 Speaker 1 Um-

24:04 Speaker 2 Also, also-

24:05 Speaker 1 Some things don't change

24:05 Speaker 2 ... also, you're, you're a guy.

24:07 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah.

24:08 Speaker 2 Yeah.

24:08 Speaker 1 And, and so I was... And then I was involved, uh, I'd gotten involved in the business world fairly young, so I really appreciated that. So I hated school because it was just holding me back.

24:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, a waste of time.

24:19 Speaker 1 Um, in many ways. But, um, but I was always exploring, always interested in learning, always reading. Always, always reading.

24:26 Speaker 2 Okay. Good.

24:26 Speaker 1 You know, staying, staying up under my covers with a flashlight reading in my bed af- long after bedtime as a kid kind of thing.

24:33 Speaker 2 Right.

24:33 Speaker 1 Um, so going to these Shabbatons between my 11th and 12th grade year of high school, I went on a USY, again, this Conservative movement youth group, uh, trip to Poland and Israel.

24:45 Speaker 2 Hmm.

24:45 Speaker 1 And while in Israel, at the time I thought it would be the only time I'd ever be in Israel. Little did I know I was gonna end up marrying an Israeli girl. Little did I know that I'd lead nearly 40 Birthright trips.

24:56 Speaker 2 Right.

24:57 Speaker 1 You know, whatever. I don't even know how many times I've been to Israel now. But-

25:00 Speaker 2 Right

25:00 Speaker 1 ... uh, at the time I thought it was, that was it. So any and every-

25:04 Speaker 2 Was this before Birthright?

25:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. But I was in high school, so Birthright was irrelevant anyways.

25:09 Speaker 2 No, but I'm saying it was before the whole concept of Israel-

25:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Before B- it was right before Birthright.

25:14 Speaker 2 Right.

25:14 Speaker 1 Right before Birthright.

25:15 Speaker 2 Right. So in, uh, those, that, the, uh In those days, going to Israel was not, like, a given for-

25:21 Speaker 1 Correct

25:21 Speaker 2 ... American kids in general.

25:23 Speaker 1 Correct.

25:23 Speaker 2 So it made sense to think that may- this might be the only time.

25:26 Speaker 1 Correct. And, like, for kids involved, like in USY, like, people d- they called it pilgrimage. Like, people did pilgrimage, you know?

25:32 Speaker 2 Once.

25:33 Speaker 1 Once.

25:33 Speaker 2 Right.

25:34 Speaker 1 Um, so I did the trip, and on the trip, it was six weeks in I- it was a week in, eight days in Poland, six weeks in Israel.

25:40 Speaker 2 Okay.

25:41 Speaker 1 And one week we're staying at a hostel in, in Yerushalayim, and, like, our madricha was like, "Anybody that wants to go to synagogue can come with me to the synagogue that I normally go to." Again, I'm, I'm up for any opportunity. Like, it's gonna be my only time ever experiencing this. Let's go. So I went, and I walk into the shul, and it was 14 to 20-year-olds. That's all that was there. Not a single adult. And the place was, was r- rocking and rolling. Now I, I look back on it, like I'm, I'm reflecting on it with 20-plus years now of hindsight, but it was super authentic a- and everybody wanted to be there.

26:23 Speaker 2 Where was the shul?

26:24 Speaker 1 So I'm I'm getting there.

26:25 Speaker 2 Okay.

26:26 Speaker 1 So it w- everybody wanted to be there. Now, my experience as a teenager was no, what teen wants to be in synagogue, you know?

26:33 Speaker 2 Right.

26:34 Speaker 1 You go for your pass off so you can have your bar mitzvah. That, then, then that's it. You're done.

26:38 Speaker 2 Right.

26:38 Speaker 1 You know, and some family simchas. Uh, it was a Bnei Akiva clubhouse.

26:43 Speaker 2 Mm. Mm.

26:43 Speaker 1 Which again, that didn't mean anything to me at the time. Uh, later on it, it came to mean something.

26:49 Speaker 2 It was the teenage energy.

26:50 Speaker 1 Yeah, and there's not an adult in the, there's not an adult in sight.

26:54 Speaker 2 Right.

26:54 Speaker 1 Like, keeping order or telling... Nothing. The pla- they were singing. The place was rocking and rolling. It was so, like, raw and authentic. I know those sound like trite words, but, but it was just raw and authentic.

27:04 Speaker 2 Yeah.

27:05 Speaker 1 Then the next Shabbat, so I was, like, flying high. It was my first time ever in an Orthodox shul, ever.

27:10 Speaker 2 Oh.

27:11 Speaker 1 And that had a deep impact. And then the second Sha- the next Shabbos, they said, "Anybody wants to go to synagogue, synagogue up the road. Second-best kiddush in Yerushalayim." Sold. Like, I didn't need any bigger advertisement other than maybe the first-best kiddush. But first-best kiddush, uh, had a long sermon, so I chose the second-best, uh, kiddush.

27:30 Speaker 2 Fair. Fair.

27:31 Speaker 1 And it was an older crowd. It was the Yamin Moshe Ashkenaz shul.

27:36 Speaker 2 Okay.

27:36 Speaker 1 And people were so welcoming, and it had the same authenticity.

27:42 Speaker 2 Huh.

27:43 Speaker 1 And I was very taken by it. So after that, when I come back to America, we had a family friend who also started becoming observant, and I started going to his house for Shabbos. He was newly married, started going to his house for Shabbos, and started getting involved with not Chabad, actually. I started... I mean, the timeline was very tight, but I started becoming frum and then found Chabad. Most of the time people do the opposite.

28:08 Speaker 2 In Marietta?

28:10 Speaker 1 So he lived in another neighborhood called Toco Hills, but say, you know, little-

28:13 Speaker 2 Oh, is it next to each other?

28:15 Speaker 1 No, it's a little down the road. I mean, half hour away down the highway.

28:18 Speaker 2 He start- he started in Toco Hills?

28:19 Speaker 1 He, he was from Marietta but lived in Toco Hills now that he-

28:22 Speaker 2 Ra- Rabbi Silverman?

28:23 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. I started going to a different, like a modern Orthodox shul with this guy.

28:26 Speaker 2 No, the Chabad that you found eventually.

28:28 Speaker 1 No, the first Chabad I found was actually at Emory with, uh, Zalman Lipsker.

28:32 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Huh.

28:33 Speaker 1 Uh, 'cause a friend of mine from USY was at Emory and was like, "Hey, I started going to this place for Shabbos dinner. You wanna come?"

28:40 Speaker 2 So, so he had just started, I imagine.

28:42 Speaker 1 Mamish. Like j- it was, like, me and four other students eating off of china in an apartment. And then I became over time, like a Ben Bayis in the house, and-

28:51 Speaker 2 Huh

28:51 Speaker 1 ... that was a major formative time for me. I, you know, I, you can learn a lot in the Beit Midrash. You learn a whole different set of what it is to be a Yid than a Hasid, you know, and see how a father talks to his children, and a husband talks to his wife, and how one carries themself. And from Lipsker in particular, you know, learned you don't go to sleep until you finish Rambam, and, uh, a lot of other things that the, the intangibles and what you pick up that you can't pick up necessarily in a Sefer, in a Beit Midrash. But was... 'Cause I, I literally lived in their house, um, almost every Shabbos. I was delivering food to the hospital when Miriam gave birth. I mean, like, really part of the family. I had also was a local kid with a pickup truck, which every shliach needs a local kid with a pickup truck, but, um-

29:40 Speaker 2 And some muscles.

29:42 Speaker 1 At the time.

29:43 Speaker 2 You were lifting then?

29:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

29:45 Speaker 2 Okay.

29:45 Speaker 1 Um, and I was local, meaning the Emory kids went home on breaks, and I was still there-

29:50 Speaker 2 Yeah

29:50 Speaker 1 ... 'cause I lived, uh, you know, in town.

29:52 Speaker 2 Yeah, useful, for sure.

29:53 Speaker 1 And I was useful, but we were mutually beneficial. So sh- fairly early on, he asked me to learn Tanya. Uh, when I... And I was learning Shulchan Aruch and some Gemara with, like, a Litvish rabbi, uh, also. But when I opened up Tanya, and I always say, and it's, it's also maybe a little trite, but Baruch... I had a great family. I had good friends. I was fulfilled. I had a job. I was making money. Like, I wasn't looking for anything. Uh, we started learning Tanya, and I found, I found something really s- it felt, I felt at home.

30:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

30:27 Speaker 1 A- and that started a whole journey of learning Chassidus.

30:30 Speaker 2 Which part of Tanya, if you remember? Like, like what's the, what's the... Looking back, what's the message that, that, that caught your eye and made you feel at home?

30:40 Speaker 1 So, so, you know, it's not like one pasuk or, or something like that.

30:43 Speaker 2 No, but the idea.

30:44 Speaker 1 The, the Inyan that caught me was, I... And until today, I still love Halakha. I learn a lot of Halakha. Um, it sounds like a catchphrase, but I really mean it. Halakha is how to be Jewish. Chassidus is why.

30:59 Speaker 2 Okay.

31:00 Speaker 1 And I started learning about the Aibishter in a real way, and it stopped becoming- Just like this. I mean, obviously it's still very ethereal, but-

31:09 Speaker 2 But Tanya isn't really just, uh, Tanya isn't-

31:12 Speaker 1 Of course it is. It's all about Chelek Eloka, and it's about your relationship with the A basher.

31:15 Speaker 2 Okay.

31:16 Speaker 1 And Seder Hishtalshelus, and, and the Sefiros, and i- it's, it's, it's a microcosm of, of the universe, which is a microcosm of Hashem.

31:24 Speaker 2 Okay.

31:24 Speaker 1 You know? So in that sense, it was-

31:28 Speaker 2 Okay

31:28 Speaker 1 ... and coming from the background that I came from, Yiddishkeit is you can't do this, you can't do that, and there's a lot of contradictions.

31:35 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

31:35 Speaker 1 And then I started learning Halakha, I appreciated the nuance of it.

31:38 Speaker 2 Mm.

31:39 Speaker 1 I appreciated how to start im- implementing that into my life, but, but why?

31:43 Speaker 2 Right.

31:44 Speaker 1 What's, what's the point?

31:46 Speaker 2 Right. Look, uh-

31:48 Speaker 1 It stops becoming a because I said so.

31:50 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, you know, sometimes, sometimes that, uh, I- I think about things just because of the sequence of the people I spoke to on, in the podcast, and, you know, there's no other reason for, for why I think of it this way. But I was just talking to our Rosenblum in Pittsburgh, and, you know, uh, when you're educating children, you know, especially today, where you're very often starting with chil-

32:21 Speaker 1 Yeah

32:21 Speaker 2 ... educating children where you cannot s- make the assumptions that you used to make because the home is different than you would assume-

32:30 Speaker 1 Sure

32:30 Speaker 2 ... then everything is, like, what the kid picked up in their mind between yesterday's school and today's school, God knows what it was, so you're always starting away from scratch. So the question is, what is that, what is that first step that you come to? Like, how do you-

32:47 Speaker 1 Yeah

32:47 Speaker 2 ... you know? And, and, and, and, and I, I think that's what you're talking about here, like, a lot, you know, Halakha, like, if, if, if you wanna ensure that your kid's gonna care about, is gonna be a, a Yer- a, a, a have Yerushalayim as they, you know, as they grow up and, and go out of your clutches, like, is, is teaching them the don't, do's and don'ts on its own going to, going to last? No, like, because like you said, at some point, when they get to choose if they wanna do it or not-

33:15 Speaker 1 Correct

33:15 Speaker 2 ... why would they wanna choose it? Because they know, if anything, all the yeses and nos is what scares you away.

33:22 Speaker 1 Correct.

33:23 Speaker 2 Right?

33:23 Speaker 1 Correct. Um, I, I, I think, I think that that's the case, and the other element of it that was so, I can be a pretty black-and-white person, and it always bothered me growing up, you know, Shabbos morning, you go to synagogue, and actually even as an older teenager, I liked going, and I would go to synagogue myself or my mother would meet me there or whatever.

33:48 Speaker 2 Temple.

33:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

33:50 Speaker 2 Right.

33:50 Speaker 1 Uh, conservative temple.

33:51 Speaker 2 Right.

33:52 Speaker 1 Um, always bothered me, the act of you're, you're in shul for whatever, I mean, they're three and a half, four hour, whatever it is.

34:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. They, they, they go a decent amount.

34:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Two, I mean, you know? And, um, when you leave, you take your yarmulke and you drop it in the box.

34:09 Speaker 2 Ah, interesting.

34:10 Speaker 1 And when I was in the Frum community, when I was by Chabad, especially by Chabad, it's, it's a through-and-through lived experience.

34:19 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

34:20 Speaker 1 Like, you don't-

34:21 Speaker 2 Right

34:21 Speaker 1 ... a, a group of my friends, you, oh, you're a full-time Jew. Like, yeah, like, it, it's not an, it's not an identity that you take on and off.

34:28 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

34:28 Speaker 1 It's not a garment that just goes on and off.

34:30 Speaker 2 Yeah.

34:31 Speaker 1 It's, it permeates, whether you go to a baseball game, you're going to a baseball game as a Jew. Whether you go, you know, whatever it is you're doing, you're doing it as a Jew. And so, I mean, it, it became physically represented by the yarmulke in the box, and I remember-

34:44 Speaker 2 And then the beard.

34:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, the beard came a little bit later. I mean, I always had a, even from 15, I always had something, so-

34:50 Speaker 2 I'm saying, like, the, a beard, the beard doesn't go away, ever.

34:52 Speaker 1 The beard doesn't go away. Yeah, but you can look like a redneck, you know?

34:55 Speaker 2 Yeah, fine. Yeah, Levant your beard is pretty.

34:58 Speaker 1 Um, but, but that, that it was a fully immersive, you know, thing. You're all in.

35:04 Speaker 2 Right.

35:05 Speaker 1 You know? Uh, and it's not taking it on and putting it off, and now I'm being Jewish, and now I'm being an American, or now I'm being whatever else it is. But a- and seeing that lived out by, by Frum people-

35:18 Speaker 2 Right

35:18 Speaker 1 ... um, was very profound and very moving. And, and so what it's telling you in the books-

35:25 Speaker 2 Right

35:25 Speaker 1 ... is, is coming off the page and coming very alive. Uh, and then I got involved with other Chabad houses, multiple other Chabad houses, and-

35:33 Speaker 2 Yeah

35:33 Speaker 1 ... I was kind of everywhere. I davened in the Sephardi Shul, in the Litvish Shul, in the, uh, everywhere.

35:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know, maybe it's the time of night, but, but, but it, it's funny when you're talking about it, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm thinking about how, you know, this, the, this impression that you have when you're on your way in is some, is, is, is almost so co- is, is so common that it's almost a trope at this point.

35:58 Speaker 1 Right.

35:59 Speaker 2 The, the kind of purity with which the soon-to-be Ba'al Teshuvah, I don't know how you call yourself, uh, but the person coming in, um, sees Frumkeit, and very often, I don't know, maybe you wanna talk about it soon, very often there can be a, after that mo- after that period of innocence and, you know, and, and enthusiasm, there can be a period of disillusionment and, and, and cynicism, right? Because it's not as, it's not as pristine and, and coherent and, and like, like, and, and, and, and, and obvious as it seemed in the first place. And a lot of times, like, yeah, yeah, you know, like, they didn't really know what's up from that. But as I'm talking to you, and maybe, like I said, maybe it's the time of night, so I'm, like, more open- ... uh, to innocence, and my cynical side is down. Maybe it was the music from earlier, I don't know. But-

36:54 Speaker 1 It's the air of Oberlin

36:55 Speaker 2 ... in the air of Oberlin, yeah, the-

36:57 Speaker 1 It opens you up.

36:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, the Yerushalayim that percolates over here. I mean, you're a Chabad house, so maybe that's what it is. But, um- You know, the... Again, I listen to it. Look-

37:09 Speaker 1 So-

37:09 Speaker 2 There, there is, there is a coherence here. You know, like, like Chassidus says or Chassidus quotes from the Pasuk, "Kim osas adam yashar," right?

37:17 Speaker 1 Right.

37:18 Speaker 2 Like, like God's ways, it, it all makes sense. Like, not just on paper, but like literally really makes sense. Like, if you follow it, the, what, what you're describing where like, it's not like, you know, three hours this way and then three hours a wa- a contradiction, and life is just this confusing, bumbling mess. No, no, like... And like, and even, you know, and, and I... Like, you, you, you meet people, like you meet people. Uh, to me always the image was like my, my Rosh Sh- my, my late Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Sol Friedman, where like he, he, he wasn't only a Talmid Chaham, he wasn't only a Chassid. Like he, he would, he would learn, he was a brilliant man, would learn, would learn nigleh with, with love of art and Tanya, would daven like a Yid. But he was also put together, would show up on time. You know, he would, he, he, he took care of his health. Like, like he walked up... He was 75 years old, would walk up four flights of stairs-

38:14 Speaker 1 Right

38:14 Speaker 2 ... to the Beis Midrash. Like, like there were pe- ... Like, it's like, "Wow, this man is put together." Like, his life is coherent. Now, th- do I know everything about his life? No, but from what I could tell, like things made sense.

38:27 Speaker 1 Sure.

38:28 Speaker 2 And so there is something to it. Sadly, like, like the, you know, like was-

38:33 Speaker 1 So, so, you know, it's interesting, uh-

38:35 Speaker 2 But you see what I'm saying?

38:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Pu- pure and innocent is not... I don't know if anybody would have ever defined me that way. Um, I wa- like I always had a healthy dose of cynicism. I also-

38:45 Speaker 2 Even on your way in.

38:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And, and a-

38:47 Speaker 2 Sure

38:47 Speaker 1 ... a lot of exposure also, which was really interesting. Again, maybe hindsight, but I remem- I had my feet in a lot of boxes.

38:54 Speaker 2 But so you didn't have any cyni- cynicism towards the Lubavitchers that you observed?

38:57 Speaker 1 No. No. So I'll, I'll tell you a few things. I mean, but the, the, there was a lot of different things that I, that I noticed. I ha- I had my feet in a lot of different boxes, so I was living simultaneously like in this Litvish Kiruv world-

39:12 Speaker 2 Okay

39:12 Speaker 1 ... and Chabad, and side by side.

39:16 Speaker 2 So you didn't yet consider yourself a Lubavitcher?

39:19 Speaker 1 Not till after I was married.

39:20 Speaker 2 Okay. So you were, you were dabbling.

39:22 Speaker 1 I prided myself on being what I call the Klali.

39:26 Speaker 2 Okay.

39:26 Speaker 1 Like, just I'll take all the good from everywhere and-

39:29 Speaker 2 By myself.

39:30 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I'll take, you know... And that came to a head, maybe a conversation for later, like at some point you, you gotta raise your kids somehow. Um-

39:37 Speaker 2 Oh, is that what it was?

39:39 Speaker 1 Well, the short, short version, we'll circle back around, was we init- my wife grew up in Israel, and, uh, our engagement was I'll tonight within our fir- within five years we'll be back in Israel. Uh, you can be a Klali in Israel. Um-

39:51 Speaker 2 When you married her, she wasn't Lubavitch?

39:53 Speaker 1 Also, correct.

39:54 Speaker 2 She-

39:54 Speaker 1 She grew up like in a Dati Leumi or Rav Kook family with heavy Chabad influence.

39:59 Speaker 2 So, yeah, okay.

40:00 Speaker 1 But, uh, like I-

40:02 Speaker 2 It's not uncommon in Israel.

40:04 Speaker 1 No. And I would say like they're, they're a really good Klali Dati type of family, you know.

40:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. Take, yeah.

40:09 Speaker 1 And in Israel you can do that. Um, so our initial thought was, or initial plan was, uh, you know, we'd be back in Israel.

40:17 Speaker 2 But see, but, but you married each other not as soon to be Lubavitchers.

40:20 Speaker 1 Correct.

40:21 Speaker 2 You married each other as our own, our own thing.

40:23 Speaker 1 Just our own little chaunt, you know.

40:24 Speaker 2 Right.

40:25 Speaker 1 And especially being in America, I don't know, after my first kid was born, it was kinda like you, you gotta pick a calf, and so-

40:33 Speaker 2 But why not move back to Israel?

40:35 Speaker 1 Um, you know, menschen tracht un Got lacht. Uh, there's a long story with how-

40:39 Speaker 2 I don't-

40:39 Speaker 1 ... why we ended up not-

40:39 Speaker 2 So it, so it didn't work out. Okay.

40:41 Speaker 1 Um, yeah. Um, uh, we could, we could talk about it-

40:45 Speaker 2 No, no

40:46 Speaker 1 ... you know, but, uh-

40:46 Speaker 2 I'm not-

40:47 Speaker 1 It's not, it's nothing secret or personal, but, um-

40:49 Speaker 2 It didn't work out.

40:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. So but even, even before that, I mean, my first daughter was born within that five-year window.

40:55 Speaker 2 Okay.

40:55 Speaker 1 And, uh, it was like, you know, you gotta, you gotta f- educate your kids somehow.

41:00 Speaker 2 Right.

41:00 Speaker 1 Um, and Chabad became the, the natural, maybe like an aversion towards certain other things, especially in America that were, were and weren't available.

41:10 Speaker 2 Mm.

41:11 Speaker 1 Um, Don Seeman, who's a professor at Emory of, uh, anthropology, but of the, of Chassidim specifically, he once... I was back visiting, he said, "Why Chabad?" And part of my answer was like, "That's what I was exposed to." You know, I don't know, maybe if there were Slonim or Chassidim around, I would've become a Slonim. I don't, I don't know. Or whatever else. But obviously there's something of Chassidus Chabad that, that also grabbed me.

41:33 Speaker 2 Okay.

41:34 Speaker 1 But, but going back to the naivete or the, the, the... What I saw in the, the community that I was living wi- in, uh, which was like this Litvish Kiruv community, was this, um, goddelizing of the rabbis.

41:55 Speaker 2 Mm.

41:56 Speaker 1 And I did not see that in Chabad amongst the Shluchim in Atlanta at all. Uh, maybe it was also part of like how in on the Lipskers' house I was. Like, I saw them really living, and I heard the, you know, some of the backend, a lot of the backend conversations.

42:11 Speaker 2 So but, but they did, they, they didn't do that a- about the Rebbe?

42:15 Speaker 1 About the Rebbe, yes.

42:16 Speaker 2 Right.

42:17 Speaker 1 Um, and that's a whole... Like, even how I, how I first started relating to the Rebbe, how I think about the Rebbe was, was a process too.

42:25 Speaker 2 Right.

42:26 Speaker 1 But, uh, but just in terms of the, the communities and stuff like that.

42:29 Speaker 2 Right.

42:30 Speaker 1 And, and I had a close relationship with a lot of the rabbis in, in the, in the, the Litvish community there as well. And I, and there's a lot of Belz Chassidim in that comm- it was basically a Belz Chassid community.

42:40 Speaker 2 Right.

42:40 Speaker 1 And the minute the rabbis would fall from grace in their mind, they'd fall off their pedestal, like there went their Yiddishkeit.

42:48 Speaker 2 Hmm.

42:49 Speaker 1 And I did not see that happening in Lubavitch. Like, also part of the whole thing was like it's... And I was very... Like, my Yiddishkeit was built by me. Lipskers were there and, and others, like very much to, to support me, to help me, to guide me, but it was, it was definitely my avodah. Like, nobody ever once said to me like, "You should do this."

43:08 Speaker 2 Right.

43:09 Speaker 1 "You should go to yeshiva."

43:10 Speaker 2 Right.

43:10 Speaker 1 "You should start keeping Shabbat." Nobody.

43:13 Speaker 2 Hmm.

43:13 Speaker 1 They were there to support me Along the way, 100%. Like I, I don't wanna minimize all of the-

43:20 Speaker 2 Sure

43:20 Speaker 1 ... roles in my life.

43:22 Speaker 2 Sure. Sure.

43:22 Speaker 1 But it was very much my-

43:24 Speaker 2 Sure

43:24 Speaker 1 ... blood, sweat, and tears, right?

43:27 Speaker 2 Mm.

43:27 Speaker 1 Um, y- you know, from, uh, a lot of the shluchim around Atlanta, you know? I was involved with a lot of them. Um, so when I saw that difference, um, and maybe slightly less politically correct, I remember once, I remember it so specifically, we were building a sukkah, uh, at the Chabad at Emory, it's... And I think it was bochurim, and they were like poking fun of the, the snags, you know, the Litvaks and, and I thought, "Oh, so Chabad's all about obvious shalom till you're frum. Is that how it goes?" You know? And it was like, ooh, the ener- though the-

43:58 Speaker 2 That's what you said

43:59 Speaker 1 ... you, I said that to them. And I was like, just c- ... So I was willing to push on ba- you know, the ear like got sucked out of the-

44:05 Speaker 2 Okay. So you're saying you, you, you didn't go in like all, all starry-eyed.

44:09 Speaker 1 S- I was never starry-eyed. Never starry-eyed. And I mean, looking back now, some of my process feels very fast, but it felt very slow, very bite-sized. Like, there was no like light switch moment. Like yesterday I was frum or I wasn't frum, today I'm frum.

44:23 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

44:23 Speaker 1 Like it was very, very, ver-

44:27 Speaker 2 Mm.

44:27 Speaker 1 And I was young. I started at like 17, 18-

44:30 Speaker 2 Right

44:30 Speaker 1 ... 19, you know? And, and it was a real process of learning things and incorporating into my life and experiencing. And like, even like Crown Heights, like I go to Crown Heights like on my own. Like it wasn't like, "Oh, have to stay by my mother, and she'll take care of you." And-

44:47 Speaker 2 So where, where did you stay?

44:48 Speaker 1 Whatever. I s- stayed by people's houses.

44:50 Speaker 2 And why did you go to Crown Heights, or what drove you to go there? Just to see what's going on?

44:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, see what's going on, you know? But it wasn't like nobody was holding my hand in, in the best way possible.

44:59 Speaker 2 Hmm.

45:00 Speaker 1 Uh, and I appreciate that. I think I, I try to do that maybe sometimes people wish I would hold their hand a little more, but it's like you gotta do it on your own.

45:08 Speaker 2 Hmm.

45:08 Speaker 1 Um, 'cause that, it made it my Yiddishkeit. It wasn't Lipskier's Yiddishkeit.

45:12 Speaker 2 Right.

45:12 Speaker 1 It wasn't anybody else's.

45:14 Speaker 2 Right.

45:14 Speaker 1 Uh, obviously, again, they were my primary teachers. I heard a lot a- and exposed to the Rebbe and, a- and all kinds of things through, through the, their prism.

45:24 Speaker 2 Right.

45:25 Speaker 1 But it was, it was my journey.

45:27 Speaker 2 Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening 10 years ago, Yuvala 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 Bonialo, Torah Umesora, and Hatalathon, 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@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. There was a book that I read, um, like, uh, it was probably a year ago or something. It was written by a Litvisher rabbi, I think in Baltimore. Um, I think. I forget his name now. Anyway, it was a book... I'm forgetting the title also. But, but the, the idea of the book was it was written to like the, the, the, the guy who has to leave kollel and go into business, and like a letter from a rabbi to like how to deal with like that shattered dream of-

46:51 Speaker 1 Hmm

46:51 Speaker 2 ... like the ben torah who-

46:52 Speaker 1 Hmm

46:53 Speaker 2 ... who has to work, you know? 'Cause look, you, you know, if you're not used to that way of life, you maybe, you maybe laugh at it or find it very foreign. But no, there are a lot of people who their dream is to be a-

47:04 Speaker 1 Sure

47:04 Speaker 2 ... is to be a lifelong ben torah and to make it work somehow, and that was their j- you know, whether you think it's right or wrong, irrelevant. There are people who believe it- ... and like they genuine- that's what they want.

47:15 Speaker 1 Right.

47:16 Speaker 2 And, and one day, w- you know, usually for financial reasons, no, you can't do it anymore, and their dream is shattered. And what was interesting was is that he said, "Okay, here's one way to comfort yourself. Imagine that there is a hospital doing life-saving work." And yeah, there, there are, there are many doctors in this hospital who are carrying out the life-saving work, and you can't be a doctor. You don't have, you don't have what it takes or it didn't work out for you to get the degree. But you can build the building, you know-

47:51 Speaker 1 You're right

47:51 Speaker 2 ... in which the, in which the doctors work.

47:53 Speaker 1 Right.

47:53 Speaker 2 You can, you can like, which, which, you know, in a way is just straight from the Gemara or wherever, the «...» like the, I think the Gema- or the, uh, uh, Chassidis quotes the «...» where like it's the leaves that protects the grapes I think also is another way of looking at the people who protect the «...» like-

48:11 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

48:11 Speaker 2 ... support «...» like, y- you know, the grapes need the leaves to survive. But it's like, wait a second, if someone's shattered by, by their loss of their dream, is that really like- ... like you couldn't be an NBA player, but you could be the, the janitor or-

48:26 Speaker 1 The guy who mops the floor.

48:27 Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, uh, yeah. Whoop-de-doo. Like, seriously

48:30 Speaker 1 Right.

48:30 Speaker 2 Like... And, uh, but, uh, like, and Lubavitch has an, has this kind of thing also. Like, you couldn't learn shluchas, but you can support the shluchim, you know? Like-

48:38 Speaker 1 Right

48:38 Speaker 2 ... you-

48:38 Speaker 1 I mean, I think to some degree that's a mentality of old-

48:42 Speaker 2 Right

48:42 Speaker 1 ... to a certain degree.

48:43 Speaker 2 Yeah.

48:44 Speaker 1 Um, yeah. I also look, I, I-

48:46 Speaker 2 But, but you're going, but you're talking against that is my... My, my point was that you're talking against that, that ultimately Chassidis Lubavitch says, "Yes. Okay, fine. I'm sl- all these things may be true on some level." But deep, deep down, at the end of the day, you, you can b- you should be and can be an eved Hashem.

49:03 Speaker 1 Correct.

49:03 Speaker 2 And, and that is direct from you to God.

49:06 Speaker 1 Correct. And, and that's, that's what I saw. And again, I was living, like seeing a lot of different things when I actually learned in like a night kollel. It was o- it was, uh, Kamenetsky from Philly had a kollel in Atlanta.

49:19 Speaker 2 Okay.

49:19 Speaker 1 It doesn't exist anymore.

49:20 Speaker 2 What do you mean? He, he-

49:21 Speaker 1 There was a Ka-

49:22 Speaker 2 He sent one of his kids?

49:23 Speaker 1 No, no, no. Like there was a chabura that was started, and we learned-

49:26 Speaker 2 The younger Kamenetsky?

49:27 Speaker 1 Uh, no. The older, Shmuel Kamenetsky.

49:30 Speaker 2 You know they're related to, to me.

49:31 Speaker 1 I know.

49:31 Speaker 2 I'm related to them.

49:33 Speaker 1 Now you're, now you really have yichus.

49:34 Speaker 2 Yeah.

49:36 Speaker 1 It's kashah, but there's, uh

49:37 Speaker 2 I'm saying, I'm saying the world, the world doesn't know that the Shemters and the Kamenetskys are related.

49:42 Speaker 1 Wow. So, so he would come in like once a month, give shiur, and, uh, it was a, it was a beautiful kollel, but it was a real, you know, "We're gonna... You, you, you're the bnei torah of Atlanta." And, you know, we had to have our own shabbos shabbos 'cause we couldn't sit with the amcha, you know, and, uh, and everything else. But and then at the same time, I'm like schlepping, uh, boxes at Chabad House, you know, uh, a- and going to chicken farms to get kaparos chickens, uh, you know?

50:06 Speaker 2 Right.

50:07 Speaker 1 A- and, and then I'm davening by the Sfradi shul and this and that. So I was really pulling in a lot of different stuff. I n- f- at the beginning, I did not feel married to Chabad, albeit I think I felt the closest to Chabad.

50:19 Speaker 2 So but, but let, so let's focus on something you said a few minutes ago, 'cause I think this is really at, at the nub of what this podcast gets to, is that, you know, you... Uh, 'cause you, you maybe, you maybe faced it in a more, um, like it was obvious that you had a choice to make, you, 'cause you were figuring out what your identity was gonna be. But even Lubavitchers that are born Lubavitchers very often have this thing where, like, "If I didn't have kids, I would be way more open to being, like, more, you know, the word of, uh, in the word of, uh, i- in the, in the kind of lexicon of Oberlin, Hasid fluid." Or Hasidus fluid. Hasidus fluid. You know, like, like I- I would... Or, or, you know, Jewish fluid. Like-

51:04 Speaker 1 Listen, welcome. We have all kinds of Sefardim here from all different kinds of Jews.

51:06 Speaker 2 I'm saying. No, but like you... I could be this, I could be that, I'll do this, I'll, you know. A- and a lot of times what forces people into, like, a box is like, wait a second, where am I sending my kids to school?

51:17 Speaker 1 Right.

51:17 Speaker 2 Like, you know, like at the end of the day, my, the ideas in my head are very colorful, I'm really, I'm really clever, and I'm, you know, I'm my own dude, but, but, but my kids need to have friends. And, and for them to have friends, they need to go to school. And, you know, every school, no matter how diverse it is, is going to have certain limitations and is-

51:38 Speaker 1 Correct

51:38 Speaker 2 ... it's not gonna be my... A- and so how do you think about, like, on one hand, okay, a, a parent ought to think about their kids, and, you know, sometimes parents have to move to a different city or country for the sake and the good of their kids. Like that's, that's fair.

51:54 Speaker 1 Right.

51:54 Speaker 2 But on the other hand, h- can identity really be something that we choose because of our kids? Like, like, uh, like in a way, i- if, if, if we really believe that, that there's, that there's, that, that this identity is too stuffy-

52:13 Speaker 1 Look, may- maybe it's a good excuse that we all use.

52:16 Speaker 2 Right.

52:16 Speaker 1 Um, for, you know, maybe we... I mean, I remember again, same thing. I was married. I was not wearing a kipah. I was sitting at somebody's Shabbos table, and they're asking me, where is my kipah? I don't need your chitzonios, uh, your goshmios.

52:29 Speaker 2 You were already like a Lubavitcher in your mind at that point?

52:33 Speaker 1 No.

52:33 Speaker 2 No, still not. You're-

52:34 Speaker 1 Learn chitzonios, learn chitzonios every day

52:36 Speaker 2 ... you're hedging still.

52:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. Learn chitzonios every day, but I was just a Jew, you know.

52:41 Speaker 2 Right.

52:41 Speaker 1 I was just a Jew. And, you know, yeah, like maybe a whole different can of worms. I remember... This is funny. My father-in-law and all my brothers, my wife has five brothers, they all davened Nusach Ari.

52:54 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

52:54 Speaker 1 My mother-in-law davened Nusach Ashkenaz.

52:57 Speaker 2 Okay.

52:58 Speaker 1 And my wife grew up and davened Nusach Sefard, like everybody else in Israel, you know.

53:03 Speaker 2 Right.

53:03 Speaker 1 And when we got married, and I gave her a siddur, and it was Nusach Ari siddur. And it was like a, it was a tense moment. Um-

53:11 Speaker 2 It was like a hint you're making to her?

53:12 Speaker 1 I don't know. Like to me-

53:14 Speaker 2 Or you didn't think about it

53:14 Speaker 1 ... to me, I had, I had started davening Nusach Ashkenaz initially, and then I had switched over to davening Ari at some point. So when I was buying her, I didn't think about it 'cause m- who, who thinks about these things? I bought her a siddur. I bought her the same siddur I use, right?

53:28 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

53:29 Speaker 1 Nice leather bound, you know, whatever.

53:30 Speaker 2 Right. And also, good luck finding a siddur like that in, in Crown Heights, not Nusach Ari.

53:35 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, but I... We were in Yerushalayim.

53:37 Speaker 2 Oh, you were in Yerushalayim.

53:37 Speaker 1 You know.

53:37 Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.

53:38 Speaker 1 So I got married in Yerushalayim.

53:39 Speaker 2 Okay.

53:39 Speaker 1 And we, and, uh, we got thrown out of our hotel room the next morning.

53:43 Speaker 2 Oh.

53:43 Speaker 1 Uh, not really, but, uh, they, they... We needed to get out of the hotel room. We had nowhere to go. So we took all the cash out of the wedding envelopes and went to the Sefarim shops in Mea She'arim. Uh-

53:52 Speaker 2 Sefarim shops?

53:54 Speaker 1 Yeah. To buy Sefarim for ourselves and for our new house in Mea She'arim.

53:58 Speaker 2 Oh, you went to live in Mea She'arim?

54:00 Speaker 1 No, no. No, no, no. We-

54:01 Speaker 2 You were kicked out of the hotel room, but-

54:02 Speaker 1 We were in a hotel. The, th- we got married in a hotel in Yerushalayim.

54:05 Speaker 2 Okay.

54:05 Speaker 1 The next morning they told us, like, "10:00, you gotta get out. There's somebody else coming into the hotel."

54:09 Speaker 2 Huh.

54:10 Speaker 1 Whatever. Ended up being Lipsker, who was my masadikkig lushen. They upgraded him for the weekend, for Shabbos, to stay in that room. Um -

54:18 Speaker 2 Really?

54:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. And they didn't know, and we didn't know. So we ended up opening up all the envelopes, pulling out cash, and we had nothing to do for a few hours, so we went and bought Sefarim for our new house.

54:27 Speaker 2 So, so didn't you have to find a place to stay?

54:31 Speaker 1 Uh, whatever. We found a place to stay.

54:32 Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.

54:33 Speaker 1 You know. Uh, we had friends in Yerushalayim who gave us an apartment. Um-

54:37 Speaker 2 Okay

54:37 Speaker 1 ... and then we were, we were sending a lift of stuff to America, so we went to buy a bunch of Sefarim, so we put it on the k-

54:43 Speaker 2 I see

54:43 Speaker 1 ... put it on the lift. So I bought a siddur, you know, for my wife. I wanted to give her a siddur. And it was like a transition point also for her, like Nusach Ari, like that's a-

54:55 Speaker 2 That's a statement

54:56 Speaker 1 ... that's a statement.

54:57 Speaker 2 Right.

54:57 Speaker 1 You know. I didn't think anything about it. And then maybe it was foretelling what was gonna happen later on in life, uh, a little bit later on in life. Again, we were both very drawn. My father-in-law always like gives over a sicha by the Shabbos table. Like there was a lot of Chabad influence in her home, but to be a Lubavitcher was a whole different... Also, in Israel, it meant you're Haredi, or Haredi-aligned in a certain degree. You're like walking around-

55:21 Speaker 2 Right

55:21 Speaker 1 ... you know, with certain style of clothing and-

55:24 Speaker 2 Right

55:24 Speaker 1 ... that was also a very big shift for my wife. Um, and-

55:30 Speaker 2 You're saying, you're saying to wear a sheitel as opposed to a tichel.

55:32 Speaker 1 Wear a sheitel and, you know, the all, uh, uh, she-

55:35 Speaker 2 As opposed to the, what do they call it?

55:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you know, again, maybe she should be on the podcast, but, uh, it was more like, "Oh, she'll get a sheitel. She'll wear a tichel. She'll do this. She'll do that." But in my mind, like sheitel... First of all, I'm an American. Like sheitel looks more mentchlich as far as I'm concerned, you know. Um, so there were certain cultural-

55:54 Speaker 2 Right

55:54 Speaker 1 ... uh, even though her parents were originally American, but certain cultural-

55:58 Speaker 2 I understand

55:59 Speaker 1 ... uh, gaps that we had to For a, it's a silly one, you know, for an Israeli, Walmart is like . Like growing up where I grew up, you don't walk into Walmart. I mean, now I'm at Walmart every day, but um, but uh-

56:11 Speaker 2 That's for the rednecks

56:12 Speaker 1 ... these were... Yeah, you go to Tar- we go to Target, you know?

56:15 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

56:15 Speaker 1 So it was like-

56:16 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah

56:16 Speaker 1 ... these, like, very interesting cultural gaps a- and religious gaps in my, you know, and again, being in America where everything is either, you know, you're either modern Orthodox or you're Litvish or you're Chabad or whatever. In Israel, it was much more fluid, uh, always. So, so I... Going back, I don't know, maybe we blamed it on our kids, like, or maybe-

56:38 Speaker 2 Yeah

56:38 Speaker 1 ... maybe it's a symbol of maturity, like you're starting to think about things in a different way once you start having kids. Like, I mean, again, I think there's an open-mindedness that could happen. I, I still think we have it. When, when Bachram come here, I always tell him, you know, it's, it's also considered Torah. It's not in Mikote Sichos, you know? Uh, there is a Torah outside of Mikote Sichos.

56:59 Speaker 2 I mean-

56:59 Speaker 1 And I hope that's not heresy to say

57:00 Speaker 2 ... I mean, you're, you're the second one telling me this in, in two days. Uh, is it really, is it, is there really that kind of mindset?

57:06 Speaker 1 I think it's actually shifted a lot in the last two, three years, but yes.

57:10 Speaker 2 'Cause, 'cause the other guy was telling it to me, and I, I'm like, "Uh, what are you talking about?" Like, like, I'm not saying that Lubavitchers are the most curious people, but, like, I mean, uh, like it, it was, uh, it... Someone's painting a picture to me that, that, like, there'll be people who will read Dostoevsky but won't read Rav Nachman. Like- ... is there really such a thing? Uh-

57:29 Speaker 1 Probably.

57:30 Speaker 2 Is there?

57:30 Speaker 1 Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Uh, it-

57:33 Speaker 2 Okay

57:33 Speaker 1 ... I think so. And, um, you know, or, or, uh, or other, you know, Torah giants, like, okay, they're not the Rebbe, that's f- that's fine. Right?

57:42 Speaker 2 I mean, like, uh-

57:43 Speaker 1 But, but-

57:43 Speaker 2 ... in Yeshi- in Yeshiva, like all my friends, a lot of them were Yeshiva guys, they were learning, uh, at least in Nigla, they were learning all kinds of Surem for Rabbi Pevarsky, and this Rosh Yeshiva, and that Rosh Yeshiva.

57:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know.

57:55 Speaker 2 There's, there's a couple guys on the blacklist, you know-

57:57 Speaker 1 Sure

57:57 Speaker 2 ... for, for political reasons.

57:58 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

57:59 Speaker 2 Um, but, but, uh, mostly, like, a lot of my friends were learning, you know, or Sure Skup is a, is a big deal in Yeshiva.

58:05 Speaker 1 Sure.

58:06 Speaker 2 Like, they, we, we... I don't know.

58:07 Speaker 1 No, but, you know, I've heard about, oh, Rav, Rav Vadja. What does he know? I don't know. Maybe he's-

58:11 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's just silliness

58:12 Speaker 1 ... you know. For sure.

58:13 Speaker 2 No, but, but, but, but I think, I, I think, I think what, what, what, what, what's, what, what's interesting to me is, 'cause what, what... The question that it hits on is, you know, when you have a family, you worry about your kids, and school and kids and all this comes down in a way to community and organization.

58:30 Speaker 1 Right.

58:31 Speaker 2 Right? And, and, uh, there's a, there's a word for it now. Um, I don't know. It's, it's escaping me, but something, you know, it's all about normalizing and, and, and, and kind of, you know, k- uh, kind of settl- settling down and, and, and-

58:46 Speaker 1 Sure

58:46 Speaker 2 ... okay, what, you know, what happens to all that personal enthusiasm and identity and, and, and, and... Because you could say it, it... One way of saying it is, "Okay, get over yourself a- a- and make a choice." Like, like, like, like, stop being so-

59:07 Speaker 1 Sure

59:07 Speaker 2 ... you think you're so unique. But on the other hand- ... I, I, I happen to think that a lot of these diff- you know, these different colors of people and shapes of people, a lot of it's real. Like, people are different, and then we all have to fit into the same kind of thing, and then we're setting up our kids to do the same exact thing, and 10 years from now, when they grow up and they're like, "Hey, a second, I'm not exactly this, so what am I? I'm this, I'm that, the other thing, and what am I gonna do?" And then they're gonna have to do... Like, what's this cycle that we're getting into-

59:36 Speaker 1 Sure

59:36 Speaker 2 ... where, like, be yourself and then throw it all away so that your kids can feel-

59:39 Speaker 1 No. So, so-

59:40 Speaker 2 You see what I'm saying?

59:41 Speaker 1 ... I, I don't think it's that stark. Um, I mean-

59:43 Speaker 2 Okay

59:43 Speaker 1 ... I think within, you know, and I said earlier, I'm a black and white person, but a- as, uh, as time goes on, you're forced to live in shades of gray, right? Um, or you notice the shades of gray.

59:58 Speaker 2 Right.

59:59 Speaker 1 So I think that there's something, you know, whether it's within Torah or, or, or other spaces in life, like, you can still have a certain openness, you know? A- and now as my kids are getting older, I have to put my money where my mouth is a little bit too. And, uh, when they want to explore certain things, uh, that maybe isn't the, the path that I thought they'd be on when I was, when I first got married or first started having kids. Um, you have to be open to that in a very real way. I have to be open to that in a very real way. As long as it's, it's... I mean, forget about when, you know, kids wanna explore things totally, you know, all over the place. That, that's a different conversation. But if they're interested in, in a Torah life that's maybe not a Lubavitch life, again, obviously this world doesn't stop when people become Frum or are Frum. Uh, we have-

1:00:52 Speaker 2 Right

1:00:52 Speaker 1 ... to have that in a very real way, and I think, you know, I know for myself, like, the Shiurim I like to lear- listen to and learn from, and the Seforim I like to learn, sure, there's plenty of Lubavitcher Seforim and, and Rabbonim, and there's plenty of other stuff. I like listening to YU guys and, and the Belzer dayan, and Asher Weiss, and this and that. And, you know, uh, we don't ha- it, it can be a, a, a, it can be a bubble that you live in, but it's not an impervious bubble, right?

1:01:23 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:01:24 Speaker 1 So, so you can be a Lubavitcher, but I think there's a f- period in life, especially, especially as a Baal Teshuva, there was a time where I had to, like, double down on being a Lubavitcher.

1:01:34 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:01:34 Speaker 1 So it was like an adolescence of sorts. Like, I have to, like, exert my identity.

1:01:39 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:01:40 Speaker 1 Right? It was the same when I first got married. I had to exert my identity as a, as the, the man of the house.

1:01:46 Speaker 2 Right.

1:01:47 Speaker 1 Now, whatever, you know? Like, you know.

1:01:52 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

1:01:54 Speaker 1 So you're married for, for almost 20 years, like, things, certain things just don't matter, where I was very opinionated on those-

1:02:02 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:02:02 Speaker 1 ... when I first got married

1:02:02 Speaker 2 "I'm, I'm the man of the house," says the guy screaming from the porch.

1:02:05 Speaker 1 Right. So , so my identity as a Lubavitcher also, like, there was a time where it had to be y- y- you had to have a bit of a zealousness. I had to have a bit of a zealousness. A- and there's a good th- there's, there's good, and then, then it can settle in. And my kids, I mean, like many, and you can relate, live in, like, such a wacky world. Like, on one hand, they're Lubavitchers. On the other hand, they go to a Litvisher school. On the other hand, they live on a college campus that's-

1:02:36 Speaker 2 Right

1:02:37 Speaker 1 ... you know, totally upside down.

1:02:39 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:02:40 Speaker 1 So, so, you know, identity is important. You have to be very well-rooted. Once you're well-rooted, you can spread the branches really far and wide.

1:02:48 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:02:48 Speaker 1 But you have to be well-rooted. If you're not well-rooted, you tip over.

1:02:52 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:52 Speaker 1 And I think, so deciding how am I gonna educate my children, what schools am I gonna send my kids to, what community am I aligning myself with, is setting the roots. And then over time, and as the kids get older, you know, they can spread those, those branches out a- and get into the wi- the wide world. Uh, wide world of Torah, wide, and the wide world in general.

1:03:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:03:14 Speaker 1 A- and, um, uh, I think it's actually very important. I, I would hate, I would loathe if my kids only knew the, the Rabbeim and, uh, whatever, the, the Mashpiim of Lubavitch. Like, you know, there's a huge world out there.

1:03:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:03:29 Speaker 1 And a beautiful world out there.

1:03:32 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:03:32 Speaker 1 I ho- hope that doesn't take away from my, uh, my creds, you know, but, um, and I think it comes across to my students too when we t- when I teach, like, I'm not such a homer on Lubavitch. Like, Torah is Torah.

1:03:45 Speaker 2 Yeah. No, no, I, I, I accept that 100%. Um, uh, yeah. I accept that. Look, I, I grew up, I grew up, my, my father, uh, was, w- is a, grew up in Lubavitch-

1:03:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. I listened to, uh, your podcast with your father. I was so appreciative of his, his, um, how he ran the shul and the-

1:04:04 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:04:04 Speaker 1 ... the, the school. Like, there, there's something very beautiful in that, but it doesn't take away from, from the core of who he is as a Lubavitcher.

1:04:11 Speaker 2 No, it doesn't.

1:04:11 Speaker 1 'Cause he's well-rooted.

1:04:13 Speaker 2 No, it, it didn't take, it didn't take away from the core of his, but, but there was something that, that I lost or, or something that happened and, you know, for myself and some of my siblings when we had to go from that to a Lubavitch school.

1:04:29 Speaker 1 Sure.

1:04:29 Speaker 2 So, so, so, you know, it, it's, it's, it, it seems like there's this, maybe it's just an inevitable part, inevitable part of, of, of living and generations, and, you know, there's a, there's gonna be a constant tension between individual and community. And when you're your own person, yeah, you have certain kind of liberties and certain flexibility, and when you're part of a community, you have to... Look, when you get married to someone- ... you, you, you're making a commitment that, yes, I'm going to change, and I'm going to be a different person in 10 years from now than, uh, than, than I am today. However, I can't do things willy-nilly, and I have to do it with, with some kind of communication, and we, you know, I, like, and, and some kind of feedback. A- and so, you know, in a way, this, th- this thing of putting authenticity at, at, like, you know, that is the ultimate goal, you know, that is what drove all the existentialists mad, and it drives everybody mad. If you take it to its logical conclusion that everything is about authenticity, it's like, really? Do you really wanna go down that route? Like, i- if everybody's gonna be fully authentic all the time, we're gonna go crazy. Society can't operate.

1:05:40 Speaker 1 Sure.

1:05:41 Speaker 2 Right?

1:05:41 Speaker 1 But there's so- you know, look, part of the, you know, for the kids, sometimes they're 40-year-old kids, but is the, maybe there's, there's more than one right way to do things. It's not everything is relative and, and, and everything else, but, like, especially if i- in the Torah world, somebody has a mesorah in a certain way, you have to respect it.

1:06:02 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:06:02 Speaker 1 So, like, uh, you know, not to talk about your father, but to talk about your father, like, I think only a Lubavitcher could run such a, an operation.

1:06:10 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:10 Speaker 1 Right?

1:06:11 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:11 Speaker 1 And, a- a- and part of it for the kids is, uh, you know, this is part of avodas yisrael. This is part of our educa- a part of what we do is we accommodate others, as long as it's on the playing field of Torah, right? And it might not be what, exactly what we do personally. Um, so I don't think kids need to be that fragile. Um-

1:06:35 Speaker 2 Yeah, but you have to, but, but what I'm trying to point out is my father raised me in a school where, uh, it was a school that he started, but ha- half the kids, not half the kids, all the kids besides us were not religious. So he w- in a way, there was a, there was a certain blessing there that the flexibility, not the flexibility, but the, the tolerance and openness to other ideas of, of Yiddishkeit was, was continued in the school to the extreme level of, like-

1:07:01 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:01 Speaker 2 ... even kids that aren't-

1:07:02 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:02 Speaker 2 ... aren't, some of them weren't even, uh, some of them were, you know, questionably Jewish and-

1:07:07 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:07 Speaker 2 ... and so on. I think you spoke about it on the podcast as well. Like, there were, like, so but, but if, we had to go to a cheder. I remember there came a time like, "Okay, we have to go to s- a real school." And it's like, "Can we go to all Torah?" And it's like, "Hell no."

1:07:21 Speaker 1 Right.

1:07:21 Speaker 2 No, because, like, it was, like-

1:07:22 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:22 Speaker 2 ... unfathomable to us to, like, suddenly-

1:07:24 Speaker 1 Right. Cultural whiplash.

1:07:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, what do you mean?

1:07:26 Speaker 1 But, but I'll tell you a story, and I've told-

1:07:28 Speaker 2 You, you see what I'm saying?

1:07:29 Speaker 1 Sure, and I've told it before.

1:07:29 Speaker 2 So that's a question.

1:07:30 Speaker 1 It's a personal story in terms of my family, but it's, it's been told before, so I don't feel bad telling it. But one time we were back in Atlanta visiting my s- I have a sister who lives there. It was actually four kids, uh, which is a social anomaly in, in her segments of society.

1:07:45 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:07:46 Speaker 1 Um, and we were back home. We were all at my mother's house, and my mother came over to me very upset. And she said, um, my, one of my nieces or whatever said, or my, maybe my mother overheard one of my kids saying driving on Shabbos is a goyisha thing to do.

1:08:04 Speaker 2 One of your kids?

1:08:05 Speaker 1 Said to one of their cousins

1:08:07 Speaker 2 Who doesn't keep Shabbos

1:08:08 Speaker 1 ... who doesn't keep Shabbos.

1:08:09 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:09 Speaker 1 Driving on Shabbos is a goyish thing to do.

1:08:11 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:12 Speaker 1 They were little kids.

1:08:13 Speaker 2 Right, it wasn't meant in, uh-

1:08:15 Speaker 1 My mother heard it, and she got a little bit upset.

1:08:18 Speaker 2 Like my, my grandkids are going, yeah.

1:08:20 Speaker 1 And she came over to me, and we've always had a very open relationship. We've always talked about everything in terms of, you know, as... And they've always been very supportive in terms of my becoming religious and going on shlichus and, and everything else. Very, you know, very behind all of it. Uh, it was, like, the first time, I think, something, like, really upset my mother's sensibilities.

1:08:43 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:08:45 Speaker 1 And, you know, in the moment, my response was, "What would you want me to tell my kids?" Said, "You know, we educate our kids in a very specific way, but also you know our life. You know who comes to my house every Shabbos. We already on shlichus here. You know how we, you know, we teach our kids about, you know, respect and and all of these things. But, you know, th- there's a, this thing in Judaism about Shabbos, a- and it's not a Jewish thing to drive your car on Shabbos. So we don't judge people for doing it." My mother went over to my sister right after that and said, "If you send your kids to Jewish Day School, I'll pay for it."

1:09:27 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:09:28 Speaker 1 Unfortunately, my sister did not take her up, uh, on the offer. Um, but it was a very, that was a very important moment, 'cause I could have also just backed down and said, "I'm sorry." Like and, and maybe, maybe that should've been the right... I don't know. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not. But, but it was a very honest, very candid conversation, and I think that's how we educate our kids, you know. So they're around all kinds of people doing all kinds of things.

1:09:50 Speaker 2 But, but so, so let, let, let, let, let me, let me frame it differently. If, if you're, if, if, if you... It, it, 'cause we haven't gotten yet to why you just had to go on shlichus. But, but let's say being a Lubavitcher meant living in... Maybe you, you hadn't run out of gas on the way to Chicago, and you end up in Chicago in a Lubavitch community-

1:10:10 Speaker 1 Right

1:10:10 Speaker 2 ... with your, like, only Lubavitchers around you, and you could send your kids to fully Lubavitch school, and they have only Lubavitch friends. Maybe here, okay, may- in your case, they have cousins who aren't religious. But, but in their day-to-day life they could, like, would you be, uh, like, would then the, the, the choice be too stark to like, to, to, to like

1:10:31 Speaker 1 It's a hard question to answer. I don't know. I mean, it's-

1:10:32 Speaker 2 Like is shlichus a way out for you?

1:10:34 Speaker 1 Um-

1:10:35 Speaker 2 Is that, is it, is like, is, is that like the, the kind of, uh, the pressure valve?

1:10:39 Speaker 1 Interesting question. I don't think so, only in that it was never our intention to go on shlichus originally. Uh, it wasn't the ideal. Uh, my ideal was to be rich. So shlichus was not, uh-

1:10:50 Speaker 2 American boy.

1:10:51 Speaker 1 Shlichus was not on the, on the agenda. Um, e- and e- even as I was becoming religious and, and even as I was getting deep into Chabad, like shlichus was not-

1:11:01 Speaker 2 You would support shlichim.

1:11:02 Speaker 1 Very happily would've supported shlichim.

1:11:04 Speaker 2 So how does it happen?

1:11:05 Speaker 1 So the-

1:11:07 Speaker 2 The 2008 financial crisis.

1:11:09 Speaker 1 No. So it's... I'll, I'll try to make the story concise, but there's a few twists and turns to it. Um, for a long time, you know, I was teaching in Cha- and my wife was also teaching in Chabad Hebrew schools, and we were always involved, and our house functioned in many ways as a open house on Shabbos for people.

1:11:25 Speaker 2 And where, where was this?

1:11:26 Speaker 1 In Atlanta.

1:11:26 Speaker 2 Oh, so you moved back to Atlanta.

1:11:28 Speaker 1 When we first got married, I was working.

1:11:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, so you're still working. Okay.

1:11:31 Speaker 1 And, uh, w- we lived in Atlanta for a couple years.

1:11:34 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:11:35 Speaker 1 Um-

1:11:36 Speaker 2 And you were, you're still hanging out with the Lipskers?

1:11:38 Speaker 1 I was by Lipsker. I was by Silverman.

1:11:40 Speaker 2 Where did you, where did you live?

1:11:41 Speaker 1 In Toco Hills, which is a non-C... We were the only... Well, once we-

1:11:44 Speaker 2 Oh, Toco Hills, yeah

1:11:44 Speaker 1 ... once we, once we made the jump... Well, now there's Lubavitchers there.

1:11:47 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

1:11:48 Speaker 1 Then there really wasn't.

1:11:49 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:11:49 Speaker 1 Uh, once we made the jump into being Lubavitchers, we were the Lubavitchers in the neighborhood.

1:11:53 Speaker 2 Interesting. Okay.

1:11:54 Speaker 1 Um, but which was also a fa- fascinating experience.

1:11:58 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:11:59 Speaker 1 Um, but, but nonetheless, so we... I was working, and we were living in Toco Hills, and, uh, I was involved with a company in Israel and in America, and, uh, you know, I was setting things up to live the ideal life. I was gonna make dollars and live on shekels.

1:12:16 Speaker 2 Huh.

1:12:17 Speaker 1 You know.

1:12:17 Speaker 2 Oh, you planned to move back to Israel.

1:12:19 Speaker 1 Yeah. That was absolutely the plan. And a few different times we were, like, almost there. And I was, I was, I was young, and it sounds more chashuve than it really was, but I was the CEO of this, and a partner in a Israeli com- uh, so an Israeli company that was trying to come to America, and they brought me on as the CEO for America and a partner in the company. It's probably the most unhealthy time of my life. I was going to sleep with... I had two cell phones. I was going to sleep with one under my pillow, so if it rang from Israel in the middle of the night, I could jump up and answer the... It was just, like, not a healthy-

1:12:51 Speaker 2 Mm

1:12:51 Speaker 1 ... period. And I went to sleep one night, I was the CEO of this company, and, um, woke up the next morning to a lawyer letter dissolving me out of the company and telling me if I wanna fight it, I can come to Tel Aviv. Um-

1:13:06 Speaker 2 So was it a coup? They're, they're getting-

1:13:08 Speaker 1 No. Whatever. This was pre-Startup Nation. Like, uh, there was a, uh... We had done some fundra- I had done some fundraising. Uh, not, not the Lubavitcher-style fundraising, business-style fundraising. And, you know, there was no comprehension of why, after three months, are we not turning millions of dollars of profit. And, uh-

1:13:28 Speaker 2 So the investors came after you.

1:13:30 Speaker 1 The, the partners from Israel wanted, wanted to bring in somebody else as the CEO who they thought could... Spoiler alert, the company doesn't exist anymore, both in Israel and America.

1:13:39 Speaker 2 Yeah. It was-

1:13:40 Speaker 1 So, um, but still a brilliant idea. If somebody wants to contact me, I'll give you a billion-dollar idea. No. Um, but nonetheless, it was, um... So all of a sudden, I had nothing to do. My wife had just signed the contract to teach in the local day school.

1:13:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, in Atlanta.

1:13:57 Speaker 1 In Atlanta. And the, the school year was about to start in, like, uh, two weeks or something. So technically we could have just jumped ship. Like, our first thought was, "Let's get on a plane and move to Israel." Uh, it's, it's really not the menschel thing to do. So I said to her, "Why don't you... You'll, you'll ride out this one year. I'll find something to do. Fi- something. I'm a, you know, industrious, creative guy."

1:14:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:25 Speaker 1 "I'll find something to do. And after the s- after the school year, we're off to Israel." "Okay, fine." There's a website that I found called JewishJobs.com, and there was an advertisement for a Hillel director.

1:14:40 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:14:41 Speaker 1 And I, you know, I'd been involved at Emory, and I was running... C Team didn't exist, but I was running a teen club for Fraen Silverman's Chabad house, and I was teaching Hebrew school.

1:14:50 Speaker 2 While you were CEO, like before it?

1:14:52 Speaker 1 Yeah. While I wa- you know, just part of life.

1:14:55 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:55 Speaker 1 And, uh, I was like, "Okay, I'll, I'll apply for the Hillel director job." It was where Chabad wasn't yet. And, uh, it was a full-time job. Today they'd probably get sued. I sh- I showed up for the interview. Uh, it was the first time and only time, uh, s- first and, of two times ever in my life I rolled my beard. Uh, which was stupid, because I still... Like, what, what was I hiding? Um and when I left the interview, they called me back, like an hour later. They're like, "We really liked you, but you're too religious."

1:15:26 Speaker 2 Right. Also, only Lubavitchers roll their beards, just saying.

1:15:29 Speaker 1 Eh, whatever. It was the stupidest thing- ... 'cause the whole time I'm going like this anyways, and like-

1:15:33 Speaker 2 Right

1:15:33 Speaker 1 ... whatever. Um, anyways, so uh, that's a distraction from the main point. So they told me I'm too religious, "But there's this other campus we have that's a part-time position. If you want that, you can have it." 'Cause it was like a campus that, to them, was like a, a throwaway. They just needed a body there.

1:15:51 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:15:53 Speaker 1 So I said, "You know, you have another campus that's also part-time." The Hillel director there, her Judaism was n- not so kosher. Like, she wasn't, uh, halakhically Jewish. "So why don't you give me both campuses? We'll call it a full-time job, so that way I can have health ben- You know, I got a family." I had a kid already. Like, "We'll call it a full-time job and, and that'll be it." So they did that. They gave me both campuses, and I worked very closely with shluchim. Like, even like Pesach, I would order them the matzah from the shluchim to give out on ca- Like, you know, it was a really interesting thing. So we're running this Hillel for a year, or I'm running this Hillel, but my wife is very much involved. We have... Students are coming, it was a packed house every Shabbos.

1:16:32 Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:32 Speaker 1 I'm giving shiurim and, and all kinds of stuff. Comes the end of the school year, and I, I had pursued a lot of different kind of business opportunities. My wife was always very supportive. Come in, t- "We're moving to Israel." So our last Shabbos with the students, and I can't get through Kiddush, I'm crying like a baby.

1:16:57 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:16:58 Speaker 1 And when we're telling them, like, we're leaving, you know? And it wasn't really a secret necessarily, but, like, it was a big deal. Could... I couldn't even make it through Kiddush. I was just crying like a baby. After the Shabbos meal, it was like 2:00 in the morning, my wife's like, "How do we leave all this behind? Like, we're doing something so important." A little bit... And then a little bit before that, I guess, there was the conversation like, "Do we turn this into a shlichus? Like, h- like, what are we doing here?" And so we're feeling... We did all the Nefesh B'Nefesh paperwork. Like, we have tickets basically. We're, we're signed up for tickets for Israel, and we're going back and forth every second. Do we go to Israel? Do we stay here? Do I go back to kollel? You know, learn, learn a little bit more and then go on shlichus. The original intent was to go back there. Uh-

1:17:50 Speaker 2 You felt you had to go to kollel before you went on shlichus?

1:17:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, I'd, I'd been in a night kollel, and I'd been, like, in and out of Maayanot. Like, when I had free time, I'd go for two weeks here and three-

1:17:59 Speaker 2 You'd never done a 10?

1:17:59 Speaker 1 I'd never steeped in, in a yeshiva-

1:18:02 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:18:02 Speaker 1 ... uh, for, like, a really long amount of time.

1:18:04 Speaker 2 So you didn't feel ready to go on shlichus?

1:18:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. I didn't, and I hadn't learned for semikhah, you know.

1:18:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:18:08 Speaker 1 You know, a- all of those things. So felt like that would be an important thing to do.

1:18:14 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:18:14 Speaker 1 So, um, and give some legitimacy to going as a shliach and a rabbi to a place. Maybe you should actually be a rabbi, whatever.

1:18:22 Speaker 2 Right.

1:18:23 Speaker 1 You know, whatever it's worth, but-

1:18:25 Speaker 2 Fair.

1:18:26 Speaker 1 Um-

1:18:26 Speaker 2 Fair

1:18:26 Speaker 1 ... so we're back and forth, and every... Like, I'm like, "No, we should go," and she's like, "No, we should stay." And then I'm like, "No, we should stay," and she's like, "No, we should go." And back and forth and back and forth. Of course, my in-laws very much wanted us to come to Israel. Their-

1:18:38 Speaker 2 Your own family lives there.

1:18:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. My parents very much wanted us to stay.

1:18:43 Speaker 2 So you made a compromise, you end up in Overland.

1:18:45 Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, so long story short, we're, we're back and forth, we're back and forth. Uh, it was a Friday afternoon. I had a grandmother, uh, she was in hospice. I went to go visit her. Before I went to go visit her, I stopped at a store or whatever. My father was in the parking lot. My zekha father was in the parking lot. We ended up getting a coffee together, and I was like-

1:19:05 Speaker 2 Your father?

1:19:05 Speaker 1 My father. I was like, "Dad, I think we decided I'm gonna go to yeshiva or we're gonna stay." Uh, and he was just, like, elated. It was a Friday afternoon. I never made it. I spent so much time talking to my father, I never made it to my grandmother that Friday. Um, Shabbos, my father passed away suddenly.

1:19:23 Speaker 2 That Shabbos?

1:19:24 Speaker 1 That Shabbos.

1:19:26 Speaker 2 Oh.

1:19:26 Speaker 1 So the last words he ever said to my mother was, "My son the rabbi, I think I like the way that that sounds." Which is a very... It, it sits with me a lot.

1:19:36 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:19:36 Speaker 1 You know?

1:19:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, I can imagine.

1:19:38 Speaker 1 And obviously I only found that out later. So somebody-

1:19:41 Speaker 2 Oh, he said, he said to your mother-

1:19:42 Speaker 1 To my mother

1:19:42 Speaker 2 ... not, not to you?

1:19:43 Speaker 1 Said it to my mother, like, Friday afternoon when he came home. He went to go see his mother in the hospice, and then he went home.

1:19:49 Speaker 2 Oh.

1:19:50 Speaker 1 Shabbos morning, Shabbos afternoon, he took a nap and, and my mother was going about her business, came home.

1:19:56 Speaker 2 Had a, had a heart attack in his-

1:19:58 Speaker 1 A aneurysm thing, never woke up. Um, somebody comes to my house Shabbos afternoon, knocks on the door, family friend, and was like, "Uh, I, I don't know how to tell you this, but your father, your father just died."

1:20:11 Speaker 2 Out of the blue, yeah, no, he didn't seem sick.

1:20:12 Speaker 1 53 years old, young, healthy.

1:20:15 Speaker 2 God. Yeah.

1:20:16 Speaker 1 It was a really you know-

1:20:18 Speaker 2 Sorry

1:20:18 Speaker 1 ... so needless to say, Motzei Shabbos, I got in the car and I- my wife drove, but, uh, flew to my mother's house. Um, and this was, this was now looming, you know. And we're still going back and while I'm sitting shiva, Nefesh B'Nefesh is calling, asking if we're gonna accept these tickets.

1:20:38 Speaker 2 Right.

1:20:38 Speaker 1 So my wife's like, "My s- my husband's sitting shiva. Like, we can't really make a decision right now." Which that in and of itself was a decision. So I stayed in Atlanta for a couple more months to help my mother just catch any equilibrium.