“The Meshugenas”: Five Aussies' Journeys To Jewish Observance

00:00 Speaker 1 I learn with Michoel every single day. We're learning right now teachings of the Baal Shem Tov.

00:04 Speaker 2 That's Rabbi Dovid Burke. Most weekdays, Burke studies with close friend Michoel Oguns, an identity security specialist. These days, they study Keser Shem Tov.

00:15 Speaker 1 Which is a safer from the Baal Shem Tov, which is very special.

00:19 Speaker 2 But Michoel and Dovid don't usually study together in person because Oguns lives a three-hour drive downstate. They use the medium of WhatsApp, and they call their closed group the Meshugganas, in which debates can get lively. The group includes real estate attorney Aren Lazar Goodman, who lives in New York City.

00:39 Speaker 3 There's a battle on there every day, you know? We're all having different opinions about different things, and we're disagreeing with each other all the time.

00:45 Speaker 2 Also landscaper Gilad Luri, who lives in Jerusalem.

00:48 Speaker 4 Our conversations can get quite feisty at times.

00:51 Speaker 2 And artist and animator, Yitz Feigenbaum, who lives all the way around the globe in Melbourne, Australia. The Meshugganas collective journey continues to this day, because long before they established their WhatsApp group, they had something else in common. Burke, Oguns, Luri, Goodman, and Feigenbaum grew up together in remote Perth, Australia, where they were inspired by Chabad emissaries who showed them why a connection to Judaism and to each other is vitally important.

01:22 Speaker 3 I was talking to Michoel today on the WhatsApp group, and Michoel said a beautiful thing. "Yes, we were connected through Perth, but what really keeps us bound together is that it's a soul connection."

01:38 Speaker 2 I'm Gary Wolk, and this is Lamplighters, stories from Chabad emissaries on the Jewish frontier. Life as a Chabad emissary is often joyous, but it can be unpredictable and even dangerous. Chabad has become a ubiquitous presence in every corner of the world, but behind every Chabad house are emissaries, regular people striving to transcend their circumstances, and a community that supports and relies on them. These are their stories. Here's a great opportunity for you. You rely on the Lamplighters podcast to bring you inspiring stories of Chabad emissaries all over the world. Now you can help keep our series going strong. To dedicate an episode, please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com to explore dedication opportunities. That's podcast@lubavitch.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine, or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. In 1991, when Dovid Burke was just 10 years old, he and his family left behind his native Zimbabwe. His mother's family had emigrated to the country from England, but political and economic unrest there caused his father to struggle with his graphic design and import businesses, so they looked elsewhere.

03:17 Speaker 1 And so my mother had some family in Australia. The reports we were getting back from them were that it was a great place to live. Wonderful lifestyle, great opportunity, stable economy.

03:31 Speaker 2 The Burkes moved to Perth. Burke's father looked for work while Dovid and his sister began their studies in a local school.

03:38 Speaker 1 My parents were very adamant that my sister and I should go to a Jewish school, so we went to a school called Carmel School, and the standards of the school were Orthodox. However, the majority of the kids that attended that school were not from observant families.

03:52 Speaker 2 Including the newly arrived Burkes.

03:55 Speaker 1 We were not religiously observant. Didn't keep a kosher home. We weren't Shomer Shabbos.

04:00 Speaker 2 Burke met several friends at the Carmel School, including Gilad Luri.

04:05 Speaker 4 It was a great education. I mean, we, none of us were interested in Jewish studies in school. In fact, the opposite. We saw it as a necessary evil, and, uh, the academics was the main thing.

04:14 Speaker 2 And Michoel Oguns, whose parents had made the trip from South Africa in 1985.

04:20 Speaker 4 Carmel is an incredible school, outstanding, but the emphasis and strength of the school is definitely on the secular subjects.

04:30 Speaker 2 And Aharon Lazar Goodman, whose family had made the trip from Perth to South Africa two years later. They loved sports and the outdoors, and they were in the perfect place for that. According to Dovid Burke, Perth is a wonderland.

04:44 Speaker 1 Western Australia is a gem on the west coast of the country. It's got endless beaches. We would go to the beach, to remote places around Australia on boats and fishing trips, and coastlines and other things. And so the kind of sun and surf reputation of Australia captures your mind and heart, and that w- life was great there.

05:03 Speaker 2 Aharon Lazar Goodman also took full advantage of what Perth had to offer.

05:08 Speaker 3 We skateboarded, we surfed, we went to the beach, we body surfed in the beach if we didn't have a surfboard, and we hang out with each other in parks and played outdoors as little kids, and then even into our teens and older.

05:20 Speaker 2 As did Michoel Oguns.

05:22 Speaker 4 Camping, hiking, fishing. But even more than that, for me, the outdoors was all about physical fitness and exercise, so running, canoeing, cycling, triathlons, basketball, right? It was absolutely unbelievable.

05:37 Speaker 2 But according to Aharon Lazar, the group that would someday call itself the Meshugganas was at the outset just a group of acquaintances, not close friends, but their friendships grew as they did.

05:50 Speaker 3 We stuck together. We hung out together. Carmel School, I went from kindergarten to 12th grade, and then we did everything together. Whatever it was, we did it as a group, and it, it was very beautiful. It was very special

06:04 Speaker 2 Aron Leizer, Dovid and Michoel saw Gilad as the most charismatic of the five.

06:09 Speaker 4 He was the cool cat. He still is the cool cat. He was just tops in everything, whether it was on the sporting field, whether it was socially, whether it was... I mean, just everything he did shined in a way that was very attractive.

06:24 Speaker 2 Gilad, were you aware at the time that the rest of the group thought of you as the cool one?

06:32 Speaker 5 Um, yeah. I mean, if I'm honest, I'd say yeah. I, I don't know how honest to be.

06:36 Speaker 2 At the Carmel School, their eagerness for Jewish subjects was increasing a bit. Beginning in the late '90s, they began to graduate high school and go off to university, or uni in Aussie parlance. And the Mashugana's lives were about to change in significant ways. Around this time, Gilad, Dovid, Michoel, Aron Leizer, and Yitzi, who was unavailable for interview, began spending time with Rabbi Mordy and Rebbetzin Naomi Gutnick. They arrived in Perth around 1998 to help run the family mining business. They also took over on an informal basis the Chabad shul that had been run by Rabbi Levi and Rebbetzin Chani Wolf, who now run the massive Central Synagogue in Sydney. Aron Leizer knew Rabbi Wolf because when he was younger, his parents brought him there on Friday nights, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur.

07:33 Speaker 3 And I used to look at my parents and all their friends, and I used to wonder to myself, "What are these people doing in this shul? They sit here for an entire day of Yom Kippur. They look at the siddur. They don't know what it means. There has to be something deeper to this." So I used to sit in this shul thinking to myself, "I have to find out more."

07:52 Speaker 2 So one day when he was still in college, Aron Leizer came back to that shul.

07:58 Speaker 3 And in the back corner, Mordy Gutnick appeared. He was a man with a beard, and yarmulke, and a tallis, and he was in the corner, and he was davening. And I decided I would walk over to him and introduce myself, and he immediately said to me, "Come over for Shabbos."

08:11 Speaker 2 What was good for Aron Leizer was good for the others. One by one, Aron Leizer, Yitz, Gilad, Michoel, and Dovid became fixtures in the Gutnick's home.

08:22 Speaker 4 Being at their Shabbos table, it was all of us, and we were all farbrengen. We were all having these deep and meaningful conversations, whether it's about life, or the soul, or about God, or Judaic practices. And the Mashuganas were in those discussions, of course.

08:35 Speaker 5 It was, you know, sort of, like, very informal with you pull up a chair and sit around, and a lot of singing and dancing. It was, it was great.

08:42 Speaker 3 We sat by Mordy and Naomi's table. We said l'chaim, and we discussed deep mystical subjects. We saw an incredible couple who were both down to Earth, but spiritual, and deep, and real all at the same time.

08:55 Speaker 2 That had a profound effect on Aron Leizer.

08:58 Speaker 3 And that began pretty much a six-year trajectory for myself, where I would attend their Shabbos table almost every Shabbos.

09:07 Speaker 2 And Dovid Burke says something else was happening.

09:10 Speaker 1 Farbreinging with the Gutnicks at their house and bringing kind of the inspiration and love of Judaism really, like, brought us closer together.

09:17 Speaker 2 That would serve the Mashuganas well as they went off to college and beyond, and it inspired more Jewish observance. While Gilad was studying law at the University of Western Australia, he learned that Dovid, who was a science student there, was taking on Yiddishkeit in leaps and bounds as he was.

09:37 Speaker 5 Oh, I was thrilled. He was wearing a kippah at university amongst all these goyim, and I didn't think there was any, any kippot that were worn in the University of Western Australia.

09:45 Speaker 2 Michoel, who was also studying at the University of Western Australia, was on a similar journey.

09:51 Speaker 4 And that included tefillin and tzitzit, and I don't recall the exact time periods when I started to do each individual mitzvah and observance. But I do know that it was very gradual, and for me personally, it just happened naturally like that. It was a very healthy approach.

10:08 Speaker 2 An approach Dovid says that he had learned from Rabbi Gutnick.

10:11 Speaker 1 I was wearing a yarmulke full time with a lot of encouragement from Mordy. He was like, "I don't care if you eat kosher. Just wear a yarmulke." And I think in his wisdom, he knew that once you put a yarmulke on, you won't find yourself in those compromising situations. He was like, "Go to parties. Go to raves. Just wear a yarmulke."

10:29 Speaker 2 Dovid earned degrees in law, science, and zoology, Michoel in anatomy, human biology, and physical therapy, and Aron Leizer in banking, commerce, and law. They were in touch with each other when time allowed. Gilad left law school and attended Mayanot, a yeshiva in Jerusalem for young baalei teshuva. Gilad urged his friends to attend too.

10:55 Speaker 5 I was begging Dave. When I say Dave, you know who I mean. I was begging him to come, and he wasn't interested. Dave didn't want to know anything. It was all science. But when I was in Mayanot, after about six months of being there, I convinced Dave to come on a Mayanot trip in his university break, and he came. He was quite argumentative at the time, saying, you know, "There's no empirical evidence. There's no proof. You know? Like, science is the answers." And he was quite hard in the beginning.

11:21 Speaker 2 And then Gilad encouraged Dovid to take a class in Jerusalem called Discovery.

11:26 Speaker 1 And I went to this intensive program taught by a bunch of rabbis in the Old City.

11:31 Speaker 2 One of them was Rabbi Yom Tov Glazer, who invited Dovid and Gilad to his home. But Dovid, still an avid outdoorsman and surfer, didn't know that Glazer's nickname is The Surfing Rabbi. There in Glazer's home, Dovid saw a wetsuit hanging to dry.

11:49 Speaker 1 I couldn't understand. I was like, "One second. I saw a wetsuit in your bathroom." He says, "Yeah, I was out surfing this morning, Tel Aviv." I couldn't believe it, so I challenged him. I was like, "One second. H- how is it possible?" And so he told me a bit about his story, and he said, "You've got it all wrong. Your education is awry. You, you've missed the point. You don't have to deny yourself- The wonderful adventures of life just because you become observant. Really you can do all of these things, but you're doing them with a deeper purpose, with a deeper intent. It literally blew my mind.

12:20 Speaker 2 Dovid Burke was so inspired by this that when he returned to Perth, he began taking on more Yiddishkeit by geometric leaps.

12:27 Speaker 1 By the time I graduated university, I was already observant. I was wearing a yarmulke. I was keeping Shabbat. I was keeping kosher. And I mean, most of the community were kind of just stunned. W- we, we never expected you, Dave Burke, to become religious.

12:41 Speaker 4 And I was thrilled 'cause I was like, you know, my best friend is now on board. It was great.

12:46 Speaker 2 Michoel Oguns attended Mayanot, and later Kollel in Brooklyn, and yeshiva in Morristown. He received rabbinic ordination about 17 years ago. Aharon Lezer also followed the Mayanot-Morristown pipeline, returning back to Perth to work as an attorney before settling in the US and getting married in 2011. Gilad gave up law, but earned a degree in political science before settling in Israel and starting a family and a landscaping business there. Dovid attended Mayanot, spent two years in Morristown, married his wife Miri in 2009, and received smicha in 2010. Burke says he was considering a career in law.

13:30 Speaker 1 But my real passion was Torah. Why I got to where I got to was because I loved learning, I loved teaching, and I loved Hasidis. And I said to Miri, "I don't know how we're gonna make this work. I have no idea what the options are. I don't have no idea what it's gonna provide, but I'm in for shlichus."

13:45 Speaker 2 That passion was certainly inspired by the Gutnickes when they were in Perth, and now Dovid Burke's story has come full circle because he and Miri Burke help run the Roitman Chabad Center at Cornell University under senior shluchim Rabbi Eli and Rebbetzin Chana Silberstein. The Burkes energize and support students there as the Gutnickes had done for Dovid.

14:08 Speaker 1 There are Jews here, 3,000-plus Jews. It's a lot of people. So there's no shortage of work to be done, whether it's new students, they wanna put up a mezuzah on their door, the students want a wrap tefillin, they wanna learn Torah, they come for Shabbos. I think that kind of opportunity is, uh, very inspiring, and there's really, there's no shortage of, of work to be done.

14:29 Speaker 2 Dovid Burke is perfectly suited to the job because he carries with him the example of the Gutnickes, who were supportive, patient, and non-judgmental with him and his friends in Perth, and also because he still loves the outdoors. There's no surfing in Ithaca, but Burke shares outdoor experiences with his family and his students.

14:50 Speaker 1 Many students I'll go fishing with, or, uh, students will go on a hike together, or, you know, we'll play some sport together, applying that whole suite of skills that you've accomplished throughout the years to your work on a daily basis.

15:04 Speaker 2 Miri Burke, who grew up in a small town in Virginia where she was an equestrian and a ski instructor, attests to the value of those skills.

15:13 Speaker 6 Ithaca's a beautiful place. It's gorgeous, and we do take our students out sometimes on hikes. There are some students here who love fishing, so my husband will take them on fishing trips. You know, when we're doing something with our family, we bring a student along, and those are definitely a lot of our very close relationships that we have with students.

15:31 Speaker 2 Miri has heard the stories of the Gutnickes and the Wolfes and the Solomons, Carmel School, and the freewheeling youths who formed a bond at the Gutnickes' Shabbos table. She shares a clever phrase that perfectly describes the phenomenon.

15:46 Speaker 6 You've heard of frum from birth? Well, there's also frum from Perth. It's a very powerful movement created by the Chabad families there who really transformed the lives of young people.

15:58 Speaker 3 We grew up together. We come from the same origins of Perth, Western Australia. We grew up in the same school with the same challenges. We started life from what you would call traditional Jewish homes, and all of us began a journey to become observant Hasidim today in 2023 living across the world.

16:19 Speaker 2 And as Miri points out, the Meshugganas ripple effect is not limited to their inner group. Aharon Lezer's wife, Gani, was one of her roommates at Mayanot. Her other roommate there, Devorah, went to high school with Aharon, Yitz, Dovid, Michoel, and Gilad back in Perth. Devorah was the first person to suggest that she date Dovid.

16:41 Speaker 6 So there must have been something in the water then, I don't know, in the ocean. But it really is an extraordinary thing that happened in those years in Perth, Australia.

16:53 Speaker 2 The Burkes, Ogunses, Goodmans, Feigenbaums, and Luries have all settled into their family and professional lives. With Gilad in Israel, Yitz in Melbourne, Australia, Aharon Lezer in New York City, and Michoel and Dovid upstate, the need to stay in touch has intensified. So about 10 years ago, Aharon Lezer started a new WhatsApp group lovingly dubbed the Meshugganas.

17:17 Speaker 1 Just because we had such an important bond as we were growing up, and we had all understood each other's stories and been there at those pivotal moments of our lives. Because of that mutual shared understanding of our lifestyles, we really are very close.

17:33 Speaker 4 We're all on our own spiritual journeys today, and they're vastly different. There is pieces that overlap, but they're different. You know, I'm in corporate tech America, still a proud Lubavitcher. And Dovid is, you know, living in this bubble, beautiful bubble of shlichus, unbelievable at what he's doing. Aharon's a, a lawyer and living in a Lubavitch community. Gilad's living in Tekoa in Eretz Israel on his own spiritual journey. And then Yitzy's at the end of the world in Australia in a very, uh, diverse Jewish community. And so our paths are very different today.

18:12 Speaker 2 But each Meshuggana insists that although their journeys have included yeshiva and kollel and tefillin and tzitzits, they're not in ideological lockstep. Gilad will be the first to tell you this.

18:25 Speaker 4 The reason why I became frum was 'cause I was a rebel

18:28 Speaker 5 And I didn't like the system, and I was against the system. So I was never gonna be inside of the system and follow all the rules just because I was told I had to. Being Jewish is hard enough. It's enough obligations, let alone following a Hasidic path. It, it was, it was really hard, so that was already the beginning of my, um, dissonance, so to speak.

18:46 Speaker 2 That has led to disagreements within the group. Remember that two of the Meshugganas are rabbis. But Aharon Lezer says Gilad has their complete support.

18:56 Speaker 3 As children, I believe we were all a little rebellious. We all did the things that might not be easy to share on a podcast like this. But we all did 'em, I promise you that. Some more, some less, but we don't all have to walk and talk and breathe exactly the same Jewish culture.

19:14 Speaker 2 Sometimes it gets heated in the debate.

19:16 Speaker 5 I will often give a more colorful, open perspective, and usually Aharon Lezer and Michol will pretty much stay quiet.

19:23 Speaker 3 I think Gilad has the intellectual integrity and the spiritual backbone to push back and seek what fits him best, and that continues to be an inspiration for me to seek it out for myself, so he maintains his ringleader role.

19:43 Speaker 5 It's complicated, 'cause what's happened is in, in the last year, the nature of our group conversations in our WhatsApp group is a lot of them saying things that they take for granted, and me challenging, "Is it really like that? What does that actually mean to you?" Our conversation can get quite feisty at times, but always, always respectful, and always in a way where we all, I think, benefit in the end.

20:13 Speaker 3 We still have the same level of friendship, and I want to actually say love for each other and care for each other, you know?

20:20 Speaker 2 Rabbi Burke, where do you think you'd be right now without the Meshugganas?

20:25 Speaker 1 I definitely wouldn't be Frum if it wasn't for this story with Gilad. I wouldn't have got to Israel. I wouldn't have ended up in yeshiva. I wouldn't have met Yom Tov Glazer and had these pivotal moments in my journey if it wasn't for him. While I think I would be okay, I think I wouldn't have that kind of affirmation and, and support that they provide for me. They're my closest friends, guys who I'll be there for every important milestone in their lives, and I feel like they would be there for me in the same way.

20:56 Speaker 2 And you, Michol?

20:57 Speaker 5 I was positively influenced and inspired by the journey that the other Meshugganas went on when they commenced. I don't know where I would be without them.

21:05 Speaker 2 The Lubavitcher Rebbe had the foresight to send the Gutniks to Perth nearly four decades ago. Their non-judgmental and loving approach helped the Meshugganas forge strong, lasting bonds to Yiddishkeit and to each other.

21:19 Speaker 3 It all commenced and started at the Gutniks' table, but I think the glue that holds us together today is soulful. Like, it's a godly element that's not attributed to any one person, time, place, or experience. We just, we're connected at the soul level, and, um, it's always gonna be like that.

21:39 Speaker 5 At the end of the day, I think it shows the power of friendship.

21:44 Speaker 3 I really feel all Jewish people have this ability to connect to each other in a way that's beyond time and space, but in particular, certain neshamas are closely connected to others, and I feel like we have this soulful connection with each other through all this time.

22:04 Speaker 2 Miri Burke is not a Meshuggana. She's just married to one. She has her own WhatsApp group with her friends, so she knows why it's so important for the Meshugganas to maintain their connection.

22:16 Speaker 6 Invest in your friendships. Keep your friends close. Make a big effort. It can be easy to let friends slip away, but they're maybe the most powerful resource you have in your life. Life is a series of contingencies. Where would any of us be without the butterfly that flapped its wings?

22:34 Speaker 5 Yeah, it's priceless.

22:39 Speaker 2 I'm Gary Wolk. Thanks for listening to Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. We welcome your questions and comments about what you've just heard on Lamplighters. Please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com. And if you know of a great story involving Chabad emissaries or the people they inspire, please let us know about them. That's podcast@L-U-B-A-V-I-T-C-H.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. This is a Lubavitch International podcast.