Latest / Love Conquers Fear / #52: What AI Can’t Replace: Neil Blumofe on Wonder and the Human Spirit

Transcript

#52: What AI Can’t Replace: Neil Blumofe on Wonder and the Human Spirit · Love Conquers Fear

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  All of the the Nexus of consciousness, spirituality,
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  science and AI and all of its other accoutrement allow us to
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  have a very exciting moment. Being able to navigate all of
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  this, as difficult and as scary as it may be, gives us a real
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  sense of what's possible. You know, I never thought in the
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  work that I do that there's been a lot of unexpected things that
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  have happened, and it's very exciting.
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  I think that science and spirit are two sides of the same coin.
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  We have a an opportunity to discuss deeply and carefully and
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  with love all of this that will help to define who we're going
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  to be or who we're not going to be because I think the stakes
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  are that high. Welcome back everybody to the
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  Love Conquers Fear podcast. I'm so excited about today's
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  episode. This has been a long time in the
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  making. Seemed inevitable ever since I
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  started the podcast. First of all, I just want to say
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  that I'm recording this slightly before South by Southwest
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  starts. Really exciting thing happened
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  yesterday. I've been wondering when this
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  would actually happen, but I've talked about the Americans for
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  Ibogaine initiative on the podcast and the fact that here
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  at the House, we hosted Governor Rick Perry as well as Brian
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  Hubbard for a dinner to raise money for the Americans for
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  Ibogaine initiative. And that was a successful
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  dinner. I learned a ton.
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  I've talked about that dinner in the past, You know, really the
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  the fact that ibogaine will de age a brain and we should have
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  the scientific curiosity to understand why this incredibly
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  powerful psychedelic can literally transform vets where
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  they over 80% of time walk out of only one ibogaine experience
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  or session and they don't have suicidal thoughts anymore or
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  ideation. They don't decide to go forward
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  with that. And their spouses look at them
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  afterwards and say, Oh my gosh, you're back.
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  I was wondering if you were ever going to come back after all the
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  PTSD they had. Same thing.
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  It's over 80% of the time cure rate with Alcoholics, opioid
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  addicts. And I got a text yesterday from
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  Aaron, who is the executive director of the Americans Bride
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  began initiative and Brian Hubbard is coming on the
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  podcast. And so you'll see that coming up
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  in the next few episodes. And I just can't wait for that
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  because wow, what a force of nature.
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  He is a man on a mission. So stay tuned for that.
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  It's it's going to be a huge honor flowing with him and
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  recording that. I've also mentioned that I
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  finished recently, A World Appears by Michael Pollan, a
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  very deep dive into the nature of consciousness, and I talked
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  about that on the last episode. So I'm going to keep this short,
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  but it is a great book. It's another meandering tour
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  like Anika Harris, who wrote Lights On into trying to decode
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  the nature of consciousness. We're going to spend a lot of
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  time on that on today's episode. And it is a very complex subject
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  because, you know, the things that Michael Pollan talks about
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  in his book is that as he's with all these scientists, do they
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  ultimately conclude, you know, consciousness is the experience
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  itself. I mean, there's nothing to the
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  human experience without consciousness.
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  And the one thing we know for sure is we're conscious, you
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  know, and we're self aware. And to study that, given that
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  it's the only thing we actually know to be true is very hard
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  because it's not like you can step outside of being conscious
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  and observe consciousness from a non conscious point of view.
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  So he ends up concluding at the end of that book, much like
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  Anika Harris did and hers, the consciousness must be this
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  fundamental property of the universe, which is ultimately
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  what I believe. And I believe there's divinity
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  in it too. I believe that consciousness is
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  the fabric of God and that it's deeply rooted in love.
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  I believe it exists in the quantum realm.
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  And he covers, he covers quite a bit of that in the book.
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  And you know, one of the things I was surprised by is that a lot
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  of these consciousness researchers, maybe I shouldn't
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  have been surprised by this, but I was, they are talking about
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  their psychedelic journeys too, as a way that they've grappled
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  with the nature of consciousness.
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  And for one in particular, his first journey, he was he was
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  clinging on the entire time to the materialist paradigm.
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  And then after his first journey, he had to conclude
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  like, hey, there's something very different going on here
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  that science and his understanding of science
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  couldn't explain to him. It's a great book, a really fun
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  read. Michael Pollan tells it in a, in
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  a, in a really beautiful way came out on February 24th and it
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  is read by him on Audible. So if you get it that way, it's
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  it's really fun. So today I'm really excited to
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  announce that Rabbi Neil Bloomoth is on the podcast.
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  How you doing? Great to see you.
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  Yeah, it's so good to see you. You know you don't, you don't
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  know this yet, but you know, I told you that I just got the PDF
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  for the advance review copy of Love Conquers Fear, which is my
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  third book, and the subtitle Humanity, AI and Age Abundance
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  for All. And you're in the
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  acknowledgements. No, thank you.
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  So I just wanted you to know. Appreciate it Mughaltovan, the
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  accomplishment. Thank you.
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  Thank you so much. It comes out in June and there's
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  a conference that occurs in Omaha with would love to have
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  you join if you can make it, which is called the ROI blind
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  conference. In the theme this year is love
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  conquers fear. Together we rise and surprise,
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  surprise, it's the 7th conference that they're having,
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  which is my divine number. Another beautiful synchronicity,
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  but it's it's May 27th through 29th in Omaha and I talked about
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  it on episode 41 of the podcast with Jay Wilkinson, who is the
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  founder of the do more good movement and they're they're my
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  publisher so feels really, really good to it is truly a
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  labor of love it it is also very much a labor that the the
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  editing process for any book it's in it's intense.
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  You know, you're just reading it over and over and over again to
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  make sure to get it right. But I can't wait to send the PDF
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  to you. It'll it'll arrive in your inbox
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  either later today or tomorrow. Great.
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  I really, really look forward to getting your feedback on it.
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  Well, I appreciate it and it's good to know that as you're
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  laboring over something with that's such a beautiful urgent
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  truth within yourself to know that you're not alone.
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  So you continue to have like minded folks who walk with you
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  and support you as you continue to bring love out into the
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  world. Well, thank you.
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  Thank you. I truly believe none of us are
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  alone there. There's divinity within us all.
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  It's just whether or not we realize that you know, I I, I
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  talk about in the book may be a surprise to you.
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  May may not be you've known me for a long time that I view a
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  lot of my life as having sleepwalked a bit like not being
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  aware of what the reality was and the divine messages that I
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  was receiving, like feeling the presence of God and having
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  having that, that beautiful experience.
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  You know, one of them in particular was in Israel, in
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  Taganya, you know, the first kibbutz where I was just seeing
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  an absolutely majestic, like partial rainbow in the sky.
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  It was very unusual. It's like just a tiny little
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  fraction of one as we're looking out over this completely lush
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  valley that used to be pretty much desert type of land.
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  They had transformed the land in 70 years.
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  And you know, I got that feeling of energy all over my body.
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  It was just a beautiful, beautiful feeling.
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  And I was standing there with Gil, who lives there and was our
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  tour guide and, and Deborah and I knew that I was there in the
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  presence of God. And it was just, it was just
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  incredible. All those Thunderbolt moments
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  can really help define and reshift a lives that either are
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  sleepwalking or marred by injury or sadness or trauma.
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  So absolutely to be able to hold on to an experience such as that
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  and to recognize the Divine allows 1 to rededicate one's
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  life appropriately and to be able to share outside of
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  oneself. Well, you truly are one of my
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  best friends and I really, really appreciate how much
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  you've been there with me and so many important moments,
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  including, you know, for the passing of my mom.
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  Also, let me say the crossing over of my mom because I, I, I
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  do get messages from her and from my dad sometimes in
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  meditation, sometimes in psychedelic journeys.
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  And it's really transcendent when it happens.
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  It's, it's incredibly beautiful. And, and so I know that their
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  souls are, are here and probably right here present with us right
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  now. But you know, when, when I when
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  I look at the the arc of your career and I know a lot about
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  you that people listening to this probably don't know as much
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  as I know it's really cool that you're doing what you're doing
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  today. But maybe we can just go back in
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  time and start with the young rabbi kneel, you know, the one
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  that didn't know they were going to be a rabbi.
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  And, you know, growing up, you know, where did you grow up?
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  Like I know your your story of your bar mitzvah, which is which
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  is quite fun. You told that at the synagogue
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  one time and how you decided ultimately to do what you do
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  today and do it with such grace and love.
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  Thank you. Appreciate it.
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  You know, growing up in a suburb of Chicago, which was a really
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  wonderful place to grow up and had a loving family, really was
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  struck by trying to figure out a way of applying meaning to life
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  and not, as you said, to sleepwalk through life to really
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  transform ordinary moments and make them holy.
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  I didn't have that language back then, but I knew that I didn't
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  want to waste time. I didn't want to just March in
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  in a holding pattern. And, you know, we're buffeted
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  about as kids because we don't at least I didn't really know
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  what was going on. So I, I'm old enough, I was
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  handed a tape and a cassette and said, go listen to this and go
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  learn your bar mitzvah. And I didn't really have a
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  context of why my family has a dynamic.
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  There's a lot of religious folks who wouldn't travel on the
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  Sabbath. So as a compromise, my family
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  had my bar mitzvah on a Monday morning.
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  It was Labor Day and and we had it at my home and we put a tent
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  out in the backyard and it was fine.
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  But I, again, really, I wasn't centered.
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  I wasn't grounded in what was happening.
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  And, and I let it in a dutiful way, as something I had learned
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  and because it was outside. And you know, we weren't in
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  Chicago, but the Windy City adjacent.
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  Windy City, yeah. Wendy City get Jason I the the
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  we had a Torah scroll in an arc that was portable that was built
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  by friends of my father and my father was in plumbing and
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  distribution and and great. So he knew a lot of cabinet
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  makers and and short, Long story short is the arc fell over, the
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  glass broke and the Torah splayed out over the ground,
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  which in the Jewish tradition is not a good thing at all, not a
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  good thing at all. So the folks who sort of got
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  over themselves to come to my bar mitzvah of the family of
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  the, of the branch of the family that was less religious, like,
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  you know, it was maybe a sign from heaven of some sort.
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  So they, we, we paused my bar mitzvah.
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  I was a very impressionable, insecure 12 and 13 year old.
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  Everyone plotted about what to do and ultimately there was a
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  plan made, but it excluded the people who were actually in my
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  life. The cousins were not constant in
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  my life. My neighbors, my non Jewish
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  neighbors were. And my non Jewish neighbors
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  expressed that they wanted to help and express solidarity.
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  And according to my knowledge and perception, they were
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  rebuffed. And that really caused a
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  negative feeling to come into who I was and what I was doing.
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  And I felt very embarrassed. And I, I went and I was, you
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  know, didn't have the language for it.
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  So I went and hid for a little while and actually climbed under
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  my bed and was trying to process.
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  Me, I understand. I've had many moments like,
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  like, I mean really embarrassing moments growing up as a, as a
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  total, you know, computer nerd here in Austin.
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  Sure. Well, I'm glad to.
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  Lots of stories, I'm glad to have solidarity with you.
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  Right, In a different way. I know.
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  I just thought that my friends were being wronged and they
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  said, how can we help? And from what I noticed, my
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  relatives said, you're, you're not part of this.
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  This isn't your story. And I, I knew it was because
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  they cared about me in a way on a daily way that my relatives
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  didn't. And and it kind of drove me away
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  from participating in Judaism for a very long time.
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  Again, I was 12, don't tell anybody, but I had my bar
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  mitzvah before I was 13. So birthdays in the fall, but
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  this was September. And and then really in my teen
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  years, I don't know if I squandered it, but I certainly
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  was in exile from trying to learn because I thought it was a
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  very judgmental experience, a very off putting experience.
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  And it wasn't until much later, 18/19/20, then on my own terms,
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  I came to being able to wrestle with Judaism, spirituality,
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  something bigger than myself, and be able to feel at home in
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  that struggle, in that exploration.
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  So it's so odd, ironic that as a rabbi of a congregation, you
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  know, I'm viewed as one who helps people learn about
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  Judaism. And sometimes I sit in my study
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  and I just kind of say really me because younger me would be
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  saying I would not want to be in a office such as mine with
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  anybody under any circumstances. Right, right.
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  Well, I can tell you that in your presence, you know, sitting
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  with you, I feel 100% comfortable with being
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  transparent and you bring that out in people.
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  So it's, you know, trust me, I've had many times in my life
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  where I'm like, I can't believe I'm, you know, running this
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  company and doing this, but it but it is, it is what I'm meant
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  to do. And it's obvious to me that it's
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  your soul song. I think so.
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  And having the cultivation of wonder and astonishment even in
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  ordinary moments. I think it's the thing that has
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  sustained me for so long. And I've been really doing this
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  now for 28 years or so. It's a long time and and I feel
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  very excited to get up in the morning and to be able to hold
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  presents for people to help listen really and perhaps guide
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  or at least help experience something bigger for what people
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  are looking for. And was there, was there a, a
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  certain moment where you were like, OK, I for sure am going to
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  dive deep in Judaism? What was that?
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  What was that moment like for you when you came back to it
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  that you decided I really want to return to this?
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  There are actually 2 moments I studied.
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  I had the great privilege right after the fall of communism to
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  study in Poland. I was a political economy major
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  and an English major, and it was the first time that the schools
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  were open to Western students. And so I was able to study in
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  Poznan, in a place called Adam Miskevitz University.
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  And because I was studying, I had the flexibility to explore
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  various places in Poland right after the fall of communism.
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  And I was conversant enough back then in Polish no longer that I
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  was able to get make my way and kind of have rudimentary
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  conversations. And I remember finding my way to
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  because I had this calling of feeling of, of Judaism.
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  I don't have any relatives from Poland who but I have relatives
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  from Belarus, which was just next door.
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  But I wanted to learn more about Judaism.
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  I was curious and awakened to things and, and made my way to
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  to Birkenau, Auschwitz, which is their two different camps.
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  Birkenau was a was the, was the death center.
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  Auschwitz was the labour camp and, and I made my way from
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  Auschwitz to Birkenau. I researched how to because
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  there was no industry, there was no tours at the time.
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  And I got there very early in the morning and walked the route
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  of from Auschwitz to Burke, another route that would peep.
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  It was about a mile or so away. And for those who are listening
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  or watching this wonderful podcast in my synagogue, one of
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  the Taurus Scrolls has a cover of railroad tracks that make
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  their way into one singular track.
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  And that would that design is based on my experiences in
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  Poland. So we designed it because of
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  that walk I made from one site Auschwitz to Birkenau.
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  And in Birkenau, there was a a barrack as well that had at the
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  time, pictures of Jewish life, didn't have pictures of
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  destruction or or death, but pictures of life that I never
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  really saw because again, I was removed a bit from my own
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  experiences, but pictures of men and women, of boys and girls
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  dancing, joyful, socializing, studying.
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  And I remember being surrounded by these pictures from floor to
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  ceiling saying, I'm so close to just disappearing, of not taking
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  this seriously. I should give this a chance.
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  And I remember something that I can still feel it.
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  And my heart just dropped directly into my stomach and
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  said, you know, I am the one I've been waiting for.
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  There's nobody who's going to mentor me.
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  There's nobody who's going to sort of spoon feed me.
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  And you've got to do it on your own.
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  And I remember standing directly in that place saying, I will do
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  this. I will learn before I discard
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  it, before I ignore it. I want to learn who I am.
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  And that started the journey that the best way at the, at
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  that point for me to do so was through music.
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  Because as a musician, I, I, that's a language I understood
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  much better than, you know, Aramaic or Hebrew at the time.
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  So over the years I devoted myself to learning Judaism
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  through the liturgical functions, the sacred calendar,
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  the music of it, which is very deep and very beautiful and has
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  everything to do with the thoughts about consciousness.
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  There's a quote from the Zohar, which is one of the mystical
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  commentaries on the on the Torah, which says there is a key
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  for every issue. There's a key for every problem,
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  but the key of music opens them all.
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  And, and I've really affirmed that in a lot of ways.
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  So that got me on the journey of taking my Judaism and myself
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  much more seriously and to learn and be a beginner's mind
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  literally. And as things go with with
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  everyday, just saying I'm here to receive what I can receive.
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  So that happened. That was in New Orleans.
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  I was a a student at Tulane at the time.
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  And it was kind of an adjustment for the folks who knew me,
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  including my girlfriend slash, now wife at the time.
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  Like, OK, let's see what this is.
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  And, and it continued and still continues in its own way from
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  there. If I can tell the second story
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  briefly, and I had rooted myself in the confidence of being
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  Jewish. I kind of knew what was going
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  on. We came to Austin and served
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  seven years in my community as the Hazan or the Cantor and had
• 20:40
  a sabbatical. And I like to travel quite a bit
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  and decided to take the Trans Siberian Railway from Petersburg
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  to Beijing and stopped for a while in Mongolia.
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  And after arriving in ulaanbaatar, which is the
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  capital, I spent about a week and 1/2 with the nomadic family
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  and lots of stories there. But suffice it to say that the
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  experience that I had with that family blessing a woman who was
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  very ill, helping gather water for her and realizing the power
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  with that blessing had in a way that I'd not felt viscerally or
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  somatically from anyone else. She was holding her hands and
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  she was a shamanistic and sort of a form of Buddhism as well
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  combination. She was holding her hands and I
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  was gripping her hands and she was shaking as I was chanting a
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  blessing in Hebrew, a language she didn't know.
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  But then everything changed and she realized that we had a
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  connection that was bigger than any language, that was soul to
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  soul. And she realized what I was
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  trying to do for her and she accepted it and received it.
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  And then the whole relationship between she and her husband and
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  I just changed immediately. And they summoned me into their
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  gear, which is a yurt. And they basically said, through
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  a translation, through a translator, you're not a regular
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  person who comes through here. Who are you?
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  I said, well, I'm Jewish. And they said, what is that
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  like, oh, oh, it's King David. Who?
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  Oh, it's Moses. No, like, OK, because they're
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  trying to look it up in the dictionary.
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  They're like I said, Jesus, but earlier.
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  Then I go, OK, we got that. We got that.
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  And then the very first question they asked the first person they
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  had said, when you pray, what do you wear?
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  It was the very first question because it was so important to
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  be able to share how one with the authenticity of being
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  presents oneself before God to them.
• 22:43
  And we had a great beautiful conversation.
• 22:46
  They invited me to stay. It's one of the regrets I have
• 22:50
  in life, but I had other things I had to do.
• 22:52
  They invited me to stay to learn how to be a shaman in their
• 22:55
  tradition. And I was like, oh man, if I
• 22:57
  hadn't, if I didn't have this day job, I would have done that.
• 23:00
  But but I had to get back. And, and I think about it all
• 23:02
  the time of the respect that we had that transcended anything of
• 23:07
  in common, of realizing that our, if you will, consciousness
• 23:11
  connected in such a deep and profound way.
• 23:13
  Yeah, yeah. That's that's so beautiful.
• 23:15
  You know, one, one thing in my book, you know, you haven't, you
• 23:19
  haven't, you haven't read it yet, right?
• 23:21
  I talk a lot about how humanity needs to rediscover indigenous
• 23:26
  wisdom and how and how much indigenous wisdom influenced
• 23:30
  people like Benjamin Franklin for, for our constitution, our
• 23:35
  declaration that it's that's really deeply infused.
• 23:39
  And, and you, you were experiencing first hand like a
• 23:44
  very different type of culture. And when, when you when you were
• 23:49
  giving that blessing to her, did you feel it too?
• 23:55
  Did you feel the shift as well? Oh, absolutely.
• 23:58
  I she was there receiving it. And I was like, oh, this is what
• 24:03
  a blessing is supposed to be. A blessing is supposed to shift
• 24:07
  the ordinariness of the world, or it's supposed to interrupt or
• 24:10
  disrupt the thing that you're asking for change.
• 24:13
  In this case, it was an asking, It was a blessing asking for
• 24:16
  healing. So she's ill, I'm holding her
• 24:20
  and I'm saying the blessing is saying let's shift this energy,
• 24:24
  Let's find a different way like you would with acupuncture or
• 24:27
  any other medicine. Let's get the flow of things in
• 24:30
  a different way. And she was gifting me that
• 24:33
  realization. I felt things in that I could
• 24:36
  still again feel that in a way that I have not yet since people
• 24:39
  are very honored and appreciative of blessings that
• 24:45
  Ioffer. But in no way have I ever felt
• 24:48
  the magnetism or the the vibration of her entire body.
• 24:52
  That was that was due to her understanding in her way what
• 24:58
  that was meant to be. She didn't get any of the
• 25:00
  language, but she knew what it was for.
• 25:03
  And that act of kindness, that act of love, that act of
• 25:07
  aspiration shifted everything. Yeah.
• 25:10
  And it was in that moment. I'll just fill in that.
• 25:12
  I said, well, I'm going to continue my journey learning
• 25:16
  about Judaism. I got the music stuff down.
• 25:18
  I've got the liturgy down. And now I'll just devote my
• 25:21
  entire life to being a rabbi and sing what happens.
• 25:23
  And that's when that happened in Mongolia, thanks to this woman
• 25:27
  that I don't know her name and she didn't know mine.
• 25:29
  Wow, wow, that's that's incredible, incredible moment.
• 25:34
  And you know, as I've seen your career unfold here, there's a
• 25:39
  few things I'd love to touch on because to, to me, you know,
• 25:46
  you're, you're, you're defining to yourself more than anybody
• 25:49
  else can define you for sure. But to me, they're defining in
• 25:52
  terms of my respect for you and how you walk in the world and
• 25:57
  how much love you bring into a situation and in in an
• 26:02
  environment. So one of them is the way you
• 26:06
  brought together some of Austin's best musicians to
• 26:09
  really honor, you know, people that have been legends and jazz.
• 26:14
  And as you know, our daughter goes to our oldest daughter goes
• 26:18
  to Tulane as well as a junior there.
• 26:20
  But maybe we could just talk about that because it's it's you
• 26:24
  know, when I, when I describe you to people and I talk about
• 26:28
  how much respect I have for you, I also talk about the fact.
• 26:33
  Well, also he's a very ostentatious rabbi because here
• 26:37
  he is also as a musician, you know, constantly jamming with
• 26:42
  the best jazz musicians I've ever seen on stage in Austin.
• 26:46
  There's a, there's a tremendous value obviously, in being in a
• 26:50
  community and helping to shape and transform that community
• 26:53
  within the community. But there's a real call.
• 26:56
  And I think this is something that you do in Where love
• 26:59
  Conquers fear in a way of being open and brave enough to begin
• 27:05
  to connect partnerships in ways that may not be so obvious.
• 27:10
  And to be able to do that kind of work of repair in a different
• 27:14
  context, I think is very important, perhaps beyond just
• 27:19
  standing face to face with the source or the divine.
• 27:22
  Perhaps for me, the most sacred place of standing is on a stage
• 27:28
  or a bandstand with really talented people.
• 27:31
  Not exactly sure what you're going to do next.
• 27:34
  And that kind of harrowing adventure to me is the language
• 27:39
  and the articulation of what jazz is.
• 27:41
  You have to be so skilled at what you do that you're able to
• 27:46
  release yourself, to let go of yourself, to not intellectualize
• 27:50
  it, to let whatever it is flow. And from there, the beautiful
• 27:54
  music, the ineffable partnership among talented people happens.
• 27:59
  So I've learned a tremendous amount on the bandstand that I
• 28:02
  try to bring to the rabbinic work that I do in the Jewish
• 28:06
  community as well. But the good news for me is
• 28:09
  that, you know, who am I? I'm not a jazz musician.
• 28:12
  I'm the one who knows a lot about certain music and how to
• 28:15
  present certain music. But I I think that the trust
• 28:19
  that the musicians who I would agree with you are exceptional,
• 28:23
  have for me is that I honor them.
• 28:25
  I respect their tradition and I respect the understanding that
• 28:28
  this is meant for everybody. So whether I'm the woman who
• 28:32
  doesn't understand the language or they're or we're not talking
• 28:35
  past each other, we're dedicated to learning from each other and
• 28:39
  to sharing the best we can from each other in order to transform
• 28:42
  the world and to uplift a tradition that sounds good, but
• 28:48
  we may not know a lot about. And specifically living in
• 28:51
  Austin, TX, living in America, I think jazz is not the only
• 28:55
  language, but is a major language of learning and
• 28:58
  understanding how to become and deepen our understanding of who
• 29:02
  we are in this land. Let me just politely disagree
• 29:05
  with you that you are a jazz musician because you, you know,
• 29:11
  there, there's, there's different roles, right?
• 29:13
  It's it, It would be like me saying that even though I used
• 29:17
  to constantly program that, you know, I didn't become this kind
• 29:21
  of maestro programmer. And that would be true, you
• 29:26
  know, although now I've got more superpowers than I've had before
• 29:29
  because of Claude code and and things like that.
• 29:34
  But you know, you are a jazz musician because you have the
• 29:39
  ability to bring together that group and form them as a team
• 29:46
  for that night on stage. And it really is like magic to
• 29:52
  see because they it's, it's, it's, it's incredible.
• 29:55
  Like to see the subtle nods and, you know, motions between them.
• 30:02
  As you know, jazz is improv and it's and it's, it's incredible.
• 30:06
  You can feel, you can feel the flow of it.
• 30:09
  And I tried to encourage them to stretch them a little bit and
• 30:13
  also to pay homage to the music and them artists who both wrote
• 30:18
  it and performed it. So it's not just something that
• 30:20
  you're just listening to saying that sounds nice.
• 30:23
  There's an understanding that there's real feelings behind it,
• 30:25
  just like there would be when I'm singing, let's say, a chant
• 30:30
  that's an ancient chant in our in the Jewish tradition where
• 30:33
  people are just not listening to it, do it as a, as they would,
• 30:36
  you know, consume music. But it's actually maybe, maybe
• 30:42
  if like an ibogaine experience of coming and actually changing
• 30:46
  the chemistry of and the hurts and the traumas and the
• 30:49
  difficulties in order to heal somebody from within.
• 30:53
  Yeah, that's what we're trying to do.
• 30:54
  Well, music is healing. I mean, I mean, you know, you
• 30:58
  know, Ibogaine is a very extreme example of like where people
• 31:02
  have like some people would so Jazzes too, right, right.
• 31:05
  Well, I hope not. I hope people don't go in and
• 31:08
  they're like, Oh my gosh, you know, I mean, Ibogaine is like
• 31:11
  a, you know, I haven't done Ibogaine, but it's like a 24
• 31:14
  hour like mega intense journey where people are like confronted
• 31:19
  with, with all of this trauma they've had in their life and
• 31:23
  have to look at that from and can't look away from it in the
• 31:27
  journey and have to look at that from the soul view, objective
• 31:31
  view. You know, the view of the soul
• 31:34
  where it doesn't have any materiality.
• 31:37
  It doesn't have any judgment about an experience and allows
• 31:44
  them to see it for what it is from that view and then heal
• 31:48
  from it. Right?
• 31:49
  That's, that's the way I understand it works.
• 31:52
  It's like watching your whole life, you know, as a, as a
• 31:56
  movie, which it sounds like a near death experience where you
• 32:01
  get a life review. And for sure, apparently, you
• 32:05
  know, when, when, when people crossover, they have a full life
• 32:10
  review as they, as they, as they cross and you know.
• 32:14
  I think a sacred experience should be an experience that
• 32:18
  doesn't frighten us, but it's certainly so honest as you're
• 32:21
  describing. Yeah, but but for sure, music is
• 32:23
  a sacred experience. I was telling you earlier about
• 32:26
  seeing Jon Batiste on stage, which is a really maestro,
• 32:30
  maestro of jazz musicians. It was it was here for an Austin
• 32:34
  City Limits Music TV taping. And he was just manifesting so
• 32:40
  much love in the band and the audience, you know, the couple
• 32:44
  that we're with was just telling us, Oh my gosh, we love you
• 32:49
  guys. This is so amazing.
• 32:51
  And you could feel it. And it reminded me of when I was
• 32:55
  younger and I saw Bono in U2 on the original Joshua Tree tour.
• 33:02
  And it was, it was, it was like a communal, you know, sacred
• 33:07
  religious experience. Seeing that, you know, the the
• 33:11
  way that they were manifesting that connection and love in the
• 33:16
  audience was just, it's transcendent.
• 33:19
  I agree and I think you know, balancing the material aspect to
• 33:22
  the consumer aspect or the the ways of of leveraging, you know,
• 33:28
  music and what it does for industry, getting to the root of
• 33:31
  transforming somebody from within.
• 33:33
  I think that that is exactly the case.
• 33:35
  And when the vocabulary or the grammar of a sacred space or a a
• 33:41
  church or a mosque or a synagogue can have, can be held
• 33:45
  with difficulty for a lot of people, you're right.
• 33:49
  A concert venue is a place where all are welcome at a certain
• 33:53
  point and everyone is exposed to such a, an incredible
• 33:56
  experience. So I think you're right.
• 33:57
  I think there's tremendous parallels of what music and that
• 34:02
  kind of standing together, that kind of witness together can be.
• 34:06
  And if it's filled with awe, if it's filled with astonishment,
• 34:09
  that brings more possibilities of love and connection together,
• 34:13
  far beyond any specific religion or group.
• 34:17
  Yeah, you know, when when I had Evan Alexander on for the 46
• 34:21
  episode of the podcast, he when he entered heaven in his
• 34:27
  experience in the coma that he was in, he he remembers the
• 34:33
  beautiful transcendent music. And I told him in that moment, I
• 34:39
  said, well, tell him I was asking him, wow, this, this
• 34:44
  probably is like more transcendent music than you've
• 34:47
  ever heard here. And he said, well, in in some
• 34:51
  ways, yes. But he said the great musicians
• 34:53
  are are getting downloads from from source, from the divine.
• 34:59
  And you know, Rick Rubin's book, the Creative Act goes into that
• 35:03
  in detail. And a lot of musicians have
• 35:06
  talked about the fact that they are it just comes to them and
• 35:10
  they've got to like fiercely scribble it down because it
• 35:14
  seems like when those downloads come, you know, Rick Rubin talks
• 35:16
  about this, you either act on it or it's going to go to someone
• 35:21
  else. But one way or another, it's
• 35:22
  going to come through in the divine.
• 35:24
  And we'll get into spirituality. But, but just to stick with, you
• 35:29
  know, some other things that you're involved with which I
• 35:31
  which I really, it makes me just have that much more respect for
• 35:35
  you. So you're involved in a lot of
• 35:38
  interfaith activities too, which is which is really cool.
• 35:41
  I see you as a, as a amazing bridge builder in not just the
• 35:47
  Austin community, but through the fellowship you're in and and
• 35:50
  you know, just worldwide that I'd love you to talk about that.
• 35:56
  Sure. I think it's really important to
• 35:58
  know your neighbors, to respect your neighbors and to know what
• 36:02
  motivates them, what animates them and what frightens them,
• 36:05
  because you can be a confident person within a very small group
• 36:12
  of people. But if you don't know how the
• 36:14
  world works, I think you can put yourself at tremendous risk.
• 36:17
  So I've one of the reasons I came to Austin as opposed to
• 36:23
  being able to lead a place in in a more dense Jewish community
• 36:28
  like New York or Miami or Chicago.
• 36:30
  Los Angeles is the opportunity to do these works, to represent
• 36:35
  as a rabbi in an interfaith space, whether it's, you know,
• 36:39
  putting together a Thanksgiving service or reaching out across
• 36:48
  the the spectrum of folks and just sort of showing up and
• 36:52
  being present and saying that we have what to teach each other.
• 36:55
  I think that's great. Or even in the, in the music
• 36:58
  space at the place where I do the musical events at, at the
• 37:03
  Cactus Cafe, which is put together by the University of
• 37:06
  Texas in Austin. That in itself is, is a, if you
• 37:11
  will, an interfaith event. And, and I think that being open
• 37:15
  to folks and recognizing that all of it is dysfunctional, you
• 37:20
  know, recognizing that as a family, there are disagreements
• 37:24
  and recognizing that there can be hazards and roadblocks, but
• 37:29
  persevering nonetheless. And knowing that the larger
• 37:33
  aspect of what's at stake, it could be a something you're
• 37:37
  fighting for. It could be a particular issue
• 37:39
  of the day, But knowing that you are caring for each other is
• 37:44
  really important. There's a parable taught of two
• 37:49
  guys sitting in a bar, let's say, and one of them at the
• 37:53
  beginning of the night says, hey, man, hey, bro, do you love
• 37:55
  me? And he's like, dude, of course I
• 37:57
  love you. And then as the night progresses
• 38:00
  and they're at the bar and they're Bill, you know, the tab
• 38:03
  keeps getting bigger. I know where this is going.
• 38:06
  Right. The other guy kind of with tears
• 38:08
  in his eyes and says, bro, do you love me?
• 38:11
  And he's like, dude, I told you I loved you.
• 38:13
  He said, OK, well, do you know what causes me pain?
• 38:17
  That's like, no man, come on, like what do you don't get like
• 38:20
  that? And he started crying and he
• 38:22
  said, if you don't know what causes me pain, how could you
• 38:24
  love me? And while your story or that
• 38:28
  story may not be my story, it's really incumbent upon me to
• 38:34
  allow that space to be and not channel who you are through my
• 38:38
  expectations of you, but to rather withdraw or make space.
• 38:43
  In Hebrew, it's called SIM SIM create a little bit of space
• 38:47
  contracting in order for you to fill my life in order for me to
• 38:51
  be able to authentically care for you, show up for you and
• 38:57
  know you. And that has been a a real
• 39:00
  challenge in the last few years where I might get calls of
• 39:03
  solidarity, let's say after 10-7 after the attacks in Israel by
• 39:09
  and you know, these are folks I've known for many years who
• 39:12
  and it has happened saying, look, you know, we're really
• 39:15
  sorry about this experience. Then this difficulty that
• 39:19
  you're, they're obviously feeling as a Jewish person, as a
• 39:21
  Jewish leader. They're talking about Hamas
• 39:23
  attacking. Yeah, Hamas attacking Israel
• 39:25
  and, and the, and the violence and, and the, and the difficulty
• 39:29
  that has happened. We want you to come speak at our
• 39:32
  organization, at our church, and we want you to say these three
• 39:36
  things. We want you to say X&Y&Z.
• 39:39
  And like, you know what, that's not exactly my story, right?
• 39:43
  And I really want. I appreciate you calling and
• 39:45
  let's have more of a conversation.
• 39:47
  They're like, no, because this is how we view the, the
• 39:50
  conflict. And like, well, then it's I
• 39:52
  can't do that. And that kind of rupture is?
• 39:55
  Complete lack of authenticity or they they want to shape you
• 39:59
  into. Yeah, you're kind of soul as
• 40:01
  long as you agree with us, right?
• 40:03
  Right. And that has been troublesome.
• 40:06
  But it's just you keep. I like sports, just like
• 40:08
  basketball. You keep pivoting until you find
• 40:11
  the place where you can go and then take it from there.
• 40:13
  So it's not abandoning hope, it's just recalibrating to the
• 40:17
  point where you can meet somebody with a full heart and
• 40:21
  they can meet you with a full heart as well, right?
• 40:23
  Right. Yeah.
• 40:24
  Well, I remember, you know, in the in the wake of George Floyd
• 40:29
  and all that followed that, that you were doing a lot of
• 40:33
  interfaith activities with the Black American community.
• 40:37
  And it was that time where you went to Selma to to walk, walk
• 40:42
  with them. I thought it was really, really
• 40:44
  amazing and. Dear friend of mine who at the
• 40:47
  time was the associate pastor. Now he's the the pastor.
• 40:51
  So his name is Doctor Reverend Daryl Horton, Mount Zion, Mount
• 40:57
  Zion Baptist Church. You know, we were talking about
• 40:59
  ways to bring our communities together and then realized we
• 41:02
  would get caught up on all the logistics of it, like, where's
• 41:04
  the bus going to go? And so we kind of paused and
• 41:07
  laughed and said, why don't we take a trip together and see if
• 41:10
  that can model for others to do the same.
• 41:13
  So for two years, one year, we went to places in the South to
• 41:18
  explore a connection between African American and Jewish
• 41:21
  experiences. Yes.
• 41:22
  And we, one of the places we visited was Salman.
• 41:25
  It was a very powerful experience.
• 41:28
  And then the next year we went to the North saying that these
• 41:31
  systemic issues are not limited to one region.
• 41:34
  So we went to New York and to Boston and to other places and
• 41:37
  really lived together for a number of days, intensely
• 41:41
  realizing that we do have a lot in common.
• 41:43
  And even though we may not know each other's experience
• 41:46
  intimately, we're open to learning.
• 41:48
  I just have so much respect for you and in leaning in that way
• 41:52
  and it's so important. I mean, huge part of you know,
• 41:55
  love conquers fear. Both the this project, you know,
• 41:59
  my soul song is US realizing that we're 99.9% genetically
• 42:04
  identical across the world and that we all have a lot more in
• 42:10
  common, you know, both genetically and in every other
• 42:13
  way than we have those differences.
• 42:15
  But we're in this programmatic environment where we're
• 42:19
  constantly getting pushed dystopia from the media,
• 42:24
  dystopia from social media. And it's an algorithmic kind of
• 42:28
  hijacking of, of our amygdala to keep us locked in that state
• 42:33
  because they're maximizing their revenue based on going after our
• 42:40
  base fears, which which are really hard wired because we've
• 42:44
  been around for 300,000 years in terms of, you know, the Homo
• 42:48
  Sapien race, which we're probably a part of and only .1%
• 42:55
  of the time if we had electricity and 300,000 years.
• 42:58
  So the scarcity we've dealt with, you know, it's very hard
• 43:03
  wired into our system. You know, do we have a mutual
• 43:06
  friend, Byron Reese? He was on the podcast talking
• 43:09
  about the path to Utopia. And one of the funny things he
• 43:13
  says, you got such a way with words.
• 43:16
  You know, one of my favorite authors and, and and and another
• 43:18
  very, very close friend. He he said, you realize that
• 43:23
  we're all derivative of the Homo sapiens that when they saw the
• 43:28
  shape that look like a bear, the optimists were like, oh, it's
• 43:33
  probably not a bear. And they were eaten.
• 43:35
  The ones that said that's probably a bear and ran, he
• 43:39
  said, we kind of derive from those, you know, from the ones
• 43:43
  that ran. And so we've got a tall order to
• 43:48
  to to be able to transcend that programming.
• 43:52
  And you know, part of it is seeing, seeing each other, you
• 43:57
  know, really seeing each other, which is, which is what you're
• 44:00
  all about. Reality check is that knowing
• 44:03
  that we're all derived from the difficulties of Noah and his
• 44:06
  family after the flood, right. So exactly that I think, Byron,
• 44:10
  that's a fantastic idea that we're all survivors of this
• 44:14
  flood and we have to make sense of the world that we live in.
• 44:18
  And knowing that life is so fleeting and so unpredictable
• 44:21
  and so difficult, pursuant to your point, it's, it's
• 44:25
  courageous and almost superhuman to rise above those fears as
• 44:29
  they are so deeply embedded in with who, with who we are.
• 44:32
  And some, as you said, have such a financial incentive to
• 44:36
  continue to capitalize. On and as, as we're recording
• 44:39
  this, you know, there's a war that we're engaged in with
• 44:45
  Israel taking out some of the top leaders in Iran to help
• 44:53
  hopefully that regime to tip. And I was actually lobbying for
• 44:56
  this on, on Congress for the AIPAC congressional summit,
• 45:00
  which I'd probably go to every year.
• 45:02
  I've been supporting it for probably 14 years or so now.
• 45:07
  And I want to emphasize that I'm an independent voter.
• 45:12
  And one of the cool things about that conference is you see how
• 45:17
  much unity there is. So this this year, they had a
• 45:21
  track where you could go the Democrat or Republican track.
• 45:25
  And it was almost a 5050 Murphy split again, which which you and
• 45:31
  I've talked about before, which is incredible.
• 45:35
  Like, you know, that it's that it's, it's, it's, it's a
• 45:37
  beautiful thing that it's that bipartisan in terms of the
• 45:40
  partnership that we have with Israel.
• 45:42
  But you know, I saw that my our mutual friend human was
• 45:48
  introduced to by Julie Maples, who really is preaching this
• 45:53
  message of unity was with our other mutual friend Andy of the
• 45:59
  Hope Outdoor Gallery was unveiling A mural and of course
• 46:03
  you were there speaking on it. So I'd love to talk about that
• 46:07
  and the origin of of that because that was the most
• 46:10
  recent. You know, Rabbi Neil, you know,
• 46:13
  just huge smile on my heart when I saw that.
• 46:18
  Yeah, I think we can get gripped by the headlines and not
• 46:20
  progress any further. But people like Humman who are,
• 46:24
  I think are doing heroic work and really difficult work of
• 46:28
  getting beyond that. And again, recognizing and
• 46:30
  appreciating humanity and trying to recapture or reclaim that
• 46:36
  place of love, that place of generosity and that place of
• 46:39
  hope, even in sometimes hopeless circumstances, is really
• 46:43
  important. So Humman has been engaged in
• 46:46
  putting up murals highlighting Iranian women who have stood up
• 46:51
  to totalitarian regime, and he's had several in Israel and a few
• 46:58
  now in the United States. He called me a several several
• 47:01
  months ago. He's kind of a new friend out of
• 47:03
  the blue said I'm doing this thing, help me get something
• 47:06
  together in in Texas. And he ultimately got something
• 47:10
  in Houston and then circled back to me.
• 47:12
  You know, this the, the, the dedication, the unveiling of the
• 47:16
  mural was on Sunday, of course, you know, Friday afternoon, you
• 47:19
  know, he, he leaves a message and I didn't get it till
• 47:22
  Saturday night because after the Saturday, I'm like, all right,
• 47:26
  man, I'm, I'm going to, I'm changing the schedule and be
• 47:28
  there. And it was at the Hope Outdoor
• 47:31
  Gallery that Andy runs as beautiful.
• 47:33
  And I didn't know what to do. He said, invite everybody, you
• 47:36
  know, And I'm like, well, I don't really know what this is.
• 47:38
  So like I did with Reverend Horton, I will go and see what
• 47:42
  happens and then we'll make it a thing.
• 47:44
  And the fact that it was so beautiful and so heartfelt and
• 47:50
  so important to draw again, a human connection to the stories
• 47:57
  that we may be hearing or reacting to or being numbed by,
• 48:01
  you know, this, whether it's drones or other kind of warfare
• 48:04
  that we don't recognize each other's humanity.
• 48:07
  The idea that Humman and his vision and others help us to
• 48:11
  recognize that there are real people in these equations.
• 48:15
  And there's a beautiful Iranian or Persian community in Austin
• 48:19
  that now I've gotten to know a little bit.
• 48:21
  And now that we have these beautiful connections also,
• 48:24
  that's awesome. And it's and it's and it.
• 48:27
  And the reason he thought it was important for me to be there
• 48:29
  also is because it was the proximity to Purim, which is an
• 48:34
  important festival that we just celebrated.
• 48:38
  That takes place in Persia, which is ancient Iran, where one
• 48:44
  pushes back against edicts or decisions that cannot be
• 48:49
  transferred or taken away. But you have to find a way
• 48:53
  around them. And and the Persian story, the
• 48:57
  Iranian story and the poem story are all our story, and none of
• 49:01
  it has is. William Faulkner said.
• 49:03
  The past is not even past. It's all in the center.
• 49:06
  It's all in who we are and how we deal with the conflicts and
• 49:10
  the challenges and the hopes that we all have.
• 49:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to emphasize that,
• 49:15
  you know, people may hear Love Conquers fear and I have a
• 49:19
  chapter, you know, chapter 4 is on nuclear weapons and warfare.
• 49:24
  And they may think that it means like, hey, you never engage in
• 49:28
  war, etcetera. But the reality is like, you
• 49:31
  really need to think about what you're fighting for.
• 49:33
  And there's been 10s of 1000 of people executed in Iran by this
• 49:39
  regime to try to continue to oppress women, oppress gay
• 49:45
  people, oppress people that want freedom like Iran used to have.
• 49:51
  And it was incredible. Like you see these, you see
• 49:54
  these old photos of women on the beaches and they look free and,
• 50:00
  you know, just being themselves. And it would be so hard to
• 50:06
  grapple with having been in that place.
• 50:10
  And then the way that they're treated today in this in this
• 50:14
  regime. So it, it really, and, and it
• 50:17
  really is a destabilizer for that whole region and that, that
• 50:21
  that whole region could really absolutely blossom.
• 50:25
  And many in that region are starting to lean in very heavily
• 50:30
  into AI. And that's, that is the way that
• 50:33
  we're going to get to abundance for everybody.
• 50:34
  This technology acceleration technology has always been this
• 50:39
  accelerant for abundance. It's, it's got lots of
• 50:44
  downsides. And because people can use
• 50:47
  technology for bad, starting with the discovery of fire, you
• 50:50
  could use it to cook food and, you know, warm arcades or use it
• 50:54
  for I'll. And that's always been the case.
• 50:58
  But we're in this exponential of exponential curves.
• 51:01
  And we can't have a regime that is such a big exporter of
• 51:06
  terrorism and literally could have been on the precipice of
• 51:11
  creating a nuclear bomb, which that would really destabilize
• 51:15
  the whole world and that whole region if a regime like that was
• 51:19
  was able to get that. And the people there are really,
• 51:22
  really suffering. They're, they are in fear, you
• 51:26
  know, they're not able to manifest love in a regime like
• 51:29
  that. Right.
• 51:30
  And I think that's right. And as as individuals consumer
• 51:34
  are, are are gripped by fear and that fear spreads to communities
• 51:38
  and metastasizes. The opportunity to have a
• 51:42
  blessing or joy or to use abundance becomes much more
• 51:46
  grave and and uncertain. And the ability that you have to
• 51:50
  help shift that, you know, echoes the the very real
• 51:55
  language of the book of Ecclesiastes, which says there
• 51:58
  is a time for everything under the sun.
• 52:01
  And there's a time to recognize when you have the ability and
• 52:04
  means to be able to encourage a world where people can redo the
• 52:15
  conditioning that they've had and to be able to share love and
• 52:19
  connection. And it has happened so many
• 52:21
  times in the interfaith work that I do where you get to know
• 52:25
  somebody and like, wait a second, you're not exactly at
• 52:27
  all what I learned you were supposed to be, right?
• 52:30
  And with that kind of uncovering, that kind of
• 52:32
  freedom, that kind of letting go, anything is bound to happen.
• 52:36
  So as long as you normalize or see somebody and don't cancel
• 52:40
  them, you you have a chance always to to make something
• 52:45
  better. And if you can get the the out
• 52:48
  of the way that which precludes that, then the world becomes
• 52:53
  much more rich in possibility. Yeah.
• 52:55
  Well, the world is much more rich in possibility.
• 52:58
  In reality, Anthony Mello has this great, you know, lesson in
• 53:05
  his book awareness. And I just, I just finished his
• 53:08
  book called Fearlessness to very, very short read.
• 53:11
  One of the lessons he has is that we lose that childlike
• 53:16
  mind. You know, you, you, you talked
• 53:18
  about that a bit earlier, like the malleability of when you
• 53:21
  started to rediscover Judaism, that you lose that childlike
• 53:25
  mind as you start to, as your ego starts to develop as a child
• 53:31
  and you start to label everything and the magic and
• 53:34
  mystery. You know, you can see the, you
• 53:37
  know, both of us have, have children and you can see the
• 53:40
  wonder in a child's eyes when they see, you know, a, a
• 53:44
  beautiful tree just swaying, you know, and, and, and then all of
• 53:51
  a sudden they're taught, oh, this is a tree, right?
• 53:56
  And that kind of flattens like all trees because now they're
• 53:59
  just trees, but every tree is different.
• 54:02
  Even every cedar tree is different.
• 54:04
  Every oak tree is different. Like every single one has its
• 54:08
  own differences. And the same is true for
• 54:11
  humanity, sort of like flatten humanity into all these
• 54:16
  taxonomies. You're a Republican, you're a
• 54:19
  Democrat, you're a man, you're a woman, you're this race, you're
• 54:22
  that race, you're this religion, that religion, etcetera.
• 54:26
  You know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a notion that helps us kind
• 54:32
  of falsely navigate the world. Like someone would meet you and,
• 54:37
  and if they don't know much about Judaism, they would be
• 54:40
  like, well, Rabbi Neil is representative of all rabbis in,
• 54:43
  in the world of Judaism. And that's just not true at all.
• 54:47
  There's a huge difference between, you know, you as a
• 54:51
  rabbi as compared to all the other Conservative rabbis.
• 54:57
  You know, there's a big difference between Reformed
• 55:00
  Judaism and Orthodox Judaism and Habad, you know, and all of
• 55:04
  these different forms. And any individual Habad rabbi
• 55:08
  is going to be different from another Habad rabbi and on and
• 55:11
  on and on. And so, you know, recognizing
• 55:15
  that individuality and the difference in the beautiful
• 55:20
  divinity within us all is so, so important for this time that
• 55:25
  we're. In and if we can, as opposed to
• 55:27
  having the pressure of saying you don't speak to my platform,
• 55:30
  you don't speak to my people, therefore, you know, I, I can't
• 55:33
  have anything more to do with you.
• 55:35
  So the opportunities that we have to overcome those binaries
• 55:39
  or those definitions, you know, it's really interesting not to
• 55:42
  get on a different tangent, but pursuant to what you're saying,
• 55:46
  there's an ineffable name of God in Judaism.
• 55:49
  It's a four letter name of God that I don't particularly
• 55:51
  pronounce. And you know, if you just said
• 55:55
  it in Hebrew, it would just be air.
• 55:56
  It would just be your breath. And there's a great, great study
• 56:01
  by a guy named Mark Sammeth who takes this post gender
• 56:07
  construction because we say he or you know, God and whatever
• 56:10
  God is very gendered. However, if you read that four
• 56:14
  letter name of God in backwards, it can be pronounced which I
• 56:19
  will pronounce who he or he who actually which is she he
• 56:25
  together. So it's an amalgam.
• 56:27
  It's actually more than it's the abundance of who we are as
• 56:32
  opposed to finding out spot the differences, which is what young
• 56:35
  children learn very early on in order to distinguish and to be
• 56:39
  able to say. But if we recognize that
• 56:41
  everything is everything and that within the concept of the
• 56:45
  divine is are all of the constructions that we put on
• 56:49
  each other, then you can recognize that they have a
• 56:52
  purpose for sure. But we should not create a a
• 56:56
  belief out of them and have religion only be the
• 56:59
  constructions themselves. OK so after I have to bring this
• 57:02
  up because Mark Gover was on episode 2.
• 57:05
  He's one of my best friends and he's become a friend, friend of
• 57:09
  yours as well. And when he first walked into
• 57:12
  this room, which you know, we've lived here for 11 years, we
• 57:14
  didn't, we didn't, we didn't put this wall in.
• 57:17
  It was already here. We didn't put this, this in.
• 57:21
  They were already there. But he walks in and he's like,
• 57:24
  oh, Kuan Yin and Kuan Yin. And Chinese spirituality is the
• 57:31
  representation of the unification of male and female
• 57:34
  and Gods helper essentially to help humanity ascend.
• 57:41
  And here we are with love conquers fear for sure, right?
• 57:44
  Meant to be. Well, it's great.
• 57:45
  It was just waiting for you. Yeah.
• 57:48
  So this idea that is embedded, whether in a in in this
• 57:51
  representation or in the recognition that your breath is
• 57:55
  who he is, he, she altogether is just but one small example of
• 58:00
  how we're all one. Yeah.
• 58:04
  And that's of course, as you know, and hopefully your
• 58:07
  listeners and viewers will also know that the one of the most
• 58:12
  important foundational statements in Judaism is from
• 58:16
  Deuteronomy 64, which is the Shemais or L which says here, O
• 58:20
  Israel, the the source is one our God is is 1.
• 58:25
  Right, right. Yeah, the most famous Jewish
• 58:27
  prayer, you know, that one of the chapters in my book is on
• 58:32
  the objectification of women and the Millennium suffering we've
• 58:37
  had for that and how to transcend that.
• 58:39
  And, you know, a lot of people are shocked to to know that in
• 58:42
  America, women didn't even have the right to have a checking
• 58:45
  account until late 70s and of course, didn't have the right to
• 58:49
  vote until about 100 years ago. And there was an asterisk on
• 58:54
  that, that women of color. It was about 50 years after
• 58:58
  that. But one of the things that is
• 59:02
  kind of interesting, I think very interesting scientifically
• 59:07
  is the base state of humanity is actually female.
• 59:12
  Because when a when a baby is conceived and in the womb, their
• 59:17
  base state is female until later on.
• 59:22
  I think it's 8 might be 12 weeks, but I think it's 8 weeks.
• 59:26
  Testosterone floods if supposed to be with the male and that's
• 59:30
  when the testes drop, et cetera. But the that the base state of
• 59:35
  every baby is female. That's incredible.
• 59:39
  Yeah. Isn't that incredible?
• 59:40
  Yeah, yeah. And you know, we maybe many
• 59:43
  people rebel against that which we truly are.
• 59:46
  We don't want to actually see who we truly are, which is maybe
• 59:50
  Bay State female, maybe beautiful, maybe a sense of
• 59:54
  holiness. And these become very difficult
• 59:58
  for people to hold onto and embrace especially.
• 1:00:01
  And there's so much pain that people receive in the world of
• 1:00:04
  being told they're not good enough, that they're not, they
• 1:00:06
  don't belong. And that crusts our soul to the
• 1:00:11
  point where we don't believe it even when we see it.
• 1:00:14
  So to have this podcast, this book, this opportunity that all
• 1:00:19
  of us have to undo some of that thread by thread is.
• 1:00:24
  Really. The the to me, the purpose of
• 1:00:26
  being alive, yeah. Yeah, well, thank you.
• 1:00:28
  And that means a lot coming from you.
• 1:00:30
  I mean, I would say that out of all the reading I've done from
• 1:00:33
  spirituality to consciousness to quantum physics to AI, if, if
• 1:00:38
  there's one message to distill at all is if we, if we lead from
• 1:00:44
  the heart and the heart conquers the head, then all will be fine.
• 1:00:51
  You know, that that's an every, every, every spiritual tradition
• 1:00:56
  at the base state is that we need to be, we need to be the
• 1:00:59
  embodiment of love, conquering fear.
• 1:01:02
  And then we can help other people do that work because
• 1:01:06
  we've done the work ourselves. And then humanity a sense and
• 1:01:11
  you know, we create heaven on earth.
• 1:01:14
  We create abundance for everybody on the planet.
• 1:01:18
  And you know, if you're in a, if you're in it, whatever the tribe
• 1:01:23
  is, I mean, however you've taxonomized yourself or people
• 1:01:27
  are, you know, creating labels for you when you can feel in
• 1:01:33
  your heart that it's not right, it's not right.
• 1:01:38
  Like trust the intuition. And that's if you're othering,
• 1:01:42
  you know, if the, the, the kind of tribe you're in is othering
• 1:01:45
  and dehumanizing people, if it's oppressing women or whatever
• 1:01:51
  it's doing, you know, or calling the other side, you know, if
• 1:01:56
  it's political, like, you know, horrible names and you know,
• 1:02:01
  labeling everybody in that political side and a horrible
• 1:02:05
  way, you can feel it in the heart if you just listen.
• 1:02:09
  We all have that intuition. And so if you lead from the
• 1:02:13
  heart, doesn't mean that there aren't things that you can
• 1:02:16
  disagree with, of course, like policies, different things like
• 1:02:20
  that, but to demonize each other in any kind of tribal context,
• 1:02:29
  you can feel how painful that is if you really listen to it.
• 1:02:32
  And the damage that is done not only to you, but to the
• 1:02:35
  generations that come as well. Yeah, Yeah, no, you're right.
• 1:02:38
  I think we have a tremendous responsibility to show up not
• 1:02:42
  only with authenticity, but with a real sense of not even
• 1:02:46
  projecting our pain, of expressing ourselves, but being
• 1:02:50
  receptive to holding and hopefully healing somebody
• 1:02:53
  else's. Pain.
• 1:02:53
  So I'd like to to talk about the meditation I had this morning
• 1:02:59
  and go into spirituality. So this book, spiritual diary
• 1:03:04
  and appointment calendar are from the writings and lectures
• 1:03:09
  of Christopher Hills. And it was given to me by Niraj
• 1:03:12
  Mehta, who is on episode 47 of the podcast and is a really a
• 1:03:18
  like a brother to me. And he's, he's an amazing guy.
• 1:03:20
  He got me involved in in Siddha Maha yoga, which is effortless
• 1:03:25
  meditation and it's led by may I say, lead is a person like you
• 1:03:31
  deeply rooted in humility. It's, it's this guru named
• 1:03:35
  Guruji and he gives you this blessing and it's all about, you
• 1:03:42
  know, having an effortless way to meditate.
• 1:03:46
  Like once you get this blessing, I'd love to get you involved in
• 1:03:49
  it and get you the blessing if you'd like at some point.
• 1:03:53
  I'm going to Bali later on this year.
• 1:03:56
  But he it's, it's this lineage that's been passed down lifetime
• 1:03:59
  to lifetime and it's been going for thousands of years.
• 1:04:02
  And this was this was this is what I read this morning.
• 1:04:08
  And it's in this section on humility.
• 1:04:10
  This is arranged by date. It's one thing to talk about God
• 1:04:16
  is if he were something separate from you, a being that may be
• 1:04:20
  conceptualized as energy or cosmic force or cosmic
• 1:04:23
  intelligence or some old man with a beard somewhere.
• 1:04:28
  Just as an aside, I had Jonathan Greenblatt on the podcast CEO of
• 1:04:33
  the ADL for episode 49, and he specifically invoked that, that
• 1:04:40
  his belief is like God is not like some old man with a, with a
• 1:04:44
  beard somewhere. So he, it was, it's funny to
• 1:04:47
  read this. It made me, it made me chuckle
• 1:04:49
  when I read it this morning. But God is so far beyond
• 1:04:53
  anything that humans can think about or even imagine that all
• 1:04:58
  we can say, if we're honest, is that we don't know what God is.
• 1:05:03
  The thing I'm talking about is humiliating, humbling.
• 1:05:07
  And unless you realize your total ignorance of it, you can't
• 1:05:11
  even begin to know it. So this is this is what I read
• 1:05:16
  right before I went into my meditation.
• 1:05:21
  And you know, as, as you, you kind of grapple with and one of
• 1:05:26
  the things that I love about Judaism is as Jews, we are
• 1:05:33
  completely humble in the presence of God.
• 1:05:37
  And we don't assume to know the nature of God that it's so far
• 1:05:42
  beyond our comprehension. It really synchronizes with this
• 1:05:45
  And that God is ineffable, is nameless, as you discovered, is
• 1:05:52
  formless. And I'm just curious like how
• 1:05:56
  you think about, because you're so you're so studied on Judaism
• 1:06:01
  and interfaith, you know, you've got an exposure to a lot of
• 1:06:04
  other spiritual traditions. How, how do you think about the
• 1:06:10
  nature of this reality that ultimately we're in?
• 1:06:15
  It's a great question. And again, I can only provide a
• 1:06:19
  sense of, you know, shadow of learning, but you know, what
• 1:06:22
  really is as you've just read is far beyond any comprehension
• 1:06:27
  that I have. There's a really interesting
• 1:06:30
  contrast between, let's say, and I'll just evoke the season 1 of
• 1:06:35
  the Bible, if you don't mind. Like the Hebrew Bible, even if
• 1:06:38
  you don't. Sounds like a Netflix.
• 1:06:39
  Special So if you haven't seen it, it's you know, it's in the
• 1:06:42
  second section. But but the prophetic experience
• 1:06:47
  that Isaiah has in Isaiah 6 where he ascends to have any
• 1:06:52
  ascends to this divine place. And it's funny, we talked
• 1:06:56
  earlier about the divine Song, right?
• 1:07:00
  He is in a place where the angels are basically screaming
• 1:07:04
  holy, holy, holy. And it's so loud for him.
• 1:07:09
  And he recognizes based on that and other things that he's in a
• 1:07:12
  very important place. But those are the angels in
• 1:07:17
  other places. Also in the section of the
• 1:07:19
  prophets, you have Elijah the prophet who's this incredible
• 1:07:24
  explorer who is trying to figure out the divine presence, trying
• 1:07:30
  to find that Channel and recognize that that God is not
• 1:07:33
  in that bombast. God is not in the loudness, but
• 1:07:37
  rather God is in the still small voice or in the still thin
• 1:07:41
  voice. And so if we can get out of our
• 1:07:44
  own way and not only allow others to fill our space, but if
• 1:07:48
  we can get out of our own way and feel that our surety is, is
• 1:07:53
  an illusion, then in that sense of awe, in that sense of
• 1:07:58
  astonishment, we can begin to connect to that which is the
• 1:08:04
  thin voice, that which is the narrow bridge.
• 1:08:07
  And that which sustains us not only in the beautiful, precious,
• 1:08:11
  yet fleeting life that we have where I am, I and you are you,
• 1:08:15
  but in the in the scope of all that has been, as God says to
• 1:08:21
  Moses at the burning Bush. Hey, Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  I share. Hey.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah, which can be translated as I will be what I will be, but it
• 1:08:30
  also can be translated as I have.
• 1:08:32
  I am that which I always have been.
• 1:08:35
  And that to me is really the divine sense.
• 1:08:38
  If we begin to put boundaries on it or labels to it, as we just
• 1:08:43
  discussed, I think it becomes much more paltry.
• 1:08:46
  But if we can allow ourselves to feel part of that oceanic
• 1:08:50
  presence of what God is, then we're on a better track.
• 1:08:53
  I think yeah. And, and I mean, it's there.
• 1:08:55
  There's so much wisdom in that. And, you know, all the spiritual
• 1:09:00
  traditions are around. If you're if you quiet the mind,
• 1:09:06
  then that's the way to ultimately connect with source.
• 1:09:11
  And you know, that's the way that psychedelics work too, is,
• 1:09:14
  you know, kind of quieting and shutting down the default mode
• 1:09:18
  network. That's that's the way it
• 1:09:20
  happened for Evan Alexander in his transcendent, you know, near
• 1:09:24
  death experience I've had now, I don't know if you know this,
• 1:09:27
  that I've had 12 friends open up to me at this point about their
• 1:09:32
  near death experiences. Well, 12 prior to 20250, which
• 1:09:38
  is interesting. I mean, some of these people
• 1:09:40
  have been friends for 10 to 20 years.
• 1:09:42
  Well, it's hard to talk about, I would imagine.
• 1:09:44
  And if you said a landscape of giving people permission, you
• 1:09:47
  actually be who they are, then it's it's astonishing to feel
• 1:09:51
  and hear what people are really dealing with.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, yeah. But it's it's it's amazing.
• 1:09:56
  I mean, you know, Brian Marescu, who wrote the book The
• 1:09:58
  Immortality Key, the first time he's ever talked about on the
• 1:10:02
  podcast about his near death experience was on Love Conquer
• 1:10:06
  Sphere. I was on episode 48.
• 1:10:09
  Why do you believe it is that people are reticent to talk
• 1:10:12
  about it? Because this is I might try to
• 1:10:17
  keep this short. It's and I sigh because this is
• 1:10:21
  this tuts on so many things that we've just talked about.
• 1:10:26
  So it's, it's the simple version is that this dogmatic
• 1:10:31
  separation, this labeling of things, this dogmatic separation
• 1:10:36
  of science and spirituality of like you're either in this swim
• 1:10:39
  lane or that swim lane, or you're either again, you know,
• 1:10:43
  this type of person or that type of person or this race or that
• 1:10:46
  race or whatever the label is, is a big part of the suffering
• 1:10:52
  that we have to overcome collectively as humanity.
• 1:10:58
  And it's fear of cancellation. It's fear of talking about
• 1:11:05
  spirituality and, you know, having that, you know, atheist
• 1:11:11
  be like another person talking about God.
• 1:11:15
  Whereas the atheist like, has a very strong belief system as
• 1:11:19
  well. Like, you know, to hold on like
• 1:11:23
  so tightly to know there is no God, like there must be no God.
• 1:11:27
  And you know, JD Messenger covers it so well in 11 days in
• 1:11:32
  May that the existence of the atheist is for the exploration
• 1:11:38
  of God. Like without any atheist, there
• 1:11:41
  wouldn't be as much of this pull to explore that.
• 1:11:47
  That is part of the duality that that that exist to force the
• 1:11:54
  exploration and and the discussion, right.
• 1:12:00
  So to cling on like like so strongly to a position and
• 1:12:07
  attach like deep, deep dogma to it is is is why, you know, they
• 1:12:14
  undoubtedly had opened up at some point in their life and
• 1:12:19
  friends start to look at them differently.
• 1:12:21
  And it's funny because, you know, a lot of friends have not
• 1:12:25
  a lot, but, but if you have have been worried about me in terms
• 1:12:29
  of how open I've been on this podcast and how open I'm being
• 1:12:34
  in the book, you know, I've told them, you know what's in the
• 1:12:37
  book. And for me, it's just walking
• 1:12:41
  that authentic path. And it's, and it's, it's, it's
• 1:12:44
  really doing my best to be the embodiment of love, conquering
• 1:12:48
  fear and being rooted in, in that and trusting in that.
• 1:12:58
  You know, the way I would describe that it's, it's walking
• 1:13:00
  in God's grace. It's, it's walking with the Dao.
• 1:13:03
  If you want to invoke the Dao ditching.
• 1:13:07
  And when that happens, you know, the divine shows up and it shows
• 1:13:14
  up in interesting ways. I mean, you know, you were, you
• 1:13:17
  were recorded in this room for an award that I'm about to
• 1:13:22
  receive, which is super humbling and completely unexpected.
• 1:13:27
  You know, next next week I'll be I'll be at Tulane University and
• 1:13:32
  I'm not a Tulane grad, although our daughter is there receiving
• 1:13:38
  this Entrepreneur of the Year award from President Fitz, who's
• 1:13:43
  become a good friend. I didn't know President Fitz.
• 1:13:45
  I didn't know anybody at Tulane prior to I knew some people,
• 1:13:48
  they graduated from Tulane. But you know, Rachel, she won't
• 1:13:50
  let me ask, ask a single person to write a recommendation letter
• 1:13:54
  for her. She wanted to get it just 100%
• 1:13:57
  on our own merits. She just, she's got her dream
• 1:14:00
  internship in New York City for the summer, 100% on our own
• 1:14:03
  merits. Wouldn't even tell us the
• 1:14:05
  company that she was interviewing with didn't want
• 1:14:07
  any help, which I respect. And the reason I bring that up
• 1:14:14
  is that when I made this decision to be this transparent
• 1:14:19
  and it's a very conscious decision, I had to overcome the
• 1:14:24
  layers of fear that go along with that type of decision.
• 1:14:29
  The attachment to awards I've gotten in the past or the
• 1:14:34
  attachment to capitalistic outcomes I've had in the past.
• 1:14:38
  And be like, really? Is that, is that what I'm going
• 1:14:42
  to allow define me or is what really defines me the way I walk
• 1:14:47
  in the world and the love that I do my best to embody and my soul
• 1:14:52
  song, you know, which is ultimately what, what, what I'm
• 1:14:56
  doing now. And so I, I, I went through this
• 1:15:01
  process mentally of just like, you know, it's OK if, if, if
• 1:15:04
  that's like the end of awards, fine.
• 1:15:06
  That didn't define me in the 1st place.
• 1:15:09
  So to see this award manifest and specifically manifest and in
• 1:15:14
  the letter that President Fitz passed to me to see if I would
• 1:15:18
  accept this award where they were raving about how much they
• 1:15:22
  love, love conquers fear and the message that it has for
• 1:15:26
  humanity. And I had this very explicit
• 1:15:29
  conversation with them where I said, Hey, I just, I just want
• 1:15:33
  to make sure because it's, it's totally fine if you guys don't
• 1:15:37
  want to give me this award. I wasn't expecting anything.
• 1:15:40
  I didn't even know this is this. It was really a shock to me,
• 1:15:43
  honestly. And, and I said, you know, you
• 1:15:48
  know how authentic I'm being on the podcast and in my book.
• 1:15:51
  And they said yes. And I said, OK, I just, I just
• 1:15:54
  want to make sure because you know, that that does make some
• 1:15:59
  people like fearful of cancellation or whatever else.
• 1:16:03
  And they said no two lanes all about authenticity and New
• 1:16:06
  Orleans is about authenticity. So so I just thought it was so
• 1:16:09
  cool. And the reason I the reason I
• 1:16:13
  mention it is for anybody that is out there listening to this
• 1:16:17
  or watching this and thinking about how to walk in the world
• 1:16:21
  and whether or not to walk with authenticity.
• 1:16:25
  Whether it's their transcendent near death experience.
• 1:16:28
  They want to talk about one-on-one with friends or go
• 1:16:31
  public with however they want to do it.
• 1:16:33
  Or, you know, their feeling of like, Hey, you know, I'm in this
• 1:16:37
  tribe of this political party or whatever it is, or, you know,
• 1:16:42
  this race or this religion. And I feel like there's,
• 1:16:45
  there's, there's this part that's not blood from the heart.
• 1:16:49
  And I'd really feel like I want to talk about that.
• 1:16:52
  And I want to be honest about that instead of just kind of be
• 1:16:54
  silent about it. They could be a big part of the
• 1:16:59
  change that we need in the world for sure.
• 1:17:03
  And so, you know, I do think that, that this container that
• 1:17:09
  I've, I've, I've started with love conquers fear is getting
• 1:17:15
  other people to open up a little bit more.
• 1:17:18
  And, you know, I, I, I've had many, many people that have
• 1:17:24
  helped encourage me in their own way, even though they didn't
• 1:17:28
  necessarily know it. I mean, I've told John Mackey
• 1:17:31
  that he encouraged me, but it wasn't like he wrote this to
• 1:17:35
  encourage me. He wasn't explicitly thinking
• 1:17:37
  about it. That when he wrote his book, the
• 1:17:40
  whole story, his tell all of Whole Foods Chapter 1, is on his
• 1:17:44
  transcendent psychedelic journey that got him to realize that
• 1:17:49
  we're all connected and everything's rooted in love.
• 1:17:53
  And that got him over the fear after he dropped out of UT
• 1:17:58
  Austin to launch Whole Foods. And, you know, we talked about
• 1:18:01
  that on episode 30 of the podcast.
• 1:18:03
  But you know, it's, it's out there for everybody to read.
• 1:18:05
  Well, many of us live lives of quiet desperation and to be able
• 1:18:10
  to tune into and be inspired by a podcast, a person who models
• 1:18:18
  something very different, allows us to hopefully have the courage
• 1:18:22
  to do the same. Yeah, well, thank you for saying
• 1:18:25
  that. And, you know, this is a bit
• 1:18:27
  like the Ghostbusters, you know, which came out in 1984.
• 1:18:32
  Interesting year for that, where it's like crossing all the
• 1:18:36
  streams. And it's doing that because the
• 1:18:39
  nature of our reality has never mattered more than it does.
• 1:18:44
  And. It's been so unpredictable at
• 1:18:45
  this point because we don't know what is real and what isn't real
• 1:18:48
  anymore. I think that's assuming that we
• 1:18:50
  ever knew what was real. Sure.
• 1:18:52
  But you know, you know, if seeing is believing is a cliche,
• 1:18:55
  Yeah. And then you get on social media
• 1:18:57
  or something else, and you don't know whether that's a legitimate
• 1:19:00
  video. That's true.
• 1:19:02
  That is, it's definitely true, yeah.
• 1:19:04
  There's a huge, huge problem emerging powered by AI and it's
• 1:19:11
  a, it's a very solvable problem, but it's, it's one where the
• 1:19:16
  social media companies and the AI companies need to actively
• 1:19:20
  want to solve it as opposed to just fall into the I want more
• 1:19:24
  and more clicks and more and more downloads and more and
• 1:19:27
  more, more and more usage. And the at least in Judaism,
• 1:19:30
  that awareness or that astonishment of the divine or
• 1:19:35
  knowing that we are in reverence to something bigger than
• 1:19:38
  ourselves will help dictate whether or not that can be the
• 1:19:41
  case. Yeah.
• 1:19:42
  Do you agree with that? There's a consciousness
• 1:19:46
  awakening underway. Oh, 100%.
• 1:19:48
  You feel that? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:19:49
  So, so that I think that that is the divine waking us up.
• 1:19:55
  I hope so. I think that's right.
• 1:19:57
  I think that whether it's a, a newly rediscovered, I should
• 1:20:02
  say, interest in meditation by some that's, you know, 40 years
• 1:20:07
  old or more, whether it's a, it's a renewed interest in
• 1:20:10
  psychedelics or any other tool that will get us to appreciate
• 1:20:15
  our consciousness, I think. That awakening is is something
• 1:20:18
  that I think we need to desperately pay attention to and
• 1:20:21
  allow us to be unafraid to see where that will lead us, because
• 1:20:24
  it will be much beyond the life that we think we are as an
• 1:20:28
  individual, that's for sure. Well, I think it's happening for
• 1:20:32
  a reason. I think everything is happening
• 1:20:34
  for a reason. And there's all these
• 1:20:37
  synchronicities and all of these nudges you get from the divine,
• 1:20:40
  whether you're sleepwalking or not, you know, whether you're
• 1:20:43
  conscious of them happening or not.
• 1:20:45
  And you know, if you viewed it non spiritually, which I view it
• 1:20:51
  as both spiritually and scientifically, I think two
• 1:20:54
  things can be true at the same time.
• 1:20:55
  Agreed. The non spiritual way to look at
• 1:20:59
  it would be that there's something about natural
• 1:21:02
  selection and about the connectedness that we have
• 1:21:09
  through whatever it is, quantum physics, etcetera, through the
• 1:21:12
  the field discovered and takes bosun that is waking us up so we
• 1:21:18
  don't extinct ourselves. That would be another way to
• 1:21:22
  view it. That the reason that I choose
• 1:21:28
  the spiritual path is as the, as the way to navigate this is that
• 1:21:36
  it is, it is the IT is the way to ultimately walk the path to
• 1:21:42
  allow love to conquer your fear and be a bit like Neo in the
• 1:21:46
  Matrix and stop, stop the bullets.
• 1:21:51
  And you can get there through stoicism as well.
• 1:21:55
  So it's not just through, you know, it's not just through a
• 1:21:59
  belief in God or a belief in spirituality.
• 1:22:02
  There are many spiritual practices to get there, but the
• 1:22:05
  fact that it's happening at this moment, at this penultimate
• 1:22:09
  moment for humanity, I think is not a mistake.
• 1:22:13
  And whether it's again, a a warning or a recognition that we
• 1:22:18
  have crossed a lot of rivers and we need to take stock of where
• 1:22:24
  we are or whether it's just the next thing in our development.
• 1:22:28
  You're right. And I think all of the the Nexus
• 1:22:30
  of consciousness, spirituality, science and AI and all of its
• 1:22:35
  other accoutrement allow us to to have a very exciting moment.
• 1:22:40
  I mean, I think being able to navigate all of this, as
• 1:22:43
  difficult and as scary as it may be, not fearful, gives us a real
• 1:22:48
  sense of what's possible. And I, you know, I never thought
• 1:22:52
  in the work that I do that, you know, there's been a lot of
• 1:22:55
  unexpected things that have happened and how to react to
• 1:22:58
  things. But it's very exciting.
• 1:23:01
  And I'm not a scientist, but I think you're right.
• 1:23:04
  I think that science and spirit are two sides of the same coin.
• 1:23:09
  And we have a an opportunity to discuss deeply and carefully and
• 1:23:14
  with love all of this that will help to define who we're going
• 1:23:18
  to be or who we're not going to be if because I think the stakes
• 1:23:21
  are that high. All right, right.
• 1:23:23
  I think your point about extinction is real, and you
• 1:23:26
  know, we don't have to be anything other than just paying
• 1:23:28
  attention to see how our environment has changed.
• 1:23:31
  All right, right. By the way, I have a very proud
• 1:23:33
  practical tip for, for people on how to know whether or not what
• 1:23:38
  you're seeing Israel. So, and because I see this
• 1:23:43
  happen with, with, with a number of friends where they'll share
• 1:23:46
  like this major scientific breakthrough just happened or
• 1:23:50
  whatever it, whatever it is, whatever the piece of news is,
• 1:23:54
  believe it or not, the easiest way to do that because we're in
• 1:23:58
  this time where all of humanity's content is in one
• 1:24:02
  system that you can speak to in any language, whether it's
• 1:24:08
  native language content in Hebrew and Japanese, you name it
• 1:24:13
  S, you know, Korean and you want to speak to it in English.
• 1:24:17
  That now is possible. So a very simple technique that
• 1:24:22
  I do whenever I see a scientific breakthrough story that a friend
• 1:24:26
  is posting or some other story that just sounds, sounds really
• 1:24:32
  improbable is I'll just copy that and I'll paste it into
• 1:24:38
  either Chachi PT or Claude. You could also do it in Gemini.
• 1:24:43
  And I'll use the thinking mode to have it do research on
• 1:24:47
  whether or not that's true. And more often than not, it's,
• 1:24:53
  it has a kernel of truth that then they diverged into this
• 1:24:56
  big, you know, macro change that actually hasn't happened.
• 1:25:03
  So anybody listening to this, I would encourage them to do that
• 1:25:06
  before they share something to know.
• 1:25:10
  And what I do is because I, I'm, I don't have this, this, this
• 1:25:15
  troll aspect of me at all. And my persona is I'll privately
• 1:25:21
  either call or message them and I'll say, hey, just so you know,
• 1:25:25
  you know, I did this research and that's not actually
• 1:25:29
  scientifically accurate. And so just be aware that be
• 1:25:33
  aware of that. You know, I had AI had a friend
• 1:25:36
  recently send me this amazing one on this amazing story on
• 1:25:41
  Bruce Lee taking on this this it was like this Navy SEAL
• 1:25:47
  Lieutenant and you know, he was like the embodiment of like, you
• 1:25:52
  know, toughness and, you know, built in nails and all of this
• 1:25:56
  stuff. And it was a great story is very
• 1:25:59
  Dao de Ching. It was it was a it was a great,
• 1:26:02
  great story, which could be true about Bruce Lee and what I know
• 1:26:07
  about Bruce Lee, and it was and it was a very artful YouTube
• 1:26:10
  video and the lesson was a good lesson.
• 1:26:13
  So the lesson was solid, but the story itself was was was
• 1:26:17
  fabricated. But you know that the lesson was
• 1:26:21
  great. So so you could, you could still
• 1:26:23
  take away the lesson. You know, it was it was a fable
• 1:26:27
  essentially, but it was told in a way that it was this true,
• 1:26:31
  this true story. And he and he reacted when I
• 1:26:35
  message him privately, I said, Oh, no, you know, it was had.
• 1:26:38
  And I said no, I said yes, yes, there, there.
• 1:26:41
  There was this aspect where it was false in terms of the story
• 1:26:44
  itself. But the the fable is very dowel
• 1:26:48
  to Chang. And, you know, there's been many
• 1:26:51
  people throughout history where that's been true of where it
• 1:26:55
  created a shift. And essentially Bruce Lee, like,
• 1:26:58
  you know, humbled the guy in a very polite way so that he would
• 1:27:03
  have a shift in his life and and it would transform him.
• 1:27:08
  And there's lots of stories of of that.
• 1:27:10
  Sure, but sounds like that's what you did with your friend
• 1:27:13
  too. It was a subtle shift of oh, now
• 1:27:16
  I'll pay more attention to what I choose to share.
• 1:27:19
  Yeah, but, but, but I was, but I was trying to tell him like,
• 1:27:22
  hey, the fable itself, There's a lot of truth in the fable.
• 1:27:25
  Sure. You know, don't don't worry so
• 1:27:27
  much that that this part wasn't true.
• 1:27:30
  But anyways, it's a it's a just a very simple tip for people.
• 1:27:35
  So as you've kind of navigated your understanding of reality,
• 1:27:42
  how, how, how has that evolved for you over time?
• 1:27:45
  I have a tremendous respect for complexity.
• 1:27:47
  Yeah. I have a tremendous respect when
• 1:27:49
  people are being authentic and honest that, as you said, more
• 1:27:53
  than one thing can be true at a time.
• 1:27:55
  And the recognition that everything is not either or,
• 1:27:59
  that everything is both and, and that people are struggling with
• 1:28:03
  their own sense and conception of self worth, but they're also
• 1:28:07
  struggling with things that have happened in their lives or
• 1:28:09
  things that have happened in their families, as well as
• 1:28:13
  dealing with the uncertainty of what will happen next.
• 1:28:15
  And that kind of multivalent truth, one can be stymied by it
• 1:28:26
  or one can recognize it in its greater mosaic and being able to
• 1:28:31
  to deal with it. And it just UPS the game of how
• 1:28:34
  to show up for people, I guess is the the bottom line of it
• 1:28:38
  all. As opposed to being a problem
• 1:28:39
  solver and say, oh, to fix that problem, you have to do X to
• 1:28:44
  recognize that things are true in many ways.
• 1:28:48
  And you know, to use the, what I'm beginning to understand is
• 1:28:51
  the quantum universe, that what happens here, how you pay
• 1:28:56
  attention to something here, even if you don't solve it, can
• 1:28:58
  absolutely shift things in other dimensions.
• 1:29:02
  And then I think that's really a very important and very valuable
• 1:29:06
  and humble understanding of what we actually can do because we
• 1:29:09
  realize how powerful we are, even if we're overwhelmed most
• 1:29:13
  of the time. Or if if if you didn't think
• 1:29:16
  about, you know, your prayer and the healing of the woman you
• 1:29:20
  were with, you know, which really shifted you and made you
• 1:29:25
  commit to in your life like this path of being a rabbi.
• 1:29:30
  You know, energy healing is being discovered over and over
• 1:29:35
  again as we as we progress on science is being very real.
• 1:29:39
  You know, the telepathy tape season, season 2.
• 1:29:43
  Have you listened to that yet? That's great.
• 1:29:45
  And you know, the energy healing episode on that one, I can't
• 1:29:49
  remember what episode that is for the Top Play tapes, but it
• 1:29:52
  was a really, really good one. And we know that through quantum
• 1:29:57
  physics that we are, you know, light and energy and that we're
• 1:30:03
  mostly empty space. We're like 99.12 nines of empty
• 1:30:10
  space because we're made of atoms and atoms are almost all
• 1:30:15
  empty space. This is also a virtual empty
• 1:30:18
  space. So one of the things that I'm
• 1:30:21
  really excited about, and this time that we're alive, you know,
• 1:30:24
  for the next 10 to 15 years, this really becomes the
• 1:30:27
  penultimate moment for are we as humanity going to choose
• 1:30:32
  abundance for everyone on the planet, realizing the divinity
• 1:30:35
  within us, all the love that we should have for, for all of us
• 1:30:39
  and the technological progression, this exponential of
• 1:30:43
  exponential is to create that abundance and choose that, you
• 1:30:46
  know, we have the free will to ultimately choose that or cling
• 1:30:49
  on to the 0 sum, you know, power based games that that will
• 1:30:54
  destroy us if we, if we cling on to those with technology this
• 1:30:58
  powerful, I'm 95% certain that we make it to the other side of
• 1:31:02
  this and, and have, you know, the equivalent of heaven on
• 1:31:05
  earth. But, but we, one of the things
• 1:31:10
  I'm so excited about is that we're going to discover more and
• 1:31:16
  more about our reality. And the patriarchs of the field,
• 1:31:20
  you know, of the quantum physics field, like Max Planck became
• 1:31:23
  much more spiritual as a result. You know, they were studying
• 1:31:26
  things like Vedanta. That's where they were getting
• 1:31:29
  some of their knowledge about, about things like quantum
• 1:31:34
  entanglement. Now, they weren't referring it
• 1:31:39
  to that way. They weren't doing the direct
• 1:31:40
  bridge, but they were. They were reading and the
• 1:31:44
  ancient Mystics knew how connected we all were.
• 1:31:48
  They didn't have the scientific language to describe it.
• 1:31:52
  And the episode that I did with Prime Rescue and the immortality
• 1:31:56
  key, part of the way he he decodes part of the way that
• 1:32:01
  they got there. There were psychedelic catalyst
• 1:32:03
  used to help to help jump start the communion with the divine
• 1:32:11
  and they later on were demonized because the church was primarily
• 1:32:16
  the Catholic Church. Like there's this part in the
• 1:32:18
  immortality key where Brian is in the Vatican like studying
• 1:32:22
  these ancient scriptures that he's not supposed to have access
• 1:32:26
  to. It's very kind of Indiana Jones,
• 1:32:28
  the professor version, but the the church wanted to control
• 1:32:33
  like people's opinion about reality.
• 1:32:38
  They didn't want people to have a direct communion.
• 1:32:41
  And so the indigenous wisdom was literally, quite, quite
• 1:32:47
  literally demonized, like all types of persecution, right, to
• 1:32:52
  get people to to to not have that communion.
• 1:32:55
  But you know, the reality is that communion happens in many
• 1:32:59
  different ways. It happens through near death
• 1:33:01
  experiences, happens through meditation.
• 1:33:04
  I had a woman on who originally is from Turkey, very good friend
• 1:33:08
  of mine. She just had a great exit for
• 1:33:10
  her company, Pariah Beam. She was on episode 31 right
• 1:33:14
  after John Mackey and she had a spontaneous spiritual awakening.
• 1:33:18
  That's another path. Now, she didn't know she was
• 1:33:20
  going to have one, obviously, right?
• 1:33:22
  But that was another path. And I think that the opportunity
• 1:33:25
  that people have to open themselves up to something
• 1:33:27
  beyond themselves is both humbling, but also necessary as
• 1:33:31
  we, as we chart this uninvestigated and difficult
• 1:33:35
  age. But I think we have more and
• 1:33:37
  more resources, as you know, as we begin to understand more
• 1:33:41
  about the science of quantum and other things.
• 1:33:43
  But also it, it hopefully, whether or not you're atheist or
• 1:33:47
  an atheist, gives you, I think, tremendous excitement to realize
• 1:33:52
  what is out there and, and how who we say we are can define us
• 1:33:57
  to a certain point. The, the costumes that we wear.
• 1:34:01
  But underneath all of those costumes is that hiddenness
• 1:34:04
  that's still small voice or the, if you will, that space in
• 1:34:07
  between the atoms that allows us to actually connect.
• 1:34:11
  And that's seems to be absurd, right?
• 1:34:13
  We're connecting empty spaces together.
• 1:34:17
  But the opportunity that we have to do that recognizes how we are
• 1:34:21
  all this, this one force, because all of us together can
• 1:34:25
  exist in unlimited space then. Well, one, one thing that's
• 1:34:29
  that's so crazy to think about that is just scientific fact as
• 1:34:34
  we as we understand it today. You know, you and I each are 37
• 1:34:40
  trillion cells around about there and we have an equal
• 1:34:45
  number of organisms which, which live both in US and on us.
• 1:34:51
  That, that form, you know, the cohabitation that that lets us
• 1:34:56
  walk in this world and be alive and be so full of that spark of
• 1:35:01
  life. I had this amazing dream
• 1:35:03
  recently just on how incredible that divine spark is and that
• 1:35:08
  feeling of being alive. You know, no matter what type of
• 1:35:11
  what type of creature you are with consciousness, whether
• 1:35:13
  you're a dog or, you know, a person, the, the beauty of that
• 1:35:17
  spark, you know, which is that, that part of God that's within
• 1:35:21
  us all, but we're all part of God's Collective Soul and that
• 1:35:26
  we're embodied, You know, that God is having a experience
• 1:35:29
  through us that we're all, we're all part of the one.
• 1:35:34
  And, and, you know, I was, I was, I was curious because I was
• 1:35:39
  like, all right, well, let me just assume the materialist view
• 1:35:44
  and say, OK, well, how much of that?
• 1:35:47
  Because obviously we have our memories from the time we were
• 1:35:50
  born and some people have been, have past life memories.
• 1:35:52
  But, but like we have our memories from the time we were
• 1:35:55
  born. And there's a durable sense of
• 1:36:00
  those memories in this collective that forms us.
• 1:36:05
  That's like 80, let's just call it 80 trillion things.
• 1:36:09
  And every day we have around 30 trillion of those dying and
• 1:36:14
  being reborn, whether they're cells or organisms.
• 1:36:17
  And I'm kind of mixing them out there.
• 1:36:19
  But every day, like we're constantly having this rebirth.
• 1:36:23
  You know, there's this, there's this principle in Buddhism,
• 1:36:27
  which I love, which is every day when you wake up from your dream
• 1:36:32
  at night, you can choose to be reborn and take what you want
• 1:36:38
  with you for that day and shed everything in the past that
• 1:36:43
  didn't serve you. And so literally every day when
• 1:36:47
  you wake up, it's your, it's your fresh opportunity to be a
• 1:36:50
  new version of you versus the consistency bias of like we've
• 1:36:53
  acted that way in the past. So like, I've got to bring that
• 1:36:56
  in. Sure.
• 1:36:57
  Which that consistency bias is our ego that's developed that
• 1:37:03
  because we again, we're dealing with scarcity and some types of
• 1:37:07
  really bad situations with, you know, not getting in by the
• 1:37:10
  Saber tooth tiger or whatever else it was or just surviving
• 1:37:15
  that to act with consistency was a way to create an assurance.
• 1:37:19
  Sure, you know, of trust, but we can, we can be reborn every day.
• 1:37:24
  But if you, if you, if you take the materialist paradigm, then
• 1:37:29
  that means there has to be something that is a transference
• 1:37:33
  process in this dynamic unfolding of who we are, of the
• 1:37:38
  memories and everything else that's getting somehow
• 1:37:41
  transferred for durability, literally all the time happening
• 1:37:47
  all the time versus the the theory of non local
• 1:37:52
  consciousness, which is consciousness is something
• 1:37:55
  fundamental in the universe that we've received right instead.
• 1:37:59
  And our brains are like antennas.
• 1:38:01
  And again, two things can be true at the at the same time.
• 1:38:04
  I was having this deep discussion with a friend at the
• 1:38:07
  house yesterday where, you know, we don't know how much is kind
• 1:38:12
  of I'll call it, I'll use a computer terminology here server
• 1:38:15
  side or source and how much is local storage or, you know, our
• 1:38:20
  brain, we don't know. I mean, but we're going to get
• 1:38:24
  to decode that as we as we advance with brain computer
• 1:38:29
  interfaces with quantum physics, with the invention of quantum
• 1:38:34
  computing, we know that quantum entanglement is real.
• 1:38:38
  It quantum computer doesn't work without it.
• 1:38:40
  So we already know that that's real.
• 1:38:41
  Right. And you know, and whether it's a
• 1:38:44
  materialistic or non local idea that it's all coming from the
• 1:38:49
  same eternal source as well. You know, the opportunity that
• 1:38:53
  we have is that we're our lives are just on loan, whether we're
• 1:38:57
  stuff of the earth or stuff of the infinite.
• 1:39:01
  It's it's just we happen to be dancing in this one particular
• 1:39:05
  open space right now and it will just be a blink of an eye and
• 1:39:10
  we'll be on our way. But this opportunity that we
• 1:39:13
  have to glory in it all and not again, have to choose, you know,
• 1:39:17
  it's either non local or it's material, I think is a very
• 1:39:21
  freeing concept. And we can be with wonder
• 1:39:25
  recognizing all of it. And I think you quoted A
• 1:39:28
  Buddhist teaching about choosing to be reborn in the Jewish
• 1:39:32
  practice, waking up every day and saying thank you.
• 1:39:35
  The Moda Ani or the Moda Ani prayer is the one that says
• 1:39:40
  thank you for restoring my soul and to translate it in a way.
• 1:39:43
  I have a choice now of what I get to do that that the
• 1:39:49
  opportunity we have is something that should infuse us with
• 1:39:53
  tremendous excitement and and the word gratitude, which
• 1:39:57
  conquers everything. This is something that that I
• 1:40:00
  really want to emphasize in terms of the unity and how much
• 1:40:04
  we have in common that one of the things that I love, you
• 1:40:07
  know, and I'm I'm probably Jewish, I love going to the
• 1:40:10
  synagogue, but one of the things that I.
• 1:40:13
  We have no dispensation. You're fine.
• 1:40:15
  No, no. It's, it's, it's just true and
• 1:40:18
  it's, it's, it's one of these things I love is that no matter
• 1:40:23
  which faith tradition you follow, one of the old faiths
• 1:40:27
  tradition, whether it's Buddhism, whether it's
• 1:40:29
  Christianity, whether it's Judaism, whether it's Islam,
• 1:40:33
  it's, it has this beautiful synchronicity, you know, this
• 1:40:37
  pattern recognition across them all.
• 1:40:40
  And there's certain practices in all religions which become
• 1:40:45
  transcended. You're going to love the chapter
• 1:40:48
  of my book. Chapter 10 is on religion and
• 1:40:52
  they're sayings we've transcended in Judaism.
• 1:40:55
  We don't burn animals at the altar anymore, that's a
• 1:40:57
  sacrifice to God. Christians don't go on crusades
• 1:41:02
  anymore to force convert people to Christianity.
• 1:41:09
  Hindus are mostly evolving from the caste system and realizing
• 1:41:14
  that wasn't something that should be done to to kind of
• 1:41:16
  other people and be like, sorry, you're in this cast.
• 1:41:19
  That means you can't ever be promoted into, you know, this
• 1:41:22
  type of line of work. You're kind of at the at the
• 1:41:25
  labor, you know, cast and you know, the Muslim religion is
• 1:41:33
  ultimately I have faith going to transcend radical jihadism and
• 1:41:37
  that they that that's this cancer that they have to they
• 1:41:41
  have to grapple with. And you know, fortunately it's a
• 1:41:43
  very, very small, small part of that religion, but it's a very
• 1:41:48
  violent part of that religion led to October 7th, right.
• 1:41:53
  So I I love that because to me that actually provides more
• 1:41:59
  proof of spirituality than less because it says that we as
• 1:42:06
  humans have come, come from so many different angles to come to
• 1:42:11
  the same, you know, destination. Sure.
• 1:42:14
  And we're still all works in progress and we're still all
• 1:42:16
  works in progress and one is not better than another, right?
• 1:42:19
  And we all have our work to do and ideally can do it in
• 1:42:22
  relationship that will make it better.
• 1:42:24
  Well, I love you, I love your heart and and I really
• 1:42:27
  appreciate you doing this with me and.
• 1:42:30
  Well, thank you for being such a profound teacher for me and
• 1:42:33
  expanding my horizons and wonderful friendship over the
• 1:42:36
  many years. Yeah.
• 1:42:37
  So blessings to you and your family.
• 1:42:39
  Right back at you. You're an important part of my
• 1:42:41
  life and you've been there for all the biggest family moments
• 1:42:45
  and and there will be many more. To be continued.
• 1:42:48
  Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks, brother.
• 1:42:50
  Thanks. Yeah.
• 1:42:51
  Thank you so much. Of course.
• 1:42:52
  Thanks everybody for tuning in to Love Conquers Fear.
• 1:42:56
  What an amazing episode. I absolutely love Rabbi Neil's
• 1:42:59
  heart and the way that he walks in the world and all of the ways
• 1:43:04
  that he bridges, you know, the illusion of divides.
• 1:43:09
  We can choose to have them be very real divides or we can see
• 1:43:13
  them for what they are, the illusion of separation.
• 1:43:16
  Keep on sharing. I love all the messages I'm
• 1:43:20
  getting. It really means a lot to me.
• 1:43:23
  It's happening multiple times a day.
• 1:43:26
  People are having a real heart shift and that's what Love
• 1:43:29
  Conquers Fear is all about. Collectively, we have the heart
• 1:43:32
  shift and we're going to make it on the other side of this
• 1:43:35
  exponential of exponential curves to abundance for
• 1:43:39
  everybody on this planet. It can absolutely be achieved.
• 1:43:43
  We just have to believe in it. We have to manifest it.
• 1:43:45
  We have to see the divinity and love within us all and choose
• 1:43:51
  it. So thank you and keep it coming.