Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #126: Dr Michael Broukhim / Ketamine Therapy / Judaism / Meaning Post Capitalism/ AI

Transcript

#126: Dr Michael Broukhim / Ketamine Therapy / Judaism / Meaning Post Capitalism/ AI · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of Come Together,
• 0:15
  and we're live with Doctor Michael Brokheim.
• 0:18
  Brokheim. Yes, awesome.
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  Brokheim. Brokheim.
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  Brokheim is better. Brokheim beautiful, which means
• 0:26
  welcome, doesn't it? Bless.
• 0:29
  Blessed. It's pretty good.
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  It's pretty good. Well, I'm really excited to talk
• 0:34
  to you. Mariah introduced us, you know,
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  as soon as I finished talking with him and his was by actually
• 0:39
  by far had the most listened so far.
• 0:41
  He was very popular. His episode.
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  We talked a little bit about generational trauma and finding
• 0:48
  meaning in life and stuff like that.
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  You know, all the important big questions that everyone's
• 0:52
  looking for these days. And after I finished talking to
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  him, I said, you know, would you, do you have any?
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  I thought this was awesome. Do you have any recommendations
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  for anyone else that you think I would speak to?
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  And he and you, he responded right away with your name.
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  So I've been excited ever since then.
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  So it's been a couple of weeks, but here we are.
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  Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me.
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  Of course. So what's been on to us?
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  So. So tell me a little bit about
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  yourself. You're an integrative
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  psychiatrist. And I actually asked my wife
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  what that meant last night because she I said because she,
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  she was like, oh, that's so cool.
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  And I said, well, you know what I mean?
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  She's like, I think it means he integrates all sorts of
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  different things into his psychiatry.
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  And I'm like, oh, well, that sounds right.
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  So you want to tell me a little bit about a little bit about
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  that? Yeah, As a integrated
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  psychiatrist, you can also call it a holistic psychiatrist
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  because I blend aspects of conventional treatment, event
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  space treatment with more, let's say, let's say, not as popular
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  treatment. Sometimes there's not as much
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  evidence for it. This can be supplements, this
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  can be other forms of therapy. It could be psychedelic assisted
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  psychotherapy. It could be, you know, more of a
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  focus on spirituality. I might refer people to, I might
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  prefer patients to, you know, hypnotherapists, which is again,
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  not not common practice amongst the psychiatrist.
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  So I like to use whatever works, and sometimes we don't always
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  know the research behind it, but I know it works because I've had
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  patients report feeling a lot better and things resolve.
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  Right, so if it works, it works as the expression goes.
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  If it works, it works, but also it doesn't cause any harm.
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  There's minimal risk, right? Right.
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  How did you how did you develop this attitude?
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  Because I know that it's a little more common, I guess, you
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  know, the last couple of years I feel like, but you know, I think
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  that generally speaking, most people have a story how they how
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  they became more open minded to the non conventional, you know,
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  and I certainly have my own story, you know, experiences for
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  my own unconventional roots throughout different places in
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  my life. But you know what?
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  How did you, how did you decide to embrace all these different
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  aspects of it? It was, it was on my mind as my
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  dad was slowly passing away from cancer when I was 19.
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  I was thinking about what would help him stay alive.
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  So that that was a big, big part of it.
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  And then a few months after my dad passed away, I came upon a
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  research project where I was involved in a study that
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  involved looking at healers who could heal cells in a Petri dish
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  from thousands of miles away. So all product healing similar
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  to Reiki and they this modality they they use certain
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  frequencies to them it's colors that are associated with
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  healing, usually blue-green and white and they would send it to
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  the cells. And when I read the textbook for
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  this modality actually comes from Kabbalah.
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  Really. Yeah, it says in textbook.
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  This is like a has origins from Kabbalah.
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  OK. And is this something that's
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  cut, that's being researched a good amount?
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  Like I've I've never really heard of this unless I'm just it
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  isn't another rabbit haven't gone down yet.
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  I I don't think there's that much research being done on this
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  healing modality. Unfortunately, the project that
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  I worked on couldn't get published because the researcher
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  passed away. I see, I see.
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  And when that happens, could someone pick up research?
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  Like could someone pick up like from his lab or something from
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  his state? Be like, hey, you know, it's
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  cool. I mean, I think that happens
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  again. I don't have an extensive
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  research background. Primarily did it during college,
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  but he didn't really share the data with anyone else to to
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  publish it something. Right, so you 19 is young, by
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  the way, because I remember when I was reading story, I, I used,
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  you know, whenever you hear these kind of stories until
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  you're 19, until you place yourself when you were the in
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  the head or the mind of a 19 year old, you know, you kind of
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  think, ah, 19, you're pretty much an adult, you know, you're
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  pretty mature, but you're really not, you know, you're really
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  not. And I can't even imagine.
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  I can't even imagine. That's your experience as a 30
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  year old, you know, with a family and you know, my own
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  income and my own, you know, everything like that.
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  I can't even imagine, you know that.
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  So how, what would you, what would you do to cope?
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  What was your, what would you do?
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  Did you turn to anything? Did you have any kind of relief?
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  What was your? What was your system?
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  I mean, what kept me, I don't want to say distracted, but I
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  was very focused on school. I was in college when this
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  happened. But I think there was a sense of
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  the fact that my dad, two months after he passed away, talk to a
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  patient like his spirit, talk to a patient and relayed a message
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  to me. I got my dad's always a lot.
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  That's crazy. What was that?
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  What happened? It was the day after Christmas,
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  December 2007 and a patient said that my dad came to him while he
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  was getting X-rays to tell me that I need to obtain the
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  knowledge. Really.
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  That was it, Yeah. What do you make of that?
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  Well, you know, I I still don't fully know, but I am constantly
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  seeking new knowledge ever since then and it continues with
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  starting rabbinical school in August.
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  So I don't know what that I don't know what the knowledge
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  is, but I'm a very curious person and I love learning about
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  a variety of things, whether it's within my own field,
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  whether it's about health, spirituality, physics, I mean,
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  so I, the way I, I kind of integrate that message is just
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  continue to be curious. Right, I so funny that you say
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  that. I had, I did my first breath
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  work class of a couple months back and you know, it was, I
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  forgot the type of breathing. It's I think similar to Wynhoff
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  though, where you kind of take two inhalers and then an exhale,
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  you know, and it kind of gets you into a little bit more of a
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  psychedelic type headspace. And, and for a long time I've
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  been numbing, you know, either consciously or unconsciously or
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  both numbing, you know, the fact that I was not only a father,
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  but a relatively new father of two, you know, and I don't think
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  that that ever really fully processed in my, in my head, you
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  know, I mean, I was taking, I was going through the motions
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  and having the responsibilities. And part of the reason why was
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  because I think that I didn't really have a idea as to what a
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  father figure or role I was really, I'm really supposed to
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  be taking. Yeah, I think that a lot of
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  young men in general kind of have this kind of problem today
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  where we don't really know what kind of identity a father role
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  should have. You know, we know that a
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  generation is very strict. We know that a generation is
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  very lenient. And we kind of don't know, you
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  know, like, you know, I'd say my grandparents generation say they
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  generally the people that are in their 80s and 90s now, we're
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  much stricter. And my dad, that's in his late
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  50s, early 60s, was extremely, extremely laid back.
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  And I wasn't sure which one is kind of better or which way to
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  go. And while I'm doing this
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  breathing my, my grandfather, who'd passed away about two,
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  about two months after my, my first son was born, So just over
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  2 years ago, I, I completely felt his spirit extremely,
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  extremely, tangibly right next to me.
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  And, you know, and, and I have, and you know, I have, he and I
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  were very, very close. He was a Holocaust survivor.
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  He was, he, he was in a Soviet labour camp.
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  And you know, he came to America when he's about 10 or 12 years
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  old. And he was the tough, loving
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  authority, but family oriented figure.
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  He was like the, I guess, you know, prototype father role.
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  And he didn't, you know, he wasn't perfect himself.
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  He had a lot of, you know, anger and a lot of frustration in
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  general at the world, at the pain.
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  And but I was able to actually, while I was reading to it, I was
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  able to really experience the root of his, of a lot of what
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  his anger was. And I felt like it was either
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  fear or not being, you know, it was a combination of fear and
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  not feeling like he was being heard or understood in a very,
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  very primal kind of way. And that would end what he
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  didn't get angry to try to hurt people.
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  He got angry to express himself or when he felt like he was
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  being backed into a corner. And I didn't know at the time,
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  you know, what that was about or why I was, you know, having that
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  particular experience. And like after a couple of
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  weeks, I was like, this has like, you know, like my, my
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  grandfather visiting me, I Saba visiting me, you know, was for a
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  reason. I almost felt like his spirit
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  got a little comforted by my understanding of his spirit, you
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  know, and, you know, I don't know whether this is completely
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  just in my head while I'm trying to make meaning out of it or
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  whether this is something that's really metaphysical and really
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  real. But it certainly feels like
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  it's, it's changed my life. It's changed my outlook in the
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  way, that, you know, I perceive reality and the way that I
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  perceive myself even, you know. Well, I, I, I tell people that
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  when a loved one passes away, you actually get to be closer to
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  them because they're no longer limited by their physical body
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  to engage you. Right.
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  So you might have a living grandparent who lives, you know,
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  multiple states away and they feel far.
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  But again, when they pass away, you can actually engage their
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  spirit at any moment, at any part of the day.
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  And it's not limited by time or space.
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  So no, Yeah, I think, I think you're ability to connect with
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  your your grandfather is very likely to have happened and and
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  it's very accessible. Right.
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  Can you tell me a little bit about the ketamine therapy or
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  ketamine assisted therapy and kind of a little bit more of,
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  you know, your experiences with how that's worked or you know,
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  what the process is like is I actually have not done very much
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  homework on ketamine. I feel like it's, I don't know,
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  there's something that that's a little a little more unnerving
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  to me about ketamine than like psilocybin or, or LSD or
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  something like that. And I don't know why I have that
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  kind of inclination. But can you tell me about your,
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  you know, the experiences as you know as a therapist or as a
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  psychiatrist with it and what you've noticed and what are the
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  benefits or otherwise of it? Yes, I'll I'll go into the
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  history of Academy Academine is used for anesthesia.
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  It was originally created for that.
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  I think they started using it maybe 50s or in the 60s.
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  And over time, I think people started noticing that patients
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  were having psychedelic experiences on it.
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  And there's this great story. I'm trying my what what book I
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  read it from, but there was this hospital that had some healers
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  and some clairvoyant people come to the hospital and say, what
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  are you guys doing in this hospital because your patients
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  are coming into our energetic space.
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  And they realized that like it was their patients on ketamine
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  fat energetically transported to their space.
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  So I think for about 20 years now, ketamine has been
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  incorporated with with psychotherapy.
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  Last 10 years, ketamine treatment for anxiety and
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  depression have become really popular.
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  I can tell you in LA there are a bunch of ketamine clinics where
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  you can get lozenges. IV ketamine, What does it do
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  biochemically? It's A and then the NMDA
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  antagonist receptor to antagonist, which somehow leads
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  to antidepressive effects. But there's more and more
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  research shows that it does a lot of different things.
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  It's not just the one specific type of receptor that that
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  effects. And it's legal.
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  It's the only legal substance that's psychedelic in in nature.
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  Sure. And I've seen it do a lot of
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  things in my work with it. I've seen not only people being
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  less anxious, depressed, but also letting go of unresolved
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  trauma, improving your relationship with yourself,
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  improving people's relationship with pain.
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  So like pain, their experience of pain is not as intrusive and
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  change can happen really fast. Like like people can improve
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  quite quite quickly. There are cases where people
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  actually get more depressed for more suicidal.
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  Really. Yeah, I mean, there, there,
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  there are those cases of that. And so we just know that they're
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  not a good candidate for doing it.
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  But it it really helps people who are very stuck to a certain
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  type of story to let go of that story.
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  Let letting go of stories that don't don't serve them.
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  The way that I've understood it and maybe you can confirm, is
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  that like the way our brain works is through a series of
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  associations. And as time goes on, those
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  associations become further and further entrenched, almost like
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  you're digging, like, like a digging a path, you know, And
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  the further along it goes, the deeper the path is.
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  And you know, you could get out of it, you know, you could find
• 15:55
  your way out of the trench. You could find your way out of
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  that, you know, those associations, positive or
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  negative, you know, but it would take a lot of slow work.
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  And that that the value of psychedelics is that they allow
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  you to to quit relatively quickly, kind of leap out or
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  change or at least reframe those those associations with you.
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  Was that is that your experience with it?
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  Yeah, from a neurogenesis perspective, new neurons form
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  very quickly with with psychedelics, when when we when
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  we have a negative or positive experience, there are new
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  neurons that are formed, which is why I like something like
• 16:33
  PTSD can develop pretty quickly for some people, but
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  psychedelics just really accelerates it in either
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  direction. Like you can actually become,
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  and I've seen this, people can either get worse pretty quickly.
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  When I say worse I mean like become delusional.
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  I'm extremely anxious. Or they can just feel very free
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  creative. The sense of like cushion from
• 17:00
  their negative thoughts. Right, right.
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  So what do you, what can you do or what can, what do you think
• 17:06
  you can do to kind of make people a little bit more open
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  minded to the concept or the notion of some kind of
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  psychedelic treated therapy? I know that living in
• 17:15
  California, you're probably having a little bit of an easier
• 17:18
  time than, you know, going to visit Wisconsin or, you know,
• 17:22
  even, you know, parts of Florida for sure.
• 17:25
  But you know, how, how, what, what do we like?
• 17:30
  You know, there's an enormous amount of stigma behind it.
• 17:32
  And, you know, there's not nearly, for example, as much
• 17:34
  stigma behind getting a prescribed pain medication, you
• 17:37
  know, or something like that. So, So what would you, what,
• 17:41
  what would you, what, what would you do or do you do to kind of
• 17:44
  get, would you to tell people to be a little more on board with
• 17:46
  it? Well, I think what what would
• 17:52
  help is 1, someone's already tried other treatments already,
• 17:58
  they've tried multiple medications, they've tried other
• 18:00
  forms of therapy and they're not finding any relief or long term
• 18:04
  solutions. So that typically convinces
• 18:09
  someone to pursue treatment 2 When people want a treatment
• 18:15
  that works a little bit more quickly, that might be an
• 18:19
  incentive for them to want to do it.
• 18:22
  And again, it's really to the first point is like some people
• 18:26
  have suffered so much for so long that the pain of what
• 18:30
  they've been experiencing is like, I just need, I need
• 18:34
  something that works. And again, they've tried
• 18:36
  everything already. They're still really suffering.
• 18:39
  Like they don't really. And they know the risks and
• 18:44
  benefits. I mean, that's, that's all
• 18:45
  that's needed. So we, I mean, a lot of patients
• 18:48
  who have said, you know, I, I'll be the last guy who would ever
• 18:52
  want to do anything like hetamine.
• 18:53
  This is psychotherapy. But I'm so tired or desperate of
• 18:59
  feeling all this pain and the suffering and feeling this
• 19:02
  paralyzed. Now what can also help someone
• 19:08
  feel safe to pursue this treatment is doing it with a
• 19:11
  therapist. So I usually recommend to only
• 19:14
  do with a therapist, not just go to a center and get an IV
• 19:17
  treatment and leave Doing it with a therapist, you know, do
• 19:22
  it with the IV because it's more well controlled.
• 19:24
  They can control the doctor can control the dose and there's
• 19:28
  weighted. There's ways to do it in a very
• 19:29
  Safeway in a good container with good support staff with the
• 19:34
  therapist being present. The doctor can be present as
• 19:39
  well to administer like the the dosing per per hour and can be a
• 19:45
  really great experience. Yeah, I'm really, you know, it's
• 19:49
  funny because I feel like I think the music culture has
• 19:53
  probably also had a huge, a hugely positive influence or
• 19:57
  impact on people's willingness to try them out.
• 20:00
  Because, you know, it's, I've been, I'm very into the 60s
• 20:05
  counterculture movement and, you know, the Grateful Dead and, you
• 20:09
  know, that whole era of beats and hippies.
• 20:11
  I did a couple of fun podcasts with some guys that were around
• 20:14
  back then and. Excuse me.
• 20:18
  And and you know, one of the cool things about the music
• 20:23
  culture is that, and I know this, notice this even my even
• 20:25
  myself today, you know, with guys that are fish fans or
• 20:29
  Grateful Dead fans that, you know, you could be an investment
• 20:32
  banker. That's the straightest guy
• 20:33
  you'll ever see in your entire life.
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  You could be a hippie, you know, that never worked a straight job
• 20:37
  his entire life. And they all kind of come
• 20:39
  together around this music and, and, you know, that that kind of
• 20:44
  era of music kind of it felt, it definitely feels to me like it
• 20:47
  created more of a community and open minded world where people
• 20:53
  realize that, hey, you know, just because we look so
• 20:55
  different on the outside or spend so much time, you know,
• 20:57
  spend so much of our time differently, you know, we still
• 21:00
  have this in common. And this is something that we
• 21:01
  all find relatable. I feel like that really opened
• 21:04
  up the floodgates for, you know, the potential of, you know, what
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  else do we do, do we have in common?
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  And I think it's just a matter of being able to acknowledge
• 21:11
  that, you know. Yeah.
• 21:13
  But have you, have you done any kind of homework in terms of
• 21:16
  using psychedelics for, for, for aging, like Alzheimer's or
• 21:19
  dementia or anything like that? Because I've been, I've been
• 21:22
  hearing some, some, you know, some whispers and a little bit
• 21:25
  of research every now and then or some posts and articles that
• 21:29
  that mentioned that part of the neuro, the, the neural
• 21:32
  generation that occurs, you know, when taking psychedelics
• 21:35
  would potentially help with dementia or Alzheimer's of those
• 21:39
  type of diseases. I've not looked much into that,
• 21:42
  that data. I, I, I haven't heard of it.
• 21:46
  I have heard it's not fully related, but I have heard of
• 21:52
  psychedelic. It's a psychotherapy helping
• 21:57
  people that have, for example, people that are on the spectrum
• 22:02
  that that are opposite can help them be more sociable.
• 22:08
  Really. So increase your social
• 22:09
  awareness and your and I guess that part of your brain that
• 22:11
  kind of contextualizes or is good at context like social.
• 22:17
  Engagement, social engagement improves one way and then it
• 22:22
  seems like it does. It kind of slows things down for
• 22:27
  for that for that population. Really.
• 22:31
  Interesting, even people with ADHD have said that they can
• 22:35
  focus better after doing certain types of psychedelics like like
• 22:40
  psilocybin can be really great for ADHD symptoms.
• 22:45
  And do you see like a world in which, you know, like a kid has
• 22:48
  ADHD, so you give him, you know, like a little, I'm not a kid,
• 22:50
  but adults say, you know, you know, 18 you're working or 21
• 22:54
  you're working. And instead of taking on
• 22:56
  Adderall, you give them a little micro dose of a, of a, of a
• 22:59
  mushroom candy that they take once a day.
• 23:01
  And like, that's fine. Or you don't think that's going
• 23:03
  to happen anytime soon? I think it happened very soon.
• 23:07
  Oh, you think so? Yeah.
• 23:10
  I hope so. I.
• 23:11
  Mean again, it's, it's, it's, you know, so sad and still
• 23:15
  illegal. But I've heard from a lot of
• 23:21
  people outside of treatment that they use psilocybin to help them
• 23:27
  focus, like a small dose, right? And it's helpful.
• 23:30
  Right. Yeah, I hope so.
• 23:33
  I hope so. That'd be so cool.
• 23:35
  You know, I mean, I, I and I've heard anecdotes of people, you
• 23:38
  know, of that happening too. I've never heard it being used
• 23:42
  in the context of ADD, but I'd be really interested in in in
• 23:46
  observing what that you know what that is.
• 23:48
  Can you, I also saw that, you know, while I'm doing while I'm
• 23:51
  doing some prep that you that you've drove down a little bit
• 23:54
  of evolutionary psychology or psychiatry, and I happen to be
• 24:00
  super, super interested in that. Do you want to tell me a little
• 24:02
  bit about of, you know, any of the work or research that you've
• 24:05
  done with that or I understand? Evolutionary Psychiatry.
• 24:09
  Evolutionary. Yeah, or psychology.
• 24:14
  I mean, I'm somewhat familiar with it.
• 24:16
  I wouldn't say it's my area of of of expertise.
• 24:21
  Gotcha. OK, Well then let's talk about
• 24:24
  your religious this, this rabbinical school and your, this
• 24:27
  religious journey that you're that you're that you're heading
• 24:30
  towards. Yeah, decided this, I think it
• 24:36
  was this May to move forward with starting rabbinical school.
• 24:41
  I've been thinking about it for about about a year before May of
• 24:47
  this year. And you know, I went to Jewish
• 24:51
  private school growing up and I enjoyed reading, reading the
• 24:55
  Torah. I wasn't like super passionate
• 24:57
  about it. But when I started reading the
• 24:59
  Torah again couple years ago with two friends and like
• 25:04
  discussing the partial each week, I was just fascinated
• 25:09
  with. What caused you guys doing that?
• 25:13
  I just got invited. Oh, really?
• 25:16
  You got I got invited to being like this discussion group.
• 25:19
  You just joined it. Yeah, I just joined it and I
• 25:23
  loved it. I love reading the partnership
• 25:25
  and discussing it, bringing the commentary.
• 25:28
  It's just very intellectually simulating not just the humash,
• 25:35
  but you know, look at Joshua, King Samuel, Isaiah.
• 25:41
  It's it's just fascinating. It's I like learning about also
• 25:49
  I can just enjoying reading the history of the early, early
• 25:54
  history of jewelry, the early part of Israel, which is super
• 26:00
  fascinating and you learn a lot about leadership A.
• 26:05
  Time. You learn a lot about it and I
• 26:09
  can say with a lot of the difficulties I've had in my life
• 26:14
  this past year or so, I've really I thought about our our
• 26:21
  forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, think
• 26:28
  David, just the the thing, the things that you need to keep in
• 26:34
  mind when you make really difficult decision to overcome
• 26:38
  obstacles. There's lots of it.
• 26:40
  I have just started studying with learning with a friend of
• 26:45
  mine in the mornings. We're very close friends and you
• 26:47
  know, and it's so funny because I think that a lot of people
• 26:50
  have like a Jew, you know, religious aspect to their lives,
• 26:53
  or you know, at least a God fearing or observant aspect to
• 26:56
  their lives and like their own lives.
• 26:58
  I feel like they have, you know, and that's kind of what
• 27:00
  everyone's relationship is. So certain times and places
• 27:02
  like, OK, now it's time for God and religion.
• 27:04
  And then other times they're like, OK, now it's time for me
• 27:07
  time, you know, now it's time to do whatever I feel like doing,
• 27:09
  you know, and, and I really don't.
• 27:13
  And I, and part of what I, what I try to do is I try to make
• 27:17
  the, I try to blur the lines as much as possible.
• 27:19
  I don't want there to be separate lines.
• 27:20
  You know, I think that the the the Torah, the Bible, you know,
• 27:26
  the Jewish law, the Jewish word is something that's specifically
• 27:30
  supposed to permeate through all aspects of our lives.
• 27:32
  And the better off and the better that we are at it, you
• 27:35
  know, the more intentional, conscientious and elevated we
• 27:40
  have an elevated consciousness on the day-to-day life.
• 27:42
  Yeah. You know.
• 27:44
  A prime. There is no blurred lines,
• 27:46
  there's no blurring. It's it's everything I mean.
• 27:50
  But the Torah makes it explicitly clear God is present
• 27:56
  everywhere. And that it is life, Kim Kyenu.
• 28:00
  It's our lives, you know? Yeah, and so reading the Torah
• 28:05
  again as an adult and just having my my background as a
• 28:08
  psychiatrist, that's why becoming becoming a rabbi was
• 28:13
  just a no brainer for me is just the awareness that every single
• 28:20
  behavior we take is going to be evaluated by my God.
• 28:25
  And there. So it's kind of an empowering
• 28:27
  feeling as a human being knowing that every single decision I
• 28:32
  make is going to have significant impact on the world.
• 28:38
  I and you won't fully know what that is, but just know that has
• 28:44
  significant involvement, which then makes you be not fearful,
• 28:50
  but just very conscientious about which thoughts you choose
• 28:55
  to engage in and like bring into life and which ones you can
• 28:58
  ignore. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great
• 29:00
  way of putting that up. Yeah.
• 29:02
  It's, you know, I think that you know, with the beauty, the
• 29:05
  beauty of a lot of this is, and I'm sure that part, this is part
• 29:07
  of why you're enjoying it so much more now is that as you
• 29:10
  become, you know, more as you, as you hopefully mature in your
• 29:14
  life and you know, develop in the course of your life, you
• 29:17
  take on additional responsibilities, whether that's
• 29:19
  a job or a wife or kids, or, you know, whatever it is that you're
• 29:23
  choosing to take on. And you start to realize that
• 29:26
  all your actions have an impact on other people as well.
• 29:28
  And you know, when you're a kid with the beauty of youth is
• 29:31
  real, is that your behavior almost exists in a vacuum.
• 29:33
  You feel like, you know, you can just do whatever you want,
• 29:35
  however you feel like, and that's fine.
• 29:37
  And then as you become older, you know, take on
• 29:39
  responsibilities. Hey, if I sleep in today, that
• 29:42
  means my wife had to wake up early.
• 29:43
  And I don't want that. You know, if hey, if I, if I
• 29:45
  didn't, if I didn't change my kids diaper, that means that my
• 29:47
  wife had to do that or the kids running around with The Dirty
• 29:49
  diaper, you know, what am I going to do?
• 29:51
  You know, I think having that elevated sense of consciousness
• 29:55
  and awareness, you know, starts to speak and make more sense to
• 29:59
  you as you become an adult. And as a youth, you kind of want
• 30:03
  to learn how to, you want to kind of push the line a little
• 30:04
  bit or total line or figure out what, you know, like, oh, all my
• 30:07
  actions are in a vacuum. And I think that actually is a
• 30:09
  beautiful thing for a certain point of time.
• 30:11
  I don't know if it's forever, you know?
• 30:13
  And it this is related in the sense that if you look at
• 30:19
  Abraham, you know, Moses, for example, it took a long time for
• 30:24
  them to engage God, like I think Abraham was in his 80s. 75. 5
• 30:30
  Moses was around 80. They were, they were shepherds,
• 30:36
  I think. I think in terms of you can say
• 30:39
  prophecy, the person that really seemed to have that type of
• 30:45
  experience a lot sooner was Joseph in in prison.
• 30:52
  I think he. Was only like 30 he.
• 30:53
  Had when he was young, but but he was able to get there pretty
• 30:57
  quickly because he suffered a lot.
• 30:58
  I mean, he went through a lot. I mean, he was sold off, you
• 31:02
  know, then he was accused of, you know, sexual harassment.
• 31:07
  And so I think that's an important lesson for today's
• 31:10
  world of a sense of patience with having your calling that
• 31:18
  you have to kind of earn your stripes to really gain a sense
• 31:24
  of wisdom from from from above. But it takes work, like whether
• 31:29
  it's life experiences or it's learning, it's that's what it
• 31:34
  takes to really receive some type of, I don't know what's the
• 31:39
  right term, but yeah, wisdom is the word that that comes up,
• 31:45
  wisdom from, from. It's so funny that you say that
• 31:50
  because I, I had a very profound experience.
• 31:55
  I was in my, I guess my about five years ago.
• 31:57
  It was maybe I was turning 25. So it was about almost exactly 5
• 32:02
  years ago, Yeah. And I was still single and I
• 32:07
  didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.
• 32:09
  And I was very, very much in my head about it.
• 32:11
  And I felt like I was regressing.
• 32:13
  I'd moved away from home and then I moved back and I had a
• 32:15
  girlfriend I was serious with. And then it didn't work out and
• 32:18
  I didn't like working with my dad.
• 32:20
  And now I'm living with him, you know, and everything kind of
• 32:22
  just felt like it was kind of falling apart.
• 32:24
  And I was really beating myself up about the fact that.
• 32:26
  And not only that, I'm turning 25 and at the time, and I'm a
• 32:30
  huge music junkie and I'm, you know, and I'm thinking about
• 32:33
  Springsteen, I'm thinking about Bob Dylan.
• 32:35
  I'm thinking about Springsteen came up with Born to Run when he
• 32:38
  was 23. And Bob Dylan ain't, God knows
• 32:40
  how much he put out by the time he was 25, you know, and what
• 32:43
  he, what he accomplished. And then actually I was reading
• 32:47
  the portion, the partial, and I was reading the, you know, the
• 32:49
  weekly portion. And I was reading about, I was
• 32:52
  reading about Avraham, the fact that he had that.
• 32:57
  And I was thinking to myself, this guy had a kid when he was
• 33:00
  100, his first kid when he was in his 80s, I was like, Can you
• 33:04
  imagine how long he wanted to have a kid for?
• 33:06
  Let's say he decided he wanted to have a kid when he was 20 or
• 33:08
  when he was 30 or 40. And he tried for 30 years.
• 33:13
  I was like, and here I am, I'm a 25 year old.
• 33:14
  I'm complaining. I was like, you know what I'm
• 33:15
  going to do? I'm going to just make myself
• 33:18
  the most ready that I can be to be the man I'm supposed to
• 33:21
  become. You know, I'm going to work on
• 33:23
  my character. I'm going to work on my habits.
• 33:24
  I'm going to work on these things.
• 33:26
  And whenever, you know, if it happens in 10 years, it happens
• 33:29
  in 10 years. If it happens in 20 years,
• 33:31
  whenever it happens, I'm going to be ready for it, you know,
• 33:33
  and I'm going to take the time and devote myself to be ready
• 33:35
  for it. And that that shift immediately
• 33:39
  caught, you know, that that was a very tangible turning point in
• 33:42
  my life where I, I was able to say, there's a bigger picture.
• 33:48
  Whatever I don't have right now, it's not because I can't get
• 33:50
  her. It's because I'm not capable of
• 33:51
  getting it. I just got to keep myself
• 33:53
  getting ready for it and just keep working at it, you know,
• 33:56
  And I think that that's, you know, again, without the Bible,
• 33:59
  without the Torah, we don't, we don't have that, you know, I
• 34:01
  think that, you know, and a lot of people are returning to God
• 34:03
  these days or religion or believing in God or faith.
• 34:07
  And I think it's because the vacuum that was left for 20-30
• 34:10
  years now has proven to be a disastrous, you know,
• 34:13
  experiment. Society without ah, society
• 34:16
  without direction is is hard. Another way to say is that
• 34:22
  living life without how to know how to make meaning out of it,
• 34:27
  Like how do we make meaning out of adversity, out of horrible
• 34:31
  events that happened throughout the world?
• 34:32
  How do we make meaning out of not having enough money, being
• 34:36
  lonely. I think that's why people have
• 34:39
  gone to whether it's Kabbalah, you know, back to Christianity,
• 34:46
  back to other faith systems, because they're, they're,
• 34:50
  they're really seeking an understanding of them.
• 34:53
  What are we doing here? Why are we experiencing what
• 34:56
  we're experiencing? And again, the Tanakh has
• 35:03
  fantastic stories of how to make meaning out of her life.
• 35:07
  Yeah, it was one of my favorite, the late great Rabbi Jonathan
• 35:10
  Sacks. He wrote an amazing book in the
• 35:12
  early 2000s called The Great Partnership.
• 35:15
  And one of the arguments that he was making at the time, which
• 35:17
  was considered revolutionary, was at the time in society was
• 35:21
  that science and religion are two sides of a coin, That
• 35:24
  religion. Science tells you how and
• 35:27
  religion tells you why, you know, and as as as much as
• 35:32
  science can provide how things work, It doesn't tell you how to
• 35:36
  why you know, why, what the meaning is, how to navigate,
• 35:39
  what its purpose is. It just tells you.
• 35:41
  And by the way, and you know, and I'm a huge advocate for
• 35:45
  science. I think the scientific thought
• 35:47
  is that, and I think that Judaism is too.
• 35:49
  The Ramba Maimonides begins by, you know, his his, the
• 35:53
  foundations of, of his faith in God by saying, if you want to
• 35:57
  learn how to love God, study science and study how the world
• 36:00
  works, because it's going to be so beautiful and so incredible
• 36:03
  that you won't be able to help but fall in love with it, you
• 36:05
  know, So I think that, you know, the recent schism between
• 36:10
  religion and science is only recent and it's, you know, I
• 36:13
  mean, the ancient, the ancient world was very, very in tune
• 36:16
  with both of them. And I think you got to be.
• 36:18
  Yeah. Well, I mean, I I would say that
• 36:23
  I became more spiritual through science.
• 36:28
  Oh yeah. Can you elaborate how that
• 36:30
  happened? I would say it was through
• 36:33
  quantum, quantum physics, space, which is how vast the universe
• 36:40
  is, different ways we can heal. You know what humans can do.
• 36:48
  It's just it's. And how is it?
• 36:50
  And what's your what's your process like?
• 36:53
  All this great, amazing stuff equals something more?
• 36:57
  How does your brain create? How does it connect it to?
• 37:00
  Between science and spirituality.
• 37:02
  Yeah, like how did, how did, how did it make you more spiritual?
• 37:05
  What was your what? Like how did you put them
• 37:07
  together? Oh, that, that what we see, like
• 37:10
  what we can physically see happen in our life.
• 37:15
  It's, it's so wow. What's not what's good?
• 37:19
  What's a good way to say it? The chance of all this happening
• 37:25
  is just so infinitely rare for it to work this well with each
• 37:30
  other. I mean it's there is an
• 37:34
  intelligent creator. Right.
• 37:39
  So do you think there's a contradiction necessarily
• 37:41
  between religion? Yeah, not a personified, yeah,
• 37:46
  but like an order that can manifest in a human way for us
• 37:54
  to understand what's happening. Like the Torah is portrays God
• 38:00
  as with like, like characteristics that a human can
• 38:05
  have, but it's just a tool for us to try to understand and
• 38:11
  relate to God. Does that make sense?
• 38:15
  Have you heard of a gentle, A gentleman named Defraying
• 38:18
  Pavanov? I'm going to send you a link to
• 38:20
  He has some incredible podcasts that I think that would speak
• 38:24
  very, very strongly to you. And I think and they're, and
• 38:27
  they're all generally, he's a biologist and, and you know, and
• 38:33
  I guess a Torah enthusiast, you know, and he's, and he's got
• 38:39
  some really, really spectacular, you know, classes that combine,
• 38:44
  you know, spiritual, scientific, you know, biological and, you
• 38:49
  know, everything, you know, just everything kind of just flows
• 38:51
  in. And that's actually what's going
• 38:53
  back to what you were just saying.
• 38:55
  It's not even that there's so many incredible systems.
• 38:57
  That's so unlikely. It's also that everything flows
• 39:01
  into one another that it's all like that, you know, and when we
• 39:04
  say that God is 1, it's so cool because it really is 1.
• 39:08
  I mean, you know, that's how you kind of know whether something's
• 39:10
  real or not. If you say, you know, I, I, I,
• 39:13
  you know, there's certain. There's a great book, The Art of
• 39:16
  Learning by Josh Whiteskin. And one thing that he emphasizes
• 39:21
  throughout his life, he was excellent.
• 39:23
  He was, he's world class at a bunch of different things that
• 39:27
  don't seem to have anything to do with one another.
• 39:28
  He's a great chess player, martial artist, Foiler, you
• 39:32
  know, he's a coach for businesses and for basketball
• 39:34
  teams and all kinds of amazing things.
• 39:36
  And one thing he says that there's certain disciplines that
• 39:39
  just weave their way through everything.
• 39:41
  You know, you get if you practice them, you can apply it
• 39:44
  to anything that you want, you know, And I think that's also
• 39:47
  part of like this fundamental truth of oneness that exists for
• 39:50
  sure. Yeah.
• 39:52
  But yeah, I think that is, you know, another another fun topic
• 39:57
  that you know, so going back to my friends and I were we're
• 40:00
  talking, you know, we started learning together and we have,
• 40:03
  you know, the time of Hanukkah coming up and Hanukkah coming
• 40:05
  up. And the, I don't know if you, if
• 40:09
  you, if you're aware of this, but a lot of the premise of the,
• 40:11
  of the Hanukkah story is actually rooted in Joseph and
• 40:14
  his brothers and their relationship with one another.
• 40:18
  And, and Joseph, Yosef and Yehuda or Judea or Judah, you
• 40:26
  know, actually represent two sides of a coin.
• 40:30
  And it's interesting because the Hanukkah story takes place while
• 40:35
  the Jews are living in Israel, while they have their temple.
• 40:39
  You know, like by all physical standards, it would feel like it
• 40:45
  is not considered an exile, You know, I mean, you got, you got
• 40:49
  your own, you got everyone living there or a lot of people
• 40:51
  living there. You got your own temple, You got
• 40:53
  your own Kingdom. There's a, there's a, there's
• 40:55
  the, the Greek king that's ruling that.
• 40:57
  That's technically you're paying taxes to, but as far as you're
• 40:59
  concerned, you're able to do whatever you want to.
• 41:01
  And there's a great commentary named Shimshunder Falhirsch,
• 41:05
  Samsoner Falhirsch that that does amazing articles, writes
• 41:10
  amazing articles. And one of the things from the
• 41:12
  19th century, so from the late 1800s.
• 41:15
  And one thing that he talked about was that the Hanukkah
• 41:19
  story happens after, after Alexander dies, his Kingdom gets
• 41:26
  broken up into four sections. And, and in the north, the
• 41:32
  Syrian empire is where Akashvirosh is.
• 41:34
  And in the South, Egyptian, in the South, there was an Egyptian
• 41:38
  empire. And he said that the northern
• 41:40
  empire with Akashvirosh typically did not care what
• 41:43
  religion anyone practiced. So it's a very it was considered
• 41:45
  an anomaly that they would try to attack, you know, try to
• 41:48
  strike down the Jews, the the Jewish faith or religion, you
• 41:52
  know, because they understood that by leaving everyone to do
• 41:55
  their own thing, everyone would all just be very happy and just
• 41:58
  continue paying their taxes. It's kind of like what America
• 41:59
  is today, right? And he said that the second that
• 42:03
  they saw that, he said that, that it that Jewish leaders had
• 42:08
  indicated to the Greek leaders that the Jews were not committed
• 42:11
  to their philosophy, that the Greeks came along and said, OK,
• 42:15
  well, if you don't need it, then, you know, we're not going
• 42:17
  to, we're not, you know, then we're not going to let you have
• 42:19
  it. Like if you really feel like
• 42:20
  it's not that valuable to you, then we want you to be more like
• 42:22
  us. And that relationship, you know,
• 42:29
  and, and, and it's, it's funny because in today's world, you
• 42:31
  feel like, you know, we have, we have Israel and we have, you
• 42:34
  know, we have, you know, the Jews for the first time in
• 42:37
  thousands of years have, you know, their own country and
• 42:39
  their own state. And you would think, and all, by
• 42:42
  all, by all standards, by all physical standards, you know,
• 42:45
  we'd have almost the exact same, you know, like this would be
• 42:48
  like, what, what makes you think we have an exile still, you
• 42:51
  know, and the answer is that philosophically, I don't know
• 42:53
  that we're quite there yet. You know, I don't know that
• 42:55
  we're taking on the, you know, the, the, the, the spiritual and
• 42:59
  the, and the values and the meaning and the relationships
• 43:04
  that we're necessarily supposed to embody in order to able to
• 43:07
  fully return it. Yeah.
• 43:10
  Any thoughts on it? I think, I think the thought
• 43:13
  that comes up is I think the thought that's always come up is
• 43:19
  Judaism is religion has a lot of rituals, traditions, laws.
• 43:27
  And how do you observe all these laws when you're alongside other
• 43:33
  countries that might have a lot of their own traditions.
• 43:37
  And I think the reason why US has been a great place for Jews,
• 43:43
  because you have people from around the world that moved to
• 43:47
  the US and the US is very accepting of us practicing
• 43:51
  whatever we want. And so it's been a pretty good
• 43:54
  rule, pretty good relationship. I think what's happening right
• 43:59
  now is there are people in America that are saying, if you
• 44:05
  serve in the IDF and have like allegiance to that country and
• 44:11
  you serve, you give up your life.
• 44:13
  If you're willing to give up your life for Israel and you've
• 44:15
  served in the Israeli army, you and you chose to serve them
• 44:19
  rather than the United States. Why should you be AUS citizen?
• 44:24
  So that so that that kind of reminds me of like that story
• 44:28
  of, you know, back in back in the ancient times.
• 44:34
  And so can can you as Jews, can we have the duality of having an
• 44:40
  allegiance to two countries at the same time, two different
• 44:45
  cultures at the same time? And I think it's possible.
• 44:50
  But I think what happens is that when we have limited resources
• 44:55
  and we have to choose where we want our resources to go, that's
• 45:00
  when either country might feel like, for example, US has a
• 45:05
  short, has a shortage of people that want to voluntarily serve
• 45:08
  in the army. Well, Israel's having the same
• 45:12
  issue right now where, you know, there's legislation to get or,
• 45:17
  you know, the ultra Orthodox used to serve in the army.
• 45:22
  And so, yeah, it's, I don't know what's gonna happen, but it's,
• 45:28
  it's a bit, I think it's a long standing debate.
• 45:31
  I think so too. I think that I've, I've heard,
• 45:34
  I've heard that complaint and that that sentiment actually
• 45:37
  being expressed. And the truth is that if I were
• 45:39
  not a Jewish American or, you know, if I was not, you know, if
• 45:44
  I was, if I was, if I had no association with Judaism, Israel
• 45:48
  or, you know, and I was just purely American, I probably
• 45:50
  would be on, you know, a similar, I probably would think
• 45:54
  a similar way. So I really do understand where
• 45:57
  the perspectives coming from and I kind of even agree with it.
• 46:00
  I only think that I would potentially say or say in
• 46:03
  response is that, and, you know, I'm sure that you know this as
• 46:07
  well as I do, America and Israel almost feel like they're
• 46:11
  satellite offices of one another.
• 46:13
  You know, and I know that everyone makes them, you know,
• 46:15
  that they feel like they're, you know, foreign enemy.
• 46:18
  And they are, by the way, it's different.
• 46:19
  But, you know, I think that at the moment, right now, the lines
• 46:22
  are very blurred. You know, a lot of Israelis come
• 46:25
  back and forth. A lot of Americans come back and
• 46:26
  forth, a lot of people, you know, Israelis, Israelis love
• 46:29
  America. They want to come to America to
• 46:32
  make money. They want to come to America
• 46:33
  because they love capitalism and they love the culture and the
• 46:35
  freedom, you know, and, and vice versa.
• 46:37
  And I think that I think that a lot of Jews realize that the
• 46:41
  well-being of America is in there is in the Jew is in Jewish
• 46:48
  Americans best interests as well.
• 46:49
  And so even if you do choose to spend a couple of years in
• 46:51
  service of another country, odds are you have family, you have
• 46:55
  friends, you have cousins, you grew up here.
• 46:57
  This is your life. You plan on spending most of
• 46:59
  your life here most of the time, you know, even if you are a lone
• 47:02
  soldier for a couple of years, you know, and, and most of your
• 47:05
  life is paying taxes, trying to make the society a better place,
• 47:09
  having kids, sending your kids to school, trying to make the
• 47:12
  American culture a better and wholesome culture and really,
• 47:15
  really contributing to it. So, you know, I mean, I don't, I
• 47:19
  think that, you know, obviously it does become like what you
• 47:24
  said, when resources become finite, it does become a little
• 47:27
  bit more of a prickly topic because and that's really the
• 47:30
  root of all war. All war typically is just when
• 47:32
  it comes down to a matter of trying to get acquire more
• 47:35
  resources. If you feel like you're
• 47:37
  threatened or have a shortage of it, you know, the goal is to
• 47:40
  help people understand that we hopefully are living in a time
• 47:45
  or heading to a time of so much abundance that this shouldn't
• 47:48
  even be a, you know, a problem. You know, and like the question
• 47:51
  should be, what are we contributing?
• 47:53
  I I think I think the early history of Israel is a great
• 48:01
  historical reference point. The the more division there is
• 48:10
  within the state of Israel, the more likely it's going to
• 48:13
  collapse. Just looking at the history of
• 48:16
  of Israel and the morality of the state, that's another
• 48:26
  contributing, factoring together so many stories of when there's
• 48:30
  more people not actually disconnect from God, There's
• 48:33
  more. So like your behaviors when the
• 48:34
  society is engaging in more behaviors that are sinful or
• 48:38
  disconnected. Again, Israel has been prayed to
• 48:43
  be taken over. So yeah.
• 48:46
  Yeah, I mean, sorry, please. No, that's it.
• 48:51
  Yeah. All over the Torah, all over.
• 48:53
  I mean, you want to look all over the Old Testament in the
• 48:55
  Bible. I mean over and over and over.
• 48:59
  The Bible emphasizes God emphasizes your relationship to
• 49:05
  Israel is based on your behavior.
• 49:07
  You know, like the people that are, you know, and you know,
• 49:09
  like you got to earn it. And if you're there, you got to
• 49:12
  behave in a way that will allow me to keep you guys there.
• 49:16
  Like, you know, it's not because, and and there's such a
• 49:19
  great line in I forgot whether it's by mid bar or the 4th book
• 49:23
  or Dvarim, but and God's like it's not because of your
• 49:29
  righteousness that you're that you're getting this, you know,
• 49:31
  like you got you guys have to earn it.
• 49:33
  Like you're not you like you don't walk in all ready to go
• 49:35
  like you got it. You got to build yourselves up.
• 49:38
  And listen, 40 years in the desert is hugely symbolic of
• 49:41
  trying, of shedding previous identities and trying to
• 49:44
  recreate, you know, and find your own identity to find out
• 49:48
  the truth. You know, and I think that I
• 49:51
  think that a lot of what's going on in the world today is, I
• 49:56
  mean, there's a massive breakdown in institutions and
• 49:59
  institutional trust and, you know, and people don't really
• 50:02
  know where to look for reality. Like it almost feels like
• 50:06
  there's like a bit, you know, there's 350 million people in
• 50:09
  America. There's 350 million different
• 50:11
  realities, you know, that are, that are all isolated.
• 50:14
  They're all kind of, you know, playing together at the moment.
• 50:18
  You know, we got to be able to have some kind of sense of unity
• 50:20
  or some kind of sense of connection in order to really be
• 50:23
  able to maintain that, you know. Well, I mean, what you just said
• 50:28
  is part of the reason why I want to go to rabbinical school is
• 50:31
  because I see so many shifts, major shifts in our life as
• 50:36
  humans, that for my own stability, my future family
• 50:42
  stability, my my existing family stability, my community
• 50:45
  stability. I want to be able to root myself
• 50:48
  in the belief system that has stood the test of time, that has
• 50:54
  the framework has helped a group of people overcome some of the
• 51:01
  most difficult situations a group of people can ever go
• 51:05
  through. So yeah.
• 51:10
  And for me, that big shift in the way we live is AI is
• 51:16
  artificial intelligence, which is going to slowly take over all
• 51:20
  of our jobs. You know, a lot of a lot of our
• 51:24
  groups. I want to remain.
• 51:26
  I want to keep my sense of being human as much as I can and
• 51:31
  become a rabbi as like one other reason.
• 51:36
  Yeah, think about what do you call it?
• 51:38
  Think about what happens when Elon's, when Elon Musk's, you
• 51:42
  know, Tesla robots are mixed with Grok AI and you literally
• 51:46
  have a physical manifestation of your, you know, of your, of your
• 51:51
  Grok or your ChatGPT. Yeah, that's literally, well, do
• 51:55
  everything around your house, you know, everything for you.
• 51:57
  And the question will become what's meaning and what's
• 52:01
  purpose in your life. You know, and I'm trying to
• 52:04
  actually, you know, I teach high school part time.
• 52:06
  And yesterday I had I, I, you know, we're talking, I, I like
• 52:10
  to make my students think a lot. I think that a huge, I, I, I
• 52:13
  teach English. So we bring up, you know, it
• 52:14
  gives me a lot of flexibility as to what I'm choosing to expose
• 52:17
  them to. And I try to get them to think
• 52:19
  about big topics, like if you didn't have to work ever.
• 52:22
  You know, yesterday, I gave him two prompts.
• 52:24
  The first one was, if you never had to work again, you get all
• 52:26
  the money in the world, what would you do, right?
• 52:28
  And the second prompt was, now that you gave me your dumb
• 52:30
  answer about what you do for the first five years, what are you
• 52:33
  going to do the rest of your life now?
• 52:35
  Because, you know, it sounds really great until you realize
• 52:39
  that you have a whole life to live.
• 52:40
  So I think about that all the time.
• 52:41
  What would I do if I had all the like?
• 52:45
  What would I do professionally if I had all the money in the
• 52:48
  world? And it's exactly what I'm doing
• 52:49
  right now. I'd still practice psychiatry, I
• 52:53
  would still be in a rabbinical school, and I would still, right
• 52:57
  right now, making an app called Rituality.
• 53:01
  Hopefully it gets launched in January.
• 53:03
  But I'm making an app that's going to help people practice
• 53:07
  rituals or practice rituals either with themselves or with
• 53:11
  other people. Amazing.
• 53:13
  No matter what your background is, whether you're Jewish,
• 53:15
  Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Japanese, Persian, Yeah, my, my,
• 53:23
  I'm here to help people be connected to themselves and
• 53:26
  others. Whether I have $10 in my bank
• 53:32
  account or a billion. But it won't doesn't make a
• 53:37
  difference. But it's a great, it's a great
• 53:38
  question for people to ask themselves.
• 53:42
  If you had all the resources in the world, what would you
• 53:43
  actually want to do? Yeah.
• 53:47
  I mean, ideally, most of us can do something professionally that
• 53:52
  is very meaningful and feels like you can make an impact.
• 53:57
  But I know a lot of people don't feel like that.
• 53:59
  Yeah, I think that the potential issue, and actually Murad and I
• 54:03
  were talking about this, is that at a certain point, you know,
• 54:08
  that that voice, that inner intuition, that inner passion, I
• 54:13
  think does become stifled as the years and decades go on.
• 54:17
  You know, and I, I, you know, if you're optimistic, hopefully you
• 54:20
  could try to rediscover it. If you're pessimistic, you
• 54:23
  probably, you know, you probably missed your boat.
• 54:25
  You know, we do know that there are ways to, you know, and
• 54:28
  that's actually the fun of stuff like, you know, like observing
• 54:33
  neuroplasticity, you know, like to figure out that there are
• 54:36
  things you could do to actually open up your brain more as even
• 54:39
  as you get older. But yeah, I, I think that that's
• 54:45
  going to that, you know, that we're going to have almost like
• 54:48
  in the future, society is not going to be based on how much
• 54:49
  money or not you have. It's going to be how meaningful
• 54:52
  of a life you live and how much you do with your life or not.
• 54:55
  That's going to, you know, put, you know, that's, that's I think
• 54:57
  what the classes are going to become as opposed to, you know,
• 55:00
  wealthy or poor. So like meaningful or creative
• 55:03
  or not? I why I think with, with AI,
• 55:08
  productivity is going to become almost instantaneous in a sense,
• 55:13
  like, like the amount of effort it takes from ourselves.
• 55:17
  This can be minimal. What's left over is just finding
• 55:20
  meaning because all the productivity stuff has already
• 55:24
  been taken care of. What else is there?
• 55:26
  It's finding meaning in connection.
• 55:27
  So I think the, I think the benefit of AI is that we don't
• 55:32
  have to do things that are, that are meaningless.
• 55:35
  We can have AI do that for us, which is great if it, if it
• 55:39
  takes me, if I'm spending, you know, 3 hours a day trying to
• 55:45
  manage my own house and I have AI like AI robot that does that
• 55:49
  for me. I have now more time to spend
• 55:51
  time with other people, learn, get back to my community.
• 55:56
  So we're going to be freed up with so much time in the future.
• 56:00
  And the question is, what are people going to do with it?
• 56:03
  Are they going to choose entertainment?
• 56:05
  There's going to be a lot of great entertainment.
• 56:07
  By the way, AI makes great entertainment.
• 56:10
  So scary. I'm excited for the more time we
• 56:14
  get to have because we don't have to do things that are not
• 56:17
  very meaningful for us. I think I know you're excited
• 56:22
  about that. I think a lot of people are
• 56:23
  scared about that. You know, I think that a lot of
• 56:25
  people wouldn't know what to do without their jobs.
• 56:27
  You work 80 hour weeks on Wall Street for the last 20 years,
• 56:31
  even the last 10 years, you know, and you're like, this is
• 56:34
  my life, you know. And then you said, sorry, no,
• 56:36
  it's not anymore. You have here's all the money
• 56:38
  you want, but have a good life. I don't know what people are
• 56:41
  going to. Do with that learn, you know,
• 56:47
  people are going to become more spiritual, people are going to
• 56:50
  be more familiar with the land. People are going to people are
• 56:53
  going to engage the land more people are going to be out in
• 56:55
  nature, more people are going to be more social.
• 56:56
  People are going to do want to do more things in person.
• 56:59
  So if you just look at human history, that's what we go back
• 57:05
  to is connection and curiosity and being out in nature.
• 57:11
  Those are like fundamental principles of being human.
• 57:15
  So I'm not as concerned. I'm not.
• 57:18
  I, I think, I think the part I think what we're speaking to is
• 57:22
  people's lack of imagination and lack of creativity.
• 57:27
  Yeah. If you can be creative, which
• 57:31
  again, most humans are very creative and we use our
• 57:35
  imagination like a kid, does a kid get bored?
• 57:39
  No, they find ways to make all types of things meaningful.
• 57:43
  I think human beings can do the same thing when they're in their
• 57:46
  40s, fifties, 60s. So.
• 57:51
  Yeah, I guess it's just a muscle that has to be exercised, you
• 57:54
  know, and I think it happens. Which is not we, we, we, we, we
• 57:58
  don't live in a country that helps us foster our creativity
• 58:03
  and our imagination. Instead of we're given timelines
• 58:06
  and expectations of this is how life is supposed to go and AI
• 58:10
  comes in and shattering all of that.
• 58:13
  Things are now significantly accelerated because of AI.
• 58:20
  And I like to help people see how it can be done so in a
• 58:27
  positive way. Yeah, I think we need more of
• 58:29
  that. One thing I was, you know, I was
• 58:33
  talking to my after there was there was a school shooter a
• 58:38
  couple of months back and he had like this crazy notebook.
• 58:43
  And, you know, I don't know if you remember seeing this, he
• 58:44
  shot up a church I think with and there's I think two kids
• 58:47
  that died and a bunch were injured and it was really,
• 58:50
  really devastating. And one thing that I was
• 58:51
  thinking about was thinking about this poor kids head,
• 58:54
  right? Because let's say he was 22 or
• 58:56
  23, COVID started when he was probably 17 years old.
• 59:00
  So he's locked down in his house.
• 59:02
  You know, he's spending, and probably realistically most of
• 59:05
  the country spending an enormous amount of time on social media,
• 59:08
  you know, being locked down, not having community, not having
• 59:11
  relationships, right? Over the course of COVID, we
• 59:16
  have an enormous amount of remote work that becomes
• 59:18
  accessible and immediately available, right?
• 59:20
  So people, myself and my friends included, are literally able to
• 59:24
  go from the age of 20 to 25 or 20 to sorry, 17 to 20 or 17 to
• 59:30
  25 or 20 to 30 without really with having almost no new
• 59:35
  relationships or interactions with people.
• 59:38
  Because you could be a single dude going through college
• 59:40
  classes online or a single girl going through college classes
• 59:43
  online, spending your time on social media, moving to an
• 59:45
  apartment when you get a job that's a remote marketing job or
• 59:48
  whatever it is. You know, your accountant or
• 59:50
  marketing or whatever it might be or, and, and you work at your
• 59:55
  apartment. Maybe you go to the office one
• 59:56
  to two days a week if you're lucky.
• 59:58
  And you're getting blasted with social media and news about how
• 1:00:01
  the world's ending all the time. You go and then and and you
• 1:00:05
  don't even have to go to the supermarket, you Uber Eats or
• 1:00:09
  you DoorDash everything and all of a sudden you have a enormous
• 1:00:12
  chunk of your population that has no idea how to even interact
• 1:00:15
  with other with other people. You know, So I think that it's
• 1:00:18
  enormously valuable and more than valuable integral if we're
• 1:00:23
  going to like be a healthy country and, you know, raise a
• 1:00:26
  healthy generation to encourage play and interactions and to not
• 1:00:30
  be afraid of other people and to encourage in person activities.
• 1:00:34
  You know, and it's cool because like, again, from a religious
• 1:00:36
  perspective, when God created Adam and Eve, he put them in the
• 1:00:39
  garden, in the Garden of Eden, but they were still working.
• 1:00:42
  He says you put them there, Abdullah Shamrah, to work into
• 1:00:44
  guard. What do you mean?
• 1:00:45
  You're in the Garden of Eden, you know, but you can't do
• 1:00:48
  nothing, you know, you can't do, you can't do nothing.
• 1:00:50
  You got to work together. You got to participate.
• 1:00:53
  I mean, there's a line that says God said that they were alone
• 1:00:58
  and God had created more, you know, those animals or more
• 1:01:03
  things that they can have domain over.
• 1:01:05
  I think that's the fear is like, what are we going to have domain
• 1:01:08
  over if AI comes in again? I'm very, we live in an abundant
• 1:01:13
  planet. There's a lot of things for us
• 1:01:16
  to do. We need to take care of our
• 1:01:18
  planet. Our planet is, I mean, again,
• 1:01:20
  there's a lot of pollution. There's a lot of people that are
• 1:01:23
  lonely. We have a lot of people.
• 1:01:27
  So there's a lot of things that people can do if AI is taking
• 1:01:32
  over their work, there's a lot of functions we can do.
• 1:01:35
  And so I'm just not, I'm not, I'm not considered, is it?
• 1:01:40
  I'm yes, people are going to have to make some big changes.
• 1:01:46
  Yes. In the end, it's going to be OK.
• 1:01:49
  I really hope so. I really, really hope so.
• 1:01:51
  Because and you know, it's cool, you know, I live in an, I, I
• 1:01:54
  moved into a neighborhood in Hollywood, FL and there was very
• 1:01:59
  few Jewish families here when I moved here.
• 1:02:02
  And I moved here when I was, when I was, when we were
• 1:02:04
  newlyweds, we didn't have any kids.
• 1:02:05
  And over the last three or four years, you know, let's say 3040
• 1:02:09
  young couples and families moved in.
• 1:02:11
  And since then, you know, it becomes a very regular habit,
• 1:02:15
  you know, on Shabbos, on on Saturdays and Friday nights for
• 1:02:19
  kids to play in the streets and for everyone to walk together to
• 1:02:21
  synagogue and for, you know, people to hang out in the
• 1:02:24
  streets. You see, the whole community has
• 1:02:27
  kind of started to like pick up because other people are like,
• 1:02:29
  oh, kids are playing in the street.
• 1:02:31
  And then all of a sudden families are taking their kids
• 1:02:32
  out for scooter rides and people are going biking and jogging
• 1:02:35
  more. And I mean, I'm seeing an
• 1:02:37
  enormous uptick in social activity just based on the fact
• 1:02:41
  that there are people walking around outside.
• 1:02:44
  Yeah. That's all it really takes.
• 1:02:45
  Like, people just need an excuse to smile and to come and to
• 1:02:48
  interact with one another. And then, like, it just takes
• 1:02:51
  off the same way creativity, like, ignites.
• 1:02:54
  You tell a kid, what do you want to do?
• 1:02:55
  I don't know. Well, what if this was that?
• 1:02:56
  And then all of a sudden their head explodes because they think
• 1:02:59
  of a million, you know, incredible ideas.
• 1:03:01
  You know, a lot of times, all we need is just a little bit of
• 1:03:03
  that. So you're saying what you're
• 1:03:04
  saying. I, I, I I totally agree with
• 1:03:06
  that. It's going to take some changes,
• 1:03:07
  but I hope that you know, this could be a time for a great.
• 1:03:12
  Again, we have so much evidence from the past and again,
• 1:03:15
  including the Torah, that we have all the answers, all the
• 1:03:20
  solutions we need to come over any type of evolution in in
• 1:03:27
  human history. So we're going to adapt.
• 1:03:31
  We know what's important. We know the fundamentals of what
• 1:03:35
  it makes to have a successful, meaningful, thriving life.
• 1:03:40
  On a purely speculative level, out of just for the fun of it,
• 1:03:43
  what do you think of simulation theory and all the Uaps and UFOs
• 1:03:48
  and everything like that and a completely conversational level?
• 1:03:53
  Yeah, it's great. So my belief about the reality
• 1:04:00
  that we live in is that we have infinite timelines that have all
• 1:04:04
  been predetermined and every action we take puts us on a new
• 1:04:11
  timeline. And there might be higher level
• 1:04:16
  intelligent beings that can see all these timelines.
• 1:04:23
  And in terms of UA PS, I kind of view them as like angels.
• 1:04:31
  So there's different levels that could be angels or they can
• 1:04:33
  actually be like intelligent species similar to us.
• 1:04:38
  But the Uaps are trying to save us from ourselves by disarming
• 1:04:47
  our nuclear weapons. Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  So again, the most common place we find Uaps are near nuclear
• 1:04:54
  nuclear missile sites. Facilities.
• 1:04:57
  And when they facilities and they when they come, they disarm
• 1:05:01
  nuclear weapons. And so I think they're just
• 1:05:04
  trying to make sure we don't destroy ourselves.
• 1:05:06
  I think that also, and I'm curious if you ever notice this
• 1:05:09
  pattern, but I've noticed that a lot of UAP folklore, you know,
• 1:05:17
  and general, I guess, tendencies and stories to, you know,
• 1:05:23
  actually happen quite a bit in, you know, in, in, in the Torah,
• 1:05:28
  whenever, in the Bible, whenever you know, for example, someone's
• 1:05:30
  alone in a field or a woman is praying and you know, and God,
• 1:05:34
  you know, an Angel from God comes down and says like, like,
• 1:05:37
  you know, everything will be OK. And then, you know, a year
• 1:05:40
  later, everything is fine. But no one was there to
• 1:05:42
  experience it. And she was in a field somewhere
• 1:05:44
  by herself. And I mean, like, there's a lot.
• 1:05:46
  And that's Hana that Avraham in this week's, you know, in this
• 1:05:49
  week's portion, you know, when he does the he does the
• 1:05:53
  circumcision for the first time and then these angels visit him
• 1:05:56
  and you know, no one else is there.
• 1:05:58
  You know, it's and it's an argument as to like, can anyone
• 1:06:01
  else see them? Is anyone else interacting with
• 1:06:02
  them? Maybe, maybe not.
• 1:06:05
  You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of really amazing
• 1:06:08
  stories that kind of Co align with what we'd call UUFOS, just
• 1:06:13
  different terminologies. Yeah, when I, so when I had that
• 1:06:17
  patient hospital tell me that they spoke to my dad, I was with
• 1:06:22
  that patient for 8 hours in total over 2 days.
• 1:06:25
  A nurse never came in the ring one time.
• 1:06:28
  And was he there? Was he actually there?
• 1:06:31
  Was I hallucinating because I had no other human being
• 1:06:35
  acknowledged his existence? I I there was no cross
• 1:06:39
  confirmation of like, hey, who is this guy?
• 1:06:41
  Or is it like I So yeah, typically the most mystical
• 1:06:47
  experiences we have. And again, there's a lot of UAP
• 1:06:50
  stories where it happens alone. And I mean, I would say the same
• 1:06:57
  thing for it's kind of like with with Moses, you know, it had to
• 1:07:05
  hit, you know, God revealed himself to Moses in Sinai and he
• 1:07:11
  only showed his back. He showed you know, so there,
• 1:07:15
  there there's not a science, but there's, there's just a pattern
• 1:07:20
  of the, the miracles of the universe not be fully revealed
• 1:07:28
  to you in a mass scale. And it energetically seems to
• 1:07:33
  have that in a private way. Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  And I think a lot of, it's because a lot of life, and I
• 1:07:40
  think that we're realizing this more, a lot of life is
• 1:07:44
  contingent on our perceptions. You know, a lot of our, you
• 1:07:47
  know, reality is made-up of what our, of our, of our brains
• 1:07:51
  perception of things, you know, and, and, you know, that could
• 1:07:55
  be toyed with, I feel like, or could be manipulated or, you
• 1:07:58
  know, even within our, even within ourselves question is,
• 1:08:02
  are we seeing things that aren't there?
• 1:08:03
  Are we seeing things that aren't like, you know, there's a great
• 1:08:05
  Aldous Huxley line from from the doors of Perception where he's
• 1:08:08
  how he talks about how, you know, evolution kind of forced
• 1:08:11
  us to only just focus in on what's in front of us.
• 1:08:14
  And it's almost like a faucet. We have to turn it to like a
• 1:08:16
  little drip. Psychedelics open that faucet
• 1:08:20
  and just let water pour out. And, you know, I feel like
• 1:08:24
  that's, you know, so there are things that are, you know, are
• 1:08:26
  there things that are actually there or are there things that,
• 1:08:31
  you know, I don't know, you know, the things that that we're
• 1:08:34
  perceiving it or is it that it's been there the whole time?
• 1:08:38
  We don't typically talk about, you know, we typically
• 1:08:40
  acknowledge it and we're just going about our regular
• 1:08:41
  day-to-day lives without even acknowledging it.
• 1:08:44
  I think we're at a point where we're so overstimulated that we
• 1:08:49
  can't really track the nuances of of miracles that are
• 1:08:55
  happening every day. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:58
  I think that the more you, I think that the more that you can
• 1:09:01
  open your your mind to seeing it.
• 1:09:04
  I think that you do see it. You know, the same way you open
• 1:09:07
  your to hearing messages from God.
• 1:09:09
  It's the same thing. Well, you need to believe it.
• 1:09:13
  You need to be open to it. You need to have time for it.
• 1:09:16
  You need to have space for it. You need to make sure you're not
• 1:09:20
  distracted from it. So when you address all those
• 1:09:23
  things, I mean you can be high on life every moment.
• 1:09:26
  Yeah, yeah. I think this is great.
• 1:09:30
  I think that I love how open our world's becoming, you know?
• 1:09:35
  And I think that, you know, there's just so much.
• 1:09:39
  This is one of the beauties of truth and one of the beauties of
• 1:09:41
  hope. And one of the beauties of life
• 1:09:43
  is that it just finds a way to poke its way through, like a
• 1:09:46
  little hole through and like permeate just like, you know,
• 1:09:48
  pop out. And like, even though it always
• 1:09:50
  feels like a shroud, sometimes the darkness or whatever, you
• 1:09:54
  know, it feels like we could like it does like we're heading.
• 1:09:59
  I, I, I, you know, I mean, there's a lot to be concerned
• 1:10:01
  about. And, you know, but it feels like
• 1:10:03
  there are so many bits and pieces of just optimism
• 1:10:06
  everywhere that if you just keep, you know, open your eyes
• 1:10:08
  and keep your eyes open for them.
• 1:10:10
  We are making a lot of very positive steps, I think as a
• 1:10:14
  world, as, as a species. And, you know, hopefully as a as
• 1:10:18
  a conscious entity, you know, I hope that we could develop some
• 1:10:20
  kind of sense of shared consciousness that we care
• 1:10:23
  about. Anyway, Michael, Doctor, I
• 1:10:26
  really appreciate your time. This is a this is a really such
• 1:10:29
  a fun conversation and you've really been generous with your
• 1:10:33
  time. Thank you so much.
• 1:10:34
  I really appreciate it. And I think this is, this should
• 1:10:36
  be thought provoking and fun and hopefully, hopefully a little
• 1:10:40
  inspirational to some people around, you know.
• 1:10:43
  Yeah, No, it was, it was great talking with you about all types
• 1:10:47
  of aspects of our life and our existence in this universe.
• 1:10:52
  And it was. I'm very thankful to you for the
• 1:10:55
  yeah. And I'll send you over the link
• 1:10:57
  to that other podcast. I'd love to keep in touch and
• 1:11:00
  hear what you're working on because it's been a lot of fun,
• 1:11:01
  OK? Sounds good.
• 1:11:03
  Thank you all. Right.
• 1:11:04
  Take care. Have a great day.
• 1:11:05
  Thank you so much.