Latest / In the Valley of Giants / Laughing Louder than the Sirens | Eli Leibowicz | ITVOG Ep.20

Transcript

Laughing Louder than the Sirens | Eli Leibowicz | ITVOG Ep.20 · In the Valley of Giants

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  My Torah is the voracious thing that like, it's like be like
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  God. It's like God created a world.
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  So it's like create something. If you create something, you
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  feel you have ownership to it and you, you know, nobody can
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  take it away from you. If you create something, even if
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  you get rejected from write a book and people say, oh, that
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  wasn't good, whatever, you still made something and you made
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  something that didn't exist. Eli Leibowitz, thank you so much
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  for joining us today on the show.
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  Sure. Thank you for having me.
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  Pleasure, absolute pleasure. So clear a few things up for me.
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  Excuse my total ignorance, OK, but #1 is is this, who are you?
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  Is this, is this your job? Are you, is are you a comedian
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  full time? Is this completely what you do?
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  That is the number one question I get people.
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  People usually say, I appreciate the respect that you asked that
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  because people ask very condescendingly.
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  They say, so is this all that you do?
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  You just. Stand.
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  No, as of a few years ago, this is my full time job, which
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  people say at the end of shows and say, which is their way of
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  saying you can still take the LSAT if you wanted to.
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  But yeah, this is my full time, full time gig.
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  That's beautiful. So, but you know, if I'm not
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  mistaken, J, it's called J sketch.
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  I know I'm. J Sketch is one of the one of
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  the things that I do with a couple other comedians, Ami
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  Kozak and Mikey Greenblatt. But I'm saying stand up comedy
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  is my full time. Wow, that's amazing.
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  OK, OK. So for listeners that don't know
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  Ellie, in order to make a living, to be able to make such
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  a claim means you're you're you're pretty darn good.
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  OK All right, So that's that's that's amazing.
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  OK. Beautiful.
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  A lot of a lot of family inheritance, which I don't I'm
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  kidding, but no thank God. Thank God I'm able to semi pay a
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  mortgage. OK, beautiful, beautiful.
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  All right, so now I get to ask all of the fun questions.
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  Now that we got that out of the way from comedy, to me, a it's
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  paradoxical because the whole entire idea of comedy is being
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  able to take how we classify reality and push that envelope
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  to surprise us, to mix up the hierarchy.
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  And to do that, I think most effectively, you have to be able
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  to have the ability to push the envelope, to cross red lines, to
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  not be worried about doing things that are unconventional,
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  and to be a from Orthodox Jew. It's a large part of that life
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  is red lines. So how do you decide how to make
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  really good from comedy when there are so many rules that are
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  attached that you don't have the freedom to just walk over and
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  not really care about? Well, ultimately comedy comes
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  from the element of surprise. So I'm I'm pretty jealous of
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  singers that can play the same set or play the same songs and
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  people go crazy And if somebody heard hears me a second time,
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  like I heard that joke before. So ultimately you got to come
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  with surprise. And I, I don't think as much as
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  there's been a taboo for Schulz having comedy for years, which
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  I'm me and Adobe knew we're going to few other guys are
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  trying to destigmatize this thing where we, you know, can
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  say, Hey, you can have comedy in your shul again.
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  And don't worry, we're not going to be offensive.
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  You know, we're, we're, we're we're holding in what in what
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  you are we care about in terms of the values and stuff like
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  that. But I think ultimately you can
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  look at things from AI get to look at the world in the same
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  way that a rabbi looks at it and says world is really messed up.
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  How? And in in fact, I cannot kind of
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  give Musser in a way that's much more subversive because a rabbi
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  and the people you know, hear a rabbi say, hey, you shouldn't
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  talk during davening. But instead, if I make a joke
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  about Shrull boredom and I say we'll read anything during
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  davening, whether it's newsletters, announcements, you
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  know, tax codes, because that's you know, so if I can kind of
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  slip past your defenses and get to the core of what you're
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  passionate about or what you're thinking about, I think that
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  comedy actually has a really big benefit.
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  And I think it it's I, I know you may say you can kind of
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  preface it by saying it's paradoxical with the firm
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  lifestyle. I don't, I don't, I don't agree
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  with that because I think yes, there are people can who don't
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  care and can make jokes about things that are topics that
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  would not necessarily be stuff that we should talk about or or
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  or, sorry, not. We should talk about people
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  people are uncomfortable talking about.
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  But there are ways that like my comedy can kind of, you know,
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  bring light onto things that, you know, let's say what it's
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  like issues or things like that, Like you can get to the point
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  and make a real difference and and talk about these things that
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  people are uncomfortable talking about.
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  But I don't think you, I don't think you're conflicting saying,
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  Oh, this is against a, you know, from lifestyle.
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  Yeah, I should have. You're right, I should have said
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  my question differently. I should.
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  No, no, it's good. What you just said is very
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  valuable and I want to expand on that.
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  But but I do want an answer to my question, but I asked it
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  poorly. Let me ask it differently.
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  There are aspects of comedy that a person there.
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  I'd imagine that there are aspects of comedy that comedians
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  use, which is to lean in to discuss all sorts of ridiculous
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  versions of topics and in order to be able to talk about
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  literally everything, cross a lot of red lines or you cross a
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  lot of lines that in our circles would be inappropriate.
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  So correct. There's 1001 jokes that we could
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  make about about show about, you know, cautious that that don't
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  really need to be crossing, you know, red lines, you know, but
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  for example, not cursing. So you're not going to curse and
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  imagine any of your bits, right? Or to talk about certain topics
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  that I don't need to really say publicly because they're so
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  insanely obvious, right? So how do you navigate those red
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  lines? I'm sure sometimes you, you
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  probably get close to the edge and you're, since you're a firm
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  Jew, you're, you're probably sensitive of hey, I, I don't, I
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  don't really want to cross that line, even if I think this joke
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  is very funny or maybe I'm off. That's that's really more what
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  I'm asking. It Well, it's ironic that being
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  a firm Jew gives me less rope because if I was, you know,
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  let's say a non Jewish comedian or a non religious comedian,
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  people would be Oh, he's a tuna chinnish, but you know, he
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  doesn't know any better. As opposed to be like you went
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  to day school. What do you do?
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  You went to Yoshima. What are you doing?
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  So I think when it comes to like, let's say cursing, like I,
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  there are times I'll write a joke and I'm like, oh man, like
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  I wish I could use that. But there's, and Seinfeld has
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  talks about this too, where it's like if there is a curse word in
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  there and it makes the joke because of the curse, then for
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  him, he's saying it's not worth it because it's a it's a cheaper
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  way to get to the joke. For me, I'm just like, OK, it's
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  not something I normally do in my day-to-day life anyway, so
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  I'm not going to do it on stage. But I think it is tricky because
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  people have different red lines of what they'll, you know, I
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  said a joke about, you know, awkward Orthodox proposals.
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  And I said, you know, a normal crowd, you know, non orthodox
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  crowd when they propose, they say, will you marry me?
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  Great. And then they kiss or whatever.
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  And somebody yelled out next topic, please, because I said
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  the word kiss. And the person said, you know, I
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  have teenage daughters in the crowd.
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  And I said they'd know what the word kiss is.
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  But like so, so everybody's got their own lines of what you
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  can't talk about. But I, I, you know, I, how do I
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  navigate that? I mean, I, I think like I have a
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  sense of, I understand the from world pretty well, more so than
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  any other society, I guess. You know, even if I do a, let's
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  say a non orthodox crowded reform temple, my reference
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  point is is tricky. And I heard a share recently
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  about this that there's like a communal values here that like
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  we are understanding that like we're just like we.
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  I know when I say Shatel, you know exactly what I'm talking
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  about. If but if a crowd doesn't know
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  Shatel, they don't know what I'm talking about.
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  So for the tricky part also with comedy, is that like you want to
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  get to the joke in as few words as possible.
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  I don't like I'm doing right now with this rant, but you want to
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  get to the the crux of it by saying, if I said Glila, you
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  know exactly what I'm talking about as opposed.
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  You know, when you looked when you wrote the tour at the end of
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  that, like at the end of the landing, like that's so wordy.
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  But like there's a shared experience.
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  So I understand in it with with that shared experience.
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  I understand what happens with what is a red line of like, OK,
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  like if I book book comedians on other lineups for schools, I
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  know that like I'll be like, Hey, don't be dirty, not just
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  because I don't want you to be dirty.
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  And it's a clean show. They're not going to laugh at
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  it. And that also mainly is also
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  what it's about where I kind of know what's people are, what's
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  the the pulse of the from world for the most part.
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  I mean, again, everybody's got different things.
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  Sometimes they'll go to different communities and
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  everyone's like, don't make any jokes about marriage.
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  And I'm like, well, that's not all half my ACT.
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  But like, you know, so everybody's got different
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  things. But, but like, it's just, they
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  are not gonna laugh if a joke is too explicit or too, you know,
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  graphic or whatever. But, but everybody's got
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  different red lines. So it's it's, it's a, it's a
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  constant challenge of like, what's your crowd?
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  Hey, they're not. And it's ironic because some
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  players are like, oh, you could be racist, but don't be like
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  explicit and like graphic. And I'm like, well, that seems
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  weird. But yeah, you got to navigate.
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  It's it's not a one, one-size-fits-all.
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  Also within the From world because there's just so many
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  different kind of shades of the community so.
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  Does that make you? No, it did.
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  It did answer my question, but it was a lead up to this.
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  Does this make you a better comedian because you're in your
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  opinion and you're in a field where you're competing?
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  Not really, because I'm not sure you're trying to get the viral
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  attention of of. I don't want to name names, but
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  some bigger name, popular, completely not Jewish, but off
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  the rails sort of comedians. Like you're not trying to
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  compete. I don't.
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  Want to be I don't want to be famous.
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  Well, it's not necessarily about that, but you know, I'll, I'll
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  say a name, I'll say a name and I find his.
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  You know, someone showed one comedy sketch to me when I was
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  much younger and I filmed it somewhat.
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  Vulgar. But Dave Chappelle, so you're
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  not trying to compete with Dave Chappelle.
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  OK. But Dave Chappelle, OK, he
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  doesn't, he doesn't care about crossing.
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  It seems every single red line. Does that make you a better
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  comedian? Because your bits you're
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  thinking about, OK, I have this whole like framework, I need to
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  work with them. So I'm going to hyper focus, you
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  know, my routine. You have to go through all these
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  hoops that they don't have to. Does that make you more
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  disciplined? Does that make you more zeroed
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  in? More focused?
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  I don't know, I think it's, I think it's more in parallel a
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  little bit. It's a little bit like Twitter
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  or X. What do you want?
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  Already want to call it used to have this, I think it was 140
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  character limit of, of, of tweets and versus like I, I
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  start out writing jokes on Facebook and then I kind of
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  devolved into the cesspool that is Twitter and anti-Semitic, you
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  know, rabbit hole that is Twitter right now or X.
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  And then then they expanded it to 280.
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  But at a certain point it was good because it really helped me
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  edit a joke. If that was too long for
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  Facebook, be like, OK, let me distill this to the icker of the
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  joke and and cut away unnecessary fat.
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  So if I, I think in general, most comedians will say better
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  to at least have clean material, whether or not you're not clean
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  in general, better to, for the, the forgive the reference, but
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  they say for like a late night 5 minute spot on a on a on ATV
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  show, you have to have 5 minutes of clean.
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  What is that doesn't mean young Israel of whatever clean, but
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  that means clean. That means if your jokes are
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  about this, you have to cut, cut a lot of this stuff.
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  So the fact that they don't have to like trim a bunch of things
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  is, is easier. And it does make it like, Hey,
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  let me work a little bit. I don't want to say more lofty,
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  but like, I want to be like, OK, let me go with this approach
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  where I'm not going to be dirty so I don't have to like cut
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  stuff later. That's, I think probably harder
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  to do is to, to sanitize a joke. That's not so clean, let's say,
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  but to am I, am I stronger for it?
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  I don't know. Because I, I, I, you know, let's
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  say I perform almost for, exclusively for Orthodox, not
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  for Orthodox, but Jewish organizations.
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  And a lot of them are Orthodox because that's the circles I, I
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  run in. But like a general, you know, if
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  I do a corporate show for like 2 plus addition owners of the
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  nursing home and their ten non Jewish employees, I'll be like,
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  Hey, do you guys own a crock pot?
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  Do you play board games on Saturdays?
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  Like what are we doing here? Like, so it's, it's a different
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  challenge. So I would that's something I
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  would run it in parallel, but I would think that like, yes,
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  starting from this square one of being I think like there are
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  comedians that are really big names, like Nate Burgazi is a
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  really good kid. I don't know how how in in the
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  game you are these days, but Nate Burgazi is a very, very
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  clean comedian, like completely like and he holds it as a values
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  very Christian guy. So he very much like it's like
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  completely clean and like you're not gonna it's like the Brian
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  Reagan back in the day. Also, it was like somebody back
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  in the day. So, yeah, so I think like
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  there's if you can be clean to start, you'll be better off
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  because you'll have more opportunities and and people
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  won't be turned off because who usually that's, that's my, my,
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  my take on it. OK, let's let's take it from a
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  different angle. Eli Liebowitz from versus Eli
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  Liebowitz not from. Who do you think would be
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  funnier? I wouldn't even know.
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  Like I mean not even close to. Well, that's the that's the
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  crux, I think of the question because of all of these
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  pressures that you now have to take in this Nakuda, this red
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  line, but well, that's. What?
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  That's people who don't that's what bothers me about the as a
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  Jew activists, the people who hate on Israel just because, you
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  know, that's trendy and or they're suffering with a lot of
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  guilt that they had a 6th grade Rebbe or a bad Hebrew school and
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  they and they don't practice Judaism day-to-day or even year
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  to year or whatever. They maybe go to Shoal for one
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  day at Rosh Hashanah maybe. And but they're like in a bad
• 15:01
  bash Israel for me, Judaism is such a part of my life that
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  like, like wearing a kippa is not a gimmick or a prop.
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  And like, you know, people would say, oh, you're going to like
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  hide the fact that you're Jewish with all the Santis Semitism.
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  I'm like, yeah, let me just like take off my kippa, hide my
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  cover, my nose, shorten my name, change my thing.
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  Like it's my identity. Everything is and and and people
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  it it it's upsetting when I see out there in the in the world be
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  like like secular Jewish people who are like, you know, always
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  RIP on, you know, observant people or or Israel or whatever
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  where they're just like, well, I don't see anti-Semitism.
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  You're like you're not doing it. You're you're not doing it.
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  Oh, great. Your last name was Goldberg sky
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  off You OK, fine. Yeah, you may.
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  You don't get comments online about like the day-to-day of
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  like are you going to a school that needs extra security
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  because they have an Israeli flag somewhere or, or just in
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  general because it's open season on openly practicing Jews.
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  You know, that's that's a different thing.
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  So me not being from I don't even know what that person looks
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  like. It just doesn't.
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  So you have no frame of reference.
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  OK, I've. Been my Jewish bubble and I'll
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  be like, hey guys. And then also like, again, not
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  just that, like this is my, you know, novelty.
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  No. No, I get it.
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  I I'm saying. I'm saying like, meaning I
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  wouldn't even know where to begin.
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  I wouldn't even know. But while you're saying if I, if
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  I decided to be overly, you know, dirty, it just wouldn't,
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  it'd be like, Hey, here's a completely different person and
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  I wouldn't know what that person would look like.
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  That's fine. What we can, we can move on from
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  it, but the, the what I was getting, what I was getting at
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  is, is because you're an Orthodox Jew put you in a
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  Crucible of comedy that therefore makes you more potent.
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  And maybe you can't answer that question, which is fine because
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  you can't reference yourself to what you would be without.
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  Like if. You spoke about, you spoke about
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  that Crucible of Twitter, right? So you were able to gain a
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  little bit from that. OK.
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  So yes, if Twitter X would not have existed, maybe you'd be a
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  little bit less funny, right? Because that helped your game.
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  Could be right. So you being an Orthodox shoe
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  and having the Crucible of having to manage Shoals and
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  these politics and not talking about certain topics and certain
• 17:17
  words that make you funnier, well, it's a little.
• 17:19
  Bit like if I went to Yu versus I would do a different college,
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  right? If I almost went to like
• 17:23
  University of Maryland, which has a strong Jewish, you know,
• 17:26
  population. But like, why you being able to?
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  The reason I part of the reason I got into comedy was because a
• 17:31
  friend, friends of mine were like running a, you know, a open
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  mic night essentially talent show.
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  And I was able to be like, Hey, let me do this because there's
• 17:39
  only so many people at and the Yu campus.
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  So I was able to like easily get involved and continue and, and
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  have that, you know, network of people to keep doing and being
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  in New York versus it was in, you know, Maryland or whatever.
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  It would be a very different story.
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  So I think it's just a matter of like, what's the closing doors?
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  Whatever the what if your wife was very different, like that
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  would just be like, I, I think I would be, I wouldn't be, I
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  probably wouldn't be a comedian because I would just be like,
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  well, you know, me. It could be that me being me
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  doing comedy and people say, oh, you're, you're like, you're
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  funny. I'm like, well, I don't have
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  other skills. So that's good.
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  That like I, I wouldn't know, you know, I wouldn't, maybe I
• 18:21
  wouldn't feel this subconscious pressure and be like, oh, I
• 18:23
  don't want to be an accountant, employer, rabbi or doctor, you
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  know, So I picked up another option which didn't exist.
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  Fair enough. I think that one of the, if not
• 18:36
  the biggest issue with this generation, I mean the one after
• 18:41
  mine, but it's probably mine also, is there's such a radical
• 18:49
  move away from the self, especially when you have social
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  media where we're bombarded with the ability to gain validation
• 18:59
  from an infinite amount of sources.
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  So we look for that naturally versus if you know, we lived 70
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  years ago, the main areas of validation are our nuclear
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  family and we would hope ourselves.
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  And I believe that the healthiest form of validation is
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  one that comes from yourself, not necessarily from your
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  family. Your family should also
• 19:18
  validate, which is like the health of the family, but your
• 19:21
  personal health is the validation from yourself.
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  Which is why if you walk down the street and someone calls you
• 19:26
  an idiot, it really shouldn't affect you because who cares
• 19:28
  that someone called you an idiot.
• 19:30
  We live in a day and age where what a person individually
• 19:33
  thinks almost doesn't matter because people aren't used to to
• 19:36
  internal validation which means they're broken.
• 19:39
  We're used to validation of social media.
• 19:41
  How many likes did I get? How many views did I get?
• 19:43
  Who's emailing me? Am I popular in school?
• 19:45
  Am I popular and work like more than ever which is really
• 19:48
  dangerous. Now you're a comedian which has
• 19:50
  hyper validation. You walk into a room and your
• 19:53
  your your job and your persona is based off of Are people going
• 19:57
  to laugh at my joke and the validation doesn't come in?
• 20:00
  Let me check in 5 minutes if someone liked my comment.
• 20:03
  Your validation comes and you drop a joke and there's either a
• 20:06
  response that's positive or there's not a response that's
• 20:09
  positive right? So how does that hyper
• 20:11
  validation not make life more difficult?
• 20:15
  And you're not being able to focus on your internal self
• 20:17
  validation. And how do you combat that?
• 20:19
  Because you've either fallen into the pit, which I doubt.
• 20:22
  Ellie, you seem like a healthy man, OK, But if you fall into
• 20:25
  the pit, Ouch, that sucks. And if you haven't fallen into
• 20:28
  the pit, then that means that there's something that you have
• 20:31
  that I think everyone could learn from, because you're the
• 20:33
  most and most, the most amount of danger for falling into the
• 20:36
  pit of hyper validation from being outside yourself.
• 20:39
  And yet you've been able to pull it in.
• 20:41
  So go ahead. Well, I think.
• 20:43
  Part of this. Extends to the world not having,
• 20:48
  you know, a moral moral the moral compass is fraying in the
• 20:52
  world in general. So the guideline guidebook who
• 20:58
  of what to do is very, very arbitrary from you know whether
• 21:02
  it's an administration or you know, a political party.
• 21:06
  So for myself, I mean, any, most comedians will tell you, anybody
• 21:11
  will tell you like you're crazy enough to get up on stage in
• 21:13
  front of strangers and think like you're going to make them
• 21:15
  laugh. Like, of course, that stems
• 21:18
  from, hey, I didn't get enough validation as a kid, which I
• 21:22
  definitely didn't. But I'm is that really?
• 21:25
  Where it stems from? I wouldn't think that
• 21:27
  necessarily. Probably.
• 21:29
  I don't know who gets up on stage and says, hey everybody,
• 21:32
  you have a. Talent.
• 21:33
  You have a talent, why can't you express your talent?
• 21:35
  But. But what makes somebody about
• 21:37
  what makes somebody have that talent?
• 21:41
  The ability to manipulate things the the I understand, but
• 21:44
  someone who are meeting. It's like, it's like, it's like
• 21:46
  seeing someone do like a crazy magic trick or some, or not
• 21:51
  magic trick, but something like a crazy like skateboarder or
• 21:55
  whatever. How many times they had to like,
• 21:56
  you know, how many times you had to fall down to realize you were
• 21:59
  good at that or whatever. Like, you know, there's this
• 22:02
  comedian Gary Goleman who says, he says every time I see close
• 22:05
  up magic, like I, I, you know, I, I or I see like I'm such an
• 22:09
  empath. I like I saw this guy, you know,
• 22:12
  pull a card out of an orange and instead of being wow, I said,
• 22:16
  you must have had such a lonely child.
• 22:21
  It's such a good, it was such a good like fiddish relax or
• 22:24
  better term because no, I'm saying like meaning what makes
• 22:28
  somebody get up on stage in front of strangers and say, hey,
• 22:31
  I'm going to, especially when most people are like scared
• 22:34
  again. Why can't?
• 22:35
  Why can't? Why can't it be the power of
• 22:37
  manipulation, not in a negative way, but the power of
• 22:39
  manipulation and psychological control.
• 22:41
  Then you go. Into because then you go into
• 22:42
  sales, you're going to sales and you go into a career that's a
• 22:48
  lot more lucrative. Because it's not, but because.
• 22:52
  Because not everyone's about making money, right?
• 22:54
  I'm a rough by trade. I guarantee you right now, OK, I
• 22:58
  would do far better financially if I was not a rough and I have
• 23:01
  plenty of talents I think that I could add to the business, or at
• 23:04
  least so my wonderful wife tells me OK, But I chose this career
• 23:07
  because I felt that it was right and I had power within this
• 23:10
  career to do good, right? So I think a comedian could do
• 23:13
  good. And even though he might be a
• 23:15
  tremendous salesperson, you know, just because he feels like
• 23:17
  he can add something to the universe that having to make an
• 23:19
  extra buck. Ellie I.
• 23:20
  Think there's a lot of I think most many committees are baby
• 23:23
  Seinfeld maybe I've heard doing interviews with Seinfeld.
• 23:26
  But I would say you don't choose comedy.
• 23:27
  Comedy chooses you. And OK, talk about that.
• 23:30
  And, and I think there is this thing of, of what compels
• 23:35
  someone to get up on stage and say, I'm going to tell these
• 23:38
  jokes. And you mean the amount of times
• 23:40
  you have to not do well or get or fail or you work on it, which
• 23:47
  again, is something that I, I don't have enough discipline in
• 23:50
  general in, in most things. When people say they're on a
• 23:53
  diet, I'm like, what's discipline like?
• 23:55
  So like, I, this is probably one of the only things I've stuck
• 23:59
  with this long partly for just like, because it's like my
• 24:02
  default setting at this point. You know, where I'm just like, I
• 24:06
  started out by like, hey, writing jokes on Facebook and
• 24:08
  saying, Hey, I thought this was funny or like when I was in why
• 24:10
  you, I created like a joke newspaper type of thing.
• 24:13
  So I, but I think there is this, you know what, what do people do
• 24:20
  in the world? You're right.
• 24:21
  I think the world, everybody does not have validation.
• 24:23
  They need their validation from from Twitter likes and, and
• 24:27
  Facebook and Instagram and things like that, which is.
• 24:29
  Toxic, by the way, that is like the most toxic, no?
• 24:32
  It's just toxic because again, it's it's the you know, Azo, you
• 24:36
  know, or Azo some wait, is there a happiness one?
• 24:42
  But there's a happiness one too, you know.
• 24:45
  Whatever that's that's. Whoever learns from others,
• 24:47
  whatever. But anyways, so is that just
• 24:49
  whoever is rich, whoever is happy with what you have?
• 24:51
  Yes, If you keep putting that yardstick on, hey, if they like
• 24:56
  this joke, then I'm good as a thing, as a person.
• 25:01
  Thankfully. Again, you built as a comedian.
• 25:03
  You eventually do so many shows in a row that often at the
• 25:10
  beginning, they often don't go well or you're trying it out.
• 25:12
  And thankfully like as you get better, if my batting average is
• 25:15
  a lot higher, where sometimes I have enough good shows in a row,
• 25:18
  I'm like, I'm due for a bomb right now.
• 25:20
  I'm due for a bat show. But you know, I think, I guess
• 25:26
  I'm, I guess I have this at this point in my life.
• 25:29
  I, I very much, you know, have been, maybe I'm just self aware
• 25:35
  for the most part of a lot of things where I've been kind of,
• 25:41
  I have been self focused for the last 20 something years or more.
• 25:45
  Where of my life where I'm just like, kind of like I, I had to
• 25:48
  grow up very early on my, you know, my mother passed away when
• 25:51
  I was a teenager actually. So maybe that's where the deep,
• 25:55
  you know, thing is, is coming from.
• 25:56
  But like, having to grow up at age 17 very quickly is something
• 26:02
  that I've always kind of had to think about for myself, what's
• 26:07
  good, what's the best for me? Which is really challenging when
• 26:10
  it comes to having a family because you have to kind of
• 26:13
  expand that and you can't just do what's best for me, what's
• 26:16
  what's best for us and me and all that.
• 26:19
  So. Ellie, I'm sorry to interrupt
• 26:21
  you. I want to just use a scalp here
• 26:22
  for a second. So are you saying that in this,
• 26:25
  you know, hyper validation career that you still maintain
• 26:29
  that self worth internally or do you struggle with with getting
• 26:33
  that self worth from from somewhere else or you also don't
• 26:37
  have to talk about it? I mean, everybody, that's my big
• 26:40
  question, I think. Everybody's struggling with that
• 26:42
  self, you know, validation wants a better relationship with their
• 26:45
  parents, with their kids or whatever, just some sort of
• 26:48
  connection that they are lacking.
• 26:52
  Unless you're very healthy. Well, just in person, good for
• 26:54
  you, but I'm not at the royal you, but I mean for myself.
• 27:00
  I obviously I'm still struggling with that self validation, but
• 27:03
  like I don't the more and more I do it and do well, I it's not as
• 27:10
  as like it's not as probably a better term, a cave of what of
• 27:14
  my of myself and the trick you brought with comedians.
• 27:17
  It's like but but. That's only because you're
• 27:19
  telling me you're doing awesome. Well, I'm saying no, I'm saying
• 27:23
  I have, I've worked on myself enough to a little bit to to
• 27:28
  say, OK, if I'm not a good comedian, what am I?
• 27:31
  I, you know, I'm, I'm still good at other things and I do husset
• 27:34
  and I do stuff like that, whatever that is not this is not
• 27:39
  the linchpin of my entire existence That if so.
• 27:43
  Ali, what we just said is so important.
• 27:45
  No, no, I mean it because, because this realization that
• 27:48
  you've come to, we want everyone to come to obviously.
• 27:51
  But what you've done is you've come to it in like, in my humble
• 27:55
  opinion, one of the most dangerous fields because you're
• 27:59
  not a 14 year old kid that for some reason the parents thought
• 28:02
  it would be a great idea to buy a smartphone.
• 28:04
  And he's in like 5 different social media apps at once, you
• 28:06
  know, but like, he still has good chunks of his life where
• 28:10
  it's not about getting validation.
• 28:11
  Maybe he walks to the store by himself.
• 28:14
  Like there's large swaths of his life, hopefully that isn't just
• 28:17
  getting validation. And, and even those, those,
• 28:21
  those, those parts of his life that he is getting validation,
• 28:23
  he can, you know, that might come in an hour, 2 hours or
• 28:25
  three hours or a day or whatever it is.
• 28:27
  You're in the trenches of hyper validation.
• 28:29
  And yet, you know, Ellie, you know, yeah, I, I do work on
• 28:32
  myself. I do think about what's
• 28:34
  important to me. So can you share with us a
• 28:36
  little bit of, of, of what, what we can learn from that?
• 28:39
  Like what would you advise people to stay away from hyper
• 28:42
  foundation? Well, it's just a it's just a
• 28:44
  lack of being when I was born, you know, being born in 1989 and
• 28:48
  being what everyone called generationally, I guess a
• 28:50
  millennial before, you know, Gen.
• 28:53
  Z or Gen. Alpha where red Gen.
• 28:56
  Z is after millennials. Is that right?
• 28:58
  I think so, yeah. Anyways, I'm saying me being on
• 29:02
  the cusp of of the age of a terrific movies in the 90s
• 29:07
  entertainment wise, and I'm just saying that be from a, you know,
• 29:10
  I, I was there. I'm very lucky to be born at the
• 29:14
  end of the the time when I remember not having a phone and
• 29:17
  having a phone. So I appreciate a face to face
• 29:20
  conversation much more than people who don't know how to do
• 29:24
  that. And then they're suddenly in the
• 29:25
  movie Wally, which is a Pixar movie where everybody basically
• 29:28
  is, you know, everyone just inflated an enormous and and is
• 29:34
  is stuck. Towards they haven't done diets
• 29:35
  yet. They don't have a diet said no,
• 29:37
  it's just like we're all yeah, exactly.
• 29:38
  We're just like electronic, like electronically hooked.
• 29:42
  So I have been very lucky of when I was born in my personal
• 29:45
  opinion, because I know what it's like to not have a phone.
• 29:49
  I know it's like to be addicted to my phone, but still have the
• 29:52
  ability to pull away from it and to have the the the they stays
• 29:59
  conversation. So I'm saying I would, I give
• 30:01
  advice to younger comedians who are just like, I just kind of
• 30:04
  like get really like this is what's trendy.
• 30:07
  And I said, yeah, but who cares? Who cares what's trendy?
• 30:10
  Like meaning not who cares what's trendy?
• 30:12
  It's not you. Meaning like if you're going to
• 30:14
  do something that's not going to be the the rapping is going to
• 30:19
  be a parent. It's going to be very clear
• 30:21
  what's genuine and what's, you know, inauthentic.
• 30:23
  And maybe that's from being in high school trying to be someone
• 30:26
  I wasn't where I was like trying to be popular.
• 30:28
  And I'm like, no, I'm not. And that's why I'm a comedian.
• 30:31
  But. They're laughing now, Ellie.
• 30:35
  Maybe we'll see or they're, or they're much successful, but no,
• 30:40
  I, I, I think like that is, I think that's one of the dangers
• 30:43
  of the, of the social media generation or the anxious
• 30:47
  generation is the Jonathan Haidt book says, you know, that we're
• 30:50
  all on our devices. And so it's like, Oh, I didn't
• 30:52
  get this many likes on this thing.
• 30:54
  People don't like me and they don't have enough, you know,
• 30:56
  it's like the love tank or whatever, the fuel tank of like
• 30:59
  they don't have enough reserves of real experiences to
• 31:05
  counterbalance that. So it's like, if you get 10
• 31:08
  criticisms and one pot and one compliment, you're going to feel
• 31:11
  negative. So like, I think if you can and
• 31:15
  it's hard because everybody your age is like a zombie on their
• 31:18
  phone. So like enter Shabbos where it's
• 31:22
  like, hey, guys, we're going to have a whole day.
• 31:24
  We're just not even going to do anything electronic.
• 31:26
  And just like have Shabbos meals where you're interacting or
• 31:29
  you're even, you know, you're, you're playing Legos, you're
• 31:32
  doing things that are not getting this like fake currency
• 31:36
  that, you know, Mark Zuckerberg created of likes and, and, and
• 31:40
  you know, the Twitter guy, you know, stuff like that one.
• 31:46
  So one thing I would say to work on is is to, to obviously not
• 31:49
  just unplug, but like have real experiences with people where
• 31:54
  you both, you know, you almost make a commitment.
• 31:56
  You say, hey, we're going to have a meal, we're going to put
• 31:58
  our phone in the middle of the table and, you know, stuff like
• 32:01
  that. People say whoever reaches for
• 32:02
  it has to pay the pay the check or something like that.
• 32:04
  So, you know, reaches for it first.
• 32:06
  I mean, whatever. So you're like having real, real
• 32:09
  interactions with people, but like, be, be true to yourself.
• 32:14
  Even it's very hard to tell someone that it was a teenager
• 32:18
  in high school or you're the you're in Israel to be OK with
• 32:21
  being feeling that, you know, the beat of your own going by
• 32:25
  the beat of your own drum for the most part.
• 32:27
  Like maybe that's just also my nature is that like I never
• 32:30
  really fit in in a lot of ways, you know, a different, you know,
• 32:33
  background of people. I was I went to an Orthodox
• 32:36
  school, but like a very strange, you know, household, you know,
• 32:40
  experience, you know, my parents were divorced.
• 32:42
  So you're like, you're suddenly I'm starting a podcast called
• 32:46
  What's your Trauma? But that's another.
• 32:49
  But like, I think there's so so for me, I never, I never knew
• 32:53
  what the norms were. I mean, I'm from Chicago and
• 32:56
  then I yeah, I went to Yu and I came to, you know, living in New
• 32:59
  York and like, I didn't know like a lot of this like shtick
• 33:02
  for lack of a better turmoil, like should have resumes and and
• 33:05
  all this stuff that like in my head and Portuguese nourish kite
• 33:09
  where I'm just like, this is not real.
• 33:11
  This is the like facade of of that has nothing that in in in
• 33:17
  theory has to do with Judaism, but it's not so like when it
• 33:20
  comes to peer pressure in a lot of ways, I just, I never really
• 33:27
  bought into it. And that's, that's I, I, I don't
• 33:31
  know how to tell someone, don't go in go don't give it to peer
• 33:33
  pressure in like every way, because some peer pressure can
• 33:37
  be good when it's like, hey, you should volunteer or, you know,
• 33:41
  donate blood or something like that.
• 33:43
  But there's also like, but like, there's, I don't know, there's
• 33:46
  peer pressure. I mean, that's also the world
• 33:49
  right now too. It's like the world is like
• 33:51
  lumping and, and, and is dumping on Israel because of peer
• 33:54
  pressure. You know, everybody's just like,
• 33:57
  hey, all these people say this thing.
• 33:59
  I'm like, Hey, I got anyone who always says that like so many,
• 34:02
  so many organizations said this thing when it's like very
• 34:05
  cyclical. And when I, I know this because
• 34:07
  Jews are the old ones who have the receipts from the world.
• 34:10
  We're just like, oh, we like Jews are the 100 year old man
• 34:13
  who are just like, I've seen this before, I know this and and
• 34:18
  like this reboot of anti-Semitism is just so stale
• 34:20
  to me. I'm just like, we've seen this.
• 34:22
  You're just changing the names. Like people are like if they got
• 34:25
  rid of BB then everybody would be OK with Israel.
• 34:29
  Almost like let me show you a bunch of history how people
• 34:33
  reacted to Israel at any point in time.
• 34:36
  So anyways, so my ADHD is kicking in.
• 34:40
  Hold on. But back to the point.
• 34:42
  But like being able to the world.
• 34:45
  So the world, when the world gets peer pressure, they say,
• 34:47
  oh, everybody, you know, everybody says this role is
• 34:49
  terrible. Like, well.
• 34:50
  I have, I have a Colonel, I have a Colonel of perhaps sure,
• 34:53
  through their advice, this is what I like to tell people.
• 34:56
  But I've noticed I've been to too many funerals and I noticed
• 35:01
  the following phenomenon, which is that a funeral.
• 35:05
  Oh yeah, Iran is attacking again.
• 35:07
  See that everyone? OK, we're OK for now though, but
• 35:09
  I might have to run in a bit. But hopefully not.
• 35:11
  You see those anti people, they're stopping comedy, Ellie,
• 35:15
  they're stopping comedy. But if you go, if you go to a
• 35:18
  funeral now that that's going to be funny.
• 35:19
  But if you go to a funeral, you can split up the funeral into 3
• 35:22
  categories. OK?
• 35:23
  One is like parents. OK, so parents to child or child
• 35:28
  to parent. And that's like the most, it can
• 35:34
  be the most intense, actually, no, let me go even one step
• 35:38
  above that. There's, there's one that's that
• 35:40
  is more intense actually, which is spouse.
• 35:42
  OK, So a person that loses a spouse, they are, they're
• 35:44
  grieving the most. OK, But look forward in about a
• 35:49
  week and a half and the spouse will laugh.
• 35:52
  She or he will have a moment of of respite from that grief.
• 35:56
  You know, two months later, they'll laugh like two or three
• 35:59
  times a day. Life will go on.
• 36:01
  They'll never be completely whole again, but they'll mostly
• 36:04
  move on from you and their day-to-day lives within a couple
• 36:07
  months. OK, Then you, you can use like
• 36:10
  siblings. That's like level 2 under that
• 36:13
  siblings about a two weeks, 3 weeks, they're back to normal a
• 36:18
  lot faster than spouses. OK.
• 36:20
  And then you have friends of the deceased.
• 36:24
  Friends of the deceased will be laughing that night, right?
• 36:28
  And I don't think that that's necessarily a cruel thing.
• 36:31
  But people, we have our own lives, right?
• 36:33
  And there's only so much importance that we have.
• 36:35
  So when we're trying to assign value that's coming externally
• 36:39
  to us. Your, your closest friends will
• 36:42
  forget about you in six hours after your death.
• 36:45
  They'll remember you every once in a while.
• 36:46
  You're putting so much importance about how someone who
• 36:48
  doesn't even know your name is not even sure if he or she wants
• 36:51
  to give you validation. That person will never think
• 36:54
  about you again. Even if it was your best friend,
• 36:56
  in a day from now, they're not gonna think about you.
• 36:58
  I'd be more interested in getting validation from the
• 37:00
  people that matter, at least the people they'll think about me
• 37:02
  for at least two or three weeks, for God's sake, right?
• 37:05
  So I think that might help. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think
• 37:09
  these things are very nice to know that we know them, you
• 37:14
  know, in our heads. But like to feel it is very
• 37:17
  challenging. But I mean, that's why we like
• 37:19
  listen, we take advice from people who are older or you
• 37:21
  should take advice from people who are older because they've
• 37:22
  seen it all. Like, and not just in my
• 37:24
  anti-Semitism analogy that like people are just like, you know,
• 37:28
  this thing that you really cared about right now that's like just
• 37:32
  like completely ruined your day or your week or whatever.
• 37:36
  In a month from now or a year from now, you're not going to,
• 37:38
  it's not going to be, it's going to be a blip on your radar.
• 37:41
  And so if you, if you can really, you know, focus on what
• 37:49
  matters is OK, yes, your data interactions with your kids are
• 37:54
  going to be, are challenging and struggle with this, you know,
• 37:58
  daily. But like, at the end of the day,
• 37:59
  like, but like the bigger, the bigger relationship that you've
• 38:04
  gotten because of these day-to-day interactions are
• 38:07
  going to be stronger. And that will, that will last.
• 38:10
  I mean, that's, that's, that's one thing, But I, I don't know.
• 38:14
  I mean, I, I think the, the validation that people try to
• 38:18
  get from others is, is, I mean, that's why creating, I mean,
• 38:22
  it's literally like the whole idea.
• 38:25
  I, I, my, my Torah is the voracious thing that like, it's
• 38:28
  like be like God. It's like God created a world.
• 38:31
  So it's like create something. If you create something, you
• 38:33
  feel you have ownership to it and you, you know, nobody can
• 38:37
  take it away from you. If you create something, even if
• 38:40
  you get rejected from write a book and people say, oh, that
• 38:43
  wasn't good, whatever, you still made something and you made
• 38:46
  something that didn't exist. And you know, it's almost like
• 38:48
  the was it is. I don't know if is it the Baba
• 38:50
  Trevi or the Remnaka? I think Remnaka.
• 38:53
  So forgive me for cross cross referencing other.
• 38:57
  I'm getting my my rabbits. You're asking.
• 38:59
  To lift this person, you're, you're very safe.
• 39:01
  There you go. No, but in terms of like your
• 39:04
  birthday is the the day that the Hashem created Hashem decided
• 39:08
  the world need to do and so you have what to, you know, bring in
• 39:14
  your life. I mean I I very much think of
• 39:16
  that Gamara about the I think it's Gamara, maybe not where you
• 39:21
  have one pocket that says the world is creative for me and I
• 39:24
  am nothing but Justin ashes. Do you have to go to a shelter?
• 39:29
  You have to go to a shelter. But Ellie, tell you what, can
• 39:31
  you? I could be back in a couple
• 39:33
  minutes. Could you stay on there?
• 39:34
  Yeah. Stay safe.
• 39:36
  Sorry, Ellie. No problem.
• 39:38
  We're going. To have the same link yeah, just
• 39:41
  stay here just just do nothing. Stay here.
• 39:42
  Sounds good. I'm.
• 39:44
  Going to go. Have a blast, I'll be back.
• 39:46
  I made a joke. Yeah.
• 40:24
  Are we all good? Well, that.
• 40:30
  Experience went off with the bank.
• 40:32
  All good? Yeah.
• 40:36
  You missed me, didn't you? Where do you?
• 40:38
  Where do you live I. Live in give a Zev but the Shiva
• 40:44
  and the colon which I'm in so they have a shelter like about
• 40:50
  30 seconds 45 seconds away by run so I get my yearly.
• 40:54
  Exercise that's what they're trying they're trying to before
• 40:57
  pay sock, they're trying to note well that's.
• 40:59
  The only reason why they're targeting civilian, civilian
• 41:03
  areas because they just want us to exercise, they say.
• 41:05
  Listen, pay Sock's coming and OK?
• 41:11
  So let's go back to what we were speaking about before, OK, I, I,
• 41:15
  we, we discussed about validation and external
• 41:19
  validation being negative. So you talk, you gave in a, a
• 41:23
  tip about at least limiting the external validation to not being
• 41:27
  from Twitter or X or Facebook. Make it at least face to face.
• 41:31
  So that external validation is at least someone hopefully that
• 41:33
  you care a bit more about, right?
• 41:35
  Which I think definitely helps. You also talked earlier before
• 41:38
  about centralizing it in the sense that, OK, maybe not even
• 41:42
  make it from the person that's speaking to you face to face.
• 41:44
  Ellie Leibowitz trying to think what what Dorfman has to say,
• 41:47
  Ellie Lee, what you care about Ellie Leibowitz has to say.
• 41:49
  So you said thinking about, you know, internally, like what's
• 41:52
  important to me, being true to myself, which I think we're also
• 41:55
  great tips. Is there anything you want to
• 41:56
  add before we move on? I think that I mean whatever I
• 42:01
  can just do with cliche and say like Judaism, Judaism will help
• 42:05
  that. But but I do think there is.
• 42:08
  Why can't? You be cliche, I know I.
• 42:09
  Know go ahead. Part of it, part of what I, you
• 42:12
  know, Judaism, I think works, meaning whether or not I was
• 42:16
  born into it. And like I said, I'm always the
• 42:18
  type of person to be like, hey, I don't believe in this or I do
• 42:21
  believe in this, like this social trend, let's say, does it
• 42:24
  work for me? And I'm not always consistent
• 42:26
  about it. But like, like I mentioned
• 42:29
  Chavez before the how Chavez is so important in 2026, even if it
• 42:34
  seems archaic and whatever. And I, you know, you mentioned,
• 42:38
  you know, somebody passing away and say Shiva is also something
• 42:41
  that's extremely like you see the, the wisdom in it.
• 42:45
  I think that's just a really important point that the Torah
• 42:48
  and Judaism I think hold up really well personally and in
• 42:51
  most ways, you know, yeah, there are a couple sitting there like,
• 42:54
  oh, that you know, about evidevery and stuff like that.
• 42:57
  That's like, that's strange, but like, you know, but they don't
• 43:00
  meaning holding up to the 2026 lens.
• 43:03
  But everything. No, no, I'm saying.
• 43:04
  But everything else, there's so many things like Judaism.
• 43:07
  At heart and. Judaism at heart.
• 43:08
  And again, this is going back to my rant against the as a Jews
• 43:11
  that like, if you really knew what Judaism was, it would make
• 43:15
  sense to it or, you know, you would, you would understand.
• 43:19
  So having something bigger than your social media, whether or
• 43:25
  not that's comedy or a hobby or something is really important.
• 43:30
  Meaning like I learned this when my first job was working as a
• 43:32
  vendor at Cubs games in Chicago at Wrigley Field, where it was a
• 43:36
  big like start in high school and do like, yeah, because they
• 43:39
  have the Cubs have like Friday day games.
• 43:41
  So a couple times I may or may not have skipped a Friday and
• 43:44
  and made money at at Wrigley and then so I'd do a Friday and then
• 43:48
  be off for Chavez and then go on.
• 43:50
  Definitely didn't say anything to a rabbi about that.
• 43:52
  I didn't say. Anything to a rabbi about that.
• 43:53
  But listen, it was my as Mark Twain said, I never let my
• 43:58
  schooling in the way my education sometimes.
• 44:00
  So sometimes that but I'm saying Friday incentive.
• 44:03
  But it was such a perspective because on Friday we'd work the
• 44:07
  day game and then although it was a bunch of firm guys, like
• 44:09
  28 guys, whatever, we'd have the men coming in for night games
• 44:12
  and like on Chavez, we wouldn't work.
• 44:14
  And then on Sunday we'd go back and like, we talked to these
• 44:16
  guys and be like, hey, how was it?
• 44:17
  It was great. I did this.
• 44:18
  I did 3 cases, whatever. And you're like, this is this is
• 44:22
  all you have. This is, this is your life, this
• 44:25
  is your entire existence. Is this job that I'm doing as a
• 44:29
  summary thing that I'm like, and they gave me such perspective
• 44:32
  even at the time at, you know, 161718 years old, I'm like,
• 44:37
  thank God, this is just a means to an end where I'm like, yes,
• 44:41
  this is great. I I one of the best jobs I ever
• 44:43
  had, comedy included, but this gave me such a bigger thing.
• 44:46
  So the same thing that like don't let your Facebook social
• 44:49
  media and not Facebook, whatever your Instagram, your social
• 44:51
  media, your thing, be you, you're like, it's a, it's a
• 44:59
  platform to utilize something to get, you know, stay in touch
• 45:03
  with people or whatever and keep up with the news and whatever.
• 45:06
  Let it be a tool. Don't let it be become you.
• 45:12
  OK, but valid and I think beautiful 100% OK.
• 45:17
  Are you as a comedian? Are you adding anything and if
• 45:21
  So, what is it? I think so.
• 45:25
  I think if only to, I mean, there's a bunch of things, but
• 45:29
  one, I think I'm adding the ability to destigmatize comedy
• 45:36
  at Shules again. You know, just of of so many
• 45:40
  shows, they talk to organizations like, well, we had
• 45:42
  a comedian 30 years ago and it wasn't great.
• 45:44
  So no comedy anymore. And I'm just like, really,
• 45:47
  you're just going to make a blanket statement like that,
• 45:49
  like like we had Ishai Ribo and it wasn't great.
• 45:52
  So now we can't have Schwacky like that would never happen.
• 45:54
  Like, but comedy, for some reason there's not I'm like,
• 45:57
  just do your research. Just do you know, this is
• 45:59
  whatever. So that's one value I'm adding
• 46:02
  is there's only so many entertainment and there's only
• 46:05
  entertainment and slash. And again, obviously in Israel
• 46:07
  it's very different because the shul is really like the place
• 46:10
  you've got in and it's not as community based as like let's
• 46:16
  say in hotel arts or where the show was like the hub of your,
• 46:20
  of a lot of your Judaism in America, but it doesn't.
• 46:23
  Matter you can just say that you're adding more comedy,
• 46:26
  you're adding more comedy to to the Jewish sphere and that could
• 46:29
  be true and the show all now, but.
• 46:31
  That's one aspect because a lot of times I do perform in a show
• 46:33
  in a community. But I think also you're just
• 46:35
  adding like, you know, I last week I did, you know, not to
• 46:38
  toot my own horn, but I did Zoom shows for people in Israel where
• 46:41
  I did Monday of time for me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I
• 46:45
  did at 2:00 in the afternoon my time.
• 46:47
  I did shows over zoom for people because I'm like man, per and
• 46:53
  celebration must be very tricky or whatever this last like, you
• 46:56
  know, 12 days has been or 10 days has been very, very
• 46:59
  challenging. So like, let me bring the one
• 47:02
  skill I have and say, Hey, maybe your kids or your family won't
• 47:06
  be as scared right now. If I can add some sort of joy or
• 47:10
  laughter to the world. Let me make a couple jokes
• 47:12
  cathartically about about, you know, saying that, you know,
• 47:16
  Iran, that Israel, you know, took over Iran's traffic cameras
• 47:20
  to do the Intel. And I said, oh, maybe that was
• 47:22
  sponsored by BNH photo in New York City.
• 47:24
  Like, you know, so there's there's there's what to there.
• 47:28
  So cathartically bringing some people think.
• 47:31
  I mean, when I was a vendor at Wrigley Field, I would do this
• 47:33
  Harry Carey impression of this cups announcer for many years
• 47:37
  and Will Ferrell on SNL did Harry Carey.
• 47:39
  But like, hey, who wants to get ice cream?
• 47:42
  Come on. And you know what I'm talking
• 47:44
  about. But anyways, if you were a Cubs
• 47:46
  fan, a comic fan, it would be hilarious.
• 47:49
  But anyways, so I'd go around doing this bit at the stadium.
• 47:52
  And I'm not sure. Like, it became my, like,
• 47:55
  shtick. And then Usher came up to me and
• 47:57
  said, hey, there's this guy who's like terminal.
• 47:59
  Can you like do your impression in front?
• 48:01
  He can't talk if you do it in front of it.
• 48:04
  I'm like, OK. And then like a week later, I
• 48:06
  saw that same machine. He's like, yeah, that guy passed
• 48:08
  away. And I'm like, Oh my God, like,
• 48:10
  who would have thought being a clown in in in class would be
• 48:15
  such a like a difference maker powerful.
• 48:18
  Thing what? Different like again like you
• 48:21
  know, you better believe I'm bringing that Gemara Antonis up
• 48:23
  with me that says Oh yeah by these two guys are clowns and
• 48:27
  they make people happier. You better believe about your
• 48:30
  all those like what? Sorry, it says in the Gemara,
• 48:33
  you better believe I have a get out of jail free card here.
• 48:38
  So like right, it happens to me like so you know, that's not
• 48:41
  what I that's not why I do it. I think it's just like I the
• 48:45
  same way that Judaism or rabbis kind of look at the world and be
• 48:47
  like, this is messed up. That's what I was saying at the
• 48:49
  beginning. You can look as a comedian, you
• 48:52
  have to look at the world and be like, that's weird, Like and
• 48:55
  that seems like that should be fixed or that seems like and you
• 48:59
  can call attention to it and really make I mean, not for
• 49:03
  nothing, but like there was a comedian that because he made a
• 49:05
  joke about, you know, what are these could be people who was
• 49:08
  one of the like abuser for years.
• 49:11
  He made a joke on stage and went viral and that person ended up
• 49:14
  getting arrested because and they discovered all these cases.
• 49:18
  Like that's a really big like that's great.
• 49:20
  You have a very, you have a very powerful voice and you can, and
• 49:25
  people like I, I semi modestly say like it's the, the skill I
• 49:28
  have to help people may feel better, but like to be able to
• 49:31
  take topics like the last, as I said, the last few years has
• 49:35
  been very tough for the Jewish people, which is something we've
• 49:37
  said for the last 2000 years. But but, but like, and I know,
• 49:41
  and I hope you don't, people aren't offended by that, But
• 49:43
  like, I mean, I know it's been more challenging than I've seen
• 49:46
  in my lifetime, but, but this isn't our first rodeo.
• 49:50
  Like, like we, we again, I said we're the 100 year old man.
• 49:53
  I was like, I've seen this before.
• 49:54
  So like we, you know, like there were jokes in like ghettos and
• 49:58
  concentration camps, which again are like very dark places.
• 50:01
  But like, if you can help someone feel a little less sad
• 50:04
  or depressed or scared or anxious and whatever by making a
• 50:08
  joke about it, like you really have the power to change things.
• 50:13
  And comedy gets a bad rap because it's like late sunness
• 50:16
  or lots new and whatever, which I have a whole joke about.
• 50:18
  But like, you know, I don't know if and they call them late Sunny
• 50:21
  and I think in the, in the Gemara, but like, are you making
• 50:24
  a difference? I, I, I hope so.
• 50:26
  I mean, like that's, that's the, the thing about whether or not
• 50:29
  I'm being a good comedian or not.
• 50:30
  Yeah, sure, I made a difference. A couple, couple shows I've done
• 50:34
  that are like I've never having comedy again.
• 50:36
  Or but like at the end, God willing, it may have the S
• 50:39
  stream. Are people going to say, Hey,
• 50:41
  that guy like did this thing that had this bit and maybe I
• 50:47
  made. I don't take my Yom Kippur
• 50:48
  serial davening as seriously, but I'm at least thinking about
• 50:54
  improving myself when I say lots that I'm like, OK, you know, so
• 50:59
  yeah, you're making a difference.
• 51:00
  And and you don't necessarily. Yeah, you see the immediate 5
• 51:04
  seconds, you know, instantaneous laughter.
• 51:07
  But also like, you know, somebody who have deal worked on
• 51:10
  a movie, have deal who worked on a movie for years and you don't
• 51:13
  know how it's going to be until it's released.
• 51:16
  So like, yeah, you don't know the impact of you don't know
• 51:19
  what somebody's going through. And then someone says to you,
• 51:22
  hey, like, I saw your show. People come up to me and say I
• 51:27
  haven't laughed and so on. And I'm like, that's so sad,
• 51:29
  first of all, but also like, what?
• 51:32
  But also. So amazing that you were able to
• 51:34
  get them to laugh and have a good.
• 51:35
  Time, yeah, what a gift that you have the ability to bring to
• 51:38
  people so I don't know so. Ella, you said actually three
• 51:42
  things. So I I hero 2, but I so I just
• 51:46
  want to talk about one of the things you said.
• 51:47
  I mean, having a good time and, and, and releasing so, so
• 51:50
  important, so 100% on you there messages that you're trying to
• 51:54
  give over and you could package that in a joke that is like so
• 51:57
  insanely important. Like as an educator, there was a
• 52:00
  Talmud of mine, a student of mine that was really confused
• 52:03
  because I have two rules. One of them is like, I'm a rabbi
• 52:06
  for young adults between the ages of classically like 18 and
• 52:11
  23. And then I also teach people
• 52:13
  that are going to become rabbis. So they're between the ages of
• 52:15
  26 and 35 with my with my boys. So I'll joke a lot with them.
• 52:24
  And in that joke will be something like really intense.
• 52:27
  And I'll say some wild stuff, like I had a kid once that was,
• 52:31
  you know, lying on a lying on a bench during, you know, a sheer
• 52:35
  in one of my classes. And I won't say it here.
• 52:39
  It was clean, but I'm still not going to say it here.
• 52:41
  OK. That was like just really,
• 52:43
  really like, wow. Like it was like really intense
• 52:45
  and everyone laughed about it. But the kid never laid down
• 52:48
  during one of my classes again, The same kid visited me when I
• 52:52
  was teaching my rabbis one afternoon and he saw like, you
• 52:55
  know, people coming over and asking me questions and I like
• 52:57
  never made any jokes and was super serious.
• 52:59
  He came up and just like, why don't why don't you ever crack
• 53:02
  any jokes or like, you know, Dick people at all?
• 53:04
  Like you're all like really cold over here, like there's no
• 53:07
  laughter. And it's because they don't need
• 53:09
  it. Like if if they need to hear
• 53:11
  that something's wrong, I'll just tell them I'm able to give,
• 53:13
  I feel so many messages over, you know, to students that maybe
• 53:16
  aren't ready to hear it by making a joke about it.
• 53:18
  So I think what you're saying is so powerful.
• 53:20
  And for people that aren't just comedians, comedians, I think we
• 53:24
  should be learning from Ellie. I think that it is a fantastic
• 53:27
  pedagogical tool. We could do with our kids too.
• 53:29
  I think. I think all of this is super
• 53:30
  useful. But the third thing you said, go
• 53:32
  ahead. I was going to say.
• 53:34
  Like I again, a show that I will again, I, I know I'm mentioning
• 53:39
  a lot of TV and movies, but you know, I was a show, there's a
• 53:43
  show called a cartoon called Bluey, which is like about, you
• 53:45
  know, a family of dogs in Australia raising their family,
• 53:48
  I feel. So old it's a kid.
• 53:49
  It's a kid show. Well, you're also in Israel, so
• 53:51
  it's like you haven't gotten the symptoms yet.
• 53:53
  It's like, you know, things, the time delays is there, but no,
• 53:58
  it's a show. Whatever.
• 53:58
  It's a show. It's very ambitious parenting
• 54:01
  and you know, the, the dad is very much like a yes and, and is
• 54:05
  in like, Hey, we played this game and it just like commits to
• 54:09
  like the game of like what they're doing.
• 54:11
  OK, now you're going to be a robot and whatever, or like,
• 54:13
  Hey, you're born yesterday. And then they're like, maybe
• 54:15
  like do that. So I was just thinking to
• 54:17
  myself, I'm like, I need to be playful with my kids more
• 54:20
  because, you know, even if it's something simple, just like I
• 54:23
  was holding my daughter's hand crossing the street and then I
• 54:25
  just like took her hand and was like wiping my nose and it made
• 54:28
  her laugh that moment to me with such a clarity.
• 54:32
  I'm like, what a small interaction of like just walking
• 54:36
  across the street to get to the bus was like, and I was able to
• 54:39
  like make this into a positive, you know, memory that would be
• 54:42
  able to, you know, do that. So like, if you can take these
• 54:45
  moments that are neutral, you can you can be neutral, but you
• 54:50
  could also make everything positive.
• 54:51
  So and I'll I'll, I'll add I'll add my thought at the last
• 54:54
  afterwards, because I have another one more thought about
• 54:57
  how comedy is has helped me turn into turn experiences.
• 55:00
  But yeah, what was it? No.
• 55:01
  You. You.
• 55:02
  You. You.
• 55:02
  No, you can I. Was just going to say that that
• 55:04
  one of the benefits that comedy has done and I I would also say
• 55:07
  this for like, let's say anybody, let's say dating and
• 55:09
  like you're struggling, you know, going out with a lot of
• 55:12
  dates that you're like this is going anywhere and like, or if
• 55:15
  somebody, a friend of mine years ago, he like.
• 55:17
  Never had that experience. Yeah, well, a friend of mine
• 55:20
  years ago, like had a job and then he like moved to a new city
• 55:24
  and then he cost the job like 2 months in, which is like
• 55:28
  devastating. And like, yeah.
• 55:30
  And I like wanted to, I like would keep saying to this
• 55:33
  person, this is going to be a great first chapter of your book
• 55:37
  like that. And I mean that, I mean that
• 55:40
  like we're so focused on this like small thing.
• 55:42
  So the same thing with like anybody like to say dating or
• 55:45
  like what comedy has done is take, let me take any experience
• 55:49
  that's bad and turn it into you. I I would always say last week
• 55:55
  on the zoo, I said Israel takes terrorism and turns it into
• 55:58
  lemonade. You know, being able to make a
• 56:00
  dating app for people that are going to Bob shelters and making
• 56:03
  like, you know, who's who's fine, who's single or or can't
• 56:07
  make an out app called can I shower right now or whatever,
• 56:09
  you know, in between sirens. So like being able and that's
• 56:12
  that is the Jewish spirit of being able to just turn whatever
• 56:16
  is the world and turn it into something good or something
• 56:19
  useful for the world. So being able to take your
• 56:22
  dating stories. If you if you've been on a
• 56:25
  million dates, write a book about dating thing and dating.
• 56:29
  And even if let's say you don't know who will read this book and
• 56:35
  feel comforted because you've been in their experience too.
• 56:39
  So being able to just turn any experience into material, I
• 56:45
  would say, and I say that with like quotes because like, don't
• 56:49
  be like sometimes it's there's an Instagram influencing thing.
• 56:51
  I'm like, hey, everybody, I'm eating pizza right now.
• 56:53
  And it's like, don't let that become your entire life, but
• 56:57
  just have a healthy thing where it's like, Hey, this is a
• 57:01
  argument or a conversation I had.
• 57:03
  Let me see if this turns into a joke or a positive story or not
• 57:09
  a positive story, just a story. And that is what comedies really
• 57:13
  help me do, right? OK.
• 57:16
  Awesome, awesome. The the thing that you said, the
• 57:20
  other Nakuda of being able to bring comedy back to Scholz.
• 57:23
  Why? Why is that so important?
• 57:24
  You're putting comedy out there. You got you have those two
• 57:26
  benefits of making people feel good, you know, desensitizing us
• 57:30
  to traumatic experiences, giving over good messages.
• 57:32
  Who cares if there's comedy in Scholz?
• 57:35
  Well, in America and I, I, I got anything outside of Israel, I
• 57:40
  should think this shul is really one of the big hubs of people's
• 57:43
  Judaism. And that's their social
• 57:46
  connective point. And a lot of people for whatever
• 57:49
  reason, whether it's they had a Rebbe in 6th grade they didn't
• 57:52
  like and they are not shul goers or they don't feel comfortable
• 57:56
  in the, in the traditional diving space.
• 57:58
  And shul as much as shul maybe should not necessarily be this
• 58:03
  only, but like it being a social atmosphere is a very important
• 58:07
  point. So if you can bring people into
• 58:10
  the room or into the building and say the same way I say like
• 58:14
  for an organization, they have a parlor meeting.
• 58:16
  I say the way you do a parlor meeting is you have somebody's
• 58:18
  house, you do have, you have food and you have, hey,
• 58:21
  everybody, we're going to raise some money for this
• 58:22
  organization. Here's comedy for 30 minutes, 2
• 58:25
  minutes at the end. Everybody this is their
• 58:26
  organization. They have a positive association
• 58:28
  with their thing. The same reason at an upshran or
• 58:30
  do they or whatever you like, dip the letters and honey,
• 58:34
  whatever you want to try to make sweetness associated with Torah.
• 58:37
  So the same thing like if people have a shul and say, Hey, our
• 58:41
  shul has events that you're, you're doing something that like
• 58:46
  you're, it may get somebody who doesn't necessarily go into the
• 58:50
  shul normally by and it's just like, this is their community,
• 58:54
  this is their community. And and it's OK because.
• 58:57
  And and there's just a point of commonality that like, you know,
• 59:00
  shul is not just going to be the place where you're just like,
• 59:02
  we're going to save the pair from Medina be very concerned
• 59:04
  about security and all this stuff.
• 59:06
  And like, you know, what is a, what is the future generation
• 59:11
  going to look at and say like, OK, like especially like say in
• 59:14
  Europe where it's like really like armed guards, like really
• 59:18
  intense thing. Shul's a very, very scary place.
• 59:21
  Like, you know, I said, I feel like, you know, I think going to
• 59:25
  a church and you or Catholics, you just see like the, the
• 59:27
  crucifix and they're like, Oh my God.
• 59:28
  So it'll be like terrifying if like if that's our, that's some
• 59:32
  people's experience with shul where it's just, you know, or
• 59:35
  you or, you know, back in the day or, you know, our generation
• 59:38
  had this like, you know, Holocaust imagery right at the
• 59:41
  front gate. And you're like, that is a
• 59:43
  little heavy to walk into. So I think if you can, because
• 59:49
  again, it's not just like about, hey, losing the next generation
• 59:53
  of like people who are like, oh, I'm not into it.
• 59:55
  But like, yeah, a lot of people are just disassociated with
• 59:58
  Judaism or dissatisfied. And I'm sorry you went to a bed
• 1:00:01
  heapers school. That's not Judaism's fault.
• 1:00:03
  But like, yeah, we can definitely do things from a
• 1:00:06
  overall kind of perspective where we can.
• 1:00:12
  And that means transforming some of our spaces to.
• 1:00:17
  Understand that like the old guard, like there's a there's a
• 1:00:20
  very tricky balance and a healthy balance of keeping the
• 1:00:26
  old but adapting to the new. And, you know, we're on a
• 1:00:30
  podcast, you know, like like that, like, oh, the mission
• 1:00:34
  borough predict podcast. Like I don't, I don't think so,
• 1:00:37
  but like, but that's OK because you're like, OK, you're using
• 1:00:40
  this to like, hey, we're going to disseminate like really
• 1:00:42
  hopefully positive, you know, ideas into the world in, in a
• 1:00:48
  time that feels very prefarious to feel Jewish and to feel
• 1:00:52
  there's so many people who like, don't want to like, who want to
• 1:00:54
  like hide their mezuzahs, hide their, you know, high necklaces
• 1:00:57
  and stuff like that. And I, I mean, I literally say
• 1:01:03
  that I think a lot of people have this relationship with the
• 1:01:05
  world, like Jews have this relationship with the world
• 1:01:07
  where they either had, it's like an abusive relationship where
• 1:01:10
  they think, Oh yeah, like this time it'll be different.
• 1:01:13
  Or they are like in the forgive me for like the friend zone.
• 1:01:17
  If there's this person they like and then they're friend zone,
• 1:01:18
  they're like, if I do this, then she'll like me.
• 1:01:21
  And it's like, that is not, I don't, I don't think like
• 1:01:26
  meaning people are like, if I denounce Israel, then they'll
• 1:01:29
  like me. And you're like, I don't think
• 1:01:31
  that's going to, that's not going to, that's not what it's
• 1:01:33
  going to do. So any any Parnassus aside which
• 1:01:39
  hire me for your shules, but aside like famous plug, famous
• 1:01:44
  plug, of course. But if we have, you know, comedy
• 1:01:50
  and prideful Jewish programming, that is just a plus.
• 1:01:57
  It doesn't have the shul doesn't just have to be the place that
• 1:02:00
  you dive in and and overeat. And get scared.
• 1:02:05
  No, I guess that's profound. Yeah.
• 1:02:07
  Yeah. No, I like that.
• 1:02:08
  OK, last question. OK, very, very different.
• 1:02:13
  What was a great joke that you worked on?
• 1:02:15
  You put a lot of effort into it, and it was going to be amazing,
• 1:02:18
  and you dropped it and no one cared.
• 1:02:21
  And why didn't they laugh? Meaning you're saying why?
• 1:02:24
  I joke that didn't go out, that I bombed.
• 1:02:27
  I bombed, yeah. But but not but but not bombed
• 1:02:30
  because because you made a mistake necessarily just wasn't.
• 1:02:33
  A joke I was. What was one joke like?
• 1:02:36
  Yeah, no. Or maybe it was or you really
• 1:02:38
  thought it was what was like something that was this is going
• 1:02:40
  to be amazing. And then you dropped it and it
• 1:02:42
  just didn't work. Or did that ever happened?
• 1:02:44
  Never happened. No, I haven't worked that hard
• 1:02:47
  on that joke. I'm trying to think because
• 1:02:51
  there's also times where it's like early iterations of a joke
• 1:02:54
  and you're like, I think this is so funny and then just falls
• 1:02:58
  flat. I mean, I've started saying this
• 1:03:02
  joke where I talked about LL and I used to say this joke like I
• 1:03:07
  used to fly LL, I went from, which is where I flew LL because
• 1:03:11
  I forgot what it was like to fly LL.
• 1:03:13
  And then now I started saying this joke and it and I said and
• 1:03:17
  it's, I guess it's too raw where I say I fly LL because there's
• 1:03:20
  no other choice. Nobody laughs.
• 1:03:24
  Nobody laughs. So then, well, then I started
• 1:03:28
  picking it up again and I said, well, a lot of people are
• 1:03:30
  talking about, you know, Netanyahu extending the war.
• 1:03:32
  I think El Al was extending was extending the war, you know,
• 1:03:35
  which again is a very dark joke, but I but I then like, you know,
• 1:03:39
  when LL I said LL has really tested our, our devotion here
• 1:03:43
  where it's like, hey, you're, you're, you're you're supportive
• 1:03:46
  of Israel, huh? How supportive $3000 a ticket
• 1:03:49
  supportive. How much do you want to go?
• 1:03:51
  So there, there's again the same thing that like, and Judy is
• 1:03:54
  most of us too. It's like the whole chuba
• 1:03:56
  process. I mean, Casey said with, you
• 1:03:58
  know, the eagle is, is being able to learn from our mistakes
• 1:04:03
  And like, you know, ironic. I think what the Mishkan is a
• 1:04:07
  permanent reminder of the, of the eagle, essentially that
• 1:04:10
  like, by the way, God's always here, even if Moshe disappears
• 1:04:14
  for for a month and a half, like there's always this God's
• 1:04:17
  presence, which again is the lesson of the gull is that we're
• 1:04:20
  like, Oh yeah, like, you know, so to be able to learn from what
• 1:04:27
  doesn't work, which is again a comedy thing.
• 1:04:30
  And you can really be meticulous and be like, OK, why didn't this
• 1:04:33
  work? And sometimes it's the setting.
• 1:04:35
  And sometimes, hey, you had a person doing a geriatric home
• 1:04:38
  care presentation right before your, your show at the corporate
• 1:04:43
  holiday party. So you didn't do great, but also
• 1:04:46
  that didn't help, which is a true story.
• 1:04:49
  But you know, being able to resilience and this is one of
• 1:04:54
  these like parenting books that I'm like listening to on
• 1:04:56
  audiobook is because it's easier when I drive is resilience,
• 1:05:02
  being able to be resilient. And that's probably the best
• 1:05:07
  quality of the Jewish people is resilience.
• 1:05:13
  Again, no, I just said during during two weeks, people are
• 1:05:17
  creating apps about is there a time to shower a because that's
• 1:05:20
  a funny, it's funny and it's practical.
• 1:05:22
  And you know, like I said, making a dating app where people
• 1:05:25
  are like, hey, maybe people will meet each other like, you know,
• 1:05:27
  and stuff like that. Being able to just take the
• 1:05:29
  world we have, how messed up it is and how how many decks are
• 1:05:33
  stacked against us in this world and being able to overcome all
• 1:05:38
  of that is the and that's Perim. You know, I mean, we're almost a
• 1:05:44
  Nissan. So I don't know if I'm allowed
• 1:05:45
  to make Perim Perim stuff. But like being able to turn it
• 1:05:49
  around turn, not just you. I mean, I was not on the McGill
• 1:05:53
  I've mentioned, but like be able to be able to not just have God
• 1:05:57
  turn things around, but being able to turn it around
• 1:06:00
  ourselves. So yeah, the Ayatollah, you
• 1:06:02
  know, it's the Ayatollah Yamashima.
• 1:06:04
  What you have to add. It's just kind of like all the
• 1:06:06
  Sean, but we'll have deal. You have to say, Oh yeah,
• 1:06:08
  Yamashima, every time you mention him, Ayatollah, the
• 1:06:10
  first the the the recent one that was killed.
• 1:06:14
  He was tweeting in Hebrew a couple like last year and I
• 1:06:18
  tweeted this. I said he's trying to intimidate
• 1:06:20
  Israelis. I'm like, you're trying to be
• 1:06:21
  scary tweeting in Hebrew. You're not going to be scary
• 1:06:24
  than the 9th grade Hebrew teacher I had, you know, who
• 1:06:27
  would yell at us. So being able to take this
• 1:06:31
  situation or like and and make jokes about as as dark as they
• 1:06:37
  are or not as dark as they are. But like and that's also by the
• 1:06:40
  way, just one more thing a tip to overcome as anti-Semitism is
• 1:06:44
  that you're not going to win the logic war with these people.
• 1:06:47
  Yeah, it's not going to be like it's.
• 1:06:48
  Dogmatic it's not. Actually a genocide.
• 1:06:50
  I just want you to know what the numbers are.
• 1:06:52
  Whatever it it doesn't work, it's not going to work.
• 1:06:55
  The way you have to do this is lampoon them and make this is
• 1:07:01
  where late Saunders comes in handy where you take a silly a
• 1:07:05
  cardboard, then holding up a cardboard cut out of the new
• 1:07:07
  Ayatollah who may or may not be alive or with one one leg.
• 1:07:11
  And I was like, oh, this is just like COVID.
• 1:07:13
  Like have cardboard cutouts at baseball games, you know, make
• 1:07:17
  make jokes about these things because it's the ultimate power
• 1:07:22
  to ridicule their arguments a little bit.
• 1:07:27
  And and that's and that'll bring light because you're you're how
• 1:07:31
  the head is not going to work. But if if you sweep your leg
• 1:07:34
  under them and say, Hey, I'm going to make fun of you if
• 1:07:37
  you're an anti semite, whatever, like, oh, shoot, what do I do
• 1:07:41
  with that? Like use the weapons we have.
• 1:07:43
  Comedy is one of the strongest weapons Jews have had.
• 1:07:45
  Use it. That's my that's my two cents
• 1:07:48
  percent. Ali, before we go, is there
• 1:07:51
  anything you want to share with our listeners as we sign off?
• 1:07:53
  Sure. You can find my stuff at
• 1:07:56
  ecomedy.com on Instagram. If you do such things, comedy a
• 1:08:00
  gram. I don't know, book me for your
• 1:08:03
  shows because I have a mortgage and issue of tuition to pay,
• 1:08:06
  which is a little bit more expensive than in Israel.
• 1:08:10
  The Ellie Liebowitz. Yeah, thanks.
• 1:08:17
  Everyone, thank you for coming on the show.
• 1:08:19
  Thank you. See you everybody.