Latest / In the Valley of Giants / From Cocaine to Torah | Eliyokim Cohen | ITVOG #44

Transcript

From Cocaine to Torah | Eliyokim Cohen | ITVOG #44 · In the Valley of Giants

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  Life is, is precious and, and, and we need to, to take
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  advantage of it because the worst thing in life, it's, it's
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  not drug use, it's not the Internet, it's regret.
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  It's knowing that you wasted an opportunity.
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  And that's what this life is. So basically from age 23 to 27,
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  it was just almost nonstop cocaine.
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  I went to rehab for one month, ended up staying clean for I
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  think 6 months. But again, there was just
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  nothing. There was there was nothing that
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  filled that cup. It was still an empty cup.
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  So I thought, OK, I'm I, I had so much fun from cocaine.
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  I'll just fill it back up with cocaine again.
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  Hello everyone. Today we're joined by a Hakeem
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  Cohen. A Hakeem Cohen is a Jew with a
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  tremendous past, from being addicted to cocaine and not
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  being religious to being an Orthodox Jew and teaching
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  thousands, hundreds of thousands on the Internet, meaning Torah
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  and life. We discussed those things, his
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  experiences, what does it mean to have meaning today and how to
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  properly give that over being a good educator and seeing what
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  the young and the old need today.
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  I hope you enjoy. Ali Yakim Khan, thank you so
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  much for being us here. Thanks us.
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  Here today. Thanks for having me a. 100% I
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  wanted to let all of our viewers know that this episode is in
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  memory of Areth Bass Aaron, who is our our guest's late wife.
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  Her Neshamah should have an Aaliyah.
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  Her soul should find tremendous peace and be uplifted in heaven.
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  And she should merit very speedily in our days for the
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  resurrection with the coming of the Messiah.
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  And she has been here with me knowing.
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  Amen. Thank you.
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  Kim Cohen, you have quite a story, OK.
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  And, and I don't think most Jewish people say, hey, I'm
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  going to put out a book about cocaine and and Torah.
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  I don't think that's a standard like goal that people have.
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  And have them both on the cover. That's right.
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  So close together, right, right. So I'd love to, I'd love to just
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  have our audience get used to you a little bit or know who you
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  are. So if you go on it, just give us
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  a kits or a small version of of your story.
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  I think that'd be great, just for sure.
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  So I was born in Atlanta, 1980. I lived there four years.
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  Then we moved to Boston. We moved like 20 minutes outside
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  of Boston to Framingham. And I grew up just typical, like
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  traditional Jewish family, went to Hebrew school, went to Sunday
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  school, loved being Jewish, felt a strong connection to, you
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  know, my grandparents who were observant and just it was always
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  the biggest part of my identity, even in like any rough, you
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  know, part of life. Being Jewish was always like the
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  icker of who I was, even when I wasn't observant.
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  And I was a really good golfer. I would have played college golf
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  if I had a better like mental, you know, every bad shot I'd
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  throw a club in the woods. My, my, my coach used to have to
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  pair me with someone that could climb trees, you know, so from
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  my mid round, you know, meltdowns and I never really
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  cared about school. I mean, I was always intelligent
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  enough to get by and I just, I, I never really live life the way
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  that other people, you know, I, I didn't like the, the rat race
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  of life. I didn't like being told you
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  have to go to school and then to get a, you know, just like the,
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  the steps in life never made sense.
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  I was always a seeker basically. So I went to college, University
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  of Georgia, and then my parents moved down after my freshman
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  year and they opened a baby furniture retail store and I
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  love that. So I, you know, I was working
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  there every summer. Anytime I head off then they
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  open another store. Why'd you love that?
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  Why do you say that you love that?
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  I loved a just being with my family and I always, you know, I
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  was always into business and 2nd grade I sold Blow Pops, you
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  know, on the playground and you know, my parents said it was, it
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  was the first time they ever saw me so focused.
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  I had ledgers, I had charts, I had, you know, OK, the sour
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  apples sell the best, not the grape.
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  So I was really into it. I was always just, you know,
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  personable and, and I love business and feel like athletes
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  in college that don't really go to class because they know
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  they're going to the NBA. Well, well, I, you know, I
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  basically had that with my store.
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  And at one point they gave me school credit to, you know, to
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  basically run the store. So I was driving back and forth
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  from Athens, GA to Atlanta, GA every day.
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  And I, I mean, I, I, I just loved it.
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  People would drive sometimes, you know, 5-6 hours just to work
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  with me. Never sold them on things they
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  didn't need. Always just tried to be a
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  Mensch, you know, And that was right around the time that life
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  sort of, you know, fell off the tracks a little bit.
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  But it's sort of a brief version of my life.
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  Just, I was always a good Jewish boy.
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  Just, you know, I've got into a little trouble here and there
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  and always very close with my family, always, you know, had a
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  nice social circle and but something was always missing in
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  life, you know, like I always felt life has to be more than
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  just, you know, you work to your 70s so you can retire and, you
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  know, take that extra vacation every year.
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  It did just, it didn't make sense that the life that so many
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  of my friends were striving for and, and you know, putting in so
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  many hours for it just, it never made sense to me basically.
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  Do you think that's do you think that's what ultimately brought
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  you to to take cocaine? Yeah, I mean, I was smoking a
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  lot of weed in high school and then got to college and the
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  first, you know, two years, Yeah, I'm in a fraternity, so
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  just and I didn't care about going to class.
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  So it was literally just a five year party.
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  And I remember 1 semester I had, I only had a class on Tuesday
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  and Thursday and my first class was at 5:30.
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  So I mean, I had a, you know, like a four and 1/2 day weekend.
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  And, and so I, I will literally woke up one day junior year and
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  just said I'm tired of feeling down and smoking weed.
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  And instead of, you know, replacing that with maybe
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  working out or starting to walk or getting, you know, playing
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  more golf, it was let's start doing ecstasy and then cocaine.
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  And at that, you you really get off the rails when and then I
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  started selling it. And that really was the like the
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  coup de grace of of that part of life.
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  OK, so but but but we could, it sounds to me we could split
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  apart your marijuana use, which is I guess I think more of just
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  a chill out thing that you were doing in high school.
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  Yeah, it was. It wasn't anything, you know, I
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  was dealing it a little. And that right?
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  And then you got to college and then you said you just felt down
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  all the time. Why'd you feel down all the
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  time? Is it because life has to be
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  more than working till you're 70?
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  Or was that was that it? Did you?
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  Feel, no, a lot of it was just the smoking, the, a lot of it
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  was just, you know, the smoking the weed.
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  It was, it was just, you know, it's a downer.
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  So nights are just spent, you know, hanging out with some
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  friends, eating Cheetos and, and, and whatever it just, you
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  know, it's like a mellow feeling.
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  And I just woke up 1 morning. I, I remember I went to the, you
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  know, like that athletic center they have at University of
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  Georgia, which is phenomenal. They built it for the Olympics
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  and just started working out everyday and, and feeling good.
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  And unfortunately that just didn't translate into, you know,
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  leading a better life. There was always something
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  there, like there was always a gap.
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  So first it was filled with ecstasy, then it was filled with
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  cocaine and now Brokersham, it's filled with the Shim so.
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  Right. Well, I think that's is that why
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  you named your your organization Hai and.
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  Torah. Yeah, it was.
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  It was definitely a pun. Yeah, I well, but it but it
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  makes sense with your narrative, right?
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  Like you're see, you're a seeker, you're seeking, seeking,
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  seeking. You couldn't find something, so
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  you filled it with something intense and that was ecstasy and
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  coke. And then you're like, no, no,
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  this is fake and you filled it with something real and that's
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  what gave you the real high, right.
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  That's. What gave you your life right,
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  exactly. You know, if you ever
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  experienced the real, like a real good Shabbos you, you can't
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  describe this to other people. It's something you just need to,
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  you know, something you need to feel.
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  So, but it's a real feeling, you know, like there's no Hebrew,
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  ancient Hebrew word for fun. We have Simcha.
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  We have meaningful joy. So, you know, high on Torah.
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  It's, it's not high on Torah. It's high, it's life, life on
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  tour. You know, it's, it's a
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  meaningful, purposeful life. And you see what's going on in
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  the world. I mean, the, the, you know, the,
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  we should have the most, you know, joyful generation ever.
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  I mean, look what women had to do back in the day to just wash
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  clothes. They have to go wait in line at
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  the well, I mean, we're such a spoiled generation and, and we
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  don't understand why we're not happy because we're not filling
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  our lives with anything purposeful.
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  So that the naming the organization client or was was,
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  yes, the aspect of, you know, my my past life, but also Tor is
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  life. You know, the Rabbi Kiva fish
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  story. You could do any analogy you
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  want. But if if you know that there's
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  a creator and you know that this creator gave you a guide book
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  for life to succeed, then that is life.
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  You know, you don't start at a job without reading the company
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  policy. You don't start in class without
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  reading a syllabus. We, we have like a treasure map
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  for life. And so many people just want to,
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  you know, unfortunately have a go themselves without having any
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  sort of guidance or, or assistance for machine.
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  It's, it's very sad. And that's, you know, really
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  what I'm trying to do is, is let people know there's a beautiful,
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  purposeful life out there. I think that's why Torah is so
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  effective. Meaning I've spoke about this a
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  few times, but being a, a Rebbe or an educator today, like
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  yourself, you're trying to sell Torah to people of all ages.
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  But I think it's even, I think it's really difficult to sell to
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  teenagers. So I was Rebbe and she even for
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  about a decade one more and like you realize that I'm walking in
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  and I'm trying to teach guys that like it's just women video
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  games and you know, the music and all this entertainment and
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  I'm going to be like, yes, toes foes, that's some medieval
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  commentary. And it's just like, Oh my gosh,
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  how am I going to do this? But it it works like a lot of
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  the time. And I think it's because of what
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  you're saying. You can you can mask what you
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  think life is supposed to be like, because when you're a kid,
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  it's all about hedoness and pleasure, right?
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  Don't cry by not get because you didn't get that lollipop, right.
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  But when you're when you're 25 and you're just like chasing,
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  you know, all of this pleasure and then all of a sudden someone
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  was like, well, instead of pleasure, what if he gave you
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  deep meaning? It just grabs people.
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  It just grabs people. Yeah, I.
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  Mean look, when I was in college, I read that that book
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  the Bible codes, right, and it was the first time that I, you
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  know, whether people believe it or not is irrelevant, but I it,
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  it, it woke me up and I was like walking around the fraternity
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  house telling people you have to read this book.
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  This is the proof that there's that there's God and I never,
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  you know, we don't have any sort of campus, you know, Kiru of
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  that at that time, I mean, at least that I knew of we had a
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  hill. I, I feel like at that time, if
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  I could have connected that feeling with something, I, I
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  feel like I could have, like, maybe life would have changed a
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  little bit, Which is why when I, you know, after I got out of
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  jail for my, you know, for my car chase that I'm sure we'll
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  talk about. I, I, I remembered that feeling
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  and I remembered letting it slip by and, and being determined
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  not, you know, to let that slip by.
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  I feel like there are so many teenagers and, and kids in their
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  20s in college that, that are seeing this, you know, wasting
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  away life on a video on video games and, you know, going out
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  to bars that OK, it, it might be fun for a while, might be fun
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  for a year or two, but it's not a lasting, it's not enduring.
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  And I feel like there's such a spiritual like wasteland out
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  there that, that so many kids are just that they're just so
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  lost. I, I, I feel like, yeah, it's
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  probably harder to sell it because, yeah, Kamala and Arashi
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  and not, you know, go to the fraternity party.
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  But I feel like when they can click into the, into that
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  feeling they're, it's very easy to talk the, you know, so it in
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  a way it's harder, but in some ways I think it's a little
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  easier. I mean, I was 27 when I, you
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  know, sat down with my rabbi for the first time and just, I went
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  home that, that first session with him just totally flying.
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  I mean, I was hooked. Right, OK, so let's let's go a
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  little bit more into into history.
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  So now you're a young man, you're in college, you said that
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  you felt down, you needed something.
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  So you're turning to ecstasy and cocaine and then and then it
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  gets worse. You start dealing it.
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  So when does it, when do you, when do you reach that head?
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  I mean, I know the answer because I, I read a chunk of
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  your book which, which was really interesting.
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  It really. Wasn't that that far after I
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  started doing coke? Oh really?
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  Yeah. OK.
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  That's when you OK, so tell us about this really exciting car
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  chase. Kids don't do this at home.
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  So, so basically my, my fifth year of college, I started
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  selling it and I, I remember the guy that I, you know, that I was
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  getting it from, I, I remember going to his house one time and
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  seeing this floor to ceiling safe filled with guns and just,
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  I'm thinking you're sort of crossing that.
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  I always needed that in life. I, I needed some sort of
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  excitement or thrill or whatever.
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  So basically from age 23 to 27, it was just almost non-stop
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  cocaine. I went to rehab for one month,
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  ended up staying clean for I think 6 months.
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  But again, there was just nothing.
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  There was, there was nothing that filled that cup.
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  It was still an empty cup. So I thought, OK, I'm, I, I had
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  so much fun from cocaine, I'll just fill it back up with
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  cocaine again. Then I lost my license in 2007,
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  but kept driving, you know, my car.
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  And so one night, January 4th, 2008, I get pulled over in a
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  little bit north of Atlanta, driving on the wrong side of the
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  road. I remember turning.
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  It was a very dark, not like lit Rd.
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  Yeah. It was.
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  A4 lane, Hwy. 2 in each direction, but there was no
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  barrier. So I remember, you know, just
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  turning into the wrong lane. And, you know, the first car
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  comes at me and I'm thinking, you know, that clown's on the
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  wrong side of the road. And then after the, you know,
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  after the second guy drove towards me, I realized I'm the
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  clown. So as I'm merging back to the
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  right lane, I I literally almost clipped a police officer.
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  So he's, you know, turns his lights on, starts chasing me.
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  And I just, I don't know what happened.
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  I can never describe it. It's, it's just, it felt like an
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  out of body experience. And I I really didn't even feel
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  like I was driving the car. I made so many weird.
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  Yeah, I'm not claiming like an Elio Navi story, but it just it
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  was like an out of body experience.
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  It was a very weird. I mean, even my lawyer said
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  like, why would you take that route?
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  I mean, I went into like a Marina and then came out and I
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  crossed multiple, you know, county borders back and forth.
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  It was it was just so it was about 30, you know, police cars
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  chasing me. Was it?
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  Was it was it was that fun though?
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  Was like part of it like such a rush?
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  I was. So high that I, I honestly
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  don't, I, I remember just looking to see, I don't know if
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  anyone's ever seen Goodfellas, not not to watch it, but you
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  know, there was a, there's a scene where he's looking for
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  this helicopter. So I'm like looking for the
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  helicopter. I, I see 30 cop cars in my
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  rearview mirror. I, I guess it was a thrill.
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  I, I don't know what I thought I was going to get out of it.
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  I mean, it was, it was a long chase, you know, because my
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  parents had just gotten me run flat tires.
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  So they laid out the road spikes twice and I, you know, drove
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  through it and, and you could drive for like 200 miles after
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  that. And then at one point I just
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  slowed down realizing that, I mean, this isn't going anywhere.
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  I don't know what I'm trying to achieve.
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  And, you know, they, they like knocked me off the road, smash
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  my windows. I get out, you know, probably 30
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  guns pointing at me. And then they just, yeah,
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  everyone tried to get their shots and so they got me down to
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  the ground and, you know, I'm getting kicked in the head here
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  and getting smashed here. It wasn't a a pleasant
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  experience. Why?
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  Why were they doing that? I mean, I don't blame them if
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  I'm led on a 45 minute chase by some, you know, no.
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  They no, they got you, isn't that, isn't that but you?
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  Know you want to get your you want to get your shots in, I
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  guess you. Know no, but I I understand the
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  words that you're saying they. See a little punk in a BMW on
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  coke that you know, I drew, I drove an ambulance off the road.
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  I could have killed multiple people.
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  I I can understand them. I'm not I.
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  Am not condoning what you did. I'm not.
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  Condoning police violence either.
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  I'm just saying that I can understand from their
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  perspective why a little kick in the head might have been, you
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  know, cathartic for them. And that and that experience of
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  being like, OK, that's it. Like you were it was it was just
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  the look in the mirror of wow, my life is really so well, like
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  you hit that point. Was that it?
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  It, it really wasn't. It was just like this cycle of
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  wanting to change and then just being so comfortable with, you
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  know, working, getting the cold, coming home, you know, basically
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  withdrew from friends, from family.
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  It just, it becomes comfortable. One of the one of the women that
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  sponsors some of my lectures now, I did 1 lecture
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  specifically for her son. He's, you know, EMSA just
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  horrible drug use. And I said to the, you know, I,
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  I talked to her, you know, once every few weeks and I, I tell
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  her like, it's just so sad. But unless he wants to get out
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  of this mess there, there's literally just nothing that you
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  can do. I mean, as as a parent, I'm,
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  I'm, it's probably the most devastating thing in the world.
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  But as someone that's been in that black hole, you know,
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  sometimes you're just comfortable in the hole.
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  I mean it, it, it sounds, it sounds bizarre until you, until
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  you live it. And you see, you know, it's just
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  the sad reality for so many people wanting to change,
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  wanting to better yourself, becoming a better version of
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  yourself is the hardest thing to do.
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  So a much easier thing to do is to continue being miserable.
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  But, you know, getting your highs here and there doesn't
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  matter what it is, you know, drugs, alcohol, you know,
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  overworking, spending too much money, whatever it is, sometimes
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  that's just easier than putting in the effort to change.
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  Well, yeah, because the effort to change means that you have to
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  kill the person you once were, right?
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  Because of the the reason, the reason why we do things is
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  because we believe in those things enough to continue doing
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  them. To say I'm not going to be that
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  person to anyone means that part of you has to die.
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  And I think that's that's the most difficult thing for sure
• 20:30
  for anyone to do. Absolutely you.
• 20:32
  I mean, you're literally a new person.
• 20:34
  Yeah, you. Know when you become about you
• 20:36
  or you become a convert, you, you literally have killed off
• 20:40
  your old self and and that's that's the.
• 20:43
  Thing the first thing I thought about that, you know the Rambam,
• 20:45
  the Rambam says that when you do true Chuva, like when he, he, he
• 20:48
  really talks about full repentance.
• 20:50
  You know, you, you stopped, you say you'll never going to do
• 20:53
  that again. You and and and just saying it's
• 20:55
  not enough. You have to mean it, which means
• 20:56
  that you have changed, you've reflected and you change your
• 20:58
  name. The Rambam says you change your
• 21:00
  like that it really it you're completely the person that
• 21:03
  existed is no longer here to a large extent, right.
• 21:07
  And that's what that's the scariest part about change, but
• 21:09
  it's worth it. Oh, for sure.
• 21:12
  At a Tom at once that said to me, he said people don't change.
• 21:17
  It's impossible. He's a really young guy said to
• 21:20
  him, no, people do change, but it's only the heroes that do it
• 21:25
  if you decide if you want to be here or not.
• 21:27
  And unfortunately, many people don't don't choose that.
• 21:30
  But look at every hero story I bring this up often, like what
• 21:33
  heroes do we do we think are really salient even in pop
• 21:37
  culture, right. So I think people love the idea
• 21:42
  of, you know, Anakin Skywalker a lot more than just Superman, you
• 21:46
  know, or, or Batman. And people like, or Frodo from
• 21:50
  Lord of the Rings and Lahalfa Dalz.
• 21:52
  Moshe Rebeinu, like, that story is so gripping because he comes
• 21:56
  from a place of tragedy and despair.
• 22:00
  And he refuses. He says, no, I'm, I'm going to
• 22:02
  fight this fight anyway. And Moshe Rebeinu becomes Moshe
• 22:04
  Rebeinu, Right? Right.
• 22:06
  It's these hero stories that, that, that power our lives.
• 22:09
  OK, so you were tired of the, of the change.
• 22:12
  And so you're, you just were like, that's it.
• 22:14
  Since I'm just, or rather the cycles, I'm tired of these
• 22:17
  cycles. I'm done with these cycles.
• 22:18
  And so then you just woke up one day and you're like, that's it.
• 22:20
  I'm changing my life. Well, you know, so I was facing
• 22:24
  like 15 to 30 years in jail because when you are in a high
• 22:28
  speed car chase, they charge you with assault with a deadly
• 22:30
  weapon on a police officer your car.
• 22:33
  So not so easy to prove because I'm driving away from them.
• 22:38
  But they throw every you know, they get you for failing to
• 22:41
  signal fail. I mean, I had like 25 felonies
• 22:45
  so lost my car and you know, we had to get a lawyer that was
• 22:49
  like 25 grand. And so I had to pay that off.
• 22:53
  So my life became work and meeting my rabbi and and Shabbos
• 23:04
  that was it. I had no life.
• 23:05
  Once every week my friend would come pick me up on Tuesday night
• 23:09
  and we'd, you know, go to this wing place this before I was,
• 23:13
  you know, keeping full kosher and you know, for trivia night.
• 23:17
  That was my only social life. I had literally 1 friend where.
• 23:20
  Did this? Where did this rabbi come from
• 23:22
  now so. That's a really significant.
• 23:23
  Part of right? So my mom grew up in Minneapolis
• 23:27
  and my aunt, her younger sister, my aunt was in the same class as
• 23:32
  Rabbi Friedman. He's the OR he was he just, you
• 23:36
  know, sort of retired from the rabbi, the shul in Dunwoody, GA,
• 23:40
  And also like one of the, the heads of the Atlanta scholars,
• 23:45
  Kolo the ask Kolo. So a few months before my car
• 23:48
  chase, I had called him to like, I, I could see that that life
• 23:54
  was really careening. You know, I was doing more
• 23:56
  drugs. I was becoming more distant,
• 23:58
  like personality, becoming a little more volatile.
• 24:02
  And I, I wanted some sort of way to, to change that.
• 24:06
  But every time I called, I called him twice and he just,
• 24:10
  he's the happiest person. So he, he picks up the phone
• 24:14
  always Hello. And I just, I hung up like
• 24:18
  hearing that positivity, like I, I felt like he could influence
• 24:22
  me and, and I still just wasn't ready.
• 24:24
  I, I wanted it, but I wasn't ready for it.
• 24:28
  After the car chase, there was, there was nothing to lose.
• 24:31
  I mean, sometimes when you hit rock bottom, it's, it's very
• 24:34
  beneficial. I, I had no other, you know, now
• 24:38
  is the time to do it like a sham, you know, set it up
• 24:42
  perfectly. Sometimes your life, Kareem so
• 24:44
  far, of course, that it, it's very helpful because, you know,
• 24:48
  why not? Like, why not try this?
• 24:51
  So I had no intention of becoming observant.
• 24:53
  I don't even know what that was. I mean, even though my so my
• 24:55
  aunt was hijacked on ATW this this Ant that, you know, grew up
• 25:00
  in Minneapolis was hijacked in 1985, a famous TWA TWA flight
• 25:06
  847. It's a famous picture of, of the
• 25:09
  pilot having a gun to his head, you know, So she became about
• 25:15
  you, about. What, what?
• 25:17
  What is what? What flight was this?
• 25:19
  This is. TWA Flight 847, it was coming
• 25:22
  back from Athens to JFK from their honeymoon and gosh, that's
• 25:29
  crazy. Yeah, so she got hijacked.
• 25:30
  It was Hezbollah. So like 5 different times the
• 25:32
  plane kept going from Algiers to Beirut, and then the last time
• 25:37
  they landed, the landing gear didn't work.
• 25:40
  So she's davening to a sham that if you have you land this plane,
• 25:44
  I will, you know, come back to you.
• 25:46
  And she did, you know, because, you know, my, my mom grew up and
• 25:50
  my aunt grew up, you know, somewhat observant.
• 25:53
  And so she was the one that connected me to this to this
• 25:58
  rabbi. And I just remember the first
• 26:00
  time sitting down with him in the the Dome of the of the
• 26:05
  building. And my first question to him
• 26:08
  was, Rabbi, I just have one question.
• 26:11
  Why do you live like this? Seemingly it's a very
• 26:16
  constricting and restricting lifestyle.
• 26:19
  Yet by all accounts and everyone that I've spoken to that knows
• 26:22
  you says you're the happiest, most content me.
• 26:25
  I have no rules, I have no boundaries and I'm miserable.
• 26:28
  I don't understand what I'm missing And, and thank God he
• 26:33
  said these words to me. Only a sham could have given the
• 26:37
  Jewish people the Torah. When you can prove that to
• 26:39
  yourself, you're going to live exactly like I do.
• 26:43
  Those are his words. And and that's literally been
• 26:45
  the the whole foundation of my Judaism.
• 26:47
  Just pure Ms. That's my anyone that listens to my lectures
• 26:51
  knows just if a shem says it, that's it.
• 26:56
  Shem says don't eat lobster. I'm from Boston.
• 26:58
  I used to eat lobster 2-3 days a week.
• 27:00
  Shrimp, you know, bacon. You just can't do it.
• 27:04
  So like you said, how how much do people want to invest and
• 27:09
  just and change and an adherence to a sham and in following his,
• 27:17
  you know, for me, it, it just, it just makes sense.
• 27:21
  And I'm not saying I don't have a Yates of horror.
• 27:23
  I I have a huge Yates of horror. But Hashem says a that then it's
• 27:30
  a if he says X, then it's X like people were so used to.
• 27:36
  Oh, that might be your truth. Or like every opinion matters
• 27:40
  and it doesn't every opinion doesn't matter.
• 27:42
  Every truth there, there's no such thing as everyone's truth.
• 27:46
  We live in God's world. When you go to a company your
• 27:49
  CEO created, I mean, you're, you're the, the the boss created
• 27:53
  the company. You might think the company
• 27:56
  might work better if you come in at 8:30 instead of 630.
• 27:59
  But it doesn't matter if you want to be in this company, if
• 28:01
  you want the, if you want the job, you follow the rules of the
• 28:05
  company. You go through the company
• 28:06
  policy. When the boss says you take a
• 28:08
  one hour break, you don't take a 2 hour break.
• 28:11
  So that's just been my foundation for Judaism.
• 28:15
  It's how I project Judaism. Yeah.
• 28:19
  Some people don't want to hear the truth.
• 28:21
  They want to hear, oh, you're such a Sonic, you know, but
• 28:24
  that's I, I find that very detrimental in, in life.
• 28:28
  I mean, it's why, you know, the kid that's, you know, looking at
• 28:31
  caterpillars in left field and, and every ball that comes to
• 28:35
  him, you know, goes over his head.
• 28:37
  He gets the same trophy that Johnny gets that hit 52 home
• 28:40
  runs in Little League. And then, you know, everyone
• 28:43
  knows it's a problem this, you know, like pampered generation.
• 28:47
  But then they, they don't see any problem with extending that
• 28:50
  to Judaism. I'm not saying I, you know,
• 28:53
  whack people over the head and you know, oh, you're.
• 28:55
  All sinners? No, but just be real.
• 28:57
  Just be real. And I tell people and I always
• 28:59
  try to tell people, do not ever think I'm like coming to you
• 29:03
  from a high horse because I, I'd say specifically to them.
• 29:06
  My favorite day of the year used to be Yom Kippur because I, you
• 29:10
  know, we were closed at at work and I knew I could do coke and
• 29:14
  watch terrible things on the Internet and no one would bother
• 29:16
  me for 24 hours. No phone calls.
• 29:19
  I knew, you know, we're coming. So I get it.
• 29:24
  I've been there. But you have to understand that
• 29:27
  there's a truth to the world and it's a sham's truth.
• 29:30
  You have to understand that there's there is a way out.
• 29:33
  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it doesn't come
• 29:35
  from fluff, doesn't come from lying to people or twisting the
• 29:39
  Torah. And I'll just say one quick
• 29:42
  story that I, that I'd like to say when they were inaugurating
• 29:47
  the Philadelphia, you know, yeshiva's, you know, like the
• 29:49
  elementary school, they brought Rav, you know, Yaakov
• 29:52
  Kamenetsky, I was on to, you know, for the inauguration.
• 29:56
  So he goes to the, to the kindergarten and he sees it, the
• 29:59
  mezuzahs like 2 feet off the floor, 2, three feet off the off
• 30:04
  the floor. So he says to the teacher, you
• 30:07
  know, no voraciousness. And oh, we thought it would be
• 30:10
  cute that the kids would come in and they'd be able to kiss the
• 30:13
  mezuza just like their abbizen and Ima's.
• 30:16
  He said, that's great. So bring a chair and, you know,
• 30:20
  put them as those are where it's supposed to be halachically.
• 30:23
  Bring a chair and teach the kids that they come up to the Torah.
• 30:26
  The Torah doesn't come down to them.
• 30:28
  I found that to be the most beautiful mushroom ever.
• 30:34
  I, I say it, I say it so many times because I can't think of a
• 30:37
  better, you know, specifically because it's, it's Kinnock to,
• 30:41
  to young children. You teach at a young age that
• 30:44
  you rise up to the Torah, not the other way around.
• 30:48
  It's something to strive for. We, we don't need to continue to
• 30:51
  sully the Torah and lessen the Torah to fit every little new
• 30:55
  fad and, and hiccup and bump in the road.
• 30:59
  We rise up to the Torah. And that's basically been my
• 31:04
  outreach. If you know method for you know
• 31:08
  what 18 years now. Basically so that that, that
• 31:13
  every single word he just said was was gold.
• 31:17
  When a couple of years back I had a small Banasmanam, which is
• 31:22
  vacation for people that are that's coming up in Caldwell.
• 31:26
  Yeah, yeah. But so my wife was really,
• 31:32
  really wanted me to take a break because usually Banasmanam, I
• 31:35
  don't take a break. I should but my wife knows knows
• 31:38
  better and doctor Jordan Peterson who I'm a big fan of
• 31:42
  and he has occupied lots of my car rides was coming here to
• 31:47
  Israel and and giving a lecture. So I was like Oh my gosh, you
• 31:51
  got to go. And I was like no I can't I'm
• 31:53
  busy. Plus like 200 bucks a ticket.
• 31:56
  So anyways my wife did whatever every good rabbitson does.
• 32:00
  She says OK and immediately proceeded to buy the ticket
• 32:02
  didn't tell me just sent me an e-mail the next day.
• 32:04
  Oh, you better go, you're going to waste the ticket.
• 32:07
  And I went and it was amazing. And you know, my wife is, is the
• 32:10
  best. He said something at that
• 32:12
  lecture. That's I I I must have said it a
• 32:14
  million times, but it slapped me in the face so good.
• 32:19
  He. Said, you know, when Moses goes
• 32:22
  to the Pharaoh, he doesn't say the famous line in the early
• 32:28
  1900s, Charles, let my people go.
• 32:30
  That's not what he says. He says, let my people go to
• 32:34
  serve me in the wilderness. There's a difference between
• 32:37
  anarchy, which is I'll do whatever I want.
• 32:39
  People are miserable, unlimited truths.
• 32:41
  Everyone's correct all the time, right?
• 32:43
  Postmodernism, but people are miserable because of that.
• 32:46
  And then there's something called structure.
• 32:47
  Structure isn't holding a gun to your head.
• 32:49
  Structure is if, if especially if you have a good one is these
• 32:53
  are the rules to help you be happy.
• 32:55
  These are the rules to help you be successful.
• 32:57
  These are the rules to help you be tell them to be the person
• 33:00
  that you're supposed to be. They're not supposed to hurt
• 33:02
  you. They're supposed to help you.
• 33:03
  They're supposed to make sure that you succeed.
• 33:05
  And and I so resonate with the thing that you said, you know,
• 33:09
  as part of being rabbinic, you know, you work with different
• 33:11
  therapists. And there's one therapist that I
• 33:13
  started working with and it was just a very frustrating
• 33:15
  experience because they kept telling the clients you're
• 33:18
  perfect, just the way you are, You're just the way you are.
• 33:21
  And I just think that that's so bad.
• 33:22
  So to quote Doctor Peterson again, one of the best talks
• 33:25
  that I really love that he ever gave, he says, you know, some
• 33:28
  people will come to you as as a as a patient and be like, you
• 33:33
  know, I'm suicidal, I'm depressed, I don't want to do
• 33:36
  anything and I'm not happy with my life.
• 33:39
  And so he he mocks this sort of ideology.
• 33:41
  He says, well, you're perfect just the way you are.
• 33:43
  He says, no, you're not perfect just the way you are.
• 33:45
  You're horrible. You're in a really low spot.
• 33:47
  You're a bad person, you know, but, but you don't have to be.
• 33:51
  You don't have to be, you don't have to be suicidal.
• 33:53
  You don't have to be depressed. You can now go on a journey and
• 33:55
  become something. And that's so push it the truth,
• 33:59
  right? Like every big what name one big
• 34:02
  person that was just like, I'm perfect.
• 34:04
  I just came out perfect. There's no one like that, right?
• 34:07
  They all became someone side that you're you're saving the
• 34:10
  world with these sort of these sort of biologies.
• 34:12
  So also. It takes story is awesome.
• 34:14
  It also takes I just did a a sheer maybe a month ago on on
• 34:21
  like sacrifice, not Cor Bono's, but so I I listed I I found like
• 34:27
  6 amazing quotes from from top athletes.
• 34:30
  You know, Michael Phelps, Serena Williams on what they gave up in
• 34:36
  life to achieve. Michael Phelps said, you have no
• 34:39
  idea what I lost. I there's no prom there.
• 34:41
  I had no teenage years, he said, but I wouldn't give.
• 34:44
  I wouldn't trade what I have for the world.
• 34:47
  They had a goal. So what's the goal of every Jew?
• 34:50
  You know, the goal should be to to be to be holy, to to be a
• 34:56
  kadosh that that should be the goal.
• 34:58
  That should be the goal that we're teaching all of these
• 35:00
  kids. We're the literally the the
• 35:02
  Colonel Rebbe is is your site was so we're slow MO Carlin
• 35:06
  right. So because the outside was last
• 35:07
  week, he said the biggest sin for a Jew is to forget that he's
• 35:12
  the child of royalty is to forget that you're the Prince.
• 35:16
  Why does everyone hate Prince Harry?
• 35:18
  Because he's. That loser left the, you know,
• 35:21
  left the monarchy, you know, moved to LA.
• 35:24
  He. Was.
• 35:25
  Royalty, right? We're the children of royalty.
• 35:28
  But but it, it comes with, you know, all the, all the benefits,
• 35:33
  all the perks of being the Prince, It comes with
• 35:35
  responsibility. We have to, you know, the, the
• 35:39
  goal is to get this, this generation to, you know, to rise
• 35:42
  up and, and just realize our potential.
• 35:45
  We have so much potential. It's just being, you know, I, I,
• 35:50
  I feel like the religious world is, is just we're, we're, we're
• 35:54
  continuing to make the Torah something that it's not.
• 35:58
  And I, I don't think it's helpful at all.
• 36:01
  I mean, that's, that's my main thing.
• 36:03
  I, I try to, you know, to mention it in every episode.
• 36:06
  Shlomo Malik says there's only one thing you have control over
• 36:09
  in life, fearing A sham and, and doing his mitzvahs.
• 36:13
  You know, that's Kahala's 12:13. And then the last one is cuz
• 36:16
  everyone is going to be judged whether good or bad for their
• 36:18
  life. That I mean, he literally sums
• 36:20
  up his life in a nutshell. He says I had all the women, I
• 36:23
  had all the horses, I had all the gold, I had everything, but
• 36:26
  nothing mattered. You know, heaven, heavenly,
• 36:29
  nothing mattered other than, you know, feeding your soul.
• 36:34
  We do everything for the body. Every new Botox, every new diet,
• 36:37
  every new whatever. What are people doing, you know,
• 36:40
  for their soul? So I'll share with you something
• 36:45
  that drives me mad because you're talking about the
• 36:47
  religious world. And I, and I preface this by
• 36:48
  saying I'm critical of the religious world, not because I
• 36:51
  dislike it. I think the religious world is
• 36:53
  the best world in existence. I criticize because I care about
• 36:55
  it so much and want it to be better.
• 36:58
  But the Hova Salava is one of the most prized medieval writers
• 37:04
  in Jewish philosophy. So he named his book The Duties
• 37:08
  of the Heart. And he, I mean, he was a very
• 37:11
  big rabbi. And he talks about the
• 37:12
  importance of following halafa, which is the duties of the limbs
• 37:15
  right to do mitzvahs. But he says, just remember, he
• 37:18
  says this in his introduction, I think a few times.
• 37:20
  It's like doing the mitzvahs is kind of nothing in comparison to
• 37:24
  the duties of the heart, meaning the person that you are and your
• 37:26
  relationship with God. Like that's the most important
• 37:30
  thing. Of course, you know, if there's,
• 37:32
  there's physical rules to that, but never forget that, that the
• 37:36
  most important thing is your relationship to God.
• 37:38
  And I feel that sometimes in the religious world, we forget that.
• 37:42
  So you know, I'm a Roche Kolel. So one of the things that I try
• 37:45
  to push in my Kolel is guys, we're learning halacha be Ian,
• 37:50
  we're learning codex is really from the verses to all the
• 37:54
  Talmuds to the medieval commentaries that the whole 9
• 37:57
  yards for like 9 hours. I'm like, guys, at the end of
• 37:59
  the day, just give me 15 minutes, 15 minutes of deep
• 38:04
  thought. Open up a Jewish philosophy
• 38:06
  book. It can be Hova Solovos, it can
• 38:08
  be Rama, Maimonides, Nachmanides, I don't care.
• 38:11
  Just give me 15 minutes and the kickback like the the guy's
• 38:15
  like, no, I want to do 15 more minutes of Allah.
• 38:17
  No, I, I have to understand that more.
• 38:19
  But I was like, no, you're met. You're missing it.
• 38:21
  You're missing it because you need that you need to be plugged
• 38:24
  in. If you're not plugged in, like
• 38:26
  right, you're, it doesn't matter if you're religious or not, if
• 38:28
  you're missing your connection with God singing like it's
• 38:31
  robotic and it's wrong, it's just wrong.
• 38:34
  But how? But how do you, how do you
• 38:35
  address that though? What do you think's the way when
• 38:37
  how can we get people to Jew, not Jew, religious, not
• 38:41
  religious? How can we get the message of,
• 38:43
  you know, our relationship with God is so crucial.
• 38:47
  What's the way to do that? I mean.
• 38:49
  I think just looking at life logically, you have between 100
• 38:54
  and 500 trillion connections in the brain.
• 38:56
  There's two million things that make the eye work.
• 38:58
  If if you think that this perfect supercomputer was put in
• 39:03
  this world to binge watch every new Netflix series, then that's
• 39:07
  a that's a horrifying and tragic way to live because I did that.
• 39:12
  I mean, my off days, I either played golf or I would literally
• 39:15
  sit in the couch and watch like 18 hours of forensic files just
• 39:20
  one after and, and, and I felt OK, like I, I did something.
• 39:25
  Taylor, people need to understand that that the world
• 39:30
  cannot exist without you. You know, if you are living and
• 39:35
  breathing right now, there is some purpose to your life.
• 39:38
  There's some goal to achieve. There's something meaningful you
• 39:41
  can add to the world. That alone.
• 39:44
  I, I think people are just lacking, you know, spiritual
• 39:49
  self esteem. I feel like just people, you
• 39:51
  know, they, they see a big influencer now this Chabad, you
• 39:56
  know, whatever's got 250,000. Every word that he says is
• 40:00
  being, you know, blasted to different.
• 40:03
  And what am I doing? Every little, you know, mitzvah
• 40:07
  that we do literally changes the world.
• 40:10
  You're, we're creating a new reality for the world.
• 40:13
  I, I don't think people feel empowered enough.
• 40:17
  I, I think that's, that's one thing.
• 40:18
  I I, I don't think that we that we do a good enough job
• 40:22
  teaching. Some of the basics like for
• 40:26
  instance, Pierre K Alvos, every single one of Pierre K Alvos,
• 40:29
  you know, all the machinimas and Pierre K Alvos, they all are
• 40:32
  very like logical and common sense.
• 40:35
  And then you, you, you read it again and you read it again and
• 40:38
  you realize that the level of depth that there's such
• 40:42
  foundational principles that we, I feel like Skip, I feel so much
• 40:46
  of modern Judaism now is like skipping the pillars and the
• 40:51
  foundations of. Let's.
• 40:53
  Get people excited about Judaism, You know, Judaism isn't
• 40:56
  just, you know, looking at one line of Gemara, let's have
• 41:01
  better Shabboses. Let's give Sedaka with more, you
• 41:05
  know, with more joy. We're, we're just, we're missing
• 41:09
  so much of, of the beauty of, of Judaism.
• 41:12
  I, I feel like it's just become, you know, rote for so many
• 41:16
  people. Just one week goes to the next
• 41:19
  and yeah, I, I feel like that's a big problem.
• 41:26
  I, I don't think people feel like they're that they're that
• 41:28
  meaningful in the world. And oh, there there's 15,000,000
• 41:33
  Jews. I'm, I'm one of 15,000,000.
• 41:34
  Yeah, but you have, you are literally a child of a Shem.
• 41:40
  You can change the world. You you can, I mean, you can
• 41:43
  literally alter the reality of the world every little yeah, I
• 41:47
  just did a whole lecture on the, on the ripple effects.
• 41:50
  You know, just you throw a Pebble into the into a pond, you
• 41:53
  get a little ripple effect. You throw a boulder into a pond,
• 41:57
  you know, you get a little. I, I, I wish people just realize
• 42:02
  that if, if God created you, you're, you're essential, you're
• 42:06
  priceless. And, and there's, there's
• 42:09
  something so purposeful that you can do.
• 42:12
  And I think in this generation of, of just, you know,
• 42:15
  everything is how many social media followers you have or, you
• 42:19
  know, how many books have you written?
• 42:21
  I, I feel like people don't think that the, the basic, you
• 42:25
  know, day-to-day activities are, are as meaningful as they
• 42:30
  actually are. I think that's unfortunately a
• 42:33
  big problem. What would you tell someone that
• 42:36
  is religious and doesn't understand this?
• 42:38
  He's stuck. He's stuck on that kotos which
• 42:41
  which is beautiful in its own right, but how do you open up
• 42:44
  his eyes to to the appreciation of how important he is and how
• 42:48
  much he can work on his deep emotional and spiritual
• 42:52
  connection with our Creator? So why do we walk back three
• 42:56
  steps at the end of Dominic, Right?
• 42:59
  Nebuchadnezzar literally walk three steps in honor of Hashem.
• 43:03
  He was given the most tranquil, peaceful, like 40-50 year reign
• 43:08
  for literally 3. There's so many clues in the,
• 43:12
  you know, in the Torah and the Gemara, how such little things
• 43:17
  like have such long lasting, you know, I, I feel like
• 43:21
  highlighting some of those and, and just, I feel like there's
• 43:25
  beautiful stories out there of, you know, a rabbi that just made
• 43:31
  a, a, a child feel good when he wasn't, you know, maybe learning
• 43:35
  so well, but but made him, you know, feel important in another
• 43:38
  area. And then this kid becomes, you
• 43:41
  know, there's so many examples like that.
• 43:42
  I, I, I feel like we're so, you know, the top learner, the, the,
• 43:46
  the top rabbi, the guttle adore, like these are the only people
• 43:49
  that matter. And and you know, every company
• 43:52
  has the guys in the mail room, the, the, the CEO, the CFO, but
• 43:57
  but a company can't function without everyone.
• 44:00
  And, and, and I also just, you know, one thing I like about
• 44:04
  Bresl, I'm not Bresliv, but you know, if you're a musical, then
• 44:09
  use music in the service of Hashem.
• 44:12
  If you're good with your hands, be be the best, you know, guy
• 44:17
  that you did him or or whatever like that.
• 44:21
  If if Shem wanted everyone to be Rob Konievsky, we'd all be
• 44:25
  given, you know, a photographic memory.
• 44:27
  But we're not. I've always since I was what in
• 44:31
  in in fifth grade, my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Chagrou pulled me
• 44:34
  out of class one time and told me that I I was like Hitler.
• 44:40
  And and I took it as a really big compliment because as a big
• 44:42
  World War 2 buff, like he meant you are very charismatic.
• 44:46
  You're an unbelievable speaker and you can get people around
• 44:49
  you to do what you want. Of course, my mom got him fired
• 44:52
  the next day, but I took that as a compliment.
• 44:56
  And I remember I'm sure you know Rabbi Schaefer from the
• 44:58
  schmooze. So Rabbi Schaefer and I were in
• 45:01
  his like his studio one time and he just, this was I think 2015.
• 45:08
  And he said to me, Eliakam, do you take like voice lessons or
• 45:13
  something? He said it might still like I'm
• 45:15
  hanging on your every word. He's like you.
• 45:19
  You have such an amazing like captivated by your and I was
• 45:23
  thinking, you know, so so I need to start doing something more.
• 45:26
  We all have gifts. There's no one in the world that
• 45:28
  doesn't have a gift. People, you know, they, they
• 45:32
  just they're they're not finding their their gifts.
• 45:35
  They're, they're so distracted in life with, with so many
• 45:39
  things that are unimportant that everyone has such a beautiful
• 45:43
  gift that they can use to uplift, you know, forget about
• 45:46
  just the world, but themselves or their.
• 45:48
  Families Their. Families, they're just, I don't
• 45:51
  think people have enough spiritual self esteem.
• 45:55
  I, I think that's a big problem and I think it's something that
• 45:58
  should be, you know, really focused on early on.
• 46:04
  I mean, this should be something that every kid, you know, I'm
• 46:07
  sure it's not so hard for rabbis to identify kids in the class
• 46:11
  that OK, this kid has unbelievable.
• 46:13
  So let's develop that you. Know, right, But what would you
• 46:17
  tell an adult, though? Is an adult, say your age and
• 46:20
  he's stuck in this loop? What would you tell him?
• 46:22
  What's the In other words, what's the way out?
• 46:25
  The way out is first, I think making that decision.
• 46:32
  I I like to always, you know, do the life in reverse when you're
• 46:37
  on your deathbed, like say you're, you're given one more
• 46:41
  day to live. You look back on your life.
• 46:44
  What things are you? What things would you wish?
• 46:47
  I wish I didn't work as much I wish I was around my family
• 46:49
  more. Why does it have to take, you
• 46:52
  know, getting that cancer, you know, diagnosis Costa Shalom or
• 46:56
  a serious car accident? You know, Torah is the is the
• 47:01
  smelling salts of life. But why does it need to be
• 47:03
  administered to you? We, we, we should be able to
• 47:06
  wake ourselves up. We should want more.
• 47:09
  That's why I always harp on the net for every episode.
• 47:11
  I say the Netflix thing because that's, you know, I, I, I see
• 47:17
  just on social media people's excitement.
• 47:18
  Oh my God, season 2 of whatever is coming out.
• 47:22
  Well, I just watched 151 part series from Rabbi and Toronto.
• 47:27
  It was an 80 hour series. I watched it in 2 1/2 weeks.
• 47:31
  And I also have that that joy. It's getting them to flip the
• 47:35
  things they already have in life just to something more
• 47:41
  spiritual. But I think the first question
• 47:43
  is just that, is this what you want out of life?
• 47:46
  Are you content in life? And I, I don't think anyone
• 47:49
  that's not, and even people that are religious can, can honestly
• 47:52
  say that they're content in life, that they're happy where
• 47:55
  they are. And like, they might be a multi
• 47:57
  millionaire and have the big house and the nice, you know,
• 48:00
  Ferrari. But inside it's an impossibility
• 48:04
  that if they're not filling their life with spirituality,
• 48:07
  that they're, that they're contented life.
• 48:09
  It it's just an impossibility with the Torah.
• 48:11
  It, it's not possible. God did not create the world
• 48:14
  that you can have an inner sense of peace, you know, without
• 48:19
  filling that you know your soul up with with with spirituality.
• 48:24
  Let's shift gears a little bit. I'm going to ask you a question,
• 48:26
  which I'm sure you've gotten before.
• 48:29
  What is it about drugs that make it so impossible?
• 48:35
  I mean, feeling good is feeling good, but I'm, I'm not eating
• 48:37
  ice cream all day. I know that's a far cry from
• 48:40
  cocaine, but can you unpack the experience a little bit?
• 48:44
  So, I mean, ecstasy is called ecstasy for a reason.
• 48:49
  You take it within 15 minutes. You're just, I mean, chemically
• 48:55
  in your head, you're you're, you just feel good.
• 48:58
  I mean, that's, that's just the easiest answer.
• 49:02
  You feel very, very good. And then even though, even
• 49:06
  though you know. Your life isn't different.
• 49:07
  Like, you know that nothing's changed in your life.
• 49:09
  But you're just like I'm, I'm. I'm just on the top of the
• 49:11
  world. Yeah.
• 49:12
  It's, it's an, it's an escape, it's an escape.
• 49:14
  It's, you know, if you get a good, a good pill, it was a 6-8
• 49:18
  hour, sometimes 12, just escape from life.
• 49:23
  And I think that's really the, the biggest thing with drugs is,
• 49:26
  is like it's an escape hatch. And people, they can do that and
• 49:30
  not confront their true selves. I mean, that's, that's a big
• 49:35
  problem. Very few people can look in the
• 49:38
  mirror and actually like confront themselves and say, OK,
• 49:42
  I'm not living life right, or I'm not actually happy or people
• 49:45
  might think that I'm this, but I'm actually this and then put
• 49:49
  in the effort to change. So drugs is basically just
• 49:52
  preventing yourself from having to look in the mirror.
• 49:54
  I mean, that's literally what it is.
• 49:56
  It starts out as fun and then becomes a crutch.
• 49:58
  Oh, I had a bad day. Oh, my boss talked to me a
• 50:01
  certain way. Oh, my wife looked at me funny.
• 50:03
  Oh, my kid, you know, left the Lego on the ground.
• 50:06
  I stepped on it. OK, I'll go do cocaine.
• 50:09
  It it it starts out as something that it doesn't know it.
• 50:13
  It doesn't last like that. It ends up becoming the crutch
• 50:17
  to life. But you feel good.
• 50:20
  Do you miss? It ever.
• 50:21
  Do I miss it? It's not that I miss doing it.
• 50:27
  It's just, you know, something that's 1015 years, a part of
• 50:31
  your life. You know, sometimes I'll have
• 50:33
  dreams about it. Sometimes I'll, you know, just
• 50:36
  remember, I don't miss it now. But when I think about, I think
• 50:42
  of all the like hash Kaka, I mean, almost anywhere that I
• 50:47
  ever was in very weird places. If I asked the person next to me
• 50:51
  if they had cocaine, they always did.
• 50:53
  Like I, I see such a miracle, like weird places that you would
• 50:58
  never think that this person and I don't even know why I would
• 51:00
  ask, but Hashem always just so I I don't I don't miss it.
• 51:09
  It, it's just, it, it's, it was such a part of life that it's,
• 51:13
  you know, sometimes you think back and like, oh, you know what
• 51:16
  that was, That was a fun night. But I, I, I, I think of it now,
• 51:21
  like in its proper place, like Brokershem.
• 51:24
  It happened in my 20s or in my teens and it led me to this.
• 51:30
  I think for someone like me, that's, that's always seeking
• 51:34
  something that was very helpful to have that passed.
• 51:38
  Like I'm not ashamed of it at all.
• 51:39
  I don't ever, you know, I never tell people, oh, it wasn't fun.
• 51:43
  It was a lot of fun. You know, I never told people I
• 51:45
  didn't have any good time. There were many, many good
• 51:49
  times. It felt really, really good.
• 51:51
  But it's it, it's a, it's a fake, you know, it's a fake
• 51:56
  high. It's not a meaningful, you know,
• 51:58
  it's not, it's not anything meaningful.
• 52:00
  The goal is to fill your life. I mean, I was I.
• 52:02
  Was more, I was more asking, I guess, is there ever dark times
• 52:06
  that come up and you're just like, oh, I wish I could get an
• 52:08
  escape. Is that does that happen And you
• 52:10
  do you think that that's natural?
• 52:14
  Honestly, since I've been a father Brokersham no, it it it
• 52:19
  hasn't. I mean, look, I I like to I like
• 52:24
  to have a look. I'm like the next guy.
• 52:27
  But Coke is, is like, it's so destructive in my life that I, I
• 52:34
  feel like that first doing it that first time would just, if
• 52:39
  you're saying like on a theoretical level, like, yeah,
• 52:41
  OK, it was a tough whatever, yeah, I wouldn't mind sitting
• 52:44
  down and just, yeah, maybe. But from like a realistic level
• 52:48
  that that's just I, I'm not the kind of person that could just
• 52:52
  do it. And I know of religious people
• 52:54
  in, you know, in Israel that recreationally do it, but I, I'm
• 52:58
  not that, I'm not that kind of person.
• 53:01
  I don't have, I don't have that guardrail.
• 53:04
  You know, the, the myths from putting the guardrail on the
• 53:06
  roof. I need a like a, you know,
• 53:08
  soundproof wall around the roof when it comes to that.
• 53:11
  So no, but I do remember the times just, you know, it's an
• 53:16
  exciting, you know, going into the bathroom and doing it at A
• 53:20
  at a nightclub or something. Poke is different from other
• 53:24
  drugs. It was more of A and, and to be
• 53:26
  honest, a lot of it was just a lifestyle.
• 53:29
  You know, that's part of the high is just, you know, getting
• 53:34
  it and then doing it at a club and and sharing it with a girl
• 53:40
  that you just met that that's a lot of the the high with with a
• 53:45
  lot of these drugs. It's more of a lifestyle.
• 53:47
  You know, you see it on the movies and it it seems cool.
• 53:51
  But yeah, I mean, there's there's for sure times, I think
• 53:53
  in anyone's life, they wish they could just escape for, you know,
• 53:56
  mentally. But it it's it's, you know, it's
• 53:58
  not realistic. We have to at some point, but I.
• 54:00
  Don't know what that's like. Like I've never done any drugs,
• 54:03
  so I can't, I can't think back like, Oh my gosh, I wish I had
• 54:06
  that experience again. Right.
• 54:07
  That's what I think is so hard. I'm I'm, I'm, I'm assuming you
• 54:10
  can correct me. That's why I think it's so hard
• 54:12
  for people that have been on drugs when they get off of it,
• 54:15
  because even if they do, you can be 30 years out from that and be
• 54:18
  like, I could just escape. I could run away from this thing
• 54:21
  for sure. For sure, right?
• 54:24
  Now, Akash Barhu created this. So do you think that there is
• 54:28
  meaning drugs? I mean, technically a coach
• 54:30
  Barkal created Tama also. That doesn't mean that we should
• 54:33
  be, you know, right, putting ourselves in the middle of
• 54:35
  Vegas. But what I am saying, what I am
• 54:37
  asking is especially since I don't understand drug use, do
• 54:40
  you think that there's ever a place for drug use in religious
• 54:44
  life? Look, we do have in Purim, you
• 54:46
  know, hive initial bassume. So we have being drunk one day
• 54:50
  of the year or both saying OK, but do you think that there's
• 54:53
  any positive aspects of drugs? So I know of a rabbi and
• 54:58
  Ushalayim that he does like psychedelic type, like trips.
• 55:08
  I mean, literally like a trip out to the forest.
• 55:10
  But you know, they're they're tripping on on I think it's
• 55:13
  mushrooms. And yeah, I lived in Natanya
• 55:18
  with a lot of like Breslavish leaning, you know, Kevrat at
• 55:26
  this Libyan show was actually the shul of, you know, Ravi
• 55:28
  Amos, who was just murdered last week.
• 55:33
  And, you know, they're into to different drugs and they, they
• 55:38
  talk about it like it's helping them spiritually.
• 55:42
  I, I just, I don't want to say that it, that it doesn't, but I
• 55:48
  if, if you need that to get closer to a sham, I personally
• 55:55
  feel like there might be something lacking in the, in the
• 55:58
  Judaism, but I'm, I'm, I'm not condemning because I, I, I know
• 56:01
  a lot of people that are doing it.
• 56:04
  Well, think about it. You have Shabbos, I have
• 56:06
  Shabbos. That's that's that's one way of
• 56:07
  pleasure onic of getting closer to Tashem.
• 56:09
  But you know, we couldn't, we couldn't do otherwise.
• 56:11
  Maybe I, I, I'm speaking from total ignorance, but maybe there
• 56:14
  is a pathway there. Maybe there is a way of
• 56:17
  connecting Tashem with just such pure pleasure that that's part
• 56:23
  of the reason why it's there. Look.
• 56:24
  There's a lot of, you know, religious Jews on that and, and
• 56:32
  a lot of rabbis that are saying, I mean, I don't particularly
• 56:35
  know these rabbis, but I, I, I do see that there is a, within
• 56:40
  the last few years there's, and also some psychologists now I
• 56:46
  know in Israel are recommending certain mind altering drugs to
• 56:54
  help people with depression or whatever.
• 56:59
  I just know from experience, once you, once you open, you
• 57:03
  know, that gate that it takes a lot to like rein it in it.
• 57:08
  It takes a lot to make sure that it, it doesn't, you know, fall
• 57:13
  off the deep end. So look, there's a there's a
• 57:17
  benefit of everything in the world.
• 57:19
  There's a plus and A minus of everything in the world, I
• 57:23
  think. Yeah, I'm sure some people, I
• 57:24
  mean, just friends that I know that that, that do this and
• 57:27
  they, they claim it's amazing and they feel so much more
• 57:31
  spiritual and they're a better father and a better whatever.
• 57:34
  I mean, they're not doing it. You know, it's, it's so like
• 57:36
  once every whatever. But for me personally, it's I
• 57:42
  stay as far away from that as I can.
• 57:46
  So my, my personal experience opinion, excuse me, is that it
• 57:51
  shouldn't be allowed. I mean, I, I can't talk about
• 57:53
  the psychology and therapy, the therapeutic side of it because I
• 57:55
  don't know enough about it. We did have an episode on that
• 57:58
  though, But it's quite clear that we've known about, I mean,
• 58:03
  humans have known about drugs for a very long time.
• 58:06
  I don't think it's by accident that the Gemara will talk about
• 58:10
  everything. I will talk about meat falling
• 58:12
  from the sky, right? Right.
• 58:14
  But it hasn't doesn't talk about drugs once, right?
• 58:19
  So I think that that's somewhat telling.
• 58:21
  Yeah, I mean, there's a woman in Israel that does a health
• 58:24
  podcast. So I used to do a Torah like
• 58:27
  intro and and like extra for her.
• 58:30
  So one of the episodes was marijuana.
• 58:34
  And I scoured the, you know, doing the research.
• 58:38
  I didn't find one whole like dispensation for for even that
• 58:43
  0. So.
• 58:46
  I've been look for my wife, she was given like just liquid THC
• 58:52
  just for the pain. So yeah, so I'm saying that is
• 58:56
  something that that I know that is that is like a luckily
• 59:00
  permissible, but I didn't find one just oh, I think I can get
• 59:04
  closer to sham by smoking weed. So let's, I, I didn't find one
• 59:07
  and, and trust me, I tried not not for myself, but just like,
• 59:11
  you know, I had like a couple 100 friends that I know are, are
• 59:14
  now like, oh, come on, there has to be 1, like 1 rush of your
• 59:18
  toaster. I said, no, I didn't find
• 59:20
  anything. I said, if you find something,
• 59:21
  let me know. I don't think it's a good idea.
• 59:24
  I don't think it's a good idea. And even with wine, you know the
• 59:29
  that the Talmud's very specific with, you know, it didn't work.
• 59:34
  Out so great for Noah. Right, right.
• 59:38
  Or Raba and Rob Zahra at their poem.
• 59:41
  Yeah, yeah. So yeah.
• 59:44
  We we can't just bring people back from the dead like that.
• 59:46
  Yeah, I would not try that at all.
• 59:47
  But I. I think I think the yearning for
• 59:50
  that in this generation, and I think seeing more it, it's
• 59:55
  because there's something missing in the religious world
• 59:58
  like this new push of like people going out with the rabbi
• 1:00:03
  and and doing mushrooms or, or doing.
• 1:00:06
  If if their spiritual like contentment, yeah, I don't
• 1:00:11
  think. So you don't think?
• 1:00:12
  So I hear you, but. I don't I no, I think it's a
• 1:00:14
  social media, movies and video games thing really.
• 1:00:17
  I mean, think about it. You know, there's a there's a
• 1:00:18
  Gemara on brothos, which is like terrifying.
• 1:00:22
  But the Gemara on brothos basically says that a person if
• 1:00:26
  you dress him up and bathe him and you give him 100 shekel and
• 1:00:31
  you put him next to, you know, next to Bezona, he's an ones.
• 1:00:35
  He's for sure going to say right.
• 1:00:37
  And people have unfiltered, you know, phones in their pocket and
• 1:00:41
  they're 1314 years. Old.
• 1:00:43
  Like I think that it's just pleasure all the time.
• 1:00:46
  And when you have every single game and every single
• 1:00:49
  inappropriate thing and every single movie and every single
• 1:00:51
  music and, and you're just like, Oh my gosh, there has to be
• 1:00:53
  something more intense than unlimited pleasure, right?
• 1:00:57
  There has to be like like peak pleasure.
• 1:00:59
  So that's what I think. I think that's what I think
• 1:01:01
  people are looking for, but I could be wrong.
• 1:01:03
  And I think that's why Rabaim have to go to these lengths
• 1:01:06
  because they're going to do it anyway, right?
• 1:01:09
  Like, yeah, it's true. The 70s was let's go to the
• 1:01:12
  disco. But now it's, I mean, there's so
• 1:01:16
  many people that are just on fentanyl or, you know, all these
• 1:01:19
  different things. It's so accessible and it's so
• 1:01:22
  much easier to get too, right? Just like all those things that
• 1:01:25
  I mentioned before are easy to get because they're in your
• 1:01:26
  pocket. These things you could just like
• 1:01:27
  set from what I'm told, you just send a chat out, whatever it is
• 1:01:30
  and then boom, you know, 2 hours a lot.
• 1:01:32
  Of the stuff is legal now too. I mean, a lot of states, you
• 1:01:35
  know, you can, yeah. That's.
• 1:01:37
  Fantastic, it's a. Problem and I, I, I know just
• 1:01:39
  from people messaging me, you know, either after reading the
• 1:01:43
  book or whatever, that unfortunately drug use is
• 1:01:46
  becoming a much bigger problem than the, and the like ultra
• 1:01:50
  orthodox world. You think it's enough of a
• 1:01:54
  problem that like, people really need to know about it?
• 1:01:56
  Like is this is this underbelly issue that we're just ignoring?
• 1:02:00
  I think that it because we don't.
• 1:02:02
  Talk about it we don't talk about it I.
• 1:02:04
  Think that it is because I think if people don't understand how
• 1:02:09
  harmful it is that they might just think of it as OK, what's
• 1:02:13
  the big deal? I try it one time.
• 1:02:15
  You you can't some of these things you can't try one time
• 1:02:18
  you can't try heroin one time your your hook for life.
• 1:02:21
  That's why I never did it. I knew that that would be the
• 1:02:22
  end of me. I don't think it needs to be,
• 1:02:25
  you know, blasted over people's heads.
• 1:02:27
  But I think just ignoring it. I mean, just listening to a lot
• 1:02:30
  of these rabbis I listen to on, you know, on tour anytime within
• 1:02:34
  the last, I'd say year or two, I, I hear that it's a much
• 1:02:39
  bigger problem. And a lot of their communities,
• 1:02:44
  because like you said, it's much more accessible.
• 1:02:46
  They're seeing it everywhere. And, you know, I, I, it's a
• 1:02:52
  problem. How to deal with it.
• 1:02:54
  I, I really don't know, 'cause you bring it up so much, then,
• 1:02:57
  you know, then you make people curious, you don't bring it up
• 1:03:00
  at all. And it's like, OK, you're,
• 1:03:03
  you're sort of, you know, leaving a part of the stumbling
• 1:03:07
  block in front of the blind. I, I don't, I don't, I don't
• 1:03:12
  have the like depth of knowledge to, to know what to do with
• 1:03:15
  that. I'm not a, I'm not like a rabbi,
• 1:03:17
  But I mean, look, there could be a problem student in every class
• 1:03:22
  that that just, you know, unfortunately gets a lot of the
• 1:03:25
  other kids. I mean, that's typically what
• 1:03:27
  happens. It's just it's one kid.
• 1:03:28
  He's the, he's the cool kid, he's the whatever.
• 1:03:31
  And then, you know, it affects everyone around him.
• 1:03:34
  Yeah. I don't know.
• 1:03:35
  I mean, there's something I was so happy with in my daughter's
• 1:03:39
  school. She's in Bisayakov.
• 1:03:41
  And I think when she was six, they had a little bit of the
• 1:03:44
  talk, like, you know, you don't go with strange men.
• 1:03:48
  You know, you always speak to your parents because you know,
• 1:03:51
  strange men can hurt you and you need to be aware.
• 1:03:54
  And I actually loved that talk because it was real.
• 1:03:59
  And I so trust my very holy, you know, daughter's teacher,
• 1:04:04
  teaching her about that, then some other, you know, secular
• 1:04:07
  source or her not having the information and being
• 1:04:10
  confronted, but in different ways.
• 1:04:12
  I, I don't think you're far off. I think that that Rabam and even
• 1:04:16
  parents should be, we should be talking to our kids.
• 1:04:19
  I think that's where it needs to start on, you know, and, and by
• 1:04:22
  the way, not just that topic, taboo topics.
• 1:04:23
  Also, it's clear from the Gemara that that the hash guffa that
• 1:04:28
  that we're supposed to have towards, you know, private and
• 1:04:31
  intimate things as well as dangers from the world, they
• 1:04:33
  come from our parents. Our parents would teach us, but
• 1:04:35
  now our parents aren't teaching us.
• 1:04:37
  And where are we learning 90% if not 100% of that information,
• 1:04:41
  you know, from Google and YouTube, right.
• 1:04:43
  And, and that's a problem like I don't, I don't really need to
• 1:04:46
  know, you know, what the hash kafa is about hedonism from a
• 1:04:50
  hedonist. So I don't think, I don't think
• 1:04:53
  you're far off. I think that we can be teaching
• 1:04:54
  our, you know, our kids and incorporating that into the tour
• 1:04:57
  that I. Think forget about drugs, I
• 1:04:59
  think phones are the watching. Pornography was what drove my
• 1:05:06
  cocaine use, not the other way around really.
• 1:05:10
  Yeah. So like someone asked me once,
• 1:05:15
  because you're creating this false reality, I mean like your
• 1:05:19
  your vision of something holy is never the same again.
• 1:05:22
  What was the first intimacy in the Torah?
• 1:05:25
  Adam Yada Eshava, it's like a very interesting Adam yada
• 1:05:31
  Escova. You know, Bill Clinton didn't
• 1:05:33
  say I had knowledgeable relations with that Adam yada
• 1:05:38
  Escova. It it it's, it's such a
• 1:05:40
  purposeful, meaningful, it just is destroying.
• 1:05:45
  And I know that is a big problem in the in the world, including
• 1:05:49
  the religious world. Now that I I met a guy once at
• 1:05:52
  the sons Hotel Raidavan every morning and he was one of the
• 1:05:58
  like programmers behind a lot of the blocks and and filters.
• 1:06:03
  I think phones is is the biggest drug of them all.
• 1:06:06
  I, my son does not have any access to to a phone.
• 1:06:12
  I mean, I think that's the biggest danger.
• 1:06:15
  I, I think one thing he's 6 broker show and I remember, you
• 1:06:22
  know, after, after he was born, we were at the teller show
• 1:06:25
  mayor, like, you know, in Israel, they have hotels at the
• 1:06:28
  hospitals that you can stay for a few days.
• 1:06:31
  And I mean, it was amazing. And I remember one of the people
• 1:06:34
  that we became friendly with, they had a 2 year old and he
• 1:06:37
  said to me, Oh, you'll see that this is the best babysitter.
• 1:06:40
  And he just gave his son, you know, like an iPad or whatever.
• 1:06:42
  I remember saying to my wife like, that was my one red line
• 1:06:44
  when I, you know, when, when I was dating, I, I said, look,
• 1:06:49
  this is something that is beyond important to me.
• 1:06:52
  I, I do not want any phone or TV with, with a child is the
• 1:06:56
  biggest destruction. I said, take it.
• 1:06:59
  I'll tell you from experience way way worse than any drug.
• 1:07:03
  The drug will physically get you down mentally and spiritually.
• 1:07:07
  The phone will, will destroy and I have so many friends that,
• 1:07:10
  that, that I told that to and they said, you'll see, you know,
• 1:07:14
  that they all I, I had, I had a child, you know, right before I
• 1:07:16
  turned 40. So all my friends said you'll
• 1:07:19
  see. You're not going to be able to
• 1:07:20
  do it without a phone and, and putting them in front of movies.
• 1:07:23
  And I said, if, if it's something that's important, yes,
• 1:07:26
  you absolutely can, can do it. And a few of my friends have
• 1:07:30
  told me I, I wish that I had like, you're like tenacity for
• 1:07:34
  this because they said flat out, like my kids are ruined and, and
• 1:07:37
  I can't take the phone away from them now.
• 1:07:40
  They're like 10 and 12 and you know, there, there's nothing to
• 1:07:44
  do. The, the, the access that we
• 1:07:47
  have now to, to just, it's unbelievable.
• 1:07:51
  I remember my Roshi Shiva at or Samantha Muncie where I went my
• 1:07:58
  the the Rebbe in our in our class asked him once if he has a
• 1:08:01
  computer in his house and he said no, I would never be able
• 1:08:03
  to trust myself. And he said you learned 50 blot
• 1:08:07
  of Gamara a day. What do you mean you won't be
• 1:08:09
  able to trust yourself? He.
• 1:08:11
  Said you literally have. You know, like Gahanam in your
• 1:08:15
  home. Yep, said Saddam.
• 1:08:16
  And he said, why would you ever bring that into your into your
• 1:08:21
  home? You know, I, I have a phone now
• 1:08:24
  and, and, and, and that is the biggest gates Ahara, just like
• 1:08:31
  scrolling down on Facebook after posting, you know, one of my
• 1:08:34
  lectures. And I'm, I'm also trying to get
• 1:08:36
  off the, you know, the social media and just using it for
• 1:08:40
  exactly what I need to use it for is just, you know, posting
• 1:08:43
  the links and whatever. But look, with, with every you,
• 1:08:50
  you can see in this generation that the different type is that
• 1:08:53
  that we have and, and how readily accessible it is, which
• 1:08:56
  means there's also chance for so much potential.
• 1:08:59
  If there's chance for so much destruction, you know, call the
• 1:09:03
  home air, there's there's chance for so much and you're seeing
• 1:09:05
  this. I mean, it's, it's a promise in
• 1:09:07
  Maliki that there's a national promise that there will be a
• 1:09:10
  true, you know, Baochuva movement.
• 1:09:12
  It's not an individual promise. You know, the, the, the, the,
• 1:09:16
  the hearts of the sons will return to their fathers and
• 1:09:18
  fathers are. So we're seeing this now.
• 1:09:19
  We're seeing so many people on college campuses just getting
• 1:09:23
  excited because the, the lower you're going into the Stuss, you
• 1:09:27
  know, the, the more you can just say something and get any answer
• 1:09:32
  you wanted It like we're, we're driving, we're in Orlando right
• 1:09:34
  now. My son asked me how many cars
• 1:09:37
  are there in the world? So I said, you know, Siri, how,
• 1:09:44
  how many cars are there in the world?
• 1:09:46
  And you know, you, you get the answer.
• 1:09:49
  I mean, we, we don't have any remember growing up like having
• 1:09:52
  an encyclopedia and having to like, you know, oh, L OK, LA, we
• 1:09:58
  don't have any of that now. We're, we're, we're just like
• 1:10:02
  every year that goes by, they say that every two years
• 1:10:05
  technology double s. Like the, like the power and the
• 1:10:08
  scope of it double s. I mean, just from when I started
• 1:10:12
  College in, in 1998 until now, it, it's a whole different
• 1:10:17
  world. These kids are growing up in a
• 1:10:18
  whole different world and we need to catch up as as adults.
• 1:10:24
  And by the way, that's changing majorly with with artificial
• 1:10:27
  intelligence. Look, there's someone something
• 1:10:28
  that Rabbi Weisberg told me from a much lamo.
• 1:10:31
  It's so true. It says technology will always
• 1:10:34
  be the best servants, but the worst masters.
• 1:10:37
  So it's, you know, it's amazing on the one hand, like how much
• 1:10:42
  evil and toma I could just flip my, you know, I could just snap
• 1:10:46
  my fingers and have access. But you know what, I might I
• 1:10:48
  have a computer and on this computer I have something called
• 1:10:51
  Barilan. I have like thousands of Sparum
• 1:10:55
  at my finger to I don't even have to get up from my seat.
• 1:10:57
  And if I want to find something, I just control F That's right.
• 1:11:00
  That just took two hours of trying to find a source.
• 1:11:02
  I'm done. Right, Right.
• 1:11:03
  And the same thing with artificial intelligence, like
• 1:11:05
  you said, you know, you know, your son had a really
• 1:11:07
  interesting question, you know, yeah, I can give you an answer.
• 1:11:10
  And think about that at the same time, though, what could it be
• 1:11:12
  used for? So we definitely have a lot of
• 1:11:14
  catching up to do. But it's it's it's like you
• 1:11:16
  said, potential. There's so much potential, but
• 1:11:19
  but you're not going to be able to use potential for good if
• 1:11:20
  you're not, if you're not educating.
• 1:11:22
  I went to with my brother to the range once.
• 1:11:25
  I don't know if you fire guns, but I like to on occasion and.
• 1:11:29
  I've got my right next to them, yeah.
• 1:11:31
  Nice, nice. So I just.
• 1:11:34
  Got it. Actual and there's.
• 1:11:36
  Oh, really? Enjoy it.
• 1:11:38
  Enjoy it. So there was a target out 200
• 1:11:41
  feet away and I'm trying to shoot it with iron sights and it
• 1:11:45
  took me like I'm not a bad shot. I got to say it took me about
• 1:11:49
  10. You know, I had a 10 attempts
• 1:11:51
  before I was finally able to hit it, but I realized I was like,
• 1:11:55
  there's a goal. I really had to focus, right?
• 1:11:58
  Very hard to get that simple goal.
• 1:12:01
  Like if I'm going through life, that's that's going to be the
• 1:12:03
  same way. I'm not going to accidentally
• 1:12:05
  hit like 200 foot target, right, right.
• 1:12:08
  So if we want people to be responsible with this stuff,
• 1:12:10
  then I'll tell. You with AIII just made an
• 1:12:14
  avatar of myself in my Shabbos. You know, Streimel and
• 1:12:18
  Beckershire and I cloned my voice and I'm now using that to,
• 1:12:24
  I haven't perfected it yet, but I'm using it to give more Torah
• 1:12:27
  lectures. Because me personally, I can
• 1:12:29
  only do so much. But if I can write notes into a,
• 1:12:33
  you know, to a script and have this avatar do something for me,
• 1:12:38
  I can, I can crank out probably five times more to what I
• 1:12:41
  figured out. So like you said, it's a great
• 1:12:44
  servant. It's exactly what the knockouts
• 1:12:46
  was supposed to be. The Gomar says Shimabanasya says
• 1:12:49
  that the the Nakash was supposed to go to the South and get you
• 1:12:52
  pearls and then use it to tail the if you can harness it for
• 1:12:57
  good. Shem is giving this generation
• 1:12:59
  just unbelievable opportunity, like you said, for you to find a
• 1:13:04
  source. You now have an extra 20 minutes
• 1:13:08
  to do something else with. There's so much that's right
• 1:13:10
  mitzvah, you know, opportunities and I'm very big into like brass
• 1:13:15
  tacks, you know, for for my viewers, I want them to
• 1:13:18
  understand what's important. So, you know, the villain of
• 1:13:21
  Goins says 60,000 minutes was an hour learning Torah.
• 1:13:25
  So I always use that as, OK, what do you have control over in
• 1:13:28
  life? You have 15 minutes before
• 1:13:30
  you're leaving the house, you're going to sit there on your phone
• 1:13:32
  and scroll on Instagram and like every new video or you gonna,
• 1:13:37
  you know, go to tour anytime and and click a 15 minute video or,
• 1:13:41
  you know, finish that, you know, the partial that you didn't read
• 1:13:44
  from last week. We and I tell people, you know,
• 1:13:47
  you have so much free time now. I hate when people say I don't
• 1:13:50
  have time for that. It's like no women that that had
• 1:13:53
  to wait 10 hours at the well and then, you know, it took four
• 1:13:56
  days to do. They didn't have time for that
• 1:13:58
  saying we don't have time for things in this is is the is I
• 1:14:01
  think the most corrosive like if I could eliminate one line from
• 1:14:05
  the vernacular, it's I don't have time for that.
• 1:14:07
  That's OK. Tell me exactly what your day
• 1:14:09
  is. I could I can easily free up
• 1:14:11
  minimum 3 hours from your day, you know for you to learn.
• 1:14:14
  Don't ever tell me you don't have time.
• 1:14:17
  I I feel like that's another thing that that that Hashem is
• 1:14:21
  clearly given this generation like why are people living till
• 1:14:23
  80s or 90s. So I think it was Rob Steinman
• 1:14:27
  said it's because we need like people living longer to give us
• 1:14:33
  more ability to do keep it up aim because that's a Subs, you
• 1:14:36
  know, mitzvah. So even just something like
• 1:14:38
  that, like thinking of everything.
• 1:14:40
  So yes, there's so much tumor in the world.
• 1:14:42
  There's so many people don't even know what bathroom to go to
• 1:14:44
  now. Like people literally don't know
• 1:14:46
  their gender. They think that men can get
• 1:14:48
  pregnant and all these ridiculous things.
• 1:14:50
  But with that like nonsensical, you know, just like flooding of
• 1:14:56
  the world has come so much new beauty.
• 1:14:59
  I mean you can you can literally give a college kid a million
• 1:15:04
  hours of tour on a little USB, you know, so there's so much
• 1:15:09
  protect like Safaria just has every you know, when I was on
• 1:15:13
  drugs, anytime I like need like knew that I was really careening
• 1:15:18
  up. I would sit on the couch for
• 1:15:20
  like a day or two and just read safer brace.
• 1:15:23
  She's in English multiple times over and over.
• 1:15:26
  I don't know why it just even in my darkest time of of just so
• 1:15:31
  much drug use, reading the stories of, you know, Yosef and
• 1:15:35
  his brothers, just it, it made my soul fly.
• 1:15:38
  So there is that pintolid inside of of all of us as as Jews.
• 1:15:43
  And there's so many means now to bring that out, whether it's
• 1:15:46
  through, you know, all the new religious music that's out there
• 1:15:50
  or, you know, just being able to access any safer ever that there
• 1:15:54
  there has to be something that someone is is interested in.
• 1:15:59
  Right, 100%, I think. Kim, is there a closing remark
• 1:16:02
  that you'd like to give our viewers?
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, I would say, look, life is, is precious.
• 1:16:11
  After, you know, seeing my wife from, let's see, age 39 to 4344,
• 1:16:22
  just 43, just continually sliding downhill, walking became
• 1:16:30
  painful. This life is so beautiful and
• 1:16:34
  it's so precious and it's so meaningful and there's, and
• 1:16:38
  there's so much purpose and it's so many goals to achieve.
• 1:16:42
  Just, I mean, literally just wake up.
• 1:16:46
  And I am saying this to me too, because I also get stuck in
• 1:16:49
  that, you know, 15 minutes. I waste here 20 minutes.
• 1:16:53
  There is so much to achieve in life there.
• 1:16:55
  There's as a Jew, we have so much responsibility, but almost,
• 1:17:02
  but also potential. There's so much potential inside
• 1:17:05
  every one of us. And and it's time to start
• 1:17:08
  having more spiritual self esteem.
• 1:17:12
  It it's time to stop thinking, OK, I'm never going to be a
• 1:17:15
  rabbi. So I'm I'm nothing and Judaism.
• 1:17:18
  That's unequivocally not true. My favorite stories in the
• 1:17:21
  Gemara are, you know, a by learning who his you know, Ulma
• 1:17:25
  Bob partner is it. It's just, you know, a Stam, you
• 1:17:32
  know, launderer or or a butcher or something.
• 1:17:38
  We were all clearly created with different, you know, purposes.
• 1:17:42
  Someone that's born to the biggest rabbi in Ushalayim and
• 1:17:45
  someone that's born to totally secular parents.
• 1:17:48
  Clearly a sham is not cruel and understands, you know, that
• 1:17:51
  there's two different things that are probably supposed to be
• 1:17:54
  achieved. Start, you know, figuring out
• 1:17:57
  what your strengths are and then and then build on that and and
• 1:18:02
  make a life that you can be proud of.
• 1:18:04
  I can guarantee most people and I had this long soul searching
• 1:18:07
  with myself at 27. Again, let's just say you're
• 1:18:11
  sitting on your deathbed right now.
• 1:18:12
  And I'm not trying to be morbid, but it's very, very helpful.
• 1:18:15
  Is the life that you're living now something that.
• 1:18:18
  Yeah, you know what? Awesome.
• 1:18:19
  I'm so glad I'm putting in those extra 10 hours, you know, every
• 1:18:22
  week. I'm so glad that I'm, you know,
• 1:18:24
  my kids never see me. I'm so glad that my wife, you
• 1:18:28
  know, gets that one dinner a month with me because I'm so
• 1:18:31
  busy. Or are you just, you know, you
• 1:18:34
  want to just start focusing on what matters in this world.
• 1:18:38
  And my and my biggest advice is that's what Shabbos is for.
• 1:18:41
  There, There's, there's no, you know, there, there's no being a
• 1:18:45
  Jew without understanding and capturing Shabbos.
• 1:18:50
  It's that one day of the week that literally you plug into
• 1:18:53
  the, you know, into the system. I, I, I, I would say, you know,
• 1:19:00
  just it, it, it breaks my heart as someone that, that chose to
• 1:19:04
  come to this life to see so many, even religious people just
• 1:19:09
  going through the motions and, and just, you know, life isn't
• 1:19:12
  so exciting anymore. And maybe the mitzvahs are
• 1:19:14
  becoming, you know, rote. Let, let's just like take a step
• 1:19:19
  back, recalibrate and just understand Hashem is our father
• 1:19:24
  and we're, we're here for a reason.
• 1:19:26
  And, and if you're living and breathing right now that that is
• 1:19:31
  the biggest miracle. You, you are the proof that
• 1:19:33
  there is a God and there's something to, to, to get out of
• 1:19:37
  this life and, and, and don't waste even a second.
• 1:19:40
  Don't say, you know, I'm going to start after the three weeks
• 1:19:43
  or I'm going to start next year after do it today because life
• 1:19:47
  can change so easily just with, you know, my life changed by
• 1:19:51
  just hearing a quote from my rabbi and just saying, you know
• 1:19:54
  what? OK, let me, let me try this out.
• 1:19:57
  Let me put my all into this for a change.
• 1:19:58
  Instead of, you know, trying to be cool at the bar or trying to,
• 1:20:02
  you know, do the most amount of drugs that I can.
• 1:20:06
  Life is, is precious and, and, and we need to, to take
• 1:20:11
  advantage of it because the worst thing in life, it's, it's
• 1:20:13
  not drug use, it's not the Internet, it's regret, It's
• 1:20:16
  knowing that you wasted an opportunity.
• 1:20:19
  And that's what this life is. This life is an opportunity to,
• 1:20:24
  you know, for eternity to connect to, to the God that that
• 1:20:28
  not just created us, but like we say every morning when we wake
• 1:20:30
  up that gives us back our soul and has confidence and and and
• 1:20:36
  love for us and, and wants nothing but the best for us.
• 1:20:40
  And, and the sad. And I'll tell you from my drug
• 1:20:42
  days, it it, it like ate me up inside that other people cared
• 1:20:47
  more about me than I cared about myself.
• 1:20:48
  A. 100 percent, 100% golden words.
• 1:20:53
  Alekim, thanks so much for being here.
• 1:20:55
  This is. Fantastic.
• 1:20:56
  Thank you so much. Stay on the line.
• 1:20:59
  Yeah, I want to stay on the line with me for another second.
• 1:21:01
  Sure. See everybody?