#27: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Ben Shapiro

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's not our ordinary Wednesday night. It's Tuesday night 9:00 p.m., but we are here, Rabbi Efrim Goldberg, together with Rabbi Philip Moskowitz and Rabbi Josh Brody, and we're here to take you behind the Bima. I queue again, as usual, Rabbi Brody. Really perfectly timed. Thank God for you. Gentlemen, how are you? How was your week so far? We're earlier in the week than we normally are. It's only Tuesday night. My week is phenomenal. We had a fantastic, really inspiring Simchas Torah at BRS. And now, the Yom Tov season of 5781, Rabbi Goldberg, is It's in the books. It's absolutely in the books, and we couldn't be happier, prouder, more relieved than ever that this year went off without a hitch, and there's a lot more to talk about, and hopefully we'll be able to get to that tonight, how this Simchas Torah ranked against others, especially all things considered. But we want to begin by thanking our very generous sponsor tonight. He's sponsored several times. He's a very loyal listener and fan, and that is Donny Oppenheimer of the Oppenheimer Law Firm, who takes care of any of your legal needs. We have some swag tonight. I'm sure he'll be happy to provide it for you, too. You can utilize the services, be in touch with him at opplawfirm.com. Donny, thank you for your generosity. Thank you for your sponsorship. We really appreciate it tonight and and always. We've got a very special guest coming on tonight. Gentlemen, there's a lot of excitement, a lot of buzz. I think more than ever. Rabbi Brody's got the shirt. Donny's already commenting. He's loving the shirt, Rabbi Brody. We've got We've got the shirt, but my tie didn't go with the shirt, so I didn't We'll see. I've been wearing the shirt all day. The packaging for the swag was just as nice as the swag, by the way. Yeah, it was. Donny, thanks for sponsoring tonight and on several occasions. We have a a great guest. We've had wonderful guests until now, and we're so grateful for all of them and all their time. Our guest tonight probably has the widest audience and the loudest microphone of anyone we've had yet. Even bigger than behind the Bema and that's not easy for us to admit. But his podcast has just a few million more listeners than ours, but we're climbing the charts. We're we're well on our way. And that is of course Ben Shapiro. Ben is beloved by many even to the degree of idol worship particularly within the Orthodox community and equally unloved by others who disagree sometimes with his opinion and style. But one thing we can say is it's really extraordinary how he has climbed the ladder and built a media empire and is an enormous influence in the world who listen and and he shapes a lot of public opinion. So I want to take the time now. I don't want when he joins us to take the time to give a little bit of his background. So let me tell for those who don't know maybe you're among the few who have never heard of Ben Shapiro. But is I hadn't heard of him until he came on behind the Bema either. So Uh nice try. Ben Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, a media host, and he is an attorney. At the age of 17 he was the youngest youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States, editor emeritus of the Daily Wire which he founded and he grew to an enormous subscription. He hosts the Ben Shapiro Show which is listened daily by millions not only in America America but around the world. I think it's syndicated on 200 stations. Daily podcast and live radio show, editor-at-large at Breitbart News from 2012 to 2016. He is the author of 11 books. Really what I think really gripping and for tonight we're going to go behind the Bema on this particular is that he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home and he lives a observant Orthodox Jewish upbringing. And maybe he made it big today and we'll talk about some of his statistics of how many people listen, how many people follow him. But he was an ordinary young man. He graduated YULA boys high school in LA where where grew up. He skipped two grades and that might be a little unusual. Maybe both of you skipped grades. I did not. I skipped grades the other direction. I got being held back right by Brody. Ben Shapiro skipped actually two grades, and he graduated uh high school at the age of 16. He then went to YULA, where he graduated summa laude, and uh and then went to Harvard Law School, where he graduated laude in Harvard in 2007. He worked as a lawyer, and then he launched and began this media empire. And today, he has, I believe, the largest conservative media uh group, he personally, and the company that he founded. I think it has surpassed even Fox News and others. And so, it's really shaping a lot of public opinion. And he does it all with a yarmulke, which is one of the things we're going to talk about. He does it representing Torah and observant Judaism, which places a huge target for those who don't like, and uh gives him a huge microphone. And there are a lot of people who love who love what he stands for, but it's really amazing. You know, he's born in 1984. I think he's 36 years old. 11 books, millions of followers. He's accomplished a lot at a young age. And as I said, love him or hate him, agree with him or disagree with him, you have to admire what he's accomplished, what he's achieved, his um prodigious mind, and and and how he skipped those grades, and he climbed that ladder, and he did so with a lot of ingenuity and a lot of creativity. And I think it's it's something really impressive. And we're excited that we're going to be able to bring him on tonight, and we certainly welcome your questions, your comments. Many shared with us in advance, uh and others uh are can submit now, whether on YouTube or Facebook. We see all the comments aggregated, so feel feel free to share. If you're listening later to our podcast, don't forget to rate and review. Ben Shapiro doesn't need your help, we do. So, rate and review Behind the Bima, and uh and let the world know. We've we've had phenomenal guests who really inspired. And our goal, one of our guests earlier on, um was um Stretch. We we who taught JM in the AM, the the great host of JM in the AM, Nachum Segal. And he taught us that you want to try to get your interviewee to share things that you're the only address that they would share it. Things that you can't hear it elsewhere. And that's going to be our goal tonight, and we've been privileged to have that goal. So, when you rate and review, when you share about Behind the Bima, you help us get that message out even more broader. And one of our avid listeners points out that Ben Shapiro also has a hobby that I dropped at a young age. He plays the violin. He was a violinist. I think he once actually performed with Eitan Katz. I think the two of them performed together when he was a young man. Maybe Rabbi Moscowitz and him can do like a special concert one night. No, no, I'm the clarinet. He's the violin. No, I'm saying you can bring out the whip out the clarinet that you haven't played in a couple years, and That's right. I would love that. We got a question is Where Where do you go from here? I mean, you've got the biggest now. Like, who Who do you get next week? Oh, we've got We've got other people lined up. Normally, it takes months and years to get to this point. You've done it overnight. we've got We've got other people who are lined up. We're getting to the point that people are actually contacting us, "How do I get on Behind the Bima? I'd love to be interviewed. I'd love to tell my story." And many have extraordinary stories to tell, and we'd love to have them. So, we've got We've got some exciting things lined up for next week and 2 weeks from now. We are going to be broadcasting from a brand new venue in Boca who will be sponsoring and uh featuring some of what is to come in Boca. We will be socially distanced, of course, uh being very respectful Different backgrounds. Different backgrounds, different places, distanced from one another, but the same venue, and premiering a new venue in Boca Raton, which will be very, very excited to be able to share. So, we've got some exciting thing coming down the pike, exciting things that are that are coming very soon near us. What kind of uh excitement have you seen for tonight's episode? Have you Have you seen stuff online, people talking? Yes. Twitter is alive. I mean, every Every moment you get back on Twitter, and you see another, you know, dozen people just commenting on on what they want to know, what they want to ask tonight. Yeah, I'll tell you when my father-in-law knew about it, that's that's how I knew we made it big. He told my wife, he said, "You have a Ben Shapiro on there, that's pretty impressive." And uh my wife had to Google him, but after she did, she uh but the fact that my father-in-law knew about it, that to me was dayenu. I've made it. I've arrived. I might be the favorite son-in-law right now. So, just to set the stage, and we'll repeat this when when Ben joins us shortly, we are not talking politics tonight. If you want to know Ben's political positions or positions on areas of life policies, he has an extraordinary podcast you can listen to. He is um a uh prolific author, and you can read his opinions. That is not the goal tonight. Tonight, the goal is, as we do with all of our guests, to go behind the bima, and to learn about him, and see a side of him that we often or otherwise don't know, and I think many of us are curious about. And the goal is to learn. The goal is to understand. We One of our themes, seek to understand before being understood. Um and the goal is to hopefully be inspired also, just to see a person who's attained that position, and maybe learn something from it, again, whether you agree or disagree. And and there's definitely a need out there because we've all been flooded with more questions for this episode than any other episode, and it's not just because of his popularity or his fame, it's because people genuinely want to know these types of things. They don't oftentimes have a venue, a platform to to speak to people who have millions and millions of followers, and and I think there's a real hunger out there to go behind the bima with uh with people like Ben Shapiro. So, I think it's it's definitely struck a chord. Well, actually, add on to that, it's not only people who have so many followers, I think it's people who maybe are on in ways anonymous. But the point is that when they're public personalities, whether it's a a teacher, a rabbi, or some other public personality, um people only see them frontally, their lectures and their comments, they don't really get to know them. And so, this is really an opportunity to get to know. So, uh without truth is, uh we're going to welcome Ben, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us. Rabbi Efrem Goldberg joined with Rabbi Philip Moskowitz and Rabbi Josh Brody. Ben, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Doing fantastic. It's great to have you on. We really appreciate you giving us some time tonight. We know how valuable your time is and it means a lot that you're you're sharing it with us. So, you know, Ben, you were very public about your move from LA and some of the reasons why you moved from LA. I know your media company has moved to another place, but like other famous people before you brought your talents to the South Florida area. What is it about South Florida? What excites you to be in the Florida South Florida area? Well, I mean, I I think that it was a really easy move for us. And we we lived in the Valley in Los Angeles and we were able to replicate the same resources or better in South Florida that we were able to get in the Valley where we were living without a lot of the problems. So, obviously there's a a massive crime problem that's hit Los Angeles. They're cutting the police. There's been a fairly severe uptick in anti-Semitism in sort of the general area in in Los Angeles during the riots. They were targeting of shows for example. There the taxes in Los Angeles are incredibly incredibly burdensome. So, you're paying a lot and you're getting very little in terms of social services both on the state and on the local level. There's a massive homeless problem that has resulted in serious quality of life issues. Your ability to have your kids walk around the streets safely has really been impeded in a major way. It's very very difficult to do business there. So, you know, then it became an issue of okay, we want to leave. Where do we want to go? And if you're looking for Jewish communities that have an infrastructure in areas that are more politically akin to to where I am and and you know, a tax structure that makes things a lot easier financially, you're not limited to about two states. Right? You can't Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, all of that's off limits. Chicago is essentially off limits. If you want someplace with with decent weather and we're from LA, right? I mean, we don't want to be in the middle of winter all the time. Then then Ohio is off limits. And so now basically you're down to Texas and and Florida. And then there are smaller communities obviously. Our company is moving to Nashville. I'm going to be spending a lot of time there flying back and forth. But the Nashville community is still pretty small. I have three kids under the age of seven. I want them to have a lot of resources available, different Jewish schools. I want them to, you know, be able to to as they get older, you know, date in a in a large pool. And and so it was a really simple choice. It was just kind of hilarious because my my wife was kind of humoring me. She she said, "Okay, well we'll go visit and we'll we'll check out South Florida." We had a vacation scheduled for Hawaii for July. Then obviously thanks to COVID that got canceled. And so I said, "Okay, well I've been wanting to check out South Florida anyway, so let's get on a plane and and check it out." And so she said, "All right." So we get on the plane and she's figuring that that this is just going to be, you know, her giving me my due and then we all forget about it. And instead we come here and within three weeks we bought a house. We're getting ready to move. She thought at the beginning we were going to wait a year and that we were going to start transition and then became clear that there's no reason to kind of live in between. And so we traveled to South Florida in June. We bought a house in like the first week of July and we moved in early October. So it was it was very very quick. it was great to have you. And Ben, I'll tell you you'll find it very refreshing to live in a place where your vote counts and it matters and it makes a difference. And if we can figure out the hanging chads, we actually determine presidential elections, which is really refreshing and really nice. So Ben, earlier today I tweeted that you're probably the most recognized observant Jew in the world, although Jared Kushner and Ivanka might disagree. But I think it's probably safe to say you're the most famous person in the world who wears a yarmulke on a regular basis. You know, Charles Barkley once famously said that he never signed up to be a role model and I don't know whether you did either. As you were making this climb and this rise and and what you've done at a young age is extraordinary. Not only all the books that you've published, the media company that you've built, the followers that you have, 3.2 million followers on Twitter, over 7 million followers on Facebook, millions of people who consume your video, your information, you're influencing. And I'm kind of curious, did you ever consider taking that yarmulke off? Were you ever worried the responsibility that when you wear a kippah, when you wear a yarmulke, you're not just representing your views, but you now have this very public face, maybe the most famous public face on Earth of someone with a yarmulke. And did you ever consider taking it off as you made that climb up? Do you think you were ever held back or did it ever hurt you that wore the yarmulke? Were there ever times that you regretted you were wearing a yarmulke during a speaking engagement or encounter that you had wished maybe you weren't? I know, never occurred to me. I mean, honestly, it never occurred to me to not wear a yarmulke because I've been wearing a yarmulke consistently since I was 10. So, there was no point where it was like, okay, now I'm going to make a decision. Do I wear a yarmulke? Do I not wear a yarmulke? It was on my head, it's what I believe, there's no reason for me to take it off. As far as, you know, being, you know, the the most famous Orthodox Jew in the world, first of all, pretty small pool. There there are not that there are many more famous Jews inside the Orthodox community than I am. Outside the Orthodox community, it's not like there are there are tons of people who who fit that bill, mainly because most of the people who are famous inside the Orthodox community are famous for being Orthodox inside the Orthodox community, namely, people who we all consider role models, right? Rabbanim and and spiritual leaders and and you know, people who create massive movements. I'm mostly famous for things that have very little to do directly with my religion, although obviously I think my religion shapes my values. Which which I think gives me a little bit more leeway to say, okay, there's a fair bit of diversity inside the the Jewish community politically, obviously. I think not quite as much diversity inside the Orthodox community that I think there's an actual doctrine that that you have to sort of that you have to abide by that that does have some political ramifications. But as far as whether it ever held me back, I never really felt like it did. This is a This is an extremely philosemitic country. I think any in the same way that there are anti-Semites, but this is an incredibly philosemitic country. You know, I think that this is an incredibly tolerant country for people of all shapes and all sizes and all different orientations and and I think anybody who fails to recognize that truly is is being rather ungrateful toward a system that has created so much prosperity and freedom for so many. It doesn't mean that people don't experience incredible hardship and incredible difficulty at the hands of other people. But you know, I cannot say as an Orthodox Jew that the system is designed to harm me in any way or that the system is is is discriminating against me in any way unless I see actual evidence that that's the case. So I I've never again, I've experienced a fair bit of personal anti-Semitism. I was the number one targeted Jew in the world in 2016 online according to the ADL. Um but I don't attribute that to my country and I don't contribute that to Western civilization more broadly. I attribute that to you know, people who are jerks and there are plenty of them. Right, unfortunately and you've taken the heat for a lot of that and but I I think it really is extraordinary that you know, you used to this the segment that you used to have on your show where you talked about the weekly parashah, the fact that you're not afraid to reference the Jewish holidays you're observing and why you might be off the air or not in tune necessarily with what's going on the days that you're missing, referencing the daf yomi, referencing your your moral values that are shaped by Torah really does spread that light and whether the people who agree or disagree with you, the haters and the lovers, I think can all agree that it's beautiful that we live in a world where you're able to represent that and share that and be able to express that and that's something which I think is is very special and I wonder whether you draw a line between your Jewish values and some of the other political positions. Are all your positions drawn from Torah values? Do you differentiate or divide between the two? Are there lines that you won't cross because of your Judaism or your Jewish values? Do you have one of the questions people encourage us to ask, do you have particular rabbis or those you consult with if you feel you're, you know, pushing the edge or you want to make sure that what you're thinking conforms with your Torah values? So, first of all, I I don't think that my specific Torah values are are something to be crammed down on other people with the force of government. I'm not a theocrat. And so, my values are are shaped by Judaism in the same way that I think that most Western values are shaped in essence by revelation. Sinai, I mean, I wrote an entire book on how Western values have been shaped, not not just Jewish values, Western values have been shaped by by Sinai in combination with the respect for human reason that largely springs from from Athens. The the kind of balance between Jerusalem and Athens that was first attributed to Tertullian, that that's been used as a framework to sort of understand Western civilization for millennia at this point. And I think that it's a it's a good framework for understanding these sorts of things. I think it also falls squarely within my Maimonidean framework as well as a Thomistic framework, which is the the basic notion that if you are looking at the world around you and you're using science and you're using reason to interpret the world around you, and then it conflicts with Torah, then you're doing one of the two things wrong. And and so, the the kind of notion that that Torah is the Bible is in conflict with general principles of reason or science, if you believe that the hand of God is evident in both, then obviously the problem is with you, right? Either you're interpreting science wrong and you're interpreting natural law wrong or you're interpreting the Bible wrong. And so, it's your job to sort of rectify those breaches. I think that, you know, in in Moreh Nevukhim in in Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides is quite clear about this. And obviously Aquinas is is writing very much the same thing for the Christian world at the same time. So, that's something that I really do hold by. As far as how that shapes my political values, you know, again, I can think that something is deeply im- moral without thinking that it necessarily has to be illegal. This is why I think one of the things I think that religion is good for is not ruling from above. You know, I tend to agree with uh with uh Shmuel when he is a very critical of of monarchy. Uh and the the basis of of religion to me is is sort of more bottom up than top down. And And biblically speaking, it tends to be more bottom up than top down. And that's why the Jews are critiqued as a people, not just their leadership is critiqued when something goes wrong. They're critiqued as a people by the prophets repeatedly because uh what religion is meant to do is create the social bonds between us and to create standards that we all live by. Uh it's it's not necessarily, particularly in a a system that's as diverse as as ours in the United States and that has lent so much room for people to practice their religion. Uh there's a vast difference between the creation of social uh of social capital uh and the uh and the prim downs of government. I I don't agree with the 2012 DNC slogan that government is the only thing we all share. In fact, I think it's the least of the things we ought to share. Interesting. And And do you have Are there other people you speak to directly or mentors, rabbis, guides who, when you're trying to reconcile, I know you study daf yomi, you're obviously uh on the path of of learning and growing as we all are, when you think that things are above you in terms of reconciling it with Judaism, are are there people that you will consult in order to make sure, as you've as you've grown and take on this more public stage and in a certain way represent the Jewish people, um that will give you some some healthy pushback? Uh yeah. I mean, I I definitely yeah, I've studied with a variety of rabbonim over the years. Uh and mostly because I I I want to know that what I'm saying about Judaism particularly is accurate. Um you know, I feel like you know, Judaism is not my area of expertise. It's something I live in, but I'm not a rav. And so, when people ask me about halakha, I will openly and obviously say I'm not a rav. I don't poskin halakha. I'm not qualified to poskin halakha. If you want to talk to somebody who's qualified to poskin halakha, there are three people uh on this particular call who are all better qualified than I am uh to poskin halakha. So, you know, you should you should have one of them. Uh if if you're asking me sort of like the general framework on where Judaism lies on particular issues, uh then I can give you sort of a general framework, and then obviously there's a lot of play in the joints. Uh and the more expert you are, it seems very often more play in the joints there is and the more complicating factors there are. Uh so, I I'm not somebody who is uh qualified to to uh rule in any individual case or any general case. All I can do is sort of give the general philosophical framework for how Judaism approaches issues, and there I do try to to you know, look into the sources and determine uh how Judaism speaks. Now, as I say, there are times when I think the public policy is is not to be shaped by, you know, specific halachas. I'll take an easy example. So, I'm extremely pro-life. Right? I've gotten pushback from, obviously not not Orthodox Jews, but also some Orthodox Jews on the basis that Judaism provides for dispensations uh in a lot of early term abortions. Uh you know, there there there is a possibility, according to certain there there's a wide variety of opinion on this, ranging from Moshe Feinstein, who's quite strict on it, to Rav Soloveitchik, who's also quite strict on it, uh to, you know, other rabbonim who are looser about when they're willing to grant dispensation for early term abortion. Uh and the the general idea is that, well, if you're so pro-life and you want to ban abortion except under certain circumstances, isn't that conflicting with uh you know, the ability of of a rav to to do uh a particular thing? Well, you know, again, my my read of natural law might fall in conflict with how I would rule if I thought that this were to be a a Jewish, you know, a Jewish state in terms of a halachic state, but I don't think it's it's America's job to be a halachic state. I think it's America's job to uh to fulfill basic dictates of morality and to provide the license for all of us to do so individually through through exercise of individual freedom. Amazing. Rabbi Moskowitz. Wow. First of all, Ben, thank you so much for being on. Um it's it's nice to to meet you. I want to I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about relationships. Um obviously, as a very public figure, relationships are are probably a little complicated for you. And uh and I guess there are two parts to my question. Number one, um when you meet people, which one do you prefer? I guess which one aggravates you more? Does it aggravate you when someone disagrees with you, and battles with you, and argues with you, or does it aggravate you when people agree with you, worship you, um and and and and try to do everything to uh you know uh to to to to to make you think that they're on your side? So, kind of like how do you approach relationships in that regard? And I guess there's a second part to that, which is how do you have relationships, right? How do you have friendships when you're such a public person, and people want to get close to public figures, and certainly you're moving into a new area, and I'm sure you've had this in in LA as well. Um how do you gauge what's a real relationship, what's someone that shares your values that you want to have that type of relationship for, and and when do you say, "You know what? You're just looking for uh someone that you worship, someone who has a lot of followers on Facebook. I don't really want uh that type of relationship with you." So, um it was a little bit difficult to hear because it's breaking breaking up just a little bit. My connection isn't fantastic, but uh if if I got your first question correctly, you're basically asking if in a relationship I'm looking for somebody who disagrees, or somebody who agrees, or how much that makes a difference. Uh is that correct? Is that what the the question was? Uh the first one. Pretty much, yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, so so my uh yeah, I forgive me. The the connection stinks. Um but the uh the uh the the basic answer to that one is um if I think that somebody is interested in that for me, just like, you know, you'd consider any family or or friend, uh then then it doesn't matter to me whether they agree with me or disagree with me on a particular issue. I want people who can tell me when they think that I'm doing something wrong, and make me better. I hope that I've been trying to do that on a on a day-by-day basis. You know, there are many cases in the past several years where friends have come to me, and they said, "You know, 3 4 years ago on Twitter you said something really nasty about something and you you really might want to rethink that." And I've actually gone out of my way many cases to publicly recant or to specifically call the person and and apologize for it. And you know, I hope that I always have room in my life for friends who are able to do that and not just sycophants. So that's that's an important thing. You know, look, I'm lucky enough that I met my wife before any of this happened, right? I was I was 24 and she was 20 and we've been married for 13 years almost and so, you know, I don't have a lot of doubts on on the score that she is willing to to tell me where to head in when I'm incorrect about something. So that's that's helpful. I tend to be more of a family person than a friends person by nature. I have usually a couple of close friends and that's about it. And a lot of my friends are people who I've known really since childhood. And so that, you know, tends to alleviate some of the risk of people who just want to get close because of prominence or because it's fun to say that they're friends with somebody who has some notoriety. But honestly, I think that most people don't want that. And the way that you can tell, you know, is really by how much people ask you for things, frankly. If people are constantly asking you to do things for them, then, you know, just like anything else, you're you're now you're now a service provider as opposed to a friend. Right. Does that mean Does that Does that mean that we can't be friends There are a number of people in my life that get to ask me to do something, but they're all blood relations. Uh uh Does that mean after asking you to come out behind the Beemer that we're not going to be friends now? I think it's all over. It's all over. It's uh Well, let let me ask a follow-up, which is Yeah, exactly. It's You you you you've shattered the vessel. It's it's all done. Take our listeners. Like what's it like for you when you go to shul? You go to shul on a Shabbos. Obviously, you're very public about your opinions throughout the week. Do you prefer people smile and nod at you when they see you? Do you prefer people coming over saying hello, trying to connect to you? Do you want to when you're in shul on Shabbos that you're kind of in your sanctuary and you don't want to be bothered by that stuff? Or do you go to shul like so many other people for a little bit of the hack, for a little bit of the conversation, and you're curious how what you said during the week plays out amongst uh the people that you're sitting around in shul? Yeah, so I mean some of that is obvi- obviously fun. So, I I go I've gone to shul with my dad since I was a kid. Uh my parents also moved into the area. And uh my my dad and I have sat next to each other at shul since I was, you know, since before I was bar mitzvah. My dad is an extremely social person. Uh I am far less social than my dad is just as a human being because my dad is the like my dad is the kind of person where you get in an elevator with him, and by the end of the elevator ride he knows your entire life story, he's your best friend. Uh and so, my dad really does get, you know, want to want to interact with people in that way. Um during davening I don't like talking at all. Like during davening it's my relaxation time actually. Um so, I'm either davening or I'm reading, uh which are my ways of of both connecting and disconnecting uh depending on, you know, what I'm doing at the time. Uh yeah, as far as after shul I'm happy to talk about, you know, anything and everything with people uh so long as uh there there there are always, you know, unfortunately, you know, without naming any names of course, uh there are people who sometimes monopolize your time. Uh there there are always people there there's always a couple people who kind of buttonhole you. Uh and most people don't do that. Most people are respectful of your time. They just want to, you know, they have a quick question they want to get it answered. Uh I don't have any problem like being part of a of a conversation with one person or many people. Um but what what is always uncomfortable is having to tell somebody when people can't pick up social cues. You know, when when it's like, "Okay, well, I need to move away now and go check on my kids." Uh that is a cue for, "Okay, this conversation needs to needs to cease for a moment." Uh and so, sometimes there are people who can't pick up on the social cues. Um it's not their fault. I mean, it's uh if I were, you know, there are people I'm sure I would do that to too. Uh I'm frankly bewildered that people want to do that for me, and I find it flattering that people want to hear my opinion on things. I mean, that's a nice thing. It could be worse. People could could definitely not want to hear my opinion on things, I suppose. You know, your your father's brilliant and a great conversationalist and I could I could talk to him forever. Um I want to ask you, you have an extraordinary section of your website, something very unusual among media personalities. Um certainly unusual, maybe unheard of among politicians, which is the section on your website where you reference the things that you regret saying or writing and you um and you and how you would do it differently. And my question is the following. Um you know, your style online sometimes can some might interpret it as being a little bit of an agitator. Uh there's an edge. Uh there's a confidence, maybe even an aggressiveness to the positions that you take and it's been successful. You've influenced countless and you've built an empire doing it and and and I've come to know you a little bit offline to see the softer side. People don't know the kind of extraordinary has said that you do, that you've used your fame and celebrity to really positively help people um and and the kind of generosity that you and your wife have shown with your resources. They don't necessarily know that other side of you. Um so it's a two-part question. Number one is what are the parts of Ben Shapiro that you wish people knew about you, the offline, not the tweets and not the daily podcast and not the policy positions. What are the softer sides of you that you wish people knew? And my other question is that part of your website, which again I think is really extraordinary and a reflection of your deep Jewish values, um where you are willing to reference the things that you regret. Are there things that you don't regret what you've said, but you regret the way you said it? Meaning you believe in the policy and you believe what you said, but you you think maybe it could have been said in a way which um might have been more sensitive or had less uh hurt to people that you unintended to hurt. For sure. I mean, uh of course. Uh and in fact, one section of that article, I believe, is about things that I say are true, but I wish that I said it in a slightly different or what. Um so there's there's stuff that I've said that outright is just stupid uh and uh and that I think is idiotic and wish I had never said it. Most of it happened between the time I was about 18 and the time I was about 23. And then there are the things that I've that I've said where I agree with me. I just said it in an uncomfortable way and and sometimes I look back at old tweets and I'm like, you know, that that was, you know, put not particularly well. Like the factual underlying basis of it is correct, but I could have said that better. I could have said that nicer. And of course, I mean, I literally get paid to say things I say I I write It used to be that I would write literally hundreds of thousands of words every single year. You know, I have I have hundreds of thousands of tweets. I have written at this point 10 books. I've ghostwritten another nine. There was a point where I was writing four articles a day. There was a point when I was working for Breitbart in the early years I was writing 10 to 12 articles a day. So I've written a lot. So I'm sure that there is plenty of stuff in there where you know mill millions of words we're talking about. I'm sure there are many of them that are misplaced, many of them that you know, I was writing in the heat of passion and which later that I hadn't written in the heat of passion. And you know, one of the things that I hope I get better at is is speaking with with passion but without anger. And that that's a hard one, right? I mean that that is a difficult one. I'm really passionate about something and something deeply wrong is going on. It's it's hard not to speak abrasively. And frankly, there are sometimes particularly with ideas where I think it's important to speak abrasively because it shocks people into awareness that something bad is going on or something that's worth noting is going on. I try to restrict it to ideas as opposed to human beings. I think there are very there there are certain human beings who I think deserve the critique as human beings. But I think that that's pretty rare. And and if I'm making a joke, I also don't think that a joke is the same thing as as you know, me me me kind of doing typical mockery of every single politician. I mean, I I do impressions of of everybody from Bernie to Trump. I don't put that in the same category as thinking is a rotten human being who deserves no So, there's that. The public persona, I guard my private life pretty zealously. And um So, I I try to hold my I'm a big Ram Bam fan and I try to hold by the edict that in Oh. Whoop. Anybody else enjoying the fact that one of the biggest media moguls in the world is having bad Wi-Fi? We feeling a little better about things? Or are we not picking up social cues that the interview is over? us. I love he He's called us He just called his wife out and said, "Get me out of here." Pull the plug. Possible we're not picking up social cues. like we were on like Fox or CNN where there's always that delay between the question and the answer like when they're overseas. And there's always a little Yeah. We're getting right into the heart of it. I want to hear about the public persona and the and the private persona. I know. We're right there. We're right there. Come back, Ben. Wait to Welcome to Xfinity in South Florida. Yeah, I'm not sure. He's got the same same service as you do, Rabbi Brog. All of us know it as purgatory. LA area, they don't have these problems. Well, let's until he gets back on. Rabbi Gav, do you have that? You write a lot, you speak a lot. You obviously not as um you know, in a very different way than he does. Ah, there we go. Ben, we're we're just saying, by the way, it's it's really validating to us to know that one of the media moguls in the world is having Wi-Fi problems. You know what? Let me I feel bad doing this, but this is what happens when I run my Let me let the router Yeah, I'm going to get I'm going to get closer to the router. I will be right back. No problem. No problem. Hold on. We'll take him off. We'll let him back on in a moment. When we have him. Does this happen on professional also? This is like if if if you're like a hacker golfer and you ever see a professional golfer who like duffs the ball in the water and you feel bad for them but on the other hand you feel so good. Validated. They're human. That is amazing. We'd love for them to be human. Are we there yet? We're almost there. We're almost there. People are pacing on Facebook that if we need an extra guest, they're available. Yeah, I'm available. Bring him on board. I've been waiting. Yeah. Oops. They would love it. Yeah. All right. Hold on. And stand by to guest. All right. Is this better reception? I have now moved around. Much better. Much better. And we again, Ben, we can't reiterate how We thought maybe we weren't picking up on the social cues and and we were done with the interview. We thought that was the problem. But thank you so much for being back. So we're talking about the the online persona, the private persona, what you wish people knew about the heart and soul of Ben Shapiro that maybe doesn't come across in the tweets. I mean, look, I'm a you know, I I think I'm a good husband. I think I'm a good dad. Um I I try to be nice to people, but you know, people are going to gather about me what they want to gather about me. Uh I I think honestly a lot of that does come out from the show. Like if you listen to the show on a regular basis, I think a lot of this uh sort of stuff comes out. I make jokes about my wife and my kids all the time. Uh I talk about, you know, what we do on a daily basis. I think most of the impressions of me publicly come from you know, the the way our social media works, which is these little tiny tiny little snippets, right? Tweets or memes or uh or 30-second clips from my show as opposed to the hour-long show. I know that's the complaint of everybody who's in media is that you should actually listen to the whole show, but actually it's kind of true. You should actually look beyond the headline and listen to the whole show. Uh you know, as far as, you know, some of the nice things that I do, it's not up to me to talk about that sort of stuff uh because frankly it's self-serving. Uh and so, you know, I when when we give tzedakah, I try to get tzedakah fairly anonymously. Um when we do nice things for people, I try to keep it on the down low um unless it's a very public campaign in which many people are involved because otherwise again, it's then it's about, you know, burnishing my image as opposed to anything else. You know, if if if that helped to get across a point, which is that I think that a religious worldview is makes you a better person, which I I think it absolutely can. Or if it was about the idea that, you know, acting morally in your personal life is is sometimes indicative of or can be sometimes indicative of political leaning, then that'd be one thing. And I will talk about that sort of stuff. But if it's just a self-serving, look at me, look at all the nice things I do kind of thing, I'm uncomfortable with that. I think other people should be uncomfortable with that as well. It's And that's exactly right for you to to not be sharing it. And I'm not saying it's my or our responsibility to share, but I think it's really important reminder that the the people that we see in their online persona or the caricature of who they are is not the totality of who they are. And even with their points, not with you in particular, but with others that we disagree with, we should remember that there's a total picture that a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a friend, a neighbor, and there's probably a lot more we agree with than we disagree with. If we knew the softer side or some of the good things they did, then maybe we'd feel different about them. So that's why I think it's important for the world to know that about you or other public personalities. You know, one of the things that I think is definitely true, and this this I have tried to get across publicly, is that there's this image you know, there's kind of two weird images that that don't really jive. One is you know, rabid right-wing reactionary who's who's always destroying people online and all that. And the other is the fact that I have conversations with people I disagree with literally all the time, more than any other person I know who's who's not, you know, pretending to be an objective media. You don't see a lot of people who are on the hard left having conversations with people who are on the hard right. I've had conversations publicly, and I invite them on my show, and I treat them with with great I think conciliatory tenor. I've had on people from fox.com, I've had on Ezra Klein, I've had on Matt Yglesias. I've had on Larry Wilmore from Comedy Central, with whom I disagree about nearly everything. I've had on Jason Blum, the Hollywood producer who is a far leftist. I've had on people who are who are advocates for vegetarianism. I've had I mean, like and they're interesting conversations. I mean, I've spent my entire life being around people with I disagree. And so, I actually enjoy those conversations. And that doesn't really mesh with the other image of me, which is somebody who's, you know, a blowtorch. And And both both images exist. I mean, because everybody it's, you know, it's the old, you know, blind men feeling an elephant kind of thing. If all you get is just the the the the snippet of, of, you know, one guy feeling the elephant's leg, not quite the same thing as as recognizing that an entire elephant exists. So, I don't expect that everybody's going to make themselves familiar with the corpus of my work. That's not really their job. But, you know, it's before you make a a fullsome judgment about somebody, you should at least take the time to like just look at their YouTube channel for for 5 seconds. Right. Get to know them a little bit. Howie Brody. Yeah. First of all, Ben, big fan, long time listener. It's so great to see you in person right now. So, this is fantastic. Just got a question, you know, you you rose very quickly to stardom, you know, with between almost 20 books, between the shows and everything else you've been doing. Were there any parts or different points along that journey where you said, maybe I thought I was going to go in a different direction, it just didn't work out. Were there challenges along the way? And also, where where do you want to be in 10 years from now? You know, you've already 20 books. You know, you've got the show already. What's more? What what's left? know, like anybody who achieves any level of prominence, it looks like it's sudden, but really it's toiling away in the mines for years. And then it's all of a sudden. So, it's it's all slow slow slow and then fast. And so, if you you look at sort of the the story of my career, I was syndicated at age 17. I'd written a bunch of books before I sort of reached any level of prominence. I would say probably, just looking at sort of my career timeline, the first level of true prominence outside of just the conservative movement was probably that Piers Morgan interview in 2013. But by that point, I'd already written several books. I'd already been to Harvard Law School. I'd I'd I'd been doing this for a long time. I mean, I'm 36 now. I've been doing this since I was 17. So, I've literally been doing this for more than half of my life. Uh and it's really only in the last seven or eight years that it's really started to, you know, pick up the way that that it has. Uh so, you know, I I think that every career story is is kind of like that. Nobody sees all the stuff in it. Look, nobody wants to hear about the the uh the labor. Everybody just wants to see the baby. So, that's the uh you know, that that's that's sort of the the story of of anybody's career. Um but, you know, as far as other directions, yeah, I mean, when I went to college, I never thought I was going to be in politics. My my parents thought I was, but I always thought that uh apparently since the time I was young, uh which they've since told me. But, uh when I was a when I was a kid, I thought that I was going to be uh in music. I thought that I was going to be uh I was a uh pretty virtuosic violinist. I was sitting with one of the top 10 teachers in the country. Uh and then I had to make a call when I was like 16, 17, do I want to play violin 8 hours a day? Uh and the answer to that was I wasn't going to do it, and the career prospects in music are not fantastic. Uh yeah, and I knew this cuz my father was a professional pianist. Uh so, the uh so, I I thought I was going to double major in music and genetic science when I went to UCLA. Uh I went to UCLA when I was 16, uh and so, I didn't leave home. I lived at home cuz my parents were like, "Are you insane? You're not living away from home at the age of 16 on a college campus. That's not a thing that's happening." Uh so, I I lived at home, uh and uh I thought that's what I was going to do, and I kind of got roped into politics just by coincidence. I was walking through UCLA, I saw a piece in the UCLA Daily Bruin comparing Ariel Sharon, then the prime minister of Israel, to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi. Uh and I walked into the Daily Bruin uh editorial board, and I said, "I'd like to write a counter." And that sort of started things off. Uh when I finished law school, I thought I was going to go into real estate law. Uh even after I decided that I really wasn't, you know, going to do real estate law, that working in a law firm was, as it turns out, a horrifying experience that I simply could not bear. Uh and uh it it it could have also been timing. I joined a real estate law firm in uh September of 2007, which as it turns out was literally the worst time in the history of the the to join the real estate industry. Uh I I figured that this was not for me. I was not the kind I'm not detail-oriented enough, frankly, to to do pagination checks and and doc review, which is what you're forced to do for the first several years. And it was miserable for me. It was miserable for the firm. I was amused that when I when I quit the law firm, I remember sitting in the office of the senior associate, and the senior associate saying to me, "You know, why are you quitting this firm? You know, you're making so much money here." And I gave all my reasons, you know, this is boring, I don't feel like I'm doing anything really important, it just doesn't fulfill me. And there's a second senior associate who was there, and the second senior associate goes, "You know, maybe I should quit." Convinced. And so, you know, I tried the real estate thing. And then I I thought that I was going to be the behind-the-scenes guy. I thought that I was going to be the business guy. I'd been doing writing, but I never thought of myself as sort of the in front of the camera talent. And it took me hooking up with my business partner Jeremy Boring for him to say to me, "You know, you're getting this all wrong." And it was particularly after the Piers Morgan thing, where he said, "You know, I think that we've got this backwards. Like, yeah, you're you're good at business and all of that, but, you know, I can do business, and we can do the business together, but you really need to be the talent, because not a lot of people can argue like you, you're you're you're a good speaker, you have really, you know, excellent command of the facts. And so, we need to put focus on that." And that was really when we made the concerted attempt to to change and career paths that way. And you know, thank God it caught on. I mean, we started the podcast literally in his pool house. There were, I believe, the first episode was downloaded 3,000 times. And and now, you know, our episode right after the vice presidential debate was downloaded and watched in excess of 3 million times. So, and that's an average episode of the show will get 1.5 to 2 million views and downloads. So, it's You're you're almost you're almost up there with Behind the Bima. One day, man. One day. We are so close. there. Yeah. It's an extraordinary story, but I want to correct one thing. It wasn't the worst time for you to go into law, it was the best time because had you gone in during any other time, you might still be doing pagination and uh and you might not might not have moved on from them. So, it's all the hands of Hashem which is directing you. We've kept you a very long time and you're incredibly generous and gracious with your time. We don't want to wait for that socially awkward moment, but just uh just a lightning round quick question before we before we let you go. Could could you spend 1 minute just talking about what Daf Yomi and daily Torah learning means because I think there's a whole world of listeners who follow you, Jewish, maybe even observant, but don't have that dedication to daily learning and they should know that, you know, your opinions are informed, they come um from Torah and what what Torah means to you. So, what what is doing the Daf? Why did you pick it up? What does it mean for you? How important is it to do it daily? The other Torah learning that you do? And so, we got to the end of the Daf cycle and uh I had not been doing Daf Yomi. And as there was all this publicity around Daf Yomi, I figured why not just jump in. And also, if I talk about it on the show, then presumably there are a lot and I have a lot of from listeners, obviously, uh and people who are not Jewish from uh who who might want to give it a try uh and actually get acquainted with Daf Yomi. And so, I talked about it on the show and um I know that uh the the Daf Yomi site that I think that that day, they had several thousand people who joined up to do Daf Yomi, uh which is pretty which is pretty cool. Uh and uh and then uh that was given sort of another boost when the Vanity Vanity Fair did a piece on me and then behind me was a whole shelf of sefarim. And so, there was all the speculation online about exactly what the various sefarim meant by my different, It started a discussion on Twitter. Yeah, that that that became kind of a thing. Um you know, what what it means to me and I I can't say that honestly I hit every single day with Daf Yomi. I I try to keep up with with most days still. Uh I got all the way through brachot. It started to fade a little bit during Shavuot. It's starting to come back now. Um but it's uh I what what's meant to me first of all, I I I've missed out on having a skill set. Uh I I've always I always like to increase my own skill set. My skill set when it comes to just being able to pick up and read a Gemara is is not up to par. Uh and so the because I didn't go to Yeshiva for a year, I went to YULA in in Los Angeles and then I went to Rabbi College. I never had the experience of breaking my teeth over it off. So, being more familiarized with Aramaic and really like learning how the phraseology works and how the logic works, I mean it's a it's a complete foreign language not just because it's Aramaic, but also because the the syntax, the the I mean you you literally have to read entire lines of reasoning into a seven or eight word phrase sometimes. Uh and that and that can only come with just sheer immersion. So, you know, I I would like to do more than Daf Yomi. I mean at some point when I take a summer off, I'd like to actually go and and do it full time for for a while and actually get really familiar with it. But even being immersed in it is for for an hour a day or for 45 minutes a day is is really useful and I stumbled across chestnuts that I'm able to use and that I'm able to to bring to bear. I mean there are that's the thing about Gemara that's that's so weird and interesting is that they'll be in the middle of a of a discussion about very specific halakhot surrounding exactly how you should do a brakha and then all of a sudden you're in the middle of a conversation about why bad things happen to good people. And and there are various takes on it. You're like, "Okay, well, this is this is interesting." And sometimes that's that's useful in in broader conversation. I mean honestly, it was more of a skills thing. When it comes to parsha study, that's where I tend to get more of the direct meaning. I get a ton out of I mean my book Right Side of History is very heavily steeped in in a lot of Tanakh. Um and I've written entire screenplays about Avraham Avinu and you know, I'm I'm I think Tanakh is I think virtually every important message that has ever been conveyed in human history can be boiled down to many of the stories in in Tanakh and and even more specifically in in what we're about to read in in upcoming weeks. I think that I'm probably going to go back to I I took a couple years off because the only problem with doing the Torah cycle every year on the show, doing the the every every single week is that then I have to come up with a different parsha Torah. So, the good news is that it's been a couple of Welcome to the Welcome exactly. So, now it's been a couple of years, so I can just use all my old material and assume that most of the audience has never heard it. So, I was planning actually on starting to do it again this week since we're since we're back to the beginning. So, that's that'll be that'll be interesting. And then I study Mishnah Yomi with with somebody for about 10 minutes a day. And the nice thing there is that the language is easy enough that I can do that while I'm in the car and the person can kind of talk me through it. I don't have to I don't have to have the text in front of me, but listen, I think it's important to to re-engage and I feel bad when there are periods of time during my life when I when I haven't engaged as much. And obviously this this all comes with the humility of knowing that I'm one of This is one of the things that's that's, you know, just generally amusing is that while I may be one of the more prominent Orthodox Jews on on planet Earth, I'm also in the bottom third of Orthodox Jews probably in terms of knowing things. And so, that is that's a It's good. It gives me room to grow. As long as you're learning, you're heading in the right direction. I want to thank you for the time you spent with us well beyond what we talked about. You've been generous with your time and I want to leave you with a a bracha. We we had a great rabbi Asher Weiss, the Menachem Asher spoke in our shul and he talked about the mission of a Jew is to find the balance and the blend between passion and compassion. And you were talking earlier about the importance of communicating with passion. And so, the bracha I want to give you is that with your yarmulke on and and representing Torah and Judaism, that Hashem should help you continue to find your voice to communicate passion with compassion and to be able to influence and shape things in a positive way, positive direction for us here in America, for Israel, and around the world. Thank you for your time. Welcome to South Florida. Mazel tov on being eligible to vote in your first election that that matters. And we'll look forward to please God continuing this conversation. Although I want to make it very clear, there's no no pressure on you to reciprocate and have us back on your podcast. It's quite right, Don't worry about that. I'm thank you so much and wel- welcome to South Florida and uh we're here for anything you need. It's great to have you. I appreciate it. I'm into the brocha and good luck with that one, God. We'll see how it goes. Thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. Have a great night. Wow. Okay. Hopefully you did it. You were nervous for this one. That was great. That was a lot of fun. it. That was great. That was a lot of fun. Great job. It's It's what I found in all my conversations you know that that I've that I've had yet with him which is not many. I don't want to pretend like we're best friends offline. And apparently for asking him to do this, I might have just ruined any chance of a friendship. Um but um you know, he he's he's a regular guy. Sometimes we see somebody's name in lights or we see how big they are and we we've had we've had big speakers, big rabbonim, prominent people, political and and we now have two campaigns who have been speaking to us about hosting events. And and there's the public persona and then was you sit in the office before or after the speech and you schmooze and you realize people are regular people and people all of their own insecurities and people all of their own even at the end when he admitted in terms of his knowledge base that he has to fill in about Judaism. I thought that was amazing and and you know, for any of our listeners, I hope it inspired them greatly. Here's a person who's achieved such fame and notoriety, prominence and he's still hungry. He's looking to grow. He's looking to challenge himself. To me that that's amazingly inspiring and I hope a lot of people took that lesson um from what he said at the end. Yeah, I hope they do and I hope people take up daily daily learning and uh hopefully in future broadcasts we can have three people who can ask a lot of questions too. I tell you what I thought that was amazing was um was when he described how he was at UCLA and he wasn't planning to go into politics and he sees an article that he disagrees with and he walks into the office and he says, "Can I write an editorial?" And that takes a lot of confidence even for someone as as intelligent and well-spoken articulate as he is. It takes a lot of confidence to be willing to put yourself out there and to speak your voice and and we need more Jews like that. We need more Jews, again, whichever side you're on, whichever perspectives you subscribe to, but we need more Jews that when they see something that bothers them in the newspaper, on college campuses, that they feel confident and comfortable stepping in and and writing something and to disagree and to and to represent the views that they hold by. Or put more simply, he found his voice. He didn't know he had it. He He thought his expression was on the violin. We have that in common. Definitely was never playing 8 hours a day, probably never played 8 minutes a day. Um he thought his he thought his voice was on the violin and then he found his voice. And all of us All of us can find our voice. You don't have to skip two grades or be in college at 16 to find your passion and there's no shortage of things to be passionate about and advocate for in whatever direction with respect, passion with compassion and um and I thought that was impressive, too. I think people love his honesty. Now, people just I keep reading. First of all, we've never had so many comments flowing through the screen flying during a show. off crazy spontaneously right now after he got off. No, I was dope. No, but we've got a brand new audience. By the way, every week for our audience, Behind the Bima is usually Wednesday nights 9:00 p.m. And you know, it's it's growing. It's growing. He's at 3 million, we're at like 2.8. Right. Right, it's growing. But people love his honesty, you know, and it's You might disagree with him, doesn't mean you don't want to tune in cuz you just want to get an honest opinion. Today, people don't people aren't honest. They're not telling you what's the truth. So, it's just nice, it's refreshing. There are people who their public persona is humble, kind, and sweet and when they're asked to do favors or to give their resources, they are absolutely obnoxious jerks. And there are people who their public persona might include something that seems as an agitator or aggressive, but offline, they're ready to step up, help, do things. They have a real chesed personality. You and I talk about that all the time when speakers come to BRS. We talk about speakers that are a little bit primadonnas. We talk about speakers that you just want to sit in the backyard, you know, and schmooze with and are so generous with their time and with their wisdom and with their guidance. I mean, I still think that the greatest moment I think with a with a speaker since I've been here is when Bret Stephens was in your office and he looks up and he says, "Yeah, I was once related to a Rabbi Grusinski." And you're like, "You mean that picture over here of the greatest Rabbis?" And he was so enamored by that and here I'm like, "Here's a guy at the time I think he just switched over to the New York Times." I said, "Here's a guy who has a a voice, a mouthpiece to thousand millions of people and he's sitting here schmoozing in our office about a great Rabbi from Lithuania named Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grusinski. about the kids. We're talking about family. having such a great conversation, such a great conversation. Which which to follow up on that, I want to say with great pride that we spoke to him for for what 40 minutes, a little under 40 minutes. We even had the Wi-Fi working for part of it. And I wanted to say that um people challenged us. We said this was not going to be politics. He brought up abortion, but we're not going to go to who he thinks is going to win for president or what are the liabilities or assets of either of the candidates or what's his position on any political issue. And people challenged us. There's no way you're having Ben Shapiro on and you're not talking politics. That's who he is. Cool old politics. And and I hope this was an example. It was an effort, but it wasn't hard that you can talk to someone about the things that you have in common. Talk about what daily Torah learning means to you. Talk about your journey to where you got where you are. Talk about how you forge relationships and what they matter. Failures and challenges. done. You have another hour of questions that We forgot to tell him that that was part one. Who wants to hear the questions we didn't get to? Anyone want to hear the No, no, you got to save First of all, I want to thank our listeners. Our listeners submitted questions the last few days, a ton of questions. And um I wanted to ask him a lightning round which included what is the most what is the most accurate or the best news source to read other than his? If he had to suggest another news source which is objective, but that would that would teeter on politics. I stayed away from that. What's his favorite safer what Rabbi or teacher had the biggest impact in his life? I was curious if he could go back to any point in Jewish history, what would it be? If he could go back and relive any point in Jewish history, what would it be? The shpizin question. No, cuz I actually saw that the other day and I was I was curious about it. Wondering how his teachers dealt with him in high school. I mean, this is a guy that seems to know everything. Like imagine if you're in ninth grade and you you know way more than your professor. I mean, it's must have been hard. You can call my teachers, ask them how they dealt with me. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I had I had another question one of our listeners submitted that we didn't get to. Well, which was um you know, if you follow him on social media, you'll see and I I don't know and I wouldn't have asked him this online whether he's actually writing every tweet or there's a team. Um but it's he he's engaged in consuming as well as producing information all day long, six days a week. And the question is how do you disconnect? Four letters a day. He said shul. That was I thought great. He said I come to shul and when I davin, that's that's my way of disconnecting. By the way, I I think it should be like that for all of our members. I love how he said, I've written 10 books and already that's amazing. He's like, yeah, and I ghost wrote wrote another nine. Could he ghost write one for for me? I'll tell you now, but but you know, you you spoke about kind of our agenda with that interview. I think one of the other things is what's made our show as successful as it is is people don't often times get to see the other side of people, right? So, see people see that the Rabbi Efrim Goldberg who teaches classes and gives shabbos shuva drashas that 4,000 people listen to and sitting up at the pulpit. No, no, but people see that public side of you, but they also they don't often times see the shmoozy side of you, the side of you where you're talking about your family and what it's like to plan a wedding during COVID and you know, I think people um people gravitate to normalcy and I think they appreciate when they see that even people that they admire and public figures can also be normal. And you know, I found it great when he was talking about his wife and his children. I think that's I think that's phenomenal. Right. I I um that's behind the bema. The whole theme of behind the bema is getting to see the real people. Take off the mask, take off the persona, take off the the uh inhibition and and see the real person and have real conversation and we're going to continue to have those kinds of guests and I think we've succeeded until now mixing up NFL owners with great prominent rabbis with a media celebrity and and being able to really mix it up with the CEO of a public company and you should see we're just getting started who we have to come. I regret that we're almost out of time. We got a couple minutes left and there were so many other things we wanted to talk about. I also wanted to ask him by the way whether he always was those political positions or did he move? Who's the famous quote that if you weren't liberal when you were young you didn't have a heart if you weren't conservative you didn't have a brain. I'm not saying that that's correct. I'm not endorsing that is accurate but I'm curious whether he shifted or moved. Who's the biggest influence his parents, rabbis, things he read, you know, what what was it that did it? But other topics that we have to talk about which we're going to get to next week include the minyan at BRS for Kol Nidre and the sad reality and fact of how many people we're still davening for and the gift of healthy children which no one should take for granted and the importance of continuing to daven and act as such. We will come back to that in a future week. Talk more about our Simchas Torah and why some thought that Simchas Torah Corona was better than any other we ever had. Some thought not even saying that we did. Some thought it was the best ever. Why did they think that? You may notice that we didn't make a l'chaim tonight. Why didn't we make a l'chaim? We're done making l'chaims. We are all using Thank you Danny Oppenheimer Oppenheimer Law Group again for your sponsorship and uh we are we are drinking out of our our swag over here but it's water in mine. Why did we stop having the l'chaims? Important conversation of what motivated that and maybe we'll end on this note cuz we always give the latest on fighting anti-Semitism and advocating for Israel. Facebook's policy this week excellent. Well done Facebook. Some might say it's about time and where have you been? You don't even get a yasher koach but I want to say yasher koach which should be a given is not always a given. The fact that they said they will not tolerate Holocaust deniers and if you think that that should be a given then know that Spanish River has reinstated a principal who's unwilling to go on record and say unequivocally the Holocaust happened. Living in a district with Holocaust survivors, we talked about this last week, and we should hold accountable. There's an election coming up. We will share with our listeners, at least for those who live in our district and can vote, who were the individuals who voted to reinstate cuz we should vote to not reinstate them. Anyone could reinstate somebody who denies the Holocaust, that is a hate crime, that is an anti-Semitic crime, that is deeply personal and deeply painful to all of us, particularly to our survivors, and it's intolerable, which makes Facebook's policy all the more important, and we should express our gratitude and our thanks to Facebook. So, on behalf of Rabbi Moskowitz and Rabbi Brody and our staff at Behind the Bima. Donny Applebaum here. Those three names overlap with our staff. That's all right there. Thank you, Donny, for sponsoring again. We are We have a bunch of sponsors lined up, but we have room for sponsorships. If you'd like to sponsor a future episode of Behind the Bima, please be in touch with Lee, l e e @brsonline.org. Huge thanks to Ben Shapiro. Love him or hate him, agree with him or disagree with him, you have to be impressed with him of what he's built and what he's grown, and worth getting to know the whole person, not just part of him. Listen, next week back to Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. We got a great show lined up for next week. Until then, stay happy, stay