From Surfing to Judaism My Unexpected Turning Point

When was the turning point for you as a Californian kid? >> Mhm. >> Discovering Judaism, how does that work? >> So, I was 23 years old and I got a free trip to Israel on one of those, you know, come and learn scholarship programs. >> Oh, Taglit? >> Like that, it was before Taglit. >> Okay. >> And it was to Aish HaTorah. >> So, Aish HaTorah ran the program? >> Yeah. >> What was it called? Discovery? >> No, it was called Jerusalem Fellowships. >> Okay. >> What happened was my my brother was in Aish HaTorah 7 years before that. >> Sam? >> Yeah. And Sam found out that there's a God and he found out that Torah is true. >> Okay. >> When he came back to LA after a couple months in Aish, he never mentioned it to us. But he kept it as a break glass in case of emergency. >> Really? >> the emergency? The emergency was he saw that his brother Yom Tov was not going to wind up being, you know, a real uh uh contribution to Klal Yisrael. >> Really? >> And so, he decided like I was about to graduate university. I'd been surfing around the world. I I don't know if people know what surfing is, but uh maybe >> Surfing is the people that go on the ocean on the waves. >> show them a clip. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> I just been with the previous year with the pro professional tour of surfing in France, Spain, and Portugal. So, I was going to do France, Spain, Portugal again. And then uh and then Morocco. >> Wow. >> Africa. >> Wow. >> I was going to move to the US. Did I say the US? I was going to move to Australia. >> Okay. >> And renounce my citizenship to the US out of protest of the Gulf War in 1991. >> Really? >> Yeah. >> What indicated to you that >> liberal. >> Okay. >> Protesting the Gulf War. >> When did Sam say, "Okay, I got to stop Yom Tov"? >> That was when. >> What is so bad about it like in Sam's eyes or >> Because Sam discovered that the Torah is actually true. >> But he didn't do anything about it. >> Everyone's got their husband, you know, like some people By the way, I I asked them later. I said, "Why Why did you Why didn't you tell me before?" He says or someone asked him, "Why didn't you say it before?" He says, "Cuz I knew if you had discovered this, he would never come back." >> Ah. >> Some people find out the Torah is true and they just like, "Okay, I'll add that to my list of things that are important." >> He knew you were going to take it much more serious than him.