Inside ArtScroll Episode 8 - Rabbi David Ashear

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Art Scroll, where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. We're honored today to have with us Rabbi David Ashir, best-selling author of the Living Amuna series. Thank you, Rabbi Asher, for joining us. It's a pleasure to be with you. Pleasure to have you here at beautiful art scroll headquarters. So, let's jump right into Living Amuna 5, your newest volume. Very exciting release. Tell us a little about how this volume is unique compared to your all earlier releases. Well, I would say that obviously every day of life presents new challenges, new situations and every day we need to keep developing our amuna. With this volume, the world has experienced this pandemic, the corona virus, and we included a special section how to deal with that, all the all the test and tribulations that come up with this. And as as life continues, there's always uh like I said, new things happening. And of course, when it comes to amuna, everyone can get 100 on the lessons. The lessons are everything Hashem does is good. Hashem is in control. But to see it from a different angle, from a different perspective, with a new story, with a new twist, ingrains it in us better. The idea is not just to know the lessons. The idea is to ingrain it inside of you till it becomes part of you and you could live amuna as the name of the book says. So your books as many know is are based on your lectures that you give daily lectures on on amuna. Um give us a little insight on how you go about compiling those lectures. Where do you get the stories from? Where do you get the detra from? Um and how do you go about formulating them? And do you do that having a mind that eventually they should be suitable for print? Well, every single day we sit down, we pray to Hashem that he gives us the material that we need. And every day, um, I'd like to I try to incorporate a story. I think the story hits people strongly. So, someone once asked me, they said, "It can't be your stories are true because they fit the lesson so well." I said doesn't work that way. The first thing I do is I find the story and after I find the story I formulate a lesson that will bring out the story which reminds me it's like the dubnamaged has the parable of the sniper or sharpshooter who kept hitting the bullseye and someone asked him how do you do that? He said very simple I create the target first or I rather I shoot the arrow first and then I create the target around it. It's kind of what you do. Yes. where you're taking the story and then adapting a lesson to it and that's why it fits so well which is really a smart way of doing it. So we look for a story. It's not easy to find the story. Many of our listeners and readers send in their own personal stories. So we have that to work with. I have what's called thearim with with tens of thousands of where you could punch in some some some words and you'll get dozens of that are talking about the topic. So that's how I do it. Every day I sit down. It could take anywhere between two to three hours to put a short lesson into on down on paper. And I do not think about the book at all when I'm writing the lessons. I think about what is uh pertinent to the day. How it could help people give them theizuk. People ask me, could you give for infertility? Could you give for uh for for someone struggling with pnasa or my sister needs a shid? And then the lessons that come that people need for I try to work on. And after it's all finished, then when to put it into book form is a whole new project to source it, to title it, to give it, you know, to edit it and then to choose the lessons that are going to be specifically for the book. There's I do this every single day, but the book only will get, you know, a quarter, not even of the lessons that we're doing on the daily basis. We pick out the cream of the crop for the book to give the reader, you know, exactly just the the essence of what of what amuna is all about. Now, how do you get into this topic to start with? What what I mean, you're infatuated with amuna. We all should be. Uh but what got you going into the topic of amuna going back any number of years? Well, as a teenager, I was a very big worrier. I was always what? nervous. What am I going to do for a living? How are you going to make money? How you going to get married? How you going to support a family? And I'll never forget uh maybe I was 20 years old. I don't remember exactly the year, but I received a uh tape series, CDs or tapes in the mail. It was tapes actually on a series on the from Rabbi Ary Waxman. And I started listening to this series where he went through different points of the from the and it was just oxygen for me and I said, "Wow, how do you live without this? This Hashem is with you every second and everything that happens in your life is Hashem and it's not on you and there's no worry." And I just I fell in love with it and I listened to that series again and again and then I wrote down every word of it and I just kept going over it and I said you can't live life without this. It's impossible. So I decided to share it with people and I had a yeshiva at that time already after going over it for a for a year or two. I had a half day yes of people who learn in the morning they go to work in the afternoon and I said they need this. So I gave a 15 minute a day mousad from those lectures from that series and everyone had the same reaction. Wow. Wow. This is unreal. And then I gave it at a night class in in in the shul that I that I go to and everyone the same reaction. The same reaction. Wow. Unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And my life has changed. My life has changed. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. And just the same reaction that I was getting, everyone else was getting. I said, 'We have to keep doing it. And just eventually it kept spreading and spreading and people want to hear it and we started the daily put it on an email and people signed up and eventually the it came to the art scroll where the art scroll said let's put it down on paper once and for all to have the entire Clalia benefit from it. Now in terms of your daily schedule I know you're a daff machir you're a teacher and you're spending multiple hours preparing this how do you do it how do you fit it into a day so I look at it like like another sed we have afternoon sed we learn I have a in the afternoon I have a yeshiva in the morning I have this is another sed you have to block out a certain amount of time no matter what two and a half to three and a half hours a is designated for this. And if I happen to finish early, I'll be able to answer some emails. There's people coming in with questions. People have issues that are brought up if I have extra time. But I have set in my schedule every day an amuna slot for this very purpose. Now, let take us a little back to your youth growing up. Where did you grow up? Where did you attend Yeshiva? And who were the guiding influences on you in your younger years? In my younger years, I actually grew up in De New Jersey in the Syrian community. We went to yeshiva there and I was just a regular Syrian boy as they say. And um we went to high school there. After high school, I went to Israel to Mikdash Melik in Yu Shalim. That's Rabbi Benal. Rabbi Ben Alil. And I learned there, came back, learned in Mikdash in in Brooklyn. And eventually I went to a coal and deal rabbi diamonds co and it was just nothing nothing with amuna regular life learning and uh my youth really had nothing nothing unique about it regarding amuna but I was influenced from many rabbis have there such a special community where every rabbi is interested in your growth and there was afterchool learning and night learning and every rabbi I could have could sit here all today and name all the rabbis. There's a lot of rabbis who influenced me who I'm so appreciative of for helping mold me and and become someone who is interested in Torah mitzvah. It's not easy growing up in today's day and age to be interested and they did a great job of of uh of of of keeping our interest and to take us to the next level. Obviously, they've laid a foundation for you. That's wonderful. and you've been able to use what you learned from them and your skills, your oratory skills, your understanding of learning to enrich people, which is amazing. Now, you've compiled so much information. You ever feel like, yeah, as much as there is out there, I'm kind of running out of material. Someone someone asked me, they said, "How do you come up with another story every day? Another story? Don't you run out of material?" I said, "I myself think the same thing. How do you come up with another story? I don't do it. I ask Hashem, Hashem, we the people need, the people need am. If Hashem decides to give us a story that day, give us the then we say, "Thank you, Hashem. You brought another is endless. This every day develops new things and new problems and new issues and new reasons to thank Hashem and the the topic is endless. Rabbi Rabbi Levenstein I think he said after the age of n he was in his 90s he says you know I'm still growing in amun there's no end there's no end to this topic and and the material is endless the Torah is is uh is endless like the says after all the Torah that we learned for all these thousands of years we still didn't even scratch the surface so there's never an end to any material any Torah especially in amun now there's Obviously an art in selecting material and you've mastered that art because it has to be material that resonates with people. But why do you think amuna is resonating with today's generation and your books touch all ages youngsters older people middle-aged people? You seem to have touched every demographic Ashkanazi everyone in between. Why do you think amuna resonates today perhaps more than ever? Well, our rabbis have told us at the end of time, one of the great uh one of the great midot we're going to need at the end of days to to get by all the struggles is amuna. Amuna talks to everybody because everybody needs Hashem. Everyone knows in any situation they're in, they need Hashem. Whether it's in learning, whether it's ina, no matter, doesn't matter who you are, you need Hashem. And to know about the amuna is the study of how Hashem relates to us. What does he h how do we how do we uh how do we relate to Hashem? How to understand Hashem? Who doesn't need that? Everybody needs that. Everyone needs Hashem. And that's why it doesn't matter who you are and everyone recognizes they need Hashem. And just to understand how Hashem relates to us and how we can ask Hashem for whatever we need and how Hashem helps us is a necessary component of everyone's life and that's why Amuna is is uh resonating with everyone. Now you mentioned before that you get emails from readers, stories. Anything particular come to mind? Something especially meaningful from a reader who read your book I really call it a safer who read your wonderful writings and was so inspired and either implemented a change or experienced a transformation in their life. I find that something that occurs over and over is that people say, "I needed a certain I needed a certain and I just opened to the page and there it was or I just got the email and there it was." And because the nature of it could talk to a thousand different thousand different problems, wow, I didn't realize Hashem was with me. I didn't realize that Hashem was doing this. It's just a simple reminder that's a really a cure all. A simple reminder. Hashem's holding my hand. So I think in all this the feedback that I got, it's always that same reaction of wow, it's talking to me. It's talking to me. It's talking to me. And that's that's what I hear again and again. I do think the style of your books are wonderful in that you could really open up any page and start reading. There is no chronology so to speak to it. However, if someone is being introduced to your series for the first time, do you feel they should start from volume one and somehow build up? Is there some kind of progression or is it indeed, you know, free reading where you could open up any book at any point? I would say that you should start with number one. It is free reading. But some of the things that I might not include in later books is because I said I included it already. This idea was said more fundamental certain fundamentals certain fundamental ideas as I said we spoke about that in book one already. It doesn't need but again like I said every aspect of needs reinforcing. So you will see certain principles come up again. You can read any book. You could open up any book at any time. You don't need a background. But if you want to do it the best way, I would say to start from the earlier ones. I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but what is your favorite amuna story of all time? The favorite amuna story of all time. I can't say that there's one particular. I do enjoy those stories of people who were in such hard times and they managed to thank Hashem and they managed to show their hakarat to Hashem in the worst of times and because of that am they saw a Yeshua. I could think about 10 of them off the top of my head now of stories like that where people in the in the worst of times are clinging to Hashem and because of their amuna they saw Yeshua. I enjoy those stories a lot. If you were given the opportunity to address the largest audience you ever had masses and masses of people maybe to see mash and you were able to give one message one story what would it be related to amuna? The message of Mun and I would say the most important message of all is that each person in this world is given a unique purpose. You come down here for a for a reason. It's not about this world. It's about doing your purpose. It's not about getting what you want all the time or getting what I feel I should have. It's Hashem who knows your purpose, who knows what you're doing, who's interested in your future, in your eternity. running every aspect of your life with that in mind. Yes, he wants you to be happy always in this world and the next world. If there's a contradiction where he have to withhold something because he knows it's good for your eternity, you have to be able to accept that. You have to live with the idea that there's an eternity. And every moment of your life, Hashem who knows your purpose. You don't. No one else knows. And don't compare yourself. What about he has and she has and why'd she get married and why'd she have a kid? Because you have a different purpose and your purpose only Hashem knows. Someone would say, you know, if Hashem told me what my purpose is, then I could accept it. If Hashem told, he doesn't have to tell you. He's running your life. He's g he's putting you in every situation you need to be in to achieve what you need to in this world. And that's the message I feel that if you just take that message to heart, you'll be able to deal with anything that comes your way. With the release of Living Amuna 5, you've now sold well over 200,000 books, adult books, children, teens. You seem to be touching a lot of demographics. What's next for you? very soon looks to we're coming out with a book on the family edition of Amuna where people will be able to uh relate to the the parents and children together. There's one adults, there's one children and then there's going to be a sort of back and forth with questions and answers. Oh wow. And uh we're looking to come out also in the uh with parades for a new volume on on on based on the para just para so people could have every Shabbat they want to read about the parasa and also get an insight in amuna they should have that uh option and also we're hoping that time there's going to be a second edition of the teens book which the teens book also hashem has done very well tremendous And there's a thirst for more for the teens and we're hoping that that will also be released this year. Well, we want to thank you so much for joining us and I guess our mutual prayer is that we should all be to progress and perfect our ama so that we could be to the ultimate which is a closer relationship with Hashem. Thank you again. Amen. Thank you. Heat.