From Islam & Christianity to Judaism - Nissim Black

[Music] Can everybody hear me? Okay. Thank you guys so much. My name is Nim Black. Um, originally from Seattle, Washington. I just want to preface the talk a little bit because uh, one of the biggest things I've been being written up by professional reporters, uh, real professional, uh, since I was about 13 years old, 13, 14 years old. And one thing I can say is true. I've never been able, even when I've sat down with people and talked to them, I never been able to get the actual story the same way. I never read it the same way that I even gave it over. So people ask me now say why? Because you're you don't watch the news. You don't listen. I'm saying listen if I was there I talked to the reporter. I gave over my whole entire everything. I gave over my whole entire story and then they still messed it up and I've seen this every time. I'm definitely not going to trust them to give me a eyewitness of something they didn't go see. So, so for that reason, I want to preface it by by speaking a little bit about my family, a little bit like that. Uh, a few times I've been written up, they put them directly under the bus and things were dysfunctional. I'm not going to say, but uh, one of the things I like to say is that my my my stepfather, for for instance, was uh, I think it's only appropriate, his father's day, was a type of person who will give his shirt off his back for anybody I knew. I and I speak about this often is uh you know everybody have certain they have certain you know things that you have certain kot that a person has and and that are part part of them attributes certain things like that that you see by certain people but then at the same time you can see somebody hit somebody with a bat over their head also too and say same guy you know so but I just want to preface to say that you know all of us we have inside of us you know two different people the the the safar the holy books talk about the uh the mamaates the the the the battle between that the two cities the balatana brings down and inside a person there's two kings of of of two different sides waring and they each one of them want to have that person so understand that with every every um every problematic or issue or bad meter that a person has that there's also the opposite side that the person also has a meter meter to they also have the good side of that meter. Sometimes it's just redirected. So I grew up in Seattle, Washington, born and raised there and uh thank God they finally let me leave three months ago. I was born and raised there and uh I was exposed to a lot very early as a kid. I seen uh I seen a lot of drug abuse, a lot of violence. Like I said, it's very dysfunctional. me myself. I um started smoking pot when I was about in the 10th when I was 10 years old. So about fourth grade. By the time I was 12 years old, I was already selling it. I already had uh my own little business there. And uh I was a business entrepreneur, you know, started early. But these were the things that I seen very very early on. So naturally a person becomes a product of your environment. This is what you've seen. So what you see you do. I remember when I was about eight years old, my family, we were battle ran by the FBI. So, I woke up to my mother half-dressed with a gun to her head and everybody in the house zip tied in and uh in cuffs and my uncle at this time was a really big uh drug lord or whatever and his face was in the couch and they screaming, "We got you. We got you." And that whole night, you know, funny business was going on. But we didn't know everything that was going on. As a kid, especially when I was so young, I didn't know everything that was going on. But that morning waking up to that. But this is this is to give you an idea of of what I seen. So when I was about eight and a half close to nine years old, my grandfather came to live with me. My grandfather was a Sunni Muslim. And uh later on he ended up in a place where a lot of Muslims are. It's not Mecca. It's penitentiary unfortunately. I don't know why they hang out there so much, but a lot of people come back out and they're Muslims when they come out of there. So that's where my grandfather ended up back in that place. But before he went, he taught me how to pray. I prayed with him five times a day. Um I was exposed to some Quran. He he was very very influential in my life because nobody else was religious. I didn't have any connection to anything relig. My parents were completely secular. My my you know my my my mother sold drugs. My father sold drugs. So this is the kind of lifestyle that I was exposed to very very early on. And it wasn't until about I say 1997 my grandfather ended up going on a very long vacation I just mentioned. And during that that that time I started to want to search. I wanted to find out what I was supposed to be doing. Now you should know I was always into music. Everybody asked when did you start? You know, they said I was doing Michael Jackson, you know, with a boo boo diaper. I I mean, by the time I was seven, you couldn't convince me I wasn't Michael Jackson. I knew I was Michael Jackson. I said, "Go to sleep with a dirty white glove, you know, one glove, you know. I had to move down." And nobody had a meaner meaner moonwalk than me except for my my best friends here, Yseph. There was this one guy named Bobby in school. He had a better moonwalk, but that was it. Other than me, then nobody had. And so, uh, I was always into music in every way that I could possibly express myself through song. I was jumping at that opportunity. And so, when I was about 13 years old, I was offered to to go to this hip-hop program. At this hip-hop program was at a particular, it was a it was a like a center, a community center. And this community center was called the Union Gospel Mission. I had no idea. If anybody asked me at this time what my religion was, I would have told them I'm a Muslim because that's that's my grandfather was. And so I remember going to this to this place and it was like a safe haven for me a little bit. They got me out of my environment. All those uh beautiful dysfunctional things I seen at home I got to distance myself from. And uh nobody mentioned anything to me about religion. Nobody said anything to me. They just brought me in by the music. They knew I was very interested. We put on a play. It was a whole whole thing. And uh very very loving people. And uh shortly after this, they decided to ask me if I wanted to go to camp. Now, this camp was a was a camp. It wasn't just any camp. It was a missionary camp. You go to this camp, you know, they it's a it's the real deal. So, I went and uh I remember going I had like Kofies, you know, and I know I didn't fit in, but you know, after a couple of days, I started eating some pork. It was all good. It was all right. And uh you know I remember I remember standing outside one time somebody like snatched off like my little goofy turban thing and we got into a big thing. But I wasn't it wasn't one of those things where where for me it was about just a camp in itself. It just it took me out of my environment and that was the best thing for me at that time and Hashim works in mysterious ways because it was the most appropriate thing for me and what my nishama needed at that point to get me out of my environment. So uh finding nad that throughout this I don't know week and a half week 8 day um experience that there were a lot of questions asked to you at 13 years old. What are you going to answer? you don't know what to answer when you got serious questions like what are you going to do with your afterlife you know what are you gonna you know I didn't know I hadn't thought about it I still at that point thought the whole world revolved around me so I don't I'm definitely not thinking about what's going to be in the next world but of course with all the questions that they ask you everybody's got the answer everybody's got the answer the other beautiful part about this sort of like in a Jewish camp today after you may heard something very heavy very serious. You get together, you discuss it with a counselor. We had something called cabin time. Now, during cabin time, we were were dealing with inner city kids. Everybody was coming from the most broken situations, the most broken homes. And for all of us to build and to get together and to speak and to talk, it built such a like a camaraderie. It was it was amazing. It was amazing experience that I had and it was the first thing to really help me to put my to put my guard down and uh now finding that out by the end of this camp I was a full-fledged uh born again Christian. You're born again even if you wasn't born a Christian but he's still born again. That's that's how it works. I don't know how. Still trying to figure it out. But anyway, I was very very devout. I was very very into this for about eight months. Very strong, very strong. I was and uh I immediately came back home. I distanced myself from the friends that I was hanging around and I started to go to uh all the Bible study. They had these these Bible study groups and all that. I couldn't get into church because football was on Sundays. Church of football, you know, like you guys, I'm still amazed. I just was told is game seven and look how packed the guy section are. I'm really really proud of you guys. But you know this type of thing I couldn't make it in my head I'm supposed to be in church and on Sunday the Seahawks are playing you crazy. I'm not going. So I would go all the time to this to this to this Bible study throughout the week. And just slowly over time, you know, I became like the poster child for this place because I was bringing by this I was on my way into high school. So I was bringing like half of my high school was involved in all the study groups, all the clubs and all the, you know, this whole community center. And then so I started being on the new magazines for these, you know, these Christian magazines. And I was such a pillar of hope and I was the, like I said, the poster child. And they gave me a little junior missionary card, you know. So I got SMA. It was a beautiful uh beautiful beautiful time in in life. I was I was moving up and slowly but surely things hit you. You know, you start to live life a little bit and and and when I talked to most Gar or most people, I talked to them and we discussed among them. Most people I know had an experience where they either felt that they they didn't belong or they felt like they were completely out of place. And this hit me about my ninth my 10th grade year of high school. I remember walking in one day through the through the through the gates. Um, and I was nothing happened. Nothing significant. Nothing didn't I didn't hit anything. I didn't hit my head or anything. But when I walked through the door during that lunch period, I looked around and something hit me in inside and said I didn't belong. I felt out of place. I felt as if I knew something that there was a certain knowledge. I wouldn't have said back then, but a certain das there was something that I knew that nobody else knew and be it was separating me from everybody else and I couldn't feel it. And then after a while ate like a chicken nugget and it went away. But I never forgot that moment that I had that experience where I felt completely completely different. So fast forwarding a little bit now I'm moving up. I'm the captain of the football team. I'm uh very very busy and by this time my 10th grade year I was also very strong spiritually as a religious Christian. I was I macar like I said macarved all the school. They're all going to the to the to the programs now all these different things. And and one of the things is that my friends, they admitted to me after well after high school by this time, you know, I'm already a kid and everything else. And they were sitting, they told me, you know, we used to plot on you because you were so religious and you were so and you made us feel so, you know, like bums, you know, for a lack of a better term. I think that's a good one. They were being bums. So, we'll call them bums. They being bums towards me. And they apologize as grown men. They apologize for the way they would treat me. They would they would say the most foul things about God and curse and just everything just cuz they want to get a reaction out of me. They won a lot of times. They really won. There's one particular time I remember that they they had these nightclubs, you know, uh that you would go go to uh when you were young and and you needed to get in the worst trouble you could possibly get in to. So, and I was very very strong. I'm not going, you know, these guys. And so they're all trying to talk me into it and everything else. So I go to an adult in the house and I say, you know, I think it was my mother at the time. I said, you know, that you're all trying to get me to go to this. And I'm waiting for her to say no. And she goes, "You should go." You know, so I had nobody on my side finally. And I remember walking going to this uh this nightclub for teenagers basically is what it was. And I remember walking in there and like I took 10 steps and just inside I was struck. So I turned around and I started walking back and a real close friend, he comes and grabbed me in my chair. He said, "You're already sinning by being in here. Just finish it out." You know, so you know, this is like what they thought, you know, like, you know, this is you. You need to cuz I was finding myself all the time forcing situations when I was trying to I was trying to grow. Even back then, I seen that Shim was with me. I had a I had a I had a path. I didn't know how to get there. It wasn't uh Giloy. It wasn't clear to me yet, but it was a it was a path. So, fast forwarding a little bit, now I'm in my 11th grade year. Not so religious. Why am I not so religious? Because I just been offered a half a million dollar contract from a big record label named Virgin Records. One of my debles made it through some friend or another friend, another friend to the table of this ANR. And now I'm receiving calls and one of the things that they want from you all of a sudden is to spice up the raps a little bit. You know, you can't rap. Nobody raps without cursing. Who was big at that time? A guy by the name of 50 Cent. He doesn't have to be mentioned in the show, but whatever. We're talking. I'm just saying, you know, if you know who he is, then I'm sorry. So anyway, you know, this is what rap was back then. So they so they wanted me to, you know, just throw in a few curse words, toughen it up a little bit. So along with all these new edgier raps came people that did a little bit more than rap about it, you know. So this becomes the people that cheer around. And uh I remember we tried to get a bidding war going. So, one of the things we did, we went to I went to New York. Then I went to uh Slim Shades Records. I went to Atlantic. I went to all these places. Dame Dash and Jay-Z had just split. So, the Rockete fell. So, Dame Dash had his own thing. We went to go meet with him. Clark Kidd who both discovered Biggie Smalls and Jay-Z. He was really into me. Wanted to sign and and here we go. But we're trying to get something going and everything that we that we thought even the virgin situation everybody pulled out and now I'm left with this new record this harder person whatever we're going to do. So we decided to do it independently and so now here we are. We're left with the music and uh we got the guys that like I said they're doing a little bit more than just talking about this thing and and this the real deal. And so slowly but surely we start to build a following. we're selling, you know, getting kicked out of the mall and the movie theaters. We're soliciting hand to hand, you know, that type of thing, you know, like they say, selling the CDs out the trunk, you know, we did all of that and uh we started to gain a following. And then at this time also too, um I started producing records for other guys that were part of Innercope Gunit, uh people that were connected to 50 Cent and different things like that. I found myself on a few disc records also too that uh I didn't have anything to do with. So things were kind of blowing up and we started to see that we were having a little bit of success and I at this time we I I became the um co-CEO of our independent record label. And so I'm starting to put my guys on and start to put their music out. And a good friend of mine, we just finally finished this record and we went, of course, to a drug dealer to go find the money to put it out. That's the type of thing you did back then. We didn't have too many guys that were real uh real investors that could give us any real capital. So, we had to go get the capital from, you know, from someone else. It was a good thing though because, you know, it kind of worked that it worked itself out in a bad way. Um, so what happens in rap and what was happening during this time was this whole thing about rap battles. You know, guy get on the and trust me, it's no different than WWE wrestling. Sorry for the guys who thought that was real. It's not real. Neither is the rap stuff neither. These guys are all some of the chains they're dipped in dipped in silver. They're not the real thing and all that. But anyway, so they're going back and forth and one of the one local guy thought that he would make a record about me behind my back and uh then maybe I would I would say something back and then it'll be the talk of the city, talk of the town, and then we'll go back and forth and then maybe give him some I don't know. And so when we heard the song, we decided a group of my friends, what are we going to do about it? We make another song. What are we going to do? So we decided we just go beat the guy up and he won't make any more songs. That was going to be that was going to be it. So we went and we went to a nightclub that we knew that he was going to be at. We found through someone else. And uh we went up there and of course a brawl happens. That's what happens at nightclubs. That's what they're for. And uh so we went up there, we had we got into this altercation and it was it was an altercation, but it wasn't the worst one. So I didn't think anything of it. I left after, you know, put the rest of my clothes on, all that type of thing. We went to the to the office of our independent record label. All of a sudden, I got a phone call. The phone call was from a friend. He said, "The police are looking for you." I said, "For what? For fighting at a nightclub?" Everybody fights at night. How what they going to get me on? What I do? I damaged a wine glass. I don't know what's going to be. So, and uh they said, "No, the police are saying that you were shooting. You were shooting in the nightclub and that you you was I said, "No way. I know I didn't even have a gun at the time." So, I couldn't make out what they were saying to me because I know I didn't have a weapon. So, I hung up the phone and I'm panicking now because I don't know what this person's talking about. And I remember being with the rest of my friends. We ran downstairs and ran out. And now I'm on my way home cuz my heart's beating cuz police are looking for me because I supposedly were shooting. And we see from a distance sirens and we see the the the lights of the of the police car. So we tiptoe a little closer and a little closer. Now I want to let you know what is it this black people usually don't go towards the sirens. We're not looking to go find out what's going on. We used to go the other way, but for whatever reason, I was very interested in knowing what was going on, especially after knowing the police, you know, were looking for us. That wasn't a typical thing to go towards the police. So, we started walking, tiptoeing, and the closer and closer I got, I seen that it was a good friend of mine who, in my honor, and in my defense, he decided to go up and try to take the other guy's life. And uh un unfortunately but fortunately in the streets, you know, guys don't usually do target practice. So they miss a lot. And that's what happened in this particular case. He missed and he didn't hit him. He hit the pole and the car and other things, but he didn't hit the actual person. So I remember going back and and later on finding all this out. I had no idea what's going to happen. And then so I had the next thoughts the next morning when I figured out when I got a call and they told me everything that h what happened and what the situation was and I put two and two together. Now I'm fearing for my life. Why am I in fear for my life? Because there's codes in the streets. One of the things are is when you bring a gun into a situation, if we fight, we fight. But once a gun is brought into the situation, then that means it's either you die or I die. And so now for the first time I'm pacing back and forth in my living room and I'm halfway in tears because I'm thinking if I don't go take this person's life he's going to come and take my life. So now during these times the person lives life. You know Hashimma would break a person down very quickly and start to show you who you are. I can uh back back up a little bit. I remember the first time I robbed somebody. I was 12 years old and it wasn't because I wanted to or I needed something that the other person had. It was a guy this big and he told me that if I didn't go take from the other person, he was going to go do to me. I remember hitting this person, taking their belongings, walking off and when I went home, I cried like a baby because it wasn't who I it wasn't who I was. And sometimes a person puts you get put in a situation to where you're really exposed. Here I am for the first time. This isn't this isn't a song. It's not a rap song. This is the real thing. and if I don't go hurt this person or take this person's life, he's going to do to me. My barber, I remember when I was a kid, he had a very similar type of situation where he said, she said, whatever, and he had a disagreement with another person, and in broad daylight, they finally seen each other, him and the other person, and they killed each other in the middle in the middle of the day because it never got talked out. It never got handled. And I remember pacing. I sit back and forth in my living room now saying, "God, what's going to be?" You know, and and I was crying. I started crying. I started crying because I didn't want to be the type of person. I knew people who that if they would have been in my neighborhood and they're walking and they would have been worse than than the worst for them to be in that just to walk in a certain neighborhood there is it's like suicide and I didn't want to have that issue. So, as I'm pacing back and forth and I'm talking to God, I don't want to answer my phone. I'm not interested. And I was just crying, asking God if there's another solution. Am I going to skip town? Am I going to what's going to be? Cuz I know for sure there's no way in the world that I'm getting out of this situation. And one day, all by Hashem allowed for my phone to ring. I answered it and it was the other guy. And he was just as afraid as I was. He didn't say it like on the phone, he didn't say, "I'm scared." You know, he wanted to make himself sound like, you know, what is it? You know, and um and he thought if you know, he didn't come kill me, I was going to kill him. And so now we're here both on the on the phone, then Hashem allowed for us to be on the phone to be able to talk about this situation before anything ever escalated. And we squashed everything. What are you going to do? Are you going to continue with the same type of thing and allow for another situation like this to happen and it to be the real thing or are you going to stop and rethink things? And so I went with that. I stopped and I re rethought everything. I stopped answering my phone, stopped talking to people and uh I just sat and and and and I thought and I kept praying to Hashem. I kept talking to God every day, every day, every day. And uh along this this uh you know this these these long conversations conversations with the shim kept getting longer and longer and longer longer I started to ask questions. A lot of the questions started to resurface that I had as a kid when I was going to those Bible study groups that nobody could ever answer me. Questions about uh you know JC if he was Jewish, how come Christians are not Jewish and different questions on different things like that that they don't they're not so OC in that that that never got answered to me by them or typical Christians people that I knew. So while I had all this free time on my hands of trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life because I can't continue a gangster rap. That's not going to be a best solution for trying to stay out of those type of situations. So I started every day to learn something. I started going on Amazon. I started buying had with my wife didn't know. She thought I had you know uh Arabic. She thought it was Arabic. She thought I was becoming a Muslim. So, I didn't know what was going on was with all these books. And every day I was spending about eight hours a day and in front of my computer, in front of my books trying to find them and trying to find the truth. And every day I was crying and talking to Hashem. And I'm telling you, I became so broken. I started fasting three days at a time. I was taking no food, going out, talking to Hashem for hours. I knew nothing about breast love, nothing about I know nothing about dudes. I was just looking for the truth. I was looking for Hashem. And every day it was like I fell in love with Hashem some more. Just some more because I had to start over because now I'm finding out that everything that I thought to be true was not true. So what happens and saying, "Hashem, all right, we're going to start over. I'm going to learn you brand new. Brand new. I want to learn you." So when I started going through all of all of Na and I was starting to see Hashem was open my eyes to so many different things. I decided at this point that I needed a rabbi that was going to help me sort all these things out. Uh mind you, you should know that I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and uh that Jewish neighborhood I never knew anything about Judaism. So I started to explore. So I went to a rabbi rabbi's name was google.com and google.com gone shlita the holy holy holy holy rebi google led me to a lot of lot of lot of places took me on a whole different path a different type of sugas in life and uh and and reboo showed me showed me such a way don't don't try that at home by the way I don't I don't don't pass him by google at home to say you I was in a place. I was in a certain place. Don't pass me by Google. But I at least, you know, it was it was a it was a time. It was a time. But I got to a place where Shim started opening my eyes and everything was happening so rapidly. So I said, "Now I have all this new information. I found out that, you know, almost everything I knew was false and it wasn't true." And I I couldn't give up JC, of course, obviously, because you go to hell. That's a one-way ticket. So, I didn't really know what to do with that part, but I knew at least that Christmas wasn't true and Santa Claus and everything else. That didn't have anything to do with it, but I still was kind of holding on to Santa Claus for a long time. It's too long. Too long. But anyway, so I I remember one day I uh went to my wife and I sat her down on the couch and I made sure that I sat on the other couch just in case anything went flying across the room. And I told her, I said, "Honey, I don't want to celebrate Christmas. I don't want to celebrate Easter." She said, "I don't want to be married." And uh it was a very very like, you know, shocking thing for her. She knew something was cooking, but she didn't even want to ask what was going on with me over there with all those books open cuz she was just like, you know, she's like, "We just had a baby." Like, "How can you do all this?" And uh baby wasn't barely a couple weeks even not even a week when I when I told all that. I was so insensitive. But I had to tell the truth. I was I was at a place. And uh I remember asking her, listen, I'm not pushing myself on you. I'm not pushing my belie. I just want you to learn. She grew up in a much stronger Christian foundation, much stronger uh Christian roots. So for her, it was a lot more for for her to disconnect. And so she started to study on her own. She pushed me like, "Stay away. I'm going to see what you're talking about here." At least she had enough. Hashem had mercy on me that she would also. And one day she came to me and she said, "I feel like I've been lied to my whole entire life." She was so livid, so upset with Hashim that he allowed her to be born and she didn't she didn't have MS and she and and and and she was hurt. And we said, "What are we going to do?" I said, "I don't know what we're going to do, but it says you're not allowed to work on Shabbat." So I said, "I'm not going to do the dishes on Saturday." That's it. We didn't know what it meant not to work on Shabbat, you know, taking out the garbage and dishes. I hated it. So I said, "All right, then Shabas, I'm not going to do it, you know." So that was that was how everything began, you know. It was like you're not not really knowing. Now we thought we're on an island on our own. What are we going to do? And so a long time Rep. Google, that's why I say you got to stay from Rep. Google. He started leading me also to websites where people were uh uh Jews for JC. And uh so I started to figure out, hey, listen, we're not the only crazy people. There's also other crazy people on online. So we started. So I found a congregation that I could go to and I I went to this place and I I walk in and at first I was a little taken back. I mean, I'd been to church before, but this was something new, you know? I never been to anything else. And so everybody's got these small beanies on top of their head and they got these sheets draped over their backs and they got uh you know all the all the literature the dining over there. The prayers were in a language I never spoke before. It's all in Hebrew. And uh these guys were Jews for JC. It wasn't like they were the uh you know it wasn't actual sh but they had a beautiful kesh real safer to that really it was. So I you know I said okay this is not exactly what I was looking for and then after the haftar somebody went up and they read from the New Testament. So I said okay maybe I can learn a little bit. So this place it was a great stepping stone for me because in order to catch up with everything and everything they were teaching there I had to start learning. So I started uh I went back to rep Google and I typed in you know like everything I typed in no matter what I typed in Jewish learning Jewish holidays whatever kabad.org came up. I don't know why Kabat's everywhere. You type in anything you type in Jabador.org comes up. So I I went on Kabad and I started learning everything I possibly could and learning tools. And the more and more I started to learn, I started going to a rabbi on the east side, uh u my brother and I. And we and and here we are like the more and more we learned the more and more we that we invested our time in in into Yiddish and really trying to the further and further and further this place looked from real Yiddish guy. So we said what are we going to do? We we have to figure out something and I told my wife one day I said what do we do? She said I want to leave and I want to go do an orthodox conversion. I don't want to be at this place. So I said listen you know you're kind of jumping the gills here. you know, we just, you know, it's not so not so pushing. We don't know what to do. And I and for me, it was a difficult test because unfortunately, you know, if you look around, only black guy in here, you know, didn't think it was going to be something that I can look, he's actually looking around. He's like, "No, I know somebody, dude. I just seen him. Where is he?" No, but I'm saying, you know, it wasn't it's not so easy to just say you're going to go do I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood. I seen people going I didn't see anybody black ever going up there. I thought they were all Amish anyway. I didn't know the difference between Jews and Amish people. Very very interesting contrast. So one day I was sitting and this is probably what sparked a really really good friend of mine now. I was standing in a grocery store shopping for Shabas. By this time I was wearing wearing a kea and uh we were bagging groceries and behind me for about 10 steps away I heard uh Shabbat shalom brother and I turned around there's a black guy with a key NC and I'm like you know wow cuz I knew there's these other guys over there the black keyites or whatever so he introduced me his name was Jacob he invited me for shabas he lived in sewer park like I grew up over there. I just grew up a block away from your house. I know. I know this area. So, we started going the Shabas over there by his place and then other people started inviting us and uh we started to see these things are really really possible. So, we said what do we do to distance oursel from this from this other place we didn't know and and theologically even now we're having really big battles because we're in a place where we want dimness. We want truth and I want to serve Hashim in the most authentic way that I possibly could. By the way, you should know I was not looking at the beginning of this for a new religion, especially after finding out the one that I I had was false. But I wanted to serve a shim and authenticity and now I've come to see that in Yiddish that's what it is. So we're here still associated with the other congregation and now there's this big conference coming. This con conference was massive from all over the United States. all these uh Jews for for the J man. They were getting together and one of the things they did to preface us for this for this conference was they sat a few of us down and told us we were part of this uh this board we were filling in for another group of people. They said there are going to be rabbis hanging in the lobby, Orthodox rabbis. And whatever you do, don't talk to them. Don't say hi. They're only trying to get you. Don't speak to them. don't don't you know they warned us to stay away from these rabbis. So we decided we will go to the conference but instead of going in we decided we would sit with the rabbis for the four days outside in the lobby the exact opposite of what they t I got rub bam here now I'm going to ask these questions for real I want to know I want to know I'm going ask the rub bam and so I'm going to sit here and one of the rabbis happened to be a rabbi by the name of uh Michael Scobach Michael Scobach is a educational director for Jews for Judaism in uh Toronto. And so we shot, we sent out our questions and we got answers and it was such an amazing and profound experience that we really grew and had real catches with the with the rabbis. Other one was Ellie Cohen. He's a rabbi in Australia, Kabad rabbi in Australia who also accompanied Rabbi Scope back during this time. So it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. But one of the things that he said hit me, it wasn't anything so theological. It wasn't something it was the fact that he said he said that if a person once because he knew he could see in my heart and I express how much how much I wanted to be did and I went to the Na'vi and when I'm reading through the Na'vi and I'm seeing the love that is showering I'm such a beautiful and I'm expressing all of these things and he said listen it's like root he said what is root what is your version of root he said the root is he says that just like she said your god is my god your people is my people he say that Ultimately a person is saying that what the Jewish people accept I accept and what the Jewish people reject I reject. And when he said that it hit me really really deep in my heart. So after that we never went back to the place. My wife found us a place inside the Orthodox community and Roashim about two and a two and a half years after we had moved. Not only me and my wife converted but also my brother-in-law was my best friend since kindergarten and my wife's sister. All four of us converted two and a half years after that. Had a double wedding and it was the most beautiful experience and that is my story. Thank you very much. So I want to open I want to open up for some questions if anybody has any questions. I'm uh okay for next few minutes. Somebody better put a time limit on it because I got Rambi syndrome. So I may go on a little bit beyond first question. Community you grew up in. Any idea why why it's like that? Why what? Um why there's so much drug abuse? why there's so much. It's a cyclical cycle that goes all the way back from the time of slavery. It was never I mean my high school, we were never set up to succeed. We didn't have a chance to really succeed. We we barely had books. The teachers, you know, not going to say all of them, but we had a lot of lot of idiots, you know, teaching teaching and we didn't have we weren't set up to to succeed. So when you have that type of environment and people that were not exposed to healthy relationships and it becomes a cycle over and over again, it's not because people are bad. That's why I wanted to preface the convers the the the tonight. It's not because people are literally they're bad people. Some of the sweetest people I ever met were the guys on the streets and they wanted to get out. I could tell you conversations people would talk to into the hours and night all the people I knew on how much they wanted to go, how much they wanted out. But it's it's a lot of people are institutionalized to be the difference to tell you why I'm not there and why someone else that I knew was still I can't tell you it's only like I can't tell you I don't know what can we do to help we can dive and that's the first thing we could do we need to pray we need to pray when I'm restores itself to his shores and to the root it helps the whole entire world amen so that's the first thing is that all of us to fix on us as the first thing to help the first help is us helping ourselves How did your parents react when how old were you when you actually told them that um you are leaving the town? How did my parents react? It's a good question. Um my mother died of an overdose when I was 19. So she didn't get to see any of this. Um the the rest of my family not so happy. my biological father now who who changed his life completely complete 180 I don't know not good at degrees 180 he's a complete 180 he is now a Christian theologian he's a professor and doctor he's actually been my biggest supporter non-religious family not so much because they don't understand it they don't even comprehend how even the notion idea of God can can move you away from being close to your family or how could So, uh, you know, everybody takes things differently, but, uh, hasn't been the best. How did you realize God? How did you how could it come to your head? How did Hashem Hashem has been with me since I was a kid? I don't know. He always inside you could feel that that God is there. So, it never was one of those things where I had to bring down. I never doubted the fact that Hashim existed all throughout everything. it it just not it's not a part of it wasn't a part of my makeup. I didn't think like that. But how I discovered Hashem in the in terms of of Judaism was searching. I wanted to find the truth. And for me that's what I found was to to be true. I looked for Hashem and I wasn't looking intellectually. I wasn't looking for like what's the smarter thing to do. I was just looking for Emis. That was it. And that's what I told Hashem. And I started speaking to him every day because of it. How did you choose your name and what name did you choose? What did your wife choose? Um, my wife's name is Adena. Um, and um, the name Mim actually came about through a nace. I was uh, the first n was I made it to shore early. I was at the shore early before everybody else. And uh, I was dabbing on a name. I was talking to Hashim. I was heated on the name because I knew I was going to the ben early and there's a whole if you weren't going by the name for 30 days or whatever prior to couldn't go on the ketuba after you do the kaducian and so I needed something a name that I was going to and people were suggesting different things and nissim I boiled down to nim and I think maybe another name and I was uh and I was in the shoe and I was diving I was talking to Hashim about it and I seen that the clock was winding and people were going to start coming in from and I put my hand behind the the you know to grab a sedor and it was a shim sedor that's so I pulled it out and it said on it I said that was all for my shim so a few questions how old were you and your wife when you converted uh me and my wife [Music] were 25 and 26 how How long were you married at that time? How How long were we married already? We're married originally when we were I was 20, my wife was 21. How long ago did you How long ago? Almost three and a half years now. What was your name before? It was Damian in the back. When was that one moment when you were trying to look before like uh before you were doing rapping before you even had thought of looking for like uh like what occurred to you that you probably what occurred for me was that I just seen that if I continued like I said in the same situation that I was going that it probably wasn't going to be good you know I seen that that situation after I got into the other altercation with the other the other artists and uh it became a life ordeath situation and I said you know if If I continue like this, what's going to be? There's a whole other issue also too. Me and my wife at that time were pregnant with our first child. And I started thinking, listen to the things that I'm saying in my songs and in my music. How would I feel? Not only my child, but you know, I'm about to have a little girl. What about other people's little girl? You know, the big big that was a time of a serious, you know what I mean? It was a it was a it was a it was a it was a time it was the time that a shim was weighing and a person I think that everybody gets moments like that in life that if you don't capture it a person can mish fall into a consume of the consumement and not know to look for a shim at all you know what I mean so I'm just thinking shim that I grabbed grabbed on to it at that time um I want to go over here because I think I um two questions one the the other guy that you met in the supermarket. A little confused. Was he involved with J for J? No, he wasn't. He was actually Orthodox uh Jew's name is Jacob Lennon. So why didn't he allow you to continue going? Didn't he tell you the truth about it? It was there's a bigger connection to that the congregation that I was involved with that was the Jews for Jay. He had been affiliated with before that particular convers congregation and he was never that way. He actually was raised a conservative uh growing up by a conservative family. Took in him and his his mother when he was really young he clean his mother cleaned for the family. So he grew up he even went to to a Jewish high school even and uh converted a couple times himself. So but he he he ended up in a in a place in life where he was estranged from Judaism. He was working in Seattle and he needed to bring the kids to a religious function that he was working with. And so he ended up going to that place. He didn't know it was uh Jews for Jay and then he ended up liking a lady there. He was kind of changed and so he ended up leaving and with the with a woman also too and she became Orthodox and so so he Yeah. So he was Orthodox and he started invited us for Shabasa. So where do you live? I live uh in Jerusalem now. [Applause] That guy in the back is like waiting. That hand's been waiting for a long time. Can you describe the difference between faith and belief? The difference between faith and belief or well I don't know if I can really describe that but uh belief I'm saying as much as you possibly can in English just doesn't doesn't have any action to it. You know what I mean? Belief is something that a person they you have belief in something. Faith real amuna means that a person has action to it. So it means something a whole lot a whole lot more. Reissiming question I have um in my experience I've met other friends and I've had friends who were gar one who was disabled one who was a man of color and initially they were staging and rapping and lecturing but then unfortunately they then stopped observing and al they're still Jewish. So my question to you is how do you reinforce your imun how do you remain strong in your convictions now that you are a Jew? So that's a that's a very good question. So person that I've seen I I've seen this a lot with people they come in and they're really involved in the it's the outside and even if a person looks like they're really staging it's really something outside and as soon as it becomes that there's nobody there to uh we're just talking about there a friend nobody to impress anymore with how devoted you are you fall off because the from the inside it wasn't from a place of emis nobody can say you know reb talks about there's a person needs to dive in their whole life that Hashem should keep them that they should stay close to Hashem and that they should you know stay in stay on the path so no who can predict what's going to be for me personally that comes from talking to Hashem every single day person needs to live with Hashem you need to have a relationship with Hashem if you have a relationship with Judaism you know it's not going to what is that you need a relationship with Hashem specifically and so you know for me I I feel like that's the that's the thing. And also being when you're when you're mash and you're and you're going out and you're speaking like me, I make it a habit to talk to as many people as I can. It's not just for them. It gives me when the words are coming out of my mouth and things of things that are giving other people. They're hitting me right back. So I need to strengthen myself every single day. And I was blessed with I was blessed with my brother's not in here now. My brother-in-law has been my best friend since kindergarten who I said we're able to make this journey together. It's a true kav to somebody that's really going to be there for you and have your back of a person. You only find a person like that once in a lifetime. So very very important to surround yourself with people that's also going to strengthen you in your evold and they're going to strengthen you as a person and individual. So I only have time for like two more questions and then we're going to and then we're going to go. What was your grandfather's reaction to your like change? Okay. My grandfather who I mentioned was a Muslim. Uh she asked what what was his reaction when to my change in my belief. It's very funny because he didn't grow up Muslim. He was originally Christian. He said as long as you didn't fall for Christianity, I'm happy. So he told me. So all right, two more questions cuz he's going to ask another one. I want to get the young guy in. How do you feel about Judaism right now? I'm sorry. How do you feel about Judaism right now? Is it easy or hard? Is it easy? Is it hard? Um I don't know if any of those questions define Judaism itself. Is it easy? Is it hard? I think that like I said at the beginning, what happened to me was I, you know, people think it's a phenomenon. A person wakes up, he decides that he wants to come closer to Hashem. All of a sudden, he finds himself in Judaism. For actually, for me, it's not that hard for me to wake up and to see that I'm distant and estranged from God when I knew I was doing the things that I was doing. But for a person to already have been Jewish, to already been raised in a religious home, and to take that Yiddish and to make it their own, that's much harder, I think, than to than to wake up. For me, I fell in love with Hashem. And this is the whole story of we just had shàuote that we receiving matan to every year that we're receiving the Torah new. That's a kaduc that's falling in love with this is a marriage. You understand what I mean? So if a person is not making a sort of effort every single day to fall in love with Hashem, Judaism is going to be hard. It's it's much easier to give yourself over to something or to someone once there's actual love there. If the love's not there, it's much harder for a person to do. You see that people, they find themselves infatuated with their spouse or or with that person at the very beginning, especially if you went on, you know, sugar day dating and you don't really know who the person is yet. Four or five months after that, it's sort of like, no, you take out the garbage. You know what I mean? Because it's one of those things. But until person really works on themsel to really find real love for Hashem, once you find the relationship aspect, it's much easier for you to do the mess. But as long as that's lacking, then it becomes hard. So it depends on the person. For me, I I've been asked that question a lot. Oh, what was the one thing that was hard since I fell in love with Hashem? Nothing was hard for me to to to I I threw myself into Hashem. I threw myself into the mitzvah. I threw myself in the and it was easier for me because of it. But for a person, you grew up with it your whole entire life. People have been telling you you had to do it. You have to keep sh for that. It's a much bigger phenomenon. But you have to make Hashem yours. You have to take him and make him yours. Not what your grandparents had, not what your parents had. As long as you don't have the relationship with Hashem, it's going to be hard for you to do. But once you have, it's blissful and it's it's no problem. It's a very easy thing for you. Okay, one last question. Why did you stick with the Bible? Why did I stick with the Bible and not go to other books? Yeah, because I came to a big hon with all of that. I I did I did deal with the Quran. I also bought a Quran also at the time and obviously the Christian Bible. I didn't go outside of that because everything else was completely foreign to me and I I I didn't even understand it upon entrance of thought. So I didn't go into it. But I had to make I said if God was if Christianity was the proper the true religion, God changed his mind. It's very clear. God changed his mind. If if Islam was the was the God changed his mind a couple times. So my next thing was what stops him from changing his mind again? We got 700 years later, somebody else comes and they they got the now seal with them. Hashem could change his mind any time. But at least with Yiddish, Hashim didn't change his mind. And you know, so that was that was my from that. This is the world makeover. Mashiach will come take over. You ain't got to be me or see what I see. All you got to do is take a look forward. Lift up your eye to the sky. Spread out your hands and say thank you. Smile. Get them up. Put them up. Leave them up. Haha. Yep. Yep. Pump up the volume every day. Stand in place. Heart racing. No words to say. Pressure building. Trying to hold my face. Mind drifting like not today. Wake up from everything. Break out your shell and scream. Ha shim, you're the king. Hashim, you're the king. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hashim. Was that very much?