LTT Podcast #12 A Soul's Quest to Discover Yiddishkeit

hi and welcome to let's talk Tas episode 12 so let me tell you this episode is unique this is a very deep and meaningful and unfiltered conversation with Aaron fast who is a balcha who came to see the Godless and the being of hasem is in a very unplanned way but once he joined he's very deep very emot emotional there's a lot of tense moment in the conversation and there's a lot of Deep Thoughts in the conversation but I assure you that if you have the resilience to watch the whole episode you're going to learn a lot you're going to be very surprised and you'll feel the zus that you have to belong to where you belong so watch it enjoy it hello and welcome to let's talk Tas episode 12 wow I can't believe we're here and to celebrate the number 12 we have for you a very special guest tonight my friend Aaron fast hi Aaron shalom shalom how are you it's been a good day good um I'm thinking now both of us are Aaron it's true and our producer is also Aaron the Aaron Trio that's a lot of olivs in the studio today yes Alf is the star the the beginning of alive base our audience know by now that when we bring a guest to let's talk Tas is the real deal but they don't like when I say why so I'm going to have to ask you I'm the real I have to justify being the real deal that's a hard way to start yes that's the deal uh okay so let's see a little bit who is Aon fast and we're going to soon continue to a very tless Di conversation that people will learn a lot and grow from and in mem we're going to do the right thing so let's go okay um I come from a family that did not raise me from uh however there was something in me from pretty young age that was I'd say hyper motivated in some way that I couldn't quite put my fingers on yet so this part of me that was pushing had this realization that it had to be possible that a person can be happy and life can be good it has to be possible without that none of this makes sense it's it's a stupid game if there's if there's no Victory right so I tried um music I was a musician for many years um I tried this I tried that I remember as a child my parents took me to a reform synagogue and I remember watching the rabbi on stage and having the thought I know that something is supposed to be happening here but it's not happening wow there has to be something that we didn't all come here and get dressed and come and sit and this person's on stage said something's supposed to be it's not happening so this Quest started in me what's supposed to be happening here what are we doing here what's the point so from Arlington Virginia where I was raised which is a wonderful town though I didn't realize it till I left I think teenagers typically go through a phase where they don't appreciate where they come from it's kind of necessary but from Arlington Virginia I ended up in New York City uh in school and I was a music student uh at NYU music was the closest thing at that time that I could find to getting closer to this intuitive feeling that that I knew was everybody's Destiny but that we had to work to get I knew there was something good in life I knew it it had to be but everybody around me didn't seem happy so it's very confusing to me so music people are happy when there's music yeah mostly so I I that was the closest I thing I could find I stuck with it I went into music I just want to ask you clarify something you say you were born went to a not from family yeah was it not from or was there not a cherry on top for the the history of your family even more so my my mother is a Jewish lady my father was not a Jew so I was born in a mixed home as we'd call it a mixed family yeah I mean my mother's my mother's is pretty in arguable in that I mean my mother you know was born in a DP Camp to to two survivors who actually met in a DP camp Camp wow um and she was born in 49 in Germany um and came to America when she was about a year old uh she she's probably going to watch this yeah I was going to ask you just thinking about that I was gonna ask you will she be proud of this inter my mom's a holy woman man my mom is good and my mom my my mother was married once and in the nice proper way and uh that did not uh turn out to be good uh so she eventually remarried my father who was a Charming Man and uh not from a Jewish background they agreed they would raise me Loosely Jewish um and they did and my father was on board and you know we lit candles and but nothing halaka was not anything I even heard about I didn't even know I didn't know that Jews prayed three times a day I didn't know that Jews were yamas outside of syn i' never seen that stuff so yeah so so my background was very um very much uh kind of in the wilderness uh from the perspective of of the community that I'm living in now I know I can tell the audience that you live a very life there's always two levels going on right there's there's the pemus yeah pus and then there's Theus like so so inwardly I um I have an intensity that uh I've found a vessel for in the hidic community that I can at least show up and pray and pray how I want and pray at length thank God I found some good places um in order to have access to those places I've had to adjust outwardly so you know there's a the way I say to people there's a high cost of Entry to come into the community MH yeah I want to talk about it later because I've bumped into some additional bichu and people who came to idish and they all not all but many of them share the the difficulty that they have to penetrate and to be like one of the common people that in sh regularly and and even the notion that we should become one of the that that's the that that's the goal is is difficult to swallow right right it must be like not painful but must be horrifying horrifying yeah to to to say I came back to eish k um my pemus is grow I'm growing right and I'm connecting to hasem more and and I dve better and I and I learn a lot and I learn mus and I learn and everything and they're looking at your shoes and you're looking at your shoes at your haircut yeah must be difficult yeah yeah yeah my haircut yeah yeah um to answer your question you said like a long way from from Arling toon virin too so from an outside perspective okay yeah there's a big difference but from an inside perspective the process has sort of been continuous that for me it's sort of been the same forward motion and now I see myself as like I'm navigating this environment now and there's rules of the game in this environment but the trajectory is ultimately really not that different MH yeah just a little calming well well let's just say when I'm alone at home in my sweatpants you know just sitting in my room I I um don't feel an awful lot different than I did when I was 18 years old or 20 years old and and you know discovering my inner world for the first time when I'm in SHO sometimes I'm distracted by the by the expectations mhm yeah but if you look back I think you feel you made a good deal right I'm happy that I learned how to learn I'm very happy about that um it's stupid that a Jew shouldn't know how to read Tyra it's dumb so I got over that that that was thank God a big deal um there's two to three thousand years of texts available that because of my lineage at least for my mother mhm there's a natural resonance somewhere in me that this unbroken chain of spiritual literature resonates with you know there's there's something in me that that it draws out and it's it's silly that I didn't have access to that before that I'll never regret at all the path I took was maybe harder than it had to be uh but who is there such a thing as is that's everybody's story in reality it must be not easy for someone to come from Virginia and to land at where you land at bashem without having someone walking next to you with you explaining you answering you many Mysteries and questions and helping you overcome all kind of uh habits and and things you grow up with and suddenly expect slowly that you should be different so hopefully the Shas that were instituted for this purpose um provide and Supply this no yeah I I I think that's asking a lot from an institution of any type um you know the yeshivas gave me uh an environment to investigate and they gave me the tools to let's say read Rashi script you know so Rashi script reading Rashi is ultimately what's going to unlock things within me and there were people there giving me the tools to do that um in terms of of you have a little bit of like an ideal sense of what should be going on in the process of person become Bal Chua um you know it's it's a rare B balua who finds a mentor early on and is able to sort of birth them into the whole thing there's a lot of offending for yourself just because that's life uhuh so what you're trying to say is that if you got General guidance but you didn't have the oneon-one support system I had great people no no no you're right we're not we're not downgrading what are they going to do answer to me how do I stem what I just learned in this class with this experience I had in the woods five who's going to answer that it's not a question you can ask another person so is it possible that that you had a particular type of background or or personality that caused for The Gap to be bigger yeah oh for sure yeah man than many on the of the common bachu yeah well first of all I was cool I mean I I had a life and a personality and like uh a lot of people were coming in they were much younger than me and they hadn't really established um a personality for themselves in the world quite yet they were still just coming out from under the wings of their parents and stuff like that so I had a certain Independence but I also had a really profound intensity and I was not prepared to meet anybody who was not that intense my expectation going into Yeshiva was finally I found a place where everybody's going to stay up half the night and like be willing to give up everything to find the you know and what I found was maybe a guy like that maybe and then like you know guys who were backpacking and got tapped on the shoulder at the wall and figured it's free lodging for and I love those guys and and they chilled me out which had to happen but I was not there to like eat Gil to fish and to extend that further and this was like a real hard thing like I wasn't there to learn how to wash my hands properly I hadn't connected to any of that stuff yet in my mind so um my personality because I was so focused on just the absolute essence of like why I'm here which was essentially to burn away the dross Within Myself to be a better a better example of how God would want the human being to live I was completely concerned with that I wanted God to play my body like a musician played a flute wow and I didn't care about anything else so when I had 18 or 19 year olds who the night before were out drinking and then were telling me I picked up the cup with the wrong hand to wash I wasn't in the right place I was like is it wow that's that's um yeah that's quite a task oh yeah for yourself and for the people around you yeah but I want to give you a compliment that you got into it with a very serious commitment and you were not there to shop you didn't go shopping well right but in some sense the thing that bothered me about Yeshiva was that they assumed that since I walked in there that all I went from doing absolutely nothing in yudish Kai to all of a sudden now I'm keeping shabas 100% every single week and I'm like I didn't sign up for that I didn't even know what shabas was did they did they expect you to do it or yeah was they would give you some space if you decide to keep only 80% if I if I disappeared and went out and you know checked out the tourist sites and came back nobody was really going to say anything but you're in a culture where there's a basic expectation uhhuh yeah so you're saying it's not cared good enough for for intense guys who are coming in like really what what are you GNA do no I'm just I'm I'm I'm trying to learn with the experience that someone like you has coming from Ground Zero yeah going up and I guess most people come with a lighter yeah style expecting less and slowly experiencing and singing a little and eating a little eating by Family SL style things like they're changing their style I to me that was all buttal I didn't like any of that you came for the real deal I was like I was like you're using a specific word to refer to God or the Divine what is it where is it who is that what what are you doing here tell me what you're doing here and it's like uh first the right hand and then the left hand and then the wash and I was like don't give me this so so looking back today bem you know exactly why why you pick up the cup with the right hand yeah how you wash not exactly look many of us also don't know yeah right right right but you you grew into understand and feel the flow of yish yeah and and the purpose why you're wearing a yamama because you want I don't understand why I'm wearing y that's a hard one but let's take a step back that yamok is a tough one okay every day in the mix I have like a uh a panic attack not a panic it's a you know I don't doesn't bother me but every day in the mikah it comes up um putting my shoes on and I'm like I know that so I slipped my shoes off so now I got to untie the left then I got to untie the right then I got to put on the right then I got to put on the left then I got to tie the left then I got to tie the right and every single time I do it I'm always very aware that somebody could be looking at me and being like see if this guy knows anything who is this guy right doesn't have P what is he doing in here why do you care so much if people look at you well because it's very nerve-wracking to be judged in a way being judged is not a big deal I'm ugly I'm stupid my music's dumb I don't care about any of that but when you get into judgments that are like is this person a good person in an absolute sense has he mled himself to the laws of AEM and it's like I just I just wasn't paying attention I untd my right shoe first like that you know that's more nerve I wish you would asked me before I tell you two things number one that many of those people are not so M to do it please AEM let me be one of them and number two I heard a very nice vote about tying the shoes okay someone spoke to a to a to a Jew who is not from and among the conversation this issue came up that we even have rules how to tie our shoes and how to untie so one person stood over there and they said what a silly religion busy with your shoes so someone else said you know what an amazing religion it is that even when you tie your shoes you think of it I hear you and and I get that and I agree with that um I do however you were asking about knowing why and wearing the yamuk so like I hang out with some pretty heavy hitter types once in like I try to be around sadim and like I'm familiar like I know know why the left and I know why the right and like I I understand that in a conceptual way the question is who's doing that when they do it who's who's loosening the gavura when they untie their left shoe you know and who's starting with when they put on their right shoe and who's binding the den first when they tie it's like you know who's doing that probably like seven people so there's a part of me that wonders if I should should like you say not be mockit no I didn't say you should not be mockit on doing it I said you should not feel uncomfortable if people watch you if you do it or not because when you do it you should do it because you want to do it you want to be part of it if you understand that 30% or 80% and then it becomes a routine and there's a few reasons why you know more than me by the way about this yeah because I'm allowed to you're not allowed to B you low so BR but but I'm saying is that that I think the intensity of want it but then why but then why do it no because you can do things doing without intensity is stupid no but you can do things without being intense you can do them in a pleasant way because I like I like to associate with this religion with this with these alas I like I like to I like to do what my parents your parents didn't teach you but what my parents and our are telling us tell us to do I believe that what they tell us to do is is the is is keeping me in a good straight path I I 100% believe that I 100% believe that I do have a question if we've collectively taken on so much that we're not able to really find the depth in the midst of us that we personally connect with because have to copy every sadic whoever was mades some new kavana the left and the right the that's holy stuff man I'm not fooling around with that stuff but should I be in it sometimes I'm not totally sure because it does make you a little neurotic when you're in the Mikvah and you're just thinking about something like oh wait the shoe thing so I was like maybe I should say like wow that's a holy Madre like RV mtle throwing matzas on PES I don't have to throw mat on PES okay so I I think I think we have to work on now now now we've established that I'm not pus let's go for oh I have a beautiful story about that though not about me um I have a beautiful story so one year um yum Kipper I was in a moale somehow somebody like uh at the last minute wasn't going to be there so there was a seat on M so I got to sit M that's against the wall for anybody who doesn't know I sat up against the front wall and the entire yum Kipper it was like nothing existed except Myas and it was one of the best days I've had in my entire life without exaggeration so far so good deeper deeper deeper deeper I didn't look at the I looked at the clock once because I was so in the zone I said I wonder if looking at the clock will take will actually affect me so I said I wonder her to be like to look at the clock so I did it and then I was like yeah it was stupid you know anyway so I kept going so towards the end of yum Kipper after solid 10 11 hours of just deeper and deeper and deeper and I was like Hashem like what am I doing wrong in my life like what's going on how can I get closer to you like please and you know the answer that blossomed out of my heart not saying Hashem told me but Hashem gave me an inner experience and I remembered when I was becoming a BAL Chua and I remember sitting down and cutting my nail and I remember I knew there was some idea that you cut the nails in a certain order and I made up my own and it was so beautiful and the yud was a little Pinky and then the the the thumb was the yud inside the Hy cuz it was the fifth finger which is hey and the opposable thumb is the m drag of humans above animals cuz animals have four and then the V was the middle finger then the surrounding hay because it's and the and all this stuff and I used to sit there and feel like my dad had me in his lap and I was so happy and then I learned the actual way to cut your nails and I started doing that and I never liked it and it always I hated cutting my nails it bothered me and I had the answer on yum Kiper what can I do and God said to me through my heart he said you used to love cutting your nails what happened why don't you do that anymore and I remembered the interest uction of the where he says I'm collecting all of this together because people have forgotten but other people have customs and if you have your Customs keep your customs and I realized I had a custom I had a custom and I gave it up and that was a symbol of all the things I'd given up that I knew were good and true I knew it and that was the Tashua that I had to do during the El yum Kipper I had to go back and say God I love you you I love you I want that again I love you more than my ideas about what I'm like it was a big toua wow very very emotional well I like God I'm tired of I'm tired of programming myself to appear a certain way without filling that those actions with the light of God I think it's the first time I so vividly understand the [Music] statement I don't think that forget about me but I don't think that many people on a high level um experienced such a such a connection such a feedback from Hashem to to such a validation and should make them feel that they are he he doesn't have too many ye like like this and I think it's it's a tremendous I know that you that being a b Chua versus being a free bird is not easy and Especial Especially with some of the points you made before and the many points we didn't cover yet um wow this is really heartbreaking or heart opening opening eye opening for sure um do you have do his body this to achieve and give yourself a chance to really reconnect with the Hashem that you so much year for and want to be find in yourself yeah um there's his which the goal is that it should be constant I mean I'm a single guy so I have all day to talk to Hashem his body to do however to me and my experience is just in case anybody doesn't know um because I have friends who might tune in hisus is um just talking to God in your own words like he's your father whatever role you need him to be in sometimes you need to die on judge um I think um these are all words you know it's hard to make sure that what the word means to me means the same thing to the person I'm speaking toh but I would say that there's something that I guess I'd have to call Deus which to me is almost um a higher level or or the purpose of hisus when your mother is in the room with you um sometimes you just want to sit with her you don't have to keep saying m m m m m m m m m I was thinking and I could and I was going to go to the park but I was going to sometimes it's just and um that that is where I really am able to reconnect uhuh so does this give you a little comfort that is comfort that is the comfort in life because I I detect in you a tremendous um eagerness and and interest and and passion to be open and flow with hem and his Han and his just being the shot the boss of the entire world and I'm happy to hear that there are ways and times that you can check in quickly and and gain it again yeah they because it sound it sounds really like you you have such a high and and you you you have such high goals and and and desires to connect with hem and when side little technical or communal things interrupt interfere and you feel mom like like it's you're bleeding yeah and you want the you want the wave to continue the electric continuity it's called you want it to be there constantly without being interrupted so yeah I'm happy that you have some tools to to Really reconnect and regain this um yeah feeling you want to live with this person has to feel more com as more comfortable with God than with anything in the universe and there there's different ways of approaching God and the path that um this community has emphasized um as God is a king and um that's useful it's a metaphor everything's a metaphor God is beyond any description we could we could give for him but we're able to connect with attributes my God has always been the one I didn't have to dress up for it's like you come home to your wife which I don't have yet I have to put on nice clothes and make my shoes black for everybody else God doesn't ask that for me he's the one I can put my sweatpants in my teeth t-shirt on and lay on the carpet if I want to at the end of a hard day so why why do you feel you have to do these things why don't you well the DK of the king is is is legitimate it's not in my personality that it's my primary place that I find connection to God um and I'm in a community where that's the standard so I am in a practice now of approaching God as a king which means your shirt should be clean and you should show up on time and there's nothing wrong with that so if you were Mass I'm getting a little too philosophically here but if you were Mass the the level of understanding that because he's the king I want to look proper and and a d act act proper and like like like King is worthy of why does it pain you to have to because because people have personalities and tendencies and mine is not quite that way I always um that's just there has to be allowance for God to manifest in Myriad ways we've standardized one of them and it's the it's the primary one in this D of a um happens to be let say that's the D of Chev dun or let's say Yehuda right if we're talking about Kings um happens to be maybe I'm from a different tribe uhhuh but that's okay let me use your wisdom maybe [Music] for about what you said do you think that maybe some of the non Bala people who grew up were born in H homes and stuff like this boys or Young G light to girls are suffering from a similar um heavy heavy heavy from a similar um problem that there's so many beautiful kids man who I deal with um I teach music some of these kids man they are so bright creative and they they're not allowed to there's not a Kaye for them they're where the artists there are kids who have NAS from from the walking around right now they're so good in Nina they're so alive when they're allowed to be right when I'm with them in the room and they have a good guitar in their hand or they have a keyboard or something and then they have to kind of pack it away and go sit in their desk and they're some of them are so depressed uh it drives me crazy some of them are so unhappy and I don't understand why people don't notice it or think that it's a priority and the solution is so easy let your kid draw I can't go too far because I know who I'm talking to but let your kid present himself how he wants to that's a conversation that's hard to get into I understand the uniform and I understand the Derk I would just emphasize that that's a d and that if a kid is struggling with that D he's not struggling with the D he's struggling with this manifestation of it and there needs to be an Embrace of a multifaceted D like the paths through the yamu you know that metaphor but he says it's a real thing it's happening a little bit maybe in a thr maybe it's starting to happen we're not quite comfortable yet with allowing those Sprouts to to to Blossom we're a little wary of them I would make the case we don't have to be the same energy that's running through these kids that scares their parents or teachers sometimes is the energy that ran through me that taught me how to cut my nails wow you quite a few years in the yisha community in the hamisha community yeah you see a little bit of of um Coming closer to allowing kids to be who they are like did you have the same amount of Music students in 10 years ago like you have today yeah in terms of amount of students is not so I mean to say is is becoming more uh I I think there's uh I think that Hashem is always pushing people forward through what could be perceived as a crisis or difficulty and it seems that he's pumping a lot of Hal the shamas into the community right now um who are forcing us to deal with uh the question of where they belong um so I do think that you know the younger generation and there's so many wonderful families with you know young parents and some of them are just giving their kids space to bloom and it's fabulous and I I have seen more of that as that generation is coming into positions where they have more say in things that there's a little bit of space being created um I have a friend uh in this community who is not abouta but he's from not aish background and he's talking now about starting uh Like A Music Space he's from a community where he was allowed and his parents encouraged him to pursue music to a very high degree and he's a wonderful player and this friend of mine a new friend um feels very strongly that it's time to create a space where Jewish people who have a little bit of a a Bend towards uh art or music creativity where they can come together and have a space to allow that to to bloom and I think 10 years ago I probably would have said it's not time it could be that it's time now to start small to start small but it could be so obviously music is one of the very powerful um tools for people to expresss and and music is confusing uh I'm not dumb I understand the parents who don't want their children playing guitar uh I hold very deeply by a certain sadic who advises people not to take up the guitar I know people personally who could have been fabulous musicians who were counseled that they should not um I'm not stupid I get where they're coming from I left music for more than 10 years when I was getting very involved in my spiritual work more than 10 years um it's not as simple as music's good and it will bring out these things I'm talking about it's it's complicated [Music] um it's hard to tie the presence of God or the or the yearning of the religious sensibility it's very hard to pin that down and maintain that in the midst of musical expression or musical practice the path towards you know cultivating now I was against music for many years after I left music school and I put it aside and I went to Israel and uh there was a period of time where I wasn't listening and I didn't have instruments and I considered it sort of a level below spiritual experience wow I did I thought it's a sense pleasure it's nice well and people would argue with me Wow music makes you so happy and I'd say a candy bar makes you happy but um kids especially kids who struggle they do need the extra do of Happiness well now I'll get to the resolution okay because I've been involved thank you too my first student I owe him a lot I haven't told him because I'm embarrassed but I owe him a lot um I uh I I didn't have a musical instrument in my house when he asked me to teach him and I went and got a $30 guitar at the thrift shop and and um you know he he I was being so cruel to myself denying myself music it was so pure that I could see in him the goodness and he allowed me to reclaim it and uh there were years of confusion about that but so you feel that the years that you were not the music you denied your yourself maybe necessarily you have to go to an extreme there's a ROM bomb thing with the tree like who knows uh I'll say the resolution I came to is I took it for granted uh because of where I came from that people were exposed to Art into music and boy did I love art oh I was crazy about art and and I was my whole life was music for years I I my ears were never empty of Music um and then I said okay that was that was a child's thing and now uh I found spiritual experience which is more pleasurable and more important and more fundamental than aesthetic or musical experience then I started meeting boys who had never had musical experience the boys I started teaching in this community had never opened their hearts and had those feelings and then I started to see what music was doing for them and then I started to realize that music was not a diversion from spiritual Focus or spiritual experience that music was a preparation of the heart to sensitize it to spiritual experience wow that it's like a a a a not a prerequisite because you don't have to go through it but it's a a preliminary stage towards mystical or spiritual or religious feeling and I started to see boys who hadn't touched their hearts before their minds were very bright oh man they could they could what you slug me up into gamar you know I couldn't hang with them and gamar whatever I didn't try but their hearts hadn't been touched and I started to realize there's something called intelligence of the heart and wisdom of the heart and that these boys some of them needed it and weren't getting it so I started to see them picking up a guitar and this boy I knew before was so depressed would run across the street to see me and tell me about what he learned on his guitar and I'd start to see that that affected everything in his life his learning his doing his behavior learning how can you not learn if you sit down and you're so excited because yesterday you heard the most beautiful sound you've ever heard and you made it wow what a joy wow like we said there are boys who have a certain nature and music is not necessary for everybody right but there are boys where it's not necessarily music that they need but they need their heart is bright and they need a tool to access that and then master that and then bring that out and those are the DAV those are holy kids they're not Rebel right and rebel isma is Mal we need the whole container you know uhhuh wow yeah uh I I sometime I think that we are lucky that many kids found obviously you came to these conclusions based on a long journey of of thinking and studying and connecting stuff like this but I I see many boys in even youer light that just play music and B they have some they have a quite a common tool to to open up and and and just and just a and just yeah yeah yeah they have a common they have a common tool to just um Express the feelings and the emotions and I'm sure helps them my my goal is like okay like I don't care about Jewish music I care about the experience of the heart reacting to um input and then being able to cultivate that as a wisdom of the heart so like with the boys saying yeah having like they're going to learn uh their kumit songs and the Bens songs but I'm like listen to Listen to like [Music] this that's [Music] gorgeous you can hear that you can see a flower you can see a tree you you you can see the blue of the sky in a new way and it's like open up the hearts you know I want them to sit in the room and just be like I this finger and I move this finger and if I oh DAV are you just a second you know what I'm saying like just get that I don't care if they can go [Music] DAV like that's that's a tool right but I'm more interested in just getting the guitar in their hands and then trying to deepen their relationship to their own ability to create these fragile beautiful things wow you know it's very deep um yeah purpose in music good chord it's just an a major 7 to an e maor 7 by the way it's nothing fancy wow it's good voicings but that's you know wow very profound um distinction between the common music yeah although good good kit and good on it yeah yeah but um there nothing that stuff's great man there there's a difference between this is like a cool distinction that I've made in my mind lately there's music and there's song right they're almost two different things to me so these are songs right but within those songs is the craft and the Art of music and music is you know that beautiful a major seven chord you have a song and you have within the song you have the musicality of the song and that's what I'm interested in getting out of kids because it's nice they can play a but can they express the wisdom of their heart I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for being a member of the let's talk Tas family as you know we try to bring you very interesting and very unique content this is certainly one of them and it's our pleasure to do it for the CL we invite you to share it to subscribe and to give us your input at let's talk tas.com thank you CU in let's talk Tas we as you know our goal is to to bring out in in people and and really wake them up to the fortune that we have as as kind and good Jewish yish human beings and we' like to bring on guests that in different ways on different topics can be the youth and the adults alike to tap into the o to the fortune that we have as yish people and in many ways and connect to it and be part of it and feel very comfortable feel very happy where we are and not drift away in our mind to to have to find satisfaction and happiness in other places by other the people there's plenty satisfaction in and heart and in unfortunately many of us are blocked from finding it and the goal is to for us to help every ye to come to a point of discovering it joining it and feeling very at home with it absolutely and I would say that the way forward for a lot of people is the path of the heart that we have so many beautiful vessels a was a beautiful song with beautiful words you're not going to find anywhere else such words but you have to fill them with your heart and I'm in the business of priming the heart to draw to draw the water up from The Well of the heart wow how was your way coming sliding down from Virginia to if you can in short tell us a little bit about your experience of coming from the woods as you say was was more recently in your life but from a total different lifestyle to making such a strong decision I'm I'm talking physically and and spiritually if you can give us a quick rundown of how does a boy from Virginia land in in not why I know why but technically how does that happen this parents this family these obligations this um I was at my parents house after they had moved uh to the country so at the time I was at NYU in the city and I was going back and forth between Manhattan and these five acres that my parents had just bought in Virginia on a river um I was very in the thick of my spiritual work pre-bought shoua days I was really uh intense um and I decided to take time off of school because I was losing interest in music um I was gaining a new interest so I went to be with my parents in their new home while I was there um I began experiencing what I'd always wanted to experience feelings of um spiritual peace madreigas in my inner life this is hard to talk about so I was very uh energized by my practice at that time which was spending a lot of time I guess I'd say in D vus I'd sort of discovered uh my inner world and my connection to the one sort of a light an inner light that turned on at some point in me and I used to sit with that light and uh spent a lot of time doing that and it grew stronger within me and it felt like something true felt like my true life can't explain it we'll just talk a lot and we'll leave it to the editor mhm so at some point my experience of the inner world was getting very strong very strong and I was sleeping 3 hours a night this went on for more than a month of every night consistently I would sort of do my practice stretching breathing thinking and from about 10:30 to 12:30 I'd go to sleep at 12:30 and I'd wake up on the dot at 3:30 a.m. took a little while to settle in and then I would open my eyes and look at the clock and it would say 330 and that happened many days in a row no alarm no nothing it was a very intense period from 3:30 to 5:00 I would sit on the upper step of my family's home and I would just bask in this inner world that I had been working hard for and had finally discovered and was getting stronger by being acknowledged one day after about a month of this 3:30 business uh I went out for a walk at about 5: in the morning and on the way back probably as the sun was coming up around that time I don't know I was struck with a extremely profound experience at the end of my parents gravel driveway in that experience I saw who I was for the first time and I saw beyond all of the conditioned parts of me I saw who I was without makeup on and I also realized that I'd been putting on makeup my whole life and hadn't realized it and I saw I without any bending and twisting and conforming and and it was beautiful and it was freaky and it was nice I also saw what I had to do to be that and in that moment I recognized that I didn't want to be home at my parents house and actually I never really wanted to be wasn't the happiest place and I realized I didn't have to be I was free so I knew intuitively that I could turn around I could walk back to the street I could stick out my thumb and I could leave show up tell him a new name which was given to me in this experience which I won't get into and it was all I wanted but the terror that came with that was impossible to overcome leaving my family leaving my parents everything I'd ever been or built every personality i' had ever constructed or worked on musician or a or a good boy or a straight A student or going to finish college after just six months of a break all of that dead gone and all of a sudden I like ah I'm okay all of that were games I was playing when I didn't feel okay to try to make me okay but I'm okay I want this and it was like oh yeah what about your parent where are you going to sleep what are you going to eat what about what your parent your parents are going to wake up you're not going to be here and I didn't know in that feeling of Freedom if I was ever going to see my parents again cuz they weren't there now in reality I probably would have hit chike wherever I was going and called them but I I the fear presented itself in a fear is sheer fear is a sheer AEM is a different that's another conversation but the average fear that we feel is a sheer Mish Mish I think you proved it my mom disagrees no no no I didn't prove it because it overwhelmed me the fear and I couldn't be that person I wasn't able and I struggled with it for a while while and the fear had a gravity it was like I was like literally like my body was like oh I can't deal with it I can't the light is too I can't handle it like I'm not ready I like Aaron fast I made this whole Aaron fast I like I'm not my mom my dad the food in the refrigerator my bed like I I could I couldn't handle it and it was like 5050 it was like I was right on the Razor Edge like the fear the light the fear I can do it I can't Terri terrified terrified finally I was like okay like I can't do it right now but but I'll be able to do it eventually I'll later and I like went back home kind of and I made the biggest mistake a person could make I I experienced uh the call of my life and I couldn't answer it and I realized that I don't have the ability to choose when I'm going to answer it next time okay so let me just go home and I'll take care of this and I'll take not how it works the whole test is that you have to be ready you have to choose very scary so I spent a period of time after that in tremendous agitation and I say a period of time months remorse depression not so much depression because I was too agitated to be depressed but feeling like the biggest Calamity that has ever existed was visited upon me like I can't believe it I can't I everything everything gone so I wanted to prove that truly I wanted this I wanted to prove it to myself and I wanted to prove it to God I'm not afraid I'm not afraid of what I'm going to eat I'm not afraid of where I'm going to sleep I'm not afraid so I would make these little things like missions it's not like I made them they were kind of like in the remnants of that that invitation that I had they were still in me like let me get a little of that a little of that and I started going on long walks and finally one day it was so strong in me all this fear came up again and I had the idea that I wanted to walk to the nearest city which was Richmond Virginia which was a 90m walk from my parents house and my biggest fear was my parents are going to think I'm out of my mind but I knew I wanted to claim this just to say I'm not scared and I love God and I want it you know and I was in such Agony on the couch saying like and my parents were sitting there you know watching TV we're hanging out whatever and finally it was like Mom Dad I want to walk to Richmond and like they we' had some conversations about what had been going on with me so it wasn't totally out of the blue but it was kind of like and they weren't as surprised as I thought they were they were more just unimpressed they were like yeah like so like you do it or don't they're like you're going to do it do it like whatever you know I think they were a little weird weirded out but I don't know so I was just like right so I went I left home I walked out the door and uh I had nothing nothing in my pockets no bag no no wallet no money empty pockets and and what I was wearing and I started walking you had your stal on I had my stal on I had my Titus on the [Music] outside I I had a T-shirt and a pair of khaki pants probably and I think I was wearing Crocs I was wearing Crocs but part of the whole test was like I felt I was being compelled to do this and it was like so that's it you know I once asked aad in rakov so I think anybody would say is aad if you don't know him don't worry about it but uh he didn't speak English so I had to try to pack my questions into very tight uh you know type form and I'd asked somebody to translate from me and I was trying to ask him if you feel you have to do something if God asks you let's say nobody's a noi but you feel you know you have to do something do you apply your rational mind to it and say okay well first I'm going to get that or you just go okay here I go so I asked him like this to ask him that question I asked him I said if God wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you to go outside do you have to stop and put your shoes on first that's what I asked him and he looks at me like okay that's not what I was expecting you know and he says mamash K and I go mamash and he goes whatever and the translator says he says you don't have to stop and put your shoes on get out and do it it says you don't have to stop and I was like thank God I asked the right s because that's a courageous answer you can't go ask you can't be a sha biva that and he'd be like just go to bed and there's seder tomorrow he's like you don't have to stop like woo so I had that in mind you know so that that was that was later that hadn't happened yet but anyway so I walked out the door in my Crocs and I with and I walked to Richmond and it took that's a lie I hitchhiked the last almost 20 miles I was having trouble with my knee and this and that and this guy was going to give me a ride okay so so I walked 70 miles that night how long did it take about three days day and night and where did you sleep and side of the road in the woods wow I slept mostly during the day and I walked mostly at night because the roads were Country Roads and you could see the headlights coming at night and they weren't busy and I could just walk in the road and then I'd sort of lay down I'd go up in the woods a little bit and I would just lay down I can't believe I did it now oh to now I'd be scared ready to walk back spider is I wish man I I wish I had the courage I had then um so that was my first success really I got to Richmond I wanted to keep going and I chickened out I should have kept going but instead my mom met me in Richmond and it was kind of like I wanted to keep going and I felt trapped now my mom was there why' I call her I should have just kept going to the next town I I knew where it was whatever it's only 20 miles 30 miles only yeah it's a days days I I was walking about 20 to 25 miles a day or about 20 something like that and and so the goal of reaching Richmond bashem you yes so so then I felt still that this sort of Faith exercise that I was doing the whole exercise was like this I didn't listen to God or whatever it was in that first instance because I was afraid two things I was afraid of were food and and shelter so I was trying to break that fear so I felt very compelled to keep going in that direction so one day I left again with nothing and that time I went for three months I went uh down the coast to Florida I walked a large part of the way then I got a ride spent time around Jacksonville basically as a homeless person it was a blast of best days of my life I felt closer to to God in those moments and I felt in a long time I mean I really was completely living on God's M um and that helped Forge a stronger connection to that part of me that I could trust myself that I could trust this calling that was happening in me sometimes that I I'd found kind of Bedrock of my my compass my inner Compass um gets challenged a lot um especially around here it's very difficult to find and commit to your inner compass and you go through a lot of Doubt Shad would say different then you really you're in a bind that's happened to me but I guess I see the absolute essence of the spiritual life as is the bellz or the bub standing under under thata after the war and just standing there and not making any of the any of the bras and everybody's saying what are you doing what are you doing the man's gonna it's going to be the next day stood there for like an hour people getting mad people leaving something's wrong did the whole research and they found out thean and kala were related and they were they weren't allowed to get married what was it in him that gave him the courage to stand there you know what was it in him that said like it's not pro something's wrong something's not go what are you doing a crazy rabbis some I can't violate there's something I cannot violate so the essence of the spiritual life is is is where is that in you how do I find that I don't have the courage and it's not courage it's auna you have to get to the point where there's something in you that you trust you have to be able to trust something in you and go for it well yeah you have to trust it above anything else and that's very scary but that that's that's the the spiritual life like you had um and we don't need another story that's a good enough story yeah there's a million examples so so you wow um I can't even fathom this this um I can't either once in a blue moon I know that I want to eat a particular food and it works out and there's parking right in front of the you that's as far as I've I haven't stopped the yeah no but but but your achievement to to to crack the code as they say and do what you really felt is the path for you to find your inner and break the fear yeah as I mean not many people can put on resume such a everybody's doing it everybody's doing it not not such a I may have done it in a foolish way I may not I may not have been 100% right I wasn't so bad I did pretty good yeah but it led you to to great new heights it it did and it led me to um deeper tests and I don't mean in in uh you know I mean deeper tests of actually do I actually trust myself do I actually trust this is there a real God is God going to take care of me like actually because I feel called in a certain direction people yeah I don't mean starting a business I mean like walking down down the road and being like I don't know if I'm ever going home again and like I I feel I'm doing the right thing like I feel that it's strengthening me and I feel that it's purifying me and I feel that I'm going to find something and God I can't do it I'm terrified what am I going to eat this happened to me terrified I was not far from my house and I wanted to turn around I was like am I doing this again this is crazy I can't do it my parents and then that that it's like and finally I let out such a teila for my heart and it was like anger it's was like what are you asking for me I was like what am I going to eat mom and she came out of my mouth what am I going to eat you crazy and I'm telling you I stopped and I looked down and on the side of the country road by my parents house there was a pile of clementines on the side of the road fresh wrapped clean ready to eat I couldn't believe it I ate three of them and stuck them all in my pockets I said all right sold fine I wasn't sold I was terrified but I but I but I yes you know what do you want wow so that one turned out to be an easier one I I I didn't I I think I turned around at the end of the day so it wasn't that wasn't a big one but but it was a Simmon for sure and I had Simon him all over the place and how long did it take like for you to land in Israel oh yeah we're Jews here we got talk juw yeah we have to get to the get to is punch line okay so this was all frightening my family a little bit um what's Aaron doing with his life so I had a cousin who uh got involved with AAA on campus on the west coast and there's a very generous man out there he sends people to AAA sponsors them so my cousin was there my cousin was hookline and sinker for a he Lov AA so it came to a family reunion and the pitch came to me you know you're very interested in these spiritual things and we know that that you're there's a you're a Jew you know this guy sent me to Israel and he likes to work with families and so he asked if there's anybody my family might be interested so he wanted to know if he wanted to go to Israel now several months before this I had met the civer rebbi who was the first sadic I ever met and he said to me in Richmond Virginia he travels on his own expense to meet Eden and he told me not yet but when you're ready you should go study the Bible he may even used the word bible I was I was such a Madre knew nothing he said in Israel and to me that was like me telling you you should go study Finance in China maybe you're more to finance than I had the Yiddish K go study water polo in China I didn't even know what he meant I was like what does that mean you just read the Bible over like what that's crazy why what does that mean l didn't know what it meant and then this offer came to me so the next time I saw the call of a rebi I said rebi I said the rebit told me last time I saw him in New York that's a crazy story too I don't know if we have time for it somehow I was in New York for like two days and I got a call on my cell phone from The Gabby uh you want to meet the re oh how did how did he know you in New York I said I said who who who is he said the CBI the the K you want you met him do you want to do you want to make a meeting with him and I was like I'm in New York like I met him in Virginia I like I'm in New York got out of that one and he goes the theba is also in New York and I was like H how did you know like I was there for two days wow Mom was just visiting old friends and I was like he was like you come tonight I'm like okay so I tell my friends like I have an appointment with the rabbi at like 10:30 they're like what 10:30 at night in Williamsburg you know like we were in Park Slope or something you okay anyway so I said to the RAB rabba told me XYZ and he said you go you're not doing anything else I didn't listen to him I didn't want to go I didn't want to go I'm not into religion I didn't want to go I didn't want to go n9ine months later you know I eventually long story short I said yes another kind of a r kind of thing from the civer so I said yes and uh I went here you are today I'm not sure that's the story goes that easy but yeah here I am I'm sure we can talk all night to hear your wow what an interesting and amazing and profound thank you um amount of Courage yeah it was back then and I'm sure it was built AEM L it was only only to connect to Hashem not to not not for any other reason in the world you couldn't somebody handed me a $100 bill one day on that on that journey I had one of these understandings that I wanted to go to a certain place I went there was a lady there she handed me a Bible and she was like please read it pleas she was very agitated please read it crazy crazy lady okay whatever I she she leaves I go there's $1100 bill in it I didn't want I didn't want it want $100 I didn't want it so I walked to the bank and I put it in the bank I said this is my name I have an account in this bank I'm not a stranger putting money in a stranger's account he said okay we trust you small town they took it they put it in the bank I didn't want it I wanted a shm to give me food direct yeah I guess he gave me $100 but I didn't want it directly yeah I didn't touch money for directly from Heaven yeah and he did wow he did wow wow Aaron I'm proud to be named Aron suddenly a lot of good errands out there yeah suddenly I discovered the pride in my name really want to thank you for coming toas thank you and shedding so much light on undis discovering the which we know he's always his only interest and goal and reason of creating the world and is to comfort us and to give us and to find us and to connect with us and it's m breathtaking to hear a story live unfiled from a person with such a such a high that is leaving doesn't care about anything although you have a nice shirt and a nice today the shirt is nicer than the shirt you are but I know it's it does not that's not at all in any way part of you your your Purity and your connection to I is your flag and your gold mission in life and I want to wish you should be able to grow spiritually and should be easy for you and you should blend with the right people have a good soon amen and you should always have it easy to do the r of hem and you should always bump into the best people who can bring out the best in you and you can share with them your amazing depth thank you um I want all these things for you except maybe the sh that can go to your children and I'm grateful for what you're doing thank you thank you so much