Processing, Healing and Awakening After October 7 (Conversation With Rabbi Moshe Gersht)

it's wonderful to be together this evening and tremendously grateful to of mosha gers for joining us for being in from Israel and part of his tour that's all right you can applaud yeah you can thank you for being here very very grateful very very grateful so this is a conversation that we've been trying to have for a little while it got planned and then it got rescheduled uh obviously the events of October 7th through the world the Jewish world into a deep state of sadness and of grief and of anxiousness and of worry that delayed our opportunity to be together and have this conversation but also made this conversation that much more relevant and significant and important and welcome so we are particularly glad that you are here with your wisdom your ideas that are really uplifting and enriching all the time to help us get through and navigate the complicated world but particularly since October 7th so I want to begin with I want to begin with that you live in Israel now you live in harof I I was in harno until just a few months ago so we just moved to rap ches okay rap ches with everybody else so you live now in rap ches that's right but you live in Israel and you were in Israel when the events of of sheras of simor happened October 7th forever etched in our minds in our memory in our hearts this grief and this pain this conversation was supposed to be about your new book the themes of previous books about your background and we're going to get to those things but we pivoted to make the conversation about the events of October 7th and how we can somehow navigate understand figure it out for ourselves but take us through your world you your family October 7th what was that day for you and since then what has it been yeah so first and foremost you know before anything I want to say thank you also for having me be here with you and and be with this beautiful beautiful Community which you know we've waited a long time to get here so thank you so much for having me and uh it's a great honor to be here gosh speaking about October 7th when you you think about that day it's you know we all have days in our lives where you just you'll never forget where you were and what was going on and there's there's different moments in in time where time stands still and that's one of them for us right collectively all of us uh so I got up like any other day just out of curiosity anybody in the room was there yeah so yeah see good handful of hands right so we all have our own experience of that morning so I got up at 6:30 getting ready to go to SCH I put on my talist and I was already hearing Rumblings from in my house but you know you hear noises and you don't think anything of it I walked outside I started walking up the stairs towards the sh and then just bang bang like really just loud and if you've ever heard that before you ever heard of you know it's a funny thing when I when I got to America just a couple weeks ago and and I just asking people on the street have you ever heard of bomb it's it's a weird question what do you mean like it's so abnormal and then to hear one after the other after the other and it took about three or four before you know the light goes off and oh we're being attacked and I ran downstairs and I ran to my room I told my wife I said you know I think we're being attacked and my wife's very positive she no I was like I wish I'm I'm pretty sure we just let's make sure the room is ready make sure you know where the kids are right and unfortunately we're used to it so in the beginning we really had no idea what was going on it's not it wasn't the first time that you hear you know you see smoke or you hear bombs right that's that's a you know the unfortunate realities of living in a situation that is uncertain and so it got up and went to show and we danced and we danced and then the sirens started going off and so then everybody would run up against the walls and by the way the sirens are are just as scary as the sounds I don't know if anybody's been there for just just to hear a siren that's a scary thing to hear and it's a lot of deep breaths throughout the day it's a lot of that it's a lot of looking around and making sure you see where your kids are right you're you're in a sh so you're you you know and there your kids are running around getting candy and trying to have a normal morning and we still didn't know what had happened yet but we knew that there was something going on and then it somewhere around the fifth Circle the fifth AA someone came in and they started sharing some news and we had heard that they might have gotten someone they might have taken one person and that was that already put a shudder and a shock of like the idea that even one person could be taken and so we stopped everything and we were saying to Hill him and praying and and and really just just trying to focus all our energy and attention and we realize that you know Jewish people Israel was was clearly not in a good place the rest of the day was spent listening to jets flying overhead and jets are just as loud and then of course the holiday ends turn on the news and then it's just grief and mourning for a week right and that's you know what it SS and it hits you when you hear what's going on it so so big so much so much pain to hold at one time I think that was the piece this overwhelming feeling of that's a lot of pain to hold all at one time it's not holdable if that's a word I don't think it is but you can't hold it and it's just this uh you know release of emotion tears and sadness and grief and at that point the anxiety hadn't kicked in yet right it's not about fear it was about what had happened and that entire first week was more or less living in that space and trying to make peace with what on Earth did we just go through and I think that's the collective experience that whole first whether it's the first week or 10 days or two weeks however long it was just making peace with the fact that that was happening that was the work I think internally and as a parent there was like a whole another you know you're dealing with your own emotions you're dealing with the emotions of your loved ones and then if you have young children you're dealing with the emotions of of your kids and help trying to help them process what's going on so much of the time in those following days were okay now now we have to figure out how to process and how to help our kids process yeah process and protecting them because as much as you want to follow the news or grieve or cry children of different ages some who can't be protected from it but others maybe don't need to be brought into the most intensity of it so I'm sure that's also a big part of navigating it I I think about and this is what we're going to get to tonight the topics of your books and your themes and what you've taught us and I include myself and us as a student of yours who has benefited tremendously from from your books but the theme of hisas and that notion of of sameness and Oneness and everything equal and all being good I feel like October 7th just was an assault on those themes too it was an assault on the jewi people but it's also an assault on that notion that everything's equal everything's the same everything is good if only we can connect to the center of the universe and feel connected to the almighty and and then even you know the difficult things and the hard things you know which which the book for many people if one's in a blessed position not everybody is you know the hard things are missing the flight or getting stuck in traffic or the everyday challenges of life thatav and sness and one I I don't need to speak about this it's your it's your theme did did you at any point over the last seven weeks have you felt that the events of October 7th and these last seven weeks are are sort of challenging your ability to get this message out there maybe your ability to even experience it and practice it but also to get the message out there can you speak to audiences about everything is good and if only we'd connect to it when when it seems like nothing is good so I mean that is the question I think that's the question of the hour certainly for me and I think for any person who walks around with a belief that the world isn't chaotic that there's an order to the universe right if there's if things aren't an accident and there there is a hand at play that's involved so then we ask the question how why how do I see that as good how does that fit into a broader context and by the way you said they were my themes but again I'm I'm just speaking over themes of ancient sages way before me so we share them together we're all learning from the same place so on a personal level I think part somebody actually said to me I think either later that day or the next day is it so is it really all the same to you you know one of those somebody really trying to make it a point I remember somebody said the same thing after the L somebody came to me and said some things just aren't the same right for those who appreciate the name of the previous book it's all the same to me and that and that theme yeah sure so and maybe we'll speak let's speak about that just for a minute and why the name of the book is it's all the same to me and maybe some of the misunderstanding that comes from a name like that but for a lot of people they hear the words it's all the same to me it comes from a concept called hisab that you mentioned equinity seeing a world of sameness but we live in a world where everything is different every one is different every event is different right the Aral says there are no two days no two moments that are the same right and that's why every moment is is a blessing every moment is new so how can we talk about samess and the idea of sameness is that behind all the differences there's an underlying current of Oneness an underlying current of unity that despite the fact that we are all different on the surface that we share a unified Force right so we call it Soul or Spirit or God but we speak about this part that's underneath that doesn't go anywhere that becomes the context the space by which everything takes place there's a medish that says that God isn't in the space of the world he is the space of the world right that he's the Mak that means he's the context the idea of God is the cont text by which everything in reality takes place you I could have called the book um it's all God to me or it's all Hashem to me but that's the sameness so with that in mind so nothing really change right from before October 7th or afterwards because if you're living within a Consciousness where even that can exist it wasn't the first tragedy we ever experienced wasn't the it was the the biggest maybe in our lifetime maybe the the deepest in many ways but that's just a bigger version of an old question which is how do we deal with any tragedy how do we deal with any seeming mistake in the universe and this was just a bigger version of that another element uh just to answer the other question which is like oh my personal experience more than just an idea or like a concept of and probably also miss ner the the the idea that it's all good we we tend to see that in terms of what I think is good I like or I dislike if I like it it's good if I dislike it it's bad um and when we speak about good capital G good we're speaking about a much bigger idea and that means that the emotions that you're experiencing are part of that and therefore even if you don't feel and can't see that it's good that's not our job then in that moment it's our job to make peace with our feeling of the experience so you know I think all of us on and off at some points have cried you know throughout the last month month and a half and sness or hisus to say that the fact that I'm crying now is good too that's also part of this Human Experience because pain is real because when we see something that goes wrong we don't want to suppress emotion and deny emotion and deny our experience what's taking place but oh now that's also coming up right when you're feeling resentful or angry and frustrated at you know maybe you're frustrated at what's going on in the government either before after maybe you're frustrated with you know how things were handled that's also allowed that's also capital G good which is part of our human experience and not to be standing in resistance and maybe that's the key word over here in the world of sameness which is to be able to live with a non-resistance towards taking place in that non-resistance to the experience it allows for pain it allows us to to be in a place of M right you don't walk into a Shiva house and say right that would be insensitive so the question I have in navigating this sense of sinness and like you said and and I want to express my gratitude in shabash shua last year a couple years ago I Incorporated a lot of the teachings and and brought the original sources of the B and many others who bring down the the concept himself about isas and and the origins of this sameness and it all being equal and the way I interpret it or understand is essentially that whatever happens that you're navigating through your life nothing should throw you for a loop because you realize it's all orchestrated CH curated from above and therefore while it elicits different emotions and you're on a roller coaster of experiencing it but none of it are you a victim of Randomness or chance all of it is originating at a source that prescribes it all and knowing that from the good and the joy and the happiness and the success and the pleasure for the things that we experience is pain it all is originating at the same Source but when we begin to describe it as all good is that callous to the people who are experiencing it as bad so to to families who still have hostages who have not been returned to the hostages who who came out including a little girl today who discovered that her parents were murdered and she's an orphan this philosophy that in other times we could pontificate about that it's all good does it does it feel or does it come across as callous to describe such horrific tragedy as somehow good yeah okay no no I'll respond deeper but I I say it as a clear yes because it's it's the same thing that we said before which is you can't walk into a Shiva house and say Gamul Lova you can't walk into a place of pain and put your concept of goodness on somebody else's experience and that's true for yourself as well right so it doesn't make it untrue in a collective sense so deep within right in there's right that one of the law is that when a person says a certain blessing when someone passes away they think make a Ms that somehow and this is an incredibly challenging thing but he says that one should find a way to do it with Sim to do it with joy how do you do that how do you square that Circle how can you possibly have any sort of peace or Joy when you're in a place of trauma and it's because there are two ways to be in pain there's a pain that's acceptable and a pain that's acceptable and even an unacceptable pain is acceptable when it's so big that it's unacceptable right that's a big T twister but if you're following me so to go in there and to say the word good because as human beings we don't use that word capital G we use it lower casy good we use my good I like dislike it feels right it feels wrong um in this Human Experience and because that's how we use the word and if we have any level of awareness we recognize people who are in pain they're it's it's bab bad yeah that's the that's the experience so when a person is experiencing it that way whether or not you know you think of any major leader in human history they all went through some major challenge at some point that they were born out of right the greatest people on this planet were born from tragedy so can you say the tragedy was good no cuz once you fragment the situation if you just look at that so it's bad so you can only use the when I say capital G good I mean the universal Eternal context of reality as things are moving that we're not just in one life but we're a part of many lives and we're a part of many elements of History so in that you can say it's good but I don't think to a person going through the tragedy and that means to all of us right now to walk around and say that's good that's like saying the Holocaust is good you can do that maybe on pm and that's the idea of perm it's going to a place where you have to get Beyond rationale because in our rational mind uh I think it it is callous I love the formulation you said it resonate for me you use the word peace even more than the notion of joy in being able to make the blessing there's a joy in being at peace and knowing that there is someone orchestrating the universe can provide that peace and it's all the same to me provides the inner peace to try to make sense of this incredibly fragmented divided chaotic seemingly inconsistent and incomprehensible world and if we can trace it all back to a place that could provide a peace that peace is an a sense Joy different than the joy we think of of laughter and smile and pleasure but the joy of the inner peace that We crave so the word peace really spoke to me yeah and I I think you're right that word peace is pointing back to that non-resistance that I was speaking about before which is that it's it's our desire for it to not be which creates the suffering pain is inevitable but suffering is the mental choice to perpetuate that so you can be at peace with the pain the pain pain is inevitable that's part of the human experience but that that level it's the underlying it's what's behind it it's almost like the emotions are in front the word emotion the Latin root comes I can't I can't pronounce the original words like emotive something I can't pronounce it but it means disturbance so it's a disturbance on the surface that's what emotion is um but the St of peace is behind that you you can be at peace and still have an emotion up there and that could be an emotion of happiness and it can be deep grief and sadness but the hus this idea of sameness is whether I'm up here or whether I'm down there I'm still okay I'm okay life is okay and maybe that's a better word than good that things are in a in a grand sense still okay so don't try to suppress the emotion be it the pleasure or the pain lean in and experience it honor it respect it but know that behind it when that emotion will fade with with time most do there'll be that that anchor to come back to of theas right so I want to go deeper into these ideas but before I want I want to take a little bit detour to talk about you and your life and how you came to this I don't know any other book I don't know any other book I don't know any author that aspires to have a book that has an approbation and endorsement from rasher we Kasher rman fredman and deepack shra that's a very wide range of endorsements which I'm kind of curious how not how you got raash and ranus fredman because your book represents authentic Torah but how you connected with deepack SH but before we get there tell us about your life and your background because you might not have been sitting here you might have been here performing because at one point you were the lead singer and writer of a punk band that was Touring that signed with a record label songs were being played on MTV and you were on the way to a career in that and you took not a detour I guess a permanent exit from that highway to to go to this life what happened what was that Awakening what made you make that shift do you miss it do you regret it do you incorporate your musical life into your practices today I love that that's a great I love all the things you just said it's interesting as you were speaking it dawned on me somebody pointed it out to me once that I still when I sit down and I hold a microphone I hold it like a singer and rock band right everybody else is holding it like this and I still hold it like I'm about to jump off the stage like I can't that's habit you know you do something enough times and it just goes in so and I was walking in today holding um a bag with a poster and it was kind of tall and someone said are you here to play tonight and I haven't been that in a long time so yeah I spent seven years the lead singer of this rock band and maybe to make a a nice long story shorter things were going well as you said we were signed to a record label we did have songs on MTV and the radio we did tour the country we did do things like this but it looked a little different I looked a little different and at some point it was there was a Confluence of experiences a couple things happened at the same time one of them was my drummer got involved with methamphetamines which was a very sad thing a good nice good kid and I was seeing some of the dark side of the entertainment industry but at the same time someone had asked me how long I was going to play music for and I said what do you mean he said you know how long are you going to do this for I said I don't know I guess until we're successful and he said when's that and I said when's what and he said when's successful and I told him to grab another drink because he was ruining my night but I did I woke up the next morning and I thought about that question a lot when is successful and I started doing Research into all the different people that I have been playing with uh bands that I toured with people I looked up to and what I found was their personal lives didn't match the level of success that I thought should go with that level of success and these things are very cliche you know it's not about the external it's not about the material but it's different when you see it up close and you realize that you know a lot of these people it was like 80% of the people I looked up to had either tried to take their own life or had done a good job at it so I can't to this conclusion that like if I want to be successful I kind of have to run away from life and that you could be successful at what you do so fail at life that that was a a turning point in my experience which led me to go deeper into well well how do you live a successful life what does a successful life look like is it having a family is there purpose and meaning uh is there you know Divine Cosmic relationship through Torah I was raised in a Torah home by the way but I did not yet see that there was a cosmic nature to Torah a divine nature to Torah it sounded like a bunch of good ideas some of them and some of them didn't and it put me on a search to say well is there more to this and found myself in Jerusalem and then I fell in love with what I found that's like part one of answering your question that doesn't get us to the book that just gets me to Yeshiva and music do you still play music music do you still think in music do you hear music playing in your head do you miss music I don't miss music because I I still feel very connected to music uh I don't miss the stage because I've sit on I still sit on many stages there's a certain aliveness to the live performance that given the opportunity you might still find me on a stage somewhere maybe but beyond that I I don't think about the decision at all I it was the best best decision I ever made in my life it's never there was NE I never have the uh what if experience it it was right from the start and continued to unfold in that way uh I do still write music sometimes I've written for other artists that maybe some people here sometimes and I have a lot of fun with that I haven't had a lot of time for it recently because I've been very busy working on a different kind of music when I I spoke to rash one of the one of my and one of the great rabbis in the Mira and I asked him somebody came to me and said hey you you're a musician you have an obligation to play music in this world so I said okay maybe so I went to ask him and I asked rasher and he said do you like learning Torah I said yeah and he said you're good at learning Torah I said yeah he said do you need the money I said no he said well if you like learning Torah and good at learning Torah and you don't need need the money don't stop singing the songs of Torah a Torah is also a song Torah is also a song yeah beautiful so when I think of somebody who signed up to go to Yeshiva because they had some Awakening and they want to experience and pursue it more usually think of the curriculum of Yesa as being M and you don't necessarily arrive at the B andos and some of that deeper mystical obviously depends a different Yeshiva I don't mean to make a generalization in in your Yeshiva experience and on this journey where did you first encounter these ideas was there a person was it a safer a book was it somebody you witnessed and watched was it a shoping table you sat at what brought these ideas to you thank you no one asked me that question I like to think about it it was I I feel very blessed uh these these ideas aren't just ideas to me these are these are these are my experience and it's a they like changing and transforming when a person is able to integrate them and live with them and think with them uh what happened I write about it more in the new book was I went through a really challenging time about six years in to my Yesa experience like you said came in a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of deep philosophical elements to Torah and some psychological elements to Torah but not maybe the spiritual points were the um psychospiritual points uh and then at some point around six years in I went through a really challenging time where I had found all the things that I thought I wanted I I did have a family I met a wonderful woman we had we had two young kids at the time uh I started teaching a little bit and I found myself really far away from myself there was like a moment in time I don't know if it was months or a year but there was a moment where uh I was was feeling anxiety I was feeling uh shame I felt a lot of impostor syndrome when I would show up and teach some of these big ideas and I would dazzle with intellectual Wizardry on the inside I was like is that really me am I really that is it really integrated but is that real to me and a lot of it wasn't real to me and yet I had always kind of been a spiritual I was raised in a spiritual home even if it wasn't all that religious so spirituality always I could I had a sense to it I could touch it I knew when my intuition was speaking I I knew when I was being guided I saw the hashkafa the synchronicities that would show up in my life I felt far from that and I went to speak to a mentor of mine who asked to remain nameless for this and he said I told him this whole story and he looked at me and he said you found the Torah he said that's the best thing that could have happened to you because you're really a heart and soul kind of person you wouldn't have maybe naturally had had an affinity to go this now you spent this time learning byab gon and all these amazing people you got to sit by but now you have to go to yourself now you have to find yourself I think about all the time this idea of like you got to go to yourself AB spends his whole life looking for God and when he finally finds God God says go to yourself you're looking for me go to yourself you you can't find up until you find him and I asked him I said where would you look and he said you need to spend some time in the world of this and he told me specifically in the world of RAB nman and that started that Journey for me that that moment really pushed me in a New Direction into what I was looking for and looking into I found some other individuals who were learning these types of ideas I found the B shto himself and then that I was done I I don't want to get into your your personal and Beyond what we're getting into in your personal life I don't want to get into your marriage but I'm curious your wife marries a LV guy in the mirror and then he's getting into and he becomes you know the spokesperson foras and is that is that a radical shift in your family again I'm not intruding into your marriage but the people in your life who knew you one way was it the same you but now you discovered the inner you or in giving expression to the inner you did you become a different or a new you who had to reintroduce himself to the people around you that's that's a great question man Rabbi we should have done this a long time ago this is great uh so the round robin is my parents felt like they were seeing me come out of a shell that had climbed into when I went to Yesa and they're like ah they're you're coming back like that's that was their experience of what was happening uh my wife my my wife is is a so she was like ah finally like chill out you know I would learn 14 hour days 16 hour days you know and if I wasn't learning I I felt so much pressure I really did so much pressure self-imposed pressure not not from anyone outside of me to to be great at something at whatever I was doing I took all the energy from trying to be great in the band and I channeled it into the world of Torah and it served me very well for a really long time I got to become close with Incredible human beings I learned volumes and volumes and volumes of Torah that that that ego for lack of a better word pushed me towards but eventually I started burning out and I started getting to a place where it wasn't serving me it wasn't giving me what I needed and the world of cus allowed me to integrate who I want to be with who I am right where I can feel good with where I'm standing now and still have goals and dreams and move in that direction but that my value is not tied to the Future that my value is tied to something more intrinsic and I think deep down before I got to Yeshiva I was kind of already living that way just without a context for reality right when I was in the band the band is just pure expression of music and writing and giving and showing up on stage and just sharing yourself with the world that's more you know the being in alignment with that higher state but I didn't have any context for reality and then Yeshiva gave me lots of context for reality and purpose and meaning and understanding in depth and system it's a unified system for reality which is amazing but I I stepped a bit away from that place so when I think of what you asked about which I'm still connected to music I think the the music is the sound of the Soul that's what real music is that's why when we hear music we get ired because it touches the part of the Soul we just go to that place so I found a huge part of my soul in these teachings um and so my wife her response was you know this is this is what I've wanted the whole time so I love your brain but I was looking for your heart and I think I think she was if You' ask her I think she' say she's happier now I think and and looking back are are you grateful for the chronology or order you went or do you wish you had integrated these ideas earlier and and maybe the Practical difference since we're in your sh here is is your children would you want your children to go through what you did which was rigorous 12 14 16 hour gamar days build the structure later you can fill in Rab and Theus and the pus or are you trying to give your children both at the same time that they can grow both the the outside and the inside simultaneously so on a personal level like I don't live with a world of regret of things needing to wishing things would have gone differently I think on a personal level things went exactly how they were supposed to and I'm super grateful incredibly grateful for the way in which my life has manifested and continues to unfold it's a blessing every day I think all of our lives are blessings you know within the right framework and understanding it doesn't mean that there weren't amazing challenges in a lot of days of incredible grief and pain but that's we're going to go through that no matter what life we have no matter what way it would have unfolded there's pain along the way in terms of my kids that's a wonderful question I really believe that when we try to make the path rigidly a certain way for our children we're usually the ones that end up in pain because our children come into this world a certain way with a certain path and as parents we're there to really help them find their strengths uh to help curb their weaknesses uh and and be there as you know as as listening guides uh and when they're ready to to take forward so you know I have one daughter who's very left brained very analytical she so smart she's so sharp and I think if I were to push certain ideas into into her she might feel weakened by the ideas because they're not natural to her whereas I have another daughter who it's it she lives that way anyway so feed that you know you know help that grow because you can guide that and direct it in a way that's healthy and so you know parenting is an art it's really being a human being with another human being so there I don't think there's one way but that's that's how I think in our home we try to do it is really be sensitive to what the children need and of course of course we want I'd love it if my son told me he's like yeah I want to r 14 hour days 16 hour days that's awesome and amazing and if he told me you know his first two Sedar were going well and at night you know he you know wanted to I don't know play with a friend or whatever that's good too you know really being present with them so that's I'm not obsessing with deac Sher honestly I'm not exposed to much I haven't really read much I just I'm invoking the name because clearly the ideas that you communicate so effectively resonate and are being endorsed as authentic from very different worlds so how did you connect with him and What What In Your Ideas make deac Sher say this is truth and people should buy it so so with deepo maybe specifically and then tangentially you know on the new book uh we I also reached out to people from all spectrums maybe can answer the question of why reaching out to all spectrums is because the books are written to help people happens to be that my my roots are the roots of Torah that's where I learned these ideas I learned a lot of language from psychology like kind of new age spirituality books and psychology books that take the same ideas and uh Express them in a modern language which I found to be very helpful because when we look back I think one of the things that disconnects us from the essence of the Torah that's there is it's some of it's written a very cabalistic language some of it's written in just old Hebrew uh there's a disconnect between what they're saying and what we're hearing uh and that's totally normal because people spoke differently 300 years ago in Poland and people spoke very differently 2,000 years ago in Babylon right like things things do change and develop and so getting the right language was really important to me it helped me both understand as well as integrate those ideas and somewhere along the way I realize that if if we are to be a light in the world uh there's nothing to hide from being able to share this to the whole world right we have ideas that are universally powerful and deep and transformative so let's have everybody be transformed let's all be uplifted together and it would be hard to do that if it only had rise on the so I said okay we need to bring everybody into this this is a collective effort uh I believe there's a seat at the table of spirituality and wellness for a voice of Torah at the very least and and no one was sitting there so I thought okay you know if not now when if I'm not for me who's going to be for me you know we have to go do this forel and do this for the world so that that's what got me interested in in really kind of bridging that Gap and it's it's been very receptive because again I'm I'm really feel it's important to use language that's Universal where it doesn't matter where you're from and who you are you know race color or Creed we're all trying to be connected to the truth of who we are to be connected to the truth of what life is we're all doing the same thing we have different roles right in reality but we're all human beings we're all made in the image of God it's not surprising knowing rash that that he agreed to have his name obviously without asking you to reveal the name but were there any rabbis who said I'm not I'm not going to appear on the back with deac Chopra or with some secular Universal endorsement you know if this is a rabbi book great include my name if you're including others leave me off that's not good for me did you run into resistance I didn't run into resistance there was one Rabbi who said he didn't want to be involved but it it was uh a it didn't feel like resistance it was just a personal preference but it I think it didn't run into resistance because I didn't ask people that I knew didn't want to be involved so yeah recipe for Success huh a recipe for Success meaning you have to know who you're catering to right some people that it's not their job right their job is not to to do this you know they they they might endorse it conceptually I had some people say I endorse it conceptually but I can't put my name on it that was actually harder to me than people who you know I didn't even want to ask it's like well if you endorse it conceptually so why don't you want to put your name on it and the answer is there's a lot of fear uh even even doing this I mean in the beginning you know my wife looked at me and she was like you sure want to do this because now people might look at you a different way right people might see you and you know people ask me all the time I do a lot of these podcasts and at the end of the podcast just recently somebody said wow you should be a rabbi are you and I like yeah I am why don't you write it anywhere and I do it's on the website somewhere uh but again I see that as being prohibitive to a lot of people you know if you put Rabbi on the front of something so there's all these you know potential uh conceptions people have to block you and the goal is just to help the goal is to serve and if that would be a potential hindrance so okay you might not think more of me because of it but hopefully you're not going to think too much less and if what what's being said is true and it resonates so it'll be helpful and that's what we're doing you ever do you ever struggle with implementing what's in your own books or do you ever worry about being called out for meaning like you honk somebody in traffic in Israel and like dude aavas like this is it's all good it's all the same to you like I'll get there when I get there someone cuts you line in the supermarket and you seem exasperated like you know your child you grow impatient with your child and they like ABA little hasas is it an enormous pressure to write this book and then have to live it it's funny for the first six months when the book came out the the first one the uh so many people in my life were like okay we're just wait we're going to wait and catch you we going catch you I said I'm not saying I'm perfect that wasn't that wasn't what I was saying over here I try to make it really clear in the new book I'm very far from perfect and I think it's very important for people to know it's not there's no pedestals we're all humans going through this and of course I fall and fail and we all fall and fail I think the difference is how long do we stay down how quickly do we get back up and how can we uh spend more time in that space so what I can say is I spend significantly more time in that space and significantly less time in the falling out space in that has continued to grow and that's a tremendous blessing uh I don't know if there's you know barring you know maybe 36 very special individuals on this planet uh I don't know if there's a perfect so you say like never never fall a right the PK says there's no righteous person in this world that doesn't make mistakes so we certainly all make mistakes and yes it's more embarrassing if you've written a book about something and then people see you know okay how do you reconcile the following dilemma I struggled with for a long time I once spoke to there's a very prominent author who wrote a book on Amun comes from the teachings of and wrote One regarding marriage and basically the thesis of the book is that if your spouse is disappointing you frustrating you hurting you mistreating you forgot to do something that you've identified as a priority realize everything's from Hashem and Hashem is just using them as the agent and I think that marriage therapists and psychologists would would be distraught at the thesis of that book because it's denying basic human emotion interaction expectation and reconciling Free Will so so how do you what do you recommend sort of in a practical way where on the one hand and we're not going to talk right now about October 7th magnitude May we'll come back to that in a moment but the everyday frustrations of life so so your book is incredibly powerful to say take a deep breath be in the moment come back to it all being the same hisas Oneness equinity everything's from God there's somebody orchestrating it from above it's pleasurable it's painful but it's all it's all okay peace be at peace on the one hand in the other hand where's the space for other people's Free Will somebody hurts you a spouse disappoints you do you communicate and and and reconcile or do you say no that's all that's all from above that's are other people's Free Will part of samess great question the best I think we're just is here to praise your questions that I'll take that endorsement thank they say you can learn more about a person from what they ask them from what they answer so there's a there's a lot of depth there uh the metaphor that I once heard is if a person gets caught in quicksand and they're working on inner peace do they just say this is a this is meant to be then they just so that's obviously not the idea but there are two ways to get out of quick end one is to be in a frantic state where you are in complete resistance which if you try to do that you're more likely to drown and the other way is to say okay here I am this is happening not don't resist the reality that I'm in this is scary okay what can I do about this and then you take action but you take action from peace not for peace you're coming from that place so the reaction is going to be different so when someone comes and they slight you so generally speaking we are reactive human beings so what happens is our emotion gets triggered we go into a fight ORF flight mode and if you're in a fight mode you're going to go and you're going to say something back to the person and it's going to come from fear from stress from anger uh and that's what we're looking to avoid because hate breeds hate uh whereas if a person can be in a place where they can be a little bit even even just a drop more transparent to to what happens meaning to allow them to move through you as opposed to getting hit on you so it doesn't mean you don't take action if someone does something wrong right because it's important to help the person that you're with maybe there's something that they're bothered by clearly they're upset about something and so and relationships are real in fact human connections maybe at at the very top I don't know if it's number one or two in terms of importance in this world and that's certainly true in families that's true in business that's true in school that's true in every Arena of our lives so when someone comes and they say something or do something against you that is from Hashem that is divine but what's Divine is it has nothing to do with your response now the Divine element is now what do you do about it meaning it's the opportunity to grow that's the part that's divine right so maybe maybe they did again I don't want to get into the world of Free Will and Destiny in this moment because then we really will be here for the next six hours you know rabbis like talk about that but in terms of practically speaking practically things are going to come that frustrate us and that's why if you speak to any therapist one of the first things they'll they'll tell you is yeah maybe take a few breaths before going to speak to your spouse about what just happened because if you come running at the person that just upset you from the anger so you're probably not going to like the result of that experience that's not going to not going to serve them and it's not going to serve you whereas if you can come back to that place back to that and it might not be perfect but it's it's a step in the right direction so the entire situation changes I want to ask one more um practical question and then maybe we'll open it up a little bit also for people who have questions who who came tonight and know there's so many people here are so appreciative of your contribution to their lives um and this one was shared with me by somebody I love and admire somebody who maybe has the most positive energy of anyone I know but has such high energy and positive energy that they are moving at warp speed and he writes what's the key to think about in the moment to try and slow things down when everyone and everything in front of me is going so fast so much noise and Chaos almost a choice overload how do I try and keep my Center how do I try and keep my focus is there something I can lean towards that could get me back towards my Center so if you have to give people advice tonight whether it is navigating and managing our emotions since October 7th again in a very extreme way or even more mundane everyday navigating emotions and and trying to regulate our emotions what are some practical suggestions tools from the wisdom the lessons of your works and of our sacred Torah that you would encourage others how to ground ourselves how to center ourselves how to slow things down how to how to Anchor our our beliefs and our thoughts and not lose ourselves in ways that will sabotage our own health mental spiritual physical and the relationships in our lives amazing so H so much to say I mean I guess that's the answer uh so I tried to put it all in a book but the Balto says that if a person really wants to live spiritually connected they have to be I only have one moment in this world and that moment is right now that's the line I only have one moment in this world that moment is now and we know that because it's only ever now right and when we started this conversation even though that was many minutes ago but when we started it was now and at some point we'll finish this conversation and when we finish it will be now so the idea that we're constantly caught up in you said the guys on you know in warp drives thinking of this choice and that choice and he's speaking about tomorrow and next week and the week after which by the way that's great thing it's beautiful thing like you said you can be really positive and be in that place uh don't the only hard thing is when you're in that place and then you crash it's like driving a faster car when you drive a fast car and then it crashes so you know it it can hurt right because it it goes against everything that you're looking at so how do you how do you learn how to drive without crashing and still go fast that would be like the best best case scenario so I think one thing is there's a mishna a mishna that says that every person should do Chua the day before they die and of course nobody knows they're going to die right so what does the miss mean every day do trua every day but if that's what it means Why didn't it say that say do Chua every day the feel that's explains because it wants you to if if you have to do chuva every day that implies that may maybe I'll die tomorrow may maybe it'll be over tomorrow and on some level we have to live like there's no tomorrow we have to we have to be here and that ends up being a contradiction to this feeling of but I have all these ideas for the future right what about planning so one of the things I tell people is you have to plan as if you'll live and live as if you'll die you you plan as if you live that's the go we're going to make plans we have to make plans but when I live this is the only thing that exists this is what's right in front of me and if that's challenging then you need an anchor an anchor in this world for some people it's their breath um and for others it might be as simple as just remembering your body I think very often we go so much into our heads we forget we're living in a body and the body is a beautiful anchor right we just had the jakob's dream and the latter right who was a the ladder has legs on the ground even though the top of the ladder the head's in in the heavens right and God stands upon it right so how do you have that spiritual connection it's not just about putting your head in the clouds right but it's important to have two feet on the ground those two feet on the ground for us that's our body that's our feet on the ground and if I asked right now how many people here know what their feet felt like five minutes ago I would be surprised if one person raised their hand now I'm not saying you have to put your your focus in your feet right now but well maybe we'll do that if I ask you right now if you can feel your feet can you just raise raise your hands if you can feel your feet okay what changed focus focus attention what you focus on you feel what you focus on you feel and so you can you can ground your attention in your body to slow things down because that's now your body's only ever now so if you get caught in a space where your mind is running and running and running you can just stop and go back to the one thing that's never going anywhere it's always right here right and you can go into that space the I think it's the REI rashab writes that you can actually feel the energy of your body when you say you feel your feet probably a lot of people felt like a tingling or an energy a movement right so the re rashab says that from my flesh I will feel I will see God I will see godliness and that you can go into your body into the basar of the body and you feel that experience and it grounds you so your mind can still be running at a thousand miles a minute and but it will slow down a bit to kind of be here while things are happening that's how we slow down we have to come back to what's right in front of us do you do you also promote a lot of breathing techniques breathing Work N sh Nima connection between the two so is there some advice on I mean breathing that's the first piece of adice breathe that's important we I I say sometimes we are the most pathetic generation of all time as much progress as we've made as advanced as we've gotten we've had to develop apps and alarms and reminders that are there just to say breathe right the people who are much less sophisticated who were much less accomplished who understood much less about the universe could control much less they never needed to be reminded to breathe we are so pathetic that we they're apps very popular apps people pay for apps people set alarms and the whole alert is breathe we need to remember to breathe so on the one hand we're pathetic on the other breathing is important you have some suggestions about breathing yeah I think one of the things about breathing that we we have to realize is you you can manip ulate your breathing but you don't breathe you are being breathed and right now I can tell you to take a deep breath and you can and I can tell you to do a big exhale and you can and it feels really good so if you want to you can but if you didn't do that if you just noticed that you are breathing and you just pay attention that's that's what the apps are saying they're saying be conscious of the breath the breath is happening we're breathing all day long we're we're not realizing that that's happening that our bodies are doing something for us and again it's it's an anchor in that space and so as far as a breathing technique is concerned I mean I see all I I have four or five different uh you what maybe in modern day would call mindfulness techniques right in terms of grounding a person one of them is in the body one of them's in the breath you can ground yourself in sound right if you just close your eyes and listen I was sitting with somebody here not not to long before we started this evening we just sat and he was a bit anxious and closed his eyes and we closed our eyes together and he just sat and we just listen to The Sounds in the room and again it brings you back to that place the same thing with your mind you can just sit and ask yourself what am I thinking now and just watch and things will start to slow down right that's what the P says you have to ask yourself what am I thinking now what's going on inside these are all different techniques to do the same thing which is to turn up the volume and heighten your alertness your awareness so breathing is another really good one because you can't stop and so you can just stick with it it becomes an anchor because there's nothing you have to do you just have to be aware that it's happening the common theme of them all is slowing down yes so the person who feels their blood pressure Rising their pulse quickening their sweat plan working they're angry at someone they're disappointed they're frustrated they're worried they're anxious the key is slowing down yeah yeah says we have to destroy the speed the quickness of our life right that you know and another somebody else understands that piece in the me that the destruction of our life is the Maha it's we we're caught up in this got to get there now got to get there now it's somewhere in the future right I speak that in it's all the same to me that if there then Distortion right that if my context changes or when I get there in space or then in time then I'll be happy so because our mind thinks that way we have a we have an ego that's constantly projecting our salvation out in the future some other place so we feel like we have to run there because that's the only way that I'm going to be okay right but that's when we're we're we're too artsy not art as painting but artsy as like the aret right at the ground the ground aret means I will run right when we're not connecting to the Sham as much so we're constantly running out to get somewhere and we end up being in a state of Perpetual striving without ever arriving and uh slowing down is saying ah I can just arrive this can also be the place I'm going to and then from here to go to that next place so much wi each sentence there's so much to unpack so it's it's frustrating but I'm just going to bre breathe it out and calm myself down we I I don't remember if this is in your book and I apologize if it is but we we recently had someone who mentioned that um in English you say life and the middle two letters of the word life are if because life is made up all about if if whereas in Hebrew you say and the middle two letters are the sh because the middle of our life is when you is all say this and you see that hasem is the middle of life so if life is all about if then you're not really living a life but in Hebrew in yish life is all about Hashem at the center in the middle because you're coming back you're coming back do you have anything you want to tell us about the new book um what are some of the themes or how did you take us to the next level with the new book and and what should we look forward to learning from it yeah I mean the main idea if we just look at the title right I try to put it in such a way where if we can get that then then we have something right so the title is the three conditions what are they conditions for there the subtitle says to live a supercharged life it was really hard to find the right word for what I'm really trying to say what what I mean by that is we are born and then at some point we check out and then there's the thing in the middle so that thing in the middle is what we call life and there are different ways to go through life we can go through life over here or we can go through life over here here and that's actually not a good depiction because it either looks like this or this meaning there's always ups and downs but what's your Baseline right our Baseline to reality can be at a higher state right where where's our default what are we falling back to even when things are chaotic or when we we have a big high you know and that that kind of subsides where we coming back to in Torah we call that a state of ofus or Sim there's a deeper spiritual connection that we can get to and how do we unpack that is the simplest way to explain it is intention is my understanding of it doesn't mean intention as in I intend to go do something I have a goal and I'm going to go try to get there but it's more as what is Our intention for living what's my sole intention in this world and you can only come to that awareness when you remember who you are so intention is all about Are you a awake to the truth of who you are which is good and loving and perfect and whole and connected and is an extension of the light uh certainty is outside of you right it's do I have a level of knowing that the context of life is not broken that the context of life has order that we don't live in chaos even when it feels chaotic but even the feeling of chaos is with it it's a an orderly chaos that there's order to this world in fact the word Cosmos means order talk about Cosmos is a giant order to reality uh it's knowing that there's a loving guiding supporting directing force in the world we call AEM but it's an energy that exists everywhere and it's never not there so if intention is I am good and loving and an extension of a higher light and the world I live in is an opportunity to connect to that light everywhere around me then Joy is the measuring stick by which we can see well how much I I living in alignment with those two truths and if I'm not feeling that state of Joy I can use my body and my emotions and my state of consciousness as the measuring stick to to see okay well if I'm not feeling that way am I lacking an understanding in myself am I mad at something that I've done am I lacking a bit of you know self-love or self- understanding or maybe I feel fine about myself but I'm a said about something in the world the world is off like I'm good but the world is a problem and you know through that space you can tweak where it is we need to grow and where it is we need to move and from that place now everything changes because it has both psychological and spiritual effects psychologically when you're feeling good you see good peaceful people do peaceful things right it changes our behaviors our relationships what we attract into our life our Clarity our Insight how we Channel our level of Health when happier people are healthier people in general right I mean this is already science but it's also a pan Mish and that's all just on the psychological aspect meaning when things come up in our life and they look like a challenge if you feel good in that moment you have a better reaction right to to that thing that shows up and then spiritually speaking the Zohar and say that the degree to which you're feeling good and feeling plugged in directly changes the Hask in our lives the uh the synchronicity in our lives Miracles that show in our lives are connected to our state that's that's where our Free Will comes in so when we say when I say supercharge what I mean is you can put a car in neutral and you can push it and it can move or you can put gas in the car you can drive it and those two lives aren't the same so they're both available and they make a great Hanukah present my wife is actually on a plane right now on her way to Israel and my daughter's learned there in seminary wanted forah two things both of your books and uh I hope she'll arrive before she hears this and who is the surprised that they're on way to but you two can get the khaka book for yourself or for others and I don't get a piece of it so I'm promoting it only because of how much I benefited from it but it's all the same to me and the three conditions that're available outside Afters we have time for one or two questions and I know I'm sure there are people who are experiencing these lessons and have questions so I guess we have Dr and dror Dr Michelle first book same to me was giv middle I won't tell you p and uh the ideas are really very very powerful and I identify in terms of the to sources paic sources and many which I'm really kind close to but I'm curious sometimes people like myself want to take a step back and say that's great you're giving me the Torah despite the fact that that's not necessary what you would have done some years ago but let's say I want to read books that are not Torah books books from the the English secular so to speak world what would you tell somebody seeking for some of these messages seeing parallels in non bed that's a great question this is just the the place of [Music] questions if you're asking me which you are I probably would first want to get to know you a little bit that's the truth with with most people I want to get to know them first like where are they coming from uh what if there's if there's a reason why they feel like they need more uh but then as far as I'm concerned there's there's Torah everywhere in in every in every book there's Torah uh I have yet to read again maybe I just got lucky I've yet to read a book in the world of uh self-help that says anything that is staunchly against major you know Torah ideas and and again my assumption in your question is I want to read these other things but I'm afraid that I'm going to read something that's not in alignment with Torah that's that's how I assume questione I think I find all these books as well I'm saying which are the best Torah books that oh you're just asking me which books to get oh that's that's easy question um I would read The Power of Now by E toally there's a book called Synchro Destiny by De cha there's oh gosh you should talk to me afterward I have a laundry list of books that are really really good but again if you again if a it depends what your person's looking for right so if somebody comes to me and they tell me they're struggling with shame I would ask them if they read Berne Brown's the gifts of imperfection right if somebody else comes to me and they're having a hard time with uh processing tragedy there's a book called I think from from tears to Triumph uh by Maryann Williamson which is really wonderful and great uh if a person is struggling with their mind and they're trying to get a handle over their inner world and they don't mind uh reading a kind of dense book but has a lot of really great great ideas in it there's a book cult I think it's called Feeling Good by David Burns which is a book on CBT it's either feel good or feeling good so there's there's a lot of great work out there means so much great work Dr my question is uh meditation I would I would assume that it predates the Buddhist tradition um and if so where and would you say that his Boda is a form of meditation so hisus is for sure a form of meditation yeah and there are many forms of meditation and what meditation really is is the act of a being and not being caught up in the world of doing I think for me one of the one of the big sources for meditation is the that says that that means the righteous ones uh would come and spend an hour waiting before they prayed and what were they doing in that waiting period so many people explained that what they were doing was just getting quiet creating space for the light of God to come through the says that a person that those people the those people would come to a place of what's called hismus that means that they were not uh identified with their bodies anymore they they came to such a high place of meditation that when they went into the world of prayer right they were coming from that space they weren't using prayer as a vehicle to get to something high they were coming from a high place and bringing all that energy into their prayer so that's what they were doing there but if you want to go all the way back to scripture uh right the verse says lash Hashem God is not found in the noise of course it doesn't mean the noise of Manhattan but it means the inner noise there is a tremendous amount of work in the writings of the arel that speak about meditation different versions of meditation whether that's imagining light coming through your body or permutations of letters and that's been around already since the zo are T so we're going back a couple thousand years so that many many many sources working on putting together a PDF at some point because you go around and people say I want to see all the sources so trying to trying to have them all together just share it with the rabbis don't give it to the others PDS we have time for one more any other any other questions people have anyone else want to follow up any other themes yes let's see you talk about how you went back to LA time and you going toy your former best friend in that moment you were already having difficult time Trav most way around the world to reconnect with some of people and then realiz how did you you let me just repeat the question yes so just to repeat the question I write in the new in the three conditions I tell uh part of the story of my journey and part of the story of my journey was after I left left the band I did go back um about a decade later to try to make peace with everybody that was there um that did not happen uh people did not want to speak to me they didn't want to hear from me uh I left and that was it they you know kind of wrote me out of their life and that's okay I understand that I really do for them that was the end of their dream but when I went I tried to find my best friend at the time and he didn't want to see me either and I even I went to his parents house I wanted to find him uh that didn't go well either and your question ity was how did I overcome that but maybe I might phrase it differently it wasn't so much about overcome as it was that the rest of that day and the day afterwards was holding space for pain like I was feeling pain because I had a certain desire and that desire didn't come through and then the very next day I got on the flight I came back home I went to Davin in the morning and when I came back from daving that morning I had a massive spiritual shift inside of me every everything changed in fact it was that moment that really led to writing that really changed my life was going back and trying to make peace and I took care of you know my side of the street as they say uh you can't force somebody else to make peace with you but you can go out and you can extend your hand to make peace with them that opened up something for me it opened up something very powerful uh it almost what the feeling was that all the walls surrounding me came down it was like a Jericho moment and all the walls come down and this feeling kind of washed over me of like oh I'm not bothered by that I don't care anymore which really meant I don't fear anymore it was this fear I think that I was holding on to so you didn't ask for a lesson from that but for me one of the things I try to teach over here is that that's all you can do all you can really do is take care of your side of the sh and hope that maybe somebody's there on the other side as far as relationships go but it doesn't absolve our desire it's not it's not even about responsibility at this point it's about our desire to not be stuck not be a slave to to some story that we've created and we can go out there and we can make those changes and when we make those changes uh life opens up for us right God rewards small steps in the right direction and we can all take those steps ladies and gentlemen thank you for being here tonight thank you R mosha for joining us and sharing your wisdom please take advantage of the opportunity to purchase the books and thank you all very much we be signing books