PART 1: The Untold Story of Nissim Black (Ep. 204)

hi I'm David olowsky and welcome to the rabbi olowski show and with you what do you want me to do another podcast as always it is wonderful to have you along uh Happy Holidays happy New Year this is a special color my circus Edition and of course there's a special Mitra of simcha on circus as we spoke about and I took his podcast and what grade is similar could there be to have one of the most dynamic uh um I I'm hesitant to use word Entertainer I would say in the Jewish World Nissan black thank you thank you so much Rabbi thank you thank you really appreciate [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign this is really our first time together you know now I've I've had other musical stars on before I had Ari goldwagon I had Lenny Solomon and uh you know for these guys we go back like you know 30 years but this is really our first time right so I'm going to start off by asking what I think is the obvious question I don't think you grew up in a from home no what would make you so tell us a little bit about Nissan black where did you come from uh that's a very good question I'm still trying to figure out where it came from uh the truth is bigger question is will you go where are you going where are you going where you going so originally from Seattle uh this is why the story's a bit why I don't know and I don't like saying it publicly anymore over the last few years it's like not the most place to say you can't it's worse okay you know but I could deal with that I could deal with it I can't deal with the city being overtime I went to YouTube in Rochester it has one of the most cloudy uh Day More cloudy days than any other city and has one of the highest suicide rates yeah yeah that's a like Seattle Seattle very very people like to kill kill themselves anyway um so I I grew up there in Seattle um it was very very uh close in proximity to all the shoes I grew up literally inside the area so I was in a Jewish neighborhood we were not showing Shabbos but I definitely grew up in a Jewish neighborhood um but both my mother and my father you know very typical you know drug life is a as a kid I grew up in that seeing that when you say typical I say typical for where that's not so typical from where I am now but it was very very like I said if you know to check the um against the box now the truth is that it's it's overdid and I don't think like most black people in America even are coming from that but I'm saying when we stereotype I came from The Stereotype I came from very much so that but the difference was that I had that most people didn't have um was I did have still a mother and father so even I had dysfunction I said my mother and my stepfather in the house I still had him I sell my relationship a father in the house makes a 100 difference it makes all the difference in the world because even as bad as I could say I had it there were things that I had that was much better you know what I mean like I'm thinking about I was having a conversation with one of my kids gonna tell me how strict we are and we're more strict than whatever and you know as you after you get it out it's like one thing that they can't do and they really want to do so so I started thinking about that I felt the same way when I was a kid now mind you I grew up in a like the things that I saw were unimaginable the things that I saw and the things I got to experience and things I was involved but compared to most of my friends who didn't have a father figure in the house wow they were either being raised by their grandmother stuff like that I felt like I was being you know smothered you know what I'm saying a little bit my kids when they complain about me I said my father had one educational device he took off his belt and beat you that was the only thing we knew you know and it's complain about me right right exactly it's crazy uh what we've come to um but anyway so I grew up seeing a lot of violence Tiffany's like that and then as you as you grew up in that type of neighborhood you sort of become a product of your environment what was interesting about me is that I always um I always felt a little out of place you know always felt that uh there were deeper things I don't know why I went to school you you were like a good student until maybe my middle school years meaning that through Elementary I was you know almost valedictorian and all the other stuff yeah I think I lost like to one friend I'm still a little salty about it but it's okay I'm I'm gonna make it through uh but by the time I got into the sixth grade and around my seventh grade year I was gonna make a lot of time to come from that kind of a background and to do your homework listen full disclosure yeah my parents work day and night so I came home there was nobody there exactly to tell you what to do you know right I made supper for myself you know one of my brothers you know I stayed up and watched Johnny Coyle so I was only second grade to watching Johnny Carson in the one o'clock in the morning and uh you know I went to a day half asleep but I never did my homework you know you're in elementary yeah I was doing my homework until sixth or seventh grade by the time I was already in the third grade that's when I started smoking pot so third grade third grade so it became a really serious issue when I was around 12 12 13. that was when it became an issue and since there were plants growing in my living room I mean I'm sorry in my bedroom their room in my bedroom because of the way that my closet was I guess that's where like I thought was the best place to to put the put the plants so you know an easy access and that Uncle who lived with me God bless the sorry he was sweet but he was definitely a junkie and so for him he used to go and and and take from the plants and so I used to threaten them you know if he if he didn't share with us I was gonna tell him so he was always getting in trouble for the you know it was a little shorts you know at the end of the month on the on the budding but that's what I did as a kid unfortunately and uh so by the time it's impossible to go to school by that time I was at school I'd be that was the weed man in school I was selling it that was you know so I I found myself sinking very fast I started running with a street gang at this at that time and really no the the that neighborhood it was probably uh a mixed High School wasn't black it was it was predominantly black predominantly black Yeah by me I could for sure in terms of neighborhood where you are where I was it's very very diverse I think 98118 I don't know if it still is but definitely growing up it was the most we always heard it was I never looked statistics it was they sent the kids to to a different School a far away from us that's what they did I mean there was probably I could probably count on one hand how many white kids went to my school wow like and that's crazy in Seattle the black population is not very big in Seattle enough to be like wow there's a school and yes we were ironically enough we were I think we were number one in the country in basketball for most of my high school years and that was because of the white kids no for sure uh and we and we definitely were dead last in in test scores and and education we didn't even have books I always talk about this but we had brand new basketball uniforms and everything like that I don't know who was allocating the budget but you know they definitely know basketball but basketball football uniform state of the Arts Stadium I'm talking about everything except the sports we had I was very into sports I played football I play football we're very good at football so very very good I mean through our division me with smack teams up like 50 something to zero you know and then by the time we got very close to state championship was always some very well disciplined white team that knocked this off they didn't have half the talented on us but their discipline was like crazy and my brothers went to sports I was a little good at miniature golf that was a special place you know some people call it a sports some people don't you know but those are things I grew up seeing and I became a product environment but the truth was I was always still very a deep kid even when and I was just talking with one of my aunties I did like a uh Instagram live and and everybody I've heard it from my family I always said that everybody knew you were different you were always really a good kid so no matter the the thing is truth is I'll be honest everybody was so high all the time that you know nobody really realized I was doing the time that the koof I had when I was I was you understand when you're hooked on pot how in the world do you move out of that yeah it's you you really unless you get off the stuff no of course you after you get out of it so what happened to me was I I was I'm very very fortunate that I always had some type of uh um you know I've always had enough fear to stay clear you know meaning that my fear of getting in trouble as a kid I think it was because I had that Father Figure in my in my life I still always had that bit of fear to where I didn't want to get in too much trouble right it doesn't usually bring out the best in a person no of course not but you so what happens is I remember the first thing that I did I was with some of the guys is that I smoked something that had definitely had something else in it it was was not weird I don't know what it was it could have been maybe mixed with cocaine I don't know if your audience is ready for that I don't know what it is right that I took flattened me in the park I was like out in the park and after that I said I can never again I can and so from then I at least stopped smoking but that was like probably the beginning of starting to realize that you know these guys are just running around they don't have you know their parents are not really around or whatever at least my house is dysfunctional weird throws on this stuff but at least have parents at least care about me you understand so these things start to wake me up a little bit I was running away a lot as a kid running away from from the house thing to other family members that I know I could just go do be Healthcare whatever and and the truth is is that that's when you start to realize that you have love at home like nobody's gonna love you like you loved at home so that's that that was the beginning I would say of the wake-up calls for me um I had got in trouble I mean I think I was 13. when I first got shot at it was a it was like with some other I didn't even think there was some conflict going on with some other guys but we just happened to have been in the area they thought we were all with them all of a sudden shots start firing we're running and I'm you know seeing bullets you know you have some traumatic stuff happen you know as a young kid you start to you either wake up or you go deeper into sleep for me it started to wake me up so right around 13 14 I was going to this instead of going to a hip-hop program that a friend now this friend that brought me there God bless his heart but like he was a gangster but but it was a it was an opportunity to think it was in the hip-hop world yeah based on my short research the truth is the truth is most of it today it you know there was a takufa win rap was more like that um which was which is which really was not the culture of hip-hop but is there a difference between rap and hip-hop they are today now used interchangeably but it's a lot of deal it's like saying uh you know uh a Israel and a Jew it's like it's an Israelite Jewish it's like that now what happened was technically is that hip-hop is is a is is technically a culture rap is one of those elements of that of that culture right I mean let's call it Spade of spade you know we came over here meaning that my ancestors uh from far as I know at least the black side of my ancestry I do have ancestry that's not black but I'm saying came here as slaves and we were we were completely ripped away from any culture of understanding it came from so over the years we always try to build cultures and different things in America just happened to be one of those things so hip-hop is a culture and included in that is b-boying a certain type of dancing including the net is rap that's one of the elements DJ is one of the elements I'm seeing you know so Matisyahu was reggae it's a different thing that's Reggie that's reggae I feel my just took it took a hit he really took a hit he was getting called the rapper and all this other stuff like from they didn't know what rap was so poor guy for me now so if now they can know that he's he was only reggae it was okay Eminem is um Eminem is rap definitely definitely rap um but uh that's good we're schooling over here I'm trying I'm really trying we're going high we're going high listen so kosher High um and and so anyway I grew up seeing all this stuff and so by the time 13 14 I'm going to this hip-hop program which was at a Union Gospel Mission was a Christian organization and it was life-changing these people came into my life my family was not Christian my my biological father became a Christian uh over the years of my life and now today he's I mean you would meet this guy one of the best people I've ever met I I'm talking about you never think he had that type so before no religion I mean not religious at all you know people I mean I'm sure if they if you ask them did they believe they would probably say yeah technically we're Christian but like practicing not at all it probably wouldn't even knowing what that really meant um so my my father did time in prison went to Seminary over there he came out and and really changed his life radically sold everything that he had everything from that world and and became a Christian so sort of what he did with Christianity is what I did with Judaism years later so it was it was very very interesting um how did they take it when you decided to become a Jewish um interestingly enough my my father um who is Christian who probably should have gave me the most issues technically right because I'm like joining a different religion you know what I mean uh he came to the he was very supportive he's a big love for Israel so by him it was much more different but I think we connected over the fact that he knows what it's like to be radically changed by a god experience right and wanting to change your life so I think that that made him more accepting as opposed to with a family that was not religious at all and I would say my wife's family was some some degree religious it was very hard for them in the beginning very very hard oh you get rejoined in a cult they had no idea they're so foreign to them like what are you guys doing like you know so it was very hard for everybody in the beginning very very hard um but in all fairness we didn't stick around so much to care about what everybody was like I'm jumping ahead now so you're now you're getting into hip-hop and or rap and uh yeah yes yes and uh but I was always into hip-hop I have to stay both my mother my father were both rappers so they pioneered hip-hop in Seattle so they were part of the first group 1980 they performed yeah but Grandmaster Flash uh in the in the furious five and and yeah yeah things like all of a sudden like that's the biggest thing is like I know people a lot of times the fruit world is like connected right but I'm literally doing whatever I do I'm being tahara or something that was given to me for my birth this is what I've been doing like literally um I recorded my first professional song I was 13 already right so I've been going for a very very long time it wasn't like something where I like started listening to rap music I guaranteed you from from most people I would say even from from singers God bless their heart they probably heard more rap than I have in the last 10 years singers singing rap yeah of course what is it huh what do you think of it listen you know everybody's got their thing you know some some guys are good no doubt about it so a lot of these young talented guys are very very good I see by a lot of young young Talent I'm seeing right now um a lot of it is because they're emulating the things that they hear all the time too you know it's like you know a lot of these younger young Safari kids like they want to make me feel comfortable this they're using the n-word casually and stuff like that to me also too it's like they're emulating what they hear I tell them it's just not a good look I'm ready by you and we're not we don't talk like this in the first place but then the second thing like you're not making me feel any more comfortable right now if anything it's very awkward I came to learn in coach time 1975. it was nothing to do in neutraline I mean they pulled in the sidewalks at eight o'clock it's like Saturday night the answer Yeshiva made the Ashley issue a band all these people came from the rock world so when they played they were playing Rock but it wasn't because they were copying anybody that was there so they came what you're doing is where you come from that's your music absolutely absolutely I'm not you know it's not like some Yeshiva guy who's trying to like you know exactly so I so for me I've always been like [Laughter] you can write me a lot of things with Google anyway the truth is yeah so for me I'm always the time like what about your kids like my kids don't come from that culture they don't come in that world so for me do I encourage you to I can't really say encourage I just feel like this is technically this is literally what Hashem gave me to do he gave me a gift I tell it I try to run away from it I was encouraged by rabbis and sadika even to use my KOA and to bring people close to the ship so I'm doing it um do I recommend it for every person just because you know they're listening to the newest rap song or whatever and they get inspired and now they want to rap I don't really know if they're shy to be honest you know it's because it's you know I I forget exactly somebody's gonna tell me I don't know if it was in the silver Shalom I remember hearing a guy at least I could say it over the first place in my webbing I did see it inside somewhere but I forgot where it was I remember right by schmole Brody would caution us all the time that what's the true of old desire is any type of Voda that's strange to you you understand what I mean yeah that's their voter like if it's not your actual vote that has nothing to to do with you and you're taking it on you know even uh sometimes I get excited I'm I'm around a lot of big Sadiq him and they do things that I can't necessarily do I start doing what they're doing just because I'm around this person this is a voltazara it's not mine they don't I don't own that it's not coming from me so sometimes I see these type of things where these young kids are trying to take on hip-hop culture and different things like that it's about it's a strange worship it's not it's not where you came from I come from that world and I don't act and talk the way that other people like they're trying to make me feel comfortable I don't know if it's true or not okay but this guy was learning machine I just move away and someone comes out with them this is an old story and he says what are you doing why aren't you losing a real Mission ice he says this is very good he says it's not for you it's for about the bottom if people can't learn English everybody should learn it he says what do you know because I'm kahati so I wrote it for somebody when I read it for you you know like you you should be sitting down learning really nice right right in the beginning no like I said at 13 I started by the time I was 15 I started performing at like nightclubs I wasn't old enough to get into I used to have a escort take me into the nightclub and then I have to go back out I said I'm gonna lose their liquor license so um that's why I started like literally straight up groomed to do this as a kid wow and then right around uh 19 I think already throughout High School I was releasing stuff and different things like that uh you're still going to school I'm still going to school still going to school I was in high school and because of the the Christian experience I had when I was 14 that sort of changed me that sort of got me on a good trajectory I was able to go to school and and focus I got away from a lot of the friends that were influencing me the bad way um and and so and it was a restart because I was since I was from my middle school years I was I was uh I was expelled from the regular school district schools system I had a restart when I was in high school they allowed me to go to a regular high school so for me it was a brand new start in life new lease on life basically and and I did what I can but I was a very very um I would say devout Christian kid I was very very very devout like not like a little bit of straight Bible thumping you know Bible study everything the only thing I didn't do though was church because it was on Sunday and it was it was a it was a conflict with football he went to a diving in an old age and this old man has hog but he goes Jesus this thing is heavy another guy says well for Christ's sake don't drop it is [Laughter] putting that one in my pocket I love it um so it it either way goes I was just talking it's so funny I was talking to my to one of my kids about this yesterday and like even in that world like how focused I was at least in that place with my life was trying to come closer to God you know at least from the way that I knew it I remember my friends years later they came here they're still a growing pot now still growing pot in the house by this time this time I don't think he was growing it in the house at this point he there was a there was a takufa where uh when my dad meaning my my stepdad I just don't like using the term because I never call them I don't refer to he raised me good man raised me um but uh yeah he it was still at this point he he was doing some good things on the side he had a business for a little bit um that was doing very well and you know still the culture was still in the house a lot of stuff was still going on but up until I think it was until like nearly my last year high school that the contract that they had with the business and then you know it was back to back to the hustle and everything was was as it was before um but so that was my home environment my name was not Niecy my name was Damien black but I used to go by D black that's what people used to call me in the streets and I was I was gonna I looked into I couldn't go to shorts because I converted Safari so I was already looking into Safari names already back then and it just after a while you know trying to think about changing my name sort of like ah whatever it just didn't work out um and uh and I'm happy I did that they changed their last name too they changed their last name also no I know I know a lot of people also too and I just really didn't think they were shy I mean nobody's gonna call me up to the tower by my last name anyway that doesn't matter so last names uh for this for the government they have nothing to do with with the with reality anyway so I I ended up uh going from from uh from this camp and that experience that I had to being the straight devout kid but I was still making music on the side and the music at this point was more positive less there was no more Street stuff and different things like that going on and by the time some of them some of them songs had the Christian ideas in it but the for the most part stuff was just sometimes I would rap about rapping you know that was that's a very famous thing to rap about this to rap about rapping and uh but uh more or less very positive no swear words or anything and then it was around 18 I was 18 a demo of mine made it to the desk of an Anar from a big record label and um they were very interested in me but they wanted gangster rap so I caved into that thinking that I wasn't going to change but obviously change you know because you want to First Act to put on the Persona then eventually you know you start to make believing to yourself that this is also who you are and uh so my my inner circle my the group of people I was around changed and um and I and and although things were changing for me externally on the inside I wasn't really changing that much and I found myself more confused because I was also confused about how I was presenting myself but I was still a very strong uh forces in a person's life oh of course yeah absolutely waiting for them [Laughter] people that you all feel like you should have done something you're right nah the truth is we're doing we're doing big things I know but you know yeah of course of course of course I you know for me I think I was always groomed that way also too but then as I got older especially certainly thereafter neither Skype and everything you do sort of see that yeah okay hashemy had this thing planned for a very long time I could see how it how how it all happened I remember dreams I had as a kid like literal dreams not not small things and things like that where I saw myself so so you're finally making it in the music world yes at this point I we we'd end up going with the big deal we started doing it independently which was in a way much better because we controlled everything and so in in in the in the hype like went beyond we kind of we sort of overdid it a little bit meaning that we we kind of like outgrew ourselves a little bit like you know there were CD stores on the east coast and stuff like that calling from ICD and I didn't know people in the east coast knew who I was so it's like a sort of very interesting place to be in um but with that came you know also hate as well you know other people want the success you're having so that led to altercation with another artist and um it did not in the best way uh a friend of mine tried to kill him and then put me in a killer kill B situation because they thought I sent somebody to kill them and that was like the last straw for me out of all the different things I lost my mother you know a year prior to this incident um due to overdose my mother overdosed um and and it was just like one thing after another happening in my life and me breaking down and even like when I was that young you know Christian kid the teenager you know and and growing up into where I was I always felt that I had a clock on like a clock was going what was going on to either I was going to God forbid die at a young age or I'm I'm going to be God's guy all the way and I've I knew that even over there that I I felt that people would say to me like oh God Has It Whatever whatever but I felt inside really that at some point God's going I'm going to be doing the God thing I didn't know at all what it was going to look like where it was going to be at that one point I thought I'm gonna be a pastor and I know it and let me get out all my still right now because I know that in the future God's Gonna either do that or I'm gonna get myself in trouble so and um and you know God had other plans God had other plans so from that we meaning we I was already dating my wife so me and my wife were a high school sweetheart so we've been together since we were 16. yeah when I was 16 she was 17. I like older women in the world that you were traveling oh my goodness you don't know how unusual I'm trying to think of how many married friends I have like from that world like you know let alone let alone how many of them are still alive unfortunately very close friends I lost um so so we were already dating and we were already going through this whole entire process already by this time already together four years or so and um and we we decided you know as I was growing and learning and she was she was also my wife come from a much stronger Christian background you know we got married very young I think I was 21 when I got married yeah it's not so young I I yeah you know in the real world the world in the real world it's very young and uh and so we started this life of us just trying to search in and find what the truth was trying to find God and and it really led to me spending a lot of time um going through books after I was done with that situation in the the last uh you know altercation I had with that that guy had had dissipated I I said you know God I'm committed I didn't know what that meant I thought that meant I was going to be a Christian so I was definitely when two of you come from strong Christians yeah so that's the first place you go back to you you go back and that didn't speak about it it wasn't that it didn't speak to me the problem was is that was this was this God's actual Revelation to the world yeah you understand what I mean because it wasn't that it didn't speak to me the thing was is that why does it speak to me that was my question like why why this way you know I started to get very very curious because I just started in the regular way started praying and then I started reading the Bible and as I was reading and I started to see a lot of things about you know um about about what's going to be in the attitude in the future that's what happens the person starts reading eschatology you start seeing that everywhere in eschatology in times in times in times I take your joke you take my life okay that in the end times and this is this is like the biggest thing in the world I talk about this a lot now when even when I'm out speaking is that when you study eschatology every promise that God makes of the future through the prophets includes the Jewish people the ultimate Promises of the end include the Jewish people not Revelations The Book of Revelation right Revelations not the Book of Revelations no I'm saying I'm studying the pride yeah I'm studying the foreign Naveen you know uh so you but even still it's not the truth the Book of Revelation is also two ends with the Jews because at the end of the day if I can remember very well it's been a long time since I read the book of uh Book of Revelations you know the whole Satan the Senate the synagogue of Satan that it talks about over this is because somebody's not the real Jews that gets used very differently these days by certain groups um but it definitely talks about these uh these Saints and different things like that but I was very very busy with learning I had already learned through Revelations a lot as a Christian so but what I hadn't really studied was Messianic prophecies about the end times from the Old Testament Christianity of course they teach it in Christianity but I was with a group that wasn't so busy with it so I'm by myself now and I'm reading the Bible for myself but everywhere I've seen it was always about the Jewish people about the Jewish and so it made me start thinking like Mal a lot of pursue him and stuff that I heard people use lightly talking about the church wasn't talking about the church they're talking about the Jewish people so it made me more interested I grew up with Jews I didn't know anything about Jews I knew I I knew how to identify one you know what I'm saying but that was I didn't other than that I did not know by wholesale huh by Hillsong I think it's bottom you said it not me I say it um so Sydney is studying the end of time prophecies about the Jewish people and you say to yourself hey here I am right a black rapper in Seattle why don't I become a Jew it wasn't that fast exactly so what what happened was it made me curious I wanted to know that what it led me to think about was like why do I believe in Christianity what makes me know that this is the actual truth how come Judaism is not the truth how come Islam isn't the truth I was a Muslim as a kid my grandfather Sunni Muslim so I prayed five times a day with him when he lived with me I was eight or nine so I wasn't you know I wasn't a strong devout Muslim like that I tried again when I was maybe 13 right before I started going to the Christian Camp but I wasn't like strong devout Muslim um so I said you know I want to give everything a chance I want to see who's who's who's really telling the truth so I started ordering all the books I had the Quran I was going through a few different versions of the Christian Bible and NIV in uh in kjf V version the the old King I had all the different versions so my locals in Christianity which one you should use that you know I want to cover all the people I got you so so I at a hummus JPS Tanakh and I was literally every day for about eight hours a day going through all these different texts trying to find the truth this is not normal it was a thousand percent not normal I I guarantee you I probably didn't have another phone Jewish kids wouldn't do this right right right right which is interesting to me also too because like you know I talked to I'm very oh sick with the with the younger generation you know what I'm saying even in the front world and and because of why I'm also in the not from world but the amount of effort that I was putting in at least even as a young kid a teenager is as a Christian to come close to God was like really like enormous and like most kids don't really think about it till they get older and I know for me that's awkward so for me even my wife was like that as a kid uh my sister and brother-in-law also were my guy with it like we were like that as a kid okay so let me finish the story oh my gosh yeah the story gets you messed up everybody you're right you're right you're right same [ __ ] the shim should help so what happened was the the after going through all the different texts people always ask me what was it about Judaism that stuck out more than the than the other ones there's a few different things but one of the things obviously is that all the future prophecies had to do with the Jews Jews were a part of that was by every book everybody agreed about that right even the Islamic Hadith so I had copies of the hadiths that were going through uh it went so pleasantly with the Jews but the Jews everybody agreed that at the end Jews had to be at the end right um so that was that was one thing uh another thing was was the do you think they wouldn't try so hard to kill us all the time yeah you think you think you think was there but you think you think but like who can deny right everybody gives and they talk about why they're correct and why their religion is right and different things like that but who can deny that the Jewish people Claudius wrote being here and Eric Israel after all of the like I'm looking at it I didn't know anything about Jewish history till I started doing this now I'm spending these eight hours a day I up until then never heard of the Holocaust never that and that's that's pretty ridiculous but at my school where we didn't have books we also didn't learn about the Holocaust at least I did not none of my classes maybe because I was in the dumb classes but whatever the case is I didn't know anything about it um and so now I'm doing all of this learning and research and I start looking at this the Jewish thing to stumble onto yeah and like who would want to become a Jew after that yeah well well it sounds so ironic right it should be a different straight they're gonna try to exterminate me if I join no I thought about all this at the beginning I was really thinking about this it was just like wow but what I couldn't help seeing from that was that it was through the suffering that I seen from the Jewish people that I was seeing those things and that through that God still uh retained it and I think more than any any Jewish thing that I read that was probably probably Mark Twain's quote that he that he made and I came across that that was blown away because that opens up your eyes and it wasn't I didn't care whether or not because he was Jewish or not Jewish or whatever but it just to have somebody say it's so clear that way to look at when he came to air to Israel and to see the the land and I just went through the Bible twice now okay and I'm seeing how many times Hashem says the land is going to be desolate they're going to be and for him to write he was there it was desolate I came across quotes different things historians from the Autumn Empire and stuff like that God's word was just so real what's happening right and and as as crazy as it is how many people struggle with their belief in Hashem you know like I know it's not the most Pleasant things but it's through the suffering of Claudia swell that you can see that hashem's money is in the bank you understand what I'm saying if you don't do this how many times and you see us you know get expelled from the land you see us the land is Barren you see that there's there's no rain and we're praying dominant from when you see that Hashem is saying this so that means I could probably Bank on about all the good things that also go into this is the Seven Wonders class from Discovery exactly what they say never seen it it's uh it's it's you're saying it over really wow that's amazing [Laughter] I'm sure they have more good material but I've seen all this and when I came across the passages from Zachariah um and and and from um even yemi Yahoo I think this this one one of them will use also too also talks about this that talks about the going coming to the Jewish people these things are like crazy because in your world as a Christian right your your ideas that in the end everybody's either going to accept Jesus or not they're going to hell and they're going to be whatever right right and and and coming from the Christian world I was seeing and learning about the importance of the Jewish people from a Christian perspective of how important it is for the Jews to be in Israel and why they were doing all the funny because that was that was my that was my angle first it's like first thing was like wow the Jewish people in Israel wow look at God's prophecy coming to life and once they're all there they're all going to accept Jesus and you know fascinating is that I I I've had these discussions with Usher Wade you know and okay but he was a Baptist minister right right as a professional religion guy you were a rapper a black community where your parents are growing pot and you're sitting here coming up with all of these deep intellectual insights into religion which I find mind-blowing right right right I I don't you know because was I think that I think that like I said you know that's who I always was as a kid my mother used to always say why are you asking all these deep questions you know when it came about God I was asking these questions about God and and and you know how to how do we how do we know um that uh what did I used to ask my mother you asked my mother a question about God how do we know obviously how do we know that God is real what do we do with our life if God is real we don't live with that type of like but nobody was in there over that thing they're like man you're messing up my high I asked me all these questions you understand so I was asking very very deep questions already as a kid my mother used to always say that so I was I was God conscious even and that's out of nowhere there wasn't like somebody was around it was that was just out of nowhere right so when it actually became a part of my life I'm that type of person where if I do something I'm going all the way I'm going all the way if it has purpose I'm going all the way so for me fanatical person yeah I'm exactly exactly I'm a fanatic when they knew that it was true I had no choice right and I had to become a rabbi [Laughter] but their club would encourage people not to become rap but you don't learn for for you learn because you're whatever so I took that on to the extreme even though there's wrestle of rabbis I just took certain things onto extreme but but for me it was telling you now that we're gonna have to get together a second time because you don't have time now but I really want to talk about uman no we'll get there my son and and I I he gave me a little insight into the woman experience but that's for another discussion okay okay we haven't even talked about any music yet so so uh anyway here because I get I could go on forever but but that is the hardest thing always is to give over the moment you're sitting there and you start your world to some degree is crashing and being built up at the same time because everything you thought and you knew about God about your religion and all this stuff like I didn't grow up like I said I didn't grow up in it but I was developed and very strong Christian in my teenage years like I was involved in every single I was leading Bible study groups already so so that that moment when you start to realize that hey this is this is really the reverse you know why is it saying that the 10 from each nation is going to grab the hymn of a Jew and say I want to go with you for I heard God is with you all right start you understand like this stuff when you're seeing it and you're going like the nations are going to come and say I've inherited lies from my my fathers as we are inherited as we're realizing the things that we thought so you didn't took this over we're lies misters and pastors and I so my father my father God bless his heart is a is a pastor now today he's a pastor he's a at that time he was already a theologian doctor started founded his own Bible College in the urban community yeah amazing guy and I would never argue my I already had you know kibu dive I would have never argued with my father but I would pick his brain on certain things about Christmas Easter different things like additional Concepts to these questions he had answers but he answered me in the affirmative yeah these things were Pagan the church came they Sanctified and now they and they did it he would answer me honestly he didn't know why I was asking and he didn't know what I was studying or different things like that but I would ask him and he would answer quite honest because he's an honest person he wasn't like he was like trying to hold anything back and I also wasn't given the to him that I was asked so that was one person I was asking I had other friends around me who were Christians um mentors even that I had and I would start telling them a lot of different things I was learning and asking them questions and they really didn't it wasn't that deep for them so you know for most Christians it's not that deep most Christians don't know anything about Christianity no exactly yeah I know a lot more about Christianity than they do but no it's true very very true and it's in this ironic that most most Christians if you ask they didn't even they didn't think to look into the history even of Christianity to even understand like like you know one of the things I started having trouble with as time went on was like you know how can you be really a die-hard Christian right today evangelicals beautiful people a lot of them very sweet people I do work with a lot of them great but then you know they never read Church fathers they never they don't know who Ignatius is they don't know who Justin Martyr is they don't know anything about the foundation of Christianity they don't really know they only know at some point they had maybe some experience and they realized that they were a sinner and and Jesus was was the solution with Jesus in my heart and that and that was it there's no way to argue with it yeah yeah you definitely can you can't argue with how I feel exactly so so because of that it makes it very very hard for them to ever have an experience like I did right but most of the people that if you see that that become Jewish is because they were reading the Bible and they kept on going over it then they started to real and they didn't allow themselves and I know this happens to a lot of people who you know come from Christianity and like I said God bless them good a lot of good people however they don't never they just allow themselves to go I go by faith when they see that in the Book of Luke and in the Book of Matthew that the genealogies don't match up like okay we'll just we'll keep going we'll keep going about that or if there's you know four different accounts of the you know in the passion Narrative of of who found him at the tomb he wasn't at the tomb he was he was already risen like nobody ever gets it but these are all eyewitness accounts it's like you know yeah and so that's the thing is they were all human so they all saw it a little bit different than the other one saw it different than whatever the uh okay but that's that's true but who wrote this how did this thing get canceled his questions he went to the higher-ups in the church and they said I used to have questions like that what'd you do he said I prayed until they went away right yeah so so yeah yeah that's not going to work that's a solution you're praying today go away so like I said I don't mean the harp on it but that was just that was really a lot of the things that that was going on with me but it's hard so now you see relationship my gosh Judaism is true right right did you consider a reforming conservative no because it wasn't even a thing for me like you know I always tell them you know I I'm I I I guess because I'm out of the box I I do a lot with different reform and conservative groups and stuff I'm invited to perform at a lot of different places where a lot of these different denominations are and so kids always ask me like you know why Orthodox why don't you think of like reform conservatives and everything and I tell them straight up I just went wherever God was most popular I went there I was attached from God and and wherever Hashem was most popular that's where I went you understand what I mean all the way all the way and I would even give him a lot of time right right so because of that uh you know it is like synagogues and so I went back to my childhood neighbor first thing was we were already confused like are we going to convert We're Not Gonna you know as we're coming into first place no she thought it was crazy no way she thought it was nuts yeah no way she thought it was nuts honey I think we should become Orthodox Jews no I mean because you know I'm explaining this like like it all happened so fast it was really a long period of time meaning that you know we spent two years in the Messianic congregation trying to figure ourselves out so that was a takufa itself of us you know realizing all that I sort of already realized these different passages before so I thought the first way in how do I attach yourself Jewish people to Messianic because like first thing I'm not gonna do is give up on Jesus like that was the like the last thing that's a one-way ticket to the place I didn't want to go right in my head so the first place was this Messianic is like how do I qualify all these things all these people wow they believe the Torah is true we learned all that and they also believed oh okay yes we put Jesus is now he's just short wait okay this is great but the problem is over there the more and more you you grow and the more more you start to see that that this is also foreign to to Judaism as well and and over there it's it's it's it makes it a little bit easier to make the step I guess at least because what happens is is that the more and more you you come closer to the actual Torah and you're involved in it and for us the Messianic congregation that we're part of was very big into torch about pay some people are more like church but we're very big into towards about pay they've already dominating out of uh art scroll C dorm and different things like that in Hebrew so because of that it was a big stepping stone for us to actually Yiddish guy because after a while I was like well it became very very hard to qualify why it should hold on to something when when all the problems one place in the original one where they slipped in this thing by mistake that someone had put in once yeshua's name in the middle oh really yeah I can show it to you oh so the camera is busy as a rule our school leaves Jesus house okay it's that's that's what they're doing you know and so it was uh it was that breaking point was crazy because there was a what happened was by this time I should tell you where we were it was me my wife my wife's sister was dating my best friend from kindergarten uh uh Joseph and uh so basically essentially me me and my best friend married sisters and they were they were coming along for the rest they were coming along we were all learning together we were sharpening each other and it was all four of us and and I even before I don't usually tell this part of my story but you know as we were growing in my community there I lived in an apartment complex I worked for that apartment complex and I lived I was holding like Bible study groups you know every Friday night we didn't know Shabbos anything so as we started learning you know more toshibault pay it went from like uh you know I'm telling you and just like over time the more we learned it was then there was Hollows and it was you know saying man the chef like it just started turning into more Jewish experience and more and more we learned nobody knew where we were going with it I mean this you know all the way till then when the cuckoo came everybody we made more juice so wow so that was that experience and the more you yeah at some point you got to bring a rabbi into this well we did so the first Rabbi I think that was like beyond impactful for us apart from the rabbis I was watching them chabad.org um shout out to minnow Kaplan also watching a lot of him uh Rabbi Shafer schmooz that was like yeah yeah Rabbi YY Jacobson I used to listen to online uh this is all while I was Messianic I was listening to all these guys I was really in the place of figuring out I told Brad my wife listens yeah okay also so shout out shout out to them um so what happened was is I think it was it was it was a no there was a Messianic conference where uh and we were already one foot out the door already my wife had come to me on her own and she was the first one said I want to convert Orthodox I want to but my wife like you know we had come to a good point shout out to Rob Irish for the the Ghana Shalom that that book changed everything when I got the garden of Peace wow chain I know there's some people that I know it's only but for me coming from our world where we were we take it we take the Musa strong you know what I'm saying we take it and all-time religion it's not I said I said I see over time you know Ashkenazi don't do Musa so well but uh whatever back in the day we took it it was only by us the safarium there you could patch up a few times or whatever but still come back to school so I would took it very very strong I started doing an hour of talking to him every day on my marriage and all that and as we were growing and I'm telling you till the day my wife is fooling at me she's really filming in me and so what happened was she comes to me first and says she wants to convert and now I'm schlepping feet a little bit not because I didn't want to but it's just like I never seen black Jews before so like we're about to go off the deep end now and and you know enough that you're gonna become an orthodox Jew right but you know you're going to become a black Orthodox Jew in a almost entirely white yeah yeah yeah I mean that's got to give second thoughts yeah of course then you think about was everybody going to think what is where we came from think what are they gonna the whole thing is just like you didn't want to know so Hashim arranged that EV I think was air of Shabbos I was at a grocery store and I was doing like a self-checkout and in between the beep I'm telling you with bright lights it was like music played from heaven and I could hear all the Angels going oh and I heard shabbat shalom brother [Music] it's the rabbi orlowsky show ready to go the rabbi rolovsky show knowledge of wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme it's the rabbi orlovsky show a rabbi orlowsky.com [Music] anytime you two and more it's Rabbi olowsky show Torah ready to go get the rabbi rolovsky show [Music]