In Conversation: Rabbi Eytan Feiner and R’ Gavriel Sanders

ou.org in the meantime it is my uh profound humble pleasure to introduce Rabbi Aton finer ladies and gentlemen it's a special a wonderful opportunity I want to start at the very outset by expressing an overwhelming sense of gratitude obviously to my dear and beloved colleague Rabbi shita former assistant Rabbi at the white sh and now of course Ro B understand there's a woodmar putting this all together and uh we have unbelievable aaro to not only him but of course to De Paro from whom you just heard and this wonderful introduction putting together this fascinating program I had this even listen in a little bit on some of the past ones and I'm excited very excited that you're all joining us tonight and let me just tell you we have such a fascinating guest with us tonight uh one of my favorite people in the world I mean all of client so I love them all but I got to tell you he makes the Mitzvah of one of the easiest Mitzvah in the world because he is gmak it's an amazing story from cheeseburgers to chill but I have to tell you my dear friend Aon Rabbi Sanders Gabriel he's now as he says he's really 21 years old after his conversion in December 1999 gimo klave in Los Angeles California he now is a 21y old Jew he looks great for a 21 year old I gotta tell you he looks fantastic but he has an amazing journey so I don't want to spend the time here talking tonight I want to give over the floor and we'll start we're gonna break down this great conversation uh with re Gabriel Sanders we're gonna break it down into four parts we're gonna talk about his Origins his beginning his choice of becoming a minister having grown up in Atlanta Georgia and that'll be part one we'll transition then to his journey on becoming a Jew and not just becoming a Jew but becoming a rabbi Rabbi Gabriel Sanders who has at this by this point in time he's already spoken to literally tens of thousands of people all over the world across North America and such distant places as Costa Rica Singapore uh but his greatest pride in life he's an outstanding member of the white Jewel he's one of our favorites he is unbelievable not only in the white but of course in this community he is currently the Hebrew Department coordinator for a Long Island Jewish school also teaches uh beginning and intermediate Hebrew as well as history of Israel and various schools locally he had a radio show he worked for Arts girl for over 10 years he's got an unbelievable Journey so sit back relax this m shabas one and all we're going to hear the autobiographical Journey we're going to hear the transition to becoming a Jew to becoming a rabbi and then we'll get a take on his last 21 years being a part of the white Shel uh under a borolin hat at times we'll get a little glimpse of that and then we'll save some time at the end for some questions from this wonderful audience so ladies and gentlemen I introduce to you a dear colleague a dear friend a true Gem of Aid someone amazingly special Rabbi Gabriel Sanders the floor is yours can you please share with us H growing up in Atlanta Georgia what it was like what's your journey and Origins what the beginning of your fascinating career was all about please Reb Gabriel share with us some of those glimpses well that's really what we'll do thank you first of all Rabbi finer thank you so much David parto for putting this together I was able to catch some of last week's session with one of my great personal Heroes which is Dr Hillel Henry Abramson I sometimes call him my co-teacher because I use a lot of his video content in my classes on Modern Jewish history or hist Israel because he's just got such an amazing simple yet sophisticated way of presenting it so if anyone is an afficianado of Jewish history or wants to be he's a wonderful resource for filling in uh the gaps that many of us would naturally have because we haven't studied the whole sweep of it necessarily and he presents it in such a great way he's got short videos long videos so I can't uh say enough good about how he's enriched my life and there are a lot of people on this uh Zoom as I went through the as this called this conference I conversation I guess that uh Dames I recognize and I appreciate you coming out on this uh this SM shabas this Saturday night I hope you made some popcorn uh we won't be switching the channel so and I always uh you know I listen to the introduction I go is that really me did this really happen you know so yes Rabbi finer was correct in that I uh the mothership as I called it dropped me off in Atlanta Georgia and I was uh raised in a home that was broken really several times over my mother changed jobs and changed husbands so I went to a different school every year of my schooling life sometimes two schools in one year and that kind of rendered me as the new kid that didn't have any old friends now in a live audience with people in front of me that usually evokes a bit of an awe and I say that saves me 175 in in on hour for counseling you know to get that little feedback from people but for me it was normal it was normal to be subnormal think of that it was normal to be subnormal so when I walked into someone's home that had an actual intact nuclear family or father a mother a dog a white picket fence whatever I didn't feel comfortable you know I felt comfortable in places that people didn't normally feel comfortable with so it's no big surprise that when uh I turned to uh to being a teenager and you can see that picture David that's coming up on the screen all right David is the screen being shared that's great I see okay I just need I just I just need so that's me at about 14 the blonde hair U that was from sunbleach because I had discovered that surfing was a lot more fun than being in a boring algebra class so uh I was born in Georgia raised in Florida spent a lot of time in the water between 13 and 15 and at 15 I figured I knew everything there was to know about anything that was really important like music and waves and a few other things in the street scene and I walked out of the 10th grade in about uh I think October November of that year I said to my mother I'm just gon to get a job and I did we moved eventually to Texas and that was like this is the hippie movement uh going on the Summer of Love 67 it happened uh I was hearing from my peers that there was a much bigger more exciting life than the you know the square one that my parents had been raised in I didn't really know my father he was a shadowy figure on the periphery of my life and one fine day I stuck out my thumb and I hitchhiked from Dallas Texas to Huntington Beach California 15 years old I think of that now I teach 15 year olds I look at them and I go what was I thinking well the point was I I didn't so uh it was in Huntington Beach that I I didn't know anybody I arrived there knowing no one I got rides in truck big you know big semi- trcks 18 wheelers they pick you up and want to talk to somebody because it was boring on the road I just wanted to crawl in that Cab in back and sleep because I was exhausted took three days to get there and so here I am I asked some Street people work and I get some food and they say oh these there's these Christians over here that have some kind of a a gospel thing and you could go over there if you want to they give you sandwiches but you have to listen to a Bible rep before they give you the sandwiches I said oh okay now mind you I grew up in a pretty secular home my mother sent me to Catholic school cuz she'd been subjected to that in her growing up years so she figured it was the D for me and I learned enough about God in Catholic School to figure that he had a last name ready Zilla Godzilla uh because the imagery that was communicated to me was of this like fire breathing angry punitive uh unapproachable entity that it was kind of a mix between him and Santa Claus making a list checking it twice finding out who's naughty and nice you know so it was it was a very odd impression that I had and that stayed with me for a while so when I got to this place in Huntington Beach I thought well I hope Godzilla is not here and indeed he wasn't there were some very nice people with pepsodent smiles and clean looks and they would stand up and talk about how their life had been changed because they believed in the in this this one they called the Amplified version the extended version of JC you know who I'm talking about not penny and it was very compelling to me the three or four nights that I went there and I I listened to them talk and of course by that time I'd found a place to we called it in those days place to crash i' found room on a floor a tiny little kitchen U bathroom down the alleyway it was really primitive conditions but you know in those days who cared I didn't need luxury I needed meaning significance and so I felt I was Finding significant there in Huntington Beach on my own at 15 years of age my drug friends because people I was living with really dealt drugs they said to me listen man don't let them get you in that back room because they get you in the back room to get you down on your knees and you don't want to do that then they put their hands on your head and they start speaking some kind of weird gibberish language man they call it tongues you don't want to go there man stay out of the back room well you know me some of you do really I'm thinking of leaptech hi I was up for the Dare they got me in the back room down on my knees hands on my head and they led me through something they called the sinner's prayer and they' shared with me the four spiritual laws and I you know you're separated from God by sin uh your life is out of control God sent a gift 2,000 years ago to be the shock absorber for all sins past present and future and all you got to do is believe and you'll receive a new life well that sounded pretty good to me because I could use a new life and if it was was free all the better especially for a panhandling Street kid like me in those days so I prayed this prayer and I felt this kind of funny Elation inside and wow within a couple of days I thought I think I need to go back to Texas long story short I didn't make it to Texas I made it to the SE shells Islands I was actually picked up by the U Highway Patrol California put me in jwy for three days my father had come to America to look for me because my father my mother had written to saying I've had him for 15 years this is not going to work out for me you take him for the last three and do something with him so my father came to pick me up I ended up in the sell's islands if you're not sure where that is go to the map of Kenya find mambasa go a thousand miles out into the Indian Ocean and it's one of the most pristine places on the planet today in those days there was no airport my father good guy that he was old Baptist stuck me in the Catholic boards college and Godzilla was back well needless to say oil and water don't mix well he was a country boy from deep in the heart of Georgia and I was this just messed up Street kid and we had no nothing in common my father had no emotional vocabulary I would say that he didn't know the difference between mad sad and glad his whole life was work everything was about work and he had a plan for my life he said to me you GNA be here for three years then you're G to go to the Navy like I did and then you're going to go to Georgia Tech and you gonna become an engineer and I thought how do we get off this this train this is terrible and I made enough trouble that he kicked me back home to my mother well fast forwarding I got deeper and deeper into Christianity and it uh I had a pension for music and of course I was taught that this is the time of what was they called it the Jesus movement in those days U there was this apocalyptic fervor going on in the world and I I believed very much so that this that the end was near and JC was coming and I was one of the agents and had to and now as a born again Spirit-filled believer I had a responsibility to share the gospel the Christian Gospel with the world so people often say to me well what what kind of Christian were you and and you know the Christian World Rabbi finer is so vated it's not like we say over care we got reform and conservative and Orthodox or even within the Orthodox World we've got we've got mnim uh it it doesn't divide up that neatly and cleanly it is a uh it it it's a real cob salad really of of influences and even within the stream that I was in the charismatic Pentecostal stream I kind of sometimes call it you know I was a k Christian that's the the only laav deal comparison I can make um I was really really a sincere believer very on fire absolutely believed there was only one way to God we used to walk around with our finger in the air like this saying one way one way you know just pointing to heaven and and I would be on malls and campuses and beaches and wherever I could could to button hole people and say you know God loves you has a wonderful plan for Life Sharing the four spiritual laws that were shared with me because I fully believed that the end was coming two things were imperative in my view that I've been taught for that end to come about number one quoting a passage from uh the first book in the Christian scriptures known as Matthew right toward the end the founder of Christianity says that this message the gospel has to be proclaimed in all the Earth as a witness to all to everyone and then the end will come so World evangelism telling everyone the good news was a high priority for any real sincere Bible believing Christian of which there's over 70 million of them in just this country alone and probably 500 three 4500 around the world million the second thing that I was taught especially when I went to Bible College because I indeed I finished high school through a college program and went to Bible College I eventually went to six different colleges trying to figure out you know my academic uh sanity and they said besides before the end the Jewish people have to come to believe in JC they have to come to embrace him as their Messiah and at that time or let's say up until that time if a Jew believed in JC he or she really abandoned all things that were part of their Jewish culture their Heritage if there was any spiritual connectivity any observance all of that was put aside but going back about 40 50 years ago somebody came up with a brilliant marketing idea which is you know what Christianity began amongst Jewish people got off the path with the Catholic Church they also said got off the path with rinic Judaism U if we're going to make Jews feel comfortable believing in the Jewish Messiah then we should have more Jewish uh infrastructure to what we're doing and so the Messianic synagogues were born the Messianic moov mement was born they went from being Hebrew Christians 100 years ago to Now 50 years ago people started to self-identify Jews began to self-identify as Messianic Jews um saying I'm not a Christian I'm doing the most Jewish thing that there is to do and that's to believe in the Messiah can you deny that that's a messian that that's a a Jewish belief so I know while I wasn't Jewish certainly at the time I very much supported that because I wanted the end to come and of course two significant things had happened calendar-wise that gave the Christian World a great sense of fervor and that was first of all the reestablishment of Israel as an independent nation a Jewish State 1948 and then the reunification of yusim in 1967 so those were both viewed as fulfillments of biblical prophecy they're not far off are they and there was a book that just went like wild fire through out the Christian world it was called the late great planet Earth written by a campus Minister Baptist Minister Hal Lindsay and that book has gone on to sell tens of millions maybe more copies in many languages and it set the prophetic stage for how all this was going to play out with something called The Rapture where JC would make a partial appearance and take all the real true believers off the planet then the world would go through seven years of something called the tribulation a terrible time and then he would return and slay the enemies of God and set up something of the kingdom of God on Earth something called the Millennium a Thousand-Year reign of righteousness and peace on Earth okay so you can see where some of these ideas were borrowed from Judaism now I used to use the ideas from how Lindsey's book to influence people on the streets to embrace Christianity I would tell them first of all say you know what you may not believe it would could you believe that I believe it sure so I got a little concession there I said you know what I believe that the stage is set now that JC could come tonight and as a believer in him I will be whisked off the planet and all the fellow Believers we won't be here when the world goes through hell on Earth for seven years let me ask you a question do you want to go through hell on Earth for seven years where people will be gnawing their tongues and wanting to die and they can't and there'll be disease and famine and earthquakes in various places and do you want to go through that economic collapse no I don't want that I said well if you were to come tonight pick one stay here or go with me which would you choose well I think I want to go with you great give me your hand let's pray and you see what I'm I'm leveraging first of all I'm creating a problem that only I have the solution for and I'm invoking fear in that person's life it's very subtle it's very manipulative but it happens all the time and it's not just unique to my brand of Christianity I've run into that no off anybody who sells it but I've run into that at an Amway meeting you know the same kind of of compelling arguments that want to get me to sign on the dott on line so how old were you at this time in words this context this point in life yes I'm in my late teens yeah that it's a little older than that picture that that you see right here so I got into the church world and uh became a young Minister I was very active uh on the streets as I said I was a guitar player so I've been a number of different Christian bands uh I went to Bible College I got and here's some pictures from me a long time ago I look at that guy and go man those were big glasses you know the 80s really that last picture on the bottom is right near the time I was I was pretty close to leaving uh in 1977 I went to Israel having graduated certain level of biblical studies went to Israel to learn Hebrew and I planed to be there for about six months and within the first five weeks I was kicked out of my first kibuts for leading a Christian leading a Jewish girl leading a Jewish girl to Christianity although I told her she was a Messianic um I also learned to teach English and this is my first class that I ever had some Chinese kids in Los Angeles where I'm a learning to be an English teacher uh I while I was in Israel also um I had two different stints in Israel one was as an Old Pond student I got kicked out of the kibuts for missionizing allowed to stay in another kibuts um and then went back to to americ joined a major mission organization then I want to graduate school learn Linguistics came back to Israel uh I led a number of Tours also when I was a young Minister and I ended up even working while living on a kibuts lived in four different kibuts and two kibuts I lived in the north uh you see me here as radio radio station the white I think could you soak this for everyone else have I could trouble everyone else to please mute except for myself and Rabbi Sanders thank you thank you very much appreciate that okay I'm looking for my um laser pointer but I'm not finding it here oh here it is over here okay great okay laser there now you can see right okay so I uh ended up working in a Christian radio station in South Lebanon the security zone I'm done some really fascinating and I would say somewhat dangerous things along the way um and it was when I was in the my second iteration of time in Israel from 1981 to Mid 84 that um I started to have some questions these are some of the volunteers of of several hundred really that we had I worked with an organization that brought Christian young people like these from around the world to uh serve for a year in a kibuts as volunteers they also used it it was each group was like a mini Church there was Bible study prayer celf singing what we call praise and worship uh many uh uh Christian activities going on in the kibuts loved having these these kids there why because they worked members hours you know eight hours a day they stay for a year uh I was asked by the kibuts and I did I taught 90-hour Hebrew course um I worked very hard to get my Hebrew up to Snuff so I could really be comfortable uh it got so comfortable they asked me to teach in the elementary junior high and High School in the campus of kibuts Dafna so I did that for a couple of years and these are friends of mine that I had way back then I'm still in touch with this this guy here Arturo who still speaks a lot of the Hebrew that he was taught back in those days uh just a quick glance all the stars these are represent different places I've been around the world uh and last year brashem it was this this month of January last year that I had the opportunity to speak for the first time as a Jew in yusal to a group of people on the issue of inside the missionary mind um so I've had a lot of travel experience Through The Years hope to have some more and one of those experiences took me after I left the church and here's where I'm really kind of moving quickly but my experience in Israel and my acquisition of more and more Hebrew uh really introduced me to a a phase of of real confusion and what was that confusion the Christian Missionary will allege that there are some 300 different prophecies in the Jewish scriptures which point to JC virgin birth suffering servant Isaiah 53 U many many other things that are born in Bethlehem for example uh and I knew these passages and I wanted to learn enough Hebrew to be able to share these with Israelis to say do you see that the Messiah the that you don't even believe in of course most of the kibot snakes were atheists but do you see that this has all been there for centuries it been prophesied but I kept running into issues in the text that didn't yish we say it doesn't stem it doesn't fit together uh uh I could give you a lot of examples I'll maybe give you one we say couple times a day right so that a redeemer will come to Zion and to those who are shave fesha those who turn away from sin and Yakov now that passage is quoted in the Christian Bible in the New Testament The Book of Romans but it reads in English and a redeemer will come from Zion a de Redeemer will come from Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob now is that the Hebrew translation what I just quoted no it's not it's not at all you know the prepositions have been changed you know from from we substitute a me for a lad okay fine they're they're they're their neighbors what's a big deal about a little preposition I don't know Rabbi fer does it make a difference if I say uh I'm expecting a check for the white Shool I'm expecting a check from the white sh yeah just a little preposition well you we just one change one little letter so it's um just a second I'm get to a message here okay um it's it was very frustrating to me to keep bumping into passages in the Hebrew text that did not agree with the English text because the English text was based upon the Hebrew text so that created in me for any of the therapeutically literate people on the call uh that created in me a lot of cognitive dissonance and when I S to speak to my Christian friends about it they would just give me some flippant response like well you know the devil seems to be sewing doubt in your mind I don't know if you know this but for Bible believing fundamentalists uh Christians like I was the Devil is a very active part of your day you know he's always around tripping you up and it's not the representation of what we talk about with the Yahara it's much more Sinister than that you know it's like he picked all the people on the planet he picked me to SED Seas of doubt in in Northern Israel so when I left Israel in 1984 it was with the excuse me yeah 84 it was with a lot of confusion and I went back to the the big church I was part of a 10,000 member Church in Southern California I was asked to be one of the associate pastors and take over a couple of adult teaching divisions which I did I taught at the Bible College that I attended to Hebrew course there I was on the radio in Los Angeles Christian radio very very busy doing seminar work whatever I could leading tours but I really um had a lot of questions in my heart and so at one point I just sort of cracked and I said can't do this anymore and I pulled the rip cord and I bailed and I went into Oblivion I went into eight years of uncertainty so why am I talking to you about Saudi Arabia why is it on the map because at one point at this uh nater bottom point in my life I called my father and said dad I don't know what to do with my life anymore I'm 33 and everything's falling apart and he said to me in that beautiful country accent of his that I remember so well he said we to you what Sanders you go somewhere nobody want to go do something nobody want to do you have yourself a job well it had worked for him because he'd been in all kinds of places he'd been in the United Arab Emirates he'd been in Oman so I looked around where could I go The Graduate School I attended for the study of linguistics to learn to teach English said they need uh there's a recruiter trying to get people to go to Saudi Arabia to work for the Saudi Navy you want to do that I said yeah okay that's that's nobody wants to go there that'd be something and what am I going to teach can you tell me what I'm going to teach they said yeah you're going to teach Saudi Naval Cadets now these are BN students right who've been drag netted into the Navy by the government so they wouldn't cause trouble I guess and for the first time after wearing those nice light Breezy thobes they call them the white I think an Egyptian jabalia um they were wearing uniforms and up at three in the morning marching on the parade ground so I became an English teacher at the Royal Saudi Naval forces Technical Institute of Naval studies rsnf t i ns m o u e right um and so here's some of the faculty members that uh that I worked with from uh this is Mahmud ladani who's a Palestinian from Gaza who uh went to Georgetown University he was there on our staff some people from Sudan my first class of students very dark they were um and we started at 6:00 in the morning went to 11:30 and those guys went on to other classes and routine so I put in a good couple of years uh there and uh one of the my Saudi driver's license uh this is not me at purum by the way um I actually had one of this this old set up here these were some of my friends again mahm ladani yusf AL yusf Sheik Ahmed these are Palestinians on the faculty and uh Mahmud and I were pretty good friends and we used to actually speak Hebrew on the naval base and once in a while when I was speaking because I learned a lot of Arabic my Arabic got fairly good at least conversational level and once in a while I would just let fly a Hebrew word when I should have been an Arabic word and these two Yousef and and Ahmed would look at me like what you say so it was quite the experience I got kicked out of Saudi Arabia I did uh I I just you know they didn't tell me exactly why but a letter that came down from R suggested that maybe I was gathering information the the real kicker was I had a fax machine and they could not understand why I had a fax machine I had a phone line and a fax machine no other teacher had that senders why you have fix machine I don't know sir what do you have a refrigerator you know why why you convenient right the real reason was because it was 2:35 a minute to make a phone call and it took two weeks for a letter to go back and forth a fax machine you know it's a good deal but they were convinced that I was passing information to the cousins in that part of the map that nobody acknowledged so you know what do you do in Saudi Arabia when there's nothing to do well I joined a couple of xad bands you know I still play today and I had a lot of fun doing that that was that was loads of fun where were you religiously at this point in time you know religious religiously I was sort of Christian but um I it depended what day of the week it was quite frankly I I was uh you know in Saudi Arabia it's a very dry Place some people learned to make some pretty interesting what they called bathtub Jin so there were times that uh I am vibed and uh there was really nothing to do but religiously I was searching I was uncertain so I came back to America and someone U suggested to me that since I had all this kind of Israel to me I went to Israeli restaurants I went to Israeli to to Israeli concerts um I had all these sorts of Connections in the Israeli community in Los Angeles he said but what do you know about Judaism you seem to be searching spiritually I said yeah I guess I am said you ever been to a synagogue I said no not really I've been visited a couple bits were here or there wedding but not really seriously so why don't you go well I did now this young lady you see here in this picture remember the one I told you about my first kibuts that uh I converted to Christianity told her she was a Messianic Jew this is Caroline and this is Caroline with me at a s called Temple really shalot in Irvine California I had the privilege of helping her come out of Christianity and back into some loose affiliation with Judaism so this is a picture was actually taken in front of the iron Cod on chabas I'm sorry to say um but she showed up and came to some services and whatever and so it was uh but my whole my whole journey happened really odd because of her yes rby who is the one who actually got you to go to SCH who's the one who convinced you to say you know what let's ah so so I looked in the Yellow Pages um and it was it was said there Shir hamalot a friendly congregation so having identified where the friendly Jews were because I'd met some unfriendly ones um I decided to go there and when I said to them I gave him my background I said I think I might want to convert could you help me and they said you know the rabbi has a 9month bar mitzvah course for people that didn't adults that didn't have a bar mitzvah and he accepts it as a conversion course I said wait a minute does that mean I can have a conversion and a bar mitzvah for the same cost you mean a two for one special he said yes yes that's a good way to say it I thought man these Jews know how to Market that's something else so I got involved at shalot I was there for a couple of years uh after nine months I had a lighten Breezy easy conversion followed by three days later a Mitzvah it was uh it was uhal K as a matter of fact in it was 5757 so you can figure that out reform or conservative this was very reform but the rabbi uh Dr Bernie King Al Shalom uh was uh he would look at a person I remember him looking at me with those deep warm eyes saying you have a Jewish heart that's all I wanted to hear you know so we had music on on uh cabal shabas AR shikler who used to play with shomo carak Shalom would play these haunting carak melodies the rabbi would give a a talk and walk around with the microphone and ask us different ones in the congregation what do you think about this what do you think about that we talk about the para why it doesn't apply to today you know and within six months guess who was leading the shabas morning tilila for 20 minutes and Torah study me I I couldn't spell Rashi much l re much much less read Rashi but we would talk about you know those poor Jews in the wilderness if they ever were there following Moses if he ever really existed getting the Torah but you know it was really written by lots of different people um and after a couple and a you know good two two and a half years there this is the chapter in my life I would say if Judaism is a house I'm living on the porch so through the agency of another congregation in Irvine which was the Irvine kabad house and here's picture I took last year I happened to be at the oill and ran into Rabbi Alat tanam who had started this little fledgling congregation in an office building office suite and today thank God they have a beautiful Sho right there in in Irvine um and he took me in so I I said to him I think I want to learn more and go further and I don't know if I'm really Jewish he said well it's sort of like you have a card that works at Macy's but you can't get an airline ticket with it so maybe you want something that's a little bit more Universal I said yeah like a like a black hat AMX something like that he left so I spent time learning with Rabbi tanom uh I went through the rabinal Council of California which is a very very mchir organization with Rabbi aunion whom I think Rabbi Rabbi fer knows Rabbi Holland Rabbi Summers uh Rabbi tendler there were some very very um Rabbi adelstein some very prominent people in the Ki community and they made it pretty tough on Me based on my background based on my Excursion into reform they said to him you don't have to do this you don't have to convert you could be a noahide you could be very friendly to the Jewish people you could be Rel ask it actually said they said God forbid that 10 years after a conversion you abandon it and then that's on us not you it's on us so they gave me a longer uh trajectory towards conversion so there was a RV that I worked with actually from Far Rock Away um and he worked with me I guess I would go up to see him Rabbi Asher Byron once a month and we every month I'd say am I ready no no look at we have three more pages to go on my curriculum so finally we had a meeting and it was Gabrielle can I ask in other words what was the big poll here we are you know you're you're a brilliant uh uh teacher educator and uh you on an an intellectual Journey was it the warmth the heish kite the form kite of kabad was it the shamas table was it the experience of various rituals or was really the intellectual honesty saying that hey wait a second let me go in and do the research and you know Christianity the gospels this is this is just you know garbage it's not uh it's not where it's at and the Torah spoke to you or was it more the Jewish experiences and rituals and the one for kabad that Drew you in that was the initial magnet so it's a blend you know the kabad uh as is true around the world is is a very warm inviting place I spent a lot of time at the kabad house in Singapore and suit Costa Rica um and I I would say that the answer to the Rob's question question is really it's it's not either or it's both and as we spoke yesterday about this session it's not just the how of Judaism you know the mechanics of how to live a Jewish life the Practical aspects that you find in sh but it's also the wow factor and the wow factor for me began I'll just mentioned four influences I threw this slide together earlier tonight uh I read a book even before I started with Shir hamalot called Jewish meditation by someone I'd never heard of Rabbi arier Kaplan my second name Gabriel arier is in honor of Rabbi Ari Kaplan because I was able to choose my name and I'll tell you why and what the significance of that is right at the end if someone will remind me please um so that book got me to thinking this showed me that there was a wow factor inside of Jewish prayer that I had no idea about the only Jewish meditation I knew anything about was what we call juus Jews Jewish Buddhists that meditated you know that's the only thing I knew of but this really I I didn't understand a lot of the concepts amida I had no idea what the the the Shimon as was but there was enough in this book as I read it to say I've got to investigate this while I was at the reform congregation there was at another reformed congregation in new Newport Beach they had an H Discovery seminar well that was a mind blower that really opened my eyes to see wow this is significant particularly the seven wonders of Jewish history and if someone's never studied that and looked into that uh it's it's well worth doing I didn't know about the codes which have unfortunately been debunked but they're are being reaffirmed of of late um it's prophecy I I I mean I knew a Biblical Prophecy from a Christian point of view but from a Jewish point of view it was really eye openening so that I found compelling also I read a little book somebody sent me called The Magic of chabas by Rabbi morai Ryan I met him one day and I said Rabbi Ry I believe you wrote this book just for me he said well I'm glad to know that it took me three years to do it uh but I read this book it made it all fit together because somebody asked me when I was in the reform movement well what is shabas to you and and I gave this flowery hippie dippy trippy kind of answer that was just so banal really and and and I asked that the person asking me well what is shabas to you and the answer came back not creating well this book opened my eyes to what that actually meant and I thought I think I have to go this direction and then of course Rabbi schm Waldman amazing book called Beyond A Reasonable Doubt convincing evidence of the truths of Judaism which is really a distillation of many of the seminal thoughts of Rob aigor Miller because he was tomit of Rabbi Miller Shalom so these four different spheres of influence really touched me and pulled me because I saw within them truth real truth enough to say well I could always say no when I get to the Mikvah and and that indeed happened when I got to the Mikvah they they said to me Rabbi Holland Rabbi Union um a dear friend of mine now a tutor of mine Rabbi SCH Feld uh was there and they said you don't have to do this I mean three times they pushed me away that was the last time and I said what's that what's that F again that I need to say and then I walked out and I uh after I got dressed and I went out and I embraced them um that was where I learned the 614th Mitzvah which is Thou shalt not spin the God because one of the rabbis there was short in stature but a giant in Torah and I picked him up and spun him around and his legs went out in the air it was terrible then they said put him down you have to go put on fillan for the first time that counts so I went off to Rabbi benon Kravitz's home who was a founder of West Coast director of Jews for Judaism uh fast forward I ended up working for a while for Jews for Judaism helping uh Jews who've been involved in the church to come out that was an amazing chapter in itself um in my Jewish uh life over the last 21 years I've had the opportunity to work in Jewish radio both on the talk line network with Zev brener arut cheva Israel national radio I've met some amazing people interviewed some phenomenal personalities Big N shamas including Rabbi URI Zohar uh at Art School I worked on many different interesting fast any books including Rabbi Beer's gateway to Judaism worked on every single one of Susie fish Bin's cookbooks um I'm the legendary guy that would write flap copy you know it's like who wrote that interesting flap copy to make me want to buy this book I'm that kind of a guy that did that the amazing part is to write flap copy for a book you didn't read now that's a real art you know and what it amazed me that I was doing all these things at the literary level because a I was a high school dropout B in college I could not write I had terrible writers block but I learned you know through through the hard effort just that's really a powerful thing to do um current Gabel once uh once you mention it can we get the secret behind we got that but what about the Gabriel so every Jew is a Gabrielle arier what does that mean what's a Gabrielle abalak what's an Raa King of the beasts all right so each one of us is a hybrid we share with the animal kingdom the origin from the dust of the Earth right ad Aron was taken from the the ground that's why he called Adam because he came from the ad but the distinction between adamar Rishon and the animals when is when the text goes and says to his and he became a in other words uncle is saying a talking spirit and so every human is a blend of earthiness and godliness of temporal temporality and Eternity so Gabrielle is the Malik that rides upon the lion and that's what's the intent behind something a simple little that we say every morning at sure we ask hem to help us not kill the Beast you know as they sang in Hotel California right but to subdue train in other words to to make it subservient uh to our nsh and to live in such a state I've asked my students this more than once I said tell me are you a soul in a body are you a body with a soul what are you exactly you know it's a very ontological question that everyone has to ask himself or herself you know I think two major things that every person has to figure out is a a question of cosmology is the is creation uh not creation but just random evolution of things or is there a Creator a designer behind it that's not number one and number two what's my place in that design if there's a design that's on that's on ontology being what is the nature of my being well I just mentioned it and my name which is really shared universally with everybody so all the men on the on the call tonight are are gab Gabriel Aras and all the women are Gabriela arielas so if nothing else at it tonight you got a new name in a deeper sense of what your identity is once a person knows that then there's all kinds of possibilities that open up for an individual is as far as where that path will take them one very powerful person that I had the privilege to spend a few minutes with and I want to Echo over his words is Rob Big N shal Shalom I was back in Israel 2003 for my my first time as a Jew um I think it was yeah it was the brother of Rabbi y Liber whom we know and love so much um who arranged for me to go to the home of BBY and uh I had married the year before I married a woman with three three teenagers two of the kids were learning in Israel at the time so I got the kids and we went to see raboli and I asked him a couple of questions I said and we spoke in Hebrew and I said more than anything else what do we need today and he looked at me through those beautiful eyes they could look right through you and he said Adam you know a person needs Faith needs auna and I said I believe that you know you know how do I get it and he picked up one of his it wasn't Al by the way he's written severals for him I think it was one called B and he said two words kvan and basically what he was saying was just like what what what H said to that potential convert you know the rest is commentary go and learn but he gave me the EO the EO is that you know and and that by the way that idea is sadik that's an impossible Concept in Christianity nobody's righteous everybody's unrighteous any everybody's universally a sinner and the idea of righteousness being attained through uh any work that a human could do is anathema to them there's no possible way for that of course I've done an exhaustive study and taught about it on you see the picture there in the Middle with me with that guy with the cap uh I'm very active on something called tanak Talk uh where we we teach about Concepts and help Jews and Christians come out of the church helping create a lot of noahides I'm very involved in this I don't know what how I have time for it but I figure it's a very important thing to do I also teach Hebrew online I have a small class of adults on Sunday nights I have private students that I work with homeschool kids that I work with in terms of this this language because for me the Hebrew the Hebrew Lang language was the glass were the glasses that opened my eyes to what the text said and from the text I found the truth that there really is a god he's a Creator he loves us he has a purpose for every one of us he's given us the opportunity to uh affiliate with uh amazing people in fact I heard the best summary of of Jewish life I've said every time I speak I say this it's a Walk Through the Ages with the sages in the pages [Laughter] I heard that from an old black Baptist Minister summarizing his perception of what Jews are like and what Jews do they walk through the ages with the sages in the pages and I think that to me has been uh such a an amazing thing I mean to to affiliate with people both in this life and Beyond this life who can pour meaning significance context substance Direction clarification it it's a it's a marvelous marvelous thing to experience both the how and the wow of yish kite of Judaism it's there and and for me quite frankly I I mean I people ask me a question well what was the one thing that convinced you I'm really more interested in everybody else's story here what's what's the one thing that kept you here Beyond guilt or whatever I I I don't think that's that's appropriate but every one of us is a Jew on a journey I called mine a minister journey to Judaism but every one of us and and it came from our progenitor ainu starts right out with those two words that look exactly the same without vowel points and I I I became good friends for a while with Rabbi David Aaron from the Israelite Institute and we we were talking about that that phrase once he said do you see what it says he says go to your go find yourself and Judaism not at the end of the day long before the end of the day will bring a person to know who they really really are and to have a Heritage you know I married into to a family in 2002 that has amazing Yus the the the the you know going back to davik and but between this generation and going you know names that I won't drop the names but they're really significant people who have contributed and they've done it through I'm studying the Zer Shimon right now this obscure book from 256 years ago and you look at think how did they do this with no internet with no computer with writing with a pen how did they do this they did it because they were most MIT and so today we have it so convenient it's so easy I I you know from from coming to OU to study the do or or dialing up something or getting something sent to me on Whatsapp like I do with an amuna shear and and a navish Shear daily uh it's amazing what we can do so G what what preserves the well factor for you on a day-to-day basis is it the learning the appreciation and now having mastered KES is it going through tanak is it is it gor is a teaching educating what's what's RAB Gabriel AR Sanders W factor in yudish gu is sh combination be above yes it it is because when we say from cheeseburgers to chalant it's the the the really the answer is a chalant it's it's it's a tapestry it's many threads woven together in in a beautiful representation of uh of Jewish living loving and learning those are the Three L's you know in education we have the the three Rs but for me it's the Three L's of living loving and learning jewishly all of which are at an elevated level you know most people want to get above the dust of and the den of the noise of what I call the common culture especially these days you know a year ago just a year 12 months ago Co was something over there happening to them and within a short amount of time it was would be upon us like a cloud I think all of us have had to rethink our priorities U I heard the Rob say that this morning about C looking for serenity and Tranquility in the middle of all of this and and there is opportunity in in what appears to be Randomness and Chaos definitely the Jewish people as a teacher of of of Jewish history I have the opportunity to visit some very challenging times and see how some very determined people chose to hold the line to tow the line and pass it on like a baton to the Next Generation so I I think for me part of the wild factor is when I see my students get it that's one of the great joys of being a teacher when you see that light come on I have I have one student in particular I call him at Tom mmuk it's a private schools homeschool kid who didn't know any Hebrew two years ago and today we chatter away the guy I mean he's not fluent but he's well on his way and and he loves it he loves Hashem you see how it how it's connecting the dots for him so when you when you you know it's been said in Jewish life you have to give it away to keep it and you won't lose a drop by giving away everything you have it'll only amplify multiply so these things to sit in a Shear to um discover something new that I didn't know to review something that I forgot and be renewed in that because Kadesh is is an important part of a a Jewish person's life and and to recognize that the ultimate struggle challenge that every one of us faces is not a choice between good and bad we all know what that means for me at least it's a struggle between good and best and best doesn't always look so good necessarily you know but at the at the end of the process there's this great realization this great sense of wow I said no to the things that are M things that are user we all understand that but things that are mutter in order to get to something that's mative to mative wow that is that that's an accomplishment and that by the way I I can only get by hanging around with people who can model that sometimes it's from the sages and the pages one of the things that art schol is legendary for is H Jewish biographies by the way I'll just pass this on to everybody I happen to have a code with art scroll and agreement with art scroll that if you check out on their website and put in a code Gabriel 20 g v r i L2 you can get 20 off okay so there's already 10 10% off now I got you gave you another 10 I want to give Torah Reby tonight to people so I reminded myself the evening I have that little thing I'm able to do that you can just put Gabrielle 20 in there and you'll get a little discount writer that you are what about the autobiography whether it's gonna be published by yeah yeah yeah uh how about putting those literary skills towards an autobiography sometime down the road is that on the radar screen it's it's been brought up a number of times um somebody's actually talked to me about doing it it's a matter of time I I never really quite know where to stop you know maybe maybe now is a good time I could say and and lived uh in Bim ever after uh it's possible um the the other struggle I've had with writing a book is how much can I really tell you know I was a street kid I did some really awful things you know was in juvie a couple times and I won't elaborate but you know hinin I was and when I left the church world I kind of picked up where I left off at 16 and did further research into the fact that life without God is a very empty proposition you know I proved it I know it so and there are some people who challenged me by the way and saidwell you know you're just into this Jewish thing because you had such a hole in your soul when you were a kid well I took it for enough of a test drive prior to my Garis in in the mickfield Los Angeles to realize no this is this is it and that's one of the powerful things about Judaism by the way as a Christian minister I would make a convert in in a matter of minutes you know through a process of convincing propositions and emotional appeal Judaism doesn't do that you know it presents a person with a path with a challenge with tools and says you know say you got to go learn and I've had the privilege of uh associating with and I know quite a number of former ministers and former forgive the term Ked Christians it's the only way I can know how to represent it real Believers you know who have have made the transition and who are uh people of influence today in in the Jewish world um also I see paralleling all of this an emergence of a noahide community that is is quite fascinating because we're living in the times when I think Zechariah Chapter 8 Zakaria chapter 8 verse 2 verse 23 last verse of the chapter that says that 10 men out all the nations are going to grab a hold of the edge of the Garment of a Jew and say we want to go with you because we see God is with you and so it's amazing also in the Messianic movement uh that a number of them are finally seeing wait a minute we've just just been doing a Christianity wrapped up in a talit this isn't the real thing we've been playing synagogue and so I've had the privilege of working with some people to come out I had one one girl from Jews for Jesus I had opportunity to help her come out of the headquarters there number of years ago from San Francisco another guy who was ah head of a Messianic congregation um these things just I don't look for it I really tried to turn my back on on the whole everything in my past and say just I just want to learn just want to live jewishly but I guess I have a responsib ility because I did influence people including Jews and so I have a responsibility and a privilege now to do the same be happy to entertain any questions if anybody has okay so somebody already on the chat started us off how do your parents family feel about your life choice great segue look who's on the uh upper left of the screen that's that's my mother this was a picture from a couple years ago I hadn't seen her for some time she's uh today she living be well she's uh 96 um not doing so well but the fact that she made it that far is amazing so when I first told my mother it was on the phone and there was about 20 seconds of Silence I had a dentist say to me once it's really a rather shallow cavity you don't need Nova Nova give me 20 seconds it was a similar kind of experience when the Silence of my mother and then she said well the Lord will forgive you my mother is uh my mother's also very much a you know deep deep Christian as well um later in my journey she said well now I've got it figured out as I took her to a sh one time she said I've got it figured out you liked being in Israel with all those Jews and so you come to synagogue in America so you can feel like you did when you were in Israel now I understand it's about your feelings well then one year she sent me a beautiful kukia calendar was a little off she sent it a PES um so she's she's been pretty accepting my my mother was a hippie long before there were hippies you know I think she was a displaced Soul actually um she was adopted always looking for herself I've looked in the family tree you know way back on my father's side I found a Jewish connection long time ago but nothing on my mother's side now my father was another story interesting story I I I um how do you say this come out to your father I it's a very strange expression um I I called him up um well truth is I sent him an EMA email said Jad this is what I've done with my life and so when I I called him up to talk about it he said I don't know too much about kosher but we got a Piggly Wiggly Market down here you want to come on down to Market I'll go shopping with you you you pick it out I'll buy it for you now was that was my father's way of acceptance so um again we didn't have much connectivity really my my my father um and I didn't see him till he till he passed um my sister wonderful sister we are very good friends always have been she's been very supportive um I have one brother doesn't talk to me and I have another brother we're all halves by the way everybody has a different parent of one SI you know my mother has two kids that different fathers and and my father had a different kid it's just really the poster children of dysfunctionality um but what uh I'm grateful for today is the amazing both family I have that I married into uh with many wonderful people who are in K and rabanus and uh doing great things for the Jewish people and then my extended family of the white Shool and Beyond what I have at school where I teach and the wonderful friends I have the art scroll family Rabbi ztz gal ztz should live in me well called me the other day and we're just you know just this connection so when I put the the art scoll Tanakh on the screen there I had the privilege of working on an English translation of the Tanakh with a commentary woven within it in key passages that are um that that I would have said before are Messianic had the opportunity to work with some other Scholars especially some counter missionaries to do a soft address of those issues in this commentary that was a big thing and then to get this into prisons and schools and cure of organizations that that was a wonderful wonderful thing to be able to do so um and if anybody wants to uh communicate you know that's my that's my email I forgot to put but everybody knows that right so you can just put but if you don't we're hearing you love far and you love this neighborhood and we love you here Kam him we love you is er that dream is that a dream is that on the radar screen how soon is that uh something you in your hood that you're you're looking to uh to get the Messi's coming very soon but uh I know you have a tremendous love for for our land and is there just uh something that uh you looking at yes short answer uh we we were there together last as I mentioned last year at this time when I was asked to come speak and also to do some other work I'm involved with an organization called the bmch project and they do something I've never seen they take K yiden into totally secular schools among other places and have these encounters that are phenomenal I went to one in North Tel Aviv this was a school that teaches all kinds of strange alternative Lifestyles and transitions into those Lifestyles I mayin and I watched for three hours as they just did an amazing work with these secular kids who said I got to find out more about this they' never met any any Kum you know they've had Palestinians come in and they've had alternative lifestyle people come in they've had liberal this and schmal that but they never met really Benet tah who had a true love for all yiden so I'm involved with a number of different projects collateral to that and you know whatever Hashem wants as far as timing and and and what to do you know I mean I'd go tomorrow if we could but uh right now I've got uh about 85 kids to teach and 10 teachers to look after fantastic so someone just sent in Rak man how did you find your way to farak uh from Los Angeles uh how did you make your way ultimately to uh to become part of the white well I started on the 10 freeway and pulled a U-Haul with my uh my Cadillac El Dorado and U what brought me here was that I was asked by a com in Southern California to be their technology rep for this was for commercial insurance industry to be their technology rep for the tri state area so knowing that uh I was really not even a year old as a yid and and uh I'd been in New York before and I'd considered uh Riverdale I considered uh Brooklyn for a moment I cons I considered the Queens you know Q Gardens whatever for a moment but I'd heard about the wonders of Far Rockaway that it was just really a very heish Community with wonderful people and uh didn't feel so crowd it was close to the Sea close to JFK right staging area for er um so I thought okay I'll come so I I I I came here um and uh wonderful Cinder Heth Reed's Lane took me in for two weeks and I got a place down on uh Beach 9th and seuret for a while and then I moved on onto Reeds Lane as well for a couple of years that was wonderful I lived right across the street from uh Rabbi Aram Davis who's still a great input to me I I record a sheer with him most Sunday mornings he lives in raat um and next to CH who one of his kids married into our family one of my nieces you know so it just I I never had so much stability I was always moving every year or two I was changing changing jobs changing location like went through grew up changing schools change was the operative word for me and since embracing Terin mitzah it's been stability you know it's uh Hashem is described as a you know a rock and it's been a connection to a rock and this congregation I didn't put the picture up I I have another picture I wanted to post it was a picture of me holding the amazing book that we did about uh R pelz Shalom and I remember when Kim danan called me and asked me to work on coordinating that book and I said how much time do I have he said got about 12 weeks I remember you did a fantastic job it was it was amazing it was really it it was something and all I did was facilitate you know but I guess people thought you worked for art school you must know how to do books no but I can write flap copy so but we we we did it and it was a it was a joint effort from a lot of amazing people spanning the decades some of those people are on this call and we've had the privilege all of us to live in the shadow of greatness now it was Shakespeare I have to say and I I said this once in introducing rebis as young rice Al Shalom rebon young rice became my Torah momy she adopted me I didn't go looking for it she she said I'm G fact I was going to the hospital once for a treatment on my eye she said I'm giving you my name you are gabri Gabriel arier Ben eser so remember she's saying that I introduced her once at an occasion where we were acknowledging 30,000 sales copy sales of life is a test another book I worked on and when I introduced I said you know Shakespeare said some people are born great some people have ACH to achieve greatness and other people have greatness thrust upon them and that's really a summary of the Jewish people we're born great from arino and we've achieved greatness through through doing great acts and sometimes in very difficult unexpected circum circumstances we've had it thrust upon us and the real Meda that comes from The Crucible of the fire of a tough circumstance causes that silver you know to to get refined and and I've seen that I you know the first person to welcome me to the white Shaw and some of the old-timers will remember him well Bernie finlin you know tall gentle giant of a wonderful man was lived right down street for me and we called him the sage of Sage Street for 50 years he lived there I used to walk with him when he was when he still still with us and he'd always give a wonderful Devar Tor as we walked down the street and uh even when he was in his wheelchair he always had a big smile this is emblematic of the kinds of people we have in the white Shi community and Beyond you know people who love each other who love the r there's great support here there's there's purity of tah the white Sho who was it that said was it um was it the mashk from Lakewood Ru Solomon who made the comment about the white sh the white being a blend of all the different colors was that is that what happened some years ago am I remembering that correctly re fer I I I said such an idea quoting the AER no the white the being love it encompasses his encompasses all the varied colors of the spectrum and that's the white chel you have everything here ashas Lish modern cist everything that's that's CL that's the beauty of K song well it it certainly is and to be part of that and to find that I can there's always room to go deeper you know we've we we've talked once about what what's the biggest room in the world I saw this on a on a marquee uh in in the Bronx when I was 18 years old on a missionary trip to New York City and it asked the question what's the biggest room in the world the room for improvement you know and that really is a summary of every one of us here you know that it's it's uh it's it's yearning and and and moving forward it's it's here's the way way I say it always striving never arriving always striving never arriving because the ultimate destination is beyond This World by the way that's another thing I found so comforting you know we just lost uh such a beautiful beautiful Nisha uh yesterday with Rabbi Ruby Davis Sal Shalom and uh he daved in the minion where I and so it but I've seen him through the years is just how much he cared for people cared for the Sho to be around people like that you know we become like those with whom we associate and so my Jewish experience has been an experience of associating differently you know someone who was a mentor to me in business years ago way back 30 years ago uh quoted something that's kind of well known in the common culture he said you know in five years your income will be the average of your five closest friends I paused for a moment I said I think I need new friends but if you take that principle and say in five years the quality of your character will be the average of your five closest friends then again you might also say I think I need to get some new friends so my experience in Judaism has been an upgrade of affiliation that's led to uh achievements that I otherwise would not have been able to do because I've seen well if he could do it or she could do it if they can do it then maybe I can do it too to get up early go to a minion to go to a minion three times a day to learn Torah to cultivate Mido to be shmer this and that um and to I couldn't do it all in one shot but but that's why they gave me a a longer you know Runway to achieve liftoff when through the RCC in California I needed that and I'm grateful for it so when I came to the white Sho in September of 2000 you know I've popped around a little bit you know I was at the bostoner and at the aoda and uh Young Israel faraka away um still have friends in all these different places but the white sh is really my Anchor Point and it's always a privilege to come in and listen especially to J of Rabbi finer and to the rich Torah that really is pumped out of that place I know the rav had many other options but to make the sacrifice to say this is I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna build some big people you know we used to say in church growth we don't we don't focus on building a big church we're focusing on building big people and the church will take care of its own growth well that's a really Bara gavu we can take that that concept and say also that's our Focus building strong families building strong Next Generation you I see the challenges that my students face uh in the high school where I am each day and it's an huge honor I was just it's like a total freakish almost like accident if you will a god incidence as I call it that I got a call five plus years ago saying we need a Hebrew teacher can you help us the last thing I want wanted to do was go teach a bunch of girls in high school I was like well why do I want to do that well again one of one of hashem's hashem's serendipities and then to move on and help other teachers and I laugh at I didn't start learning Hebrew riby till I was 24 years old and today to be a teacher of Hebrew and to be a facilitator of uh language strategies with uh mostly Israelis in in the Enterprise that we have between the you know the uh lower middle and uh in high schools there and to see Embrace of the language not just in the head but also in the heart and that it's fun I'm of the age now it's fun I don't want if not fun I don't want to do it by Sanders makes it a lot of fun make all skite fun has to be and I know the students enjoy your classes immensely I know everybody here all ladies and gentlemen I know tonight we are unfortunately at a time that I know you enjoyed immensely as did I uh the journey was fantastic and and we know the journey is continuing as Rabbi Sanders just told us that's it we're Journey we're traveling we're never arriving but we know we have people like Rabbi Sanders who are unbelievably inspirational should give you continued each and every day to inspire not only your students but all of us who know you all of us with whom you interact we wish you continued tonight's Journey has been fantastic and on behalf of Rabbi sers myself and again thanking RAB sh thanking Rabbi Paro the the conversation's been great uplifting meaningful inspirational again some great questions coming in in the chat you can address Rabbi Sanders Gabriel Sanders or gmail.com he warmly Embraces and welcomes any and all questions I'll tell you about anything else regarding that Journey cheeseburgers to chant thank you so much again Rabbi Sanders thank you all of us uh for coming and joining us tonight we'll see you with M inesh hearing Rabbi Sanders Ines thank you again so much it's been a pleasure with everything have an amazing you thank you the unfortunate the possibility doesn't come this week we will we will be here.org conversations next week everyone who's here for the first time we you're invited to come back uh I can't promise as good a a program as as Rabbi Sanders was able to deliver but uhem if you don't have anything else going on and also uh all of you are probably going to ask uh oh I I missed the first 10 minutes or my cousin missed the first 10 minutes uh this program can be found on UT torah.org check it out and um thank you again for for sharing your Torah your journey and inspiring the rest of us a real pleasure an honor thank you everyone bra there's another Sage lived down the street here um who was a Cohen no longer with us but he used to say every time I saw him uh his his son-in-law would say please give givea and he would take my hand and say you should be mat in everything you do so I'll pass this BR on to you as well you should be in everything you do this week with a Consciousness that hasem is with you that's what we do he's always there so we can see his hand and it's always Grand fantastic fantastic thank you again so much have an awesome night and with everything cultive everybody C