Interview with Rabbi Aaron Kotler
Aaron Kotler is an American rabbi. He is President Emeritus of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey, the largest yeshiva in the world.
Worlds
Contents
Max Raskin: I want to first talk about your own personal balance of the secular world and the world of Yiddishkeit. This can obviously be a very long, philosophical question, but I guess my first way of asking it is: How often do you keep up with the events in the secular world?
Rabbi Aharon Kotler: Philosophically speaking, I don’t know about this premise that there are in fact such two worlds. Practically speaking, I keep up a reasonable amount, trying to refine my sense of life and the world. I do a lot of reading.
MR: What does your morning routine look like in terms of reading?
AK: I don't have time to read in the morning. I only have time to read in the evening if I have time at all.
MR: So where do you get your news?
AK: I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Those are my two main sources of news. I don't read them all that much, I used to read them more. Maybe I can give up some of those subscriptions. I mostly read a lot of books.
Some recent great reads: Slouching Towards Utopia, which is an economic history of the 20th century. Just read Timothy Egan book A Fever in the Heartland, about the Ku Klux Klan. Took me a while but I finished Dominic Green’s book The Religious Revolution, about the emergence of modern spirituality. I found that to be fascinating, very informative. It talked about modern day vague spiritualism, Nietzsche and more, about things we do not “call” religion, which we today call modern secular values — Green traces how the modern “secular” ethos developed from religion.
Re Green’s book, take the climate change movement. The sentiment underlying the movement to fight climate change posits a broken world, seeking to fix it. That is “purpose” and there are people who devote their entire lives to this purpose. The movement has a clear set of moral values. It has rules to govern human behavior. It has adherents, and some rituals that don’t seem to make sense. It has extremists ready to burn down buildings and even sometimes kill for it. If that is not a dead ringer for religion, what is?
We might want to name such as “replacement religion,” utilizing and modeled on the human being’s “religious impulse.” We seem to have a need for all of the above, if we don’t satisfy these in religion, we humans create new movements to provide these anchors and guideposts to our lives. Green’s book is insightful and helps with great context on the secular world of today.
MR: If you were secular, what would your religion be? For instance, would you be someone who was really into politics? Would you be someone who's really into law? Sports?
AK: The common ground between today’s version of Western civilization and Judaism is that both place us in a world of conflict, and both set end goals of a perfected world. Both acknowledge that the world's a conflicted place with good and evil, both set a mission of human beings lending themselves to the side of good and for the essential victory, if I am still permitted to use that word, of good over evil. The question is, what's your playing field – how do we get there? The divide between Judaism and current Western civilization, leaving this starting consensus, is a stark, fateful one.
Western civilization's definition of purpose has shifted over time to setting the life focus of humanity on addressing and resolving conflicts that are external to us individual human beings. Not a lot of stoics, temperance movements, or such around, last time I checked. Western civilization today, by and large, says that the playing field is external, and we have to fix society. In its final form this ignores, downplays, or even sometime denies internal human conflict as a root problem or a challenge, or even as an opportunity worthy of attention. It basically says, if you have a passion, if you feel a certain way – then that's valid, the fact that you feel it makes it good and you don’t need to really resolve your internal conflicts per se. It says, “that's not worthy of your life focus.” Instead of focusing internally, today’ values say: don’t fix yourself, fix society. End poverty. Stop injustice. Fight for the planet. The way to these grandiose goals is never about figuring your own self out and fixing the challenges of self.
It’s rarely about learning to become generous to those less fortunate, rather to fix inequality by tax redistribution or regulation. Don’t abandon your own creature comforts; fix the planet by going after the boogeyman of big corporations.
This Western message is clear: this is not about a reflective you, focused on personal growth and development, it’s about the world. What is worthy of your attention are the external conflicts of the world, layered with some psychological help to deal with your own internal discomforts. How tragic.
Judaism's path of meaning is for each human being to resolve their own internal conflicts. Judaism posits btw that this will ultimately fix the world too and that avoiding or escaping a relentless focus on our internal conflicts will result in our never getting to a perfected world. Judaism is just less externally revolution focused.
Can we solve our problems without solving our internal ills? I don’t believe so. I believe that this misdirection of purpose, to external matters, is the root cause of today’s human aimlessness and misery.
If I wasn't privileged to govern my life with religious values, I would still view myself as a human being with my own internal conflicts as all human beings have had. I would be a creature torn between my personal internal good and my personal internal evil, let's call it my reality, my illusions, my grounding and my ungrounding, my selfish self and my selfless self, whatever terminology you want to use for it. But I think I would still view myself as a being who's inherently in conflict and as a being whose conflicts really matter and I would have no choice but to set that battlefield and arena as worthy of my life attention.
I think Eastern and some ancient religions used to talk about this more, am not sure about today. By the way, I don't agree with their beliefs, I don't agree with their solutions but at least they acknowledge such a focus. As to the concept of conquering of self, whichever side of self you want to conquer, we can call this the battlefield of life – that is what is going on in my own head and heart.
My purpose as a human being, regardless of my religious identity, is best fulfilled by focusing on the conflicts that are going on in my heart and your mind and my life, and keeping it very, very internal. I don't think that would really change.
The Way of God
MR: If someone wanted to be exposed to a book or a teacher in the Jewish tradition who explains things this way, who would you recommend?
AK: To a lazy person or a non-lazy person?
MR: Let's do both.
AK: The non-lazy person, I would recommend Luzzato’s book - The Way of God.
MR: Yeah. And what about for someone who's lazy?
AK: I'm going to sound a little contradictory, forgive that…maybe To Heal a Fractured World by Jonathan Sacks, although I do not fully agree with the main arena in which he sets human purpose. Sacks does share principles that are essential to understanding life, though I would not recommend this book as a sole read for the meaning of life.
Let me back up. To live life in a fulfilling manner, we do that best by studying our lives. To understand life requires that you engage in an intensive learning process. It’s less naval gazing than an attempt to comprehend the real principles of existence, who we are as human beings, what’s our purpose, what's our constitution? What are we made of? What are the rules of the sense of constitution? What are the rules of life that will help us find fulfillment?
MR: Were you always interested in these questions?
AK: I don't know if I'm interested in them. They are compelling to answer because to live without examining them leads to an unexamined, non-directional life. I won’t say that a life filled with direction is better, if it's filled with bad direction. So, it takes some effort, but how else would you live your life?
MR: I think a lot of people go with the flow of their community. You are one of the leaders of your community but what's so interesting is you have a very global perspective. Is that a tension within you?
AK: No. Everything I see and read makes life more understandable. And it's not that I agree with everything I read…don't worry about that. Definitely not. But everything I read and see helps me learn more. It doesn't add tension, it does add a lot of flavor.
MR: Let’s take a show like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, I’m not sure if you’ve watched them. But I think they shed light on what it means to be an American today. Or reading Hamlet even. Obviously, everyone draws lines. How do you think about drawing lines for you and then maybe even for raising kids?
AK: Let's be honest. Most people consume popular culture because it's a way for them to live vicariously, and through that pass their years on earth. It's sad. They are not trying to understand their own existence from these sources.
MR: Is reading always and everywhere better than watching something?
AK: Well, you can learn by watching. But I don't think Tony Soprano has any real exchange of ideas. Basically, it tells you one principle - that even the killer is a sorrowful sad guy, messed up in his head. He's got a lot of psychological issues and relationship issues.
The True Believer
MR: So then let me ask you this: What do you do to pass the time? I mean, your brain needs some rest, right? Do you watch baseball, or will you go for a walk and go fishing?
AK: Baseball happens to be a bad example, as I never really enjoyed organized sports. By the way, I think the essence of organized sports is fascinating, highlighting that humans need a sense of tribe and belonging. Now “tribe” can be very dangerous. It has a lot of benefits, don't get me wrong, but it's also very dangerous. Sports lets you root for a notional adopted tribe in a reasonably harmless way. You get to root for somebody. I just read Eric Hoffer’s book on the nature of mass movements, called The True Believer, — a really, really good book. People just want to belong to something – we have this innate feeling that we are disconnected from something grand and awesome, and we create so many ways to fill this void. This drives our need to belong to a tribe.
Sebastian Haffner’s book Defying Hitler: A Memoir shares some more insight on this. He writes of how World War I led to World War II, not in the simplistic notion of, hey, Hitler’s stab-in-the-back, people were angry type of approach, rather a far more sophisticated view. It seems that war – as in World War I gave a lot of people meaning in the modern age, and they wanted that meaning back, and got it in World War II. He speaks of World War I as providing the thrill of war with scorekeeping for their tribe. Germans wanted it back badly. To quote Hoffner: “The truly Nazi generation was formed by those born in the decade from 1900 to 1910, who experienced war as a great game and were untouched by its realities.”
With sports people can cheer, scream, yell and be tribal in a relatively safe environment. It's not a hundred percent safe, but it's safer than two armies going to World War III.
MR: Eric Hoffer’s book is one of the great books of all time. He wrote that book while he was a stevedore. I think Eisenhower said it was the only book he kept in the Oval Office.
AK: Think about this premise: in wartime everyday people wake up with excitement for their tribe, compare that to a sports league, there are certainly some real parallels.
MR: Do you feel you have something like that? Do you have hobbies?
AK: Well, let me go back to your pathology question because you asked about two or three questions in one. I think that human beings are hardwired to be tribal. That's why Hashem set up different tribes in the Jewish people. He could have just set up the Jewish people as one nation.
There’s a certain recognition that we are wired with tribal identity, with a sense of otherness that is part of tribalism, you play yourself against the other and that's how you identify. I believe it is hardwired. Since it's hardwired, it's difficult to call it a pathology. But I would say that one would be wise to never fully trust a tribe. Because if you fully trust a tribe, you'll be carried by it even when the tribe is wrong. Tribes are a necessary part of our society, but they're also very dangerous. Although the baseball tribe is less dangerous, it might be dangerous. That’s why we get sports riots, even sometimes in seemingly nice, pleasant places like Vancouver, Canada.
Bismarck created the nation state for Germany. Before that there was no sense of a German nation. He created a new master tribe. And then, almost immediately in the historical sense, that new nation tribe, instead of warring within itself, (which it did to some degree, as all nations war within themselves), then set itself at odds with the other nation states of modern-day Europe. The tribal groupings just changed from being called tribe A, tribe B, to conglomerate tribes called modern nations. And then Hitler said, "Any Germanic person or Germanic land belongs to the tribe and the rest are not worthy and it’s ok to do whatever we want to do to those outside our tribe.” We cannot suggest that his idea was new in any way.
MR: Hitler has a chapter in Mein Kampf railing against federalism — it was essential for his project that he destroy regional power and those kinds of tribal differences.
The Garden (of Eden) State
MR: As an American rabbi do you ever have any thoughts of making aliyah? Why haven't you?
AK: I think about it quite a bit. Maybe this question should be reversed. My wife and I lived in Israel for a few years right after we got married, our first two children were born there. Why would we leave our ancestral land which we love? Nachmanides wrote of the Jew living outside Israel as one in training for the real thing. Why leave it?
I am sure I am not the only one to think of these matters, how about the many Jews in the time of the Mishnah and Talmud, who stayed in Iraq? Or those during the second temple who remained in places like Yemen or lived in Rome or across the vast diaspora? For much of our history Jews had the ability, sometimes with difficulty, often enough without, of living in our land – yet so many Jews throughout history chose not to.
For me personally it is a choice of effectiveness; where I live is subservient to where I think I can best use my strengths and talents to be the most effective for my people, and where I can properly serve Hashem. For the moment that’s here in New Jersey. Would this underlying assumption change I would pop over the great big ocean in heartbeat; my Hebrew’s not bad, I know the country well, and have so many friends there. I think the transition would be an easy one.
MR: Where are the places in Israel that really speak to you — is there a shul, rabbi, holy place, that really speaks to you in particular?
AK: I spent a day last year crawling into small caves in the Galilee, visiting the graves of the Tannaim — the Sages who wrote the Mishnah. I feel like I am bonded to these holiest of men; imagine sitting in a tiny cave in the wooded hills of north Israel, reciting a 1,700-year-old Mishnah, graveside of its author?
You can sit at the last resting place of the famous Hillel, and contemplate his timeless words, possibly even while standing on one foot, while only two hours from Jerusalem. You will probably be undisturbed, with maybe one or two other visitors, who won’t infringe on your contemplation of time, people, and knowledge. Likewise for the grave of Maimonides, over in Tiberias, I have more questions for him on things he said than you can imagine!
I had a similar experience in Iraq this year, we visited the grave of the Prophet Nachum in Alqosh, Iraq. The entire book of Nachum is 3 chapters long, so we read the book in both Hebrew and English while sitting on the walls overlooking his grave.
This is not some type of séance or necromancy, nor about securing blessings, or even some kosher form of obsession with the dead or the past; it’s wholly about right here and now. It’s about the words I treasure and hold precious — to contemplate ancient wisdom, in the presence of the departed souls of those who set our path!
MR: What would you say to Jews around the world reading this about the situation in Israel right now? Do you have any advice or guidance on what they can do?
AK: Be real proud. Stand up. Those who hate us feel that way for good reason — for the very value we bring to the world — they just hate those values. Few hate us personally, most of those who hate simply are reacting to what we represent.
Wear a yarmulke even if you are not religious. Did you know that every Jew alive today is a Jew by choice? Tens of millions, probably more, left our faith through the ages, mostly due to persecution or scorn heaped on us and sometimes Stockholm syndrome from the scorn.
If you are Jewish, you are a Jew because in every single generation your ancestors chose to embrace their greatness and to live as Jews. They chose this privilege; despite the price we are too often asked to pay for it. It’s the ultimate privilege, we should sure be proud of it.
And don’t just feel it, show your pride. Stand up. Wear your tefillin in public, put up a big fat mezuzah, go shake a lulav in Grand Central station if you want, build a nice succah on your lawn — be glorious and proud.
MR: Do you think about end times at all?
Not that sure if we are there yet. How would we know? I do think about how mankind can reach a condition of self-perfection. That can only mean a state in which the historical equilibrium in ourselves between good and evil shifts, with our good side somehow winning the battle, overcoming our dark side. Hard to imagine, for sure. But I have known individuals who were so successful in refining themselves that they reached this state — such individuals are among us.
Imagine connecting to one of them? Imagine having a real human relationship with a holy person? You can do it, they are here. They might be rabbis or rebbetzins, often enough they are just ‘regular’ people. Go out and find one and connect, that’s the end of days coming, IMHO.
MR: Where's your favorite restaurant in Israel? In America?
AK: Not a big foodie here, but there is a tiny little vegetarian restaurant called Mimonis on Rechov Agripas, right behind Mahane Yehuda market, which makes an exquisite cauliflower shwarma. They also make a chef’s special with artichokes, zucchini, and mushrooms, with polenta, and parmesan cheese in a pita. Don’t let anyone tell you that Italians are better cooks that Jews. It’s roadside seating, only 2 tiny tables and total of 4 chairs, so please don’t go there and crowd the place up, as I plan to go back.
Music?
MR: What's the last song you listened to all the way through?
AK: This Sunday night. Down near Gaza. A concert hosted by some friends for the IDF’s Golani brigade, Battalions 13 and 51.
Kobi Peretz, accompanied by Lipa Schmeltzer sang the song ואפילו בהסתרה. The song name translates roughly to “Even in the Hiding.” Kobi sang like millennia of Jewish soul. The soldiers, hardened tough guys, danced like they were in the Bet Hamikdash 2,000 years ago. The crowd intensity was beyond anything I have ever seen, as Kobi sang of the Divine light even in the darkest of times.
“Even in the most concealed of concealed places, certainly He of the blessed name is also found there. I stand with you, even through the hard times that befall you.”
To dance in a crowd with hundreds of elite soldiers, during a brief interlude in their fighting, and to see their faith, strength and beauty. Wow. These are no hardened, coarse killers. These are not some other nation’s special forces, debased and trained to kill with deadened spirit and blank eyes. These soldiers were holy Jews, facing life and death with the joy of knowing they are protecting their people. Most were not outwardly observant, all were pure. Then Kobi started handing out tzitzis to the soldiers. In a frenzy they put them on, then Kobi entered the crowd, with a Sefer Torah which all proceeded to passionately embrace and kiss with the greatest reverence and love. I will say it does get kind of interesting to be hugging, dancing and crying with joy, in a crowd where every moment you are bumping into Tavor automatic rifles, M16’s, grenade launchers and more and surrounded by true love. Just dance carefully so you don’t knock a grenade off a soldier’s belt.
One song, the eternity of a nation.
MR: What siddur do you use?
AK: My favorite; the Metsudah linear siddur. The translation is simple, no ‘thee, thou, thy’ stuff, just plain speaking, allowing the grandeur of the Hebrew to come through. The words are set at only a few to a line, allowing me to think and feel, thought by thought, without being rushed.
MR: Growing up, what food did you eat on shabbos?
AK: Let me just say that my mother’s perfect spirited character did not include expertise in cooking. The love was enough, as to the food, meh…
MR: Who is the first writer that comes to your mind right now?
AK: Josephus. I think his heart was on the right side, sadly he chose to hang with the wrong side. He left us treasures that form a key part of our understanding of history.
MR: What's the first niggun that comes to your mind right now?
AK: I’m a Litvak, what’s a niggun?
MR: What's the first sefer that comes to mind right now?
AK: Chofetz Chaim’s Machaneh Yisrael, guidance to the poor souls who were dragooned to serve as soldier for Czar Nikolai for 25 years to life. How timely.
MR: What's the first prayer that comes to mind right now?
AK: Avinu Malkeinu, Chanainu V’ainunu. We need it.
Psychology
MR: There is a deep strain of social psychology in your worldview. Is there any psychologist who influenced your thinking?
AK: I think psychology has made one massive contribution to humanity, the notion that one should be self-aware. It wasn't their notion, but Freud, probably due to his thousand years of Jewish history, was able to bring that to the world. The notion of a sense of self-awareness is the ability to remove yourself from self and to observe oneself objectively. Whether you're observing yourself with the aid of a psychologist on the couch, or you are able to observe yourself in your own room. And I don't mean just self-reflection on an incident, but to observe oneself objectively, so to speak. I think that sense of self-awareness is a contribution. In that regard, there's a certain value to it, I am just not sure yet how well psychology resolves the conflicts that are wired into our humanity. Time will tell, maybe we will know in a few hundred years, as the famous quip goes, how it turned out.
MR: How do you maintain that commitment to personal growth? It's difficult to be a Jew sometimes. Once you get to a new plateau, you're ready to fight the next character trait that you need to refine and it's constantly a battle. Don't you sometimes just want to sit back and have a burger and have a beer and go to sleep?
AK: There's an interesting study — and just because it's a study doesn't make it true…
MR: …no, no — the way to say it is, “Just because it’s a study doesn’t make it wrong”!
AK: Right?
The study claims that after people push themselves, exercising their willpower to make choices of self-restraint, their willpower seems to then wane a bit.
This suggests that when we withstand temptation it somehow breaks our spirit a bit. I might suggest that this study got too close to the subject. Let’s think of exercising spiritual willpower of self-restraint as similar to physical exercise.
Yes, after you exercise your body, you are weaker, but a day or two later you become stronger. And what can speed up the recovery is a lighter regimen of exercise on your off day, what is called a “recovery exercise day.”
Bottom line, we all tire and want to vegetate a bit. Why not just take an easy day and enjoy the good-feeling results of your personal growth labors?
MR: What are the moments when it really clicks for you?
AK: Existence. I mean, the fact that we exist is pretty darn joyful.
MR: And how do you be present? This is a challenge for a lot of people. My generation because of these phones and I don't know, maybe it's a problem for people in older generations.
AK: What about engaging and getting a life. Engaging, getting a life means just stepping back, saying what am I here for? Who am I? What are my conflicts and how do I want to go about resolving them? And not to accept any boilerplate false gods’ solutions.
There's are quite a few “false god” solutions to the meaning of life out there. But there is truth, there is reality. Reality is truth. There are solutions that are not true. They may look like they're true, they may feel like they're true. Thinking about these things really matters; for a person to really engage in and to recognize that they have conflicting aspects to themselves, hardwired into you, and that this creates internal human conflict and that joy in life and fulfillment can only come by engaging in the purpose of life, which is to refine one's self and resolve those conflicts.
After Life
MR: This is really going to seem out of left field. What is the best argument that you have or the proof that sways you the most for resurrection of the dead or the afterlife? What do you think about the afterlife?
AK: The afterlife is easy. I don’t believe that life is meaningless. I don’t believe that the things we do during our four score plus years don’t really matter. I don’t think that our lives only matter in the memories of the people after us. I don’t think life only matters in a headstone. I think what we do really matters – because we are not alive for just our time here. And btw, I don’t view it as an afterlife, rather as a continuation. And I think that few people believe the psychobabble that our lives are all evolutionary impulses and that ultimately nothing matters in the long run and that once the sun flames out and earth is gone that human endeavor never meant anything real.
As to resurrection, perhaps this calls for some light metaphysical musings: We humans have bodies, made of physical matter, and we have a spiritual meaningful side, which in English we tend to call the soul.
Try to back up for a moment and understand the idea behind resurrection. The human body is a created body. The Creator who created the body designed this body in a way that does not last (in current form) forever. We call that death, decay. The second law of thermodynamics. It's instructive that matter is not eternal and therefore an investment in matter is not eternal. Therefore, don't chase the fountain of golden youth…you're not going to find it. There is no fountain of golden youth because matter will decay, Botox, wrinkle creams and cryogenics aside. The soul does not decay, meaning and purpose are eternal, because they are not matter.
When we acknowledge that our physical bodies decay, that does not speak of the purpose that our bodies granted to us. And that idea is instructive. What is the purpose of having a human body? Why did our Creator bother with that? What is the role that that our physical bodies have in our total sense of self?
Clearly having human bodies drives so much, though not all conflict, and perhaps it’s the driver for all our conflicts. Our bodies drive us in a different direction than our spirits. We all know this to be true. I don't need to paint a picture of the man in the bar and the beautiful woman next to him and his wife at home…everybody understands this. The body of humans drives us in ways that we ourselves don’t appreciate. We don't have to paint the picture of the poor obese person wolfing down a couple of Big Macs and some Pepsi Cola to understand that matter pulls the person in a different direction than the spirit. Everyone understands this.
We are comprised of two conflicting sides to the human being, the spirit and the matter. The spirit pulls in one direction, matter pulls to the other.
This is not our only conflict, but a significant part of our conflicts are rooted in this split nature.
We all know we're happier when we follow our spirit versus being led by our physical matter. Everybody knows that. They might not follow it because it's not that easy, but we all know it.
If we didn’t have this conflict, there would be no satisfaction in conquering our challenges. This conflict allows us purpose. Although our bodies are constructed of physical matter, the matter is a key part of helping our spiritual self having a sense of purpose.
In summary: our physical bodies have great spiritual purpose in that the body allows the spirit to strengthen itself and to mature and grow. Like a boxer and the punching bag. The bag has no brain, but the punching bag serves a purpose. In that regard, matter has great spiritual value too. And that spiritual value is eternal. The nature of the relationship between our spirit and our bodies is an eternal one because of the role that physical matter plays in the development of the spirit.
So why would I not believe in the eternity of this purpose? Perhaps this is what religion means when it speaks of the physical matter being resurrected – having an eternal role to play that goes beyond the limited span of our body’s physical state.
Now how this happens is beyond my purview of understanding. I rely on the Torah for that. But the idea that our physical matter has made a contribution beyond the blade of grass, beyond the atom, beyond the physical essence to the spirit, that's clear to me. There's no question that it does that. And in this regard, it has eternal existence.
MR: Do you spend time reading any of these philosophers on consciousness and any of these neuroscientists on consciousness? Is that interesting to you?
AK: I've read a bunch of them.
Most of them have a bias, they start with the bias that everything that happens is only because of evolution. That nauseates me a little bit. Come on, just give me the facts of what you know, don't give me your interpretation of anything. They have to explain everything in this struggle for survival. I think I'm reading Nietzsche all over again. Hey, calm down. Just give me the facts. They poison the well for me. I can get that well- that wisdom from 3,300 years of Judaism without the poison. I find that more fulfilling. But I always like to know what's out there, so I'll read it anyway a little bit.
MR: Who are the people in the Jewish world that influenced you the most?
AK: My father, certainly. My mother, certainly.
Manchester Rosh Yeshiva, certainly.
Rabbi Noah Weinberg.
MR: What advice do you give to a young person who wants to learn from this tradition?
AK: I think to realize that the Judaism that your friends and family told you about has nothing to do with authentic Judaism.
MR: And what do you mean by that?
AK: The Judaism that the secular Jew is taught has little resemblance to Judaism. Or I should say it has some resemblance, but very little authenticity. That’s a tragedy. We have the most beautiful, wise, learned tradition and secular Jews have no clue what they are missing. They never read a single great Jewish work, have no clue about our kings and land and history and philosophers and ideas and how we shaped the planet. They know more about Scotland than about Israel.
MR: And what do you think is the biggest difference?
AK: It's not centered around Torah. The version they are taught is depressing bar mitzvah lesson pablum, stripped of the basics and left with empty formalities. It's like getting married but never going home. You just have a party. It's like you have a Hanukkah party, you do a Pesach party and your Jewish. Too much general sentiment and not enough soul work.
MR: And what does going home look like in Judaism?
AK: It’s living in a relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
MR: But a lot of people don't hear him or can’t feel connected.
AK: You have soul — think about your soul. Your soul is not satisfied with mere existence alone. It never will be. It will rebel. That’s your soul speaking. It speaks every day to you. Of course, you hear G-d. If you didn’t hear G-d you would be miserable and empty. When we don’t pay attention to our soul and G-d our soul-side rebels.
The soul might not take tranq on the street in Philadelphia or in Portland as it can’t rebel like that, but the soul’s just going to rebel if it is denied its fulfillment. That leads to much misery.
MR: What's tranq?
AK: Tranq is the latest drug right now. It's a street drug — people just zombie out.
MR: Oh, so it's like an iPhone.
AK: Oh, it's worse.
MR: No, no, no. It's not worse than an iPhone.
AK: Probably not worse.