WEBVTT - The Big Feelings 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.360 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. When 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.560 I look back, I see one through line from that 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:13.480 moment when I was seven, all the way from now, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.479 which is my whole left goal is to create a 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.160 space that is safe enough to stay in the room. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.759 It's uncomfortable, but like we are strong enough to hold it. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.360 We're strong enough to hold this pain. We're strong up 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.920 to hold this truth, and that strength will set us free. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.320 That's Rabbi David Inger, one of the most celebrated and 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:40.199 respected spiritual leaders in America. I know firsthand the way 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.760 David holds the pain and truth of others. He has 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.920 held mine more than once, and, as is so often 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.880 true of those who have open, empathic, compassionate hearts, those 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.760 hearts have been cracked wide open. As the man once said, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:12.000 that's how the light gets in. I'm Danny Shapiro, and 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.560 this is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.840 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:26.280 keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape of your childhood. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:32.000 M hmm, Well, I'm the youngest of four children. The 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:36.120 youngest is kind of maybe funny. I'm have a twin brother, 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.759 but we're two minutes or so apart, at least that's 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.520 what they told us. Grew up in Great Nick, Long Island. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:47.080 My father was a I guess a refugee kind of 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.880 came over from Germany and I think he was five 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.360 and he was born to an Orthodox Jewish family from 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:58.680 Berlin and made his way here and grew up in 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.560 Forest Hills in Queensland with his younger brother. And that 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.960 my mother. She was sixteen when they had and they 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.839 got married when she was seventeen and had my two 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.000 older sisters, beteen Enemar, and then we were born in 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.560 nineteen sixty nine, but moved to Great Neck in nineteen 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.400 seventy one, so I grew up in an affluent suburb 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.520 of New York. My father was a very well known 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.280 attorney and the real estate real estate attorney and well 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.120 respected member of our Jewish committee, one of the founders 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.400 and kind of engines behind the modern Orthodox Jewish family 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.600 that we had in the community that we lived in. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.519 And my mom was worked at home. She was a homemaker. 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.400 Can you describe for listeners who don't know the distinctions 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.000 what it would have been like to grow up in 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.640 a modern Orthodox Jewish home it's a great question. I 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.560 think that modern Orthodoxy, as opposed to Orthodoxy in general, 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:00.120 kind of traditional Jewish observance generally tended to be slightly 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.600 and you know, have an antipathy, a kind of tension 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:09.400 with mcgernity. And so traditional Orthodoxy religion was paramount, and 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.280 religion was and religious observance was deeply insular and deeply 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.959 protective and purl kial right. And in the nineteen hundreds, 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.720 in nineties century rather in Germany, there was kind of 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.520 a movement to integrate both Magernity and science and all 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.640 of these features of the modern life in some way 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:33.239 with Orthodox Jewish life. And so modern Orthodoxy was decidedly 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:38.320 this hybrid between deeply engaged in Jewish life, people engaged 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.440 in what many would consider to be Orthodoxy and observance 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.440 and and all of the strictures and the rules and 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.480 all of the culture of zag but together with an 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.920 intention with and sometimes the tension, you know which one 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.800 in this tension modernity and kind of being a typical American, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.160 so we grew up like that, we you know, on 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.160 the outside of dressed like the typical American and typical 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.000 kids who lived in the suburbs we didn't look any 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.040 on the outside. We didn't look any different than any 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.200 of the other kids that we're growing up with. But 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.320 we went to a school that had you know, Biblical 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.960 studies and Talmutic studies and all the religious studies. And 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.880 then we also ate Kosher and we kept shabat in 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.920 a very orthodox way, meaning no lights and no phones, 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.760 and you know, the prayers on Friday night and going 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.479 to Sending God and Saturday morning very very big deal, 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.240 and you know, all the holidays, and so we kind 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.599 of lived this dual life that sought synthesis but didn't 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.760 always achieve it. And that's kind of like what the 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.640 Orthodox min Orthodox really really I grew up with. You know, 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.080 we dated, but like we're not supposed to were sort 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.800 of you know, we dateated girls and you weren't supposed 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.920 touch them. That was considered to be you know, sherman 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.120 to get you know, allowed to touch someone that you're 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.760 not married to. And so you can imagine Danny and 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.320 you know that as well, like you can imagine the 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.280 tension between being you know, a kid who loved depeche 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.320 Mode and R. E. M And all the great music 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.920 and very involved in American cultural life, but also had 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.600 this weird double life of being an Orthodox Jew you 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.000 can't always work out. Yeah, it's so interesting hearing you 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.479 say all this, because we grew up similarly in that sense, um, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.040 And I mean I felt that tension tremendously because there 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.960 wasn't a community around my parents and me who were 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.719 also modern Orthodox. We were sort of this modern Orthodox 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.800 family plunked into a neighborhood that was a mishmash of 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:34.279 many other faiths and ethnicities. And so I'm wondering where 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.279 that tension lived in you, because you know, I grew 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.040 up and rebelled and sort of moved pretty far away 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.040 from all that you grew up and ultimately became a rabbi. Well, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:45.680 I had my rebellion. But I think that for me 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.880 as a kid, I was always very very connected spiritually 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.280 to God, to talk to God all the time, had 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.200 a running conversation with God. God was my best friend. 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.920 And especially because I experienced tremendous trauma in my first 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.279 ten years of life, I drew on that in a 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.200 very deep way, Like I very much turned to God 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.880 and prayed to God. Those were all true for me, 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:09.480 and what was also true for me in terms of 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.080 the tension was that I also was you know, I 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.360 was an athlete. I was an Abbot. Sports were like 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.120 you know, my other religion, Like I lived in in 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.960 breed sports together with my twin brother, we were always 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.479 out in the field and always playing after school and 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:25.480 playing in school is one of the ways that I 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.279 used sports to natigate socially, Like you know, I was 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.240 popular because I was a good athlete and so on. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.160 So the world of sports was also very much a 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.960 part of that world, but also with girls and sexuality 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.240 and all manner of just growing up and being a 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.760 human being. I think that the tension, you know, came 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.640 to full full on a tension and rebellion of course, 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.000 around puberty and sexuality. But I also think that there 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.560 was also a lingering sense of guilt, because I think 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.280 it's a model that at you at least for me, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.920 I never fully felt like we were as orthodox as 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:59.880 we should be or as secular as we should be, 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.880 Like it never nothing, nothing ever felt like it landed 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.560 Like you know, my cousins who were much more observed, 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.080 much more orthodox, felt like they had a less tense life, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.920 and I was wondered if they were the real one 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.040 the real orthodox, the real observant ones. And then on 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.240 the other hand, I also, you know, I wasn't so 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.120 involved in Jewish life that I couldn't imagine falling in 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.240 love with a non Jewish girl and living a completely 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.120 non Jewish life in somewhere or non religious life. So 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.400 I think that those tensions we used to go on 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.440 Saturday afternoons, I think once I hit puberty, my best 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.600 friend Yets father was a guy in ecologist and their 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.920 home was like a like a five minute walking months 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.560 and on Saturday afternoon on Shabbat, on the Sabbath after 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.480 we had a religious lunch and sang our religious songs 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.120 and really pined and yearned with my dad for you know, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.120 for God and for love and for spirituality. We would 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:56.560 walk over to his house where his parents were not home, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.400 and we were introduced to the world of inappropriate movies 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:04.280 or in a magazines. You know, So that guilt of 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.160 like both, you know, the rebellion was there but also 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.360 was held intention with feeling like you were sinning when 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.760 you were just being an average young boy was always 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.640 there and so there was never like you know, remember 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.520 the song from Depeche Moden. I was a kid like, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.720 you know, it's a it's a sin. I don't remember 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.200 that song. It goes something like, um, everything I've ever done, 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.720 everything I ever do, it's a sin. As I look 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:32.600 back up right, it's like as I look back upon 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.640 my life, it's always with a sense of shame. I've 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.320 always been the one to blame. So I kind of 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.800 feel like the religious patriarchy and some of the attitudes 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.480 of Orthodoxy that we're intention also we're deeply scarring, I 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.840 think for healthy development. And so those those are some 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.120 of the places that I remember everything you just said, 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.800 my mind is my mind is blown. You refer to 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:04.280 a childhood trauma. Can you talk about that? Sure? Um, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.200 I was sexually molested in camp when I was seven 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.280 year old. I didn't remember it until I was in 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.240 my in my twenties, and I then was I had 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.640 a series of summers. It began with that summer, but 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.920 and then successive summers. I was physically abused by a 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.080 number of counselors in camp over the course of three summers. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:34.520 Those experiences deeply, deeply affected me and left significant starring 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.120 that I then had to heal later on in my life. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.800 And when I speak of my spiritual connection to God 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.480 or the spirit. That broken heartedness was a deep, a 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:49.640 deep imprint on me that then ultimately led me to 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.880 to where I became. But I became as an adult. 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.480 Was it the same camp all three summers? No, it wasn't. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.400 What was remarkable, I mean, this is just basically I mean, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.360 it's just like, so, there's a crazy thing. So so 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.040 I don't even remember half of the story in the 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.719 London in my in my twenties, right, and so I 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.400 remember when I remembered it. I was a long story, sure, 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.160 But when I was in my early twenties, I had 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.559 become a kind of fast ward with my story there 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.640 a little bit because after high school I went for 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.760 a year to Israel to study abroad. And that's kind 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.720 of de rigorous something that a lot of kids were 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.760 in the modern Orthodox world will go to for a 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:32.280 year seminary to Israel. It sounds much more like a 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:34.240 very serious year than what it really is. It's just 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.120 an exposure to being away from your family before you 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.440 go to college. And most parents hope that the kids 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.719 don't become too religious, and they just get religious enough 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.200 so that when they do go to college, they don't 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.719 you know, you don't marry somebody wasn't Jewish, and it's 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.199 just a chance to him to have an experience of 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.520 learning intensively. And I basically came back ultra Orthodox, like 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.560 I went as a modern Orthodox kid who was going 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.520 to go to college. And I come back after two 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:01.280 years in Israel, and I am like, full on looking 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:02.959 like my cousins. You know, when I was a kid, 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.280 my cousins with the long you know, dreadlocks and the 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.720 whole thing. I looked like a Hussad. And then I 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.600 go on this deeply religious trip for about five years, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.600 and during that time I really have a break, like 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.680 I really have a break in reality. I go into 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.800 mystical states and I wind up getting completely lost in religion. 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.720 And I wake up five years into this, and I 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.079 realized that religion was essentially what I was using to 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.640 cover over some really really deep wounds in my heart 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.040 and in my psyche. And so I begin this journey 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.199 of healing. And the first thing I read and watch 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.719 is this John Bradshaw character from the nineties who is 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.080 the father of the Inner child work and the father 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.840 of homecoming and healing the shame that binds you. All 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.360 these really really vital works that exposed the American public to, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.640 like for the first time, to these really profound notions 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.480 of pathology within the family and also how family systems 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.360 work and all this kind of business. And I just 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.079 get toned on and I wind up climbing like. One 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.800 of the only people doing Bradshaw's therapy in New York 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.400 at the time ninety three is a therapist out an 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.960 ice Lip, Long Island. It's about two hours from my 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:14.600 house in Great Night, Like I have to go to 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.360 the city. I'm going to go to Manhattan and to 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.240 go to ice Lip. It's a huge trip. And I 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.600 go out there and I'm in the therapist office and 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.960 I'm doing this kind of deep meditative work with with 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.520 this therapist, and all of a sudden, I retrieved this 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.640 memory of being a seven year old in a camp 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:36.079 called Camp Tagola and having a counselor, and this counselor 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.959 I remember him lesting me. Now, what I remembered before 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:42.920 that event was that I remember that I had been 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:47.160 beaten up so one evening. I don't remember being in it, 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.080 but I remember it from the outside as it were. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.440 He was supposed to take me to the bathroom and 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.360 to go every night I to the bathroom, and instead 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.160 he winds up beating me up, and the lights go 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.160 on and the camp comes in and they stay me, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.079 and he gets fired and they take him away. Right, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.040 that's the part I remembered, But I didn't remember the 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:16.000 molestation until I was twenty three. I never ceased to 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.720 be amazed at what the psyche can handle, by which 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.640 I mean what our psyches can push down out of 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.959 reach until we're strong enough to handle whatever has been 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.240 buried there. It's like we have these different memory baskets. 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.400 David's memory of being beaten up is awful, but he's 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.560 able to retain it. He has a certain amount of 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.880 agency in that story. The counselor is fired, there are witnesses, 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.600 but the sexual molestation there are no witnesses, only a 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.520 potent residue of shame that pushes that memory into a 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.920 far distant basket where it remains for nearly two decades. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.840 It was just so painful, and not just in terms 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.640 the social stigma, but it was just so painful, you know, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.440 that level of violation. It was just so intimate and 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.000 so connected with the shame, the shame that children experience 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.280 in those moments, because it's also wrapped up with connection, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.200 but it was like a connection, or at least the 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.120 way that these at least often play out is that 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.320 you're young and absolutely vulnerable and trusting and open. And 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.720 so it was a kind of a deep scar for me. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.640 And what was most what was most remarkable to me 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:34.960 was that that in my family and I have a 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:41.000 very loving and courageous and strong family, there remarkable people, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:46.119 and this never made its way into our collective identity 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.680 and memory, like it doesn't exist. Nobody wanted to talk 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.480 about it. There's no there was no room to talk 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.120 about it. Even when we do remember abuse and we 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.040 get to talk about it, often those who love us 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.080 find it hard to hear. And I think that is 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.760 also part of the way that the fear manifests to, 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.520 is that we're so afraid to talk about something that 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:13.080 makes us uncomfortable. We're so collectively averse to discomfort by nature. 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.200 It's remarkable, right well, And it's also then this kind 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:24.280 of merry go round of secrecy, silence, shame, secrecy, silence, shame, 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.360 Around and around we go and one feeds the other. 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.280 Right when I remembered it, it was deeply liberating for 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.080 me to have had that secret as it were surfaced 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.240 for me and to tell the truth about it. And 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.120 it was actually, you know, I want to get ahead 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:42.440 of myselfiters and how I became a rabbi ultimately, But 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.240 that that moment in my life, it was when I 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.720 left religion and then went on a journey for about 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.760 a decade or so healing that was catalyzed by my 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:58.480 deep desire to not use religion or anything else as 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:02.800 a way to cover over the necessary healing what what 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.480 young and others have called like you're legitimate suffering, like 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.320 a legitimate suffering that as a human being I needed 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.680 to experience and heal so that when I did come 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.240 essentially back to religion and back to some of these 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.840 other things, that I wouldn't use it as a way 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:27.440 to cover up secrets. Such a powerful notion. I mean, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.120 we know that we use things to cover over what 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:36.000 David calls our necessary healing. Some of us use drugs, booze, sex, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:41.520 the internet, dizziness, distraction, I could go on. But David 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.040 becomes aware that he's using religion as a means to 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:50.080 cover over, to avoid that necessary healing, and that awareness 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.280 takes him on a journey that ultimately brings him back 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:58.160 to God, but on very different terms. Can you talk 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.760 a little bit about that decade, Aid and what that 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.800 journey was and then the decision to go to rabbinic 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:10.080 school and become a rabbi. Sure, I know many of 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.040 your listeners and certainly you're familiar with Alice Miller's booth. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.480 You know that was originally called Prisoners of Childhood, and 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.879 then it was the Drama of the Gifted Child. And 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.639 I think that my own journey over the course of 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.520 that decade was very much I was living as a 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.600 waiter in New York City. I kind of made a 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.360 living as a waiter. I kind of worked at night, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.040 and during the day I was doing this deep work. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.960 I got very involved in in yoga, I got very 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.840 involved in Eastern meditation and other modalities of healing. You know, 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:40.760 I just, you know, all of a sudden, it was 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.240 like I was in New York City. Is that the 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.359 cornucopia of life? Like I experienced aliveness and that was 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.119 like my number one desire during this ten years was 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.359 to really reconnect with the quality of aliveness that I 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:54.960 had known as a child, that I had lost to 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.280 some degree after these traumas and that I had lost 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.200 also in my teams, and that certainly would have came 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.280 a religious fanatic. For five years, I was completely in 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.800 the closet as a as a human and so here 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:07.720 I you know, I went through those ten years of 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.560 self exploration and travel, and you know, I became like 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.320 a bit of a spiritual dilettante. I sat meditation retreats, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.600 I enrolled in massage school for ACU pressure, I was 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.600 a teacher of plotis. I did a lot of these 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.800 things over you know, I could go through a whole 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.239 list of them, but all of them were basically in 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:34.320 some way in service of self healing, self discovery, self empowerment, aliveness, UM. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.879 And so that's essentially the decade. It was. It was 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.159 a lot of experiences and a lot of healing, but 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.639 one thing that I couldn't move away from was a 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.399 spiritual calling. And I felt like the spiritual calling in 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.119 everything that I was doing was calling me back to 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.879 my religious tradition, but to see it and feel it 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.760 in a way that was now informed by the things 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.600 that I had experienced in other places, you know, more meditation, 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:04.200 more aliveness, more embodied approach to sexuality into being a 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.520 human are just a much more liberal and open ended 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.600 way to be in Jewish life. That's essentially how it 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:18.240 came back. We'll be back in a moment with more 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:31.320 family secrets. When David is just two years out of 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.480 rabbinical school in two thousand six, he creates a community 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.760 on the Upper West Side of New York City called 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.160 Roma MoU. Today, Roma MoU is one of the most 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:48.639 beloved institutions in contemporary Jewish culture, a welcoming, experiential, irreverently pious, 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:54.000 intergenerational Jewish community that elevates and transforms individuals and communities 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.199 into more compassionate human beings. Its stores are open to 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.720 spiritual seekers and skept dicks alike, sharing a path that 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.840 celebrates our wholeness and provides practical, grounded ways to heal 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:11.439 our brokenness. In other words, David builds a spiritual world 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.920 on his terms, one that rises up from his own trauma, 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:23.240 his stops and starts his healing journey. In Judaism, there 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:29.520 is a Hebrew phrase tikun olam, which translates into repair 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.560 the world. It's all we can try to do for me. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.359 It was an amazing journey of retrieval. You know, we 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.720 often speak about in the healing word regression in service 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.919 of the ego, where you go back to bring something forward. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.439 And I think that me going back to Judaism was 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:48.800 a desire to go back and take what was really 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.800 beautiful there and pull it through into my present reality. 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.280 And it wasn't easy because in my thirties I was 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.919 still in this kind of fantasy bond, which is what 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.080 some people call the way that we still look at 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.560 our parents as God's He can be in a fantasy 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.399 bond with your religious tradition, like I think, I was 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.040 still thinking the Judaism was perfect and God given him, 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:09.919 and I was to blame, right, it's all. You know. 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.240 I just had a ten years of walking away and 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:13.680 I was gonna heal myself. But then I was gonna 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.879 come back to the Orthodox again, and I almost got 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.439 caught in there. And thankfully I tried an Orthodox or 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.000 clinical school that was modern when I tried coming back 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.440 to Judaism in my early thirties, and luckily, I felt 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.119 like I had a size ten soul and its size 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.520 four religious tradition and it just didn't work. You know, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:35.480 there were enough blisters on my soul. At that point, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.119 I said, Nope, that's not working, and I left. And 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.600 I'm lucky to have met my teacher, whose name is 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:45.080 Rabbi Zalman Shakter. And when I met him, it was 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.119 like a chiropractic adjustment on my soul, like I just 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:50.320 I felt like I met somebody who was in it. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.119 He was eighty years old when I met him, and 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.560 I was in my thirties, and he had already been 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.760 through a Hasidic ultra Orthodox jew who then found the 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.080 counterculture of the sixties and had had done all of 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:06.840 these things, but had created a very new age, open ended, 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.639 deeply spiritual, meditative, but liberal expression of Jewish life. And 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.720 when I met him in two thousand and four, he 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.200 ordained me. And two years later I started this community 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:18.919 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and that was it, 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.400 and kind of like you know, it's now fourteen years 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:24.600 since we started it, and as you know, it's it's 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.040 grown and we have more than one. We have one 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.159 in Brooklyn too, and we started our own seminary Shiva 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.840 to train people and to engage people in this kind 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:40.760 of more open hearted, embodied Jewish expression. So David build 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.159 and makes his own home, spiritually speaking, which becomes a 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.800 home to so many others. He marries his wife Ariel, 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.840 and they start a family. This might seem like an ending, 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.159 all wrapped up in a bow, but of course that 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.200 isn't how life unfolds, not for David, not for any 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.119 of us. We got married a dozen in dates, and 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.080 we had our first child and new dozen nine there. 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.359 And I think one of the most remarkable things is 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.720 that the thing about secrets, and the thing also about 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:15.840 karma or or whatever it is that we carry whatever 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.320