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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Rabbi Mark, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for having, for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me Ari.
Speaker 1:You know, I just did a podcast where I was the guest yesterday, so I'm getting confused between the having me and joining the show. It's all good. So we've never had a rabbi on the show so we're gonna start with some really basic questions. Does anybody become a rabbi? Like is what makes you make that decision?
Speaker 2:Well, for me personally, and I think for for most, it's a calling. So there's when one listens to the call of one's inner life, the call of the soul is I like to say, then you know exactly what you're supposed to do. You know what you were created for. And even though it took me a long time to figure it out, I knew that there was something greater that I wanted to do, service I wanted to do. And and for me, Judaism spoke to me in a way that helped me in my recovery from alcoholism and criminality, helped me to be able to live in my own skin for the first time.
Speaker 2:And, I read the Torah and I I see I see myself in every, chapter. I see it in every verse almost. And so for me, being able to live into it and teach and help other people grow into who they're supposed to be, I had no choice, really. It was just such a strong call that I had to listen to it and follow it. If I'm if I may, tell
Speaker 1:us about that. And and, you know, this is the show of going down the rabbit hole and asking difficult questions. If I may ask you a difficult question, if you would be willing to share what rock bottom looked like and what that ironically, that moment of realization or epiphany was for you, what that that kind of before and after looked like.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, I had fallen so far off any path of decency, any, real humanity. I mean, I was a father, I loved my daughter, I was a son, I loved my mother, a brother, etcetera. And yet I wasn't being human. I was a drunk and a thief.
Speaker 2:And, so here's a funny story. I'm on my way. I am living in Los Angeles. I'm on the run from the cops because I know they're looking for me again. And I'm gonna go it's a Thursday, and on Friday, I'm going to Las Vegas to bet a 10 team football parlay.
Speaker 2:I was a good handicapper in those days at three fifty to one, and I was gonna I was gonna make proud of my head. I was gonna win, and I'd get about $75,000, pay off all my debts, and be clean. Instead, I'm walking across the street and a white Ford Fairmount turns the corner. And I'm just I'm looking at the sports page. I'm looking at the, odds, etcetera.
Speaker 2:And somebody gets out of the car and calls my name. I look up. It's detective Jim Bashira. This is December 1986. He had arrested me in January 1981.
Speaker 2:He had seen in November a wanted poster on me from Santa Barbara County, and it all clicked. He arrested me. I'm in a jail cell. I get phone calls. So I call my, my first wife and I say, come pick up this money because they want me on theft and I have cash.
Speaker 2:So I said, come pick up this money. She said, what bail bondsman do you want me to call? I said, don't call anyone. The man upstairs is trying to tell me something, and I have to sit here until I figure it out. Ari, I hadn't thought about God.
Speaker 2:I hadn't thought about Judaism. I hadn't thought about anything. That was an ecstatic experience. So I called my brother, who was, who is a rabbi and has been a rabbi for fifty years. And I said, send me a, a, a Torah and a prayer book.
Speaker 2:And he did. And I went back to dovening, to to not praying, not a but dovening, being engaged in the prayers like I had learned from the old men I used to, go to shul with, go to minion with after my father died when I was 14, and I'm 35 at the time. So I'm going twenty one years. I'm going back. And I found I I started to read the Torah, and I I saw, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Here I am. What the fuck? How didn't I see this? Why didn't I read it like this? How come I wasn't taught this?
Speaker 2:And the prayers just made me look inside myself. So that was the epiphany. And when I got to prison, Rabbi Mel Silberman of Blessed Memory started to study with me. I said, are you gonna cut me loose? Because nobody really wanted anything to do with me because if you had anything to do with me, I screwed you over.
Speaker 2:I was a spiritual rapist at the time because if you trusted me, I would screw you over. I would take that trust, stamp stomp on it, and get what I wanted to get. And he said, how can I cut you loose? You're a Jew. You're one of my own.
Speaker 2:And I cried. And we started studying. And that is not only did I have the epiphany, but I followed it through for a change, which was, I'd never followed anything through except being a drunk and a criminal. So I gave that same passion I had for alcohol, the same passion I had for being a thief, and I put it into something good, which was learning about me. And since 1987, February 1987, to be exact, I have studied every day and I prayed every day and I've learned more about me every day.
Speaker 2:And I've been engaged in the process of teshuvah, repentance, return, and new response, which really for me is repair, change, and hope. For the past thirty eight years. And my life is fantastic.
Speaker 1:What do you think made it stick? I mean, you know, a lot of people hit rock bottom and they relapse. What was different for you in the experience that made it stick?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I think, you know, I didn't have a lot of places to go. I was sort of a captive audience. Really though, it was that it spoke With to
Speaker 1:that said, right, I think the number who get out of jail end up back in there. So, so the stats are still showcasing that you succeeded in a big way.
Speaker 2:Right. When I was in prison, it was 80% recidivism. But what happened was I took the time. I, Rabbi Silverman introduced me to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hashel, and that he changed my life. He spoke to the loneliness that I I experienced.
Speaker 2:He spoke to my soul. He spoke to my mind and the Torah, I kept reading it and reading it, and I saw myself in Jacob, who actually, you know, Jacob, Israel, he was a con, a cheat, a liar, and a thief. I liked him. I could relate to him. And then Judah Judah screws his daughter-in-law and gets king David.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not fair. So I learned life isn't fair, and there's always return. Are you willing to do the work? And I spent the two years that, that year in, in, well, eighteen, nineteen months in prison doing nothing but this work. I wasn't perfect.
Speaker 2:I still had a little side hustle, you know, and it wasn't some goody two shoes. And I knew that this was the only way I was going to be able to live. The, again, in 1987, I think it was March, February or March, I got a letter from my, at that point, 6.5 year old daughter. Dear daddy, I hate you. You're a part of me.
Speaker 2:When you're in in jail, a part of me is in jail. Love, Heather. I mean, I have the epiphany. I meet Rabbi Silverman, start to study, and I get this letter. So I I I owed.
Speaker 2:See, one of the things that Rabbi Haschel talks about is the debt. So when I realized that I owed and it was time for me to pay the debt, I had no choice but to do what it takes to be a decent human being. I thought of my father, Oliver Shalom. He was a moral man. He was a good man.
Speaker 2:My my, most of my uncles, good people. My aunts, etcetera, you know, everybody's a good person. I had one uncle that wasn't, and I followed him, and I said, no, I can't do it anymore. I can't live like this. So it was a spiritually conscious decision that said enough.
Speaker 2:Was
Speaker 1:there a moment where you almost relapsed to old patterns because change is difficult? How did you stop yourself?
Speaker 2:Well, there's two moments I can tell you. Early on, I, when I got out, I went to work at Beit Shuva, and, and the Jewish residential recovery center in Los Angeles founded by my now wife, Harriet Rosetto. And we were having a problem one Friday night and I got pissed off and I walked home. It was about a mile and a half and I was steaming. And I had a sponsor in AA, and I called them, and I said, I I I'm not doing this.
Speaker 2:This is ridiculous. It's bullshit. People are full of crap. Blah blah. And he said, did you drink?
Speaker 2:I said, no. And I go on into a rant, and he stops me again. He says, you haven't had a drink? I said, no. I haven't had a fucking drink.
Speaker 2:And he says, do you know you're the he's then why are you calling me? I said, we had a deal that before I did anything stupid or changed anything, I would call you. I keep my deals. And he started to laugh. He says, you're the first guy in twelve years of doing this that called me before.
Speaker 2:And I started to laugh. So I knew that I wasn't gonna, you know, okay, you got pissed off. You went into one of your rants, calm yourself down, apologize to Harriet and move forward. Yeah. And then later on in the nineties, there was a scam going on with the Russians for a Medicare scam.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to rabbinical school at the time, making $20 a year working. It's supposed to be part time, but it's really full time and going to, going to rabbinical school, learning two new languages, Hebrew and Aramaic. Nobody marked Aramaic much. Not around here. And so, so, they're telling me about how much money they're making and the thought goes through my head.
Speaker 2:Wow. I could do this for a couple of months. Get, you know, make a ton of money and quit. And then I started laughing. I started laughing out loud.
Speaker 2:The guy I'm sitting with says, what's the I said, I kept, I thought, well, why don't I do this for a couple months? Get the money, and won't be in debt, be able to pay for school completely? And and then I realized there's no fucking way I'm gonna do this for a couple months. I'll get seduced. God bless you.
Speaker 2:No. Thanks. Because I could see what this whole process of Chuba gives me is such clarity of vision inside of me. And I learned how to wrestle with my own Yeatserhara, my own evil inclination, and transform it to do good.
Speaker 1:My son yesterday, he is as sick as a dog and he started this business basically. He's 13. And he started this business basically selling stuff on eBay and he is as sick as a dog and he looks terrible, right? Like he's he looks like he's not drinking enough. We're telling him to drink and he's not and he's he's he's fighting with this box cause he has to package this package to ship it out next day because that's his commitment to the customer.
Speaker 1:And he's 13. And I'm like, why why don't you do this tomorrow? Like, don't worry about it. And he's like, no, dad. I made a commitment.
Speaker 1:I gave my word. I need to honor it. And I gave him the easy way out. I gave him the easy button. And he said that to me, and I I have goosebumps just remembering, you know, what happened last night.
Speaker 1:I said I said to him, Liam, I am proud of you. You know, technically you became a man when you became 13, but now you're an adult. That's what adults do. They carry through, through their words. And that's what you did in that moment.
Speaker 1:And I mean, oh my God, what a, what a thought if everyone just did that.
Speaker 2:Right. Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 1:Wouldn't that be nice? So you go through your own trials and tribulations, you're seduced, and we don't technically have a devil in Judaism, but you're seduced by the evil thoughts or the evil wills. At some stage you come to the conclusion you want to make a change or help others. When did that happen?
Speaker 2:Well, happened during the time I was in prison, the seed started. And then when I got out and I went to work at Beit Shuva, the first thing I did was I said I wanted to lead a Torah study every morning.
Speaker 1:How do you not feel like an impostor? You're basically out of jail and you want to lead something which is considered, for lack of better words, divine, how do you step into that and say I'm going to help others where I failed?
Speaker 2:It wasn't so much, I'm going to help others where I failed. It was here's what's helping me live well. And I need a community. I need people to wrestle with the text for this moment. So what's what what is what is this chapter telling me in this moment?
Speaker 2:And what's it telling other people? And how do we reflect our ideas and our souls, our authentic, parts to one another. And so I looked at, again, it was a calling. It wasn't, I mean, you're right. Okay?
Speaker 2:In some ways, it's outrageous, arrogant, audacious, etcetera. But isn't that what spirituality is? I mean, spiritually living a spiritual life, living into, living Jewishly, as I like to say, is audacity at its height. Not a lot of people live Jewishly. Even the rabbis and the, you know, blah blah blahs don't live Jewishly.
Speaker 2:Living into the text I mean, think about it. Nehmanides, says in in Leviticus chapter 19, it says, you will be holy because I I I am holy. I mean, think about that. Is that not an audacious statement? It's outrageous.
Speaker 2:And when you look at biblical Hebrew, when it's in the future, what we would call the future tense, it means something that started but not yet completed. So we're born. We have holiness in our guts.
Speaker 1:The the the that? The thing that's I mean, that's worth staying on for a moment. It's future tense. There's no you are. There's no tomorrow.
Speaker 1:It's you will be.
Speaker 2:Yes. And that means you already are on the continuum. So how do you move forward? And we already had all the laws, so why do we need to know that we're holy? Because as as, the Ramban says, you can be.
Speaker 2:You can be a scoundrel within the bounds of the of the text of the law. And so it's really talking about the spirit of the law as well as the letter. Because if all you do is the letter, you can bastardize it in a moment, and we see that happening today, be you Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. We see it in all the religions, the major, western religions, where people are bastardizing the beauty that the the korosh, the holiness.
Speaker 1:So so this this is maybe the biggest pet peeve that I have. And it's not about the word, it's about the thought. Explain to me your philosophy as it comes to interpretation because one thing can be interpreted, you know, in multiple ways. And in fact, it's built into the system. Right?
Speaker 1:Hillel, Shamai, How do you approach interpretation? Because you can read the one text and come out with very different interpretations. We see that throughout all the religions. What's the process that one should apply to get somewhere, let's say, of value to themselves and to the people around them?
Speaker 2:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, Rabbi, you're not getting the easy questions today.
Speaker 2:That's great. I love it. So here's the thing, Ari, for me. There are parts of the Torah that I know were added later. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Okay. Because what's the main part of the text? The the 10 sayings. Mhmm. The holiness code.
Speaker 2:What comes right after the 10 the the the 10 commandments, 10 sayings is social ordinances, how to live with one another. Yes. So I have to see the text different every year. I want you to understand that if I look at it and I have the same thing that I have last I had last year, then I am stuck. So my spiritual growth is measured by how I see the text.
Speaker 1:So but there's something fundamentally problematic maybe about what you're saying. Shouldn't there be a right answer?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Explain that.
Speaker 2:Okay. Judaism is the original originator of both and. A right answer is binary thinking. When you're in binary thinking, you have us and them, enemies and allies, and you no longer see that that Selim Elohim and another human being. You make him an object.
Speaker 2:How can you how can I make you an object? You and I could disagree violently. And I have to see you as at Selim Elohim as an as a image of the divine. I have to see your soul because if I don't, then I can't relate to you. And if I don't relate to you, then I don't consider you part of the whole.
Speaker 2:And if I don't consider you part of the whole, I have to harm you. So as my friend and teacher and Rabbi Rabbi Ed Feinstein says, when somebody says, what does Judaism say? It depends.
Speaker 1:Like a good economist, a rabbi will tell you it depends. It depends.
Speaker 2:So you see, here's the thing when I'm reading a text. Okay. You know, I have to look at it from all the sides. I have to turn it over and over and over. Okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, look at the Talmud. Most of the arguments in the Talmud end with Teku. We'll know the answer when Elijah the prophet. So, so living with uncertainty, see here's the thing. Okay.
Speaker 2:Right answer is asking for certainty. There is no certainty. The only certainty is I'll die.
Speaker 1:And taxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and taxes.
Speaker 1:And taxes.
Speaker 2:But these people get out of paying taxes, you know what I
Speaker 1:mean? Hopefully they'll get what they deserve, I don't know that to be true. Here's my problem. Many of us crave simple answers, but what I'm learning from you is that there are no simple answers and that the answer is not the answer. The answer is the question.
Speaker 1:You need to stay in the question. The question matters more than the answer.
Speaker 2:So one of my teachers, Rabbi Jonathan Olmermann of Blessed Memory, said what's the question that this experience is the answer for? So I'm looking I'm thinking about this. I'm engaged with you in this. What's the question that this is? The question is, how am I going to convey to you the beauty, the richness, the the love that our tradition has for every human being?
Speaker 2:How am I gonna convey to you the power, the beauty, the awesomeness of Teshuvah? We're in the month of Elul after all. And so that's the question that comes up. The experience is the answer. I have to find the right question.
Speaker 2:And most of us have the right answers to the wrong questions.
Speaker 1:I, it's not to make light of it, but we all know the answer, it's 42. The question is what's the question? It's funny, I just made that joke at work today earlier and that you know it's the journey, it's not the outcome, it's the question, it's not the answer. I mean we kind of know these truths but it seems that we can kind of say them but we don't know how to live them. Right.
Speaker 1:What's the difference? Like, how do we like, we have all the answers already, but we we don't understand how to live it day by day.
Speaker 2:Okay. So for me, I live it day by day by being the best Mark Borovitz I can be in this moment. You're getting the best of me. Now ten minutes from now, I may be I'll be different, and it's still the best. So one of the things is to not have the destination.
Speaker 2:There is no destination as you just said. Remember, the Torah ends, and we're outside the land of Israel. Think about that. We never get in, but we take a long journey. And we fuck up along the way, and then we come back.
Speaker 2:So what's what how do we live it? Compare there's there's, I I say, five more, but certainly five. We live by being in truth. We live it by being truthful. We live it by being loving.
Speaker 2:We live it by being kind. We live it by being compassionate, and we live it by, being authentic. What's the sin of the Garden of Eden? Do you know?
Speaker 1:Eating the apple, but that's not the sin.
Speaker 2:Of course not. They were gonna if I tell you, Ari, do not do you tell your kids, do not do this. What are they gonna do?
Speaker 1:I would say the sin is not thinking, not doing something you were told not to do.
Speaker 2:No. The sin is hiding. God calls out, Ayaka, where are you? Right. God's still calling, where are you?
Speaker 2:Where are you, Ari? Where are you, Mark? Where are you? And if I can't say, if I need to blame her or him or the snake or the dish or the I'm lost. So how do I live it?
Speaker 2:I don't hide. I'd be me. And you wanna know something? Being me is wonderful and great, and I'm loud, and I'm obnoxious, and I'm abrasive, and I'm all of these different things, and I'm inappropriate because I can't stand bullshit. When people are giving me bullshit, I I erupt like a volcano volcano.
Speaker 2:It doesn't do well in proper circles. No. And I can't do anything else. I've tamed it down a lot. I don't I don't get as, and I still do.
Speaker 2:So when I'm loving and kind and compassionate and authentic and truthful, I'm living my life, and I'm living according to, if you'll excuse the expression, God's will. And that's the thing. Okay. What does God demand of us? 36 times in the first five books of the Bible, it says love the stranger, care for the poor, take care of the needy.
Speaker 2:Remember the widow and the orphan. I mean, give me a break. How do you have ice coming and throw and and locking people up and sending them all over the country and say that you're a good Christian or a good Jew? You can't because it says 36 times to love the stranger. As people who've been hated because we're strangers, how the hell can we do that to somebody else?
Speaker 2:That that is not living it. Not to be political. You understand. But I'm saying Well, you
Speaker 1:you opened the door. So on this show we don't allow politics, so I'm gonna have to give you the devil's advocate. Meaning fight you on it. I'm not portraying my own opinions, but if anybody kind of breaks the no politics law, I have to give the contra. Okay.
Speaker 1:In Judaism, there's law. When you break the law, there are consequences. How does Avtale Rach HaKamucha consolidate with breaking the law and basically taking away benefits from other people because there's there's trade offs here. So, you know, we've got a baby. You know, Solomon is saying, oh, cut the baby in two.
Speaker 1:These are there are ethical challenges here that are colliding. How do we solve how do we solve for problems that don't have solutions? Like, if I have the different value, you have a different value, we're gonna have different solutions to an ethical problem that has no solution. How do we even how do we even have an opinion about that?
Speaker 2:So here's the thing. Okay? Holding people accountable is paramount in our tradition, and it's necessary for living. I agree. How we hold them accountable.
Speaker 2:Making sure that we, we stay on the moral high ground, stay in line with the divine. Look. There were cities of refuge. Why did they set up cities of refuge? Why did the, Sanhedrin never have a, that if they had one capital punishment in seventy years, they were called the murder murderous court?
Speaker 2:Because, of course, there's gotta be consequences. Of course, people have to be responsible. I went to prison because I was being held responsible. I agree with that. Okay?
Speaker 2:It's that there's ways to do it, and cruelty is never a proper way. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:That's that's that's that's fair.
Speaker 2:That's fair. And it's hard. Okay. I don't have the answer. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 2:I just know that there's got to be a better way of doing things if we're going to live authentically, compassionately, kindly, truthfully, you know with love.
Speaker 1:I think that's fair. I think that the problem with humans is that we tend to jump from one extreme to the other. Yes. So if the other is basically, oh, we should kick them out and they should they're criminals. They should not come in.
Speaker 1:Then the natural tendency is to go to the other extreme, which is, oh, let's welcome everybody with open hands and ask no questions. This is the human condition. It's a condition of extremities. The path is somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2:Of course. That's what Judaism shows you. That's what it gives us is a middle path. Now when I say middle, I'm talking about 10 to 15% away from both extremes, that we live in this the 80%. How do we
Speaker 1:we are suffering a global pandemic of extremism. How do we bring opposing sides to find that and even if it's 60% in the middle, that's quite large. How do we help people find the common grounds? Because today, it just seems like we're just shouting at each other and not listening.
Speaker 2:Okay. So our tradition says that you sit down and you wrestle. We wrestle it out. We come in and and we say, okay. I have my opinion, my agenda.
Speaker 2:You have your opinion, and you have your agenda. Let's look at it and wrestle out what's the what's the best solution in the moment where we can come together. I was in Washington DC. I lived there for a year. And I watched the congressmen and the senators, and they found ways to compromise.
Speaker 2:They would yell at each other and all this stuff and, you know, blah blah blah for the news. And then you see him sitting together in the bar having a drink, having a meal, figuring it out, etcetera. There's ways to there's always a way to figure it out. We just have to be willing to say, I don't need to be right. You know, it's it's in in relationships and marriage.
Speaker 2:Do I wanna be right? Do I wanna be loving?
Speaker 1:We got the answer. What's the question? Right. Rabbi Mark, believe it or not, we're out of time. There's one question we ask every single guest.
Speaker 1:It's the only scripted question in the show. It's a hard one. If you had to go to one of the most difficult points in your life, whether ten minutes ago or twenty years ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:The most difficult moment in my life was after my father died and I was alone cause he was the one who got me, who understood my soul could speak to me. I would tell myself to let go of the anger and allow myself to be embraced by his spirit.
Speaker 1:Rabbi Mark, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Ari. This was a pleasure. I'm so blessed.