El pandillero que dejó TODO y se convirtió al JUDAÍSMO ULTRAORTODOXO | La historia de Nissim Black

foreign in controller [Music] my mother and my father were both rappers it was almost as if I was born with a microphone right and for some reason unbeknown to me I have no idea why but I was also very very spiritual kid I'll ask the questions all the time I was very interested in God however a lot of that was silenced by uh growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up in and growing up in the in the sort of lifestyle that I lived as a kid because you need to fit in with the rest of your surroundings and so I did naturally became a product of my environment with drugs violence gangs and uh music was was an Escape right but at the same time music also was a driving force uh to some degree to continue the behavior you kind of end up in a circle especially when you're making gangster rap but if you're asking about my journey of spirituality had to happen after I got into a altercation with another rapper where a friend of mine tried to kill him and because I had initially had the problem with him he thought that I sent somebody to kill him and so I was in the killer be killed situation and I think after I I said I can't I can't go back to the same lifestyle that I lived before and I didn't know where I was going but uh you know I just I entered into the world of spirituality very very strong which lessons did you learn from your parents my mother was a little Single part from the other things she she was very much so great listener I think you know losing my mother she died of an overdose when I was I was 19. she was 37 so she she died very young my mother taught me a lot of a lot of things about gossip how to choose friends um different things like that those are the things I remember learning from my mother for my father um it's very interesting because today he he he changed his life uh miraculously was nothing but the hands of God for sure he is now a theologian and professor and preacher one of the favorite lines that he says to me that he said to me years ago I'd never forget he said that every every good idea ain't a god idea you know um and so and to see him you know live out his life even though we have two different religions right but to see him he's one of the most aspiring people to me to see that uh probably was the biggest lesson that I've ever learned from him is [Music] my childhood was uh was complexed um like I said I think it was more of my my own internal and inner Wars more than it was even the environment that I grew up in so first I was a Muslim as a kid my grandfather was a Sunni Muslim he came to live with us when I was maybe oh 809 years old my grandfather unfortunately spent most of his life in prison and unfortunately that's where he he passed away also but he was out on parole for about a year year and a half or so and he came to live with us and during that time he taught me Islam he was a Sunni Muslim he he uh prayed with them five times a day went to the mosque with him as a kid he would teach me lessons for the Quran but you know my grandfather God blessed his heart he was a gangster also so he taught me a lot of other things all city I won't share but uh he he he was a interesting character very educated man unfortunately got him in a lot of trouble how smart he was that was the beginning of my relationship to Islam uh as I got older when I was around 13 years old I started to have this great vlogging um to get close to God in the midst of that a friend of mine invited me to go to a hip-hop program I was still getting a lot of trouble but he invited me to go to this hip-hop program that was at a after school program that was a Christian Christian organization so I started going there I fell in love with the people there fell in love with the with the organization and the hip-hop program and I think it literally still to this day I say that place saved my life because I was uh headed nowhere fast I was unfortunate though I would say about about the the the role models I would say that I had in Islam were not good Role Models also too I love my grandfather I love my uncle but they both were sort of still living a double life and so by the time I came into to to the world of Christianity um it was much different for me so that that that conversion took place when I was around 14 years old to Christianity and I really became um a real true Bible something Christian I read my Bible all throughout class and and I was in high school reading my Bible all the time I was involved I was given Bible study groups I was involved in um a lot of different leadership programs I brought a lot of kids there I went to Mexico I built orphanages that led to me uh studying the the the foundation of the church which obviously started with Jewish group and from there just started discovering the jewishness of Jesus and from the jewishness of Jesus led me into Messianic Messianic Judaism so I was there for about two and a half years but I think it was there um but it didn't it didn't it didn't help that I was still searching for more something more authentic and I started going to a Chabad Rabbi uh Rabbi farakash and it happened after some time um that uh we we you know decided you know we want to go all the way with Judaism we wanted to convert there are many different reasons why but but the the thing about Judaism was that you couldn't you couldn't ignore was the the Perpetual Covenant that God says that he has with the Jewish people and looking inside of the prophets and seeing that you know um there there was this Great Awakening before the coming the the coming of the Messiah that the the people from The Many Nations will wake up and start to see the the the the importance and the and they will also recognize a special and unique relationship between God and the Jewish people that led me to want to convert to Judaism and I did me and my wife my wife's sister is married to my best friend from kindergarten so me and my best friend made sisters and we all converted together and then that was 10 years ago now seven years ago we all moved to Israel so and they live over there is foreign so the first thing is now you are obligated to some degree to be pushed away three times they say before you start a giver that the rabbi has to push you away now this is very interesting because unlike the other religions that I participated in like Christianity or Islam they always looking for new people right Judaism is actually the opposite we're not looking for new people there's a few different reasons why now one of the reasons is is that we don't believe that if you're Jewish then now you have a place in the world to come uh and if you're not Jewish then you don't so because of that there's no pressure another thing is is that there's there's no need for a person which is almost the same thing to be considered righteous so by you joining the Jewish Nation what are you really trying to accomplish is something that needs to be investigated what would be the reason another thing is is that if you convert to Judaism right and let's say you don't keep the you don't keep the Commandment well the rabbis just brought in like more things that are not favorable for the Jewish people also so you can bring the nation down if you you know so it's a lot of different reasons so you mean they really check your intentions they check your intentions it's all about the intention how do they do it so there's a few different ways that rabbis did it I I had what I got was is that the rabbi sort of pushed me off Rabbi benziken uh shout out to Rabbi Simon Vincent in Seattle uh he was very you know standoffish a little bit one of the things is most people will not convert you unless you live in the Jewish neighborhood so you have to already be there in the neighborhood you have to be displaying you know a certain level of dedication to Jewish life to shabbat to me things like that so um until we moved in he wouldn't even talk to us so then after we moved in he still didn't talk to us for a long time about about it to see if we're really really sincere the real uh questions come when you have your first meeting with the bait din which is a court the rabbis so you go into a room and generally there's could be anywhere from three to eight to ten rabbis sitting there at a table intimidating very intimidating and you go through basically a form of interrogation a certain interrogating you and asking you on your intentions why would you do this or what you know do you know that you can be a a bit Noah he can be a righteous non-jew what would be the reason it's a rabbi's interrogating you they're asking you questions about your intentions they want to know if you are sincere they tell you also about content um so our particular um beaten uh question this more about the sincerity of our heart uh if we but they did ask us obviously Jewish law questions right how familiar we were with Jewish law certain things you're going to need on Shabbat or cooking and kosher but a lot of the questions really were you know if you were stranded on an island if you were you know I can't say all the questions they'd asked you know certain things about our our allegiance to the Jewish people to the Torah there are a few practices that Jews make during their life right like Bar Mitzvah britmilla all this stuff you also have to do it yes well if you Bar Mitzvah you don't have to do if you're an adult already right um however to do a uh brute Mila if a person didn't have thank God for my mother um so he didn't have but there is a certain process of where blood is still drawn from uh from a male which they say is the reason why more women convert than men I can't understand why so we like for each kid uh that we have in the family how many kids do you have I have seven children um God bless all of them another thing is this one here in the middle very interesting um I am a wrestler which means I follow Rabbi nachman the wrestler uh so one of the uh Customs was is that we started to light a candle always to have a remembrance of the rebbe in the home when your wife lights Shabbat candles she prays for for the kids she prays what do you ask for in this time so you ask for different things she asked for no what do you what do I ask for I asked the rashim to hear all of her prayers that's what I asked uh I don't I don't usually pray at this time I see my wife like a lot of times so I usually will start praying a little bit underneath for the last week last week I prayed for health I prayed for good health I hadn't been feeling so good and I prayed that uh that that Hashem should be able to help me to to be my spirit to increase his name into the world but my wife is uh she she really is very very inspiring and to see you know how much she she's running the house and managing the children and I'm going like you know I was on tour last year for a hundred days I was out of the country you know 100 days from the year you're in the States oh yeah I was in the states yeah and this year we're trying to get that number down but this is her station her her own but I think that is the most special thing for me because in Judaism we teach that the success of the home is on the wife it's not on the man the man is the outer and he seems like that but the blessings that come forth in the Jewish Home is through the wife as we teach in Judaism the women are much closer to God than the men are um [Music] if there's something that in your life change from the moment of the commercial it's the way you dress of course so how is it going from dressing you know like a rapper this style to this yes very good question so it happened gradually it wasn't so quick let it go straight to Hasidic Garb no way so start up with maybe a button-up shirt maybe a different colored shirt and slacks different things like that because this is I was growing um I always say that when you change on the inside you're changing the outside you start to see and it doesn't matter which direction the person changes you start to see that the clothes usually reflect what's going on on the inside of a person but one of the things I noticed I thought was the most powerful was a more or that I went out more you know dressed up I would say even in the same neighborhood the same thing the the young men that will approach me differently they would call me sir they will call me and we do we don't realize this that that I come from those same neighborhoods and everything but with the certain certain type of clothes on you know I'm treated one way but I have a different side type of clothes on I was treated a different way so I started to see how important their clothes were um just even in terms of avoiding comfort from the place I came from how the people from the hood take took it like state it and then again they weren't there for the process right I and if they if they were watching or seeing it maybe from a distance or Not by that time I was already not associated with anybody I wasn't there to be able to see what people were saying until many years later where I already was like dressed like this and you know everybody had you know different jokes and different things they say it makes some people uncomfortable some people very comfortable very admirable but I think the biggest thing that reflected there was the change that took place on the inside when I went back to my old neighborhood and I went back and people it was the Insight that had changed so much that uh I think that they found it to be something very commendable but uh you know it's hard for people to to not see the person that they grew up with and that they were around and the and the outer appearance and the whole everything so I think it was probably tough for a lot of people but I'm wearing a long coat record I haven't seated obviously okay which I'm wearing these were commanded by a senator that were for if you wear for corn of garment that you should have uh uh TT tassels strings with the blue cord going through them do you use keeper do something behind the Hat there you also want to keep underneath there yeah you still keep a double cover they're in Shabbat we actually wear the strimel which is very known they know mrimo wow which is a work of art in itself now the story was interesting because the stronghold they were on Shabbat that's like hey what would you you know what's what's with the fox tell if you know what's going on in fact still but it's interesting is that in the um olden days we'll say that uh one of the ways that Jews were ridiculed and mimicked as they would draw draw these different cartoon characters of Jews animals on their head and with long noses and how everything and this was the way that the society in that time in Europe um were um were sort of poking fun or using anti-semitic um you know pictures to paint right or propaganda different things like that so the rabbis at that time took this as something saying that we're not going to allow this to be something to to bring us out in fact we're going to we're going to mimlich this by taking you know the firm with animals putting it on our head you know and we're going to wear this as our as our shop is closed this is going to be the high high without return we turn victimhood into Victory you know so that's really where the struggle came from so the last thing I wanted to ask you something that we see on Hasidic Jews they were uh belt what is this belt this is called a guard toe the guard toe is usually worn um for prayer this is what you're aware to pray and the reason why you're aware is because in Jewish law um in the in the Norwalk says that there needs to be a separation between the upper and the lower it's not the actual requirement you know because as long as you have a regular belt any string anything that will get the job done so what you do usually take it put it on and pray and after you pray take it off some people do I go with it a little bit longer throughout the day I find myself praying to God a lot when I'm walking when I'm going or whatever so I do keep my guard to one uh a lot of times so there's some people who keep it on a little longer but usually after you pray most people take it off it's comfortable uh yeah it can be comfortable you get used to it you know sometimes you just sort of get used to it Transformations so this is the place where all the magic happens this is what all happens there this is where I record the music that's the way I do my podcast this is where I do all my zooms and interviews or whatever this is I do Graphics I do editing here I do I do a lot it's really amazing to see how you didn't gave up on your previous life because of the Judaism and because of the convert so how do you see your your present life like mixed together the Judaism with the music and all the things that you do well one point I did I gave up because because I couldn't see a world in which I could keep holding on to music particularly rap music and like also Judaism I did I couldn't put those two things together but I had some some some miraculous signs from God that this is uh something I was supposed to do I took it upon myself really to to start realizing that God gave me a gift and I need to use it obviously to to inspire the world inspire people and what is your favorite nigun so one of my favorite negunim is the the nigging of the ditch of Arabic but it goes um foreign [Laughter] from the Judaism text that you would like to make it in one of your songs in Jewish law very much so despises the idea of taking Jewish texts holy text and making songs out of them unless it's for the purpose of just pure devotion where a person is not seeking to um uh profit from it I usually write for my own prayers as a breast lover has it one of the things that I try to do every single day spend an hour a day in meditation and prayer to God so in that time there's a lot of different topics that I'm talking and speaking to God within my personal prayer that I'm talking with him alone whether it's in the mountains which are here in Beijing so one of the biggest things for me yesterday like I said this I'm working on a new album and the name of it is uh called glory and so and the reason why it's called Glory not for my glory but it's for God's glory and I'm very very um very much so trying to um relinquish and to get rid of my own aspirations and my own goals and I really want to be a vessel for for God's light so because of that I'm praying a lot that I should be totally removed you know totally removed from this situation that I will be able to inspire many people um to to recognize that that God loves them this new album I'm working on now is floated with a lot of these conversations I have with God so I have a song that I worked on called uh someone else um and uh one of the things I say in that song is that uh you know um and now I have to face myself after trying to erase myself I want me back because this is someone else and another thing I said in that song probably probably one of the most powerful things is is that you know I used to want to fit in but then now I realized I was too big I was too big to fit in I would like to ask you the last question okay which really interesting me in personally what things would you like what one thing would you like that the people will know about you um it's a good question I think one of the things that people don't know about me is because I'm such a outgoing person I'm all the time I'm doing concerts in front of people like that I'm somewhat of an introvert a little bit more than what people I I don't like being in large crowds I don't like being around lots of people uh there's a lot of people that I really I'm not I don't get a kick out of that I mean obviously have to be on stage so but I'm really quiet and I I enjoy you know a lot of times I'm when I'm not on tour I'm back home I have my own little corner In in my synagogue that I go and learn throughout the day and that's like I can't wait to just get back to my little corner over there where nobody's bothering me I like my candles over there and into my place but I'm I'm really into um alone time and spending time with God like more than what people know so I'm not a very as outgoing as I am I'm still very like I enjoy not being out more than what people would know Mundo [Music]