Practical Spirituality - Conversation with Eliyokim Cohen

Shalom and welcome back to Practical Spirituality here in the holy city of Jerusalem overlooking the Temple Mount at Ushpizin, the amazing home center for Torah and Jewish experience in the old city. And today we have a special guest. This is Eliakim Cohen Yes. who I actually met today. I was in my synagogue right you know, in my neighborhood and and which is amazing too cuz I wasn't even planning on being there today. I was going to beautiful show too. Yeah. love it. I was going to pray somewhere else. But I couldn't help but notice this this character over here. And uh with his son and I turned out I was also saw him getting ready to lead the Kohanic blessing. Yeah. The priestly blessing and which was very exciting to get that especially cuz I just got back from America where you don't get to have it unless you got Persians in the room. Right. And uh and so Yeah. So we met and I'll tell you the truth I've been trying not to talk to him since I met him because I like podcasts where you're getting to know each other for the first time. Yeah. And so I don't know too much about you. So I'm going to interview you and get to know you and we'll smooth together. Perfect. Um the I just if you wouldn't mind going without sunglasses for a sec. Yeah. That way I can I can sense you sense you better while we talk. Yeah. And you have beautiful blue eyes anyway. The you know, my my kid came up to me I sent my kid to go buy glasses and he comes back. He was like I don't know, 11 years old or something. He comes back with glasses that change color in public. Oh, really? into sunglasses when you're in the sun. So he comes back to the house and he's he's got prescription sunglasses. I'm like, "What are those?" He says, "These are the glasses I bought." And I'm like "Go go return them." He said, "I can't return them. Why do I have to return them?" I said, "Well, then go back to the store and get a regular pair and you can wear these when we're mountain biking." And he was like, "Why? What's the big deal?" And I said, "Listen, so much of developing who you are is a negotiation with the people you're passing by. You know, we're in negotiation for our our identity. Right. And is very critical. Yeah, and it's developing. It develops us cuz it's it's um you know, you're putting yourself forward when you're in public. Right. And people are interacting. But but the amazing thing is once you put on sunglasses people spot you already down the block instinctually and they don't necessarily see you but they already know that won't be someone I'll be meeting eyes with. Uh interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting. They that will not be someone I'm going to be negotiating my identity with. So really the only time I wear sunglasses is on Shabbos. Really? With my Bacha Sharon's streimel. And it's my way of like sort of tuning out from the world. Right. Shabbos is day set apart from the rest of the world. And I just when I'm in shul You wear them in shul too? or I'm in shul and when I'm walking and it's just I like that I'm in my own little Amazing. Shabbos world. In that bubble, yeah. I've been doing that for since I started wearing my streimel. So There's something to be said for silence in public. Yeah, look it's I'm a very talkative person. So sometimes it's good for me to Yeah. step back a little. It's like you know, it's it's a help for the soul. My whole way in I was listening to um you know, who's the famous thinker that uh whatever it's not coming to me but he was talking about um on the the whole way in he was talking about doing and not saying. And that the freedom you get by just doing without saying so much about what you do. Right. I have a Mitzvah in the Torah. a lot of freedom to just develop yourself and to develop what you do without having to constantly cover for what you said you do. Right. Right. Wasting your energy with covering the things you said you're doing. Mhm. Tell me about yourself. Where'd you grow up? So I grew up outside of Boston. Um it's called Framingham. Framingham? It's like 25 minutes west of Boston. Yeah. Great great town. I grew up very like traditional. You know, my grandparents were um from two Hasidic family Shinova Mhm. which is the oldest son of the Sanz Rebbe. Mhm. The fact I'm in Netanya now is very Very cool. They've sort of taken me in as a They know about your background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz you know, they see me during the week in like pants and a t-shirt and then on Shabbos they see me In your streimel. in a streimel. So they we need to who are you? Like So you live on the beach in Netanya now? I live yeah, we live right right across from the beach. I mean on the beach. Mhm. Um right next to the old Blue Bay Hotel. And you're the last house in Netanya? We're the last house in in Netanya. Yeah. What comes after that? Like sand dunes? Uh Shoshanat HaAmakim. And then Tzuk Yam and then Beit Yanai. Like little little city comes after. What's on the other side of your house if you're the last house? Is it Oh, just more or is it beach? No, just more shavim going north. other communities going north? we're the last Can you You can throw like a throw a shortcut. Mhm. They wanted to sort of they put up big boulders cuz they don't want people these are really like idyllic uh little moshavim. One of them's a surfing community. Mhm. Lots of young people and then the other one's more for like the adults. But it's just a beautiful area. What's the surfing community called? Um Shoshanat HaAmakim. It's just north of Netanya. I wonder if that's where I surf. Probably. Cuz I was someone took me up there for a sec. It's uh it's very known. There's a there's different surf you know, out there. Yeah. Yeah. So we moved there two and a half years ago and just my my dream was always to live on the water. You know? You did a good job. Ah. Just love it there. So you grew up in Boston? I yeah, so I grew up very Jewish, you know, very proud of being Jewish, very connected to Israel. Just never knew how to put any of that into action. And um one thing that that we did do was we said the Omer. My grandfather alav hashalom paid us $49 to say the Omer every every year. Every day like to count the Omer. So if we miss one day we got nothing. So you know, every kid gets a trophy in modern times. This was such a good life lesson for so many different reasons. One, you know, 49 days is about 1/7 of the year. So 1/7 of the year we were connected to something very holy. And the other thing was that if you missed a day no matter how much you cried, "Grandpa, I did 48." So, no, you didn't do 49. So you know, growing up to the audience they um between Passover and the holiday of Shavuot when the Jews got the Torah on the 50th day, there's a 49 day count where you make a blessing and then you um count that day. So you make a blessing, you count the day. And it's pretty simple uh mitzvah but a very holy one. Very holy. That's cool. So So I would I would go to I'd never even heard of it when I grew up. Right. So I'd go to the reform you know, Monday Wednesday school that I was going to and I'd say to the teacher "You counting the Omer?" And he looked at me like I'm speaking Korean. So I felt so good. I come home and I say, "Mom, look at a rabbi at this uh at this place." So I loved the standard American childhood, you know, sports, secular childhood, sports Judaism was a Monday and Friday after school and Sundays until your bar mitzvah. And then And then you graduate Judaism. You graduate Judaism and but you know, never had a desire to celebrate Xmas. Just I was always so so proud of being Jewish. Mhm. So Did you ever get get it on the head for being Jewish? Being 25 minutes from the Jewish community? What do you mean? Did you ever get it hit you ever get anti-Semitic uh did you go to a school that had Jews or Tons of Jews. Framingham Framingham has tons of Jews. So all of Boston Boston isn't the only place where there's Jews in Boston. a Well, there's there's Brookline, there's Newton. Mhm. Tons of Framingham itself had tons of Jews. Uh so you had a lot of Jews. Tons. So I had two sets of friends, you know, the Jewish friends and non-Jewish friends. Yeah. No matter how close I got to the non-Jewish friends they'd always show me that I was different, you know, they're always cracking a Jew joke or you know, we'd go out to dinner I'm a very generous tipper and oh, what did the Jew you know, leave for? I'm like, "Well, more than all of you guys combined." That's what So I there was always a wall, you know, and and my parents always told me no matter what you're you're Jewish and you'll see that there's there's a wall. And I sort of resented that for a little bit but then as I got older I saw that that was just how it just the way it is. Even my best best friend a few times said jokes that were really I don't like the word offensive cuz I mean they're they're just but it just like why would you say that to me at that point? Mhm. So you know, then I went to college in in Georgia at the University of Georgia. Mhm. And joined the Jewish fraternity and then that's where the problems started. I was always I never was like mainstream. So, the thought of going to school, learning for x amount of years and then getting that cubicle, it just it never That was never what I you know, wanted. So, my parents had moved down and they bought a baby furniture company. And we had two stores. Basically, I ran one from college. I was driving back and forth every day. And uh To To Atlanta. So, back back happens to Atlanta was like 50-minute drive. So, your parents moved to Atlanta? They moved to Atlanta cuz that's I was born in Atlanta. Moved to Boston when I was like five. So, they We moved back. And um So, I was like one of those like an athlete in college that knows they're going to the NBA. I already knew that I had a job. So, I put forward this When I say zero effort into into school. I never To To me, that doesn't make someone, you know, I'm very into street smarts, Mhm. doing your own research, you know, not just you know, getting your syllabus, teacher tells you how to think and then I mean that's why the world, in my opinion, is one of the reasons it's so messed up. People have learned the have have have no ability to critically think anymore, to make decisions by themselves, to gather the correct information, to find the truth. And that that's what Hashem's seal is is the truth. Mhm. So, got very into drugs and, you know, started dealing coke in uh in college. Coke salesman. And Well, it was it was lollipops when I was in second grade and the natural progression is is to coke. So, Starting with lollipops to cocaine. Lollipops to coke, yeah. Cute. So, So, you were in that That was part of college, too? That was the end of college, the last two years of college. Was it Is it a good living selling cocaine? I mainly did it just to have free coke. And then when you have free coke, you just do a a ton more. So, it was a very destructive uh lifestyle. Mhm. But I could do it. I could do coke, wake up the next morning, drive. No one at work knew that I was up for the last, you know, 39 days in a row and then come back. You know, the term highly I functioning uh Yeah, you seem like the kind of guy that lands on his feet. Yeah, but Hashem, like, you know, it I I just made it work. Like, you just Sometimes life, you just need to make it Whatever the situation is, you just need to make it work. You have to We're not advising that anyone makes a life cocaine lifestyle work. So, Very few people it works for. So, January 4th, 2008 was the was the low point of my life and but that became the high point. Nice. I was in a high-speed car chase on cocaine from 35 um Georgia State Patrol cars. Nice. 35? 35. And what And how did they realize to chase you to begin with? So, I was I was on the wrong side of the road and I saw a car coming and I said, "Oh my gosh, that clown's on the wrong side of the road." And then I saw another car coming and I went, "Oh my gosh, I'm the clown." As I'm veering back into the right lane, I almost hit a state patrol that was I mean, talking about me and Hashem, I I literally almost clipped his car, turned on the lights, started following me. I had already lost my license. And I just were without a license? Yes, I just for some reason I Thought running would be good. Yeah, cuz I started off slow and then he tried to ram me. I got nervous and I just I didn't stop. So, I was in a nice car, you know, I was I was in a BMW and my parents for some reason had just put run-flat tires on the car cuz my my tires were low. So, my dad had a day off, he took and put run-flats on. You can run over a spike and go another like 100 miles. So, they laid out the spikes for me twice and I ran over it and just didn't have any impact. So, 35 cars chased me. I finally slowed down cuz I I realized at some point that they were probably going to try to Shoot you or kill me. So, I like sort of flipped off the road. They smashed the windshield and, you know, 30-something guns at my head and um went to jail and I remember This is This is Friday night literally as the sun was setting, this is when the chase started. It's very like sort of symmetrical to my own Yeah. So, I think it was Sunday morning that the lawyer came and he said, "You don't look like the kind of kid that I said, you know, I'm just I'm in a low point in life and he said, "Look, you're You're probably going to get a year." I was facing 15 to 30 years because of the assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, which is the car. You know, they charge you with As if you were trying to crashing, swerving, spinning, you know. Hello. I see. Charge you with Right. So, the big charge was like So, the the big charge was the assault with a deadly weapon. So, he said, "Look, you're facing 15 to 30 years. Obviously, it's not going to stick." He said, "More than likely, you'll get a year, do six months. I'm going to try to get it down lower." He said, "You have one job for the next whenever you're you need You have two things in life. I talked to your father." He said, "I know that you You're home, you're at work, and that's it." He said, "I don't care what else you do, but you're not doing anything else besides that." He said, "You need to make my job easy to to help you." So, three strange things happened when I was in jail. One, the first thing they asked me at the hospital So, they let you out on bail or anything? I got I got out on bail. That night as they took me to the jail, they took me to the hospital first because, you know, the cops roughed me up. And uh after asking me my name, the next question they asked was my religion, which I thought was very weird considering this is Forsyth County, Georgia, which is literally the headquarters of the Klan of the Ku Klux Klan. It's like their mailing address. So, then in jail, the guy that was checking me in, the cop had a "Ne il le dodie le dodie le" on his ring. Again, I'm in the middle of a place that there's probably been two Jews that have ever gone to Forsyth County, Georgia. I don't even know how I got up there. So, I said to him, "It's a beautiful ring. You're You're Jewish?" He said, "No." I said, "So, why do you have It's the same ring my my parents have." I said, "So, why do you have" He said, "I just like the I like Hebrew. I like the writing." I thought, all right, that's a little strange. And then in the jail, this guy made some comment about Jews and I said, "It's not so nice. I'm Jewish." He said, "Well, so am I." I said, "Really?" So, he became my spades partner. That's all you do is play cards. So, his son, who just turned 18, got arrested with over an ounce of weed, which at the time was a felony. So, he took the blame so that his son wouldn't start off So, between these three things, my just it was like Judaism pounding into my And I said, "You know what? I've done everything I wanted for the last 10 years of my life. Drugs, girls, parties, and I'm totally miserable. I have no I'm going to start from scratch. And um Even at the time, I was going sometimes to Friday night, you know, services like a conservative shul or whatever. I said, "I'm going to call the rabbi that my my aunt recommended I call this rabbi six months before this happened." And three times I called him and hung up the phone cuz I I heard his Rabbi Friedman from Atlanta. I don't know if you know from the Ahavath Congregation. One of the cool rabbis, just very vibrant and just and happy. So, my aunt was hijacked by Hezbollah in 1985 on that famous TWA flight um that they made the movie Delta Force. Out of I don't even know that story. So, it's a famous flight. The pilot had a a gun to his head. Um It was actually in the Billy Joel song when he says, "Terror on the airline, we didn't start the fire." That was the plane he was talking about. So, they made a movie about it called Delta Force with Chuck Norris. So, She was on that flight? on that flight. It was her honeymoon with my you know. So, she went back and forth. make it? Yeah, yeah. So, they went back and forth from Beirut to Algiers five times. On the last landing in Beirut, the landing gear didn't open. So, Crash landing? They had to make like an emergency landing. So, forget about having guns your head and like terrorist, the scariest part she said is that we're landing on like the underbelly of the plane. So, she She said, "Hashem, if you save me, I'll I'll do chuva." Cuz you know, my mom grew up basically my modern orthodox. So, you know, she knew of my my just love of of Judaism. And so, she connected me with this rabbi. I got out on a Monday, went to shul on Friday night, started learning with him the following Monday. Once he told me the Purim proofs, you know, the 10 sons of Haman, Yeah. that was it. Started wearing a kippah. So interesting, that was it for me, too. Really? That to me was was There There's some things in life when you just If you're open to hearing the truth and and and you finally get just like a a bludgeon to the face of truth, Mhm. that's Hashem giving you a big opportunity and some people grab it and and they run with it forever. Others, yeah, that's cool. I'm I'm not ready to change my lifestyle. Right. That to me was I taught that class for many many many years. And And if anyone would say that it was interesting or informative, I would punch them. Oh, good. And I'd say, "Any other Any other adjective? Any other adjective, but not interesting or informative because to hear that the word interesting means that it stayed in your head and it meant nothing. And informative is the same exact It's funny you say that. the word interesting because I went in the next day at work and told some of my family members and I mean, I was I was like blowing my I was like ready to, you know, blow two pays off. And they said that exact word, "Wow, it's really interesting." Really Really interesting. Yeah. I said, "What do you mean it's really interesting? This is you know, like Hashem's And you know, for the audience, so just tell them the the main idea is Yeah. The main idea is that uh Haman has Haman, the arch enemy of the Jewish people and during the Persian Empire This was during the 70 years of exile on the 70th year he rises to power, whatever the whole story. I'm not giving you the whole story. But the bottom line is is that his 10 sons show up on this page of the Megillah of this scroll and they show up on like an Excel sheet where it's like their name and then the word end and then their the next name and then the word end like on two with huge spaces. It's an empty page basically with names on one column and the word end on the other column. And um they these sons had nothing to do with the story before, nothing to do with the story afterwards. There's no reason they should be um being presented and and spotlighted. Yeah. And but in those names, well before I say that that Esther, who was the Jewish lady who wound up being queen of Persia, she she asked that the 10 slain sons, they were dead, be hung tomorrow. And uh that was her tomorrow can also be something in the distant future. That's the it's a dual meaning. So the king heard that and hung these dead men the next day. Why tomorrow? But tomorrow you're right like you're saying for a prophet this may mean the future. Well, it turns out that hidden in the names of these 10 men are the dates of the Nuremberg trials when the 10 Nazis were hung in Nuremberg, Germany. And Big vav and a small tafshin zayin. Right. The the the year was tafshin zayin, which is the Hebrew letters are numbers. It spells out the year of the of it and it even gives the millennia of what what 707's going to happen. Right. So tafshin zayin is 707 and and it has a big vav, which is the sixth time 707 showed up, which is 5707. And the um Yeah, and it's just amazing. And then the last I can quote you the Newsweek article from 1946 that only Julius Streicher went without dignity. He had to be pushed across the floor wild-eyed and screaming Heil Hitler. When they brought him up to the gallows, he looked at the witnesses and screamed "And now I go to God." Purim Fest 1946. Yeah. And the interesting thing was they were supposed to be killed by firing squad. It was only at the last minute that they were hanged. Mhm. And Hermann Göring, who was a known cross-dresser, committed suicide just like Haman's daughter. Exactly. Göring. I mean that was Haman had a daughter who committed suicide and the the one of the um one of the it was actually 11 Nazis they caught. So there was an extra one and that one committed suicide and and was a cross-dresser. We actually have a picture of him in women's clothing. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hermann Göring? Yeah. Yeah, so I mean that That that did it funny that you and I you realize we have the same voice, too. Yeah, I've actually noticed that. You know, when you're doing podcasts, they're always setting your mic levels, but our voices are booming voices and same exact tone voices. Baruch Hashem. And also high speed. I was also in a high speed Really? uh car chase, yeah. Yeah, mine was interesting. I didn't know I was in the chase because the speed I was going I I didn't realize they were behind me. And I don't know if I ever told this on I've ever told this on camera. I did tell it on camera, yeah. Anyway, but they I didn't know they were there chasing me because I was just moving so fast and Yeah, I mean I'll tell it quickly as I was just I was doing like I was doing like 75 in a 35 in Beverly Hills. Oh, wow. Wrong place to be speeding. But we were inebriated and And then all my best friends are in the car, each of us with an open beer. Oh, wow. Including me. And I think I was 16, maybe. And anyway, but what I used to race cars, so I freaked out my friends by just turning right suddenly at 75 mph. Wow. Meaning I full like hit the gas and just like did a full wheel tail, fish tail and then came back. And cuz I was going to a giant intersection. You know, Beverly Hills has like huge intersections. No lights, meaning it's just residential, but gigantic intersections. I wanted to get one of those just to do donuts. I'm doing donuts. Wow. And imagine you're the cops in a high speed car chase and the guy turns right residentially at 75 mph. Crazy. So the cops are like, "Whoa, this is really serious." And they and then they when they catch up to me I'm just doing donuts with no idea. But after a while I was starting to see lights and stuff. So I was saying, "Whoa, what was in this weed?" And you know, spinning around. So did you do time? Well, I mean I certainly that night I did. But the I mean it was Beverly Hills and That's crazy. We are the Glazers, you know, it was Wow. It's pretty embarrassing actually for for my family to have to deal with this, but That's crazy. But yeah, it was um I actually my lawyer actually got me all the way down to what they called I think they might have come up with this term there. uh wet reckless Wet reckless? It's like I you know, I I guess they just overlooked my blood alcohol level. You know, they overlooked my blood alcohol and Wow. called it wet reckless. And and that was it. It was like a slap on the wrist. Baruch Hashem. Yeah, that was about it. But um Wow, very very interesting. And and tell me when you got that that awakening with the Purim story. Purim is the actual holiday that that that the Nazi was referring to, which is this book that the whole thing's coming from. I mean, this is like it's probably one of the most solid proofs that the of God and Torah. First of all, it's really just a proof that whoever wrote the Torah and certainly the book the Megillah Right. but whoever wrote this thing was not human. Divine divine knowledge. Human people can't do that, you know. Amongst a million other proofs of that, but but once you say that it wasn't human, so now you're left with either Martians or God and Occam's razor would definitely say God over Martians. Um and the book itself says it's God, so Yeah. um When you had this awakening, what happened next? So in university at this point or you're still going back and forth? was at my living at my parents, running you know, running a business, you know. Kids running baby furniture. Which I loved. It was a great when you're dealing with all the people with their babies, you know, it's cokehead selling you baby furniture. I was good though. You know, that's that's my thing in sales was my right hand. So So um I I took off running and I I my rabbi suggested he said, you know, you might want to go to Yeshiva. Mhm. I said I don't know if I can leave the He said, "You need to get out of Atlanta. You need to be in a place now that you can" So he sent me to Or Sameach in Monsey. Nice. My aunt was right down Oh, yeah. So my aunt was right down the street. So it was nice to like have a home base at her house and um So I was what? 20 were Once you were in Or Sameach Monsey and with your family and a half. No, I was 20 just turned 28 at the time. Mhm. There with guys basically at my bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, you know, some some guys were just coming from college, some guys were you know, in their early 30s. Just a solid group of of guys. Wow. And just sort of learn how to be you know, Jewish for I was there for 10 months. It was exactly what I needed. And then um And then I you know, I wanted to get out of Yeshiva and I wanted to you know, start life trying to figure out what I wanted to do. So I moved to Five Towns. I asked my mom's first cousin, who I met one time at a wedding, if he minded if I came for Shabbos. He didn't know that I meant can I live with you for the next 11 months. So um that was a great experience there being in an actual one of the nice Five Towns homes? Uh no, just a basic Yeah, just right in Cedarhurst, right near No, right near the park in Cedarhurst. Um great community, Rabbi Spiegel, you know, at the at the shtiebel. You know Rabbi Spiegel? Yeah, sure. How long ago was this? This was 2000 9, beginning of 10. Wow. Yeah. My son hired Rabbi Spiegel's son. Oh, Yossi? Is it who's now the rabbi there? Uh He took over the shul. Yeah. So yeah, my son actually hired him to be the rosh chabura Oh, really? of one of the Mir Yeshiva chaburas. Wow. And my son rented a shul and rent and hired him and Amazing. the son who's now the rabbi there. Right, right. Yeah, very interesting. So you were there? Yeah, so I was in Five Towns and I had this yearning for for Israel. So I went to serve my sentence. Um You still had to serve a sentence? Right. So so you know, the the car chase was beginning in 2008. In the middle of 2009 my lawyer calls, I'm still at Yeshiva, and he said, "You won't believe this. They threw out every single felony. They're charging you with three misdemeanors. Um That's the information I have for you for now. Just sit tight, keep your nose clean, and we'll be in touch." I was like This is like good news, right? He said, "I've never seen anything like this." Totally out of the blue. I I thanked him profusely for what he did. He said, "I trust you not to do anything. I got a call from the prosecutor." So that was a big relief. You know, I figured I'd still have to do 3 6 months, something like that. It doesn't sound like a lot until you've spent one night in jail and then you extrapolate that over 3 months. Um so once you know, and so then I moved to five towns, then I so it was um it was between Rosh Hashanah and and Yom Kippur of 2000 uh nine, I served my I got two weeks in jail. That's it. Good behavior was a week. And then since I already did four days at the beginning or three days at the beginning, I only did four days. So I funny story there is put you for four days? I mean So they actually put me in solitary confinement as a as a favor to me because I was religious at that point. you from other people. and you know, I'm wearing at the time I was wearing a use solitary for four days? You must have You must have gone out of your mind. No, I brought I brought so many Seforim. I just It was like a four-day Shabbos. That's really what it felt like. It's a four-day Yom Tov for me. So I'm at the courthouse and and the lawyer says to me you need to tell the judge what you did. You need to show remorse. I said, "Okay, don't worry. I I have a I got this. Uh so um he said, "Cuz the judge can throw out your This is a deal between us and the prosecutor, but the judge can throw it out in two seconds and give you the full time." So the guy in front of me, the judge asked him um do you think you should have been driving on weed?" And he said, "Well, I I felt fine." Judge gave him a year. No way. the thing. So I got And my lawyer looks at me and says, "See?" So I got up there and I you know, took my black hat off and and I really apologized and I said, "Look, it was a low moment moment in life." And I gave basically good cheer. And judge was I mean, really impressed because everyone else in the audience was looking at me. There was like 100 people in the in the courtroom. And the judge said, "I just I just don't understand. How did you just stop doing drugs? Did you go to rehab?" I said, "No, I went to Yeshiva." A Jewish you know, school for it. He said "So how did you stop?" I said, "Well, you know, acting like that and and behaving like that it's it's a it's a disgrace to God. It's it's not I I just changed. I I wanted to change." And he said, "I see that you wrote the police like department a letter." I said, "Yeah, I wrote them a letter of saying how looking back, how shameful everything I did I put everybody at risk. I drove an ambulance off the road. I mean, people could have died." I said, "Thank God it you know, but I said I just wanted you to know that something good came from that night." And the judge said, "Wow, like Mr. Cohen, I'm very impressed." And my you know, my mom and dad are sitting there. And of course, my mom's all teary-eyed. So he gave me a week. So I I'm four big burly cops take me to the from the uh cell at the at the courthouse right across the street to the jail. And I have literally a black trash bag filled with my tefillin and my Seforim and stuff for Havdalah. And I'm not not for Shabbos. So they're not afraid you're going to So as I'm there, the the cops open and this says, "What's all this?" And I said, "It's my Jewish books and and my tefillin." And they went, "What's tefillin?" And one of the cops said, "Oh, this is called actually phylacteries. It's what the people of the Jewish faith use and they wrap it on their arms." And then we get into the to the jail and they bring us the food. I got this great airline pasta dish. Everyone else gets like purple baloney. Oh my god. So some guy said, "How did you get the How did you get that?" I said, "Well, I'm an Orthodox Jew." He said, "Well, how do I get that?" I said, "I guess if you can convert in the next three minutes, they probably have a spare one." So I'm in the jail for four days. I get there, the warden comes out and says, "Mr. Cohen, we've made all the arrangements for your benefit and and peace and quiet. We put We're going to put you in a solitary cell if that's okay with you." I said, "Great." So the lady checking me in held this up. She says, "What's this?" I said, "It's really long black straps." She said, "You can't bring this in." I said, "Well, the warden said it's okay." She said, "All right, try not to hang yourself." Really? Yeah. So that was um right after that my letter my lawyer wrote a letter to the judge asking if I could go to Israel. I had letters from rabbis. Oh, cuz otherwise you have to stay in the country. on two years probation. So judge said, "Sure, we don't have a problem just as long as you check in every month and you're open to you're you're available to do a random drug test if we need." So February 16th, 2010, I came here on a one-way ticket and just never left. Was living in uh Yerushalayim. You know Eli Deutsch that lives in the Old City? So he's my cousin. So I live with him for a few days. Went to Chevron again for one Shabbos and just said, "You mind if I stay till Motzei Shabbos so I can figure out where I'm living?" They said, "No, you're living right here." So you know You got a You got like a diploma in couch surfing. Yeah, I mean You're really good at couch surfing. Well, people I'm I'm fun to be around. I'm I'm lively. You know, I like surfed I Yeah, I love it. I love it. ran away from home when I was 16 and really and couch surfed in I lived in Santa Barbara at the university. That's actually what Elon Musk did for like a year and a half. He just stayed at friends' house. I love that. I actually lived I lived in a little hotel in Yerushalayim for three and a half years. I I like you know, not feeling like I'm in a like being mobile, you know? Sure. Sure. So um Okay, so so we get to Israel 2010. 10. And Lived in Chevron, then I moved to Shilo in the Shomron for three and a half years. That was that was wild. liked the heartland more than the city, I guess. Yeah, I mean here. It was perfect for that. Really everything on my path has been perfect for that time period. Baruch Hashem. Yeah, I never overstay. Once I start feeling okay, like I feel like I'm missing something, I went from Shilo then to Yerushalayim right in the heart of Yeah, it was right off Ben Yehuda Street on Histadrut in a little boutique hotel. Yeah, I I I I've heard you so many times. I've watched a lot of your lectures and stuff. This is a real treat for me. Baruch Hashem. So then I then I got married, thank God. And my wife was living right on the Bnei Brak border in her parents' like you know, uh like apartment that they uh bought as an investment. So There's really a There is really yeah. She's from Ramat Gan. Wow. So the thought of you know, not having to pay rent and just being able to enjoy you know, marriage and everything. So I moved there. Really didn't connect at all. Although I did like being in Bnei Brak. It was sort of like being in Monsey again. Just minyan after minyan and you know, I I liked I liked being around very Jewish people. And um but I that got very you know, we were there like four years and basically after a year I wanted to get out, but then Corona came and it was just you know, and then you know, my son was born in 2020 literally the day before Corona hit Israel. So we were just sort of stuck there and it was great. I I was basically just learning all the time doing stuff on Facebook. I like to learn Ein Yaakov. So my my 19th time you know, on Ein Yaakov. So just that's my stories from the Gemara are my Sure. They touch the soul. That's the the legends of the Talmud that tell these just amazing stories. Yeah. And maybe there's one that could fit in here to share with us. I'd like two things from you. Yeah. First of all the story is amazing. Yeah, it's a really cool to hear. Yeah, it's a And um a little later I'll ask how people can find more of your stuff. I'm actually I'm just I wrote a book in 2011 that I just just been sitting there, but I'm actually going to publish. It's called From Cocaine to Amen. And um I want to start doing more in-person uh lectures. Yeah, you should definitely do that. touring lectures and you know, I do a lot of stuff on Facebook cuz I have a huge following, but I want to How did you get such a following on Facebook? How big's the following? So now it's about over 500,000. It used to be 1.6 million. And then I had a website called Jews News. At one point we were the second biggest Jewish website in the world. I was a 5,000th ranked website in the world. Um we were getting between 500,000 and a million page views a day. It's huge. Really uh big site. We were bigger than JPost and Haaretz and uh and it was it was truthful news. It was news that you might not want to hear, but you should hear. I mean And uh so Facebook Um we were getting between 500,000 and a million page views a day. It's huge. Really uh big site. We were bigger than JPost and Haaretz and it was it was truthful news. It was news that you might not want to hear, but you should hear. I mean And uh so Facebook kicked me off in 2018 because they kicked off basically anyone that was pro-Trump before the midterms. All right. And then you know, I said, "Okay, I'll take a few years off. Just going to learn." And and then I built I built it back. Now I just do pictures and inspiring stuff. Can't do anything controversial. You have to know your your limitations. So um It's amazing that we're at the greatest time of freedom in the in the spoken word in the self-expression. For some people. Well, the thing is is that at the top though people own these platforms. And the people on these platforms do have the final say of your self-expression. Which is very strange. Like there was never a mouthpiece for individuals like there is today. Yet there's still a big brother For sure. watching and ready to throw you out. Um I noticed also that for quite some time YouTube wasn't allowing anything that brought into question the uh the whole Corona period. For sure. And uh but now I see that that you can watch anything on YouTube again even if it's uh against the any narratives that are Well, cuz they found out all those narratives ended up being true. I understand. No, I'm meaning they just gave up, I guess. But but but they even though all of that we've come to a better time perhaps today of self-expression of of free speech, but but the and obviously Elon Musk is is a champion on that. Fantastic. But That actually loosened Facebook up. I was very happy when he bought Twitter because I knew that it would loosen Facebook up and it has a little bit. Oh, really? They used to you know, getting penalties every 2 seconds. Now it's It's a little looser. Not great, but But one thing that I don't think has changed is that government government farm for big pharma media and high-tech are still in bed together. Which is like the whole reason everything was so complicated for a pandemic that wasn't really what it was said to be. The um It was the flu. were Yeah, the flu. The reason things were so hectic was because of that of those bed buddies that never were ever in bed together in our in the history of our lives and certainly the history of the world. But they're all in bed together still. For sure. And and so It's the same entity branching out into It's the same people. Right. You know, like they they do the You know, there's like five people that own every single media in the world. Same thing with the pharmaceuticals. And then there's a guy that did a really good um he showed that every top company in the world is owned by one of three companies. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. If you look at the like Google and their top three uh shares are all owned by the same company. And then these three companies all own stock of these so the these people run the show. I mean, that's Right. And and it's it's it's frustrating, but you see you know, where where did the evil go back in the day? Where were the Lavans? Where are the Nebuchadnezzars? Where the these same entities still exist. They've just they might not be a person and they might be a organization or a university. I mean, these still things exist. There's it's it's getting easier for people to delineate the good and the bad I I think in the world now because um the line has to I mean, I don't know how much we can do about that, but what we can I would think do something about would be that government whose job is to govern is not they should somehow be not allowed to influence government. Oh, well, that yeah. I mean, that's Wouldn't that be normal? interests, that's that is politics. But it but it's it's not it shouldn't be. It's not okay. And I I mean, meaning even though the Trump community is pointing this out I have a feeling that they're not that different. Meaning in the end they do have their money coming from somewhere and it make it seems like it's coming from the simple American, but but and obviously big guys like Elon Musk and stuff, but the um I I can't imagine it's so different. Meaning if Trump becomes president None of that stuff. all the people pushing policy Right. have to be on the take, I imagine. I'm guessing. I don't know. And look, you see these things when you actually read some of the stories on the Gemara Every generation has had the same issues. You know, there was there was a very small handful of Kohanim for the entire Is this uh in Yakov legend? Oh, it's yeah. Let's hear one. Um So, there were only a handful of of Kohanim Gedolim, high priests in the first temple, you know, 410 years. Mhm. They're only a handful. They lived long lives. They They They served as high priests for their whole lifetime. In the second temple, you say once you take away the years of Yochanan and the years of Shim, no high priest lived out an entire year. They all died within a year. There was 300 high priests and then there's 300 years once you subtract the years of a few of the righteous ones from that area from that era. And it gives an example of one of them. There was a very wealthy woman named um um Martha and her husband was um was chosen to be the high priest So, so what do you mean he was he was chosen? Like the king appointed him. What do you mean the king of king doesn't appoint the high priest. And said she bribed the king. So, even the a position as holy as the Kohanim Gedolim all of that was rampant with So, you know, when we see these things now and we say, oh, must have been so amazing when you actually read the the story must have been so One of the reasons the temple was destroyed was it was just ripe with bribery and and impropriety just like today. You know, there's nothing new under the sun. It just things flip. We We might not have a a wicked king now, but we certainly don't have a a great Knesset, you know. Things like that. So, one of the things I love about about learning Ein Yakov is is like making the stories relatable to today. So, I'll tell you my favorite one. It's a very short one. Please. And and with Sukkot coming up and I know that that's a special holiday for you. So, my favorite Ein Yakov is actually very small. Every holiday is my favorite because my name's Yom Tov. Oh, that's true. But you're known for your my sukkah You're known for your sukkah. That's a legend legendary. You know, I was reading I was people are ordering their four species and Oh, that's my favorite thing to do during the year. out this thing and ordering mine and ordering for my sons and and filling out my name and all the information and then I'm looking at it, where do I pick these things up? Right. So, it says at the bottom of this very official printed thing, it says that the Glazer sukkah Are you serious? is the pickup point. So, I turn to my wife and I'm like how do we wind up being the pickup point? They called me and asked me Really? we could if our sukkah could be where everyone comes That's actually really funny. pick up their species. So, yeah, but these are all pre-orders that are picked up over there. Yeah. That's great. Anyway, so go on. Let's hear So, Rabbi Gamaliel and Rabbi Akiva, two of the legendary Tanaim are on a cruise on a not cruise ship, but on a on a ship for Sukkot. Rabbi Gamaliel holds that a sukkah built on a deck of a ship is invalid. Rabbi Akiva holds that it's valid. So, it says What's the problem with What's the possible problem that it's a it's not on the ground? Yeah, so you know, probably. Cuz it's just moving. Yeah, it doesn't say the whole but so, it says that So, they board the ship and Rabbi Akiva gets busy building a sukkah. And then a huge gust of wind comes and blows it away. The next morning Rabbi Gamaliel wakes up and he says, Akiva, where's your sukkah? So, I said, why is this so You could see the personalities and the humor. Rabbi Gamaliel sarcastically says, Akiva, where's your sukkah? Meaning I you know, he was the Nasi. I said it's not valid. You say it is valid. A big gust of wind comes, blows your sukkah off the ship. Akiva, where's your sukkah? It's like very humorous, but it just shows you know, they're on a boat for Sukkot. Like why It just It It It opens up These stories open up an entire world of of like you know, wonderment for me. I I I I don't like reading. I only read Jewish stuff, but but Ein Yakov is is just like I I I give Torah lectures on live live on Facebook. It's called Shiur on by the Sea. I do it in front of on my mirpeset on my balcony right in front of the Mediterranean. And I try to do it around sunset. So, the skies in the Tanya for some reason are extra you know I've never seen sunsets. They're They're always orange, pink, and purple. Just stunning stunning uh sunsets. So, I try to do it right around that time so that part of it's the sunset, part of it's you know, when it gets a little darker out. And um um so, I I I just did one on the Kamsa bar Kamsa story. It was a 2-hour live lecture. And you know, they get anywhere from 1,000 to maybe 4, 5,000 views you know, views. And you know, the goal is to reach the people like we used to be. I say that in every single you know, lecture, but I but I love telling people usually a story from from the Gemara because they'll realize that the stuff is relatable, you know. I remember when my rabbi opened up the the Talmud for the first time. And he's like eight different columns and he's like, oh, this is in Hebrew, this is Aramaic. I didn't even know Hebrew at that point. It's very um like not like foreboding, but it's very like, oh my gosh, that that's I'm not even close to being on that level. You tell people these stories, they're very relatable about how big the rabbi was. They had everyday things, you know, Rav Chisda chopping wood on Friday afternoon and uh They really lived regular lives. Regular lives. Did jobs and Yeah. crafts and they were um they were often on the road. Look look at Boaz, you know, Boaz and Ruth. Boaz was the the Godol Hador. So, you know, Rabbi Goldstein from America, he always says, imagine going to Israel. And he says, I need to find Rav Kanievsky a few years ago. Where He's in the threshing floor. He's out in the fields planting his wheat crop. Where where We don't have this like uh cognizance today, but you're right. They lived real lives. Of course, they learned Torah, but you know Mhm. This is one of the reason I love being a street rabbi, which you're also a street rabbi. Well, I'm not a rabbi, but I I'm calling you a street rabbi. We're street rabbis. Yeah. Okay. That's great. Many street rabbis out there. Yeah, for sure. So, it's a new kind of rabbi called a street rabbi and they're not they're they're found on the street. Yeah. They're found outside. They're found and when you look at the stories of our sages and you look at the Hasidic stories, you're always seeing that the that the rabbi is on the move in some kind of way, you know. For sure. Um even the Bal Shem Tov, like the biggest Hasidic leader of all time, is um How about Reb Zusha and Reb Elimelech? They literally they self-imposed exile for decades. For sure, yeah. You know? Awakened so many second they would become kind of famous, they would put on the street that they would put on the like the clothes of homeless people, move hundreds of miles away, and then just beg on the streets um until they felt like they had gathered that level of anonymity Right. of being just beggars. Right. And then they would come back to town. Yeah. Yeah, you know the the there's a famous story of Reb the Rebbi Reb Elimelech came back to his town. And he had a kid named Loser, which sounds funny in English. But a Loser. Right. In Yiddish, they they call him Loser. So, when he was coming back to town, he'd been already gone for 2 years begging on the streets Yeah. of some other part of Europe. So, it was time to come home. And while he was on the streets, he overhears two women speaking that a kid named Loser is sick, like really sick. They were, you know, basically saying like we got to pray for this this kid and he has this thought, he's got oh my gosh, I hope it's not my Loser. Wow. And he stops short. And he says, "Why would my Loser be any more important than any other Loser?" Right. And he and he left for another year. He He didn't even go home. Wow. He's What happened to the son? It wasn't his son. Oh, it wasn't his son. Wow. He never he just That's what amazing amazing. because of that. Anyway, but being a street rabbi is very important because you know, there's um there's no air of of superiority or or like uh and there's none of that like achievement. There you know, your greatest achievement is that you touch someone's heart. Yeah, yeah. And you paid it forward for everything you got in all the years and and you're able to help the simple person. I also think it's easier. My favorite quote in the entire uh Jewish history is from the Kotzker Rebbi who said who said, "If you can't see God in everything, you can't see Hashem in everything, you can't see him in anything." And I think it's very easy to especially if you have stories like we did in the past and are relatable people, you know, not some giant that's in the Yeshiva that it's I think it's much easier to reach people. You know, I do these walking lectures. When I'm not doing my Shiur by the Sea in my house, I do a 45-minute usually before I pick my son up. I pick him up at 1:45, usually around 12:45, I walking like by the sea. I'll do I'm just holding my phone and I do a walking chat on three topics and you know, people sponsor them Hashem and it's relatable. I'm wearing my backwards hat and a you know, cut-off shirt, but talking really, you know, very powerful Torah and a lot of it's related to what's going on now during the war. And someone messaged me right when I started doing this and she said, "My husband refuses to listen to Torah lectures. You're the only person that he will sit and and I I I said to her that that's really touching because that's literally the goal. There's some people that can't relate to you know, that's why Rabbi Grossman, you know, is is so the disco rabbi because he he looks like he's that and then you you you see him and and he talks to you and and you realize, "Wow, he's he's just like just like a regular uh Sure. So, I think that's very and that's look, that's why you've been so successful and your Yeah, it's the way to go for sure. The I mean, but again, we can't comment about what happens why there are with these rabbis with these giant kind of positions is because the the Jews think God since World War really did a good job of being fruitful and multiplying. Yeah, for sure. And when they get fruitful and start multiplying on these levels, well, communities form and now there's well, communities need leaders and there's in the community and next thing you know, the community is just giant. You're now the leader of 8,000 people, now you're the leader of 30,000 people. They're they're leaders of 50, 60, 70, 80,000 people. Yeah. Well, once you're leading 80,000 people, oh my gosh, you you can't move a muscle without the media and everything For sure. fully aware and not to mention the fact that your community doesn't give a darn what anyone says Right. until the actual says Yeah, yeah. says, you know, yes, you know. For sure. I mean, if the government would say that you got to do X, Y, or Z, that means next to nothing without the leaders saying you must do X, Y, and Z. It's it's uh you know, there's great power there. Actually, there's a beautiful let they can't run away from that power. I mean, they're in a position where it was a natural progression to that level of leadership. Yeah. Things obviously devolve if they die. Right. Because I know you had a thought, I don't want you to lose it, but but maybe I already lost No, no. that if they die, the they often get replaced by a non-leader leader. Yeah, unfortunately. Um There you know, That's why there's so much fractures in the in a lot of these communities now. In Kabbalah, there's flow and structure. Right? The right side is Hesed and the left side is Gevurah and that's flow and structure. Right. So, but leaders always exactly in the middle of flow and structure. They flow like the biggest hippie tripper Right. and they structure like Wall Street, you know, hedge fund guy. Right. So, they're they're exactly flow and structure in one person. That's a leader. That's a manager. That's Right. So, what happens is if he passes away, now there's this giant vacuum leadership. And and so, who are you going to choose when everyone else is either flow or structure? Your son. Well, you choose the son and then everything devolves because he's either flow or structure. Right. And once in a blue moon, you know, you get that rare situation where the son just happened to be exactly flow and structure. Right. And then a lot of them go to the oldest son, when meanwhile they could have picked the fifth son who was in the middle like the father and saved the entire community. That's what's actually interesting about I'm very big at the Hasidish. I like to go to bed every night reading Hasidic Rebbi stories. A lot of you know, like some of the Chabad Rebbis for instance, it was the last son or the four you know, it wasn't always the the oldest. And sons now, my I have I have a few sons friends that speak English and they come and they you know, they have some whiskey on my patio over and they they tell they tell me the inner workings of sons. So, the sons Rebbi has four kids and each one has been given, you know, the oldest son is going to replace him when he retires in sons. One's going to to Tzfat, one's going to America, and one's going to lead like the educational institution. So, they're like a very interesting organization of it. Yeah, it's I'm always fascinated by how other people like other culture, you know. dance like, you know, once you're going nepotistic like, you know, through the Yeah, that's how yeah. It doesn't always lead to the best. Look, that's why there's a lot of Rebbis to flow, everything goes nuts. Yeah, I mean, look at some of these Hasidic groups that that have now fractured. There's now two, you know, whether it's Ger or some of the yeah. Yeah. The but the the the main thing is what I'm saying is once there's that vacuum, they don't choose the flow guy, they Right. Because the flow guy, you know, who knows what he's doing. He's doodling somewhere. Yeah. And whereas the structure guy is the obvious one who understands the system. Right. Cuz he is a systems person. Yeah, yeah. And then but the thing is there's no soul in a system. Well, that's especially system means exactly no soul. And the word flow means exactly soul. Right. And the person who can be in the middle keeps the soul in the system. Right. Yeah. Um can I ask you some tougher questions? Sure, absolutely. Um I know about you just because I know myself that you're a peak experience junkie. And I'm also a peak experience junkie. What do you do for your peak experience junkie style? To be honest, ad-lib videos is a peak experience kind of junkie thing to do cuz you're just on the spot. I mean, you got to Yeah, honestly, that's my I I try to walk 15 miles a day. So, I yeah, so I basically come home from shul at 9:30 and I try to walk until I've picked my son up and just listening to different Shiurim and then I give my own. I used to play golf a lot. Um I was never into like I don't surf, I don't I don't sky dive. I'm not into like adrenaline type stuff. I love talking and trying to make an impact. From when I was a kid, my my fifth grade teacher told me that I was like Hitler. And my mom said, "You don't say that to to the you know, a 9-year-old Jewish boy." So, you know, I got fired for that, but I always really was proud of of what he meant to say cuz I'm actually a big World War buff and no one captivated an audience like like him, you know, so my in life, you need to know your strengths. Being humble is not being like a little nebich walking on the street. Being humble is knowing that you were put in this world for a reason and you've given certain positive and negative traits to fulfill your purpose and to help others. The Ramban says that there's only one mitzvah in the Torah that's to help your fellow Jews do mitzvah and everything else trickles down from that. Basically like the Zevulun and Yissachar relationship. So, when I became religious, um you know, I was into Rabbi Mizrachi videos. I like the Torah and science. I like all the proofs. So, I did my own That's why I got thrown out of Yeshiva. I didn't I didn't mention that, but so I did my I did a 3-hour basically like Rabbi Mizrachi's Torah and science in my own words trying to reach and it was very successful. I had a website called sellmeyourjewishsoul.com. If you could listen to my video and not believe in God, I would buy your olam haba. That was my stick. That's how I got into to this and it did well. But, people started to to know me and I started getting um you know, bigger on on Facebook. Uh what I'm doing now is I is actually my peak experience. I love just talking the truth and in a way that that I that I want to give it. And um well, what I was going to say before in in this So, there was famous Hasidic story of um I believe it was the Alter Rebbe you know, Reb Shmuel Zalman Shmuel Zalman So, he had a Schneur Zalman No. Shneur Yeah, right. Right. So, he had a he had one of his you know, disciples had an inn and he got older and he he lamented the fact that he lived his whole life and he was never really a learner. So, he gave the inn to his son and he wanted to dedicate his time to Torah learning. This inn was a cozy place that people knew they could get a kosher meal and a smile and it was known throughout the area. When the son took over, he was a businessman. Prices went up, lost its you know, and it world got back to to the Alter Rebbe and he summoned and he said, "Do what happened?" And he said, "You know, I I I felt like a like an ignoramus my whole life. I never really had the time to learn. I want to learn now." The Alter Rebbe says to him, "You created an oasis of Torah, something that Hashem loves. There's enough people out there that sit all day and learn Torah. Hashem needs foot soldiers. He doesn't need more Rebbes. He said, "What you are doing brings some more nachas than So, he he had did something simple, but he made an impact on his environment and you know, our environment. So, my favorite thing is you know, everyone has an inherent desire to change the world and to and to make an impact. So, the the Chofetz Chaim of Hashem another amazing quote. He said when he was younger, he wanted to change the world. He realized he couldn't do that, so he decided to change Europe. Then he realized he couldn't do that, he wanted to do Poland. Then he said, "I can't do Poland, I'll I'll change um Radin where he lived." And then he said, "You know what? I can't even do that." So, he changed himself and by changing himself, he was obviously the biggest Rabbi of the last 150 years. He ended up changing Radin, Poland, Europe, and the world. So, I I always try to use that as you know, when you have a a big following, you you I can reach so many people, but Hashem will get the word out to you I just you just need to do your need to do your hishtadlus. You need to do your part and Hashem will worry about the rest. You know, Rabbi Victor Miller, probably the greatest Rabbi in American history, the best hashkafah of any Rabbi, he lost talmidim every single year because he was too and used to say, "Everyone in the area loves me because he's giving shiurim that that are pure gold to like 50 people because no one else could handle it. And now we see we're going back. We see that it was treasures. One of my students in New York just handed me a book of Rabbi Victor Miller on prayer. Oh, I mean it over shabbos and it's it's gold. Pure gold. I I you know, I always told the truth when I taught just like you. Like I love speaking truth. Right. And and Aish HaTorah gets a blessing for years and years and years of letting me say whatever I wanted. They had no idea what I was saying. Right. But, they but they nevertheless didn't prevent me from whatever I wanted. Right. And I owe a lot to Trump because I had no idea he was running for president in 2016. You know, I mean you can be we can be pretty disconnected from current events. Right. Especially when you're in the Torah world for sure and like I just didn't know he was running. And my my chaverusa said that President Trump is running for president and and I thought he was kidding and he what he really wanted was I should watch him on YouTube. At which point he puts it on YouTube to for me to see President Trump giving a campaign speech. After about 20 minutes, I just said like, "Turn this thing off." Like Like I can't listen to another word of this, you know, brain burp. Right. You know, it was like I just felt like I needed to dunk a thousand times in a ritual bath to purify myself from this talk. But, it had it went into me and the next day I was teaching my class at Aish HaTorah and I just brain burped from Torah. Yeah. I just brain burped for an hour straight. And when I was done, we had this whole discussion in the room. Like do we post it or do we not post it? Yeah. So, I'm Facebook. Do we post it or not post it? And and we decided we said, "We'll post it for a day and see what happens." Because I was afraid Aish HaTorah was going to get a lot of phone calls because I was I said a lot of radical things on there. Anyway, long Better known as the truth. Right. Long story short is I posted it and we got more views in those 24 hours and not one call that I knew about to Aish HaTorah. There you go. And from that day on, I just say what needs to be said no matter what. Exactly. And um what I want to say about that Oh, cuz you brought up Rabbi Victor Miller, which is really interesting is there's a guy who was a big Victor Miller student and when Rabbi Victor Miller passed away, he couldn't listen to anyone else. Wow. So, he just was stuck with the Rabbi Victor Miller classes. Got the tapes, yeah, he's got This was my biggest compliment ever is Wow. He listens to you. good friend who told him that listen to Rabbi Yom Tov Sheesh. Listen to Rabbi Yom Tov Glatt and see if you can listen to You're fair. And so, that's exactly what I give you the fist bump now. So, that's exactly what happened and he and then he went through over 700 hours of my Wow. Baruch Hashem. So, but this isn't about me, it's about you really. I'm speaking to the world here, you know. Say your truth. For sure. Say your truth and and and this is what Jordan Peterson keeps talking about is that is that speech, truthful speech, if you're willing to take it, will be the greatest adventure of your life. Well, that's adventure of your life because it's going to have consequences. The most successful people in the kiruv world speak the truth. Right. Right. I mean and the Rambam says unequivocally, very clearly, unless you're a talmid chacham, for women, children, and amei ha'aretz, which basically is almost everyone in our generation would be considered the only thing that works is truth. And the Gemara talks about it at length. If you don't have fear of God and you Oh, people Oh, I love God. God knows that I love him. Oh, your boss knows that you love him. You come in 2 hours late every day. You don't hand in your TPS reports on time. You're going to get fired. There's there's an easy structure in life. You need to do what God wants. There's no Mhm. There's no um we we the podcast. No, no, cuz we don't I don't post any No no no pictures of Oh, it's I agree with you, by the way. I think people putting their kids on their profile pictures and like what's that? I think it's I think it's wrong. Like I think it's very wrong. you permission to do that. Yeah, I think it's very wrong to Look, there's so many people that can't have kids. There's so many people that chos v'shalom have lost. You don't need to add to other people's You know, I I I just that's one thing that I think that that the social media has that everyone feels the need to jam their family their It's just I don't I don't think it's necessary. I mean I you know, Continue with what you were saying that you were you were in the middle of I interrupted you cuz your kid cuz your kid was on the podcast. Um Now, where were you? Talking about Victor Miller. Oh, oh, the truth. Oh, so if you don't have if you don't have a fear of God, I look, Rosh Hashanah is coming up. The entire world, forget about just the Jews, every single person, thing, creature in this world is going to be judged. And you know, if you look at last Rosh Hashanah, there were a few thousand people that you know, when we say some by fire, some by It's not just a fluffy thing that we like the you know, the the niggun of it now. We like the tune of it now. This is how life works. You know, it's it's scary. We have a judgment coming up, but there's things we can do obviously to sweeten the I mean, Hashem tells us give more charity, give more learn more Torah, more acts of kindness. You know, we're we're at a very low point. People that live in America, they think, "Oh, Israel is just going through this." I I I don't know if people have seen what's going on in college campuses and on the streets of, you know, Detroit and and New York. Hashem is trying to rouse his children. And I feel my duty is is doing whatever I can to tell people, "Look, you're not thinking about God. You would never treat God like you treat your boss like you treat God. Like everything's a is a buffet, you know? Oh, modesty's not really my thing. You know, maybe keeping kosher. It it it's it's not how it works. And people like people like getting getting bludgeoned. People I I had said to Rabbi Mizrachi once cuz he said to me when when we were in Monsey, he said, "Eliyahu do you think that my shiurim are are too tough? They turn people off." I said, "No." I said, "Because you can't walk into a dark room and turn the lights off." He uses this all the time. People message me all the time. Cuz he always says, "Oh, this baal teshuvah that I love from Atlanta." And they say every he And Rabbi Mizrachi always sends me, "I used your quote again and again." What's What's What's it mean you can't go into a dark room and turn the lights If you're not open to hearing the truth, you're you're spiritually dark. You're already turned off. You can't be turned off more. Nothing that you can hear can offend you more if you're if you want to grow, if you want to learn about life, you can only be turned on, you cannot be turned off. You're already in the dark. You're already in the dark. You can't go into a dark room and make it darker. It's already dark. I had to suffer through cuz I was in the real professional gear world. Yeah. So many vanilla outreach situations that I just wanted to throw up all the time. Like like being this Mr. Nice Guy rabbi Yeah. in some college campus or you know, and apologetic about gender roles in Judaism and and um I mean, it it just made me so ill because the only thing that could have made a difference was making a strong difference. Yeah, for sure. And and going vanilla with your your outreach career. And I hope someone's listening who's either in outreach or will be outreach. You're living the wrong way. is going to hear this because because there are no more apologies at this point in history. Right. We're we're not apologizing. We're not trying to explain why this is why I mean, if you want to explain the wisdom of Torah, if you want to explain the the how these 30 laws point to a value that you actually would hold true if you finally would open your open your mind a little bit and think about the fact that you didn't you know, you didn't it would be you you also hold that as a value. Well, well, these are the details of such a value. Right. And it's not un-American to have all those details be something you observe if it's a value worth keeping and the Torah lists those values and and it's um Whatever. The The point is is to say the truth. Back to the truth again. I I don't think there's a more effective in anything in life. Right. You know? But it puts us in dangerous water though, you and I because because I always loved this was I would say the truth and then and then I always spoke a little beyond where I was at. Why? Because now in the next 24 hours I got to get there. Right. You know, you can't be a hypocrite. Right. So, I mean, there are people who can be, but if you're not hypocritical in your nature. So so you I always spoke a little beyond where I was at. And then would fill those shoes during the next 24 hours. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever if you that you relate to what I'm saying. I always almost every single time I finish my lectures they're usually between an hour and an hour and 15 minutes, the ones that I do at my house. I always put my son to bed. I I lay and I watch the whole lecture. And I'm like, "You know what? 2 weeks ago you you you didn't do that what you just said." And I and I tell people in every single lecture I said, "Trust me, I get way more chizuk out of my cuz I said I watch every single one afterwards. Sometimes I watch them multiple times cuz you're you're, especially as a cohen, we walked up a ramp to get to the There's no steps in Judaism. It's a ramp. You're either going up or down. There's no stopping. There's no getting comfortable on a level. You're up or down. It's very um, you know, it's like a that ramp is a metaphor for for how we're supposed to be. And you know, people want to challenge themselves in life all the time. You know, people they Yeah, I was a great golfer. So, I didn't go to the a mediocre golf instructor. I went to a great golf instructor. People are very comfortable in Judaism to I like this rabbi. He He says, "Okay, we can, you know, drive on Shabbos for for like a you know, there's always um a comfort level of of not being challenged, but but it's life. And it's better to challenge yourself and have Hashem have to do it for you, which we're unfortunately seeing you know, all over the world. Yeah, we should probably uh go to that and then maybe call it a day, but they go to the situation at hand, but I did I just want to share with you that when when COVID hit I you know, everything shut down. There were I didn't have my daily lectures anymore. Which meant I didn't have anything pushing me forward cuz my growth was all happening because I was always speaking a little beyond where I was at. So, I finally after the first like 3 months of emergency of it all, I got back in at least in front of a camera on Zoom. And I found I couldn't say anything that I wasn't I couldn't speak from a place that I wasn't at anymore. Really? Interesting. And I never went really went back. Wow. So, here I had been speaking a little beyond myself all the years for many years. I mean, a lot of years. And then COVID hit and suddenly I didn't have that anymore. I only had where I was at. That's a real COVID casualty. Yeah, I only had where I'm at and and then I finally got in a speaking situation and I could not talk beyond where I was at. That's interesting. And so I had to start speaking from where I'm at. Interesting. And I think it it created a level of honesty. We're no longer speaking about truth, but honesty. Yeah. Well a level of honesty That's the same. Yeah. Different side of the coin. Same coin. inner honesty. Yeah. And um I I think our lifestyle is built to challenge us without having to speak beyond where you're at. So, we're already challenged. Yeah. We're we're constantly in this incredible growth curve. This is the an endless growth curve. Yeah. People have no idea. People People who I'm sure some people listening to this are into growth. Um who have not yet delved into a Torah community lifestyle. There's no end. I mean, endless. It's so intense and it never goes away unless unless you want to personally go to sleep. Right. The uh as long as you're willing to stay part of things you are being pushed. And you could even take my most robotic neighbors who are like born and raised in total Torah lifestyle. They don't know anything else. Um you might think that they're just robots. Right. And maybe from outside they look like robots. I know them from the inside. They're my neighbors for years and years and years and years and years and years. They're pushing themselves 10 times harder than I'm pushing myself. Wow. And these are the robots that everyone thinks are the robots of the, you know, black hat Yeah. Orthodox, you know, black hat attitude world. Right. These guys are pushing themselves so hard. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable what they're up to. Baruch Hashem. And it's um I have such respect for it. And they So, the prize I'm going to tell you something deep, but the the What the What is the Haredi movement? It's a movement of people are willing to trade personal authenticity Right. meaning like your full self-expression Right. to trade They're willing to trade some of that to get continuity. Right. The collective unit. We're going to We're going to create a next the next generation and each one of us have a unique tattoo. For sure. And look, it's it's the most successful. Sure. You know, they they did a a poll. I tell this to a lot of people and they're shocked. Of which groups in Israel stay you know, it was like the Dati Leumi, 48% stay religious. Oh, really? You saw that? Yeah. It was And it was in Haaretz. Like a a place that you wouldn't think that they would be. 92% of the Haredi stay Haredi. So, my friend said, "What What does that mean stay?" I said, "Whatever it means, they were double the next group. So, it doesn't matter. It means that they're the most successful." Wow. And I see this, you know, I live next to a very Hasidic community in in Netanya. And okay, there's there's the one or two kids that you hear about that but then there's thousands and they're happy and you know, that that's one thing that was the biggest shock to me the first Shabbos I spent sleeping at my rabbi's house and keeping the whole Shabbos. He had a I think like a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old son at the time. So, they had bunk beds and I slept on the floor. I was 28 at the time. We'd stay up, you know, 2 hours, 3 hours talking at night. Walk into their rooms. You know, my room growing up, Michael Jordan and, you know, just student nonsense, you know, not good role models at all. Walk into their room, every big rabbi you know, photograph framed on the wall, the temple, the Beit Hamikdash is on the wall. And I It's one of the chapters in my book. I I walked I went home and I said to my parents, "I want kids like this. I want kids that that value this particular rabbi." And I said, "Who is this?" "Oh, this is Rav. He's known for and and the excitement in their face was like me saying, 'Oh, Michael Jordan got 52 points last night, you know, against the Bucks' or something." Totally meaningless and nonsensical. That made a big impact. putting a ball that actually fits in the basket, through the basket. Right. So, seeing Well, 50 40,000 literate people cheer. Well, maybe. So, I mean, that that was That was a big eye-opener. And and I said, "You know what?" And then another time I came home from from the davening. And in my rabbi's living room, there were It was, you know, the wife hosts the camp in the summer. It's called Camp Shmaya. It's very famous in America. And there were like 30 girls there up between 18 and 22. The They were the madruchot. And I walked in and the entire living room is just filled with, you know, I was single at the time. Open the door, I walk in and I went, "Whoa." 30 very modest just like plain girls. And I said, "I This is what I want. This is what I want to marry. This is what I want." It was just a It was a Coming from college where, you know, you're sitting at a bar and okay, this one's wearing the shortest skirt, so she's probably the the easiest to talk to. I mean, it was such a warped Right. lifestyle. And when you, like you said, when you get into a Torah lifestyle, and you keep peeling away the layer, you realize that the deeper you go, A, the more beautiful it gets, and B, the less you know the how far you have to go. There's sometimes I'm like, "Wow, you know, I just gave an amazing lecture." And then I realize, "Well, but I haven't learned 99.99." And it makes you Right. It makes you small. And that's that's the beauty of is always trying to stay humble and challenged to get, you know, to go higher. Yeah. The the um There's a famous a famous story of a a very I forget who it was. It might have even been uh one of the big CEOs of America. I don't remember, but the the rabbi said that you and I are in the same place of Torah. And uh the CEO was like, "What do you mean? Like, you're this giant rabbi and I know nothing, you know?" Right. He says, "Yeah, but but if you took uh Michael Phelps and um you in a pool and, you know, Michael Phelps, an Olympic gold medalist, Right. to swim across the 100-yd pool, um who would win?" And he says, "I obviously Phelps would already be across while I'm still Right. splashing in." He says, "Well, what if we dropped the two of you in the Atlantic Ocean, in the center of the ocean? Who would win?" And he was like, "Uh we would both die. Michael Phelps would probably die a little later, but we'd both be So, he said that this is the the Torah is the ocean." Wow. "And though you think I know a lot, I know nothing. And and that's the growth. Right, right. This curve of growth. Right, it's just a And so, there is a big price creatively, meaning we're not having the best musicians come out of town at come out of our towns, and we're not having the top writers coming out of our towns, and we're not having the top artists. And we're not getting the best screenplays and, you know, there's not a lot of creativity coming out. However, intense growth. And so, you want to point your finger at the fact that there's not a lot of creativity coming out compared to Tel Aviv, you could. And you'd be right. Um but if you're into growth, oh my gosh. Yeah. You It's the You can't get more growth. There's nowhere on the planet where people are growing more intensely and being humbled constantly. And, you know, it's it's it's real, serious growth. And And that growth means more meaning in life. You know, a lot of a lot of great artists and a lot of great musicians were suicidal. You know, where's Robin Williams? Well, that's the the meaning in life is I think we Well, there's one time I was at I was at a a wedding um in in Scottsdale. And, you know, I went down and I told them, "I'm going to need help getting into my room. Can you please, you know, So, I go down and I said, "I need help getting into my room." She said, "Okay, I'll make you a key." I said, "No, I I'm I can't There There should be a note in the computer." She said, "There's no note in the computer." I said, "I need help getting into my you into my room. And I I came down and I told them that I'm an Orthodox Jew, I don't use electricity." She said, "One second." She got the biggest security guard I've ever seen in my life. Comes down cross. He said, "What's the problem here?" I said, "Sir, there's no problem. I'm an Orthodox Jew, I don't use electricity. I just need help getting into my room." He said, "Well, she said she can make you a key." I said, "But I can't use the key myself." He said, "What if I open the door?" I said, "Perfect. Great." So, we're walking. He says, "Tell me about what you're talking I said, I said, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, from Friday night at sundown till Saturday night sundown, we don't use electricity. We don't create anything." He's like, "So, no cars, no I said, no." He said, "So, what do you do?" I said, "Well, we learn the Torah. We have lively meals with family and friends. We take walks. Telling really beautiful." He said, "Wow, it's amazing." He said, "So, no You don't have to answer any emails?" I said, "No." "You don't work?" "No." He said, "Wow, it's amazing." So, so we get to the elevator and and we're just standing there. And he said, "Oh, I need to press this, too." I said, "Sure." So, he goes, opens the room, and I said, "I have my passport here and I have a tip for you." And he said, "You You planned all this before?" I said, "Yeah, this is my first rodeo." I said, So, he said, "You do this what, once a year?" I said, "No, every single week." I said, "Imagine having one day of the week." He was so blown away. I mean, he he probably is now like that with the Asia. But this was a Gentile that saw He listened to the positives of, you know, we get so caught up in all the things we can't do as Jews, when not many people are focusing on This guy was really blown away. Imagine have more time with your family, more time with your wife, more time for yourself. Yeah, that's cool. I was just in LA. My My father's Filipino. Living My father's elderly Yeah. His Filipino caretaker had shut off the bathroom light before Shabbat. And, you know, he leaves a little later. Right. And I said uh I said, and I I turned it back on and I said, "If you don't mind, you know, when you leave the house, like, make sure this bathroom light is on so I have a light." Right. He says, "You mean if I shut it off later tonight when the Sabbath would come in, you would leave it off?" Yeah. And I said, "Yeah, I would be going to the bathroom in the dark." He said, "Very dedicated." Wow, yeah, see? Baruch Hashem. Um Listen, just a word on the uh We're going to wrap it up, but Okay. You You have something you want to say about uh about the war? So, you know, at the beginning of the war, I was doing tons of lectures. And I was telling people, you know, everyone keeps "What can I do to help the soldiers?" And I write back, "You are a soldier. You're Jewish. Stop thinking that cuz you're not on the front line that you're not on the front line." I said, "The reason this soldier is coming back is cuz you're at home saying Tehillim. The reason this soldier, you know, the Muslim next to him got blown up and not you and not him, is because you challenge yourself and learn that extra." I said, "Every single person has, you know, something that we can be doing now, something that we can be helping the um It says very specifically in in Devarim that they went out to the army a thousand and a thousand. Why not just say they went out 2,000? So, Rashi says, "A thousand went to learn and a thousand went A thousand went to fight and a thousand went to learn." Each tribe had 2,000 corresponding. So, there was 12,000 out fighting and 12,000 out learning. And I said, "You're not in the army now. You're not even in Israel. But don't think you're not on the front lines. This world This is the front line. And we're we're in a very low position. Hashem doesn't, you know, When your kid's good, you don't smack him. When your kid runs into the street, you smack him. The harder the smack, and people don't like hearing this, the more we're trying to get woken up. To think that this was "Oh, the you know, the technology broke down or the army had a mistake." No. Hashem said on Rosh Hashanah last year that this was going to happen. We didn't do 10 days of teshuvah. In fact, they came into Yom Kippur davening in Tel Aviv and were knocking down barriers. These are things that we cannot have as Jews. And like the Chofetz Chaim said, "You can't change the world. You can change yourself. And if you really want to do things to help people in Israel or soldiers, the best thing to do is to realize that as Jews, we were given a Torah, just like you're given a syllabus in college, just like you're given a company policy, just like your parents give you a list of chores, and they want it done. End of story." You know, not everyone gets a trophy. Not everyone needs to be coddled. We have a role in the world. If we didn't have that role, or if the world doesn't need us, just like we say on Yom Kippur, we no longer are in this world. So, if you're here and you're listening, there are things you need to do as a Jew. And if you want to help, you know, the soldiers here, yes, donating to a barbecue is fantastic. But taking the time to learn Torah, to fix a quality that you have that you don't like, you know, everyone has that New Year's resolute Oh, this year I'm going to the gym. Well, you're going to be stuck on your, you know, couch January 12th eating Cheetos with your gut out. that's not going to last. We need We need real action now, like you said before. Words are meaningless. Everyone says they want to help. They want to make the situation better. What can I do for you in Israel? Easy. Do what God wants. End of story. We're Jews. We were given a higher purpose in this world. And instead of shunning it and always trying to it's it's racist to think that we're better. It's not that we're better. The CEO and the janitor don't eat at the same table. They don't have the same office. Just like there's a hierarchy in a company, there's a hierarchy in the world. And we got the biggest punch we've gotten since the Holocaust. God gave us a massive smack last year. And we need to take that to heart. And I don't think we have done that. In fact, I told my wife after October 7th, I said, "It's going to be 2 months of flying high and we're going to crash down to way worse than we were on October 6th." And we see that now. Unfortunately. And it can change. We have another week. You know, how you end the year matters. Every single day Hashem will credit it as if every single Tuesday and Wednesday you So, we have a week left until Rosh Hashanah that we can fly. Every single person needs to look themselves in the mirror and say, "Okay, how can I get better? How can I better myself, better the people around me?" And by doing that, bracha comes down. And you know, less soldiers are walking into booby trap buildings, less rockets are coming in and hitting houses. They're going to, you know, blow up in Lebanon instead of in Israel. We live in a spiritual world. This is This is like not reality how we live. God wants nothing more than for us to do what we're supposed to do and help others, you know, do the same. And Incredible message. And and that and that's really it. And we make we make life so complicated. And I try to say in every single video, it's it's not easy. If you're a parent out there, if you're a boss out there, if you're a teacher out there, you want and demand things from your students and employees and kids. God has the same expectations. All you have to do is just literally read the words of the Torah. Not everything needs a rashi. Not everything is so deep. God says very clearly what he loves, what he doesn't love, what he wants, what he doesn't want. It's not so so hard sometimes. We just need to get in the mind space of, you know what? God was very upset with us, you know? Happy A happy God doesn't do what he did last year. I mean, that's just the reality. Parents that are really proud of their kids don't walk in and smack them in the face. They do it when they run into the street or when they put their hand on a stove. Unfortunately, our hand's way too close to the stove right now. As Jews. And it's time to turn it around. How can people find you online, especially those who don't have Facebook? So, Uh I think you're known just with Yeah, so I'm online. I have a fan page called Israel with Eliyahu Cohen. I also have a Facebook group called I love Israel. Um You can email me at YouTube or you on I'm not I'm not on YouTube. Uh you can email me at eliyahu e l i y o k i m uh at gmail.com. My goal in life is to help the people, I mean, everyone, but specifically the people that I used to be. Proud Jews, love Judaism, just never knew how to funnel that into action. And that's what we need now is action. The times of you know, theoretical stuff and I feel and I want it is over. We need to act literally now. And and And if you know, that's that's the message. everyone, please subscribe and uh hit the hit the bell and the likes and I'm here to share. Great session. Thank you very much. What a pleasure. All right.