0:02 good afternoon everyone and welcome to the way to wow bounce back with me leah siegel and today i have a special special guest on if you didn't have a chance to tune in last week i interviewed java florin a friend of mine from way back when we had a really candid conversation it was really eye-opening to learn how to bounce back from major challenges many health challenges um things in life that get thrown at you and there you have options right but what is
0:37 it that you tend to do when that happens and so please go to the way to wow channel and listen in on youtube so you can hear the recording today i am so honored and lucky and privileged and this is like is this really happening i get to interview my own husband and you have a chance to get to hear from him someone that i admire learn from on a daily basis he inspires so many people you know he is a rabbi of a congregation we live out here in santa clarita and you're going to get to hear i'm going to try not to get emotional i'm not promising anything though
1:13 um his journey to where he is today you know sometimes you see a finished product and they look perfectly polished and so perfect and you don't think that there's a mess behind it and what how they got there and what they've had to endure and overcome and so we're gonna we're gonna take it slow because there's so much to unpack and first i want to welcome you jay um we're in the same house but seriously you know cold times we got to work together
1:49 you know for a long time both of us on zoom him being a rabbi me being in the leadership development area and just dedicated to reaching people while they're feeling alone and i know for you it was a major shift you know we had just moved here but why don't you take us back to your journey to sobriety because i know that that is something you are till this day every day giving back you know over 25 years of helping people in that world and so it's a big part of you so walk us through that and you can pick
2:26 up anywhere on that journey it's your platform yeah well i like it and uh uh and thank you for having me and uh so i just want to say first off how amazing it is maybe about what was it five six years ago uh you and i uh we had a dream board that we made remember we made that together and uh it's actually in our house so of course you remember you walk by it every day and you look at it and part of that dream board uh was having a talk show and now you are it's live here certainly on zoom but you can see that it's it's
3:02 live and it's streaming on a lot of different platforms and so it's this it's it's tv enough right i mean that's pretty cool uh and and it's really quite amazing how if you visualize something if you think about it if you really really want something not necessarily uh if you need it but if you really really want something you can actually make it happen and it's pretty cool and i think one of the the the great lessons at least about that dream board and for those who don't know really what a dream
3:38 board is just you know imagine dream something and and take some pictures put it on a board call it a dream board and put it in your wherever you're going to look at it on a regular basis and uh you know it's a constant reminder and many of those things did come true and i wouldn't have been able to really identify with inside of myself that it was a dream uh that i would be living this life but i can tell you uh uh 25 years ago i couldn't have possibly imagined a life like this um you know it's like i
4:15 ultimately ultimately am very very grateful for the life i live and before i even start answering the question i have to say to be here and to be who knows who's watching online or whatever is happening there uh when i say something like it's an honor and a privilege to be able to talk i don't mean that in the sense of it's just an honor and a privilege i hear that quite a bit when i say it's an honor uh it really is in the sense nobody uh 25 years ago was asking my opinions my thoughts anything
4:52 about what i considered to be important in my life today nobody was asking me that and so it's an honor that i have been given uh the opportunity to be part a part of people's lives uh where i came from is really important and i am really really grateful so that's what i mean about uh it being an honor and when i say it's a privilege it's truly a privilege to be able to speak at any uh anything like this or or quite frankly it's a it's a privilege to be able to just be a part of anything because people with stories like mine it
5:29 doesn't end up like this more often than not with people who have stories like mine are who suffer from what i suffer from alcoholism which is also a uh you know addiction these kinds of things uh the story doesn't end up with a a wonderful experience in the world and and having a beautiful wife i am fully aware that i have been blessed and i am graced and i am grateful for it because most of these stories end up in what is said to
6:06 be jails institutions death and that's where the story ends and i learned that lesson i've been blessed to be able to go to many different places and speak and one of the things that was really funny i went to a camp up in upstate new york in the catskills it was a camp there was like this would have been 10 15 but maybe i don't even remember many many years ago and i i spoke to a a group of high school students 9th 10th 11th and 12th and the 9th and 10th graders uh it went well and then i went to the 11th and
6:41 12th graders and there was probably about 200 250 of them and i spoke to the whole group and in my mind i was speaking about my past and then they looked at me and you could see in their eyes but he became a rabbi and then i realized i have to be very very careful about how i tell my story because at least in the eyes of the way i was telling the story at that time it's like get all of that craziness out of your system and then you know figure it out and then you too can become a professional
7:16 and so i always i always make it very very clear that i know uh more often than not that this is the exception and anyone that has worked in the field of drug and alcohol uh in the in uh recovery in these kinds of fields know that it's heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story and uh uh it it we wish and we hope for people to really really make it out but often and more often than not it's it's a painful story and so that's really what i mean by honor and a privilege and so uh i don't know i got off on a tangent uh
7:51 but it was yeah not a bad one so it's an honor and privilege privilege to be here and so uh really where my story starts and and and i you know i there's a lot of different starting points and so and and depending on how uh one really wants to look back at their life you we can all identify places in our life uh where there was a pivotal pivotal moment and uh i'll share with you just one of those and and hindsight is as they say is 2020. and i only look back at my life now
8:27 through the the the the lens and the and really the the beauty of being able to look back and and being able to really identify uh i you know when you're in it you don't see it you know and then you make the connections and it sounds like a great story but anyone that's living in the moment uh it doesn't really feel that way uh it can feel intense it can feel uh great it can feel terrible i mean that's the emotional piece but i i one of the things that uh i i think uh really where it began is i i look at these as bookends and i i remember and it's never
9:02 it's never if if if you experience like me it's never these grand stories right these grand stories are wonderful but most of the pivotal moments in my life are just these little moments little moments that have great impact and uh i can see a trajectory going and one of them uh was i was really young and uh i i like to think of myself as somebody who's intelligent don't we all right it's nice to think of oneself as is bright and and charming and right so okay so when i was uh at a young age and i'm not really sure i wasn't i started to not do well in
9:38 school and uh for a number of reasons and i remember uh having a conversation with my parents who were obviously very concerned about uh the grades starting to slip and you know what what can we do and i remember thinking to myself that i can do this if i just try harder if i just study more if i just do what is important and then that time it was obviously the studying getting help tutoring right all that stuff and i looked and i remember you know i'm sure my mother was there i remember my father i remember being at the kitchen table
10:14 but i remember having this conversation uh and and crying because it was an emotional thing i was probably 10 11 i was younger and i was crying and i was like i can do this just give me a chance i can do this and um i realized later on and about i would say uh 10 years later when i did get sober because in that 10 years there was a lot going on and i made some terrible terrible choices that led me to where i am today but at that point 10 years later i was crying again in my early 20s i was 20 years old crying again saying i
10:51 can't do it alone i desperately need other people and so that was one of the most important lessons that i ever learned was that i had made a decision early on and it sounds good right i can do it i can do it if i figure it out and if i just try harder and if i if i just do more it'll all work out but that's not how life works certainly not for me i desperately and i desire and i need other people to help me and support me and be a part of my life i like to think of myself as an introvert but that's really not the case
11:26 the case is is that i really do thrive off other people i don't maybe enjoy all the time being around a bunch of people that might be the case but they give me so much they lift me up and i had made early on that decision and i think it was a spiritual decision the wrong one that i could do it on my own that i don't need other people if i just try harder and it sounds good we actually learned that in the in the world in which we live right try harder figure it out you know you know there's this rugged individualism that we we
12:03 we really kind of champion in our world but many of us know that that's not how it works nor is it even the reality so uh that's really how i kind of look at where i made one of the small what seems like a small choice but affected and impacted my whole life until i decided that i desperately need other people wow you know i can actually be at the kitchen table with you i can see the little boy nine years old 10 years old yeah you've been in the kitchen well i've been that girl also but
12:39 you know thinking about what it felt like to to let our parents down and you want to make them happy so we say what we think they want to hear so i'm looking at that first book and we have this 10 years of window which we're going to get to in a minute and then we have the aha moment of i now know i cannot do it alone tell us if you can whatever you feel comfortable sharing what were some of the darker moments in that 10 years and what was that for you that made you realize because that was that was the wake-up call but
13:16 how did you get there what made you really say i'm really ready for help was there was there a moment that happened in your life or was it literally you were exhausted you were done you know tell us yeah you know it it it actually i i'll just share so i started uh really i'll just give you a brief unders synopsis and i actually uh uh i rekindled a relationship with a an old friend of mine from dallas uh where i grew up and he actually moved out here over covid and and we have a long history i've
13:51 known this guy for many many years and we started we really started doing drugs together at a young age we were 12 years old and uh we were on our bicycles and we would uh uh um you know behave very poorly let's just put it that way and i went to him and a couple of weeks ago if you remember you know maybe it's a month already time flies doesn't it a couple of months ago and and he and i sat down and i and you know we're just chatting because we're both adults now and he went a much different route than i he he never got it uh involved in some of the the the stuff that i did and uh
14:27 i asked him about it he remembered of course he remembered and the interesting thing is is that he looked at it immediately from the lens of that was a sad moment that was a sad moment and he was just like yeah that was uh god i can't believe we did that you know and for me that was the start of something really big in other words as as as a uh a recovered alcoholic as somebody in recovery uh um it affects me differently the drugs and alcohol affect me differently you know and i always use my sister as an example when she you know
15:03 drinks a little bit because we're from the same parents right and it and it's always an easy thing to say well is it genetic or so on so let's let's use that as an example right same same parent same people totally different reaction when my sister has a few drinks if she even does right she kind of just says oh i'm losing maybe a little bit of control i need to put it down thank you very much that was fun i'll giggle a little bit and we had a good time well for me it literally goes in my system and something shifts something changes and all of a sudden i'm starting to get going
15:38 right and that it really it's quieted me inside of me something that was raging that i didn't even know and in fact the drugs and alcohol did something for me that i couldn't do for myself and i didn't even know that that that there was a problem that needed solving and the drugs and alcohol solved it and so i looked at it and i looked at my friend as he's sitting across from me and we just had different experiences and it took me years to get to that moment it was almost a a time and a moment of pride that i'm doing these things you know that uh they call it
16:14 junky pride almost right that there's an arrogance to to somebody who's who's doing these things and it took me years to get to the point that i was actually able to look at this young young person and it's really quite sad and uh part of what i'm recovering uh and what i say that i've recovered is that not that innocence but that that that part of that kid that was really sad and helping him find joy helping him find you know in the jewish tradition is is really central central that one should find joy in all that we do you know all our holidays are pointed to
16:50 that and and everything that we do is pointed to to finding joy and and you know we we did halal this morning and this is the day that the lord created this is the day in which god created and looking at it from anew i couldn't get there in that moment it was all about me you know i needed to feel better i didn't realize that this needed to be quiet and so that was the beginning of it and i can tell you uh when people talk about the darkest moments what was some of the darkest moments uh um the one of the darkest moments uh that i can talk about and um when i really realized
17:28 and there was stuff i mean i i could tell you a million different stories but it's not always again the the crazy stories or the the you know i could go off but the one that really really destroys me is that uh i had started stealing quite a bit of money and uh um and in this particular instance i sold i stole about a thousand dollars from my father and i needed uh the drugs and i was trying to sell them but i wasn't doing so well any good drug dealer if there's any good
18:03 drug dealers on here today you know uh that you cannot sell the same supply that you are using it doesn't make for good business uh um you know so i wasn't doing very well so i stole a thousand dollars from my father and he confronted me and he said did you steal the thousand dollars and i looked at him and i knew that he knew that i did you know there was nothing i could do i was caught so what does somebody do well you confess right
18:38 i looked at my father and i lied i just lied and i said to him no i didn't and i dug in and there was a conversation going in my mind that it's obvious but i couldn't stop i couldn't stop and i remember having almost a psychotic split in my mind just like in a conversation we all have conversations with ourselves and so one of the conversations i was having is how can you continue having this conversation you're lying and i can't i can't stop and that's when i really started to realize how i would how i had lost all
19:15 control uh that i was no longer capable of of even speaking the truth i there was some part of me that had been hijacked some part of me that was out of my control and uh you know when we talk about you know pharaoh and egypt and he's letting the people go and going back i understand that i get that i understand what it means to think that you have free will and then you you can't you literally and physically can't and so uh um that's one of the darkest moments and really uh just before i got sober at 20
19:50 years old i lost the ability uh uh to to to to even think or dream about the future right now it's just like leia you and i are we have uh we're we're we're exploring uh uh you know are we're talking about ideas about moving into our new home together and you can daydream about it and fantasize look at the carpet right we're doing all of these fantasies and ideas about what's to come and towards the end of my use i completely lost the ability to even think into the future literally literally all i could see was white i
20:25 couldn't see anything i couldn't see my future and that's what i understand to be literally i was walking dead and then uh you know and i i endured that for many many years until until i got uh sober and one of the and i wish it was the beginning of my uh i got sober and it was over but again i was i i and this is just in short and uh um one of the things i was at the university of north texas and again i was i had a little operation in my dorm room uh that i was making a little side
21:01 money and unbeknownst to me or benoit's to me i don't know i don't even know what was going on the roommate that i had uh informed the authorities at the school uh that i was doing this illegal activity and i went off to class and i came back to class and there was a note on my door that i needed to report to the deans that my dorm room had been raided by the campus police i went in they had completely uh ransacked the entire room uh but i wasn't there so at the time i wasn't arrested and uh i went to the i
21:36 had a meeting with the dean and i i invited my father to come because i thought and this is part of part of what the uh um and maybe uh maybe some of you might be able to relate to this i thought that because of the merit of other people maybe you'll treat me better right if i'm associated with somebody who's doing this uh then maybe i'll be treated a little better right or if i have this kind of person on my side i'll be in a better position so i i did that with my father i invited him to come i don't know if it was an invitation but uh so we sat down in front of the dean and they said basically was me my father
22:12 and the dean of students and he said look we're not going to press charges but you need to leave immediately i was kicked out of this school and so they read a whole list they read a whole list of the drugs that they had found in the dorm room and they went through line by line and they said heroin and my father looked at me and he said how long have you been doing that and i had been completely exposed at that moment now remember i talked about those bookends i had shut down
22:47 and then now i had had a secret that i had held for so many years my parents had always known that i had gotten kind of involved in drugs and drinking and you know maybe smoking a little marijuana but not to the extent then all of a sudden this entire secret had been lifted and it is almost as though everything that i had been holding on my shoulders i now could at least have a conversation and i started to cry because i had finally had this secret
23:24 completely exposed but instead of staying there i just said thank you very much and i ran to the bathroom because you're not going to see a 20 year old cry right so i couldn't get it i couldn't get exposed too much so i went to the bathroom and i just cried and i felt a bit of relief and uh at that point it made sense to my father he couldn't put his finger on it and i'm sure also from my mother they couldn't quite put their finger on what had happened because something was very wrong but he wasn't doing what he had always done
23:59 and so excuse me and so there we are and that was really the bottom and that started me on a road to recovery i wish i could say i got sober at that point it took a couple more months i didn't quite understand what that meant uh but that was the beginning of that road wow i just can't help but think about children our children you know a lot of us our parents on here and um
24:34 knowing how much pain your child could be in and you would do the work do anything in the world to help but not knowing what's going on you can't really help and so i know you made some pretty big decisions that day which led to major decisions that were going to pave the way you know to where you are right now you know even having our marriage here you know what's amazing is that we're together almost 10 years but when i hear you tell the story it's not the first time but it feels like the first time and
25:10 um i could have the same reaction as if i'm watching it from above you know seeing you as a little boy seeing you as a 20 year old um being exposed i'm feeling your father i wish i knew your father um and what it was like for him to to see you that way and for him to have that that news but here's the best part because you made a big decision then it may not have happened for another five years i know the passing of your father led to some some choices too take us through that journey of you
25:46 making a decision to to connect with judaism but not just learning about judaism becoming a leader in the community becoming you know going to rabbinical school and um yeah so it's a great question and and i i judaism has always been a a part of my life i always identified as jewish and growing up jewish in in texas and uh i think you know i was high school of 3 000 people and maybe there was a handful of jews five six seven eight nine jews and you know my parents had always it was a priority you know went to hebrew
26:22 school those kinds of things and you know went to synagogue and uh it was a part of our lives uh uh and joyfully so uh um you know most of the friends of the family obviously were jewish and and so on so uh um but this idea of finding judaism not just as a religion and i couldn't have understood the difference you know between what was religion and and how i'm going to find spirituality and what it means to me and and being a seeker and wanting to have a connection and these kinds of things and and so when i was in my uh you know just prior to that story that i told you i
26:58 started seeking right i started seeking ways because i i knew that the way i was living i didn't want to live that way anymore i wanted to find another way to live and so the first place that i went to is is judaism and you know so i went to a couple of different books but if you're starting to if you try and learn spirituality from a book it's very hard right so you start to read it maybe you agree with something and you disagree with something and and and almost it's very challenging to have a conversation with the book right so more often than not you need some kind of uh uh mentor or somebody to help guide you
27:35 in ways in which to develop spiritually so i wanted that thirst but who am i gonna find this you know with you know interestingly enough and you'll appreciate this that's what the tanya at least is is is for is that it's a book but it's meant to be a mentor i mean that's what they say in the introduction right is that that's that's the problem is that people are seeking but you really can't get what you need spiritually or uh or to learn from from a book it's very hard and and much of judaism is passed down from you know student to teacher and so
28:10 on and so forth so that's really what the tonya was written for is that you could have a book and you could be able to to learn how to develop spiritually for lack of a better word so i started looking and then i have to tell you it was i i i i was told that i didn't know if this was true or not but if that i really wanted to be sober i was gonna need to to find a spiritual path and i heard that sounds beautiful yeah you know and i heard that and it was it was almost an either or proposition you know you're either gonna find spirituality or you're gonna you
28:45 know and i really looked at it like this you know i was either gonna find a spiritual path or i'm gonna go on to the bloody end with what i was doing before and i don't know what shifted i don't know what happened but things started to change and i started to look at the world a little bit differently we call it openness we call it willingness you can call it whatever you want but i became a little less rigid i had tried everything else i had tried to do this i tried to do that and the truth of the matter is i think the best word for it is is surrender
29:21 but it's not like just the surrender it's just like you know what i'm done i'm done fighting everything i'm done fighting everyone if you say try spirituality i'll try it what do i got to lose it's almost like a depressive way to look at it but that's what it was i'd given up there was no more hope like i told you i could only see this i couldn't even see in the future everything was dark i couldn't even do it i'll try it and so i vaguely remember a rabbi came into this one treatment center that i
29:56 was in and uh he said to me you know what you want to pray and i was like i don't i don't okay i mean i don't know what that means and i remember and who knows if it's even true i don't trust my mind all the time but he read with me the kaddish and i remember being so judgmental right oh the cottage as if i knew anything do you know what i'm saying as if i even used these prayers in my daily life but i found myself being very judgmental right two days onto my spiritual journey and i'm already judging the other person on his spiritual journey real spiritual right so anyways uh um i but it started me
30:31 thinking about what judaism could offer and i knew i knew judaism had something to offer in the way of spirituality i didn't really know what it was uh shortly after i started using drugs again and uh i went off uh to another a another treatment center and in that treatment center this very day that i was there another young guy came in and he was a young guy from a hasidic uh uh upbringing and he had suffered from some some traumatic stuff but he had grown up
31:06 in israel very very religious guy and he asked me if i wanted to put on to fill in i said okay and then that very saturday they asked if you wanted to go to uh services and i said okay i'll go to jewish services and they drove me on a saturday to services and i didn't miss a saturday for over five years and i started to develop a community and i started to really really develop the importance of what it meant to be a part of and not separate from and i started to learn what it meant to
31:43 be uh in in something and not looking from the outside in and so i became more and more open and i became fascinated about what judaism had to offer but i had to keep it to myself because at this point if i only had a couple of months sober and you're starting to tell people everyone does this right they get a couple months sober and all of a sudden they're going to change the world i'm going to do all this so i kept it to myself and i just quietly what i needed to do i needed to get a degree i needed to do this i needed to do that i had to do a lot of things to go there and i quietly
32:18 put my head down and did what i needed to do to make that happen and in the process i began learning in the process i began to develop a community and it was really each and every day trying to be a little bit bigger trying to be a little bit more open in the jewish tradition in spirituality and that's what started it and so one of the biggest things uh um and this is just something i don't know about you guys but uh many times my mind starts to i can be judgmental at times maybe other people have or opinionated right anyone opinionated and so i uh i uh i was
32:55 sitting in i was probably you know five months down this journey six months down this journey i don't really know but i remember the moment and there was a rabbi up on the beam a very large synagogue in the midwest and here he was and i thought to myself i can do better than that and i heard myself say that and i was like that you may be able to do better than that but that is one of the most arrogant things to say and i thought to myself okay put your money where your mouth is you know you at 21 year old know every more than
33:30 anyone else in the world and you could do better put your money where your mouth is and then i realized that you know it's a long haul and 10 years later i was actually ordained as a rabbi but i learned an important lesson that day that everyone everyone in this world that dedicates themselves and we all do on some level to service to being of service to people to being of service to your community being service to your family people who are dedicated to that that is a real decision that's the most important decision i think we can make on a daily basis and so for me to ever
34:07 judge anyone on how they choose to be of service uh really made me uh uh think again about how important it is for me just to to show through actions what we mean and really keep my opinions to myself and really keep my judgments of other people because we never know we never know what somebody else's struggle is we never know what somebody's experience experiencing in fact i'm only living my experience it's the only one i got so it's pretty important to me but that's true for all of you uh that are here
34:42 right now and so uh that was in short and so slowly uh um you know i got it i finally got a degree i'm i got got my bachelor's and i took a year off and did i just want to work in the drug and alcohol treatment uh did i just want to become a really you know a a drug and alcohol counselor not on how to do it but you know like in recovery uh um i'm sure there's jobs out there like that uh but uh uh so i i i really made the decision and i applied to two rabbinical schools one in new york and one in l.a and uh i made the
35:18 decision that la was a better fit things just happen you know if we let things fall into place they just do the less me i get involved in some of these things the better they turn out does that make sense right the less me i try and get involved in all my decision making and and it was really great uh so i ended up moving to los angeles and uh um that started this journey wow you know i i always have this image this image is something i found online before you and
35:53 i met um when i got introduced to you i was uh looking you up right who does who never googled anybody right so i'm googling rabbi j siegel and this this picture comes up this really handsome man and you were looking at me okay in my mind you were looking at me it was a headshot and it was an article that was published in a newsletter or newspaper somewhere it popped up online and you were speaking about they chuva where you were working at the time and in that article you you're talking about
36:30 the story you shared this morning you mentioned yourself as a fourth grader when you knew you had a problem because you told yourself i don't need anyone i can do this on my own but what was amazing was watching what other people wrote about you where they were saying this this man saved my life rabbi if not for rabbi jay i i wouldn't be alive um all the lives you've saved from men and women who had who have this addiction or are no longer with us because you've seen a lot in your days and i know when i met you you were thinking about
37:05 opening your own recovery center you've been on a long journey and your heart is just wanting to give back and explore that and save people and i know that there's been a lot of setbacks and challenges for you on that road i've seen it i've seen it because i've been alongside you through many of things that were about to happen that didn't happen and what you're doing today with how you're giving back using the 12 steps you know you have 12 steps through spirituality running through our temple and really helping
37:40 people with all types of addiction but if you don't mind to share some of the challenges and setbacks or let's even call them surprises i like that word right a lot of surprises and uh again looking back it's all hindsight and uh so i i had wanted uh to work within the field as as a as a rabbi in in recovery and what that looked like and there was a lot of different opportunities and so i worked very passionately in minnesota working with families started and i had some sobriety
38:18 in minneapolis and i worked for a place called hazelton for for several years and just loved it loved working with people loved kind of the idea of how can spirituality help people recover from what seems like a hopeless condition and and watching the success stories and and being a part of it and you know alcoholics anonymous has been a huge part of my life for the past 25 years and and judaism has been a huge part in bringing those together and i just became so passionate about it loved it
38:54 and uh so much so that even when i was ordained uh my dean was just like more often than not when you just have a singleness of purpose when you only you only uh look at one thing and you're focused it can be very dangerous but he gave me a bracha uh that you know this was important um and that's important so hold that for just that in your mind for just a moment and uh uh so i had done that and and even even so it was really it was there was so many connections that i was making there was a gentleman uh from a very wealthy los angeles family in that went through hazelton and we worked with
39:29 this guy and he he was very problematic and uh he he he uh relapsed in the in the institution and he was very i mean had a lot of problems and he left and he went back to la well six months later i flew into la or started i moved to los angeles and i found out about beethoven now my father had passed in the interim so i was in and out of town a lot but the minute that i had a chance and some time to invest in beichuva that guy was there that we had kicked out of hazelton and it was really interesting that that these kind of crazy
40:05 uh uh you know moments that we were brought together and and it felt like it was going down the right road and and so i worked very passionately at uh uh at bateshuva uh from you know 2002 to 2005 and then i went to israel for for a year and i worked with troubled youth in uh in jerusalem and went several times to some of their treatment centers and and and helped uh uh work with them when they were like 50 years behind what we're doing in the united states so i learned a lot there and then i came back and i worked back
40:42 at bate schumer from 2008 to 2011 where i was really the uh uh you know doing all sorts of different things and and helping uh helping people get to and it's not me that help people and i want to be very very clear uh again the less me the better the more god and the more spirituality and the more i can root it in something outside of me the better and that's really what has been important for me to remember uh in a lot of ways uh um my ego can be stroked uh way too much and it can create more
41:17 problems than not so uh having worked in that field uh um i i finished my position over at baitchuva around 2011 and i was still very passionate about it and for for several years i started speaking with different people about ways to do that and i went to school to to get my master's in business non-profit and i was able to do that and i really looked and i was really looking at how to develop a non-profit that could help people uh in recovery and yeah we had a lot a lot
41:52 of the surprises uh uh is it came down to money um you know and i was able to secure several gifts to get it started and bring people together and i found that you know i could do some fundraising and so on and then what i found was that i for me other people might be able to do it very well for me i couldn't mix the money with the recovery i couldn't do it anymore because i i felt as though i was serving two masters and uh again for me there are other people
42:28 that are able to do it and they do it very very well and and i'm grateful for them and i know the people that they helped they're very grateful for for me i couldn't figure out how to serve the two masters and uh when i was when i was in it i didn't realize that that was the problem and then i made a decision and i said i need to let it go and the minute that i said i need to let that go and then what i can do is help people through alcoholics anonymous putting on a class here and there and that i can really take being a rabbi to another place and be open to serving people at large that
43:04 the spiritual principles that i've learned along the way the the way in which i've been able to uh live my life a jewish life is something that i want to share with all sorts of different people that singleness of purpose was no longer what i wanted to do anymore i wanted more more than just what it was and i had several mentors kind of guide me you know even saying that jay there's a much bigger life out there you can explore some of that and so all of these things started happening at the same time and the moment that i made that decision and we all know this the moment that we make a decision and we see clearly it is like an entire new
43:41 perspective comes and it was a moment that i had and then at that moment literally that night that i had made that decision i was still working for the federation and the jewish federation of los angeles and it was a big event one of the biggest events of the year and i saw someone there that was a big part of the of of that of that part of my life working within the drug and alcohol industry and i saw them and i i just maybe i associated it uh to to have meaning but i thought that that was god's way to tell me it is time to move on it is time to move on and to
44:18 do uh uh to work within the field of drug and alcohol and and to do it for free as they say to do it for fun to enjoy it and to help people along that path and ever since then uh and that's kind of how and that happened what maybe you know seven eight years ago now and that started the trajectory uh of me really looking to to find ways uh uh to serve the the the entire jewish community uh and and and become uh not so much see and again it's it's not it's for other people it may work very very well for me personally it was very very
44:53 hard and now i have found i think in a way a way to serve uh the jewish people people at large and and do it in a way that uh i can bring those principles and those ideas to my daily uh service wow and you know and thank you for sharing all that because it is about what does work for you it's if it all worked the same for all of us we'd have a big problem we would be having a lack of professionals in this world we need different professions for different people and um so you wouldn't be where you are today we
45:28 wouldn't be where we are today um as a community and i know we have a lot of support on this call i mean i'm looking around this room and i know we're being broadcast live on multiple platforms but i want to take a moment and just say you know to the people that are here heath you know you're such a part of our life and through the jewish federation you know you and lisa became such close like i feel like family and and we have debbie and we have susannah and denise i mean from our community and we have your mom on here there's there's so much love and support uh people really gravitate to you because you have such a love that you give and you really care about people and and you mentioned joy you said simcha is
46:04 such an important pillar of judaism tell us what brings you the most joy oh well i i mean the truth is you uh um you know i'm a smart man i'm a smart smart no i i have to tell you what brings me the most joy uh is perspective and i i have to say that too often when my perspective is very limited it becomes very heavy when my vision is very limited
46:40 it's there's no joy in that when i start to think big and look big and look at all the people here that are just in this room and whoever else is out there and that's a part of my life and that's a part of your life and when i start looking at the big picture automatically i have joy automatically i have uh a an inspired moment it's unfortunately when i get so narrow-minded that that's when depression kicks in right that's when sadness when i start focusing on that and so what brings me the most joy isn't just the people right isn't just
47:16 the actions is it it's it's really that perspective that life is so much bigger unfortunately i suffer from you know uh you know and too often we say when the human condition is a negative thing right the human condition is actually quite a beautiful thing right the human condition is one in which we experience love and and we experience people and we experience all sorts of wonderful things but also with that comes some of the the the the more challenging things and part of the human condition is that that at times i do see and i can't see past my own nose and i get so involved in my own world that it seems that that's the only
47:53 reality and so when what brings me joy is the the principle or the spiritual practice of looking at the world as such an amazing place filled with so much possibility and not problem you know it's just like we live in a big world they say you know it's a small small world it's really not it's really not it's very big there's seven billion people on this planet that uh we're just kind of floating through the universe and we're just a spec i don't know if you've ever noticed this but it's just like if you look i i mean it's quite a miracle that any of us are
48:28 even here the odds of any of us being here and uh when i really get into that perspective and and we're just a small part of the united states in a small part of california in a small neighborhood in in los angeles uh you know and all of a sudden i think my problems are the most important in the world it's really crazy to think right that my kitchen sink is only stuck on hot water that's that's the big deal of the year and that problem seems to be the most uh important problem but the reality is is that the world is so much bigger if i get stuck in minutia i got a
49:04 lot of problems if i get stuck in how big everything is and how wonderful uh just the opportunity to be here today all of a sudden joy seems a little bit more accessible in fact that's who i am i love that because perspective i think of that i think of possibilities and when you think of what's possible you think of hope right we all victor frankel right his book i mean i think about what keeps someone going in the most darkest time is really the idea of what can become and and i love what you share today and
49:40 i want to give people a chance to ask any questions if anyone um has any questions for rabbi j feel free to unmute your mic because you're live you get to be here with a voice if there's anyone here who has anything to share or ask it's a good time i came in a little bit late but i just want to say that rabbi you're doing such a great job in the community and um i really enjoy um you being part of our synagogue and i love running into you at the gym i love the rabbi a rabbi who takes good
50:17 physical care of himself as well so anyhow good job thank you and susanna you know i do it we we we actually bumped into each other this morning and she says i'm not gonna talk uh uh uh because when we do end up chatting we chat for a while and it's always a great conversation and and i learn a lot from you and uh i will say this is that you know she's an inspiration too because she's constantly active and the more action breeds more action and so uh that's really what it's about uh it's not just uh um i can't stay still the the body and soul and and
50:54 i shared this with uh susannah and and i know she agrees with me because you know we see each other all the time there but one of the most important things if my body uh and this is why working out is so important to me this is why at least eating as best as i possibly can not all the time don't trust me it's not the uh perfect but if my body's not working great it's all i can think about you know when we wake up in the morning as jews and when we say our our prayers we say the prayer about our body thank you for the gift of our body for everything that works uh and it's working great right there's wisdom in that none of us have
51:30 really anything to do with the insides of our body doing what it's doing but you realize if it's not working great oh you know right away and it's impossible to do what's next is to thank god for your soul thank god for the life that you have in other words if you've ever been in traffic and you're stuck uh uh and you have to use the restroom there's only one god in the world at that moment that's the bathroom right so uh uh the truth of the matter is if your body's not working great and you're in pain a lot or something like that uh it's very hard it's very hard again it's not about right or wrong or you're doing something right or wrong
52:06 it's just being aware that uh uh the body is a very big part of our day-to-day living and so uh um i i take that to heart uh i take that very very seriously that at least i can do what i can do to make that work as best as possible uh uh because honestly the physical uh we live in a physical world and if the physical isn't taken care of then it's very hard to work on the spiritual but what's really interesting and what i love about this is that if we straighten out spiritually right
52:42 all the other things seem to fall in line if i have that perspective of that larger perspective all of a sudden you know i want to take care of my health all of a sudden i want to be around more people all of a sudden i want to be a part of something so yeah yes did someone else have something that they were saying it sounded like someone had another question but um yes i agreed with the rabbi fulham i always say you brush your teeth every
53:17 day you can move a little bit every day make it like it's brushing your teeth anyhow i told him that before yeah and i hope everyone brushes their teeth maybe two three times a day uh it's a good habit to get into exactly there's a whole other episode on that okay so i don't have a question but i i wanted to thank you you're you are you know if i had one word to describe you jay i would say inspirational
53:52 and i've been fortunate enough to know you for 10 years now and you inspire so many people and thank you for your words and thank you for your honesty thank you heath i want to thank the people in your world jay because though how you became who you are right now it's it's the people who supported you loved you worked with you taught you really formed that support for you and your family is grateful for that you know you really have a strong network of people
54:28 over the past 25 years that have been an influence on you because you let them because you opened up to that and thank god you had that other bookend that wake up call saying i do need people you know we're not meant to do anything alone you know we make jokes you and i all the time we hear people post on social media self-made millionaire right and we always laugh and say there's no such thing because there were things in maybe they weren't born into money but nobody's self-made right it takes a village it takes whatever coaching mentorship you know
55:05 that that word and there's forces involved and so we can't do anything alone we need to let god in and i'll i'm so grateful you know i i grew up in in a world of addiction not knowing much about it people close to me having different addictions not knowing much about it going to get emotional but you really help me understand and have compassion and see it in a new perspective and to notice and to really
55:42 tell you know you could tell when someone's really in recovery you could go through the motions of the 12 steps are you really sober right you you've showed me things about sobriety you're not just sober because you abstain from something there's a sober way of living and um i think we have so much to learn from you and the best part is the journey is just starting you know there's so much ahead there's so much that is unwritten that we get to write all of us on here
56:17 all of us watching and so if you want to know how to reach rabbi jay kevin is going to i want to thank my producer rabbi kevin bemel who has been such a support and and really help me find my voice on the air because you know we started off one way we were talking money talks and and bringing you different professionals that can help you with you know your student loan debt and different attorneys and they were wonderful and it was great and it was important and then i realized i'm still hungry for something else and let's figure out in making those pivots with me
56:52 to bring the audience something that's that i really want to share which is helping people and interviewing them to share their story you know we all come from somewhere and one of the things you taught me jay is don't forget where you came from and you are so good at teaching people and helping people realize that because on a day-to-day basis we have to remind ourselves that there was once a time when you can fill in the blank but thank you rabbi bemo for for making this possible and you're going to put in the footnotes of this episode uh rabbi jay's uh instagram facebook you
57:28 know he he is a rabbi of a large congregation out here in santa clarita congregation beth shalom and if anyone ever wants to to have um some time i just volunteered your time don't kill me oh yeah but here's why it's important because the reason we all go through what we go through i believe is to help the next person when i think about what i've been through and we've all been through things i tell myself it was worth it if i can help the next person and every day we meet people who need to hear our story we cannot stop sharing our story
58:04 everyone has one everyone needs to share and so i'm so grateful um my mother-in-law awesome nancy i love you your hand is up i don't know if you have a question or you're just giving me a high five either way oh i wanted to make a comment about jay's journey and everything that you closed with is what i wanted to say but it's also the people around had to learn uh jay was brought up with a lot of love but we were unaware of a lot of things and i remember his first recovery program i saw that he wasn't
58:40 listening to what the people were saying about recovery so i took notes and put it on his pillow so that he would know it i've learned that was not the right thing to do that he had to grow on his own and i had to grow also and let him let him learn and i had to learn uh on how to let go and how to develop my own self so uh there was a reading in a book that i had that and it was on gratefulness which is
59:17 something jay always talks about but being grateful in some ways for the illness because i learned so much now it helped the j recovered and we didn't have to go through a lot of horrors that i know a lot of people i know went through but that learning uh how to be grateful and learning to be a better self and i owe a lot of that to jay thank you mom we love you love you too stay tuned next week we have a surprise guest
59:53 again coming from a dark place finding the light overcoming challenges your story matters maybe that's what i should name my show one day that's good have an awesome rest of your week happy mother's day to the moms out there and we'll talk soon thank you hi thank you you're welcome thanks for joining