 40 here and I've got some shocking news for you. I am a 56 year old bachelor. I've never been up to hold down a romantic relationship longer than a year and I know you're thinking, oh 40. I thought you were married with kids, very respectable man, pillar of the community and the sad truth is no, not so much. Instead, I pretty much spent most of my life until probably the last 10 years just using and abusing and exploiting pretty much everyone I met to meet my addictive needs for attention, for love, for sex, for delusions of grandeur and power. So when you have an addiction running wild in your life, you're basically going to use everybody and everything that you can to meet your addictive needs. That's largely how I've spent my life. So not terribly impressive track record that I've left behind and so 56 still have, you know, multiple addictions which I believe I'm largely sober from their emotional addiction so they're not drugs or alcohol or substance addictions whether you're either doing it or you don't. But I still feel my self-destructive tendencies just under the surface. I still feel like the mother hunger and the father hunger just under the surface and so if I don't have my moral compass pointing due north, I tend to get in a lot of trouble. So a lot of trouble people like me do like a geographic change. So most people when they hear about my story, they can't figure out why I just didn't move. Like why was I so clueless as to, you know, stay in Los Angeles when I got into so much trouble in Los Angeles? And Bernard says I need a wife man. I expect to find her in this chat. That is very realistic thinking. Good on you Bernard. I rejoice in bringing people together like creating a community filled with radical love and inclusion. So yeah, a normal person who would have made the blunders and the embarrassing gaffes. I mean, how did I inadvertently direct a porn movie back in 1995? What women what? I mean, how did that happen? How did I just inadvertently fall into writing on the pornography industry for 12 years? I mean, you know, it's a very common slip. A lot of people do it. But most people with my history of humiliation would get up and move. They'd change their name. Right. I did do that. So the most common response to a life like mine is you move. Another common response is you do the religious equivalent of a geographic you convert to a new religion, right? You try to make your life over. And I did that, right? In my twenties, I said I need to convert to Judaism. That way I'm going to get my life sorted. Well, the problem is the type of person who wants to convert to another religion tends to be fairly high in neuroticism, which means they kind of enjoy feeling bad feelings very intensely and very frequently. So most people convert to a brand new religion tend to be fairly high in neuroticism. They tend to be terribly stable and they frequently tend to be driven by a desire for love. So just as I heard one psychotherapist say that every homosexual patient he had like lacked a decent relationship with his father. And so because they didn't have that relationship with their fathers, they grew up to a rather sized male attention. Luckily, I had enough of a relationship with my father that that didn't happen for me. But what type of women have I courted and dated and romanced over the past 40 years like women equally damaged to me like healthy responsible women were going to go out with 40, right? I would go to a party and I just kind of hone in on the equally damaged woman who wouldn't be too much trouble to court. Because yeah, I was a womanizer, but I was very lazy womanizer. I wasn't willing to put a lot of effort into it. So I would primarily date and court women whose fathers were they found me. I found them. We rubbed our itches against each other and temporarily found some some relief from our most desperate urges. But in the end, you get two unhealthy, damaged, self-destructive people desperately looking for love and you don't get a good result. So many people, in fact, I know rabbis who serve on Orthodox Jewish conversion courts and some of them say 99% of the people they see who come to them seeking conversion to Orthodox Judaism are mentally ill. And then that that 1% remaining that is not demonstrably overtly mentally ill. We're frequently driven, even though we may not know it at the time, by a desperate desire for love, right? We don't usually convert to Orthodox Judaism from a solid, stable loving home where we have good relations with our family with our relatives and a stable relationship with community. No, usually we come from a background of trauma. I spent quite a bit of time in foster care. I got smacked around quite a bit as a kid. And so we come from this background of trauma and we're desperately seeking love. That's that's what drives us desperately seeking love. I mean, when do you think I livestream such an absurd number of hours? It's not just for the for the glamour and excitement of speaking to 12 people live. Right? It's it's by my desperate search for love. So looking for love, right? When you desperate for anything, it's going to warp you. And when you're desperate for love, you're going to start looking for love in all the wrong places. Anyway, people will pick up that you're damaged. And so there's just a sense that we all have when someone's pray, when someone's damaged, and where we can take advantage of them. So I remember I dated this ex porn star. And she said, if I ever reminded her about this compliance video that she had to make with her former agent, Reagan Center, that, you know, she never speak to me again, various horror stories in the porn industry, she would sometimes meet with directors, like at a hotel room to audition for a role in a movie. And they would expect sexual favours. Shocking. Or she'd be doing some very tasteful figure modelling. I mean, she'd be spread eagle dot on all fours. And then suddenly the photographer, you know, is dropping his trousers and pumping her a few times and blowing a load inside her. And like, she didn't sign up for this. She just came to do some tasteful figure modelling. And now some, some, you know, older dude is just blowing a big load in her. And then there's like, Reagan Center, he wouldn't represent women unless they did a compliance video. And so for my ex-girlfriend, this is one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. It wasn't the scene that she did with two, you know, former parolees to show that she wasn't racist. No, it was the scene with this middle-aged white guy, her agent, Reagan Center. And so I thought I could handle dating an ex porn star, but the more we dated, the more, more I loved her. And then the more I loved her, the more I hated her background in the, just one particular genre of the entertainment industry. And friends would try to reason with me. They'd say, you know, 40, at least you know, she wasn't racist. I mean, she was out there, you know, providing reparations. And she was, she was fine with allowing it to be videotaped and sold. But eventually it got to me and I made some remark on my blog about Reagan Center and my ex-girlfriend. And that was it. She never, never spoke to me again. She just cut me off. So I don't think that's the first time someone's told me, if you ever do this, I'll leave you. And I ended up doing it. So yeah, I come from pretty strong background of self destruction. And like many converts, there's, there's been an awful lot of desperation in my story. Yeah. Now, if you don't do a geographic and you don't convert to a new religion, then you go to psychotherapy. So yeah, I went to psychotherapy, you have a friend that you pay to be your friend and who you can tell everything to. And I did 10 years of that and that helped. And if that doesn't work, you're trained to be an Alexander Technique teacher. So Alexander Technique teachers tend to be eccentric. Alexander Technique teachers, they come from a background of tremendous pain, physical and emotional pain. They go together, right? When you're filled with all sorts of emotional distortions, mental distortions, that produces distortions in your body. And when you have all sorts of physical pain, that will create cracks in your psyche and all likelihood. So most people who become Alexander Technique teachers, they come from a background of tremendous pain, which tends to lead people like me to being, let's say fairly eccentric. Yeah, eccentric is the nice word that, that I use for us. Okay. So just wanted to give a little context when talking about this new book that absolutely blew my socks off. Nakmay Yamakarov. It's Diana Huckman, author of Dispelling the Myth. It's this novel. Let's say it's a novel. It's a novel, let's say inspired by real life experiences. And I was able to resonate with, with much of her story. Yeah, so drinking liquid black mold is definitely eccentric. But I don't know, I just felt like I deserved it. Like, somehow I've attracted bosses who would verbally abuse me and throw things at me. And like, a normal person would just leave. But I just thought it was the most normal, natural thing in the world for a boss to call you Dick Sniff. And then I remember the time I finally tired of it. And I said to the boss, I don't call Dick Sniff anymore. He immediately twigged that I got a new job. And so he says, Oh, do you want to finish your day today? Make today your last day. So you've got a new job. Yeah, he was, he was absolutely right. Okay. So here's the problem. I just want to focus on one part of the problem. When Orthodox Judaism sends its people to oversee conversion programs. They're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems. And they're bringing those problems with us. Like they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Now, I want to dispel some really ugly myths here. If you're a decent looking woman hoping to convert to Orthodox Judaism in California, you probably stand a 50% chance that the rabbi overseeing your conversion won't be a sexual predator. So you can look, oh, you know, glove half empty, you know, 50% chance that he will be a sexual predator, but 50% chance he won't be. And also the more sane and solid and grounded you are and the more status and prestige you have, the more likely the rabbi is to be scared to do anything inappropriate with you. So, so rabbi predators like other predators like hyena, right? Does the hyena go out there and try to hunt down our best and brightest? Do hyenas go after lions and tigers and elephants, you know, just hunting on there? No. Hyena goes for the weak, for the damaged, for the sick, for the broken, for those other animals who are desperately looking for love. And so too with predators, whether they're rabbinic predators or not. So think positive. Trust in Hashem. Sometimes you won't need to sleep with a rabbi to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Yeah, sometimes the rabbi won't even try to separate you from your family and your former friends and everybody decent in your life to make you more vulnerable to his predations. And frequently I know women who've gone through conversion to Orthodox Judaism successfully and not once in the entire program did the rabbi ever ask to urinate on her. So try to see the positive, right? Still, like, have faith, but keep your expectations modest. And so if the worst comes to the worst, just close your eyes, think of Jerusalem. Now, I don't know any attractive convert or would be convert to Orthodox Judaism has not had the hard word placed on her by married Orthodox guys, including frequently rabbis. So there's there's a widespread instinct in Orthodox Judaism that is not really written up in the sacred text, but there's this instinct that if you're dumb enough to try to convert to Orthodox Judaism, that you essentially deserve what's coming to you that you're asking for it, you're you're wearing a mini skirt and provocative clothing and walking through a dangerous part of town. So you'll often see that glint in the Orthodox eye and that smirk across the lips when they spot that fresh meat. I mean, after all, Shakespeare's just for practice. Now, it's good when people are direct about what they want, unless it's bad. So I remember there was this one beautiful woman I knew was a convert to conservative Judaism. She told me Jewish guys don't know their level. So she was kind of amazed by all these losers who thought they were in her league and would try to hit on her, but still a part of her admired their confidence. So many traits, they come with good sides and bad sides. And on the bright side, very few Jews are murderers, very few Orthodox Jews are murderers, very few Orthodox rabbis are murderers. And so religious Jews are not immune to the temptations that afflict many of us, like many people when we they have the opportunity to prowl and purve. Well, we tend to be about as honorable as Harvey Weinstein on a good day. But don't be discouraged. If you get raped by somebody you you meet in shawl, okay, there's a good chance your rapist will not be a big donor who's protected by the rabbis. Rabbi might even encourage you to file a police report. Not all synagogues honor donors over decency. Sometimes you can walk into a shawl, you can look around the shawl, you will never see a plaque honoring your rapist. So in in Los Angeles, the most powerful Orthodox rabbis have essentially formed a cozy little circle jerk. And they insist that the voices go through their approved rabbinical courts. And if you don't go through their approved rabbinical courts, they'll organize pickets outside your home. But if conversion to Orthodox Judaism become as they have in California, essentially a predator's paradise just free range, free game. It's like a hyena on on the plains of Africa. All right, you'll only hear crickets. So why are there pickets? If people don't go through the approved rabbinical courts for divorces, but only crickets when conversion to Orthodox Judaism is essentially a predator's paradise? Well, the common answer is power, right? They want people to go through their approved courts because they get power and they get influence and they get money. And it also complicates matters that all the major rabbis tend to have compromising information on each other. Most of the powerful Orthodox rabbis in California have mistresses on the side. And because rabbis in the conversion business tend to you know, fall prey to the temptations of the flesh and be diddling would be converts. And so they kind of know that about each other. And so they're not going to go, you know, the mutually assured destruction route. So Orthodox Judaism tends to be fairly insular, kind of let's, let's stick together. Now you may wonder why hasn't the Me Too movement come for the rabbis? Because by and large, Jews love their rabbis and loved rabbis tend to be powerful rabbis. So it went powerful rabbis prowl, right? Just like hyenas, they don't hunt the best and the brightest. Instead, they focused on the sick and the damaged. And then who do you really want to side with? Do you want to side with the weak, the sick and the damaged? Or do you want to side on the side with power and influence and status and prestige? Like people, number one, most powerful rabbi in America, according to Newsweek magazine, like, who are you going to believe? You're lying eyes on Newsweek magazine. Come on, bro. Also, Jews tend to be influential story tellers, right? Jews have had a lot of success in the media. And people don't like to tell stories about their own group, the negative stories, right? So, yeah, there have been dozens of rabbis who have abused kids, but this doesn't get the media attention of predator priests because by and large, Roman Catholics don't run TV networks. By and large, Roman Catholics don't run movie studios. By and large, Roman Catholics don't run the important newspapers and periodicals. So, hush, right? What will the Goehm think if you talk out of shore, right? You don't want to be responsible for another Holocaust, do you? So I got into this novel, Dispelling the Myth by Diana Hochman. And the first few chapters, I thought, oh, this is just another story about a beautiful young woman who gives up promiscuous sex and drugs and the party lifestyle and moves to Sacramento and attends Mosaic Law Congregation and converts to conservative Judaism. And the story was just humming along. It's like, okay, I kind of see where this is going. And then the story started taking some interesting turns. So let's have a look at some of the major characters. So this is the rabbi who apparently inspires a particular character in this book. This is Rabbi Emeritus Ruvane Tuff. And then here's another manch. This is, hi, Caschenberg, right? So he also seems to be a creative inspiration for one of the characters in this novel. So, hi. After leaving his childhood home in Montreal, hi, Caschenberg traveled and worked in many foreign and American locales before settling in Reno, Nevada more than 30 years ago. A self-taught Renaissance man, hi has been a key leader and benefactor in the business, civic, and Jewish communities in his adopted home. Lucky for us, hi remains a traveling man as a home away from home with the Mosaic Law Congregational family. His passion for learning, his business acumen, and his friendships with these other important rich, powerful Jews led to his vital role in founding the Library and Cultural Center that bears his name. And he considers the KOH, LCC at the top of his long list of outstanding accomplishments. That's the Caschenberg, Ostrow, Haywood Library and Cultural Center. And it's a fine piece of work. I mean, this is a much classier place than I remember when I was in Sacramento. I've been to Mosaic Law and they've really upgraded. And like, how do you think you do a big upgrade? Right? You need generosity. You need people giving millions of dollars. And that's just what it takes. If you want to do good, it like it really helps to have some money. If we didn't have a leap year, we'd fall behind every three years a month, six years, two months. Before you know it, we'd have Pesach in January. That's what we wouldn't work out. And so therefore, that's how the Torah wants to do it. So therefore, we have a Pesach, where we have the holiday of the parishes that have to double up. During the leap year, it doesn't have to double because you have this extra month. So instead of having 354, days in the year of 384 for that particular year, and that's how it equalizes out. Okay, I don't know about you. I just find it's helpful to kind of get refreshed and essentially bathe my soul in the wellsprings of Torah. Because there's some dark stuff in this novel, which may be creatively inspired by some things that happened in real life. So we'll periodically take a break from the darkness and kind of look on the positive and learn some Torah here as we move along. This compelling new book is called Dispelling the Myth. Okay, so Diana writes, on this Saturday, a man who I'd noted just previously at Rabbi Bennett's table, that was, this seems to be a character inspired by Rabbi Rubin Taff. So he's been renamed Rabbi Bennett. Okay, this man seemed to be in his mid 60s, maybe much older. Saul Sonnenberg was his name. So this is a novel. I'm just guessing that there's like some sort of creative process going on where maybe there's, you know, a little bit of the story of Haykashenberg that becomes, you know, transmuted and enjoys the healing power of art. I don't think I've spoken to you enough about the healing power of art. So what Diana is doing here, it's not just a story about drugs, promiscuous sex, you know, rape, rape, and rape, rape, rape, and then just rape, and then sexual abuse, and psychiatric breakdowns, and manipulation. No, I mean, this is a work about the healing power of art. So you take, you know, you take inspiration where you can get it, such as from the amazing life of Haykashenberg, and this beautiful, beautiful cultural center that he has helped to fund at Mosaic Law Congregation. So good old Saul Sonnenberg makes lots of small talk, and there's just this certain gruffness about him. All right, there's just a certain impetuosity. He seems very sure of himself, like a man with confidence, right? Women, women like a man with confidence. At the same time, he seems equally riddled with deep insecurity. So that just makes him kind of more intriguing. He dressed like he was stuck in the 1970s. He wore suits the way traveling salesmen wore suits, funky colored humongous ties, and plaid plants. Since he was introduced to me by others at the table and was clearly their friend, simply trusted that he was a welcome part of that community. Why would I think otherwise? Well, to be honest, some people would be less trusting in these situations. So I hate to say this. If you go to Saul and you're introduced to some bloke by other people at the table who's their friend, that doesn't mean he's not going to rape you. That doesn't mean he's not going to steal from you, right? So as the kiddie, she was nearing his end, Saul leaned over to me and asked, would you like to join me for a glass of wine nearby? And so she says, where? And he says, at the Hilton, right? So it's going to be a very classy, classy place. They have a wonderful patio. Yeah, I mean, the Hilton in Sacramento is just, you haven't lived until you've seen that wonderful patio outside. And then that inside, you're not going to believe this, at the Sacramento Hilton, they have inside seating. They have both an outside patio and inside seating. You can not only order wine, you can also order lunch. Who wouldn't say, yes, yes, yes. I want to go. Thank you, Saul. So she stops at home to get her coat. She gets her cigarettes. She walks to the lobby and she notices Saul sitting in the lounge area. And so they decide to have a drink before going outside and ordering the meal. And so Diana has a half a glass of wine, a Merlot. And she gets up to make a call to a friend, comes back, takes another sip of wine, makes several sips as they're making Saul, small talk. And shockingly, Saul tends to be very rude to the server. He's very condescending, but the wine is delicious, absolutely delicious. But she kind of wants to get away from Saul. He's such a crude man, very unpleasant company. She wasn't interested in him. Romantically, she just went to have drinks, have alcohol, smoke a cigarette, have lunch. But no romantic interest on her part. She found him old and unattractive. And she was just open to all kinds of people. She'd made acquaintances with all sorts of people at the shore, young and old, found them all endearing. And she thought this was just more of the same. Nobody took her friendship as a hint of romantic interest. And she had no reason to believe that Saul did anyway. So as she's looking at Saul, she starts feeling a little woozy. And she's surprised because one glass of wine had never made her feel woozy before. And then Saul starts looking kind of blurry. And then she blacks out. And then she wakes up in a cabin. And Saul's on top of her. And he's thrusting back and forth inside her relentlessly. I could not move. I was somewhere so past fear, I could not move. When he was done, he got up and walked away. He didn't wear a condom and he came inside of me. It was already morning when I woke up. How long had he been doing this to me? So Saul comes over and he says, listen, why don't you take a shower, put on some makeup, we'll go and get you a new outfit. Your dress is ripped. So I mean, this guy is a mensch, right? So yeah, he may have been, may have drugged her and raped her all night and driven her two hours away to his place in Reno. But at least he's going to buy her a new outfit. Right. And he says, quit acting like you're scared of me or something. We had sex all night. You didn't say a word. So it's easy to understand from his perspective. Like they just had sex all night and she didn't say a word. So the protagonist is thinking like, God, don't let me die this way. All I did was meet someone after synagogue for a drink. How could I have predicted this? So he's very considerate. He lays out some slacks and a shirt. And then he takes her to a store, buys her a really nice outfit. And then he says, there's an arts council thing. I give a lot of money to them. And I think you will look good by my side. So he's filled with charm and compliments. I mean, wouldn't you feel great if you've been raped all night? You know, you're in a strange town and the guy is telling you how good you look by his side. So let's just take a shower, put on some makeup and off they go. So she's kind of surprised that they're in Reno, Nevada, but he takes her to Nordstrom. He buys her a handful of outfits. So this is not a cheapskate. He buys her a handful of outfits. And he takes her to this arts council thing where she gets to meet the mother of David Wolpe, the famous Rabbi David Wolpe. So apparently Saul has been dating Rabbi Wolpe's mother. So yeah, like Jewish life is kind of a small world. But what can you do? You can worship, you can learn, there's community, you can recycle. I mean, you just got to shake these things off. I mean, frequently you go to shawl and you end up having someone, you know, lace your drink and you wake up in some strange town after being raped all night. What's important is a positive mental attitude and just trying to make the best of things. All right, like stuff happens. Human beings just incredibly, just incredibly incredible. And please never forget how incredible you are. So this bloke is such a mensch, all right. He drives her back to the parking lot of the Hilton in Sacramento. So he drives all the way from Reno to Sacramento, drives her home, and then he leans over and tells her, you know, it's best if you keep this just between us, because no one will believe you anyway. I give a lot of money to this temple. All right. So best that you keep quiet. I give a lot of money to this temple. You're just some sheikhs, a guy. That's what we call non-Jewish women. You're an outsider. Who will they believe? So I'm just telling you this for your own sake. Anyway, Rabbi Bennett will overlook any transgression as long as you write big checks. So mosaic lore is not really a rabbi run synagogue. It's a board of directors run synagogue. So I'm not sure that you could expect the rabbi to call the shots. I'm pretty sure that the board calls the shots. And don't be reductive. Like, just because a guy puts Mickey in women's drinks and rapes them, that's not all he is. All right. He could be, I mean, he could be a Renaissance man. He could be a key leader and a benefactor in the business civic and Jewish communities in his adopted home. He could be a traveling man. He can still have a passion for learning. All right. Rapists love to learn. I mean, one thing you know about him is he's a take charge decisive man. And so it's bad when you apply those qualities to rape, but it's good when you apply those qualities to other things. So we shouldn't be reductionist. Right. People can have all sorts of acumen and friendship and they can write big checks. So let's try to remember that, you know, people are complicated. Right. And Diana, the protagonist says, yeah, he has a point. I remember I was in high school. There was a girl in my class. She got gang banged. And her mother said you probably should forget about it. Right. I mean, I think we've all gone to school to answer being gang raped. So it just doesn't report pay to report these things. Right. People just paint you as a whore. They'll demean you. And these guys will retaliate. They might bring you further harm. That's a good thing. I put you on the pill. We'll get you tested for pregnancy. If you need some penicillin, we'll get you that. Just chalk it up to a bad experience and put it out of your mind. So our protagonist goes to the emergency room. She's feeling suicidal and she does this voluntary check in. And then what's important after you've been raped or not is that you make an appointment to see your rabbi so that you can flesh these things out. So she makes an appointment a few days later to go see her rabbi. And he says like, you know, what the heck's going on here? Like you're calling me from the psychiatric ward. And so she says, yeah, rabbi need to tell you about something awful that happened to me, you know, Saul from shore. I woke up on Sunday morning. He was naked. He was on top of me, thrusting back and forth. He came inside of me, told me he was doing that all night. And I was at his place in Reno, Nevada. How did you get there? I don't know. How can you not know? Well, at Kiddish last Shabbos, he asked me if I wanted to meet him for a drink and lunch at the Hilton. He said they have a wonderful rooftop courtyard for dining. So I agreed to meet him there. He was in the lounge. We decided to have one drink. I had a few sips of wine and then things got blurry. I blacked out. And the next thing I, when I came to, he was on top of me. The rabbi says, look, you were rough, you were drugged, you were kidnapped and you were raped. You've got to file a police report. So sometimes the rabbi will tell you need to file a police report. But our protagonist says, no, I think it's best to put this behind us. I don't want this to get out in the community. It's just one person. I'll get over it. So she files for restraining order asking that this guy stays 500 feet away from her and from the synagogue for the next six years. And very important to know just, you're showing up to synagogue, you want to convert, someone invites you to the Hilton for a drink. They're not necessarily going to put a Mickey in your drink. They drive you across state lines and rape you all night. This is not a common occurrence. Yeah. And please don't try to blur the lines. This is just a work of fiction. I mean, maybe it was like creatively inspired by, you know, some real life characters, but any resemblance between these real life characters and the fiction in this book is just strictly coincidental. What's the disclaimer they use? I really want to get the wording right. So she gave the restraining order to the rabbi. He put it in a safe and she felt like this kind of cast a cloud over the whole conversion. So if you are converting to Judaism and you get raped, you know, don't let it like spoil the conversion, right? Don't let it cast a cloud over your relationships. And she felt like the rabbi wasn't the same around her anymore. But it became uncomfortable. And she started feeling, ah, it's my fault that saw rape me. So she moves, she finishes her conversion to conservative Judaism. And she moves to San Diego and she surprised how many married Jewish men are hitting on her. And so eventually, you know, the rabbi kind of has a talk with some of these blokes and the married blokes say, hey, you really shouldn't be hitting on women who aren't your wife. So understandably, our protagonist thinks maybe all the raping in conservative Judaism, it's not really my thing. Like there's rape going on. There's rape rape. There's abuse, there's manipulation. There's like all these married men importuning me for adulterous affairs. And I'm kind of tired of getting raped. Maybe Orthodox Judaism, right? Let's give Orthodox Judaism a shot. So she goes to see Dick Shapiro, who seems to be creatively inspired by Dick Horowitz of Asia Torah. And then she also goes to see Rabbi, a character named Rabbi Zev Blum, who seems to be creatively inspired by Rabbi's V Block, who's the upbeat din of Asia Torah of North Hollywood. Now, I think it's called Taurus Hashem. He's done dozens of conversions. A very charismatic guy. It's fascinating which particular part she owes the rabbis chose that should be doubled and that should be doubled and which shouldn't. Compose the rule of thumb. This is Rabbi Block. The two parishes have something in common, and you can connect them. Man, a tremendous charisma and learning. Very smart man. At a real bench. The most basic way in common, I guess, between the two parishes is the sections dealing with sexual morality and propriety and the prohibitions of incest and other forbidden relationships. And both parishes contain both messages. And almost a duplicate of them sometimes. The other interesting thing is that the fact that one parish is called. So how common is divorce in Orthodox Judaism? It used to be very uncommon, but it's become increasingly common over the past 30 years. And you see it happening in synagogues and it just kind of goes through like a wave, like a wave of COVID. Like one person gets divorced and there seems to settle, you know, unsettled arrangements. So if the woman's halfway attractive, then other men start hitting on her even if they're married. So usually that leads to like a whole string of divorces. Like one divorce among your friends greatly increases the chances you'll get divorced. One divorce in your synagogue very quickly leads to two, three, four, five, six divorces. So I see that all the time. Okay, let's we got a little bit of Torah there kind of settles down. Wow. Okay. So Rabbi Zev Bloom is of average height. He's five foot eight. He's well manicured. He has a full beard. He wears a very nice dark suit and tie. So it's very, very high quality. He wears round rim glasses. He just has a way about him that makes him, makes him seem like he's always on the go. He has a lot of energy and is a big billowy voice. There's a strong New York accent, a very deep resonant voice. Now I was trying to figure out why he seemed so familiar to me. That's it. Robert De Niro, right? Robert De Niro is waiting, talking Italian. He looks exactly the way Robert De Niro would look if he wore a kippah and round rim glasses and had a full salt and pepper beard. But this is Rabbi Zev Bloom about 14 years ago. About 14 years ago. This is videos from 2021. This is called Akare mode. The first one because it's going to talk about the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. And then we talked about them extensively in the last few weeks, because of what happened to the inauguration of the sanctuary of Mishkan and their death and the great celebration. And people are complicated, right? People are complicated. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, some people do some raping and some people do some thieving and other people, you know, do a little accidental homicide, stuff like that. But we should not, you know, reduce it. It's like, just because a dude, you know, when he was in prison, gave a blowjob doesn't mean he's homosexual, right? You just can't reduce people to their worst moments. So it's really important to have a holistic perspective on all this. So she calls Rabbi Bloom's office the next day on Sunday. And she goes out to the mall and buys clothes, dresses, skirts and blouses. So I noticed with many women converting to Orthodox Judaism, they essentially throw out all of their old wardrobe and just simply buy super modest clothing that is the norm in their Orthodox Jewish community. And she goes and donates all of her old clothing, takes it to goodwill, giving away all of her beautiful clothing. But a serious Orthodox conversion requires you to change the way you dress, right? It requires that you change the way you speak. It requires that you change your understanding of history. It requires that you change the way you eat, right? You just can't go around fornicating anymore, right? It requires that you change the way you do business. There's a whole new soul that becomes unleashed when you go through your conversion to Orthodox Judaism. And most people can go through a conversion to Orthodox Judaism and not get raped once. So it's an ugly myth that if you convert to Orthodox Judaism, you're just automatically going to get raped by Rabbi. And that doesn't normally happen. So Rabbi Bloom, he is a mensch. He pays for dinner. He drives it to Santa Monica, right? I mean, he didn't have to drive it into the beach, right? It's like a beautiful summer night. They have wonderful conversations. They study Torah. He is just a fascinating, fascinating man. And like they're in the car and they talk and they talk. And of course they start making out. We kiss each other like love-starved teenagers because this is a man of tremendous charisma. Like if you were alone in a car with him too, you would not be able to help yourself from making out with this bloke. And he's not a barbarian. He's not a goi. He doesn't go stampeding after the clitoris. There's a lot of kissing going on. He's slow. It inches its way up her skirt. It's not just like, boom. There's no boom going on here. This is a very classy seduction going on in his car after midnight. Like just inching the way up the skirt and enter a panties and the other hand, right? It's like fondling her breasts. So I mean, we're talking like, you know, he's like the Steph Curry of rabbinic seduction, right? And her body is responding to him, right? Her body is tingling with excitement. And this Rabbi, he's a great kisser, right? Do you know how rare it is to find an Orthodox Rabbi who's very learned in Torah, who's a dynamic speaker, who's just a wonderful conversationalist who just has a zest and love for life and a good kisser and, you know, a master at the arts of seduction, right? I mean, it, understandably, it just felt amazing to be in his arms, right? You could go years without feeling this kind of passion with a man. And so he's not a beast, all right? He doesn't just like stick it in, right? It's just like an hour of heavy petting. And they realize they need to get a hotel room, right? And so the protagonist says, well, maybe a motel sex in Van Nuys, but the Rabbi laughs at this because he's a mensch. He says, I'm not taking you to some cheap motel, right? He says, I have a meeting at this Orthodox Shul in Woodland Hills tomorrow morning, follow me to the Marriott. So he takes it to a very nice hotel, right? Marriott Hotel out of the Warner Center in Woodland Hills. And they park their cars and they get out and they go to their room. And this Israeli man walks by them and he looks right at the Rabbi and he says, Khol HaKavad Rabbi. I mean, that's what it means to be part of Calvary Israel. Like, we're all in it together. And when you recognize that the Rabbi is scoring, you say, Khol HaKavad. Like, Yahshakoa, I mean, way to go Rabbi. I mean, Khol HaKavad, that means, you know, all the honor to you. So here's this perfect stranger, you know, some Israeli dude, you know, seeing, you know, a Rabbi taking a Shexa to a very nice motel, you know, 1am. And he's respectful. Like he could be disrespectful to the Rabbi, but no, he says, Khol HaKavad. I mean, just the friendliness and the respect and like the beauty of this, like all the honor. Now, the Shexa, she says, oh, that doesn't sound like a compliment. But Rabbi says, well, I don't think he meant it as one. It's more like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. So after that day, Rabbi Bloom and I were inseparable for the next few weeks or so. We spent every night at a hotel, right? Nearly every lunch and dinner together, some breakfast, every Shabbat together. We went on picnics to the beach, to the park. I mean, this guy is a legendary lover. I mean, he really knows how to treat a woman. I'm ashamed to say that if she was dating me, like, she would not get this kind of service. All right. I mean, when I offered to take a girl to coffee, and she says, oh, you're going to take me to Starbucks? Like, are you crazy? Starbucks is way too expensive. I stole that from someone else. And they really had it going on. Like, they were communicating on a Torah level. They were communicating on a spiritual level. They were communicating on a Kabbalistic level. There was like a real unity here of two souls. This was like, this is really a beautiful relationship. And sexually, I mean, they just could not resist each other. I mean, after Torah classes, after everyone leaves Shul, you know, they'd make out in the library or in his office after Shul on Shabbat. And then eventually, like a mench, he rents her a place. You know, he says, you know, renting hotels is too too expensive. You know, I'm going to rent you a place. You're sure no one will suspect us. Rabbi says, I'm like Superman, right? Don't worry, you're pretty little head, baby girl. I will take care of you. You deserve someone who will take care of you. Then she asks a really awkward question, like, you know, what about your wife? It's like, what about her? Now marriage is over. It's been dead for years. We sleep in separate rooms. We keep separate bank accounts. She'd never even seen his wife in Shul. And he says, you know, I want to take a mini vacation with you. You know, let's take off for a few days. And so he rents a very nice one bedroom out in Shamanoke, some Ventura Boulevard by Whole Foods, right? He has furniture delivered. And they get matching cell phones. I mean, that's a serious relationship when you get matching cell phones with your rabbi. They open up a joint bank account at Bank of America. Like he tells it to quit her job so that she'll be more available to him. She starts helping him with his administrative needs. She starts prepping his speeches, his weekly partial talks, his meetings, his lectures. They spend hours and days together, right? They talk about God and life and love and Judaism. This is just a beautiful love story. That's just amazing. And because she's not yet Jewish, she can't cook any food for him. So he will never eat non-Kosher food. I mean, he'll eat her pussy, but he'll never eat non-Kosher food. So you'll say, oh, he's a hypocrite. Oh, he's not really living up to all the standards of the Torah. But I say, call a cabal or the honor to you rabbi for keeping Kosher. Like I'm the type of guy who sees the cup half full, right? They never expressed any public displays of affection. I mean, Orthodox Jews don't even do that with their wives. So I'm not going to do it with their mistress. So this is July 2004. Like one of the best months in her life, right? This is what this rabbi does for her. Now, you can't expect to get that every time you convert to Orthodox Judaism. Not every Orthodox rabbi will go to this level for you, right? So please don't go into conversion thinking, oh, I'm going to convert to Orthodox Judaism. I'm going to find a rabbi who's going to set me up. We're going to get matching cell phone plans. He's going to get me a nice pad. We're going to have many vacations. We're going to have sex at his office in his synagogue. Don't have those expectations so that if it happens, you can have her carousel tov. You can cultivate an attitude of gratitude if it does happen. But he's providing her with the time of her life, right? And they just share everything with each other. I mean, this is the mark of a true love. She never been more of herself with anyone till Rabbi Bloom. And he shared so much of himself with her that they just shared secrets. It was beautiful. They went miniature golfing with his young grandchildren. I mean, he had her over to his home so that she could meet his wife. They went off to Santa Barbara the first week in August, right? And he told his wife he'd be at an overnight conference in Florida. And the last morning in Santa Barbara was just the thing of a romance novel. They made love all morning. And if you knew this rabbi, you'd be like this woman. You would just love being naked in bed with him. You would not feel awkward. You'd not feel self-conscious. Don't worry about any flaws you might discover. This rabbi aimed to please her sexually. And the give and the take between them no bounds, right? I mean, they had oral sex. They had intercourse as though they were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the fall. They explored each other in ever so gentle a passionate way. They delighted in the innocence of their nakedness. Now, before she started having sex with them, she saw him in a different way. So now she got to experience a whole new side of this rabbi. And he was even more intoxicating. So after they made love all morning, he had to get up to pray Minka. And then they packed their things and they turned their phones on. And his phone just starts ringing off the hook. And for the first time, the rabbi seems to be bothered by some of the messages he's receiving. But the rabbi doesn't want to say anything. And he calls his wife, speaks to his wife in Hebrew. They start yelling at each other in Hebrew. Now, by now the rabbi was spending most nights at her place. I think her name's Miri, our protagonist. And then get up early every morning, go back to his home in North Hollywood. Now, for the first time, the rabbi seems really upset. And so Miri says like enough enough, who keeps calling you and yelling at you like that? Oh, it's nothing. It's no one. It's someone. And it's something. Right? So Miri had been telling herself that what she'd been doing was not wrong. The marriage said his marriage was over. But now someone was calling him. And it did not like sound like someone who did not care. So Miri had never been with a married man before. Never meant to be with a married man. So now she starts feeling as though she's hurting someone else and she doesn't like that feeling. No, it's not my wife. She doesn't care. Well, then who is it? It's nothing, sweetie. Sweetie, baby girl, we just had a wonderful time in Santa Barbara. I love you. That's all that matters. Phone rings again, frantically sends it to voicemail. So Miri grabs the phone from him and she plays the voicemail. And there's a woman's sultry, sexy voice. Zev, this is Hannah. You haven't been calling me lately. I know what you're doing with that woman Miriam from class. You think no one knows, but I know what you're up to. Have you told her about us? Well, I love you still and I'm not giving you up. Now that's pretty shocking. All right? Pretty shocking when this happens. And you think you have this special relationship with your rabbi and it turns out like the blood is bloody two-timing on you. I mean, the wife doesn't count, of course. The wife doesn't count, but now Hannah and so Miri doesn't feel very good. Like, I thought I was so special. I thought I was unique. I thought I was the first. I thought you love me like you love nobody else, silly me. But calm down. I do love you. You think all of this is because I don't? Well, who is that? What is she talking about? The rabbi says, look, you'll never forgive me if I tell you, you just won't understand. Look, there's perfectly reasonable explanation. Once you hear things from the rabbi's perspective, you'll have more understanding. My wife and I started having problems years ago. Really, our whole marriage just trouble. I think she's not the right woman for me. But seven kids into it. What am I supposed to do? She gave me seven beautiful children. So understandably, about 20 years ago, I started dating one of the students in my class, Abby. She was converting. No, no, she's Jewish. She just came along to do more learning. And so I really gave her some learning, you know, pretty good and hard. And she decided with all the learning that I gave her, like repeatedly, you know, sometimes all night, she decided to become through and to become an Orthodox Jew. So look, there are many ways of teaching Torah, right? You can teach Torah via Zoom. You can teach Torah by putting your lectures on YouTube. But some rabbis contend that the most powerful way of teaching Torah is with the tip of their penis. So Rabbi Bloom was teaching Abby very powerfully with the tip of his penis. And this wasn't just a fling, right? They had a 15-year relationship. This is solid. And yeah, Abby got pregnant once, but the rabbi was there to pay for her abortion. And, you know, his wife never knew about it. She didn't need to know about it. Well, at least not until the end. And then his wife finds out about it. She was not nearly as understanding and considerate of the rabbi's needs as she should have been. Like all hell broke out. Well, at least she never knew about the abortion. So this woman, she had to get banned from shawl. Then the poor rabbi's kids found out. And it was a disaster. We had to talk to the head rabbi. It was all very bad. And me and my wife have been having, you know, sleeping in separate bedrooms ever since. And like his wife went to have sex with him. So this all ended five years ago. And he's just completely devoted to the shawl and completely devoted to Mary. And he never really liked Abby, right? Never really liked her as anything more than a congregant. It's just that he just went to her place once. He was going to put up her Mizzouza and give her a blessing. Like it's really important. It's a really nice thing to have your rabbi over to give you a blessing over your Mizzouza. And, oh no, this is not Abby now. This is, this is Hannah. Okay. This is Hannah. So he's just going over there to do a deed of kindness and say a blessing to do a blessing over the woman's Mizzouza. Like it's happened to all of us. The number of times that I've gone to some woman's home to help her put up a Mizzouza and one thing leads to another, it's incredibly fraught. Okay. So she wants a blessing for the Mizzouza. And then he gets over there and gives a blessing. And then Hannah, she throws herself at him. And the poor rabbi, he was desperate, right? She hadn't had sex in years. And Abby, Abby and he had broken it off. He'd promised his wife, look, he'd promised his wife he would not see Abby anymore. So he's lonely. He's heartbroken. He feels empty. He's stuck in a loveless and a sexless marriage. He's trying to fill his time with teaching Torah and study of Torah and doing Mitzvahs. But there's still an ache in his heart. And now you might say, well, her voicemail doesn't sound like she's a past tensor. Well, you don't understand. Hannah's very involved in the shore. She's this woman, I mean, such a headache. I mean, I just can't get rid of her. She's threatened to tell my wife. So I still help her out sometimes. You know, I pay her rent. I pay her bills. I give her jobs. You know, so she's blackmailing you. Yeah, you could say that. And yeah, I mean, there have been rabbis in my life who they had affairs and then very inconsiderate of these women, they would then blackmail the rabbis and just hoard it over them. And it caused the poor rabbis like sleepless nights, you know, all sorts of stress, just really detracted from their overall happiness level. So now the rabbi's wife knows about Abbi, but he can't risk her knowing about Hannah too. So where is Abbi now? Well, she's in the Pico-Robertsen area. Now, do you still talk to Abbi? Yeah, sometimes she calls me when she needs help. I buy her shoes and I buy her special clothes for the Jewish holiday. I mean, what a man. She doesn't just abandon this woman after a 15-year relationship. He pays for abortion. He takes her calls. He buys her shoes. He buys her clothes. Oh, why is it your responsibility to support these women? Well, come on, guys. Abbi almost had his baby. Like, you expect the rabbi to treat her like a dog? Now, you may think that, oh, Mary's not special or unique to the rabbi, but that's not true. The rabbi truly loves Mary. Like, this is not just a sexual fling for him. With Mary, it's different. And he says, you know, Mary, I love you and he can't stop crying. And she's all, oh, yeah, you love me and you love Abbi and you love Hannah and God knows only who else and who else do you see on your overnight excursions in Florida or New York? I mean, you're just being in the sugar now. Like, the whole problem is this woman should never have transgressed his boundaries and checked his voicemail. So Mary just totally overreacts and says, I'm going to go seek out, you know, Dick Shapiro, Richard Horowitz with Asia Tora. And Rabbi Bloom says, yeah, I know Dick Welley contributed a lot of money for me to build this show. And Asia Tora, Rabbi Rabbi Nachman was my teacher and friend. Dick loves Ash. Rabbi Nachman put us in contact. But, you know, then my wife blew it, right? We had this fundraiser gala in a very typical fashion. She made a scene. It was all very bad. And he's kind of soured on me ever since. Okay, so Miriam goes to see Dick Horowitz, total gentleman. And he arranges for her to go study at an Asia Tora compound in Israel. So she's dropped off in the hills of Judea. And the driver takes one look at me as we approach the compound. And then with the most confused face a person could ever have said in his strong Israeli accent, are you sure this is the right address? It can't be. Yes, I'm sure. But it doesn't seem like a place you want to live in. So it's this desolate compound that Dick Horowitz ascended to. So now it's fine. Just drop me off there. So one of the girls, welcome, sir. Look, you must be Miriam. Welcome. I'm Shoshana. I'll show you your room. And so Miriam, all her bags were lost on the plane. So she needs to find a phone. And then she's told, no, we're not allowed to use the phone here, except in grave emergencies. Revitz and Hannah, let's us use her phone at her house, not allowed. Right. So the her room tends out to be a mini trailer that's several pieces of metal nailed together. It has an outdoor shower covered with a sheet. So you'll meet your roommate later and you'll get assigned your duties tomorrow. Duties. Yes, we all have duties. Whereas Revitz and Hannah, oh, she lives up the way. We see her sometimes if we are assigned to clean her house. Mostly she comes down to teach us a class. Now, Miriam, you're very welcome here. The only thing, right? The only downside to this desolate compound in the NGD is you have to be very careful of Arabs jumping over the fence and throwing rocks and shooting guns. And so what do you do in these instances? Well, you have faith in Hashem. We just hope that they don't do something worse. So Miriam says, how do I get to Rabbi Hannah's house? Shoshana speaks, we're not allowed to just go up to her house. Miriam says, I don't have time for this BS, where's her house? So she walks up the hill two miles. She's kind of stunned that Dick Horowitz, the wealthy Beverly Hills Jew, is supporting this squalor. I mean, is this what he finds intellectually honest? I mean, whoa, look at this beautiful home that Revitz and Hannah lives in. So now Miriam is like all angry. And she knocks at the door and this thin, thin woman dressed in a very bohemian chic, you know, great style, answers the door. She wears big turquoise necklace around the neck. She has beautiful rings, beautiful, beautiful home. And Mary, Mary directs says, I need to use your phone. My luggage was lost. So she gets a lot luggage and she decides, you know, there's no way I can stay here. We'll talk about that again briefly. And it wants to talk about the deaths of these two sons just in a passing remark. And yet, even though we're just saying in a passing remark, nevertheless, that's the name. It's as if, let's say, you wrote a book about, you wrote a book about, let's say, cars, right? And one particular chapter dealt with the mechanics of the cars. And you called the mechanics instead of cars. But that's what it is here. It's called Akaremo. But you can see how anyone could just be completely swept away with this rabbi's charisma. I mean, I only thank God that I've never been alone in a car with him, you know, after midnight, I'd hate to think what might happen. So our protagonist goes to, picks up a luggage, goes to a new place that I think Rabbi Bloom arranges for, a very, very considerate man. And it's an absorption center, right? So roommates don't have a separate bedroom. But beggars can't be choosers. And then she goes into a new room and there's a young girl lying on a bed. She's obviously American, very pretty young girl, but somewhat disturbed, not in her right mind. She's just staring at the wall. And eventually the girl speaks, says, I'm not even supposed to be in Israel. I just came here a month ago. So she's a thin, red tall girl with brownish blonde hair. And a man walks in, he's redheaded and bearded. Seems a little embarrassed. He looks at me and says, you know, I'm sorry I didn't know Jessica had a roommate. She's been on her own for the past two weeks. I just arrived today. And he gives her a key. Oh, right. Who are you? Well, it's a long story. Well, Jessica's from the United States. She used to go to my synagogue. I was, I was a rabbi in an Orthodox community and I met Jessica and I fell in love with Jessica. And she booked a flight to Israel a month ago and I found out she was staying in a hospital. So like I meant, she flies in right away. He finds her, he arranges her to stay in this outreach center until we figure things out. Like things get complicated. So the rabbi says, look, I'm divorcing my wife. You know, I'm leaving Orthodox Judaism. And, and like his Orthodox Jewish community is not nearly as understanding as it should have been. I mean, what a horror story. These women, these whys, these communities, not nearly as understanding of adulterous rabbis as they should be. Like his Orthodox community, you know, did they surround him with radical love and inclusion during this difficult time in his life? No, they ostracized him. So the Orthodox rabbi quits being Orthodox and quits being a rabbi. He abandons Judaism, but he's still worried about this girl, right? Because she was cutting herself last night. So, you know, that's why I've been staying here to make sure she doesn't hurt herself. So the whole time Jessica is just kind of staring into blank blank space. She's Jewish, right? And she used to babysit our kids when she was 14. I mean, we've all been there like you get a babysitter and he's been in a relationship with us since she was 14. But he's not the bad guy here. That's what you need to understand. She was the one who had hit on him. Like he was just trying to stay on the derrick. He was just trying to do the right thing. But this girl, she would flash him her boobies when his wife wasn't around. Like she'd lift her skirt up and let him see her naked. Like she was precocious, right? And she's beautiful. So the railway is very responsible. We got her an IUD because the pill doesn't always work. It's a little awkward because her father was a big financial supporter of the shawl. And his wife kept getting pregnant. But the girl, thank God, did not. Well, the last three babies tended to make Jessica very upset. The wife's getting pregnant. She's not getting pregnant for some reason. So Jessica understandably, she wants to have a baby with the rabbi. And she says, unless you give me a baby, I'm going to out you. So one day the rabbi and the babysitter they're having, you know, very passionate sex and rabbi is teaching a Torah with the tip of his penis and the wife walks in and why do you think she's understanding? I think she's compassionate. You think she's, she says, oh, my poor husband, he must be so confused right now. He must be so, you know, disconnected from the Torah just needs to study more Torah to, you know, get his head back on straight. No, it's why it's not understanding at all. Like she just snaps and then she makes him choose right then and there. Right. And so of course he chooses his wife. Now Jessica, the babysitter, you think she's understanding about all this? No, she just loses it and decides to run off to Israel because she's in love with the rabbi. She's a trust-run baby, but she doesn't really understand life. And he didn't, the rabbi didn't know where she was until she caught him threatening to kill herself. Right. So the rabbi is a total man. She takes the first plane out and he's just been trying to figure out what to do ever since. And now Jessica's father, not nearly as understanding as you would have expected. Like where's the compassion? Right. A father won't take her calls, won't take our calls, won't take his calls. Like just cuts her off. And the rabbi who's no longer a rabbi, realize I just can't be morally unevolved here. I can't leave her here by herself. And so this girl's always hitting her pillows and sobbing and talking to herself and muttering. So apparently she's going into a real tailspin. Like she started having sex with him when she was 14 and he was a rabbi with 11 children. So he was 45 and she was 14. And so Jessica just wants to die. So Mary, like she's got her own stuff, right? She's feeling pretty overwhelmed by Jessica. She's going back and forth on the phone with Rabbi Bloom about her disrupted conversion to orthodox Judaism. Look, most conversions to orthodox Judaism are not this complicated. Right. Normally when you convert to orthodox Judaism, you're not going to be surrounded by suicidal former babysitters who've been having sex with the rabbi since they were 14 and he was 45. So Jessica's boyfriend, the former rabbi, Ben, sits down with her and says, look, I know you think bad of me. I don't blame you, but I really do love her. Now it's why I left my wife and my 11 kids. I want to marry Jessica, but she's really screwed up and her family's cut her off and my whole community's cut me off. And I'm just concerned about this girl because she's in a bad space right now. I'm no saint. So he recommends to Mary that she don't go through with the orthodox Judaism process. And then he says the most curious thing. He says, well, still have a lot more chapters to live through before you can write a book court in search of the promised land. Right. Still got a lot more life to live, a lot more light and love. Let's hear from Rabbi David Wolpe. What are the great spiritual teachers of our age? It's going to be a somewhat difficult and I'm sure somewhat disagreed with Sermon. Let me say that even though I take one side of this extremely difficult debate, I make and I hope you do a presumption of goodness among those who disagree with me. I don't think that this is a question of good people versus bad people. And I hope that we can stay away from sloganeering or slander. I don't think on the one side that people are careless about life or on the other side that people don't care about women. I think this is a deep and divisive issue and I hope as best I can to explain what it is that we at Sinai Temple, the clergy believe and why we believe it without implying that those who don't believe it are therefore bad, inferior or foolish. I want to begin with why it is that after the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade Sinai Temple put out a statement because a couple of people have said you shouldn't have said anything. This, I must admit, I find a very peculiar argument. First of all, every rabbinic organization that I know, Orthodox, conservative, Reformed, Reconstructionist, every single... Right, so you can't expect a rabbi to remain morally neutral, right? When the time comes, the important moral talk to expound on the wisdom of the Torah that comes from God, that rabbis are willing to step up. Go on, put out a statement. Every rabbi that I know, I'm sure there are rabbis who didn't, but so far I am unaware of them and they are surely in the minority. The Federation literally sent around an email saying, rabbis, we know you're going to talk about this, let us know what you said. Because you see, when Judaism has thousands of years of legal response on a particular issue, and there could be and are books written about the Jewish response to the question of abortion, and it has philosophical speculation. When it becomes a major issue in the public life of America, it would be a dereliction of duty to say, I know this is a big issue, but actually Judaism has nothing to say about it, so I'm going to keep quiet. Right, it'd be a total dereliction of duty, right? And this is the most influential rabbi in America, according to Newsweek magazine. He doesn't shirk his duty. So I cannot imagine that somebody would be surprised that we actually spoke up, although they may not like what we said. First, let's start with what happened, which is that the Supreme Court turned the issue back to the States. The reason that that is a problem, because after all, that just means that the people can decide has three separate pieces. Right, so generally speaking, Jews, particularly Jewish intellectuals, Jewish thought leaders like Rabbi Welp fear populism. You can't really trust the people to decide these things. You really need the experts. I mean, come on guys, you need to follow the science, you need to follow the experts, you need to follow the elites because it's generally been the elites who've protected Jews, right? Jews have not often been popular in history. Jews have usually relied on monarchs and princes and principalities and powers and elites to protect them. So thoughtful Jews tend to have an instinctive fear of populism. So you can't really allow these important moral questions to be decided by the people, right? There are three major problems with allowing the people to decide these kind of questions. What you need to do is you need to give the people opportunities to express themselves and to make the people feel like you're listening, right? There need to be forums, right? But you can't really trust the people. You just can't trust the people, right? You need to let the experts decide these things. Legal, cultural, and personal. Yeah, there are legal, cultural, and personal problems that are allowing people to vote for laws, right? There are legal, cultural, and personal problems with allowing people to practice untrambled democracy without elite supervision, right? It's so problematic to allow people to vote whether or not abortion should be legal. Just really, really problematic. First of all, Jewish law is unequivocal about one thing. It is not murder to have an abortion. Totally, totally unequivocal except for those rabbis who say it is murder to have an abortion, right? But it's totally unequivocal except when it's not, okay? So yeah, there are plenty of rabbis who hold that abortion is murder. Orthodox Jews overwhelmingly don't have abortions. Orthodox Jews, traditional Jews in consonants with the Torah tradition regard abortion as killing, and some rabbis regard it as murder. But it's unequivocal that the Jewish law does not consider murder except for when Jewish law does consider it murder. But except for those occasions when Jewish law considers it as murder, it's absolutely unequivocal that it doesn't consider it murder. So it always does consider it killing. Although there are traditions, not Jewish, that believe that from the beginning because of the Torah, Judaism explicitly rejects that view. Explicitly rejects that view except for when it embraces and endorses that view. But aside from the times when it embraces and endorses the view that it's murder, it just explicitly, categorically, it rejects that view. There is a passage in Exodus that says that if a man strikes a woman, causes a miscarriage, he is fined. And the reason that he's fined is because although murder is a capital offense, it's not considered murder, even Rashi says so. That's an important groundwork for this because those ideas and philosophies and religions that equate abortion with murder, we should know are not our own. Yeah, totally, totally not our own except for when they are. But yeah, he's absolutely right. We totally not our own except for when they are and plenty of rabbis regard abortion as murder. But aside from those rabbis and those decisions and Jewish law, it's just totally foreign to Judaism except for when it isn't. All right, let's get back to this novel, just an amazing novel. Just, wow, just so much creativity and I mean, how does she come up with these stories? I mean, such a vivid imagination. So she thinks about Revit Saint Hannah who runs the compound like a slave house, right, a charlatan, just some American opportunists who decide to move to Israel, run a scam. She made a little center look good on paper while attracting non-Jewish girls from America to bring them to Israel to convert them, knowing full well that they had nowhere to go in the country as non-Jews. When they abandoned the quest, she lost nothing, while they may have lost their hope and soul. But meanwhile, they served as a terrific source of revenue and slave labor. This is the scheme promoted by Richard Horowitz and H. Hattora. So our predictors think, you know, I'm supposed to convert to Orthodox Judaism, I've already converted through the conservative movement. Yeah, some things have happened that have made me doubt my choices. But you know, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire, I got involved with the converting rabbi, it turns out he's a player. Then I found a place that converts women that look good on paper, turned out to be an Amish compound with a charlatan. So I leave there, I spend my first shabbas in the old city at a hostel, I check in here. My roommate's a young girl suicidal, because her Orthodox rabbi boyfriend, who she's been sleeping with since she was 14, is, you know, Nick dropped pretty bad. And she muses back to how rabbi Bloom would invite him to his own home on Shabbat. They used to think he must secretly hate his wife to be willing to be so cruel and inflict such pain. Would you invite your mistress over and have your wife serve it? So I didn't know about you. I would think every family is different. I'm not going to sit here in judgment. But please share in the chat, do you invite your mistress over for Shabbat meals and have your wife serve her? Or do you think that's like cruel to the mistress, cruel to the wife? What does Emily post? I mean, what are the best books? What do the experts say about the, not just the ethics, but just the whole gestalt of inviting your mistress home on Shabbat and introducing it to your family and to your kids and to your grandkids, right? It's complicated, right? I mean, yeah, you can say, oh, this is sadistic. This is demeaning. But I mean, maybe the wife was demeaning him too. Maybe she was demeaning him publicly. Maybe she was embarrassing him. Like, maybe he was just trying to prove you as interesting that he had a PR to women. So Rabbi Bloom does not abandon Mary, right? He sets her up with a woman named Carol, who's already converted to Judaism. And you're going to be shocked at this. Carol has a home full of cats. And Carol's a little bit off. So yeah, you might wonder, maybe these women started out relatively normal. And then some guys get a hold of them and fuck them up in the head and they're never the same. Well, Carol can't stop gushing about how much she loves Rabbi Bloom. And so Mary is listening to a heartfelt arias and the whole time thinking, wow, this guy just has a squeeze everywhere that men like him, wow, they live as though no one woman can ever fulfill all their needs. So next day after shawl, it's kiddish time, but Mary does not get raped after this kiddish, right? So she meets a Jewish girl who's estranged from her family. The Jewish girl's fallen in love with a Palestinian boy, decided to run off with him. They're both barely 19. The parents took their baby from her. They've been fighting in court ever since. So she's in love with a Palestinian boyfriend, wants to be with him, but she's afraid her family will kill him as she stays with him. She's miserable and she wants to kill herself, but she comes to spot to get away and to pray and to figure things out. She's ready to abandon Orthodox Judaism. Her parents have disowned her. They've taken her baby. Now, Mary starts thinking, maybe Orthodox Judaism isn't the right thing for me. And at that moment, she looks out and she sees Sleazebag Zach from Mosaic Law Congregation. So we're stepping out on his wife. Yes, it's all nonsense, I think to myself. And she's thinking, well, you know, we live in the holiest city on the entire planet, Jerusalem, and you don't even need to leave our building to find prostitutes, drugs, slum lords, fake universities, a burgeoning sex court run by a stateless Jew. After a half dollar, they leave Rabbi Bloom at the wall. And we look around the old city of Jerusalem and they find a secret society full of Shlomo Kalabakh folks who've convened an underground tunnel. They're singing, they're praising God, lots of naked women and men sprawling about, a lot of drugs, kind of a seance, a half dollar and a sex court all going down. I mean, Jerusalem's a truly eclectic place. It's impossible to distinguish between the sacred and the profane. So Mary's almost finished with a conversion program and then she decides to chuck it all in. And so she tells her baked-in rabbi, she wants to meet with them, she tells them everything, she tells them about her affair. And so I wanted to do these rabbis ever take any action against Rabbi Bloom? Perhaps they don't because Rabbi Bloom would likely have the goods of these two rabbis, like Rabbi Metzger, a very dubious character. So in most American Jewish homes, the primary significance for a synagogue is that it is a communal gathering place. It's not a religious place, primarily. So synagogues are like community centers. They offer schools, educational opportunities, they're a place for people to connect and to grow, grow Jewishly and to learn. But if you're not married with kids, you may feel like a stranger there. So Mary returns to Los Angeles and she decides to go visit Sinai Temple in Westwood. Well, in the novel it's called Mount Sinai Congregation. So I can only assume it is inspired by the real Sinai Temple on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, where the rabbi is David Wolpe. Even among the most traditional of the most tradition. The reason that there's a fine is because of what is called wounding, habala, but it's wounding in Hebrew. And some take that to refer to the fetus and some take that to refer to the woman. So in Jewish law, there is one clear line and a couple of blurry ones. The clear line is the life of the mother always, always, always takes precedent over the life of the fetus until the fetus is actually mostly born. That is, has emerged from the womb. So even until the ninth month, according to Jewish law, if the mother's health is endangered and abortion is mandatory. Now, obviously, this is a terrible tragic situation, God forbid, that should ever happen. But it is important to know that that's point one. That is pretty indisputable among Jewish scholars. What I'm going to say from now on, you will see has more gray area. The question is, what means the health and anguish of the mother? And here you get everything from it has to be only a threat to the life of the mother to it can be the deep distress and anguish of the mother. And that range of opinion is arranged. And I would say that it is fair to say that abortion as a means of casual birth control where there's not anguish or pain or fear contradicts Jewish law. And anguish could mean like, you know, it'd be a bummer, right? It'd be, you could feel anguish that you don't get to go to Europe that summer, right? I mean, you could feel genuine anguish, right? But it's not birth control, right? You have to feel some bad feelings for it to be kosher than abortion. Okay. So, Mary goes to Sinai Temple and listens to the rabbi. So the rabbi is named Daniel Wexler. And he seems to be like creatively inspired by David Wolpe. And he's such an excellent orator. The sound of his voice was like music to the ears. You could listen to him speak forever. It wasn't billowy or baritone or deep. It was clear, resonant, decisive, intentional. I think I enjoyed most how articulate he was, how he conveyed his thoughts in a very up close and personable way. He had the gift of rhetoric. He was persuasive. You got the sense that he knew what he was talking about. What stood out the most to me about him is that he was not at all trying to be flashy, but he was very dapper. He had an effortless air about him that was incredibly compelling. You probably feel all these same things when you tune into my show. I mean, how many people have told me that, you know, my voice is like music to their ears, you know, 40 is such an excellent orator. I could just listen to you speak forever. I mean, your voice isn't billowy or baritone or deep, but it's clear, it's resonant, it's decisive, it's intentional. What I most enjoyed about you 40 is how articulate you are, how you convey your thoughts in a very up close and personable way. You just have the gift of rhetoric. You're very persuasive. You got the sense that he knew what he was talking about. What stood out the most to me about Rabbi Wopi is that he was not at all trying to be flashy, but he was very dapper. I get that all the time. People are like, 40, I tune into your show and it's just such a relief. You're not at all trying to be flashy. There's no bling, but you just have this effortless dapper quality about you. There's just this effortless air about you that's just so incredibly compelling. And as I sit down in my seat, I just become incredibly taken with you 40, which was very unusual for me. Now, back to Mary, only because I don't ever get too taken with anyone. So she likes good looking men who are very intelligent. That has always been my weakness, but they are so few and far between. And this Rabbi, he was attractive. I didn't feel lost for him. I didn't think he's cute. I did find him attractive, but it was so much more next level. And that's the feedback I get all the time. Like 40, I tune into your show. It's not that I feel lost for you. Right? It's not that. It's just that you're so soulful. Now, I'm not sitting here watching the though thinking, oh, 40, you're so cute. You know, yeah, you're attractive, but it's so much more next level. Right? People are always getting David Wolpe and me confused all the time because we're just so similar. There was just something about the whole person I could not quite place. It was the way he combed his hair, his voice, his inflection, his gait, the color of his skin, how he moved. Why did he seem so familiar? He stood out to me in a way that no other man has ever stood out to me in my whole life till that point. I'd never been in love before, and I was already 36. I didn't know it was possible to feel something so profound that defies explanation. Well, a lot of people have had that experience. They come to this show, they start drinking from my wisdom, and they find themselves experiencing things they've never experienced before. Right? I mean, how ridiculous is that? But we create this connection that just defies explanation. I mean, surely you can't just love someone you just met, or you don't even know. But what wasn't preposterous was that I loved listening to him talk. Felt like I could listen to him talk forever and never be bored and never be tired. How often do any of us feel that way about a man? Mostly men are annoying, especially when they're mansplaining. But I really liked what Rabbi Wolpe had to say, and the way he said it, most of all, the sound of his voice. However, in my own experience, talking to people who have had abortion, I have never met someone, although I'm sure it exists, I have never met someone who said, well, I just sort of casually, without much thinking about it, because after all, I wanted to have birth control had an abortion. So even though that does contradict Jewish law, I think it also more or less contradicts human nature. A number of halachic authorities have mandated abortion in other extreme cases that you can imagine, and which I'm going to speak about in a moment. Because when you turn something back to the States, you do get laws in places that have a very different philosophy from other states. And so, for example, if I have read this correctly, and I've read a couple of accounts of it, immediately enacted in Alabama was a law that not only prohibited abortion in cases of rape or incest, prohibited it, and made the provider who gives it subject to life imprisonment. Now, there are a number of halachic authorities, again, who permit in cases of rape or incest abortion, and therefore, if you live in Alabama, you have a good chance that a state law could violate Jewish law. My God, the chutzpah of these non-Jews making laws that violate Jewish laws. So, Mary starts going back to Sinai Temple every week just to hear him speak, and it was always a full house. And I had a very clear read on Rabbi Wolpe. He was like an open book to me. Just hearing him speak, combined with all the environmental cues, I was able to completely profile his life, and I was 100 percent right. Or was I? Turned out he was also an author, and he'd just come out with a book about faith. Now, like so many other rabbis, his wife was largely absent from the equation. At least, that's what it appeared like on the surface. I remember seeing her one day in June, she showed up with her daughter on a shover's morning. She was pretty. She was about my height. She was kind of simple. She was very natural looking. And so, Mary starts corresponding with Rabbi Wolpe. And this is Rabbi Wolpe with Eliana Wolpe. And this happens for a lot of people. It was after the Rabbi Wolpe lecture on Martin Buber's work, I and Thou. So Rabbi Wolpe was wearing a dark blue suit with a different color of blue button-down shirt that day. And Mary was a big fan of Martin Buber's writings, and that book in particular. And at the same time, Mary is working at the Sephardic synagogue, which is just a few doors down from Sinai Temple. So she has her first meeting with Rabbi, let's call him Rabbi Wexler. And she always calls it by his first name from the start. Right? I guess I always saw him as a man. It just so happened to be a Rabbi, not a Rabbi who happened to be a man. So I talked to him about joining the shore. It was the first Rabbi I met in seven years who was not interviewing me about conversion. I told him about my life story. He asked a lot of questions. I knew that I converted out in Sacramento with Rabbi Bennett. So it was known to me he was pretty close with Kirk Douglas. He shared many anecdotes quite openly during services. Kirk Douglas used to learn with him. The real art of conversation is the ability to talk less and listen more. The Rabbi Bloom sure wasn't like that. Never loved the sound of anyone's voice more than his own. But Rabbi Wopi, he was different. So one day the Rabbi of the Sephardic synagogue just down the way from Sinai Temple finds out that Mary is a member of Mount Sinai. So they get to talking. And the Rabbi says, well, everyone gives Rabbi Wopi a lot of fanfare, but he's highly overrated. Don't let him fool you. I thought it was kind of strange for another Rabbi to spill that kind of tea. What in God's name could he be talking about? But apparently there was something about Rabbi Wopi that was giving a lot of people a lot to talk about. Everyone loved to talk about Rabbi Wopi. After all, he was the number one Rabbi in America according to Newsweek Magazine. So she goes on a hike and she's on a hike with a female friend and she talks about what's going on with his wife. Why do you never see her around? Then she goes to a lecture. There's a panel and Mary finds herself sitting next to a woman in her late 40s who's going through a divorce. She was a lawyer. She looks a bit haggard, a little rough around the edges. And she has a permanently bemused expression on her face. Right after the lecture she looks at me and says, do you know Rabbi Wopi? Well, yeah, I met with him. I talked with him, but do I know him? No. The lawyer says, there's something up with that guy. What do you think about him? I haven't given much thought. So night before Raj Shashana is the last time that Mary and Ari have sex and it's just one of the wildest nights they've ever spent together. And afterwards they're browsing through the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. And there are a pair of bloggers on the journal, a couple of young 20-something women, Dickler Kadoche and Daniel Barron, who are branding themselves as the it-girls of Judaism. And then they stop looking at the Jewish Journal and they just screw all night, every which way, over his apartment while blasting two packs, all eyes on me. Now, you may not realize this is a very traditional way to get prepared for Raj Shashana. I mean, there are different techniques, different methods for different people, but this is common. You screw all night, every which way, all over the apartment while blasting two packs, all eyes on me. And it was one of the best and purely carnal sexual experiences of her life. Next morning she takes a shower, she gets dressed up, she drives to shore for Raj Shashana services. And she's really starting to develop intense feelings for Rabbi Wolpe. He's got this wonderful black hair that he keeps short, and you could tell was somewhat curly. I didn't know if he's the handsomest man in the world, but he definitely had something exceptionally compelling about him. His office is spacious, has coffee brown leather sofas in his seating area. His walls are lined, water sealing on all sides with books. There's cotton candy and glass bowls on the coffee tables. When we take our seats, he mirrors me, he turns his phone off. I have his full attention. And I get straight to the point. It's like, I've always been very direct with you. I'm very attracted to you. It's not just in a surface or a carnal way. It's something I don't understand. I've never felt this way before and I've wrestled deeply with this because I've downed this block before. What do you mean? How so? Well, I was once involved in sexual relationship with the Orthodox Rabbi who was overseeing my conversion. I thought his marriage was over and that I was his first, but I became educated soon enough. I vowed I'd never become involved with a married man again. I see. Now I've met you. No one has ever stopped me dead in my tracks before. It's also weird. I don't know what it means. Usually you notice a guy after the fact. Maybe he grows on you, but there's just something about you that intrigues me so much. In what way? In every way. I think I love the sound of your voice. Maybe it's everything. Where can we go from here? I don't know. So I find myself in a little bit of a dilemma. How so? Just don't know that I can come to the synagogue anymore. My interest in you is not benign and I don't want to indulge ignoble intentions. Rabbi Wolpey says, well, I hope you will stay. I like you being here. Mary, I don't know what to say. No woman has ever approached me so boldly, but it's most welcome. So Rabbi Wolpey was not prone to flattery. I tell him, let me leave you to your rabbi duties. My rabbi duties, he said, with a sort of distant look. David, do you like being a rabbi? Well, it's a very restrictive life. I was once an atheist, and now I do my best to help other people. I would never want to be a rabbi. Why bother going to shore? Other than for you? He laughs. For the social aspect, I do love Torah and God and religion and not the same thing. There's a sad look on his face. It's hard to be a rabbi, but it's the life you chose. I guess I'm stuck with a choice. Not really. You can always choose otherwise. And that's something that is important to think about and to consider because the second piece of this is a cultural piece. And here is the more difficult and tricky area. It is worth noting that one of the one of the justices in his opinion concurring with the majority said that the same reasoning that applied to turning abortion back to the States applied to gay marriage and to contraception. In other words, it is conceivable according to this justice. And he's referring to Clarence Thomas. So when I first came to LA, I asked Rabbi Wolpey, what did he think about those verses in the Torah that condemn homosexuality? And this is nearly 30 years ago Rabbi Wolpey told me, I believe that the authors of those verses were homophobic. This ideology will catch on. That you could have states in the United States that would legally forbid contraception. That's a cultural issue of no small note, I think, to most of us who have, want, don't want or think about children. And this leads to something that we ought to note before I get into the most difficult part of this, which is that in 1868 when the due process clause was instantiated, there was one really important group that had no voice and couldn't vote, women. And when these halachic opinions were rendered for all of Jewish history until about the last 30 to 50 years, there was one group who was affected by every one of these halachic opinions that never had the right to issue a halachic opinion. Women. Okay, back to our story. So after a meeting with Rabbi Wolpey, she leaves him hanging, she still goes to shore for every single service or for every single event, realized that I'm falling in love with him, never felt that way for any man in my whole life. I didn't even know it was possible to have these kinds of feelings. The depth of these feelings scares me. You probably experienced that when you're watching the show. The depths of your feeling for me could just positively frighten you. So she's afraid of loving somebody so much, of losing myself, of losing control, the sex, the lust, the attraction. Those are just small potatoes, guys, in the game of love. You don't risk a lot with those, but with love, real love. Once you get caught in that, there's no hope of recovery. Finally, she's experiencing real love. And it's with a married Rabbi. So she goes to an event for Martin Luther King holiday, and special guest is Congressman Berman. It's the third time she's seen him at a synagogue in six years. And I see Rabbi Wopie's wife nicely dressed in an all-black dress, and the Rabbi's wife is wearing a miniskirt. And she walks around the synagogue, and she passes by the aisle where I am, and her eyes widen when she sees me. And she smiles at me, and I smile back. I remember thinking how cute she was. It was that day that I decided I needed to move on. I developed some kind of weird connection with Rabbi Wopie that I didn't understand. So she, of course, makes an appointment to see Rabbi Wopie to say goodbye. And he opens the door, brings her in, and there's now this familiarity. We're relaxed, we're casual, but I'm feeling really strange, and it's confusing to me. My heart is beating, my palms are sweaty, my throat feels dry. I can hardly talk, has a slightly puzzled look on his face. And I haven't even had sex. And so finally I just let it out. You know, Rabbi Wopie, I think I'm in love with you. What else can it be? I truly don't understand the intensity of my feelings. It's more than I've ever dealt with before, but there's no place for us to go. And I'll always honor the vow I made to myself, I will never be with a married man again. He says, I don't know what to say, I wish you wouldn't go. So we stand up, and he walks towards me, and he says, can I please hug you? I nod yes. And we hold each other for a very long time without saying a word. Then we just looked at each other for even longer. It was as though time stood still. And he was holding me so close to him. I could feel his body pulsate against my own. And every part of him warmed me to the core of my being, filled me with a delight and a pleasure I'd never known until that time. I was running my hands through his hair, gently caressing his cheeks, his neck, his lips, all the while staring longingly and lovingly into his eyes. As I felt so overcome with love and a kind of desire that surpassed mere lust, I knew I could live in the blissful rapture of his presence forever. My body was tingling everywhere. We were breathing into the soul of each other. Our lips were so close to one another that this was pure ecstasy. And then it almost happened instinctively. Our tongues darted forth as if to start the exploration of the best adventure either one of us would ever embark upon. But I pulled away and I looked at him, shaking almost in tears, how close we got to the point of no return. Rabbi Wobby, we can't do this. He said nothing for a moment, and then can I have one more hug, please? And nodded yes again. And he held me for what felt like forever. We just held each other so tightly. I loved everything about him, his smell, the way his body felt when pressed next to mine. Then as we let go, we held hands. And we looked into each other's eyes for a long time without saying a word. I felt like I was telling him all the things I ever wanted to say to anyone. And I felt like he was doing the same. I'm so glad I met you, he whispered. I'm so glad I met you too, I replied. I replied. Please always take care of yourself, he continued. Powerful. So when we refer back to the halakha or to constitutional opinions, we do have to actually take into account that the people that were most deeply affected by these rulings had absolutely no say whatsoever in those rulings. Not in America until about hundred years ago, a little bit more, and not in Judaism until about 50 years ago, a little bit less. And this brings me to the third and honestly most difficult part of this discussion. And that is my experience as a rabbi in this congregation for the past 25 years. So, Mary tears herself away from Rabbi Wopi and she doesn't see him for a month, but then she makes an appointment, goes back to see him. She says, Mary, how you been? David, I've missed you so much. I've missed you too. Maybe I made a mistake, David. Maybe life and love are just simply complicated. I thought about you. I will be with you. I will take whatever little pieces of your time you can spare for me. Something with you is better than nothing. I just can't stand this horrible pain of being separate from you, David. Mary, not while I'm still married. If my wife finds out, all hell will break loose. She can be chaotic. Why would he say such a thing? Did such a thing happen before? And I reply, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I got a run. And David goes to hug me, but I move away. And I change my phone number. And I don't hear from him again. Then six months later, she makes another appointment, goes to see Rabbi Wopi. He smiles when he sees me, but there was something about him that seemed different. His energy was different. He seemed anxious. We took our usual seat. He was really fidgety. He says, anything new? And why haven't you said anything about what? What do you mean about what? I mean, about what? What are you talking about? You mean you don't know? David, know what? I'm getting divorced. What? Congratulations, I guess. That's not the response I was expecting. I guess I don't know what to say. But you knew, we sent out a letter to the congregation letting them know that we are ending our marriage. I wondered why I didn't hear from you. David, I unsubscribe from all correspondence when I cancel my membership and stop coming here. Oh, I didn't know that. I'm horrified. Mary, what's wrong? Talk to me. Newly divorced, handsome 51-year-old man, guess it's time for you to play the field and sew your wild oats. Mary, I'm not that kind of man. No doubt women will be throwing themselves at you. Now he's going to have to go through his sewing his wild oats phase. There's not going to be enough to deal with that. That would utterly crush me to see him with other women and stick around waiting for a call where I was getting it all out of his system. There's just no way this would kill me. It's a newly divorced man. He would need your space. He just couldn't jump into another relationship. I was ready for a lifetime of togetherness. He had to play the field. He goes to hug me and I pull back again. What a heartbreak. So she goes to tell Rabbi Bloom about what's going on. Rabbi Bloom, I'm in love with someone. He broke my heart. It's Rabbi Wolpe. Rabbi Wolpe, are you kidding me? That guy is a man about town. He's got a huge reputation. He's a ladies man. Everyone knows about him. He wouldn't last a week with him. You're too much work. He likes some simple and easy no strings. How can you say such a thing? Has he called you? Has he offered you a life together? Did you ever tell him that you love him? Did he say he loves you back? Didn't he get a divorce? Everyone knows about that. Talk of the town. He was stepping out with someone in his community. Not a first. He did it all the time. Baby girl, I want to see you happy. You mean the world to me. But this guy, Wolpe, he's such a schmuck. This guy's no good. Wow. How could I have been so foolish, so blind? How could I have been so pathetic? So months go by and she finds herself thinking about Rabbi Wolpe. It's been four months now since they last spoke. Now we're talking spring of 2011. It is March and there's a big event at Sinai Temple and she decides to go to Sinai Temple. Okay, so it's hosted by some pro-Israel political action committee in honor of the Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. So I walk up to the front entrance and there's quite a commotion going on. Then David Wolpe comes out, tells the security guards that some woman who was trying to get in was clear to enter. Didn't really get a good glimpse of her. It was dark outside, but he escorted her inside himself. I go inside and I notice a girl, Danielle Barron, apparently, several rows in front of me, the Jewish general columnist. She seems young. So Danielle Barron is best known for writing exposés of powerful men who have hit on her in rather gauche ways. What stands out to me about Danielle Barron is how much makeup she has on. It was a lot. She seems to really fixate on Rabbi Wolpe so much so that she noticed that he had his eyes on something. So five minutes into the program, Rabbi Wolpe saw me there and he never took his eyes off me the whole time. She's clearly quite concerned with who or what he's staring at so intently as she's busy scribbling on a notepad herself. Finally unable to stand it much longer, she gets up, walks to the back to see what the heck he's looking at. And that's when I see how tortuous she is. And that's when I discovered that her eyes are on me. Never once bothered to look at her or to look away from me. Seemed really self-conscious during the talk. As though he knew I was examining his behavior, I left immediately as the last time I ever saw Dan. So January 2012, she goes back to Sacramento. She visits Mosaic Law Congregation. And the place looks amazing. I mean, they've really done it up well. It's, I mean, talk about the Kaschenberg, Ostrow, Haywood Library and Cultural Center is just gorgeous. Just beautiful. And she goes inside and there's a life-size portrait of her rapist on the wall. Now, this could really bum you out. You go into a synagogue and there's like a life-size portrait of your rapist. So it's not a good feeling. Now, Mary's walked to the synagogue dressed to the nines. So beauty is a shield and a defense. And at the synagogue, guess who she sees? She sees Saul, her rapist. And he says, Mary, do you remember me? Of course. How could I ever forget? Now, the rabbi is looking over and seems uncomfortable. So yeah, a lot of rabbis tend to feel uncomfortable when a rapist and his victim kind of meet up in synagogue. It's truly a bad feeling. So you can understand. And so Saul says he donated $3 million to Mosaic Law Synagogue. So they put up a plaque to celebrate him. And then he asked her, have you ever really loved anyone? And she replies, yes, only once, very deeply. They go out for lunch and not a lot of women go out with their rapist. And the next Sabbath, they sit together in the library that's a tribute to the rapist during Torah study. Now, the rapist Saul actually gives zero fox about Torah study. That kind of stuff doesn't interest him. But he is interested in beautiful women. And since I love Torah study, he sat there. Then he takes her to lunch. And he starts talking about his involvement with APAC and how he's a big money donor, like buying tables of $50,000 a plate. Looks like President Obama was there and big name rabbis like David Wopie from LA. And you know Rabbi Wopie? Oh, very well. Rabbi Wopie was there with a young girl, probably Daniel Barron. I mean, she was of age, but she had to be in her mid-20s at best. She was tall. Daniel Barron clearly head over heels for him. So this is the rapist filling in Mary. I've known Rabbi Wopie for years. I said to kid him about some things from the past. He got upset and he told me to tone it down that his girlfriend didn't need to know about all that. Oh, wow. What kind of things? He's a really sick guy off in the head, one of those weird types. So here is her rapist calling Rabbi Wopie a sick guy. So she says, I'm shocked that of all the women in the world that Rabbi Wopie could be with, he's dating a young 20-something blogger. Even more shocking to me was that the girl had written an article about his ex-wife a year before they divorced, praising both her youthful beauty and the love between her and her husband. Couldn't help but wonder if she was the one he was having an affair with and why his marriage broke up. Maybe she had her eye on him the whole time. Maybe he had his eyes on hers. So life is complicated. So June 18, 2009, about a year before the divorce, Danielle Barron from the Jewish Journal writes this glowing article about Rabbi Wopie's wife. I mean, isn't that like a Tilly-Manchelike thing to do? They really get close to her. So Eliana Wopie has been running for six and a half hours and 26 miles when she finally crushes the finish line, dripping sweat and beaming. She jogs past screaming crowds with her arms stretched triumphantly over her head. Then she locks eyes with the people she was running for, her husband Rabbi David Wopie and their 12-year-old daughter, but stood huddled together on the sidelines waiting to embrace her. Eliana burst into tears. The threesome collapsed into a tight embrace, gripping one another and sobbing. The Rabbi kissed her passionately. The Wopies celebrated their moment of triumph. This was for them a victory over illness, a repudiation of the cancers that have haunted them and destroyed their sense of safety. The Wopies tried to be honest and open about their cancers, but there were limits. Each coped differently. Eliana found that cancer offered her the benefit of pain. At 43, she is cancer-free and shows no sign of her battle with her disease. She is lean and fit and incredibly youthful looking with piercing deep green eyes. Yet she is also light-hearted. She lasts with the pitch and frequency of a happy child. So yeah, a beautiful article here about Rabbi Wopie and his wife and family. So this is for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles by Danielle Barron. And it wasn't the first such article she'd written like this. See, I can think of three instances. There may have been more, but I remember three of them. And I'm sure there were more that I didn't know of, where I had in front of me a family, one of whom was a young girl with desperation in her eyes and fear in the room, because in two cases of what she had done and in one case of what was done to her, and there was only one way that any of them believed that they could save their lives. Now, if you can put yourself in that situation and say, nonetheless, I oppose that girl's chance to save her future, if you can believe that, and there are many people who do, then you and I have a very large divergence of view, and we have the respect that that is the case. But if you know what you would do, then to be supportive of the possibility that if that girl had been born not in Los Angeles to a wealthy family and a respected family and a relatively well-known family, but in Alabama to a poor family, all I can say is you fought not to be comfortable knowing that that girl in Alabama can't have the same option that the girls who sat in my office had. No, this is Rabbi Wolpe according to Newsweek Magazine, the most influential rabbi in America. So Rabbi Wolpe features in an excellent 2003 book called The New Rabbi, and on page 60, David Wolpe's father tells him he's not a scholar, but the retail business of religion has changed dramatically. David says, I don't think I could have had anything like the success I've had 30 years ago because I'm not a great scholar. Who's going to listen to me? But the field of religion isn't like that anymore. You don't have to write a book with a thousand citations for someone to say, okay, I'll take this guy seriously. My editor said to me, I want you to speak from your own authority as a spiritual teacher. Nobody would have said that at the peak of my father's rabbinette. Today there is a business of selling spirituality. Jewish groups pay very well for guest speakers. David Wolpe knows that some other rabbis refer to his work as Abraham Hashel Light. Now in the September 11, 2008 issue of the Jewish Journal, Daniel Barron writes apparently about David Wolpe, just before the high holidays last year, sitting in synagogue when I was struck by the star power of its rabbi. When he spoke, everyone listened, transfixed as if the words he offered were revelations, inspiring, challenging, and healing all at the same time. At the end of his sermon, the congregants erupted in applause. I could hear them whispering about him all at once. He's amazing, several said. Brilliant, I love him. That's when the Kansas wife who was sitting next to me tapped me on the shorter. You know, she whispered, I'm waiting for the story about what it's like to be married to someone in the clergy. That's when I began wondering about the people rabbis go home to at night, the people who don't just love the rabbi, but who also know the rabbi. For as long as rabbis have been arguing Talmud, their wives have been at home preparing Shabbat dinner. Yet that image, along with expectation for clergy spouses, has evolved. I became involved with the rabbi of my own. Because as it turns out, God is not without a sense of irony. The night the man I am now seeing was ordained, cast me whether I could see myself marrying a rabbi. I hesitated to answer. I didn't think I could bear missing someone so much. I wonder whether a rabbi could ever love their spouse as much as they love their work. A tough choice when your business partner is God. So at this time, Danielle's dating Scott Polo, a conservative rabbi at a Dutch alone, also in in Westwood. So you have to decide if you were in that position, because it is not an abstract issue. It is a real issue day after day after day. And you have to decide what would you do. And I will tell you that I know that there are circles that are officially extremely opposed to this procedure for reasons that I respect. And yet, that is softly without anyone noticing. Make exceptions because they can't stand the consequence of not doing so. It's not easy. Nobody ever thought this one was. And we will not all agree. And I didn't give this sermon to convince you. But where you stand, especially in such an intimate and painful issue, depends a lot on where you sit, on what your life is, on who you know and who you've faced and who you've been. I know that I am very grateful to live in a place where a woman ultimately, for all the anguish and pain that this means, and the fact that the fetus in our tradition is a potential life, it's not nothing. It is a potential life that could be a human being. I'm still very grateful to live in a state where ultimately, that woman who for so long didn't have a voice has the voice. And I hope and pray that one day, we will live in a country as we once did, where she will have it wherever she lives. Shabbat shalom. Okay. So, Rabbi Wolpe speaking in 2010 says, this sermon is going to be very personal, more personal than any sermon I've ever given. It has to do with something that happened to me a month ago when I was sitting at lunch with a member of the congregation. He said to me, I understand you are going out with so-and-so. He said, what? I'm not going out with anyone. I don't even know who this person is. The more I thought about it, the more I bothered me. We're just beginning the separation of our lives. So, this is after Daniel Barron writes this glowing article about Rabbi Wolpe and his family and his wife and then Rabbi Wolpe and his wife separate and divorce. And Rabbi Wolpe says, I would never when we are taking the first steps to lead separate lives be going out with someone. I was told that everyone knows this, especially in a certain community. During the past 13 years that I've been the Rabbi of the synagogue, numerous members of the Persian community have come to me and said, please talk about gossip in the Persian community. So, as I want you to know that if you're gossiping, you're wounding people. So, Daniel Barron had the opportunity to write many times about Rabbi Wolpe. So, May 10, 2010, Hollywood Jew, that's a stage name. He's learned that two of LA's most influential and innovative rabbis, Sinai temples, David Wolpe and Iqa, Sharon Bruce, will head to the White House next week for the first ever Jewish Heritage Month Reception with the Obamas. This is just this delicious car wreck quality to Daniel's life and work that makes it hard for even the most Torah centric among us to look away. I mean, she's intensely ambitious. She's a 10 out of 10 on the beauty scale. She's got very good manners and her writing is usually compelling. Sometimes it's compelling good, sometimes compelling bad. So, her best writing comes in first person when she focuses on ridiculous people trying to hit on her. The worst writing comes when she comments on ideas. And I know what it's like to date beautiful women. I remember I took one to all these writer gatherings I frequented and all these men over 50 just absolutely worshipped her. They'd send her emails about lofty issues and they always contain disclaimers such as, I hope I don't come across as just another creepy old man trying to get in your pants. And a very good friend of mine made a serious pass at her and when she rejected him he he stopped talking to me that my girlfriend was ambitious but she was without accomplishment. And so she tried to bond with my female friends with very significant credits and they rejected her attempts. They complained, find my brain slowing down when I try to talk to her. On the other hand, my male friends every bit as professionally advanced as my female friends absolutely adored her and praised her writing. So this is Daniel Barron's self-description. Born in the sticky heat of the Everglades region where hurricanes whirl by every summer and mojitos are as ubiquitous as water, Miami is my native land. The year-long summers in Florida meant my move to Los Angeles wouldn't be too shocking. I was merely trading hurricanes for earthquakes, humidity for smog, but I didn't come here for the weather. It's just an added benefit. I ventured across the country because Hollywood is where dreams come true. Although I possess many passions, I'm enjoying the pursuit of journalism. So she loves talking about her intellectual interests such as architecture and French New Wave film. She's quite the public speaker and she even joined Rabbi Shmili Boteiak on a panel to talk about materialism. So she writes in the Jewish Journal March 13, 2008. It's early Saturday morning and Shabbat is cresting with the west coast sunrise. I dress, slip into a pair of heels and ready myself for contemplative worship. When I was new in town, I could dove and throw back a shot of Menechevitz and grab a piece of challah on my way out. But the days of passing through community circles unnoticed and unscathed are over. First time it happened, a well-dressed woman with ebony tresses and ample perfume poured me aside during kiddish and said, excuse me, are you married? She grabbed my right hand and glared at my naked finger. No, I'm not married, I replied. Are you Jewish? Am I Jewish? I thought. I'm in temple on Shabbat. How old are you? 24? Very good. She said all smiley and nodding. So Danielle's wearing a talit over her shoulders of pressure. She meant very good because I had six more childbearing years before I turned 30. I have a son. He's handsome. A lawyer. Can he call you? Now I feel, I blogged this about 10 years ago. I feel queasy about writing anyone's dating life. I have ambivalence about publishing this, but Rabbi Wolpe frequently felt no ambivalence about weighing in with his opinions on Mel Gibson's private phone calls to his girlfriend. So Rabbi Wolpe wrote for the Huffington Post July 30, 2010. I supposed I am relieved to hear that people dropping Mel Gibson right and left, his vile rant would be enough to bury any career. Remember, this is a private voicemail. Not only did he abuse another human being, but the admixture of sexism was enough for any Kenny Watcher of the media to know this was a cooked goose. I mean, is there anyone who's not said things in private that he would not be ashamed about where they made public? I suspect even Rabbi Wolpe. So Dennis Prager had a very different perspective. The notion that a man ranting at his girlfriend is now played for the world is disturbing. The vast majority of human beings in the midst of terrible anger say terrible things. It's not in my business. Outside of the book of Genesis, this might be the Torah portion that has most family stuff. And unsurprisingly, it starts with complaining, because families are difficult. And Moses and Aaron have some problems. And Miriam and Moses have some problems. And as I said before, this is the first time, actually, that we know of, that people are complaining about their in-laws. And it started a long and noble tradition when Miriam gossips about Moses's wife, who's her sister-in-law. And when we look at this, we wonder, like, why are families so difficult? Why are there always problems in families? In Genesis, we know the first brothers don't get along so well. Cain and Abel, Avram and Sarah have their issues with their kids and on and on and on. But I have both the problem and the solution for you. The problem is that families are made up of human beings. And human beings sometimes are difficult. Okay, let's get back to the novel. So, Mary is talking to her rapist. And so she asks, how do you know all these things about Rabbi Wolpe? Well, the lady, I was his mother's boyfriend for about four years. I was his wife's mother's boyfriend for about four years. So, things start to fall into place. And then I remember she was the woman at the arts council that he was talking to 10 years earlier. So, Rabbi Wolpe's wife's mother was the person that Mary's rapist was talking to 10 years earlier. So, now her rapist starts showing her pictures of many women that he dated throughout the years. He's got this thick photo album. Lots of the women are naked or scantily clad. All of them are much younger. Most of them are Asian. He says, you're the only woman who I didn't get a photo of. So, I decided to ask him, what did Rabbi Wolpe do that was so weird? Oh, that guy, he really is something very sick in the head. I didn't even know how he's a rabbi. That bad, huh? Worse, he would lock himself in the garage practicing his sermons. So, he said, once we caught him, he didn't even want to know. No, I guess you're right. Maybe I don't. Life is strange. So, in that moment, everything in me changed. How was I so blind to what kind of person Rabbi Wolpe is? How did I fall in love with what appears to be one of the worst human beings on the planet? One person in this world I love was married to a woman whose mother's boyfriend raped me. Everyone always says such awful things about Rabbi Wolpe to me. Is he really that much of a fraud? How did I not see it? He was playing the field just as I had predicted. I always felt that no matter what happened in my life, my belief in God would always be unwavering. When I finally got home, I lost it. I cried out from the depths of my being. God, what sick joke is this? Why did you do this to me? What do you want from me? And she seems to give up on Orthodox Judaism.