#8 Jeremy

Hello, So I have a favorite to ask of you. No, 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:07.440 I was wondering if, since this is the last episode 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.720 of the season, if you could introduce the show. The 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.400 show from Gimblet Media on behalf of Jonathan Goldstein. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:20.880 This is Heavyweight from Gimblet Media. 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:26.720 On behalf of My best friend. You're my best friends, okay, 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:27.800 my second best friend. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.040 No, hold on, let me think Karen Mary Code. 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.360 Oh yeah, you're definitely second tier. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.680 Top five to five is pretty good. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:40.120 All right, here we go. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.720 From Gimlet Media on behalf of one of my top 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.720 five friends, Jonathan Goldstein. This is Heavyweight. 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.440 Today's episode, Jeremy. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.600 Today's episode Jeremy. 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.640 Thanks Jackie, take it easy. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.160 Now, take it easy, and I want you to know, yeah, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:00:59.000 this is it right. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.959 Well, promise me take it easy, promise me be well, 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.880 John Yeah, sit right, but you know what, Yeah, there's 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:12.760 going to be season two. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:14.160 Pardon me? 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:15.520 Season two? 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:18.039 Yeah, no, no. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.560 Comes after season Well, come on, you like talking to me? 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:22.520 I do? 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:24.200 I do? 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.360 Yeah? All right, my friend, that a way go. 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:31.160 Thanks for introducing the show. 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:40.480 Welcome from Gimlip Media on behalf of one of my 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.800 top five friends, Jonathan Goldstein. This is Heavyweight. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:02:07.120 Today's episode Jeremy. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.360 Seven seventy is on that side of the street you 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.360 want to cross over here. Not long ago, I moved 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.280 from Canada to Brooklyn, and while walking to the bank 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.440 in my new neighborhood, I saw something that stopped me 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.800 in my tracks. I'd walked the route dozens of times, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.680 but never once did I notice the building I was 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:23.240 passing right by. Excited, I grabbed Emily to share with 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:24.160 her my discovery. 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.200 I thought you were not looking for cars, You just 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:27.679 walked straight across a light. 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.640 Sliven. I well, we lived down the street from seven 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:36.280 to seventy Eastern Parkway, the hubbad Labovich World Headquarters, the 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.480 place where thirty years ago I came to meet a 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:48.360 man many Jews considered to be the Messiah. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.399 And you had told me a few things are sort 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.720 of hinted. None ever really told, just hinted a few 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.680 things over time about your sort of mysterious religious past. 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.160 Emily and I were only married last year, so we're 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.079 still in that early stage of marriage when you share 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.960 things about your past. I long for a day when 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.440 we'll have motored through all of this getting to know 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.920 each other stuff so we can move on to the 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.480 more serious business of sitting in silence in cabs, bars 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.240 and restaurants where we can quietly and properly digest our 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.480 meals with the added pleasure of depressing other patrons. But 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.880 for now, we are learning about each other. And so 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.640 I station us in front of seven to seventy Eastern 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.760 Parkway and hold out my arm to the place like 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.080 a tour guide to my own life. I explained to 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.560 Emily that the last time I stood on these steps, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.960 I was fifteen years old and traveling without my parents 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.080 for the very first time. I tell her that for 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.400 the first time in my life, I felt a sense 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.840 of belonging. Judaism gave me that, so much so that 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.080 I was going to synagogue every single morning. I was 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:02.720 considering becoming a rabbi, committed dozens of blessings to memory, 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.440 and to all of this, Emily says. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.440 It surprises me. You're not the kind of guy like 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.320 you can't remember how to get home from like your 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.200 gym to our house. You don't seem like somebody would 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.520 have all these blessings memorized, like there must have been 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.320 something about it that really spoke to you. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.320 It did, and although it no longer does that seven 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.520 to seventy Eastern Parkway is so close to my new home, 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.200 feels almost too coincidental. It makes me feel like a 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.920 character and a lazily plotted religious parable about a guy 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.680 who'd given up on Judaism, but on whom Judaism hadn't 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.360 given up. But lucky for me, I do not live 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.120 in a parable. I live in Brooklyn, where random stuff 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:49.320 happens all the time. 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:51.719 Maybe it's not random at all. 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.040 It honestly freaks me out. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.120 But if I'm saying maybe you were meant or maybe 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.640 it's fate or something, wouldn't that mean that God has 0:04:58.680 --> 0:04:59.479 a plan for you? 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.440 And yeah, then God's plan doesn't include you. That freaks 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:03.720 me out. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:05.640 Hi, Why couldn't God's plan include me? 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:07.800 Because you're not Jewish? 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:09.279 Oh that doesn't seem very fair. 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.080 Did you get that? My gentile Minnesotan wife thinks my 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.160 Hebrew Lord, a deity so smighty that he cursed Kine's 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.279 entire lineage because the meat he'd sacrificed was a little 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:26.200 on the gamey side, that this guy wasn't fair, while 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.760 her Midwestern take a penny leave a penny sense a 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.520 fair play is one of the many reasons I love her, 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.799 Emily just doesn't get my Peopil's lord at all. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:36.159 Fair. 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.680 Thirty years ago, when I set out on my pilgrimage 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.479 from Montreal to seven seventy Eastern Parkway, my family was 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.599 convinced that I'd lost my marbles. What are you a 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:58.320 religious nut? Now? My father had asked. Although we were Jewish, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.240 we weren't religious. We didn't keep the Sabbath, eat kosher, 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.640 or do good works. But did we enjoy accusing people 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:11.279 of anti Semitism every chance we got? Apsophacct lutely. My 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.560 trip to Brooklyn was chaperoned by Rabbi Nu, a young 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.719 charismatic rabbi i'd met the previous year. We'd talk about 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.080 things never touched on in school, the important things like 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.640 why are we here? And what was the point of 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.839 it all? We were going to Brooklyn to see Rebe 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.000 Menachmendel Schneersen speak. Rebeh Shneerson was the leader of the 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.239 Lebavitch s Hasids, whom many believed would one day reveal 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:39.480 himself to be the Messiah. While for Christians the Messiah 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.599 had already come, the Jews were still waiting the Messiah. 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.520 Stuff really spoke to me life back then felt like 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.280 a kind of foreplay, like it should be leading towards 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.799 something big. When the Messiah shows up, Rabbi Nu said, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.800 God will be revealed, He'll revive the dead, put an 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.880 end to death. As a teenager, death irked me. Death 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:12.920 was nothing pointless, but the Messiah was something big. Revelation 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.520 could happen any second. Rabbi Nu said, we just had 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.800 to demand it. He taught us a song called we 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.360 want Michier Now. We chanted in his dining room after 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.360 Sabbath dinner, pounding the table hard enough to make the 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.119 dishes and the cabinets rattle. The Messiah was so close 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.240 to coming that I stopped doing my homework. What was 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.400 the point of homework when the world as we knew 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.000 it was so close to ending, It was just a 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:44.160 matter of the rubbishneerson knowing that the time was right, did. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.400 You think about what your life would be like after 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:47.120 the Messiah came? 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.000 There would be no more doubt, Everything would be naked 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:52.960 and exposed. 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.760 But I want to know, like even more literally, like 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.560 what if you were daydreaming? Like what were you wearing? 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:01.360 I got to the point where I thought it was 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.480 so gonna happen any minute. That I used to go 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.880 to sleep at night wearing sweatpants because I thought, like, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:07.840 I'm gonna I'm gonna hear the show far that's the 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.560 first thing that the rams horn, I'm gonna hear that. 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:12.880 That's how That's how you know the Messiah's coming. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.840 Yeah, I'm gonna run out into the street. It's gonna 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:16.960 be really sunny. 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.080 Doesn't it Like if there was a Messiah gonna come, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.400 they would have a more efficient way of letting everybody 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.680 know than blowing a rams horn. If you sleeper and 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.040 you sleep through the rams rams horn, why are you 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.560 getting hung up on that? I'm just curious. I'm just curious. So, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:38.240 uh hello, I'm sorry. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.600 As Emily and I argue over the appropriate multi platform 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.000 rollout for a Messiah, something happens that we can add 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:54.760 to the uncanny Brooklyn coincidence file. Esther walks by. Esther's 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.960 an acquaintance of Emily's, a friend of a friend. But 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.320 what's notable is that she's the only Orthodox Jewish person 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.840 Emily knows. It's the first day of Hanukkah, and Esther 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.520 is out shopping for a minora, the traditional kindelabra lit 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.840 for the holiday. No sooner do Esther and Emily begin 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.319 to catch up than an eager Hasset approaches, asking if 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.560 we'd like to go inside seven seventy and see his manora, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.600 his prodigious, super colossal menora. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.000 It's a real big one. It's really nice, like a 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:26.080 huge manura. 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:26.760 Yah, you check it out. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:27.160 It's right here. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.280 I'll check it out six ft. I'll be there in 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.600 a little bit. And then he turns to me. 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:40.520 I'm okay, so yeah, right away, you were just like nothings. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:46.400 I just find like proselytizing, even if it's well intentioned, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:53.280 it gets my defenses up. Why well, because I feel 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.160 like I went through it, you know what I mean. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.000 I feel like I went through it when I was 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:08.400 a kid and it didn't work. What happened? What did happen? 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.640 Standing outside seven point seventy that day, I struggled to 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.880 give Esther a good answer, And in the days that followed, 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.280 I found myself stuck on the question. How did something 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.280 that once meant everything to me come to me nothing? 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.280 All these years later, I still sometimes feel the absence. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.240 I'm not sure if it's an absence that religion left 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.319 behind in its wake, or whether religion created it. Maybe 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.640 such feelings just creep in as you grow older. But 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.959 in the myriad alternate universe is out there, I wonder 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.400 if somewhere there's a black hatted Jonathan Goldstein who stuck 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.920 it out, who doesn't feel anything lacking. Is that Jonathan Goldstein, 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.360 the kind of happy, go lucky jasid who wears his 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.560 kipa at a jaunty angle and possesses the kind of 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.720 thick natural beard that retains the smell of varnishkahs for days. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.760 That Jonathan Goldstein, I imagine, does not wonder about this 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.600 Jonathan Goldstein, though maybe on some nights he still feels 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.480 the phantom pang of an emily sized hole in his heart, 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:18.719 but he probably just shrugs it off as indigestion. If 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.320 there's one person who could shed light on the moment 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.120 when these two Jonathan Goldstein's went their separate ways, it's 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.320 the man who is there who chaperoned my fifteen year 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:32.600 old self from Montreal to seven seventy Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.800 my old Rabbi, Rabbi nw Hello, I'm here to see 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.720 Rabbi new So I went back to Montreal to see 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:47.360 him thirty years ago, when I was a teenager, Rabbi 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.520 knew was the rabbi of a tiny synagogue. I definitely 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.439 should have asked where his office is. Now he's the 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:58.079 rabbi of a large synagogue of many floors and offices. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:11:58.560 Hi. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.560 There, I'm the same guy as before. For I guess 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:17.200 I should have asked where. Okay, thank you, worries. Hi, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:23.040 nice to see you in my office. Sure, yeah, Rabbi 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.120 news Beard is now white, but otherwise he looks the 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.800 way I remember him. We catch up. He tells me 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.800 about his children and his children's children, and I tell 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.120 him about my marriage to a gentile. And even after 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.680 all these years, I still feel myself fearing his disappointment. 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.240 I struggle to ask the question I came here to ask. 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.520 Uh. 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:52.040 I mean, I I don't know if it's you're trying 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.240 to understand what happened a little bit. I do recall 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.400 your parents were not supportive. I thought it would Gypodizer, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.679 I mean, would would compromise your career, Oh that you 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.120 become a rabie something. It's some of the envisioned. If 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:08.160 there's anything, it's it's this. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:08.680 It's the. 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.000 Wanting not to disappoint I think that was a barrier 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.880 that didn't allow you, in all of this, to be 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:23.679 you in the fullest sense, to the point where you 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.720 know you had to stop kind of because you weren't 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:26.480 going to go further. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.440 It's hard to imagine my parents exerting that much control 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.520 over what I ended up doing. Yes, they were against 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.560 my becoming religious, but then they were against so many 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.400 things that I persisted with, certain friendships, my love of 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.360 David Bowie. There was more than just my parents disapproval 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.960 at play. Something else was taking shape too. At first, 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.800 learning I had in Everlasting Soul was great, but because 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.400 of who I am, my fear of death evolved into 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.800 a new fear, A fear of going on forever, going 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:09.439 on and on, pass boredom, past nausea, through millennia upon millennia, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.679 and never being able to turn my brain off that 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:22.760 somehow felt worse than death, God or no God, Messiah 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.840 or no Messiah. It started to feel like maybe it 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.400 all didn't matter anyway. I might not die, but I'd 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:36.080 always be me, awkward teenage acneed me. As that fear grew, 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.000 I decided one night to go see Rabbi Nu. I 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.880 was desperate to believe, desperate to just be a normal 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.480 person like everybody else. Maybe if I was honest about 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.600 my most secret, anxious thoughts, if I just put them 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.640 out there, he might be able to help assuage them. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.280 At his house, I laid it all out, and in 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.200 the ensuing silence, I remember Rabbi Knew simply saying that 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.560 this wasn't a good way to think. I walked home 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.320 that night looking up at the stars, but rather than 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.280 feeling cozy and warm as I used to assured of 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.080 my place in the universe, I felt the horror of 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:15.000 all that going on and on forever. I was unable 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.200 to make my peace with it, and I no longer 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.400 felt that Judaism had the answers. Trying to will myself 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.160 to believe was as futile as willing myself to fall 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.800 in love. I was left feeling that if there was 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.080 a god, he was too big to know with my 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.680 small brain, too inhuman to know with my human heart. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.200 Was that disappointing to you? 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.400 I must be on some level, of course. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.360 Yeah, even after all these years, I have concern. Fore 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:50.400 your disappointment story's not over. It scares me to think 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.360 of that. Also, like I don't I love my wife, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:53.720 you know? 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.280 And I say, she's not part of it. Everything is 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:06.960 ultimately so who knows? Who knows. 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.160 One of the last nights, Rabbi Knew had me over 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.280 for dinner. There seemed to be a whole new crop 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.680 of young people over at his house. They seemed more serious, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.880 more mature. One of them was a boy about a 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.160 year older than me with a very rabbinic affect. His 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.840 name was Jeremy. At the end of the meal, he 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:30.520 and I wandered the empty nighttime suburban streets talking. It 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:32.840 turned out Jeremy was in the midst of converting from 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.120 a secular Christian background to Judaism. Unlike a lot of 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:42.120 other religions, Judaism doesn't really welcome converts. Traditionally, when a 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.280 nonjow comes knocking, he's supposed to be turned away over 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.840 and over. And so while I was passively drifting away, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.360 Jeremy was actively pounding on the door in pursuit of 0:16:52.400 --> 0:17:02.080 a religion that didn't even want him. We walked around 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.719 until very late into the night, and I remember him 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.000 coming along with me to a gas station where I 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.439 bought a pack of cigarettes, and because I had no 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.400 matches left, I lit one off the other until half 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.920 the pack was gone, and my voice was hoarse from 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.720 talking all night about God and life and all the 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.520 other kinds of things I no longer talk about. And 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.200 though I was never to see Jeremy again, I've always 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.000 thought of him as the closest thing to the alternate universe. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.480 Me a Jonathan who went all the way. I asked Rob, 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.800 I knew if he still saw Jeremy, and he said 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:35.639 that he saw him all the time, that he was 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.560 a part of his congregation. And I said, I'd been 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.639 thinking about Jeremy and wanted to see him again. I 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.600 kind of want to know, you know, what his life 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:46.960 is like. 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.840 You'll find out, point out not what you expect. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.840 To the break, inviting myself over to a man's house 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.959 I only met once thirty years ago, to see if 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:22.280 what I expect to not expect is unexpected. I wondered 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.320 what rabbi news words meant. Why would Jeremy not be 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.400 what I'm expecting? Was he no longer religious? We'd met 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.120 at a crossroad, me walking away from Judaism and he 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.920 walking towards it. I wanted to see what Jeremy's life 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.080 is like slash. What my life is not like slash? 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.119 What my life could slash might have been slash B. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:47.760 When I phoned Jeremy to see if I could come by, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.200 he said, sure. Does he remember the night we hung out? Possibly? 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.040 Is he just being polite? Probably? Does he think it 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.560 odd that I've pretty much invited myself over to his 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:04.439 home after meeting him one time several decades ago? Odds 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:10.200 are hello, apsophacoc dilutely Hi, I'm here to My name's Jonathan. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:11.160 I'm here to see your fakes. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.640 Oh thank you. It turns out that when Jeremy converted, 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:19.840 he adopted the Hebrew name Iariyahu, after Jeremiah the Weeping Prophet. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.480 He and his wife Rayah live in a close knit 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.760 Hasidic neighborhood. How are you so far? There isn't anything 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:32.200 here I wouldn't have expected. Yeriyahu is bearded and handsome, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.920 and to the casual observer, looks like a rabbi. He's 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.640 even got a rabbinically appropriate number of children. 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.920 Our oldest is Menachem, almost twenty. Then we have Hannah, 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:49.000 she is eighteen, SphI is sixteen, Dina twelve. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.800 Yarmiyahu and his wife have six kids, and not that 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.240 it's a competition, but that's six kids more than I have. 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.560 So put another way, he is beating me to zero. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.920 Or to put it yet another way, if his children 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:05.880 and my children were to face off in a game 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.919 of red Rover, his children would show up, see that 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.560 their competitor had forfeited the match, and in a show 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.560 of victory, form a triumphant human pyramid atop which Yeerrami 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:25.280 Yahoo could seat himself. Whereas I was courted by Rabbi 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:30.600 knew Eariyahu, a convert, was barely tolerated, but it didn't matter. 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.960 He jumped in, he says, feet first, going in a 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.679 relatively quick conversion of eight months from being irreligious and 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:42.240 atheistic to a life of Orthodoxy. Thinking of how my 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.880 Jewish parents tried to keep me from getting too absorbed 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.439 in Judaism, I asked Yarmiyahu what kind of pressure his 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:50.840 non Jewish parents placed on him. 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.160 I had hoped initially that my parents could appreciate that 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.000 this was something that enriched my life. But this was 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.760 something that just we never got past until the very final. 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.120 Days, I mean the final days of well. 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:07.560 My parents passed away last year. 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:09.959 Both of them, oh, I'm sorry. 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:17.800 Within three months, and my father, until literally the final 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.560 years of our life together, would offer me a glass 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.240 of wine or a steak from the barbecue or something 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.560 like that, and it wasn't doing He wasn't doing it intentionally, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.679 just completely forgot. He just forgot I can't eat that 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:32.919 because it's not kosher. In many ways, I think it 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.480 was actually better to be oblivious than my mother, who 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:42.000 was upset that I couldn't as loving as she was. 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.920 She just couldn't respect what we were doing. 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:52.400 But unlike me, Hearmia, who wasn't derailed by his parents' disapproval. 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.040 He wasn't afraid to disappoint to become the person he 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.359 was meant to be. Well, Hearmia, who seems certain of 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.239 the path that out on. I'm still surprised by how 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.080 precarious my sense of stability can be. There are times, 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.440 often nice times, enjoying a good meal with people I love, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.480 when the darkness descends, unasked for and sudden, and I 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.200 need to hit reset in the bathroom with cold water 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:27.000 on my face. I'm going to catch her off, just 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.760 as we had thirty years ago. Hear me Ahu and 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.040 I talk late into the evening, his wife Rayah coming 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.800 and going, and all the while I tried to share 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.720 the best that I can that feeling of just never 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.119 being able to know the most basic things about my 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.119 own being, and how scary that feeling has been for me. 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:46.920 I tell him about how I wasn't able to move 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.560 through that fear guided by belief because I couldn't believe. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.800 There was a time when the first thing I'd always 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.359 want to know was like when I'd meet someone news 0:22:58.400 --> 0:22:59.480 whether they believed in God? 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.000 And id you meet a person and they say they 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.400 believe in God? Well, what does that tell you about 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.400 the person? Almost nothing? Or they don't believe in God? 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:08.600 And what does that tell you? Nothing? 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:10.880 But I felt like it was almost like the most 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.600 important thing to know in order to live, you know. 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.520 The least important thing, because don't you want to just 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.800 discover who the person is and then decide how close 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.639 they are to God regardless of what they believe or not. 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:30.679 Yeah, it became kind of moot, like I felt like, well, 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.119 if you can't know or I couldn't know, or or 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:41.359 or feel that I knew that I had to figure 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:49.439 out how to live an okay life anyway. 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:56.359 Over time, the idea of knowing what God, who God is, 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:01.040 to getting to a point where it's just an absolute mystery, 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:07.760 and then wondering how people seem so comfortable with that mystery. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:12.879 None of it makes sense to me as time's gone on, 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:21.800 and particularly recently, I don't understand God at all, and 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:27.680 I think that I don't know. Maybe there's something healthy 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:34.560 in that. I think there's a real power to not knowing. 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:38.560 And I think that if we're really honest with ourselves, 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:44.400 we really have no clue who God is, and that 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:50.600 should maybe shame us a little bit into not acting 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:56.760 with such conviction. Like I'm probably closer to where you 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:01.520 are at looking at the world than you're away. Right 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:04.439 that although our paths kind of you know, took certain 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:07.880 you know, at a certain point, is where I look 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.760 at the world from now, there's absolutely no certainty. 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:22.960 Maybe this is what Rabbi new thought. I wouldn't expect 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:27.600 the similarities between your Miyahoo and me. Though my inability 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:30.720 to find certainty led me away, your Miyahu was able 0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:34.560 to embrace the uncertainty and find peace in it. When 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:36.879 I asked him about the Messiah, if that was something 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:39.879 that excited him made sense to him. It doesn't seem 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.680 like it was that important a thing. When you listen 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:45.120 to the way he talks about Judaism, you can feel 0:25:45.160 --> 0:25:47.960 how deep it goes well. For me, all the rules 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:51.680 and rituals were an impediment. Here, Miyahu sees beauty in it. 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.040 I fell in love and this is what I wanted 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:59.560 to do, and got I could say huh, and so 0:26:00.640 --> 0:26:03.840 that was okay too. I mean everything down to the letters, 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:07.680 the look of the letters. The script was a beautiful 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:10.879 thing to me. It's like a It's like a fire. 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:14.560 Each letter has a flame that rises up from it. 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:20.680 And the people something just felt like when I was 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.320 around them, being at home, it really felt like coming home. 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:32.359 You're mi Ahu born in Nanjew had found his home 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:34.920 among people he'd never have expected to as a kid, 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:39.119 and I, born a Jew, was heading in the opposite direction. 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:46.120 Khaniko was winding down and Christmas was on its way. 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:49.000 Emily had asked me to join her in Minnesota for 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:52.560 my first Christmas with her family, and I was hesitant 0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:55.600 I might ruin the vibe. I said, you know what, 0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:59.159 with the jolliness and all that, But you wanted me, 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:00.760 so I went. 0:27:00.960 --> 0:27:03.879 It's seven o'clock up the morning. 0:27:03.920 --> 0:27:07.280 I've been up for like two hours. It's too excited 0:27:08.160 --> 0:27:12.400 that everybody's sleeping under the same roof. Are rough, Let's 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:16.320 say it here in Minnesota. 0:27:15.240 --> 0:27:18.240 And so at my in laws in a house overlooking 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:22.040 a frozen lake, in a guest room surrounded by baseball memorabilia. 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:26.000 At some ungodly hour of the morning, I prepare myself 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:29.040 for the rituals of Christmas. Morning. We get out of 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:35.520 bed and have breakfast morning in a bright kitchen. Emily's 0:27:35.560 --> 0:27:40.200 family lounge around in slippers and bathrobes, bathrobes. 0:27:40.040 --> 0:27:48.160 Coffee, Johnny bread, Johnny bread, and no sooner than I'm 0:27:48.160 --> 0:27:51.080 offered some we all run to the window to witness 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:52.280 a Christmas miracle. 0:27:52.720 --> 0:27:56.560 Oh my gosh, it's the Christmas. 0:27:55.880 --> 0:27:58.879 Watch the Christmas Fox he makes. 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:02.520 Four years on Christmas. 0:28:02.640 --> 0:28:07.159 Then we exchange gifts. Oh wow, you get the first present, 0:28:08.200 --> 0:28:12.800 so I guess you're not saving the wrapping papers them. 0:28:12.920 --> 0:28:15.120 I opened gifts that would have made the ten year 0:28:15.160 --> 0:28:18.600 old me very happy. A book about Houdini, a box 0:28:18.640 --> 0:28:21.480 of cards with optical illusions, and a pair of my 0:28:21.640 --> 0:28:25.880 very own slippers, the first I've ever owned. They fit 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:29.879 perfectly too. Emily's parents must have measured my shoes the 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:33.000 last time I was here. Who does such things? I 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:36.120 asked Emily, And as I put them on, my heart 0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:41.880 grows three times its size, just kidding only in digestion. 0:28:46.080 --> 0:28:49.800 After exchanging gifts, we gather around the piano. You know 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:52.520 those assholes who when they sing jingle bells in a group, 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:54.480 and they get to the laughing all the way part, 0:28:54.800 --> 0:28:56.719 how they have to be the ones doing the ha 0:28:56.800 --> 0:29:03.160 ha part ha ha. Turns out I'm that guy, all told. 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:07.200 Christmas in Minnesota was absolutely the most goyish experience I'd 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:10.360 ever had, And the weirdest part was it felt like 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:14.880 coming home. Maybe as you grow older, religion becomes more 0:29:14.880 --> 0:29:18.560 about finding your people, your family, and less about fretting 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:22.680 over the things you'll never know cannot know. The God 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:25.680 itch could not be scratched by religion, the Messiah, or 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:28.520 for that matter, by God. But as it turns out, 0:29:29.000 --> 0:29:32.440 it could be scratched a little bit scratched by a 0:29:32.480 --> 0:29:35.760 book about Houdini and a pair of slippers. And in 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:38.760 knowing that, at least in a certain Midwestern corner of 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:42.600 the earth, under a specific ruff, I wasn't letting anyone 0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:46.880 down and my existence mattered, and that being me being 0:29:46.960 --> 0:30:23.400 here for a little while longer wasn't so bad. 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:34.400 Now that the fern ures returning. 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:40.640 To its good will home, now that the last month's 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:45.440 rent is scheming with the damage to possibly take this 0:30:45.640 --> 0:30:51.760 moment to dissolve. If we meant him and we talked, 0:30:53.360 --> 0:30:59.120 we never felt around for far too months from things 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:06.840 an accident. Ales Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me 0:31:06.960 --> 0:31:10.720 Jonathan Goldstein along with Chris Neary and Khalila Holt. The 0:31:10.760 --> 0:31:14.840 senior producer is Wendy Dore, editing by Alex Bloomberg, Paul Tuff, 0:31:14.960 --> 0:31:17.920 and jor H Just. The show was mixed by Hailey Shaw. 0:31:18.480 --> 0:31:22.600 Special thanks to Emily Condon, Stephen Page, Paul DeJong and 0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:27.200 my number three best friend Jackie Cohen. Music is by 0:31:27.280 --> 0:31:30.280 Christine Fellows, who has written a lot of beautiful original 0:31:30.320 --> 0:31:33.160 music for the show this season and we feel extremely 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:36.280 lucky to work with her along with her occasional collaborator 0:31:36.400 --> 0:31:40.040 John K. Sampson. Additional music credits for this episode can 0:31:40.080 --> 0:31:44.160 be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. 0:31:44.720 --> 0:31:46.800 Our theme song is by the weaker Thance, courtesy of 0:31:46.840 --> 0:31:49.880 Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. 0:31:50.400 --> 0:31:53.760 Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight. This is our last 0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:56.840 episode of the season, but we'll be back before you 0:31:56.960 --> 0:31:59.280 know it. In the meantime, if you have a story 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:01.960 you'd like us to do for season two, a moment 0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:04.240 from your own past that you wish you could change, 0:32:04.600 --> 0:32:07.040 that somehow derailed your life or set you off on 0:32:07.080 --> 0:32:11.080 a surprisingpath, send us an email at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia 0:32:11.120 --> 0:32:14.400 dot com, and one last thing. 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