Elie Schulman: Does Therapy Work? A Patient’s Journey

David Bashevkin:

Hi, friends. Welcome to the 18Forty podcast where each month we explore different topic balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless Jewish ideas. I’m your host, David Bashevkin, and this month we’re exploring mental health. Thank you so much to our series sponsors, Terri and Andrew Herenstein. I’m so grateful for your friendship and support. This podcast is part of a larger exploration of those big, juicy Jewish ideas, so be sure to check out 18forty.org where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails.

When the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot discusses friendship, it uses a very strange term, acquire for yourself a friend, which usually means to pay for them, that you have to pay for your friend. In fact, many of the commentaries, including both the Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah, explain that you should literally pay for a friend because you need a sounding board for somebody in your life to really speak through and really address and unpack so many of the things that you’re dealing with.

And we can’t always turn to hierarchical relationships. And sometimes you literally should pay for your friends’ generosity, treat them. If you read this Mishnah carefully, especially the commentaries, the Rambam and the Rabbeinu Yonah, which is on the spot, it’s the first chapter of Pirkei Avot, the sixth Mishnah, one would not be crazy if they thought that they are describing therapy, meaning acquire for yourself. A therapist may not be like your actual friend. You’re not hanging out with them, but you are literally paying somebody to talk out some of your issues with.

And the truth is, for a lot of people, this is why therapy is almost so uncomfortable where you feel like the financial transaction, you’re like, “Do you really even care about me?”

Now I’m addressing this because I think it is a issue and a boundary for many people. Not a boundary. It is a boundary. It’s a necessary boundary for the entire therapeutic process to work. But for a lot of people where they just want some sincerity and honesty, they feel almost an element that it feels like some friendship prostitution in a way like I’m paying somebody to hear about my problems. Don’t I have any regular friends? Which I think is why therapy very often gets such a bad rap.

I think sometimes the stigma of mental health is overblown, but the awkwardness of therapy is sometimes a barrier for a lot of people of paying somebody. “Shouldn’t I be able to talk this out with somebody else? Shouldn’t I be able to find somebody else to talk through some of my issues?” Now, obviously there are people who don’t have friends in their lives who they could do that, but even if you have a friend in your life, there obviously is professional need.

But I think the stigma of paying somebody to speak through your problems is what prevents a lot of people from really immersing themselves in this. I also would blame the way therapy is often depicted in television and movies as being this kind of endless exploration. It’s interminable where you’re just speaking through your issues. You don’t get anywhere.

I think a classic example of this, we’ll play a short clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry always has obviously the absolute worst therapists. In the history of Curb I’ve counted no less than three therapists. My favorite is the one played by Fred Melamed. I think that’s how you pronounce his last name. I think I’m pretty sure he’s Jewish. I find him to be one of the funniest comedic actors. But there’s one scene, which to me it just like it captures the awkwardness of the therapeutic process. And that is Larry’s scene with his therapist, Bryan Cranston.

Larry:

I’m just wondering. Have you ever noticed the disparity in these two chairs? Your chair is so much better than this one. This is not a comfortable chair at all. Did you buy these chairs?

Dr. Templeton:

Yes, I bought both of them.

Larry:

You picked out both of them?

Dr. Templeton:

I picked them out, yeah.

Larry:

What was going through your head when you picked out this chair? You picked out a great chair for yourself. That’s a gorgeous chair. I would have that in my house. But this one, it’s not comfortable. I’m constantly shifting from side to side. You have the comfortable chair. You have taken the good chair.

Dr. Templeton:

It’s interesting. You are the first and only patient who has ever said anything negative about that chair.

Larry:

I don’t find that interesting at all.

Dr. Templeton:

Well, I do, and that’s my job to find things interesting.

Larry:

Well …

Dr. Templeton:

Interesting with the chair.

Larry:

I know what you’re writing over there.

Dr. Templeton:

Chair issues. I think there’s something deeper.

Larry:

I don’t think you’re writing anything. I think you’re-

Dr. Templeton:

No, I could show you.

Larry:

Huh?

Dr. Templeton:

I could show you.

Larry:

I mean, you’re a nice man, but do you do that much between you and me?

Dr. Templeton:

Don’t you think that I do a significant amount of help to you?

Larry:

Eh.

Dr. Templeton:

Really?

Larry:

May I be honest with you?

Dr. Templeton:

I hope that you can always be honest with me.

Larry:

Well, I’m often never honest with you, but here’s what I’m proposing. I think you should go chair shopping. I think you need another chair. And you know what else? I’m willing to go chair shopping with you. Will you think about it?

Dr. Templeton:

I don’t know. But I do know that the session is over and so we’ll have to pick this up next time.

Larry:

It’s tough for you to have to look at that watch, isn’t it? It must be a little awkward. You know, I see it.

Dr. Templeton:

I know you see it.

Larry:

You can’t sneak-

Dr. Templeton:

I’m not trying to sneak it.

Larry:

You’re trying to do a little sneaky watch peek.

Dr. Templeton:

I’m not trying to do a sneaky watch peek. I’m trying to be efficient with our time.

Larry:

Why didn’t you put a clock behind me so you could have a clock when the time’s up? But okay-

Dr. Templeton:

Nevertheless, it is over and I’m looking forward to seeing you again next week.

David Bashevkin:

There’s no question that there are people who therapy can be difficult. It may not even work for them. They may not find the right therapist. You spend your time sitting there wondering is the time over, the financial transaction for a lot of people, the awkwardness, the cringe of all of it seems like a strange way to really solve your problems. And I know it is a barrier for some people, which is why in this episode I really want to explore somebody in my life, a friend in my life, somebody who from a very early age has kind of been that beacon who showed me the potential of what therapy can offer a life.

I have known Elie Schulman since as long as I can remember. He’s a grade older than me, but we went to elementary school together and high school. We weren’t really all that close until the very end of high school when I was probably in 11th grade and 12th grade, we sat in the same class of Rev David Willig together. And he was one of these people who I looked up to because he was so accomplished in so many different areas. He was always the most athletic. He was very bright. He just had everything together, everything that you would want. And it was one of the first people who I’d ever met who had seemingly everything together but shared with me that even in high school, that he had very real issues that he was dealing with and struggling with with mental health.

And his journey for me is really the ultimate model of Knei lecha chaver. When I published my book Sinagogue, I had a section where I thanked all of the friends in my life. I’m very proud of that section because I have been very blessed, really extraordinarily blessed of having lifelong friends. I have people who have known me really since I was a child. I have people who have known me since I was a baby and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

And I go through in this chapter all these friends, and even though from a distance, people who know me very well wouldn’t even know the impact that Elie has had in my life. But in this section, I begin with a quote from Warren Buffett. “The asset I value most, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.” And I am very grateful for my friends. And I wrote a sentence about Elie in there where I say, “he may not know it, but the friend who first introduced me to the world of resilience and continues to serve as my template for self-acceptance is Mr. Elie Schulman.”

He’s somebody who I’ve known my entire life. We have seen each other at our best and our worst. And in that sense, it gave me insight of really what I think that Mishnah is really all about, of acquiring for yourself a friend. That even if the very notion of paying a friend seems extraordinarily foreign to you, as for many people it is, even if it may be referring to therapy, Elie is a friend who acquired me in a different way and a friendship that emerged through a different method of acquisition. Namely, in Jewish law, in Halakhah, the way that you acquire something, especially something that is not fixed in the ground, there’s a specific method for how you acquire land. There is a separate method for how you acquire something that is not fixed to the ground. And that is a classic Halakhic principle known as kinyan hagbaha, of lifting something up.

You may notice that when you sell hametz, what you do is you lift up a napkin or you lift up a pen. I don’t want to get really complicated now of what’s happening in those times, but one way that you can acquire something is lifting it up a certain amount off the ground. And I believe that when it comes to friendship, this notion of a kinyan hagbaha, of lifting somebody up.

The way that friendships are forged is through lifting one another up, particularly in difficult times and in dark times. And Elie is a person who I’ve always turned to really over the last two decades, somebody who in my darkest, most difficult moments when I was searching for a therapist, when I was searching for a path forward, looking for a recommendation, Elie was very often that phone call I would make and is really a model in my life of Knei lecha chaver, of acquiring for yourself a friend.

And that acquisition was not through money, but through lifting me up, through seeing me at times of great, great vulnerability and listening to me. Because the reason why I admire him so much, he’s not a therapist. He actually dropped out. He was on a path to be a therapist. But the reason why I admire him so much is because he’s the person in my life who normalized the notion of seeking help, not as a sign of weakness, but as a sign of strength.

This was a person who growing up I saw just achieve incredible things, the highest heights. He was the best in learning, the best in sports, the best in any category. He always was the very best. That was part of his own struggles. And it was somebody who showed me that therapy can work, seeking help can work, and somebody who stayed with it over the duration of their lives.

And when I interact with him now, he is a friend, but there is a certain type of reverence I have for my friends. I’m proud of that reverence. I almost approach him like one would imagine approaching a rebbe, even though he’s not a rabbi, none of that stuff. He’s a lawyer. He made aliyah many, many years ago. But as somebody who has been a model in my life of what therapy can offer. And I think that’s an important part for a lot of people to hear a story of somebody who found a way to make it work.

And when I say that he has reinvented himself and has an approach and an honesty and a vulnerability in a way that is just absolutely illuminating, you see it, those who have known him for a long time, his transformation is absolutely remarkable. What he’s been through is just jaw dropping. And I am so grateful to include him as a friend and to have him as a friend, somebody who has lifted me up, who through that kinyan hagbaha of lifting me up when I really felt like I was on the floor in my lowest places. And we forged a friendship through giving one another encouragement, giving one another chizuk.

And I am so privileged and grateful that he was willing to come on to 18Forty to discuss his own journey through therapy. Without further ado, here is our conversation with my dearest chaver, my dearest friend, Elie Schulman.

It’s unusual for me to be this nervous before an interview. It’s strange, especially with somebody who is not really in the public square. And I wanted to begin with almost my own recollection. I remember you as being the first child I’ve ever seen who knew how to dribble, like actually dribble like a grownup and actually play basketball. And you were a very gifted athlete. You were a very gifted musician. And I was absolutely shocked the first time that you disclosed to me that, yeah, I struggle with mental health. People don’t seem that surprised when I disclose it that I struggle with mental health. But people were really surprised. I was very surprised when you disclosed it to me.

And I was wondering if you could begin, what is your first memory of even something is amiss in the way that I process myself and the world that, I don’t know if you use this language, but I may struggle with mental health issues.

Elie Schulman:

So I think the first time was probably post high school. I don’t know if I labeled it at the time as struggling with mental health, but I knew that some form of being too harsh on myself, or you might want to call it obsessive thinking or just driving myself insane, started to really, I guess interfere with my, I wouldn’t even say my daily functioning, but my ambitions.

I was very driven, and I guess like a lot of my peers wanted to excel in learning and I found that my consistent reevaluating, obsessing, measuring myself against others started to distract me. So I would guess that was probably the first time that it really grabbed my attention.

David Bashevkin:

It’s interesting because for so much of your life you were kind of able to rise to those expectations of others, meaning the comparing against yourself. Would you look at it as you were doing it previously but you were just winning at it, meaning you were comparing yourself, but you were the best athlete. And then for the first time, there’s this wider, it’s not just your grade of 20 people in high school or grade was even less and it’s not just high school kids. What was it specifically about the religious dimension? Because that’s really the layer that you just said it now that really drove you to really examine something amiss here.

What do you think it was about your space in the religious sphere that triggered you or triggered this in a way that athletics, music, popularity, social stuff, none of that stuff ever triggered it in a serious way until you introduced religious almost competition into the equation. Why do you think that changed it for you?

Elie Schulman:

Okay, so I’m going to just clarify. I don’t think it had anything to do with religion or a religious context. I think I would’ve had the same goal and it would’ve become an issue had I went to a top university. I think it was more about it being the first thing you said, which was it didn’t come as naturally to me. I mean, I am a bright guy and I always was academic, but it didn’t come as organically to me as some of the things that I found success with earlier in life, like sports, social circumstances. So I really don’t think it was a religious context. It was just purely academic, purely cerebral. And it didn’t come tremendously organically to me, and I wasn’t without any effort, the top guy.

David Bashevkin:

But there is a religious aspect to it, and maybe this is just the way I perceived it. There is a dynamic when it comes to religious intensity that is harder to examine because it is ultimately encouraged.

So when I remember you coming back from your two or three years in Israel, I had never seen somebody sit with such focus and intensity like you. I remember you plopped down maybe in the high school based measures, which was maybe the first indication that you were learning there as something was not fully aligned. But you sat there without any interruption. And that brings nachas, that brings pride and joy to all of your rebbe and to yourself. And nobody wants to be the person who comes up to somebody who just got back from Israel and be like, “Hey, maybe take a breath. Maybe slow down. Maybe chill out.” You don’t want to be anybody’s reason or exit from the intensity that we spend so much time trying to cultivate.

So I’m curious if for you, you felt like in that sense the religious component may have hindered the examination or the reflection of whether or not I’m in a healthy place.

Elie Schulman:

I don’t see it that way, and I think it is important not to conflate or to provide causes for things that weren’t necessarily there. I mean, this is my personal experience. There’s certainly something that maybe amplifies an experience like that due to the close-knit nature or the overlap between high school and post-high school education and almost staying within the same circles continuously. Maybe that contributes to a feeling of being in a fishbowl or the competitive quality. But even just to use the term that it was religiously driven, I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced.

David Bashevkin:

Doesn’t resonate.

Elie Schulman:

And I know that people do describe their struggle in those terms.

David Bashevkin:

For you, what terms would you describe? Meaning you used some of the terms before, like a competitiveness. What do you think was the driving factor?

Elie Schulman:

Self-criticism, not being happy with who I was. Very simply. It’s not very complicated. I hated myself for lack of a better term.

David Bashevkin:

I visited you when you had this very sweet little apartment in Far Rockaway where you moved in when you were first married. I don’t remember if at that point you got married, and that’s a equation in this that I kind of want to examine. But you got married, you’re having kids. At what point did you realize I need an intervention, I need to go to therapy. I don’t need a conversation with a mashgiach necessarily, or revisit an old rebi and get chizuk. What was the catalyst that said, “I need professional treatment to deal with this. I need to go to therapy”?

Elie Schulman:

Okay, so I’ll take you a drop back in time. I started seeing somebody when I was in Israel for the year. I think by the time I was 21 or 22, I had had a short stint with about 25 therapists. So I couldn’t quite find somebody who I felt was qualified enough to handle my craziness. So I really bounced around, but solely because I wasn’t ready to take care of myself and commit to my own healing.

So shortly after I got married, I got married at 21. Shortly after that I really hit rock bottom.

David Bashevkin:

What does that look like?

Elie Schulman:

I was in a very dark place. Yeah, very dark place. But at that point it was actually my older sister who had heard the name of a, just from professionally, she’s a therapist at the time, still is, and heard the name of somebody who she recommended that I go see, a man by the name of Louis Ormont.

David Bashevkin:

I remember the name. I wanted to impress you. I’ve been waiting for three weeks ever since we spoke about this to brag that I remember the name Lou Ormont. I never got to see him because he was much older. I think you told me he was in his 80s or 90s, but he ran group.

What was it about the work that you did with Lou Ormont that was able to penetrate? Was it him? Was it just you hitting rock bottom? What was the focus of the work that you think was able to really resonate with you?

Elie Schulman:

It’s hard for me to fully describe the impact that this man had on my life. I’ll give you a little snippet. My youngest daughter who’s 15, her middle initial, I just told her this two years ago, on her birth certificate her middle initial is just L, and she was born right after this man died at the age of 90, Louis Ormont. So that was for his first name.

What was it about him? I mean, he was not like I knew this at the time or appreciated it, but he was a world-class group psychoanalyst. It was like one of the forefathers of modern psychoanalysis. I mean to give you his yichus, if anybody cares or this matters, his therapist was Theodore Wright and Theodore Wright’s therapist was Sigmund Freud. So he had a pedigree of being well-treated.

And the first time I met him, there was something very immediate and profound about his presence. I mean, he was 85 years old at the time, but was sharp as a tick and just had a penetrating look that just looked through to the depths of my soul. And I just felt safe and just if somebody can pull me out of the abyss, it’ll be this man. I was sold. So he said, it was one meeting, he said, “Show up at Monday morning at my group at 7:45 in midtown.”

And I dutifully did that for five years until he died. And then when he died, the group that I was in, which had consisted of about 18 people, I was by far the youngest person in the group. I was 22. The next youngest person was in their mid-50s. They’d all been in that same group for upwards of 30 or 40 years with the same man. When he died, people were asking his wife, Joan Ormont, who was also world renowned individual psychoanalyst for names of his heirs, if they wanted to continue that type of work, who they should work with.

So she was giving out three names at the time. One was Elliot Zeisel, one was Michael Brook, and one was a guy named Sean Grover. I went and joined one of Michael’s groups and I was with him for about six years. And then when I started my law practice and logistically that didn’t work anymore, I went and met Sean Grover and then I was in his group for six years and I stopped that about two years ago when I moved to Israel.

David Bashevkin:

If you can, just paint the picture of what happens inside of a group psychoanalyst room. Like for myself, and so often when we speak, because I still look at you as that older mentor, I’m trying to imagine myself in group, and I think I’ve struggled with this, with therapy also, trying to be the most profound person in the room, trying to be the funniest person in the room, trying to be like the person who tells the story where you see gets the most nods.

How does the group run and how do you avoid, especially with something so intimate and vulnerable in a group setting, how do you avoid all of your issues just kind of bubbling up, especially some of the ones you spoke about, being the best, that driven perfectionism? How does that avoid just totally not self-sabotaging the dynamic in the group itself?

Elie Schulman:

So the basic instructions that Lou gave me when going into the group, and this has been consistent throughout, which was you just put your thoughts and feelings into words that you’re having at the time. So if somebody talks in the group and you have some sort of reaction, you like what they say, you don’t like what they say, what they say makes you anxious, what they say makes you angry, the basic instruction is you just put those feelings and your immediate experience into words.

What you just said is actually what’s so profound about group, in that you absolutely cannot avoid all of your patterns that occur in your life that either hold you back in your life or get you in trouble in life, surfacing almost immediately in a group context because it’s conducted in a way that just fosters here and now immediate reactions.

So me, for example, for about two years, I did not open my mouth. I went dutifully every Monday morning at 7:45. I was a very anxious self-critical person, and I would sit there, it’s 90 minute group, I would sit there for an hour and 20 minutes, an hour and 25 minutes, and inevitably there was a handful of people at the end of every session, one of two or three people that would turn to me and say, “Elie, what’s going on?” And I would just start crying at the end. It was like I had just been spending an hour and 20 minutes just like ruminating in my head, “Should I jump in now? Should I jump in? Oh, is that a good thing to say? Is it not a good thing to say?” Literally just doing that for an hour. “Oh, somebody else jumped in before me.”

So I did that literally for two years until I on my own kind of found a way. And this is another thing that’s so profound about I found about the healing of group, is that I found a way to work it out myself or to test the waters. It’s designed in a way that you kind of grow up in that process and whatever’s holding you back, or for me, certainly at the beginning, it was just interjecting myself was a struggle. I eventually learned to do that.

David Bashevkin:

Can you explain a little bit what is the role of Lou Ormont in the group? Meaning I was a rabbinic intern for JACS, which I’ve been to AA meetings. And there’s not really … Sometimes they’re moderated, but very loosely. What’s his role? Is he doing an intro and an outro? Is he stating what we’re talking about today or he’s just calling on people? Where did you see his genius or his empathy and insight in the group when really you’re just kind of in my mind just going around and people are sharing?

Elie Schulman:

So what he’s doing is basically helping both each member and the group to kind of call out where people deviate from those rules that I said. So for example, we started this talk. You said, “I find myself unusually nervous this time,” which is unusual for me. So Louis would’ve said, “David, what is it about Elie that is making you feel nervous?” And would say something and you would say what immediately came to mind. And then other people would either stay quiet. You might say something that reminds other people that they feel the same way about me. Other people might have a totally different reaction and he’ll say, “Haim, Moshe, Johnny, what do you think about what David just said to Elie?”

And it really flows from that immediate experience and what people are feeling. And then you’d say something and I’d respond. Maybe you’d compliment me. And I have difficulty accepting compliments, so I wouldn’t be very responsive or I’d blush or I’d tell you, “No, it’s not true. I’m really not such a well evolved human being and I shouldn’t warrant that level of nervousness.” Whatever it is. The immediate interactions becomes the material that he would continually bring people into that dialogue.

David Bashevkin:

Do you have a specific recollection of your first or the early interjections of how you finally, so to speak, introduced yourself verbally to the group after sitting there for two years?

Elie Schulman:

Sure. I mean, these people were the most influential, emotional, psychological, formative people in my life. So I definitely remember different stages of it, the particular characters. I’m actually knee-deep right now in bringing many of them to do work in Israel to address the overwhelming societal wide trauma.

So I remember exactly, I could tell you exactly who it was. It was three people, Jack, Josh, and Michal. Three people who at the end of every group would say, “Elie, do you have anything to add about this,” or, “What’s going on?” That’s how for a period of time, I would just then spill my after the fact reactions. With an hour and 20 minutes into the group I would say, “Oh yes, at 10 minutes, at the beginning when he was talking to him and it was about this, I thought they were crazy. And then a half hour later when somebody was like this, I totally identified with.” I would basically give a historical recollection of what I had experienced, which was my way in, and I would get various feedback and then the group would break for the week and then I’d repeat the same thing again next week.

And until I got some familiarity with my own voice, which really took a lot of time. I mean, it took a lot of time. Yeah, that’s the starting point though for me.

David Bashevkin:

Do you remember specific breakthroughs in group? Do you remember what it felt like or … It sounds like it’s so experiential. It’s not information driven. There’s no tactics, breathing methods, meditation, et cetera, et cetera. There’s this experience of being in a group with people who you feel comfortable and safe with. Do you remember when you feel like I have begun to change, I am different, and what contributed to that change?

Elie Schulman:

This type of group is entirely experiential and it was extremely organic. It was literally like dripping water over a period of 18 years. I mean, that’s how long I was in groups. It was a process of insights and comments and chewing it over, but it was really, the way it’s described is like a restructuring of the personality. I mean, it’s a very experiential, immersive experience.

Honestly, when somebody like you reaches out to me and asks, “I want to talk to you about your experience with mental health,” I’m not sure who you’re talking. I almost don’t even remember that person. I’ve been so profoundly grounded and happy and satisfied for so many years already that I completely almost don’t identify with that person at all.

David Bashevkin:

Do you feel like you have a roadmap for what the restructuring is or even language to describe what was restructured, meaning what changed? I see you have a intensity, like a vitality. You’ve always felt like there’s a grit in the way that you confront or almost process life. I’ve always felt talking to you that with a lot of people, the way they think about life is almost like mediated through a lot of social stuff that is easy to mock or be silly about, and you just have this very intense grittiness. I want life unfiltered. I want it unmediated by a lot of the maybe the small talk that a lot of people find joyable. And not to say that you don’t like small talk. We could do small talk as well, but there was a grittiness.

I’m curious. What language you would use to describe? What was this restructuring that took place? You had a little bit of language to describe what you were going through without details obviously, but what was the restructuring? What changed exactly?

Elie Schulman:

So the group is really just an environment where everything holding you back could be highlighted and you could have a second chance to repeatedly practice doing otherwise, repeatedly. I mean, doing that, it’s essentially the same thing that a child does when they start walking, when they’re two years old. They test, they see what they can handle, they see, and then they’re continually kind of growing and going through that process, seeing what’s safe.

David Bashevkin:

Do you remember an example of a feeling or a thought pattern that you were continually testing?

Elie Schulman:

I think to try and describe it in that way somewhat takes away from the experiential component for sure. But self-attack, “I’m not good enough. If only I had X,” or, “If only I was good at this. If only I was the most articulate in the group, then Lou would love me the most. If only I came up with the wittiest thing.” I went for years thinking that I am going to be the most therapized, analyzed, healthiest person, I mean.

But Lou just cleared that right out of me. I wasn’t the first guy who came with that overambition. That type of thought pattern was the same thought pattern that I tormented myself with when I was in my yeshiva days. It was the same. “If only I was seen this way or accomplished this way, I would finally arrive at this place of peace and complete happiness.” But that comes out because you in some way then end up in what I did was performing in the group, only saying the things that are favorable, not saying the unpopular opinion.

So over a period of time, I basically learned that whatever comes up, in that space, I’m free to articulate it. It doesn’t mean I have to go around in the outside world articulating every thought and feeling that I have, but at a certain point it was whatever I was aware of that came up, positive, negative anger, anxiety.

David Bashevkin:

You mentioned that Lou Ormont cleared this out of you. Do you ever remember a conversation or something directed at you that helped the clearing process? Was it something that he said or it was just the overall holistic experience over many, many years?

Elie Schulman:

It’s a continual pointing out of every time he observes that you’re withholding. So there could be somebody that continually irritates me or he sees, he observes over a period of time that when certain comments or conversations come up, all of a sudden my leg starts shaking, or the lip is bitten, or there’s a facial gestures that shake, tons of body language is brought out or highlighted as communicating unspoken words.

So yeah, I don’t remember any particular occasion, but I certainly remember a period of months or years where I had started being very vocal and really expressive, but all of my comments were safer or non … I always was siding with someone. And then he would push you. Anybody disagree with the full consensus of the group? And he would pull somebody out. I don’t remember a particular occasion.

David Bashevkin:

Step outside for a second from the group component of the conversation, and while all of this is happening, you’re in therapy, you got married and I remember you had payos. I don’t mean to bring this up in the religious component. You also had professional ambitions where at one point you were going to be a social worker and then you switched quite dramatically. I think you were already in the program to become a lawyer. And I remember ’cause I dealt with this too.

I think a lot of times I was reaching out to you was either in the very early years of my marriage, but a lot of times was the professional angst that I had of being the best, LSAT stuff, like getting the best score. It’s not worth going if you don’t go to the best Ivy League school.

I’m curious. Outside of group, so you have these major decisions that are now evolving. You are evolving in the way you look in your marriage. Your wife married somebody who’s this very shtark to use a Yeshivish-ism person who’s very serious in learning and might learn long term and then is going to go into social work and then kind of drifts into law and you start to look differently. You look less yeshivish, less committed than you once did. You are probably learning less than you did.

How did you learn how to navigate these larger than life decisions, particularly when there’s somebody else involved? How does that factor in and have, I could imagine some downward pressure on a relationship when you are kind of reinventing yourself?

Elie Schulman:

Okay, so that’s a loaded question.

David Bashevkin:

Yes. You don’t have to disclose anything. Obviously you know that. But I think for a lot of people who are in the process of some self-examination, hopefully earlier in life rather than later, there are people who know you. There are decisions that you’ve already made. And any reinvention can potentially come at a cost. And part of the reason why I admire you so much is that the things that matter most remain centered. And I’m almost asking how did it remain that way?

Elie Schulman:

So it was a very organic process. And as I started to become more comfortable with myself, a byproduct of that was shedding a lot of outward religious practice tremendously. I mean, my entire foray into the way I looked when I was 21 that you just described was not really driven by anything related to religion. It was purely driven by this deep need to be the best or to be accepted or to be satisfied with my own progress.

So as I started to become healthier, it wasn’t like one day I shed any outward appearance. But over a number of years in my mid to late 20s, I slowly, and this was actually contrary to anything I was hearing in the group context or from an individual therapist who never, if anything, they always encouraged the opposite, but slowly really shed what I was doing, which was learning in kollel. For a number of years I wanted to go into the mental health field. When I first started to feel a little better, I wanted to be a social worker. And as I started to feel a drop better than that, I realized that I was motivated by a need to really just help myself or feel needed by other people.

So I made a very deliberate decision actually in the middle of social work school that I prefer to find a way to afford my own therapy for the rest of my life than to go with motivations that weren’t entirely clear to me. So I left social work school, went to law school.

David Bashevkin:

I want to let you know how haunting that shift was for me. I don’t want to make this about me, but I remember specifically I’m like, because I also had ambitions to be a therapist and help, and I honestly think my current professional life is still a product of maybe not having the focus, stamina or probably the best word is courage to really examine my individual needs in the way you did.

And I remember when you told me that, I was like, “It’s okay to not … with all of this feeling that you sit upon, it’s okay not to dedicate your life. What’s the narrative of your life going to be? You’re just going to be a lawyer?” It was shocking to me when you switched. And not the best lawyer. You’re not going to be like Ivy League. It’s not Harvard Law School. I was almost haunted and jealous that you had the adequacy, the self-love to make that choice.

I remember hearing about it. I remember almost talking to you about it. It was like half jealousy, was half like probably all of the fears that you had. “Well, are you just like a guy now? You’re just like a lawyer? You’re not part of this epic vision quest of changing the world and others?”

And I don’t know if that was ever an allure to you and it was to me in an unhealthy way and continues to be unhealthy to me in a lot of ways. But I remember that choice, which you described as financial, but I always processed this. I know there was a conversation with your father on line to the airport maybe, I don’t know if I’m making that up, where he maybe told you it’s hard to make a living or something as a social worker and it was a little bit financial. But part of it to me felt like giving yourself permission to just be regular, that the epicness of your life doesn’t need this external narrative that is beckoning you.

Elie Schulman:

That is precisely what it was. I may have thought of it as financial at the time, but I had the freedom to make decisions without being driven by a need to be the most glorious, glorified social worker who’s saving the entire world. I was able to think clearly, make a decision from a place of comfort. Yeah, that was certainly a reflective of a turning point in my own healing. Yeah, for sure.

David Bashevkin:

I told this once. I saw there were two therapists that I’ve seen, one I’ve mentioned, and as I’ve actually invited onto the show, Sara Barris, and I’ve told her before. I think the most triggering thing she ever told me was, “You’d make a great psychologist.” And I’m like, “Dear God, do not tell me this.” It really disrupted me the way that professional identity, especially in the role of a community, needing to be something and have that validation of excellence, and I continue to be astounded that you’ve let go more or less of that.

But take me through a little bit more. Did you have to have a real conversation with the spouse and say, “Look, I’m thinking differently and I want to go in another direction”? That’s a very real and honest conversation, especially when there are financial stuff, you’re going back to school, et cetera, et cetera. How did you navigate that landing of such a dramatic shift of who you are and how the relationship began into where you are today without ruining the most important relationship in your life?

Elie Schulman:

So I love my wife dearly, really dearly, and I’m amazed. I’m certainly amazed now. I always was amazed and not really entirely clear, and I don’t think despite our having a very close communicative open relationship, I’m not sure if she could even articulate now what caused or what gave her that level of loyalty or willing to watch that unfolding.

It was not a deliberate conversation. It wasn’t a decision made together. It was her I think watching me go from a very unhealthy place to start to get to a more healthy place and then more healthy place, and simultaneously with the health shedding a lot of things that, behavior, things that made her question or things that she held dear to herself. The best I can come up with is that it was what it provided or seeing me healthier or having a better or whole me made up for or kind of made her feel better. It was worth a trade-off to some degree.

I mean, truthfully, we had already made decisions in line with a certain lifestyle and particularly once my kids … I mean I started with Lou before my kids were born, but once they were … Well actually, right when they were born. But once they got a little older, we had already made decisions about certain institutions or communities. My personal, I’d say unraveling or shedding of certain religions was completely remained with me. I had made certain decisions. At that point already I firmly believed in consistency with kids and not wanting to confuse or unload my own doubts or my own.

So my outwardly, you almost couldn’t observe anything was going on in terms of religion. Maybe I cut the payos, but there was certainly a period of 10 years where I completely shed almost any connection internally and even in practice. But I continued to send my kids to certain schools and lived in a certain community and engaged in the behaviors with as much enthusiasm as I could muster really just because I love my kids.

David Bashevkin:

But it didn’t exacerbate your own mental health, meaning you’re both unraveling and putting yourself back together, and now you have this second layer of dissonance between your community and the institutions you’ve aligned with. Why didn’t that dissonance create a whole nother level of unhealthiness for you?

Elie Schulman:

Because it was so organic. I mean, we’re describing it a multi-year, slow, slow, slow, slow process. A very, very, very slow process. It was more my own internal faith doubts than it was like me being angry about a certain hashkafa or engaging in conversations about right and wrong. Until now I’m amazed that I ever got faith back. I certainly went a decade never believing that was in the cards.

David Bashevkin:

We spoke a lot about group. I want to hear a little bit about the role that individual therapy, books, and I don’t know if you’re comfortable and medication talks about. I’m not asking dosage numbers of what medication.

I remember once we got together and I was telling you about all of the very impressive psychology books that I had been reading, and you were like, “You got to stop reading this stuff,” because you said, “I know you well enough. And when you’re reading it, you’re looking for those nuggets that you can quote,” which made me very self-conscious ’cause it was spot on and I was desperately seeking your approval. But I do remember you recommended the book The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chodron. I think that was you. And I believe you recommended Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child.

But I want you to speak about each of those because you’ve had a very holistic approach to your own unraveling and healing. What was the role of individual therapy, books and medication in this process?

Elie Schulman:

So shortly after I joined Lou’s group, I asked him for a recommendation for an individual therapist, and he connected me with somebody who was in one of his other groups for individual therapy. I have spoken to this person weekly for the last 19 years.

This person is a male, describes himself or identifies himself somewhat with a strong Buddhist history and training. I mean, he’s spent years on silent retreats. My individual therapy experience was probably more similar to what many people experience with individual therapists. It’s not something, even though he was trained by Lou, it was one-on-one talking. Certainly spent many hours talking about what happened in the group.

David Bashevkin:

It would complement the group dynamic.

Elie Schulman:

Yes. He, and I’m talking about for 20 years, I don’t think on one occasion encouraged me or said anything that would cause me to doubt my connection to Orthodox Judaism or my observance in it. In fact, he was exactly the opposite. I mean, from day one, he consistently encouraged me to, despite what I had said about certain teachers or misgivings or not trusting or not thinking that somebody can help me, he always encouraged me to seek out and find within the Orthodox community people who I can speak to, get advice from, be influenced by consistently.

He also never spoke about the practice of meditation, which I never tried, but got into probably in my early 30s. Like Lou, he had zero, nothing ever came out of him that implied that he wanted me to be like him. There was nothing like that. There was almost like he couldn’t care less if I never came back and spoke to him or acted like him. There was no agenda. He was agendaless, which is what I found so freeing and trusting about Lou when I first met him. I mean, he was world renowned and he was the only person who didn’t know that, honestly.

David Bashevkin:

The introduction of meditation. Why did you introduce that as part of your practice, and I assume you mean mindful breathing and that sort of meditation?

Elie Schulman:

Yeah. So I started dabbling it with different forms or styles of how it’s taught in I guess my early 30s. I got into a more consistent practice a couple of years after that, and then just found some people who, the way they taught it just really spoke directly to me. It was just there was a certain clarity. That’s quite important for somebody who’s interested in it, just to find somebody who’s presenting it in a way that really lands on your mind. ‘Cause there’s just so many different ways to frame the same pointing out. So somebody needs to point you in the direction in a way that you say, “Oh, I also see it.”

David Bashevkin:

I get that.

Elie Schulman:

Mark actually subsequently, I heard him give instruction. And his instruction didn’t really hit me the same way that other people’s did. So once I found that, I remember the occasion of calling Mark and yelling at him why he didn’t encourage me to practice earlier because it’s such a profound, useful … I mean, it’s almost the same thing as what I got at a group, but you could do it whenever you want for as long as you want.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah. The group is the voices in your head and all that judgment that percolates. Do you remember what he responded, why he didn’t introduce it to you?

Elie Schulman:

Either said you didn’t ask or something like you’re an Orthodox Jew for God’s sakes or something. He was always hypersensitive to our superficial cultural distinct-

David Bashevkin:

Gotcha.

Elie Schulman:

I think he might’ve erred on the side of even being too sensitive. I mean, it couldn’t have been a coincidence that he not once in 20 years mentioned why don’t you check out meditation.

David Bashevkin:

And tell me about the two other things I asked about, books and medication in whichever order you want. What role they played in the restructuring?

Elie Schulman:

I’ll take medication first ’cause it’s the easier one. I don’t have a clue. I mean, I’ve been on and off medication for 20 years. Different variations or different forms, primarily SSRIs. I still don’t know exactly what it does, what it doesn’t do. I know one thing, which is with the ones that I was on at least, it’s hard to get off them irrespective what they’re doing for you. There is a neurological addictive quality to it that if you stop it, even if it wasn’t … There’s a period where you have to really be willing to suffer with a lot of uncomfortable, almost disoriented feelings. And multiple times I tried doing that and then felt like that for a week. I was like, “Forget this. It’s easier to take it.” I kind of just like by default went back on it, so I don’t really know.

David Bashevkin:

But you were never averse to taking medication. Was that hard for you?

Elie Schulman:

I’m still certainly carry a certain shame about it. Even when you just asked me, thoughts ran through my head about shall I avoid or shall I not avoid. It’s not something I certainly share with people in public. That’s for sure not. I was ever averse to it? I don’t think really. I mean, I’ve really literally been on it for 20 years and probably started sometime when I was learning in Israel.

David Bashevkin:

And what about books? Because you had this recommendation, again, Pema Chodron, the moment you told me the title, I’m like, “Yes, The Wisdom of No Escape.” I probably used it for all the wrong reasons. I would buy the book for others to show them how profound I was, which was the reminder that you would always give me, keep something for yourself, like have a little in internality.

Elie Schulman:

Books by that author, Pema Chodron. Pema knew Mark. Mark introduced me to her the way she was teaching meditation. I mean, she was already famous at that point, but the two of them studied with the same teacher who came to the United States in the ’70s. That book by her, other books by similar authors from a similar cut or who kind of had the same overlapping teachers, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, the Jew Bud era, as they call it. Like a bunch of Jewish Buddhists who got into practice in the ’70s and ’80s and really brought the whole meditation practice to the United States. I mean, I’ve read every self-help book there is. Which ones are particularly useful?

David Bashevkin:

I want to hear the recommendations. I did find Alice Miller’s book fairly profound, The Drama of the Gifted Child. Right when you recommended that to me, I’m like, I think I am still in that movie. I am in that dramatic retelling of that, The Drama of the Gifted Child, which doesn’t mean that I was particularly gifted. It means that I thrived in my own narrative that I carved out for myself is that I have to be gifted, I have to be extraordinary to be worthy of love, and I found that book very helpful. I’m curious if there are other that standouts for you?

Elie Schulman:

So that book certainly had a profound impact on me. I’m just going to add to the way you described it. She talks about the gift of the sixth sense that many people, I think like myself, young, sensitive, when they’re younger and they have a sensitive soul and they’re talented, pick up an ability to read cues very well, whether they have to or they don’t, but they almost know what people need. And it’s kind of like an adaptive, it can be described as some sort of tool because it was necessary for that child to thrive and survive. They almost have to be in service of people around them rather than their own needs. The gift that she’s referring to is that quality, which spoke right to me.

I was always good with people. People always felt heard by me, but to a degree where I was using it to my own harm. I almost needed that. I wasn’t using it in service of other people.

Other books?

David Bashevkin:

I’m asking specifically, did books have an impact on you? Was that a part of your process?

Elie Schulman:

Yes, but less so as the years went on. I mean, I haven’t looked at one of those books in years. I mean really years. Once I tasted the experiential healing qualities, going back to reading a book is trying to fill yourself by eating the menu.

David Bashevkin:

Eating the menu, yeah.

Elie Schulman:

It just doesn’t work. It’s very much on the conceptual level, so I don’t know. Books have not been that important or influential for me for a long time.

David Bashevkin:

My belly is stuffed with the menus that I’ve digested. Still waiting for that steak.

Elie Schulman:

Set you up for that one.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah. Let me ask you a little bit about the healing. I love the term you used, the softening of the return. I forgot who it was, but a mutual friend of ours, it may have been Mati, had mentioned either he was learning with you or he was mentioned that Elie has returned to the base midrash. He has returned to a relationship with Torah. This is a few years ago. I remember he mentioned in passing like, wow, that’s the end of the Lion King where Simba comes back, which is probably the worst analogy for it.

I’m curious. What allowed you to have that softening and to kind of come back to a practice that in many ways, I don’t know if the word is abandoned, ran away from or discarded. What allowed that softening of a return?

Elie Schulman:

First of all, it’s still really a very unfolding, very unfolding process. I honestly still have a sense of shock, and it’s very new for me, even to articulate out loud even to myself, that somehow some way I was fortunate enough, it even brings tears to my eyes, to find faith again.

I know what the turning point was. I didn’t feel it at the time, but I certainly felt a tsunami of something. And/or slowly it’s opened me up again over the last seven years. It was a rebi of mine that I had in Israel that was killed in a terrorist attack and in the most horrific way, and I remember exactly where I was when I saw the email. This literally every time, even seven years later, when I talk about him, it brings tears to my eyes.

David Bashevkin:

You had a picture of him in your apartment in Far Rockaway. You’re talking about Moshe Twersky, HaShem yikom damo, zekher tzadik livrakha who’s murdered in shul in Har Nof, and his brother is roshei yeshiva in YU. And we actually spoke about him the one time that I came to that apartment in Far Rockaway. That’s what we were talking about the entire time, is your relationship with Twersky. And what happened? What led to that softening?

Elie Schulman:

The immediate impact that it had on me was just really a profound, I mean, I was literally, I would say for a month in a complete fog, yet not sleeping. It was such a profound experience or a thing to occur that was outside of the realm of what I ever thought was possible, even though I had no connection to him for 10 years prior to that.

David Bashevkin:

That’s what I’m trying to understand, is like what did this represent for you?

Elie Schulman:

I mean, he was the first and probably the only, even until today experience that I’ve ever had with another human being who his presence was so profound and so strong. It was almost like my Torah mi-Sinai. Being in his presence and the sheer force of his personality it’s almost like firsthand experience that Torah is true, that Hashem is true.

It was really the only person I ever interacted with that I had that experience. And for him to be killed in such a way was just shattering. Not shattering that necessarily leads to good or bad. It was just shattering. It’s actually not a coincidence that I have never had that feeling before, but it’s a similar feeling to what I’ve felt in the last three weeks, honestly, since October 7th. Almost like a very profound pulling of the rug out. Things that you didn’t think were in the realm of possibility could occur. So they start to, they shatter you.

So for a month I was in a fog. I was really sad for a year or two after that, thinking about it daily. I’m not sure if it was two years later or three years later where I very slowly, I think I honestly picked up a Gemara from my basement and dusted it off like-

David Bashevkin:

Literally.

Elie Schulman:

Literally. Literally.

David Bashevkin:

It wasn’t like a Kabbalah. It was just like for old times’ sake.

Elie Schulman:

For old times’ sake. Yeah. Some sense of nostalgia or you could even call it guilt or some sort of my way to reckon that occurrence or something. I’m not sure. I still don’t have the words, but it certainly has that initial taking an action which was consistent with what I was feeling for a period of time, which was some sort of willingness to believe that or be open to it or softening to it, which is still unfolding and evolving very organically. And it’s very different than anything I’ve ever experienced before because there’s no rush and no agenda. I literally don’t feel like I have one person to answer to other than myself.

David Bashevkin:

There’s no rush and there’s no agenda. It’s a total contrast to the feelings that I think, at least for me, what drew in our conversations was the pressure of the rush to find and then execute on a very specific agenda. That’s what, for me at least, Yiddishkeit, and by Yiddishkeit I mean the broadest sense. I don’t just mean learning or davening or being, the broadest sense of actually the agenda to matriculate into the Orthodox community, to get your place in line and make sure it’s a good place in line.

And I felt a lot of that rush, that pressure, like quick, you’re already, every number tick. You’re 20. You’re 23. You haven’t figured it out yet? Do you know what you’re up to? Do you know what you’re doing? Even the question, what are you up to, I find incredibly triggering. Like when I’m at a meal and somebody turns to me and says, “What are you up to?” Immediately I process that as like, “I don’t know where on the board game I am, but it doesn’t feel good. I wish I had a better answer to that question. What am I up to?” Where there’s a rush, there’s an agenda, and you got to finish that agenda.

And I guess I would almost ask you, what advice would you give someone who has those residual feelings? And maybe I’ll rephrase it in a different way. What is your current relationship with yourself, intrusive thoughts, feeling inadequate, insecure? I mean, you obviously speak in a way that does project a wisdom. I’ve always found the wisdom in you. I don’t want you to relapse right now giving you compliments, but you always have projected just the real wisdom of the work it takes to rebuild yourself.

And I’m curious what you tell people who feel like, I still feel like I have not done the work to be fully present with myself and be fully human and to feel a sense of enoughness in my life with all the good stuff happening. I’m still jealous of the bigger audiences, the bigger influencers, the people who are getting things published in more prestigious journals. Exactly what you started off with where if it’s not in your religious life, it’ll be in your family life, it’ll be in your financial life, it’ll be in your professional life. And there’s a part of it that feels inescapable, The Wisdom of No Escape. But I’m curious what advice you would give to somebody who still feels trapped in that cycle.

Elie Schulman:

So first of all, that actually brings me sadness that you feel that way, and it reminds me of a deep need to free people from that. I do not feel that currently in my life at all. I don’t struggle with thinking about that or … Yeah, I’ve been thoroughly helped to a place where I’m happy with exactly what I have.

I mean, this particular conversation is taking place in a very unique time, and I am feeling things since October 7th that I have not felt in 20 years. But generally, if we would’ve had this conversation before that date, I would’ve said, “I can literally just sit in my car and do nothing for all of eternity and be completely content and completely happy.” I mean, I regularly do sit for hours at a time just like enjoying myself.

What’s the advice? Something that I’ve realized a little bit more over the last couple of years. You almost have to have the exact right amount of suffering to motivate you to get help and to get the right help. I’ve come to appreciate my unique fortune of the amount of suffering that I had because if you have too much, you’re debilitated or you don’t have the self-love to take care of yourself. And if you have too little, you might not even know that it’s a little bit below your radar and you might run into a lot of difficulty in life or cause a lot of havoc for people that you care about and love, but you’re not really sure what’s doing it. It’s not like announcing itself to you that you are the cause of these things and something you need to do.

So what’s something I would recommend? I mean, group is a life changer. I know many group therapists that are great, loving human beings that are very helpful. Meditation is tremendous. Finding something that really shows you how to practice it. I mean, there are programs or teachers who have pointed to it in a way for me that I can really describe those particular nuances as the most important instruction I’ve ever received in my life.

It’s like once you’ve seen the operating system of how it works, how the mind works and what we do to ourselves, you can’t avoid it anymore. And you can’t get stuck in the same cyclical thought patterns and ruminations and maybe slightly here and there, but now that almost never happens to me. It’s been unwound and there’s no going back. Honestly, that may sound psychotic or arrogant, but …

David Bashevkin:

No, it’s heartening. And I’m just curious. I want to ask a more specific question. The thing for me, and maybe this is the actual therapy part of this conversation, but the thing for me that I always struggle with is the alternative timelines that I feel like I should also have. I’m still haunted. I should have gotten a PhD in psychology and become a psychologist. And am I going to go back to school? Should I get an MSW? Should I do something that gives me, I don’t know, a different outlet, more success, better aligned with the skills that I have?

And it’s very interesting that the thing that I’m most fascinated by by you is the peace you have with your professional identity. Maybe it’s specific with me because so much of my life is sharing publicly. I mean, I have so much blessing. I love what I do. It could have gone so wrong in so many other ways, but now that I’m able to actually live my dream, there is kind of an envy of being able to be regular, being able to be, I don’t know, without expectations, without any like, oh, I don’t know, your last article, your last podcast, your last whatever was great, was eh, was I don’t always listen as everybody tells me when they meet me, like, “Oh, I don’t always listen,” and it’s still a knife in your stomach like, “Why don’t you always listen?”

And I want to understand how you made peace. And again, I’m not demoting. You could honestly be a multimillionaire and have no idea. And maybe you should disclose that if you are in fact like, “Oh, actually my law practice, I’m a billionaire.” But assuming you’re in the bell curve of normalcy, how with all of your emotional gifts, with all the work that you put in and now you have a law practice, which is great and wonderful, but how you make peace with the, I’m going to use a fancy word, the pedestrianess, so to speak, that you don’t have this need or you gave yourself permission that your gifts and you are gifted don’t need to be sacrificed on this public altar and this grander narrative?

You’ve made peace. And I don’t know if you are haunted by, “Oh, maybe I should go back to school. Maybe I should finish and be a social worker.” But how you made peace with that part of your identity?

Elie Schulman:

I mean, I stopped believing the narrative that I needed something, whatever that something is. It was a different something to arrive at at different points in my life. When I was younger, it was if only I was the fill in the blank, best athlete, if only I was the top learner, if only I was … Once I kind of unwound that narrative, you can call it the poverty mentality, it’s referred to it, that you need something in addition to what is already there.

Profession was just the last thing on that chain where I was no longer identifying my self-worth in this moment or generally based on any accolade or profession or amount of money or respect or any of those things, kind of what I was referring to before. Once there’s a sense of understanding of how the system works, the mind works, it’s just another passing thought. Any of that stuff is literally like a cloud.

I’ll tell you what. I’m not sure I made full peace with what you’re saying because I actually, when I moved to Israel two years ago, part of that was with an intention and a desire to go back some way and doing more formally or consistently mental health type of work. I mean, even my legal practice is group therapy. I work with families fighting over inheritance. I mean, that’s my lifetime cumulation of wisdom as you call it, or skills shine bright in that setting. That’s what I’ve done consistently in the most toxic and contentious situations.

But I do want to do it on a greater scale. I’ve started to go back for some particular degrees and now I’m literally neck deep in bringing group to Israel really on a mass scale actually, particularly to deal with what’s going on post-October 7th.

David Bashevkin:

Speaking with you again, honestly, now I’m getting a little bit emotional because there’s something about your voice and the work that you did like staring directly into the abyss and impossibility that life can sometimes feel like and not flinching and just braving into it and really restructuring and reinventing your life in incredible ways. It’s heartening, it’s inspiring, there’s a drop of envy, but it’s mostly inspiring and heartening. It gives me a great deal of comfort.

And it’s a good reminder to me because that internal voice that I have in dealing with my own stuff, which I continue to deal with and the successes that I find, this is the hardest part, the successes that I have feed into the negative machine, the negativity machine, immediately. I discard all compliments. I put them straight into Shemos and bury them somewhere. I’ve described myself as like a seal. It’s like putting water onto a seal. Nothing gets soaked in, but every negative thought, I save it like some love obsessed couple who saves their Hallmark cards to each other. Every negative thought and piece of feedback and negativity that I have, I often fold up and put together in a pile.

And your voice and honestly your life example, it reminds me, it doesn’t pull me out of it, but it reminds me of the work that can be done if you put into the work, and it’s astounding to me.

If you’ll allow me, I always end my interviews with more rapid fire questions, some of which we’ve already covered. If you did have to give somebody and hand somebody one book, there’s a certain personality that we’ve been talking about that overlap, very driven, ambitious, skilled, and grows up and looking to put that into the world. What do you think is the book that spoke most closely that you would recommend to somebody who’s trying to find language and reflect on those feelings that they have and consider how to address them?

Elie Schulman:

Only ’cause you’re asking, I will just mention the two books that you said. One by Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape or Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child. Maybe a third one, which I’m somewhat hesitant to mention, but I’ll do it anyways and I’ll tell you why I’m hesitant. It’s a book called Waking Up by Sam Harris. I’m only hesitant because Sam is public about his atheism, but if somebody can look past that or assume that it won’t influence them, he’s crystal clear on his articulation of meditation practice and he has a great app also called Waking Up, extremely helpful.

David Bashevkin:

I appreciate it. I’ve read quite a bit of him on that. It’s actually his meditation practice that allows me to look past it because I can’t fully believe in his atheism with his extraordinarily impassioned articulation of meditation practice. I have a hard time. He’s addressed that himself.

I always ask my guests, if somebody gave you a great deal of money, and I think we may already know the answer to this, and allowed you to go back to school to get a PhD in a subject and title of your choosing without any financial responsibilities whatsoever, what do you think the subject and title of your dissertation, what would you want to study?

Elie Schulman:

I would want to study joy.

David Bashevkin:

Joy. I appreciate that.

Elie Schulman:

Joy is readily available. Come help yourself. How corny is that?

David Bashevkin:

And my last question, I’m always curious about people’s sleep schedules. What time do you go to sleep at night and what time do you wake up in the morning?

Elie Schulman:

I go to sleep around … I mean now it’s completely all over the place because of what’s going on, but between 11 and 12, and I’m up between 6 and 7.

David Bashevkin:

If you’ll allow me, the one thing that we didn’t discuss, I’m curious what role music played in all of this. You are a fairly gifted musician. Was music and playing guitar something that was a part of the unraveling? Was it a part of the healing process? Do you still have a relationship with music?

Elie Schulman:

Music like one sport Tennis, I mean, music disappeared for my life for a while because my initial relationship to it was solely based on I am going to be the best guitar player that ever lived, or at least better than the guy who was round the block for me, David Rosen. I remember where.

So I didn’t have an enjoyable relationship with music even though I did spend a lot of time on it in my earlier life and did find success. So I put the guitar down in my early 20s and it sat there until maybe five years ago when I just picked it up just to like, oh, and started somewhat enjoying it again. Now I play. My kids play. I play with them. But it did not play a significant role. It just disappeared.

David Bashevkin:

Elie, I cannot thank you enough. It’s such a joy to be able to see you and talk to you, and really, I love you so much. I’m so grateful for your time, for your friendship over all of these years. What a long, strange trip it has been.

Elie Schulman:

My real pleasure.

David Bashevkin:

So much of the beauty of our community is because we are so close-knit. We help one another. We support one another. We’re around together. We show up to shul events together. We support institutions together. But one of the difficulties that emerges, I think in a unique way, particularly within the Jewish community, is how easy it is to fall into this competitive perfectionism of wanting your life to mirror the exact perfection of what you see in everybody else.

And there are people who are competitive with their job offers. There are people who are competitive with their family life. There are people who are competitive with their wealth. There are people who are competitive like myself. I’m actually proud about what I’m competitive in. And jealousy is something that I struggle with.

I was just on another podcast that you can see that we’re going to email out where I talk a great deal about this with my dear friend Yaakov Langer on his That’s An Issue podcast, which talks about psychological and mental health, which I went on to coincide with this series. And this was a lot of what I spoke about, how in our community, even articulating that you are jealous of somebody is something that you would only expect to hear from a 6-year-old. But it’s something that a lot of people, that competitiveness, that sense of perfectionism, a lot of people really struggle with.

I wrote an article around six years ago that I will include in the show note. It’s called Failure Goes to Yeshiva, which is about a course I teach in Yeshiva University about dealing with failure and coping with failure. I’m very proud of the article it happens to be, and inside that article, I quote from a 2018 blog post that was written for the New York Jewish Week by Rabbi Gerald Skolnik. He’s a conservative rabbi of the Forest Hills Jewish Center. And he wrote one of the most radically vulnerable articles that talks about this and his own family struggles with mental health, and this is what he wrote, which I think is absolutely remarkable.

He’s contrasting the environment inside of shuls to that inside of churches, and he writes as follows. “For whatever reason, everything from their hymns to their liturgy, to their theology encourages Christians to understand church as a place to go to when you feel less than whole. I know that’s a broad generalization,” this is Rabbi Skolnik writing, “and the church world is not without its fair share of alienated Christians. But the point remains valid. It’s not an accident that there are so many AA chapters in churches. The synagogue world by and large has done a much less than adequate job of selling that idea within its ranks.

A synagogue is more often a place to be avoided when you’re feeling broken, when you’re feeling in disrepair, when your family isn’t what you’d like it to be and you don’t represent some paradigm of perfection. You walk in and people ask how your kids are, how many children do they have? Where are they at school? Where are they working? And all of these kinds of probing questions. And if you can’t give the answers that represent the very model of a successful thriving family, people tend to come across as judgmental, even when they don’t mean to.

Our image as a community is one where to borrow Garrison Keillor’s famous sardonic comment on Lake Wobegon, ‘All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.’ It’s one of our big problems among many.”

You’re welcome to disagree with the portrait that he writes, especially the contrast between shuls and churches, but it is the perception of many. And there was a time in my life when I shared this sentiment. It was very hard for me to show up to shul. Their communal spaces is where I felt most alienated and most broken.

And I think it’s journeys like Elie that remind me that this sense of competitive perfectionism, this sense of feeling like you are in competition with everybody at all times is something that a lot of people struggle with in our community, but especially when it gets very, very unhealthy, especially when it becomes debilitating, there is a way to seek help and therapy, and really tending to what our triggers are, what makes us jealous, what makes us feel less than, what makes us feel inadequate.

There is a way out from this sense of suffocation, from this sense of being what we call the rat race, which I think so many people struggle with in the Jewish community. I know it. I know it.

And this sense of everyone feeling like everyone needs to be above average, which is obviously impossible, and creating a space where we’re able to feel whole requires lifelong work.

And I am so grateful that Elie from the other side of the couch, not a therapist, but somebody opening up and sharing their lifelong therapeutic journey with us, is hopefully a reminder that such a pathway and such a journey can exist and it does work. As cynical as we sometimes can become about therapy and the work of therapy, sometimes we just need to find the right therapist, we need to find the right type of treatment, we need to find something that works for us.

But the process of finding mental health works. It works and you don’t need to live your life in a dungeon. You don’t need to live your life like you’re feeling like you’re all the way in the back of some marathon like you’re racing against everybody else and you can never catch up. Life can be lived with joy. Life can be lived in an uplifted way, especially when you have friends like Elie where the very friendship is forged through that kinyan hagbaha of lifting one another up.

So thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much again to our series sponsors, Andrew and Terri Herenstein. I am so grateful for your friendship, for your support, your encouragement. It means so much to me on a personal level to know people who are committed to emulate Hakadosh Baruch Hu‘s description of Horofei lishvurei leiv umechabbeish le’atzevosom, to healing all the broken-hearted. I’m so grateful for your support.

This episode, like so many of our episodes, was edited by our dearest friend Denah Emerson. If you enjoyed this episode or any of our episodes, please subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends about it. You can also donate at 18forty.org/donate. It really helps us reach new listeners and continue putting out great content. It is your support that keeps us going.

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If you’d like to learn more about this topic or some of the other great ones we’ve covered in the past, be sure to check out 18forty.org. That’s the number one, eight, followed by the word forty, F-O-R-T-Y .org, where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails. Thank you so much for listening and stay curious my friends.