Shais Taub: Teshuva of Innocence and Experience

David Bashevkin:

Hello, and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast, where each month we explore different topics, 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 teshuvah. Thank you so much to our series sponsors, Daniel and Mira Stokar for their generous sponsorship of this month’s entire topic.

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.

One of the best parts of hosting a podcast — and it’s far outweighed by the awful parts of hosting a podcast, and there are many, my friends — but one of the best parts are the people who you get introduced to, and the people who you meet, the friendships that you form. And those who’ve been listening for a while may remember that we had an interview with Jeff Bloom during our rationality series. Jeff is somebody who’s constantly emailing me, sending me articles and we finally met for the first time, kind of fortuitously. And we recorded an interview and it was really, really wonderful, and he remains really a friend, he’s unbelievable.

And Jeff, since I’ve known him, has kept on telling me, “You have to meet this rabbi.” Now, there’s no worse way to introduce somebody to somebody new, “You have to meet this rabbi.” For most people, myself included, that’s a trigger. I’m very rarely being like, “You know what I need more of in my life? I need more rabbis.” There are few people who walk around with that mentality on a day to day basis. I certainly am not one of them.

The way to introduce a new relationship was like, “You got to meet this rabbi.” I’m usually like, “Sure, send an email, zei gebentsht, and I will never reply to it, because it’s not really the area in my life where I feel like, “Ah, if only I knew more rabbis.”

But Jeff kept on telling me, “You really should meet this person.” And that person was Rabbi Shais Taub. And I brushed him off a bunch of times. He made an email introduction, and I ignored it and finally, months later, I started listening to some of his ideas, to some of his Torah. And I actually had another interview where at the very end of the interview, I asked them, “What is the book that really inspires you and keeps you moving?” Right away they said, “It’s Rabbi Shais Taub’s, ‘A God of Our Understanding,’” which is about addiction.

And I reached out to him and I said, “I want to have you on, I want to connect. Let’s have a conversation.” And it was so unusual, he said, “I’ll talk about anything, but I don’t want to talk about addiction right now.” Which we actually talk about why not in this very conversation. And we made up to meet in my house, in person where we recorded this.

And we were supposed to meet at 6:00, and life gets busy, we both get busy. He finally came over at 8:45 PM to my house, and we were together way past midnight. We had a very long conversation about teshuvah. In fact, for the first time ever, we recorded a second episode that we’re not releasing now obviously, that deals more with addiction in particular that hopefully we will release when we cover that subject.

But it was one of the most fascinating evenings I’ve ever spent with somebody, which is somebody who’s deeply immersed in the Chabad school of thought but is so eclectic, and so honest and so real. Meaning, sometimes when you immerse yourself in one specific school of thought, this could happen, this is not a criticism, I’ve seen it happen in all sorts of areas. Like you spend your whole life in one area of academic thought, you spend your whole life in one area of Torah thought, you spend your whole life in one professional area. It kind of can make you a more narrow person, but the exact opposite is true with Rabbi Shais Taub. There is a breadth, there is a depth, and there is an honesty that I found so absolutely refreshing.

Now, I need to warn you, this conversation began at probably, I don’t know, past 9:00. And it is sprawling, it was long, but it was deeply, deeply informative. And his approach and his honesty, and kind of our enduring friendship right now. We’re not texting every single day, but there is a commonality that I really found in the way that he approaches Jewish ideas, the way that he approaches life itself, that I really found a kinship, a friendship, something that resonated with me quite deeply. So it is without further ado that I introduce our conversation with Rabbi Shais Taub. I am so excited to have a guest who I am meeting for the very first time, but we’ve been introduced many a time by a former guest, who I think we could say, our friend Jeff Bloom-

Shais Taub:

Yes.

David Bashevkin:

… who we had on a while ago. It is my absolute privilege and pleasure to introduce, I’m just going to say Rabbi Taub, because I think that’s better-

Shais Taub:

Sure, it’s more respectful, actually.

David Bashevkin:

… because I don’t know how to pronounce your first name.

Shais Taub:

Okay, so should I help you with it?

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, please.

Shais Taub:

Okay, “Shais.”

David Bashevkin:

I would not have pronounced that correctly.

Shais Taub:

Yes.

David Bashevkin:

That’s a Yiddish name?

Shais Taub:

It’s actually from a book called Genesis.

David Bashevkin:

Shet, you’re named shin?

Shais Taub:

Shin, sov

David Bashevkin:

Shin sov?

Shais Taub:

Yeah, with a tzere under the shin.

David Bashevkin:

You don’t hear that a lot.

Shais Taub:

No, you don’t hear that a lot, yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Okay, that’s absolutely lovely. We’re not going to talk right now about naming antediluvian names, pre-Noah-

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

… but we could do that a different time. That’s a-

Shais Taub:

There’s a whole discussion-

David Bashevkin:

… very exciting conversation-

Shais Taub:

… yes.

David Bashevkin:

… that absolutely none of our listeners are interested in.

Shais Taub:

By the way, you know what Jeff’s name is? Chanoch, also antediluvian.

David Bashevkin:

Another antediluvian name.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Our listeners are going to be so disappointed right now that the first five or 10 minutes,-

Shais Taub:

Is just antediluvian.

David Bashevkin:

… we just talked about antediluvian names.

One of my all time favorite words, of course, meaning “preceding the flood.” I reached out to you, because you wrote a book. I want to talk about our conversation that we had before this conversation. You wrote a book called “God of Our Understanding,” which has been recommended more than once on this podcast, and it’s about taking the 12 steps of recovery and addiction, and kind of integrating it with Jewish thought, Jewish life. And I reached out to you and I said, “I want to have you on to talk about what teshuvah is all about, and we’ll couch it in your books. Last year, we did an episode with a very dear friend of mine, Miriam Gisser, speaking about Alcoholics Anonymous, and her journey with her family. And the moment I brought this up to you, you said, “Let’s talk about anything but.”

Shais Taub:

Anything but.

David Bashevkin:

Anything but. Why do you not want to talk about addiction today?

Shais Taub:

There’re many reasons, but I’ll give you one. It’s a very complicated sugya. It’s not what anybody thinks it is going into it, and at the end people end up being disappointed.

David Bashevkin:

What do you mean disappointed? Tell me.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, well it’s a bait and switch. That’s why I don’t lecture on it by the way, and anything but when people bring me to lecture, they’ll ask me something, “Do an addiction topic.” I say, “You’re bringing people, right? There’s a crowd. Right? You want them to be happy? Right? Right, okay. So trust me.” They’re not going to get what they think they’re getting. And it’s the worst thing you can do is bait and switch.

David Bashevkin:

And also you had mentioned to me that you don’t want to feel like boxed in as the addiction rabbi. You’re sitting on a gold mine, meaning you could be-

Shais Taub:

Yeah, I mean, supposed. Depends on your scruples. You could capitalize on that. I try to-

David Bashevkin:

… you try to avoid that.

Shais Taub:

… I’ve avoided that. Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

No, I related to it a lot because I have felt like that boxing in and you become the rabbi who knows karate, who surfs, who does addiction.

Shais Taub:

Oh you’re the surfer rabbi?

David Bashevkin:

No, I’m not the surfing rabbi.

Shais Taub:

Oh, okay.

David Bashevkin:

I wish I was.

Shais Taub:

That’ll be a lot cooler.

David Bashevkin:

Much, much cooler. But you get put into something. I was so fascinated that you actually didn’t want to get put into this very en vogue, important topic. What-

Shais Taub:

Is it en vogue?

David Bashevkin:

… addiction is super en vogue,-

Shais Taub:

Really?

David Bashevkin:

… because everything has become like, globalized. The specificity of everything-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… has been washed away. So depression-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… addiction, mindfulness. Everything’s just part of one glob of mental health.

Shais Taub:

Right, everybody has everything.

David Bashevkin:

Everybody has everything.

Shais Taub:

What do you get for the man who has everything? Penicillin.

David Bashevkin:

Very good, so what do you want to be known for?

Shais Taub:

Oh my goodness, what do I want to be known for?

David Bashevkin:

Somebody closes their eyes and thinks, “Rabbi Shais Taub.” What do you want to come to mind?

Shais Taub:

Oh, this a cheshbon hanefesh, like a real spiritual stock-taking over here.

David Bashevkin:

This is what we do on 18Forty, we really get into it.

Shais Taub:

What do I want to be known for? What do I want people to think of when they think of me?

David Bashevkin:

I think about this question a lot, because I wrote a column for many years for Mishpacha magazine, and I loved it. I’m so proud of it. It’s the hardest thing I ever did, because it was a humor column and we do these top fives every week. And at a certain point, there were a few reasons why I ended it. None of which are that I got fired, I just want to be absolutely clear.

Shais Taub:

By the way, I also tell people there’s another magazine.

David Bashevkin:

For sure.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

The other.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, the other one. I did an advice column, which I also don’t want to be known for,-

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

… no joke. For eight years for Ami, and in the end I stopped writing. I never liked talking about it, because it’s like, “I did that, I moved on.” Oh, I think the funniest 30 seconds on YouTube, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry King?

David Bashevkin:

That’s the clip that I shared.

Shais Taub:

That’s the clip, “They fired you or you fired them?”

David Bashevkin:

Are you not aware of this? That I was number one.

Shais Taub:

And Jerry is so-

David Bashevkin:

I shared that after people were like, “Did you get fired from Mishpacha?

Shais Taub:

… oh, you did?

David Bashevkin:

I shared that exact clip.

Shais Taub:

I love that clip. It’s like, “You don’t know who I am!”-

David Bashevkin:

“Can someone send me a resume in here?” Of course, of course.

Shais Taub:

… yeah.

David Bashevkin:

So for me, I felt boxed in.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

I felt like I’m being put into something.

Shais Taub:

The “joke rabbi.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah. So for you, I’m curious, what do you want to be known for?

Shais Taub:

Wow. I guess it’s important to be known as a nice person, but I don’t think that’s the ultimate thing. I think it’s more like a hechsher mitzvah. It’s like, being a nice guy makes it possible to do the real thing that I think I really value. I probably just would like to be known as somebody who helps people to gain clarity, or somebody who uses ideas of Torah or maybe more specifically pnimiyus hatorah.

David Bashevkin:

Pnimiyus meaning the-

Shais Taub:

The inner dimension but no, let’s say this-

David Bashevkin:

… okay, let’s say it.

Shais Taub:

Let’s just say it right out, let’s say it, toras HaBaal Shem Tov.

David Bashevkin:

We don’t have to beat around the bush.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, okay. To help people to gain clarity about life. If I overheard somebody saying-

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, that’s kind of the question. Like you overheard somebody describing you, what would you want to hear?-

Shais Taub:

… what would make my day? If I walked in the room and I overheard some guys saying to another guy, “Yeah, I watched a class of Shais Taub, and he said something a certain way. It’s an idea that I’ve thought of before, but he said it in a way it made it click, and at that moment I understood. I had complete clarity about this concept from the most abstruse level, to the most practical application.” I would be like, yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Do you pay attention to how you’re perceived? Do you ever Google yourself?

Shais Taub:

No.

David Bashevkin:

Never?

Shais Taub:

No.

David Bashevkin:

Do you really mean that?

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Wow.

Shais Taub:

I can’t take it.

David Bashevkin:

You can’t take it?

Shais Taub:

Yeah, you see how much it bothers me when people say, “Oh, you’re the column guy. Oh, you’re the understanding guy.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, correct.

Shais Taub:

So no, I can’t even go down that road.

David Bashevkin:

There’s nothing that I feel more diminished than when people refer to me as, “The Twitter guy”, and there are people who do that.

Shais Taub:

Twitter guy?

David Bashevkin:

Like, “Oh, that’s the Twitter guy.” I have a big Twitter presence. “Oh, it’s the Twitter guy.” And it’s diminishing on the hierarchy of identity, and how I want my contribution, that’s not there. But what we are here to talk about is this kind of clarity, particularly as it relates to teshuvah. And I guess I wanted to begin with a saying that I heard, I’ve never seen in print. I think it does exist and maybe our listeners can dig it up. But there are three different works of chassidus that are compared to three categories of people. And this is how I heard a phrase that the “Noam Elimelech” which is the work of Rabbi Elimech of Lizhensk is for tzaddikim. The sefer of the Tanya, which is literally its name is for the beinonim, and beinoni means somebody’s like in between, I’m probably not phrasing it correctly, you’re going to correct me in a moment.

And Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s “Likutei Maharan” is for reshaim, and for people who are really evil. My addendum to this is at the works of Ishbitz and Rav Tzadok, they’re all three categories at any given moment, depends on what day of the week it is. And that’s probably where I fit in. But I wanted to talk about teshuvah, and your own perspective, your own work in teshuvah. I don’t like talking about teshuvah with rabbis, and I just want to say this right off the top. Because I feel like they relapse into sermonic territory, into shiur territory, and it can be more difficult to really show it, show me don’t tell me. And that’s why I was nervous that you didn’t want to talk about addiction, because I had a million and one questions about that. I didn’t want it to just be like-

Shais Taub:

“Give me your best teshuvah sermon.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, “Give me your best idea.”

Shais Taub:

Right, because they say a baal darshan–

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

A speaker can’t become yireh shamayim. He can’t be God fearing. Why? Because whenever he hears a message that would actually stir him-

David Bashevkin:

Resonate.

Shais Taub:

… yeah. He says, “Oh, I got to remember that one for my next speech.”

David Bashevkin:

That’s my life for sure.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And you don’t have anything that’s for you, that’s in that private. And I think the whole world’s been reshaped and turned inside out that way, that having something for you. But I wanted to start with this notion of being a beinoni, somebody who is in between.

Shais Taub:

That’s my favorite subject, by the way.

David Bashevkin:

That’s what we’re going to talk about.

Shais Taub:

“Sefer Shel Beinonim,” “Tanya.” I get a hundred texts a day, maybe more. I don’t know how often it happens. Maybe once a month. I get a Tanya text. I see the word Tanya in a text? Bam, now I’m moving away. Now everyone’s going to do that, they’re going to write.

David Bashevkin:

You get a lot.

Shais Taub:

They’re going to use that in the first-

David Bashevkin:

I do not get that many Tanya texts. It’s so interesting.

Shais Taub:

… you don’t get Tanya texts?

David Bashevkin:

No, not as many as you would think.

Shais Taub:

Yeah?

David Bashevkin:

No, I get a lot of, “What movie do I know this actor from?” I get a lot of those, constantly. Hundreds a day. “He’s from Fargo.” You know, those kind of questions.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, a little less scholarly, but I do get a lot of texts a day. But I was always fascinated that this work “Tanya,” by the Alter Rebbe, the first Rebbe of Chabad, Rav Schneur Zalman of Liadi. He has this seminal work of Hasidic thought colloquially called, “Tanya” because that’s-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… the opening words.

Shais Taub:

Very good, it’s colloquially called “Tanya.”

David Bashevkin:

Colloquially.

Shais Taub:

It’s not called “Tanya.”

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

Alter Rebbe didn’t call it “Tanya.”

David Bashevkin:

But he called it instead “Sefer Shel Beinonim.”

Shais Taub:

That is correct.

David Bashevkin:

And it’s a hard word to translate. It’s a Talmudic phrase that derives from a passage in Rosh Hashanah, about the three different categories of people on their process of teshuvah, which must be at the heart of his work if he’s taking it from this passage. But he chooses the name, “Sefer Shel Beinonim.” The book for people in the middle, stuck in the middle, figuring out their way through the middle. And in many ways I feel like we are in a generation of beinonim. We are in a generation where I don’t know, I haven’t met that many true tzaddikim, maybe from a distance, but true tzaddikim, it’s hard to have heroes nowadays. It’s hard to have heroes. And I haven’t met that many reshaim, that many evil people, because it’s also hard to be evil nowadays-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… because anytime somebody does something bad, you talk about his upbringing, what they went through. How many evil people do you meet alive today in the street? Evil things happen, I’m not hanging out with them.

Shais Taub:

I told somebody recently, I said, “I don’t know how many decades, if not centuries, it’s been since there was the metzius, the existence of completely emotionally healthy rasha.”

David Bashevkin:

Exactly.

Shais Taub:

In other words, there’s someone who’s evil, he doesn’t have any trauma, he has no problems, he has a great relationship with his wife, normal upbringing. And he’s just wicked for its own sake.

David Bashevkin:

Own sake.

Shais Taub:

I don’t know how many decades it’s been since such a guy walked the earth.

David Bashevkin:

It’s been a minute, it’s been a minute. So I guess the question that I want to begin with is why do you think the work is called “Sefer Shel Beinonim“? Explain to me within the framework of Chabad of why exactly it was given this name?

Shais Taub:

If I would’ve known that this podcast is going to focus on “Tanya,” I would’ve been a lot more excited about coming here.

David Bashevkin:

You were very kind about being here. And I think that-

Shais Taub:

No, I was excited, but I would’ve been even more excited. Well, when you say in between, in between is a relative term, in between what? In the middle of what?

David Bashevkin:

… I always assumed that in the middle of tzaddik and rasha, it’s in between righteous-

Shais Taub:

Right, that’s the common misconception.

David Bashevkin:

… and evil. He’s in between these two poles-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… it’s like a sandwich. You have one piece of bread that’s holy and righteous, you have another piece of bread that’s very evil. And where do you put the where do you put the meat and the cream cheese? Not together-

Shais Taub:

Not together.

David Bashevkin:

… but whatever kind of sandwich you’re making. In the middle is the beinoni, he’s in the middle of the bell curve.

Shais Taub:

Right, middle of the bell curve, right. Mediocrity.

David Bashevkin:

Exactly.

Shais Taub:

You’re the joke rabbi, right?

David Bashevkin:

Don’t start with me.

Shais Taub:

Don’t start with it. George Carlin said, “Think about how dumb the average person is, half the people are dumber than him.” That’s my bell curve joke.

David Bashevkin:

We love a good bell curve joke, but explain to me.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, so a beinoni is not a guy in the middle of the bell curve, not a C student in the moral sense. The dichotomy that the Alter Rebbe sets up in “Tanya,” functionally I think it’s easier to describe it as insides and outsides. Maybe I’ll start with outsides first, because it’s so much easier to describe. Your behaviors are your outsides, meaning what people see. Insides means your inner world, your feelings, your worldviews that those feelings come from.

I mean, he describes over there the mechanics of emotions, derived from intellect. Those are the two worlds, the inner world and the outer world. Let’s call it the cognitive-emotional on one hand, and the behavioral on the other. So the tzaddik is the one who has perfect alignment, where he actually requires no impulse control. I tell people when I’m teaching “Tanya,” I always say, “You want to find out if you’re at tzaddik, I have a home test that you can do.” For 24 hours, any impulse that arises to your mind, do not filter it, don’t question it, immediately act on it. And if for 24 hours, nothing comes out-

David Bashevkin:

And nobody gets hurt?

Shais Taub:

Right, then you’re a tzaddik.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

So a tzaddik has perfect alignment, he has perfectly holy, pristine insides and outsides. He only does good because he only wants good. Then on the other extreme, you have the rasha. Who’s the rasha? The rasha is the person who doesn’t have perfect behaviors. And the reason he doesn’t have perfect behaviors, is because he doesn’t have perfect insides. He’s conflicted inside, he explains this another major concept of the shtei nefashos, got two souls, which actually doesn’t originate from Tanya, it’s from Rav Chaim Vital, it’s Lurianic kabbalah, the idea of the two souls, nefesh habehemos, nefesh elokis, which is a similar concept to the Talmudic idea of yetzer hara, yetzer tov–

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

… the good inclination, the evil inclination. But here we call it the godly soul, and the animal soul, or in plain English for 2022, I say, “The impulse for self-transcendence and the impulse for self-preservation.”

David Bashevkin:

I like that.

Shais Taub:

I think it’s more accessible. There’s this inner conflict between the drive or the penchant for self-transcendence, and the drive or the impulse for self-preservation, which isn’t inherently immoral.

It’s amoral-

David Bashevkin:

Right.

Shais Taub:

… which is why it’s called animalistic. And it can justify immorality, if that’s what I need to do, right?

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

… because it’s self-preservation. And that conflict between those two souls, that’s sort of the imperfect emotional world of this rasha. And because he doesn’t have perfect impulse control, his behaviors belie that. I mean, he’s conflicted on the inside, and you get a hodgepodge of behaviors on the outside. Sometimes he does a mitzvah, the next minute-

David Bashevkin:

You’re describing the person in the middle.

Shais Taub:

… no, that’s the rasha.

David Bashevkin:

This is the rasha.

Shais Taub:

That’s the rasha.

David Bashevkin:

You’re still doing the rasha? Okay.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, that’s the rasha.

David Bashevkin:

I’m so curious who the middle is then.

Shais Taub:

Okay, and the Alter Rebbe actually addresses this right in Chapter One, he says, “You would think that the beinoni is the guy who’s half and half. He does half-

David Bashevkin:

That’s what I-

Shais Taub:

… mitzvahs, half-

David Bashevkin:

… yeah, I thought you were describing him-

Shais Taub:

… so he says that-

David Bashevkin:

… or her.

Shais Taub:

… or her. In the context of schar v’onesh.

David Bashevkin:

Reward and punishment.

Shais Taub:

Right, we do use the term, “tzaddik, rasha, beinoni,” you used the word colloquial earlier.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

He calls it a “shem hamushal,” a borrowed term.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

In the context of reward and punishment, sometimes we use tzaddik, rasha, beinoni in the terms of somebody who has more merits than demerits.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Right? And that’s called a tzaddik, but that doesn’t really mean that’s a tzaddik. That’s like we say, “Somebody was acquitted in a court of law, he’s innocent.” He’s not innocent. He just-

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

… right. Like I said, the tzaddik is the person with perfect insides and perfect outsides. The rasha is the guy with conflicted insides, and therefore a mixture of outsides. He does mitzvahs. He does aveiros. What proportion? It’s a very broad-

David Bashevkin:

Spectrum.

Shais Taub:

… spectrum. I mean, there are reshaim who do 99.9% mitzvahs.

They’re good guys.

David Bashevkin:

But they’re conflicted.

Shais Taub:

But they’re conflicted. How conflicted?-

David Bashevkin:

They’re missing out.

Shais Taub:

… right. Like Churchill said, “Now we’re haggling on a price.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Okay, how conflicted? I don’t know, conflicted. Meaning not consistent, not 100%.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

How often does the pilot crash the plane? I don’t know, even once.

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

Now who’s the beinoni? The beinoni is in between those two in as much as, he has the insides of a rasha, with the outsides of a tzaddik. If you would watch him, you would swear he’s a tzaddik, because what you can see, I mean his behaviors, objectively, he looks a 100% holy. And not because he knows how to do his aveiros in private, no. Even if you ask his CIA agent who’s spying on him, or what’s the-

David Bashevkin:

NSA?

Shais Taub:

… NSA. Yeah, They’re the ones who’s spying on us?

David Bashevkin:

You better believe it. What do you think this mic is plugging into?

Shais Taub:

So if you ask the NSA, “Is this guy always doing the right thing?” Always does the right thing, but there’s a lot of conflict inside. He doesn’t automatically do it, he doesn’t always want to do the right thing. He has to overcome an internal struggle. That’s the beinoni.

David Bashevkin:

I’ve written books, you’ve written books. I fell in love with your book, and I know that’s not what we’re talking about.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I fell in love with the title, “A God of your Understanding”

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

It articulates so clearly what I think people are searching for. I want a God of my understanding, not the God that my rabbi gave me in third grade, not the God that my parents forced me to do in 10th grade. Not the God that felt totally absent in college, it works.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

But I’m curious. Why do you think this seminal work at the center of Chabad is called after a demographic, and a demographic that’s related in the context of teshuvah, I don’t want to give suggestions to the Alter Rebbe, but why not call it Chabad, or why not call it, “Introduction to Chabad”?

Shais Taub:

Well, that’s a great question because the “Tanya” is not an introduction to Chabad, it’s not at all. If you want an introduction to Chabad chassidus, I would recommend the Alter Rebbe has other discourses that are in “Torah Or” and “Likutei Torah.”

David Bashevkin:

And the Rebbe has a literal introduction.

Shais Taub:

You’re talking about “Kuntres Inyana Shel Toras HaChassidus“?

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Yeah. There are many works that I would start someone-

David Bashevkin:

But its not instruction-

Shais Taub:

… it’s not a primary on Chabad chassidus, not at all.

David Bashevkin:

… but why give it that name? What’s at the heart of what he’s trying to-

Shais Taub:

He says very clearly in the intro what the point of the book is, it serves a very specific purpose.

David Bashevkin:

And what is that?

Shais Taub:

Very simple, he says that people would come to him for personal audiences and they would ask guidance. I mean, some people would come and they ask for blessings, but there are people who came to him as a spiritual mentor. They would ask for guidance, how to do what they got to do. Like, “I know what I’m supposed to be doing. I know what my service of Hashem is supposed to look like, and I’m not hitting the mark.”

And they would come to him and ask for guidance. So he said, “It’s not possible any longer to give that kind of face time to everybody. So I’m going to write a book and the book will simulate that mentor experience.” So the book has a very specific purpose, it’s not an encyclopedia of Chabad thought. It’s not an introduction to Chabad thought, it is a manual for personal development, specifically aimed at a demographic. Because what’s every publisher going to ask you, who’s your audience? If you had to write a book proposal for “Tanya-“

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

… who’s your audience?

David Bashevkin:

And his audience were people who he could no longer be there on an individual level to cultivate that.

Shais Taub:

And more specifically-

David Bashevkin:

A future generation.

Shais Taub:

… as you were saying, the conflicted people. I’m writing to a guy who’s conflicted, and wants to figure out how to manage that conflict. And he’s never going to resolve the conflict. He’s going to manage it. He’ll never resolve it, he’ll never get like the tzaddik perfect insides, and perfect outsides. He’s never going to come to the level where he’ll never be tempted again, where he’ll never have the impulse to do something sinful. He will have that impulse, and here’s the method that I have for him to be as productive as he can be.

David Bashevkin:

So here’s my question, and this is getting a great deal more practical, though not yet personal. Somebody comes to you, and their life is in disarray, their religious life, their emotional life, and you said people reach out to you a lot. You want to be known as a helper. And a lot of times, as we approach the high holidays, the yamim noraim, they’re looking for a step by step guide, where do I start? And everything gets diffused. We began with depression, addiction. It just gets diffused in this big slop. Teshuvah is another thing.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

“I’m going to do teshuvah, I want to do something.” So if you’re from certain communities, you’re more careful about kosher. If you’re in other communities, you’re more careful about your lashon hara, about your negative speech. If you’re in other communities, you’re going to start learning a bit more and more intensely.

Where do you think the teshuvah process should start? Somebody comes to you, they say, “My life’s a mess.” Where are you conflicted? “I’m conflicted everywhere, everywhere I’m conflicted. You don’t think I’ve ever… Shabbos? I’ve had desires to not keep Shabbos, I’ve desired for sexual immorality. Everything’s a mess. I’m not learning enough. Where do I start?” And the problem is that I feel like people have, and this is me. It’s easy to become cynical about the teshuvahprocess itself. I’ve seen this movie before, I know this movie. I know the inspiration, the call for “uru yeshenim,” wake up, now’s the time.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And I know what happens. Maybe in your younger years, you lasted. I used to wait after maariv, that final prayer of Yom Kippur, and try to notice the first aveira I did. What was the first one that dirties in your mind, that clean slate? And now these days, I don’t know. I feel like by the time I come home after shul, it’s already messy. You fall back into this vat of experience, the moment of purity, which I do still feel, it flashes by in a second. So where do you tell people to start in this process?

Shais Taub:

First I would ask him, other than the fact that you heard that teshuvah‘s a thing, why do you specifically feel that you need to do it?

David Bashevkin:

It’s what everybody’s talking about, it’s the rage. Everybody’s talking about it. I go into shul, the rabbi tells me to do teshuvah and I’m seeing it on the posters, on the conferences, and all the places. And I want to take a shot at it.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, #teshuvah.

David Bashevkin:

#Teshuvah on social media. They’re sharing one-minute videos, two-minute videos.

Shais Taub:

I would start with a guy like that, and be like, “Can we even define what this thing is?”

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Maybe you won’t even want it after you find out what it is.

David Bashevkin:

How would you define it for this person?

Shais Taub:

So, it’s interesting. In the Zohar, the Zohar is the main kabbalistic text. It says the word teshuvah is a phrase, “tashuv hey,” “Return the hey.” Hey‘s a letter.

David Bashevkin:

In the Hebrew alphabet.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, the Hebrew alphabet. Like what hey? You want to use a really nice Soncino type word. Since you said the-

David Bashevkin:

Antediluvian?

Shais Taub:

Antediluvian before.

David Bashevkin:

And colloquially?

Shais Taub:

And colloquially.

David Bashevkin:

I have a running list of all the fancy words that I’ve used.

Shais Taub:

So the Tetragrammaton.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Or ineffable name?

David Bashevkin:

The ineffable, Okay.

Shais Taub:

So the four letter name of hey, which is spelled with a yud, and the hey, and the vav and the hey. So you notice that hey is twice there, and we won’t get into a whole lengthy discussion, because you told me not to be didactic. You didn’t use that word, but-

David Bashevkin:

Pedantic.

Shais Taub:

… pedantic, okay. Didactics okay-

David Bashevkin:

I literally told you not to-

Shais Taub:

… but pedantic is-

David Bashevkin:

… yeah.

Shais Taub:

… over the line.

David Bashevkin:

Yes.

Shais Taub:

Okay, that’s where we draw the line.

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

So there’s a higher hey and a lower hey, because you have to imagine the name vertically-

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

Integrated. It’s actually a map of the worlds. But anyways, there’s a higher hey and a lower hey. Now that image, which is essentially an image of God, is repeated in the human being, we’re in the image of God. So the person also is sort of made of a yud-key-vav-key that’s how we pronounce it. We don’t say the hey, just like we avoid saying the name of God. So we avoid even saying the letters that make up the name of God. So in the person, yud is chochma. How would you translate that? That’s faith, transcendence, precognitive functioning. Then the hey, the higher hey is binah, binah is cognition. Elaborative thought, associations.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Creativity, but it’s intellectual. Then the vav is emotional, and there’s a lot of explanation I’m just skipping, because it’s not the point.

And then the lower hey is malchus, which is action, behavior. So “tashuv hey, hey ila teshuvah ila, hey tata, teshuvah tata,” it’s an Aramaic phrase from the Zohar which basically means teshuvah, return literally means, “Return the hey.” Which hey? Well depends, return the higher hey, you’re doing the higher teshuvah. Return the lower hey, you’re doing the lower teshuvah.

David Bashevkin:

There are two kinds of teshuvah.

Shais Taub:

Two levels. So what the higher hey, we said was cognition. The lower hey, we said was behavior. Those are two levels of teshuvah. Return means realign, get back in alignment with God, so two levels. Do you want to align your behaviors with God’s will? That’s one level. Or do you want to align your thinking with God’s will? That’s a much higher level.

David Bashevkin:

Its interesting, because when I think about aligning my thinking with God, sometimes it’s almost easier. The consistency of action is where I struggle.

Shais Taub:

But if our thinking were truly aligned with God, then the behaviors flow automatically. Cause I’m not talking about thinking in the conceptual sense. I’m talking about in terms of a worldview, meaning if your cognitive filter for processing everything, were completely holy, you could only come to holy behavior. That would be the only conclusion that you could come to. So essentially the question is, “Do you want to change what you’re doing, or do you want to change your worldview?”

David Bashevkin:

You could push me back, but I’m going to call you out and then I’m going to ask a new question. A, I don’t want to veer too much into the world of shiurim, and I’m worried that to unpack this-

Shais Taub:

It’s going to be called a whole long shiur

David Bashevkin:

No, I need-

Shais Taub:

… we don’t want that.

David Bashevkin:

Exactly, to unpack this I need to get personal. So I want to ask the following question. What was the time in your life where you, Rabbi Shais Taub did teshuvah. What does that recall in your mind? What does that process look like for you? I’m curious, I don’t know how you were raised. We know very little about each other-

Shais Taub:

Yeah, but that’s not teshuvah. That is a misnomer.

David Bashevkin:

What’s not teshuvah?

Shais Taub:

Term that we colloquially, that’s our favorite word of the day, referred to as a baal teshuvah is not teshuvah at all. So I was raised in a family where my parents got close to Chabad, and then we became closer to Chabad, and then we started taking on more things. I don’t call that teshuvah, something that I didn’t do, because that wasn’t the standard that we kept yet and then we kept a higher standard. That’s not teshuvah.

David Bashevkin:

What is that?

Shais Taub:

I don’t know, that’s just finding something out. It’s not teshuvah.

David Bashevkin:

Your parents were colloquially what would be described as baalei teshuvah.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

And where did you grow up?

Shais Taub:

Chicago.

David Bashevkin:

Chicago.

Shais Taub:

My parents are in Rogers Park, yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I still hear it in your voice now.

Shais Taub:

Because I say Chicago properly.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, properly. Like a mensch. But I like that, it’s finding something you don’t have to live with, just like stamp with this. I am a baal teshuvah. You found something out, you adopted, you.-

Shais Taub:

That’s not teshuvah

David Bashevkin:

… so what is, and what is it for you? I don’t-

Shais Taub:

Teshuvah

David Bashevkin:

… I don’t want another shiur–

Shais Taub:

… is, you-

David Bashevkin:

… if you start without mentioning the Tetragrammaton.

Shais Taub:

Teshuvah is when you had something already, and you lost it, and you had to get it back again. Teshuvah is not a guy who grew up with one standard of Yiddishkeit, and then he did the system update, and he got the new-.

David Bashevkin:

Flipped out. He got really shtark in Israel.

Shais Taub:

… or it doesn’t matter how radical the leap is-

David Bashevkin:

The Yeshiva-

Shais Taub:

… the point is whether he got a lot more, or a little more, that’s just doing more than what you did before. Teshuvah is when you had it, you lost it, and you had to get it back again.

David Bashevkin:

I actually find that deeply moving. I’m curious why you were saying that, number one. And I’m curious what that means for you, particularly. Why is that the expression of teshuvah in your mind? Because there were so many things in my life that I lost, and I had to get it back in my religious life.

Shais Taub:

You have to fight for it.

David Bashevkin:

I lost Shabbos for a period of my life, I lost Sukkot for a period of my life… I hang on for dear life, and there’s a point where things slipped out, real things. When I say I lost Sukkot, it’s like a strange thing, but that’s the first thing that came to mind where you lost something. I lost Sukkot. I could not observe Sukkot for years in my twenties, because I felt my whole life was temporary. I felt like my whole life was ephemeral.

Shais Taub:

Ah, so when they said, “B’sukkah tishvu,” life is fleeting.” No kidding, it’s fleeting.

David Bashevkin:

No kidding. You don’t think I-

Shais Taub:

It’s my whole day.

David Bashevkin:

… yeah, my whole day. Every Shabbos I’m reminded, every time I have to renew and find roommates I remember that.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And I lost it, I didn’t like it. I had a negative association with it, and when I first got married, I still didn’t like it. And I had to find it, and for me, Sukkot is all about teshuvah, for sure. It’s the culmination of the whole process, but it’s something I lost, and had to rebuild.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Why do you say that’s at the heart of teshuvah, and what does that look like in your life?

Shais Taub:

See, I’ll tell you the most precious thing in the world is sensitivity. It is inherent to lack of experience. When you’re innocent, you’re sensitive. Somebody who never crossed a red line, it’s scary. What will it be? Will I get struck by lightning, right? And that sensitivity of innocence will hold you back from getting too close to the red line, until it’s one usage, that’s it. You cross the red line, and that’s it. The sensitivity of innocence is gone forever, and you’ll never get it back. See, sensitivity of innocence is, “I dare not cross that line. I do not know, there be dragons.” Right? “I don’t know, I’ll fall off the edge of the earth.”

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

Until you-

David Bashevkin:

Until you do.

Shais Taub:

Right, that’s peshat, I’m sorry that I’m going to be didactic, I hope not pedantic.

David Bashevkin:

I’ll give you a didactic break, sure.

Shais Taub:

Okay, “avar v’shana, na’ase lo k’heiter,” a person does the aveira, and then he does it twice, becomes as if it were permissible. What does it mean? What does that mean? And it’s a passage from the Talmud. What’s it describing?

David Bashevkin:

Is now a good time to tell you that I have an entire essay on that passage in my sefer, “B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor?” My awfully selling.

I call my book, “Synagogue-

Shais Taub:

I can’t believe that.

David Bashevkin:

… of Medium Selling”.

Shais Taub:

“B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor” to me should be as big as like-

David Bashevkin:

It should be a best seller.

Shais Taub:

… yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I asked myself-

Shais Taub:

It should be in every airport bookstore.

David Bashevkin:

It’s so strange to me that it’s not.

Shais Taub:

Crazy.

David Bashevkin:

And I go into airport bookstore sometimes, and I ask them-

Shais Taub:

And you look for “B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor.”

David Bashevkin:

… I ask the person behind the desk,-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… “Do you happen to have ‘B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor’?”

Shais Taub:

And they’re like, “Do you know of the new Stephen King.”

David Bashevkin:

And they don’t, not a one. But I happen to love this passage of Talmud, is that, “If you violate a sin multiple times, it now-“

Shais Taub:

No, don’t say multiple.-

David Bashevkin:

… correct.

Shais Taub:

…It only takes-

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

… the second time, it only hurts the first time.”

David Bashevkin:

It appears now that it is permissible.

Shais Taub:

Subjectively, and that’s the question the Gemara asks.

David Bashevkin:

That’s not actually permissible.

Shais Taub:

It doesn’t actually become permissible.

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

He goes, “No, no, no, I didn’t say it becomes permissible, it’ll feel permissible.”

David Bashevkin:

My piece in that essay, because I know you’re dying to know,-

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

… is about-

Shais Taub:

Well because I went to the airport bookstore, they were out of stock.

David Bashevkin:

Just missed it, just missed the next shipment. My entire piece is about what is known Talmudically as the hava amina and maskana in that Gemara. What changed that initially the Gemara says, “It is actually permissible”? And then-

Shais Taub:

Yeah, what’s even the hava amina?-

David Bashevkin:

Then the Talmud concludes-

Shais Taub:

… who thought it was antediluvian-

David Bashevkin:

Correct, that’s my piece, that one.

Shais Taub:

What is the hava amina?

David Bashevkin:

I’m not going to, this is your time, this is your time.

Shais Taub:

Okay, no problem.

David Bashevkin:

I’m sure all of our listeners are quickly googling. It’s free on Hebrew Books, but that’s that experience and I know what it means to…

Shais Taub:

And ba’alei mussar say if you’ll do it three times, it’ll feel like a mitzvah.

David Bashevkin:

Do they say that? That’s great.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

David Bashevkin:

That’s great. So I know what that is, and I have no doubt that everybody in their life had a line that they never wanted to cross, and then they did, and the first time it felt transgressive in the most real-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… material way. You felt like you destroyed something.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And then the line, I always think of it in my mind, you drew the line, literally drew it in the sand, but right next to the shoreline. So then the tide comes in and the line is still perceptible where you had it, but it’s like a little muddled from the ocean.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

Then a third, and then a fourth, and before you know it you’re like, “Where did I draw? Like I forgot where it was.”

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

So initially you were saying, there is a sensitivity of innocence-

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

… that until we transgress something, so long as we hold it dear, we preserve it, we nurture it.

Shais Taub:

And it’s very powerful.

David Bashevkin:

Deeply powerful.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

When you raise kids especially-

Shais Taub:

Yes!

David Bashevkin:

… you want them to have it-

Shais Taub:

You want to preserve-

David Bashevkin:

… forever.

Shais Taub:

… that bubble forever.

David Bashevkin:

Forever, and you know it’s not going to, but-

Shais Taub:

But as long as possible.

David Bashevkin:

… you want it to be as magical.

Shais Taub:

“What age should I buy them a smartphone?” As late as possible. If you can keep stalling, run out the clock.

David Bashevkin:

You want to preserve that world.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

So then you lose it, then you lose the sensitivity of innocence. And you can never get back the sensitivity-

Shais Taub:

You can never get it back. You can try, but there’s no way to regain the innocence, you can’t.

David Bashevkin:

… so now what?

Shais Taub:

Unless you erase the memory card, there’s no such thing.

David Bashevkin:

Because I think that’s a misconception that people have even later, where I think we grow up with this imagery of the teshuvah process being a blank slate. And I take issue with that because-

Shais Taub:

Then what would be the point to zero-sum game?

David Bashevkin:

Meaning?

Shais Taub:

Then why did you have to go through it? You believe in God, you believed that your journey was orchestrated. So that’s what it was all for, digging a hole and filling it back up again?

David Bashevkin:

And it was also, it was almost like gaslighting, “And teshuvah will give you a blank slate.” And then I’m looking at my slate, and I feel like I’m really trying to do something.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

There were years, and every year I’m focused on different things. There were years where I really put in the work and you’re like, “It doesn’t get blank.” You could still see the chalk on the bad boards that you had in yeshiva or seminary, the bad marker boards. You know somebody used permanent marker on that white board, and you know you could still see-

Shais Taub:

That’s right.

David Bashevkin:

… it doesn’t get blank. So you lose it, and you can’t get it back, now what?

Shais Taub:

The thing is, the innocence is not inherently valuable. The innocence is valuable, because it comes with sensitivity. The sensitivity is the real value, the sensitivity is what we want. Now, the sensitivity of innocence, you’re never going to get back because you’re not going to get back the innocence. But what you discover is that you can become sensitive again. You’re not going to regain the sensitivity of innocence, that’s gone, it’s a different sensitivity, and it’s actually a greater sensitivity.

David Bashevkin:

Where does it derive from?

Shais Taub:

It’s the sensitivity of experience.

David Bashevkin:

Meaning?

Shais Taub:

So you’ve lost the sensitivity of innocence, never to be regained.

David Bashevkin:

Where it was just the great beyond, what happens if I violated Shabbos? What happens if I let go-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… of this practice, of this observance?

Shais Taub:

See, the difference is sensitivity of innocence is, “I dare not cross the line, because I know not what lies over there.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

And the sensitivity of experience is, “I dare not cross the line, because I know exactly what’s over there, and I’m never going back.”

David Bashevkin:

I love that so much. I want to tell you what comes to mind for me, especially in these dense towns that a lot of Orthodox Jews live in now, Teaneck, the Five Towns. There’s a very healthy and I’m not knocking it, it’s something very beautiful, communal practice, particularly of halacha, is very beautiful. There’s a pressure that people feel like you got to up the standards, and really toe the line and really do it, otherwise I’m not going to get my kid in the right school. I’m not going to be seen in the right way. And to me, and I don’t know if it’s a perfect analogy, but I want to contrast it to something. It’s a little bit of the sensitivity of innocence that, “You got to do as much as you can because otherwise who knows? We’ll all just fall apart as a community.”

And I’ve always contrasted that with my father’s relationship to halacha. My father is a stringent machmir in a way that is so… and I love him and I admire him, but my whole relationship to halacha is an absolute reaction to his intensity. But he has an intensity. It looks the same as a young yeshiva student, it looks the same, but it’s not, because it’s the sensitivity of experience. Because he knows what happens, and he knows what it looks like if you start slipping. Because he grew up in a town where it was almost all lost, where almost all Yiddishkeit was almost entirely lost.

Shais Taub:

So it’s like you go to the subway, you see a guy waiting for the train. He’s standing with his back to the wall, and you say to him, “You could go all the way up to the yellow line.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

And he says, “Ah, I’ve seen guys get hit.”

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

“I’m not going up to the yellow line.”

David Bashevkin:

My father, he’s seen what happens if your grasp starts to loosen. So he holds on really tight. Dare I say it, sometimes in childhood, it felt like too tight you know? “Dad, like relax. We’re in Lawrence, New York. Don’t worry, we’re okay.” He’s holding on very tight-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… and that is a sensitivity of experience, because he’s seen what happened. He’s seen what happened in his own life, in his own family.

Shais Taub:

You know Reb Yoelish, the Satmar Rav, the “Divrei Yoel.”

David Bashevkin:

Okay, didn’t see him make an appearance in this conversation, I love it.

Shais Taub:

I love Satmar. I said that unironically, I love Satmar. We could to talk about it another time.

David Bashevkin:

Okay, could you say in a sentence, why?

Shais Taub:

Because I’ve just had excellent experiences, wonderful experiences with Satmar people who are just very earnest, and eager to learn, and when I wrote that column, my biggest fans, I don’t know if that’s the term-

David Bashevkin:

Get out of here.

Shais Taub:

Were Satmar 100%, people would come to me, and stop me in the street, and say to me like, “Oh, I want to tell you something that you said, and they would quote it back to me.”

David Bashevkin:

Huh.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I love that.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, but why did I bring up Satmar –

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, get back to the story of Reb Yoelish.

Shais Taub:

I was going to say to you… but the Satmar Rav was once consulted about a business thing, and people would ask him for advice. And basically there were two guys, one guy who had money, and one guy who had experience. So they made a partnership. One guy has money, one guy has experience. So they get together, they made a business partnership. So by the end of the partnership, the one who used to have the money, got some experience, and the guy with the experience got the money.

David Bashevkin:

Gotcha.

Shais Taub:

That’s deep, “ein chacham k’baal nisayon,” school of hard knocks baby. You want some experience? Costs. Experience costs money, it’s a price of admission.

David Bashevkin:

I want to come back to this idea, because I really find it that profound, when the sensitivity of innocence is lost.

Shais Taub:

And can never be regained.

David Bashevkin:

Can only be restored through the sensitivity of experience.

Shais Taub:

Which is a higher level of sensitivity.

David Bashevkin:

Broadly speaking, where do you couch this idea? And where do you find the larger idea that teshuvah by definition-

Shais Taub:

Go back to the Alter Rebbe. Go back to “Tanya.”

David Bashevkin:

… it’s something that has to be lost, and restored.

Shais Taub:

Go back to “Tanya.” You started with “Tanya,” let’s go back to “Tanya.”

David Bashevkin:

Let’s go back.

Shais Taub:

So yeah, so he says over there, “Let’s bring another passage from Talmud.” “Zedonos na’ase k’zchyos.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Not just sins. Zedonos means, “wanton sins.”

David Bashevkin:

The deliberate-

Shais Taub:

The deliberate sins, “I did it, and I knew it was wrong, and I don’t care.”

David Bashevkin:

The Talmud in Yoma, which says that the process of teshuvah allows your deliberate sins to be transformed.

Shais Taub:

Right, so not that they’re wiped clean-

David Bashevkin:

Into merits.

Shais Taub:

… like you said, “Oh the slate was-

David Bashevkin:

The blank slate-

Shais Taub:

… wiped clean.” No, “naaseh lo k’zochyos,” they’re there-

David Bashevkin:

… yeah.

Shais Taub:

… they’re now in the form of merits. So the Alter Rebbe explains those mechanics very, very clearly. He explains it actually psychologically with the metaphor of somebody who’s in parched desert, and he thirsts for water. So he’s had water before, but he never appreciates water like he did until he was in the desert. So the person who experiences the estrangement, yearns for that which he had taken for granted.

David Bashevkin:

I love that, say that one more time. “The person-

Shais Taub:

Who experiences estrangement, obviously from God, then yearns for that which he had taken for granted.

David Bashevkin:

… and that’s what you’re saying, taken for granted.

Shais Taub:

Because I had it.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, the sensitivity of innocence.

Shais Taub:

And, that I didn’t value it because of my innocence. I preserved it because of my innocence, but I also lost it easily, because of my innocence.

David Bashevkin:

And the mistake that I find people make is that they lose the sensitivity of innocence, and they want to restore it, and they want back-

Shais Taub:

Fool’s errand.

David Bashevkin:

… sensitive innocence again.

Shais Taub:

It’ll never happen.

David Bashevkin:

They want to go back to those times, that’s the mistake-

Shais Taub:

That’s the self-cruelty.

David Bashevkin:

… why do you call that self-cruelty?

Shais Taub:

Because it’s an impossible task.

David Bashevkin:

It has to be restored through experience.

Shais Taub:

Only. And in fact, I’ll go further to say, the only reason why God allowed you to experience that estrangement.

David Bashevkin:

To transform it.

Shais Taub:

Only to transform it into an asset.

David Bashevkin:

So I’m so curious, and I’m not trying to pry into your personal life.

Shais Taub:

You want to know my favorite aveira?

David Bashevkin:

It happens to be, that’s a famous story. I was one time set up on a date. My dating history really spanned my own spiritual transformation, but early years of dating, I was in Ner Yisrael, was wearing the black hat, and the suit and really doing it for it.

Shais Taub:

Wow.

David Bashevkin:

It was serious. And I went out with a girl who just got back from seminary, and she was fired up.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

She was all the way fired and she was talking about her mitzvahs and the chesed and all the things you’re doing and I was like, “Stop.” And I was just like, “I know about your favorite mitzvahs, but what are your favorite aveiras?”

Shais Taub:

No.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah, we didn’t go out again.

Shais Taub:

All right, that’s what I was going to ask as the next question.

David Bashevkin:

And you know what? It was the right move. It was the right move-

Shais Taub:

On her part.

David Bashevkin:

… on her part, yeah. Oh, I didn’t falter for a second. I almost like didn’t even call the matchmaker, the shadchan, and I just like figured, “You know what? You don’t even have to let me know about this one.” But I’m curious for you, where’s this process? I lost Sukkot, I think to a degree, the way I’ve centered Shabbos in my life. The experience of Shabbos, is because Shabbos is something that I dreaded. I had to do teshuvah because I lost these experiences. And there’s this transformation that, again, this is your language, and I find it so evocative, and so moving of losing the sensitivity of innocence. And figuring out and finding the sensitivity of experience, and that can take years. That’s not a one Yom Kippur in and out.

Shais Taub:

It usually doesn’t happen on Yom Kippur.

David Bashevkin:

Why do you say, “It doesn’t usually happen on Yom Kippur”?

Shais Taub:

I don’t know, because if you were writing a movie, it would have to happen on Yom Kippur.

David Bashevkin:

But in real life.

Shais Taub:

It happens on a random Wednesday afternoon in November or something.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

But I’m curious where that takes you? You spend so much time speaking, and you said yourself, speakers have the hardest time because they’re always looking for… where does this notion, I love what you said, “Estrangement from what you once had, and now yearning for it to be restored.”

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

What does that mean in your life?

Shais Taub:

First of all, you talk about the speaker. There are speeches that I’ve given hundreds of times. Now I never give it the same way every time, because-

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

… I don’t have a script and I rarely even have notes because, can I say something cynical?

David Bashevkin:

Please.

Shais Taub:

Although I get paid to speak, I actually have to say things that I believe. I think Mark Twain said, “If you never lie, you never have to remember anything.” I only say things that I actually believe.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

It doesn’t mean I’m living up to them, but I believe.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

So every time I speak, even if I’ve given that particular talk hundreds of times, I’m listening to myself, I’m listening. I’m in the audience listening and saying, “I need to hear this.” Apparently I need to hear this, because I don’t believe that God made me stand up in front of these people right now and speak because I needed to collect an honorarium. I don’t believe that’s why I’m there, and I don’t even believe I’m there only so that they should hear my message, because otherwise somebody else could have come and given that message.

David Bashevkin:

So when you speak and I’ll be honest, I hope one day that my honorarium reaches the pinky toe of your honorariums. That’s a bracha, you could answer amen to that-

Shais Taub:

Amen, amen.

David Bashevkin:

… but I appreciate that. I also speak a little bit, and I think anytime that I get emotional, it’s not to work the crowd,-

Shais Taub:

No.

David Bashevkin:

… it’s because I’m sharing something very real,-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… and it bubbles up. I’m curious for you, when you speak, where does is take you? I’m trying to understand you. I’m trying to get down even lower than the lowest hey, and understand you as a person. Like, “Okay, you’re a rabbi. You speak a lot about teshuvah. You’re not just the addiction rabbi, you’re not just the advice column rabbi.” So where are you in this?

Shais Taub:

Somebody sent to me a clip, there’s a shlucha, Chabad emissary from Chernihiv.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Regular American girl. This is the Lubavitcher rebbe’s mandate. You vote with your feet, you don’t just preach ahavas yisrael. You don’t just say, “I love every Jew.” You go to the ends of the earth for a Jew. So regular American girl, on shlichus, Chabad emissary in Chernihiv, Ukraine, okay?

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

The town got bombed out. She’s a war refugee, she had to pack a suitcase. Her and her kids get on a train, get out of Ukraine. After she got to safety, she’s a refugee still, like a literal refugee. And she got interviewed on Chabad.org, and somebody sent this to me, or otherwise I don’t think I would’ve seen it.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

They asked her, “Are you okay?” And she’s like, “I’m okay.” Like, “How are you okay?” She says, “Well, because I get through this with emunah and bitachon, with my faith in God, and my trust in God.” Then she says, this sounds very self-promotional to say this. She says, “The truth is before this whole war broke out, I was going through a difficult pregnancy, and I needed a lot of chizuk. I needed a lot of spiritual encouragement and inspiration.” And she said, “I got very into this talk by Shais Taub.” And she did it actually so good, she said, “On soulwords.org.”

David Bashevkin:

She plugged you.

Shais Taub:

She plugged perfectly.

David Bashevkin:

She got the plug beautiful. No, if somebody plugged my book in an interview, somebody else unprompted. No, I would get choked up, I would.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, so she says, “There’s a talk on soulwords.org called ‘How to be Here’ by Rabbi Shais Taub. And I watched that talk over and over again to get through this difficult period in my pregnancy and by the time the war broke out, nothing could disturb me.”

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

So I’m like, “Holy cow, this woman is a refugee, her and her children. And she’s saying, “I’m okay, I’m good.” Now what’s this talk, “How to be Here”? It’s a talk about how to show up for life, how to be present even when things are crazy, that’s what faith in God is. It’s not about some theoretical concept, it’s about actually showing up for your life with some modicum of composure, even when stuff is crazy. So she was inspired by this talk, and I was like, “Wow, this person listened to something I said, and used it to get through being a war refugee.” I didn’t do that. I don’t think I ever could do that but on my level, which is, you know what they call first world problems?

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

So on my level first world problems.

David Bashevkin:

A, I don’t believe you. I do not believe you for one second-

Shais Taub:

That?

David Bashevkin:

… that the only thing you have is first world problems. I just want you to say-

Shais Taub:

Never a war refugee.

David Bashevkin:

You were never a war refugee, but I don’t believe that for a moment. First world problems is like, you got your Starbucks order wrong. I think that there’s something more real given the subject matter that you write about, given how your words are able to resonate with people who are going through real things. I don’t believe it for a second. Now I’m not asking you to disclose what those most real issues are, but I am going to push you one more time. And I do want to know when you think of teshuvah practically in your own life, kind of animate some of the way that these ideas-

Shais Taub:

And I’ve given this talk a hundred times.

David Bashevkin:

… okay.

Shais Taub:

About using faith to not be a mess.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Obviously, why did I come up with such a talk? Cause I thought it would be hot? That’s like you, you wrote “B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor” just to be a best seller.

David Bashevkin:

Big time.

Shais Taub:

But I did this, because these are the tools that I use to manage life. Showing up for life and not being reactive takes… see, I’m not a spiritual person. People don’t realize it, they think I’m a spiritual person because of what I talk about. I’m not a spiritual person, I am required by necessity to take spirituality very seriously.

David Bashevkin:

Necessity of your job?

Shais Taub:

No, no, to function.

David Bashevkin:

Was there ever a period where you would describe yourself as not showing up?

Shais Taub:

I have the temptation to not show up almost constantly.

David Bashevkin:

Tell me, I want to phrase it more specific and I’m not going to push you any further on this, but an example of something that you lost, that you became estranged from, and then had to rediscover in your own life.

Shais Taub:

Well the most basics, just the essential belief, practical belief in God. I don’t mean dogmatic belief like if someone stops you on the street, and gives you a theological quiz, would you have to lie in order to get the answers right. I don’t mean that, I mean practical faith. Like, do you live your life in any way that is consistent with what you purport to believe?

I mean emotionally. If you believe in what you say you believe, then why are you so afraid? Why are you so uncomfortable? Why are you so angry? Why are you so frustrated? So, that’s something that I had on a level sensitivity of innocence. This was taught to me. I was taught to believe in a certain God concept, which I’m grateful that the God concept that was taught to me, this may sound chauvinistic, but the way that the God concept is explained in Chabad chassidus, which is a branch of toras haBaal Shem Tov, which is very heavy on hashgacha pratis, everything’s divine providence. And so that’s what was taught to me, and that’s what I believed, because that’s what was taught. And I accepted that b’temimus.

David Bashevkin:

And when did you lose it?

Shais Taub:

Well, there’re different incidents of losing it, or feeling myself sort of loosening my grip.

David Bashevkin:

Okay, what was the time that grip loosened?

Shais Taub:

I’ll tell you a story that is going to sound silly, but it’s a moving story to me.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

I don’t expect you to be moved by it.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

I’m okay with you being amused by it.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

But just so you know-

David Bashevkin:

Moved or amused are two great options.

Shais Taub:

… either way, right? Well you know what would be really devastating? You’ll just hear it and be like, “Yeah, okay.” When I was a bochur in 770, I had a car, which was very uncommon. Most people didn’t have cars. I had a car, it was actually a blue Dodge caravan, and the way that I justified having it, because it was such a headache to have it in Brooklyn, was that on Wednesdays we would go on release time. That’s this thing that you go to public schools, there’s something called the, “Religious hour, release time.” Religious hour, it’s a Supreme Court case from the thirties where the public schools have to let the kids out for religious instruction.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

So on Wednesdays, as a 770 bochur–

David Bashevkin:

You would go-`

Shais Taub:

I would go. Yeah, anyways, erev Rosh Hashanah, mid-nineties, I park my car on the Eastern Parkway service lane, and I’m aware of the fact that in Brooklyn, alternate side street parking-

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

… because of street sweepers, you have to move your car-

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

… every other day, in Brooklyn. Not in Teaneck, but in Brooklyn.

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

That’s suspended on Jewish holidays-

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

… because there’s a lot of Jews in Brooklyn. The whole five boroughs, it’s suspended.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

So I parked on the wrong side, but I was like, “I’m okay, because alternate side parking is suspended on Jewish holidays so I’m fine.” That was like erev Rosh Hashanah. I davened that night.

Next morning I daven, I finished davening, I don’t remember what time we finished. 2:30, whatever time it finishes. And I come out, and I happened to walk past the place where my car was parked, and I wasn’t looking for my car, but I noticed that it was gone. My car is gone. It’s the first morning of Rosh Hashanah. Now, I’m thinking to myself, “What happened to my car?” It could have been towed, but that’s very improbable cause alternate-

David Bashevkin:

It’s suspended.

Shais Taub:

… side parking is suspended.

So it’s Brooklyn, maybe it was stolen. That’s much more plausible, although I don’t know, maybe it was beamed up by a UFO.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

I don’t know.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

I don’t know, and that’s the way my mind works by the way. It’s like, there’s so many possibilities. Now I thought to myself, “Is there anything I can do right now?” Like, “Should I go walk to the police department, and then tell them I can’t make a report could you write it for me? Can I even tell them to write it?”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

And I said to myself, “It’s Rosh Hashanah, I’m not doing this.” So I shut the idea out of my mind. The second Rosh Hashanah is finished, meaning another whole day later, I daven maariv and I ran to my dorm room, and I get on the phone, and I call the police. And I’m like, “My car is gone.” And I was pretty good, the 48 hours of Rosh Hashanah, where I discovered it, is 12 hours into, so 36 hours.

I didn’t think about it. I was able to push it out of my mind, but now I’m in panic mode. And when I say, “Panic mode”, I mean adrenaline rush and fight or flight, it’s not pleasant.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

And I’m calling the police, “My car is not there, I can’t find my car. Do you know where my car is?” So they keep me on hold for a while, they get back on and they’re like, “Yeah, it was towed.” “Ah, okay.” So now at least-

David Bashevkin:

Now, you know.

Shais Taub:

… I know it was towed. Now I know, okay. So I’m like, “Where?” They said, “The Brooklyn Naval Yard.” I’m like, “You’re not supposed to tow it, alternate street parking is suspended.” They said, “Well, I don’t know, don’t talk to us, we don’t know.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

So who do I call? And this is the long before the Internet, it’s not easy to-

David Bashevkin:

No, it was a nightmare.

Shais Taub:

No, it’s a nightmare. And you are using these big fat phone-

David Bashevkin:

My car was-

Shais Taub:

… books.

David Bashevkin:

… towed once, it’s an absolute nightmare.

Shais Taub:

Okay, so then I’m looking up numbers-

David Bashevkin:

My car was also stolen, I mean-

Shais Taub:

… and stolen. Towed, stolen, okay.

David Bashevkin:

… yeah.

Shais Taub:

And beamed up by a UFO?

David Bashevkin:

No.

Shais Taub:

No, not yet, as far as you know.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Okay, so I call up Brooklyn Naval Yard-

David Bashevkin:

It’s already after Rosh Hashanah now? Yeah.

Shais Taub:

That’s what I said-

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

… I waited until after-

David Bashevkin:

Good for you.

Shais Taub:

… Yom Tov was over and I davened maariv too.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

I was very frum, I made havdalah probably even.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

And then ran to the phone, okay, and I called them up and it’s like two minutes before seven. I remember it’s two minutes before they close. And I’m like, “Do you have my car?” And I told them the license plate, and they’re like, “Yes.” I’m like, “Great, can I come get it?”

And they’re like, “Well, we’re closing in two minutes.” And I’m like, “Oh no.” And they’re like, “So if you want your car, you have to bring your registration, and you have to bring payment for $150 towing fee, and $75 a day storage fee. So it’s here two days already. It’s 150 plus 75 plus 75 is $300.” And I’m like, “Okay and that’s if I come right now?” They’re like, “Yeah, well we’re closing in two minutes. So you’re going to come here tomorrow, so it’s going to be more because you’re going to get charged for the next-

David Bashevkin:

Gotcha.

Shais Taub:

… day. It’s going to be-

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

… $375.” I said, do you understand that today was Rosh Hashanah, it was the-

David Bashevkin:

Jewish holiday.

Shais Taub:

… He says to me, “Yes, Jewish new year.” I’m like, “Yeah, That’s right! That’s the Jewish new year, that’s right, yeah.” So I said, “You understand that I couldn’t come down there for two days?”

He’s like, “I know, it’s a Jewish new year.” I’m like, “Yeah, I told you that.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Right? So he’s like, “It doesn’t matter, the lot’s open on the Jewish new year, so you get charged for those days.” I said, “Well, what would happen if my car got towed on December 31st, and I picked it up on January 2nd? How many days would I pay for?” Because now I’m getting Talmudic. And he’s like, “Oh, well then you would only pay for one day, because you wouldn’t get charged for January 1st, because it’s the new year.”

I said, “Ah-ha! That’s exactly what this is.” He said, “I know, it’s a Jewish new year.” I’m like, “So I shouldn’t get charged.” He’s like, “You’re getting charged, the lot was open.-

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

… you’re getting charged.” And he’s like, “Oh, then we’re closed now”, and he hangs up. So the next day, please remember that the day after Rosh Hashanah is Tzom Gedaliah.

David Bashevkin:

It’s a fast day.

Shais Taub:

It’s a fast day, can’t even have my cup of coffee, and like a good bochur, I found someone who had a car. And I said, “The lot opens at 7:00 AM. Get me down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard by 7:00 AM, so I’ll get my car, and I’ll get back, and I’ll be in time for chassidus. Chassidus in the Chabad yeshivas was before the first seder–

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

Even before davening, you learn chassidus.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

So I had this whole harebrained scheme, I’m going to go down to Brooklyn Naval Yard, and it’s not going to be a nightmare of a bureaucracy, I’m just going to go.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Okay, I get there at 7:00 AM and I had to wake up at 6:00 AM, no coffee, because it’s a fast day. And he drops me off there, and he drives off, and I walk into the office of Brooklyn Naval Yard. I’m like the hundredth guy in line, everyone in front of me are all religious Jews, 100 religious Jews-

David Bashevkin:

Around the block.

Shais Taub:

… around the block-

David Bashevkin:

All from the Jewish new year.

Shais Taub:

… all from the Jewish new year. And what are they all grumbling? “I thought alternate side parking was suspended on Rosh Hashanah!” Okay, now the truth is, it is, but what are you going to do? Now they already give you $150 ticket, $75 a day storage fee. So it’s a good business, right?

David Bashevkin:

It’s a great business.

Shais Taub:

Great business. Who’s going to fight it, right? Who’s going to fight it. So I waited in line, now I realize I’m not getting back to Yeshiva in time for chassidus. After a while I realize I’m not getting back in time for shacharis. After a few hours, I finally get up to the front, and they’re like, “Where’s your registration?” “My registration, it’s in the car. I don’t carry it around with me, it’s in the car.”

So they started fighting with me about it. So then they started looking it up, but the problem was, the car was from Illinois, I told them I’m from Chicago. So they started looking it up and they’re like, “This car is not registered to you, I’m sorry. We’re confiscating this vehicle.” Like, “What?”

“According to the state of Illinois, your car is no longer registered, and the state of New York is confiscating it. That’s it.” So now my car’s confiscated and look, this is why I’m calling it first world problems, getting a car confiscated. Okay, it’s not fun. It’s still a first world problem, in my opinion.

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

But-

David Bashevkin:

That’s fair.

Shais Taub:

… it’s pretty panic-inducing, at least to me. I don’t take stuff like that easily, I don’t take that in stride. And I’m losing it, I’m just really losing it. It’s so stressful, it’s a fast day, and I had to go through 48 hours.

I was a good boy of not knowing where my car is, and just not thinking about it, and then this frustration of all, “The lot’s closed in two minutes, and you’re going to get charged for every day.” And I’m like panicked, and I’m like, “The registration has not expired! No, it’s my car.” Then we didn’t even have cell phones then, so I had to get out of line, and get on a pay phone, and call my parents in Chicago, have them call the Illinois DMV in Springfield. I’m making this story short, by the way. It’s much more agonizing than the way I’m telling it.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

Finally, the lady there she’s like, “It’s fine.” I’m like, “What?” She’s like, “Oh, it’s just an error, I put in the number wrong.” She’s like, “Yeah, it’s fine.” So then they get a guy with a little golf cart and he drives me. I don’t know if you ever-

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

… okay, it’s crazy.

David Bashevkin:

It’s wild, rows and rows-

Shais Taub:

Rows and rows of cars. And so she drives me out, way out. Then I get my car, and I get in the car. Oh, and I had to pay them $375 cash. And I drive off so fast, because I was really literally afraid that they’re going to chase after me, “No, we made a mistake. We made a mistake when we said we made a mistake, come back,” right? But we’re not over it. We’re not over it yet, because I got to get my money back. Because really, they were not supposed to tow me, or ticket me, because alternate side parking is suspended.

So the next day, now we’re talking about dalet Tishrei. Okay, I go down to the Brooklyn courthouse and have wait in line. Finally, I come to this judge and this judge looks at my stuff, and he looks at my address. He’s like, “You’re a Lubavitcher.” I’m like, “Yeah, learning in yeshiva,” he said, “Which yeshiva?” “770.” He says, what Gemara are you learning? I said, “Gittin.” I remember very clearly I was learning Gittin that year. And he starts asking me b’fanei nichtav… he’s a funny guy.

David Bashevkin:

Happens to be my favorite masechta, just FYI.

Shais Taub:

Really?

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Okay, the judge is a frum guy, and he starts farhering me… Yeah, and after he asked me a few questions, I get… it’s the whole thing. So then he’s like, “Okay.” He writes a bunch of papers, triplicates, and different pink copies, and yellow copies, carbon papers.

Makes a bunch of scribbles, and he hands me all these papers, and he is like, “Take this to the clerk.” And now I’m good, I’m going to get my money back.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Okay, I can’t get my time back, I can’t get my aggravation back, but I’m gonna get my money back. So I wait in line at the clerk, I get up to the clerk. The clerk takes all my papers, and I remember him grabbing it all very quickly, and I got very nervous. Again, I told you I’m very a nervous type. He starts shuffling the papers, and I knew he was being reckless with my papers. The proof of it was at the end. He’s like, “So what do you want?” “I want a refund.”

“Where do you think you get a refund?” “I was just in with the judge, he just gave me these papers. He said to come to you, you’re the clerk you’re supposed to give me a refund.” He’s like, “That’s not what it says here.” I’m like, “What do mean this is not what it says?” He says, “It doesn’t say that here.” I’m like, “I don’t know what he wrote, I don’t know what the code is that’s supposed to tell you to do it.”

David Bashevkin:

It sounds like a modern retelling of Kafka’s, “The Trial.” I don’t know if you’ve ever read that.

Shais Taub:

It was, yeah, okay.

David Bashevkin:

Okay, that is what it sounds like.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

These stories like a car-

Shais Taub:

By the way, yes.-

David Bashevkin:

And you were just like-

Shais Taub:

… and it was like Kafka’s “The Trial.”

David Bashevkin:

… and you keep coming to the door, and-

Shais Taub:

That’s right.

David Bashevkin:

… and they keep saying, “Wrong key, I’m sorry.”

Shais Taub:

The last words of Kafka’s “The Trial,” I believe, you can Google it, “Like a dog.” Is that right?

David Bashevkin:

Yes, Kafka has a big role in my life, and when I hear a Kafkaesque story-

Shais Taub:

It is Kafkaesque.

David Bashevkin:

Of the bureaucracy.

Shais Taub:

And I think this is the first non-pretentious use of-

David Bashevkin:

Kafkaesque?

Shais Taub:

… the adjective Kafkaesque.

David Bashevkin:

No, because this is what it is.

Shais Taub:

It is Kafkaesque!

David Bashevkin:

It’s the suffering of everyday life.

Shais Taub:

Yes, yes.

David Bashevkin:

It’s the suffering of-

Shais Taub:

Yes, first world problems on a nightmarish level of confusion.

David Bashevkin:

Bureaucratic suffering.

Shais Taub:

A bureaucratic, draconian-

David Bashevkin:

Wrong form, wrong place.

Shais Taub:

Exactly.

David Bashevkin:

Wrong this.

Shais Taub:

Okay, you nailed it. Okay, so as I am saying to him, “Please, I was just in with the judge. He asked me what Gemara I’m learning.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

The clerk’s looking at me like, “Gemara?” He doesn’t know what I’m talking about, right?

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

I’m losing myself at this point. So I begged him, “Please just go in there, he’s in the room-

David Bashevkin:

Down the hall.

Shais Taub:

… he’s in the room, down the hall!” So finally the clerk gets out from behind his plexiglass, goes down the hall, and I’m just so nervous. Here’s what you got to understand, my endocrine system doesn’t know the difference between a bear jumping out at me in the woods to eviscerate me, and the prospect of losing $360.

David Bashevkin:

To me, I don’t use this word lightly, I feel like there is a suffering, an emotion.

Shais Taub:

Suffering, yes. So finally he comes back from the judge, and he starts writing stuff, and he starts typing stuff into his little computer. And I’m like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “I’m giving you your refund.” I’m like, “Oh, so I do get the refund! This is it.” He’s like, “Yeah.”

I’m like, “Well why did you say before I didn’t?” He’s like, “Seven looked like a four.” He just mumbles, “Seven looked like a four.” Now thank God this wasn’t like a capital case, where the seven looked like a four. Like somebody was put in front of a firing squad out because of bureaucratic shenanigans, but I’m not done yet.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

He gives me new papers-

David Bashevkin:

Again.

Shais Taub:

… a new set of papers. And he says, “Now you take this to the cashier.” I wait in line again. Finally, I get to the cashier. He’s another frum guy, another identifiably religious Jew. I think he was even wearing a yarmulke. So he starts typing in all this stuff, and sees my address again, Eastern Parkway. So he says to me, he’s like, “You’re a Lubavitcher?” I’m like, “Yeah.” I’m so nervous, any question at this point, because I don’t know if they’re trying to trap me. Even if it’s an innocent question, I don’t want to distract the guy, because the seven could look like a four again. Do your job, don’t ask me personal questions, this is not a date. “Okay. You’re a Lubavitcher.” I’m like, “Yeah.”

“Can I ask you a question?” I’m like, “Yeah, okay, fine.” And he’s entering this. He’s the last guy that you got to go to, that’s going to make your refund complete, which is the end of the culmination-

David Bashevkin:

Key’s finally at the door.

Shais Taub:

… right. He’s like, “I once saw a sign that the Lubavitchers put out, poster, a picture of a leaf. And it said, ‘When a leaf falls from a tree, the Baal Shem Tov said that that is bashert.” And I remember him using the word, “bashert“. I promise you whatever poster he saw, didn’t say bashert, because it was probably for a-

David Bashevkin:

Popular-

Shais Taub:

… popular audience.

David Bashevkin:

Sure.

Shais Taub:

Probably divinely orchestrated, but he was frum. He said the Yiddish word, “bashert,” which means, “predestined, ordained.”

I’m like, “Okay, why is he telling me this?” Right? This was poignant for me. This was 25 years ago, and this is not a story I say in my speeches, you know why? Because it takes too darn long to tell, I’m not going to hold an audience, no. He says to me, “Do you believe that?”

I’m like, when you asked me an hour ago, “What do you want to be known as?” and oh, this guy’s asking a real question. I could just answer him perfunctory answer.

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

“Yeah, give me my refund.”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

But he’s asking me, and for me this was an intense experience. Again, first world problems all the way, totally.

David Bashevkin:

No, I appreciate that you go through this, you follow-

Shais Taub:

Okay, but my adrenaline rush doesn’t know the difference.

David Bashevkin:

… this really happened, and this final person comes-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… and asking you about this question from this popular poster he gets on divine providence.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And he looks at you, who was like a kid at the time.

Shais Taub:

25, 24? It was before I got married.

David Bashevkin:

And just looks at you innocently and says, “Do you believe that?”

Shais Taub:

Yeah, and I stopped, and I wanted to actually give a real answer. And I started thinking about all of my experiences from the moment that I saw my car disappeared, and all my reactions. And I said to him, “You know, after everything that I’ve been through for the past three and a half, four days, I would be a complete wreck right now if I didn’t believe that.”

And he’s like, “Oh, okay.” He was satisfied, and he says, “Your refund will be processed by check in six to eight weeks.” That was the end of the story. How absolutely mundane that story is, is not lost on me. And I know you were going for something juicier, but for me, that was a profound moment. Again, first world problems, but I’m dealing with a bunch of stuff that makes me not want to be here in reality.

Not want to be where I’m at, not want to be dealing with the people I’m dealing with. Not feeling the things that my body is feeling, and I realized that the whole time what was happening is it was a struggle to embrace the theology that I had been taught. Because if you would’ve asked me a week before that whole story, there was a poster with a leaf and the Baal Shem Tov said-

David Bashevkin:

You would nod right away.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, “Do you believe that?”

“Yeah, what do you mean? Of course, I believe that. That’s what we were taught.” But I don’t know, there was something about that moment, and I’m not pretending it was like this big crisis of faith. I don’t want to dramatize it.

David Bashevkin:

But it was embodied.

Shais Taub:

But when he said, “Do you believe it?” And I had to ask myself like, “Okay, there’s two things here. There’s my freaking out which, if I’m to be completely honest, is a form of heresy. And there’s my returning to functionality, which is not because I have such wonderful coping mechanisms, it is only because of my faith.” At that moment, I was able to identify my faith as something that I use to deal with life, not something I do to be pious. My faith is not a coping mechanism, it is my way of dealing with life. I once characterized for somebody, who challenged me a lot about faith, “It’s escapist”, and I said-

David Bashevkin:

I was going to ask you, yeah.

Shais Taub:

… the difference between fantasy and faith. What’s the difference between fantasy and faith?”

David Bashevkin:

Yeah.

Shais Taub:

Because they’re often conflated, sometimes intentionally.

David Bashevkin:

It sounds like it’s, “The opiate of the masses”,-

Shais Taub:

Opiate of the masses.

David Bashevkin:

It sounds like you’re misquoting Marx.

Shais Taub:

Right, you said, “misquoting Marx,” very good. Because that’s not what Marx meant-

David Bashevkin:

Correct.

Shais Taub:

… when he said it.

David Bashevkin:

Okay, but tell me-

Shais Taub:

Okay, very good. So I said, “Fantasy and faith are often mistaken for each other, that’s true, but they’re actually opposites, and I’ll tell you how they’re opposites. They’re not dissimilar, they’re polar opposites.” How so? When you know what each one is, then you understand that they are diametrically opposed. Fantasy is an idea that I cling to in order to avoid facing reality. Faith is an idea that I cling to in order to have the courage to face reality. They sound almost identical, but they’re day and night.

David Bashevkin:

When you were telling me this story, and it actually it didn’t amuse me that much. It moved me and the reason why it moved me is because I have long been a victim in my own eyes of the “Trauma of Everyday Life.”

Shais Taub:

Trauma of Everyday Life?

David Bashevkin:

“The Trauma of Everyday Life.” It’s a book by Mark Epstein, a psychologist.

Shais Taub:

Really?

David Bashevkin:

It’s a play off of Jung or Freud, the psychopathology of everyday life, but the trauma of everyday life.

Shais Taub:

That’s a great title.

David Bashevkin:

How pedestrian and how small your life can sometimes feel, and how you sometimes feel almost as if the smallness that is grabbing your focus is distracting you from what your life should be.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

And I make this mistake, even though I wish I never did like with family issues. It comes when your kid wants your attention, somebody wants your attention.

Shais Taub:

Right, it’s a distraction, it’s so petty.

David Bashevkin:

You’re distracting, yeah. I don’t want my life to be here in this swamp. And you pause, he says, “This is the life.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… this is what it is. This is the main event.” And when you’re talking about it, to come back to your language, this bureaucracy, this notion of this Kafkaesque world of just that everyday life drama-

Shais Taub:

The drudgery, the banality.

David Bashevkin:

… the drudgery, the banality, all of that to me is the confusion of the sensitivity of innocence with the sensitivity of experience. Because it means if you were to have walked by that poster, that had some pithy phrase-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… and you would’ve looked at the poster, and said, “100%.”

Shais Taub:

Yeah, sure!

David Bashevkin:

That’s a sensitivity of innocence, still.

Shais Taub:

Right, sure.

David Bashevkin:

Because you don’t know what it means to be without that, you don’t know what it means to lose that.

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

You don’t know what it means to be estranged, and alienated from-

Shais Taub:

Right.

David Bashevkin:

… but when you’re going through paperwork, you’re in a Brooklyn Naval Yard, your life feels unmoored, untethered, that now is where-

Shais Taub:

It’s a loss of control.

David Bashevkin:

And it’s that loss that allows that teshuvah, the sensitivity of experience.

Shais Taub:

But you don’t mourn the loss of control, you mourn the loss of the belief that life is in order.

David Bashevkin:

You mourn the loss of-

Shais Taub:

The innocent belief that life is in order. Why? Because nothing was disturbing before. So then you had the innocent belief that life is in order.

David Bashevkin:

… I have my own moments that I think I’ve shared before, a lot relating to the world of dating. There was a point where when dating wasn’t going well and I used to go into a room and say Tehillim, Psalms, I would pray before I even spoke to the shadchan to find out what a certain girl was up to, and it just kept on not working out. And I was clinging onto, I think that sensitivity of innocence where this gumball machine mentality, where if I keep going to do that.

And I wasn’t able to have that more transformative sensitivity of experience, the quote that I pulled up, because the imagery from “The Trial,” and getting confused of what the right door, so to speak, of teshuvah is, reminded me of this essay that I am deeply fond of that was originally published in Harper’s.

It’s an essay called “Laughing with Kafka” that was written by David Foster Wallace based on a speech that he gave about teaching Kafka.

Shais Taub:

Okay.

David Bashevkin:

And he’s saying why he thinks people have such a hard time getting Kafka, and exactly why you started with that story. You began the story saying, “I don’t know if you’re going to be moved by it, or amused by it, I don’t know if you’re going to get it.” And I saw your eyes looking at me during it. You’re like, “I don’t know if it’s landing.” And maybe-

Shais Taub:

Right, but then once you said, “This reminds me of ‘The Trial,’” I knew you got it.

David Bashevkin:

But it reminded me, because it reminded me exactly of this essay, and I want to read it to you. Is that okay?

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

Here we go. “And it is this, I think, that makes Kafka’s wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment, and entertainment as reassurance. It’s not that students don’t get Kafka’s humor, but that we’ve taught them to see humor as something you get, the same way we’ve taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke that the horrible struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home, is in fact, our home.” That’s one of my favorite sentences, “that our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact, our home.” Sensitivity of experience. We want that blank slate, we want that clean and instead, it’s that paperwork and that moment, where do you believe this? In the supermarket? In the drudgery, in the banality, can you discover that sensitivity of experience?

Shais Taub:

That’s great, wow.

David Bashevkin:

This has been an absolute pleasure. There’s so much more to talk about, and I am absolutely 100% committed that we’re going to do this again.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, absolutely.

David Bashevkin:

I always close my interviews with more rapid-fire questions. Could we do some rapid-fire questions?

Shais Taub:

Okay. I’m not a rapid guy, but let’s try.

David Bashevkin:

Okay. So no car getting towed stories for any of the rapid fire.

Shais Taub:

No, no.

David Bashevkin:

My first question I always ask my guests is, I’m always looking for book recommendations that helped you reimagine the subject of teshuvah. We obviously spoke about “Tanya.” We mentioned your own book, “A God of Our Understanding.” What are the books that shaped your, preferably in English, that are accessible to our listeners?

Shais Taub:

So it’s a little bit scholarly.

David Bashevkin:

Please.

Shais Taub:

No, I don’t mean like academic scholarly. I mean like yeshiva scholarly.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

But the Baal HaTanya‘s grandson, the Tzemech Zedek.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

There’s a maamer, discourse, called “Vidui Hateshuvah” and it’s in a sefer called “Derech Mitzvosecha,” and many of the discourses from that book have been translated and annotated in English, and that is one of them.

David Bashevkin:

Where is that English translation, do you know what it’s called?

Shais Taub:

I think it’s called, “Excerpts from Derech Mitzvosecha.”

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

And it’s got maybe 10, 15 of the greatest hits. It’s a discourse about what is teshuvah. That to me, if you told me to prepare a class on teshuvah, I would just teach that.

David Bashevkin:

If somebody gave you a great deal of money, and allowed you to take a sabbatical for as long as you needed to go back to school and get a PhD, what do you think the subject and title of your dissertation would be about?

Shais Taub:

Wow, I think I’d write something like Reb Tzadok HaCohen and Reb Nachman and different teshuvahs.

David Bashevkin:

What’s going on now? I can’t even tell if you’re kibbitzing with me. That was my master’s thesis.

Shais Taub:

Well, this is my doctor’s thesis.

David Bashevkin:

Are you kibbitzing with me? Or-

Shais Taub:

You asked? No, you asked a question?

David Bashevkin:

I thought you were saying that-

Shais Taub:

If I could get a PhD, what would I write for my-

David Bashevkin:

Comparing Reb Tzadok and Rebbe Nachman on teshuvah.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, that’s what I would write.

David Bashevkin:

That was at the heart of my master’s thesis.

Shais Taub:

Okay, well-

David Bashevkin:

It would be so-

Shais Taub:

… you got a master’s in my fantasy, and I get a PhD.

David Bashevkin:

So passive aggressive of you.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I give you all this money, and you just displace my own scholarship. That would be-

Shais Taub:

That would be the only way to use that money.

David Bashevkin:

… and I just want to note this, so I don’t forget it, whenever we introduce 18Forty, we always talk about balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities. And to me, what I think I’m getting at is-

Shais Taub:

I’m all about that.

David Bashevkin:

… the sensibility is that teshuvah of the innocence of experience and traditional sensitivities is that hovering, that loss, that out of grasp for many and hoping to integrate the two-

Shais Taub:

Traditional sensitivities is like factory default settings.

David Bashevkin:

… correct, exactly.

Shais Taub:

Right? And then-

David Bashevkin:

Modern sensibility is like, “You’re in the world you got-“

Shais Taub:

… and you know exactly what you stand to lose and maybe even you’ve lost it.

David Bashevkin:

… correct.

Shais Taub:

Or you’re losing it, and you’re constantly grasping at it to hold onto.

David Bashevkin:

And that’s what we’re doing here at 18Forty, which is why I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you. I’m so excited that we’re able to do this. My last question, I’m always curious because I have such bad sleeping habits myself.

Shais Taub:

Yeah.

David Bashevkin:

I’m always interested in my guest’s sleeping habits. What time do you go to sleep at night and what time do you wake up in the morning?

Shais Taub:

Well waking up depends on sof zman kriyas shema, so that varies. The last time to-

David Bashevkin:

You go right up to the line.

Shais Taub:

Well, I calculate backward how long.

David Bashevkin:

You go backwards? Okay.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, because I say kriyas shema like a mensch.

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

I don’t put on like a second pair of tefillin for it. There are people who have, by the way, not only they have Rashi andRebbenu Tam but they have their kriyas shema tefillin and then their shacharis tefillin.

David Bashevkin:

No.

Shais Taub:

It is a thing.

David Bashevkin:

That’s a real thing?

Shais Taub:

I promise you, it’s a real thing. I’m not on that level, but no, they’re like, “birkos hashachar” and-

David Bashevkin:

Okay.

Shais Taub:

… whatever.

David Bashevkin:

We need a number though. What time do you go to sleep at night? What time do you wake up in the morning?

Shais Taub:

Three or four.

David Bashevkin:

You go to sleep at three or four?

Shais Taub:

Look, ideally I have a bedtime reminder set on my phone for 11.

David Bashevkin:

So it’s almost-

Shais Taub:

I muted it.

David Bashevkin:

… 11 now.

Shais Taub:

Yeah, I know.

David Bashevkin:

I’m similar to you, I’m a late to bed, late to rise. I’m not an early riser.

Shais Taub:

But sof zman kriyas shema is a thing. So I usually count back like 20, 30 minutes from there.

David Bashevkin:

Rabbi Shais Taub, thank you so much for joining us today.

Shais Taub:

My pleasure.

David Bashevkin:

There’s something I found so incredibly moving, and real about this notion of two types of teshuvah. The teshuvah of innocence, and the teshuvah of experience. And I see this in so many places in my own life, the mistake that you are knocking and trying to get your way back into the teshuvah of innocence. The promises that you make, that “I’m going to be better now, it’s going to be perfect from now on,” not realizing that it is a different door to teshuvah that is now open to you. It was after my conversation with Shais Taub that he sent me, based on our conversation, the quote and that long sprawling story about his car. He sent me the quote from Kafka itself, because I think in all of our lives, we have felt that Kafkaesque feeling of being locked out. Of knocking on that door of, we want that entry.

We want that acceptance, and feeling alienated. Feeling that for some bureaucratic, out of our hands reasons, we are not being welcomed into that space. In the words of Kafka, and I believe this comes from his story, “The Trial,” Kafka writes, “Before the law, stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the law, but the doorkeeper says that he cannot admit the man at the moment. The man on reflection asks, if he will be allowed then to enter later. ‘It’s possible’, answered the doorkeeper, ‘But not at this moment.’” And the entire story is about continuing to bang on this door and being asked to let in.

I don’t know if I’m going to get him in trouble for saying that he sent this to me, but he actually sent me a clip from a Martin Scorsese movie that I’m embarrassed to admit, I have not yet seen, although I fancy myself a little bit of a cinephile in both sides of the word. I wrote a book on sin, but a cinephile with the letter C. A cinephile, meaning a lover of movies. But there is a scene in the movie “After Hours,” which was directed by Martin Scorsese, which is very clearly taken from Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Paul:

Why don’t you just let me in?

Club Berlin Bouncer:

Do you really want to go inside?

Paul:

Yes, you know, it’s very important. I’ve got people in there that are expecting me. Why don’t you just let me in?

Club Berlin Bouncer:

You’re sure?

Paul:

Yes, I’m sure.

David Bashevkin:

And I think so often in our process of teshuvah is this sense of, “Just let me in, I want to be good, I want to be innocent again. I don’t want to make this mistake.” I know for myself and my struggles, particularly in my twenties, I would make these promises, shvuahs, nedarim, really oaths, “I don’t want to ever mess up again.” And then it happens again, and again, and again, and you feel like you are locked out from your own innocence and your life begins to carene into a different direction. And you begin to wonder, “Will I ever reclaim the innocence of my youth? Will I ever have that freshness, that perfection that I once associated with life itself?”

It’s an idea that Rav Kook in fact talks about in “Orot HaKodesh,” in the second chapter. This is from the translation of Sarah Schneider, who I really hope to have one day on the podcast. She’s an incredible kabbalist, an incredible, incredible mystic, and she has books that I would recommend to read one of the best introductions to mystical thinking. But her book is called, from where I’m taking this from, “Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine and Feminine.” And in her book, she quotes from Rav Kook, I’m going to quote it in Hebrew, then I can translate. “Ma anu choshvim al davar hamatara haelokis b’hamtzaas hahavaya.” When contemplating the timeless question, “Why did God create the universe?” one observes that there are kind of two tendencies within religious life. “Omrim anu“, we say, “shehashlemos hamuchletes hee hee mechuyeves hametzios.”

That absolute perfection requires the complete actualization of all potential, unrealized possibility is always less than perfect. Yet Rav Kook says, and this is so amazing, “aval yesh shlemus shel hosafas shlemus.” There is a type of perfection, which is actually the process of moving towards, of adding perfection. And it’s in that second gate, which I think is this gate of experience. It’s the teshuvah of experience, it’s not the teshuvah of innocence. Where it’s the process of moving towards something, even with the knowledge that you can’t be perfect. That is an act of teshuvah itself. It is the acknowledgement that the act of teshuvah is not perfection, it’s not a clean slate, it’s not being perfect forever. The act of teshuvah is the process of moving towards something, of being able to confront and grapple with that Kafkaesque feeling of being locked out and finding another door. And realizing that the very process is the act of teshuvah, not the attainment of perfection itself.

It’s so interesting. And we’ve mentioned this before, Gershom Scholem, the great mystic, felt that the greatest entry into kabbalah was through the writings of Kafka, Franz Kafka. And that’s always resonated to me because I think more than anybody else, the pain of existence, the pain of striving, the pain of aspirations, is something that Kafka really highlights and imagines. And it’s in our conversation that we just had with Rabbi Shais Taub, when I heard that story, I said, “You’re retelling ‘The Trial’ as we speak”, and he agreed.

So often in our lives, the greatest pain is that mundane frustration of banging on the door, wanting for things to go smoothly, and not accepting the reality of what life really is. And it’s that quote that always stays with me from that fantastic essay from David Foster Wallace, “Laughing with Kafka,” where he talks about his struggle of teaching Kafka, and it’s there that he writes, and this is what I quoted, “That our endless and impossible journey towards home is in fact, our home.” That it’s not about getting let in to the door and banging hard enough that you’ll reclaim your innocence. It’s that endless and impossible journey, finding another way, finding another path through experience where teshuvah really emerges. And for me, this is the teshuvah that I learned to embrace in my own life.

A teshuvah that realizes that clean slate that your teacher, rebbe, rabbi, always hangs over you, that you’re looking for that clean slate. Maybe that clean slate is never actually obtained, maybe a part of teshuvah is dealing with the enduring messiness, having the strength to continue within that messiness. And that clean slate that we’re promised, and we hope for that maybe we have and feel for 10 seconds after davening on yamin noraim, on the high holidays, but that’s not really what we’re after.

We’re not after the clean slate, we’re not after the innocence, we’re after the strength, and the courage to move even within the mess. And it’s that idea that I actually cite at the very end of one of the early chapters in my book, an idea that I heard. People always criticize me when I use the word dearest too often, but my dearest friend, Rabbi Dr. Simcha Willig, that he heard from Rabbi Rob Scheinberg, an incredible reading of what we say when we daven and we say “Hashivenu Hashem eilecha v’nashuva,” God return yourself to us. “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem,” renew our days of old.

And it’s a very strange plea “renew our days of old,” either they’re new or they’re old. And the way that the midrash explains it is that, “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem“, this renewal that we’re after, “kedem” is the description that we use for the Garden of Eden.

But there’s something very unusual in the way the midrash frames “kedem,” meaning the Garden of Eden. And this is what Rabbi Rob Scheinberg explains, that the word “kedem” in Genesis 3:24, if you could look it up, that the midrash uses to explain this prayer, is not a word associated with the Garden of Eden itself, but a word associated with exile from the garden. Meaning it’s the language that the Torah uses after Adam and Chava get banished from Gan Eden. The decision to quote the word “kedem” from this verse, rather than its first appearance in chapter two, verse eight, indicates that from the perspective of this quotation from Eicha Rabba, “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem” does not mean, “Renew our lives as they were in the Garden of Eden.” Rather it means, “Renew our lives as you renewed our lives after we were exiled from the Garden of Eden.”

“Chadesh yameinu k’kedem” is then not a plea for restoration of a formerly perfect condition, but rather is a plea for resilience. A plea for the ability to renew ourselves after future crises and dislocations, just as our lives have been renewed before, as Elie Wiesel said, “God gave Adam a secret and that secret was not how to begin, but how to begin again.” “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem” is not a plea for the teshuvah of innocence, of that clean slate, of everything being perfect. “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem” is plea for that kedem, that Garden of Eden, after we’re banished, after we’re banging on the door and not being let in.

A plea for the strength, courage, and resilience to continue onward, even through the messiness. Through that endless and impossible journey toward home, that is in fact, our home, the teshuvah of experience.

So thank you so much for listening. This entire series on teshuvah, is sponsored by our dearest friends, Daniel and Mira Stokar. We are so appreciative of their generosity. This episode, like so many of our episodes, was edited by our friend, Denah Emerson. It wouldn’t be a Jewish podcast without a little bit of Jewish guilt. And I have to remind myself to say this during our series on teshuvah. How could we not? So if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends about it, and you could also donate at 18forty.org/donate. It really helps us reach new listeners and continue putting out great content.

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