Embracing Radical Love - Weekly Energy Boost

Love is Love is Love. This week Matthew Stevenson joins us to talk about the power of radical love and how it can help us overcome prejudices and preconceived notions to extend love to everyone – regardless of our differences. Original airdate: 8/2/21

Transcript

Good morning,

Everyone.

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Wherever you are,

And welcome to this week's Weekly Energy Boost.

My name is Elisheva,

And I am here this beautiful Monday morning with both David and a very special guest who I will introduce shortly.

We've been through a lot in this year and a half,

And this topic that we're addressing today,

The title of the show is Embracing Radical Love,

But this has really been a topic that we should have had in the 1950s if the podcast was on.

It would have been a good time,

1930s,

1940s.

This is a very timeless episode.

I bring it up as a joke because the Weekly Energy Boost is a seven-day spiritual energy forecast.

We often talk about how the energy of the week affects us,

And we provide our listeners with the most powerful and practical tools to navigate what this week might have in store for us.

Now,

What's interesting is,

Unfortunately,

This is a topic that permeates every single week,

Not necessarily from a Kabbalistic or spiritual standpoint,

But the nature of the human being is such that if not kept in check,

Our ego,

The false identity within all of us,

Is constantly compelling us to focus on what separates us,

What's wrong sometimes with ourselves,

But oftentimes what's wrong with others.

We stand in judgment.

We allow ourselves the luxury.

I'm just thinking of our teacher,

Rob Berg,

Used to say often about somebody who said,

Well,

I thought you just don't like me.

The Rob answered,

I don't have time to not like you.

Focusing on what isn't requires so much more effort than focusing on what is.

That's why we're having this conversation today.

I actually had a funny and not so funny experience myself.

I went to visit my son at his apartment and as I was leaving,

I was pushing my youngest in a stroller down his driveway.

He lives in an apartment building.

Another tenant came up to me and said,

What are you doing here?

I'm about five foot two.

If you've ever seen a video cast of the show,

You know that I'm not the scariest looking human.

I also was pushing a stroller with a small cute human in it.

My heart was racing.

I was scared.

She was also not a big person,

But the energy at which she came at me was really threatening.

I don't know what I could have been doing back there.

Apparently my son told her,

Leave her alone.

That's my mom.

We moved on from it,

But apparently somebody had been using the back of their house as a urinal or something.

She was worried that I was doing the same.

I don't know what action could have merited such malicious.

You don't strike me as the urinal in the back of the house.

That was the point.

I said to myself,

You know what?

It only happened so that I could bring up this example because I'm not talking about,

We may be talking today about everything from racial injustice to,

And we have a lot of prejudices that are even ancestral,

That we adopt in our upbringing,

In our cultures,

Where we were raised.

I'm talking about this lady felt it was okay to be so hostile to a total stranger.

I said to my son,

What if I was like the landlord's wife?

What if I was somebody,

I don't know that she might,

She doesn't know who I am and what I'm doing there,

That she was so certain that I was doing some evil act behind her apartment building that she felt it was okay to unleash evil on me like that.

I can't even replicate it.

That's how ugly it was.

That's really why we're here today.

We're here not only to share the spiritual underpinnings of why darkness can only be overcome with light,

But we've also brought onto the show a guest that I met probably about 20 or so years ago when we were both much,

Much younger,

But is not only a student of the Kabbalah Center,

But has spent the last few years in a bit of a spotlight with a really powerful experience that he went through.

I am not going to mess it up by trying to tell my version of it,

That I've seen Matthew speak both in person and on videos.

I have heard the story.

I have read articles about the story.

I have yet to read the book about the story,

But apparently there is a book written about the story.

I think his name is Eli Sasslow.

The book is called Rising Out of the Hatred,

The awakening of a former white nationalist.

I knew Matthew at least before all of this.

20 years ago,

All of this happened,

But Matthew,

We're so proud to be sharing the screen with you today.

I don't know if we're allowed to be proud as Kabbalah teachers.

When I heard this story,

I'm like,

That is phenomenal.

I was proud to know that someone so close to us had done such an amazing thing.

More than anything,

It's a platform.

It's an opportunity to share where it comes from and how magical the light is when you're not afraid to shine it.

Matthew,

Thank you for joining us today.

First of all,

I know that your schedule is less than flexible.

We're really happy to have you here.

Can you share with us your version of the story?

Sure,

So the short version is that when I went to school,

To university,

It was a little bit remote,

About four hours from where I grew up.

There was no Kabbalah center around there.

I was very adamant about continuing to keep Shabbat while I was at university.

I started to host a group of people who ever wanted to come,

Regardless of their religion or observance level or anything,

For people to come on Friday nights to spend the time together.

One of the guys I met that first year,

He lived downstairs from the dormitory,

Was a guy named Derek.

And Derek was a guitar player.

He used to sit outside and play the guitar and sometimes I'd sing along poorly to his renditions of old country and western songs,

Because I happened to like old country and western music.

We watched a movie together once and he went that spring to go study abroad in Germany.

Well,

That Passover,

So about April or so of that year,

That first year,

Someone made a discovery.

They were researching white nationalism on the internet and came across Derek's picture.

Derek at that time had long red hair.

He kind of stood out in the crowd.

The school was only 800 students,

So everyone pretty much knew everyone else at the very least by face.

And so this didn't take very long to spread across the campus like wildfire and was pretty much the nonstop gossip for the next several years.

As you might imagine,

It was shocking because not only was Derek involved with white nationalism,

But he was basically the heir apparent to the leadership of the movement.

His father,

Don Black,

Founded a website called Stormfront,

Which is the largest and I believe the first white nationalist website and is infamously where a number of shooters,

Including I believe from South Carolina,

Dylan Roof,

Frequented this forum and were very active prior to committing their acts.

And Derek's godfather and his mother's former husband was David Duke,

Who many people may recognize as being probably the most infamous racist in America.

So David Duke was his stepfather?

He was his.

.

.

Ex-stepfather.

Ex-stepfather.

So the stepfather,

The marriage with his mother was before he was born.

So the order of operations is reversed,

But nevertheless,

They were very close growing up and he had a very influential role in Derek's life as a young man growing up and I'm sure influenced the views that he came to hold.

And so this was of course a huge surprise.

I wear a kippah,

The funny little hat.

I am pretty identifiable as someone that white nationalists usually aren't big fans of.

And yet I had known Derek for almost a year and he had never said anything cruel or anything to me that would make me think for a second that he had those views.

So I was shocked that he'd had them.

Not only the views secretly,

But was actively taking on increasing leadership roles within that movement within those organizations.

And just to be clear,

Because I'm reading something about his profile,

Besides the fact that he was the godson of David Duke,

It says that Derek designed the kids page when he was 11 for what is known as the first major intern at HateSite.

So we have someone who's actively since pre-teens involved in the movement of hatred.

Yeah,

By the time I knew him he was running a weekly radio,

I think it was weekly,

Maybe daily even,

Radio show with his father where David Duke was a frequent guest.

It wasn't as exciting as this show,

But nevertheless was there and he was running,

Started to run conferences with a number of attendees from across the country who would gather and discuss and plan and organize for the year to come.

So he was not just a bystander,

He was taking a very active leadership role.

And when this came to light,

Everyone at the campus was just horrified.

No one thought something like that probably even existed still,

Much less to be in their midst.

And the general reaction was to ostracize Derek when he returned to campus.

So as I mentioned,

He was studying abroad right then,

So people had some time to formulate their responses.

But when he returned in the fall,

Most people wanted nothing to do with him.

He lived off campus.

Because of these things,

He had planned to live on campus.

And when I heard he was living off campus,

I texted him to make sure he had a place to stay.

And so he and I were in communication but not close.

And we had not been close before this came to light,

Even though I had known him.

But because I had this group going every Friday night for Shabbat dinners,

And because of my yarmulke,

Because of my observance,

I started to believe,

Let's say,

That I had an opportunity that was a little bit unique relative to the other students,

And that I had perhaps a chance to introduce Derek to the kinds of people who his ideology despises.

And growing up in the household of white nationalists,

I figured he hadn't had a lot of opportunities to meet Jews or black people,

Etc.

And just to be clear,

Just for our audience,

So that we know,

Even though Matthew is a Jewish upbringing and an observant,

How we know Matthew is the essence of him is as a Kabbalah student with an understanding of the spiritual universality of the wisdom of Kabbalah,

Which is emphasizing human dignity,

Personal transformation,

Unconditional love,

And all these other topics that we teach about for every person,

Everyone and mankind.

So I just want to make that clear for all of our listeners.

So when Matthew is saying that he has an opportunity to reach out to Derek,

It's not from the point of view of,

Oh,

Let's.

.

.

I'm going to convince him.

Yeah,

I'm going to convince him or convert him.

It's just that we're taught in the Kabbalah Center that Kabbalah is above and beyond religion and ideology,

And that we're here to make a soul connection with someone and to promote love.

And that there's light.

There's a spark of the light force of the Creator in every single human being,

Even the ones that may seem negative,

Hateful.

According to Kabbalah,

A person couldn't exist without some spark inside them.

Now that spark may be enclosed in layers of anger,

Of hate,

Of negativity that maybe block not only the external perception of that light,

But even the person,

The individual's perception of that light.

Right.

So part of the.

.

.

We often talk on the Weekly Energy Boost about tools to help uncover that spark,

Uncover that diamond,

Be more in touch,

Even when you feel negative,

Angry,

Sad.

We've had endless episodes on navigating challenging feelings,

Emotions,

And situations.

What I think is beautiful about what Matthew is sharing with us is a living example of how shining your light is contagious.

The story is just about to get good.

So yeah,

No,

You're exactly right.

So anyway,

I invited Derek to come to one of these dinners and I told the other people who were coming that he was going to be there.

Needless to say,

He didn't want to ambush him and we didn't want to ambush the people who were at the dinner.

We didn't want to surprise people with this.

And I was very clear with people.

It was not meant as a chance to tell Derek how he was wrong and how we were right and how awful all of his beliefs were.

Even though in many ways I believed all of his beliefs were awful and so on,

But I didn't think anything would come other than maybe a momentary gratification of the ego from taking the opportunity to scold him.

He spent his whole life talking to people about how his views were way outside the mainstream and totally unacceptable to most of society.

And he obviously hadn't been convinced.

He'd spent his whole life defending his views.

And there's probably nothing I was going to say in a two-sentence remark that would cause his views to change.

And so I told people not to bring up white nationalism in any way,

Shape,

Or form.

And a lot of people decided that it was going to be him or them.

If he was going to come,

They'd just as soon stay home,

Which was fine.

I told them that they were always welcome back whenever they wanted,

But I felt that this was a very important thing to do.

And so we proceeded.

And I invited Derek to come.

He accepted,

Didn't have a lot of social invitations going on at that time.

And he came back the next week too,

And the next week.

Wow.

And we started to spend a tremendous amount of time together,

Both at those dinners and outside,

And formed a very close bond.

And also he formed close bonds with other people he met at those dinners.

And how many people were at these dinners in the end?

It really depended.

Sometimes could be as few as a half dozen.

Sometimes could be as many as 15 or 20.

And all ethnicities.

And people weren't so keen on artists.

It made the preparations a little challenging.

All religions,

Races,

I mean.

.

.

All religions is a big lift.

A lot of different backgrounds,

Atheists,

Theists,

People of different races,

People of different ethnicities.

So certainly everyone was welcome.

And pretty much a wide spectrum of people came.

So it really was a bit of a melting pot.

And anyway,

So about a year later,

Derek's still coming to these dinners,

And he's still very,

Very active in white nationalism.

In fact,

More active than he was when I had first invited Derek to the dinner.

So I became very frustrated eventually that it was taking so.

.

.

Not that you expect a change to occur overnight,

But that you expect a change to occur at all.

There is a frustration when you are providing someone hospitality,

Food,

Etc.

And at the same time,

He's hosting conferences of Holocaust deniers and things like that.

But I think one of the most important teachings,

At least to me,

From Kabbalah,

From even the earliest days I remember the teachers discussing it,

Is that there's no such thing as wasted effort and there's no such thing as us being able to really connect consequences and actions via the five senses.

Because there's so much that we don't see on a spiritual level.

And there's an analogy that,

Remember Shulam Sarfati,

A teacher in the center who unfortunately passed away a few years ago,

Used to use,

Which was the story of the boulder,

The prince.

The prince,

Born in a house full of all sorts of luxuries and basically anything pleasurable he could possibly want.

But eventually,

He runs out of fulfillment from these sensual pleasures.

And at the entrance to the palace is a huge boulder.

And he asks God,

From the depths of his heart,

What he's supposed to do with his life,

Because he doesn't think it's supposed to be spent playing basketball and wasting his time with whatever was in their palace.

And God tells him,

Your job is to push the rock.

And of course,

Many people speak to God,

But not many people have God answer back.

So the guy's very excited and he goes and he pushes and he pushes and he pushes.

But the rock is a boulder.

And he's a human being.

And the rock,

Of course,

Doesn't move a inch.

And so the first day he's been so excited about it and so excited about it,

Was sweating profusely.

But by the end of the first week,

First month,

His effort starts to decline.

And eventually,

He wakes up in the morning,

Puts his little pinky on the rock and he moves and goes about to the day.

And eventually,

The creator,

As the nature of things go,

Gets a meeting with him when he passes away and tells him he failed.

How could he fail?

He pushed the rock every day.

But the effort was so weak that the rock couldn't move.

And the creator responds that it's not your job to move the rock.

It's only your job to push the rock.

I move the rock.

And so I think that that is an essential part of the consciousness that we teach in the center.

It's not necessarily our job to see the results,

But it's our job to make all the efforts that we can to make the world the place we want to be in,

A place with more compassion and more human dignity.

It's my opportunity to give and to share more than it is for the recipient to receive the benefit of what I've given.

And a lot of people will think,

Well,

You know,

I'm not going to get anywhere with this guy or change his mind or whatever.

So why even bother showing any compassion?

Because I think a lot of times we do the right thing knowing that there's some kind of result that will make us feel good about ourselves.

And that gives us motivation to do,

Quote,

The right thing.

And what you're saying is,

I'm going to do the right thing.

No idea where this is going to go.

And it's not wasted no matter either way.

Yeah.

And it took,

I mean,

These were pretty much a two-year process from the beginning.

And as you might imagine by the fact that you're speaking,

Things had a happy ending.

About two years in,

Derrick publicly renounced white nationalism and has been very actively working ever since to effectively repair the damage he may have done in his youth by promoting that ideology.

I heard he's not even pursuing his- And we're still very close today.

And you're very close and you guys are speaking frequently.

I think he has a PhD now also that he's striving for that now.

So what's happening?

Tell us more about that interaction,

That relationship.

What did you do?

What did you do or did you not do?

So I think the biggest thing I didn't do was I didn't try to convince him that I was right and he was wrong.

I didn't come and try to yell at him for having beliefs that are hateful or that were not just hurtful in a semantic sense or a symbolic sense,

But had actual repercussions for people in this country and around the world.

Did he try to do that to you?

Did he try to convince you of his beliefs?

Did he even bring it up ever?

No,

I didn't seem like a very likely prospect for white men.

So why did he enjoy spending time with you?

I mean,

Honestly,

Think about it.

Salmon was pretty good.

And the price was right.

I'll take your recipe when we're done.

It's funny,

You go on this radio show,

You're talking about white nationalism and then you're calling your Orthodox Jewish friend,

Hey,

Can we go watch a movie together and spend time together?

You want to get some food?

Yeah,

It certainly was a bit of a double life.

I don't think he discussed the Shabbat outings on the radio show.

On the radio show,

Right?

Yeah,

That would be quite a twist.

But you hope not.

But it's so that's the one thing that I didn't do.

And what I did do in terms of conversation,

I tried to find common ground.

I mentioned before,

I already knew that there was one place,

We definitely had common grounds that we both were and still are very interested in music.

And turned out to be a huge number of things ranging from history to philosophy to ancient religion to linguistics.

Tremendous amount of things that we cared about deeply.

And not only that,

But there were things about our personalities that were very similar.

Both very family oriented,

Both very studious.

And so you have an MBA from an Ivy League school.

He's got a PhD.

So you guys are both very high,

At least on the level of intellectual maybe stimulation.

You're not having banal conversations.

You're really probably talking and discussing things on a high level,

I would imagine.

Yeah,

But also at the same time,

Staying clear of the elephant in the room.

Not that he didn't know that I knew.

I mean,

Everyone knew.

But it was.

.

.

And of course,

At first you felt,

And the reason I didn't bring it up was that I felt like his armor,

His defense mechanisms would respond and maybe he would get reactive for a minute and storm out and then he'd never come back and the whole opportunity would be lost.

And the goal,

Of course,

Like you said before,

Was not to convince anyone or to change anyone,

But just to make an opening.

Because as far as I could tell,

If I grew up in that household,

Because I saw how my own upbringing influenced me,

I'm very,

Very close with my father and my mother passed away already,

But was very close with her.

And had they influenced me in that direction,

I could very easily see myself being in the same position that Derek had found himself in.

Wait,

Hold on a second.

You're saying that because your parents didn't,

And this is important for all parents to hear this,

And it's a lesson that we talk about all the time.

Your parents did not control you or convince you to go on a path.

Is that what you're saying?

Not exactly.

I'm saying that Derek had an upbringing,

Both his parents as well as Godfather and all of the family friends.

It's kind of a self-selecting group.

They had pushed him towards this direction.

Not necessarily pushed in the sense of- He was groomed for it.

Yeah,

Groomed for it,

Yeah.

But in the same way that my father maybe never forced me to do anything spiritual,

I saw his example and to the best of my abilities followed it,

I could very easily imagine that if he had set a different example that I would have sought to follow that example too.

I see,

I see.

And this wasn't some kind of a ruse by you to get him to be.

.

.

You didn't even have this agenda.

You weren't even thinking,

I'm going to give him so much love that he's going to come to my side.

You weren't even thinking on that level.

You were just saying,

I'm going to treat him the way I've been educated,

Which is just unconditional love,

Even if there's no agenda here.

Is that correct?

I think that the most foundational idea I can think of from this end,

There is human dignity,

That despite whatever another person does,

That I have no right to treat that person as anything less than a spark of the creator.

And to the extent that I find myself full of excuses as to why some particular person should be an exception to that general principle,

I think it becomes very obvious that the whole edifice crumbles.

And so even though Derek was espousing an ideology that was very hateful and which was harmful to me personally,

And certainly I didn't want to endorse that ideology.

It's not as though I was saying that it was an okay thing to believe or to preach,

But he still at the end of the day has a holy soul and a pure soul and nothing can change that,

Even if he puts a few veils over it to the interim.

I want to state probably what is an obvious lesson here,

Because we are talking with people who have difficulties with their in-laws,

Who have challenges with ex-wives,

Who have difficulties with people who have maybe a different political opinion than them.

And now we're taking the greatest divide,

Right?

Someone observant,

Maybe we should probably mute his camera while I'm speaking,

It's just in the background.

Someone who's observant spiritually and then is someone who has deep beliefs in white supremacy.

So that's as far and wide of a gap as we can get.

And what's powerful about this is he didn't come to your dinners because the salmon was good as we joke and he said.

He felt something and it wasn't something that you tried to do in one shot.

It was a gradual consciousness of just being the way we learned that we need to be and letting that gradual energy soften someone's heart and to remove darkness.

And the question that we're always asked is,

I'm spiritual,

My husband's not.

I'm spiritual,

My kids are not.

I'm spiritual,

My business partner is not and this is painful.

And they're always looking for,

Well,

How do I get them to become spiritual?

Let alone get them to not believe in white supremacy,

Right?

My husband just kind of likes to do what he does and he's a good guy but he doesn't really want to transform.

And I think the lesson here,

And it's so inspiring to hear this,

That as long as you follow the simple,

Very simple basic principles that the Kabbalists teach us,

The energy from that is so strong that it can remove the darkest of the dark,

Let alone patch up that relationship that you have maybe with your mother-in-law that's maybe hard or with your children who maybe aren't on a spiritual path or some kind of a path that you agree with.

And also the second lesson I got from it is it takes time and you have to remove your internal agenda.

It's so powerful,

We talk about it and here is living proof of how it works and I think that's why so many people are taken by the story.

Powerful story.

I think it's also worth saying that it's not like anti-Semitism,

It's just something that is theoretical to me or that I'm naive about.

I remember the first personal experience that I had with anti-Semitism was when I was about 12 or 13 and I was in Italy in Pisa,

Right outside of where the Leaning Tower is.

There's a little marketplace there,

At least there was at the time,

Filled with stalls and I was there with a group of young people and sort of wandering on my own through the stalls and a group of locals started spinning on me and jeering at me and chasing me through the area.

And of course it was scary for me as a 12 or 13 year old child but I also was strengthened in a certain way from that experience that I felt that having gotten beyond that and of course I unfortunately experienced a number of anti-Semitic incidents afterwards as well that it lost the power of fear over me to a certain extent and I was able to better I think empathize with people who deal not only with anti-Semitism but of course other kinds of discrimination,

Bigotry and hatred in the society.

I was looking at one of the interviews that you did together with Derek and it's interesting because I think the interviewer was asking him,

You know,

Did you believe that you're promoting hatred?

Did you believe that you're promoting something that's like racism?

He's like,

No.

I mean from our point of view,

From my point of view when I was doing the radio show or all these things,

We're sharing something we believe is actually very positive and it's very sharing and this is something that a lot of times I speak with students about which is when somebody hurts you or somebody lives their life a certain way and it's very obnoxious to you or it's a betrayal to you,

You have to understand that from their point of view they're not thinking that they're doing something that's negative or harmful.

So in many ways I don't blame them because if I grew up in their household with their upbringing,

With their education,

With their tikkun,

Their personal correction and their soul,

I would do the same thing.

And I think a lot of times we take things personally when people do something.

It's not personal.

It's just that they believe that what they're doing is right and we should have empathy for at least that as opposed to thinking,

Wow,

That's crazy.

How could anyone want to do something like that?

Anyone,

Whether it's the worst of what we think are the worst of the worst people,

If you were in their shoes,

You would do the same thing.

If you were in their shoes,

You would have the same political beliefs they do.

If you were in their shoes,

You would also maybe want to cause mass genocide.

And at least for one moment have empathy for that because we just,

We think we can't comprehend that.

We can't comprehend how someone would want to be a certain way or have a certain belief system.

And I think that's the first step to removing our own personal anger and betrayal and hurt because we all have it.

We all feel like we were hurt by somebody.

If you want to know the first step of forgiveness,

It's to realize it's not personal.

And if you were in their shoes,

You might think that whatever they did is right also and it's the most logical thing to do.

So that's something else that I thought was a really powerful lesson from the story.

I think that the corollary to that is that we have to be very introspective because it's never going to be obvious to us when we're doing something wrong or we shouldn't be doing because the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So at the same time that it's important to be,

Like you mentioned,

Disconnected maybe from the outcome or disconnected from having an agenda,

I think it is critical that we take a hard look at ourselves on a very regular basis to think about where I may be fooling myself in my spiritual work,

Where I may be inadvertently promoting some of the very things that I'm hoping to reduce.

Well,

I should automatically assume that there's something that I'm probably doing that is so despicable to somebody else on the highest of levels.

And I think it's just like,

Well,

What's the big deal?

But I should probably automatically assume that there is something like that so that I can have this sobering effect of maybe I should not just assume that I'm an okay person.

There must be something I'm doing.

There must be something.

Matthew,

I've been taking notes as you're talking and I kind of whittled down the Matthew Stevenson technique to about five steps.

And I'm saying it in this way because I want our listeners to be able to hear your story and reflect on where is that opportunity for them in their lives?

Who is it that they are judging?

I would go so far as even saying vilifying,

Right?

There is somebody who is doing wrong that deserves to be judged,

That deserves to be hated,

That deserve.

.

.

They are wrong,

Right?

I'm right for all of my right reasons,

But each one of us has people that we.

.

.

I like the word vilify because to me it paints almost a caricature of an evil person that's in my opposition or making.

.

.

Even in the past,

Did something,

Believed something and you can do it in a historical context or you can do it in a very personal context.

To me and your story,

I see five major actionable items and aside from the salmon,

Which again,

I do want that recipe.

I was taught that the best way to a person's heart is through their stomach.

So that may also be the sixth point.

But one thing you.

.

.

Okay,

In no particular order,

One thing you did was you looked for common ground,

Which I think even if you take the most negative or evil of people in your story,

I don't mean your story,

I mean anybody's story,

You do have something in common with them.

And that is always a starting point for building the bridge.

You shared that it was with music,

Right?

At least as an entryway,

But there is that common ground somewhere.

Listen more and judge less.

That's probably a general rule that we could all apply even around the people we love wholeheartedly.

And I guess I wanna ask you,

Matthew,

How did you do it?

How did you not stand in judgment?

Oh,

Matthew,

Is he.

.

.

Where he's muted?

Matthew Gellert I was a little judgmental here and there.

Maybe in a few colorful jokes even along the way.

But I mean,

The main thing is I pointed out before is that I thought that to some extent,

You know,

First of all,

This person is in my life for a reason.

That's another core teaching in Kabbalah.

There are no coincidences.

This is.

.

.

And it was a bizarre set of circumstances that even lead me to be in that university.

And it was very,

Very strange.

So it was very easy to sort of feel at least that there was a reason.

And as I mentioned before,

People can be so affected by things around them that they start to dehumanize other people and start to even use the word villainize.

And I think it's a great word because when you start thinking about people as really less than full-fledged human beings,

And instead they're just some cartoonish caricature,

Whether it's some race or some religion or any other categorization.

Or a politician.

Sure.

You can draw the line wherever you want.

There's the old joke that there's a guy who's marooned on a desert island and there's nothing there in terms of population,

But there's a tremendous amount of resources and supplies.

And after a little while,

He realizes he's not going to be rescued.

There's no passing ships.

So he does the best he can to build a life for himself on the island.

Builds a house,

Builds a home,

Builds a whole town for himself.

And 10 years go by and someone sees a smoke from the island and comes to get it.

And they ask him,

What's this building here?

They say,

It's my house.

It's where I sleep.

So what's this building here?

That's my mess hall.

It's where I eat all my meals.

And that building there is the synagogue I pray every Saturday.

And that's the building there.

That's the one I don't go to.

You tell that joke much better than I would be able to.

It's like the whole world,

It's like us versus other people.

And one of the ideas in Kabbalah is that,

As you mentioned before,

That really there are no other people.

Everyone is a spark of the same creator.

Right.

Love that.

All right,

Well.

You got anything?

I have three more points.

I know David's antsy.

I never want people to feel that they're getting more than they're able to handle.

It's just a summary because the story has so many nuggets in it.

I think that maybe the shining.

The shining.

Just the shining.

Just like the movie,

The shining.

The most powerful thing or the most powerful lesson I'm taking away is to be kind to others even if you don't think they deserve it.

And that,

David,

You spoke about in an episode a few months ago that the reason to share with someone is,

Especially when you don't want to,

Is because I'm going to get something out of it.

It's not for the other person.

You mentioned that before the opportunity is for you.

You just need to push the rock.

Don't worry about the outcome.

But this is an extension of that.

The opportunity to be kind is for me.

It's not because the other person deserves or doesn't deserve.

I'm not the CPA of the universe and I get to decide what percentage or what decimal is accurate here.

Where is the accuracy?

What I know is accurate about the universe is that what comes to me comes to me for a reason.

And I'm plagiarizing what Matthew said before.

It's happening for a reason.

But the opportunity to be kind is for me,

Not for the person I'm being kind to.

And that,

I think we hear those stories sometimes,

Those like,

I don't know,

I want to say meme.

It's not really a meme.

It's like you see these clips once in a while where somebody does some extreme act of kindness and it sort of makes you feel like a piece of poop because you in that position would never be able to be that big of a person.

The kid who steals from the candy store and the candy store owner goes to his house and cooks a meal for him and gives him cash.

There's a whole backstory that most of us don't,

We don't look beyond the behavior.

We don't realize that when someone is behaving badly,

There's usually a very sad story behind it.

And the being kind because it's my opportunity is really the acknowledgement of I don't know the sad story that's behind this person's behavior.

I don't want to bring that story,

Meaning their bad behavior doesn't become a part of my story.

The moment I'm able to be that force of kindness.

I'm guessing at some point,

Matthew,

You also expressed your point of view and your opinions with compassion.

No,

Never.

At least not until after he had renounced white nationalism.

So for two years,

I never made any mention of my views or opinions,

At least on that topic.

I have other opinions about a variety of topics,

But we'll spare you those.

That's quite impressive.

I and the people that you would have over as well.

Some people,

You know,

Because I felt because of who I am,

And it was not going to be possible for me to have a conversation with Eric about white nationalism,

Nationalism,

That was anything but not just confrontational,

But adversarial.

There were,

As I mentioned,

Quite a diverse group of people coming to these dinners.

One person who was actually my roommate and was one of the people who stopped coming to the dinners when Derek started coming,

She said,

If he's there,

I'm going to stay in the room and just,

You know,

Have nothing to do with it.

They're now married.

So it clearly didn't work.

Wow.

And they,

Outside of those dinners after she started coming,

But they started to get to know each other and they had a lot of very difficult and very in-depth conversations about why he believed what he believed.

And in a very similar way,

It wasn't a matter of trying to tell him off or trying to scold him or trying to be God's policeman.

It was trying to understand why he had come to his conclusions.

And in that particular case,

Putting in a tremendous amount of work on her part to present her arguments as best she could and to undermine his.

And it was,

But again,

It was with a point of view of just trying to help and clarify things.

Trying to manipulate or trying to fool.

And I think that's an important thing because also to bear in mind that sometimes people ask me,

They don't know any white nationalists to invite to dinner,

So they don't see any real valuable takeaways.

I'd want to come to dinner like that.

Like you know,

I pay a lot of money.

Audience to be the audience.

I'll be there and I'll pay triple to come to be in that room.

I think it's very powerful energy.

Everyone has their own opportunities,

Right?

Everyone has their own background and opportunities and skillset that they can use.

So I think people need to be attuned to the universe and where they can be of most value to the world around them.

I think it's really awesome that they got married because that's one of the,

We also teach that,

You know,

Don't judge that your soulmate is not going to be the person you think they are.

You usually actually are supposed to resent your soulmate in the very beginning.

I've read something to that effect.

If it makes you feel better,

There's also some,

You know,

Probably not such easy relationship with the in-laws there.

So that's good.

I love it.

Okay.

So I'm changing the last point to let other people,

Let people make their own decisions.

Is that accurate?

Sure.

Sure.

I got a show.

You can make your own decision.

Okay.

Good.

We are way over.

This was great.

We are so not over,

But David has a fast clock.

I'm looking at the clock.

It's over.

Which is four minutes fast.

Well,

That's,

That.

It wouldn't be the weekly energy boost if we didn't argue about something.

The one thing we are not arguing about.

This flowed too nicely.

This flowed way too nicely.

The one thing we're not arguing about is how fabulous it was to have Matthew and to hear your story and to share.

I think it's the most powerful thing to share is when you have experience with it.

And we were trying to get back on the show for months.

No really.

We spoke to him about it before COVID.

So it has been darn COVID.

We don't let you get in our way.

Here you are not physically in the studio with us,

But as vibrant and impactful.

Can't believe you chose 60 minutes over us.

So thank you again,

Matthew,

For those of you who are,

Um,

Tuning in for the first time,

This is a weekly show that we do that is available on YouTube,

All podcast platforms,

Facebook,

Instagram.

We would love to hear from you,

Your feedback,

Rating,

Reviewing,

And sharing what we do here.

You can always email us at energy boost at cabala.

Com or visit our website,

Weekly energy boost.

Com to see what offers and information we have,

Especially for our listeners.

Thank you,

Matthew.

Thank you,

David,

And have a fabulous week.

We'll see you next time on the weekly energy boost.