So one of the things that was always a priority for me was
being able to separate my work life and my personal life.
I took a look at careers in, let's say law or medicine and
saw the amount of time that I would have to dedicate to that
in terms of my personal life. And I felt like it's important
for me to have a, a position that is, if not 9 to 5,
something that I can turn off, right, Something that I, I don't
have to put in 150 hours to make partner every week.
That to me, has been the sort of guiding star for how I'm able to
prioritize my family and my learning.
One of the things that I I told my friends at ACM recently is
that to me, learning is what should be happening all the
time. I happen to take a break from my
learning so I go to my 9:00 to 5:00 job, but that's not what I
what I wish I was. Doing Shalom Alaikum and Welcome
to Starktake. Starktaking is a podcast for the
challenges and opportunities of being a mentora in the
workforce. This week we're joined by Moshe
Isaacson. Moshe is a marketing executive.
He also is a lover and teacher of Tanakh.
And I thought that as we approach Hagashavot, it will be
cool to get some different perspectives on differently
muddim talmutora, which we should always be focusing on,
but especially this time of year.
So, Moshe, welcome and thank you for joining us today.
Amazing, great, great. OK, before we jump in, a quick
personal request to please go hit the subscribe button and
leave a five star review. It really helps us grow this
show and reach new listeners. So thank you for doing that.
Moshe, tell us about yourself, your background, your childhood,
growing up a little bit of a different out of town community
before we jump into the what happens next?
Sure. So I was born and raised in
Pittsburgh, PA. Growing up in Pittsburgh is, I
think, radically different than the experience my kids are
having growing up in New York, very out of town place.
But growing up, I never knew I was in an out of town sort of
city. Went to day school that had, you
know, ribium from the Lakewood colal along with, you know,
parents where the moms are not necessarily covering their hair,
maybe wearing pants. A very broad mix, which for me
was very exciting to see. A lot of different aspects of
Yiddish kite from different people.
Amazing. And so you had this various
exposure to different types. So then how did that lead you to
your next stage of going out of Pittsburgh, going to yeshiva?
What were your options looking like?
What was your worldview at that time?
Sure. So there There was no high
school in Pittsburgh for me at the time.
I went to yeshiva in Silver Spring, MD for four years.
That was also very interesting experience for me, but really
kind of led as a springboard to going to Eretz Ystrall.
That's really where my love for learning kind of blossomed.
Growing up. My my mother certainly instilled
a love for learning with me. You know, she was not
necessarily in a very strong financial position, but she made
sure to, you know, hire extra Rabaim tutors, people to spend
time helping me, you know, really appreciate learning.
And that for me blossomed. And Nerretz Ystralla went to
Yoshi, what we call Derek Heitzheim.
I was able to really kind of find my place in terms of
learning. That's I think where learning
Tanakh specifically became so important for me.
Amazing. And in Silver Spring, that was
the Shiro. Greater Washington or somewhere
else? Yes, you should move Greater
Washington. I have the opportunity to learn
by Rabbi Lopianski over there. Amazing.
It's very beautiful. So what was it like for you
coming to Israel Fong Levin and Yeshiva, those early experience
they learn with Tanakh? Any details you can share with
us? That was sort of moments that
you realize, wow, something really special here that you
really wanted to invest lots in time and energy in when you were
sort of seeing the light for the first time.
Yeah, for me, it was going on the T limb with the Tanakh in
hand and being able to see the stories that we had been reading
and learning, which were at the time to me, just stories.
Being able to point to a location and say, hey, that's
where the war with the city of I took place.
And and here's where another story from Tanakh comes to life.
When you can actually see and touch it and be a part of that
story, it becomes so much more real.
And then you go back and look and say, you know, let me really
try to understand this. Not, as you know, kind of a
fairy tale, but as a part of my MyHeritage, where I come from
and the the urusha that Akashwar has given us.
That's very interesting. I mean that that type of teal
and I may be a little bit racist here, but like it might be
identified with a certain type of a tour guide.
He wears a certain type of kipa, you wear a certain types of
shirts. And so did you at the time view
such a Leanwood in a, you know, in that stigma or was it
considered saying that even people from other parts of the
tour world that would also connect to and love?
I'm wondering if that at the time, that was a dynamic that
you were Privy to. Yeah, I I'd always kind of heard
Tanakh as getting maybe a short shrift.
The jokes were something to the effect of like, it's it's great
that Tanakh was written so the Kumar has something to quote
from, right? That whole approach to me, I'm a
bit of a contrarian. So that just made me want to
really understand more, you know, what are the what's this
lean would that is not necessarily put on a pedestal
and maybe given sort of second tier.
I want to dig into that. I want to understand what is it
that is kind of maybe passing other people by And that's what
led me to really kind of roll up my sleeves and and Start
learning it for myself. So I would love to do some
sleeve rolling up together. I think it's an important
question to ask and to, you know, someone, we take our lean,
our responsibilities seriously to not be shortchanging and not
forgetting parts that maybe should.
So tell us a little bit more about why do you think that
Tanak gets the short end of the stick to extent?
Do you think people have an obligation to learn Tanak, not
Tanak on a daily basis, on some sort of other basis where you
can take this from wherever you want?
Okay, so this is my favorite soapbox ever.
I believe that talk is so critical to being a well-rounded
Jew. This is it's Navy, right?
It's something that a Karish sparkle gave us Ladoros, and to
me it's, it's really an ovil. It's, it's a terrible situation
that we're in where large groups of cholesterol just sort of pass
Tanakh by. Besides the fact that you have a
much more profound understanding of the whole totality of Jewish
history when you read through Tanakh, there is a relationship
with a Qurarshbar who that's built into the text that people
I think are just completely unaware of.
The more I've been able to study Tanakh, the more profound my
Yiddish Gite has become, the more I understand the things
that I do, not just from a halachic perspective, but from a
relationship with a Quraish Barho perspective.
I think that, you know, even if it's 5-10 minutes a day, just
digging in there, there are parts of Tanakh that are
incredibly difficult. I understand that people can get
through, you know, let's say up to malachim and then sort of
naveen macronum Are the there's challenges there.
There's challenges going through EOF absolutely, but there's
challenging Dafman in Shas as well, right?
Persevering through that and seeing the totality of Tanakh.
There's 929 procim, you know, a perico day, less than three
years, you can finish all of Tanakh.
The two prakim a day. You cut that down in half,
right? It's, it's a, a challenge that
can be completed and it's not overwhelming when you look at it
from that perspective, especially when I tell people
this all the time. You read through Hummish every
year, right? It's like 187 prakim.
You read through the five megillahs every year.
There's a bunch of haftorahs that you're already completing.
So you are, you have a sort of a running start to get through
Tanakh. To me, there's no excuse.
I've been learning Tanakh with a kevra in my home for the past
8-9 years. We've completed several spharm
in depth, real deep understanding, going through the
Rishonim, going through the text in detail.
And that lean would is invigorating, not just for
myself, but for everybody who's involved because it activates a
different part of the brain. Sure, you're learning Gemara.
There's a logical mythology over there, methodology, excuse me
over there, but going through Tanakh in depth and
understanding the message that Akarshbar who gave us through
the navem, to me that's equally as profound.
It activates a different kind of part of my brain.
That's very interesting and you know, you're giving people a lot
of credit for their Stein Micra capabilities and Halavi.
We should all live up to that. So maybe a few other things I
wanted to dig into here on this topic.
You know, there are indications and there are, you know, some
interesting sugas, you know, and Bhakama, I think maybe Bhaskar
as well about certain Amarayim Tanayim who you know, they were
unsure about certain sukim. So you know, some people will
will make the claim. You know, just as today Tanakh
is a non in thing to learn. It's sort of always been that
way. Do you subscribe to the theory?
No. I would say almost the exact
opposite. It's clear from learning Gemara
that the Tanayama new Tanak about path forwards and
backwards. Yes, you can find an example
here or there where maybe apostle was quoted a little bit
differently or there there's some questions, but buying and
large they're going through all of Tanak in such a you know,
it's at their fingertips. And to me, the reason for that
is beyond the fact that it's it's Tanakh and you should know
it. You can't really understand the
Gamara, understand the chakra Pattaya of the Gamara.
Well, if you don't understand the context, right, if you
haven't read through Tanakh and are able and sometimes you can
find yourself asking questions in the Gamara that maybe, you
know, it would it would take a a Tosis or Rebbe Akiva eager to
know. Hey, there's the posit that was
quoted. There's another posit that that
contradicts that. Maybe having a deeper
understanding of Tanakh can can help that that limud as well
well. Interesting.
And another thing that I've heard that, you know, the, the
reticence, I think that's the right way of pronouncing it of
many to learn Tanakh has to do with the fact that first it was
the musculum and then it was the Zionist.
Various communities that took very, you know, had very severe
disagreements with many swaths of the Torah world also love
Tanakh, love to learn Tanakh, love to use Tanakh as a source
for their world views. So is that true?
Not true. To what extent you think that is
historically relevant or irrelevant to how we approach
Tanakh today? I think that's exactly right.
That's definitely historically relevant.
The muskellium were were certainly people who got very
involved in learning Tanakh. But to me that's just one more
reason for the the Torah world to embrace it, right.
I would never concede a helic of Torah to any group who is trying
to use it to sort of undermine my religious beliefs.
To me, that's an opportunity to dig in and say, let me let me
understand the arguments, let me understand what the concerns
are, and let me battle it with Rishon and let me battle it with
a deep understanding of the material itself.
I did a Series A while back on biblical criticism, and the more
you dig into it, the more you see the veracity of the Torah,
the more you understand the beauty of the Torah itself.
To me, it's a scary thing to say.
Well, that's a lean would for a group that you know, who says
who gives anybody a right to take my urusha away from me?
And about Artistrail, you mentioned that your love for
Tanaka was connected to your experiences in Artistrail.
So to what extent do you think that maybe some of the
Renaissance in Lima Tana has to do with the connection to
Artistrail? And to what extent you think
people who are not in Artistrail can connect to Artistrail
through Lima Tana? I think that the more you learn
Tanakh, the more you're going to understand that Artistral is
such a special place. It's it's not the case that you
can go through Tanakh and say, okay, artistral has a place, but
there there are other things that are just as important.
Artistral is so focal, so key, the the entire Tanakh is driving
towards a return right the the Ezra Nahamya ends with the the
triumphal return to Erezi Stroll.
It's not a case where you can end Hamish and say, well, I'm
sure they live happily ever after.
No, there's ups and downs, but the connection to Erezi Stroll
holds true throughout the entirety of Tanakh and again,
that's something that is part of a urusha to Kaliusral.
So the more you can connect to Arsal through the learning of
Tanakh, the more I think vibrant a persons connection to Akash
Bartha will be. Okay, so you've alluded a couple
times in conversation to various initiatives, programs, Limudium
that you are involved in, in Tana and we're gonna get back to
him in a minute. But before we do, I think it's
important to state and to explain the fact that all your
love of Tanakhi teaching of Tanakh is in addition to the
fact that you are a professional, you work in
marketing. So let's just digress there for
a second. Tell us a little bit about how
you got into the world of marketing and sort of how that
decision and career path came about for you.
Sure, it was completely by accident.
I actually I asked one of my Rabin Rastav what career should
I pursue. Like the TAR doesn't tell me
what job to get into and his response to me was essentially
don't make huge decisions like that, make the best decision for
the next 5 minutes, make small decisions and they will ladder
up to the right decision. I followed that advice when I
went to college. I actually ended up majoring in
psychology, but found myself at my first job, which was
completely focused in marketing and those the, the way I got
there was sort of following that advice of just making good small
decisions rather than trying to sort of tackle everything at
once. I, I learned marketing on the
fly in my first job and was able to kind of parlay that into
greater and greater roles. Now fortunately I'm in a role
that is called go to market, which is essentially sales and
marketing kind of combined for business to business.
And in the SAS software world, that's that's really growing by
storms, especially because of the advances in artificial
intelligence. Interesting.
So I also, you know, you talked to remotion staff who was in
their time at different points and I think maybe he'd be there
and now and he's also in Karen Biavenet and I had a very close
relationship. And so I'm wondering he's a big
inspiration for me and taught me a lot. 1 of the things he taught
me many times and many share him was how bad marketing is.
And I actually today working in marketing and you're working in
marketing. Is that something you ever heard
from him or did it 'cause you any pause at any point?
So he didn't mention that to me specifically, but yeah, he I
learned a tremendous amount from him.
And I think the marketing that I try to lead with is more
solutions based. It's not kind of flashy and
selling the sizzle. It's more about understanding
the needs of the customer or the client that you're going to and
making sure that your solutions align with their needs.
Right. I think that's very true.
And I think, you know, a lot of the examples you would give
about marketing was specifically a type of marketing where you
put the the milk and eggs in the back of the store and you have
to walk past all the candy to get there, which is the opposite
of what you're doing. You're giving them the milk and
the eggs wherever they need it and not having to drive them
through the candy first. Exactly.
Right. So let's tell me briefly about
your sort of the other steps in your career.
I'm interested, you know, psychology and marketing.
Those two are quite connected. Was that part of the journey for
you and what were the sort of the subsequent steps along the
way? Yeah.
So my intention had been to get a master's in psychology.
It was going to be IO psychology, business psychology.
So I figured let me take a year off and learn business before I
go into the master's program. And I ended up joining a company
called IDT. They were, at the time,
telecommunications company that had started an entertainment
division. They were doing the animation
for The Simpsons. They were making feature films
and to me that was really cool. So I decided to kind of change
my my track and spend time over there learning marketing hands
on, but found that a lot of what I had learned from the
psychology perspective fit right into what I was doing.
Making sure that my messaging was very clear, that people
understood the value proposition that it was putting in front of
them and how people learn things.
All that came from the psychology side, but being able
to translate that into a marketing platform really
helped. Interesting.
And I, you know, I work in marketing for a non profit
wonderful place at the Negev. I'm really happy here and I've
had conversations with different people.
And I'm wondering sort of what your take is on the connection
between marketing in sort of the B to B corporate world that you
are currently in and marketing in the nonprofit world.
To what extent those are overlapping fields.
They're completely separate, completely the same.
How would you advise people? Because I think in addition to
me being selfish and wanting to get some guidance myself, many
people are helping their soul, helping their local yeshiva and
marketing is saying which often times gets tossed around and
people have different takes on it.
So I'm wondering if you could help guide us in that.
Absolutely. I've actually thought about this
quite a bit. And I think that in terms of
fundraising and in terms of nonprofits, the messaging that
comes across a lot of times needs to be differentiated
right? There are, you know,
Bharatasham, there are a lot of institutions that are doing
great work, but if the message sort of sounds the same, it's
very hard for the consumer to understand the difference
between, you know, this, this institution and that
institution. Picking a niche and really
driving home how the institution you're in is different.
That changes the conversation completely.
It narrows the scope of who maybe you're talking to.
And sometimes that, that can be scary for institutions who want
to feel like, let me talk to the, the broadest audience
possible, because even if we hit them a little bit, a little bit
from a large audience can really add up.
And, and I won't say there's not some wisdom in that, But I think
the more you can narrow down and talk to a very specific audience
and use the messaging that, like I said, differentiates you, but
speaks to the, the core values of that smaller audience.
That's going to activate people at a much higher level to
participate, to support, to be involved, because they see
themselves in the message. The more, and this is true in
marketing all over the place, the more the the end user, the
customer, the person you're talking to can see themselves in
what you're saying to them, the stronger the affinity is going
to be in in my role on the software side, I have to make
sure I understand my customer just as well as if I was running
their business, because if I can do that, I can talk to them with
their language. I understand their pain.
Then when I'm presenting a solution to them, that solution
isn't something that just plopped out of the sky.
That's something that says to them, hey, this, this guy really
gets it. He understands me.
He understands my problems, my my values, my concerns.
And what he's recommending isn't just another cookie cutter
solution, it's something tailor made for those values, those
problems. Did that answer your question?
Yeah, I think so. You said that, yeah.
And that was very interesting how you talked about how really
understanding getting into the shoes of the other person, being
empathetic and a good communicator.
Which leads me to another question which I've thought
about a lot, which is the question between sort of the
more human side of marketing as you just described it and the
more business side, analytics, spending allocations.
And I think that, you know, some people, as you know, people come
from a more psychology background, want that want that
in their marketing career, want be spending their time focusing
on those issues and not crunching my numbers AB testing
all these different things. So you know, to extent to you
have you had to sort of balance those two things or recommend
others who are involved in marketing and in being able to
both be successful but also be fulfilled in doing a good job on
the one hand for more human tailored activities versus also
being smart and wise and analytical?
That that's very fairpoint and I think that you can't have one
without the other. If everything is just sort of
messaging and there's no analysis of the success of the
message, you could be talking into the void.
What I tell people all the time is I think from my perspective,
one of the most critical classes I took as a psychology major was
statistics. Being able to understand data
trends and patterns, being able to understand how to analyze
those, to know what's statistically significant has
played a huge role in my entire their career.
It doesn't mean that you only let the data do the talking.
You have to have that personal touch and a personal
understanding. But if you're creating a bunch
of marketing material and you're not analyzing the success, you
could be missing a very important message that's buried
in the data. Interesting.
One other question on your sort of marketing expertise, everyone
who's in any sort of content type position is obviously
thinking a lot about AI. And my personal experience is
that at the moment, the time that it takes to edit the AI
content to make it what I think is, you know, worth putting out
to to the world is basically makes a lot of the AI usage a
little bit not worthwhile for now.
It could still be it's worth it to learn the skills because it's
going to get better. But I was wondering how you sort
of have experienced it so far? So I've seen a lot of change in
AI even in the past six months, where it's able to do things
better than it had in the past because of the amount of time
and effort I put into training the systems and building sort of
the skills within the AI that I'm using.
I think that's only going to continue to get better.
In the past, certainly it took just as long to kind of edit a
LinkedIn post that AI produced for me as if I was going to
write it for myself, you know, from scratch.
And so I did that. I basically just wrote my own
content instead. Now I'm finding maybe less on
the content side, but more on the AI agents to automate
different processes. That has saved me a tremendous
amount of time, whether it's on CRM management or analysis of,
let's say, deals and calls that I'm involved in.
The AI has been trained to a point where it understands what
I classify as good or bad and is able to flag those things for
me. It saves me a tremendous amount
of, you know, operational or administrative time.
Got it. So maybe just as we start
working our way back to the Tanakh conversation, tell us
about what you're currently doing in the marketing world
you've you've read to a pretty senior level.
Yeah, absolutely. So I was with a company called
MP on for four years, headed up the sales and marketing for that
company and was able to grow them from about 10 million in
annual recurring revenue to about 50 million the past two
months. Actually left that company and
joined a startup that's in stealth mode.
This is an AI first company that's still in the software
space, but helping to build the go to market function for them
in an opportunity that I think is a multibillion dollar market.
Wow. And so you allude to the fact
that before that you grew up in a house where, you know,
finances were not always so plentiful or challenge.
There were challenges there as well.
So how has that experience shaped how you sort of make
decisions about career, income and just in general living life?
So one of the things that was always a priority for me was
being able to separate my work life and my personal life.
I took a look at careers in let's say law or medicine and
saw the amount of time that I would have to dedicated to that
in terms of my personal life. And I felt like it's important
for me to have a, a position that is, if not 9 to 5,
something that I can turn off, right?
Something that I, I don't have to put in 150 hours to make
partner or every week, whatever the case may be.
That to me has been the sort of guiding star for how I'm able to
prioritize my family and my learning.
One of the things that I, I told my friends at ACM recently is
that to me, learning is what should be happening all the
time. I happen to take a break from my
learning. So I go to my 9:00 to 5:00 job,
but that's not what I what I wish I was doing, what I wish I
was doing was, was learning full time.
So, you know, being able to, to balance those two things, but
understanding that the priority is my personal life, my Voda
sashem and that that work. Obviously, you know, when you're
there, you have to put in, you know, 110% to be successful for
sure. But is it where my heart is
compared to my learning? I I can't say that it is.
So I think a lot of us strive to have some sort of version of
what you are describing. I'm wondering sort of
practically how you've made that work throughout the years.
And also, you know, you mentioned the the levels of how
to what extent you view your core identity as things beyond
work. And then there's your work.
So I think there's also some nuance there between that
distinction and saying, you know, work is an evil and I hate
it and I don't really want to be there at all.
And it has nothing to do with my religious identity as a vocal
system. I think it's also sort of
incorrect. So how do you make it work
practically and also sort of of philosophically, ashcophically,
conceptually, think about that dynamic.
So I think work is, is very important and I I would never
feel comfortable kind of bifurcating myself to say, you
know, half of my day I spend doing something that I hate or
that I feel isn't evil. I believe that, you know, in
Maine cannot in Kama Hintora, you have to we have to have both
aspects and there's a reason that I cut a sparkle gave us the
opportunity to refine ourselves in the working world just as
much as we can outside of the working world.
So I try to bring the values that I learned my, you know, my
personal life to my working life to make sure that things are
done in an ethical way that people are treated with fairness
and and truthfulness. But I I still try to understand
that that's a biddy Evan, right. If, if I could, I, I would much
rather be spending more of my time learning.
So what I try to do to kind of actualize that, make that real
for myself is something I learned from Rabbi Radinsky
steal time for Torah. The way I do that is maybe it's
during my lunch break, you know, grabbing a, a Tanakh and just
trying to finish off the parrot that I wasn't able to do after,
you know, chakras in the morning, 5 minutes here, 5
minutes there. Whatever the case may be, it, it
brings my mind back to the things that are important to me.
The same way being able to stop in the middle of a working day
and go to Aven Minha that that shows me right.
It's it's almost a self reflexive kind of thing.
That's the, the term hid Pilel is, is a self reflexive term
that, hey, this is really what's, what's important.
This is, you know, connecting to a Karushbar who is what you want
to be doing, even if you're not able to do that full time.
Interesting. I mean, some people have come on
this podcast and said, you know, things along the lines of like
work life balance, you know, doesn't exist, it's not real.
You know, maybe some of them aren't good at it and therefore
are jealous of it. I don't know.
So I'm wondering if you could talk a little more to what
extent you think that, you know, it could be some people also,
you know, various influences out there are given unrealistic
definition of it in the in the other direction.
So how do you sort of define that term for yourself in a way
that is both practical, realistic, but also fair to your
various commitments beyond your 9:00 to 5:00?
So to me, work is time that I've dedicated to a specific pursuit.
The same thing goes for learning.
If I have, you know, time to set aside for learning, that time is
time that I, I cannot shake for any reason.
My kids know if there's a, a share that I'm involved in, it
doesn't matter what else is going on in the world.
I've dedicated that time and I have a responsibility to that
time being put aside for a vote as a sham.
So I believe that both of those responsibilities make me a whole
person. I can't have one without the
other. I can't, you know, I can't put
food on on the plates if I'm not at work, but I can't be a whole
person if I'm not dedicating that time to learning.
And it energizes my whole week. My family knows that when the
share goes really well, they can tell because it's been something
that I've been excited for the whole week and preparing for the
whole week. And then I kind of ride the wave
of that excitement into the next preparation.
Without those two things, I'm not a whole person.
And I feel like I, I can't, I can't separate the two and kind
of put my mind into one place at one time and another some, some
other time. Both of those have to coexist.
And sometimes that means that after work, I'm, I'm reading up
on latest trends in AI and, and how to use that for my working
life. That's that's fine, as long as
it doesn't impinge on bedtime with my kids or preparing for
the next year. It's not something where I have
to cut that part of my life out. To me, all of that is part of
how I grow as as a person. And being someone who's always
trying to be intellectually curious is really important.
I can take that intellectual curiosity and turn it into a
passion for learning Torah. I can turn it into a passion for
being successful in the working world, but I can't turn it off.
So it's interesting cuz you know, one of the things that
people when they talk about the challenge or the impossible
mission of work life balance, they say that the responsibility
to work, which you alluded to before is something which you
know, will oftentimes demand late hours.
You need to be committed, but things don't always work on your
schedule. There are other stakeholders
that have to be please. So if I'm understanding you
correctly, you're sort of saying that keeping boundaries around
certain slots of time into your learning and your family is the
way to keep those other, you know, those work commitments
from encroaching on the other things.
Is that correct? Read of it?
And, and to what extent is that like you heard Val Yavor in the
way you view it or there has to be some flexibility with other
people that you're working with that are on different time zones
and different schedules that you need to be working with and and
keeping them happy? So I, I try to be fair and, and
use my say hello there. There are times where there's a
conference the same day that I usually give this year.
And so I can't, I can't give this year that week, but I owe
that time, right? And if that means that I'm
travelling to the, the conference and I'm on the plane
for three hours, then I'm going to make up that time in other
ways. To me, the most important thing
is the relationship with the Qatarshbar who and the way that
I feed that relationship and the way that I know that I'm
committed to that relationship is by the time and effort that I
expend. Sometimes, you know, things
happen that are outside of my control and you know, you have
to make the best that you can with the situation that you're
given. But it doesn't to me, it doesn't
exempt you from the commitments that you've made.
It's just about finding another way to pay that time back or to,
to reinvest the energies that you're given in a way that feels
like you're still committed to to that relationship and to that
growth. Wow.
So you know, we started out with your love Tanakh, then we went
to your career and sort of your time management, your work life
balance. I want to bring it all the way
back. You know, you've alluded to the
sheer. So may you tell us about the
sheer, the sheer and the teaching that you're doing, the
commitments that you have is in terms of your limit of Tanakh,
your otherly mood dim that that sort of have allowed you to
continue to grow in your knowledge of Tanakh and your
teaching of Tanakh, even though you're also busy with a lot of
things professionally as well. Sure.
Well, the, the real, I think it really started when my wife told
me that we were expecting our second child, my my first
daughter. We decided we wanted to do
something as a kind of as close for, for the baby.
So my wife and I started to learn Tanakh together.
This is really the first time that I went through all of
Tanakh beginning to end. We spent two years doing that
and since then it's just been a regular lean would for me.
I was actually lucky enough to learn through Tanakh with my
daughter to have her make ACM and her bat mitzvah 12 years
later, but that that annual sort of commitment really grew into
something where I felt at a certain point.
Let me share this with others. So for the past nine years, I've
run a Habura we call Tana in depth.
It really started with a series that we did called Villains in
Tanakh. And that was some of the
marketing to try to get people excited about learning Tanakh.
That's been a regular limo that I've had for, like I said, about
8-9 years. I do also give a weekly DAF it's
actually a yard site share for a friend of mine who passed away,
but we're going through Masaka soda together.
I also have share Friday nights for people in my neighborhood.
We're we're going through at this point we're finishing up
pair que Elvos, but trying to do that also in a little bit more
depth. I called pair que elvos for
adults. The idea across, I think all of
the the different Lemudum is to take very seriously material
that maybe, you know, we said at the beginning, gets play second
fiddle sometimes. Really diving into that and
trying to understand the the beauty and the depth of that
material has been for me one of the greatest joys of my life.
Interesting. So as I think if I if I'm
keeping score at home correctly, that's three weekly sheer and
that's basically on an average of almost every other day.
So where do you find time to prepare and get yourself ready
for these sheer more? Are you just wing it and reading
it and going as you go along? No, it's I'm an early bird.
I, I try to get up pretty early and that gives me a lot of time
to myself, you know, have a couple hours in the morning that
I can use to prepare for the Shurim.
I have Bharat Hashem, a pretty extensive library that I'm, I'm
able to tap into and time, you know, traveling to and from work
where I get to sort of prepare, review, make sure that I know
what I'm talking about. Because to, to me, that time is
time that I'm committed to. So being able to, to give a
share is a commitment. It's a commitment from the
people who show up and, and I want to make sure I honor their
time, but it's also a commitment for me to Akashwar to say, this
is something that I'm dedicating.
And so if I'm going to do that, it like any carbon, it has to be
beautiful. It has to be.
Perfect. Wow.
And like, how early are we talking about in the mornings?
Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 on on a daily basis.
Wow. And then you mentioned the
commute, which is interesting. What type of like are you train,
driving, busing? What's like, what's the set up
there? Yeah, I'm on a train for about
an hour each way each day. So that gives me close to two
hours to to kind of dedicate as well.
Well, I, I do, you know, think that anyone, I think the trains
are by far a better mock of Torah than the buses in the cars
of the world. And so I guess it's a for those
who are able to make use of that time.
Absolutely. Okay, so this has been a great
conversation. We covered a lot of ground maybe
to sort of as we transition towards the end.
You mentioned you teaching Percalus and Tanak.
So talk about, you know, Benito in the workforce, you know, work
like balance, career success, learning success.
Do you have any sort of famous ideas that are maybe from some
of these off the beaten places that and by the way, for the
audience like this is a emotions going on on.
I didn't prepare for this question.
So off top of your head, anything that comes to mind from
some of the Limodom that you're involved in that provide sort of
a unique insight and unique perspective on some of the
challenges involved in the Ventura and the workforce
dilemmas? Oh, that's very interesting
question. So I think that, you know, it
kind of gives me pause. One of the things that I really
found interesting in exploring sort of time Tanakh to learning
Shas is the parallels between different stories.
So Shavuous is coming up a pattern that I noticed in
Mcgillis. Ross sort of reappears in a
Agata in Hagiga where you have Rebbe Mayor following Alicia in
sort of a very similar way that Ross is following Nami.
And finding those kinds of patterns in agadatas and
comparing them two stories in Tanakh was something that really
kind of sparked my interest. But to take a step back from
that, finding patterns across different topics, different
areas of study, that's, that's really what a lot of learning is
about, right? When you're comparing 2 sugiyas
in a Gemara, that's what you're doing.
You're you're looking at patterns across different areas
that maybe don't necessarily go together.
I think that that is something that can can sort of actualize a
person's mind in a way that is so foreign to the rest of the
world, right? People who are not learning
Torah, they're not, they're not able to find that kind of mental
stimulation. And it gives you great insights
into beyond just Torah learning into the working world when when
you're looking at, you know, approaching a problem and you're
bringing a total perspective to thinking in a different way.
That unlocks so much creativity that I think is absent from a
lot of other, a lot of other sort of more analytical ways of
approaching things that I think that you can't, you know, have
one without the other. Meaning if you're, if you're not
using your full mind when you're learning Torah, then you're not
going to be able to use your full mind in the working world.
The 2GO hand in hand, the more you do 1, the more you can do
the other. They're complementary and to me,
like I said before, I can't be half a person.
I think that anybody who is serious about their learning is
able to find the areas of learning that excite them and
bring that into the working world.
And vice versa can find the the learning the the that exists in
the working world, bring it into the Torah world and the the two
of them are are better for it. You know, one of the things that
I found in my sort of short career as a as a boss is the the
fact that sometimes excitement can be contagious.
So if I want to learn the sugar yeshiva, I was really excited
about and then I'm going through me and it's done a lot of time
and I'm sort of rushing through. But then I find that exciting
sugar that I learned well back in the day.
So, you know, even though we're not always able to bring the
full level of excitement as maybe we'd always want to with
various limitations on our schedule, on our time and our
energy. But sometimes, you know, making
sure that there are at least some parts of your learning that
are really exciting to you, that sometimes carries over to other
areas. And when you spoke about.
So if you want to add anything on that, I'm happy to hear.
But you also said, you know, between the learning and the
working, there is an overlap there.
There's way of of applying patterns, approaches, ways of
thinking about things. I wonder if you can give an
example from your sort of own life where you had some sort of
Torah outlook that you're able to bring to your marketing or to
your other things that you're doing in business.
So I, I would say it ties back to that pattern finding.
One of the first things I did at the last company I was at was
try to understand who the audience is.
And the more I spoke to, the customer base was very all over
the map. They had customers that were
Subway, restaurants, wineries, and a lot of customers in the
healthcare space. So being able to take a step
back and look at the pattern and say, hey, the customers that are
in the healthcare space get a greater value from the software
that we have than any of the other customers that told us.
Let's narrow in our focus and justice go after the healthcare
customer base, right? Being able to take that step
back from all the noise and look at the pattern that emerges.
That's something that that came from my Limud and Tanakh.
Being able to compare one story and Tanakh to another to see
what it teaches you to, to notice that the pelegger we give
a story has many of the aspects of the load and Sadom story That
only comes from being able to take a step back.
Instead of being very granular in the text word by word,
looking at the overall pattern and saying there's meaning in
the pattern itself beyond just the protem and the details.
So that's something that I think that kind of approach, like I
said, each benefits both sides of the world, the working world
and the Torah world at the same time.
OK, so you put you put out a nice amount of your stuff that
you're teaching online. So where people find that And I
also did notice, I don't think you got a chance to list to this
yet, but some AI powered content in the Torah space.
I wanted you to share about that and where people can track it
down. Yeah, absolutely.
So if you search up Tanakh in depth, certainly on Spotify, on
Apple, you'll be able to find the podcast over there.
Also on Twitter as at Isaacson, the yeah, the AI content is
something from notebook LM or starting to play around with
some of the AI tools and producing content where it takes
articles, essays that are online, distills them down.
And it allows you to also interact kind of with the AI and
give it a little bit of guidance.
There's, there's going to be, I think, a lot of changes in the
way content is created as AI gets smarter, more useful.
And I want to make sure that I understand it, that I've rolled
up my sleeves and played with it myself, rather than just being
kind of a passive consumer. OK, amazing.
So definitely put links that in the channel.
So everyone should definitely go and check that out.
And he wants to start some good Tanakhling with them.
And by the way, any other sort of good Tanakh resources?
Someone who's inspired this conversation and wants to jump
on the Tanaka train. Besides for your stuff that will
link in the channels, anything else you want to give a shout
out to? I mean, there's tremendous
amount of shoe arm on why Utora that I get a lot of inspiration
from. Certainly I learned a lot from
Rabbi David Katz. He has a Jewish history series
and a lot of times that overlaps with some of the Lumuda Mintanax
so highly recommend that as well.
OK, amazing. So now let's go to our Lightning
round 3 Short questions, three hopefully short answers.
We're in the summer, we have a nice long Sabbath afternoons.
What do you like to do at that time?
So Shabbos afternoon is time for me to spend with my kids, each
one of my kids. I try to get a little bit of
time to learn with them, play with them, you know, games,
whatever the case may be. OK, amazing.
You mentioned your love for Tanakh, so I'll I'll take this
middle question about Tanakh. If you had to choose one safer
Tanakh as your favorite that you find having a personal deep
connection to. Wow, I would have to say safer
schmal. I spent two years learning it
and then two years teaching it, and it's very dear to my heart.
OK. And finally, if you were forced
to leave the marketing world, leave the professions that
you've been involved in up until now, and find a new job in a new
industry, maybe something you dreamed of doing as a kid, what
would that be? Oh, definitely psychology.
It's a tremendous love of mine and something I'd love to
pursue. OK, Moshe Isaacson, thank you
for coming today. This has been a really
interesting conversation. Amazing.
Thank you so much.