20 years ago, in March 2004, a new blog appeared on the
Internet for the very first time.
It was called Hirhuram and has since been rebranded as Torah
musings, and it has grown to be a major hub for Torah on the
Internet. It strikes a balance between
sophisticated and popular, intellectually open and
helically conservative. The man behind this movement is
a rabbi who has written hundreds of articles, published 5 books,
and has been involved in numerous communal initiatives.
Oh, and he's an actuary who learns, writes and teaches in
his spare time. His name is RAF Gil Student, and
in our conversation he shares his unique take on working,
learning, and more. If he sounds like an intense
person, well, you're sort of right.
In our interview he talks about laid back intensity, his own
version of the rat race, and why his corner of the office is
always the loudest. My name is Jacob Wolf and this
is starting Shamala, Tim Gil, student.
It's a great honor to have you here.
I think you're the first person to be a guest both on my podcast
and at my bris. So welcome to the show and thank
you for joining us. Yeah, it was such an I literally
haven't seen you since you're bris.
So it's it's for the listeners who don't know.
I was very close with Jacqua's father, Josh.
His grandparents opened at home to me.
I spent a lot of time there. His great grandmother.
I used to eat Shabbos snills by her.
I don't what's coming next. In the next half hour or so,
it's going to be me talking about myself.
And I really, really don't feel boring.
I probably wouldn't have done it for anyone else.
But for for your family, I I can't say no.
Thank you. Thank you.
So I, as you mentioned, I've been hearing about you a lot
since I was a very little kid and I always heard about you in
the context of being a scholar and Atomic Hakam.
So I was actually very surprised to hear that you take a Parnassa
as a not as a Rev, not as a clay kodish full time.
So maybe just to frame the conversation about your learning
and teaching you tell us a little bit about what you do
professionally and how you chose that path.
OK, OK, so the first thing you have to understand is that
nothing in my life makes sense. I've never had a plan for
anything and everything just falls into place because of some
of the stuff I'm going to tell you are like Parmesan duloing
that happened in my life. So to move back, OK, so I'll say
I was in high school. I became from in high school.
I'd gone to somewhere. Chester.
I was at Fresh, which is a mountain Orthodox high school.
And after 10th grade, going into 11th grade, I became from and
from Shambas. It's tricked on everything,
strangely tricked on everything. So, you know, my parents wanted
to go to whatever secular college and I had no interest
whatsoever if I could tell you a story that be able to relate to
Yaakov. I went to a bar mitzvah, a
family bar mitzvah in Brookline when I was in 12th grade.
And it was at the time when my parents wanted me to go to.
So my parents reached out and to get a lot of Kyle's
applications. But I got home before they got
home, so I threw them all in the garbage because I only wanted to
apply to Yu. But I missed one Columbia
Engineering application came in, my parents got it.
I don't know how it slipped through and I applied and I
tried to get rejected. I actually somehow got accepted
to army engineering and I had no interest in going and that was
an ongoing argument to me and my parents.
And we're at Brooklyn for Shabbos and my father went with
me to show the the my father's a wonderful wonderful wonderful
person. Great Kyle let's do what with me
to mincha And in between Mincha and Lara there was a scholar
residence at the young Israel Copeland.
A young comma Falcon from the YUS Kolo Elion name the rabbi
bar sign Now many many people know us and he gave a knockout
sheer between Minsa Nay and after Shabbos.
I told my father if I want to be anything like him, I can't go to
Columbia. I have to go to Yu.
And my my recollection is that was the end of the story and I
went to Yu. And so I was in Yu and I really
had. I was just in college.
I started off in the same program that your father was in,
in a joint engineering program between Yu and Columbia.
But the physics classes in Yu were three hours long.
Brutal. I couldn't sit still for that
long. I needed to find another major
and I was good at math. So one of my friends, David
Comet, a Rebbe, a high school rebbe.
So he said why don't you, why don't you major in math?
It's it's easy for you and attendance is not required in
class and that was the Yu policy.
If you're in math classes, attendance was required.
At that point, I had almost an out of body experience that was,
you know, that was the jackpot. You could get a college degree
and not have to go to class. You just have to take tests.
No, I majored in math and and I had no idea what I was going to
do with it. But I asked around what do you
do with a major math and someone said you could be an actuary.
OK, I'll be an actuary. That was it.
And. Can you tell us about your
transition from college to the workforce?
So we got married, Like, right after college.
I was 22, and it's the day before my 22nd birthday.
I got married. She was still in college.
My parents had no interest of me learning in cola.
My in laws had no interest of me learning in cola.
So we skated along for a year and then at some point, no, I
said what he shouldn't you be interviewing for a job?
OK, I'll let a few for a job. Sent out a bunch of resumes,
interviewed. I got the worst job in the
actuarial industry but I got my foot on the door.
And so I started as in a as a property casualty.
Actuary hated the job immediately.
Terrible terrible job. Great people love the people
hated the job. That lasted maybe nine months.
But the way I got out of it is a very important lesson.
I don't A few few months ago I was working in Brooklyn and I
bumped into a an average thing Nicole in St.
Berlin. And he just said what you're
learning. And and you know, he asked me,
how do you remember, What's your strategy to remember the
Gomorrah that you learned and it keeps you in your head.
And I told him why My strategy is brute force.
Just keep learning, learning, learning.
Fazzer, fazzer, fazzer. And.
And that's my strategy in life. So when it came to finding
another job, this was before the Internet.
We're talking 1996. Maybe there wasn't it, but I I
wasn't online. But in my company, it had a big
book with a list of every insurance company in the
country. So I took that big book.
I went through every insurance company that looked like they
had a headquarters in New York. And I sent through a resume of a
letter and I called them up and through brute force I got a few
interviews and I got two really, really good job off.
And and they told me after I started my next job, which was a
great place to work. They said the reason they hired
me was because they were impressed by my effort that I
put in. So I got a job as an actuary and
it's been an actuary. You know, you don't need any
Graduate School. I had no graduate degree
whatsoever. I don't even have some years off
from Yu or any institution, but you have to take actuarial
exams. So I had a great job working as
an actually pricing business, reserving, doing all.
It was really fancy stuff. It was in mid 90s when finance
and insurance was was overlapping and I'm still also
some really cool stuff but I had three kids by that couldn't take
exams and learn and you know I, I, I, I the way I have it with
my wife originally we had for the past 30 years.
She's the one at all. She takes care of the kids.
My job is to earn a living. My work always comes first and
then after that comes my family and my learning.
So I was never there. I missed lots of things for my
kids because I when I had to work, I had to work.
But for me, I needed time to learn.
I needed time to be with my family.
I couldn't just be stunned for these exams.
And you're competing. It's graded on a curve.
So you're competing with other people who are young, who have
no families, who don't have shabbats, don't have youngsters.
It's very hard to compete. As I said, you know who needs
this? Why don't you take exams?
I could, I could be working in finance, making more money,
working fewer hours. So I I got out of there and I
called the head out there and I got a job in credit cards.
I was working at Citibank credit cards, which at that time I
think was the biggest credit card company in the country from
out of the world. And it was a cash cow.
They were earning money, tons of money, no matter what they did.
But it's huge company. I felt like Dilbert there.
It's terrible. And I I I really hated my job.
I hated going to work every day. And you know, I never really
have career aspirations. I don't enjoy the work.
But you got to get some sleep behind that fish.
I know, I know. I'm not sending lives here, but
I just can't be bored all day. You go out of your mind.
Only thing that I had was e-mail lists.
So I was on these e-mail lists, Torah e-mail lists, sending
emails. You know, it was horrible.
So I called the recruiter and said, you know, get me, get me,
called an actuarial recruiter following Rhymer.
She's from, she's from. I said can you can you get me
something? And she looked.
And then after a while she said she found an industry, a company
that was looking for someone with an actuarial background and
a credit background. I said, oh, I used to be an
actuar. I work in credit perfect.
And I stumbled into this niche industry in finance and that
merges finance and insurance. And I I started working there
and it was it was it was great stuff that basically I'm
crunching numbers. I'm back all this.
I'm not doing any sales. I'm not meeting with any
customers. I I really have.
They know me. They realize I don't have the
kind of personality to deal with outside parties.
Too much. A little bit not too much.
I'm not a schmoozer. I'm a quiet guy and but I I had
a career there. And then came the financial
crisis which hit specifically my industry destroyed my career.
The 2008 started 2007, 2008. I watched.
I was in the center of all that crisis.
I'm part of it. I watched it happen.
Destroyed every company in my industry except for one and
everybody got laid off. I was literally in.
I was called into the cafeteria where the CEO addressed 1/3 of
the company and said you're all fired, all laid off.
And I was kept on as an, I mean, I can tell you stories, There's
a lot of practice in here. How I was saved from from all
that and it went on the kids. Eventually it laid me off, but
they hired me back as a consultant and they kept
renewing it and renewing it. That probably didn't last
forever. So what was the next step?
Finally, the day before my last day on that job, I got a call
from Robin Gannack from Gannack of the OU and left me a
voicemail. I'm like, I I don't have time to
do it. I'm I'm about to be unemployed.
You know I've got 4 kids at that point.
My wife is a stay at home mom. I have no source event
whatsoever. I can't he he called me again,
left me another voicemail. So I I called him back.
He said it's starting a publishing.
They started publishing it to OU and they want to talk to me
about it and basically it was offered me a job.
I went into the OU the next week and they over made a job to be
an editor editing forum. This is my dream job.
This is what I've always wanted to do at the OU is mamash
grenade. But you know, they didn't pay
the salary that I needed to support a family.
So I've worked for there for two years with a I had a sevens
package. And then at the end of two
years, mom is literally two years later, I come back, come
to the office. Today is the day.
I have to look for a new job. I Google something, reach out to
a recruiter who I know said I want this job at my level.
And he said Gil, the hiring manager of that job you used to
work with, just call him up. I called him up, wanted to call
me that day. By the end of the day he said,
Gil, you have a job and I got hired at AIG, which at the time
was one of the biggest insurance companies in the world.
And I was doing basically my step doing financial.
I do financial projections. I did capital modeling and
capital projections and insurance and I ended up being
there for eight years. I learned an incredible amount
from that company as it is a jungle.
It's they consider themselves are these instead of themselves
sort of like an investment bank everybody that for themselves
survival of the fittest stab everybody in the back whenever
you can. I've my back is wounded I have
so many knives in the back and my back but it's tell me to tell
me to think strategically as you want to position yourself so you
can't get stabbed in the back and you got to think 3-4 steps
ahead so that you know you'll come out without being destroyed
and and and that taught me an important lesson but my general
strategy in the office is I don't really care I'm just there
to do a job. I tend to be an attempts person
I I do what I need to do I tend to do it pretty quickly and then
hopefully pretty well. But I don't.
I don't enjoy it. I'm not competing with anybody.
I have no career aspirations. I just want to make enough money
so I can pay my bills. AB shoe tuition and and that's
it. But somehow Laura Flashem my my
youngest is in 12th grade and made it just about made it
through. Yeah, yeshiva system.
It's been brutal. But my my philosophy in the
office is do your job do it well and just try to make friends.
I'm not a friendly person. I'm I'm a quiet person.
But I try to help other people. Someone needs another job needs
a reference or if they they need something quickly tender and
I'll turn around for them quickly I'll do them a savior.
I just want to do people stay here.
So one thing that's just I'm not good at the underhanded way of
survival. So I'd rather survive because
people like me and you know if if they have to choose who to
lay off, they'll hopefully they'll they'll choose.
They won't choose the guy who helps them out.
So then I survived 8 years in in AIG that way.
And then also doing festive for people.
Jewish gentile doesn't matter. You help people out, they'll
help you back. When you need a job, when you
need a switch to transfer or anything like that, you help
them, they'll help you out. People remember people are good.
And even if you didn't help them out, you helped out their
friend. It's good.
There's a, you know, they call the Hasid boomerang.
It's absolutely true. And that's basically how I
survived in my career. And then after eight years at
that and I was and and let me tell you at AIG, at some points
in in my career, my, the average time I I left work was nine,
9:00 PM and I was working 12 hours on a boring day.
And when it got intense, I was there till 1:00 in the morning,
2:00 in the morning, and and through all that, I was, people
don't know this. I was blogging the whole time I
was writing. I was publishing in newspapers
and magazines the whole time. We can talk about how I did
that, the smokes and nerves around my my life.
But after eight years, I got a an e-mail from that one company
in that industry that I was in before the financial crisis.
The guy who had my equivalent of the job said I just got
promoted. Do you know anyone who wants my
whole job? I said I'll take it, I'll take
it. Told them what I wanted in terms
of salary. And I mean it's just Bart
Hashem. I just unbelieve a lot of that
happened. Unless I've been there all five
years working for one of my old friends, old comrades, working
in this old industry where everybody knows each other,
people I've known for 20 plus years.
I've suddenly got reacquainted in them.
Nice quiet company or Hashem is somehow it all worked out.
But but to to to my point, I never had any career
aspirations. They didn't want to be AC
anything. CEOI wanted to manage as few
people as possible as some coin. I reach one of my career where I
was managing people well because they forced me to do it.
I'm actually pretty good at it, but it's exhausting to manage
people, especially millennials. I mean, no offense, but like 50%
of my time was spent counseling people with new problems,
wanting this and that. And you know, you know,
wonderful people. I like them.
I love them. They're good people.
I try to help them out as much as I can, but it's exhausting.
I just want to be an individual contributor.
Hold me in front of a spreadsheet.
I can do wonderful things for you and I don't want to be
thinking about it on the weekends.
You know, sometimes I had, I had to work on the weekends and work
through Shabbos and you know, I never compromised on what I owe
of Halafa and they respect that and they know that one.
What if I put that forward at the beginning and you're
consistent? They respect that and they work
around you. At least in my experience,
that's what I've done. I've always worn the Yamaha.
I know lots of people that go to Minnesota.
They they put on the Yamaha and I don't, and I don't judge them
for that. But I don't want to spend how
many have 12 hours a day uncomfortable.
That's just not how I want to live my life.
So I just I'd be consuming. I have a beard support my beard
was a bigger nobody cares. I've published forums usually
don't tell people about it but they tend to figure it out if
there's a Wikipedia page for me. So people go over me they find
that and they they realize I'm the I'm the rabbi and and
actually people come to me for counseling.
And in the office I have I have Catholics.
Protestants who come to me with with with their own spiritual
questions. No, I try to try to help them in
any way that I can. That's why incredible.
Wow. So I have a whole bunch of
follow up questions, but I'll start with this.
When I reached out to you for this interview, you responded
and I'll quote here. I'm happy to participate,
although I'm not particularly successful in my career.
So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that
the fact that you'd ought to see anything and the fact that you
might not be the wealthiest guy in the world, is that what you
meant by I'm not particularly successful in my career?
Yeah, no, I I I I make enough my goal.
So first of all I've exceeded anyone's expectations including
my parents, including my own. I thought I would not be able to
make ends meet and especially given my attitude and given my I
killed everyone. Just about everyone I know I
have no career aspiration. Please don't promote me.
Somehow they keep promoting me and I I make enough to pay all
my bills. I've always paid full tuition
which makes me a sucker. I've always paid full tuition
and I have enough to pay my bills and to like I have a
cushion. You always do cushion for a
rainy day. So Barack Hashem I have a
cushion and I I can't complain. I live a simple life.
I don't do vacations. Fancy vacations.
We've never done anything fancy. Only one of my children went to
everything for the year. It's very expensive.
My boys never wanted to go. Barack Hashem.
I didn't have to pay for that And there's and really my only
goal of parenting and I think I said before and I I and I'll go
into this more when we talk about learning there's an error
in that says so who who do your seats are with someone who's
cruel to their children like a Raven.
Now you take it literally you're going to be a horrible person.
You can't be full to your children.
But I wasn't there. I was there for a lot of their
lives. I was usually in the office and
you know if I can rewrite my learning schedule to be with
them but even learning you know I I go to the basement tonight
or I do this or that and I'm I'm constantly busy with things.
I'm constantly, you know, writing and and you know and and
when we go places, sometimes people recognize me and want to
talk to me and make them embarrass my kids, embarrass me.
I just want to be left alone. That's my goal in life.
So you know, I've always been such a good parent and my only
goal though was the minute my wife becomes pregnant.
If you wait till you till your wife gives birth, you're late.
The minute your wife you find out your wife is pregnant you
need to start doubting that your kids will be firm and be live it
to our life. And then you know you cry you
dive in. That's to me that's the most
important thing to my kids. Every every decision we've made
in life has to deal with how will it affect our kids so that
they will end up being from they don't have to be like me could
be the right to the left. I don't care and and they all
tend to be to the right of me which is fine.
That's been my main concern throughout is if I'm a bad
father, Oh my still my kids still come out from and
Varakasham my wife is a good mother.
So it it worked out. Well, you spoke you you made
reference to these smoke and mirrors around your achievements
in Torah. So I want to start getting into
that a little more. So I think just a good way to
start would be maybe. I'm sure things have changed
over the years, but as things go now, what's your daily or weekly
learning regimen looking like? OK, I'll.
I'll tell you what it is, but just keep in mind I'm older than
you. My kids are all gone.
My grandchildren don't live anywhere near me.
I my goal is to learn 25 blot a week.
I always never reach that goal. One of my strategies in life is
have goals that push you. I need to be pushed.
And my work is not that hard. It's I'm, I'm not hard.
The Myron senator says. I'm all at Tara.
It's it's a learning and you need to struggle.
You need to push yourself. And I'm not.
I'm not the smartest. I've never been the smartest guy
in the room. I know that smart probably above
average. Everybody thinks they're above
average. So hopefully I'm above average.
But I'm I'm certainly not brilliant.
I wouldn't really always wish I could have been brilliant but
I'm not. But you got to push yourself.
You got to push yourself because none of us is an amazing amazing
the Hagdamma. So that my Bibbs, Bibbs, L
Kingdom. My Bibbs lived in the 1500s and
SAS where I was called for safer based L Kingdom introduction, he
points out. And this is something that
counts a lot. You hear all the time that
anyone can be a guddle if they they just work hard enough.
Anyone can be a guddle bitura and it's clearly not true
because some people are below average intelligence, some
people are above every intelligence.
To be a guddle bitura you have to be brilliant.
You know, we we might make joke about people not in our
community, but whatever. A guddle bitura is by definition
brilliant. Some people just are not that
smart. So the Mobid says, and the Mobid
says this, he says everybody has and it's a Gomorrah said.
We're in need of that. Everyone in the Tipa, when
everyone is conceived or when they're born, Hashem already
determines who's going to be Khausam and who's not going to
be Khausam. But it's really just to be a
Sadiq or Russia. That's up to us.
Everything else is predetermined.
We're not all going to be a Khausam, but it says in my bit,
but how do you know? How do you know what you are
going to be? How do you know what your
potential is? Everyone has different
potential. One person, if he fulfills his
potential, he has a higher place in Shramim.
But it doesn't fulfill his potential.
He says that's what it means. And the Gomorrah says, you know,
in Shamayim elioning Taftonim and Taftonim elioning, The
people in this world are up on the top.
In Shamayim in the bottom, people in this world at the
bottom and Shamayim are in the top.
He's talking about people who accomplish in learning, someone
who seems like they accomplish so much in learning.
When they go to Shaman, you realize he didn't even fulfill
his potential. He was supposed to be a Hartham,
and he was but it wasn't as big a harm as it should have been
and and the but says him a big How do you know what your
potential is? You don't.
The only thing you could do is push yourself as hard as
possible and then push yourself more.
And that's the only way you'll know that you've at least come
close to fulfilling your potential.
So that's what I do. I push myself as hard as I can
and then I push myself a little more.
So I try to learn and because 25 blot a week, which I almost
never do, but I usually get to 21 and see the the reason I pick
25 is if you learn 25 blot a week, you finish shots says in
two years if you do 21 blot a week, so then you're going three
times as fast as Dafyung me. So you'll finish, you'll finish
S three times in every Dafyung cycle.
And that's just Bakias. I mean all you do is you learn
Bakias, you'll have a superficial understanding of
everything and it'll be a superficial person.
So I also choose Soggius and I write, I have to write an
article, I have to write at least 1000 words every week on a
Sogya. Usually I'll also stuff time
Flashkova and so every week I'm also, you know, researching some
sort of topic going from the beginning to the end from Sazal
all the way to the Afronym. And you know, I have my own
message. Some people like to go
backwards, they look at a Sicily ezzer or a labial or and they go
backwards. Some people start from the
beginning. I usually start in the middle.
I go to a leg re shield, an early iPhone, and then when I
find that topic that I'm interested in and then I go
bottom, go go their bottom and their top and I just research it
from the beginning and then that way I have a little EN as well.
They try to make it a little lumbish as well.
And you just do that every week. And plus I always get random
questions that people come to me on the streets or emails of.
People just ask me weird questions and I love it because
it forces me to learn something else.
You know, why do Rabbani know Halafa so well?
It's not because they learned in yeshiva or they learned a smooth
program. It's because they keep getting
asked those questions time and again and that's what they
remember. So people ask me questions, They
help me hazard or learn something new and then I'll
remember it from that occurrence, that time.
So what I'm trying to say is my life is crazy.
I'm like one of those rats running on those treadmills, you
know, trying to keep up with my learning.
And I also try to learn shots on earth, you know, at least once a
year or twice a year. And then that's also a constant,
constant risk. Plus, I I have a deadline.
I have to write an article every week and I also have to write an
extra 1 every month and an extra 1 every quarter because I I I
write in AI, have a monthly column, a weekly column, monthly
column and quarterly column and that keeps me constantly.
Hearing you talk about your goals, you sound like a shonalif
guy, which is not a bad thing, but it's not normative of
someone at your stage. So if you talk a little about
your motivation and your drive and is that saying what you
naturally always have or say what you actively open it?
So let's go back to my earlier story.
So I'm about you though I got out of I I was in Yu for four
years and then Kolo for for for fifth year and then at the age
of still 22 I went out into the workforce and all my friends
stayed in the Shiva staying in Kolo.
And I just suffer from an incredible insecurity that I
don't have that background. I have no graduate degrees.
I've no advanced smikha. I mean I I eventually got
personal smika that the spectacle later in life.
But I mean I I just don't have the background and I'm and and
and then and then once I got out of work.
Once I got out of the Shiva and I was able to look at the holes
in my education and I realized I had never learned to knife over
the cover. I had never learned Meshnais
over the cover. I never learned Shas.
I never learned more in the book him.
I never learned one of the Deus. I never learned Kazari.
I felt like a complete moron complete ignoramus.
And so I just had to catch up. I all these things, all these
basic fundamental knowledge that I was lacking.
I just felt that I needed to to learn it all.
I know my friends were learning yardea.
I'm like, I don't even know how to skashers.
So I learned yardea and then you know, I there was a Shearer in
in my the rub of my scholl game. Shearer and I generally tend to
associate just when I was younger, not so much now.
When I was younger I used to hang out in coal circles.
So I was learning a Flatbush and I was Darwin and Scholes where
most of the people there were learning cold.
We're young young coal guys and so I just constantly felt
insecure and that's been driving me my whole life and hopefully
someday I'll feel like I actually know something but
right now I just feel like I'm I'm playing catch up playing
catch up for the rest of my life.
And so that's that's what's driving me to constantly learn.
And I I, I I don't always remember the stuff that I've
learned and and I have a bad memory and so my strategy is
brute force. Just keep fazzering and
fazzering and fazzering and eventually someday I'll remember
it and. How do these goals play
themselves out on a day-to-day level?
How do you manage your time to get all that done?
I want to say I really don't believe in time management.
You know what? We'll all go to Shaman and we'll
have to ask the question. Kavata eating Latera.
But, you know, that's the minimum.
Yeah, that's that's. So I'll.
OK. So I'm hesitant to maybe it'll
help someone. So I'll tell you my the details
of my personal schedule. So I wake up early in the
morning. I'm an early riser.
I used to wake up when my kids were little.
I'd wake up before them so I could learn.
And I continue just to wake up early every day of the week,
including Shabbos. Sunday I learned a a blot before
work. I learned a blot after work, and
then in the night time I learned 2 blot, usually one before
Mirev, 1 Ectomyrev, depending on the time of the year.
So that's four blot a day, five days a week, that's 20 blot
Fridays for partial, for catching up.
Shabbos is for you know Ian and also catching up and I try to do
one more blot or Shabbos so that's 21 and you know it's yet
if you learn 25 blade a week so two years you finish shots.
If you learn 21 blade a week so you at least going three times
just you know now feel me you'll cover a lot of ground and
continually hazard. And in addition to that I I try
or I hope to it someday learn 35 to money of shuffling or a week
obviously very quickly like I'm way way behind.
I can't do that. I need to reevaluate them and
tweak my actual goals whether out.
But if you if you do 35A week, you'll finish all shuffled out
in one year. You do have that within shuffle
there for two years. So I'm trying to figure that
out. I had to do that schedule carry
around with me at Gamora almost everywhere I go.
And of course I have a smartphone and she mentioned a
new app that I'm involved with called Torah app, One word with
No space and that gives you a whole library of sworn Hebrew,
English, shiorim, audio and video shiorim.
So it's like a holy Shiva you carry around with you so you can
learn anywhere you want. Yeah, I don't want to.
I don't want to be that guy who carries A safer with me to a
fastener. But you take out your phone,
find minutes in the day, small moments add up to a lot.
Large moments you can accomplish my davening.
So if I finish, so that is Zimbra before the show at
Seabury. I have it tomorrow there.
So I open up the tomorrow in between.
Elias, you know there's always little moments add up to a lot.
But you know the the the idea that you'll only learn during
specific times without eating Latera or time management is
it's it's not the way I think of it.
I I said goals and I just pile on as much as possible.
And I I do and I I try to accomplish as much as possible.
And when it becomes too much, then I reevaluate and change my
goals. No, I to me as eating Latera to
me is like a bare minimum. And you know, we don't say bare
cuss to Torah every time. We learn during the day when I
said Tulsa tells us that ties last of the different Torah is
is is is all day and there's there's no have sake there's no
break in between all day. You're looking for time to learn
and your things that you're doing and the way you're
thinking is is also learning. Learning is 24 hour or 2018 hour
whatever. However much sleep whenever
you're awake there, there are moments where there's A at least
a potential for you to learn. So and then same same with the
Circa Sibor. If I'm involved with this
project or that project, I don't really plan out how much time
it'll take, how much time to have a week.
I just say yes and I accept more and more and eventually either I
I collapse or I sail and I have to, you know, go go back down a
little and say no and or figure something out.
But I don't really actively manage my time.
I just take on as much as possible and see what I can do.
But but all the sounds and again, it sounds too intense and
you know, everybody wastes time. I'm certainly not perfect.
I waste plenty of time, you know, and I'm not spending it.
I'm not real climbing Kanievsky at all.
Try to be like him. That would drive me crazy.
You need some breathing room in the day.
You need to relax. You need to blow off some steam.
You need to joke around, you need to smile.
But when you have concrete goals and you have projects that you
have to do the end of waiting, less time.
And that's really all we could we could try to do is to aspire
to waste less time. In that way we use our time, you
know, better, more, more wisely. But, you know, everybody had to
have different interests. You have to be curious about the
world. No, but within reason you have
to have a hobby or something like that.
You know, Victoria, your hobby, Victoria is really my hobby.
But, you know, you know, you got to be human.
And we're all human. There's nothing wrong with
listening to a podcast or reading A blog or a newspaper
here and there, you know, and hopefully when you you read it
generously, but you know critically and you ask
questions, you're a cautious consumer, like we said, but you
know everything will do within reason.
Tell her I'm not to hail Leslie. You know in the end you have
goals and deadlines that you need to meet and that helps you
manage your time. However you figure out to do
that. I just want to take a step back
also and say you know there's nothing wrong with being a
Balabas, nothing wrong with being Balabatis.
You know everyone has different aspirations and different
abilities and I respect the Balabas who sets inside outside
time every day to go to a Daphil.
Me. Sure.
Whatever sure it is. You know he's done what he's
supposed to do. You should come up to him.
That's that's it's just not who I am.
That's not my aspirations in my life.
So I I don't. I don't structure my day in my
life that way. You know, good for him and good
for me. There's plenty of room for many
different people in Kalali's role.
Please, can I just tell you the best piece of advice I ever got.
Please. There's a rebbe and why you And
then Rebus of Cohen. He's the ball most are there.
So when I got engaged, I was about to get married.
I told him I was going to live in Brooklyn and commute to Yu
Uptown, which is an hour and a half by train, or, or you could
get a ride, which is only an hour, he told me, Always take
the subway, Always take the subway.
Because if you're driving, you have to pay attention to the
road. If you're getting a ride, you
have to talk to the driver. If you're on a subway, you can
learn. I finished so many mastectas on
a subway because of him. Some people go on the subway,
they they sleep, they talk, they check on the phone, but because
of him I've for almost 30 years I'm learning on the subway so
much. All all thanks to that advice.
Let's transition to Term Usings, which is your website, which
we're actually coming up on a big milestone, 20 years of term
using. So let's start with the story of
how that started, and then we'll talk a little bit about what
it's become. Term usings, like everything
else in my life, was a complete accident.
There was this 2000, early 2000s.
There was this new thing called the Blog and I was just checking
ad out at some point and I saw there was this Halakha blog that
was arguing on some point in Halakha, which I thought was
completely wrong. It was someone from the
conservative movement who had a revisionist view of and I'm have
strong opinions on various topics and I was just saying
controversial stuff that really annoyed people or really got
people riled up and I just realized this is working.
I might as well continue. And so I just kept writing and
writing and all of the thoughts that were in my head, I just
kept putting out paper. And then I started.
I ran out of thoughts. So I just started writing
Dvoritora and writing up Sogius in Halacha and in in Lombas and
in Jewish history in Hashikawa, whatever it was.
And it just somehow I was at the right place at the right time,
and people like what I had to say, and it just snowballed.
It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And at some point I was invited to write in a newspaper.
I said, oh cool, one of those guys who read in the newspaper,
I'll get my name in. My mother-in-law will be very
proud. So I wrote in the newspaper and
I got very good feedback. So I just, I just kept doing it.
I mean, really, I've been doing it for 20 years only because I
stumbled into it and it just turned out it worked out well.
But that was really the platform that got me noticed.
I was never expected. I I never expected to be
anything to be for anybody to know my name.
It's a strange name, I know that.
But I didn't expect anyone to know my name, and somehow I just
became, at least in a small community, a minor celebrity.
And I don't even know how that happens, especially since I'm
mostly just me sitting behind a keyboard, really, on my phone.
I do all my blogging on my phone, and suddenly I became a
bit of a minor celebrity. I just kept doing it.
And if I really, if someone asked me to do something, I I I
don't say no. If they asked me to speak
somewhere, I said OK. If they asked me to do this, I
usually say yes. It's just very hard for me to
say no because they they went out of the way.
If they if they think I could do something and for them and all
of them, then I should do it. So it's it's rare that I say no.
So it just kind of took on a life of its own and I just could
bind with it. And then at some point I I
decided that I needed to upgrade my Smicha.
You know I had already learned the other day and I got Smich.
I had a friend you know when I published with a strange name
like Gil Student people will think I'm Jewish.
I felt I need it. If I'm publishing in the
newspapers I need to have the title rabbi.
So I asked a friend who was the chief Rabbi of Basel Switzerland
at the time and he knew well we had spoken in the other day when
he was when he was getting his own sniffer we had spoken and
learning so I said can you give me sniffer.
And he said OK that was really the extent of obviously gave me
a sniffer certificate but I know it wasn't it wasn't going to be
accepted widely it just me permission to use the title So
at some point when you reach a level of communal responsibility
you have to change your behavior and I felt I needed to upgrade
my smeka for that reason and I wanted to join the RCA and they
had their rules of smeka which is a whole other story.
I literally broke the RC as rules I mean I I broke their
system broke this based alright so all the time so I I asked
Rabbi Ginnack and Rabbi Herschel shatter and rabbi laws it tice
and they tested me Robert again I came in the same test to give
to just while you use me for students and Robert Scheffler
just at me all over shots it was really really hard really really
hard. The artist tested my life.
It was all oral but so I came out with us me.
So I said now I'm kissing legitimately call myself a
rabbi. I don't remember where I was
going with this but so I, you know, I somehow I I just people
like what I have to say. And I also like I said before I
have this business training to think strategically and I also
have some experience with marketing and and publicity and
in the rabbinic world those are skills that are are hard to
find. So people appreciate that And so
I I get calls. I get calls, you know, to people
asking for advice, organizations asking for advice on different
things. I'm on various committees and
organizations now just to help with some of the strategic
thinking. And so is publicity and
marketing all of it. I I just stumbled into all of
it. I don't really know how it
happened, and I can't even advise anyone else how to get to
that. Just do your thing and if it
works, if it works, if it takes off, good.
If not, well, who cares? The ickers that you should be
learning, you should have a family, and you should be
blessed with the brothels of having children who are shown in
Torah. So on on that note, it's very
interesting how you talked about your Smicha and you wanted it to
be more legitimate. Nowadays, as we know, it's
really not hard to get some sort of certificate.
It's also even easier to have a platform, whether it's a
website, a YouTube channel, a podcast like we're doing right
here. And that was a challenge for
people who believe that there is certain standards of quality
that should be upheld within our Torah discourse.
And look, aura, I'm thinking out loud here.
The only way to combat that within our community, to to to
maintain those high levels, is to really cultivate a sense of
critical thinking among the audience.
Because if the audience is shallow thinkers, then anyone
can get up and have some sort of speech, thought, have some sort
of platform, and then the entire standards of what constitutes
quality to our content goes completely out the window.
What are your thoughts on that? I agree on many level, first of
all in the community in which I live.
So let me tell you one thing. I don't know if you know the
name, but so people, why you might know the name Rabbi Avi
Sarfati. He and I work for ruses and good
friends back in the day and he once told me he lived in Mossy
and he said, you know he only go to a shear when the speaker
knows more than he does. Which you know, I don't think he
meant that literally. I don't take it literally, but I
I do take it seriously. That's got it.
There are limited hours of the day.
When are you going to learn? If you go to shear him, oh,
Shurum is learning it. Shurum is passive learning only
going to a shur. There's some Guttal Bittora or
someone who's coming from a completely different perspective
that I think will change how I think in one way or another.
Some like Robert Jonathan Sacks all of the Shalom.
You know I I I'm going to hear him because he's coming from a
completely different direction. But even that not too often
because you got to cover grounds because he there are limited
hours in the day. When are you going to learn?
You know it's like the American says American brother says.
You know you got to be as you be.
You're going to sow and you're going to reap and you're going
to harvest what? Pour them at the hail whistle.
Go to this year and that year tell them at the hail whistle.
You know listen to this podcast and that podcast and and read
this newspaper and that newspaper.
We get 5 from newspapers at every Shabbos in my house.
I don't touch them until it's my wife says you should read this
article because what am I supposed to do on Shabbos?
How am I? When am I supposed to learn.
I work all week. If I'm reading the newspapers on
Shabbos when am I going to learn?
And the same goes to the quality control you know if.
Every safer published was quality.
It would be much easier to learn from a saver because you know,
whatever saver you buy is quality.
There's no quality control in the book publication, no quality
controlling and like you said in the in the in the podcast and
anyone can get online Smeka. And some people might might
deserve it and online Smeka might be the only way to get it
because of their life story. Everybody's got a story, but how
do how do you know? So the anger is everybody.
People need to learn to be cautious consumers.
And the most precious, precious asset is not the money.
It's not the four O 1K. It's your time.
You might not. Who knows if you're going to
live long enough to touch your you know, you, your of course,
your family, your children, your grandchildren, Nothing more
precious than me than my grandchildren.
But you know time is time is time is.
Time is more than money. They see time is money.
That's not true. Time is more than money.
So you know, people need to be, I see.
And even people with the greatest mikas around go around
saying fluffs. In old days they used to call it
Baba Shatara, which is offensive, I know, but it's it's
so much inspiration. Inspiration is.
And sometimes you need inspiration good every day.
What's wrong? You know.
Well why can't you hold down that inspiration for for two
days 3 days and learn some some meat and potatoes.
So you know but I'm I'm a cynical.
I'm whole fashioned and I'm out of touch.
I know that my kids tell me that all the time.
But I I just, I just don't. I think there's quality control
everywhere and the way I saw that is by being cynical and
possibly limiting myself And then I'd rather have a, a, a, oh
forget, which is type 1 error, Type 2 error.
I think type 1 error is you reject a false positive, you you
accept a false positive and type 2 is you reject a false
negative. I'd rather have a type 2 error
and reject the Tara then the other and just waste my time on
that Tara. If you want to know what the
answer is, Jakov, I don't know. OK, it's a challenge.
It's all a challenge. And I I appreciate you saying
something controversial because everyone says that the best way
to get the podcast out there is for someone to say something,
get me in trouble. So maybe now the ratings will go
up a little bit. Can I can I just take a pause
for one minute and and I I just realized everything I've said so
far makes me seem incredibly intense.
I happened to be a super laid back guy.
Now if I can tell you a story one time at AIG my department
would lay off all the time. My department got destroyed and
the remnant of my department was moved to another floor and I
happened to be seated right near the chief reserving actuary of
all of AIG. And a few months later his
secretary's admin and admin came over to me at just at the water
cooler and said something which I I choose to take as in as a
compliment and not an anti-Semitic insult.
She said to me when I first moved to the floor she was so
worried because I look so serious.
Everything about me is just serious and she was worried that
I drag everything down. But then after a few months she
realizes all she hears from my area of the floor is people
laughing. All I do all day is laugh and
the people around me laugh and that's true.
I I, I, I I'm not. I I sound intense, but I do all
these intense things in a really laid back way.
I I just. One of the ways you can be that
intense is if you don't really care about stuff.
Like I I think I made it clear I don't really care about like
Trimir. I don't really care about money.
You know, to me, money. The only reason more money would
help is if I could retire and learn older.
If it's if I don't have that enough to retire, then what do I
need it for? More money, more problems.
And practically, how do you make time for running a website in
addition to all the other things that you mentioned?
So we mentioned before you asked about the smoke and mirrors of.
So you know, I'll point to you a little bit about how tour
museums works. You know, things are usually
prepared days in advance and it takes me only two minutes to set
everything up, you know, Then the anchor of my work is
preparing articles, which I do mainly in Shabbos by learning.
And then, you know, I write the articles either on Sunday or
during during my commute to work.
You know, I take the subway, so I have a smartphone.
I used to have a BlackBerry. And.
And almost everything I write is on my, my, my phone.
Yeah. And there are other contributors
to tour musings. There's a Revere, Gido
Rothstein. There's Joel Rich.
There's Robert the Neon Man. You know, we have an editorial
board, Robin Moshe Shapiro and Rabbi Basil Herring, you know,
and they all contributed in their own way.
And then so for me, it's really can all be done in a few minutes
here and a few minutes there, little snips and bits and
pieces. So then I don't have to spend a
lot of time that, you know, on the website.
It's just a little here, a little there, and it doesn't
really take up that much time. You know as long as I have
Shabbos on which I can learn and prepare for an article.
So if I had to I have a SIM plan Shabbos, I have to go away
somewhere and I and I don't have time to learn.
So that that which their, the website will suffer.
I might have to do a rerun or I might have to figure something
else out. But in general, you know that to
emphasize my point is what we've been discussing is you can you
can have a job and then you can learn incredibly well.
And I know people who who became who do better than I do and who
can really became in shots and post Kim and they're really very
impressive people. And you know I aspire to be a
little bit of what they've accomplished in in in my short
time, you know, like I said, I'm still trying to catch up to
them. But in Musicium, someday I'll be
something and you know until then, you know I'm running on
the treadmill just doing everything and taking in more
projects and and learning more. And you always have to take a
step back and reassess what you are doing and how you're doing
it and and change your goals if he did too.
But you can accomplish a lot, and that's what I I hope to do.
I don't want to pop in for the question for a second.
I learn. I love learning.
I have certain ambitions for learning.
But when you have those ambitions, even with learning
what you do care about, so how do you prevent that from
becoming intense and keeping it a source of SIM card?
In the SIM card, Which should we hope that the Torah contributes
to good life and having a life where everyone appreciates Torah
as Hazel talked about in different circumstances.
So putting aside the professional with regards to
Torah, how do you balance intensity and?
Joy. So that that's a very personal
thing. So you're probably at the age
where you might relate to what I'm about to say.
But if you're not, unfortunately you will eventually get there.
Life is full of ups and downs, really difficult situation.
Nobody's life is is just a whipped cream.
Everybody's got really depressing parts of life.
Sometimes you just get depressed and you go through really bad,
really bad things happen to you. There's a war going on right
now. You know what I'm talking about?
You know more than I do because you're an artist.
For all I'm just sitting here in the comfort of Brooklyn, life
could be tough. And my solace has always been a
block. Gamora.
Whenever I'm depressed, whenever something looks really terrible,
Gamora is my way out. That's not the solution to my
anxiety. Solution to my depression.
Always been Gamora. It's just a joy in my life.
That and of course my wife and my kids and my grandchildren.
I have to emphasize that they don't get in trouble.
But a black Gemara is where I find the join lights and you
know, so how do I keep it from getting intense?
I I like, I love it too much and and part of it though and this
is important for everyone to know.
Gemara is really hard. Really, really hard at first.
You need to learn the textual skills.
You need to learn anime grammar so that you can read it like you
can read a novel. Once you can read it Black
Gemara like you can read a novel.
It's so much easier. You focus on the ideas.
The fun part, the hard part is where you crack your teeth.
Hopefully you did that in elementary school or high school
and then but I didn't. I remember at one point when I
was in my mid 20s, I hit an inflection point where like
Gomorrah was really hard and then at some point I just took
off. Part in the mathematical term
and inflection point is where things suddenly go up really
quickly and it just became so easy for me.
I had mastered the skills and and at after that it's just a
joy. It's just where I find the joy
in life and and if that's and again also that that helps with
the learning because if it's you enjoy it so much, then you're
going to find the time. If you like Gamara more than
Netflix, you're going to make Gamara the priority.
Everybody needs downtime. I'm not saying Netflix is
downtime is the way to spend your downtime, but everybody
needs downtime. You know you need to rest your
brain, you need to rest your eyes.
You need to walk around and then get your your limbs moving.
But another thing I learned from Ruby is the Cohen.
When you're walking from building to building, why aren't
you doing a Feshman and nefesh? Why are you just looking around
and thinking you should be doing meaningful thinking, whether
it's a Feshman and Nefesh or it's Kazora.
You could kazer, kazer, Gamora You could you could if you do
the Zefrom method, which I'm not such a big fan of, but I've
tried it. If you did the Zefrom method of
learning Gamora, you can father a homosecta in maybe 20 minute
walk, so you know you two time joyfully enjoy it but use it
meaningfully. Cool.
We we sit away a little bit from from tar musings but we are I do
want to recognize all of its accomplishments and it's it's
really made a big impact a lot of people and it's a big
milestone 20 years. So can you talk a little bit
about where it's at today as far as how do you view the niche
that you are filling in the world of Torah 2024?
So my my goal in life. I mean, I've already told you
what my goal in life is. My other goal, my next layer
goal and I come from, I was trained in the what you might
call the right wing Modern Orthodox.
It's an American term, right wing modern Orthodox world.
That's where I come from, you know, let's say Scheffler of
Woolley, Talmud to some degree, although I'm really remember
Twerkie Talmud, but certainly with Schefton of Woolley, that
world of right wing Modern Orthodoxy.
But I've made my life, I've built my family in the more
moderate haredi community. My boy go to Hafasayim.
My daughter went to BJJ, and so I see those communities as
overlapping tremendously. And I've tried to bring those
communities closer together by publishing in both communities
and talking about issues that are mutual concern and mutual
agreement. And when I write, generally when
I publish in the newspaper, in the haredi community, when I
write online, it's more in the Modern Orthodox community and I
write the same exact thing. So it is I try to find issues
that are of interest to both and bring quote Tami de Khajamim
from one community, the other bring them across.
And I also quote some Arabs Israel Tami de Khajamim that
people don't know about Dolan like Rev Yaakov Ariel who in
Israel everybody knows him. In America people haven't heard
of him Ruslan, Maviner, Ravelli, Adam alignment to some degree or
if dole you in sort of examining the issues of morality and
halasa that are fully consistent with Faridi values but are
voiced within the questions that are talked about in modern
Orthodox. So to some degree it's Hashkopfa
and Halasa mixed together what is completely traditional based
on know to be who does and and and the fasim sulfers and all
the classical Rashonim and Afronym and so I think what what
what how I'd phrase it this way. I'm talking about the important
issues of today using the sources, the classical sources
of Halakh and Hashkova and showing how they are extremely
relevant today and when people have questions and they wonder
you know what does Halakh have to what does what does Judaism
have to say about the problems we're facing today right now my
answer is just look they they talk about it.
It's all relevant. It's all the more invoking is
relevant today. Might be medieval philosophy,
but it's completely relevant today.
I think this is a great segue to what I think might be our last
question. How do you take that approach
and apply it to the issue that this podcast is trying to
address? The I love the framing of the
overlap of the right wing. Why you community and the
community and we are all together in this boat of a
society which has some tremendous advantages and some
tremendous dangers. Torah learning in quantity that
we've never seen before, a wealth that we've never seen
before. Putting that all together, in
the world of Abalabas, trying to live a life which is financially
independent and fulfilling religiously with Palma Torah at
a very high level, so could you try to take that lens that you
use to write and build your website and apply it to the
issue of Vinay Torah working bismana?
Sure. So I'll I'll say it with two
things. First of all, there's a great
fiddish of remote high willing writing in one of the early
issues of, of all places, the Torah Romana journal.
I think it was in the first or second volume.
He said OK, same terasa keva Umalastasa arai should make your
Torah study the most important and your malaa your work should
be secondary. And he said you're going to
spend most of your day working, not learning.
But the way to fulfill this mimer of khazal is in terms of
the importance in your own eyes that the Torah should be keva as
the most important part of your day and the malaa should be less
of of less importance in your day.
Now if you have career aspirations are like me, you
might take your job more seriously, but that doesn't mean
that the Torah shouldn't be the most important part of your day.
So that's number one. Number two, And you you could be
a Bala boss, a Bala boss without being Bala botish.
Being a Bala boss means you got to work, but being Bala botish
means you're very passive in your learning.
Even if you are learning, you go to a share, you go to definitely
share. That's passive.
You can in order to be non ballabatish you have to take
ownership of your learning and you have to take control and be
active, teacher, teacher, dafyon, me or learn the Ian and
and create deadlines. The reason, one of the reasons I
have succeeded to some degree that I have is because I have a
weekly deadline. Force yourself.
Push yourself. Like the mob bid says, push
yourself with deadlines, with goals, with tests, even even
take tests. Take The Dirty test.
But it's it's only by being accountable.
Just like it works, You're accountable for the work
product. Be accountable for your learning
as well. And that way you'll learn much,
much better and you'll have seen much, much more.
Hustla. I think the only reason I've
seen any success and I think that's all the reason anyone
sees any success if they take ownership of it, that's what I
would say. Do you have any parting
thoughts, things that we didn't get to that you want to mention
before we close up for today? You know, I've every morning I
wake up and I have two regrets that I think of immediately.
Number one, I'm living in courts.
Lawrence #2, I'm going to a corporate job.
I'm not working for Chloe. I'm not working for a coach
Barack. I'm going to a corporate job.
Now that's just the way my life turned out and I don't know how
to change that. But the one thing that I have
that I know is that the only thing Coach Barack has in this
world is Dalidano, Shila Loca. And so that's where I try to
make my home and wherever I I am, wherever I happen to be, I'm
in gulls, both physically and also also career wise.
When I try to bring Adalah down, I'm a show with me and that's
really all I can do, you know, And I see myself living a bit
yet in life. But you know, all you can do is
what our, what our ancestors did in throughout Europe,
throughout, throughout all the gulls.
It's just, you know, cling to tradition, cruelty with Tara, to
shots and post scheme. And that's where how I try to
live my lives and I trust and I hope that my kids see that and
they and they model their lives likewise they try to live their
lives less a Torah dedicated to the Dalamashala and raising
their own children in the same tradition that we've inherited
and we've adopted for 2000 years.
And I mean Shamma. It'll continue for generations
and generations after. Gil, thank you so much for
joining us today. I think in my mind, you are a
very successful professional. Successful in the sense of you
have your values, you suck to them.
And with a lot of hard work inside the Shamaya, you've been
able to really accomplish a lot of things consistent with those
values over the years. So thank you for joining us
today and thank you for all your insights.
Thank you, Yakov. I wish you would like your
family itself and all your listeners tremendous itself and
everything they do. I mean, I mean, thank you so
much for tuning in to start Tank.
If you're still listening at this point, that means that
you've enjoyed. Please take a moment to give us
a five star review, make sure that you're subscribed and share
this episode with a few friends. I want to thank our production
team, Yoni, Schwartz, Yitzhak Ribbon and Yossi Book.
Until next week, keep on stagging Kevra.