The Daily Stoic - Rabbi Mordecai Finley on the Value of Rationality

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Rabbi Mordecai Finley about what he learned from his encounter with an active shooter at the LAX airport in 1978, what our obligation to the common good looks like in the modern world, the Stoic’s obligation to remaining rational and responsible within society, and more. Rabbi Mordecai Finley is the rabbi and co-CEO of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue. He co-founded the synagogue with his wife Meirav Finley in 1993. Rabbi Finley integrates into his counseling practice insights from many schools and traditions, most notably:  Philosophy, Stoic and Neo-Platonism) Jung and neo-Jungians (especially James Hillman) plus a range of modern psychological schools of thought, especially Roberto Assagiolli, William Glasser, Albert Ellis and Byron Katie. He also has background in object relations theorists as well as existential and humanist psychology. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal.Uprising Food have cracked the code on healthy bread. Only 2 net carbs per serving, 6 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber. They cover paleo, to clean keto, to simple low carb, to high fiber, to dairy free to grain free lifestyle. Uprising Food is offering our listeners ten dollars off the starter bundle. that includes two superfood cubes and four pack of freedom chips to try! go to uprisingfood.com/stoic and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. SimpliSafe just launched their new Wireless Outdoor Security Camera. Get the new SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera, visit https://simplisafe.com/stoic. What’s more, SimpliSafe is celebrating this new camera by offering 20% off your entire new system and your first month of monitoring service FREE, when you enroll in Interactive Monitoring. Just go to https://simplisafe.com/stoic to claim this deal.Novo is the #1 Business Banking App - because it’s built from the ground up to be powerfully simple and free business banking that Money Magazine called the Best Business Checking Account of 2021. Novo makes banking easy and secure - you can manage your account in Novo’s customizable web, android, and iOS apps with built in profit first accounting and invoicing. Get your FREE business banking account in just 10 minutes at https://banknovo.com/STOICSign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Rabbi Mordecai Finley: Website, Instagram, Twitter, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics. Something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wend's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. Anytime Steven Pressfield or Rich Roll gives me a thumbs up on a person, I'm like, this must be a legit dude or woman

or whatever, anytime they vouch for someone, I take that very seriously, because I am a big fan of them. So when both Rich and Stephen recommended Rabbi Mordecai Finley, I was like, I gotta check this guy out. I watched his amazing episode on Richel's podcast, which is worth listening to.

And we had an awesome interview. This is a fascinating dude, sort of a warrior monk, if you will. He's a Rabbi, he was also a Marine. He drops in the middle of our interview that he happened to have stopped a mass shooting at LAX many years ago. He is, he received his doctorate in religion

and social ethics from the University of California. He also has a small counseling practice where he focuses on wisdom virtue and managing consciousness. He specializes in interpersonal relationships, which I think you can tell. Because I got a little heated in the interview. I was, I've been frustrated, been stressed out, you know, as the stoic say, people are difficult. People are our proper occupation, Mark's realises, but they are also exhausting and obnoxious

and stupid and selfish mean, and cruel. And I think the last year has been an exhausting demonstration of that. I don't remember exactly what was going on in my mind when there was leading up to the frustration, but certainly social media never helps, as never the glimpse into the best of humanity. And it was amazing. I was getting frustrated. I wasn't being particularly stoic and rabbi-finally kept bringing me back to

a place of empathy and kindness and respect and I appreciated that so much. You shouldn't always be agreeing with your guests and I like that we disagreed but I liked how respectful he was. It was definitely a good model for me. He's got a thriving synagogue in Marvista if I lived in California even though I'm not Jewish, I would see if I could go because Wisdom is wisdom, whatever school it's coming from, whatever tradition it hails from, and I think of all the schools whether we're talking about the Hebrew school or the Stoic school or the Epicurean school or the Buddhist school or the Hindu school I think at the core of it, all of it is trying to get to truth. I think they all more or less agree on the core virtues of courage, temperance, justice,

and wisdom. And I think you're really going to like this interview with the one and only Rabbi Finley. Well, I'm both excited and a little intimidated to chat with you. Anytime Rich Roll tells me, I should talk to someone, I take that very seriously. And then, for Stephen Pressfield to say it's two people I admire, a great deal, to sign your praises means a lot in my book. Well, they're two fabulous people. I've known Stephen a long time.

He's one of my favorite people. And when I went on Rich Rolls podcast, we had a real connection. He's a beautiful man. And I'm very, very honored that you've asked me to be on your podcast as well. Well, I think that's Rich's superpower is that he finds you have almost immediately a very deep connection with him

because there's something going on there at sort of the soul level that he manages that he's in touch with and it's sort of I think contagious. That's very precise. That's exactly right. How do you know Stephen? Well many years ago I was teaching on a Jewish concept called the Yitzar Harada, the destructive shape. And I think it's the foundation of Jewish spiritual psychology. I've been back my first published paper back in 1981, was on this topic. And it's not very popular because when people think about spirituality, they don't think about the inner struggle against forces of opposition and resistance.

So it's something I've talked about for years. Somebody who read his book, The War of Art, also attended my synagogue, and he told Stephen about me, and Stephen attended a few of my classes, and then he says, we have to get together. And it turns out that he landed on this idea of resistance, which reads perfectly onto the biblical,

rabbinic, Hasidic idea of the Yetz which reads perfectly onto the biblical, rabbinic, Hasidic idea of the Yetzar Harad, the destructive shape. And we found out we're both former Marines. We had a lot to talk about, and every time we see each other, we dive right in. So, how can I say, you know, we see each other not that often, but every couple of times a year, but it's always very real and very intense. Yeah, the resistance is obviously something I think anyone in art is intimately familiar with. Like you have what you know you should do, you have what you dream that you wanna do,

and then you go to do it, or you don't go to do it because something gets in the way. And I guess I didn't think about that in a spiritual context, but I guess it makes sense. Yes, there's an oppositional force. And therefore in learning that we have things that we're good at. I mean, you're very good at what you do. I've listened to you and I've read a couple of years. So you're really good. And I know people also really good at what they do, but nearly everybody has something they don't,

that doesn't come to them naturally. So sometimes a very efficient person can be impatient with less efficient people. Sometimes they're very good at work or not that great as a spouse or a parent or a child. So when one has a vision for oneself, typically for a successful person, there are some things you do well,

some with bite nature and your habits are good, and other things we don't do well. And people ask, why do I get so impatient with my spouse? Why do I get so impatient with my kid? Or why can't I lose weight? Why can't I get in shape? Why can't I get my book done? And the answer is, will people say, well, I'm lazy

or something and Stephen, I agree, that's actually not a good answer. A better answer is there's resistance in me that's opposed to me and therefore you have to learn to work with resistance. It's actually like, it's a subpersonality. And some things will let you do and some things that doesn't want you to do.

It's an organized oppositional intelligence. Yeah, I've used this quote from Martin Luther King a few times but he talks about how inside every person who's obviously saying this during the civil rights movement, but inside every person there's a north of the soul and a south of the soul and there's sort of the civil war inside all of us between like sort of the higher self and the lower self, and this is the battle. Yeah, there are many good ways to put it. I've developed a very precise terminology because even to say, higher self, lower self, for me, is too imprecise. It's a really good metaphor.

But when people want to know the actual mechanics and technology of transformation, I have found the more precision, the better because we can just deal with all those questions in a fourth right way. And so walk me through that framework. I'm curious. Well, you know, when you think, first of all, what we have what I would call the field of consciousness or our neutral state when we're acting according to habit and things are going well.

So I sometimes call it the A state. We're attuned, we're aware, we're awake, we're reasonably accountable, we're present. And if you're a relatively successful person with good habits, you don't have to put a lot of effort, a lot of focus into it. But let's say suddenly you're in traffic and then you have to be vigilant. And so you can feel your body shift. Or let's say you come home and the spouse is upset. Some people go to an ego state of defensiveness, other people go to an ego state of anger.

Or the kids not getting their homework done. There's frustration. So you realize that neutral, what I call the A-stage, at any time, another ego state can intrude. So I call the array of potential ego states, positive and negative, the unconscious ego self. So upon reflection, a person might realize

they have maybe 30 potential ego states that are arrayed in the unconscious ego self and that get evoked by stimulus without our will, without our conscious, without our making a decision. So, for me, the function of the higher self is, first of all, to have a practice of observing what's happening in what I'll call the field of consciousness or the A state, however one wants to determine.

Start to train yourself to be aware of it in the body, especially the negative ones, because they first register in the body. So it takes a lot of training to be aware when you feel that bodily shift, disidentify from it if it's negative. And even some from some from the positive ones because of some of what we think are positive ego states, actually don't do us or other people any good. That's actually a more complex issue. And then there's the process of, through an act of will, inserting a different ego state to replace the negative one. We call this the law of substitution. So, for example, I might counsel someone who it turns out they have irrational fear. Now, a lot of fear is rational.

It's good. But they have been, sometimes, an irrational fear, let's say, of a spouse. They really want their spouses or their romantic interests approval. And they don't even really know how much they need approval. And when the other one doesn't approve of them, they start to feel anxious. So we've got to calm down, go up into what I call a higher self. First level of the higher self is the observer mind. Oh, there's an ego state of fear. All right, so breathe it, feel it, understand it,

be it, and then ask yourself what's the intervention? Well, here's where stoicism really comes in handy, where you might say, okay, I'm gonna insert an ego state of resilience, of courage, of steadfastness. And, you know, from a brain side, you're fusing one neural pattern with another neural pattern. On the mind side, you're using your free will to shift your, you know, the mechanics of the inner life, mechanics being transfer of energy. So the, I have many stages of the higher self, but for simplicity we'll say the higher

self is aware of what's happening in the field of consciousness, is aware of what aspects of the unconscious ego self are intruding into the field of consciousness, is aware when a given ego state doesn't match our vision for how we want to live our lives and is aware of what a substitution ego state ought to be and then has the will and the skill to do it and you have to train and train and train. Ryan, if there's one thing that I think I, you know, I stand for is you can't think about it, you can't read a book on it, you have to train every single day. Well, I was going to ask you about that because, and I know you talked about this a lot with Rich,

but I would imagine somewhat unique among rabbis, or even just academics in general, you have an interesting history of sort of physical training, whether it's Jiu-Jitsu or your time in the Marine Corps. Do you feel like an intense physical practice helps one in the battle against resistance or the battle against your ego consciousness or, you know, does physical training allow you to,

not forcefully insert, but does it allow you the sort of self, is that self mastery transferable in your opinion? That's a great question. So it's not transferable automatically, which means people say, well, so when you train in martial arts, does that automatically transfer to regulation of the ego self? No, it doesn't, because there are many people who are outstanding martial artists and not very good spouses and parents. Sure.

Now, if you have it, it's a great metaphor. It's a great analogy. And you've learned how to work with resistance. You've learned the skillful application of the will. You understand what it means to have a vision for yourself. So if you want to use it, as it were, the well-developed muscle of consciousness and will, it's probably better that we have something else. But there are many people that are great artists and great musicians, and their character is very deficient. So there's not an automatic transfer, but I can't imagine it not helping.

Yeah, I think that's actually something I'm, I was just interviewing a great NASCAR racer yesterday and I was talking to him about this. It was like my question for a lot of elite performers is can you be great at what you do and be like a good person and be good at home? And I'm actually both scared and I don't know what the right word is, but an alarm at sort of how rarely it does seem that sort of professional mastery or the physical training

that sort of professional mastery or the physical training seems to not transfer. My friend Austin Cleon talks about art monsters, people who are extremely talented at some artistic pursuit, but just like an utterly depraved, awful human being. It's more common than an ought to be, and I have a theory about that. Okay. Is that when people actually achieve true mastery and it can be in a skill, it can be in wealth, it can be a celebrity, anything that unconsciously communicates to them, I have everything. Otherwise, I wouldn't be the top of my game. I wouldn't be so famous. I wouldn't be so admired. It wouldn't have some power or money. And therefore, it takes a conscious act of will

to ignore all of that and then put your inner, your character, your spiritual and moral development as a human being at the core of your life. It's hard for people who are getting messages from the world that they don't need to do that. And some of the people out the toughest time are people have psycho fans around them that tolerate them because they like being near,

the great fire of the fame, celebrity, power, skill, and so forth. So it is disturbing. You know, in many of my, you know, for my life, I've had clients who were famous wealthy people and estranged from their children or in horrible marriages. And the rules for success in their given field

that made them rich, powerful, whatever actually are not the same rules. I mean, there is the application of the will for spiritual and world development and refinement of character. And it seems like one is actually a much more impressive sort of and and narrower field, right? So to be like you think about let's say how many NBA champions have there been in the, you know, however long the NBA has been around or how many Super Bowl champions have been. And then you go, okay, let's say there's a several hundred, several thousand, whatever

the number is, it can fit in a decent size auditorium. And then you go, okay, how many of these were crappy fathers, how many of these were ignorant or racist or you go down and all of a sudden that room gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So it's interesting where I don't want to say compete, but it's interesting where what we tend to measure ourselves again. So we'll go, oh, well, I want to be the guy where the gal in the room with the most rings, right? We don't think, well, I want to be in the room with the rings because I'm talented at this thing and I've dedicated my life to it. I don't know anyone that writes books

and they go, I hope these books sell no copies and I am, you know, utterly irrelevant as far as the cultural detachment, you know, utterly irrelevant as far as the cultural, the attachment, you know, cultural consciousness, because obviously you wanna be relevant, you wanna be in the mix. But to me, I wanna be like, and I think the harder competition, again, not a perfect metaphor,

but the harder race to run is to do that and not lose these other things along the way or to lose. Sure, I'll share with you a metaphor that I use. It's too simple of a metaphor, but it's instructive. That is there are three worlds or three levels of consciousness. So I call them the temple, the field, and the fence. Okay. So outside the fence is, let's say, the world in the outside world, where I want financial stability all the way to wealth, and I want some power over my life all the way to power over other people. You know, person depending, I want mastery, fame, whatever it is. And that's outside the fence.

Then there's inside the fence. There's what I call the field of consciousness. What do I, what do I want it to be like in my inner life? Do I always want to be competing with somebody? There's always going to be somebody better. There's always going to be the next person that's going to displace me. Or do I want to make that world inside the fence, the cultivation of character, and it's not really competition, and sincere competing in somebody else, but there is struggle with the resistance. So in the work with character,

managing that field, finding the toxic places and how to rehabilitate and reclaim them. So I call that the realm of the field. And then the temple is the deepest interior part of a person where you're connected to the soul, connected to spirit, for religiously oriented people, you're connected to the soul, connected to spirit, for religiously oriented people, you're connected to the divine, is the origin of your values of meaning and purpose.

So just using these three for now, I would say that every person should have a sense of the temple, the field, and what's outside the fence. And if we commit ourselves to this, when things don't go so well outside the fence, the deepest mean in our life comes from the field in the temple. Sure. Right.

And which of those three things do you have the most control over? So it's like, so much has to go right. You have to get so many breaks. You have to work so hard to, you know, make it into professional sports, let's say, or get a book deal, or, you know, have your company be funded. And then all these other things after that have to go right. And it's not to say that it's so impossible you shouldn't try. Of course, you should try. It's just interesting that we spend the majority of our time and energy on the external stuff,

which the Stokes would say is not up to us versus character, happiness, relationships, etc. Which is in our control. We just sort of like hope that that takes care of itself or that it's a byproduct of pursuing the stuff outside the fence and it almost never goes that way. That's correct. And even, I'll reframe that a little bit. You see, inside the fence, am I interest in character, integrity, honor, and the whole list of character virtue that the Stoke tradition has profoundly contributed to.

That doesn't mean that the marriage is gonna go well because there's another person. Of course, that doesn't mean the parenting is gonna well, but I can rest assured that at some level, I will bring the best version of my character possible to other people and to my work. Here's what I disagree with the Stokes a little bit in the sense of free will and determinism. That's a very arcane kind of thing.

I want to talk to you about that. So we'll get to that. So I just don't believe that. I really believe that I believe in free will. Therefore, I have to believe that things are not predestined, free as things are not, you know, when they say live a cordonch with nature, I would never say that day, but predestined, prees of things are not, you know, when they say live accordance with nature, I would never say that day, but because no one exactly sure what that means. Yeah, I don't think that Stelox exactly defined it.

No, they don't. And, you know, it's a popular metaphor in, you know, in the traditional world of philosophy and religion. So I just ignore it. Yeah, because when I'm counseling somebody, I would never say, live according to your nature. That's just not helpful. Right. What I would say is, what are the aspirations of your spirit, your soul, character, and what's the resistance? And let's start there.

No, that's an interesting way of putting it. I think, you know, we tend to know these things sort of intuitively, or one might say, this is the voice of God, we sort of know what we should be doing, what our purpose is, why we are here, even people go like, how do I know what my passion is? If you really talk to them about it, they know what it is. It's then, as Stephen says, the resistance gets in the way, stuff gets in the way, and we don't do it. Exactly. My sense is, because I teach a path that goes from virtue, which is restraining

resistance in the behavioral realm, rationality, which is a great focus of the stoic and other traditions. Wisdom, which for me means the wise understanding and managing of the inner life, and then there's a realm called depth. And many people don't know how to connect with their depth. And I think, for example, in one's depth is where meaning and purpose get worked out somewhat unconsciously. So when a person says to me, I want to have meaning and purpose in life, I say, I want to give you a different metaphor. Meaning and purpose have you.

It's not an object you have, something that claims you. And the deeper you go into the soul, you start to know what claims. It's like art. You know, when I look at a piece of art, or I see a great movie, or I hear a great song, I'm not using my rational faculty to assemble a theory and then it's beautiful. Beauty grabs you. And I think the soul works that way. So I think cultivation of depth actually is a skill and person says, well, how do I do it? I say, well, do you have the will?

Are you willing to learn skills to cultivate depth? So even depth is something that requires vision, will and skill. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded, with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. I'm in the middle right now. The first book will come out probably shortly after this episode. I'm doing a four book series on the Four Virtues, the Carnival Virtues. So I'm starting with courage and then self-discipline or temperance and then justice and wisdom. And what's been interesting to me as I've, so I've written the first one, I'm on to the second one, but this is the first time I've had to really think about like what the book, each book in the series, because usually I've done all my books sort of as one off things I haven't had to think about interrelationality to other projects. But it's been interesting to me to see just how

dependent the virtues are on each other. So courage, obviously requires an immense amount of willpower and restraint and dedication and endurance. So that's willpower and self-discipline. But then, you know, how much courage it takes to do the right thing, which should be the virtue of justice, and then how empty courage is if not in the pursuit of justice. And then, finally, the wisdom required to know what to resist and what not to resist, what to be courageous about, you know, what is the right thing. It's kind of wonderful that, you know, 2000 years ago,

someone comes up with this idea of, you know, basically, the good life is these sort of four ideas. And, you know, the most brilliant minds in history, whether it's Aristotle or whomever, have tried to add, if you hear, or there, but it really just comes down to these sort of four virtues, almost across all religions, traditions, schools of thought, East, West, secular, spiritual.

At the core of it, you know, Marcus really says, if you find anything better than courage, temperance, justice, or wisdom, it must be an extraordinary thing indeed. And I think he's right. Yes. And they are intertwined to what I would call the temple. And this is, you might say, the mystery, because that which you discover is the common foundation. Let's say of the fourfold path or the eightfold path.

However you want to enumerate it, You know, Buddhism has a nice articulation. Asphics of Hinduism have a nice articulation. But let's say one settles on those four. And then you find they're all entwined exactly as you're saying. I mean, when does courage become courage for its own sake? Just for example, a defiance against the odds, full hardiness. Then you have to say, well, then we need temperance and then courage, not in a just cause. So you're 100% right. They're deeply intertwined.

Therefore, I think the whole person, let's say when they come out of that mystical region of the temple where they are assembled in the soul and then articulated in, let's say, four different words which leads to, you know, an intertwined wisdom path. Then you're out in, as it were in the field and you're trying to work all of this out. And I think you're writing a book on this is great because people actually haven't thought enough about courage temperance wisdom and that's one thing I that I recommend is that people actually think about these things read books on them

Look them up cogitate reflect Because language is the interface between the soul and consciousness. And therefore mastery of the linguistic articulations of this in a way help you apply them into your life. So that's a wonderful endeavor. And you certainly have encountered the mysterious unity of these great virtues that then branch off into, you might say different concepts.

Well, and I try to talk to Steven before I start just about any book project. He's always very, very helpful. And I was talking to him at the beginning of the courage book and what he sort of really helped me with. And it ultimately is gonna end up applying to all the virtues is that, and perhaps he's borrowing uncredited from you, your idea of the temple, is that, okay, so you take something like courage.

So, at the primary level, it's about fear, right? We are besieged by fear. I was surprised to learn that being not afraid is like the most repeated phrase in the Bible, or close to the most repeated phrase in the Bible. So at this fundamental level, it's about fear, right? We are afraid of things. So first level is sort of you get over fear. Then there's just this sort of ordinary courage, doing scary things, you know, chasing your dreams, you know, things, chasing your dreams, jumping out of an airplane, whatever it is, right? Doing scary things, standing alone about an idea. But above courage, we have this idea of heroism, right? This is when courage is pursued in the pursuit of something not just just because it's not really courageous if it's not just But when it's when something just is pursued

With sort of real selflessness so something like the as as as Stephen writes in Gates of fire Something like the 300 Spartans going against out in a battle. They were almost certainly lose for the sole purpose of buying against out in a battle, they will almost certainly lose for the sole purpose of buying the time for the Greek alliance, for the Greeks to get together. Right? So we have these virtues, but then also the virtues operate at different levels, right? Sort of ordinary self-control, like getting up

and exercising or focusing, these are great. But I think what a lot of spiritual practitioners find is that, you know, first off, it's discipline, then it's routine, but above routine is like ritual. This is where you get to some sort of higher level. This is where you have access to the temple or you're speaking with the divine. When you pursue these virtues, first you understand them, then you study them, then you apply them. But as you really turn yourself over to them, you can reach kind of a transformational

level or insight or plane that just isn't accessible under normal conditions. Yeah. or plain that just isn't accessible under normal conditions. Yeah, and therefore, let's think about courage for a moment. I mean, those Spartans trained continuously in martial arts and they talked about dying and they like, you know, when I was in the Marine Corps, you know, we would oftentimes, you know,

there's a mythology of the, let's say, the battle that was chosen in reservoir when the first marine division was surrounded and they had to pull out. And so, you know, one regiment at a time, and then the last regiment and the last battalion of that regiment and the last company of that battalion. And then the last platoon. And suddenly, you know, third platoon B company realized they're the last one and they're all going to die. And when you read the stories of the pull-off from the chosen reservoir, when they looked at third platoon and said, well, okay, so you're it. And they would they do? They went, oh, what is it? And they walked back and held the line. And the company held the line, the battalion held the line. So I know in the Marine Corps, the idea is

you will be called upon to die. Understand that now. Now we're going to train you how to make sure you take more of them than they take of us. So we're going to bring it to them and make sure they pay for the privilege of killing a Marine. And you know, once you got it through your head, I'm here to die. I'm not here to run. I'm not here to be afraid. You know, there's a transformation within.

So that kind of heroism, I think, takes a lot of training. I'll tell you when it kicked in for me. So I never saw combat. I served from 73 to 76. But I was in an active shooter incident once at the LA International Airport, 1970, it must have been eight or nine. Wow.

And, you know, not going into the whole, actually wrote about it in my blog in the LA Jewish Journal. So in any case, I hear gunfire. And so, you know, I dive into a bench like everybody else, and then my training kicked in. I'm not going to get shot here lying down. So I got up, I saw the shooter at a distance, a person walked out onto the sidewalk, and I thought to myself, you know, it wasn't that I thought about it.

I wasn't being a hero. It's just that you go to war the sound of gunfire. You don't hide, you don't run. Where's the gunfire? Go toward it. And then I, you know, hit behind a pillar, the person came, had a confrontation with a gun in my face, took the person down and people said, well, it's courageous. I said, never even thought about it. All I did was, you know, I had been out of the Marines. I got out in 76, maybe three years out. So when you go through this kind of a training, you're trained to be that when the moment requires your training kicks in and you've already conquered the fear from constant training and constant attitude and a little adjustment. But, right, I'll tell you where it comes in day-to-day. and training and constant attitude and adjustment. But, right, I'll tell you where it comes in day today.

When I teach people the virtue practice of deescalation in a conflict with the spouser kids, and I say, look, you just got a deescalation. Say, yeah, okay, sure. All right, just, you know, in boxing, we call it deflecting punches. Not hitting anybody, but you're not gonna land any punches either.

And people say, well, I don't want to be a doormat. And then they just get anything they want. I think of that as lack of courage that the assertion of self when you don't make anything better, that's actually not courage because courage that means I'm going to fight my resistance to being a rational person and Deescalating these things so so where's the courage come in in fighting your yetzer hara which says The defensive yell back take a stand and a higher part of you says they're in a bad place today I don't need to exacerbate the situation So it's interesting that when we look at something like courage

Temperance wisdom etc exacerbate the situation. So it's interesting that when we look at something like courage, temperance, wisdom, etc., they're intertwined, but in the field as it were, the dragon is resistance. The dragon isn't jumping out of the airplane. That's for the unaliened fuel. The dragon is resistance, and people don't want to train to fight inner resistance. And so I think, you know, I was trained, you know, in the military, you know, to be in a gunfight. Sure. Marshall ours to be in, let's say, a fist or a grappling fight. The greatest fight is with resistance. Yeah, there's a story. I wasn't sure if I was going to put it in the courage book or ultimately in the self-discipline

book. I think I'm going to put it in the self-discipline book, but where Martin Luther King was giving a speech on stage and some sort of deranged person came up on stage and physically attacked him, like with his fists. And someone who was there was talking about how everyone in the room gasped, not just because like they don't want Martin Luther King to get hurt, but they gasped because here was the true test of a supposed man of nonviolence, right? And what is Martin going to do, is he going to defend himself from getting hit in front of

people? Like imagine just all these eyes on you don't want to be as a man, you don't want to be humiliated. You also just don't want to be who wants to feel physical pain. But they said there was this they watched. Like it was like time slowed down and they watched Martin drop his fists as the man approached him And so in a sense, you know, if you're thinking about it superficially This is an act of cowardice He just lets himself get beaten by someone and then you think about the incredible both courage justice and Self-discipline it required to not fight back when the validity of his movement

is intersecting with his physical safety. And to me, that's not just ordinary self-discipline or ordinary courage, it's an elevation of, it's approaching something somewhat divine. And when you watch them marching in Selma or in Montgomery, the discipline and the courage are required, it's not more or less than the physical courage of running into a burning building or as you did facing down a gunman, but it's somehow a slightly higher spiritual level. Although I would argue you stepping out and stopping a gunman is also heroic in that sense because it's not jumping out of an airplane,

which requires you to master your skill and requires training, but there's something because other people are involved, because there's something on the line, it means something more. Yes. And that's a great example, because I know that the, the, the, the, the committee for non-violence, they trained and trained and trained, not to get in fights for the police. And he was part of that training. So his training kicked in.

But just as an outside, I would say, what if they were attacked as a wife or as kid? Yes. You see, then it wasn't, I'm training against races. I would hope he wouldn't say, well, I'm gonna let someone attack my kid. I would hope he wouldn't say, well, I'm going to let someone attack my kid. I would hope he didn't know how to get in between and push the person back and say, you got to back up.

So that was very case specific in a movement that strategically used non-violence. And there are other times, you know, when you have to train to be able to, you know, match or subdue somebody. Yeah, Gandhi was asked, or Gandhi said, if I had to choose between cowardice and violence, I would choose violence. Right. So I think that that is something we don't quite, in our understanding of the history of these non-violent movements, we don't, we don't, we don't give them enough credit for how strategically they were using non-violence as both a spiritual as well as a physical weapon.

Yes. When the Jews were being persecuted in Europe, somebody asked Gandhi, what should the Jews do when he said, practice non-violence? They said, you know, the Nazis aren't the British. Right. It was not the same thing. It was not the same thing. So this is where wisdom comes in. What exactly is the context? And what am I trying to do here? So I had my former wife and family, my mother was there. I mean, there was a whole luggage area filled with people

and everybody was frozen. And I just thought not on my watch. I had to get out there. By the way, it was a woman. She was bigger than I was. She had a massive revolver, but it was actually a deranged woman who was denied entry to a her church tour of somewhere. And she came and they wouldn't let her on. And she pulled out the gun and started shooting people and then she walked down the sidewalk to shoot some more people and that's where it happened.

But yeah, there's a great example. Courage is, you know, fall stuff says in Shakespeare. He says, I'm going to get it wrong, but something like, oh, Prudence and discretion is the greater part of courage. Now, he he is a fraud or discretion is the better part of valor, right? Yeah, valor, exactly discretion. And then, of course, when you read it, it's, it's written humorously because he's, he's covering his tracks by seeing semi-profile things. But on the other hand, at some level, I'm sure that Shakespeare was quoting some well-known epigram that discretion is the better part of valor at times. So this is where you're at. They're all in twine courage, temperance, wisdom, self-discipline. They're all in

twine with each other. They all have a common core. And I'll put wisdom above them all because wisdom, you know, with its, it's greatest tool rationality is where you figure all this out. Of course. They're, they're, they're, aren't, well, none of the, all the virtues are intertwined and inseparable, but wisdom is the key with which you unlock how much and when to apply any of the other virtues. Exactly. It's exactly right. So speaking of the four virtues, I thought you might be an interesting person to talk

through this with. I think one of the things I've struggled with over the last year and a half. I'll give you an example. I got an email from a Christian just the other day. So I have this bookstore here in Austin and right outside Austin and we have two young kids who can't be vaccinated. So we've kept a sort of a mask policy on the whole time we've been open. Because for self protection and then also because it would be unconscionable for me to know that like an outbreak started in my store or affected someone I lived near or cared about or worked for me or whatever. So this lady sends this super nasty note. She comes in, she was asked to put on a mask, she storms out and she sends this really mean note about it.

And I posted the note online, I didn't like it for a name or anything, I just posted it and I kicked off this whole sort of set of news stories about it. Anyways, this person is sort of anti-vax, anti-mask. Why should I be inconvenienced by a pandemic This person is sort of anti-vax, anti-mask. Why should I be inconvenienced by a pandemic that has a 2% death rate? The whole sort of litany of nonsensical objections

that we've been dealing with for the last eight months. Anyway, somebody sent me an email and said, how could you do this? I'm a Christian. We're supposed to love our neighbors blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's actually something I believe, you know, I believe, which is precisely what's motivating my sort of actions in the pandemic as my belief in our interconnectedness and our obligation to each other. I've had a really hard time grappling with not being made jaded or bitter

with the sort of abject selfishness and cruelty of, what is at this point, like tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of our fellow countrymen and women. And I understand that, you know, people have been misinformed. I understand that people don't always react rationally to things. I understand that people have been manipulated. I understand that people project on things, but it's been hard for me to unsee what I've

seen. Yeah. And how do you think about that spiritually and morally? Something I'm wrestling with philosophically. But happily, happy to address it. So the first thing I would ask you is, can you distill your motivation in precisely your motivation in posting it?

In posting it? Yeah. Yeah. And look, I think this is less about the posting. I'm more talking about just sort of the general philosophical disagreements about the stuff. But my thinking in posting it was we, I believe as a society, we've sort of been trucking along with this naive belief that if we're just really nice and really patient, we can convince people to do the right thing.

And that is, that is come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths over the last 18 months. So I was trying to show people, because I don't think people who are not actually up close and personal, especially people in like, I don't know, a city like San Francisco or New York or LA where you think everyone's on the same page as you.

I wanted to show people like, this is the profound, excuse my language, brain fuckedness of people that we're dealing with. Yeah, okay. So as I think about, I would distill your motivation in this way. At some level, it's an affirmation to those who agree with you.

Isn't this crazy behavior? Yes. And then there's a group that you're putting up a mirror that they actually might think those things, but they never actually saw how crazy it was until they saw what it looks like in the fully articulated form. So then you change a few minds.

For the people that agree with her, it's not gonna make any difference. Right. So then you might say, if I could change a few minds for people could see the mirror of this toxicity from someone's supposed to love their neighbor as themselves, that's what they stand for if they're about

Christian or anybody and you know in the tradition that reads the Bible How much their revelation of it and therefore which which principle is it? You know is it I am offended by the mask is that your main principle or is the principle of love your neighbor as yourself Which you know Jesus brings the entire teaching down to two things love your neighbor love God. So now we now we're going to put that in the light. I think Hillel says, love thy neighbor as thyself, all the rest is commentary. When Hillel says is do not do to others that you would not be want done to you. Much, much is, Sanui Allah al-Tazl-Akhirim. That which is, would be hateful to you, don't do other people. So it's not so much. Do to others as you would want to be done as don't do to others. It's more minimal. But yes, and it's certainly derivative of love your neighbor as yourself.

So what I try to do with these things, because remember, as a rabbi of a congregation, and I'm glad to say it's a pretty diverse congregation. And so because I'm a law-abiding citizen, the people who are really believe this is a big hoax and to wear a mask is to drink the Kool-Aid. They've left because they just feel I've somehow betrayed the truth. We're going to put them aside.

In every dispute that I think about, I try to understand what's the intermotivation of the other side, if they take a stand, which upon reflection, upon some sustained reason, I know they're wrong. They don't have a mastery of the facts, or what they've done with the facts produces a theory that doesn't hold up.

So I see this all the time. Sure. So therefore therefore something in their temple and feel has gone awry. So when I look at the anti-maskers and you know, so who are the two groups that don't want to get vaccinations, for example, you know, at least in LA is the both the black community and the and the and the right, you know, they're both don't want to get back to you. So what's the connection? I like coming at it for very different reasons. For exactly. They don't trust the government. Right. They really don't trust the government. And so what happens is people find symbolic ways

to express not trusting the government. So not wearing a mask is a way to say, I don't trust my government. I don't trust the science. The science has flipped all the time. You know, when they say, you know, if you said it began in the lab in Wuhan, oh, zero, crazy, not conspiracy theorist until you're not. You know, hydroxychloroquine was, you know, like a crazy Trump theory,

and then people actually found out actually it does reduce the symptoms. So some people say the science is in the hand of the pharmaceuticals in the hand of the government, all in each other's hands is a big hoax. So I say, look, do you wanna have a rational conversation? Yeah, people make mistakes, but let's get down to the basics. But many people, when they look at all this going on,

they get a fixed idea. And the fixed idea can be, it's a scam, it's a hoax, I won't wear a mask, and to ask me to wear a mask is to make me subservient to this, you know, this usurpation of citizens right? I hear that a lot. That, you know, there's this incredible overreach. And by the way, I actually think there's been some overreach, but I'm a law-buying citizen. If the law doesn't ask me to do something clearly immoral, I'll be the law. So when I talk to people about it, I say, let's go inside. And what I try to do is find the field in the temple. And at least someone says, I'm hearing your story. Can you calm down? I want to find the core value that's shaping your

reasoning that has produced this behavior. So in posting it, you were taken more of a, I'll say, political in the sense of how should the pull is, how should the city live? And you've decided this kind of behavior is not right. And I want to show everybody what it looks like. So I fundamentally would agree with you. Some of them had the, you know, the disrespect to do that to you. You're going to put their name up. You showed it. But you're asking me as a spiritual teacher, some of the spiritual philosophic dimension,

I prefer empathetic understanding, find out where they are. And if I think there's a better way to reason, I'll try to lead them toward it. Yeah, I guess in, I guess what I'm talking about is, you know, how do you come back from? How do you not be sort of permanently altered by this glimpse we've had, you know, Burns's line about man's inhumanity to man. We basically have, you know, a good chunk of the population that's just sort of said, like, I don't give a shit about anyone else, right? And they've expressed this in different ways, whether it's, you know, I'm young,

why do I need to get a vaccine? Or who are you to tell me what to do? Or I don't believe it's real. Or, you know, the potential consequences of the vaccine which are non-existent, you know, in truth, to me don't outweigh the benefits, which are non-existent, in truth, to me, don't outweigh the benefits. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What we're talking about is an abject rejection of this idea that we should love our neighbor or that we have a responsibility to ourselves. I think, I guess I didn't have any sense that we were all like sort of Kumbai on the same page, but it has been sobering to see just how much people share with us. It's a really great point. And it's complex. I'll tell you why it's complex. When you look at fascism, both national socialism on one hand and Italy and Germany and communism on the other. Sure.

What was their appeal? Let's all pull together. Yeah. Let's all pull together. And what that means is the government will set out the goals and all the people pull together. And if you're not on board, we will hurt you. And we actually might even kill you.

Sure. So there is, I think in many people, a natural, anti-fascist tendency that says, and we actually might even kill you. Sure. So there is, I think in many people, a natural, anti-fascist tendency that says, when people says, hey, let's all work together. Everybody get on board. Well, who are you to be talking for me? And when did we vote?

Has anybody ever voted? Was this ever put to the citizens? Now, I'm vaccinated. However, when I see a person says, I don't want to get on board until we put it to a vote. And I demand a vote. I think to myself, I wish more people in Germany, Soviet Union would have said that. But what did they do? I mean, they were terrified to sign on. Second thing is when people say it's never been this bad, I think I say 1942 was a bad year.

Just look at what's happening across the globe in 1942. The Nazi advances into the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe beginning of the of the of the Holocaust the Japanese had been in China murdering hundreds of thousands of people and I think and and this is it's never been this bad. It was never been that bad in America. I say let's go to 1862 and so for many people when they don't really understand the struggles of the And this has never been this bad. Or has ever been that bad in America. I say let's go to 1862. And so for many people when they don't really understand

the struggles of the human condition without a strong sense of history. And right, as you know, I'm just picking a couple of things. We could talk about the Armenian genocide. We could talk about malkilling 30 million of his people, if not more, Stalin killing 30 million of his people. So I say, we have to put things in perspective here. Sure. No, no, the perspective is key. I'm not saying it's in any way the worst thing that's

ever happened. I would, I guess I would push back in two things to you there. So number one, it's hard to, it's hard to buy, if the most resistant group in America to sort of COVID preventative measures has been white evangelical Christians who overwhelmingly supported a candidate who, let's just say, was a proto-fascist. I can't buy the argument that this is rooted in some sort of instinctive, anti-fascist movement. And then I guess what I would say is that something like the Second World War, which now COVID has killed more people than the Second World War, American citizens in the Second World War, in far less time, or civil war slavery. All those things were sort of massive geopolitical events that required, it was sort of man-battling man,

or man-battling, you know, some sort of political grid rocker or something. I think what's, I think the hardest thing to countenance about our pandemic response is been how sort of preventable and then also how little is being asked of each individual. Right? And so this is the still like idea of like, look, we, you know, you don't have that much power, but you have a little bit of power.

What matters is do you use that power? And when you watch people sort of abdicate that duty, Mark Sruro says, the fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good. It seems like we have really struggled with the idea of like what is our, I'm working on a piece right now, we have the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast, and Victor Franco proposed the Statue of Responsibility

on the West Coast, the counterpart to virtue, the counterpart to liberty. It seems like we've spent a lot of time emphasizing what our freedoms are, what our liberty should be, but we've struggled with this idea of what is the flip side of that, what is our obligation, what's our duty to the

common good. That's very important. I think you and I are actually addressing two separate questions. Maybe, see, when a person, let's say, supports Trump as an anti-vaxer, I start with love my neighbor as myself. I really want to understand them. I want to understand their reasoning core. I have my political commitments that are rooted in responsibility. But I also want to start, I don't want to start by saying, well, you're wrong, you're stupid, you're not responsible. Because they're actually a human being who live their entire

life to get to this position. And if I'm in conversation with them, what I want to say is I'd love to hear your story. So I think what you're saying is on the policy level, and I'm talking more about what would I say to such a person? Sure. And I really do believe that on the responsibility side of things, part of what we're responsible for is deeply respectful dialogue with people whom we differ greatly.

And sometimes when you have that deeply respectful dialogue and the person doesn't feel that you think they're stupid or irresponsible, that you actually care about their story. Sometimes that shifts people. The greatest example of this is I'm spacing on his name, but I think it's a black eye down in Georgia, Alabama. And so he talks to Klansmen. Have you ever heard about this, right? So, and they end up giving them his robe and people say, how could you talk to those

people? He says, well, how many robes did you get? So, see, that's a model for me. Sure. Yeah, I will support reasonable policies. I think we should teach responsibility. And it's a tragedy that our school system doesn't teach more virtues starting at the spiritual and character levels and all the way up to the ethics of

civic responsibility. You're talking about what I think is a reasonable political stand of our inter-responsibility of citizens. And I'm speaking about more of the spiritual moral path of the spiritual moral path of the encounter with a person with whom you disagree. I guess I've found it interesting having the public platform that's about one thing and occasionally sort of talk about issues and people go, oh, you know, you're being political. But I think what I'm actually talking to you about

is sort of basic social contract stuff. So it's kind of interesting to me that as a society, we have become so polarized that even some of these issues of, you know, love by neighbor or you know, that we owe an obligation to the country or the nation or the ideals that made us here, that we owe an obligation to that. That even that is sort of up in the, you know, up for debate. That that's just another political issue. So I think you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, sure. And you see, but then you look at, you know, American history, you look at the labor movement, you look at the labor movement, you look at the cultural struggle in 1960. So there's always been, I mean, you go all the way back, you go generation after generation, you go back to America, there's always been dissidents, there's always been people that thought differently.

Now, I think, and I've right, right at my conclusions, but as a good American, I think, and I write my conclusions, but as a good American, I realize there's always been a strong culture of dissidents in our country. And then people polarize, right? And people take stands and people say, this is what's best for our society. So I've chosen not in general to be an advocate for my position. I've been general, been an advocate for the way we reach a common, move toward a common center. The way we move toward common responsibility is to lower the temperature, stop polarizing,

and really listen, and first of all, teach the ethics of dialogue. Because I mean, there are different theories of what it means to be responsible, a responsible citizen. One says not to drink the coolate on this virus stuff, the other says it really gets vaccinated. They both think they're being responsible in the best for society. My goal is can we just all calm down, listen to each other because I think minds are changed when people don't feel defensive and under threat. So this has been my position. So, if a person is of a different position, unless it's truly egregious and teaches murder or something, I'll hear the person out and I'll say, may I respond?

And I'll say, what are your premises? What are your axioms? What are the facts as you see them? And you know what Brian sometimes people realize, I don't know what my premises are. I don't know what my axioms are. I really don't have a good mastery of the facts. That doesn't come from me saying to them that you're a crappy person with crappy preferences and crappy axioms. I just do a rational practice of, you know, can you bring it out to me? And then sometimes people realize themselves, you know, I sometimes do for people, Ryan, I say, let me give you the best case

of your position. Sure. And I make their case for them. They said, wow, I can do for people around. I say, let me give you the best case of your position. Sure. And I make their case for them. They said, wow, I could never say it so well. I said, now I'll tell you why I disagree. Yeah, steel manning, as they call it, instead of steel manning. Is that wrong, manning? Steel man, it's called steel man versus straw man.

Oh, oh, yeah, make them stronger. That's exactly right. I've never heard that phrase before. But I find it's a great way, first of all, the humanity of dialogue, which I think, you know, Frankl would be very much in praise of that. Ultimately, I have a responsibility to the soul of the human being sitting across from me. And not a responsibility to say that my conclusions are better than theirs.

Let's start with, you're a human being with a story. I'm a human being with a story. I'd like to elicit years I like you to listen mine and come away respectful of each other. I have simply found that if I happen to be You know if my axioms and premises have have the ring of truth to them and my theories move from those axiom and premises into policies that make. And I can display that in a non-hostile way, I change more minds by doing that, than starting out the other way.

Now, you're in a different position. You have a public voice. You are a person on the stage in the cultural conversation of America. You take a stand, and I have good friends who've taken stand. Their life is somewhat about, I mean, I want to end your deeply philosophic person,

but there's some advocacy there. So you're talking to a person who decided very young, I can be an advocate for my political positions, but I'm gonna be an advocate for something else. And this is very much, by the way, rooted in a Talmudic tradition. You know, one wouldn't think that there are, there are profoundly different interpretations

of what it means that God gave the law to Mozhan Mount Sinai. So the ancient rabbites had some of the very bitter conflicts about what the law meant. I mean, they agreed that the sentence is in the Bible, but what it meant, I mean, they actually had violent fist fights about this stuff. Sure. And so there was a moment when, you know when somebody says, well, who's right?

The school of Shamae or the school of Hillel? And a miraculous voice comes from heaven who says, God prefers the school of Hillel. Why? Because they presented the theories of Shamae before their own and they comported themselves with dignity and respect. So the voice from heaven doesn't say, we support Hilo on the merits of his argument, says, we support Hilo on how he conducts debate. So it says, these and these are the words of the living God, which one does God prefer?

The more respectful one, the more respectful one, the more careful one, the one who decides that if we're gonna argue about something, I wanna do the steel man, as you're saying, I wanna give the best version of you, and then I'll respond, and we're gonna work these out because the only way we're gonna come to, I think a sense of civic responsibility

and hold the center together is within ethics of dialogue. Now, this is one guy. My friends who take advocacy positions, I'm saying I'm glad you're taking an advocacy position, so I don't have to. So I don't mind that people take advocacy positions, but at least room for me to teach the respectful dialogue position.

Yeah, no, I like what you said about this being a struggle that goes way back, because if you think about it, yeah, it goes to your point to about the individual struggle which you know Lincoln talking about You know the battle the better angels of our nature Martin Luther King talking about you know Living out the true meaning of our creed, but then also as an individual level You know, we've had the moral and spiritual instruction We've had the moral and spiritual instruction from God or from philosophy for thousands of years now. The struggle is actually living it. Epictetus is, don't talk about your philosophy and body it.

It's this sort of constant battle and journey to apply the ideas that we heard about, that we've learned about, that we care about, and then trying to get a little bit closer to it. Not to moral perfection, but just to spiritual progress, I guess. Yeah, and it's challenging. I mean, people walk away from that fight to fight to fight their resistance to be loving I the person could have written you a different email and said first of all you're a human being I don't assume I'm right. I'm assuming you're wrong. I want to share with you might take on this thing And I want to know as a fellow citizen I respect your take this thing's gonna end Let's just not fray our country. What a try to imagine you would have gotten that email. Yeah, I suppose at the end though, the implications are, I don't think there's any way of saying

other than the implications of it are monstrous, which is this virus has a 2% death rate. And so we should just let it happen. We shouldn't have as individuals, we should be able to decide whether we give a shit or not. Yes. And whether we have an obvious. That's the inherent problem. Yeah. So you can say that.

And you can advocate that position. Right. I would not use the word monstrous. I would really want to understand what they're saying. Because remember, people are thinking, is there a cost to protecting everybody? I'm not saying that their algorithm is correct. Right. What I'm saying is, you know, when we look at the history of our country, I just, I feel a little bit of resistance that there's some point of view that I will

call monstrous because what do you do with monsters? You kill them. You exile them. You marginalize them. You know, you euthanize them. We sterilize them. So what you're hearing in me, Ryan, is just from having studied so much of human barbarity and the history of dissidents.

Something he just wants to be cautious and hear what a person has to say without calling them a monster. Now, you might be right on this. It might be better to say it's monstrous. And so I'm not saying, you should be. No, I'm not saying the person is a monster. I'm saying the implications that we, like,

like you always have to think about, I guess was it caught the sort of categorical imperative, like what would it be like if everyone acted like this, right? What would it mean if this became sort of the law of the land? And so I think we have struggled as a society to whether it's climate change or gun control, these issues where people are sort of like, but what about what I want to do? It's not that that's not valid or real.

Of course it is. But I think what we've struggled with is going, okay, let's sketch this out. What does this mean in real sort of human cost? What is the consequences of this position? So it's not a person as a monster, but what they have picked up on the internet or whatever has an inherently, I mean, when you think about freezer trucks full of bodies because hospitals are overloaded, or the fact that like, you know, I have to wake up today, right? And think there are zero available children's ICU beds in central Texas. And I really hope my kid doesn't fall and hurt their head because those are all taken up now. So I unvaccinated.

You know what I'm saying? So we're not actually we're not actually debating anything here. Meaning I think we agree the best thing for our country is to be extremely careful, get vaccinated, live responsibility, you know, have a civic, a civic ethic of inter-responsibility. We have both agreed. The only thing you're hearing from me is if I were to sit down with one of these people, how I would conduct the conversation. And I think as I present my side, I think what happens is I trigger something in you that goes back to the advocacy.

And then I say, well, I'm not talking about advocacy. I'm talking about dialogue, and you go to advocacy, I go to dialogue. So here's where I would say, let's just move on because I agree with you, but I'm talking with something else. No, no, I get what I get what you're saying. I do see how when you're trying to debate with a specific person, what is the entry, where is the path of least resistance?

As you're trying to connect with someone or communicate with someone, where are they gonna be most open? And I've got to imagine, you're sort of practice of doing this over many decades now, you, whether it's a couple thinking about divorcing or it's someone who's become addicted to drugs or someone who's fallen away from the faith,

you've had to really craft an ability, probably not unlike your Jiu-Jitsu skills, to get access to them without triggering precisely what would make them unwilling or unable to hear what you have. That's very well put. And it is like Jiu-Jitsu. And when I work with a lower belt, I don't want them to freak out. I don't want them to panic.

I want them to know you're in good hands. Everything's okay. And I'm only here to teach you. So let's, I mean, you go back some follow-up from the faith. If someone says, well, I've left religion, I've left Judaism, I don't start with my conclusion. Like, oh, I gotta get you back. I don't, I require myself not to think that. I require myself, let me hear their journey of faith, and try to understand their decision. And is it decision that's best for them, their inner life, and their family, and leave what

my opinion out of it. Now I have my opinion, right? But that's not what you do when you're caring for the soul of another person. And when you're caring for the soul of another person, you have to start with, what are their axioms, what are their premises? What's their starting place? And then see how they view the world. So in these different political issues, here's one thing I found. The different sides of political debate profoundly misunderstand each other. So if you were to talk a person on the other side, and we would say, well, it says rampant individualism, when I've talked to them, that's actually not their story. I don't want to say their story is because, you know, I don't want us to start talking about what their story is.

Sure. But I want you to know, in nearly every one of these issues, they, their, their axioms, their reasoning is not what the other side thinks. So I actually, even when I talked to them with who I disagree, the honor of being brought into their inner life, that they trust me enough to help them figure out what their axioms and premises are, because no one has ever been curious. And to say, okay, so show me how your axioms premises facts produce theories that produce policies. And they say, I've never heard about that. I say, let me show you what it's like. And they walk away saying,

I've become a better thinker by sitting by sitting this with this man, because I'm skilled. Like, I'm skilled in the mechanics of the mind like I'm skilled at jujitsu. I'm a black belt. Here's the other thing that happens, Ryan. They say, if you're so skilled at this and you think differently from me, maybe I have to think twice. You're being so respectful, so careful, such a good teacher. And you landed on the other side of this thing. Sometimes that's an opening. And I truly hope I'm right about things.

I thought about many things very carefully. And I think my conclusions at least are defensible, not saying I'm right, but they're defensible. So, you know, as we engage in the, you know, stoicism, which is very much rooted in rationality and good thinking and the logos of the universe, you know, as a spiritual person rooted in a tradition that starts with love your neighbor, neighbor as yourself, the ethics of responsibility, respect for humankind, and my profession, which is mostly dealing with the souls of other people. You might say, I've developed a path in life which sounds like it's different from your path.

And I honor your path. I mean, you're doing great work. I wouldn't want you anything different. You might say the world is made better because there's the inner path of dialogue and there's the path of reasonable advocacy. We actually think, and then I've got a couple more questions, but if you have to go, you tell me at any time. What I find endlessly fascinating about about stoicism as a philosophy, and where I think it diverges in the historical tradition from Epicurianism and from all the other schools,

is that even though they all develop roughly around the same time and in the same place, is that stoicism becomes a political philosophy. And I don't mean that it has so much specific policy like planks or anything like that because it's 2,000 years and all the issues in the countries and the people in places have changed. But I think it was Seneca talking about the Epicurians,

he says, you know, Epicurian says, I will not be political unless I have to be. And Asturak says, I will be political unless something stops me. Right. So in Sennaika's place, he's involved until he's exiled. I think, you know, to me, what I love about Stoicism is that it is inexplicably intertwined with political engagement. This is why the founders, Washington and Jefferson are both proponents of Stoicism. This is why, at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, you have this sort of resurgence of

Stoicism. This is Stockdale in Vietnam. What I love about Stoicism is that it is engaged. I get your point that sort of, let's look at the soil. What I find fascinating about stoicism is it's tend to your own soil and we have an obligation to contribute to the soil of the direction of the state, the nation, the community, the business, whatever it is. So let's break that down just a little bit.

You see, I think the core of stoicism in caring for the Polis, let's say, the business, whatever it is. Yes. So let's break that down just a little bit. You see, I think the core of stoicism in caring for the Poles, let's say political needs you care for the city, the welding of the city, and the citizens living together. And the main path of stoicism is rationality. Yes. That what's happening in the city? What are the facts?

And let's not ignore facts that don't fit our theory, let's start with the city, what are the facts? And let's not ignore facts that don't fit our theory, to start with the facts. What are my theories? What are my axioms? So I do engage in politics in the same way that I care for the souls of other people. I'm not talking about my caring from my soul right now. I'm saying what it's like for the souls of others. But you see, to the point that I am engaged, and now then I will make a political statement, meaning I care for the moral character of the polis. I will make a statement, but I make sure to back it up with, here are my axioms, here are my premises, here are the facts I understand them, here's the policy I'm recommending, here's why it lines up, I encourage you to challenge

me. So yes, we should care about the polis. We should, but here's the thing that I'm not implying you don't, by the way. I'm not implying. I just want to be emphatic that, that caring for the souls of others, I do care. But here's the thing that makes me sad. Whenever I end up talking to somebody on what we'll call a political issue, which means one side or the other. Sure. I'm saddened how poorly people are informed even the people who agree with me. How ill-bought-out they are about their premise and their axioms. They're relative lack of mastery with the facts.

That their premise is axioms, facts, theories, and policies. Actually, don't line up and they agree with me. mastery with the facts that their premises axioms, facts, theories and policies actually don't line up and they agree with me. So this goes back to the virtue of wisdom, which is the most difficult of the virtues to attain and requires incredible commitment and dedication. Yes. And so that's what you said. You mentioned Vietnam.

Some people will say Vietnam Vietnam. I say, look, I was alive during this time. I say do you know anything about the Korean War? They don't know nothing right and I said our country was traumatized. First of all by the communist take-or-of-China and the mass murder that produced the sudden North Korean invasion of South Korea and the constant barbarity that accompanied it and a nation unprepared. And suddenly this idea, wow, no one's going to do it if we don't. So this is Kennedy. I mean, he looked at Kennedy's policy is, we have to be involved in the world.

And so that was the American sense of self. It goes completely awry in Vietnam. But it was motivated by a Kennedy-esque idea that we have to prepare ourselves to sacrifice ourselves for the right and the good and communism as it was lived at that time under Mao Stalin and others was, I think, you know, factually evil. Oh, I mean, as I don't think there's any debate. It was monstrously evil. So when people look at the American involvement in Vietnam, they say imperialism, and I said, you know, that's actually after the fact it looks like it. And so when I actually break down what happened in world and American history between 1945 and 1964, and let's understand why we went,

why it went badly, I find that even though we might agree it was a mistake to go in. People are judging from their conclusion and therefore they think they understand the history. So judging from hindsight and it's very easy to make very clear and clean conclusions there when at the moment you, it was hopelessly muddy. I think, yeah, I think I had HR McMaster on the podcast a few months ago and he wrote a fascinating book about the leadership in Vietnam, one of the sort of how it goes so wrong from sort

of the strategic standpoint. I think the real tragedy of Vietnam is not so much going in because the intentions, as you said, were both relatively noble and at the time relatively limited. The tragedy of Vietnam, and this is a key part of wisdom, was as the assumptions changed and as the information changed, we had a government and a population that was unable, we had a government and a military complex that was unable to acknowledge the change and change in accordance with that and we became sort of hopelessly trapped in this thing, which is,

and then the ultimate tragedy on top of it is that we then make the exact same mistake in Iraq and Vietnam and or just what would the store do? What would the store do as far as? Well, let's think about, look, the military did not want to go into Vietnam. The military said never fight or on the Asian landmass. But the military doesn't make the decisions. That was a very political decision. And the military, if they're set to go to war, they want to win the war.

Right. When the government just pull out, they pull out, they follow orders. So when the military is giving an impossible task, that decision made by our civilian leadership. It gets very, very complex. Well, there's an interesting story about Marcus really. So Marcus really says this philosopher king, and yet he spends the vast majority of his reign battling not just a plague, but also a series of battles in the frontier of the Roman Empire.

And sometimes I'll get emails from people and they're like, Marcus, it's such a great person. You know, why, why did he fight the Parthenians or why did he fight, this tribe or that tribe? And what I try to remind them of, I go, imagine you're the president of a country, or the ruler of a country, and your border is invaded. No president can just simply not respond to that.

If a president doesn't respond to it, you're essentially, you almost immediately become a failed state, right? And so there are, and I think this is what's interesting about stoicism. Stoicism is, for all its idealism, it's still also a pragmatic sort of fact-based philosophy Marx-Rio says, don't go around expecting Plato's Republic, right? We live in the dregs of Romulus, as Cicero says. And so Marx's force to go to war, but he negotiates almost immediately a series of truces.

He fights in the conflict, but understands that what isn't palatable is both the expansion of the empire and endlessly defending the empire. And so Marcus is known for his subjugation of these tribes, but really, as I understand it, what he was actually brilliant at was more in the field of diplomacy or the idea of finding and brokering some form of peace. So obviously, there's a not perfect comparisons, but it's about being honest.

Great. So my exercise is, when I look at it at a historical moment, and let's say we're asked ourselves metaphorically, what would a good stoic do without the benefit of hindsight? Meaning what were their axioms and premises? What facts did they know, what policy they recommend, and when would they have set, I made a mistake.

So therefore, I agree that good people with good values have to be engaged. But when we study history, we understand that some of the most terrible mistakes were by people that had good values, thought they mastered the facts, created policies, and they were disastrous. So there's no panacea to the broken timber of humanity. So therefore, my question is, how do I make sure, let's say, to use the metaphor, I'm not

a mistaken stoic. The way I'm not a mistaken stoic is engage those who disagree with me, because if my position is rooted in values and facts and good theories, I can withstand the engagement of someone who thinks differently, even when we discuss the past. So anytime someone says, well, let's talk about this thing or this thing or this thing, I said, let's talk about, you know, this thing or this thing or this thing, I said, let's talk about it. Because we're going to engage our premises, our understanding of the facts. And that takes some time, you know, it takes, it's a sacrifice of time to master facts, which many people don't want to do. So this idea of, we'll call stoic reasoning to be engaged,

it requires a lot. So I'll say the last thing on this topic, unless you want to ask me more questions, is sometimes when I engage with a person, and I just bring up facts, I say, well, this, they say, well, how do you have time to like look all this stuff up? And my response is, I will not let myself have an opinion if I don't. Well, it's your job, you know, it's all of our jobs.

Well, it's, I think especially my job as a spiritual leader who's, you know, you know, with a doctorate and therefore I know how to look stuff up. So when I find with me people have, they have very strong opinions and passions and a meager grasp of the facts, including historical facts, very hazy premises, but very strongly passionate about something. So what I think what you're hearing me say is, if you and I decided to talk about anything, the first thing I would do with you is, let's not talk about our conclusion, let's amass the facts that we share. Okay, so at least we have a, you know, we understand what our playing field is. And then I would ask you, so what are your premises and actions that you're bringing

to bear? What's your value system that's shaping as we look at something? What would you have recommended and what do the other sides say? And I think we would both come out wiser from that engagement. Yeah. And Mark Strelis talks about, you know, when someone points out that you're wrong, you know, they haven't done you an injury. He says to correct the the injury is to continue being wrong. Correct. And and this this ability to question your own beliefs is of course, the root of wisdom. And and its why-socrates was considered wise.

He went around asking questions and sort of generally kind of avoiding conclusions and mostly trying to find out what other people think. Exactly. And so I find this, for example, what I bring to bear is typically in families Where there's so much pain so much suffering so much unavoidable pain in suffering If people had what you might call the stoic ethic of is first of all, I'm gonna bring rationality to bear I call it the police report. What exactly just happened? You know it's incredible Ryan a couple will talk about something happened yesterday And they don't agree on actually the bearable facts of what happened. And so that's the first thing is, we can't talk until we can actually recover some

factual basis to talk. So this, what I call the political ethic of stoicism, I find is also the ethic of solving the great pain that occurs in families between spouses and parents and shows, but as soon as children become teenagers, this idea of, well, let's all first match the facts first. And now let me share with you my understanding. So for example, many parents of teenagers, they've never read a book on child development. They don't understand what adolescence is. I have a class that is called parenting the soul of your child. I said, the first thing before you tell any kid what to do,

you have to understand what their inner state is. I teach the people, children need wisdom more than they need advice. So all the hours you spend giving a kid advice would be better put teaching a child how to gain insight wisdom, rationality, and so forth. So the same things that we're talking about for me are the ways of bringing

healing to a family. Is everybody calm down? Discuss what exactly happened? What axioms are bringing to, are being brought to bear? What's the fact of the situation, including the fact of ongoing human development? You know, what marriages are like? They have peaks and they have valleys. What people are like is they transform. You like you marry somebody, that person is not a stable personality for the next 30 years. They're going through their journey, they're going through our changes.

What people are usually aware of is, well, it doesn't please me, it doesn't fit me. This is not good for me. And so sometimes I say, do you understand the sole journey of your spouse? It's never occurred to them to ask. Sure. So that's with ourselves. Do you understand the sole journey of your spouse? Is never crude to them to ask. Sure.

So that's with ourselves. Yeah, naturally. It's not about thing. We see the world in reference to our opinions, our values, our understanding of our facts, and we're typically not interested in another person's understanding of the world. So I find that this is a core to discuss

of any political issue, but interestingly, it's also the core of working out interpersonal disputes is curiosity about the inner world of another person, how they're experiencing reality. And sometimes, when a parent is really upset with their teenager, the behavior is like out of compliance. As someone you calm down, go to them and say, look, I don't want to give advice. I don't want to tell you what to do. I want to, I truly want to understand you as a loving parent. So the kids don't buy it. They think it's a, it's some kind of

manipulation. You have to be insistent. I'm going to be your parent, hopefully, until I die. And I don't want this to have to go through this with bitterness. I want to understand how you see the world. And you know what many teenagers have never had a parent ask them, how do you see the world? Because parents are too busy judging to their kids and telling them what to do. Now, this is a game changer. Curi Curi So we can end on a positive note as well. I think he's always wasn't positive. No, no, I just meant positive generally,

not that we were negative, but it's a thing I've been thinking about. OK. What gives you hope? Like, what makes you hopeful? Given your study of history, given the people that you see, given your reading, given your spiritual pursuits, what makes you hopeful? OK. All that's metaphorically.

What makes me hopeful is that North Korea calls itself the people's Democratic Republic of Korea. Okay, which means they have to lie. Because they know a Democratic Republic is the best form of government, they know their tyranny, but they're going to lie. See, if they said the thuggish fascist brutal state, that's it. So I'm going with Stephen Pinker here. If you look at the long view, what has happened to the world? They're at least acting as if. Yes. No, they're talking as if. But you look at the rest of the world. Yes, sorry. Yeah. The rest of the world, the model of a regulated free market, a right endowed sit-insery that ought to act with some kind of civic responsibility. Everybody knows that's the standard.

Stephen Pinker's idea of, you can't look at today according how things should be. You have to look at how in general humanity has developed. I mean, look at China under mount. And as much as it's not a free country, it's not like it was under mount. So what gives me hope is, you know, again, I think Stephen Pinker for particularly so beautifully, let's take a long view and ask ourselves in general, not looking at the deplorable moments, but in general, what's the history of consciousness in the past 50 or 60 years? And I think Stephen Peacars right that says the vision of eradicating illness and poverty, the vision of feeding everybody, the vision of of people having rights, that vision seems inexorable. I mean, there are downturns, but like,

I remember when the Philippines threw over, overthrew markets. I remember Solidaritat in Poland with Lechvelenza. So, you know, I remember, you know, when Solidaritat came into being, I mean, the world was a buzz. Someone's pushing back. And we were asking, what's gonna happen next? Nobody could predict it in 10 years, the Soviet Union would fall.

And, you know, what I thought was a part of the world, I'll never see Eastern Europe. And I saw the Berlin wall come down. And then I actually went to Berlin for a month. Ryan, my life has been filled with miracles of watching human progress. And I don't want to get lost in the bad moments and not see this miracle that I've witnessed in my lifetime. I think that's well said. To quote the, to quote Martin Luther King again, who I think he was quoting someone else, about the arc of the moral universe sort of bending towards truth.

And I think it was Obama as he's leaving office, you know, he's dealing with all these sort of despondent aides who can't believe the Trump's just been elected. And he goes, look, it bends towards truth, but it also zigs and zags, right? Right. And I do think that is always really important to keep in mind,

because if you, you know, Stoics talk about zooming out and taking Plato's view, if you look at it too close, you'll lose heart. Actually, this is one of my favorite, one of my favorite, I don't know what they're called in Judaism, but I learned about it from my friend Aaron Thayer. He has a book with the same title, but he says it's like a Jewish him or something. The world is a narrow bridge. The important thing is to not be afraid.

Yeah, this is saying it's probably not going to brought love. Exactly. Yes. If you look at it too close, if you look down, you'll lose all heart, but if you can zoom out a little bit, it's not so, it's not so bad. bit, it's not so bad. That's what gives me hope is the arc of history moving toward truth and justice. My question is, how do I keep that arc in that direction? I've chosen my path. I'm really honored that you brought me on and let me share my path and it's been a delight talking to you and hearing yours. No, thank you.

And yeah, I would say that what you just said that last part to me is the most imperative part. It bends towards truth, but it doesn't just happen. What are you as an individual doing about it in attending to your own soul, attending to the soul of the people around you, attending to the soul of your community? This is what I love about stoicism, which is like, yeah, the great man of history, theory exists, but what role are you playing? There you go, exactly, well, well.

Well, Rabbi, this was a wonderful conversation. I appreciate the extra time and I'm so glad that we got connected and I hope we can meet in person one day. I hope the same has been an honor, thank you. Remember, Courage is calling Fortune favors the Brave is now available everywhere. You can go to your local bookstore and pick it up and come to the painted porch and pick it up. We are still offering the pre-order bonuses. We've extended it to the end of this week. So you can get that at daily

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