Focus on What the World Needs from You

One of my most influential teachers was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. He was composer and an itinerant teacher. I met him when I was 15, and fell in love with his music. He was also very warm and hospitable to me and my family wanted me to leave him alone but he knew I needed him and he wanted me to be around him.

Shlomo was an extremely controversial person and he wasn't a regular type rabbi. He was the hippie rabbi and he attracted a following that was not like what most Chasidic rabbis would want. He gave smicha ("rabbinic ordination") to women years before any other Orthodox rabbi did and he dispensed with many of Judaism's laws revolving around separation between men and women.

Originally, Shlomo wanted to be the world's greatest Talmud scholar of his day. He was gifted with an incredibly brilliant mind, the ability to interpret the Torah in an unusual and unique way, and a prodigious memory, all of which would have equipped him to be one of the Gedolei Hador ("Torah luminaries") of his generation and a possible successor to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, as the world's greatest, post WWII rabbi.

Shlomo was a talmid ("student") at Lakewood Yeshiva and he was a close pupil to Rabbi Aharon Kotler. One day, Shlomo decided that he should leave Lakewood and go to Lubavitch, because he wanted to do outreach. He told people that if he would nave stayed in Lakewood, he would have bettered himself but if he went to Chabad Lubavitch, and did outreach, he could better the world around him.

Initially, Shlomo had a conversation with the Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time and the Rebbe asked him what he wanted to do with his life. Shlomo expressed his desire to be a great lamdan ("scholar"). But the Rebbe told him, "Don't think of what you want to do, think of what the world needs from you."

I went through many struggles in my life. I had to face anti-Semitism at an early age, as far back as when I was 10 years old in my elementary school. The principal of my school wouldn't intervene, he said, "The children have to work it out for themselves." And my Hebrew School teachers either didn't know what was going on or didn't know what to do about it. (My father enrolled me in Jui Jitsu lessons when I was about 12 and I also took up weight lifting and joined the wrestling team in Jr.High).

I wanted to forget about my Jewish background as a teen, but I keep getting called back to discussing topics and being involved in controversies in religion. It seems that God's plan for my life includes my relaying information about what has been entrusted to me by Providence.

Some of my Jewish background needed to be relayed to my co-workers on some of the jobs I held. I needed to convince people that I knew more about Judaism than they did.

Later on, I wanted to learn more about Judaism than my background gave me and I sought out a teacher to help me. Well, what happened was that before that, I wound up going to a church for a number of years. Then the church started going to Jewish events and they introduced me to Shlomo.

I had the first Shlomo Carlebach songbook and saw what appeared to be a regular rabbi who did outreach and I sought him out after my first concert. It turned out that by the time I met up with him that he was long gone from the main part of the Jewish establishment and he set himself up as a New Age Rabbi. He was pretty hard to understand.

The church I went to developed a spiritual problem and Shlomo stepped in to invite me to leave the church and come to Israel to live with his Chasidim. That was back in '78. So I went to Israel.

If Shlomo hadn't taken the Lubavitcher Rebbe's advice, I never would have known him and I probably would have been gone from this world a long time ago. Basically, my life has been difficult, but Shlomo was part of the equation.

I lost my job as a computer programmer back in '94. The last time I held a good, full time job was in November of that year. I was a member of Shlomo's synagogue back then and I didn't know what to do.

Shlomo had a recording out called, "Expo '92: Only the Light of the Moon Can Rebuild the World." Jews are people of the moon as we start a new day on the evening before the next day as per the sunset. He gave some pretty hard advice. Shlomo said, "You lost your job, thank God! Go to the House of Study and the House of Prayer and fill yourself with the loftiest teachings." This is hard to take advice, huh?

He also said on the tape, "Maybe it's the end for you. Ah, but the night looks so good." Most people would balk at this and be terrified of this sort of counsel but I didn't know what else to do.

It was clear to me that my days as a computer programmer/analyst were over. I didn't know what else to do. So I went back to Israel and lived with some of Shlomo's Chasidim and I tried to get a new start. It didn't work out.

I had to go back to the USA. Not knowing what to do or where to stay, I went to a homeless shelter and sought psychiatric help for my problems. I was put on disability benefits and tried over the years to do a number of things to earn a living.

I took a series of psychometric tests and a test of my personality and I decided that based on my talents and finances that I should retrain to become a freelance writer. I also could counsel people on how to engage in a job search should they lose their jobs too.

I find people who are sympathetic to me. They spot meals, let me eat on revolving credit and I try to return all of this with the appreciation I know they have earned. One of my therapists told me, "You are worth saving." And you have to realize that there are a lot of people out there who aren't getting help. Perhaps they just don't know where to go to get t he help that they need.

I have always tried to help out my fellow man. Even at AT&T, when I was a computer programmer there, I used to help people out in doing their work in addition to doing mine. One contractor told me that if I didn't keep going to his cubicle he never would have known what to do to finish his programs.

But I will tell you, if you help someone out, and you are helping him do his job, tell your boss that you are networking and trying to foster teamwork among the employees of the company. Otherwise your superiors won't know just how valuable you are to the company.

Sometimes, you have to bow out gracefully. Eventually, I had to leave AT&T and Con Ed. I also didn't get my act together in Israel. But sometimes you have to take life's hard to learn lessons to heart and move forward.

Some years a go, someone wrote a book that's theme was that losing your job may be the best thing that could happen to you. This is also hard to take advice. But no one owes you a living.