Episode_2 (1)

This is a conversation between the worm guy and the ex-rabbi, Michael Hisler. They discuss their experiences leaving Orthodoxy in episode two of their podcast. The ex-rabbi talks about the difficulties he faced when leaving the yeshivish world of Prophet Zion. He mentions that only his therapist knows the in-depth story of his journey and that he didn't have a solid friend to confide in during that time. He shares that he even had to sleep in his car on some nights. The ex-rabbi explains that his decision to leave was not a singular event, but rather a realization that he no longer belonged in that world. He mentions feeling a culture shock when he moved to New York and saw others struggling in their thirties with families, which made him question his own path. Overall, he felt a sense of betrayal and decided to create his own life outside of the religious bubble he was raised in. All right, welcome. Welcome to ex-rabbi and the worm guy. I'm the worm guy and I'm here with Michael Hisler, the ex-rabbi, or should I say four months away from being an ex-rabbi because he dropped out of the region of Israel. This is a podcast about two friends talking about their experiences leaving Orthodoxy and we are here on episode two and today we get to learn about your story, what it was like for you to leave the yeshivish world of Prophet Zion. Cool, awesome, and where'd you where'd you want to start from? Should we just jump in talking about once I realized that I was done? Well, okay, who else knows this story? Like I'm guessing you told some of this shit to like a therapist. Yeah, I mean realistically all probably only a therapist really knows this like the in-depth of the story probably only a therapist. Like how many people have you talked to about like what happened? Like from day one what happened? Like you leave, you're four months away and you're about to leave like who who knows about that? Almost no one, honestly. I mean there's there's doki-dokos, right? There's details. So I mean people know my general story is I was four months away from graduating and then I left but in terms of what was actually going on like internally how fucking difficult was for me to break away and to eventually like kind of create my own life. Honestly, I don't know if anyone knows it really. You don't have like a friend at the time who was the person you were just like running to to talk to? You didn't have a person to escape to while it was happening? You were really that alone? Yeah, yeah pretty much. I had I didn't have like one solid like I know for example like you had John, right? I had a couple people. A couple of people. So I had I had people who I could speak to and tell like parts of my story who were involved in my life at that current time but I didn't really have like one person who I could tell my whole story to beginning to end kind of go through the whole process outside of a really helpful therapist who I found for like two years. That's so fucked. Yeah. I'll tell you I had John and I also had a friend slash mentor slash father figure, David. He was actually my mock trial coach in high school and then whatever we'll talk about this a different time but I remember when I had gone through some shit I'm like this one time I actually needed to leave my house and needed a place to go like I and his was the place I drove to like I drove to his place I called him like hey some shit really happened just now and I just have nowhere to go and I need to come to you. Right. I did the same with my friend Sherman. Yeah. Who we're not in each other's lives as much anymore but he's like I still consider him a good friend. I would go crash on his couch when I needed to. I mean John was in Philly so I would call him but like Sherman and this guy David were like the people who I escaped to when I was going through this stuff and you're telling me you really didn't have that. Right. So eventually at least a car so there'd be certain nights where I didn't have anywhere to stay and I would sleep in the car. Get the fuck out. That was my place. This was after you left? Went like still in that quasi transition period. Okay. You have to keep in mind that my entire world was Chavetz Chaim. Like my entire world was people who had signed up to this 14-year rabbinical program everyone's committed to seeing it through to the end no one really leaves that little bubble like we're speaking of bubbles before but that's like a hyper intense bubble so. You didn't have friends outside? No not really I mean I'm probably being too harsh like I had friends who had joined like that 14-year rabbinical program that after three to four years had transitioned to college but I didn't really like I kind of reconnected with them like Steve for example I kind of reconnected with them after I've been already left the Chavetz Chaim for like two three years but for that initial two years period I didn't really have a therapist then until eventually I connected with a therapist but that was all pretty much myself yeah. Okay so take me to the moments leading up to you leaving because in my mind it sounds like there's this singular event where one day you're in Chavetz Chaim and decide I'm out of here. Take me to like the three weeks before you left. Well first tell me was it a singular event did you one day just stop showing up to classes or was it a slow phasing out where you you know started caring less showed up less people noticed and then eventually you know you left or was it just like one day you're just like fucking them out? Yeah so as you're talking I'm realizing like again this is why my stand-up went well in my brain I know my history but when I tell it over it sounds kind of intense for what happened so I'll take you through basically is I had my own personal moment which happened relatively quickly where I was just like okay I think I'm done. When? When I so I had joined this 14-year rabbinical program I had done three years in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Wait is it 14-year? It's a 14-year rabbinical program yeah 14-year rabbinical program I had done three years in Milwaukee Wisconsin and then I had moved to New York to kind of their they refer to as the mothership the kind of their bigger like their headquarters to continue my studies for another let's say 11 years or something like that and pretty much within my first month of moving to Harvard Simon Queens it's kind of crazy story what happened but long story short is that basically woke up one day and I'm like yeah I think I'm out. I think everything that I thought yeah I just it doesn't it doesn't feel real it feels like we're living in this alternate reality from the rest of the world and also it was the whole thing was weird because as I mentioned before I was also being I was I would have made a fucking great rabbi like I was like a high-level rabbi you know and I was really being groomed to take over like a synagogue or a shul or yeshiva somewhere and be like a really like established popular rabbi or something like that that was my experience going through the first three years in Milwaukee like I was given I was given like the rights to I was like the youngest person who had achieved certain certain bullshit things that for me was like a really big deal so I was kind of being groomed to be this like superstar rabbi and then I moved to New York to continue my studies and I had met with a rabbi from another from Milwaukee who happened to be visiting in New York we had a conversation and at the end he turns to me and he says Moshe I can't imagine a reason why you will not be successful here literally the next day I woke up and I just like I think I'm done like I'm done I'm out I think like it just it didn't things didn't feel right I think a huge part of it was also when I was living in Milwaukee I was from like ages 18 to 21 so we're kind of you're in your own little fantasy world you don't really have to take the quote-unquote real world seriously you don't have to be making adult decisions like if you're interested who you're interested in as a partner or any of those kind of children or any of that stuff job money so when I came to New York it was kind of like a culture shock in the sense I was like holy shit there's this whole huge aspect of my life that I've never addressed never thought of and now it's everything just kind of hit me all at once so given that you were on Main Street spending most of your time inside of a time what about New York gave you that culture shock I think it was probably more everyone who I was surrounded with was or had already moved on in some ways in their life so like when I was in Milwaukee the oldest person in the yeshiva in the base mattress was like 21 they weren't married they didn't have kids when I moved to like the headquarters in Queens the hub assignment Queens and I looked at everyone around me that's when I was seeing like the Abraham Maslow's self-actualization that's when I should be seeing all these people achieving nirvana and I looked around and I saw these like fucking losers in like their thirties like married with four kids fucking struggling over how to be able to provide for their family and there would be other things too like we used to have you know what a hush cup a session is remind me but it it sounds very familiar is it like Musser it's similar hush cup is kind of like light perspective session so you'll have yeah you'll have like the head rabbi and he'll be speaking to like 200 people and dispensing all of his sage advice that he's learned over the year it's kind of like more practical pragmatic base so how to take what you've learned from the academia world and apply it in the real world right so whatever like different questions that would come up and I remember one of the topics that came up was someone was talking about how they wanted to have internet on their phone which is obviously forbidden because if you have internet your phone you're going to be looking at port which to be fair but like that's the reason why having internet your phone is forbidden and during one of these hush cup a sessions that's the topic and there was this dude who is like in his 30s like let's see 32 married four kids I just remember him getting up and talking to like the head rabbi being like but ready I need to have the internet on my phone or something like that and in my brain I mean it wasn't saying this because I wasn't cursing at the time but in my brain I was just like you dumb fuck you pathetic bitch come here I'm gonna slap you just shut the fuck up let me let me I want to I want to choke you by your little tits that are hanging out of the sides of your pants right now like you are just providing value I guess I felt a bit of a betrayal because I was assuming that everything I was studying in the path that I was on was gonna lead me to I guess a real almost like ownership of my life really took place where I could feel in control making decisions and like I guess the theory is you spend all this time away kind of gaining knowledge and then you apply in the real world and for me what I saw is I saw people who had been spending all this time in yeshiva shore gaining intellectual knowledge but developing no people skills no social skills being completely clueless when it was actually time to interact in the world and that's something that just pissed me off when I saw that and it was just like I saw how was actually going on this whole process was not the process of taking like young men and making them become mature adults but was actually just babying people and having showing them how they didn't need to have real responsibilities and then when real life hit they were fucked up that's a beautiful way to put it and I think in some ways I noticed some of the some of the similar things but it wasn't as as the way you thought it out but now that you're saying it it's like yeah that is a huge part of it you're basically kind of teaching people to almost play house not play real life yeah it's almost like a learn helplessness exactly and I mean you can only function within like the socialistic nature of your bubble yeah and once you step outside of there you're like a deer in headlights you have no idea how to interact you have no idea how to engage how to be a part of the world and you've mentioned things to me as well like how hard it is to step outside of the community like you mentioned like learning how to do laundry on your own and have like your mother do your laundry for you or that I would like the religious stuff and more my mother wanting to always like me to always meet her but I think that's connected to the religious stuff as well that's part of that learned helplessness that's part of the reason why it's hard to leave the religious community and yeah this in the real world because you've become so dependent for certain things you become so dependent that sometimes it's just yeah so that's another struggle for sure it's another struggle it's another impediment in your way that you would be like I'm not even going to consider leaving and becoming my own person my own my own individual yeah I I think that's a good analogy to it and that's why well I don't know they don't prepare you for the real world and then when you leave they tell you you're not going to be able to make it and then they make it seem as if that's because you need Judaism but really it's because you're not prepared and you don't have anyone to help you yeah and that's that's how cults work yeah so unless you actually are able to realize that yes what they're saying happened in that I am struggling but the reason they're saying it happened isn't the reason and separating those two things I think is one of the biggest impediments to successfully leaving yeah on 100% yeah yeah because there could be multiple reasons why you're struggling it doesn't have to be the reason they're saying and if you don't get over that hump you end up going back I think yeah and that's why many people won't leave and that also goes back to something we spoke about on another podcast is how failure is viewed like failure is viewed as the death now right so if you're at the final blow in mortal combat right the final blow right the thing that knocks you out and yeah it's that finishing and it's just uh it's something that it plays a significant role in the ways we can self-sabotage ourselves when we try to leave because once we'll be like it's like that self-confirmation bias or the confirmation bias I mean so that also I haven't thought about the psychological terms for like 10 years but the confirmation bias is we we were told that we're going to struggle and we're envisioning that we're going to struggle based on what we were told by the community so once we start to struggle if you don't make that differentiation that you just beautifully stated before if you don't mean that differentiation in your brain you're just gonna be confirming what you heard from the religious community and that's gonna cause you to yeah fall back and it's so hard to actually leave because you have to the will just the sheer willpower it takes to leave so I think in my situation in some ways it was more extreme than in plenty of other situations people have had it more difficult than me but it's just complete willpower because you have to be like not only am I significantly unhappy in the situation I'm also need to it's like find basic ways I didn't have a job I didn't have any of this stuff so finding the willpower to be able to leave while struggling with all with all the natural social anxiety that can come up from existing in the secular world like it's it's a lot okay so that's another thing I wanted to talk about because for me it was different I was living at home I had somewhere to live and my parents would still give me money and then eventually I got a job and that helped a lot but you were living in the Hafez time and then you didn't have a job you didn't have any means to leave so how the fuck did you leave and like where did you go like right after you left have a time like where did you sleep yeah did you have a friend you crashed on for like a month until you got your shit together like where the fuck did you go yeah so that that's a really good question and also I didn't I didn't make my break that and this was like something you asked before I knew internally that I was done at that time but it still took me like three years before I was able to be living on my own and financially so that you were in a time for three more years no so I was going to have a time for like I felt at the first month in New York in New York and have a time and I stayed home time probably for another six months before eventually the skies parted and my sister who had just married who used to be very close with and I just got married like offered me to stay at her place and to go to like a slightly less intense yeshiva so she knew what was going on with you yes she knew she she knew parts of it yeah she knew parts of it she knew that I wasn't really happy like she knew some of the superficial stuff that I was just unhappy and I was trying to make some kind of change so she and it was actually it was like a life saver at the time I was able to stay by her place for like a year while going to a slightly less intense yeshiva I think I started going to I started like transferring my credits from my rabbinical seminary to like Turo College or something so I actually helped that's about like two years of college and then I just went for the easiest degree I could find just I wanted to get a bachelor's in something so I went for psychology and I got my bachelor's in psychology in Turo while you were at this less strict yeshiva you were doing your bachelor's in psychology no so it was I say you're my sister I was in this less strict yeshiva it's called Zia Zichron Arieh in Farakwe and then after I finished that year in yeshiva I think I also started to work I also found a job do you know like Hask yeah of course yeah so I started to work for a Hask kind of organization and it's like an organization that helps the developmentally disabled individuals they have residencies so like the homes where the individuals live and they also have a main office where individuals go for like recreational play and some education so I worked in one of those places at human care services for about three three four years while I was at my sister and when I did that I was able to save a little bit of money and then I probably went to Turo about six months after I left less strict yeshiva Zia and when I was working and when I was working at this human care services shit okay so I mean that's big you you had your sister and you had this way of making money that was still in the community yeah I mean that that was huge at the time because I wasn't ready I was still processing like it wasn't I'm making it sound a little more cut and dry that it was it was like oh I woke up one day like oh I'm out and then I just bounced it was like a three four year five year process for me to really get myself completely like extricate myself from the community and also to have that internal battle like to get myself clear internally what are my values what do I believe I had to rebuild myself in a sense because all of my beliefs that I had it like intensely attached myself to until I was 21 22 years old basically just fell apart almost overnight and yeah I could kind of do a whole rebuilding process for that and yeah like even my time working working at human care services that was a whole interesting experience in and of itself because the way you get the jobs at one point I was promoted to like an assistant manager I got the job because everyone assumed I was just like a nice yeshiva religious boy and all those organizations are like khasidishly run so and some of them are pretty fucking shady like for one of these homes that I was working for I was assistant manager for I remember like the the head honcho like this fat khasidish guy came over to me and his goal like there was someone who had like mild down syndrome or and autism and he was trying to convince me how important it was that we make this person more religious so there's like a lot of fucked-up shit that was going on as well and also what was hard for me I guess they have other problems than becoming more religious it was insane it was like I was like what about taking care of his physical health his mental health his emotional health what about focusing on those areas and they what like they were offering him prizes not not if he would like pay more attention to his emotional health or follow any of the rules the psychologist had outlined for him to live a better life they were offering him prizes if he would like wear a hat to show or something like it was insane it was insane what was going on and then what was a huge struggle for me throughout this entire process as well as I'm also kind of living like a double life because the reason why I was getting all these jobs and while I was making this money as the assistant manager for these homes not that it was like that much money was because everyone assumed that was religious but I wasn't religious yeah so what even shit were you doing at this time so that's what was actually working at this home that I met my first like Jew who didn't keep kosher so we became we became good friends and we went out and she knew that I was like go kind of going through this transition so at one point we went out to have like non-kosher sushi across the street and it turns into a whole scandal because one of the developmental disabled individuals that we worked with saw us go and they had these like you went fucking across the street yeah cuz we feel like whatever like our shift was done who cares it's over so there are people around honestly for me I was I was I was terrified of doing it but my friend Rachel she was like she she didn't care as much but she was like from Long Island or something and she was like it didn't this job didn't mean as much to her I was like what am I gonna do to say no I'll just go like even though I needed it and I can't judge too much because when Lisa and I first started dating we hung out almost exclusively on Austin Street and Forest Hills which is where I grew up yeah so yeah I should shut the fuck up yeah okay and so we're going to it so these development disabled individuals they have these meetings with the nurses and the psychiatrists where they talk about any issues and one of these monthly meetings this guy I remember his name his first name is Yakov but he says I saw my she his letter goes to a non kosher sushi place across the street and normally that should've been a whole scandal like I should've been fired from that job which would have been a big deal because I wasn't you wear your yarmulke when you went here yeah the sushi place no you went you went without your yarmulke yeah I took off my key okay okay but the only reason why nothing happened is because I the only reason I knew this story is because the nurse who I was friends with she called me and she's like you'll never guess what Yakov said he said that you went to a non-kosher place and everyone's laughing about it because it was the farthest thing from the truth that they could imagine they just didn't believe the guy and in my head I'm like fuck he's 100% correct I 100% went to the sushi place if they had found out I would have been fired from my job also they didn't believe they didn't believe him yeah and you denied that shit obviously I didn't even have to deny it because they came over to me as a sense of like oh here's an individual who's like development disabled who's making up stories and my I felt bad honestly it's not like I understand why a development a disabled individual would want to be religious you know what I mean so let him live in his fantasy where for him what I'm doing is like a huge act of betrayal yeah but it was just so funny to me because no one believed that it was true in any way shape or form so that's why I still had my job but if they had believed him I would have been fired okay you go back to that sushi restaurant after that uh I'd like to go back now but now I haven't been back let's fucking do it yeah you think they'll recognize you you look the same I guess uh like the will the consumers the individuals recognize me no the people across the street yeah yeah they'll recognize me yeah I would go over and even say hello to them okay all right so what other heat and shit were you doing during these three years of soft transitioning out so I guess my philosophy was like I felt I'd spent too much time locked in this theoretical debates and theoretical arguments so my philosophy was let me fucking just jump in straight to the dark side and then afterwards I'll figure out what I'm actually comfortable with or not comfortable with so I was also that how I did it dude what's that different yeah yeah talk about it but holy shit well you probably did it in the healthier way but I was also feeling extremely trapped and suffocated by my environment and I had no one who could really provide mentorship or help me at all so at this point I'm like look going on it like like speaking to a girl to me feels just as dangerous as having sex with the girl like I couldn't even tell the difference between that line yeah like for me that was basically the same thing so I'm like okay once I'm doing something that feels like comfortable why not push it all the way to the extreme but well also what I was doing to help me with the transition is I started experimenting with lots of drugs so it started in the beginning I mean the game is like typical stuff like weed or whatever like weed and alcohol which is like whatever but my drug of choice which also helped me reach higher states of enlightenment was I used to do Molly fairly often okay like MDM Molly and I used to go to a bunch of raves like raves and EDM concerts because when you go to those things that's those are events that's filled especially with like college kids I mean especially Asians Asian college kids too who are wherever I was trying to like discover themselves so they'll have like these bullshit slogans like plur right peace love unity respect but it's one of those like hippie dippie kind of places which now I probably roll my eyes at but at the time was extremely helpful for me because you're just around you're around people where I actually felt comfortable because I was drunk and on Molly so I that was like a way that I would use to fight my social anxiety a lot because I used to have a lot of social anxiety time to a rave bro yeah and I'm coming like from public time with like of my hair is like split down the middle you don't I mean like a like someone who looks like they would place third in a math competition and I was like like all I knew was like slacks and button-down shirts like I thought that was like you had colors and what's that like muted color muted colors yeah I got a rave you have to be colorful and you have to wear more than black blue white and gray yeah and rave you're wearing like shorts and t-shirts which I'd never really like I'd never really more t-shirts and stuff either yeah all that was like a huge change to me so I just figured the best way I figured look you know I could be in therapy for like 10 to 15 years and be like I don't like my religion for this and this reason which cool I wasn't therapy for like two years super helpful but also it was helpful is okay dude let's fucking let's let's test your limits you know let's see what you're actually comfortable with what you're actually not comfortable with me bro so I did like lots of Molly and I would like go to raves and just have a ton of different experiences so I had sex fairly quickly probably the first time I had sex I don't know let's say I was like 24 and remind me how old you were when you moved in with your sister probably like that seems to be like the beginning you moving in with your sister was like the beginning of the physical transition yeah mental probably like 22 and a half okay so you have a year and a half to basically stick a dick in a vagina well I mean even then I think I got pretty much once I got my own place even though it was still within the religious community I got a place in like somewhere in Brooklyn but like in Flatbush I think oh so you by a year and a half out you had a year and a half I had a rate and once I got some money I had a place out and I was paying like 500 for a basement apartment and during this entire time I had to be playing a double agent because everyone assumed that I was still religious but pretty much once I had independence I remember I went to and it was so funny too because everyone assumed like I was hanging out with a friend who I made that year and everyone like assumed that like I was great at speaking with girls or whatever because I hang out with this guy we go to a Halloween party it's like our first time hanging out and my first night ever having sex with the girl at that party so this guy his brain is like yo Mike's fucking slaying out here I have no idea but obviously what I did was how fast did you come scientists have done studies I think was 0.7 second I don't even it took me like a while to get it up and then I had to get over you were drunk yeah well that was my excuse dude alcohol is such a great way to explore because you can use all your excuses and just play my shit away you were like like it was anxious for you yeah well I don't even know honestly I don't even know how I felt like I'm ever just being so dissociated from the entire experience in my brain I was just there's almost like not like a notch in my belt but I just wanted to check it off my list like that okay that's done I got that out of the way it was like I was taking like a scientific approach like a methodical efficient approach how can I bust out of religion the quickest like that's checked off that's checked off and also it provided not just a practical way of knowing how to exist in the world but I was also testing my ideology at the time because I'm like because I would be like okay in my in my brain like having sex with a non-jewish person is the same as like I should die I should be dead if I do that so let me have sex I bet I won't die I didn't die it's really like yeah the coke yeah like this is like the coked up way of trying to imagine like give me the fast track you know you could get degrees like I'm like just give me the fast track probably because you would have accepted dying if that was the possibility yeah hundred percent like that's how I know really that was my mindset like if I would have died like cool I should I guess I was wrong but I was well you probably got courage yes yeah yeah yeah yeah so we'll see if you either die by 60 or don't have Jewish children well over the two interpretations right yeah well I mean you're definitely not a jewish children I don't Jewish children I always found courage interesting in that interpretation one of the interpretations is you'll get courage and that your Jewish line won't continue right but if you're doing the shit that would make you get car race you probably don't give a fuck about that yeah but once again it's like what we're talking about before it's to they're not doing it like these rules aren't created for people who are going to test these rules these rules being created to keep everyone else indoctrinated in the cult where won't even cross their mind to do it because they associate that with car race yeah and I'll say I don't know that it's that conscious but that's definitely how it manifests right and we could talk about that a different time for sure yeah what have you done with a girl up until that point like I had sex with the girl that I had done before like in that year and a half what did you what was your experience before having sex with girls yeah cuz a year and a half before that you had zero that was probably my first interaction with the girl you had sex with for the first interaction with a girl no no no I'm being I'm definitely what is your friend Rachel yeah yeah that's like a big girl you kissed also who this girl yeah that's a Halloween party yeah yeah I still remember her name ever kissed yeah and you had sex yeah holy shit kissing is a whole feeling in and of itself yeah and then like oh everything's a whole feeling in of itself you just went to fucking home run everything right away yeah I must have been a blast to your fucking senses it was it was an overload like that's what I'm telling you like I don't even know you asked me how did I do feel during sex like did I have the issue of getting it up I was still in shock that I kissed a girl had you like physically not like in a sexual way you really like forget kissing are you really even touched like hold hands just like I don't know like you ever hold held hands with a girl up until that point in a romantic way no no even in a non-romantic way not so I mean I had started like hugging girl like for example let's say Rachel right I would like hug her when I was okay so you had okay it's honestly nothing but you had a tiny bit of something yeah so you're telling me you didn't come like honestly in my mind you should have come like while you were making out if I was consciously present in the moment yeah I should have done that okay so you got your dick inside before you came yeah Wow honestly that's impressive yeah I mean it's yeah the story gets even crazier this is the tame version but before it is that after that that was actually a good step in my in my secular career because thankfully when this story happened I have friends who could confirm the story and that was my first time like hanging out with them in this environment and then this story happened so I get elevated to to God status fairly quickly this guy and I'm just like yep well here's the thing when it comes about talking to girls I was like like googling stuff how to do it but uh yeah I wouldn't recommend taking my approach but I can't deny that it was effective your approach is fucking psycho shit yeah like you'll get when we do the episode on me like everything you're saying you didn't do I pretty much did we did it the opposite way yeah well you know why I got into bartending right I don't know to talk to people sure well my main reason why I got to bartending is because I was terrified of going to bars beforehand and so that was once again your way of jumping in the deep mm-hmm I'm like okay I'm terrified of going into bars it's a whole so there's like the social anxiety how do you speak how do you speak with people right who aren't starting to become rabbis then there's the social customs when you're ordering a drink right I remember how I was working a drink I don't know if you'll appreciate this but I was the first drink I ever ordered and I thought I was like cool is it or her myself like a cosmopolitan which is like a girl true yeah yeah so I mean now I would do it because now I have the confidence of like I don't give a shit I want a fruity drink but at the time when I was really seeking like approval from everyone like I look like a like a dork for lack of a better you know what I mean like I'm like trying really hard to like study up on the social rules to do a good job and I like fuck up but I realize it's okay because as long as you're as long as you're a human being and you interact and speak with people people don't really give a shit like it's really fine but that's why I jumped into becoming a bartender because I'm like if I can conquer this fear and the best way to conquer this fear is by throwing myself into the most stressful environment that I can think of that will one be pretty fucking cool accomplishment and two is that will probably also just be able to help me exist in the world was this after you conquered your sex or dying fear yeah yeah yeah this was afterwards okay like I started I started going into bartending I started going into bartending I found on Groupon there was like a two-week bartending course in bar 13 in Union Square so I took like a two-week bartending course in order to graduate you had to make two weeks to learn how to fucking bartend yeah and then they then what their gimmick is is they say they'll throw you off you some ships so I was like okay cool let me let me do that and like their final exam is that you have to make it's like 15 drinks in like under four minutes I think but it was not difficult because half the drinks are just like Jack and Coke like it's not like oh make a long island iced tea or whatever so I did that and then they offered me shifts at the bar and then I started dating that's when I got my first girlfriend Melissa and I started dating her because she was also on this bartending Groupon course so ex-mormon no no no all I go the ex-mormon I was just someone who I had sex with this was the this this girl Melissa was like a legit girlfriend like first like real girlfriend we're like we spoke about feelings and stuff like that and then it turned out that the owner of the bar had a crush on Melissa so I worked at that bar for two months before getting fired after he found out that we were dating and then I worked at another bar for three months I like this French fancy French like high-end bar where I was completely fucking in over my head and I got fired from there after three months and then I worked at this at the Sheraton Hotel bar for three months where I had never even poured like you know how you pour a draft beer you know how to pour a draft beer yeah you tilt a little bit so there's no foam yeah so I didn't I never poured a draft beer before but I just wanted a job and I was fucking crazy at this point in time like I was just like I got I had this like insane passion I love it you were so not afraid of like you were embracing the failure yeah I'm like fuck it like yeah it's gonna be embarrassing but what's the other option like the other option is it suck at it before you're good at it yeah and it's good and the one thing was is I'll get it I actually get embarrassed really easily but I'm so used to it now it's like whatever and at a certain point it becomes a strength being able to take risks that others that others would be scared to take so I'm working at this really busy Sheraton bar hotel bar on the weekend shift and I'm there on the service bar 15 drinks pop up of the service bar I had like had this was actually before I worked at the French restaurant so this is my first job after I graduated from I got my group on my two-week group on from the bartending thing so 50 tickets come up I remember the first drink at the floor you know she may know she made like a Belgian beer like a high alcohol Belgian beer so I have to push to me and I never poured draft before so I didn't look at all the beers and I just like I didn't tilt it I just pulled like pull the handle down so the shimmy was like 50 fucking percent 50% foam and the owner or the manager comes over to me he's like what the fuck is this and so you're you're in that position right I want to keep the job what can I say that will allow me to keep the job right so I was when I say it was good I'm just like oh yeah like all the place I worked up for which cocktail places we didn't have draft beer and he's like oh not a problem at all let me show you how to do it he's like you don't even have to work the shift let me just show you so he showed me how to pour the draft beer I worked there for like three months and then I got fired because I was terrible and then I worked the French restaurant for like three months and I got fired because I was terrible but from all these places I was learning I was picking up how to interact socially how to be able to do to remember 15 things at once without putting shit into the like the computer system and then after all of this that's when I finally got the job at the brewery and by the time I was there all this was the build-up yeah I already suffered so much like embarrassment and so much looking like a dumbass I'm like a repeated thing but by the time I got there I'd already faked it until I made it so when I should when I rolled up there with a clean slate I walk in I say I meet the owner Patrick I look at him I'm like my name is Mike I want to start working here he looks at me like I got like ginger hair he assumes I'm from Ireland he looks at me he's like do you know how to pour a Guinness like yes I do he's like show me because the Guinness is done slightly differently I should have a poor Guinness he's like okay you can start tonight so so for the first six months I was lying and pretending that I was Irish like people ask me questions about like Dublin or Cork or whatever and I would be googling and answering that after six months after he saw I could do a good job I'm like yeah by the way I'm Jewish she's like yeah I knew something was up and if you welcome back to this second segment of ex-rabbi and the worm guy a podcast about leaving orthodoxy so what I want to know is you were saying how when you were working at a hask you were pretty much like on the DL and they didn't know that you were this heathen Jew and then you start working at this bar how did you keep that under wraps and when did people find out that you were a heathen and by people I guess I mean like the people you were working with at half the people who you had to hide from right or were there people you had to hide from yeah for sure I mean especially when I was working so I was working at half but it's essentially the same thing was called human care services but the way it works for lots of those kinds of organizations so like human care base Ezra OL has whatever is there's lots of people who are religious who are starting to question their religion starting to question the direction that their life is going in so you meet lots of these people there so it feels that for like lots of people lots of people are living a double life lots of people are you're putting on a front because that's honestly getting a job at Haskell or base Ezra or human care that's one of the like most practical ways to be able to start making money without fully jumping into us a completely secular job but you're getting the job based on the fact that you're religious that you're like a competent religious person because lots of these organizations are run by Hasidic Jews and the biggest value for them is that you are a religious person they have no fucking clue that they're a pipeline yeah for off the derrick exactly yeah and I'll tell you I'll tell you a funny story is so towards the end I was bartending like four shifts during the week and then on the weekends for Shabbos that's what I would work at a residential home and honestly was a really easy job I would be working with two individuals who had like slight autism but they were taking their own medication they were doing everything on their own like I literally had to do almost nothing the most stressful part of my job which eventually I just stopped because I started coming up with excuses the most stressful part of my job was that I had to pretend to be religious so I had to like take them to shul I love the way you say shul like how like not synagogue I say shul oh yeah but you're more yeshivish than me so you say shul yeah it's like oh you're doing a shul nice is my yeshivishness it's like it's like an accent that I can never lose so it comes out it comes out in time yeah it's funny too because if I ever speak to someone who is religious they're knowing me now where I'm not religious at all so when I switch into like religious speech with them and I'm able to still pull out all the stops you know so have the accents or be able to say things like kishmak or whatever it comes as somewhat of a shock to them but so I was working at this home on Shabbos like really easy and right next to me there was another home that was also same thing like really easy and there was another guy who worked there who he he had also actually been to Chabad Chaim and then he left Chabad Chaim that's all I knew about him and we worked next to each other we didn't really interact that much other than saying like oh good Shabbos or whatever for about a year and then I would say yeah about a year at some point we got into like real conversation maybe we were like drinking or something got into real conversation and this guy who was working in the residential home next to me and who gave off like a very clean-cut good yeshivish Chabad Chaim guy who's now working on the side to become a nurse basically is he was like a good-looking guy 35 years old and he was gay he had a husband they lived in like somewhere in upstate New York and no one fucking knew no one fucking knew and he was like a fuck like this guy I haven't kept up with him he was like a great like a great dude but he had this whole separate life going on where he was living in upstate New York with his husband and they would be like traveling the world and going to different like raves and music festivals and like a great guy but it was just funny what we both had that moment where I was like oh yeah I'm not religious either we both went on front and after we had that breakthrough moment I probably worked there for another year after we had that breakthrough moment and it was just it was such a relief where like after everyone was asleep and it was still Shabbos like we would just meet up go for a drink or like watch something or just be able to do like regular people shit so it was it was nice because it was like a sense of relief where we could be like okay we both know that everything we're doing is just a fucking show to get the money so that we can pay our bills but we don't have to put up an act when we're around each other so it was a really really cool really interesting experience yeah but to answer your question I guess it just kind of happened organically I never really had to I never really had to tell anyone that I wasn't religious anymore I mean maybe I had maybe with my parents at some point I told them that I was religious that I wasn't religious but they had already basic I would they'd already basically knew I was already outside of the community do my own things for like five or six years and I just would make sure those two worlds would never emerge okay so you didn't you didn't have to tell anyone you kind of just were able to like Irish goodbye this shit yeah well I guess by the time that I had to have conversations with people people already knew basically because I had done such an Irish goodbye like people really didn't know what I was up to I kind of fell off the face of the map for like three four years so no one gave you shit you didn't have to like did you really have to deal much with people like coming to you and telling you how bad what you're doing is how you're hurting your parents how six million Jews died and that people hate us and you need to be proud to be Jewish and you know really laying it thick on you of why you're such a piece of shit for doing what you're doing no not so much because like my way of leaving was really just I jumped into the deep end and sink or swim so no one called you you think it calls from like your sisters or an ex-rabbi who heard and this and that and people trying like I got texts and calls from people in shul you know masquerading as caring and understanding you know people were really trying to like I don't know like make me not do it or whatever or call me a piece of shit for doing it yeah and I know that's that's also kind of a common thing that people can have that experience a lot really from my case because also is I was really I was really someone who was viewed as like the I know said this before and I'm not just saying this to be full of myself but like I was really someone who was viewed as like a superstar rabbi that should make it right here yeah but it created I think it created such it was such a shock to people that people just left me alone and I would just briefly reference like trauma they're like oh yeah I have trauma in therapy going through things as long as you throw out a couple of code words that people yeah they didn't really approach it too much really and by the but like by the time by the time anyone would say any anything like that to me I was already so far gone that it would just be like okay whatever dude I mean I did have I do have an interesting story about that though yeah do you want to hear it yeah sure but I was just gonna say that's where we do my story like this is the reason I'm so shocked is because I got the fucking wall and then some thrown at me like I was just bombarded with the piece of shit that I am by people but yet tell me this story yeah and also if I had let people speak to me like if I had been more open or seemed more approachable I would have gotten all that stuff but I just I just knew that my psyche couldn't handle like I knew I needed to make a split and I was so focused on making that split that I didn't even let I didn't even give off the impression that I was approachable to people so it was just like immediately people wouldn't even bring it up or talk to me I just exited but that's what I needed to do because I was so far I was so entrenched in a specific path and then I just left so I wonder if this is factored into by the difference between Bahrain and Ashkenaz and how forward people are yeah people were already shit with me yeah that definitely definitely played a role and I know John too for sure like no one was beating around the bush yeah I mean also and my parents this isn't this isn't a positive like I almost I almost wish someone had come to say that to me because at least that shows that they cared on some level my parents communication skills is just one of like emotional apathy like if I don't call my mother she just even your mom especially especially my mom she just won't talk to me if I don't pick up the phone now to call her she will never reach out to speak to me until she does damn yeah and it's not coming from a place of oh what happened to her poor son it's just she has no idea how to handle any kind of emotional conflict so she just goes into like this martyr syndrome where she's just like okay I'll accept this pain on myself and I'm sure she's said like a shitload of like capitals up the hill for me or done lots of the lots of praying for me and stuff but in terms of actually speaking to me no nothing that's why you're asking before oh if I should include my parents in my life now with like Noah and it just it's kind of like what's what's the point they they're never gonna be at a place where they're gonna be able to emotionally recognize and accept what's going on just because it's so far removed like they just don't she'll be like a deer in headlights you won't even know how to process it so that's why it's just like it's easier for me not to just not to include them I'll include like sisters or people who would reach out and genuinely care that's one thing but yeah I mean we'll see maybe my opinion will change on that but anyway going back to the story yeah yeah tell me that story after that little depressing segment yeah so this story in my entire experience of leaving and not leaving everything was like super intense for me for a long period of time but the way this story goes is my brother-in-law who again had been instrumental is extremely helpful when I was initially leaving like my brother sister let me stay by their apartment and probably the first year or second year of marriage let me stay there for close to a year so yeah really nice guy and he was randomly in a shul somewhere and someone approached him and said that there's this famous Kabbalist the color forever and he said the color forever had to dream about me and he wanted to meet me and I was like okay whatever and then long story short this happened two more times where some random encounter they told my brother-in-law the color forever wanted to meet me and my brother-in-law is not someone to push things on me like not someone to contact me and try to convince me to come back to religion or whatever but after this happened three times it's pretty weird so he called me up he's like I just want you to know three people on separate occasions have mentioned the color forever had a dream about you I want to meet you and ever meet the color of a Rebbe in your life no and he had a dream about you yeah how did he know was you that he had a dream about I don't know shit you know and these are one of those stories that if I was religiously inclined at all it would fuck it like I'd be like oh this is my way of turning back into religion like these kinds of stories so the color forever actually reached out to my brother-in-law he said he was going to be coming in to New York he lives in Israel he's coming to New York to whatever do some Kabbalist shit or whatever and he wanted to meet me so I was like you know what this story is fucking weird enough I'll give it a shot let's see what he says wait where put me in the frame of where this was where were you working half like when was this this was probably I don't think I had started bartending just yet I was probably like 25 I was working at Hask on the weekends I think I was living I was living in an apartment in South Williamsburg but not in the religious section like in the hipster section okay so I was I'd say like mid mid to late transition of transitioning out of Judaism but I was like okay let me see this guy let me see let me see what this is about so I went to meet him in I forgot somewhere in Brooklyn so I go to meet him in Brooklyn I walk in the door and immediately I just started getting angry I walked in the door because it was like such a culty vibe the secretary is like this fat fetish guy who's like oh eating like a fucking donut or something and he's like oh the cult forever was really excited to see you whatever so I go in I sit down across from the cult forever we start having conversation he starts asking me about like my history my stuff like that and he's like okay well why are you stopping to learn like well how can you stop studying tomorrow I'm gonna be not putting on still in anymore and I was telling him I'm like I was having a truck and I was trying to have an intellectual conversation with him I said putting on to fill in or like learning of art it just doesn't do anything for me anymore like I feel no connection to it it's like studying a text of old ancient law or whatever like it just I don't feel any connection to it and putting on to fill in it just like I could physically put it on I'm not like opposed to putting it on but I feel absolutely nothing when I put it on so why would I do that I think it's more in my best interest to be true to myself and to make the decisions that I want to make in my life and we had this conversation every 15-20 minutes and that's when afterwards he started pushing hardcore that I should start wearing to fill in every day I should start studying Gamara every day that's where lots of my issues were coming from and in this moment like you don't be they'll be certain things I get pissed off and angry about but in general I'm pretty I'm pretty calm yeah I had this like surge of anger where I just had this fantasy of just like beating the crap out of the sky because I'm like you represent everything that I hate you're here you're in a position of power you're using religion as your tool to form your cult and to ignore the real issues that are going on and there's nothing I can say in the situation that is going to convince you otherwise and in this situation in terms of like the balance of power you're the person who's who's in the more dominant position than me right because you're coming in you have this big fancy beard you're wearing a $10,000 dry mold that like some rich dude that's like donated and gave to you and you're surrounded by 10 to 20 Chassidish people outside who I wasn't gonna attack that guy but if I did attack that guy they would probably come in and either kill me or beat the shit out of me right so it's a situation where I just felt I felt so angry because I felt like a trapped victim again of like I'm being trapped by a cult who's trying to use emotional religious spiritual manipulation to get me to go back when all I'm trying to do is have honest conversation and explain my point of view and it's not being accepted so whatever long story short is I got out of there about as fast as I can and after that happened in my brain I also realized that in some ways that was like my final test that was my final test to see if I would ever go back to religion because if I could resist a situation like that which that's every religious person's wet dream of there's like this fancy Kabbalist in Israel who had a dream about you you go you meet that person and they offer you this comfort and they offer you this fantasy of dedicating yourself to God is going to lead you to this amazing rewarding spiritual life and now you're part of the story and now you're part of the story like every other story about my yeah the call of a Rebbe had a had a dream about him he told him put on to fill in just just Sundays just put it on on the easy day Sunday like day no work no nothing oh and then you know we started putting it on on Sunday and then he started feeling and then this whole fucking dumb story that you need like a smooth as fuck brain to fall for and I bet you that if I had started on to fill in and doing that stuff I could probably have worked myself into some kind of like celebrity status of the community you know what I mean I like that guy who's he was off the derrick and he was he even smoked some marijuana yeah and I'm like dude shut the fuck up and he was out he was with chicks oh yeah I was partying he was late at night yeah like like that whole stereotype like for me that was all kind of encapsulated in this experience and I realized if I could survive that and if my my morals or my way of thinking was strong enough to overcome that I'm never going back because if I were to go back and that's the best situation to go back to you know yeah once I made that split it's like okay in my brain that was kind of like the the nail in the coffin I'm like okay now I'm officially done like there's no way of coming back so that's why even if someone would come like the relative would come and try to use like guilt to try to get me to go back or oh I'm letting down my family or laying down and listen that it was like dude you were like bro get in line the color of a rabbi trying to make it I probably probably would accept that I'm sorry how many dreams did you have about me yeah zero yeah exactly be like bitch come on step your game up yeah I'm the color of a rebel status you got a you got to do boy yeah yeah that was interesting I also I have another interesting story but it's not really connected to anything should I say that now oh what's that about it's about this was when I was officially left the community and like I was done at one point I had to go back into Brooklyn I was visiting like my uncle who lived in Brooklyn and I was meeting him by a show and all when I was going back when I go back to the communities maybe now I'll be different but I was always just just trying to be respectful I guess so what if I would go back I would wear I would wear like a kippah or something I mean it would be maybe like a knitted keep us if people think I would be modern Orthodox but I just wanted just like a thing of respect just go back respect for whatever that culture or community is doing and also is it's so much harder if you walk in and you're the guy without a kippah it's just becomes this whole big thing so I'm like whatever let me just walk in with the keep up so I'm waiting for my uncle to come out of shul he's finishing up medical or something and this elderly gentleman approaches me and he's like ah what's your name so I obviously go full out so I'm like ah it's Moshe Yisrael ah what a beautiful name that's the name of my whatever grandson or niece or nephew whatever why don't why don't you come with me and why don't we learn some Gemara and this guy okay nice innocent guy trying to get someone a little more closer to religion but once again this kind of ignited the angry part of my brain where I'm just like dude I'm gonna fuck you up it's like I was studying tomorrow old fucking man yeah like an old like I don't know he's probably like like 50 it's like 40 50 something like that but I was just like dude I'm gonna fuck you up because he was I know exactly what his mentality is and I also knew I was a hundred percent smarter than him and I was a hundred percent better learning tomorrow than him because I studied this stuff for 18 hours a day like six days a week like not only was I like intelligent when it comes to learning tomorrow I also knew all the different like tricks that you could use right no I feel that yeah which you're learning chess and you know all the different formations to use like I had the knowledge as well no people used to come to me and my thought would be I have forgotten more religion than you ever learned exactly what the fuck are you trying here like you have no shot yeah zero yeah so I sit down with this guy and we start learning I don't know let's say it's something like a limit see us right so he'll be like a limit see you should go you sat down with him yeah well I didn't even pick that up as you were talking yeah based on your anger I thought you would tell him to meet me on top one would get the fuck out of my face yeah the way that I if I would let my anger take control of me in that fashion I found that it would it would always it just wouldn't end well like my anger wouldn't be expressed appropriately in the community like if I was in therapy then I would be like yeah get the fuck out of my face but in this situation if I would just be like get the fuck out of my face it would just be too big of a deal so the way that I like to deal with anger is I turn it into humor in those kind of situations and something that I think is going to be funny and that I can potentially use on a podcast ten years later but I was like all right dude let's let's let's learn some Gamara so we're sitting down let's say something like a limit see you shallow the a little high of the hot threads right so we're going through a little back and forth so I remember there was a simple question and a simple answer and basically in my schooling and how the time there's a really simple like intellectual way of studying the Gamara where which is basically the question needs to be an intelligent question right it's called the Hava Mina it needs to be an intelligent question and the musk on of the conclusion needs to be addressing that question yeah we had that too yeah I mean at the basis what's the yeah the Hava Mina right like it can't just why are you even asking this question exactly yeah so it can't just be like a stupid question yeah the funny thing is they were all fucking stupid questions yeah yeah because the real Hava Mina is what the fuck am I doing right so they just didn't have a Mina back far enough yeah yeah yeah yeah they didn't yeah they didn't have a Mina back to back to Mount Sinai or whatever yeah so this guy didn't like it's it's a basic question and a basic answer and he's like do you want to read should I read I'm like oh why don't you read so he's like reading to me this basic question this basic answer and he's like do you understand and I was like she don't understand what was the question again and then he repeats the question I'm like interesting what was that answer then he repeats the answer I'm like wait I don't get that based on that answer what was the question again as he repeats the question like I did this for it with him for a little bit and then I was just like well that doesn't make any sense and while he was doing this I was reading like all the Mephorshim on the side like I think even checked out like the Marsha on the back and like after we did this a couple of times like well that doesn't make any sense because based on what the answer is then that question doesn't make any sense so there's no Havami that's going on and also if you notice that Tosa's commentary on that question wouldn't make any sense if the simple assumption of what you were saying is what the question actually was because then there's a simple answer to Tosa's question additionally that's also gonna make a steer in the Marsha like I went like all the way to him dude like like in bed like like done like case closed and when that was done like I gave him time and I was going too fast for him so I was slowing down just give him some time to be able to process then after all that was processed I was like shall we continue he's like no I think we're good for the day boom about he slayed him I thought the story was gonna go that you just kept playing with him and what he thought he made a difference yeah yeah yeah like that that's the way that I find that's the healthiest way for me to express my anger in those situations which is basically being like shut the fuck up basically I told him to shut the fuck up yeah but in in a way he would understand yeah yeah okay Wow we learned a shit ton about you yeah shit that I did not know of at all yeah and this is this is nothing like this is what the stories I'm saying now are almost nothing like we haven't even spoken about what I was doing in France when I was doing like stand-up comedy in France like doing it in French and English I mean we haven't spoken about relationships I've been in here like it was this this was a creek like I know for a fact that period of my life is going to be the most intense interesting the most life changes going on for me like I know I know that's it like now sure there'll be other changes but I can't see anything being as intense as what it was like extra extra getting myself from the religious community yeah no I think we're gonna need several segments to get both of our stories yeah but shit we got the the right after yeah the actual like yeah like I said like one of the biggest hunts that you go through yeah yeah and also just to kind of put a bow on some things that we were struggling and also I guess maybe it's maybe to make it relatable as well I think you were relatable as shit yeah well that's that's awesome I guess things that I wish I was aware of when I was going in the situation is my biggest struggle was probably loneliness in this situation because I had no one to turn to no one who to ask no one who to speak to so if I could have done this again it would have been really nice to be able to have someone not to rely on but just like you think you would have found this podcast at that time if I would have found this podcast that would have been very helpful do you think you would have like did you have did you think you were in the no I was on Spotify or anything back then yeah I don't think I don't think I would have thought were you like on the extra subreddit like would you have seen it there no no yeah I say what I didn't even trust like the extra subreddit I didn't trust any of these things and really anything I like stayed away from Jews for five six years just because they're always these undertones but like even if I would have connected with an organization like footsteps or something like just being able to have just somewhere where I could just feel like okay you can relax here for a little bit it's not gonna be your final resting place but there have been other people who have been in a situation even though it's extremely difficult that would have been something that could have been extremely helpful for me well I think what people are gonna pick up from this is you know you really didn't have a lot but there were a couple things that you kind of almost need unless you're willing to live on the street like a place to stay yeah whether it's I mean in my case it was home like my house but that came with its own struggles yeah for you it was your sister and hopefully task and all these people don't hear this podcast and realize shit we can't hire these guys anymore because where their pipeline for leaving yeah but basically a job where you can make money but be in the world yeah and it'll be in our world of it yeah and it's it's a transition because you can't go or at least for me I couldn't have gone zero to a hundred yeah from zero connection to the secular world to jumping into it a hundred percent like there needs to be some buffer period there's be time just to kind of process what exactly is going on how come I feel so alienated from everyone else who's around me so that's why like I'm really really I didn't use footsteps when I was as a resource when I was going through kind of my own struggle and self-discovery but I really appreciate the work they're doing because they understand what it's like to be deep in the hole with no one to rely on and they really try to provide help so yeah having those resources can be really helpful all right well I mean I'm glad I learned a shit ton about you stuff I really didn't know great second episode I think we fucking killed it we'll end with our signature next year in Israel next year in Israel let's get it done thank you and good night you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you okay so I think it would be cool to have a segment at the ends of episodes after we sign off and say goodbye the vocabulary segment where we give some vocabulary on what things we said are because as you were talking I'm like do people know what the fuck it to fill in is right so we can start recording this and then see if we had a publishing them in episodes but we'll do this after I re-listen to this episode and edit it and realize what vocabulary we need to do that's smart and also so we'll have we'll have like a little intro music yeah like signifying the vocabulary segment and then like today's vocab segment to fill in to fill in our straps you put on every morning while you say the morning prayer it said that when Moshe saw Hashem at Mount Sinai he saw him only from the back and he saw him putting these leather straps on yeah go that into detail I don't want to be educated these motherfuckers I just want okay so it's just straps we put on for prayer then yeah and then it's like you said the Marsha and the Maharshan these are motherfuckers who wasted their life commenting on fantasy fiction yeah yeah I just got that yeah okay cool