Abba Zell's Wisdom on Love, Life and Resilience

What happens when a two week courtship culminates into a life-long commitment? On our latest episode of Intuitive Choices, we invite you to share in the journey of Abba Moshe Zell, a student at Beth Medrash Gevoha, an elite study program for Orthodox Jews in Lakewood New Jersey. Abba doesn't hold back as he tells us about his brief engagement to his wife, Shoshana, and their life together. From the exchange of dating resumes via matchmakers to the importance of goal-oriented dating, Abba uncovers a world that many of us may not be familiar with.

Life, as we know, is not without its trials. In the heart of this episode, Abba boldly shares the story of his son's medical struggles following his son's birth at only 24 weeks of gestation. Despite the arduous journey, Abba and his wife's unyielding optimism shines through as they navigate their way around the challenges that life has thrown at them. Their inspiring resilience and the strength they derive from their faith will make you reevaluate the power of trust and the human ability to endure.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey everybody, I'm Kimberly Dobbs.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
And I'm Jacob Miller.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And we'd like to welcome you to another episode
of Intuitive Choices.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Kim and I are mental health therapists working in
Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
But wait, jacob, that's not all we are.
I mean, I'm blind and you're anOrthodox too.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yes, kim, that's correct.
That's what makes our podcastinteresting.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
But what really makes this podcast interesting is
that each week we invite a guestto speak about how their own
intuitive choices have led themto live a more meaningful life.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
We hope that this conversation encourages you to
make meaningful choices in yourown life.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
All right, off we go.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Let's do it.
I am so excited to speak withtoday's guest.
Today we have the pleasure ofspeaking with Abba Moshe Zell, a
student at BMG in Lakewood, newJersey, the second largest
Yashiva in the world and thelargest Yashiva in the United
States.
But he's also my dear friend.
The more time I spend with Abba, the more impressed with him I

(00:57):
become.
Abba and I met probably alittle over a year ago now,
during what I would think wouldbe one of the most stressful
times in his life.
See, I live in a pretty uniqueJewish community which is in
West Philadelphia, in which theonly Orthodox synagogue is at
the Hillel at the campus of theUniversity of Pennsylvania.
Since the University ofPennsylvania is so close to the
Children's Hospital ofPhiladelphia, it's not uncommon

(01:18):
that families were taking careof their children along with the
world-class medical staff atthe Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia.
Often join us at the Hillel atthe University of Pennsylvania,
and that's exactly the positionthat the Zell family found
themselves in when I met them.
One Friday night.
I walk in for Friday eveningservices and there's Abba Moshe
sitting there wearing abeautiful black fedora and the
most welcoming smile, welcomingme to my own synagogue.

(01:40):
But that's Abba Moshe.
I'm so grateful not only forAbba's friendship, but for him
agreeing to come on to IntuitiveChoices and sharing his story
with us and without further ado.
Abba, welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Thank you, thank you.
I really appreciate the honor,the gift that I was able to come
out here and give people theopportunity to hear my story and
get the courage to go on andenjoy their life and whatever it
comes with.
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So excited to talk to you.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So let's begin.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, so Abba, first of all, I want to say welcome,
because I'm so excited to meetyou.
I've heard a lot of reallygreat things about you from
Jacob.
What brought you to theChildren's Hospital of
Philadelphia in the first place?

Speaker 4 (02:30):
We started off.
Let's start from the beginning.
We did not start off in CHAP.
We started off in Mammoth, newJersey.
My wife was 24 weeks pregnantto be exact, 23 weeks and five
days pregnant, and it was ErivenKipper.

(02:50):
Literally she woke up, erivenKipper, with stomach pains.
Now we were in.
It was our first kid.
I was married for nine monthsLiterally nine months.
I knew basically nothing aboutlabor and delivery.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, wait a second, we have to stop.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Don't stop the recording.
There's so many things toexplain at this point.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
My mouth just dropped , my jaw just dropped, because
you just said you were marriedfor nine months and then you
said I knew very little aboutlabor and delivery, which I
thought is very funny, because Ithought what about marriage?
Let's back up, Okay, becausewe're going to put the pause
button on what landed you atCHAP and talk a little bit about

(03:33):
can you tell us what's yourwife's name?

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Sure, my wife is.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Shoshana.
So you and Shoshana weremarried for nine months.
Yeah.
And when she was just shy of 24weeks pregnant, she goes into
labor.
And so now, as essentiallynewlyweds now, how long did you
guys know each other before,before you got married?

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Not a long time.
So we were engaged for threemonths and we dated for maybe
two weeks.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Okay, so, so so from the time you met your wife until
your son was born was probably,was actually almost exactly a
year.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Okay now, maybe some context here would be important
guys that Abba, can you describeyour religious beliefs?

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Okay, so I grew up maybe describing the communities
a part of is a little easierthan describing the religious
beliefs.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Thank you for the clarification, because I almost
said is that even like what I'm,what I want to?
Know is you, Jacob knows me sowell that.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
That's not what I want to know.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I want to know tell us the community you grew up in.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Right.
So I grew up in the I guessthey call it black hat community
and we have a very closecommunity, extremely close, very
intertwined.
We pray in the same synagoguesmostly, live very together, send

(05:11):
to the same schools, thinkalong the same lines, of course,
with everybody with theirunique part and their
personality, but generally wehave the same ideas and goals
because we all are followingstrictly the Torah and all that
it's laws and its ways.
So we do have, we do have alike a blueprint our life before

(05:37):
, before it starts really, whichis very it's already paved,
there's a lot of boxes to check.
Yeah right, yeah, it's a pavedroad.
Yeah, it's a paved road and,like we're all basically
following that road, we all tryto do our best to follow it.
Of course, everybody is goingto have its own uniqueness in
that road, but there's a roadgenerally, you know.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
So part of that road is, you know, people, men on
average are praying three timesa day morning, afternoon,
evening.
Right, they're, they'relearning, they're studying the
Torah for extensive like periodsof time.
People are keeping kosher.
People are, you know,celebrating all the holidays and
because there are so manyholidays in Judaism and there's

(06:19):
one holiday a week, which isShabbos, which is Shabbat,
there's just a lot of socialcohesion that emerges from
people living aligned withtraditional Torah Jewish values.
Yeah, perfect.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
That, yeah, both of you love this, and so I would.
Then you know I okay.
So in Judaism, right, for thoseof us who who are Jewish, like
myself, I would then say thissounds very orthodox.
Yes, this sounds very orthodoxto me.
Okay, yes, I don't know if youwould call yourself.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah, you can't get more orthodox.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
All right.
So circling back to what wewere talking about with you and
Shoshana when you said that youhad been basically like you've
been together for a year, so canyou give some more information
around?
What is it like to like?
What is the courting processand the dating process and the

(07:21):
marriage Like?
This sounds very different thanI would say what most people in
America, probably how we do it.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yeah, so you do have it's a very different structure
it's it also is built on verydifferent foundations, so you
have from day one till yourdating experience.
We try as hard as we can toseparate the men, the boys and
the girls.
Mm, hmm, we have separateclasses, we have separate when
you're separate classes, startany practical purposes.

(07:53):
You don't need the boys and thegirls to be together past like
first grade.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Mm hmm, oh, really, I would have assumed bar mitzvah
age.
But okay, keep going.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Right.
So really the best ideal is wetry to keep the boys and the
girls separate.
They both have their own jobsand the girls are more like the
people that have to bring up ourchildren and give them the
heart of Judaism, which is moreof the feeling and the love and

(08:22):
the warmth and like the the home, so they're being taught more
to build the home and to be agood mother, as opposed to the
men are going to be the guysthat are going to go out and
they're going to help otherpeople learn and they're going
to study more rigid laws and forthe purpose of what.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
I guess what I'm asking is what is the greater
per?
I don't know, jacob, what.
I think you know what I'mtrying to ask, right.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this
is what you're trying to say.
What is the point of learningso much Torah if it's not just
to answer questions about Torah?
Amazing so.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
God, you're so good at that, jacob.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Right.
So basically, the there is anidea which is very, very
important in our community thatlearning has a point of its own,
even if you'll never actuallyuse the knowledge, because all
the knowledge that is oral andwritten is the word of God.
So we want to come close to Godhowever much we can, and

(09:26):
definitely the way to understandGod and come close to him is
definitely to learn andunderstand his words.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
That is exactly what I was.
Yeah, that was what I wanted toknow.
Okay, so all right.
So when it came to when it camedown to you.
So, circling back to keepingthe boys and girls separate,
right.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Should we go back to the dating itself?

Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's what I'm doing , so we're going straight at it.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
Let's go so the boys and the girls are separate till
about the age of 20.
Okay Well, for the boys it'sgoing to be a drop older, for
the girls it's going to be under20, for the boys it's going to
be over 20, for the girls it'sgoing to be under 20.
The girls generally are goingto go into the marriage process
younger than the boys.
What age?

Speaker 1 (10:06):
So there's a marriage process.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Right it comes around , the girls would start dating
somewhere between 18 and like 19.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
And what does it mean ?
To start dating Like?
Is that like?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
they're walking down the street and they're like J
Swipe and they're swiping ontheir phones.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
No, no, so it's a different process.
It's not online or anythinglike that.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I want to know your process of how you met Shoshana
then.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
Okay, so I have a cousin.
Okay, that has a friend.
So the cousin is a woman.
She has a friend that's a woman.
That friend is Shoshana'scousin, okay.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh my God, this is so Jewish geography.
Right now, it doesn't evenmatter how orthodox someone is,
it's like all the same.
Yeah, I think I have a crazy.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
This is so now the two, the two friends my cousin
and Shoshana's cousin weretalking.
They were discussing my cousinwas discussing me and her cousin
was discussing her and they'relike, well, it's pretty similar,
like we have personalities incommon.
We're both like loud and jolly.
So they're like okay, soundsgood.

(11:08):
So they don't call me and theydon't call Shoshana.
They call my mother and theycall Shoshana's mother or father
.
That's typical.
That's typical.
Okay.
Okay.
So then you have this exchangeof resumes through your parents
through the parents, with thematchmaker, meaning the two
parents.
I haven't talked to each other,yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
So she's, she serves as a liaison.
This match, she's like a realright, she's a real Perfect word
, yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Yeah.
A realtor.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
I am buying a house now so.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
I compare everything to real estate.
Okay, she's a realtor Right.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
This.
This lady is a realtor of love.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah, exactly Like a full time real.
It's amazing to see how similarthey are.
Okay, and after the exchangeresumes, both mothers you hope
that they know what their kidslooking for and the mother would
do the research.
So and but of course with theboy totally involved, like the
boy would discuss every partwith the mother throughout the

(12:07):
process of looking into thisgirl.
They would call friends andwe're, as I said earlier, we're
very close community.
Everybody knows somebody thatknows somebody Right.
Yeah.
You'll always find somebody.
Yeah.
Like you'll get and also youhave the names on the resume so
you can do your pretty goodresearch.
What's research mean?
So you call, like try to set upa phone call, like, let's say,

(12:30):
my mother would call the girl'sfriend.
Yeah.
So she would ask questions likewhat's she like in school?
How does she?
Is she like more of like astudio student, or is she more
of like a loud student?
Is she like a mischievous?
Yeah, what's her personality?
Is she loud, is she quiet?
Is she joyful, is she talkative, is she quiet?

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Why wouldn't your mother go directly to Shoshana
and just talk to her herself?

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Honestly, it makes things a lot more.
We have a word snis modest,modest.
Okay.
Like things are more calm, thenthings are more, because it's
Well it sounds like it makesthings more transactional.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
It does, but you have to allow for you to make a more
logical decision.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
You'll have.
Oh, so then my mother did theresearch and she, her mother,
did the research, and we're bothready for a date.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
How many girls did he did?
I don't know, I don't know, Idid.
I married my third.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
I did two girls before my third Third time's
term.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Yeah, and both.
It's interesting.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Okay, so you meet Shoshana.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
What was the first date?

Speaker 4 (13:41):
First date with Shoshana.
Yeah, so the way it works is isright.
So when you when you're both ofyour mothers see that this is
the right one Hopefully theright one you have to understand
you're coming into this firstdate with, first of all, a lot
of knowledge about the girlyou're dating and there's a huge
possibility.
This is the one, because it'snot on a fly, it's not like you

(14:02):
met her in a park.
You know her whole life story.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah.
So it's a very big possibility,when you go on a date, that
you're going to marry this one.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
So I'm just looking for like an emotional connection
at this point or level ofattraction, as opposed to like
where do you want to send thekids to school?
What are your life ambitions?

Speaker 1 (14:17):
How many children do you want Right?

Speaker 4 (14:19):
You know, usually that's all before, right, you
have to basically just work outsocially, right, chemistry,
right?
Yeah, they call it.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
So so, going back to so, your first encounter with
Shoshana was what?

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Oh, so we had our first date.
Okay, a date is around.
Table discussion.
That's like something like thisAll right, just a little more
romantic.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
And you're referring to our podcast.
Situation Sit around yeah.
Yeah, like a meeting, a boardmeeting.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
But not so official.
We like to do it in a park andin a nice, in a place that will
bring out the best of both of us.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Oh, that's lovely.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Yeah, we, we're not.
A lot of marriage in ourcommunity is a lot about the
more than just the like.
The romantic part and thephysical and the pleasure part
is more the minds, it's more thegoals, it's more the the deep

(15:18):
meanings of life.
You want to make sure you're onthe same page in areas that you
value it's.
It's very much like you want tomake sure like her looks is
number one important to yourwife, your future wife.
You can't, you can't have amarriage without a physical
attraction, because that'smarriage.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, but you also part of marriage, right.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
It's a big part of marriage.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Did you see a picture of Shoshana before your first
date?
No, right.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
It's a culture.
So that's why I started offsaying that we don't see, we
don't interact with the girlsbeforehand, and that's a big
piece.
I mentioned it because if youwere all mingled up with girls
beforehand and you guys, I hadlike, let's say, I would have
friends that were all females,so it would not be possible for
us to do the system because,like you're, you have so much

(16:12):
ideas and expectations and somuch like other ideas.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
It's comparisons comparisons.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
And also the whole goal oriented when we're going
to date.
It's, it's a lot, it's a lotmore focused.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I think all the separation is not entirely, but
a tremendous portion of it.
Yeah.
Is for the sake of of thrivingmarriages.
Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, and there's like for people that don't grow
up in this culture, right, thatis kind of an ironic concept,
right, you know cause for in atypical American culture, right,
like you're all together withboys and girls all the time, you
know, and you know marriage isstill a big thing in American
culture, but it's like it justseems so contradictory, but it's

(16:57):
not.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
Yeah, and can I?
Can I on?

Speaker 1 (17:00):
this line just to drop a shell but into enough.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Think about this, think about the dating process.
There's no, there's no physicaltouch.
So when you're going to getmarried.
It's, it's an explosion.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
So so you don't have, so you don't have sex with your
fiancee, Right?

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Well, it's not just that they don't hold hands, they
don't hug.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
There's no physical touch at all, zero.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, you're never alone together Right.
Okay.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
So that's the bomb.
But think about this, thinkabout the beauty of it, Think
about what we gain from this isthat when you get married,
you're on such a high.
That high is supposed to lastyou for the next 70 years.
Yeah.
This is like glue.
This is like.
This is like good stuff.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
You know it really holds a couple together, yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
A big part of the dating process is more trying to
see if your minds can thinktogether and can intertwine to
bring a generation to the.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
It was your goals and her goals lining up Right and
you both had of what it would beto be married.
Right, we're in sync, right.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
When so much of the work that we do as therapists is
, you know, working with people.
They're struggling in arelationship or they are single,
they want to be in arelationship, those kinds of
things.
And the one of the biggestchallenges that I come across
Jacob, I don't know about you,but is is kind of that, that
incompatibility in terms of like.

(18:31):
Do you want the same things,not just a value system,
obviously that's huge too, butlike versus, you know, like when
two people are doing, let's say, like you know, a profession,
that are, that are just likekind of opposing one another.
I'm trying to think of anexample of that.
There are all these factors,living factors that can be so
challenging to a relationship,and what I'm hearing is that

(18:55):
that your community just takesall that off the table right
Through the research through the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the, the.
I'm just going to call it thedating process.
That's, that's incredible.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, that's incredible.
Okay, yeah, so when did youpropose her?
I'm, I'm very.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
I'm very goal oriented and and I'm very
focused so I don't need muchtime right Most people.
Generally it can take 10 dates.
You're going to laugh becausemy own friends in the community
laugh at me for dates.
We're engaged.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
So, but how much time was between your third date and
your fourth date?

Speaker 4 (19:31):
A few days.
Okay that's it, did you?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
buy her a ring, of course, yeah.
So in that short amount of timeyou're like, okay, I'm gonna
get her the ring.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
Oh, so no, we had.
On the fourth date, we decidedwe're gonna engage.
We had one more date prior tothe engagement.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Oh, wait a second.
So so you decide together toget engaged, yeah okay.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, it's before the fifth date, which is not really
a date.
It's the proposal.
We both know we're going intoit.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
It's like a reality show, it's just reality Kim.
Not my reality.
She's Louise, Okay so so thenyou have the proposal which,
like immediately I think of thebachelor, like the show you know
, which you might not know of,but that's okay.

(20:15):
So.
So then you proposed to her,did you, was it?
Um?
What kind of proposal was it?
Describe it.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
It was in.
It was in a beautifulrestaurant.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
It's gorgeous.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
I went into the restaurant before and I I picked
out like a beautiful cake andbeautiful flowers and I put it
like in the back of therestaurant and then we walked in
there and it was like I wantedto be like more of like a shock.
Okay.
So we went down, we went fordrinks we really just like and

(20:49):
we sat down for drinks.
We were talking about herfamily and then all of the
waiters was like a very.
It was a ton of waiters, Idon't know why.
They all came in with this cakeand the flowers and we were
engaged.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
And then did you hand who puts the ring on her if you
can't touch her.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
So the ring comes later.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
What?
Yeah, this is crazy.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
So we went for the engagement, okay, and then the
ring has to be made and she hasto pick it out.
Oh, she gets to pick it out,she gets to design whatever she
wants you guys, honestly, youguys are doing something right.
I'm just saying Okay, keepgoing.
It doesn't get that intimateuntil you get married.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Okay, I get it yeah.
That makes sense to me.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Wow, I bet it makes beautiful.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
How long from the engagement to the wedding?
It's like three months Now.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
it got a little longer.
It could be four or five monthsthese days.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Where is it that takes a long day to hold, like
what?

Speaker 4 (21:41):
Like Lakewood, new Jersey, new York Bar Park.
There's so many couples.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
How many weddings do you think happened a day?
In Lakewood?
Every hole has a wedding everynight.
How many halls are there?
At least five, six, every day,every day.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Wow, okay, so that's what took the longest, otherwise
you would have had a weddingsooner.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Well, it's good that time.
You know you don't want it thatfast.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, you want to enjoy the engagement.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
Yeah, you want the engagement, you want things to
fall into place.
You need to organize.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
More dates yeah.
More dating, more yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
When do you?
So?
You do you live together afterthe marriage, After the after
you get married, so not duringthe engagement period.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Okay, so you never spoke to girls growing up.
Then you go on dates with three, four girls, then you get
engaged and married within afour months.
Total experience and now, forthe first time, having never
socialized with girls outside ofyour family, hanging out with
girls ever, now you're just likecompletely moving in with a

(22:39):
woman, right?

Speaker 4 (22:41):
So you're trained for it.
You're.
You both go to classesbeforehand and you both are.
Are really your minds are beinglike imagine a therapy session
before marriage.
Yeah, you're trained for it,you know what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Who's teaching you, a man or a woman?

Speaker 4 (22:54):
So I go to a man.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
She goes to a woman.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
We, we.
There's a way to do it.
It's like it's.
It's like no surprises, right,we're trained for it.
We're going into it together.
Um, what do you go over in the?

Speaker 3 (23:06):
classes.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
So everything from so .
There's a lot of laws inmarriage.
You learn all those laws whenyou, when you get engaged.
Mm, hmm.
And on top of that, the actualwe call it, shown by it's peace
at home classes.
Right, we have many classes andthese classes don't end just
when you get married, like thereis endless classes on just

(23:31):
peace at home.
How to love, what does lovemean?
How do we, how do we deal withour spouse?
How do we understand theirspouse?
How do we appreciate our spouse?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Man.
This is wonderful and also whatI really.
I think this is so valuable for, like the greater American
culture that it's them.
It's interesting that thesethings are not.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Right.
So it's unfortunate because itcame a time that people want
pleasure but, in the long run.
It's not pleasure.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, you know, I think that's actually a really
wonderful segue.
You and Shoshana get marriedand very soon after you get
married, you become pregnantwith your now almost, you know,
in September he'll be two.
Yeah, and then go through thisexperience where what's your

(24:30):
son's name?
Yeshua.
Yeshua, so I can name his name.
So she goes into laborprematurely at almost 24 weeks
and like, walk us through that alittle bit Like when she went
into labor.
How, how?
Let's just start there.
Like Erev Yom Kippur, which youmentioned earlier why is that

(24:53):
significant?
And then talk us through thelabor.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Erev- means Eve, just to put that in there.
So it's the afternoon leaninginto the holiday that begins at
sundown, which is Yom Kippur, soAbumoshi take me there we can
give a little bit of abackground on Yom Kippur.

Speaker 4 (25:10):
Yom Kippur is our most meaningful holiday.
It is a one day holiday andit's the highlight of the year.
It is the year that we try tocome the closest to God as
possible.
It's a day we fast and webasically the men and all the
women that can, if they're not,if they're not grounded by their

(25:30):
young children we spend our dayin Shul in Senegal, from when
to when, from it's from seven,eight till sundown, and it's a
serious day.
It's a really serious day andit's a very meaningful day,
right.
So I'm standing there the nightbefore we have.

(25:52):
Also, the night before the bigday, we have some more prayers.
So I'm staying there a halfhour before I'm supposed to go
to the synagogue.
Then I'm wearing my suit andeverything and I'm ready to go.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
And you're gonna walk there.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
I'm gonna walk there.
And why are you gonna walkthere?
We don't.
It's just like Shabbos.
We don't do work on Yom Kippurand all the holidays, so don't
drive, don't drive, don't turnon electricity Right, right,
half hour.
Well, it has that's that itself, you know, has it's billions of

(26:27):
laws.
But yeah, yeah yeah, so wedon't even right.
The way it works is that unlessyou have danger, unless you
have life, life threatening orlife risking scenarios, then
you're not gonna drive.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
But you're allowed to drive if you're gonna.
You can potentially savesomeone's life, right.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
So you can do anything if there's danger, even
if it's a very far away,potentially maybe.
If there's any, if there's anyworry that somebody's in danger,
you can do basically anything.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
You can break all those rules.
Yeah, there's no rules.
So a half hour right Beforeyou're supposed to leave, to go
to synagogue, to begin it, youknow, I don't know if I was
gonna say celebrating, what'sthe word?

Speaker 3 (27:09):
To begin the experience of Yom Kippur.
Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So I'm like all fired up.
We ate the whole day.
Leading into it yeah, leadinginto it.
We ate a lot.
We're like, our minds are likein another place.
Seriously, wow, we're spendingthe month for this day and we've
been working for this day andwe have a job to do and we're
super on it.

(27:33):
And I look at my wife and shelooks at me and she's in pain
and we have no idea what thispain is.
We don't know labor, we don'tknow nothing.
So I turned to her and the painwas going on for a few hours
that day and I don't know ifpain and we're like we have no
idea what this is like.
We thought it was a regularpregnancy side effects.
Yeah.
So at that point I was gonna goto synagogue and I look at her

(27:57):
and she looks awful.
She's like you're not goinganywhere.
I'm like call the doctor.
So we call the doctor and thedoctor's like you're coming in,
you need to be examined.
So I start driving, we get intothe car and it's really awkward
.
It's like your whole life islike on your head, like it feels
really weird to drive on yourholiday.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
I was just about to say, like what was that?
Like to like you're in one mode, right, and just how you
described it.
It's pretty clear, it's madeclear to me, like the intensity
and like devotion to thisholiday, to all of it.
And then, and also like when wetalk about breaking the rules

(28:41):
and even though there's a partof you that can go, okay, I know
I'm allowed to do this, like Iknow this is okay, but again,
you know, yom Kippur is the mostsignificant holiday in Judaism.
So to you know, it's not justShabbat.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's actually called Shabbat Shabbaton.
It's the Shabbat of Shabbats,the highest, of the high.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Okay, Was there a part of you that was like there
better be something really wrongwith Shashana for me, right,
Like you know anything like that?
Or were you like, just okay, mywife's in pain, Like what was
the experience like on the drive?

Speaker 4 (29:14):
Awesome.
So there's a great point here,yeah, the all the laws we have,
yeah, and everything we do hasno value.
It's what I mean is it is alljust for God Meaning, if God
wants me to stop tomorrow, stop,no problem, I don't have an
issue with that.
We're not doing ourselves afavor.
We're not trying to play games,we're trying to serve God.

(29:37):
So if God says it's game over,now you gotta turn around.
We're pretty.
We were trained, or we shouldbe trained.
We hope not Something intoroutine.
That's very hard to stop, butwe try to do this with the right
mindset.
That and this helped me throughthe whole journey in the
hospital.
It's not about what you want todo, it's about what God wants.

(29:57):
So at that point I was likeokay, god wants me to go
elsewhere.
So I was more than happy doingthat, because God tells you
right, he puts you in thatsituation and he's like okay, so
now you have to drive your wifeto the hospital and take super
good care of her because she'sin pain.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
When you say God wants me to, I'd imagine it's
not an auditory thing thatyou're hearing.
Abba, you need to go like it'snot that right.
So, it's gotta be a feeling inyou.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
No, so it's not a feeling at all.
It's not so what is it?

Speaker 1 (30:30):
How do you know?

Speaker 4 (30:31):
It's an understanding that everything that happens in
our lives is not justhaphazardly.
If you, we understand thateverything that happens is super
designed for us.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay, so interesting.
So you're driving to thehospital.
Yeah.
And you get there and did shego into labor right away?

Speaker 4 (30:54):
So she was little did we know she was in labor for a
few hours already.
Right, we come into thehospital and she's the doctor.
Actually, this is a little bitof a trauma story.
We come to the hospital and wewere using a practice that had
three doctors.
They hired a fourth doctorwhile we were using the practice
.
The doctor was on shift thatday for the next four days was

(31:16):
the new doctor.
To make life great, we walkinto the doctor.
This is literally her firstpatient on the job, right?
Okay, she had a lot ofexperience before, but this is
her first full responsibility.
And my wife gets examined andyou can see all over her she's
nervous, she's literally shakingand that doesn't make anybody

(31:38):
feel good.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
The doctor shaking.
Oh my goodness, yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
So I went to the restroom.
I come in and I see that mywife was examined.
I see the doctor therestuttering.
I was like what's going on?
She turns to me.
She tells me your wife's twocentimeters dilated.
So she's giving orders and weget rushed into a room.

(32:02):
What happens to be?
Of course, everything that shedid was perfect.
Yeah, she, she was good, shewas on the ball.
It just gave us that feeling.
But everything was great.
She did the right moves.
She put, put her on the rightmedication.
Everything was perfectlyplanned.
And she got a room and she wenton magnesium and some other

(32:25):
medication to stop the, to tryto stop the.
Contractions contractions for aslong as possible.
Now the gain of stopping, theone of the big gains of stopping
contractions even for a shortperiod Of time is they give
steroids.
Now the steroids help thebabies lungs, because when
babies are premature the worstProblem is the breathing.

(32:47):
Their lungs develop last.
So they give these.
They give these steroids for 48hours.
They give two doses, 24 hours apiece.
So we thankfully which thisprobably saved my son's life he
got both doses of the steroidsand after four days the baby was

(33:07):
breach, was coming out.
So she got rushed to the OR andthe baby was born 24 weeks.
C-section.
C-section.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Okay, and then and then.
How long did he?
He?
You should have to stay in thehospital, in the NICU so we were
.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
All this gets us back today when we started.
We were in mameth for threeweeks.
Okay a lot, a lot went downthere the hospital in the house,
where she delivered where shedelivered, went down to the NICU
, spent three weeks veryexciting.
Three weeks there, exciting,and Then we got airlifted to

(33:52):
chop.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Why'd you get airlifted?

Speaker 4 (33:54):
my son needed a heart surgery.
Wanging wait let's.
He was born at one pound.
One pound and six ounces.
You can't even it's hard toexplain that how small that is
if you can put a Marriage bandup his arm till his shoulder a
marriage band.

(34:14):
Oh my god.
That's how small is armist.
It's, it's.
You can't find it.
The head is the head is smallerthan a punch ball.
It's tiny.
Wow.
It's, it's, it's, practicallyit's.
It doesn't make sense that theycan even do it.
Yeah, yeah so we he needed aheart surgery at that point and
they couldn't do it in my mouth.
Okay, so we got.

(34:35):
We had to go.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Would that heart surgery have had to happen
anyway, or what did?
Did something emergent happen?

Speaker 4 (34:41):
No, so that was.
It's a standard issue forpreemies.
Okay.
But yeah, he had to the valvethat.
This is beautiful, the valvethat, when every baby is born,
his lungs are not working.
When he takes his first breath,his lungs start to work and
there is a valve that Connectsthe heart to the lungs.

(35:05):
When the baby's in utero, thelungs can get oxygenated blood
from the heart.
When the baby's born, there's a, there's this hole that has to
close and it close with.
It closes with oxygen.
Okay, now that hole didn'tclose.
Right so we had to close it.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Okay, and then how long did you guys spend at chop
at Children's HospitalPhiladelphia?

Speaker 4 (35:31):
That's seven months.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Okay, wait.
So all three of you, or justyou shoo uh, like what you lived
there right.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
So this is how we did it.
We had the first three weeks inmammoth, were there awful lot,
but we did sleep at home was aone-on-one nurse, extremely
intense care.
Yeah, we didn't feel the needto be there Except to give him
love.
Yeah, that was our job.
The doctors did, the did whatthey did with it.
We had no, we had no way.
We couldn't even hold them.

(36:02):
He was, his eyes were sealedshut for a week after he was
born.
He, we just we just Touched himand just showed love and so how
old was he when you guys firstheld him?
like least, I would say abouttwo weeks.
Okay and then when we touchedhim, it was a huge deal because

(36:25):
he was on the ventilator and theoscillator which is like the
ventilator is like the stepunder oscillator is more intense
and.
When he's on oscillator wecouldn't hold him, but when he
was on the ventilator, we oughtto hold him on our chest.
We have to do skin to skin.
Yeah, keep his body temperature.
He was in a incubator incubator.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
So, Then I'll tell I'm like I've heard this story a
few times and it's still just.
It paralyzes me when I hearevery step of the story.
Why if I may, how old were youwhen?
When?

Speaker 4 (37:05):
shoe was born, okay, so I was 22.
Oh, my wife is 19.
Okay, huh, take things better.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Okay, my gosh, I Cannot believe we let the
interview go on this long beforewe even got his age.
Nothing that's the right partincredible so.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
To navigate what you did with the doctors and
continue to do with the doctorsand advocate for Shua.
You know I had my someone I'm29 and my wife's a Doctor and I
don't know if we would have beenas brazen and bold with the
doctors as you two were and I dofirmly believe that helped Not
only save his life but continueto sustain him now right 100% do

(37:43):
you see it that way?

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Yeah, you do.
We were.
We were super Optimistic aboutthis from the day he was born.
Where does that come from?
Honestly, it's, it's God.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
I was just gonna say haven't you heard anything he's
saying is all about God, right?

Speaker 4 (38:01):
So these there's my father's a rabbi right.
My grandmother, my mother is ason, is a daughter of a big
rabbi.
Okay, I was brought up With alot of preparation for this day.
My father is a good, he's aspeaker and he's a good.
He he's my rabbi, he's my rolemodel, he's my everything.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
What does he speak about?

Speaker 4 (38:23):
So there's, there's trust.
This talk.
It's called betachen.
Betachen is One of our biggestconcepts in Judaism.
It's the idea to trust Godtrust God to what?

Speaker 3 (38:38):
and so what does that mean?

Speaker 4 (38:39):
trust God Doesn't have to mean Trust him for the
better that's right Trust Godmeans Trust God means Keep back,
let him do what he wants to doNow, cause now this is a big,
big component of trust.
You can't trust somebody youhate and you can't stress
somebody that doesn't love you.

(38:59):
So because we develop a sense,our job, we try as much as we
can.
The more we develop a sensethat Hashem God loves us, mm-hmm
, we're gonna feel that we'regonna love him.
And the more we feel thisrelationship with God, the more

(39:23):
we're gonna feel confidentenough to be able to say
whatever happens is good, I wantit because God wants it.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, so in other words, you're just kind of
turning it over.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
It's totally that.
That's the most beautiful partof this, because people ask me
how do you manage it?
A lot of the time, okay, it wasmy personality and things that
I do, things that I try to workon, but a lot of it was Leaving
the rings leave it and let it go.
You keep it in your mind, youkeep it in your heart.
I'll be honest with you.

(39:56):
Honest there.
I Don't usually say this, butfor the interview we're gonna
say it okay through the I couldcome across as a ruthless person
, but this is because of mycontentness.
Through the seven over sevenmonths of this whole episode.
I Never went to sleep, couldn'tfall asleep.

(40:18):
I went to bed.
If I'll sleep, mm-hmm, I was.
I never Lost sleep, I didn't.
I cried my heart out.
Don't get me wrong me andShoshana, we had our days, but
at night I wasn't.
I wasn't a wreck, I was.
We cried because pain hurts,but we were in a state that
enough that we're able to saywell, listen, we're gonna do

(40:41):
everything we can do.
That's where the advocatingcomes from, and we don't stop.
But at the same time, you haveto understand that you're just,
you're just being a messenger.
God's gonna take care ofwhatever has to be done.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
You're saying and that doesn't mean the outcome is
gonna be pleasurable.
It's not gonna say positive,right might not even be.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
You know God forbid.
You know that the your sondidn't didn't stay alive, right?
I'm very blunt.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Yeah, you know that's .

Speaker 1 (41:08):
that's not an ideal, that is, that is suboptimal,
yeah to bring at your point.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
I was, I was in, my wife was in labor for four days.
Yeah.
I was hanging around thehospital, you know, and I met a
cousin of mine who had twins,mm-hmm, and we were in the we're
eating together and I turnedhim and I told him, if my son
doesn't make it and for me thatwas an obvious Option, it was

(41:36):
yeah, it was definite.
I was surprised that he made itand I thought, if got, if my
kid doesn't make it, I'm okay.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
I Was what kind of?

Speaker 4 (41:46):
okay, I'm gonna cry my heart out for days, but I'll
move on.
Life will move on and I'llaccept it and I know that's it.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I will accept this as a possible outcome.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
I'll accept, because God has endless options, meaning
there's a million reasons whyhe decided I should have a
stillborn.
I don't know.
There can be endless reasonsand all those reasons could be
the best thing that everhappened to me, now that my
son's alive and doing great.
Of course that's the bestoption, but if he didn't, that

(42:22):
would also be at that point.
Obviously that's what he wants.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
How do you?
I mean because I think aboutwhat happens with couples that
go through something like this,and also given how your age is,
because that is a thing right,you guys are young and really
your relationship with eachother is young, One another is

(42:51):
young.
How are you guys still together?
How did you make it through?
Let me actually ask this.
I do this so much I ask aquestion and then I follow it up
with another question.
How would you describe yourrelationship with Shoshana now?
Stronger, Not stronger?

(43:11):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 4 (43:12):
me If I would live another 100 years and not have
this episode with her, I wouldnever be able to be as strong as
I am now, because when you havean episode of pain or trauma in
your life, it's basically likea rocket ship.
If you direct the rocket shipup, you'll fly.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
If you direct it down , you go down, so you're saying
the event itself is just theenergy for the system.
The event is the energy.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Where you take it, you'll go.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Abamoshi, I speak with my clients about this kind
of concept so many times.
I don't know if I ever spokeabout it with you, but we hear a
lot in the news or peoplewalking down the street whenever
they talk about post-traumaticstress disorder or
post-traumatic response.
Whenever I feel it'sappropriate, I try to highlight
with my clients there's alsosomething called post-traumatic

(44:02):
growth.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Love this.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
The growth that can happen post-trauma and pain, and
or pain.
So what you're describing nowis the incomprehensible trauma
that you and Shoshana and Yoshuawent through.
You had the tools and you madethe correct choices to funnel

(44:26):
that to growth 100%.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Even to start, we were in the hospital for MKipfer
, right?
Mkipfer is a dead serious day.
It's not a time for jokes.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
It's a time of atonement.
Yes, it is.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
It's a time that we want to become closer to God and
try to erase and change ourways and become better.
Now I was in the hospital.
Think about I'm saying I don'tknow how much you can picture
this, but I'm in the hospital,terrible setting for MKipfer,
nothing Jewish there andbasically my wife was in labor.

(45:00):
Now I knew that if I was to cry, my wife would cry.
If my wife would cry, she wouldbe bearing down on her stomach
and it would hurt her and itwould probably aggravate the kid
and cause a baby to be born.
So I spent the whole yeardancing around like a clown,
understand.
Because, it's not about what youused to do, it's about what God

(45:23):
wants.
So I literally made jokes toMKipfer.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Wow, because that was my job.
There's no training for that.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
No, so where's that come from?

Speaker 3 (45:34):
No one said oh, by the way, have enough intuition
and understanding of your wifeto be able to.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
And yourself yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
And I was fasting.
Think about this.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
You were still fasting?
Yeah, you allowed to do all thework, but you're not going to
eat or drink.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, I was fat, shana was eating plenty of it.
She was in danger, but I was indanger and I was.
Generally, when we fast, wesleep the whole night.
I didn't sleep that night.
So I fasted 24 hours withoutsleeping.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Oh my gosh, I mean I even fast, and let me tell you,
that sounds hard.
No, it was horrible.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
But I'll tell you what.
Let's be real.
On a random Tuesday I can't dothis.
The amount of adrenaline youwere talking about, energy
that's going into this momentyou're not with reality at all.
Let's be real.
You're totally in a cloudsomewhere.
It took me months to get out ofit.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
I almost feel like that's I mean, I know that was
that in and of itself was amiracle To be able to kind of
transcend you out of reality,like out of body.
And maybe you don't subscribeto this, but I do To allow
yourself to move through thatexperience and to circle back to

(46:46):
what you said, jacob, because Idon't know, I don't think Abba
really answered you when youwere like, where does that come
from Something and I know theanswer might be God, but just
something in you, right, it'slike let me make this decision
to make jokes, to make light,right.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
So it is really, I have a good.
My personality is jolly, mypersonality is fun.
My personality is happy time.
That's where I spend my timeNow, when I feel it's necessary.
It's my go-to Right, so thataspect a little bit is my nature
.
Okay.

(47:31):
But definitely it is a life ofpreparing in a way, Because of
course you're not preparing forthis moment, but you are
preparing for being authentic,being real, loving God and, with
all that, being able to take onopportunities.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
And for.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
Take on opportunity, sorry, just.
Yeah.
Because it's you can't ask forthem and you can't look for them
, Right?
But you just have a sense thatthere will be a time where
you're going to have to reallybring all of your best self into
this experience.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
Yeah, yeah, it always comes, it's going to be there.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
For a moment, right, because I think, jacob, it's so
funny we're kind of saying we'repiggybacking on each other's, I
think, thoughts here, which islike you've been preparing for
an experience, you know, thisintense or this incredible or
extraordinary, extraordinary,right, so that when that moment

(48:38):
comes because life brings usthese moments all the time,
these kinds of moments that youwould be equipped, to handle it
Interesting.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
You're not like going through a boot camp to go for
war, but you are living a kindof lifestyle that will be
preparing you for moments thatyou need to tap into it.
That's beautifully said.
You're having building arelationship with God and, of
course, your wife throughregular ordeal is in a way that

(49:13):
if you need to get deeper it'llgo.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
And so I just want to try to bring some things
together that you saidthroughout the interview, just
to maybe concretize it a littlebit.
If you make an assumption thatthere is a creator of existence
and that creator loves you andwants what's best for you not
necessarily what's pleasurablefor you and that you can be a
partner with that creator insustaining that existence, and

(49:39):
you're spending your timelearning from teachers who are
trying to do the same thing andbuilding a community that's just
trying to do that as an entity,as an entire entity in the best
case scenarios right that, whenan opportunity for meaning
presents itself, you can't helpbut have the intuitive moment of
like.

(49:59):
This is literally what I'vebeen preparing for.
This is a unique experience inmy life, in anyone's life, and
this is where I can really tapin to that level of love that I
feel from and have for thecreator, and that I can be a
conduit for love to sustain thepeople around me in this moment.
Amazing.

(50:20):
Beautiful.
So, abba, could you let us knowa little bit more about how Shu
was doing now, when?

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Shu was born.
That night I come down mywife's pumping and I come down
to the NICU with the milk.
I was the milkman.
Okay.
And it's two in the morning andI come down and it's frantic.
Okay.
I'm like what's up?
They come running over to me.
They tell me your stomach, yourson's stomach, has a leak In
some intestines.

(50:46):
We don't know where, what.
He needs surgery by the morningand we don't know what it's
going to be.
So they call down the surgeonat three in the morning and he
comes over to me and tells melisten, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
I promise you, although I can't, Meaning I
don't know if he's going tosurvive the surgery.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Right and the nurses tell us.
One nurse asked did you takeyour pictures yet?
And I was like you know whatI'm saying?

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yeah, that's not what you want to hear, right?

Speaker 4 (51:18):
So we basically walked him off.
Let's be real, yeah, we bothblessed him and we were ready
for it, and we went up to ourroom where we were.
She was just past delivery,less than 25 hours ago.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
And like she's pumping milk for this baby you
think is going to die.
It is just that, is I?
Just that's likeincomprehensible to me, but God.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
So we were ready for it.
I went up to the room and Itold Shana we embraced the fact
that we'll take it.
We we tried to train our mindswithin those four days and also
we were ready for whatever.
Whatever, let it be what it is.
That was our idea, Our whole,the whole time.
Let it, let it be.
But we were very optimistic,meaning this moment of when the

(52:09):
doctor tells you that there's aslight chance, that's when you,
that's when you have to justembrace the fact that he might
not come out, but when there's a50, 50 chance, now we're going
to, I'll just take you.
So he got out of surgery and hejust had a small hole in his
small intestines and it was ableto be repaired and we saw him
again.
Just to move on a littlefurther, how many?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
how many surgeries had Shua had?
Since he was born Eightsurgeries, and what and where
were the surgeries?
Just?

Speaker 4 (52:36):
like it was all within the seven months.
Okay, he had two stomachsurgeries, a heart surgery,
three brain surgeries.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
And what's the?
What's the prognosis for achild like this?

Speaker 4 (52:46):
Typically so like this when we were told about the
brain bleeds.
Yeah.
He had two severe brain bleedsin both sides of his brain.
Yeah, the severest.
Mm hmm.
My wife folks over to thedoctor and she said what's the
prognosis?
Mm hmm, she's like, well,probably he'll be weird, we'll
cheerbound.
Mm hmm, cp right.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
Cerebral palsy.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Cerebral palsy.
So we were like we were, wewere, we were hit hard, yeah,
and we were by the boardwalk.
Then I took my wife to theboardwalk.
We sat on our bench and all Isaid I didn't say much.
We sat, we spent that like anhour there looking at just the
beautiful waves and all I toldher was it'll be okay.

(53:27):
At that point already we wentthrough a few like a month of it
already.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Actually, I think I need to ask a question.
Sure, she had just had a babyand I think my understanding is
that you're not allowed tophysically touch one another.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Right, 100%.
There was no After having ababy.
There was no physical touchthroughout all this for about
two, three months.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
So by no physical touch could you like?
I mean touch like hug her.
So hand on her shoulder,nothing.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
But.
But this is an opportunity.
This is literally one of themost amazing things that could
ever happen, because when youcan't touch, you have to really
connect.
You have to be here, there withher in her deepest emotions.
If you can just give a hug andwalk off, you cheated.

(54:25):
You have to, you have toconnect and you mean that's
cheating, that's like, that'slike you know it's cheating.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
It is cheating, you're not like really doing,
you know, really connecting yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
You're just hugging, that's not.
You can do a hug on a Monday,right?
So we, we were able to connectin a extremely powerful mental
way in our minds.
Right, we were able tounderstand each other.
We were, we were at points thatwe didn't have to talk to each
other.
We were feeling each otherbecause we you're feeling each

(54:59):
other.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
We were not physically right and emotionally
you were connected.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, you know, and I like, I would say like
energetically, a lot, of, a lotof the people that I work with
would like understand that thatyou can feel the energy.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
There's like a high level of resonance between you
two.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
We we were very verbal.
We're on the same page when itcame to God.
That's a big thing.
Yeah, not everybody has thatopportunity.
I think I thank God for that.
We were on the same page.
We were both trusting andaccepting and we were with, we
were in beliefs and all of that.
That doesn't always happen.
That was a gift and we werewith it together.

(55:33):
We were, we were in it togetherand at that point we heard
about the brain.
We sat on the bench.
Oh, I said it was, it's goingto be okay.
I knew it was going to be okay.
I was confident.
I was confident we had enoughmiracles already.
That I was, I was, I was inlove with God.
I was, I was obsessed, I wasjust fine and I was like it's

(55:54):
okay, it'll be, it'll be fine,now it's, it's not.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
So there's the potential for for the heart
surgeries, the intestinalsurgeries, the brain surgeries,
and what was the video you justshowed me before we started
recording Right?
So at this moment last night.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
Last night he stood up for the first time himself
without holding down.
Oh yeah, crazy story.
The models have.
That's the biggest.
I don't even know what to do.
He's, he's like, he's, he'staking his first few steps now.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Wow, it's, it's the most beautiful, with the biggest
smile on his face.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
He's literally the light of.
He has these dimples that isbig as a twin tower.
It's both for each one.
Oh my gosh and he smiles, awhole, his whole face turns into
a smile, and you can't.
I love him.
Yeah, he's a gift.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Okay, that is that's.
That's incredible.
Yeah, that I mean he's walking.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
Yeah, it's, it's not.
It's not normal, it's not, itshouldn't.
Honestly, the scans that arethe MRIs of his brain do not
show this kind of ability.
Yeah, the doctors themselvesthe doctor turns me.
I went to.
We went recently for a followup.
He looks at the scans and he'slike you shouldn't, you

(57:16):
shouldn't be moving the rightside of his body.
Wow, don't take a look.
Incredible, you know.
And he's shot.
He's.
It's insane.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
And which?
Which doctor is this?
It's not like a regular doctor.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
This is the biggest neurosurgeon in the chop yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
You know you're saying this.
You're saying this about Shua.
You're saying how it shouldn'tbe right.
Even the tests are going well.
He should, based on these tests, he shouldn't be walking, but
he's walking.
He shouldn't be able to moveboth sides of his body, but he's
moving both sides of his body.
And I'm thinking about yourwhole story, everything of like

(57:51):
how, how you, how you grew upright In the community, the
cultures, the culture,everything, and how really
different than you would saylike mainstream American culture
it is, and all of it.
I think to myself, like justgrowing up, like in the American

(58:15):
culture, I'm like, oh,everything you're saying, like
how did I even?
Still, you know they didn'tknow each other.
It just everything goes against.
It's like this theme of likeeverything goes against what you
would typically imagine.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
You're saying based over the norms of the?

Speaker 1 (58:30):
culture we grew up in .
That's exactly right.
Yes.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Based on the cultures we grew up in, we and being
told to do essentially theopposite of everything.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Thank you.
He knows me so well.
Yeah, he can like hear, he cansee my mind.
I think sometimes that'sexactly what I'm saying, is that
?
And?
And then I say to myself okay,so, given the fact that most of
the people listening to ourpodcast are people who are kind
of, you know, like me, right,I'm not going to say Jacob, but

(59:02):
kind of like you, jacob, youknow the way, the way you were
before you became more observant.
They're originally you.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
Yeah, I was working back to that later.
I don't know.
That's not true.
You're right.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Okay, so what do you think the message here is for
people?
That that really don't, thatdon't.
Grow up, you know, in with the,with the learning that you grew
up in, and the structure andthe, even the rules, right, the,
all of these different thingsthat have given you and Shauna

(59:36):
such strength and will andperseverance, and even grit, all
of these things, how does onefind that within themselves?

Speaker 4 (59:49):
Right, so you really have to spend time with yourself
these days.
It's unfortunate, but I don'twant to be critical.
But we're living with screens.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
That's not critical, that is, that is a very that's a
fact, right, so there's anursery being critical.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
Where it gets critical is that that's killing
us.
Right.
We don't have a thought process, we don't, we don't have a
relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
You don't have a relationship with other people,
we don't even have arelationship with ourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Yeah, we are not, we're not.
We have to intuition, rightyeah, Spend time with your mind,
spend time with yourself and,especially after you figured
yourself out, spend time withyour, with your partner, with
your wife.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
So the first thing, your advice right these a, a, a,
a pearl of wisdom would bemaybe spend a little less time
on your screen Right and alittle more time with yourself.
Yeah.
How would that look?
I know that might sound totallyintuitive to you or, you know,

(01:00:51):
automatic to you, but, like,maybe for a lot of us it's not
that clear, Right?
So what does that even looklike?

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Firstly, everybody has to understand, like you have
to think about what you wantyour life to look like, what
your goals are, what you want toaccomplish in your short period
of life.
We don't have forever, right.
We want to form.
You know, we get so distractedthat we forget that we have

(01:01:18):
something to do here.
You want to bring up a family.
You want to bring.
You want to.
You want to love a wife.
You want to createrelationships.
You want to be.
You want to make money.
I don't care, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yeah, I want to help people.
That's what I think.
Yeah, you want to love people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
You want to help people.
Love is not natural.
Love is furthest thing fromnatural.
Loving yourself might benatural, but love is not natural
.
We have to work onunderstanding what we want
before we do anything, and fromthere maybe we can continue to

(01:01:53):
think about how we want to dowhat we want.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
What would you say to somebody who doesn't know what
they want, right, that doesn'treally have an idea or a sense
of what would be meaningful forthem?

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
There's plenty of people like that.
I'll say that the first thingfor them would be to figure out
what they don't want.
There are things in your lifethat are not that good for you.
Let's deal with those.
If you get rid of enough thingsthat you don't want, you'll
figure out what you want.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Yeah, so simply yeah, but low hanging fruit, right.
So I actually love that.
If it's not screaming at youlike super obvious, then it's
usually the things that youdon't want that aren't working
are more obvious.
So really spend some time onthat, Right?

(01:02:49):
Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Abba what's up.
You have too much wisdom foryour age.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
I don't know what, should I do Teach?

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
I'm here Good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
I don't think it's too much wisdom.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
I don't think that's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
I think it's shocking that you do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
That's true.
When I met him, he, just like I, walked in a synagogue Friday
night.
This guy has a big smile on his, like hey, I'm Abba.
I was like, hey, I'm Jacob.
And he was just like.
That was it.
And I honestly thought he waslike I don't know my age.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I was.
I was probably like but do youhave facial hair?
Yeah, Little scruff.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
I shaved, but Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
So a typical guy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
He could pass for 30.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Easy, I get it all the time, all the time 30 all
the time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I think, uh, I think we can keep schmoozing, but,
abba, thank you so much forcoming on.
It was the biggest honor andpleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Yeah, this was really really enlightening and
enjoyable for me.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
For me as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
It's so lovely to be able to have like open
conversations like this, and Ithink it's so important.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
I have a motion.
Are there any organizationsyou'd like our listeners to make
a donation to?

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
No, I think uh spend more time with yourself.
Ooh, beautiful, yeah, beautifulDonate to yourself.
Donate to yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
And your family, your wife and the people you love.
Abba Moshe, thank you so muchfor coming on.
We are so grateful.
This was fantastic, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Thank you so much for having me.
It was an honor and pleasure.
Thank you, bye-bye.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
We want to thank you so much for listening to today's
episode.
If anything in today's episodespoke to you, please like
subscribe rate and review.
Also, don't forget to sharethis podcast with friends and
family.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And if there's anybody that you know that you
think would be a great guest onintuitive choices, please email
us atintuitivechoicespodcastgmailcom.
Finally, if you want to knowmore about our mental health
practice, intuitive counselingand wellness, please check us
out atintuitivecounselingofphillycom.