Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me here today on the Relief from Grief podcast. Today the guest is Rabbi Aaron Brody, who currently resides in Florida, and he actually has a story that is intertwined with mine because he’s my cousin.

So I guess maybe share with us a little bit, your story. So thank you for having me on your podcast. My story is your story. Just you were in the front row. I was a little farther back because we lived around the corner from each other. We very much grew up in each other’s houses. And this unfolded with us and we were all together.

We’re all, you know,  this was definitely one story. So let’s just in case listeners don’t know. You lost your cousin, who was my brother. That was good friends with your brother, right? My brother Chesky, that was good friends with your brother Yosef.

And then when you were older, you lost like very quickly together, my father, my sister and my mother. And like you really had a good relationship with all of them. Yeah, so Chesky was Niftar when I was seven, I believe. Like I told you, I think it was seven. I was born 1990. So if it was 1997 that he was Niftar, I was seven.

And then your father was Niftar when I was 19. And then it was Esty. I think Esty was also when I was 19. Does that make sense? It was within a year? Yeah, they were in the same year. Yeah. And then your mother was like a year later. Right. And it was Yeah, no words could describe that time. Ever. 

Your father was an iftar right before I went to Eretz Yisrael. And then, your mother and Esti when I was in Eretz Yisrael. I didn’t know Esti was sick. I got a call, I didn’t tell you this, I got a call from my brother. And he’s like, He started off the conversation very weird. You know, we were both in Eretz Yisrael together.

I was by R’ Tzvi He was in Brisk. And he calls me, he’s like, I could tell something was coming, and then he told me, and I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So, funny addition to the story, I went to my Rosh Yeshiva, and I, I was trying to tell him what happened, and he was, he was like an angel, he, he was learning, he would learn 20 something hours a day, and whenever he would close his eyes, he would fall asleep.

Oh my gosh. So here’s what happened. I went to him and I told him what happened and I told him the history and I was standing in his office and he started, he closed his eyes and started shaking his head and like I could tell that he was very hurt and very bothered and you know, wondering what to tell me and then that turned into like 10 minutes of silence and I was like, what in the world?

I was sure he was going up to Shamayim and finding out from the angels, you know, he was  going to comfort me. I realized he was sleeping. He, he, he closed his eyes and boom, he was asleep. Oh my gosh. He was trying to be there for me, he fell asleep. And I walked out of there and I didn’t know what to do with my life.

 And I’m sure every single one of my family you know, can say sort of the same thing after each one of these tragedies. That was where I was at that time and no one realized how much you were suffering because you were far away And you were like little yeah, that’s true I was far away and I was young and everyone else was going through their own and We never really had training for this, you know, nobody really there was no manual.

This wasn’t part of life. This wasn’t supposed to happen. So it was like people who’ve been through this know what shock means. There’s no like, what do you do? There’s no There’s no set path. So it evolves. It sort of just happens how it happens and you know.  I definitely went through it on my own and we all did to some degree and it was horrific, but I don’t think me or anyone else realized how much we truly went through to later in our lives and how much that formed us and shaped us.

So looking back, like what was the road that you did travel? Like how did you recognize that you need help? Like how did you heal or still healing or whatever? I didn’t recognize that I needed help or that that wasn’t normal. I, after your father died by that wedding, I was with him the whole day before, because we were traveling that day, not the day before, that very day.

We came in from Detroit early, I think it was early that morning, maybe it was the day before. I think it was the day before. Yeah, it must have been the day before. So I came in with them, because I was going back to Yeshiva, and the wedding was the next night, and then by the wedding that happened.

And then I just went back to my life, I went back to learning, I went back to Yeshiva. My whole soul was shaken up and all of us were what do you do? I don’t know we just went back to life and I was in yeshiva and I was Busy trying to go to Eretz Yisrael and getting into a certain yeshiva and like, you know on the outside I went back to my life.

What else do you do? I didn’t really know what you’re supposed to do. There’s no like yeah, as I said, there’s no manual for this right maybe today. There’s more awareness in the part of People but then it was like you go back to your life. I don’t know. So that’s what happened and we talked about one thing that showed up was I got physical problems, this tremendous shock and trauma To me, manifested with sleeping problems.

I couldn’t sleep. And then it turned into stomach problems. So I blamed it all on the water in Eretz Yisroel, because everyone was telling me, Oh, it’s the water, it’s the water, right? The hard water. And it just got worse and worse. My sleeping problems got worse until my life was just in shambles. No one else knew because I was learning and I was going to shiur  and I was pretty successful.

And my God, I mean, it was  horrific. I don’t know if anyone knows what it’s like to not sleep for days and days and days on end, or sleep minimally, but, you know, Guantanamo Bay prisoners could tell you. I mean, it’s against the Geneva Convention to sleep deprive people. 

It’s one of the hardest, a life without sleep is something special. Let’s just say that. How many years was it that you couldn’t sleep? I have to count, but it was many. I was married with kids before I really took a hard look at it and said what in the world is going on with me because I can’t live like this.

Oh my goodness, that is so crazy. Yeah, I learned to push myself to overcome and to live a good life. But there were many, many, many days, and if you want to, you can ask my wife, that I, I just gave up. I was like, I don’t know, I can’t do this. I can’t live. I can’t have a day. I can’t succeed. And I would just lay in bed till like, I don’t know, 11 o’clock.

But it doesn’t help because you’re still not rested. So, It’s easier to be successful after you get over that hump in the morning, you know? But it’s, a true nightmare. Eventually, I was like, this isn’t normal. I can’t live like this. And I just gave up and I remember talking about it to somebody that was actually Hudy Greenberger Hudy Greenberger, became very famous.

He’s a photographer. He’s our cousin. Right. I know, but I’m not like a therapist or anything. No, he’s not a therapist. I was talking to him and he’s like, Oh, go to therapy because he’s very into therapy. I think his wife’s a therapist. Oh yeah? Yeah. He’s big into that.

So he told me that I’m like therapy. I don’t know what therapy is. What’s a therapist? I literally didn’t know. So he gave me the name of Chanoch Kron, who’s another cousin of ours. How cute. Okay. Okay. And I called this guy, Chanoch Krohn, and that very night we had a session on Zoom and it was a very strange experience for me.

And therapy was not the route I went in the end, but Chanoch is an amazing guy. I mean, like If somebody you know, he’s just an amazing guy. Yeah. I actually, I have what to do with him. Like we’re definitely connected. Oh, in your line of work. Yeah. So I worked with him a couple of times and he turned into a very good friend.

I don’t know. This therapy thing didn’t show me the light. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know. Maybe people have success with it, but it was not the way for me. You know,  I really love him. He’s a great guy. So that took years until I was able to, and then I did Sarno for a while. I became a big Sarno guy, and that actually healed my stomach problems.

Do you know Sarno? Are you familiar? Yeah, of course. I’m saying that must have helped. I don’t know if you do that. Yeah, so that helped my stomach problems and literally, after my stomach problems went away, I got asthma. Oh, heavens. I remember, it was like, There was, I’m like, there’s some demon in me that just, you know, is like refusing to quit.

Like, he’s, I pushed, you know, there’s a game. What’s that game? You bop one alligator’s head, another one pops up? So, sleeping problems persisted, and they were very, very what’s the word? It knocked me out. Completely pushed me out of life. And, eventually, I was able to see that there was It’s something else.

This is, physical problems are not physical. There’s some, you know, the term psychosomatic came up, which means mind body, you know, these people that talk about a mind body connection, yeah, that’s actually an absurd term. There’s no mind body connection. There’s mind and body are one.

So what’s psychosomatic? Psychosomatic is the term they give to disorders that they have to admit they have no understanding of. So they, Oh, psychosomatic. It’s not medical. It’s psychosomatic. Okay. So it’s just the doctor’s term for, you know, chronic stomach problems or sleeping problems or back pain or asthma or any of the things that they haven’t ever been able to help anybody with.

So they. It’s called psychosomatic. Except that you were helped. I’m saying with I was never helped medically. No, but with doing psychosomatic work, you were helped. Yeah, Sarno helped. Now, I think Sarno is a good thing for people to do. And , people call me all the time because, you know, I got healed from IBS, debilitating IBS.

Wow. They’re like, how did you do it? So I became a somewhat of an expert, you know, and guiding people through it Just like a guy guided me through it. That guy was Menachem Feldheim. Okay, people know him, but he, I’m not the only one that he’s helped with. He’s an amazing guy, did it out of chessed.

I think he started charging in the end because like he had like a million people knocking his door down, but Bachrim Notoriously have stomach problems and it’s not because of the food they eat or they don’t sleep or they smoke. It’s because of stress and anxiety and they push themselves and whatever.

Anyway, I went to sarno route and it did help for my stomach, but there clearly was More and that was showing that so so there was a lot of I guess trauma you would say in your life a lot of Emotional upheaval that wasn’t dealt with so you ended up having physical problems. So I know helped with the IBS irritable bowel syndrome, right which just means your stomach’s a mess and no one knows why okay So they’ll poke you and prod you and then tell you we don’t know why okay Okay, that’s the treatment method So, so how did you work through to get back to like being able to sleep and to live a normal life?

So, honestly, sleep comes up still here and there. Okay. But I think I have to say something here that some will understand and some will not. But there’s a time when physical problems own you. And there’s also a time when they do not own you. And the difference cannot be greater. See, I might have stomach problems or sleeping problems, but I’m still me.

But when these problems own me, and I’m like, I can’t live, and these, until this is healed, then I’m in a state of being owned. I don’t even have myself. So that’s where I was for many, many, many years. I was a debilitated person. I was handicapped because of these things. Now, even though they come up, I have me, I’m successful, I have my family, I’m not, I’m not owned by them, which is because A, because they’re not so debilitating, 2, I kind of know where they come from, and C, because I’m successful, even though, like, I’m not laying in bed because I’m tired.

Like, right now, honestly, I had a terrible sleep last night, and that happens to me. I go up and down, but I’m fine. I really am fine, but during this time, I was not fine, and there were many, many years I literally gave up on life. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was unspeakable, and why was I going through that?

Because that’s what happens when You ever put a, a ball into water, right? You have a cup full of water to the top, you stick a ball in it. Water’s gonna come out, right? Water’s gonna, okay, yeah. Right, because it’s a full cup. Right. If you stick a trauma into a person, the water’s gonna come out.

You can’t do that. You can’t go, you can’t go through a massive shock or upheaval or a series of them. God help us, right? Like you did, like I did, and like we all did. And expect there to be no change or repercussion or something there must be dealing with. Right. You can’t watch someone die and that matters something.

That matters, that means something. You have to. I’m not saying you should go, I’m not prescribing any specific route, but there has to be some resolution there. You must, and therapy has its place. Therapy has its place for sure. Therapy can hurt people as well. You know, it all depends, it’s a tool in the hand of a practitioner.

But there has to be some, and this, this story just illustrates how when you go through a traumatic situation, there has to be some, I don’t know what to say, resolution you’re dealing with. Which is extremely vague and people throw around these words a lot, working through, healing. No one knows what these words mean, by the way.

I’m working through it. I’m healing. A funny thing I say, the last generation kids were struggling because their parents were unhealed. That’s something people like to say. Today, kids are suffering because their parents are healing. In other words, you know what healing is?

Healing is the state of no man’s land where Don’t bother me with life. I’m healing. Don’t you know? Healing is a euphemism for I’m just in Twilight Zone. I’m, I, I bear no responsibility to our life or to the people around me. It’s a very dangerous state. Healing and that’s not healing. That’s actually stop a little bit because there could be those types and could be those people that are really working.

Sure. No, there for sure are. I’m just saying that it’s a dangerous line to walk when you think you’re healing because responsibility to her to life is healing. Right. And, accepting responsibility for your situation , is an extremely difficult thing for many people.

And that is healing. Running away from responsibilities because you’re healing is an oxymoron. Right. Okay. Which is a very difficult subject, and it’s not something we’re going to delve into, I’m sure. But, the point is that there has to be some dealing with. A traumatic event like that. So the word that you used when we spoke was which you said is not denial or suppression.

Transcendence. Right. So that’s a very big word, transcendence. So right away it sounds like some Eastern guru, you know, it sounds like a, very airy fairy term, transcendence. I’m going to transcend. It sounds like, you know, Elijah, the prophet. So what’s your question?

So you said to me that transcendence isn’t denial or suppression, but something so real, correct? So what I hear you asking, Miriam, is. What is, what does it mean to get over these things, move past them, or heal them, or resolve? You know, what, what is the next step? In essence how did I move forward?

And how does one move forward from incredibly mind blowing, reality bending events such as we have both been through? You on the front lines and me a little farther back, you know, physically, but, you know, however, we were all affected. And the truth is that, , I must speak to my whole family as I talk, because we all went through it.

Right. And you know one truly knows how another one absorbed it, but the younger ones for sure were less You know tethered anchored wouldn’t have wives and families. It’s it’s much harder because you don’t have that container of whatever but Everyone really has to ask the question. What do you do after such a thing?

It doesn’t matter if it’s 20 years later It doesn’t matter What I’ve found to be accurate in life is that trauma is not a scar on the soul. It’s not a wound you carry. These are incorrect terms. And it’s, the imagery is, it matters because when you think you have a scar or you have a wound or something, which you can, you can learn from talking to the wrong people, is that you think you’re, you’re blemished, you’re damaged.

And that belief can, is, the closest you’ll get to a scar. If you believe you’re damaged, that is a, that is damage. So the truth is that people do not get damaged. People are undamageable. However, We do see people struggle, especially after trauma, so then what is it? What is trauma, essentially?

And the answer is like this, that, You know, people exist on two planes. There’s I mean, if you want to get really nitty gritty, you could break this down more, but, speaking generally, people exist on two planes, and that is the the being state, and then there’s the mental state. So, the mental state is, obviously, what it sounds like.

It’s mental. , it’s mind. The other state, Mind, is something that’s, we are all existing in a state below mind, beyond mind, and if you want an illustration of that, look at your two year old. Or actually not your two year old, because they already learned something. Look at your thirty day old, and you’ll see a human existing without mind, because mind hasn’t matured yet into being a force in their lives.

All they are is beingness, and, or, conversely, I think that it’s accurate to say that someone with dementia, advanced dementia or in a coma, they still exist. These people are still beings in a physical body. However, the mind has stopped. Look at someone deep in meditation. It’s the same thing. You know, all these Zen monasteries in Tibet.

What they’re after is a silent mind. They’re after a state of beingness. Now, the state of beingness exists in everybody. You’re just, you just are. And you’re not thinking. And that’s a different state than the thinking state. But it exists in everybody. So, with that introduction when we grow up, when we’re born into this world, we receive programming from day one.

And it’s societal programming, you know.

In other words, move out of your programming. It’s not a bad thing. There are many programs, however, which are less than valuable to us, such as You never have enough.

You’re poor. Life’s a struggle for money, right? That’s a lot of, that’s a lot of us grow up with that programming. That’s a belief, right? It’s a belief system. It’s, it’s deeper than one belief. It’s a, it’s a system. That’s who, that’s, that’s how I live. That’s the world I inhabit. Trauma means when there’s something seared onto that programming as a direct result of the event of magnitude, which says life’s dangerous.

Or you’re gonna die, or God hates you, or whatever, he’s out to punish. Any belief system that subconsciously took root in your mental programming of life, now runs your life, and that is being in a state of trauma. You’re not damaged, you simply have a belief system that was created as a result of this great event.

Because the great event had an impact on you. So let’s say someone dies, right? That leaves in a, that, that, that changes a person irrevocably.

Okay. If you go around in life, not if, I mean, after that happened, the person starts working life in a different way. He’s like, I didn’t realize this about life before. I thought it was all dandy. And it’s not. It’s horrible. I have to struggle to stay alive. I have to run. I have to work, work, work, work, work.

I have to, right? Any, any one of these mental things that take root and start running your life is the true definition of trauma. So you are not damaged. You simply are working with programming that is Super negative. That is trauma. You’re running your life, or, you’re not running your life. A certain belief system, or, belief systems are running your life, which are very negative.

Which are not leading you to anything positive. Negativity, right? We all know what negativity is, and we know what positivity is. Belief systems that root you in negative and you start living your life that way, it’s trauma. We don’t know what’s happening. That’s the thing. Programming happens below the radar.

We don’t know what’s happening. The only, the only hope for humans is that you get so miserable you wake up and you’re like, I can’t, I can’t handle this anymore. And you start seeking, and it’s like you need answers. So what belief systems were running your life? Belief system running your life and you don’t even know they’re running your life, because they’re running your life.

What were running yours? So in my specific case it’s hard to answer a question like that because these things aren’t. A sentence. It’s not like, oh, I thought I was this, or I thought I was that. It’s a way of being that’s beyond words. it’s hard to describe exactly what was running my life.

But something was. You know, I went, I remember, okay, I’ll, I’ll tell you this. I was so afraid of what was, what, what happened then was so traumatic that I remember your mother was sick, right? Every time the phone rang, I was terribly afraid. It was my father calling with bad news. To this day, when a phone rings, there’s a, there’s a flash of a second where I think, oh no.

Okay, but , that’s a very specific, like, you know maybe that’s a stupid example, but people are wired in a certain way. Your whole life is this. You don’t realize. Your whole life is this. 

So how do we take this and put it into like the Torah perspective? Okay. The Torah perspective, the third doesn’t have a perspective that’s inconsistent with reality.

I’m going to push back on your question because you, you basically said, frame this in a way that , sounds familiar to a, from Jew. But I think that the opposite is the point. If it’s familiar, we’re just wrapping this back up in what we know already, and the point is that to recontextualize your life.

Maybe we start thinking along new lines, and then maybe like, oh, that’s what Taira means, that’s what a mitzvah is. Maybe if you, understand that negativity is the Yetzer harah, which you never, we never thought along those lines. Then a mitzvah is, is moving into reality. I’m serving the Ebeshter because I have no more complaints on Him.

I’m not complaining about my life. I’m so happy that I’m just going to say, Eibeshter, what can I do for you? So what I’m trying to say is, it’s a recontextualization of everything. It’s not like, tell me this in a way I’ve heard before. Does that make sense? Yeah. You’re reminding me of I have a mental block with his name the person that does the Betachlan hotline, you know, life of Bitachon.

Yeah. That’s Mandel. No. So the. I think his Rebbe that he always mentioned. Rebbe is Rebbe Mandel. Anyway, back to you. Sorry. No, but, so these are the, these are the views really, that he takes any question that anyone brings in, it’s always about, oh, you should be so happy and this is so and this is, so whatever.

Like, he takes everything and spins it into a way of how good and amazing it is, and therefore you should be so happy. So that’s what you’re reminding me of, like you’re saying what, whatever it is, we could really take it and reality recognize it as like the, the mitzvah type and the positivity.

I don’t know, could you finish off what I’m saying, because I lost my train of thought? Basically, when you, we don’t like positivity, we love negativity. We’re addicted to it, and we’ve been adding fuel to the fire for decades. And if you tell someone, just be grateful, they’re like, , I’m miserable. I was dealt a bad hand in life.

Everyone was, by the way. You know, I’m telling you, it’s the funniest thing, when you start, if you ever have the opportunity to meet or hear rich people talk, like uber successful people, they are exactly the same as everyone else. They have the same complaints. The funniest part is when they’re minorities and they’re talking about racism , all that stuff.

Dude, you’re, you are, you are a billionaire. What are you talking about? Negativity is addictive. We’re addicted to it. The idea of gratitude and all this stuff. Gratitude, happiness, love, loving someone. These are very difficult for us because it means giving up our old habits of mind. And they will all lead us to the promised land.

 Anybody who makes his life about thanking Hashem, gratitude, it’s very hard in the beginning. Because you don’t want to do that. You want to say how I’ve been mistreated. Right. And when you, when you move into these things, we, we release the old mind thing. We return to reality.

And reality is where the Kedusha is. That’s where everything is. The happiness, the true. And very few people. I mean more people than before, but like, you know, this is I’m not speaking as someone who’s like enlightened or anything but I recognize that this is Positivity is the truth and that leads to all people who transcend That’s transcendence is moving into happiness positivity joy, and it’s like how can I be happy that being happy?

How can I be grateful by being grateful? How can I dance? By dancing. By the way, Carbach said that everyone has to dance with their families once a day. And like, haha, you’re a hippie. No, that’s actually good advice. Dancing means I’m releasing. I’m moving into joy. It’s not something you like get by getting something.

It’s something that you choose. Right. And, and thereby we transcend all this garbage, like trauma and all these, all this stuff. Now people are going to have to give up their industries. I mean, people have built empires. Praying in negativity, in their own negativity, and they don’t even know that there’s a world out there of perfection.

We just have to move into it. Does that, I’m sorry, but I think that’s the ultimate truth to life. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And if anyone, you know, has any questions or wants you to help them get into that, you know, perfect world, I’m going to give them your number. I charge 500 an hour. No, I’m kidding.

One day, after your book comes out. Yeah, maybe. All right. Okay. Thank you so, so much for coming on. Thank you.