To do the work you love, you’ve got to unlock a few doors. UNLOCKED Stories are honest conversations with people who chose a path and made it happen.
A note from Ellen: I’m so excited to feature this interview with Rabbi Brian. I met him at a workshop I took this past year and I admired him from the outset. He is a true renegade. His mission is to empower people to create their own unique relationship with God, however you understand and define God’s presence in your life.
On the front page of his website, he states, “I won’t tell you what to think, but want to help you unlearn, learn, and flesh out your spiritual-religious beliefs.” I love his refreshing attitude towards spirituality, and I’m very inspired by the unconventional career path that he is carving out for himself.
Rabbi Brian writes, speaks, officiates marriage ceremonies and bar and bat mitzvah’s (he recently officiated James Franco’s Bar Mitzvah at the Hollywood Palladium!), and leads fascinating online classes where everyone is welcome to participate: from Atheists to Mormons to Muslims. He’s also a former high school math teacher, a father and partner, and in his spare time: a baker, artist, and magician!
I am so enchanted by Rabbi Brian’s creativity and huge heart and I know you will be, too. Enjoy this interview!
What do you do?
[Rabbi Brian]: I’m a Rabbi and the founder of a website called Religion-Outside-the-Box.
What’s the website all about?
[Rabbi Brian]: The people who hang out on my website often identify as “spiritual but not religious.” They are people seeking answers to big questions and craving a more intimate relationship with God, but they don’t feel comfortable aligning with any particular organized religion, at least not completely. They’re seeking something “else.” Something unique and personal.
I completely understand that quest, because that’s been my journey too.
My mission is to empower people to develop their own relationship with God, on their own terms. My intent is to help nourish spiritual hunger, regardless of religious identity.
Everyone is welcome at ROTB.org.
What does a “day in the life” of a Rabbi look like? What do you actually do during a typical “workday”?
[Rabbi Brian]: I do a lot of different things. I send out an e-newsletter. I make videos and podcasts. I lead seminars virtually and in person. I have chats with people one-on-one. I officiate marriage ceremonies for all kinds of couples. People can hire me to come to private events and dinner parties to speak and lead discussion groups.
I also run online classes for people craving a closer connection with (their definition of) God, and who are wondering, “What is God trying to tell me and how can I hear it more clearly?”
Up until very recently, I also had a “day job” teaching math to inner-city kids at schools in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, which I also loved doing.
I love it all. My only wish is that somehow I could bend time and do even more!
How do you begin a typical day?
[Rabbi Brian]: I get up early and walk the dogs around the neighborhood for a mile or so. Get home. Make breakfast for myself and set it out for my children. Make coffee for my bride. Then I pack lunches for my children to take to school. After family time and walking the kids to school, I get to work.
When you’re having a difficult, exhausting or stressful day, how do you get through it?
[Rabbi Brian]: Usually, I make myself some promise of a reward, like doing art in my garage after the kids go to bed, going for a jog, or a gin and tonic at the end of the day.
Or, if the day has been really really bad, I will make myself a bowl filled with Oreos cover it with milk and have cookie cereal for dinner.
What has been the most challenging chapter of your career so far? Like, a big roadblock or “locked door” moment that not even the biggest bowl of Oreos could solve?
[Rabbi Brian]: Leaving organized religion was definitely a stressful time. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had been trained to be a Rabbi who works within the system, leading a conventional congregation.
Nobody ever told me that, maybe, I could become a “different” kind of Rabbi, that I could create an online community, do podcasts, or lead courses for people all religious backgrounds, from Atheists to Mormons to Muslims. There was no “rulebook” for doing the type of work I am doing right now. I had to figure it out on my own.
I did have some wonderful cheerleaders encouraging me as I found my way forward, but I still felt very confused and very lost for a long time.
How did you get through that difficult time of transition?
[Rabbi Brian]: Patience. Lots of patience. And lots of leaning on loved ones around me. Sometimes, needing them to bolster me up more then I would like to admit.
At a very low time, I asked everyone I could think of contacting to write a list of what they liked about me. I still have their notes.
Also, this quote by Rainer Maria Rilke. It helped a lot.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Do you ever fantasize about having a totally different career? What would you do, in your fantasy-world?
[Rabbi Brian]: I am doing it. This is my fantasy world.
Who are your personal heroes and role models?
[Rabbi Brian]: Gordon MacKenzie. He’s an author of one book: Orbiting the Giant Hairball. I would have liked to have met him. I admire him for figuring out how to live both within and outside of the constraints of our society.
I also admire: Hafiz, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Father Anthony DeMello, and Marcus Borg.
Last but not least: what’s your biggest piece of advice for anyone who wants to do amazing work in the world, stay motivated, and unlock major doors?
[Rabbi Brian]: If you feel stuck or unmotivated, volunteer. Give your skills. Help someone.
Volunteering can lift you out of the “poor me” mindset.
Also: you can try what I did and ask all of your friends and family to write down what they like about you. Read those notes often so you don’t forget your wonderfulness.
Unlock Yourself
Three questions to think about, write about—or talk about with a friend.
1. Rabbi Brian began his career working as a “conventional” Rabbi, following the traditional systems he had been trained in. Then he decided to leave organized religion and pursue his own path. It was a rocky time. A huge transition.
Have you ever had a “crisis of faith” about your religion, your career path or lifestyle? What happened? How did you get through it?
2. Rabbi Brian sends out a popular e-newsletter called “Wisdom Biscuits,” where he shares his thoughts and musings on spirituality and religion.
If you were going to start a weekly newsletter—talking about anything you want—what would you want to write about, share, or teach, and why?
3. Rabbi Brian gets booked to speak at private dinner parties, discussing spirituality and leading discussion groups.
Imagine that someone wants to hire you to speak at a small gathering. You have 30 minutes to do anything you want and you will have a captive audience. What type of experience or presentation would you put together?
For more UNLOCKED interviews, click over here.
Know somebody that ought to be spotlighted? Write to me here.
See you next time for another inspiring conversation!