Emma: Luke, what will you do when Jesus returns to the earth?
YourMoralLeader: say, “I was wrong!”
Emma: But it will be too late then.
YourMoralLeader: What will you do when I show up in Belfast?
Emma: I fear for you.
YourMoralLeader: what’s new?
Emma: I want you to be saved, like I will be saved.
Emma: So we can build our house in the new earth and have 8 children.
YourMoralLeader: lol, the JWs really got to you!
YourMoralLeader: reading any books?
Emma: The Bible is the only book we need.
Emma: Have you read it?
YourMoralLeader: many many times
Emma: What do you think of it?
YourMoralLeader: how ur parents like you going JW?
YourMoralLeader: good book
Emma: Just a good book? Is that it?
Emma: They don’t mind anymore.
YourMoralLeader: what does JW do for you?
guest1: Dude, when are you doing to cut that bush under your chin?
Emma: It brings new meaning to my life.
Emma: What does judiasm do for you
YourMoralLeader: gives direction, inspiration,
Emma: Do you eat from the table of God and from the table of Satan?
guest1: Do you at least check it for insects? You don’t want to violate the Torah prohibition about insects!
Mariayomtombian: YML, have you ever come out of the closet?
guest2: Luke is a Rabbi at heart
Mariayomtombian: You’re still a closet Rabbi.
Emma: You will have to run with the wolves outside Luke.
Mariayomtombian: Damm, dude. Call yourself Rabbi. Why did you spend all those year in Yeshiva if you don’t?
RussianDragon: you look like a Guru Luke
Emma: The end is drawing near.
Mariayomtombian: He’s like a gay Guru who shows the hypocrisy of the clergy!
Rabbi: “Let’s just water down the Torah. That’s not even in my thinking. To me, the Torah is the truth and that’s it.”
“I have a joke book out… I used to work a day job in computers and I just make jokes about it. Writing books is fun but publishing books is a pain. It’s not worth it. If you knew how little money is in it, you wouldn’t do it. So I’m not going to go through that.”
“I’m suicidal, right? I don’t know if I’m going to make it the next 50 years. I don’t know if I’m going to make it the next 50 days. I may get so depressed after this interview that I’ll blow my head off tonight.”
Luke: “Can I film?”
Rabbi: “That would be too weird.”
Luke: “Maybe we can just do it on my live cam?”
Rabbi: “Nah. I think that’s going to gross me out.”
“I told my rabbi, when I go, publish it [book of essays]. After I’m dead, get this thing out there. And he said that he would do that. If I kill myself, he’ll publish it himself and put it on his website. I’ll become the frum Kurt Cobain. He’s more of an icon now. His legacy is after he killed himself. I’ll probably become more famous after I kill myself.”
Luke: “Is there anything you won’t do in your comedy?”
Rabbi: “I won’t go into my private life. I leave people out of it!”
Luke: “Do you wish you could say things but you won’t do it for whatever reason?”
Rabbi: “Depends on the room. If the people are drinking and they are a bunch of goyim, I’ll say what I want. If there happen to be Jews in there, I’ll be extra careful. I don’t perform for Jewish audiences because they can’t handle me on stage. Then I have to watch everything I say because somebody is going to get offended that a rabbi is saying these things. So I can’t say certain things. If I talk about sex, I’m going to lose the audience. If I start making a dick joke, the audience is gone. They’re going to start screaming at me. If I do the same joke in a room full of Sephardic Jews, they’ll laugh their asses off. If I do the same joke in a room full of Catholics, I’ll blow them away. The roof will fly off the top. My ultimate wet dream is to play a room full of Catholic people and I’d call that room a church.”
Luke: “Secular Ashkenazi Jews won’t care if you talk about sex.”
Rabbi: “They’re still not going to be comfortable that a rabbi is saying it. Unfortunately, they put me on a pedastal. They think a rabbi is some kind of holy guy… They expect you to be like Jesus Christ, some perfect person. A rabbi is just a teacher. It doesn’t mean anything else.”
The three girls next door had a big party last night. They didn’t invite me. The music was loud. Finally, at 1:30 a.m., I called the cops on them and soon I was able to sleep.
I’m a grumpy old man who wants to party with 20-somethings.
Anything to take the edge off.
Not my will, but Thine be done.
I’m surprised to see Dennis Prager upright. To fix sciatica, he had surgery on his back on Friday.
This will be Prager’s first lecture standing up in six months.
I had a nightmare that his surgery would go horribly wrong and he’d never walk or talk again.
“I can write stuff. Part of the reason is that you can do it and you don’t have to talk to anybody. You can do it in your room with your door locked. I was a loner, locked up in my room. It was perfect. My parents always told me to shut up whenever I was talking. I learned to communicate by writing.”
“There are very few places I can be happy in and Southern California is it.”
“No matter what I do, it always ends in failure. It always turns to s—. That is the story of my life. I would not want to get close to me because it is going to turn to s—… The bracha is never there.
“I wrote in one of my essays that if God gave me a beshert, it’s not going to last long. After six months, either she’s going to die or something will happen and it will just be taken away. And sure enough, we got engaged and the engagement ended… Something will go wrong with this interview and it will backfire on me… I’m contagious with negativity. Touch me and it’s loserville.”
Luke: “Would you rather be happy or funny?”
Rabbi: “I would rather give back the gift of being funny and not have to pay the price of tragedy for it. I would give that back in a heartbeat to have a normal life.”
“Every single frum woman, no matter how she was brought up, feels compelled to spit out more kids, so me coming along and saying I don’t want kids, there’s nobody who’s going to marry me.”
“It’s been 50 years like this. I’m staring down the barrel of another 50 years like this. I hate it.”
“Yeah, I’m funny and I’m a celebrity, but it sucks. At the end of the night, no matter how many people I make laugh, I could have 5,000 people in a room and I’m making them all laugh, but at the end of the night, they’re all going home with their date, they’re going to get laid, they’re all happy, and Rabbs, I’m going home alone. It’s the mornings that I wake up from a show like that, you’d think, that’s a great show, everybody loved you, you must be so happy, no, those are the mornings that I wake up and I’m suicidal because I realize that even making a room of 1,000 people laugh isn’t going to fix the problem. I could make the whole world laugh and it’s not going to change anything.
“At the end of the day, I’m still single. I still have to be shomer negiah and my life sucks.”
Luke: “How do you resist all those women who throw themselves at you after shows and try to tempt you into immorality?”
Rabbi: “It’s tempting but I can’t do it.
“A lot of people say, ‘You’re a chillul HaShem going on stage.’ Do you realize what a kiddush HaShem I make going on stage? Just being like this? People who’ve never seen a frumie, a real Jew, in their lives and what do they say? They see a normal guy who happens to be a rabbi. So they can say that frumies aren’t these crazy people throwing rocks. I shatter all these stereotypes. I want to get laid. Sure. But I can’t because I’m constricted by this religion.”
“I don’t perform on Friday nights and Saturday nights. Those are the big nights for comedy. If you don’t perform on Friday night and Saturday nights, you can’t make a living at comedy because those are the only nights that pay. I only eat kosher food… I don’t even touch women. After the show, chicks are coming up to me. Rabbs won’t touch them. Rabbs won’t kiss them. Rabbs won’t have anything to do with them. I think it’s a kiddush HaShem.
“I’m not going to mention any names, but there’s another frumie-looking Jew out there who’s not shomer negiah publicly. After he gets done with his concerts, he gets photographed publicly putting his arms around women. I don’t do that so I have a problem with that. What’s he getting all this notoriety for and what happened to Rabbi Rabbs who’s actually not doing that?”
“Do you have any idea of how many women hit on me on a daily basis? Unbelievable. A new chick hits on me every single day.”
Luke: “You could’ve been the Jewish Wilt Chamberlain?”
Rabbi: “I could’ve if I took advantage of it.”
“If it was not for the Torah, I’d probably bang all of them. I’d go on tour. A lot of them are married. Kinda depressing.”
“I didn’t always dress this way. In the Modern Orthodox world, I used to go to YULA, going to college and becoming a lawyer or a doctor is normal. If I had said I wanted to be a rabbi, that would be more eye-bugging.”
“I’ve always been suicidal. Ever since I was 18. That frames a lot of my thinking. I’m a very black and white thinker. I said to myself, if I’m going to stay alive, there has to be truth behind why I am alive. I needed a reason to stay alive otherwise I was going to kill myself.”
“If the Torah is true, then I am going to do everything in it… I’m an extremist. Tell me what the mitzvah is and I’m going to do it.”
“Every Jew who knows the Torah is true should end up looking like me. Why not dress Jewish?”
Luke: “Are non-Jews more respectful of your Judaism than Orthodox Jews are of your comedy?”
Rabbi: “Non-Jews are more respectful of my Judaism and of my comedy than frumies are of my Judaism and my comedy. My followers are not frumies. Frumies do not get Rabbi Rabbs. Frumies are embarrassed by Rabbi Rabbs. They hate me. Jews generally don’t get me, especially white-skinned Ashkenazi Jew raised in a non-Catholic country… They wish I would go away.
“The people who get me are Sephardi Jews. Non-Jews have no problem with me, especially Catholics. If there’s some Catholic in your blood, you get Rabbi Rabbs. Greek Orthodox. African-Americans. Gays. Australians. All love me. Especially misfits. They’re really attach to me. Rabbi Rabbs embraces all misfits.”
“I started dating my fiance when I was 44 and she was 18. To me, age is just a number. For the last ten years, most of the women who I’ve communicated with, gone out with, were all under 25, and most of them were under 22.”
Luke: “What do your friends have in common?”
Rabbi: “They’re all Catholics.”
“Normal people hate me.”
6 p.m. We walk towards Pico Blvd and head west. He’s lived in this hood since 1987. “No other place has so many kosher restaurants in one place,” he says. “People get along better here than anywhere else I’ve ever been. The other side of town [Fairfax/La Brea] is more icky, sticky, stuffy.
“I go surfing. I put my surfboard on my car and I’m off. Nobody cares. I’m not sure I could get away with that on the other side of town. I’d get a speech from some yenta. ‘What are you doing? Rabbis don’t go surfing.’
“In New York, I don’t know what people would say about me. Ashkenazi Jews can’t handle people who are different.”
Luke: “This is a tolerant Orthodox community.”
Rabbi: “Oh yeah. Pico-Robertson is a magnet for misfits so naturally they don’t have a problem with me. They couldn’t stand the poison and the venom of New York and New Jersey… They tend to be more laid back and open-minded and understanding of people who are different. Plus, there are a lot of Sephardim and Persians and they don’t give a crap.”
“The older I get, the more young chicks dig me.”
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone would want to be Jewish. But you can’t talk to these people. They feel that Torah is truth, they were born with a Jewish soul.”
“If I woke up one day and somebody told me, ‘Rabbs, we discovered that your grandmother is not a Jew.’ I’d say, ‘Thank God, I’m out.’ I don’t want to be part of this. I hate this. Non-Jews think it is the greatest thing ever. They all want to be Jewish. I don’t understand it.”
“I get the BT (baal teshuva) thing. I’m born Jewish, I’m stuck. I better do what I am supposed to do.”
The national Jewish Federation victims of Elliot Karp are now being head from. With our Las Vegas Jewish Federation video interviews finished, Las Vegas Justice Bureau host Ron Futrell and I will be heading to Cincinnati to record what looks like might be as many as six victims of abuse at the hands of Elliot Karp while he worked for that organization.
Obviously, we are interested in getting the stories of these abuse victims. As importantly, we are interested in why the National Jewish Federation condones the passing around of such people as Elliot Karp. We have testimony that the Board of Directors of the Las Vegas Jewish Federation had knowledge of Karp’s previous abuse, but were assured by Vicki Agron, the consultant with ties to the National Jewish Federation in New York, that he had been ‘cured’.
We’ve also been able to penetrate the shield of silence in Rockland County, where Elliot Karp served as interim Director a while back, to get victims willing to be interviewed on camera.
As you know, we have been national TV program syndicators since 1961. We are in the process of finalizing arrangements with a national cable network to air this show as well as on broadcast TV stations in Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Columbus, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. We will announce these stations via Luke Ford.Net.
Rabbi Rabbs: “I don’t want kids. I’d be a terrible parent just like my parents.”
“I am strongly against child abuse. That’s my big ticket item… I see myself as a leader in standing up against child abuse.
“Why do I say I’m a leader? Because nobody in the frum community has taken a position on it. The concept of standing up against the cycle of abuse in the frum community does not exist outside of Rabbi Rabbs… The average frumie walking on the street doesn’t even know what the cycle of abuse is. They don’t know the difference between an abuse cycle and a motorcycle.”
“It’s amazing to me how many centuries behind in thinking the average frumie is compared to me.”
“There are some frumies who have no problem with me. And you know what they’re called? They’re called the gadolim. Big rabbis have no problem with what I’m saying.”
Luke: “When you say you were abused, what do you mean?”
Rabbi: “I mean I grew up emotionally and verbally abused. And neglect… There was some physical but I’m not complaining about that… Nothing sexual, so don’t get any weird ideas. We were cussed at and called every name in the book every day.”
“Probably the rabbis that I have been closest to have been substitute father figures.”
Luke: “Did anyone in your community give a damn?”
Rabbi: “Nobody has ever given a damn.”
“Three years ago, I got engaged. She also grew up abused… She resolved that she would not continue the cycle of abuse. She was the only frumie on the planet who agreed with me. It was obvious to me that she was my other half. We resolved never to have kids. We went around looking for a rabbi to do the wedding. We could not get anybody to get on board with us. Every rabbi said, ‘I don’t know if I can do a wedding where there’s not going to be any kids. That goes against Judaism.’
“I said, ‘We have a heter from a major rav‘. It doesn’t matter. They can’t handle it.”
Rabbi: “I’ve realized that no matter how funny I am, it doesn’t solve the problem. The other part that’s depressing is that I can’t take it to the next level. That’s because I can’t get my own TV show. And that’s because Jews run Hollywood. What kind of Jews? Ashkenazi Jews from America. They run Hollywood. They don’t get me. They’re embarrassed by me. And they will never let me have my own show.
“I can’t make a ton of money from comedy. If Catholics ran Hollywood, I’d have my own TV show. They wouldn’t give shows to [people like] Conan O’Brian. They’d give it to me because they love me because they think I’m funny. But they don’t because they don’t have power. There’s too many Jews in decision-making positions in Hollywood who have stymied my career. They’ve cut my legs out from under me. I’m blackballed because there are Jews at every network. They’re never going to give me a show.
“That’s depressing. But at least I’ve found it. I had to find out what would happen if I got into comedy. Now I know. Nothing will come from it. I won’t get a career from it unless someone can come up with a way.”
“Most people who are in my life met me through MySpace.”
Luke: “What things in common have all the women you’ve ever loved had?”
Rabbi: “I’m going to get into trouble now. They’re all misfits.”
“I tend to attract women who are into the Grateful Dead. They’re hippie chicks. They tend to be into extreme age differences. They’ll tell me that they don’t wear underwear.”
Luke: “A lot of women say that to rabbis.”
Rabbi: “I’ll hear that they’ve had lesbian experiences or want to have lesbian experiences. These are the kind of women who are attracted to me. I call them the Grateful Dead chicks, they love Rabbs, I’m a magnet for them, but they won’t go the distance. They will not marry me. They like me but they will never commit to marrying me. So they’re useless. Why would I want to waste my time with them?
“One of the things I used to do was weed them out. If a woman came on to me, I’d ask, what kind of music do you like? If she said the Grateful Dead, I said that’s not good.
“When I met my fiance, early on, I asked her, ‘Do you like the Grateful Dead?’ She said no. Thank God. That’s why I thought we were going to go the distance. But it wasn’t meant to be. Her mom killed the whole thing.”
Luke: “How can that be? Why doesn’t everyone love Rabbi Rabbs?”
I wonder if she will face any consequences for the appalling things she wrote. I expect her congregation of Ikar is far more leftist than Jewish and so they really don’t give a damn about Israel and don’t mind having a rabbi who doesn’t care either.
If you go to Ikar and you care more about Judaism, Jews and the survival of the Jewish state than you do about left-wing politics, then you must leave your temple. You have no choice. How can you keep giving money to support a rabbi with such views?
Dennis Prager was appalled by what Rabbi Brous wrote. He mentioned it on his radio show Wednesday as an example of how leftism has permeated Jewish life to the extent that leftist values become more important to most American Jews than the survival of the Jewish state.
