Faith, Wrestling, and Community with Rabbi Jeremy Fine

Aaron Masliansky (00:00)
Welcome to the Chicagoland Guide and I'm your host, Aaron Masliansky. Today, this guest needs no introduction, at least to me, because I know him pretty well. Rabbi Jeremy Fine. He is the rabbi of congregation, B'nai Tikva in Deerfield, and also the founder of Second Wrestling and a dear, friend of mine. And I've been trying to get him onto one of my various podcasts over the years, and I finally pinned him down. I'm so excited to speak with you, Jeremy.

Rabbi Fine (00:27)
Pinning down is a term, a wrestling term, which we have not got into. Let's just say my wrestling career is undefeated and you have no chance of pinning me down, but I'm very excited to be here. So thank you. I am a long time listener and follower and I've seen all the iterations of this and probably heard about them before you did them. So I'm excited to do this and there's a reason for me being here. So, which is always important for podcasts.

Aaron Masliansky (00:35)
you

True.

Yeah, there's, it's always important to have reasons for having a guest, but definitely we're going to get to that. You've got some events going on, you know, in your congregational life and in your wrestling life. And, one of which is going to be an Evanston, which is close by to me. but you're definitely a unique character. for those who don't know you, you know, you're, are a rabbi and a wrestling promoter. It's not a joke. tell a lot of people who I meet about you.

And, you know, it's, totally different. So, you know, how, how did you get to this, you know, to this place in your life to be this rabbi and wrestling promoter?

Rabbi Fine (01:28)
So, yeah, so just put things in perspective. I am a rabbi about 99 % of my time, maybe 99.9 repeating percent. And I happen to do this wrestling on the side. I'll get into how, I just in general think it's important for clergy to have interests and to that outside of religion. And for a multitude of reasons,

Aaron Masliansky (01:34)
Mm-hmm.

Rabbi Fine (01:52)
But maybe the most important is the outlet for their own lives, emotional, spiritual, just mental health. And mine happens to be wrestling, but it wasn't always planned that way. the story is that the summer I was getting married, I started a Jewish sports blog.

but it still exists. called thegreatrabino.com. It's the longest running Jewish sports blog. We post once or twice a week. We have a decent following and I got to do some really cool things with that. I covered the Super Bowl. I got to cover the Final Four. was on the floor as confetti was coming down. One of the coolest moments of my life for sure. NBA, WNBA. I also serve as one of the rabbi, the rabbi for team Israel baseball. I'm very involved with them.

got to cover their spring training before the Olympics. So I got to do a lot of things with that, met thousands of athletes over my life. one day my wife took me to see a professional wrestler from Deerfield, name's Colt Cabana. He's become a good friend of mine. And I had never seen him wrestle professionally. So my wife, as like a surprise, which was unbeknownst to her, would lead down this rabbit hole.

Aaron Masliansky (02:42)
you

Okay.

Rabbi Fine (02:59)
of a crazy life. I went to this show, this like independent show and I don't want to say small, it wasn't small, it's a large independent show and I fell in love. I was never a big concert goer. Actually, you were at like my first, we went to my first concert together. think Blues Traveler was the first time I saw it. Yeah. But so I never had that like thing, right? I never had a club outside of like

Aaron Masliansky (03:03)
you

that was a lot of fun.

Rabbi Fine (03:23)
my Jewish life outside of maybe sports. Like I had teams or intramurals and things like that, but nothing like that. And I was just telling some congregants about this when I went home to Minnesota, I was thinking like, I'll go to one or two shows when I'm able to, you know, a year locally in Minnesota. And they wanted to run a wrestling show in the synagogue. This was when I was living in Minnesota. And my first response was, I've done some pretty out there stuff, but

Aaron Masliansky (03:49)
Yeah.

Rabbi Fine (03:49)
This

was beyond, right? By our second show, in a blizzard on a Wednesday night in Minnesota, we sold over 400 tickets, sold out, made $5,000 for the synagogue. And I just sat on this as like, how could we ignore the desires of people, the connection? can't tell you how many religious people came into the synagogue, know, who left religion, came back into the synagogue, how the energy in the room.

The Excitement worked with this wonderful company called First Wrestling. They're the largest company in Minnesota. We are still very close with the promoter today. I spoke with him five minutes ago. And so we ran a handful of shows in Minnesota at the synagogue. And then when I was leaving to come home, mostly to be near you, Aaron, although my parents think it was for them, I just didn't want to lose the locker room.

Aaron Masliansky (04:15)
Yeah.

Rabbi Fine (04:41)
camaraderie and you know, you and I played sports together most of our lives. One of the reasons we play is to spend time with other guys, other people. We, we, right. It's a shared community. And as, as we joke about it, my body's not able to withstand, quite the athletics I did when I was younger, but I really missed the camaraderie. And so I pitched this to, first wrestling promoter Eric Cannon.

Aaron Masliansky (04:50)
Right, it's fun!

Rabbi Fine (05:06)
Colt Cabana back who I referenced earlier and I talked about doing one to two shows a year and they thought it was a great idea. We're in middle of our year four and half and we've done over 40 shows. We'll do another five or seven this summer and it's just taking off. We have a fan base. We have some big things coming up. We've done a show, WrestleMania week.

We've traveled to Wisconsin, LA twice, Orlando. We have New Orleans coming up next year, potentially Detroit this summer, Wisconsin. We've done a little stuff, I missed, I'm sorry, a little stuff in Minnesota. So we are fully like involved in the independent wrestling scene. And I do this mostly from my phone. Yeah, it does not take a lot of my time and it rarely, if ever, takes me away.

Aaron Masliansky (05:46)
Right.

Rabbi Fine (05:51)
for my family or my full time.

Aaron Masliansky (05:53)
Well, you're coming for the WWE.

Rabbi Fine (05:55)
No, but you know,

that's the cool thing. Like I get to work. I've advised that I've worked with the WWE. I've worked with TNA wrestling. And so these types of things are really things I never thought I'd be able to do, but I've gotten to do them.

Aaron Masliansky (06:09)
You know, it's interesting though, so we've known each other since high school. We went to high school together and we went to college together. So really through those formative years. And you have always been involved in different types of leadership and you're always involved in Judaism. You wrote your own script for a wrestling league when we were in high school and you'd put in the different, you give character names to all of our classmates and all of our friends and everything.

I mean, it's really like you had this vision and people talk about having a vision and how it can come to life. And I think like your major was in communications in college, right? that was being a rabbi and doing these types of things, they really do come together. So people may look at it from the outside and be like, how does this all work? But I could see it playing out for years. I mean, too long at this point.

Rabbi Fine (06:57)
Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. Like none of these things I do, cause it's like just off the wall crazy. do it, it's a natural progression. And you know, I've been very, very lucky in wrestling to have a mentor like Eric Cannon. consider myself one of the luckiest people in wrestling to have someone like that in my corner and that I can pitch ideas to and helps me as I think the best promoter in the world. And

In my religious life for sure. I believe one of my goals in rabbinical school is to learn from every rabbi and find the ones who are going to help me be better. So a lot of it is mentorship and listening. But yeah, the wrestling world and the religious world and the things I'm learning, I'm absolutely applying to my work life. So I'm running my own small business. That makes me better at

listening to financial things that are going on at the synagogue. I'm booking talent and venues. That gives me an understanding of where people are spending their money and how people get excited and listening to crowds, right? So now I'm speaking how to speak to my, when I speak to, you know, I was in one match. That's it. I'll be in one. I don't mean I have some silly stuff, but like, I don't really want to wrestle again, but.

Aaron Masliansky (08:01)
Yeah.

You

Rabbi Fine (08:12)
I got out uninjured. I'm happy. But one of the amazing things about that preparation is that I cut a promo, which is what, you know, like a wrestling jargon for like, I'm going to say something mean about you or challenge you, right? To a video. And the photographer, the videographer said to bunch of us like, why is the rabbi better at this than most of the wrestlers? But the truth is, it's because I speak for a living.

Aaron Masliansky (08:37)
Right.

Rabbi Fine (08:38)
I was, understand when, my voice should go up and come down and, and, what's a threat and what's excitement and what's preaching and what's so, they really overlap. is absolutely made me a better rabbi. I really don't know what I would do with at this point without wrestling. I find, you know, me, I'd find another outlet, but I don't really want one. it's, it's a, it's a very scary business, but I think the biggest thing that I, for my mentors.

that I learned about being a rabbi is how to stay calm, both with what goes on in the world, whether that be like, you may have known there was a pandemic a few years ago, you heard about that. you're right. ⁓ But also like, right, life cycle events, right? So like, you know, you can do a baby naming and a funeral on the same day, and you have to have a different cadence and

Aaron Masliansky (09:13)
Yeah, yeah, heard about it. I'm still in my basement. It's nice to have a basement, by the way.

Rabbi Fine (09:29)
response and you have to be emotionally available. And so that has helped me very much. The wrestling world, I mean, I've had seven wrestlers in one show drop out the day of. You have to rewrite the whole show and you have to, a whole new script and you have to do that within minutes. And the key is to stay, do you stay calm and make the best decision in the heat of the moment. And so my religious life and my, you know, fun life, for lack of better term, coincide all the time.

and they teach me how to be better at both.

Aaron Masliansky (09:57)
know, one thing that people look at is like religion or, you know, cultural connection has really changed over the years, especially during COVID and everything else, cultural life, community. yesterday they named a new pope, which obviously isn't Jewish, but they named a new pope. He's from Chicago. Everyone's trying to tie it, whether or not he's a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan.

It's funny to see it's nice for Chicago to be right here in the middle of it. But you try to tie things into community. when you do this, you're trying to figure out also how to bring people where they are, how to find people. Because a lot of times it's just been so old fashioned. So besides wrestling, how do you go about trying to find where people are, how to meet them, how to help people find connection?

Rabbi Fine (10:43)
Yeah, I think the first piece is authenticity. Don't do things that you as a religious leader or a community leader aren't authentic about. And also surround yourself with great people. Those are two big things. And surround yourself with people who know different things. So, you know, if you're in a company and your strength is sales, but your strength isn't necessarily

marketing, find someone who is good and work with them. The other piece is to always go out and watch how people are behaving and remove yourself from that equation. So like one of the things I tend to do almost every year is I'll go to a like comic book, like a comic con. Now I love the Avengers. not like, and I have some experience in the comic book world, which we can talk about if you want, but

Not to the extent of some of these people, but I go and I watch what the trends are. What are the new toys? What are 50 people coming to do that's interesting? I'm always watching what our kids are like, my kids are doing, but also like the community's kids are like interested in. like, I give this example. My kids didn't really, my little one does, but they sort of grew up

a little before Bluey, right? The cartoon character, right? Right, because our kids are just, we were into other things, right? Now Bluey's the big, so I would, of course I wouldn't know that, but then I watch all these kids come to like, watch them on Halloween or in forum or things like that, and they're wearing Bluey costumes. So that, I was like, who is that? Right? I'm listening, I'm watching my daughters, or I'm listening to my daughters, what music they're listening to.

Aaron Masliansky (11:59)
I don't even know, Bluey.

Right.

Rabbi Fine (12:22)
I listen to that music. trying to stay forward thinking, but I'm also a big traditionalist. mean, that's the heat or the excitement or maybe even the tension that people feel with me as a leader is that I am a traditionalist. I would choose to do things for myself one day when I get to go to actually go to pray for myself.

I probably wouldn't necessarily choose necessarily the community that I'm leading. Although this community I probably would, I'm honest, I probably belong to multiple ones. But, because they give me different things. But there's a, but there's a, has to be an understanding that we still have to progress. So the tension is people see the wrestling or they see the big programs they're doing and they may say, he must be super progressive in everything he does. That's not true.

My belief is that religion hasn't really changed or shouldn't really be changed. The presentation of religion has to change how we talk about it. So one of the big messages, the two big messages I've used with the Synaegics since I've arrived was one, disco died. You may like disco, but it died. And if you try to play disco for the kids, they ain't showing up. And I know that because we're playing disco religiously, most Synaegics are, and the kids aren't showing up.

Aaron Masliansky (13:27)
Mm-hmm.

Rabbi Fine (13:36)
the parents and the kids don't wanna be there for them. The second is, like Disco diet, or the other is to not build a religion out of fear, build a religion out of joy. And those are my two big messages that if we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing, we should expect the same results, you know, that being Disco. And if we build this out of fear, like you can expect the same results that we have felt over the last four years. And that's not just for Jews, that's for Christians and...

Aaron Masliansky (13:38)
you

Right.

Rabbi Fine (14:04)
Muslims as well or any

Aaron Masliansky (14:05)
Right. mean, it definitely can be, and you've seen numbers drop, but give us some examples of some of the different types of programs that you've done to bring people in of all ages. And, you know, I would even bring it back to what you did in Minnesota, the different types of people that you brought in.

Rabbi Fine (14:21)
Yeah, Minnesota, first, I would say, what I was most well known was for Kosher Fest, which is a kosher food convention of like 35 vendors in a place like Minnesota. They don't really get that. And so it was a real big extravaganza every single year we did it. And Nanju showed up too, because foodies are foodies and food culture, like we're watching the other Food Network. Like food is a massive thing. It's not, it's like, what is it?

an Anchorman when they make, no one's going to watch sports all day long, right? Like, yeah. So that was us. We did some autograph signings. We did a big celebrity fundraiser. That's the only program I've really taken with me here. We did a massive block party. were involved with all the local businesses and food trucks and fun trucks. It was a lot of fun. Here we do something called Hanukkah, which is Hanukkah meets Comic Con. We bring in some

Aaron Masliansky (14:51)
Yeah, ESPN.

Rabbi Fine (15:12)
celebrities, minor celebrities, decent celebrities, sports figures. We've had Eddie Curry from the Bulls. We've had Aaron Schwartz who was in The Mighty Ducks. We've had Eve Loseth who was in a couple episodes saved by the bell. We bring in authors and then social media guys. So, you know, that's

Aaron Masliansky (15:29)
Yeah,

you had a challah bake off, which was delicious.

Rabbi Fine (15:32)
Yeah, we had a halabake, great.

Do things where people like the kids get so amped up about this that the parents are excited and the grandparents are excited. So we have some other things coming, you know, I think that could be bigger. You know, I think one of the things we face here is that, or the difference between Minnesota and Chicago is that Minnesota, because it's a smaller Jewish community, is always looking to do more Jewish, more religious stuff. And it doesn't even mean prayer. It just means connection to their people.

And that's not just for the Jewish community. That can be for the Lutheran community. It can be for anyone. It just feels smaller. And in Chicago, it doesn't necessarily the same thing. It's oversaturated with Jewish film and Jewish music and da-da-da-da. So it's harder for us to say why we should be doing it, why we as a synagogue should be doing it, when it's offered down the street by the actual club who's doing it.

Aaron Masliansky (16:23)
Right. Yeah. It's just, there's so many, there's such a force multiplier here in Chicago. You have so many more things here. But I mean, I just have to mention like you, you got to interview some pretty amazing people, which I thought has just been so cool. mean, Mel Brooks, you got to interview and you had a podcast where you actually got to be friends with Bob Saget before he passed away. ⁓

Rabbi Fine (16:44)
Yeah.

Aaron Masliansky (16:45)
Tell us a little

bit about that. mean, it's like, it was like a dream of yours to get to meet this guy. And then it turns out you become friends with him and, you know, right at that time in his life.

Rabbi Fine (16:54)
Yeah, Mel Brooks, Aaron Sorkin is another real big one. Rachel Brassenhan, who's actually from Chicago. And here we've had some wonderful talent too. Obviously Bob Saget for me was the most, I would say, fulfilling. Bob was as advertised and the reason his death still lingers today and people still think about him is because he touched so many people.

And I will tell you from the moment I met him, I felt like we were gonna be friends. Sadly, he had invited me to something very special to him that unfortunately he passed away before I was able to meet with him. The last time we talked was actually after Norm MacDonald passed away and they were dear friends. But I got to spend three or four different sessions with him. We joked about how...

We were on a cycle of seeing each other every two weeks. And I said, he goes, said to him, Bob, I miss you. goes, I miss you so much. But it was a feeling of just, he made everyone in the room feel like his master. He just, he was his ever, he was just a special human being. The world deeply misses people like that. It's sad that I only got to spend some time with him. I got to the.

Aaron Masliansky (17:46)
you

Rabbi Fine (18:03)
get to know Richie Lewis and his family a little bit. So yeah, I've gotten to rub elbows. know, sometimes they say to you, you know, there's that, it's definitely a wrestling term, they say don't meet your heroes. There's certainly, you know, celebrities that I met that I would say, like I, whatever. But there's also some who are like super special. Brooks is a super special human being. Richie Lewis was a special human being.

Aaron Masliansky (18:18)
Yeah.

Rabbi Fine (18:27)
Bob Saget was the most special human being. know, was also Aaron Sorkin was the second he arrived in Judaism, we say a match, but just a wonderful person. And I know he, he's not in the limelight a lot, but one of the smartest people just are so articulate and, and, and interesting. I the guy's first contribution to the film world was a few good men.

My first contribution

Aaron Masliansky (18:54)
Yes.

Rabbi Fine (18:54)
to anything was like scoring six points in a basketball game. Yes, exactly. was something I did in high school. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Masliansky (18:58)
Yeah, hitting the floor.

You sure did.

I mean, it's just, it's funny. know, there was once a rabbi who said anything can happen, right? That was you. And it really did. nice. Starbucks. no. Yeah, right. But it's so cool. mean, you.

Rabbi Fine (19:10)
That was me. I said that all the time. You like my product? It's my product placement. Yeah.

They need to end their struggling.

Aaron Masliansky (19:23)
you put this stuff out there, like nobody would ever think, why is the rabbi speaking to these people or like having these fun events? And it's just like, it's breaking the mold. And I think that that's what's, kind of just have to think like that. And then anything really is possible. Like, and it's not just, you know, any like meeting these cool celebrities, but it's, bringing people in, it's growing these different types of things. It's having a wrestling organization.

As your side project where I joke with you it's like every week it's not but it feels like that sometimes.

Rabbi Fine (19:56)
Well, you know, got to be whatever you're doing. If you're passionate about it, you can make it work. You also have to be realistic. I think people confuse that. Like if I'm passionate about it, it's going to work. No, you have to be realistic. Right. So like I wasn't like, I'm quitting being a rabbi and I'm going all in on this just randomly one day. I actually was talking to someone today about this device. Like you really have to go through the scenarios. So when I started this,

Again, it was supposed to be like one to two shows a year, even if it lost money. Okay, like I'm doing it as a hobby. imagine like what your hobby is biking. So you have to spend money on a bike every year. You maybe get your tires fixed, then you get your gears fixed, then you buy a new water bottle. I think there's up costs, right? Not a lot. So was like, okay, well, if this is my hobby and I lose a little money. Same thing with the blog and the podcast, but they all...

Aaron Masliansky (20:38)
Right.

Rabbi Fine (20:45)
helped me. in Minnesota, I stopped my podcast, Bob Saget was the last person I interviewed and it was hard for me to, I didn't understand like, well, if Bob was like one of my top five guests I would ever have, how do I get, like, what am I calling Michael Jordan? Like, how do I, you know, like I didn't know how to get, go from there. And so I stopped it and I've thought about bringing it back in different, very iterations, but you know, I think it always,

helped and this is something I learned in Minnesota, always helped bring it back to me being a better round. I was having interesting conversations with people. My congregants wanted to hear that. It allowed me to meet new people. know, breweries or food locally or, you know, I got to meet this guy, Dan Juergens, who's an amazing, you know, a very famous and amazing comic book writer. Okay. And Dan and I have become friends. And then I got to consult on a Batman comic.

which was like the coolest thing ever. I told him I would do it as long as I could be called myself the rabbinic advisor to Gotham City, which he agreed. And so, but that relationship happens and then, Dan, come, you want to speak at the synagogue or, know, and so things are organically by making connections, both to venues and to people and to products and to interests and to organizations.

Aaron Masliansky (21:42)
You

Rabbi Fine (21:58)
it benefits the global community. I don't see, I see wrestling actually as a booster to what I do as a rabbi. I do not see it as a deterrent. In a lot of communities, that's hard to explain to them, but if your rabbi doesn't have passions and spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week doing rabbinic work or your pastor, right? I have a close pastor friend now who, him and I talk about this stuff all the time. You're gonna lose that.

You're going to burn them out or they're going to be unhappy or they're going to be acting and fake. And they're not going to be able to relate to the people. So it may not happen the first 10 years, but it will drag them down. You have to support religious leaders, support your teachers and your doctors and those taking the brunt of helping other people. They need outlets. And if you don't allow them to have it, they'll burn. And I just know it because I'm watching it.

Aaron Masliansky (22:23)
Right. You're gonna burn out.

Rabbi Fine (22:49)
I wrote about this a little bit a while ago that traditional rabbis are leaving the pulpit. I wrote about this before it was a crisis in America that there weren't clergy. And people are like, oh no, that and I'm like, I don't need a Pew research study to tell me this. I'm watching the most talented people leave. There's a reason they're leaving.

Aaron Masliansky (23:01)
Just wait.

Yeah.

Well, there's quite a bit of emotional heartache that you have to deal with. mean, it's as, especially as a rabbi with COVID and dealing with separation and how do you get pre bring people together and on and on. And then of course we had October 7th and everything with the aftermath of that time period and such a rise in anti-Semitism. So how do you, as a rabbi,

deal with that while still keeping positivity and fun within the religion, the culture, when there's been so much heartache around it.

Rabbi Fine (23:41)
Yeah, in many ways, COVID and October 7th were similar in the sense that they changed what I do completely. lot of rabbis are still struggling with that. It's not what we signed up for. We didn't sign up for America to be divided about something we think is so simple. And we certainly didn't expect to do Judaism online.

so soon maybe we expected that like you know in 2040 but but not not in 2020 you know 2020 and so you have to be adaptive you have to be flexible you have to be very calm I mean that's where the wrestling comes in like teaching me that. It's heavy I can't tell you it feels good sometimes you have to suppress sometimes you have to act you have to always be reading.

have to work at a faster pace. You have to let some things go. Just tell yourself and to your community that they don't matter. Like we have much bigger things to do right now. It's some of it something.

Aaron Masliansky (24:43)
Well, not

even that they don't matter. It's just that there's, you have to prioritize. Right.

Rabbi Fine (24:46)
They don't matter in comparison, right? We

don't need to the wall. Like, yes, maybe painting the synagogue is really important right now, but it's not more important than having this incredible event with a speaker that our community needs to hear, right? So can we delay the, know, just giving a random example, but there's, it hasn't been easy. I don't think it's been easy on any religious leaders since 2020, not just Jews. I think.

I don't know how this gets solved. I'm hopeful for Ronald Reagan type or Bill Clinton type, someone who can speak to the whole country. That's not a knock on our current or past president. I just think America is not fully listening and social media hurts that. we as humanity have to figure out how we deal.

with hate, how we deal with sharing information, how we deal with, most importantly, the truth, and also respecting people's differences of opinion as long as it's not that other people should be

Aaron Masliansky (25:47)
Right. think that it's okay for definitely it's okay for people to have differences of opinion, but we should respect each other and move on and not not harm, no violence. I agree. And, know, it's just something that I find interesting. You mentioned social media and we talked about this offline, but I posted something about a previous podcast where we were talking about tariffs and what's going on in real estate. I, I, I, I boosted the post on Facebook.

Yeah, just want to try to get more followers and whatnot. And the amount of hate comments on the post, which I don't even know were from actual human beings, blew my mind. I'm like, really? Like, and none of it even made sense. It was just political back and forth. And I'm like, it doesn't really have anything to do with, I mean, it somewhat does, but it didn't seem real. And that's like,

of what we're dealing with and these algorithms are just inciting people.

Rabbi Fine (26:41)
Yeah, so first of all, I have sort of a general rule that I don't talk about anything I don't know about. I listen. And so, for example, if you ask me what my favorite ice cream flavor is, we can have a conversation about, I like mint chocolate chip and I like cookie dough and we can have our opinion. But if you're asking me about, I'll give you an example. Obviously India and Pakistan are now at war or have started a war. I don't know exactly what they're labeling it, but I'm not.

an expert on that. I've read a little bit because of recently, I mean before this happened I didn't read. So I am not going to make a statement, I'm not going to sign a piece of paper, I am not going to infuse my opinion on what's going on there when I know almost nothing about this. And we live in a world because you can read a headline and think you're an expert that you feel you have to chime in. I mean

I mean this seriously and we've talked about this, how many people are actually experts on tariffs? I have met one person who articulately shared with me because they work in like import export and some of this stuff about the tariffs and what they could do from his perspective. And I listened because everyone else is just like, he did this, it's bad. He did that, it's good. That's not true. Not everything you've done in your life is great.

Everything I've done in life is great. Certainly no president has been perfect or we would just figure out a way to keep them, right? So, I mean, even those who we really look to like Clinton and Reagan had really, you know, complicated people hated them too, or they messed up. We lived through Clinton messing up, right? And things like that. you know, we...

we have to go back to a place where we listen more and don't have to enforce our will about topics we know nothing of just because we think the person's bad or good. you know, we joke a lot about, I listen to Bill Maher religiously, not because of just Bill Maher being what I feel is a centrist, although he'll tell you he's a liberal. I listen to him because he has both sides on. And how great is it that we can have conversations

or people are willing to have conversations with him across the aisle, not just political, religious, whatever. And he's been a beacon of hope. We talked Sam Harris, another person, Weiss, these people willing to talk to sometimes controversial people, but also the doors open to Republicans and Democrats, and people are willing to have those conversations there.

Aaron Masliansky (28:58)
All

Yeah, we have to step outside of our silos. you know, it used to be before you had social media and everything, people were watching the same TV shows. People were doing the same types of things where we had more of a civic identity. And now it's, it's very, very bifurcated. And I think one of the things that I love that you do is that you try to bring all people together for different things. So it could be, you know, at, at the synagogue where you're doing an event where you have people from all.

like what you did with the food trucks or you do different types of things. You have people all coming in and who are interested in it, who may not be into things religiously, but they want to be doing something Jewishly. Or if they are more into it, know, ritually, then they have that too. And then with the wrestling, that's a whole nother gamut to people. And then you even do things that are more kid-friendly, where it's all ages shows and things like that. So it's not...

It's not just for one, it's for many. it's really cool to be able to bring people together in a time that we're in right now.

Rabbi Fine (30:09)
So one of the biggest other, you there's a lots of things we haven't run down the road with wrestling, but there is a, there's something special that happens in our locker room, I think by a rabbi being in wrestling. First of all, certainly there's not a ton, but those Jewish wrestlers know they have a place to go and a safe person to talk to. And that could be having an antisemitic incident in locker room to just like,

wanting to wish a Rabbi Shana Tova, which means Happy New Year. And non-Jews have a place to go and learn about Judaism. We did a show very early on at the Jewish Community Center at the JCC, and I think maybe there was one or two Jews on the show, don't recall the whole list of wrestlers, but they see a mezuzah on the side and they said, Rabbi, what is this? So I talked this whole room about

of non-Jews about like walking in and wanting this to be a home and peace and what's in there and being mindful about not being the center of the universe. It was a really powerful moment for me. So that's important. The other thing is like, think social media, think, know, as we talked about this, I don't know what the next generations are gonna do. They may not want social media as much. Like, of course they're going to want...

But think about us, we were on Facebook first and we were on it because it was the cool thing to do and because it connected you with, and then our parents got ahold of it. They use Facebook totally different than we do. They, you know, they, they make mistakes that you and I just sit there like, why are they doing that? Right. Or posting their political opinions or, sharing things that they thought, it was a direct message. They just don't get it. Well, okay. We're going to be that generation eventually. And then are the other people's like, they might just.

You know, Facebook may not, maybe Facebook survives or there's one. I've already gotten rid of TikTok. I've already gotten rid of one social media account on a different platform. And I probably will get another this summer. I'm peering down and besides for wrestling, cause I use it for business advertisement more so than for my own personal use. I'm very rarely on social media for my own personal use. I have just found it to be

My Instagram is very specific. Facebook, I post really about, I mean, I do three things. I promote synagogue stuff, I promote wrestling stuff, and I occasionally egg people on with my sports tanks. I'm notorious for bashing the Cubs and notorious for bashing LeBron James. And if you want that kind of content, I'm definitely something you should.

Aaron Masliansky (32:31)
You sure do.

Yeah, you are the content

king of that for sure.

Rabbi Fine (32:42)
Yeah, well anyone who says the Ron James goes Michael Jordan needs to be called out. I mean, that's the root of all evil that I

Aaron Masliansky (32:50)
Well,

I think that you should appreciate him a little bit more because he has been an amazing player, but that's a different. I think he's still playing. Well, not right now because he's out of the playoffs.

Rabbi Fine (32:57)
Is he player? he still play? thought... Yeah, he's

I think, he's crying, I think.

Aaron Masliansky (33:03)
Yeah. So you have some big events coming up. You have a big event at the synagogue, a big fundraiser. You have some really cool wrestling events coming up. So tell us about that.

Rabbi Fine (33:14)
Yeah, so let's do synagogue first. We have an event called Everybody Wants This, which is stars, two stars in the hit Netflix show, Everybody Wants This, or no, excuse me, Nobody Wants This, Jackie Tone, who is amazing. I've worked with her before, and Timothy Simons is gonna be great. Jackie Tone and Timothy are married on the show, and they're gonna talk about it. There was some controversy about whether it portrays Jewish.

characters in a good light. I loved the show, thought it was hilarious, thought it did a great job actually depicting it for the first time as a rabbi. felt seen and what I mean by that is every show that's had a rabbi over the last 10 years has either had a very hip female rabbi or an old man Jewish rabbi. I don't consider myself either of those things so it was nice to have a younger rabbi who played basketball. I certainly could take him off the dribble but that's a different story for different types.

That's May 22nd, tickets are through our website. It should be a lot of fun. It's our annual fundraiser, so tickets are, they're not like the cheapest tickets in the world, but they go to benefit the synagogue and all that we do and all we provide. that's.

Aaron Masliansky (34:17)
And I'll have

the link to that in the show notes too.

Rabbi Fine (34:21)
Great, and yeah, we also, we just did a big event for young families where we have like different trucks and cars and motorcycles and automobiles in our parking lot, which was, we were packed. So yeah, we're trying to keep our foot on the pedal. then wrestling, I have a free show May 18th. So if you've never seen a professional wrestling show and you're like, what is this? Or is this rabbi crazy? Or is...

Do I need something different to do with my family? I would say come out May 18th to Anchorfish printing and embroidery. They have sort of like a mini block party, food trucks, et cetera. we are, that's an Evanston, we are the entertainment. We have our champion David Ali on hand. We have international superstar Shazam McKenzie on hand. Our Maxwell Street Heritage Championship.

Aaron Masliansky (34:58)
And that's in Evanston.

Rabbi Fine (35:10)
will be on the line between two of our most common wrestlers, Shawn Login and Esi Orlandi. It should be a great show. But following that, we have two really big shows this summer that I'm really excited about. The first one is June 12th in the evening at Dirty Nellies in Palatine. It's one of our main venues that we play. It's a great place to watch wrestling, but great place for music as well. We'll have former WWE Tag Team Champion.

Brian Meyers on hand, he's also big in the toy industry, plus Kylie Rae, who's probably the best independent wrestler in the world right now, I think it's safe to So she'll be wrestling for our championship and a whole host of others. And then the big news is that we just sort of announced is on July 31st, we are finally headed to the city in one of our new homes, the Cubby Bear. ⁓

Aaron Masliansky (35:43)
wow.

Whoa.

Rabbi Fine (35:58)
and we have some of the biggest wrestling names in the world on that show from Effie to Marcus Mathers to Kylie Rae, we'll be back, and Brittany Brooks, these are just some of the names that we're gonna have. So it's gonna be a tremendous show that has already started selling the response over the last few days, so all these shows have been crazy. I sure hope so. We're right across Stephen Ringley Field. We are filming commercials, we're doing them all whole bit.

Aaron Masliansky (36:19)
That's gonna sell out.

Rabbi Fine (36:26)
rolling out the red carpet because we're super excited and hope to be back. And then we have other shows we do. We're going to be doing like a more of a kid's show, Glow in the Dark in September. We have a Halloween based sort of show where we're bringing a lot of fun characters in October and then hopefully back at the Cubby Bear. So there's a lot going on with wrestling. Most of our wrestling shows are on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons when I have the least amount of work.

which is to show you that Rabbi comes first.

Aaron Masliansky (36:53)
I don't know how you do it. It's awesome though. think it's a lot of it. It's awesome. And then Jeremy, if people want to follow you on social media so they can hear about your musings on the White Sox, Lebron James, wrestling, everything, where should they follow you?

Rabbi Fine (36:54)
Starbucks!

Yeah, sure.

Rabbi Jeremy Fine on Facebook. I'm not like a big accept everyone on Facebook. So if you want to follow it's Rabbi Jeremy Fine. Everything is second wrestling with a two. So two instead of the S, second wrestling. So at second wrestling on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. We don't have TikTok. Someone's trying to persuade me to do that. I don't think I will.

We're super excited about all those things. yeah, Rabbit Jerry fight on Facebook and second wrestling, everything else. Two and then wrestling, second wrestling. No, no second city. First of all, the reason it's not second city is because there was an ode to first wrestling, which was in Minnesota. But I also assumed maybe, maybe wrongly that there was already a second city wrestling at some point. I just assumed there was. So we went with this, our color's purple.

Aaron Masliansky (37:41)
Second city, second. ⁓

Right.

Rabbi Fine (37:58)
which I don't know, I just thought it would stand out a little bit. yeah, second wrestling, I've got hats, got merch, got, we just got these, we got new trading cards. You got merch, our second wrestling, we got our second series two of our trading cards just came out and actually the first ever Rabbi Fine card can be found in there. So yeah, we're super excited.

Aaron Masliansky (38:06)
I think I have, yeah, I've got merch. I've got your sunglasses. ⁓ There we go.

it's awesome. You got a ton of great stuff going on. I love it. I love being a part of it. So cool. thank you so much for joining me in the ring today. Yes. and thank you everybody for tuning in.

Rabbi Fine (38:32)
Yeah.

Thank you.