No, the prohibition is anything that compromises the intellect, even if it expands the intellect and makes it smarter.

Okay, where does coffee fall?

I've never encountered anyone who commits a crime because they drank a lot of coffee or a lot of tea of it.

I don't know how it nets out in Judaism, but yeah, I mean, I think in this respect Judaism and islam differ quite a bit because you know, in Judaism, we have wine as part of many rituals.

Like alcohol is something that is very celebrated in a ritualistic sense.

So the whole notion of shifting conscious states is part of spirituality and Judaism.

So there's nothing against the use of psychedelics in Judaism.

So pro psychedelics, pro psychedelics.

Anti shellfish.

We do the shellfish, but not the shrooms.

Yeah, I think these things might be connected.

So are you in jewish law?

Is it permissible if I take cocaine?

I just don't know where I'm going to stand with God if I do it?

I'm not a jewish law expert.

So I don't know how to answer that for long.

I wish Muslims would give the same response.

Would it come to Islamic law?

It's not knowing something.

Yeah, I don't know how profound that is, Muslims don't do it because they have access to slam Q and A in this episode, The psychedelic kind of opens up a breakthrough of something that's kind of underlying that they need to deal with.

It kind of becomes this this strange phenomenon of like, okay, you're doing something you're not supposed to do, but then like, well where was it written for you to do that?

And I think that's the thing that people who, whether they're on a spiritual path or aren't on one are always constantly debating when the concept of spirituality comes up, you know, the whole idea of what is written, right, muslim culture, there is an enormous amount of, of misunderstanding about it about this because nowhere in the Koran does it say that things are predestined?

I've often thought if you know, why did I end up in the United States?

While a lot of the people I grew up with who were never able to leave Egypt ended up in prison and political prison, it burdens you, right?

It's like, okay, so God chose this for me, how do you express gratitude?

How do you live up to the responsibility?

I think most things we don't actually have control over because most things actually function in the unseen realm.

And even just thinking about like how much do you know about yourself and your body and the different things that are going on inside, we largely don't know much actually, God's will compliments are will, I mean if you, if you are determined to be a loser, you know, God will send you a lot of signs, God, you're a loser to change your path to stop being that if you ignore the signs that you know, cause it's like, okay, yeah, you just like triggered like a memory of how I even began writing like, you know, songs that meant something to me the day that I got arrested when I had like I got a gun charge and I'm sitting in the car when we got pulled over and nothing made sense.

Like I wasn't supposed to be arrested.

Like somehow the driver didn't have a driver's license with him, you know what I mean?

And then the insurance was just expired in his vehicle so he couldn't drive it And every single person that I called to come and pick up the car, didn't answer their phone.

And so then that led to a search where they found a gun and then I got arrested for the gun.

And I remember sitting in the cell thinking, well it's over for me and I couldn't leave Toronto for almost a year, but in that year I confronted, you know, so much that I was dealing with that I was escaping in the years prior.

And so it was like all of those kind of experiences and those traumas compounding led me to, I think uh, to like to an artistry that I didn't even think that I was capable of like holding in my body.

But you know what my dad told me that making music was gonna keep me far from the faith and I'm here sitting with the share.

It's actually amazing.

I really I really just took it in that I'm here having a conversation with the share because I wrote songs, your dad was wrong.

Music has a past the gods.

Yeah, it was a path to you and you are close to God and now I am as a result of that closer to God.

But then all of that feels predestined for me.

You know what I mean?

If you if you would have chosen to play video games, you know, you got the, you know, creative impulse and you say, no, I'm gonna go play video games instead you Schwartz.

And that's why it's that's where the choice comes in.

That's where the choice you were presented with an opportunity to do the alternative thing.

And but the thing is like, would that always have been my like destiny anyway, if that's what was, I don't think so, There's destiny and Destiny be destiny.

A if if you act if you choose to act on God's gift and destiny be if you choose to ignore God's gifts, which actually is very much like video games, video games are profound.

But I feel, I mean, I'm curious like even in your work, because it's it's such an intersection between art and and spirituality.

Like, I mean, that must feel like a present choice that's always there.

Yeah, definitely.

I think that sometimes when we think about God we think of God as an external being that in some ways it's like the divine will is being imposed on us versus actually God lives within us, um it's not really one or the other, it's actually more of a co creation process and I certainly feel this way as an artist and as a spiritual teacher um that I I'm actually co creating with God with the divine, so I make a step, God make us steps, we meet each other, and then we're like, we take a little break, we discussed, like, did that work out?

I think it's also interesting like seeing with Romney's character on the show, because, you know, a lot of times we make choices or we take actions and we don't think that it's going to catch up to us, because, you know, obviously we're living in a time where there's really such a high level of lack of accountability from multiple beings, multiple systems, um and men for sure, um and we see this also with Romney's character, that's what I'm talking about the Romney character, you know, I mean, I'm going to just take the hit for all of us and say yes, wow, thank you, we need men like, yes, and just tell me what's next for me, I think that what it means to be a person who is devoted to God is to live in spiritual integrity, which means to have accountability.

Yeah, I do think that idea of accountability is really interesting because I do think there's this thing for the character or there's this thing where, you know, I think people will feel all the time in their lives where it's like, is it too late?

Right.

And actually, that's one of the things that I think is really interesting because especially in that conversation about destiny, it's like, we need to also unpacked this dimension of time.

Time is actually not a linear phenomenon.

It's a simultaneous co creation reality, which we see both from spirituality and from quantum physics.

And that's what I try to say every time, like a script is laid, I'm gonna say something else.

But going back to that for me, being able to be in relationship with the unknown is the heart of my spiritual practice because if I know then there's no space for God, but if I don't know, then there's infinite space for God.

And That to me feels actually really central to this conversation.

You know, I've been lucky to have experiences in my life that felt spiritual.

I mean, like when I was like 19, I remember I I all I wanted to do was act and I didn't know if I should be acting or if I should be going to college and I was actually gonna become a lawyer because I was like, that's like professional acting in a different way uh learning that No, I wasn't, but but I I I remember, you know, I had gotten Bell's palsy where I couldn't move half my face for like 78 months, you know, I was unable to move it.

And I remember thinking, wait, like I'm going to be an actor, but it's just some sign is just some fate of like, I shouldn't do it or I should do it.

And I remember almost kind of like, yeah, looking really in words and I just kind of made a deal with myself as to what I wanted it to mean, because I think there were people in my family who were like, look at you, you wanted to go out and do this acting as comedy and like, you know, God took away your face.

And then I remember being like, well, do I want to think about it that way, or do I want to reframe it?