“Each and every one of us has a glow, an inner glow, which we can use to illuminate other people’s darkness. That’s what love is, that’s what a relationship is, that’s what being a parent is, and that’s what being a friend is.”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the host of the award-winning national TV show Shalom in the Home on TLC and the international bestselling author of over twenty books, including The Kosher Sutra. He has received numerous awards, including Preacher of the Year from the London Times. Named by Talkers Magazine as among the one hundred most important radio hosts in America, Rabbi Shmuley hosts the daily Rabbi Shmuley Show and has served as Oprah Winfrey’s marriage, parenting, and relationships expert on her Oprah and Friends network on Sirius Radio. In 2007 Rabbi Shmuley was labeled “a cultural phenomenon” and “the most famous rabbi in America” by Newsweek, and in both 2007 and 2008 was named one of the ten most influential rabbis in America. He currently resides in New Jersey with his wife and nine children. (www.Shmuley.com)
The Interview
I met Rabbi Shmuley in the summer in Manhattan at a forum on prejudice in America, where he was a speaker. I asked if I could interview him, and, happily for me, he loved the idea and agreed to do it. I met him weeks later at the studio where he did his XM radio show for Oprah and Friends. This man has remarkable stamina—not only is he the father of nine children, but he’d just taken a red-eye from Los Angeles to New York with basically no sleep, gone on the air, and was on his way to his next gig across town. He offered to do my interview literally as he traveled to his next destination . . . on foot. I remember being moved by his story and how magical everything felt as he spoke into my little recorder as we walked across noisy, steamy Central Park, and then at the exact moment we exited the park, he handed me the recorder—his story ending perfectly in step with our journey’s end.
