Description

This is the story of a man who couldn’t find his place anywhere, but in the question “What is the meaning of life?” A question that plagued him but which he could never pinpoint, one that pushed him through drugs, alcohol, one spiritual teaching to the next, and which led him ultimately to the wisdom made for answering this question—Kabbalah.

Transcript

[An actor and filmmaker created and played in various TV shows and films; lives in Toronto, Canada; studies Kabbalah since 2005].


Andrew Kenneth Martin: I was born in Toronto, outside of Toronto actually, in 1969. My mother, my father, they were both academics, both Agnostics.

You know from the earliest stage, I can only describe it as there was a sense of separation from everybody and everything. I didn’t feel like I was part of my family, even though they were a loving family—they provided for and took care of and you know, tried to teach me the rules of life, so to speak—but I totally felt apart from them, and then, throughout any socialization process, I couldn’t connect so I needed to come up with something.

The only thing, the only solution I found that worked was alcohol, drugs; fell into that kind of thing in my teenage years and lost focus of career and anything like that. I lost relationships with my family; I lost opportunities, friends, you know, they said, “No, you’re just a little out of control.”

I just didn’t want to be here anymore. It was too painful to live so there was a choice to make, and I really didn’t make it. I just said I want to live, that was my choice really.

I remember I started to seek for something and I picked up a couple books on Kabbalah and read it and started to investigate. Then got frustrated with that, went to other disciplines, went to the Eastern disciplines, studied that for many years, found that wanting.

That all led to nothing. Then one day, in a particularly kind of lonely time, the show that I had just become famous on had ended and I felt that there was no prize there, there was no pleasure there. Any pleasure that was there was the struggle to get there, not the actual reward of it. All I wanted…I wanted to self-realize; to know G-d, to know myself, and I was alone there; nothing was happening and nothing had happened for years, although I put in efforts, but there were no results, no tangible, sensible results, so I kind of…there was a cry from the heart and very…an emotional plea for some help, and later that day I stumbled upon Attaining the Worlds Beyond and there was a sensation of being filled by something that in a way totally different than I’d ever felt before. It didn’t take everything away, but it added a different dimension to what was already there. And I began to just listen to that and only that before I actually walked into BB Toronto, just digesting that and everything I could.

In the first quote in the book from Baal HaSulam, when he says, “What is the meaning of my life?”—that is truly the first time on the outside that somebody asked that question that I couldn’t even articulate on the inside. I knew I wanted to know me, I wanted to know the reason for everything, but “What is the meaning of my life?”…It was the first time I’d ever heard anybody say it, write it in such a way. And ever since then I’m here.

Avihu Sofer: You said before that you never found yourself inside; you were always and outside. Today do you feel like you’re an insider?

Andrew: Absolutely. As much as I want to run from it, there’s something…it’s connection here, it’s connection from the gut level or from the heart level. Yeah, I look around and there’s such an eclectic mix of everybody; that’s were I can fit. Yeah; the beginnings of a great connection.

Avihu Sofer: How do you feel today towards Rav?

Andrew: …

[Question: What is happiness for you?]

Andrew: Happiness for me…Happiness would be when all the doubts, when all the questions are answered. When the question of, “What is the meaning of my life?”, Who the heck am I?  What’s it all about would be truly answered, with the full body, with the whole thing, with the whole thing...