Life #1
He was a regular Jewish kid from a secular home. His father was raised Orthodox, but left the fold. His mother knew little about Yiddishkeit. But they kept a kosher kitchen.
Following high school, Mark spent four years at Michigan State University and eventually landed a job in sales, thanks to being articulate and smart. But his life was still secular.
“I even did stand-up comedy for four years,” says Mark. “I just hung out and did what everybody else does in this world: chase what they think is fun.”
Life #2
After about a year and a half, the unthinkable happened.
Mark was twenty-three and building a successful career in sales when he suffered a stroke.
And then another.
And then another.
The three successive strokes left him paralyzed and unable to speak.
The strokes had lasting effects. To this day, Mark can’t hear properly in one ear or see properly in one eye, and he still can’t run.
“I was handicapped for ten years,” he says, without drama. “I lived in the hospital for the first three months. And when I finally got out, I had to go to therapy for another year or two.”
But the work didn’t end there.
“I walked six miles a day to strengthen my legs, and I did push-ups every single day. By the time I was ready to reenter the world, yeshivah seemed like a good idea.”
He was in his thirties at this point, and he and the yeshivah were simply not a good match.
“I gained thirty pounds, and I couldn’t have girlfriends. It wasn’t fun. I believed in G-D but didn’t know why I was keeping any of it.”
Mark’s time at yeshivah was uninspiring, to say the least. “Every day, we’d go to the beis medrash, we’d go to a shiur and learn. For me, it might as well have been Mark Twain. I didn’t care.”
Life #3
So he left, got married, and moved to Indiana. Jewishly, he still didn’t care.
In need of a job, Mark later moved again, this time to Baltimore, Rabbi Miller’s hometown.
The irony isn’t lost on Mark, who began his journey back after discovering Rabbi Miller’s writings.
“I said, ‘Oh, this is Judaism!’” remembers Mark. “Finally, I know what I’m doing. I know I’m alive, and I know I want to be a Yid. It’s all because of Rabbi Miller. I owe Rabbi Miller my entire life. He’s the reason why I’m still frum.”
Until then, Mark had seen Judaism as a list of dos and don’ts. He had never been shown the why behind it all.
“I thought Judaism was: put on tefillin, say these words in the siddur, don’t drive on Shabbos, wear tzitzis, go to the beis medrash every day.”
Mark had always believed in the existence of G-d and Olam Haba, but did mitzvos just because he thought he should. He even quit stand-up comedy to keep Shabbos. But there was no joy, no passion in his actions. Once he started reading Rabbi Miller’s books, he was shocked.
“How come no one said a word about any of this stuff?” he wondered.
His realization changed everything. He didn’t just want to read Rabbi Miller’s words. He wanted to live by them.
From Here to the Lamppost
A lot has changed since then. He took over a friend’s distribution job and has been delivering Toras Avigdor booklets for seven years, with no intention of giving it up.
Around fifteen years ago, Mark was listening to one of Rabbi Miller’s tapes when something struck a chord.
“He said, ‘Think about Hashem from here to the lamppost.’ So I did. Then I thought from that lamppost to the next lamppost. Day after day, I did it. I spent three months constantly thinking about Hashem, which is what Hashem wants.”
Once Mark discovered Rabbi Miller, he was all in. He couldn’t stop thinking about Hashem. He began seeing Him everywhere.
“Now, I can’t walk from here to there without thinking about Hashem. Thank You for oxygen, for being able to stand. I go to the door—thank You for the doorknob, thank You for my hand. A glass of water—thank You for the cup, thank You for the water. That’s what Judaism is.”
The Meshuggener
The clarity and depth of Rabbi Miller’s teachings spoke to Mark’s heart, and he began taking them seriously. He considered them, applied them, and became determined to shape his life according to those lessons, even if other people didn’t understand.
He recalls one time waiting to cross at a light.
“It was Shabbos, the light was green, and there were no cars coming. Neighbors of mine saw me and asked, ‘There are no cars. How come you’re not crossing?’
“I said, ‘You know, it’s a mitzvah if I do what Hashem wants me to do, which is obey the laws of the land, like it says in Pirkei Avos.’
“They called me a meshuggener.”
But Mark knew better. He was doing what Hashem wanted.
The Rock
Mark is saddened by the fact that so many people are turned off their Judaism simply because they’ve never learned what it means to live as a Jew. A mitzvah feels pointless, but is so valuable. He gives a mashal.
“Imagine telling them there’s a rock in that room over there and they should go get it. Everyone would say, ‘Who cares? I don’t collect rocks! I don’t care about rocks!’
“But if you say, ‘Oh, by the way, the rock in that room is pure gold. It’s worth $10 million,’ they’d run to get it! That’s Yiddishkeit.”
Full Circle
Mark’s come a long way since Life #1. He’s no longer the young man who did stand-up comedy and chased what he thought was fun.
He’s been through three strokes, years of disability, and numerous life changes, without quite knowing what he was looking for.
He’d been looking at the rock his whole life. He thought it was just that—a rock. Then Rabbi Miller came along and showed him that rock was pure gold.
Once he understood that, everything changed. It was no ordinary rock. It was a $10 million rock, and it was his.*
*We’ve only scratched the surface of Mark’s story. If you’d like to hear more about Rabbi Miller from Mark himself, feel free to reach out to him at [email protected].
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