The Michael Jackson Tapes (15 page)
Read The Michael Jackson Tapes Online
Authors: Shmuley Boteach
When I took Michael to a synagogue for the Sabbath, the people greeted him very enthusiastically. In the Jehovah's Witnesses Church, they made a point of never treating Michael any differently than the other worshippers. In the case of the synagogue, we purposely did not tell the congregants he was coming, as we wanted his visit to be low-key and I wanted Michael to experience the beauty and serenity of the Sabbath unencumbered by the noise of celebrity. But when people saw him, they rushed to welcome him and shake his hand.
MJ: They would have been kind after the ceremony. “Hi Brother Jackson. Are you okay?” But hugging and, “Oh, oh, we love you,” they would never. They would feel that it was idol worship and you are not supposed to do that. It is wrong, that it is taking it too far. There is nothing wrong with saying, “Thank you, we love you so much. . . .”
This was a fascinating point. I had spent so much time trying to steer Michael away from his need for veneration and his growing Messiah complex. But here he was saying to me that he had been treated that way in a Jewish synagogue! What Michael neglected to mention was that he attended the same Jehovah's Witnesses church every Sunday, so people were accustomed to him. I assume that had he attended the Carlebach Synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with me every Sabbath, the people would have become largely immune to his celebrity. But Judaism definitely has the same rule against idolizing any human being. In fact, it invented the rule and it's the main reason that Jews reject the divinity of Jesus.
Feeling Godlike, Connecting to the Divine
Shmuley Boteach: Do you have fun when you perform and do your music?
Michael Jackson: Yes. I love it. If it wasn't fun I wouldn't do it. I do it because I truly love it. There is no greater bliss than dancing and performing. It is like a celebration and when you are caught up in that place, where certain performers go when they become one with the music, one with the audience, if you are on that level it is like being in a trance, it just takes over. You start to play off each other and start to know where you are going before you get there. They have got to know where you are taking it and respond. It's like playing ping-pong. It's like when the birds go [migrate] and they all know when they are going. Or like fish. They are telepathic, they are on the same line. That's what happens when you perform, you are at one with the musicians and the dance and the music and you are in this trance. And man, you have got 'em. They are in the palm of your hand. It's unbelievable. You feel you are transformed.
SB: What is that energy which takes you there? Is it divine?
MJ: It is divine, it is pure, it is revelation, without making it sound spiritual or religious, but it is a divine energy. Some people call it the spirit, like when a spirit comes into the room. Some people
look down on it. Religions sometimes look down on it because they try to say it's demonic, it's the cult, it's the devil. It isn't; it is God-like. It is pure God-like energy. You feel God's light.
look down on it. Religions sometimes look down on it because they try to say it's demonic, it's the cult, it's the devil. It isn't; it is God-like. It is pure God-like energy. You feel God's light.
The Jehovah's Witnesses Church, Michael explained to me, became increasingly critical of his fame and the adulation shown him. They were aghast at his being treated like a god. Michael should have taken their critique to heart, and realize that aside from considerations of sacrilege, no man could endure such unnatural idolization and survive. Humans are flawed, require adjustment, are rebuked by friends and family, and correct course. But man-gods are perfect. They never correct their ways. They therefore crash and burn, their tragic end being almost inevitable.
MJ: When I perform certain performances, like
Motown 25
, or when I did
Billie Jean
and the Moonwalk for the first time on the stage, and the audience, I'd do a little step and they would scream and you'd flicker your hand and. . . “
Aggggghhhhh
,” whatever you do. I am like caught in a trance with it all. I am like feeling it but I don't hear it. I'm playing everything off feeling. At the end of the piece when I am done and you open your eyes and see the response, you are surprised because you were in another world. I was at one with the moment, working moment, right in the moment.
Motown 25
, or when I did
Billie Jean
and the Moonwalk for the first time on the stage, and the audience, I'd do a little step and they would scream and you'd flicker your hand and. . . “
Aggggghhhhh
,” whatever you do. I am like caught in a trance with it all. I am like feeling it but I don't hear it. I'm playing everything off feeling. At the end of the piece when I am done and you open your eyes and see the response, you are surprised because you were in another world. I was at one with the moment, working moment, right in the moment.
SB: So you weren't doing it to conform to anybody. Maybe that's your power as a performer. It was never about what people wanted, about conditioning, about accommodating what other people wanted.
MJ: No.
SB: Can you teach people how to get there? If there was any bitterness or hatred in your heart in moments like that, if they are, as you say, divine, do you find it just empties out?
MJ: It just empties out. You are above it all. That's why I love it because you are going to a place where [there is] nothing nobody can do. It's gone, the point of no return. It's so wonderful. You have taken off. You can feel it, and that doesn't mean. . . and everybody else who's up there with you play off of that, the audience play off of that. . . .
Michael's Relationship with Religion
It was reported in the press that I had tried to make Michael Jackson Jewish. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I did take Michael to synagogue and he became a regular at our Friday night Sabbath meals at our home, that has been the case with many of my non-Jewish friends, and indeed in the eleven years that I served as rabbi at Oxford University, my synagogue and Sabbath table had as many non-Jewish participants as Jewish. Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. Indeed, even when potential converts come to us to become Jewish we are obligated to turn them away at least three times. This is based on the Jewish belief that there is more than one path to God and we must honor our original incarnation. The way that God created us is the manner in which we can find the most meaning for our lives. I am a great admirer of the Christian faith and try and get all my Christian brothers and sisters to look first at their faith before trying to find spiritual meaning elsewhere.
I repeatedly encouraged Michael to return to the Jehovah's Witnesses Church, and through the ordeal of his arrest I publicly called on the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses Church to take him back and offer him the spiritual direction he so badly needed. When Michael was a Witness it grounded him and he flourished. Even after the
Thriller
album, when he had become the most successful recording artist in the world, he remained a devout Jehovah's Witness and it anchored his life in a spiritual community and spiritual values. Indeed, one can chart Michael's personal decline to the time when he left the church. Michael's opinion of Jesus and Christianity were therefore significant.
Thriller
album, when he had become the most successful recording artist in the world, he remained a devout Jehovah's Witness and it anchored his life in a spiritual community and spiritual values. Indeed, one can chart Michael's personal decline to the time when he left the church. Michael's opinion of Jesus and Christianity were therefore significant.
Shmuley Boteach: Michael, I saw in some article that you once compared the pressures on Jesus to those on a modern celebrity. Do you remember that?
Michael Jackson: No, I don't. When was it?
SB: I don't know. Could have been made up. Do you have a relationship with Jesus?
MJ: Jesus, yes. Absolutely. But you [addressing me] believe in Jesus, don't you?
SB: No, not in his Messiahship or divinity.
MJ: You don't believe that he existed?
SB: Oh, we believe that he existed. We believe he was a good man, a devout Jew, a great moral teacher. But we don't believe that he was the son of God or that he was the Messiah. I did a Larry King show just recently with one of Billy Graham's daughters about this.
Do you feel an affinity with Jesus as a personality? Do you feel that he was a
Kidult
, because he is portrayed as a very gentle creature who had a beautiful moral message, and was soft and vulnerable on the outside? Was he like the stereotype of someone with a child at his center?
Kidult
, because he is portrayed as a very gentle creature who had a beautiful moral message, and was soft and vulnerable on the outside? Was he like the stereotype of someone with a child at his center?
MJ: Yes, absolutely.
SB: And that's why he loved being around children?
MJ: I think if I sat in a room with him I would follow him everywhere he went, feel his presence. I would behave just like a child, like Gandhi.
SB: Can you see him laughing?
MJ: Yes, and Gandhi when he is giggling like a kid. . . it is so sweet.
This man came out of nowhere and he led the whole nation. He held no political rank, no government rank. I think that is real power. That's incredible. That was a phenomenonâGandhi. It's amazing, that was a phenomenal movie, did you see the movie? [I confirm that I did.]
SB: What biblical stories do you find inspiring?
MJ: I love the Sermon on the Mount. I love the story when the Apostles are arguing amongst themselves about who is the greatest and Jesus says, “Unless you humble yourself like this little child, be childlike. . . .” I thought that was the perfect thing to say. Return to innocence.
SB: Did anyone tell you that it appeared to them that you were trying to create a Garden of Eden here [the conversation was at Neverland], your own vision of a perfect paradise, a refuge from what you saw was the adult insanity of the world?
MJ: You were the first one.
SB: Does the story of Adam and Eve have any special meaning for you?
MJ: Of course. Of course.
SB: Did you see the childlike qualities in them straight away?
MJ: Yes, I wish I could have seen it. Was it symbolism? Is it real? Did it happen? I'm confused sometimes that there is a loophole. I had questions that sometimes even the elders [of the Jehovah's Witnesses Church] couldn't answer.
SB: Did you ask them lots of questions about the Bible?
MJ: Oh yeah. I'm the kind of guy who used to grab the microphone and say, “Well, what about this and what about that?” They would say, “Brother Jackson, we will talk to you later.” They would come up with this other funny kinda answer that wouldn't drive the point home.
SB: Adam and Eve are two perfect beings who were like children. They are created as adults, but their situation is unique because they are also children. They have just been born, just been created. So their perfection lay in how they are adults and children at the same time. They represent the amalgamation of the virtues of both. So this is a central story to what we're trying to develop, of people being adults on the outside, but always retaining their childlike qualities on the inside. So was this always a story that meant something to you?
MJ: But [what doesn't make sense to me is that God] tested them [with the forbidden fruit]. And if you are God you should know the outcome. And if you are God, why test if you create a perfect being that should not be able to do any wrong? And why judge and thrust such anger on them and run them away and tempt them with a snake? Would a God do such a thing? Would I do that to your children? No I wouldn't. I am not here trying to judge God or criticize him in any way. But sometimes I think it is a symbolism to teach us certain lessons. I don't know if it really happened. I wouldn't take your little baby or any of them and have something see if they would do right or wrong. And then to have the two kids [Cain and Abel]. . . was it incest? And they were two boys, how did they have children? And all of those things that they couldn't answer for me.
SB: These are the questions you were asking the elders?
MJ: Uhuh.
Michael's questions are actually important enough to be asked and answered by some of the leading Jewish Biblical commentators of ancient times. For those interested in finding some answers to his questions, see my books
The Private Adam
and
Judaism for Everyone,
where I discuss Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Also, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's seminal work,
The Lonely Man of Faith,
brilliantly analyzes Adam and Eve in the Garden.
The Private Adam
and
Judaism for Everyone,
where I discuss Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Also, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's seminal work,
The Lonely Man of Faith,
brilliantly analyzes Adam and Eve in the Garden.
Religion and Finding God in Rituals
Shmuley Boteach: I always say that the main purpose of religion is to teach you in your twenties what you only find out in your seventies. Otherwise religion is not principally designed to offer cosmic secrets. It's straightforward and its profundity is found specifically in its simplicity: Be a good person, spend time with your kids, love God. You know all that at eighty, but you should know it in your teens and twenties, so you don't squander your life.
Michael Jackson: Right, I see it, I see it. That's what we're all talking about.
SB: You're one of the few people who seems to be religious without practicing, meaning, you have a very deep-seated sense of spirituality, but you don't undertake many religious rituals. You'll tell me things like, “Although I once believed God is in a church, I now believe that God is everywhere, he's in my heart. . . I now find God in those moments I spend with my children, I find God in the innocent.”
This was quoted from the article about the Sabbath that I wrote for Michael based on our conversations.
MJ: Yeah it's true, it's true.
SB: See, you're very religious, but it's important to also connect with God through rituals. It's like [my wife] Debbie. Debbie's more spiritual
than I am naturally. She just feels God more than I do. I need to do things to feel him often. I'm not the pure soul that she is. I am very different.
than I am naturally. She just feels God more than I do. I need to do things to feel him often. I'm not the pure soul that she is. I am very different.
MJ: So you guys don't go to the. . . uh. . .
SB: We go to synagogue every week, yeah.
MJ: Every week?
SB: Absolutely.
MJ: What day?
SB: Friday nights and Saturday.
MJ: You do?
SB: Yeah, of course. Remember that service we had at my house?
Michael had come to a Friday night service at my home and danced in a large circle with all my friends.
MJ: And do all your children go?
SB: Yes, of course.
MJ: And how long do you stay?
SB: Friday nights, it's about an hour. Then about three hours on Saturday mornings. Then Saturday afternoon it's another hour.
MJ: And the children stay for three hours? And they do well? SB: Yep.
MJ: That's why they're so well behaved.
SB: They're very good about that. They're very good. And once a month I don't go to synagogue and I stay home with them and practice their prayers so they know what to say in synagogue.
MJ: So you have these prayers?
SB: We do services at home once a month.
MJ: They must be some beautiful prayers.
SB: Oh they're beautiful, yeah.
MJ: I know they must be very beautiful.
SB: They're very simple. Jewish prayers are not about big things; they're about little things. The prayers condition us to find God in the minutiae of everyday life. He is all around us.
MJ: But they're beautiful aren't they?
SB: They're about thanking God for the rain, about thanking God for the cooling wind. They're about thanking God for all the miracles he gives the Jews in history.
MJ: Wow.
SB: The Jews have been around for a long time. He's looked after us. We're an ancient people.
MJ: Wow, and Mushki and everybody go? Baba? [Baba, our nickname for our daughter Rochel Leah, was three at the time.]
SB: Baba goes too. Baba doesn't go three times on the Sabbath, she goes once Saturday morning with Debbie. 'Cause Debbie's pregnant now, although she sometimes goes three times, now she just goes in the morning. You know, we walk, we don't use a car. We don't drive on the Sabbath at all.
MJ: How far do you walk?
SB: It's not that far. About a half a mile. It's not that far.
MJ: All the kids walk?
SB: All of them.
MJ: Really?
SB: In Oxford [where I served as rabbi for eleven years], it was very far. In Oxford we walked three miles each way.
MJ: You and the children?
SB: It was always raining. It was always raining.
MJ: Shmuley, you guys walked three miles?
SB: Three miles.
MJ: And they didn't complain?
SB: No. Sometimes they complained if we'd come back very late 'cause we used to eat with the students for the Friday night Sabbath meals, and often we'd walk home well after midnight.
MJ: I love your family.
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