Martyn de Tours

A Preordained Destiny

BBC News: We are here today with Rabbi Leo Azul, the spiritual adviser to Martyn de Tours. Can you tell us a lottle about your relationship with the author?

Rabbi Leo Azul: A “lottle“?

BBC News: [Correcting the tiny mistake.] A little. Can you tell us a little about your relationship with the author?

Rabbi Leo Azul: A lottle here, a shmottle there! Who cares? Just don’t let it take centre stage.

BBC News: So, you are his adviser and confidant, right?

Rabbi Leo Azul: Adviser? Confidant? Those are big words for friendship, plum liqueur and conversation.

BBC News: [Off mic.] Let’s rewind. [The BBC reporter stops and then continues.] Rabbi Leo Azul, thank you for joining us today. Could you tell us a little more about your relationship with Martyn de Tours, perhaps?

Rabbi Leo Azul: Ah, now that’s a proper British deflection disguised as a question. ‘A little more about your relationship,’ with what, dear? With time? With truth? With bagels?

Let’s play along. You want pretty words. Something you can quote out of context and frame under “Wisdom From the Margins.” Fine. But let me ask in return, what does your question say about you?

BBC News: I… suppose that’s a fair point. So what’s your question, then?

Rabbi Leo Azul: My question? The one worth its weight in shekels and irony?

BBC News: Please expand on that for the viewer.

Rabbi Leo Azul: Why the hell are we here? Not just “here” as in this godforsaken interview, but here, on this spinning wet rock, shouting at each other through fibre optic wires and pretending the follows, likes, and retweets are meaningful.

Why do we even need a purpose? Who sold us that? Was there a divine marketing agency I missed? “Find your purpose today! Limited time! Enlightenment guaranteed or your karma back!”

I’ve spent my years not looking for meaning, but letting it trip me up like a mischievous dybbuk[1] hiding behind every streetlamp. I’ve chased it across languages, faiths, and dinner parties where someone inevitably quotes Rumi while serving overcooked couscous.

You call it “lifelong learning.” However, in the sacred scrolls of our ancestors, we simply referred to it as living.

And let’s be real, Judaism didn’t invent the concept, but we did give it a damn fine edit. We embedded it into festivals, mourning, eating, blessing, doubting, arguing, storytelling, and kvetching[2]. Especially kvetching. We made it holy.

BBC News: But isn’t lifelong learning a modern concept?

Rabbi Leo Azul: Only if you think the ancients were idiots with no Wi-Fi. My great-grandmother, may her memory be for a blessing, could out-argue your entire editorial board with half a proverb and one raised eyebrow.

Learning was never a luxury. It was a matter of survival, resistance, and renewal. Every Passover we asked the same damn questions, and still pretended we didn’t know the answers, because the asking was the point.

And I’ll tell you this: in this world, where facts are taken out back and beaten with a meme stick, it’s not enough to learn. You have to unlearn. Then relearn. Then argue with yourself about it in three languages while making soup.

BBC News: But surely debate still has value?

Rabbi Leo Azul: Oh, absolutely! Especially now, when debate has been reduced to shouting in 280 characters or less, ideally while selling protein powder.

Once upon a time, in a world before podcasts and trolls, arguments were symphonies. You didn’t win with volume. You won with nuance. Or by quoting someone older and deader than your opponent’s argument.

Now? People with the finest reasoning, the most profound compassion, and the sharpest logic often come second to those with loud mouths and marketing teams, as well as those who struggle with daddy issues. We used to have Socrates. Now we have influencers selling sun cream on TikTok during a genocide.

BBC News: You seem angry.

Rabbi Leo Azul: Angry? Anger is for toddlers. I’m disappointed, which is worse.

Because I believed, and still do, in the capacity of humans to be wise, kind, funny, and fabulously contradictory. I thought we could do better. But we got lazy. We bought the lie that easy answers are better than complicated truths. That soundbites are superior to silence.

Let me put it another way: we’re not eating from the Tree of Knowledge anymore. We’re licking the bark and wondering why we’re still stupid.

BBC News: What do you say to those who claim Western democracies are superior?

Rabbi Leo Azul: I say, bless your imperial cotton socks.

Let’s not be smug while our so-called democracies are collapsing under the weight of lobbyists, liars, and leaders who confuse a slogan with a strategy.

Is China democratic? Russia? Brazil? Depends on what democracy means to you. Is it just voting every few years while billionaires set the options? Then yes, we’re all democratic, aren’t we? Yay us.

I’ve met wise people in Tehran, honest people in Shanghai, and warm-hearted cynics in Belfast who wouldn’t trade their soul for your ballot box. Democracy isn’t a brand, it’s a behaviour. And a fragile one, at that.

BBC News: So what do you stand for, Rabbi?

Rabbi Leo Azul: I stand for messy, complicated, heart-wrenching humanity. For doubt is a sacred act. For asking the awkward questions, even when the room wants platitudes. For learning from everyone, even people who make me want to scream into a kugel.

I stand for conversation. Not shouting. Not posturing. Conversation. Preferably with food. Always with laughter. And occasionally with the gentle reminder that yes, God exists, and She’s rolling Her eyes at all of us.

BBC News: Final thoughts?

Rabbi Leo Azul: Yes.

Let us be candle-lighters, not spotlight-hoggers. Let us be questioners, not answer-floggers. Let us walk through the fog with love in our pockets and truth in our boots.

And if we must be fools, let us be holy fools. Foolish enough to hope, to dream, to be silly enough to love, foolish enough to keep learning, until the curtain falls and we finally understand the joke.

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[1] A malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.

[2] Griping.