R' Shmuel Luger: I Accidentally Became Rosh Yeshiva after Fighting My Addictions
Inspiration for the Nation with Yaakov Langer
Living Lchaim
4.9 • 992 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2025
⏱️ 93 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shmuel Luger started drinking at nine and things only got worse from there. He felt totally disconnected from Judaism, spiraling through heavy addictions, anxiety, and a deep sense of emptiness. Then a trip to Israel and one honest conversation flipped his world upside down. He didn’t just get sober, he built a yeshiva for guys who don’t fit the system, who are floating and forgotten. Today he has a beautiful family, he's a Rosh Yeshiva and is working on groundbreaking curriculums.
His Yeshiva: https://veshachanti.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When I was nine, I basically had my first drink, like my first real drink, and it was just |
| 0:06.6 | an amazing feeling and made me feel a lot more confident with who I was and what was happening, |
| 0:12.4 | just life around me, you guess, to some extent, felt overwhelming. |
| 0:16.1 | I got prescribed medication, and that just took it to the next level. Once you start with something like that, |
| 0:24.4 | then the door kind of opens up, especially if you have an addicted personality. So if one is good, |
| 0:31.6 | two is better. A hundred is even better. But there's never a number that's like, and that's what's good. |
| 0:38.2 | And I was just like, look, I'm good with what i'm doing like i actually really am enjoying what i'm doing but if there's |
| 0:44.6 | something more like i need to understand that before i just continue doing this like this is cool now |
| 0:50.6 | but like if i'm supposed to be somewhere at like 50, I don't want to sit and wait |
| 0:55.7 | till I'm 45. |
| 0:57.3 | Like, let's work on this thing now. |
| 0:59.5 | What does it even mean to go off the dark, to leave the fate that you grew up with? |
| 1:03.2 | Can someone go so off that they can never return? |
| 1:05.7 | Alcohol addiction, hard drug addiction, tattoos, can these push someone so away from Orthodox Judaism? |
| 1:12.2 | Our guests may have experienced all of those. |
| 1:15.5 | Rev Lugar's journey from the streets to being a tremendous Hamukhacham will leave you speechless. |
| 1:19.7 | Watch the full story and I want to hear from you. |
| 1:21.8 | Now podcast listeners, I have one favorite to ask you. |
| 1:24.6 | We've noticed that 80% of you are not subscribed. |
| 1:28.4 | And when you subscribe, it literally helps us, which means we get better guests, create more content, and really |
| 1:32.4 | focus on ideas that you want to hear. So please take one second to hit that subscribe button |
| 1:37.3 | and join the Inspiration Family. Huge thanks to this week's sponsors, or NAVA and their |
... |
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