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I want to start this episode by telling you just the very beginning of a story I recently heard.

About a guy named Alex Cogan, born in 1986 into a Jewish family in the Soviet Union.

After the collapse in 1991, the government loses control and Jews are even less safe than before.

Alex's dad starts getting death threats.

So he up and moves his entire family, four generations of Cogans to New York City.

In 1994, Alex enters first grade in a Brooklyn public school.

He's conspicuous, way taller than the other kids. He speaks no English.

He's also got a talent for math and science.

Once his teachers can understand him, they think he has the makings of a gifted physicist.

Life's not hard for him, but as he grows up, he begins to see that it isn't always easy for everybody else.

Six months after they'd arrived in the United States, his great-grandmother had jumped from their apartment window to her death.

His parents, the loves of each other's lives, split up.

Alex cries every night until they get back together.

He enters high school and one of his close friends attempts suicide.

Another becomes clinically depressed.

Alex begins to read psychology.

He's a math and science kid, but he's getting more and more curious about human nature.

In the first time I met him, and I really remember it very distinctly because he almost always wore these giant basketball shorts, no matter what the weather.

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