MONTREAL — He may brand himself “America’s Rabbi” – with his own TV and radio shows, and more than 20 books aimed at a broad audience – but Rabbi Shmuley Boteach insists his aim is to show that celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be, and that a strong family life is what brings true happiness.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Boteach, who burst into the public consciousness with his 1999 book Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy, followed up last year by The Kosher Sutra, said in a telephone interview with The CJN that he doesn’t seek fame for its own sake. He believes Judaism’s values and wisdom, especially on relationships and the family, can, and should, be shared with everyone, and the media is the way to reach people.

Rabbi Boteach, who recently launched a daily podcast, will be speaking in Montreal March 18 at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, sponsored by the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He’s quite familiar with the city. The father of his Australian wife Debbie (née Friedman) is from Montreal, and she has two uncles and many cousins in the city.

The 44-year-old father of nine was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Florida in what he describes as a modern Orthodox family. As an adult, he joined the Lubavitch movement and was a student of the late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. After his ordination in 1988, he became the Chabad emissary at Oxford University in England.

Since then, he’s become a household name from books such as Judaism for Everyone and self-help guides on marriage, parenting and being a responsible, loving man.

But he truly entered the realm of American pop culture with the publication of The Michael Jackson Tapes last year, shortly after the singer’s death. It’s based on 30 hours of interviews he conducted with the troubled superstar a decade earlier while acting as his spiritual adviser.

Reached at home in Englewood, N.J., Rabbi Boteach said he’s not trying to change the image of rabbis, but rather to recapture the role they once had in people’s lives.

“Once upon a time, the role of the rabbi was not so narrowly defined. Rabbis gave guidance on life, its meaning and purpose. They talked about how to build relationships, about sexuality and how to raise good kids… I’m returning to what rabbis have always done. Today’s rabbis are pigeonholing themselves into a narrow sector.”

He believes that Jews today are “way too insular” and have plenty to offer the world about finding fulfilment, without proselytizing. “The Dalai Lama goes all over the world offering Buddhism’s wisdom and people are not becoming Buddhists. Judaism should be doing the same thing.”

Christianity and Islam are good at what he calls “macrocosmic” issues: “the soul and how to get into heaven, and building empires and caliphates.”

Judaism, on the other hand, has developed over 2,000 years a mastery of the “microcosmic,” from prohibitions on gossip to how to stay married and talk to one’s kids.

In short, Judaism tell us how to be happy without antidepressants, whose widespread consumption worries the rabbi, because he thinks it’s symptomatic of society not dealing adequately with what really matters.

“We [Jews] have to contribute more to mainstream culture. Otherwise, all we are doing is preserving an ethnicity.

Rabbi Boteach said he was introduced to Jackson through a mutual friend. The star was trying to turn his life around and get his career back on track. Rabbi Boteach said he tried to help Jackson from 1999 to 2001.

Jackson wanted their conversations taped so they would be one day be published to show how seriously he was reassessing his life. After two years, Rabbi Boteach felt he wasn’t having much impact and ended his counselling.

He said publishing the tapes now provides a lesson on not getting caught up in worldly success or becoming obsessed with pop stars. “This was [Jackson’s] warning to the public about what fame does to you.”

Rabbi Boteach has some admiration for a current disgraced idol, golfer Tiger Woods, applauding his public apology, especially because it included admitting he needs help. “Men never admit they need help. The fact that he said that was bold and very courageous.”

He said that the public mea culpa was necessary, because Woods “was a pitchman. He said ‘Trust me, I’m a role model.’”

While Rabbi Boteach’s motto is “Shalom in the Home,” he’s not at peace with his own neighbours. He’s taking legal action against the Libyan government to have it ousted from the property next door to him in New Jersey. The mansion is home to Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, a former foreign minister of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Rabbi Boteach led the protest to prevent Gadhafi from pitching his tent there when he visited the UN last year.

Now he’s waging a public battle to get the Libyans out altogether.  “Libya is a sponsor of international terrorism… They threw a huge party when the Lockerbie bomber returned to the country.”