The Michael Jackson Tapes

by Shmuley Boteach

  The funny thing is, no adults ever suspected who this strange bearded man was. But the children, with their extra intuition, knew right away. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, I would find myself trailed by eight or nine children by my second round of the shopping mall. They would follow and whisper and giggle, but they wouldn’t reveal my secret to their parents. They were my little aides. Hey, maybe you bought a magazine from me. Now you’re wondering, right?

  Sundays were sacred for two other reasons as I was growing up. They were both the day that I attended church and the day that I spent rehearsing my hardest. This may seem against the idea of “rest on the Sabbath,” but it was the most sacred way I could spend my time: developing the talents that God gave me. The best way I can imagine to show my thanks is to make the very most of the gift that God gave me.

  Church was a treat in its own right. It was again a chance for me to be “normal.” The church elders treated me the same as they treated everyone else. And they never became annoyed on the days that the back of the church filled with reporters who had discovered my whereabouts. They tried to welcome them in. After all, even reporters are the children of God.

  When I was young, my whole family attended church together in Indiana. As we grew older, this became difficult and my remarkable and truly saintly mother would sometimes end up there on her own. When circumstances made it increasingly complex for me to attend, I was comforted by the belief that God exists in my heart, and in music and in beauty, not only in a building. But I still miss the sense of community that I felt there—I miss the friends and the people who treated me like I was simply one of them. Simply human. Sharing a day with God.

  Shmuley Boteach: Do you think a hatred of pride is still a relic of your religious upbringing?

  Michael Jackson: It hurt me a lot and it helped me a lot.

  SB: How did it hurt you?

  MJ: Er [long silence]. When I did certain things in the past that I didn’t realize were against the religion and I was reprimanded for it, it almost destroyed me. Certain things that I did as an artist in my music I didn’t realize I was crossing a line with them and when they chastised me, it really hurt me. It almost destroyed it. My mother saw it.

  SB: Their disapproval, their rejection?

  MJ: When I did the Moonwalk for the first time, Motown 25, they told me I was doing burlesque dancing and it was dirty and I went for months and they said, “You can never dance like that again.” I said 90.9 percent of dancing is moving the waist. They said, “We don’t want you to do it.” So I went around trying to dance for a long time without moving this part of my body. Then when I made “Thriller” with all the ghouls and ghosts, they said that it was demonic and part of the occult and that Brother Jackson can’t do it. I called my lawyer and was crying and I said, “Destroy the video, have it destroyed.” And because he went against my wishes people have “Thriller” today. They made me feel so bad about it that I ordered my people to destroy it.

  Michael did incorporate, at the Church’s behest, a disclaimer at the beginning of the “Thriller” video announcing that nothing contained therein constituted an endorsement of the occult.

  SB: So you have seen two sides of religion, the loving side that teaches you not to like pride and humility, but you have also seen what you would describe as mean-spiritedness and judgmentalism.

  MJ: Because they can discriminate sometimes in the wrong way. I don’t think God meant it in that way. Like Halloween, I missed out on Halloween for years and now I do it. It’s sweet to go door-to-door and people give you candy. We need more of that in the world. It brings the world together.

  SB: Do you take Prince and Paris trick-or-treating?

  MJ: Absolutely, we have a family that we go with in the area and we give them the candy. I want them to see that people can be kind. We get it in a bag and then [whispering] I exchange their candy for candy eyeballs.

  SB: I was speaking to Andrew Sullivan late last night, the journalist who was the editor of The New Republic. We had a debate together on homosexuality at a university and afterward we were talking about you and he was surprised to hear nice things about you and he said, “So why don’t I know any of this?” I said, “I don’t know.” Insights like that, Michael, “the essence of Halloween.” You should do press releases about things like that. “The essence of Halloween is for children to witness the kindness of strangers.” I like that. It’s a nice thought. It elevates trick-or-treating into something more meaningful than sponging candy.

  MJ: I cry behind my mask. I really do when I go with them and people say, “Open your bag,” and I think, look what I have been missing. I didn’t know that this.... I look at their face and they are giving you a gift. It’s sweet. The kids come and they open their bags and then they go, “Oh look at this little one,” and it is just sweet the way they respond. I think that’s very kind. That part of America I am proud of.

  Did Michael See Himself as God’s Chosen? Did He Have Special Healing Powers?

  Shmuley Boteach: Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” He had all these amazing quotes about children and most saintly figures are seen around children. Do you identify with people like that? Do you feel that God has given you more than just a talent for music?

  Michael Jackson: Yes, absolutely.

  SB: . . . Wait. I think you do have something special to do here on this earth. Every human being does. And we can’t ignore the fact that you have a level of renown rarely seen before. And we have to channel that celebrity in the proper way. That’s when you become a teacher, Michael, not just an entertainer, you have to identify what it is, what positive message, you wish to impart to mankind. That’s when your celebrity becomes redemptive. In fact, I think the word entertainer for you is a bit insulting. You are not an entertainer and you should always strive to be much more than merely an entertainer. As you said to me many times, no one would do the things you do if you were just an entertainer. Eddie Murphy is an entertainer. He is great. He is funny. But no one camps outside his home. You know what I mean. So that’s something very powerful and you have to determine what it is you want to achieve with that, to what healthy and Godly use can you put it? And it can’t be about you. It has to be about something much larger than you—a goal that is lofty and goes way beyond entertainment. Do you see yourself in that guise? Do you feel that God gave you a certain healing power?

  MJ: Yes.

  SB: So when you speak to Gavin you are healing him, not just speaking to him?

  MJ: I know I am healing him, and I have seen children just shower me with love. And they want to just touch me and hug me and hold on and cry and not let go. They don’t even know me. You’ll see sometime when you hang out, or we’ll be in an open place, and mothers pick up their babies and put them into my arms. “Touch my baby, touch my baby, hold them.” It is not hero worship, like religions try to say, like idol worship.

  SB: It is not idol worship? Why, because they’re not worshipping you? Because they’re getting to feel better about themselves? By being closer to you they feel lighter than air, they feel like they can almost walk on water themselves. Why isn’t it worship?

  MJ: Yes, because my religion taught us that you are not supposed to do that. If I had gone to my church they would have never treated me the way your church treated me.

  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 wo
rship 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.

  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.

  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.

  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?

  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 phenomenon—Gandhi. 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 f
or 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.