In 1998 I became the first rabbi to ever become a finalist in the
London Times
Preacher of the Year competition, the world's most prestigious religious speaking competition. I was the favorite to win, and had already won in a preliminary TV playoff. But in the actual finals, I came in a close second to a Seventh-Day Adventist Caribbean preacher named Rev. Ian Sweeney. The following year, just days before the millennium, I won the competition and set a record for most points garnered in the competition. I say this not to brag, but clearly I had learned something about timing that Ian seemed to know naturally. I continue to love public speaking.
MJ: But you're amazing.
SB: No, but I mean he had it. I told you, the black preachers are the best in the world. They're the best speakers. Look at Martin Luther King. There is no other. . .
MJ: I cry when I hear him talk. I get goose bumps.
SB: Or even Jesse Jackson, or some of the preachers here. Reverend Floyd, here in Manhattan, is supposed to be the best in the country. . .
MJ: But you're so eloquent. I mean, you paint pictures with your words and it makes you think. . . You go everywhere. It's brilliant.
SB: But it's about being moved by the spirit and kids are moved. MJ: But where do you get the words?
SB: You know, I was describing in the book what happened on Friday night when you came to our house for dinner. It was fascinating.
MJ: What happened?
SB: All of us adults started having dinner and you went upstairs to play hide and go seek. And you were like the pied piper, kids came to you immediately. Little by little. . . the adults came to the third floor, the second floor. They really felt like they were missing out, like everyone was having fun and they weren't. They were having their political conversations. It's like the pied piper, and they want to pretend they're only going up there for the kids.
MJ: I loved when your friend attacked you . . . I loved that! I loved when he did that.
My friend Cory Booker, who at the time was a Newark City councilman, ran into the room where Michael and I were playing hide-and-seek with the kids, and tackled me, breaking the bed. It was of course all in jest and we all laughed. Cory was the president of my Oxford University student organization, the L'Chaim Society, when he was a Rhodes scholar there. Today, as mayor of Newark, he is one of America's most admired and successful leaders.
SB: He's very innocent and he's attacked for it as a politician. All his advisors say you need to be more tough.
MJ: No, no. I wish I could've known Edison and Einstein and Michelangelo.
SB: We talk about all of them, by the way, in the book. Edison was so childlike.
MJ: I know, I see it, I saw him. . . laughing, giggling. I saw the footage, I see what he writes about. It's beautiful man, it's great stuff. I love that.
Michael's Relationship with His Accuser and Other Children
For many years Michael was known for all the things he did for children around the worldâhow he would personally visit them, hug them, and offer love and support for a suffering child, a child with cancer. He was also condemned by many for his love of children with it seen as a sign of his unhealthy and perhaps criminal relationship to children.
Shmuley Boteach: I said to someone today that the attention you give to children with cancer seems very healing to them. I've seen it. You know when you give that kid attention that you can heal them?
Michael Jackson: I love them. I love them.
SB: It's also the fact that you are very famous and suddenly you channel all that attention that you normally get and you stick it onto someone else, and it is like this beam of light. I don't deny that celebrity can have a restorative effect, but it often has a very corrosive effect. Do you try to use your celebrity to help these kids?
MJ: I love them so much. They're my children, too. I remember we were in Australia and we were in this children-with-cancer ward and I started giving out toys. And I'll never forget this one boy who was like eleven and when I got to his bed he said, “It's amazing how just seeing you I feel so much better. I really do.” I said, “Well, that's so sweet.” That's what he said and I have never forgotten it. It's amazing and that's what we are supposed to do.
SB: Your devotion to Gavin [who would later be Michael Jackson's accuser] is impressive. I have spoken about it in a thousand forums now. That was one of the nicest things I have seen. That you tried to help him and his family.
MJ: He's special.
In my presence, Michael gave Gavin affection and attention, which seemed very curative to the boy. Michael's characterization of the boy in the
60 Minutes
interview, however, as having arrived at Neverland unable to walk, and Michael having to carry him is, as I said earlier, entirely fictitious. Gavin and his siblings ran all over Neverland. They extensively drove and even banged up some of the go-carts, and came with us twice on the quads on thousands of acres of ranch. Still, Michael did give him affection and encouragement in my presence.
On another occasion Michael told me how upset he was after a phone conversation with Gavin in which he communicated how much pain the chemotherapy was causing him:
MJ: I spoke to Gavin [Michael's accuser] last night and he said, “Michael, you don't know how it hurts me, it hurts.” He started to cry on the phone and he said, “I know you understand how it feels. It hurts so bad.” I said, “Well, how many more do you have?” He said, “Maybe four. But the doctor said maybe more after that.” It took his eyelashes away and his eyebrows and his hair. We are so lucky aren't we?
SB: Do you feel that when you speak to people like Gavin, part of the pain goes away for them?
MJ: Absolutely. Because every time I talk to him he is in better spirits. When I spoke to him last night he said, “I need you. When are you coming home?” I said, “I don't know.” He said, “I need you Michael.” Then he calls me “Dad.” I said, “You better ask your Dad if it is ok to call me that.” He shouts, “Dad, is it ok if I call Michael, âDad?'” and he says, “Yes, no problem, whatever you want.” Kids always do that. It makes me feel happy that they feel that comfortable.
SB: Do you feel like a universal father to children, that you have this ability to love them and appreciate them in a way that others don't?
MJ: I always feel that I don't want the parents to get jealous because it always happens and it rubs fathers in a strange way. Not as much as the mothers. I always say to the Dads, “I am not trying to take your place. I am just trying to help and I want to be your friend.” The kids just end up falling in love with my personality. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but I am just there to help.
SB: I asked you what parents can learn from children, and you identified a few thingsâlove of fun, innocence, joy. What other things can we learn from children? For example, when you are around Gavin, what do you learn from him? Are you just there to help a child who has cancer? What do you get from the experience? Is it just you showing pity, compassion for a child who is in trouble? Or do you feel this is the reason you are alive?
MJ: I feel that this is something really, really in my heart that I am supposed to do, and I feel so loved by giving my love, and I know that's what they need. I have heard doctors, and
his
doctors, say that it is a miracle how he is doing better and that's why I know this magic of love is so important. He got cheated out of his childhood and I think I can reflect on a lot of that because of my past. When you were ten you weren't thinking about heaven and how you are going to die and he is thinking about all of that. I had little Ryan White in my dining room telling his mother at the table, “Mother, when you bury me, I don't want to be in a suit and tie.” He said, “Don't put me in a suit and tie. I want to be in jeans and a T-shirt.” I said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.” And I ran to the bathroom and I cried. Imagine a 12-year-old boy telling his mother how to bury him. That's what I heard him say. How could your heart not go out to someone like that?
SB: Since you were deprived of that childhood and now you are trying to confer it as a gift to all these children, do you heal yourself through that?
MJ: Yes. Yes, I do. Yes I do. Because that's everything. I need that to keep living. Do you see what Gavin wrote in the guest book, about his hat? It's a sweet story.
Gavin had written that Michael had given him the confidence to take off his hat and not to be ashamed about the baldness caused by chemotherapy.
SB: I have told that story all over the world.
MJ: I like giving them that love and that pride to feel that they belong and they are special. He was hiding and he was ashamed that he
had a bald head and he had cancer. Everybody has made him feel like an outcast and that's how he came here and I want him to let go. He is such a beautiful child, he doesn't need that hat. I told him, “You look just like an angel. Your voice sounds like an angel. As far as I am concerned you are an angel. What are you ashamed of?”
SB: Do you feel that children appreciate you more than adults?
MJ: Oh yeah, of course. Adults appreciate me artistically as a singer and a songwriter and a dancer and a performer. What is he like? Who is he? He's weird and he sleeps in an oxygen chamber and all those crazy horrific stories that people made up that had nothing to do with me.
SB: The children see right through that and they reciprocate your love. I saw that with Gavin.
MJ: They just want to have some fun and to give love and have love and they just want to be loved and held.
SB: Did you fight to hold onto this sense of caring? Was there a time when you said, “I don't care about anybody else. I am going to get a massage now and hang out in the Jacuzzi? The concert is over, so I'm just going to think about myself.” Or even then were you thinking about what you could do for kids?
MJ: Truly in my heart, I love them and I care more than anything. I am still taking care of Gavin. He had chemotherapy yesterday and he is weak and not feeling good and it just touches your heart. Your heart goes out to the world. I think I am a lot like my mother. I don't know if it is genetic or environmental. I remember when we were little she would watch the news and even now she has to watch the news with tissues. I'm the same, I start crying when I watch the news about the woman who takes her kids and throws them in the lake, one drowned, the other survived. So I invited the kids over and went to the funeral, paid for the funeral and I don't even know these people, but you hear these things. It's like asking, why aren't there more people like Mother Teresa? Why aren't there more people like Lady Diana?
SB: They are famous for being good, but you are famous
and
you are good, there's a very big difference. Even Diana, Diana was a good woman. I didn't know her. You did. She had many saintly qualities
and did a huge amount of good. Still, she loved the glitzy life. But you love children. Why?
MJ: I am not trying to be philosophical but I really think it's my job to help them. I think it is my calling. I don't care if people laugh or what they say. [Children] don't have a mouth to society and I think it is now their time. From here on out it is their time. They need the world's awareness and they need issues to deal with, and this is for them. And if I can be that light, that pedestal just to shine some light on who they are, and the importance of who children are, that's what I want to do. I don't know how God chooses people, or plays chess with people, and he does put you in position and sets you up. Sometimes I feel like that, like this is my place. I think about from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Kennedy to myself to yourself. Do you think these are self-made men or, from birth, do you think God said, “Aha!” And smiling a little bit. . . . Do you think that just happened on its own by their fathers, or they were supposed to do this? I am asking you this question?
SB: I think it is the confluence of both. Great men and women are born with the potential for greatness. But it usually has to be squeezed out of them through the crisis of an external event. There is greatness in people but external events help them develop it. Greatness is the synthesis of a man or woman's innate potential matched with their ability to rise to a great challenge. And when you don't have an answer to the question of why God gave you such phenomenal success, you start to wither under the burden of fame. You need to have something like a mirror that deflects all that attention, all that light, that is being shined on you, onto a higher cause or you'll be scorched by its intensity.
On the other hand, Michael's attention wasn't consistent, and often didn't measure up to the ideal he set for himself and spoke about publicly.
SB: A little girl I met last night is fourteen and she's an orphan. Her mother died when she was seven, and she never knew who her father was. She came to the
Lion King
last night because she is a friend of
[name withheld] and her great wish was to meet you. So I told her I would bring her by for a few minutes this week so she can meet you.
MJ: Oh, who is taking care of her?
SB: She lives with her grandmother and she has a godfather who brought her to the play last night. Her godfather tries to take her out and see plays and things occasionally.
MJ: Did the kids have fun at the show?
SB: Oh yes they loved it. It was beautiful. This orphan girl's school is a few blocks away from your hotel. Maybe I'll bring her and let her take a picture with you.
Michael later agreed to a very short meeting with this girl, but he took very little interest in her and never asked about her again. Why Michael seemed to take an interest in some kids, and had little to no interest in others, is not something that I ever understood. For example, in another instance, a little girl with leukemia whose mother had gotten in touch with me, asked if she could bring her daughter to meet Michael. I invited them both to our home, where they met Michael over dinner. Later, whenever Michael would come to our home for Sabbath dinner, I would usually invite the little girl, her mother, and her three siblings. They subsequently became personal friends of my family, and our friendship has continued in Michael's absence. For everyone who said that Michael was only interested in little boys, I can attest that he showed genuine and ongoing concern for this young girl, and called her mother several times to check on her condition.