I know two men who will drive you nuts.

One is Gil Locks. He is a Hasidic Jew who lives in the Old City of Jerusalem. He spends most of his day hanging around the Western Wall and telling secular Jewish tourist teenagers that if they don’t marry Jewish women, their parents will break their legs.

But he’s known for his Shabbat meals, where he willingly hosts just about anyone that’s interested in coming by.

Some people know it’s coming, but others don’t. The harassment. He’ll warn them about the beginning, describe the one person who tried to escape through the window in the middle of the meal. Everyone laughs. But then they wash, break bread, and suddenly he’s laying into them.

If they’re Haredi but not Hasidic, he’ll rip into them for not having any connection to spirituality. He’ll tell them their parents can’t possibly be happy.

If they’re secular, he’ll tell them how empty their world is.

If they’re Hasidic, he’ll tell them how they’re doing everything wrong, and how their particular group happens to have gotten a lot wrong.

Most people will sit there, confused. At first. But then he’ll keep going, keep challenging. Until someone gets angry. Then he picks on that person even more.

The first time I came, a friend of mine was practically shaking with anger about the things he said about Chabad. He swore he would never again go to “that idiot’s” house.

Most people don’t get Gil Locks. Most people think he’s just trying to get a rise out of them. Or to make them think like him. Or that he’s an old coot who has some cool spiritual ideas but is a bit nuts.

I think Gil Locks tries to do a lot of things with his Shabbat meals. But one of the things I think many people miss out on is that his constant prodding, his harassment, his seeming anger, is not about pissing people off. It’s about waking them up.

Most of the people in the world have just chosen to accept the world they live in. Whether it’s Hasidic, secular, Reform, whatever, most of us are living a sleeping life. We go about our time, simply accepting the reality that has been presented to us. We’re happy with where we’re at, with the life we’ve chosen, and we go through the motions of life with a moment of awakened awareness every now and then.

Gil lives a life that is focused on popping our bubble. On shaking us. Saying “LOOK AROUND! How can you just be happy with where you are?! Can’t you see there’s so much more, that God is right here and you’re just going about eating my food?! WAKE UP!”

I told you I had two men to tell you about.

The other one is named Yisroel Shemtov, and I hope he’s okay with me using his name here, but enough people know who he is that even if I just described him, someone would comment and out him.

Rabbi Yisroel Shemtov aka the Red Devil, is a fixture of Crown Heights. Shorter than most, he’s got this gravelly, Russian-accented voice that I’ve never heard in anyone else.

Among many other things, Yisroel Shemtov is known for being a rabble-rouser. He will come to farbrengens (a Hasidic gathering that involves drinking, singing, and, hopefully, connecting to G-d through each other), and the people in the room will already start to chuckle, readying themselves for what’s coming.

Often, there’s the usual speaker there who has some trace of feeling of superiority for being “the speaker”.

And he’ll be talking, and suddenly Reb Shemtov will loudly yell he disagrees. The speaker, if he knows who Shemtov is, will either try and laugh along with everyone else, ask why he disagrees, or try and move on. If they don’t know who he is… well, everyone knows who he is.

Then the speaker will continue and suddenly Shemtov will speak up again, louder. This time angrily pounding the table and standing up. He’ll yell at the speaker, or at the audience, or at people for laughing at him. He’ll throw things. He’ll loudly exclaim, “Hello?!”, as if anyone could possibly ignore him.

Now, my favorite aspect of this is watching people’s reactions. I think a good amount are flustered and frustrated by it. They were just having a nice farbrengen! Doing the same freaking thing they do every week, drinking the same drinks, saying the same exact things they always do. The speaker will often feel slighted. He thought this would be the usual gathering! What’s the deal here, can’t people listen to him?

Just like Gil Locks, I think Yisroel Shemtov puts on an act. He’s trying to wake us up. So many of us, just going about, doing what we do, and trying to fall asleep. All of us, trying to sleep, trying to turn religion into the opposite of what it’s meant to be, something that is about falling into line and yawning during prayer and nodding and listening quietly when others speak.

Ridiculous.

We need to be awake, and the people like Gil Locks and Yisroel Shemtov who put their entire existence, their entire Shabbats, their entire egos on the line to wake us up are the biggest heroes I know.

Gil Locks is also known as the Central Park Guru. Before he became a religious Jew, he had spent years not speaking while sitting in a park. He had also tamed a wild elephant. When he started his journey towards becoming religious, he walked into 770 dressed in rags and and with crazy hair, and the Hasidim kicked him out.

It was during the Crown Heights riots that Yisroel Shemtov earned the name the Red Devil. He would drive around the neighborhood looking for people threatening or harassing Jews and… he would get out of his car… and… whatever, you get the idea.

These are people who lived their lives awake, lived their lives on the edge for what they believe.

In our generation, I see so many secular and religious alike who just want to sleep, who just want to follow whatever mold they’ve built in their brains. And I’m not talking just about “religious” folks. I’m talking about the choice we’ve all made at some point that it’s better not to constantly be sparkling, crackling, full of what makes life beautiful: a constant open-eyed awareness of the fact that this is the only life we have, and that any moment spent sleeping while awake is a waste, is a chance we’ve let go of.

Every time I’m sleeping, I try to think of them to wake me up. I try to wish that one day I’ll be as awake as they are. And if it upsets some people, so be it.

After all, everyone’s cranky when they’re woken up.