c. 2006 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Reality TV star and rabbi _ not words that are often used to describe one person. Unless that person is Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, star of the show, “Shalom in the Home.”

This is a rabbi, after all, who has been described as Dr. Phil with a Yiddish accent. Each week, Boteach (popularly known as Rabbi Shmuley) drives his specially equipped Airstream trailer to the home of a family in crisis. He counsels the family during the show, which airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. on The Learning Channel.

Most of the families he visits aren’t Jewish. He doesn’t mention God. He doesn’t talk about faith. Yet, for Boteach this job is a natural extension of his work as an Orthodox rabbi.

“I think rabbis and clerics were once life coaches,” he said in an interview. “They weren’t just people who instructed you in religious ritual. They were there to teach you how to lead a meaningful life.”

The show combines traditional reality TV techniques (videotape of misbehaving children, for example) with a couple of new twists to help the stressed out participants find “shalom,” which means peace. After Boteach watches tapes of the family in the trailer, he calls them in for counseling. Next, there’s an activity specifically tailored to the families’ issues. Finally, he speaks through an earpiece to help family members find the words for difficult conversations.

“This is a show about how the smallest things in life are the most moving, the most animating, the most uplifting,” he said. “Greatness is found in the kind of husband you are, in the kind of parent you are. There is no reason to live a life trying to impress strangers at the office when the people who mean the most to you end up thinking the least of you.”

When it premiered in April, the show drew 1.3 million viewers, but it really grew out of the advice Boteach has been offering for years. He has his own Web site (http://www.shmuley.com) and writes a column for Beliefnet.com. He is the author of 15 books, including his latest “Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children.” His other books include “Kosher Sex,” “Judaism for Everyone,” and “Why Can’t I Fall in Love?”

Boteach said his advice is rooted in his faith, but it taps into beliefs that are universal.

“The belief that people can change their ways comes from my faith, the belief that you can forgive,” he said. “I believe that we can choose to act according to our conscience. I don’t have to call it religion. I think that is something that all of us believe deep down.”

It was the universality of his approach that caught the eye of producers for the show, who did not originally plan to cast a rabbi in the lead role.

“We knew we really wanted to find an expert, a host for the series that had a fresh, unique voice,” said Deborah Adler Myers, an executive producer at The Learning Channel. “We’re not doing a show about religion. We’re doing a show about a teacher with this fabulous method of counseling families through inspiration. His style is really age old wisdom.”

While Boteach says his faith “animates all that I am,” Boteach is also heavily influenced by his family history. He is the father of 8 children ranging in age from 17 years to three months, and he is also the child of a divorce that affected him deeply.

“We underestimate the affect of divorce on children,” he said. “I know it harmed me and scarred me for life. That’s why I try to turn the pain of my parents’ divorce into something life-affirming.”

This focus has been evident since the first show, when he was called in to help a single mother of four whose children were out of control. Instead of offering advice on discipline, he began talking about the children’s father. The couple had divorced after 17 years of marriage when the father had an affair.

Boteach said the mother, Beatrice, needed the father, Luis, in the family’s life, and he brought the two together for counseling.

“His approach is there is no such thing as a bad kid,” Myers said. “We’re starting first with the individual family members. Who are they as people? Who are they as a couple? Who are they as parents?”

In a recent episode, he worked with Ali and Tijen Wexler, whose marriage had lost passion after the birth of their children. When he took the family to a rock-climbing wall for a group outing, he coached the couple on what to say to each other through earpieces.

Those earpieces, he said, represent another difference between his show and other family reality TV shows. He’s never stingy with advice, but he said his goal is not to speak as an external authority figure, but to tap into the participant’s own sense of right and wrong.

“I believe that all of us have an inner voice, whether you call it spirit or conscience, we all have an almost innate understanding of what we want to be in life,” he said. “The idea of these ear pieces is to get them to hear that inner voice. It’ll start off quite literally as my voice, but little by little it’s their voice. In a world of a lot of pain and anger and noise, we often don’t hear that voice.”

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Does he want to be the next Dr. Phil? Not exactly, but he does want the show to succeed. His ultimate goal, he said, is to inspire families, both participants and viewers, to do the work they need to do to make the family better when the cameras aren’t rolling.

“Movies are about people who save the world or master the planet,” he said. “Our show is about mastering yourself. It’s about reading your kids bedtime stories when no movie will be made about that. You do it because it’s right.”

Editors: To obtain photos of Rabbi Boteach, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

KRE/JL END ROAN