G2G Episode 0 — My Story Did Not Start When I Found Torah
· Six1Trey · G2G
Leer en español · לקריאה בעברית
Before the first chapter, there is a question: why tell this story at all? In the five-minute intro to G2G — From Gangster to Ger, Ariel Hanasi answers it in his own voice. No script polish, no soundtrack doing the work. Just a man who has lived several lives explaining why he can't keep the last one to himself.
These notes summarise the episode. Everything inside quotation blocks is Ariel's own words from the video, with the timestamp where he says it.
Where the story really starts
The title is the thesis. Most conversion stories begin at the moment of discovery: the first Shabbat, the first page of Gemara. Ariel refuses that shortcut.
"So my story did not start when I found Torah. It started long before that, with family ties to Colombia's underworld." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (0:44)
He lists the world he came up in: New York gangs, Latin Kings, MS-13, Bloods, Crips, the streets of Bogotá. Then he names the losses plainly: a father killed in New York, a brother shot and killed. He doesn't dramatise them. He says them, and moves on, which is somehow harder to hear.
The life he thought he wanted
The middle of the episode is an inventory of everything the street promised and delivered: music and fame, money ("couple million dollars"), power, running the blocks. Then the bill.
"I lost my family. Lost my business. Lost the bling-bling, lost the fast bikes, the cars." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (1:56)
What's left after the crash is not a plan but a pull: a yearning to go back to the days when he first fell in love with Torah.
Like Jonah, called back
The emotional turn of the intro is a comparison most listeners won't expect from a former gangster: the prophet who ran from his mission.
"So as Jonah in the whale was led back to Nineveh to serve the master and help his brethren, I feel there's no option. This is the last thing I want to do. But I feel I have to serve. And if so, I will serve humbly." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (2:24)
That reluctance is the honesty of the whole project. G2G is not a victory lap. It is a man doing the thing he least wants to do (telling the truth about himself, in public) because he believes he was sent back to do it. (Read the Book of Jonah on Sefaria.)
G-d was there from day one
Looking back, Ariel reads his own history as hashgachah pratit, Divine Providence, long before he had a word for it:
"I believe G-d was there from day one: through immigration, through the move to Colombia, the people and dangers I met on Colombia and Bogotá streets, and every fall I thought had ended my story." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (2:45)
That idea runs through the whole series. In Chapter 1 it becomes the "Torah Blueprint" segments, where a verse is laid over a memory and the memory starts to make sense.
What G2G is, and what it isn't
"This is G2G: the true story of a man trying to find the light — through tears, fear, cries, setbacks, and teshuvah." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (2:58)
He is just as clear about what it isn't. No degree, no perfect circle of friends, just learning as he went: fall, get back up, fall, get back up. He leans on King Solomon here (Mishlei 24:16: the righteous fall seven times and rise again) and on Pirkei Avot's definition of wisdom as learning from everyone (Avot 4:1).
"This is not about me telling you how to live your life." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (3:30)
A son longing for a father
The last minute holds the line that best explains the book:
"It is a long story about a son longing for a father he never had." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (4:00)
He names the tumah (the spiritual filth he soaked up from the world) and the decision to get focused again with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, starting the year with Bereshit. Then he signs his name to it:
"I am Ariel Hanasi. This is G2G. Welcome." — Ariel Hanasi, G2G Episode 0 (4:29)
What comes next
Chapter 1 (Part 1): Born in Bogotá, Raised in Queens picks up exactly where this intro points: the family roots, the father called Manolo, "elephant eggs" on a kitchen table in Queens, and a dead-end block in Supreme Team territory.
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- Watch in order with the G2G playlist, or see every episode and Short on the G2G videos page.
- Read the book free, in English, Spanish or Hebrew, at six1trey.org/en/book/g2g.