Saul quickly assessed that he was way out of his league at Columbus and if that wasn’t intimidating enough shortly afterward a rep from Disney came to campus speaking to an assembly of 750 students. “Who wants to work for Disney?” he asked.

Every hand went up. “Well only maybe four of you will be chosen for an internship ” the rep warned. He advised the students to focus on figure drawing and anatomy. Saul made sure to pour his energies in that direction.

He sent in a portfolio his sophomore year not expecting much. So he wasn’t too disappointed when a rejection letter appeared a few months later. “I didn’t care. I was happy just to see my name on Disney stationary ” he says.

He just threw himself into the work. He and Andy became known as the guys who never put down their sketchbooks. They’d go to the zoo to draw animals render basketball players during breaks. At the end of the school year they sent in their portfolios again and waited in suspense. A few months into winter vacation Andy called Saul exclaiming “I got in!”

But Saul hadn’t heard anything and a call to Disney confirmed that he’d been rejected. When he returned to school disappointed it was perhaps hashgachah pratis that led him to attend a free showing of the film “Rudy ” based on a true story about a young man who had a dream to play college football for Notre Dame despite significant obstacles. There was only one problem with this aspiration: the guy was only five feet tall.

But he refused to let low grades no funds and insufficient physical stature deter him. In the end his dream came true.

“I realized at that point that the only thing we control in life is how hard we work on ourselves how much we invest ” Saul says. “But the final outcome is not in our hands.”

Inspired by the football player’s refusal to take no for an answer Saul decided to call Disney to find out how close he had come to being accepted.

“It turns out I missed the cut by only three slots three out of thousands of applicants ” he recounts. “Then I asked them what I could improve because I believe you always have to work on your weak spots.”

The following year’s Disney rep on campus was 70-year-old animator Bill Matthews who’d worked on Sleeping Beauty in the late 1950s. Matthews liked Saul’s work and urged him to send his portfolio to Disney again. But Saul decided that he wanted to wait a couple of weeks to make it even better. “What can I do to improve my portfolio?” he asked.

Matthews suggested adding more special effects to his drawings so Saul spent the next two weeks drawing smoke ripples and fire and then sent his work to Disney.

Then he sat back and waited breathlessly. Not a word. Weeks went by. Then out of the blue he got an excited call from Andy now working at Disney Studios in Orlando. “Saul they built a whole new wing for interns ” he said. “They put up a list of all the people accepted on the next internship and your name is on the list!”

A phone call confirmed the good news. Elated, Saul called his mother. “We did it!” he yelled.

“I wasn’t the most talented kid at school,” he says. “But boy, nobody worked harder than me.”

Fairy Tale Life

Saul had now catapulted to VIP status. A company car picked him up in Orlando, and he was given a tour, assigned his own desk among a team of 15 interns from all over the world, and given access to all the Disney World facilities.

His first assignment was rather less glamorous than his job title as a fledgling Disney animator: he drew scores of leaves and vines for forest scenes in one film, and then having become a salaried employee, he went on to draw gargoyles for another movie. Next he animated the character Shang for Mulan. Life was good: He bought a sports car, and shopped in high-end stores. During a break in films, he joined his parents on a trip to Eretz Yisrael, where he met the yeshivah student who planted a seed of curiosity about Judaism in his mind.

Mulan took three years to complete, and then there was a lull until the studio was ready for the artists to begin animating the next project, Tarzan. During the break, Saul decided to go back to Israel: It was his opportunity to finally figure out where he fit into the feature film of Jewish history.

He joined an Isralight group under the direction of Rabbis David Aaron and Binny Friedman. The very first class left a huge impression on him, despite the fact that the subject matter was something quite tiny: the mezuzah. Saul knew what mezuzahs looked like, of course, but he’d always assumed they were a sort of Jewish door accessory (he had no idea there was a parchment inside). Instead, the rabbi taught, we put Hashem’s name in a spot where we transition in and out of our homes. “I found out the mezuzah is there to make us think about the kind of world we want to create when we go out into the world, and the kind of home we want to create when we return,” Saul explains.

Until then, he had always thought of Torah as a sort of history book. Now he understood that Torah is an instruction manual for living, teaching us about marriage, chinuch, spiritual growth. “I was inspired to see how it gives meaning to a Jewish person’s life,” he says. “Before that, Judaism was about doing what my parents did, but it wasn’t particularly real to me.”

He returned to Orlando believing he had to perpetuate this new-found connection somehow. Lacking a rabbi or a Jewish chevra, he bought a Chumash and start reading the parshah every week. He also took upon himself to say a shehakol whenever he drank a glass of water, having learned to see food and drink as a gift from Hashem and an opportunity to connect by saying thank you.

Now that Saul had created a small opening for Torah in his life, Hashem responded by opening a wider path to help him get to a place where he could continue to grow steadily and surely. His agent called unexpectedly, proposing a job as a director for MTV in New York for a new kid’s show. Saul had always dreamed of directing, so despite his attachment to Disney and the Orlando sunshine, he packed his bags and headed north.

On the Upper West Side, he pounded the pavement for a place to live, chancing upon a building that sported a palm tree logo and the name “The Key West.” The Florida references called to him, and as he stood in the lobby scanning the bulletin board, a man came out to pin up a card announcing he was seeking a roommate. “Hey,” Saul said, “You can take that down, I’m your new roommate.”

The man appraised him. “Not so fast,” he said. “Are you shomer Shabbos?”

Saul was still clueless about many things. “What’s that?” he said.

When the man began explaining, Saul felt put off — too strange, too restrictive. He respectfully declined, and started walking out. Then the bitter winter air hit him like a slap in the face. Impulsively, he turned around. “Wait, I’ll do it!” he proclaimed, running back into the building. “I’ll be shomer Shabbos!”

At first, he now admits, some of those Shabbos rules seemed a little extreme and fanatical — no ripping toilet paper? No switching on a light? In the end, however, he avows, “I just fell in love with Shabbos.” He eventually became connected with the Manhattan Jewish Experience, a kiruv organization headed by Rabbi Mark Wildes. When he witnessed his first frum wedding, he was overawed by the kedushah and the explosive joy.

His girlfriend, Marion, who came from a Reform background, had also been discovering Torah Judaism. She and Saul had known each other since high school and met again when both began working for Disney in Orlando, Marion as an associate producer. “We used to feel like we were the only two Jews in Orlando,” Marion says. Marion and Saul had their own beautiful frum wedding a couple of years after Saul moved to New York.

Not yet 100 percent shomer mitzvos, the couple moved to L.A., but Fairfax seemed too “black hat” at the time. “I was still a pink shirt kind of guy,” says Saul, so they settled in Pico. There, one afternoon, Saul wandered into the Aish Hatorah shul on Pico Boulevard. In the pause between Minchah and Maariv, he saw people sitting around him hunched over seforim. He tapped one of them on the shoulder and asked what he was doing.

“I’m learning,” the man replied, returning to his sefer.

Saul tapped him again. “Um, what are you learning?”

“Torah,” came the terse response.

Saul’s a persistent kind of a guy. He tapped the man’s shoulder yet again. “Teach me,” he said.

Thus began his long-term chavrusa with Rabbi Shalom Denbo, a Torah educator, author and mohel active in the Aish community. The two of them began with Pirkei Avos, then moved on to Mesilas Yesharim, typically learning into the wee hours on Friday nights with what Saul dubs the “perfect trifecta”: a sefer, Coca Cola in a glass bottle, and Rebbetzin Denbo’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Mesilas Yesharim took them over four years to complete, during which time Rabbi Denbo imparted much of the derech of his own rebbi, Rabbi Noach Weinberg. “Reb Noach used to talk about how American Jews often feel a passionate sense of identity, but don’t know why or how to pass it on,” Rabbi Denbo says. “That resonated with Saul. He saw he had to start taking responsibility for his own Jewish growth, and also for other Jews.”

Hence, when they finished, Rabbi Denbo instructed Saul: “Now you go and teach.”

“Rav Noach used to say, ‘If you know an alef, teach an alef,’” Saul says. “That’s how I started teaching young professionals at Aish.” Over the next many years, Saul himself started teaching Mesilas Yesharim, and is today the president of the Community Shul in Pico.

To Infinity and Beyond

Saul has continued to acquire feathers in his professional cap as a director for top studios such as Disney, Amazon, MTV and Netflix, and has consulted for animation studios around the world. Simultaneously, his kiruv career has exploded.

Now one of the most sought-after Jewish speakers, Saul has shared his inspiring story all over the world for countless Jewish organizations including Chabad, Aish, MEOR, NCSY, The JLE, Sinai Indaba and many others.

Today, Saul, Marion and their four children live in Los Angeles, where they invite scores of people to their home for Shabbos and Yom Tov. More recently, he has begun leading the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Program tours with Charlie Harary and Lori Palatnik.

In a world obsessed with entertainment, secular Jews are immediately lured to his talks by the Disney mystique. “Once I say Disney, I can say anything, and people will listen — whether they’re nine years old or 100 years old,” Saul readily admits. But as his Yiddishkeit has grown, his outlook on his career has changed.

“Judaism lends such balance to my life,” he says. “I used to read all the trade magazines, follow who was up for the Oscars. When I’d go into a meeting I’d be rehearsing my pitch… now I just say the Shema. Whether or not I get a project at Dreamworks isn’t ultimately up to Jeffrey Katzenberg.”

Do his Torah hashkafos make it difficult to continue navigating through the Sodom and Gomorrah of the entertainment world? “Most people are very respectful and interested,” Saul says. “I was recently working on a film with Mark Hamill, the actor who became famous for Star Wars, and we had lunch together one day. He saw the Hebrew letters on my hamburger and wanted to know what that was all about, and we spoke for half an hour about kashrus and Judaism.”

Marion adds that the more clarity she and Saul have themselves, the better they’re able to make their religious needs clear to others. “Once a studio did a private screening just for us and about 100 people, because we wouldn’t attend on Shabbos,” she says. “They were so accommodating. If you approach it right, you make a kiddush Hashem.”

As for questionable subject matter in films, the fact that he works in kids’ animation cuts out a lot of treif  material. “I’m very particular about what I’ll take on, and what I let my children see,” Saul asserts, “and I do my best to take on projects that reflect Torah values.”

Most recently, Saul has been working on an animated version of the children’s book Llama, Llama, Red Pajama. In addition, he’s very excited to have teamed up with the talented Pittsburgh animator/director Sruli Broocker, developing a project with Jewish content: It’s an animated film, using top Hollywood talent, based on the Caldecott award-winning book Hershel and the Hanukah Goblins. “You really can work as a film director in Hollywood and do Jewish content,” he says.

He still draws every day, often sketching things out for his animators to let them know what he’s looking for artistically, but he no longer animates; he’s a director and a storyteller, a consummate professional who still retains the playfulness and imagination that are part of the cartoon creator’s job description.

But of all the stories Saul brings to life, the most compelling story is his own. He inspires on so many levels — as the kid with little more than grit and determination who drew his way into Disney, as the young man who launched into Judaism with the same energy and freshness he brought to animation.

Saul could have remained forever a Peter Pan, planted in a fantasy world of children’s stories and shiny new toys. Instead, he chose the path to adult wisdom and spiritual growth. Now he entrances audiences with the story of how his life moved from black and white careerism to the 3-D Technicolor of a vibrant Torah life.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 656)