Folgen
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“I am running away to join the circus.”
It was 2004, and my synagogue in Atlanta had welcomed Amichai Lau-Lavie as a guest speaker. Amichai had been the founder of Storahtellers, a ritual theater company, which was an innovative approach to presenting Torah in synagogue. He had come to our congregation along with what could only be described as a madcap ensemble of actors, singers and theater professionals – who also knew Torah.
They dramatized the Torah portion. And, much more.
The congregation was mesmerized.
The next day, we had breakfast. This is what I said to him:
“You are the circus, and I am running away to join you.”
Those are the kind of feelings that Amichai Lau Lavie evokes. For decades, he has been one of American Judaism’s most creative, most courageous, and most outrageous, spiritual leaders.
Listen to the podcast interview with him.
This is his resume. Time Out called him “an iconoclastic mystic." NPR called him “a calm voice for peace." According to the New York Times, he is a “rock star.” The Jewish Week called him “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world.”
Rabbi Lau-Lavie is the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC, where he has been living since 1998. Just recently, his colleague at Lab/Shul, Shira Kline, received a coveted Covenant Award for her contributions to Jewish education.
He was ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016 – which is the only thing conservative about him.
Being a rabbi is not a career for Amichai; neither is it a calling.
It is a genetic predisposition.
His cousin is Rabbi David Lau, the current Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel. His uncle is Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, and survived the Holocaust as a child. His brother is Rabbi Benny Lau, one of Israel's most prominent Orthodox rabbis.
If Amichai did 23 and Me, the results would scream: "rabbi!"
Amichai is the 39th generation of rabbis in his family.
Except, he is the first one to be openly queer.
Did I mention that he used to be a drag queen? His drag persona was Rebbitzen Hadassah Gross, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, who was the widow of several rabbis.
Amichai Lau-Lavie is the subject of a new movie -- Sabbath Queen, directed by Sandi DuBowski, who previously directed "Trembling Before G-d," which was the first film to shine a light on the plight of Orthodox LGBTQ persons.
"Sabbath Queen" had been entered in several festivals, but had been cancelled because, well, you know. It is making its premier at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it is the only Israeli-ish film in the festival.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie has many gifts. Chief among them is his ability to transform our views of Judaism, in which he takes us from the either/or to the both/and. He strives to be radically inclusive, even if it means dipping his toe into waters that some might find heretical.
My favorite quote of his: “The Bible is the PDF, and we are working on the google doc.”
As in: The biblical text might be a set text (as some might say: set in stone). But, a google doc is the result of many minds, souls, and hands writing and re-writing it -- as a communal effort.
We are all working on that doc.
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I am experiencing serious FOMO.
I am totally bummed that I am going to be out of the range on Monday to watch the solar eclipse.
So, let's talk about Judaism and eclipses.
Are there eclipses in the Bible? Most likely. It is possible that the plague of darkness during the Exodus from Egypt was a total eclipse of the sun. Likewise, when the sun stood still in the book of Joshua, that also might have been an eclipse. There are also references to solar eclipses in medieval Jewish texts, especially as they might have influenced the calculation of the new moon.
But, far more compelling is the idea that God is also in eclipse. The term for that is "hester panim," the act of God concealing the Divine Presence as a way of punishing the Jewish people.
To experience the hidden Presence of God was to experience great terror and anxiety:
"How long, O LORD; will You ignore me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I have cares on my mind, grief in my heart all day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Look at me, answer me, O LORD, my God! Restore the luster to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” my foes exult when I totter" (Psalm 13: 2-5).
It is dangerous — to directly experience the hidden nature of God can sear itself into your eyes, and into your soul. God chose to conceal the Divine Presence — either as a punishment for sin or because God cannot tolerate the fact of our suffering.
But, here is the good news: a God Who hides is also a God who can be found.
The eclipse itself is a testimony to the cycles that attend to the natural universe, the flowing of time and the placement of the planets and orbs — all imagined, all in the mind of God — as intimated in the opening words of Genesis.
You have bought your eclipse glasses, haven't you?
In the words of Bruce Springsteen:
Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sunBut mama, that's where the fun is ("Blinded by the Light"). -
Fehlende Folgen?
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What are the three little words that rabbis almost never, ever, say to their congregations.
Hold on, because I am about to say them.
God loves you.
That is the topic of Rabbi Shai Held's new book, "Judaism Is About Love,"` which is also the topic of today's "Martini Judaism" podcast.
Wait a second, you are saying. Isn't this supposed to be Martini Judaism -- not Martini Evangelical Christianity? Am I reading the wrong column, or has Jeff Salkin decided to convert?
Neither.
Let’s face it: “God loves you” is not how the world views Judaism.
It’s not how Jews view Judaism and God either.
We have forgotten and abandoned this sublime and comforting idea, and we are the poorer for that amnesia and abandonment.
A conversation with Shai Held, regarding his new book on the topic...
Our liturgy proclaims it very clearly – for starters, in the Shabbat evening liturgy:
The ahavat olam prayer: "with eternal love You have loved us" – and the sign of that love? The Torah and its laws.
In the Avot prayer, we chant that God will bring us redemption for the sake of our ancestors b’ahavah, in love.
In the Kiddush, we chant that God gives us Shabbat b’ahavah, with love….
I like to think of Judaism as the story of a romance.
Act One: God meets people. That is the patriarchal period. The Jewish people begins when God, for no apparent reason – this is how the mystics put it – God fell in love with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob.
Act Two: God and people date. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the matriarchs — all have conversations with God.
Act Three: During the sojourn in Egypt, God and people are out of touch.
Act Four: God hears the cries of the beloved coming from Egypt.
Act Five: God remembers that love.
Act Six: God and the Jewish people get married at Sinai (which will happen a few weeks from now, on Shavuot). It is why on Shavuot some communities actually write a ketuba between God and the Jewish people.
Act Seven: Then comes the business with the Golden Calf. A big disappointment. A bad day in the marriage.
Act Eight: We endure God’s perhaps petulant or even passive-aggressive silence. For much of the later parts of the Jewish Bible, God says nothing.
Act Nine: We and God re-invent our relationship over and over again. The Temple is destroyed; the Jews rebuild it; the Romans destroy it again; the Jews figure out new ways of demonstrating their love for God.
When we study Torah, do you really want to know what is happening?
It is as if we have entered into that romance with God.
We read every word of Torah, listening to its nuances and wondering aloud and in sacred community about its meaning….
If you’ve ever been in love, you know exactly what I mean.
In the Zohar, the cardinal text of Jewish mysticism, the author imagines the Torah Herself (yes, herself – in the Jewish imagination, the Torah is always feminine).
The Torah is a kind of Rapunzel, waiting coquettishly in her tower while her lover tries to find her and rescue her and even ravish her. Our love affair with Torah is perhaps the closest way that we can understand our love affair with God.
Where did we lose the idea that Judaism is about love?
Our history has bruised us and battered us, and it has forced us to be deaf to our own beautiful traditions.
To quote the late chief rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “Once upon a time, we saw ourselves as the people that God loves.
“Now, all too many of us define ourselves as the people that the world hates.”
Yes, I am painfully aware of what is happening in the world right now -- and especially in this country -- with the frightening rise of antisemitism.
But, the idea that we are the people whom the world hates is a pathetic distortion of our faith and our fate.
Because, do you know why countless generations of Jews were able to stand up to Jew-hatred?
Because no matter what befell them, they had faith in God’s love.
We still do. Thank you, Shai Held, for bringing that idea back. -
A very intelligent young person once asked me: “When did the Bible stop?”
“What do you mean?” I responded.
“I mean,” she said, “when did they decide that the Bible was finished? Why can’t we simply add on to it? Why can’t it be like a loose-leaf notebook, where you put things in and take them out whenever you need to?”
I admit I had found that question to be, well, irreverent.
Now I am not so sure. Now I actually think it was a great question and I have been asking it myself. Not about taking pages out of the Bible (though I am sure there are some things I would not miss), but about adding pages to the Bible.
Perhaps we are writing a new Jewish Bible for our time.
Especially since Oct. 7. That is what Rachel Korazim, one of Israel’s most noted and most beloved educators, has revealed to us — a new book of Lamentation. Listen to the podcast. -
It is November 10, 1938. It’s in a small city in Germany. It is the night after Kristalnacht, the night of broken glass that ushered in the mass roundups and the killings that would become the Holocaust, what we call the Shoah in Hebrew.
There are a group of men shoved together in a cell. They are all of different ages. One of them turns to a much younger man, a rabbinical student who was no more than twenty years old.
“You! You are a rabbinical student. You are a student of Judaism. So tell us – what does Judaism have to say to us at a time like this?”
The recipient of that weighty question was young Emil Fackenheim. He would spend the rest of his life coming up with answers to that question. In so doing, he became one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of our time .
In this column and accompanying podcast, we pose that question to Liel Leibovitz. He is an Israeli journalist, author, media critic and video game scholar. He is a prolific writer, mostly for Tablet magazine. I have followed his work for years.We talk about Liel's fascination with that often arcane, and central, Jewish text... how the contemporary writer Jonathan Rosen called the Talmud “a drift net for catching God”... and how the Talmud is like an ancient version of the Internet. -
The other day, I was talking to someone about a friend of mine who had converted to Judaism, a.k.a., joined the Jewish people.
My conversation partner stopped me in my tracks.
"I don't believe in that," he said. "You can't convert to Judaism. You can't just join the Jewish people. You either are Jewish, or you are not. What — you take a class, and you take a test and they dunk you (in the mikveh, the ritual bath) and poof — you're Jewish?!?"
"No!" he continued. "You have to have a yiddishe neshame, a Jewish soul. You have to have centuries of suffering and feeling. It has to be in your DNA!"
I will tell you what went "poof," at that moment.
2,500 years of Jewish history, law and theology went "poof."
More than 40 years as a congregational rabbi working with Jews-by-choice went "poof."
More than 40 years of being an activist and a leader in the Reform movement working to welcome Jews-by-choice went "poof."
More than 40 years of having colleagues in Jewish professional life who are Jew-by-choice went "poof."
And, let us be clear: Thousands of years of people joining the Jewish people to live Jewish lives and sometimes, tragically, to die Jewish deaths, went "poof."
So, let me say it again — just in case you were not listening decades ago, or just in case you are new to this topic.
Judaism is not a closed club.
Judaism is not a secret society.
Judaism is not in your DNA. Actually, there are genetic elements of having ethnic Jewish ancestry. Every week, countless people are finding out, via 23 and Me, that they are, in fact, some percentage Jewish.
But, therein lies the paradox. The Jews are a tribe, a family, a people and a nation — into which you do not have to be born, but in fact, that you can join.
Is it easy to feel that sense of connection, and that sense of history? No.
Can you learn it? Absolutely. And it happens all the time. -
Did you ever think, in your wildest imagination, that the events of October 7 would lead to an all out culture war that would involve every sector of American intellectual and academic life?
Me neither.
And yet, here we are -- with the result that many American Jews are now questioning the role of the university in their lives, and in the life of the Jewish community.
To help us discern the depths of the university and the Jews, check out the podcast -- a conversation with Mark Oppenheimer. He has been writing about American religion for more than 25 years. From 2010 to 2016, he wrote the “Beliefs” column, about religion, for "The New York Times," and he created "Unorthodox," the world’s most popular podcast about Jewish life and culture, with over 7 million downloads to date.
He is the author or editor/co-editor of five books, including "The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia: From Abraham to Zabar's and Everything In Between" and "Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood." He holds a Ph.d in religious studies from Yale University; has taught there, at Stanford University, Wesleyan University, and New York University, and currently serves as the vice-president of open learning at American Jewish University,
We have a wide-ranging conversation -- most of which is about the experience of Jews in the Ivy League. -
“Don’t know much about history…” Those were the immortal words of Sam Cooke.
It happens to be true. Many of us don’t know much about history. Just think of the way that we use the word. Someone gets fired from a job, and what do we say? “She’s history.”
But, I love history, especially American Jewish history. No one has nourished that love of history more than Professor Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University, past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
In this podcast, Professor Sarna and I get into the weeds of American Jewish history, and the history of anti-Semitism, American style. Pay attention:
Both Brandeis University and the state of Israel are celebrating their 75th anniversary. One event happened in Waltham, Massachusetts; the other, in the Middle East. How are those two events linked?
Americans have had “diverse and conflicting attitudes“ toward Jews. Name some Americans who were simultaneously antisemitic and philo-semitic (lover of Jews).
Why were my parents upset when I purchased a 1966 Mustang? (Hint: consider the maker).
Who was America's most famous and visible Jew-hater? (Answer: In the 1930s, Father James Coughlin, an antisemitic priest, had a huge radio following. Imagine Father Coughlin with TikTok).
Compared to other American minorities, historically Jews have gotten off pretty easy. Name some other groups in America that have suffered bigotry -- even more than the Jews. (Hint: and not just Blacks).
Is anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism? (Hint: the Hamas killers bragged to their parents that they killed -- not Israelis, not Zionists, but Jews.) (A second hint: What was the name of the most infamous Czarist anti-Semitic tract, that is still a best seller in too many places? It is a mythology of global Jewish control, and its name is "The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of ___________.")
What would happen if college admissions corresponded to the percentage of Jews in America? (Hint: It would not be good for the Jews.)
As bad as it might seem today, what makes this situation "better" than other surges of anti-Semitism that we have experienced in the past? (Hint: watch how the government is responding).
Finally, you must listen to the very end -- because Professor Sarna offers words of hope, determination, and inspiration that will lift your souls.
How does he do it? Because he is, after all, a historian.
Please enjoy my new book -- the first book to outline what a post-October 7 American Judaism will look like -- and how we can restore communal obligation to liberal Jewish life. Tikkun Ha'Am/ Repairing Our People: Israel and the Crisis of Liberal Judaism. -
No one ever asks, "Why should India exist?" Or Albania. Or the United States. Or any country in the world.
Except for one country: Israel.
So, let me make this simple — and overly simplistic. Why does Israel exist? Here are my two R's of Israel.
To rescue Jews who are persecuted. To save Jews from Jew-hatred. That was the wake-up call that Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl experienced during the trial of Alfred Dreyfus for treason in France in the early 1890s. He saw the mobs in the streets calling for death to the Jews. It caused him to sing a much earlier version of The Animals' classic song "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place." That urge became political Zionism. (How wonderful that we no longer have mobs in the streets chanting "Death to the Jews!" Oh. Wait. ... )
The second reason is resurrection — of the Hebrew language, of Jewish culture and of Judaism itself. That, roughly speaking, is the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'Am.
How are those two R's doing?
Listen to the podcast, as I interview Raquel Ukeles, chief editor of the new catalog of some of the richest of the library's holdings: "101 Treasures From the National Library of Israel." Ukeles serves as the library's head of collections. She earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in comparative Islamic and Jewish studies. She also studied Jewish law in Jerusalem and New York, and Islamic law and Arabic in Egypt, Morocco and the Netherlands.
Here is what you will learn.
The National Library of Israel is not a "Jewish" library.
Quite the contrary: It is an institution that cherishes and celebrates all aspects of Israeli society. One of its major collections is of Islam and the Middle East.
The library reaches way beyond Israel. it sees itself as a guardian of global cultural heritage, dedicated to democratizing knowledge, advancing education, promoting research and fostering dialogue. Its collection spans over 200 languages.
What would you find in their collections? I totally geeked out over this stuff.
Handwritten works by Maimonides and Sir Isaac Newton.
Exquisite Islamic manuscripts, dating back to the ninth century.
The personal archives of leading cultural and intellectual figures, including Martin Buber, Natan Sharansky, Hannah Szenes and Franz Kafka.
A pre-modern feminist blessing, from a 1480 Italian prayer book. It was the work of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, who wrote three prayer books for women. There is a traditional blessing, in which men thank God "for not making me a woman." He changed that, so that women could thank God for "having made me a woman and not a man."
The original music of "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold) by Naomi Shemer — the most iconic popular song in the history of Israel. Check out this version by the rock band Phish.
Ancient Babylonian demon traps (!).
A Christian "Book of Hours," describing a certain kind of Christian spiritual contemplation.
The library enshrines how Jews understand the world. Yes, we begin with our people; yes, our people are rooted in our land; yes, we share the land with other peoples — and then we ascend to a universal sense of what the best of the humanities can offer.
As I went through "101 Treasures From the National Library of Israel," page by page, I wept.
Because this is the Israel that relatively few people, even Jews, know — and this is the Israel that our enemies want to destroy.
Not on my watch. -
Do you know what it’s like to fall in love?
I don’t mean falling in love with a romantic partner.
I am talking about the moment of falling in love with a performer — because you know that person gets it and gets you and understands you.
That is what happened to me back in 1991, when a friend of mine played me an album called “From Strength to Strength” by Peter Himmelman.
That title is a biblical quote. It’s what Jews say to each other at significant moments in life: “May you go from strength to strength.”
The best cuts from that album? "Woman With the Strength of 10,000 Men,” “Impermanent Things” and "Mission of My Soul.”
Himmelman imported Jewish theology and text and put it out on alternative radio. I was hooked. I fell in love. Total musical crush.
In 2002, Himmelman was nominated for an Emmy Award for his song "Best Kind of Answer," which appeared on the CBS series Judging Amy, for which he also composed the score.
He composed the music for the FOX television show Bones through the fourth season.
He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his children's album, "My Green Kite."
Himmelman is a rarity in American popular music — an observant Jew who observes Shabbat. Some years ago, he turned down three offers to appear on the Tonight Show because they conflicted with Shabbat or Jewish holidays (he accepted the fourth invitation, for an appearance on Thanksgiving).
He is married to Maria Dylan. She is the daughter of Bob Dylan. They have four children and grandchildren.
You are going to love this podcast. We talk about rock music (my first love), Jewish culture, Jewish identity, spirituality and what it means for Jews to live post-Oct. 7.
We listen to his music as well. -
I first encountered Nora Gold when I read her amazing novel, Fields of Exile, which is about the anti-Israel ideologies that are now sweeping across the academic world – in her case, with a unique focus on what is happening in Canada. It is about antisemitism on the college campus. That book was enough to make me a total fan.
Today, we are talking to her about her new collection -- 18: Jewish Stories Translated From 18 Languages. This is the first anthology of this kind in 25 years.
And, no -- these are not mere maysehs. These are important Jewish short stories, all of them originally published in Jewish Fiction .net.
In the book's introductory paragraph, Nora tells a story about an arrogant, ignorant pundit who told his listeners that there was no Jewish fiction being created anywhere other than the United States (and perhaps in Israel).
This collection is a response to that charge. It totally blows out of the water the idea that Jewish culture comes only from this continent, and from Israel. -
What do we do now?
Many Jews, all over the world, are asking themselves that question during these difficult weeks.
Israelis are asking: What do we do now – to rebuild our land, our towns, our kibbutzim, our broken lives?
What does it mean to maintain hope in the Jewish future?
A new book -- "Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People" -- offers its readers numerous answers to those complex questions.
This is an amazing, unnerving, and challenging book.
It brings together a remarkable array of new essays from across the Jewish world. An unprecedented, large-scale collection of timely and provocative essays from a wide range of Jewish thought leaders that aims to start a global conversation among Jews about their future as a people. -
A blood libel.
That was the first thing that went through my mind when I heard about the bombing of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which claimed the lives of between 200 and 300 people.
Palestinians, much of the Arab world, and various organizations immediately blamed Israel. There is now ample evidence, accepted by the United States, that the bombing was the result of a failed rocket that had been launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Here is the audio and transcript of the Hamas terrorists discussing it.
There are those who cannot and will not believe that this was not an Israeli hit, however tragic it was. They simply believe that the Jews, in the guise of the Jewish State, are evil and blood thirsty. They have inherited a very long, dark history. It is the oldest antisemitic myth in the world -- the blood libel --- the accusation that Jews would kidnap a Christian child, kill him, and use his bones for Passover matzah and his blood for Passover wine.
In Europe, especially, this savage and pervasive accusation dictated the choice of wine for the seder. While red wine was traditional and preferable, the blood libel prompted others to choose white wine. Just so that you could drink a wine that does not look like blood. Just to be safe.
Why did my mind go to "blood libel?"
Because we are talking about antisemitism. When it comes to antisemitism, this is what you need to know: every single false, bizarre, and hurtful accusation and belief about the Jews still exists: that the Jews are violent; that they control economies; that they are part of an international conspiracy; that they are Christ-killers; that they are misanthropes.
None of those beliefs have disappeared.
And, especially now, "the way we talk about Israel is the way we talk about Jews."
That is one of many startling and fresh insights that Rabbi Diana Fersko offers us in her new book, "We Need To Talk About Antisemitism." -
I can't.
I just can't.
At Kibbutz Kfar Aza, they have found the bodies of some 40 babies, some of whom had been beheaded.
This past week has been the most difficult week in the history of the Jewish people since the end of the Shoah/Holocaust in 1945.
There is a word for what happened, and it is not an “attack.”
It is a pogrom, and it makes the most infamous pogroms in Jewish history – those at Kishinev, 1903 -- pale in comparison.
They did not go after military targets. Hardly. They have taken hostages — children; elderly people, including a Holocaust survivor who uses a wheelchair; and several soldiers.
More than 260 bodies have been recovered at a music festival in southern Israel.
Jews were rounded up and shot in the streets; we have not seen this since the Holocaust.
Hamas dragged hostages through the streets of Gaza. They publicly mutilated corpses.
Israeli girls raped.
Children in Gaza tormented Israeli hostage children.
Hamas pulled hostages from cars, screaming “Allah hu akhbar!”
Hamas has called on their people to use all weapons. Including axes.
They screamed, in apocalyptic tones: “Today the most glorious and honorable history begins.”
The charter of Hamas is an opera of conspiratorial antisemitism, which suggests that the Jews are in league with calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and her inhabitants: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” In its 1988 charter, it alleged that the Jews were in league with "Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, and the Lions."
There is a word for what we -- all Jews, and not just Israelis -- are experiencing.
It is called trauma.
We dedicate this podcast to the people of Israel, as we talk about trauma, resiliency, and hope. -
"Embarrassed."
"Ashamed."
"Confused."
"Ambivalent."
"Frightened."
Last week, I sat with a group of Jews in a synagogue. It was an adult education session, and I had asked them to complete the following sentence: “When I think of Israel, I am…”
Those were the reactions – what goes through their minds as they think about Israel, and what goes through their souls as they think about Israel.
I was shocked, but I was not entirely surprised. -
The word is "postmortem," and it fits.
For that is what the media has been conducting in the wake of the catastrophe that befell the Titan in the North Atlantic with the tragic loss of five lives.
And yet, almost immediately, there was an outcry. In the words of The New York Times:
On one vessel, five people died on a very expensive excursion that was supposed to return them to the lives they knew. On the other, perhaps 500 people died just days earlier on a squalid and perilous voyage, fleeing poverty and violence in search of new lives. -
This conversation with author Bruce Feiler could not have happened at a more opportune time.
I am in the process of retiring from the full time congregational rabbinate. I am in the process of finishing up a pulpit career that lasted more than forty years.
Over the last few weeks I have found myself repeating the words of my rabbi. Peggy Lee, who sang plaintively: “Is that all there is?”
Is that all there is to being a rabbi? You build relationships; you teach Torah; you embody; you represent; you symbolize – and then, you reach the end of your work years – and then, what?
All of my friends who are retiring, no matter what the career, find themselves asking the same question.
For some, it is: I wake up in the morning; now what do I do?
But for others, it is more like: I wake up in the morning; now who am I? Who am I if not my title and if not my job description?
Is that all there is?
Join me in my conversation with Bruce Feiler, media personality and the author of many books -- some on biblical topics ("Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses," "Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths," "Where God was Born: A Daring Adventure Through the Bible's Greatest Stories"); on the contemporary family ("The Secrets of Happy Families: Surprising New Ideas to Bring More Togetherness, Less Chaos, and Greater Joy"), and now, on the nature of the meaning of work in today's world -- "The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World."
This is what we discuss:
Why two-thirds of Americans say they’re unhappy with their work; why three-quarters say they plan to look for new work over the next year, and why unprecedented numbers of Americans are quitting their jobs.
How the very idea of "career" might be dead -- or at least, the idea of a single career.
Why professional success no longer requires climbing, but digging.
Why you should realize that you might be living a “nonlinear life.”
The meaning of the "workquake," and how you would recognize it if you felt it.
Why so many people are willing to trade in their earnings for meaning in life. (Spoiler alert: a study in 2018 that was published in the Harvard business review found that 90% of workers were willing to give up a quarter of their entire life earnings in exchange for work that was meaningful.)
But, throughout the podcast. I found myself smiling, because this conversation and Bruce's book reflect many things that I wrote in my own book, written almost thirty years ago (!) -- "Being God's Partner: How To Find the Hidden Link Between Spirituality and Your Work."
Even back then, I was interested in how people bring their spiritual values into the workplace, as a way of creating both meaning and balance in their lives.
I reminded Bruce that we have several ways of speaking about our work.
There is career – that which we carry.
There is vocation – the voice that calls to us.
But the Hebrew language goes one step further – to avodah – which is the word both for "work" and "divine worship."
It is true that some people worship their work. That is how we wind up with how we wind up with the twin idolatries of careerism and workaholism, which I noted was the only non-stigmatized addiction in American culture. It's not only not stigmatized; it is often a matter of pride.
But I also believe that there are ways of making our work into worship – of making sure that we incorporate the highest pieces of ourselves – so that we are not, in the words of my Yiddish speaking forebears simply machen a leben, making a living, but creating a life.
Bruce is an old friend, from my Georgia days, and we share some sweet Jerusalem memories as well -- about how we journeyed together to a place of meaning, and first started talking about what it would mean to make your own life into a sacred pilgrimage.
Enjoy the podcast! -
“So, Rabbi, in your more than forty years in the rabbinate, what are those things that surprised you – those things that you never expected, or that you once expected that didn’t actually come to pass?”
There would be a long list, but here is the one that moves me in particular.
Forty years ago, we never would have expected that so many Jews would turn to God as the location of their Jewish energies – that trend that we call Jewish spirituality.
In particular, we never would have expected that so many people – Jews and gentiles alike – would flock to the study of the teachings of Jewish mysticism – what we sometimes sloppily lump together into a bulging file folder called kabbalah.
My guest on today's podcast – talking about Jewish mysticism, and Hasidism, and neo-Hasidism, and Jewish spirituality – is one of the veteran teachers – may I say rebbes, even gurus? – of the new Jewish spirituality – Rabbi Arthur Green.
At the age of 82, Art Green is nothing less than a living legend.
Consider the chapters in his Book of Life:
In 1968, he founded Havurat Shalom, an experiment in Jewish communal life and learning that birthed the Havurah movement. (Check out this podcast with another pioneer of that movement, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld).
He taught in the Religious Studies Department of the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1984 he became dean, and then president, of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.
In 1993, he was appointed Philip W. Lown professor of Jewish Thought at Brandeis University.
And then, obviously needing yet another rabbinical seminary to lead (because they're like potato chips -- you can't have just one!) -- he became the founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston.
We are talking to Rabbi Green today because of his new commentary on the Jewish prayerbook -- "Well of Living Insight: Comments on the Siddur." You will never read another commentary quite like this one -- a book that focuses on phrases that are filled with light, and which speak to our inner lives.
Because that is who Art Green is -- a teacher who helped create the GPS of the inner life of the Jew.
Listen to the podcast, and join us as we talk about Art's childhood; his earliest influences; how contemporary Judaism became stale, and how it can awaken; how we dropped the ball on God; and what it means for us to be seen by God.
And another thing (which I discussed in my review of the new work by Paul Simon): how we need more metaphors for God. It is not as if we need to invent them, as Paul does (fun fact: Paul Simon and Art Green are precisely the same age). Rather, Art reminds us that the metaphors for God are already there, embedded in Jewish mystical literature. God as sea, garden, soil, river -- even Jerusalem.
My partial solution to the crisis in Judaism: We need more metaphors for God. Let's find them. The Jewish people depends on it.
And maybe, even God. -
If we held a moment of silence for every American who died of COVID it would take nearly two years at a rate of 24 hours a day to cover every name.
More than 6.6 million people worldwide and counting have died of COVID -- including more than a million Americans.
These are all people who loved and were loved.
This is an extraordinary and grim statistic, as on May 11, the CDC declared that the Federal COVID -19 Public Health Emergency has ended. -
"That's it!" my friend told me over coffee. "I am so done with Israel! The corruption, the situation with the Palestinians, the racists in the government...How can you still support them? How can you even want to go there this summer?"
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