Speaker 1: Hi, Catherine, Hi Chelsea, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm great, you're here in person, I know, and.
Speaker 1: I'm dehydrated because I just got off a plane. Oh
Speaker 1: I just found my visiline and my bra look at that.
Speaker 1: When I yeah, when I have my little Plaine meal,
Speaker 1: which I have now started eating plain food because that's
Speaker 1: how desperate I am. I have no food in whistler,
Speaker 1: my refriger. I mean, I have food, but I just
Speaker 1: can't cook anything, so I just don't really eat. All
Speaker 1: I have are protein shakes and protein bars. And it's
Speaker 1: really one of the most unhealthy times of my life.
Speaker 1: And Margarita is I mean, yeah, I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need food, and then I'm like, here's a protein.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you need just like lazy food. That's just like Okay,
Speaker 3: this is here. I can put it in my body
Speaker 3: and like keep going for the day.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. So between that, what else has
Speaker 1: been happening? Yeah, So I came back to La. I'm
Speaker 1: doing a guest star role in this show called Not
Speaker 1: Dead Yet on ABC and Hulu. My friend is the
Speaker 1: producer on it and asked me to come do a
Speaker 1: guest star So I came back for two days to
Speaker 1: do that and then a little photo shoot for my
Speaker 1: Netflix is a Joke Festival, which is on May eleventh. Fantastic.
Speaker 3: I am very excited about your Netflix's joke show.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, it's going to be so fun. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sneak on in there. And I was
Speaker 1: in Saskatoon and Winnipeg, Canada this week. Saskatoon sounds like
Speaker 1: it's a made up place. It sounds like Sascat's Asakatakaku.
Speaker 1: And they are two cities with sheets of ice. So
Speaker 1: when you look out, you are in the plains of
Speaker 1: Canada with just two ice sheets. So there's that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just pretty flat and cold. I had to sleep under
Speaker 1: the covers with a robe on and my hat, my
Speaker 1: two as they say in Canada. And so those are
Speaker 1: the two probably coldest cities I will have been too.
Speaker 2: But you made it.
Speaker 1: I did. I made it.
Speaker 3: Now did you do super Bowl party anything like that?
Speaker 1: I did go to a Super Bowl party. I skied yesterday. Well,
Speaker 1: it took me a lot of time to get ski
Speaker 1: because I have the twins on the weekends because I'm
Speaker 1: a single parent. Actually no, I'm not a single parent.
Speaker 1: My buddy's the mother and I'm the father, so I
Speaker 1: have the girls on the weekend. So first I went skiing,
Speaker 1: but that didn't really I didn't get very far skiing
Speaker 1: because I got stuck at a bar at the Umbrella
Speaker 1: Bar Unwhistir and then I so I didn't get on
Speaker 1: the mountain till our skiing. Well yes, during I didn't
Speaker 1: get on the mounta until twelve. Then I went to
Speaker 1: the Umbrella Bar and then I was there till one
Speaker 1: thirty and then we went skiing and there was just
Speaker 1: everyone was skiing out, and so we decided to go
Speaker 1: back to the Umbrella Bar and wait for everyone to
Speaker 1: ski out. And then I had to pick up my
Speaker 1: daughter at four, so I have to well she's actually
Speaker 1: my son, but we call her my she's a girl,
Speaker 1: but we call her my son. And so I had
Speaker 1: to go pick her up and bring her to a
Speaker 1: super Bowl party because there was going to be a
Speaker 1: cutie piet to super Bowl party that she wanted to meet,
Speaker 1: so obviously that's a priority.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then you can like casually snuggle on the couch
Speaker 3: a little bit, or you're not really snuggling, but you're like, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they had a little casual snuggle. So that
Speaker 1: was cute and it was worth it. And then I came.
Speaker 1: I left before the game ended, but I saw that
Speaker 1: the Chiefs won, and Taylor Swift rigged the whole thing. Apparently,
Speaker 1: of course, all conservative news outlets the Super Bowl. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: our guest today is an author. She's a spiritual leader
Speaker 1: and the founder and your rabbi at e Car, which
Speaker 1: is a non denominational Jewish congregation based in la And
Speaker 1: everyone I know has talked to me about this woman
Speaker 1: and how amazing she is. So I thought, okay, let's
Speaker 1: have her on. And she wrote this beautiful book that
Speaker 1: I just read. You read it. It's gorgeous, right, like,
Speaker 1: I love the way she wrote. I'm writing a lot
Speaker 1: about that stuff in my book. So it was very resonated.
Speaker 1: It's called the Amen Effect. It's ancient wisdom to mend
Speaker 1: our broken hearts and world. So please welcome Rabbi Sharon Brouse. Hello,
Speaker 1: good morning, Hi, Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be with you.
Speaker 1: We have so many people in comment that go to
Speaker 1: synagogue with you, and I have never been, and so
Speaker 1: many of my Jewish friends are like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you would love her. You guys have so much in common.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to come.
Speaker 1: I will. I know, I one day I will. I'm
Speaker 1: never in la, that's the problem. So I just finished
Speaker 1: your book, The Amen Effect, which was really moving. There
Speaker 1: are many sentiments to it, but the big takeaway from me,
Speaker 1: and there's something that really resonated with me, was the
Speaker 1: constant theme of connectivity and showing up. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to show up for people, but
Speaker 1: just the act of showing up itself and what that
Speaker 1: can do, how that can help a person who is dying,
Speaker 1: or is grieving, or is just in any sort of
Speaker 1: emotional trouble or trauma. So tell me, like, is this
Speaker 1: something that you've obviously learned throughout your rabbinical training and
Speaker 1: practicing and being a rabbi, But is this something that
Speaker 1: comes naturally to you?
Speaker 2: What a great question. Yeah. I think I think on
Speaker 2: some level I was this you know, kind of empathic
Speaker 2: five year old. I mean, I do. I think that
Speaker 2: I was a person growing up who when I saw pain,
Speaker 2: it pained me. And I always felt, like, you know,
Speaker 2: I wanted to do whatever I could to help people,
Speaker 2: and even in sometimes unhelpful ways. I think so, But
Speaker 2: I think the idea of moving toward pain instead of
Speaker 2: running away from it is for many of us as counterinstinctual,
Speaker 2: and even for people like me who feel pain deeply,
Speaker 2: we often pull away from folks who are struggling and
Speaker 2: suffering because for lots of good reasons. I mean, we're
Speaker 2: afraid that we're going to say the wrong thing, we
Speaker 2: think that we'll be a burden, and they don't actually
Speaker 2: want us or need us there, Chelsea, I think we
Speaker 2: think that people's pain is contagious, and if we get
Speaker 2: too close to someone suffering, it forces us to think
Speaker 2: about how vulnerable we are, and that's really hard for
Speaker 2: people to come to terms with. And so what ends
Speaker 2: up happening is that we really retreat from each other,
Speaker 2: precisely in the moment that we need each other the most,
Speaker 2: both that the person who's suffering needs to be connected
Speaker 2: and also that the people who are doing okay really
Speaker 2: need to be of service, but instead pull away from
Speaker 2: those kind of really deep and meaningful encounters. And it
Speaker 2: hurts all of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it is so it's a gift that you're
Speaker 1: giving to the person and that you're giving to yourself,
Speaker 1: and I think many people don't necessarily see it that
Speaker 1: way because they haven't practiced it enough. And I remember
Speaker 1: a friend of mine's partner dying a few months ago
Speaker 1: and another friend of mine saying, should I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna wait to reach out And I said, no,
Speaker 1: you have to reach out right away, Like it doesn't
Speaker 1: and he said no, she's consumed with texts and she's
Speaker 1: consumed and everyone's reaching out to her. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't even be thinking about any of that. That's
Speaker 1: not your you know what I mean. That's it's so
Speaker 1: important to like register that you're available for that person
Speaker 1: who's going through something. In my opinion, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the thing I'm best at, is showing up in times
Speaker 1: of turmoil when other people want to look away. That
Speaker 1: is the strength of mind. And I take a lot
Speaker 1: of pride in it because a lot of people think
Speaker 1: it can be meddlesome. And it's like, well, it's not
Speaker 1: meddlesome when you really care about somebody and you're just
Speaker 1: they're giving yourself and so like I'm trying to squeeze
Speaker 1: them for details and information, it's actually being available, being
Speaker 1: there and sitting next to somebody and the withness that
Speaker 1: you talk about in your book is so important for
Speaker 1: the human spirit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have to be present in ways they're
Speaker 2: attentive to the needs of the person who's struggling and suffering.
Speaker 2: And someone just told me the other day that when
Speaker 2: she had suffered a lot, she had a friend who
Speaker 2: came right into her house and got into bed with
Speaker 2: her and snuggled her, and the whole time she was thinking,
Speaker 2: can you get out of my house? I don't want
Speaker 2: you to be here, like this isn't what I need,
Speaker 2: this is what you need. And so I think our
Speaker 2: responsibility is to try to be attuned to what the
Speaker 2: other person needs, but to err on the side of presence,
Speaker 2: to err on the side of presence. And I write
Speaker 2: in the book about you know, one of the ways
Speaker 2: that I learned this was because my beloved Rabbi Marcello,
Speaker 2: who's so dear to so many people, his mother died
Speaker 2: and I literally remember thinking the same thing that your
Speaker 2: friend thought. I thought, he is just burdened right now
Speaker 2: by all the love and all the lasagna and all
Speaker 2: the lingering hugs, And so I just wrote him a
Speaker 2: little note, but I did not fly in for the funeral.
Speaker 2: I didn't call, and afterwards he said to me. A
Speaker 2: few months later, when I saw him, he said, you
Speaker 2: really failed me. He said I needed you and you
Speaker 2: weren't here for me. And when I heard I felt
Speaker 2: so defensive. And I had all these great reasons why
Speaker 2: I think. I had little kids, I had a community,
Speaker 2: I had work, you know, and I finally realized this
Speaker 2: was a gift. He was saying to me, like, don't
Speaker 2: assume that you know that I don't need you. Just
Speaker 2: be there, and so we can be there in a
Speaker 2: way that actually speaks to the needs of the person
Speaker 2: who were going to a kind of like light touch
Speaker 2: presence that lets people know that we love them and
Speaker 2: that they're not navigating these moments of real hardship alone,
Speaker 2: but that we will be here and will be here
Speaker 2: with relentless love and presence in a way that actually
Speaker 2: suits the needs of the person who's going through this
Speaker 2: time of suffering.
Speaker 1: And also, what a gift Rabbi Barcelo gave you by
Speaker 1: his giving you his honesty instead of just being like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not a friend of mine anymore, because that's another
Speaker 1: thing people do when people don't show up for them
Speaker 1: in their times of strife, they're like, oh, that person's
Speaker 1: dead to me. He said to you, you failed me.
Speaker 1: Next time you better be there. That's right, is what
Speaker 1: he said. And that's a.
Speaker 2: Gift all It's such a gift because I think that
Speaker 2: we also think that our relationships are supposed to be
Speaker 2: supportive in the sense that you know, I need you,
Speaker 2: I need you to support me and to help me
Speaker 2: see why I did this right. And instead, what he's
Speaker 2: teaching me is that real what he taught me is
Speaker 2: that real friendship is sometimes saying to someone, you know,
Speaker 2: here's a way that you failed me, and I know
Speaker 2: that you can do better. That that's actually a gift
Speaker 2: of real love, which which connects to something that I
Speaker 2: speak about in chapter two about the idea that I
Speaker 2: mean the first person was created alone, and it's the
Speaker 2: first thing in the Hebrew Bible and the terror that
Speaker 2: God says is not good that you know every day
Speaker 2: at the end of at the end of every day,
Speaker 2: it's good, it's good, it's good, it's really good. And
Speaker 2: then it says it's not good for a person to
Speaker 2: be alone, which doesn't mean that a person should be
Speaker 2: married or should be partner. It means that we shouldn't
Speaker 2: be fundamentally alone in the world. That we should have
Speaker 2: someone who we can let in, who can see us,
Speaker 2: and who we can see. And that could be a
Speaker 2: sister or a friend, or a therapist or an aunt,
Speaker 2: a grandma. I mean, it could be just somebody who
Speaker 2: we allow to see. But the language that the text
Speaker 2: us is to see us by being opposite us, which
Speaker 2: might mean to see our beauty, but also to see
Speaker 2: our brokenness, our bruises, our failures, our flaws, and not
Speaker 2: to run away from us when they encounter those things,
Speaker 2: but instead to say, you know, hey, I really needed
Speaker 2: more from you than you were able to give me.
Speaker 2: That that could be an incredible gesture of love because
Speaker 2: it helps us grow. Those kind of relationships are the
Speaker 2: ones we grow from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always think that when anyone ever says that
Speaker 1: person's dead to me, it's like you're missing an opportunity
Speaker 1: to explain that you'd be willing to give them another
Speaker 1: chance if they actually saw the situation in a more
Speaker 1: holistic sense instead of from just their side. So it
Speaker 1: is kind of always a missed opportunity. Actually, one of
Speaker 1: my friends who I know is listening and we're talking
Speaker 1: about you, so I'll talk to you about this later.
Speaker 1: She's gonna be like, were you talking about me? Yes? Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about the story about together, separateness aloneess, because in
Speaker 1: your book you talk about Adam and Eve and what
Speaker 1: it's in the Tora about that. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. I had never read that before.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the most It's an incredible story
Speaker 2: that comes from this is a midrash, an ancient rabbinic
Speaker 2: commentary to the Torah that's maybe fifteen hundred and seventeen
Speaker 2: hundred years old, and it tells this. It imagines what
Speaker 2: happened at the end of the sixth day of creation.
Speaker 2: This is the first day that human beings were alive.
Speaker 2: We were human beings were created on the sixth day,
Speaker 2: according to the narrative of the Torah. And so the
Speaker 2: sun starts to set and they've never seen darkness before.
Speaker 2: And as the sun is coming down, Adam, the first person,
Speaker 2: just starts freaking out and he does what we do
Speaker 2: when we encounter darkness for the first time. He starts catastrophizing, right,
Speaker 2: and he thinks, oh my god, it's not just darkness,
Speaker 2: it's the end of the world. And he does what
Speaker 2: we do when we see darkness, which is he blames
Speaker 2: himself for it, and he thinks, what did I do
Speaker 2: to deserve this? And maybe I did something wrong, and
Speaker 2: maybe this is all my fault, and now everything's lost.
Speaker 2: And the story says that Eve heard him weeping and
Speaker 2: wailing and crying as the night descended, and she just
Speaker 2: went and she sat right across from him, and she
Speaker 2: just wept with him and held him all night and
Speaker 2: until the dawn came. And I think that the story asks,
Speaker 2: it challenges us to ask this question of ourselves, like
Speaker 2: who will be with you through the dark night of
Speaker 2: the soul? Because everybody has these dark nights? And will
Speaker 2: we let somebody into the intimacy of that heartache in
Speaker 2: order to just be with us, not to fix us,
Speaker 2: not to try to say, Adam, don't worry the sun's
Speaker 2: going to come up in the morning, because she didn't
Speaker 2: know that either, but just to sit with us and
Speaker 2: weep with us through the dark night, because often there
Speaker 2: is joy does come in the morning, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: there often is a morning. There's not always a new
Speaker 2: dawn that comes. As I also speak about later in
Speaker 2: the book that after some kinds of losses and some
Speaker 2: kinds of struggles. There isn't some bright new day that
Speaker 2: now we can start again, and then our challenge is
Speaker 2: to find the blessing even in the dark night. But
Speaker 2: very often there is a new dawn that emerges, but
Speaker 2: the fact of the new dawn doesn't make it any
Speaker 2: easier to make it through the long night. The presence
Speaker 2: of another person who just loves you and cares about
Speaker 2: you is what helps us. And by the way, to
Speaker 2: contrast with the friend who climbs into bed and cuddles
Speaker 2: when the last thing you want is to be cuddled
Speaker 2: by somebody. If you're a person who wants to experience
Speaker 2: your grief differently than that, maybe you don't want a
Speaker 2: foot massage. Maybe you just want to, you know, like
Speaker 2: you just want to.
Speaker 1: Always want a foot message. I don't know where the
Speaker 1: fuck is happening. I need a foot massage, and I'll
Speaker 1: take one from anyone.
Speaker 2: Ever, anyone. But maybe you're one of the rare people
Speaker 2: who doesn't want a foot massage, but that's what your
Speaker 2: friend wants to get. But I'm going to just like
Speaker 2: there's a there's a beautiful story that I that I
Speaker 2: found out about years years years after it happened. But
Speaker 2: we had a tragic death in our community of someone,
Speaker 2: a young person was really beloved to die by suicide
Speaker 2: and the family found his body on Friday, and it
Speaker 2: was I mean, the reverberative trauma in the community, like
Speaker 2: the It was just a terrible, terrible loss. I write
Speaker 2: about him a little bit in the book. He was
Speaker 2: a healer, and I think he took a lot of
Speaker 2: the pain of his patients in the world into his
Speaker 2: body and it just kind of metastasized inside his body.
Speaker 2: But I found out years later that a couple in
Speaker 2: my community knew about the loss. They weren't very close
Speaker 2: with either the person who died or his family, but
Speaker 2: they called the mother the following week on Friday because
Speaker 2: they just assumed, like, this is going to be really hard.
Speaker 2: Fridays are going to be really hard for her. And
Speaker 2: then they called again the next Friday, and then the
Speaker 2: next Friday, and they literally called her every single Friday
Speaker 2: for three years, and now it's been almost six years.
Speaker 2: And they called every single week, just sometimes for five minutes,
Speaker 2: sometimes for half an hour. They connected because they wanted
Speaker 2: her to know that they were not going to abandon her,
Speaker 2: that they knew that this was a hard time. And
Speaker 2: so that's the kind of sort of relentless love in
Speaker 2: showing up that doesn't actually intrude on someone's privacy and
Speaker 2: doesn't make it about your need as the caregiver rather
Speaker 2: than the person's need as the recipient of the care.
Speaker 2: But it's just a gesture of love to say, like,
Speaker 2: I haven't forgotten that your son died, and I know
Speaker 2: that you're thinking about it every day. I'm also thinking
Speaker 2: about it. I'm right here with you with love, and
Speaker 2: I think we can give each other those gifts of
Speaker 2: love much more than we do, and much more than
Speaker 2: we think we can.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the strength that people have when
Speaker 1: they're like when you see the hostages, families like Hirsh's mother,
Speaker 1: when you see people who are able to comport themselves
Speaker 1: through what they're going through, it's almost like you're tapping
Speaker 1: into a part of yourself that you didn't even know
Speaker 1: was there, you know, Like it's kind of it's analogous
Speaker 1: to what you're describing. I think, because all of us
Speaker 1: have this like reservoir of strength, right and when we
Speaker 1: lose something, or we're losing something, you know, we can
Speaker 1: all handle it. In different ways. But we can also
Speaker 1: always surprise ourselves and each other in the way in
Speaker 1: which we do handle things, and that you can like
Speaker 1: muster up the courage and the strength to charge forward
Speaker 1: just when you think you don't have another step.
Speaker 2: Left, right, right. And what Rachel has demonstrated Hersh's mother
Speaker 2: through this time is I mean, I think she is
Speaker 2: a prophet in our time because she has been able
Speaker 2: to give words to the anguish of a mother who's
Speaker 2: in profound grief and sort of suspend it between life
Speaker 2: and death. I mean, she has no idea, and even
Speaker 2: through that, she has been able to lift her gaze
Speaker 2: and imagine a different kind of future. I mean, she's
Speaker 2: writing poetry about sitting with her with a Palestinian woman,
Speaker 2: both of them elderly, wrinkles on their face from laughing
Speaker 2: so much together, and you know, their teeth brown from
Speaker 2: all the tea that they drank together, watching their sons
Speaker 2: and their grandchildren playing together. Like she she's calling us
Speaker 2: to imagine a different in the future, even as she's
Speaker 2: grappling with the most unimaginably painful reality. And that's pretty
Speaker 2: extraordinary and one of the things that that makes me
Speaker 2: think of when is that one of the reasons that
Speaker 2: people stay away from the pain is because they say
Speaker 2: they don't want to trigger the bereaved. They don't want
Speaker 2: to trigger the person who's experiencing laws because maybe you're
Speaker 2: having a good day and you're not thinking about your
Speaker 2: child or your you know, or your loved one who's died,
Speaker 2: or you're not thinking about your your breast cancer or
Speaker 2: your you know, whatever illness you're struggling with, or whatever
Speaker 2: worry you're holding. But the fact is, we know that
Speaker 2: when we're going through those periods of darkness, when we
Speaker 2: are bereft and bereaved, we're thinking about it all the time,
Speaker 2: and it just appears like the whole world is moving
Speaker 2: in the other direction without even any awareness that we are,
Speaker 2: as Rachel Goldberg says, living on a different planet. And
Speaker 2: so what we're doing when we show up, as we're saying,
Speaker 2: I see you on your planet, and I acknowledge that
Speaker 2: you're moving in a different direction than I am, and
Speaker 2: I don't want you to feel like you are alone
Speaker 2: in this moment. Even as I continue with my life,
Speaker 2: I still see you and the pain that you're holding
Speaker 2: in yours.
Speaker 1: Okay, on that note, we're going to take a break
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 3: If you are the person who is bereaved or who's grieving,
Speaker 3: or who's going through a hard time, we get a
Speaker 3: lot of emails on the show from people who are
Speaker 3: lost and grieving. What would you say to someone about
Speaker 3: how to reach out to that eve who can come
Speaker 3: sit and weep with them, or to someone when they
Speaker 3: know they need help but they feel like, well, I
Speaker 3: should just kind of be doing it on my own.
Speaker 3: I don't want to bother them that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So thank you for that question, Catherine. One of the
Speaker 2: spiritual practices that I write in the back of the
Speaker 2: book because I'm trying to not just put forward this
Speaker 2: idea about how we need to think about each other
Speaker 2: and our encounters differently, but how can we actually operationalize this?
Speaker 2: What are some simple things that we can do every day,
Speaker 2: And one of them is tell the truth, don't grin
Speaker 2: and bear it, don't pretend you're okay when you're not okay.
Speaker 2: And the central paradigm of the book is this ancient
Speaker 2: ritual that used to happen when the Jews would go
Speaker 2: up to pilgrimage on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in
Speaker 2: the old old days and so two thousand years ago,
Speaker 2: and the ritual was that people would ascend to Jerusalem,
Speaker 2: which is a city on a hill, and then they
Speaker 2: would ascend the steps of the Temple Mount, and they
Speaker 2: would go through this grand entryway and they would turn
Speaker 2: to the right, and everybody on the pilgrimage, masses of
Speaker 2: people all at once would circle around the outer the
Speaker 2: perimeter of the courtyard, and then they would essentially exit
Speaker 2: where they had left, except for someone with a broken
Speaker 2: heart who would go up to Jerusalem, go up the
Speaker 2: steps that they would enter and turn to the left.
Speaker 2: So they are signaling that the whole world's moving in
Speaker 2: one direction and they're moving in another. They're actually showing
Speaker 2: with their bodies. I'm not okay. And I think part
Speaker 2: of the problem of our time is that, first of all,
Speaker 2: when we're suffering, we just don't want to get out
Speaker 2: of bed because we don't trust that we're going to
Speaker 2: be held with love and with care when we do.
Speaker 2: And then if we do, we feel like we have
Speaker 2: to pretend that we're like everybody else. I have a
Speaker 2: friend whose child died from a terrible cancer, and she
Speaker 2: described going to a wedding a couple months after her
Speaker 2: child died, and she's like, I felt like I had
Speaker 2: to get all dressed up and put on makeup and
Speaker 2: address and dance like everyone, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be there at all. And I wonder what it would
Speaker 2: mean to trust that we are going to get up
Speaker 2: and we are going to show up when we're broken,
Speaker 2: but we're not going to pretend that we're okay. We're
Speaker 2: going to be very clear that we need to be
Speaker 2: held with love and with care because we're going to
Speaker 2: trust that we will be. And then this ritual, it's
Speaker 2: so powerful because the ancients understood something about the human
Speaker 2: psyche that I think really reflects a very real truth
Speaker 2: that we know about our spirits but that we try
Speaker 2: to deny. So what would happen is every person who's
Speaker 2: coming in the counterclockwise direction would see the broken hearted
Speaker 2: person stop, look into their eyes, and then ask a
Speaker 2: simple question, what happened to you? Tell me your story,
Speaker 2: why does your heart ache? And then that broken hearted
Speaker 2: person would respond saying my father just died, or my
Speaker 2: kid is sick, or I'm just really lonely, and then
Speaker 2: they would receive a blessing, not from the priest, not
Speaker 2: from the rabbis, not from the great leader. They would
Speaker 2: receive a blessing from the everyday people who are there
Speaker 2: on the pilgrimage, who, by the way, their instinct is
Speaker 2: to not notice the broken hearted person because they're in
Speaker 2: this beautiful, spiritual peak moment of their lives. But they
Speaker 2: are asked to stop, to see, to ask, and then
Speaker 2: to bless. And so to answer your question, I think
Speaker 2: we need to be honest about the pain that we're experiencing.
Speaker 2: We need to be willing to say to someone I
Speaker 2: need your help, I'm not okay right now. But the
Speaker 2: only way that we can do that honestly when our
Speaker 2: hearts are broken is because we trust that we are
Speaker 2: in a community of care that will not mock us,
Speaker 2: humiliate us, marginalize us to great us, but instead will
Speaker 2: hold us with love. And our shared responsibility to each
Speaker 2: other is to create those kinds of relationships, friendships, and communities,
Speaker 2: because all of us at some point will be walking
Speaker 2: in the direction of the bereaved and the bereft and
Speaker 2: the ill, and will need to be held by love
Speaker 2: when we are and this is a kind of shared
Speaker 2: commitment that we can make to one another.
Speaker 1: In the book, you talk about someone named Amanda as
Speaker 1: part of your congregation, somebody you have a kind of
Speaker 1: not an acrimonious relationship with, but just not a smooth relationship.
Speaker 1: And then you talk about kind of seeing her as
Speaker 1: a whole person, seeing that she's been through things that
Speaker 1: have affected her in this way and impacted her behavior,
Speaker 1: and so can you talk a little bit about that
Speaker 1: and like what the status of that relationship is, because
Speaker 1: I found it so interesting to have someone coming to
Speaker 1: your congregation who has those kinds of feelings but they're
Speaker 1: really not about you.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Amanda is not her real name,
Speaker 2: just in case. In case, now people are scrolling through
Speaker 2: all their friends at the car wondering who Amanda is.
Speaker 1: But no, well, when you read the book, you would
Speaker 1: know that you can't use her real name.
Speaker 2: So yeah, right, anything that's not that's really like a
Speaker 2: little bit challenging about a person. I changed it to
Speaker 2: just protects people's privacy. And yeah, I mean this has
Speaker 2: happened not once. I love that you're a little surprised
Speaker 2: by it. But unfortunately, people often bring their rage and
Speaker 2: their trauma into relationship with their rabbis and pastors, you know,
Speaker 2: and priests because they can, because we're soft targets for that.
Speaker 2: And so in this particular case, this is a person
Speaker 2: who came in many times over the course of many
Speaker 2: years and just vented, I mean, all of her rage,
Speaker 2: but as if I'm the target. And it took me
Speaker 2: some time to realize that it wasn't actually about me,
Speaker 2: because I'm a human being. And as you know, this
Speaker 2: person sits in my office and screen and curses and blames,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm taking it into my body and
Speaker 2: I can feel I'm getting hot, I'm getting wet. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking like I do not deserve this. I do. I
Speaker 2: just want to be home right now. I just want
Speaker 2: to be, you know, anywhere but here. And then I realized,
Speaker 2: I thought about this something that I learned from one
Speaker 2: of my very dear friends who's a pastor, like an
Speaker 2: incredible pastor and Reverend Ed Bacon is his name. He
Speaker 2: was here at All Saints Church in Pasadena, and then
Speaker 2: he moved back to the South where he lives now,
Speaker 2: and he taught me that in every experience in our lives,
Speaker 2: we can walk away from the experience and we can
Speaker 2: see ourselves as the hero. Of the encounter, like, wow,
Speaker 2: I handle that so well. You know, I'm such a
Speaker 2: hero that, you know, they lost my luggage and I
Speaker 2: kept my cool and I just moved right through it
Speaker 2: and enjoyed the weekend anyway. Or we can see ourselves
Speaker 2: as the victim, which is like, they lost my luggage again.
Speaker 2: You know, I will never fly this airline again, and
Speaker 2: or we can you know, why does this always happen
Speaker 2: to me? Or we can see ourselves as learners, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, this is the third time this has happened
Speaker 2: to me. I'm really going to try to just use
Speaker 2: carry on moving forward, and so we can assess the
Speaker 2: experience and determine how we want to let that experience
Speaker 2: land in our psychic memory. And I had this realization
Speaker 2: as I'm sitting with her, and I thought, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be a hero here. I made it through
Speaker 2: this terrible another terrible day with Amanda, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to be a victim. Like I have dedicated my
Speaker 2: life to trying to build a just and loving world,
Speaker 2: and this maniac comes into my office and is screaming
Speaker 2: at me, and what has she done to make the
Speaker 2: world a better place? You know? And here I want
Speaker 2: to just be a learner, and so in this moment,
Speaker 2: I envision a screen that comes down from the ceiling
Speaker 2: and goes right into the space in between Amanda and me.
Speaker 2: And suddenly I see her not as you know, some
Speaker 2: maniac who's screaming at her poor rabbi, but I see
Speaker 2: her as a character in a film about trauma and
Speaker 2: how trauma manifests in our relationships. And I now see
Speaker 2: her that here's this woman who's aggrieved in the world,
Speaker 2: and she's screaming at her rabbi. And obviously it's not
Speaker 2: about a rabbi. It's about her rage and her trauma.
Speaker 2: So I have enough psychic distance that I can start
Speaker 2: to ask. I wonder what traumatized her. I wonder where
Speaker 2: the pain really is coming from here, And that gives
Speaker 2: me the space to ask different kinds of questions of Amanda.
Speaker 2: And when I do, because I'm no longer on the defensive,
Speaker 2: I start to learn things about her that literally, I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been in relationship with her for many years and
Speaker 2: I never knew. And it turns out she is a
Speaker 2: victim of trauma and unprocessed trauma, and so she's raging
Speaker 2: not just at me, but she's raging at a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and then I can past her to her,
Speaker 2: I can actually help her. And more importantly, I feel
Speaker 2: detached enough that I can be in a position of
Speaker 2: service and not a position of like victimhood. And that
Speaker 2: helps me understand why curiosity and wonder about another person
Speaker 2: are so critical and why they're so hard for us
Speaker 2: to achieve when we feel like we're being targeted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the book, you talk about
Speaker 1: the kind of divide that we have throughout the world
Speaker 1: right now and especially in America, So curiosity being the
Speaker 1: opposite of that, because you know, when you're curious about people,
Speaker 1: you grow, you learn, and you cite many examples of
Speaker 1: different conversations between people that are unexpected bedfellows, like the
Speaker 1: kid who was the son of the guy from the
Speaker 1: KKK having dinner. Can you talk about that story a
Speaker 1: little bit?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. And just like the
Speaker 2: principle here is that most of the book is talking
Speaker 2: about loneliness, isolation, social alienation, and the instinct to retreat
Speaker 2: from one another when we must turn to one another
Speaker 2: with compassion in times of joy and in times of pain.
Speaker 2: And then in this last chapter, I talk about how
Speaker 2: this social alienation, the atomization that is definitional to our society,
Speaker 2: is not only depleting.
Speaker 1: What does atomization mean.
Speaker 2: Like separating out individuals one from the other, the myth
Speaker 2: of radical individualism, the idea that we're going to go
Speaker 2: it alone, that I don't need anybody, and so I
Speaker 2: am totally separate and apart from everyone. We are all
Speaker 2: bound up in the in the bond of life together,
Speaker 2: and we need to recognize that. And so, but what
Speaker 2: happens is with this myth of radical individualization, we think
Speaker 2: we don't actually need each other, and we can go
Speaker 2: it alone entirely, and we distance ourselves from relationships. And
Speaker 2: this not only harms our spirits and harms our communities,
Speaker 2: but it's actually endangering our democracy. Hannah Arendt, the great
Speaker 2: twentieth century philosopher, wrote that social alienation and loneliness are
Speaker 2: preconditions of tyranny, that conspiracy theories and tyrannical regimes cannot
Speaker 2: take root in a society if we know each other.
Speaker 2: And we are living in a country and in a
Speaker 2: time where thirty percent of Americans say that they do
Speaker 2: not know the names of their next door neighbors, and
Speaker 2: so we are really alienated from one another, and that's
Speaker 2: very dangerous, and I think that's part of the reason
Speaker 2: that we've seen over the last several years, just so
Speaker 2: much division. The ground is rich and ready for the
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy theories that we're seeing taking root and
Speaker 2: the kind of divisiveness. So the question is can we
Speaker 2: turn to one another not only with compassion, but with curiosity.
Speaker 2: And the story of Derek Black is one in which
Speaker 2: this is a guy who was the son of the
Speaker 2: Grand Wizard of the KKK. He was David Duke's nephew.
Speaker 2: I think he went off to a liberal arts college
Speaker 2: in Florida. I don't know how his family ever let
Speaker 2: him go, but at some point when he was there,
Speaker 2: he was outed as a white nationalist. Some in fact, awkwardly,
Speaker 2: somebody was sitting in the dining hall and looking at
Speaker 2: some white nationalist website and making fun of it, and
Speaker 2: then realized that the guy who wrote the article was
Speaker 2: the name of the guy who was sitting across the
Speaker 2: table laughing with them. And so this guy is totally alienated.
Speaker 2: Now nobody wants to engage him on this campus, except
Speaker 2: for one Jewish kid who invites him for Shavist dinner
Speaker 2: and they sit together, and I imagine it's a very
Speaker 2: awkward dinner, like you're literally sitting across the table from
Speaker 2: a neo Nazi in your dorm room. And then the
Speaker 2: meal ends and he invites him back for the next jabst,
Speaker 2: and a couple more friends join, and then again and
Speaker 2: again and again, and by the end of the year,
Speaker 2: this guy, Derek Black, has essentially renounced white nationalism and
Speaker 2: writes a public letter for the Southern Poverty Law Center
Speaker 2: about how he was raised on a lie, on a
Speaker 2: series of lies about white supremacy and about the dream
Speaker 2: of a jew, free, black, free Latino free America, and
Speaker 2: that that's not where we should be heading as human beings.
Speaker 2: And so what I wonder in the book, and there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of work on Derek Black and what
Speaker 2: happened to him that he was able to make that
Speaker 2: trans transformation from being a white nationalist to being, you know,
Speaker 2: a menji guy. But I'm really interested not only in that,
Speaker 2: but also in that kid who invited him for Shabas
Speaker 2: dinner and then the others who joined, Because I don't
Speaker 2: think I would invite a neo Nazi to my home
Speaker 2: for Shabbat dinner. But I'm really glad that someone did.
Speaker 2: And what does it mean to sit at the table
Speaker 2: with someone, even someone who doesn't see you in your
Speaker 2: full humanity, and not get up and just stay at
Speaker 2: the table. What seeds could be planted in those encounters,
Speaker 2: especially when we engage them with an open heart. And
Speaker 2: we can only do this if we feel safe, if
Speaker 2: we're really legitimately safe. The work is not on everyone,
Speaker 2: but the work is on some of us. If we
Speaker 2: can stay at the table, and if we can hold curiosity,
Speaker 2: what might change? And in that chapter I describe a
Speaker 2: couple of stories, some of failure where you know, as
Speaker 2: been hours and hours at the table, and I have
Speaker 2: a hundred of these stories because I do tend to
Speaker 2: stay at the table when I can, but where you
Speaker 2: think like nothing really happens, and then a few stories
Speaker 2: where it actually changes someone's life. And so could we
Speaker 2: sit there and just stay and hold curiosity, because if
Speaker 2: we do, something might be born. You know, we have a.
Speaker 3: Ton of listeners who it's not the neo Nazi at college,
Speaker 3: but it is Uncle John, or it's mom or dad.
Speaker 3: So can you talk a little bit about in the
Speaker 3: context of your family, having someone who.
Speaker 2: Has these totally opposing views.
Speaker 3: And when to sit down and have curiosity, and when
Speaker 3: it's maybe too toxic to do that.
Speaker 2: Right, well, I do believe that we have to be safe.
Speaker 2: And you know, when we are encountering someone whose worldview
Speaker 2: is dramatically different from ours, that could be something of
Speaker 2: kind of in the realm of intellectual curiosity, and that
Speaker 2: could be in the realm of danger. And so I
Speaker 2: think the first thing we have to do is assess,
Speaker 2: you know, am I the person who can be in
Speaker 2: this relationship, and sometimes ending relationships is actually an act
Speaker 2: of self love, you know. I think that that's important
Speaker 2: for us to note that some relationships are so dangerous, abusive,
Speaker 2: toxic that staying in them does harm to us. But
Speaker 2: I think that we in general are too quick to
Speaker 2: end relationships, and so aside from those relationships that actually
Speaker 2: contribute great harm to our lives, I think that most relationships,
Speaker 2: most relationships, we can actually stay at the table. So
Speaker 2: what I envision, Catherine, is this like ven diagram of
Speaker 2: the human experience with these overlapping circles, and generally when
Speaker 2: we are sitting at that table with our uncle or
Speaker 2: with our you know, with the crazy person in the
Speaker 2: family who sees the world in a totally different way.
Speaker 2: We're hearing him at the margins of his views, and
Speaker 2: we're responding from the margins of our views, and so
Speaker 2: we are completely oppositional to one another. But in fact,
Speaker 2: aside from the margins, there's probably a good amount of
Speaker 2: overlap in what we do care about. So I share
Speaker 2: in this one story in that chapter about an encounter
Speaker 2: that I had with someone who really saw the world
Speaker 2: in dramatically different ways than I did. And I stayed
Speaker 2: at the table for almost three hours with him, and
Speaker 2: I was desperate to find commonality with this guy, and
Speaker 2: we disagreed on everything. I mean, the whole way that
Speaker 2: we look at the world we disagreed on, and it
Speaker 2: was very disturbing for me. And even still, what I
Speaker 2: knew from talking to him was that he cared about
Speaker 2: his kids, and he cared about his community. I was
Speaker 2: disturbed by where he draws the line of his family
Speaker 2: and his community and his responsibility to those, but I
Speaker 2: could see that he was driven by care and that mattered. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that was enough that he's not a person who
Speaker 2: I have. There's zero that I can see in him,
Speaker 2: But I did walk away very disturbed. But I'm glad
Speaker 2: I stayed because many years later, it turned out that
Speaker 2: some of what I shared of my perspective in that
Speaker 2: conversation may have penetrated a little bit, because he ends
Speaker 2: up shifting his approach. And he's a public figure, and
Speaker 2: so I only know about this from the newspaper, but
Speaker 2: his approach shifts, and some of his associates credit it
Speaker 2: to that lunch that we had together years before, Because
Speaker 2: when you sit with someone at the table for two
Speaker 2: or three hours, you can't make them into a caricature
Speaker 2: of themselves anymore. You see them as a person, and
Speaker 2: you see them as a person with flaws, with value,
Speaker 2: you know, with beliefs, with ideas, And so when we're
Speaker 2: sitting at the table with our uncle, can we move
Speaker 2: away from the margins and actually start with, Oh, you're
Speaker 2: afraid for the future, So am I? You know you
Speaker 2: feel like we could all be doing better? So do I?
Speaker 2: You know you're really disturbed by how broken? So am I?
Speaker 2: And at least have enough of a foundation that we
Speaker 2: can stay at the table, and then eventually, at some
Speaker 2: point we might realize that those overlapping spaces are a
Speaker 2: little bit deeper and richer than we imagined, and they
Speaker 2: might help some healing come about. We know, for example,
Speaker 2: in the struggle for justice for LGBTQ people, that the
Speaker 2: way that movements started to happen, especially in the struggle
Speaker 2: for marriage equality, for example, was because people started recognizing
Speaker 2: that their loved ones were gay. And once you know
Speaker 2: that someone you love is gay, it's very hard to
Speaker 2: hold this really strong oppositional view. So I think part
Speaker 2: of the challenge is can we stay at the table
Speaker 2: without being endangered or diminished, but in an act of
Speaker 2: curiosity and in a gesture of presence and love, in
Speaker 2: the hope that it might one day lead to a
Speaker 2: shift in the conversation.
Speaker 1: Do you have experiences where you feel like you didn't
Speaker 1: have or you failed, or you weren't able to provide
Speaker 1: what was expected from you as a rabbi?
Speaker 2: Oh God, there's so many. There's so many of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, in the category of staying at the table
Speaker 2: in curiosity. I mean, one of the stories that I
Speaker 2: share there is when I went to sit with a
Speaker 2: pretty prominent public figure who was writing views that I
Speaker 2: found really dangerous, not just like cruel, but actually dangerous
Speaker 2: to people I love. And I went to sit with
Speaker 2: him because I had this kind of naive view that
Speaker 2: you know, like I think if he just hears me
Speaker 2: talk about this, that I can humanize the issue for him,
Speaker 2: and then he might take a beat, he might think
Speaker 2: before writing, you know. Anyway, And in that experience, as
Speaker 2: I share in the book, I really did fail. I
Speaker 2: mean I felt like he was not listening, Catherine, like
Speaker 2: you're saying. I mean, some of your listeners might really
Speaker 2: feel that this is the way that some of their
Speaker 2: family members treat them, but like they can't hear. There
Speaker 2: is an iron barrier around their hearts and they can't here.
Speaker 2: And so I failed. But I didn't feel like I
Speaker 2: wasted my time because I did grow through it. Pastorally,
Speaker 2: I've had many failures where you know, I myself retreated
Speaker 2: from people who were in pain because I didn't understand
Speaker 2: that how it was my job to actually step closer
Speaker 2: to the pain. I worried that I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: have the right words. I had all the things that
Speaker 2: we've talked about. I mean, I worried that I would
Speaker 2: fail a person, that I would screw up and instead
Speaker 2: of seeing them in their pain and moving closer to
Speaker 2: the pain. In a moment of isolation, I pulled away
Speaker 2: because I was scared that I wasn't going to be
Speaker 2: good enough and strong enough. I tried to look back
Speaker 2: at those moments now as a learner, clearly not a hero,
Speaker 2: but also not a victim. I mean, we only learn
Speaker 2: these things by failing in many ways and by seeing
Speaker 2: that that actually it hurt somebody when we engage that way.
Speaker 2: We have this powerful idea in the Jewish tradition called tea,
Speaker 2: which is translated as loving rebuke, and the idea is like,
Speaker 2: don't cut people off, rebuke them with love. So we
Speaker 2: approach people who've hurt us and we let them know
Speaker 2: you really let me down. Like you were saying earlier, Chelsea,
Speaker 2: I mean like, don't bring it to the grave, bring
Speaker 2: it to the person, because there might be a possibility
Speaker 2: of healing here. And I have found that through that
Speaker 2: kind of loving rebuke, I've been able to grow as
Speaker 2: a human being, and so I'm so grateful for it.
Speaker 2: It's actually a mitzvah. It's an obligation to turn to
Speaker 2: someone with loving rebuke when they've hurt you or let
Speaker 2: you down. And those moments become transformational moments for us.
Speaker 1: I agree. I wanted to talk about the subject of
Speaker 1: Israel and what's happening to the Palestinians and to the
Speaker 1: Israelis right now. I know you've gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: blowback from certain Jewish communities and Israelis about being pro
Speaker 1: Palestinian and pro Israel. Those two things can coexist. I
Speaker 1: don't know a single woman who is happy to see
Speaker 1: any sort of violence in the world, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's possible for females to not be consumed
Speaker 1: by what is happening to innocent children, to innocent people
Speaker 1: on both sides. And it feels like, I mean, you've
Speaker 1: been pretty vocal about it, So I want to let
Speaker 1: you talk about your views and how you feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, really, at the heart of my theology
Speaker 2: and my understanding of the world is that every single
Speaker 2: human being is created in God's own image and therefore
Speaker 2: deserves to live in dignity and in peace and injustice.
Speaker 2: And so I mean, I've spent many years as an
Speaker 2: activist working to build a more just and loving world
Speaker 2: and speaking very frankly and openly about the need for
Speaker 2: Palestinians to achieve justice and to achieve self determination, which
Speaker 2: I believe is also the only way that Israel will
Speaker 2: have a safe and just future. And so I don't
Speaker 2: see the humanity honoring the humanity of Israeli Jews as
Speaker 2: in any way contradicting the need to honor the humanity
Speaker 2: of Palestinians or vice versa. I actually feel that people
Speaker 2: choosing sides in this is really there's something really perverse
Speaker 2: about what's happening, as if this is like, you know,
Speaker 2: we're like it's like the super Bowl and people are
Speaker 2: choosing which team they like better. But I am very
Speaker 2: moved by and inspired by the Israelis and Palestinians on
Speaker 2: the ground who acknowledge that there are millions of people
Speaker 2: living in a tiny sliver of land. None of them
Speaker 2: are going anywhere. We have to learn how to live together,
Speaker 2: and I believe that as a diaspora community, the best
Speaker 2: way that we can help advance a just future for
Speaker 2: all people is not by choosing sides and entrenching in
Speaker 2: false binaries and trying to prove why my team is
Speaker 2: more right than your team, but actually lifting up, amplifying, platforming, resourcing.
Speaker 2: The Israelisians on the ground who are from the depths
Speaker 2: of their anguish actually dreaming of a different kind of future,
Speaker 2: not a future of eternal war, but a future in
Speaker 2: which the people are able to achieve both individual and
Speaker 2: collective rights. And two people who've been essentially persecuted by
Speaker 2: the world and marginalized by the entire world, Jews and Palestinians,
Speaker 2: who actually are very well suited to understand and empathize
Speaker 2: with one another's pain and one another's need for home
Speaker 2: and one another's quest for self determination, should be able
Speaker 2: to work together toward a different kind of future. And
Speaker 2: you framed this as something that a lot of women
Speaker 2: seem to be unders have a kind of a heart
Speaker 2: that's big enough to understand that, or capacious enough to
Speaker 2: understand that, maybe more so than men. And I just
Speaker 2: want to say, I mean, I know many men who
Speaker 2: are also part of this movement for building a just
Speaker 2: future for both peoples. But I am struck that it
Speaker 2: is the men who are leading this war effort on
Speaker 2: both sides, and that it is women who are the
Speaker 2: voices that are really calling out for peace, who are
Speaker 2: leading the movements for peace. And I am so struck
Speaker 2: by voices like Vivian silvers. Vivian was murdered on October
Speaker 2: seventh in her key boots. Vivian had dedicated her entire
Speaker 2: life to building women wage peace, to building movements for
Speaker 2: peace with Israeli, Jews, Palestinians, Bedouin women. And many people
Speaker 2: said when because we thought at first that Vivian had
Speaker 2: been taken captive, and then found out about a month
Speaker 2: later that actually she had been killed on October seventh,
Speaker 2: And so her funeral was held about a month later,
Speaker 2: and many of the people who I love, you know,
Speaker 2: who live there, said that her funeral was the first
Speaker 2: hopeful moment that they had experienced, because it was actually
Speaker 2: a funeral that was attended by Jews and Palestinians, and
Speaker 2: they were all there saying, we have to take up
Speaker 2: the baton and carry on, we have to carry on
Speaker 2: Vivian's legacy. And so I really feel that this is
Speaker 2: a moment in which we have to move away from
Speaker 2: these kind of stake in the ground, false binary positions
Speaker 2: and instead affirm the common humanity that intersecting part of
Speaker 2: the ven diagram between people who see the world very differently.
Speaker 2: And the book comes into the world in this really
Speaker 2: interesting moment when it's really hard for people to see
Speaker 2: each other and hear each other because we're in so
Speaker 2: much anguish and trauma and fear, and when you are
Speaker 2: in that kind of mindset, it's really hard to see
Speaker 2: each other. But in fact, everybody is in anguish and
Speaker 2: trauma and fear right now, and so that should be
Speaker 2: a point of connection to help us meet each other,
Speaker 2: sorrow meeting sorrow, and vulnerability meeting vulnerability and actually begin
Speaker 2: to think together about what kind of just society we
Speaker 2: can build on the other side of all of this heartache.
Speaker 1: I would just be so much easier and so much
Speaker 1: more humane if women were in charge of Like when
Speaker 1: you talk the way you're talking and I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: net and Yahoo, it's like, yeah, he's in pain and
Speaker 1: he's not going to get out of it in our lifetime.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want that person running the show. I
Speaker 1: want women. I want like four women going in there
Speaker 1: and coming out with a solution and you know, like Condeliza,
Speaker 1: Rice and Angela Merkel and Oprah let Oprah go figure
Speaker 1: it out, you know, just women. Though it's the violence
Speaker 1: is from men. Women would never reduce ourselves like this
Speaker 1: and want to hurt so badly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's just like the lowest form of rage is this violence.
Speaker 1: It's almost like there's a smarter way to be rageful.
Speaker 1: Why do you have to reduce yourself to the dumbest way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And people don't like in this conflict the language
Speaker 2: of cycle of violence because it feels like it's giving
Speaker 2: a moral equivalency to the different kinds of violence. I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody likes that language. And yet we literally hear people saying,
Speaker 2: we are engaging in this violence because of what they
Speaker 2: did to us, right, I mean that is the driving force.
Speaker 2: Because they hurt us, we are going to hurt them.
Speaker 2: And then you hear Rachel Goldberg, who speaks a different language. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm adding her to your list of women who we
Speaker 2: wish we're running. You know, we're running the world right now.
Speaker 2: But you hear bereaved mothers speaking a different language. Many
Speaker 2: of them are saying, I don't want any more parents
Speaker 2: to bury their children. I know that pain, you know, Chelsea.
Speaker 2: One of my dear friends is a beautiful preacher here,
Speaker 2: a black minister here in La and her son was
Speaker 2: shot and killed in a terrible act of violence a
Speaker 2: few years ago, and she I went with her to
Speaker 2: the sentencing trial of her son's murderer, and she was weeping,
Speaker 2: and she said, the last thing in the world I
Speaker 2: want is another mother to now have to grieve for
Speaker 2: her black son who's going to get locked up in
Speaker 2: prison forever because he took the life of my black son.
Speaker 2: She's like, that's not what I want in this world.
Speaker 2: And I think she's calling us, and many of these
Speaker 2: women are calling us to imagine a different kind of
Speaker 2: reality in which we don't answer violence with violence, but
Speaker 2: we dream together of what could be possible. I turned
Speaker 2: to the voices of the people who are in the
Speaker 2: Brief Family's Forum, for example, the Parents Circle and Brief
Speaker 2: Family's Forum. These are Palestinians and Israelis who have lost
Speaker 2: immediate family members to this conflict over the course of
Speaker 2: the last many years, and they turn to each other
Speaker 2: from the depths of their grief and say, we don't
Speaker 2: want any more people to die. Can we collectively imagine
Speaker 2: a different kind of future? And that is holy work
Speaker 2: and very hard work. And I wish that those were
Speaker 2: the voices that were being amplified on social media and
Speaker 2: from our pulpits and from our you know, and and
Speaker 2: in news media, because those are the voices that are
Speaker 2: actually ultimately going to bring about a different kind of future.
Speaker 2: And we know, you know, and I know that we'll
Speaker 2: get there eventually. The question is how many more people
Speaker 2: have to die before we do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, we're going to take a break and we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. And we're right back with bye bye,
Speaker 1: Sharon Rauss. This was very eliminating. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being on the podcast today. I just want to
Speaker 1: before you go to talk a little bit about Eycar.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. So we built this community in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four. Remember two thousand and four, when
Speaker 2: we thought that things were so bad and they couldn't
Speaker 2: possibly get worse. It was like it was the war
Speaker 2: in Iraq. It was the you know, the Bush era
Speaker 2: Post nine to eleven. And I moved out to la
Speaker 2: from New York, and really I really felt that we
Speaker 2: were called to excavate our beautiful, rich, thousands year old
Speaker 2: Jewish tradition in order to figure out how to live
Speaker 2: lives of meaning and purpose and how to understand how
Speaker 2: we were called to live in a time of great
Speaker 2: moral crisis. So kind of at the intersection of those
Speaker 2: two questions. I wanted to build a community of joy,
Speaker 2: a community where we could laugh together, where we could
Speaker 2: dream together, and where we could work for a just
Speaker 2: future together, and where we could reclaim some of our
Speaker 2: ancient tradition and live into the best of what our
Speaker 2: tradition demands of us. And then I realized about ten
Speaker 2: years after building this amazing community, which you know, like
Speaker 2: all the best people started coming to us. I mean,
Speaker 2: as you said, you have many friends who are there,
Speaker 2: and it's a community for like really good people who
Speaker 2: care deeply about the world and also want to be
Speaker 2: able to lift their spirits, you know, and dream of
Speaker 2: a different kind of reality. So about ten years in
Speaker 2: I gave this sermon called the Amen Effect, and it
Speaker 2: was about how we who dream of building the Beloved Community,
Speaker 2: and we who are working every single day to build
Speaker 2: a more just society and to fight for racial justice
Speaker 2: and climate justice and LGBTQ equality and all the things,
Speaker 2: how we had to start by building the beloved community
Speaker 2: inside that we actually had to turn to one another
Speaker 2: in love and in care. We needed to not only
Speaker 2: protest together, but we actually had to dance together and
Speaker 2: cry together, and show up at the bedside and show up,
Speaker 2: you know, at the grave side together, and that was
Speaker 2: the kind of missing link, I think, and that's when
Speaker 2: the community really fully began to live into itself. And
Speaker 2: so it is a community of love and justice. It's
Speaker 2: fun and funny and serious and loving, and the music's
Speaker 2: great and the people are, you know, incredible, and we're
Speaker 2: really pushing ourselves to try to envision faith community in
Speaker 2: a really different way, one that suits the needs of
Speaker 2: our time and translating ancient ideas into a language that
Speaker 2: can actually help us live more deeply and more responsibly today.
Speaker 2: So beautiful, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to
Speaker 1: meet you. I'm going to see you again in person,
Speaker 1: hopefully sooner than later.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the book is called The Amen Effect, and it
Speaker 1: was really beautiful and it was the very I was
Speaker 1: really what the doctor ordered. So I hope you pick
Speaker 1: up a copy. And yes, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here.
Speaker 2: Take care, thank you, be well.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Chelsea Handler is my name, and comedy is
Speaker 1: my game. Comedy and therapy are my games. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I misspoke. I have added more shows. I added a
Speaker 1: second show in Vancouver, so I have two shows in Vancouver.
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth March thirtieth, I am coming to Calgary Victoria, Colowna.
Speaker 1: Then I've added another show in Sydney, Australia on July thirteenth,
Speaker 1: So i have two shows in Sydney July twelfth and thirteenth.
Speaker 1: For other shows in Australia and New Zealand, go to
Speaker 1: Chelseahandler dot com. And I've added two shows in Oklahoma, Norman,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma on May third, and one in Thackerville, Oklahoma, which
Speaker 1: is May fourth, and then I'll be at the YouTube
Speaker 1: Theater May eleventh in Los Angeles with Matteo Laine and
Speaker 1: Vanessa Gonzalez and Fortune Femster and Sam Jay. Those are
Speaker 1: my updates and more shows are coming, so pay attention
Speaker 1: to If you'd.
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