Culture
"As a Jew" on Yom Kippur with Sarah Hurwitz
In this episode of Chutzpod, Rabbi Shira Stutman and Hanna Rosen welcome back Sarah Hurwitz, author and former White House speechwriter, to discuss her new book, 'As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story f...
"As a Jew" on Yom Kippur with Sarah Hurwitz
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Interactive Transcript
Speaker A
Hey, Chut Squad. We just wanted to take a minute to suggest another show we think that you're going to love. It's called Just for this. It's a podcast that shares powerful stories about women in leadership.
Speaker B
The host is Rabbi Liz PG Hersh, the CEO of Women of Reform Judaism. Inspired by the story of Esther, Rabbi Hirsch interviews women who stand out in their fields. Women like Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz and author Gilia Efron.
Speaker A
So check it out. You can find Just for this wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Chutzpod. Real life lived better, where each week we apply Jewish tradition and a little bit of breakfast, bagels, and shmear to talk about something that is live in our lives. I'm Rabbi Shira Stutman.
Speaker B
And I'm Hanna Rosen. And, Shira, happy New Year. I loved your sermon last week. I was just very sad not to see it in person.
Speaker A
Thank you very, very much. I kind of feel like you have to say that. But also, I have a question. I admit to feeling a little bit Ashkenormative as I was doing our opening just a few seconds ago, because, I mean, I feel like it must be an Ashkenazi thing to have bagels and lox at breakfast. Like, what do Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews have at breakfast?
Speaker B
Yeah, this is, like, a lovely question. We do our version of B bagels. But I have to admit, before I say this, that it's been like, I've been Ashka. Colonized, colonized, colonized. I love that. Like, I do live in the United States of America, so I do what the ashkes do, and I do bagels. But back in the day in Israel, when I was amongst my Mizrahi people, we would have, like, coffee and bready things, but it would be more like jahnun or malawa. It would be like the sort of fried bready things that we eat. That's how you would break the fast, and you would have sort of a. The spicy coffee, and then we would just have meaty, like a cholent meal, a meal that someone had been cooking all night, that we'd been smelling and really excited to eat, and then we would eat that. So it wasn't like, different food than we had any other time. But it wasn't no bagels. We didn't have bagels. There wasn't bagels. Can you even find bagels in Israel? I mean, probably now you. I mean, when I was growing up in Israel, there was no bagels.
Speaker A
No, there was Herring. You could find herring in Israel, but you didn't really have, like, bagels and lox in that same sort of way.
Speaker C
No.
Speaker A
And I think the bagel game in Israel is still not very strong. I think that really, Mizrahi cooking is much stronger in Israel than sort of Ashkenazi.
Speaker B
True. Although I will say everyone in my family has caught up to the bagel. I mean, living in New York, living in Queens, like, there are very good bagels in Queens right by my mom's house. She definitely. It's like a special, special treat for her to go out and sit at the bagel store. I'm not. I'm just saying I'm not, like, I'm not throwing shade on the bagel. Jay Cohen, please forgive us. We love the bagels. The bagels are good. The schmear is good, whatever it is.
Speaker A
All you people say the bagel is good, but malawakh is better. Let's just be.
Speaker B
Well, malawakh is basically. I mean, because the. Because we like to say the word malawa, and it sounds kind of exotic, but really, you can buy it at the, like, Pennsylvania County Fair. It's fried bread. Like, let's be real. The sauces that you dip it in might be good, but every place high and low has its version of delicious fried bread. And this is fried bread.
Speaker A
And it has the egg. Come on.
Speaker C
Yes.
Speaker A
And you eat it on the beach. And it has. You're all like. You have this. The sunscreen that gets into the malawa. The taste of the sunscreen. It's like. It's got its whole vibe. Don't get into the malawa.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker A
Okay. So as. As the chut squad knows, we always like to open our podcast with a question from me, Tahana. So here's my question for you today. Complete the following sentence. As a Jew. Go. How would Hanna Rosen finish that sentence? As a Jew.
Speaker C
What?
Speaker B
I can literally do whatever I want on Christmas Day. That's. That's my. As a Jew. I know you're getting at. It's like, as a Jew, what authority do I claim? It's such an interesting question. I don't know that I claim any authority. It's like an easy cloak you put on, like, as an ex, like, as a Washingtonian, blah, blah, blah, or whatever it is. It's an identity move. Right? So it's like. But what do I claim as a Jew? It's that saying as a Jew gives me some kind of special authority. Like, I'm about to launch into a didactic speech because as a Jew, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A
Correct. Although I think it's very funny because the way that you finish the sentence is actually totally false, because as a Jew, you actually can't do whatever you want on Christmas because everything is closed. Right? You actually can't. You can go to a movie and you can go to a Chinese restaurant. Those are the only things you can do. And that's why we developed those traditions. So you actually chose. It's a very funny answer that you gave.
Speaker B
Well, it's funny because I feel totally liberated. Like it's the day I feel most liberated in the entire year because everything is closed. I can't go do my exercise, my Pilates. I can't go buy anything. I can't go get a meal. I'm just as free as can be. I have no obligations, don't have to buy presents. I am F R E E. So that's the one time when I'm like, yes, as a Jew, Nothing is on my schedule today as a Jew, because.
Speaker A
I am subsumed by Christian hegem. I'm free from Christian hegemony. I love it. So, Chana, as I said, I asked you that because we have a very special guest on the podcast this week, a second time Chutzpah returnee, Sarah Hurwitz, author and former White House speechwriter. She has a new book out. It's called As a Reclaiming Our Story from those who Blame Shame and Try to Erase Us.
Speaker B
Yes, I first heard Sarah on this podcast. I will confess this, that her first book, which is called Here All Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deep Deeper Connection to Life in Judaism, after Finally Choosing to Look There, was a finalist for several prizes, National Jewish Book Award, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. But in my life, it's kind of the catalyst for why I'm on this show, because I heard her on Chutzpod, and then I read the book, and I kind of. It had the beauty of allowing you to settle back into Judaism in a way that I found so helpful in my life. So I'm grateful to Sarah for that. Her other credentials, she was a senior speech writer for Barack Obama, chief speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, and before working at the White House, she wrote speeches for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primary campaign. Okay, that's all there is about Sarah. Sarah, welcome to Chutzpah.
Speaker C
Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to be back. And, Hannah, wow, that is like. That's like an author's dream. It really is. So thank you for making my. I was gonna say my day, but also kind of my life.
Speaker B
Sure, absolutely. But now we're onto the new book, so that's what we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker C
Great.
Speaker A
I mean, we are onto the new book, but I actually kind of wan with here all along, and I want to start with, like, the process of writing as a Jew and how it compares to the process of writing here all along. Like, how were the two processes different? Or maybe they were exactly the same.
Speaker C
Yeah, I mean, they were pretty similar in terms of the actual process of writing, but I think in terms of the emotional process, they were quite different. You know, my first book here all along was like, this love letter to Jewish tradition. It was like, oh, guys, I discovered this beauty and this wisdom and this transformational inspirational brilliance from my ancestors. I want to share. It was very moving and inspiring and a really happy place. You know, my second book, as the title implies, came from a different place. Right. It came from a place of realizing, like, oh, boy, my Jewish identity has been highly infiltrated and warped by millennia of antisemitism and anti Judaism and centuries of Jews. Very understandable attempts to escape that persecution by kind of erasing ourselves and our traditions and kind of a sadder place to write from and a more kind of an angrier place, honestly. So, you know, I think where my first book was a love letter, this book is more of a polemic.
Speaker B
It's interesting, Sarah, because often, emotionally, it works in the opposite direction, where you come into anger and then you move towards light and joy. So it's interesting that for you, like, discovering a spiritual infrastructure moved you in the opposite direction.
Speaker C
Yes, it did. Because as I was discovering this back then, I thought, like, oh, where has this been all my life? Sort of like, funny rhetorical question, like, why for me, was Judaism three boring holidays and one fun one and two texts, Prayer book in hand, Torah on scrolls, and, like, a handful of universalistic values. You know, don't lie, cheat, steal, yada, yada, that we all believe in. I actually then, with the second book, kind of asked that question in a very serious way. Like, wait a second, why hadn't I seen this all my life? Why was my Jewish identity for most of my life a series of caveats and apologies? Like, the number of times I said, oh, I'm Jewish, but I'm just a. It's like this immediate response, but I'm just a cultural Jew. Which, by the way, being a cultural Jew is gorgeous. To connect to Judaism through history, thought, languages, arts, food, music, beautiful I knew nothing about any of that. I meant I liked bagels or I'm a social justice Jew, knew nothing about what Judaism said about social justice or worst of all, I'm an ethnic Jew. Meaningless statement. Jews are every ethnicity. I began to ask why.
Speaker B
Right. It totally makes sense. It sounds, the way you're talking about it, like it was a completely internal process. Because sometimes when I think about the two books, I think, oh yeah, one was written during the Obama era. There was a lot of hope and looking outside ourselves and joy in that era. One is coming out in the Trump era, which is a much darker era in which there is a lot more emphasis on friction. And so I wonder how much you were influenced by the outside versus your own internal journey.
Speaker C
You know, I was very much influenced by the outside, but it wasn't the big macro. It was more of actually just like the experiential micro of my life where, you know, a few years ago I trained to be a volunteer hospital chaplain. Just want to pause on the word chaplain. Sounds like a guy with a collar and a New Testament. Right? Like it's a, it's kind of a Christian word. But chaplaincy is multi faith chaplains of all religious backgrounds. They are also atheist chaplains. But like the training kind of reflected a little bit of the title where it was like we talked about our ministry. You know, I was told that prayer is God, please heal my friend so and so who's sitting right here in front of me as I pray out loud, extemporaneously. I was told everyone prays that way. I was like, oh, Jews, not commonly, but nope, nope, as long as you don't say Jesus, it's universal prayer. And then I began to realize, like, wow, I actually think Christian. Like I'd always thought spirituality was like body, carnal, degraded less than spirit, good, incorporeal. You have the carnal degraded world of the earth and then the spirit world. That like body, soul, duality is not in any way central to Judaism. But I just thought spirituality is about transcending our disgusting bodies. Whoa, what was that about? And also, you know, the post2021 kind of antisemitism that I was beginning to see visiting a college campus and having students ask me how I dealt with antisemitism when I was in college. This was, well, many months before October 7th. And I was like, sorry, what? I didn't ever, not once, like, what are you talking about? Very jarring.
Speaker B
Shira, you always say to me, you're so Christian. That's such Christian Thinking like, you have said that to me many times on this podcast. Do you think. Do you think that's what Sarah's talking about?
Speaker A
That is exactly what Sarah is talking about. Right. That, like, for the. I actually think it's not too strong to say that for the majority of Jews in America, the way that they think about religion is through a Christian lens, because that is the water that we drink. Even those of us who have gone to Hebrew school, who have had bar or bat mitzvahs, the way that we talk about religion, the fact that we call Judaism a religion.
Speaker C
Exactly.
Speaker A
That in and of itself is through a Christian lens. And so that's some of what Sarah, I think, is talking about in this book so eloquently.
Speaker B
Wait, why did you both say exactly. What are we supposed to call it?
Speaker C
So let me. That's.
Speaker B
You're both like, yeah, duh.
Speaker C
No, not. Not at all. Like, I did not know any of this. I want to be clear. Judaism is not just a religion. All of us can reject every single aspect of Jewish religion and declare ourselves atheists. We're still Jews because we were either born into a Jewish family or we converted to Judaism. Right. Like, we're still Jews. It is not just that. Oh, that. It's also, just to be clear, not an ethnicity. Jews are countless ethnicities, so let's stop with that. Clearly not a race. My God, we're so many different races, diverse population. So what are we? Well, we happen to predate the categories that are used to distinguish people today. We are something that doesn't really commonly exist anymore. Call it what you want. Tribe, peoplehood, nation, civilization, family. This is a category error that I think we made 250 years ago, which we can talk more about, which is we decided in order to fit in. We said, oh, no, we're a religion, just like you. We just. We just go to a different church. But actually, we're people. And now we're very confused.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
It's interesting being a chaplain. I'm curious more about that. I. For a long chunk of my journalistic career, on purpose, because I was curious, because I also made the. You know, I made the discovery a little bit differently because I was born in Israel and grew up in Queens. There were a lot of Jews around, and then discovered as I got older that, you know, Jews are not, in fact, 73% of the population. Shocking, shocking, shocking. So I spent a ton of time around evangelicals, and I was. As I was reading about you being a chaplain, I did think about, like, I don't know how I put myself in relation to the evangelicals. I don't feel like they eroded my boundaries, which I feel like you feel that way. Like, you feel like you were somehow porous with them and their language and you had to kind of put a wall down.
Speaker C
You know, it wasn't even so specific of being surrounded by certain people who spoke in a certain way. I didn't. You know, I also grew up in a town that was probably like 10 or 15% Jewish. But it's our broader culture. These ideas are just sort of innate in our culture. The idea of spirituality as transcending our carnal bodies, that's just a sort of idea that many of us think is universal. But it's not actually, or even just the way that you think about dealing with your sacred texts. You know, I always thought, like, oh, you sit down and read the Bible, and then you're moved and comforted and inspired and so beautiful. And so I. When I wanted to learn about Judaism, I sat down and started reading the Torah. And I was not comforted or inspired. I was baffled and a little bit alarmed. But that's not how we engage with our sacred texts. So, again, the assumptions that are just kind of baked into modern American culture oftentimes do have a Christian tinge to them. And by the way, I don't even think it's a great representation of Christianity, which is a vast, diverse, complex, sophisticated tradition that I think is oftentimes reduced to something really simplistic by some of our uglier modern discourse. And I think I know a lot of Christians who are very frustrated by that because they're like, no, no, no, no. That is not my tradition. That is a distortion, a simplification. My tradition's a lot more complicated than that. And I feel for them.
Speaker A
But whose fault is it that we Jews don't know this? Like, it's not America's fault. Like, it's not the fault of the evangelicals that Chan is hanging out with. And I actually think you do a beautiful job in the book of talking about. And I don't like the word, the word fault, blame, like, but, like, I actually put the onus on us, on the Jews for sort of not sort of building a proud Jewish, substantive Jewish community here in America. And maybe it's our own internalized anti Semitism that has led us to not be able to do that. But I'm just wondering how you have processed through this realization and where this Jewish ignorance come from and what we do about it going forward.
Speaker C
Yeah, you Know, I found what I think are some answers to that in history. You know, what is really important to understand as a Jew, which I did not understand, you know, as an American. Most American Jews have their history in Europe, not all. There are certainly many Jews who have their history in Asia, Africa, Arab lands. But what I'm talking about is European history, which again, not all American Jews share, but which I think has really shaped American Judaism. And what happened in Western Europe in the 1800s is that Jews were finally allowed to be citizens of their countries. And before that, they had lived in these very insular Jewish communities where to be a Jew was your 247 existence. You lived by Jewish law, ate Jewish food, ran your community. You know, Jews ran their own communities. Then suddenly we're allowed citizenship in these broader countries and there's kind of a problem. And the problem, the Jewish question, as they put it, was like, well, wait a second, are these people Jews or are they Frenchmen? Like, because being a Jew was kind of a nationality. And the Jews were like, well, we want to get jobs and go to universities. So like, no, no, no, no. We are Frenchmen of the Mosaic persuasion. Mosaic as in Moses? We are Frenchmen of the Jewish faith. No, no, no. Judaism, it's a religion, just like your religion. You go to your church, we go to our Jew church, which is a temple which we're going to make look like your church so that it'll be okay. And what they ended up doing was actually quite courageous. It would have been much easier to just say, you know what, forget it. Like, let's just go to university and just not be anything, or let's become Christians. But they wanted to stay Jews, which I think is actually quite courageous. But in doing so, I think in some ways they were so shaped by the Christian anti Judaism around them. In some ways, they kind of took a Protestant cookie cutter and jammed it into Judaism and got rid of a lot of what didn't fit. And a lot of what didn't fit was our post biblical textual tradition. We have 2,500 years of commentary, argument, debate, wisdom, ethics, laws that come after the Torah. I didn't know about any of this. Okay, two Jewish texts, as far as I knew, prayer book, Torah, didn't really understand either of them, but that was the Judaism period. Those were the two things. But we've had this 2,500 years that I think in many ways is the beating heart of our tradition. And I think in an effort to be safe, in an effort to take advantage of the opportunities that all of us want. They really downplayed that beating heart tradition. And, you know, I was talking to a bunch of Israelis about this, and this guy raised his hand and said, oh, that happened to us, too. And I was like, no, no, no, that was Eastern Europe. But, like, stop interrupting. You're wrong. And then he interrupted me again. He said, no, that happened to us too. And I realized that if you look at the early Zionist thinkers, some of them very demeaning of Jewish texts and traditions, it was like, our rabbis are getting us killed. This is a bunch of nonsense superstition, waiting for the Messiah to save us. We need to leave this behind and go find Israel. So they, too, I think, kind of lost some of that beating heart tradition. And I think we're kind of reckoning with that. Oh, we're just a religion, just like Christianity. I think we're reckoning with some of that today, unfortunately.
Speaker B
So, Sarah, where.
Speaker A
I don't know if.
Speaker B
Are you angry? I mean, where's the anger coming from? Do you just feel, like, bamboozled, or are you in grief? I'm trying to figure out your orientation, because we are. Many people are gonna be listening to this heading into Yom Kippur. That's, you know, that's like a reckoning moment. And it sounds like this book is a little bit of a reckoning moment. So I'm just trying to figure out where you are.
Speaker C
So I'm angry at the people who made us do this. Like, I'm so angry. Like, this wasn't necessary. Why couldn't it be that in the early 1800s, as Jews were getting citizenship along with other people, why couldn't the majorities around them have just said, look, here's your citizenship. Come, go to our universities, go to our workplaces. We think your traditions and texts are really fascinating and interesting, and we want to accept you as you are and welcome you in because we are a wonderfully tolerant society. There is a sort of counterfactual here. And what would have happened if that had been the case? What Judaism would we have created? Would the current denominations that we have be the result of that? And I don't know.
Speaker A
Right?
Speaker C
And, like, part of me, I love the project that we've seen in recent decades throughout the Jewish community of doing that, reclamation of going back and being like, wait a second, these texts are ours. These traditions are ours. You see it in so many Jewish organizations, institutions, denominations. And that's what I think we need to do. I want to go back to 1800 without any of the anti Judaism and anti Semitism that was infiltrating and warping us. And I want us to look at our texts and traditions with open heartedness, curiosity, and not necessarily blind acceptance. Right. Like, some of this stuff we might be like, nope, hard pass. And some of it we might be like, okay, but I want us to do it with the benefit of the doubt, not with that kind of contemptuous, like, ugh, this is just. I'm immediately going to be triggered by everything, ugh, this is all bad. It's like, why don't you actually just say, like, okay, this was my great, great, great, great, great, whatever, lived in a different time, had a different sensibility. But like, what was the intent behind this? What were they trying to do? What was the human need? They were meeting and really have some compassion and open heartedness and see what it has to offer us. Because I think it has a lot to offer us.
Speaker A
It's so interesting because that anger, it doesn't resonate. I don't feel that anger. And I am someone who I think loves the tradition as much as you do. And I just. The antisemitism that makes me angry. Right.
Speaker C
Like the sort of anger I have is to people who did this to us.
Speaker A
Yeah. But I don't know, I feel like. And maybe part of what I need to do is continue to think about this a little bit more. But I just, I feel like the Jews were running from the shtetl as fast as they could. And so it was the Jews who were running from the parochialism of the shtetl, whatever, to use 2025 language, which is not the language they would use, you know, whether it's a sex, whether it was the sort of close mindedness of the yeshiva, whether it was, you know, the lack of the secular education that Jews were running from it, you know, as opposed to the non Jews were sort of luring us in and requiring us to shed our identities in order to come in. I'm thinking about the essay in Direhorn's People Love Dead Jews, which sort of broke my brain.
Speaker C
Great point.
Speaker A
When she talked about. Great book where she talked about how the Jews chose to change their names when they came into Ellis Island. Now, of course they chose to change their name because they were worried about antisemitism, because they, they knew what was coming for them. And also it wasn't the stories that I grew up with that the people who worked at Ellis island changed our names for us because they were all anti Semites. And so I just think that there's, there is a piece that we chose to do this. Now, maybe it was our internalized antisemitism that led us to choose to do it, but it wasn't that. There were these, like, always these evil goyim who were, like, reaching for us that forced us to make these changes, to enter into secular society. But maybe I'm reading it wrong.
Speaker C
No, no, no, I hear that. And I do think. I do think, you know, no one held a gun to their head and made them do that. I think that's a really fair. That's really fair pushback. And I do think we did want the benefits of modernity. We did want this secular education. We did want these professional careers. We did want to be part broader society, which was exciting. And you're right, like the shtetl was missing out on a lot of modernity, a lot of modern thinking, knowledge, science, like, all of that. And, you know, that's a really fair pushback. I think maybe I'm oversimplifying the way I'm talking about this. Like, we wanted all of that, but, you know, the fact that we felt like we had to kind of give up our own wisdom in order to get that. The fact that we felt that, you know, it's like, was that neutral? Did we really hate our own wisdom so much, or was it a sense that the people around us were so contemptuous of our own wisdom that we kind of imbibe that? And maybe it's a little bit of both. I think that's, like, completely fair. I also think, to Dera Horne's point, and she is utterly brilliant. If you haven't read People Love Dead Jews. You gotta buy it and read it right now. I love her, but I mean, what she's actually talking about in this name changing and other things is a kind of anti Semitism. That's not the. It's not the anti Semitism we all learn in Holocaust education. Which really confuses you about anti Semitism, which is like, the Jews are bad. We must kill them. Nothing they can do to be good. The end. Pogroms, Holocaust. That's anti Semitism. Yes, but there's also a kind of conversionist anti Semitism that she writes about, which is, oh, yeah, the Jews are definitely bad, but we're not going to kill them. There is something you can do to be saved, and that is you can reject whatever aspect of Jewish civilization we deem disgusting. So back in the day, medieval times, look, reject Jewish religion, convert to being Christian, you're saved. Like, maybe we'll see our Parents and grandparents generation, reject your name, reject your nose, reject your ethnicy Jewy mannerisms, all in quotation marks, and become a wasp. Become classy like us, and then you can be in our club. Maybe you can marry my daughter. Probably not, but maybe today, I think, you know, what I saw a lot on college campuses was like, no, no, it's not your religion. It's not your name or your nose. It's actually your nation. It's your ancestral homeland. And if you reject that, you'll be okay. And what Derek calls this is the weaponization of shame. It's a sense that what this thing that we, the majority, reject, it's something really shameful and disgusting. It's actually, like, repulsive. And if you reject it, you will be saved. Like, you will be okay. And so I do think there was some of that going on where she says, you know, it looks like the Jews themselves choosing to reject their traditions so it doesn't code as anti Semitism. No one forced them to do this. They chose to do this. But, like, the kind of question is, why? Right. Again with my counterfactual. If people have been like, you know, your Talmud is amazing. Kind of wild, little wacky, but, like, there are some profound, profound wisdom in there, which we're going to honor. Would they really have just downplayed that? Would they really have been like, no, no, no. We're biblical prophetic Jews who just love the prophets. I don't know. I don't know. And I think it's a little of both. Shara, I think you're right. I think it's a really good pushback.
Speaker B
Okay. I was with you for 70% of your string of examples, because I think what Sarah's going through is what a lot of, I mean, think about racial minorities go through in the US Is like, you wake up one morning and you think everything that was taken away from me, some of it in just sheer pure violence. Like. Like, literally my house, my relatives who were murdered or enslaved. Like, some of it was just absolutely obvious violence, and some of it was just a kind of inchoate pressure to conform. Like, to be. This is just respectability politics. So I think Sarah's like, it sounds like you are waking up to that and sort of angry about it. Like, it is true that I didn't grow up thinking a Jew could be as Jewish as a Pentecostal, couldn't be Pentecostal. As someone who spent a lot of time in Pentecostal churches, where it's like all of the sort of extravagance of that in the second awakening, there really is not a Jew would kind of hide that. Maybe not an Orthodox Jew. So I'm with you. Till there, we haven't gone into the campuses. That feels different to me. It feels like that is a million different things that are happening there, some of which are political protests, some of which are protest against a nation that's taking the actions of a nation. And some of which, like, if you, you know, if you drew out the lines, ugh, now we're veering into anti Semitism. But it seems way more complicated than everything else you've described, which seems actually very recognizable as a form of racism.
Speaker C
So I'm not sure it's as complicated as we might think it is. You know, I think, first of all, to say campus is just. That's meaningless because campuses are so diverse. It's not even a meaningful category because they're just. They're completely different. You can find everything on it everywhere. So let's just say, like, campuses that. That have been particularly challenging for Jewish students. Let's just focus there. You know, I think when I visited those campuses and I spoke on 27 of them post October 7, what I discovered was that Israel had kind of been put in the same bucket as the KKK and the Nazi party. So for me, being like, oh, guys, I'm a Nazi, but I'm a liberal Nazi, or like, I'm in the kkk, but I'm not a hater. I don't hate people. It's like, come on, right? Those are vile institutions with which one can have no contact, period. Come on. But Israel is a country, and it's messy. And what I found was that many of the Jewish students I was talking to, they, like me, had very complex feelings, right? Like, they were Zionist. They believed that Israel needed to exist, and they were horrified by the current Israeli government and by the ideology and by many policies. But the first part of that statement, you're out.
Speaker B
I mean, to me, that's a natural phase of protest. Like, there probably was a phase where you could not go around campus saying you were South African. Now, you could have hated the government of South Africa. You could have had a million different nuanced views about South Africa, but, like, you. You just wouldn't say it. And I feel like right now that's kind of where it is. It's not so easy to say, I'm Israeli.
Speaker C
I also just want to really lovingly push back on this idea that, like, oh, what's happening is. It's criticism of Israel. And we're saying you can't criticize Israel. Criticism is like, I am appalled and find abhorrent this particular policy for these particular reasons in it's sickening and disgusting and unacceptable. Criticism is not from water to water, Palestine shall be Arab or Jews are Nazis. And I know that because if, God forbid, a Jew ever said, from water to water, Israel shall be Jewish or Palestinians are terrorists, I would say that is racism and eliminationism and do not ever, like, I would be so upset. That's not criticism, that's hate. I don't think what we're seeing is a lot of coherent, cogent criticism. I mean, if you want to say this is a genocide and here's why that's criticism, great. You want to say this is apartheid and here's why I disagree with you. But like, this is a very specific criticism with Jews, right? It's Holocaust inversion, right? It's like, oh, no, these are the Nazis, right? These are the Nazis. No, no, it's, it's the, the Jews are the Nazis because again, we have to take away the reason for one of the reasons for Israel's existence. If Israel is powerful, if they're the Nazis, then like, why do they need a Jewish state? Come on. They don't need a Jewish state. And I think the problem that we have here, and I'm very frustrated by this problem, is that like many American Jews, I'm a Zionist. I think Israel needs to exist. And let me just tell you why. Because 2/3 of European Jews being wiped out in the Holocaust was just the beginning of the 20th century. You have 850,000 Jews in Arab lands fleeing persecution, the vast majority to Israel. You have 2 million Russian Jews fleeing persecution, half to Israel. You have tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews fleeing persecution to Israel. I can go on and on and on. We run the experiment of Jewish statelessness for 2,000 years. It didn't go great. But I'm seeing an Israeli government that is doing things that I think are appalling. And the problem is I don't see an ability to hold those two things. Well, Zionism is Bibi Ben Gavir Smotrich. And I am an anti Zionist. And if those are the choices, I mean, I'm out. Those are not my two choices.
Speaker A
So here's what's happening. As I'm listening to you, the two of you speak, two women who I respect more than anything, two of the smartest humans that I know in this world having a conversation that I've had hundreds of times Right. You know, those of us who care deeply about Israel, which I actually believe that both of you do, each in your own way. You know, on. All that's happening in my brain is, okay, this episode is dropping on Erev Yom Kippur. Right. Kol Nidre is happening hours after this episode drops. You know, we have thousands of people who are going to be listening going into Yom Kippur. I guess it's our technically only the second Yom Kippur after October 7th, but it feels like the 7,000th Yom Kippur after October the 7th. And I feel like this is actually a question for both of you, but I'll start with you, Sarah. And it's a question. Maybe it's a question for the rabbi, but I'll start with you, Sarah, because as some of you may know, Sarah is also a rabbinical student at this moment as well.
Speaker C
Starting in January. Yes.
Speaker A
Yeah. Which is also a gift to the Jewish people. It's sort of like, what do we do with. I mean, you guys got to the intellectual space, obviously, with this back and forth, and we need a space for the intellectual conversation. But it's also such a painful conversation that the two of you were having, because there is a way that there is no end to this conversation that the two of you are having. There is no answer to this conversation. And so for those of us who are going into Yom Kippur, and I feel myself tearing up as I'm actually even asking you this question, like, what do we do with this, this back and forth that the two of you were just having? How do we go into Yom Kippur? Are there different ways that we, as Americans, as American Jews, need to be having this conversation? Are there different ways that we need to be having this conversation with our non Jewish friends and family? Are there different ways that we need to be having this conversation with God as we're sitting in synagogue, you know, over the course of these holidays.
Speaker C
Yeah. So I think a couple things, you know, I think it's really important for all of us to know our history because so much of this is situated in a very long history. And if for you history starts in 1948 or 2000 or 2023, I don't think you're equipped to have the debate. I really don't. I think there is so much history here that's really important. The second thing I'll say is Judaism operates in polarities. We are told you have to hold opposing truths. Our Torah tells us 36 times, Love the stranger, care for the stranger. Care for the non Israelite. Do not ever abuse the stranger. And it also tells us, like, remember Amalek, right? Remember this, you know, enemy who came and attacked you at the back of the tribe. Like, don't be naive. Be open hearted, be compassionate. Be inclusive and welcoming and loving. But man, don't forget that you have enemies who want to kill you and who always. Who have for many years and probably will for many more. And the problem that I see is, like, people kind of like, say, like, just like clinging to one polarity or the other, to one pole or the other. And that is so not Jewish. I think it's so important. Like, I really, like, I love this conversation with Hannah because I think we're like, we're both wrestling with the polarities, right? We're not saying, no, my pole, your pole. My pole, your pole. We're both kind of wrestling with both and maybe coming out in different places. But, like, that's okay. I think that's deeply Jewish. I would just love us to kind of reground ourselves in polarities. Both sides are true. I hate to say it, like, both things are true. And so what do you do with that? And that is. It's a hard thing to do. But it's like, you see this again and again in rabbinic debates, right? Honesty and kindness, justice and mercy. You can't just have one. You gotta figure out how to deal with both.
Speaker B
I'm just gonna bring what you asked Shira down to the ground. So you're standing up, giving your sermon. There are many people in the pews. In the head of one of these people is, say what Sarah's going through. They've had maybe an awakening. They've been to college campuses. They have children. Whatever it is that's caused them to be angry at sort of everything that's been taken away from them. And they're thinking, okay, how should I think about my enemies? All these people that have hurt me? And there's maybe a part of your sermon that speaks to that and talks about antisemitism and sort of acknowledges that the person two seats away is thinking, the thing I have to atone for is the deaths in Gaza. Like, that's what I feel heavy on my soul today. I feel that a lot of this talk of antisemitism kind of obscures that or tries to claim pain when there's actual real pain that I feel accountable for on the other half. Pain, death, violence. So are you both saying. Because the scary thing is if, say Sarah and I, the conversation we just had, like, breaks the community apart. Each person is getting right with God in their heads in their own specific way, the two ways that I talked about. But at the level of community, that's a little scary.
Speaker C
I mean, I would hope we would hold both of them. I mean, right. Those are the, those are the polarities. Like, if you're not holding that humanity of like, we are responsible for deaths in Gaza, right? And you can argue about, like, okay, but how much is Hamas responsible? Palestine, we can have a debate about the morality of war and we can have all those debates. But like, at the end of the day, this is something that we need to reckon with. So I don't, you know, the idea that it's either or, I think is just so dangerous.
Speaker A
Yeah, and I think you're exactly right, Sarah. And you know, you use the language of polarity and I might use the language of complexity. Right. It's like everything you just, you said, Sarah. I agree with so much. We have to know our history and also we have to know the places where we're speaking from like a historical perspective and the places where we're speaking from, like a visceral, fear based perspective that actually isn't about our history. Even if we're using historical facts to justify what we're saying, that is part and parcel of understanding the complexity of it all. Because I think that often Jews will use historical facts, selective historical facts to justify something that they're actually feeling in their guts that is fear based and has less to do with history than with fear. But that's part of the complexity. And so I think as a rabbi who will be standing in front of a congregation on Yom Kippur, it is important for me to both hold the fear that people are feeling, the realistic fear, and the unrealistic fear that people are feeling, the antisemitism that people have actually experienced on the college campus and the fear that a lot of parents have, what their kids may be experiencing on the college campus. And also the complicity that a lot of us have for what is happening in Gaza, even as also Hamas needs to take. Well, not that they will take responsibility, but it is Hamas's responsibility also. And perhaps even more so like, and that is, to me, that is the burden of being a Jew more than almost anything else. The burden of being a Jew is that you. But we, O Machuc, what we say in Hebrew, right, Like the burden of heaven, is we say we are willing to take on the complexity. We are willing not to Be reductive. And there is nothing harder for a human being to do. And it is exhausting, and it has exhausted us for thousands of years. But that's what it means to be a Jew.
Speaker C
I love the empathy in this, in what you said, because, like, oftentimes the people who are most afraid of any public criticism of Israel, it's like, they're like, how dare you? It's not because they're. They're stupid or mean or bad. It's because they're terrified. Because oftentimes they just think, well, we give them an inch and then they'll take a mile. They're feeling like, okay, wait, if I do this, any kind of public criticism, the tsunami of antisemitism is going to overwhelm me. And I don't blame them for thinking that. But I also just, like, lovingly would point out that I think we've reached a point where, you know, that position of no daylight, of no criticism, it is. You know, young people will say to me, no, Zionism is. You believe in. You support Bibi and Bengavir and Smotrich in the occupation. And I'm like, that is not Zionism. And they're like, yes, it is. I'm like, where are you getting this from? And I'm like, oh, wait, if we're not going to have any distance, any public distance, then is it so shocking that maybe that's the impression they've gotten? Is it so shocking that they're going to. To kind of the extreme in the other direction?
Speaker A
Right.
Speaker C
And I think our fear oftentimes, and I understand the fear, right. I share it. That fear of the public criticism being taken as. Yes, see, you really are guilty. You really are the original sin on the world. Israel really is the great original sin that is responsible for all the world's problems. You said it. You do. I get that fear. I don't think it's crazy or irrational. And I have such compassion. And, like, what do we do? You know, this is a tough. This stuff is nuanced and tough. And I just, I have a lot of compassion all around. You know, I appreciate, Sheri, your. Just everything you said is so grounded in compassion. You know, I wish there were more of that.
Speaker B
Yeah, yeah, yes. This part of the conversation, I really appreciate the complexity part. Sarah, I wonder how you dealt with this. A lot of times, the moment when you start to feel yourself wounded or hurt, that's a very blinding moment. That's actually the hardest moment to keep complexity and compassion in your soul. And I'm just wondering how you handle that, because this book is essentially about a discovery of being wronged. And you know how it is. Like, it's like anybody who discovers when they're wrong, they're not really, like, looking out for the rest of us in that moment.
Speaker C
I mean, I will say I handled it poorly initially. You know, my initial drafts were quite strident and angry. And the way I dealt with that is I knew that, right? I knew I was writing from a place of hurt and anger, and I knew it was bad. It was bad writing. It was not compassionate. It was awful. And so I showed my drafts to 80 people. I mean, my acknowledgement section is absurd. It's like, really this many people. But these people pushed back on me and says, like, no, this is unfair. This is unkind. I showed especially my Israel Trappers to people who really disagreed with me from both sides of the political spectrum. And it was so helpful. And I'll tell you, as a speechwriter, that's how you write speeches. You write a speech crappy draft because you don't have much time. You send it to 80 people in the White House, and they tell you what's wrong with it, and you learn. And I wish everyone would go through that editing process because it's humbling. And it made me realize, like, oh, boy, I gotta tone this down. Or I got. I really need to ramp up the compassion here because I'm attributing something to someone that's not fair.
Speaker B
Okay, let's take a break, and then we will be back with Sarah Hurwitz. Welcome back to Chutzpah. We are here with Sarah Hurwitz, whose new book is called As a Jew Sarah. So I am very, very curious about your chaplaincy. Is that the noun chaplain?
Speaker C
But I kind of feel like Sarah wants to come up with, like, a.
Speaker A
More Jewy term for it.
Speaker C
Spiritual care provision, perhaps?
Speaker B
Spiritual care? Well, you know, I was wondering. I did not Google this as you were talking, but I was wondering, why do we think is chaplain a Christian word, or did we just imbue it with Christian sentiment? Because we think all chaplains are Christian. Did we do that, or is that in the origin of the word itself?
Speaker C
I think. I believe it's the person who was responsible for maintaining and caring for the chapel, which, you know, that is definitely a Christian word. Yeah, so it is.
Speaker B
Of course it is Christian. All right, point taken. Why did you do this?
Speaker C
Yeah, you know, it was during COVID and I was trying to write a second book and just miserably failing Like, I probably spent eight months writing the most appalling drafts. And then I started reading articles about these extraordinary healthcare providers in hospitals and elsewhere, like, risking their lives to care for patients. And I read about chaplains, and I just thought, like, oh, this is what I want to do. I love hospitals, which I know is a little bit weird, but when my grandmother was in the final weeks of her life, I spent a lot of time with her in the hospital, and I just loved being at her bedside. I loved talking to the nurses and the doctors. The project of just care so moved me. And I like talking to people in crisis and kind of being there for people. And it just seemed like a way that I could do this without having to have a degree in psychology or social work or anything like that. So I signed up to do the training.
Speaker B
Was there anything that surprised you or where it created some distance between your own natural proclivities and the task itself?
Speaker C
No, I actually found that it was exactly what I thought it would be. And it was also such a. It's such a deep part of my Jewish practice because, you know, the modern secular world is like, ooh, illness, grief, dying, death. Disgusting. Run like hell from that. Put some Botox into it. Send it a text. We don't like, oh, hospital's creepy funeral homes. And Jewish tradition tells you the exact opposite. It says, oh, no, no, no. You run right to those spaces. If someone is sick, you do not send them flowers. You get your butt to their hospital bedside, and you are physically present with them. If someone is in mourning, you are physically present with them. When someone has died, you know, traditionally, members of the community wash and lovingly prepare that body for death, for burial. You know, the idea is that just as we were birthed into this world in love, we'll be birthed into death in love. It's a very beautiful. Like, just the fact that before people prepare a body for burial, they apologize to it. There's actually a prayer asking for forgiveness if we in any way embarrass you or disrespect you. And then people don't pass, like, any tools or anything over the body. You walk around, because, again, there's such respect and love and like, to think about someone who you have loved being cared for this way in death. Jewish tradition says that in these thin places, these spaces and moments where the boundaries between life and death and heaven and earth kind of thin out, these are liminal spaces that scare the living daylights out of most people. And the secular world is like, run like hell. And Judaism is like, no, no, no, no. You get yourself there, because those spaces need accompaniment. They need community. They need love. And so to me, the act of being at someone's bedside, you know, when everyone else in their life is like, stay strong. Be positive. You got this. And the person is dying, and I'm like, so you're dying. Let's talk about that. How do you feel about dying? And people are like, oh, can I. I can talk to you about this? Oh, you're not gonna freak out? I'm like, no, death is, like, part of life. We can talk about this. It's just such a holy and sacred thing to be able to do. Like, it is the. It is just the greatest privilege and gift. Like, I feel so lucky to be able to do this.
Speaker B
You know, that's an unusual experience, as you say in the US So what did you learn from being at deathbeds? It sounds like you. It came to you naturally. But did you learn anything that was surprising to you about how people die?
Speaker C
You know, it didn't. I think a lot of the training. What was so helpful was that one of my instructors, who I love, she always says, chaplains are antisocial. Meaning, like, we don't do the social niceties. Like, I walk into someone's hospital room, I have a little speech where I introduce myself, and then the first thing I'll ask them is, so, what brought you here? Which is like, oh, boy, I'm just right up. I'm a stranger. I'm like, tell me about the illness that has landed you half naked in a bed. Not social skills. Right? You usually wouldn't start with that. And I had to kind of be trained into that. It was not natural to me. But the next part, the actual, like, creating space for someone to be heard, that is just. It's so profound. Like, I think 90% of what I say as a chaplain is like, wow, that sounds so. Fill in the blank. Scary, hard, shocking, or just like, oh, can you tell me more about that? That very basic questions and just, like, shutting up and listening. And there is some point in a good conversation where someone, like, I can almost see them making the decision where they're like, okay, I am going to hand over this very fragile, tender, precious thing, and I'm gonna let you hold it. You just have to kind of, like, gently reach out and, like, cup your hands around it and, like, hope you don't break it. And it doesn't matter what tradition or religion, right? Like, my patients don't know I'm Jewish. I think most of them just assume I'm a minister, but it kind of doesn't matter, right?
Speaker A
You say your patients don't know that you're Jewish and it doesn't matter. But I bet it matters to the Jewish patients.
Speaker C
Yes, and that's the exception, actually. I do a little speech when I walk in where I say my name is Sarah. I visit every patient on the floor. So no special reason for the visit, because on an oncology floor, if you step in and announce you're a chaplain, people are like, oh, God, am I dying? So I never start with that. And then I next say, I am an interfaith chaplain. I talk to patients of all faiths and none at all. And I'm just here to see how you're doing. And if the patient is Jewish, the next thing I say is, I'm personally Jewish because I can see anytime I walk into a Jew's room, they're like, ugh. Even interfaith chaplain, it's like, chaplain, please don't proselytize. Like, I can see them harden. And I tell them I'm Jewish. They're like, okay, okay.
Speaker A
Although it's funny, when my dad was dying, what he used to say that. He used to say that he always preferred the non Jewish chaplains because the Jewish chaplains would always walk in and all they wanted to do was Jewish geography with him, and that the non Jewish chaplains would actually walk in and pray with him, which is really, really interesting. He wanted the people to come in and do the spontaneous prayer with him. I also think that that is one place where we can learn from the Christians. I think Jews are a little bit afraid of spirituality sometimes. I think we're afraid to pray, to really pray. And we don't believe in God as much. So we're like, ah, what is it like? We're really going to pray to this God, and it doesn't even matter. I pray to my. My doctor. I don't pray to God.
Speaker C
And this is honestly, I think the problem here is that again, your only points of contact with Judaism, two high holiday services, that God is a man in the sky who rewards and punishes. But that's not what Jewish tradition says. The number of God conceptions and understandings that are not a man in the sky are, like, infinite. And many of them really resonate for me. And it's a lot easier to pray to a God that doesn't seem implausible or absurd than it is to the one you think you saw in the prayer, which you Didn't. Okay.
Speaker A
So, Sarah, as you know, in this iteration of Chutzpod, people will write us questions that they want us to answer from a Jewish perspective. So we have a question that we are hoping that you can help us answer.
Speaker C
Okay.
Speaker A
It goes as follows. Dear Chutzpod, I have an ongoing fight with my therapist that I hope you can help me answer. It goes as follows. My therapist tells me that at the end of my life, I am going to regret having worked so hard, and instead, I am going to have a desire to have spent more time with my family. I disagree. I am very, very proud of my career. I am also proud of my family and love them very much. But I think that on my deathbed, I am actually going to be both proud of the family that I have built and also proud of my career and how many hours I spent working. My therapist disagrees. We are at an impasse. What do you think, Chutzpod? Thank you so much. Sincerely, Shira. So, okay, this is my question. That is true, Sarah. But as someone who has actually spent time in rooms with people, it is true that, I guess hospice nurses report that people often say they wish they had spent less time working and more time with their family. But is that your lived experience that people say that? And should I be spending fewer hours working and more hours with my family? What do you think?
Speaker C
So, you know, in the vein of the complexity theme of this, this episode, and this podcast in general, I don't think it's so simple. I've often heard that, right? It's like, oh, on your deathbed, all you care about is your family. But one thing that has really surprised me as a chaplain is the number of my patients who really want to talk to me about their work. There is actually a spiritual value to their work and not just the people who have the jobs that you think of as, like, passion jobs. You know, a teacher, a nurse, you know, but like, I remember talking to a young woman who was an office manager and, like, it was a promotion she had gotten and she was very, very sick, but she was, like, so proud of that. And she wanted to just tell me about the things she organized for her office and how meaningful it was to her. Our jobs are often the way we express ourselves in the world and where we are part of communities. So I don't think it's so clear cut. Actually. I think work is pretty important for a lot of people.
Speaker A
Thank you very, very much.
Speaker B
Oh, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear this because not because I work all the time. I know that I will cling to my family and all my closest relationships, but for whatever reason, this has always bothered me. Like, it's so obvious to me that one, people like to matter. They like to see themselves as part of a bigger whole. It almost feels religious to me. Not wor necessarily, but the sense that people have of being a worker and plugging into a kind of bigger system, the idea that we should denigrate that or that that's not spiritual or that that's not important in some way, is crazy. It's also a form of expression that, frankly, in many families, you can't have. So I, like, never understood this dichotomy.
Speaker C
And I think you've nailed it. There is a spiritual value, especially for people who feel like they're doing what they're making. Meant to be doing in the world.
Speaker A
So just one more question before we go again. This is our Yom Kippur episode. Multiple times, you have called it one of the boring holidays of the year, Sarah. But it doesn't have to be one of the boring holidays. It doesn't have to be. No, no, no.
Speaker C
I don't want that to be on the record.
Speaker B
That's not what I meant.
Speaker C
It's a very profound holiday. But.
Speaker A
So I actually. I really want to close with that. And I do want to talk a little bit more about your experience as a chaplain, as a spiritual guide. And. And I'm wondering if you had any experience of your patients, I think you called them going through a process of chuva, or a process of repentance or right setting during their illness, whether within a conversation with you or in a conversation that you witnessed with family members. And whether there was anything that you learned from your patients that might be helpful to people entering this period of Yom Kippur and chuva.
Speaker C
You know, I definitely have. And what always strikes me is like, oh, if only it weren't this deathbed moment. Right? If only they'd been able to do this years ago, decades ago, Right? Like, their life would have been so different. And I think there's always just a little feeling of, like, no. Ugh. And that's actually like, Yom Kippur is where we. For 25 hours, we enact our deaths. You are supposed to be like a corpse. You know, you traditionally wear white to kind of mock the funeral shroud. You. You don't eat. You don't have sexual relations. You are basically a corpse. And what it is saying is there's a really powerful sermon that I talk about in my first book where this rabbi, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting his name, he talks about the Challenger spaceship explosion of the 80s. Just devastating thing where these astronauts, the ship exploded and they were falling to earth for, like, five minutes, knowing that they were plunging to their deaths, which is just even saying that is very hard to think about. But he actually says, like, welcome to Yom Kippur. This is Yom Kippur. You're plunging to your death. What are you thinking? Like, that is what Yom Kippur is supposed to do. And I think it's hard for us to touch into that. It's hard because it's a long day and so many prayers, and it's just easy to get lost in the words and words and words and words. But, like, you're in the little capsule, five minutes, what is it?
Speaker A
Right?
Speaker C
You're plummeting to your death. What is it? That's what Yom Kippur is trying to get us to feel. And I think for many reasons, it doesn't necessarily break through for people, but, like, if you could really bring yourself there, that's like, if we could all. If we could all have a deathbed experience that we survive, that could be pretty powerful.
Speaker A
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That was the gift, I feel like, of COVID that for a minute we understood how fragile it all is.
Speaker C
Yes.
Speaker A
And that's why Yom Kippur is potentially so meaningful and often so vapid. Because who wants to be really understand how fragile it all is? We would much prefer just to go to a breakfast at the end of the day and not do the rest of the work.
Speaker C
Exactly. It's what our human minds protect us from. That. Because if every day we were thinking that way, you can't live that way, but like, once a year, you can. Yeah.
Speaker B
Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. You can find Sarah at Sarah Her. We'll include links to her book on our episode page on your podcast feed. Sarah, thank you again so much.
Speaker C
Thank you guys so much. This was a total joy.
Speaker A
Thanks, Sarah.
Speaker B
Okay, that's all for us today. Next week, we're going shopping for a synagogue. We help a listener figure out what to look for when choosing a synagogue and what to avoid. And keep all those questions coming to chutzpodmail.com so we can answer yours. Or visit chutzpod.com while you're there.
Speaker A
Sign up for our Chutzstacks and connect to us on social media and shows like chutzpod, which are supported by Public media really need your support now more than ever. So please consider making a donation. We will be so grateful. Again. You can do that@chutzpah.com thank you to.
Speaker B
Robin Lynn, Lanny Solacek and PRX. And now Rabbi Shira's weekly meditation.
Speaker A
Some of you are going to be listening to this meditation before Yom Kippur. Maybe some of you during and maybe some of you after. But wherever you are, literally, emotionally, spiritually, just take a pause and take a breath and put yourself in a Yom Kippur state of mind. It's true, the goal of Yom Kippur is a really tough one, because even though we intellectually know that one day we will all die, to take that in, to really understand that it could be 70 years from now, but it also could be seven minutes from now, is perhaps one of the most difficult ideas for a human being to truly metabolize. But that's what I'm going to ask you to do right now, to recognize that perhaps life is long, perhaps it is short, and that to a really great extent, the only choice we have is how meaningful our life is, however long we have. So right now, here is your Yom Kippur assignment. This life that you have for however long you have it, what does meaning look like for you this next week that you have in front of you? Let's not go any longer than the next seven days. What will meaning look like for you? There are some hours that will be out of your control, probably fewer than you think. Put those hours aside. But for the hours that are in your control, how do you want to show up? Do you want to show up with compassion, with kindness, with love? How can you show up with a generosity of spirit, with a sense of openness, with a sense of forgiveness? What will it take for you to be your best self? Perhaps there is a little bit of self care that you need to do in order to be able to take care of others. If so, maybe use some of your precious time to do that. Or perhaps you need to just take the risk to make yourself a little bit vulnerable in order to do the hard work of showing up for others. Whether that is asking for forgiveness or offering to be generous in the way that other people need it, not just the way that you want to offer it. Yom Kippur is a moment of right setting, of shedding what no longer serves us or the people we love, and of taking on new possibilities. Think just about the week in front of you and just about the moments in your control. What can you do differently? How can you grow differently? And then how can you let this week allow you to grow into the year to come? Gemar tov, everyone. May you be signed and sealed for a beautiful, growthful and holy year to come.
Speaker B
That was Rabbi Shira Stubman. I'm Hanna Rosen, Chut Squad Gamartov. We'll speak to you soon.
Speaker A
From prx.