Latest / REALLY JEWISH with Oliver Joseph / REALLY JEWISH S1:E11 - place or time - Jerusalem Day
Transcript
- Oliver Spike Joseph: Hi, everybody. Welcome to Really Jewish our conversation about what it is to be a Really Jewish. I'm back with the Yair Eldan if you are back for another listen, welcome back if you're here for the first time, Bruchim Ha'bai'im' Welcome. We're really happy to have you. This is a podcast where we dig a bit deeper into some of the big issues affecting Jewish life and the Jewish community. I'm here with my partner in crime, the Yair Eldan Last week, we had Yair Eldan: you Thank Thank Oliver Spike Joseph: ⁓ a guest Rabbi Joel Levy next week we have another guest Rabbi Josh Weiner we're alternating one week in one week out with a guest and one week in with conversation with Yair. Welcome back Yair. Yair Eldan: Yes. Hey Oliver, how are you? heard you had a big demonstration of the Jewish community in London because of the last events. What's going on there? Oliver Spike Joseph: ⁓ it's been it's been a big week. It's it's a lot going on. And it's with a heavy heart to continue to talk about antisemitism. I feel like it is, you know, a significant issue in the UK, certainly in Europe at the same time. ⁓ guess part of what we're trying to do in Really Jewish is also to steer to the topics where Jews want to be talking about things that actually relate to ⁓ we are as Jewish community. Yair Eldan: you Oliver Spike Joseph: and that should shape and define us. Whereas I think some of the conversation about Antisemitism is not how I want my life to be shaped or defined. Well, maybe we'll come back to that as we go, because you know, Yair Eldan: So the podcast is actually escapism for you. Wonderful. Exactly. Oliver Spike Joseph: part of the part of the project that we're doing is ⁓ the desire I think lot of rabbis a lot of community leaders, a lot of people who work in the Jewish community spend their whole life talking about Israel and antisemitism. And I'm there's no escaping the crucial nature of both of those two parts. But it's also really important to provide a voice of ⁓ Yair Eldan: Right Oliver Spike Joseph: actually the deepening and a focus on what our Judaism actually is historically, linguistically, Torahitically that's a part of the Really Jewish story. Yair Eldan: Yeah. And I also think, I I feel, I mean, talking about Judaism and escapism, in a way, Talmud Torah [learning Torah] for me, I mean, not always, but a lot of time was kind of ⁓ creating a world within a world, and I think the rabbis did that in way, ⁓ and we repeated when we learned the text and we talk about the text and we talk about our Judaism. ⁓ And it's wonderful in a way. You can disconnect yourself from the outside and just dwell into identity and words and norms. And I think it's one of the wonderful qualities of Talmud Torah. Oliver Spike Joseph: Yeah, and I think ultimately you come out stronger. That's part of the story. You come out with with some kind of shield with with more resilience and more capacity to deal with the world outside if you permit for that aspect of deepening, ⁓ which hopefully we're to do today. So today, the topic that we chose was about Judaism of place or time. And a couple of words of instruction. We spoke to ⁓ Reb Tamar Elad Applebaum a couple of weeks ago on Yom Ha'Atza'ut on israeli dependence day and we focused on jerusalem because she's also a jerusalemite as your ear is and we're not going back exactly the same place but it's Yom Yerushalaem shalayim on friday we're recording now wednesday the 13th and on friday will be the jerusalem day which marked the depends how you frame it the reunification or the ⁓ conquering of jerusalem ⁓ by the Israeli army, which took ⁓ into military occupation the West Bank and Gaza in the same war in 967, which is part of the timeline of history that takes us to where we are today. ⁓ Such a complicated story of messy story. the bit that's interesting in terms of faith is Jerusalem. ⁓ Yair Eldan: What? Yeah. Oliver Spike Joseph: The reason for the retaking of Jerusalem and the reason why and the Israeli narrative, we call it the reunification of the eastern and western parts of Jerusalem is because there has been a yearning for more than 2000 years towards this place. The first temple built by Solomon, the second temple in the time of kind of just before just as the year. Yair Eldan: Thank Thank Thank you. Thank Oliver Spike Joseph: 70 approach was destroyed. We have this historic linguistic fable connection to this place. And one of the questions that were the question we're asking today is whether place or time is important, whether we sanctify the place that we call Jerusalem, or we sanctify the place that we call the kind of the festivals and the Shabbat and the things that Jews do above Yair Eldan: Listen, mean, obviously we're talking about the scale, right? We're both, we feel time, we sanctify time, we give, we differentiate times from other times. And obviously we also give a lot of... Oliver Spike Joseph: place. So that's the kind of that's the conversation we're starting on today. Give us a couple of words of introduction here. Yair Eldan: of attention to the place and we feel part of the place and you and I, even when I look at you, Oliver, I can see that you're English. mean, it's not even before you talk. I and I also, I understand that I was not born in Israel, but I came here very little, but I'm Israeli in every sense. So I'm talking about the scale and obviously I'm interested in... Where am I on this scale? Where are you in this scale between time and place? also I want to ⁓ just map the problem and differentiate what we're talking about from the bigger issue. The bigger issue is the connection between the Jewish people in the land of Israel, which is lots have been written about the problematic connection that we have to this land, right? ⁓ On the one hand, we're supposed to come here, it's a promised land and everything, et cetera, et cetera. And the other, if we were not, know, A.B. Joshua wrote about it a lot. ⁓ if we're not keeping up with the mitzvot, the rules God gave us, he will actually... throw us out of this land. So we have this very, in a way, ⁓ Freudian connection to this place. But I'm not talking about this problematic ⁓ issue, which is a problem. ⁓ I want to say something about it, but let's leave it for now. I'm talking about Jerusalem as a place within the place. ⁓ And as a Jerusalemite, I have to say, there is something... Obviously, I'm just putting it off the table, right? ⁓ I hate Yom Yerushalaem. I don't consider it as a happy ⁓ moment. ⁓ I feel it is a ⁓ a charade of ⁓ shame, of racism, and I feel just awkward just to talk about it. You know, having said that, just a disclaimer, I'm a proud Jew, a proud Zionist, and obviously, I mean, there is something about Yom Yerushalaem, how it became, that people are taking it to places that for me are ⁓ just shameful. I wouldn't say not Jewish because it's for them, it's their Jewishness that makes them, you know, scroll in the streets of the, the, of of the, of the, the, of of of the, of the, the, of the, Jerusalem and give, you know, and just express their fascism in a way, I mean, I'm disconnected from that. But I'm talking about, I mean, I just want to finish one idea. I have this complex feeling about Jerusalem, which is, on the one hand, It's my city and I have this everyday life in this very regular city when you talk about, mean, we think about it. But on the other hand, as a secular person, feel, I feel the spiritual aspect or the spiritual aura of the city. And so, so I'm, I'm, I'm walking on the streets, in the streets of Jerusalem with this complex a feeling that is, you know, makes me in a way feel that it's, it shouldn't and can't be connected to a certain people or a certain nationality. There is something very universal about this city. Oliver, yeah. Oliver Spike Joseph: No, I There's so many different parts I think You know, have a very intimate relationship with Jerusalem are talking about the unification of East and West when My second my first apartment in Jerusalem was rehov Ha'Nevi'im and then we got closer to East Jerusalem. We lived on Musrara, which is the old neighborhood of Musrara, which was the the the houses on the other side of the streets and where I lived with the Israeli Jordanian front line between East and West. between 1948, the creation of the state of Israel in 1967, ⁓ when Israel retook ⁓ East Jerusalem, that was a front line with barbed wire and soldiers and, and, you know, fire being fired going from one side to the other every now and again, with flare ups and the historic community that lived there, it was historically like impoverished neighborhood and also the home of the Israeli Black Panthers, which is the kind of ⁓ Tunisian Moroccan, I think Yemeni pushback against the kind of Ashkenazi Eastern European control of all things Israeli and all things political. ⁓ My association with Jerusalem is very visceral. My association with Jerusalem is walking the streets of the old city, walking the streets of West Jerusalem, walking the streets, seeing that ⁓ visual visceral ⁓ relationship between Jews, but also people of all faiths and none. Also the kind of aspect of pilgrimage of people coming to Jerusalem just to see this kind of vantage point on faith. Yair Eldan: Okay. Thank Thank ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: and and and faith conviction and faith connection. ⁓ But I also think I also relate, you know, I teach this class one plug Tuesday nights, ⁓ 8pm UK, 9pm Central European time. I'll zoom everybody's welcome to come. And yesterday we were talking about this topic because I often link the two classes about place or time. Another aspect when you start to kind of dig deeper into this question is that Jews have found loads of different places to be holy. know, Jerusalem is the historic like multi-layered place of valence and connection the Jews have basically had since the beginning of Judaism itself that there'll be hamakon asher yivchar this place that will be chosen ⁓ holy convocation, holy connection, holy ⁓ inside the Jewish tradition. But they've also done some of that, different pieces of that in Babylonia in modern-day Iraq, in Poland, one of the Midrashim says, Pauline, here we dwelt for almost a thousand years of Jewish history in Morocco and Tunisia in different core and key Jewish centers, which have also held aspects of sanctity. And even to this day, still are places of pilgrimage. I think of ⁓ ⁓ places in Ukraine and parts of Russia where know Hasidic families still go on pilgrimage to visit the graves of the Rebbe like we have that in actually many of the different places where Jews have lived so even in the context of place in Judaism if we start to break it down There's a there's a there's more multivalence than there is violence. There's all kind of more Difference and there is kind of unity Yair Eldan: ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: And I know can't for a second escape escape the unity of Jerusalem. We call you a critic. It's like this place of of of of center. Yeah, I said in the class yesterday, even even in even in generation on generation where no person in your family community or even the community of your community would necessarily have ever touched foot in the land of Israel, let alone Yair Eldan: Okay. ⁓ . ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: Jerusalem even then in the kind of you know, 200 years ago 300 years ago 500 years ago People were still praying towards Jerusalem. It was still a center It was still a focal point every day religious Jews waking up in the morning three times a day praying to Jerusalem So it's both it's you know It's one place of many in Jewish life, but then it's it's For more than 2,000 years also the place of of of Jews coming together Yair Eldan: Yeah, I mean first of all, I have a problem with all this pilgrimage towards graves of a very, you know, ⁓ it's a deacon hasid or everything I Oliver Spike Joseph: even in a time when we weren't actually physically in the city. Get out of Yair Eldan: I don't have a, initially I didn't have a problem with it. know, everybody can find this spiritual place and try to give meaning to some reality in his life. And I don't judge, I didn't. But when I see what's going on today where people actually lose it and actually feel that the place can actually generate something ⁓ and they kind of mix. between and they're confused between the process and the ontology. mean, they actually believe that there is some kind of power around these places and you see it in hundreds of thousands. mean, I'm just traumatized really by what happened in Meron a few weeks ago where thousands of people actually disobeyed the instruction of the police in Israel just because they want to be at you know, the Hillula of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, which ⁓ which is for ⁓ ⁓ losing sight of ⁓ the right ⁓ in your ⁓ But... ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: So you have to give a little bit of context. Mehran is considered to be the historic ⁓ grave of Shimon bar Yachai. Shimon bar Yachai is the fabled author of the Zohar. And there's a very cool story that we also looked at last night of him in the cave where he's kind of a hermit for 12 years and then one more year, 13th year. And the historic... Lagerbohm pilgrimage, which is the break in the counting of the Omer on the 33rd day of 49 is that many Hasidim of particular Kabbalistic Eastern European Hasidic Jewish sects go there to travel and particularly it's a place of bonfires and it's also a place where lots of kids have their hair cut for the first time at the age of three. Another another kind of piece of context is interesting because there was a a great tragedy there maybe three years ago, four years ago more in the last in the six or seven years where sorry, six or seven years where there was basically some kind of stampede a kind of people crush because of the sheer volume of people there and related to the war in the north of Israel with Hezbollah and it related also I think in part to not wanting any kind of repeat of the tragedy. Yair Eldan: More. I would say six or seven. Oliver Spike Joseph: of Maron six, seven years ago, there was a ban on people traveling there. ⁓ So, but interesting to note that even in Israel, we still have lots of other pilgrimage sites and places of significance and significance, holiness and importance even outside of Jerusalem. Just to note. Yair Eldan: But yeah, I mean, if you're asking me about, you know, how I see the connection between Judaism and being in your place, in your home, in your house, I would say, I would say the, if there is something like that, right? I would say Judaism recommends you to be in the place you live in to actually be, not to, not just to ⁓ live in, to be there, ⁓ but at the same time, it recommends you not to feel too much at home. I would say that. How do I know that? Because I know there are specific mitzvot and rules that gives you, undermine your sense of home. Like Sukkot, where you go out of your house for a week. Like Shmita, where you are not allowed to actually ⁓ cultivate ⁓ the land for year, ⁓ and accepting that it's not yours in way, ⁓ it's God's. There's something very social it. ⁓ And also Shabbat in a way, right? Shabbat in a way where you just, you you close your house, which is very important, you know, you, your son or your daughter, your male female slave, your ox or your or any of your cattle, or stranger in the place that you live ⁓ It's description of a farm. ⁓ You close the farm on Shabbat, ⁓ you're not doing anything, but at the same ⁓ when you're not doing anything, there is something spiritual about it, right? It's not only the place, it's something about ⁓ elevating yourself from the... the elements, the very basic elements, very fundamental materialistic elements of life. And in Jerusalem, if I come back, I mean, I will just say there is something even more spiritual about it. It's not as Tel Aviv, it's not as Beersheba, which is a very ancient city as well. There is something about Jerusalem that is universal, that is not connected to everything I said before. And I say it as a secular, which is crazy. You know, my daughter, Oliver, she came to me. Obviously they talk about Yom Yerushalayem, know, kindergarten, but we are a very secular house. We're talking about God. You know, I talk about God with the kids, but they know I don't believe in God. Not now. Maybe I'll believe, you know, in a few years' time. But... She asked me to go to the Western Wall, to go to the court, and she knows, she knows I don't believe in God. But there is something about, you know, there is attraction. There is an attraction, Rudolf Otto says, the ambivalence of the sacred, you know, it attracts you, it could, you know, could, Rudolf Otto said, this attraction, this awe can, you know, can get you terrified, anxious. but it can also get you passionate love, mercy comes out of you. So it can take you to both places and I feel Jerusalem has this potential of the sacred, even for secular people, that's what I'm saying. Oliver Spike Joseph: On the hundredth episode of Really Jewish, Yair is going to come out as a god believer. That's going to be that's what we're building up to. Surprise! I'm just working on you. I'm working on God. Yair is God connection. Okay. Yair, take us to the... We're kind of... We now did a slip there because you mentioned Shabbat and you mentioned... Yair Eldan: Exactly! Exactly! You see, you see it with feeling! With feeling now! You know? Okay. Oliver Spike Joseph: the aspect of time and the possibility of removing yourself a place from place into a place of time where time becomes sanctified. But take us a little bit into the to one of the texts that you prepared and and then let's carry on that conversation of of of of what of if place is indeed important and how we sanctify both time and place in the Jewish tradition. Yair Eldan: Listen, one of the things that astonished me when I read the intronomy for first time, and still is, is the fact that everybody is aware of that. Every commentary from a thousand years ago, you know... pays attention to that. The fact, even 2000 years ago, the fact that God doesn't, Deuteronomy, doesn't say anything about the place where the temple should have been built, and you said it before, ⁓ the place that God will choose in the future, right? ⁓ And I thought to myself, What kind of, mean, from, when do you know an issue is a big issue? When you see that every commentary, you know, is different and comes from its own world view. That's when you know that there is something very important about this, you know, about this ⁓ obscure ⁓ verse. I mean, and you can see, you can see that the traditional commentary goes to, you know. Yeah, why didn't God specify? ⁓ Where the temple should be lived it should be constructed because he wanted to avoid Disagreement between the people of Israel about where will be the where would the temple be built right? That's one commentary or to prevent You know destruction of the place by non-jews Obviously this commentary comes from you know ⁓ a worldview that non-Jews are always trying to sabotage the spiritual life of ⁓ Jews. Or this concealment of the place as a possibility of ⁓ being discovered by God in the generation that is actually apt for it. Or it's a process. you know, commentary. The process, think it's Nechama Leibowitz, it's a process that you should actually pass, you should go through in order to reveal the place by the people of Israel also, not only by God. It's a common, it's combined ⁓ project. And obviously, I mean, from my liberal secular worldview as I read it, I read it as... as a warning in a way, as saying, listen, the place is not the main thing, right? When you sanctify the place, you are in danger of, like you said about the graves, you are in danger in making it the thing itself, but it's not. The place is only the, you know? the shell of the content of the spiritual content. I'm obviously as an Israeli, I am not you won't you won't you know, I won't say that the place is not important. It's important to be in your place. But when God refers to the temple, God understands that the temple not your home, the temple could be, it could be dangerous to actually make the place itself a thing, right? To specify a place. And I think it's a warning. And it's also not only a warning, it's, for me, it's also... you know, like a challenge to take, God says to you, you have to take responsibility, you know? The place is connected to sovereignty. mean, it doesn't specify it because it says, We're talking about the concept. We're talking about the concept of place. When you have a place, you have to take responsibility over it. And I see it so many times in my city. That's crazy. I see it that the religious people, mean, trying not to generalize, but the religious people who are kind of interested in spirituality, they refer to the place as they neglect it. I mean, they don't feel... They're the owners of the street, in a way, and that's why they allow themselves to litter, for example. What kind of a person feels comfortable to litter? A person that doesn't feel that the street is its own, in a way. And in a way, it's crazy. mean, religious people... Maybe it's normal when you think about it because they are so spiritual they neglect the aspect of what it means to be in a place. I don't know. So you have a very complex situation. Oliver Spike Joseph: Listen, are some interesting parts which are raised here. the Deuteronomy text that you bring classically doesn't refer to Jerusalem. And if you take the five books of Moses, there's no reference to Jerusalem. Only in later writings of the prophets do we learn of the place of Jerusalem. we should say that the layered tradition, specifically in relation to that I was thinking about was the place that Abraham sacrifices his son Jacob Isaac sorry ⁓ the Akkadat Yitzhak that's supposed to be on Ha-Ha-Moriah where is Ha-Ha-Moriah? Ha-Ha-Moriah is Jerusalem the place that Abraham is most tested that the tenth test of ten ⁓ he's told to sacrifice his most beloved son And that happens in Jerusalem and then Jacob's ladder, the image, the Kabbalistic and Hasidic and Torah image of the Jacob's ladder, is the ladder, is Mutzav Artza staked in the floor and Oleh Shameima goes up to the heavens, which is, know, in the the in the mystical tradition and in many ways in the core tradition of Jewish life is a kind of staple image of the possibility of spiritual elevation inside our Jewish tradition also happens in Jerusalem. There's a kind of the layering. So you're right to notice that in Deuteronomy, there's no ⁓ mention of Jerusalem. The place that I will show you or the place that I would choose ⁓ is the language of description of the holy place that will become the holy place. ⁓ Yair Eldan: you ⁓ ⁓ you Oliver Spike Joseph: my kids are often obsessing about rainbow cake in one of the books that they read. ⁓ You know, the cherry layer and the strawberry layer and the chocolate layer the layered tradition of Jewish life. Jerusalem is certainly richly mentioned. But, you know, also you observe that this is that within the commentary, when you find such diversity in the commentary in response to this phrase of a hamakon asher Yivhar, the place that I will choose. Yair Eldan: you ⁓ you ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: There's a there's an expression of anxiety and expression of an uncertain a kind of an uncertain link to the possibility of Jerusalem. That's at the very epicenter of of the tradition. The place I want to go from there is what Jews have done with that. Not only have Jews had this in their discussion for several thousand years, but we're also approaching Shavuot. This is the Yair Eldan: ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: Now kind of 10 days before Shavuot. And Shavuot is one of the harvest festivals, Ha'Regalim. Why is it called Ha'Regalim? Because the people literally went up with their feet to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice. Yair Eldan: you Oliver Spike Joseph: for several hundred years and more where they actually went up and offered sacrifice to Jerusalem. And that is an intrinsic part of the way the Jews operate. It's in the way that we pray. It's in the way that we do our services, which in some way other replicates the temple offerings that were. It's in the language of the tradition and it's in the language of the rabbinic discussion around the tradition. This aspect of offering and temple and sacrifice and pilgrimage. And at the same time, Yair Eldan: ⁓ Thank you . Oliver Spike Joseph: The actual ways that Jerusalem physically is involved, kind of has involvement in our lives is limited because there isn't a more sacrifice anymore. There isn't pilgrimage to Jerusalem anymore. And there isn't Jerusalem as the as the mechanic focal point of Jewish life other than this remanence, which is prayer. So it's just interesting again, place and no place. We we may we continue to be a religion. Yair Eldan: Thank Yeah, and just thank you. You're so right, Oliver. And I just wanted to refer to the crazy fact that the prophets Oliver Spike Joseph: of place and no place. Yair Eldan: When they talk about the temple, they actually say, I mean, they criticize the people of Israel in real time, saying that they are interested. Oliver Spike Joseph: You have to translate it. Yair Eldan: too much in you know sacrificing and neglecting the human aspects of life of helping people who need help and being a good person and and That's why I mean, that's why I'm proud to be Jewish. I'm proud to be Jewish Among a lot of things about I mean, this is one of them the prophets are so, you know accurate in just saying What the problem is and why is it so amazing because... Oliver Spike Joseph: Yeah, you're done like self flagellation. If it's there, then you'll take it. Yair Eldan: I think it's something very Jewish about it and I think self-criticism is something by the way I think it's something very religious I mean, I mean, I'm not I'm not religious but I think religious people are supposed to be more criticized or more critical I mean in a way I mean because they have self-awareness more than they you know people who are not religious supposed to I mean so so I It's wonderful because it's for me. It feels You know, it feels so real nowadays. I mean, can read Jeremiah, I can read Isaiah, and I can feel that they're talking to me. And it's 2026, and I live in Jerusalem. I mean, I speak Hebrew. Oh my God. In a way, it's light and it's heavy at the same time. So... Oliver Spike Joseph: So another aspect of this dichotomy that we're trying to present this scale that we're trying to present I think is most most accurately represented in Shabbat and among the Listen the the the kiddish that we say ⁓ each week Alludes to this core core core part that god creates the world in six days on the seventh days He rests 'al cein bayrach adonai et'yom ha'shabbat vay'yi'kadshei'hu and so on the seventh day You will bless that day or god blesses that day and makes it holy ⁓ And and and and dropped into this, know conversation, you know, there is a conversation about time also being holy and a kind of differentiation exactly as you said before differentiation from the physical world that we live in and even the physical place that we live in into an elevation which prioritizes time above place and the the most beautiful poetry that's written about this I think is Abraham Joshua Heschel and he writes a book called Sabbath and he says Yair Eldan: Thank you. ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: Let's just let's just read one one small part. must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has see has already been created. The world has already been created. And so we'll survive without the help of people. Six days a week, we wrestle profit from the world, bringing profit from the earth. On the Sabbath, we especially care the seed of eternity planted in the soil. On the Sabbath, we especially care for the seed of eternity. Yair Eldan: ⁓ Thank I'm to you about I'm to be talking this. Oliver Spike Joseph: planted in the soil. It's magic words and takes us to a place, or actually the place where we are doesn't matter. And takes us to a place where the sanctification of time becomes more significant, important time where we spend time in study, in reading the traditional, maybe reading a book. Yair Eldan: . Oliver Spike Joseph: We spend time in family, we spend time in relationship, we spend time listening to the stories of our community in a slightly different way. These are moments where we, know, in the most countercultural way in terms of how we are raised and how many of our societies function, we're asked to take away, take off. Yair Eldan: Thank you. One, Oliver Spike Joseph: and nurture the seed of the soul, the seed of what we can achieve and what we can ring from the place that the way in. you know, I don't know how to create kind of civic connection or civic responsibility of a place, because I can tell you just as much as in Jerusalem, in the rest of Israel and in the rest of the UK and much of Europe, people are not in the in the vein of taking care of their place. Yair Eldan: Okay. Oliver Spike Joseph: and taking care of what's in front of them. But the aspect of spiritual care, I feel like is even more foreign. That real resting possibility where we nurture ourselves and the ones around us in a really focused way, I think is another aspect of what it is to be Jewish. Yair Eldan: Interesting. just wanted to ask you about, I mean, to ask you whether you think that the fact that I'm a Jew living in Israel, in Jerusalem, and you are a Jew living in London, it makes us, you know, it generates a different attitude towards the place we live in because of our Jewishness. I mean, I have a feeling... that the answer is actually yes, there is a different attitude. ⁓ In a way, I mean, I have a feeling, I'm not sure, but I have a feeling and I just wanted to react and say, ⁓ obviously, mean, Arthur Green also has a take on that. I he has this very famous article, ⁓ Sabbath as Temple. I mean, like ⁓ transforming all the... aspects of what what it means to work in the temple into the The works that you're not allowed to do in Shabbat and sanctify time You know when when you don't have a place for your for for God in the in the world ⁓ So I mean I I I love this idea What I don't like about it when you take it too far and you say listen to be Jewish means to sanctify time and study and spiritual and neglect, and I talk from my Israeliness, right? And neglect your basic need, your basic human need to be in your place and to feel connected to it and to feel, you know, ⁓ I mean, without becoming a fascist, you can feel a natural feeling towards the place you live in because it shapes you. as I said before, so. ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: It's an interesting story. Listen, I have a famous story living ⁓ in Musraa, this place I mentioned before, and it's pre-Pesach. One of the that Jews do pre-Pesach is that they burn hamet. So you take all of the leavened articles out of your house, the food that's not kosher for Pesach, you burn a little bit of it before Pesach as a kind of visual and demonstrative ⁓ moment. as you rid the house of the last bits of of hamets of of on ⁓ unleavened ⁓ bread or whatever it might be and ⁓ next to my house like about 100 meters away there's a big area with maybe like maybe like 25 to 30 dustbins bins trash cans and and that morning before pasach the whole lot goes up in flames because obviously it's you know that kind of community of ultra religious Yair Eldan: Yeah. Sure. Oliver Spike Joseph: Jews just doesn't have the kind of civic sense or like, I don't know, even just a sense that if you put a really big fire next to loads of plastic bins that the whole lot's going to burn down and learn to hold the whole lot burnt down. But why do I say that? You you can make the argument that there's corners of Jewish life where people are too concerned with the sanctity of time and not enough concerned with the sanctity of place. So they're too involved. Yair Eldan: Yeah. Thank Oliver Spike Joseph: Too involved with the aspects of Shacerit Mincha Maariv of the three service of the day or too involved with the mitzvah of B'tul Torah that you shouldn't be It's not exactly mitzvah, the minhad that you should never waste any time You should always be running towards the next mitzvah or the next segment of Torah study And so in that aspect you could say that there's aspects of religious life that are too too much tied with time and not connected with place but I can also say like in this country, part of the tragedy of the displacement of Jewish life here, which is not a complete displacement, but it is certainly a partial displacement and a real feeling of strain. I knew we were going to get back to anti-Semitism eventually, always. It is a strain and a real pain in the heart of many Jewish people that they feel that their place is not what it was here. Yair Eldan: Okay. Okay. ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: certainly three or four years ago and as degraded over time over the last 10 years. Part of that pain is that Jews do care about space. The number of people who have invested in political life in this country, in charities, in reading projects, in literature, in theater, in medical services, in research. the cultural aspect of Jews arriving Yair Eldan: Thank Oliver Spike Joseph: in a new country. The majority of Jewish people in this country today in the UK will have arrived in the last 100. I would say 90 % of last 150 is including my fat well, including half my family, my dad's family is an exception to that they've been here for about 300 years. That's a rare exception. But they have invested in place they have taken place seriously. And that's part of the tragedy of the sense that Jews are somehow being Yair Eldan: ⁓ Sure. ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: pushed out at this moment because of the amount that people have invested. And I'm not talking money, I'm talking about blood, sweat and tears that have enriched the UK and many, many parts of Europe. Yair Eldan: You know, one of the aspects that there is, it's a path from this main very, you you said it very clearly and it actually moved me, Oliver, because really, I mean, ⁓ it is a tragedy. mean, not to compare to what happened 80 years ago in Germany, but it's a sense, mean, just imagine, you know, German Jews were, felt betrayed by their own homeland. I mean, it's very hard. And what it means for us in our conversation is that even, mean, being Jewish doesn't mean that you don't have a real deep connection to the place. But one of the paths ⁓ that stems from it is the feeling of marginality, I think. I mean, there is something for me, maybe we'll talk about it in the next episode, but for me, being Jewish, is being part of the minority. I I always prefer to live as a minority than as a part of the majority group. In Jerusalem, I live in Jerusalem, amongst other things, because of that, because I'm a secular in Jerusalem. Only 16 % of Jews in Israel, 16, are secular. All the rest are religious or traditional or you know ultra-orthodox So I love it. I mean there is something to it and it's connected I mean there's something about being in the place but not exactly in your place that for me connects to my Jewishness Oliver Spike Joseph: I also wanted to say that I I love that description. Listen, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, I think, spoke about the tragedy of the possibility of Jewish majority in the land of Israel. I think I'm correct. Like the kind of ultimate difficulty of nationalism, statehood, and the responsibility of statehood. And I think we find ourselves in that, that after 2,000 years, we never run anything other than Yair Eldan: Yeah. Oliver Spike Joseph: a milk crate and a milk carton and and and and you know trading routes and and and maybe there are a couple of politicians in the mix uh over those 2000 years for sure but we never run a country until 1948 and uh lo and behold uh uh it's been uh it's been a bumpy journey um let's just say the the the additional piece that i wanted to say was about No, I think this also plays into the tropes. think in the UK right now, we have loads of different nationalities and in Europe we have loads of different cultural nationalities. One of the downfalls of the Jewish people that's being explicitly exploited right now is that we have a connection to nation, a connection to nation, whether it's nation as in our mute peoplehood in a global sense that we're connected to all of the other Jewish communities around the world, including in Israel. Yair Eldan: ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ you Oliver Spike Joseph: or whether it's specific a tie to Israel. And I think, you know, that could be true for any other country, but there is, especially in the context of Jewish community, there's this deep ties to the UK politicians in government, people who run businesses, people who run big corporations, people who run, you know, various stuff in and around. Yair Eldan: ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: the community deeply embedded in British community and yet those are also people who have connections to a ⁓ sense of people that is external to the UK and this connection to Israel. And I think that is from an outsider looking on, seemingly that's deeply destabilizing to have a sense that there is this people that lives in this country, but also have some kind of alternate Yair Eldan: Okay. ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: national identity and that's been a very complicated path both in the last three years and historically for Jewish community. So in that sense place is our greatest strength but seemingly one of our greatest weaknesses. Yeah we should start to wrap up so maybe a couple of last words. Yair Eldan: to in the way the British treat the Jewish, the British Jewry ⁓ on the one hand and the other. The challenge of being a sovereign, a sovereign in your country, you know? At the same time, we can't succeed not here and not here. I feel we fail on both ends. So it's, mean, for me as a Jew, I like it because something about my Jewishness is about tensions, is about bringing up tensions, you know, that usually people don't like to feel or to treat. So I think that's one of the issues that I feel it again. Yeah. Oliver Spike Joseph: The great news is that none of the tension is going away. I think we've started to unpick this theme of what matters most. I have a fervent national identity that we should belong and feel connected both to the land of Israel and to the people of Israel. My imagination that has to that has to connect us, that to tie us together and also I believe in our contribution to place the actual place where we live and on Shabbat and on the Chagim, on the festivals we somehow suspense a piece of that and lean into a different type of holiness which is non-spatial which is not about place which permits us to somehow elevate our relationships our relationship with the world elevate our relationship with the world and ultimately Elevate our relationship with with God and Torah. We're gonna carry on this conversation another day I will Offer a couple of thank yous to Sophia Kogan who's our producer on Really Jewish To oy va voy for their musical intro and outro you can listen to their single on back to my roots We've got a patreon page Which you're very welcome to make a small contribution to on a monthly basis to support the work of this podcast And too Lechtecha which is ⁓ My weekly Tuesday night Shiur [class] which often complements the words and work of this podcast We're building this podcast from the wheels up. We're in our 11th week mazel tov. Yair It's great to be carrying on with you ⁓ We're delighted for you to have joined religious today ⁓ share posts ⁓ ⁓ Instagram and tik-tok from Really Jewish podcast and give us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you so much. See you guys next week. Thanks for listening to Really Jewish