Latest / Dear Chelsea / Victims, Heroes & Learners with Rabbi Sharon Brous

Transcript

Victims, Heroes & Learners with Rabbi Sharon Brous · Dear Chelsea

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, Catherine, Hi Chelsea, how are you.
0:03
Speaker 2: I'm great, you're here in person, I know, and.
0:05
Speaker 1: I'm dehydrated because I just got off a plane. Oh
0:07
Speaker 1: I just found my visiline and my bra look at that.
0:09
Speaker 1: When I yeah, when I have my little Plaine meal,
0:12
Speaker 1: which I have now started eating plain food because that's
0:14
Speaker 1: how desperate I am. I have no food in whistler,
0:17
Speaker 1: my refriger. I mean, I have food, but I just
0:19
Speaker 1: can't cook anything, so I just don't really eat. All
0:22
Speaker 1: I have are protein shakes and protein bars. And it's
0:25
Speaker 1: really one of the most unhealthy times of my life.
0:28
Speaker 1: And Margarita is I mean, yeah, I'm just like, oh,
0:32
Speaker 1: I need food, and then I'm like, here's a protein.
0:34
Speaker 3: Sometimes you need just like lazy food. That's just like Okay,
0:37
Speaker 3: this is here. I can put it in my body
0:38
Speaker 3: and like keep going for the day.
0:39
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. So between that, what else has
0:42
Speaker 1: been happening? Yeah, So I came back to La. I'm
0:44
Speaker 1: doing a guest star role in this show called Not
0:46
Speaker 1: Dead Yet on ABC and Hulu. My friend is the
0:49
Speaker 1: producer on it and asked me to come do a
0:51
Speaker 1: guest star So I came back for two days to
0:53
Speaker 1: do that and then a little photo shoot for my
0:55
Speaker 1: Netflix is a Joke Festival, which is on May eleventh. Fantastic.
0:58
Speaker 3: I am very excited about your Netflix's joke show.
1:01
Speaker 1: Oh oh, it's going to be so fun. Yes, yes,
1:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to sneak on in there. And I was
1:06
Speaker 1: in Saskatoon and Winnipeg, Canada this week. Saskatoon sounds like
1:10
Speaker 1: it's a made up place. It sounds like Sascat's Asakatakaku.
1:14
Speaker 1: And they are two cities with sheets of ice. So
1:17
Speaker 1: when you look out, you are in the plains of
1:19
Speaker 1: Canada with just two ice sheets. So there's that. Yeah,
1:24
Speaker 1: just pretty flat and cold. I had to sleep under
1:26
Speaker 1: the covers with a robe on and my hat, my
1:29
Speaker 1: two as they say in Canada. And so those are
1:33
Speaker 1: the two probably coldest cities I will have been too.
1:36
Speaker 2: But you made it.
1:37
Speaker 1: I did. I made it.
1:38
Speaker 3: Now did you do super Bowl party anything like that?
1:41
Speaker 1: I did go to a Super Bowl party. I skied yesterday. Well,
1:44
Speaker 1: it took me a lot of time to get ski
1:45
Speaker 1: because I have the twins on the weekends because I'm
1:46
Speaker 1: a single parent. Actually no, I'm not a single parent.
1:49
Speaker 1: My buddy's the mother and I'm the father, so I
1:51
Speaker 1: have the girls on the weekend. So first I went skiing,
1:54
Speaker 1: but that didn't really I didn't get very far skiing
1:56
Speaker 1: because I got stuck at a bar at the Umbrella
1:59
Speaker 1: Bar Unwhistir and then I so I didn't get on
2:02
Speaker 1: the mountain till our skiing. Well yes, during I didn't
2:06
Speaker 1: get on the mounta until twelve. Then I went to
2:07
Speaker 1: the Umbrella Bar and then I was there till one
2:09
Speaker 1: thirty and then we went skiing and there was just
2:12
Speaker 1: everyone was skiing out, and so we decided to go
2:15
Speaker 1: back to the Umbrella Bar and wait for everyone to
2:17
Speaker 1: ski out. And then I had to pick up my
2:18
Speaker 1: daughter at four, so I have to well she's actually
2:21
Speaker 1: my son, but we call her my she's a girl,
2:24
Speaker 1: but we call her my son. And so I had
2:26
Speaker 1: to go pick her up and bring her to a
2:28
Speaker 1: super Bowl party because there was going to be a
2:29
Speaker 1: cutie piet to super Bowl party that she wanted to meet,
2:32
Speaker 1: so obviously that's a priority.
2:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, then you can like casually snuggle on the couch
2:36
Speaker 3: a little bit, or you're not really snuggling, but you're like, oh.
2:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they had a little casual snuggle. So that
2:41
Speaker 1: was cute and it was worth it. And then I came.
2:43
Speaker 1: I left before the game ended, but I saw that
2:45
Speaker 1: the Chiefs won, and Taylor Swift rigged the whole thing. Apparently,
2:48
Speaker 1: of course, all conservative news outlets the Super Bowl. Okay, well,
2:54
Speaker 1: our guest today is an author. She's a spiritual leader
2:58
Speaker 1: and the founder and your rabbi at e Car, which
3:02
Speaker 1: is a non denominational Jewish congregation based in la And
3:05
Speaker 1: everyone I know has talked to me about this woman
3:07
Speaker 1: and how amazing she is. So I thought, okay, let's
3:10
Speaker 1: have her on. And she wrote this beautiful book that
3:12
Speaker 1: I just read. You read it. It's gorgeous, right, like,
3:15
Speaker 1: I love the way she wrote. I'm writing a lot
3:17
Speaker 1: about that stuff in my book. So it was very resonated.
3:20
Speaker 1: It's called the Amen Effect. It's ancient wisdom to mend
3:23
Speaker 1: our broken hearts and world. So please welcome Rabbi Sharon Brouse. Hello,
3:29
Speaker 1: good morning, Hi, Thank you so much for joining us today.
3:33
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be with you.
3:35
Speaker 1: We have so many people in comment that go to
3:37
Speaker 1: synagogue with you, and I have never been, and so
3:41
Speaker 1: many of my Jewish friends are like, oh my god,
3:43
Speaker 1: you would love her. You guys have so much in common.
3:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to come.
3:46
Speaker 1: I will. I know, I one day I will. I'm
3:48
Speaker 1: never in la, that's the problem. So I just finished
3:51
Speaker 1: your book, The Amen Effect, which was really moving. There
3:55
Speaker 1: are many sentiments to it, but the big takeaway from me,
3:58
Speaker 1: and there's something that really resonated with me, was the
4:02
Speaker 1: constant theme of connectivity and showing up. I mean, there's
4:06
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to show up for people, but
4:09
Speaker 1: just the act of showing up itself and what that
4:11
Speaker 1: can do, how that can help a person who is dying,
4:15
Speaker 1: or is grieving, or is just in any sort of
4:18
Speaker 1: emotional trouble or trauma. So tell me, like, is this
4:23
Speaker 1: something that you've obviously learned throughout your rabbinical training and
4:28
Speaker 1: practicing and being a rabbi, But is this something that
4:33
Speaker 1: comes naturally to you?
4:34
Speaker 2: What a great question. Yeah. I think I think on
4:37
Speaker 2: some level I was this you know, kind of empathic
4:40
Speaker 2: five year old. I mean, I do. I think that
4:43
Speaker 2: I was a person growing up who when I saw pain,
4:46
Speaker 2: it pained me. And I always felt, like, you know,
4:51
Speaker 2: I wanted to do whatever I could to help people,
4:53
Speaker 2: and even in sometimes unhelpful ways. I think so, But
4:57
Speaker 2: I think the idea of moving toward pain instead of
5:01
Speaker 2: running away from it is for many of us as counterinstinctual,
5:05
Speaker 2: and even for people like me who feel pain deeply,
5:08
Speaker 2: we often pull away from folks who are struggling and
5:11
Speaker 2: suffering because for lots of good reasons. I mean, we're
5:14
Speaker 2: afraid that we're going to say the wrong thing, we
5:16
Speaker 2: think that we'll be a burden, and they don't actually
5:18
Speaker 2: want us or need us there, Chelsea, I think we
5:21
Speaker 2: think that people's pain is contagious, and if we get
5:24
Speaker 2: too close to someone suffering, it forces us to think
5:28
Speaker 2: about how vulnerable we are, and that's really hard for
5:32
Speaker 2: people to come to terms with. And so what ends
5:35
Speaker 2: up happening is that we really retreat from each other,
5:38
Speaker 2: precisely in the moment that we need each other the most,
5:41
Speaker 2: both that the person who's suffering needs to be connected
5:45
Speaker 2: and also that the people who are doing okay really
5:47
Speaker 2: need to be of service, but instead pull away from
5:50
Speaker 2: those kind of really deep and meaningful encounters. And it
5:54
Speaker 2: hurts all of us.
5:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it is so it's a gift that you're
5:57
Speaker 1: giving to the person and that you're giving to yourself,
6:00
Speaker 1: and I think many people don't necessarily see it that
6:03
Speaker 1: way because they haven't practiced it enough. And I remember
6:06
Speaker 1: a friend of mine's partner dying a few months ago
6:09
Speaker 1: and another friend of mine saying, should I don't think
6:11
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna wait to reach out And I said, no,
6:14
Speaker 1: you have to reach out right away, Like it doesn't
6:16
Speaker 1: and he said no, she's consumed with texts and she's
6:18
Speaker 1: consumed and everyone's reaching out to her. And it's like,
6:21
Speaker 1: you shouldn't even be thinking about any of that. That's
6:23
Speaker 1: not your you know what I mean. That's it's so
6:25
Speaker 1: important to like register that you're available for that person
6:29
Speaker 1: who's going through something. In my opinion, I mean, that's
6:33
Speaker 1: the thing I'm best at, is showing up in times
6:35
Speaker 1: of turmoil when other people want to look away. That
6:37
Speaker 1: is the strength of mind. And I take a lot
6:39
Speaker 1: of pride in it because a lot of people think
6:41
Speaker 1: it can be meddlesome. And it's like, well, it's not
6:43
Speaker 1: meddlesome when you really care about somebody and you're just
6:45
Speaker 1: they're giving yourself and so like I'm trying to squeeze
6:48
Speaker 1: them for details and information, it's actually being available, being
6:52
Speaker 1: there and sitting next to somebody and the withness that
6:56
Speaker 1: you talk about in your book is so important for
7:00
Speaker 1: the human spirit.
7:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have to be present in ways they're
7:03
Speaker 2: attentive to the needs of the person who's struggling and suffering.
7:06
Speaker 2: And someone just told me the other day that when
7:08
Speaker 2: she had suffered a lot, she had a friend who
7:09
Speaker 2: came right into her house and got into bed with
7:12
Speaker 2: her and snuggled her, and the whole time she was thinking,
7:14
Speaker 2: can you get out of my house? I don't want
7:15
Speaker 2: you to be here, like this isn't what I need,
7:17
Speaker 2: this is what you need. And so I think our
7:20
Speaker 2: responsibility is to try to be attuned to what the
7:23
Speaker 2: other person needs, but to err on the side of presence,
7:26
Speaker 2: to err on the side of presence. And I write
7:28
Speaker 2: in the book about you know, one of the ways
7:30
Speaker 2: that I learned this was because my beloved Rabbi Marcello,
7:34
Speaker 2: who's so dear to so many people, his mother died
7:37
Speaker 2: and I literally remember thinking the same thing that your
7:40
Speaker 2: friend thought. I thought, he is just burdened right now
7:43
Speaker 2: by all the love and all the lasagna and all
7:45
Speaker 2: the lingering hugs, And so I just wrote him a
7:48
Speaker 2: little note, but I did not fly in for the funeral.
7:50
Speaker 2: I didn't call, and afterwards he said to me. A
7:53
Speaker 2: few months later, when I saw him, he said, you
7:55
Speaker 2: really failed me. He said I needed you and you
7:58
Speaker 2: weren't here for me. And when I heard I felt
8:01
Speaker 2: so defensive. And I had all these great reasons why
8:04
Speaker 2: I think. I had little kids, I had a community,
8:06
Speaker 2: I had work, you know, and I finally realized this
8:08
Speaker 2: was a gift. He was saying to me, like, don't
8:10
Speaker 2: assume that you know that I don't need you. Just
8:13
Speaker 2: be there, and so we can be there in a
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Speaker 2: way that actually speaks to the needs of the person
8:18
Speaker 2: who were going to a kind of like light touch
8:21
Speaker 2: presence that lets people know that we love them and
8:24
Speaker 2: that they're not navigating these moments of real hardship alone,
8:28
Speaker 2: but that we will be here and will be here
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Speaker 2: with relentless love and presence in a way that actually
8:34
Speaker 2: suits the needs of the person who's going through this
8:37
Speaker 2: time of suffering.
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Speaker 1: And also, what a gift Rabbi Barcelo gave you by
8:41
Speaker 1: his giving you his honesty instead of just being like, oh,
8:44
Speaker 1: that's not a friend of mine anymore, because that's another
8:46
Speaker 1: thing people do when people don't show up for them
8:48
Speaker 1: in their times of strife, they're like, oh, that person's
8:50
Speaker 1: dead to me. He said to you, you failed me.
8:53
Speaker 1: Next time you better be there. That's right, is what
8:55
Speaker 1: he said. And that's a.
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Speaker 2: Gift all It's such a gift because I think that
8:59
Speaker 2: we also think that our relationships are supposed to be
9:03
Speaker 2: supportive in the sense that you know, I need you,
9:05
Speaker 2: I need you to support me and to help me
9:08
Speaker 2: see why I did this right. And instead, what he's
9:11
Speaker 2: teaching me is that real what he taught me is
9:13
Speaker 2: that real friendship is sometimes saying to someone, you know,
9:15
Speaker 2: here's a way that you failed me, and I know
9:18
Speaker 2: that you can do better. That that's actually a gift
9:20
Speaker 2: of real love, which which connects to something that I
9:23
Speaker 2: speak about in chapter two about the idea that I
9:27
Speaker 2: mean the first person was created alone, and it's the
9:30
Speaker 2: first thing in the Hebrew Bible and the terror that
9:32
Speaker 2: God says is not good that you know every day
9:34
Speaker 2: at the end of at the end of every day,
9:36
Speaker 2: it's good, it's good, it's good, it's really good. And
9:38
Speaker 2: then it says it's not good for a person to
9:40
Speaker 2: be alone, which doesn't mean that a person should be
9:43
Speaker 2: married or should be partner. It means that we shouldn't
9:45
Speaker 2: be fundamentally alone in the world. That we should have
9:48
Speaker 2: someone who we can let in, who can see us,
9:52
Speaker 2: and who we can see. And that could be a
9:53
Speaker 2: sister or a friend, or a therapist or an aunt,
9:57
Speaker 2: a grandma. I mean, it could be just somebody who
9:59
Speaker 2: we allow to see. But the language that the text
10:02
Speaker 2: us is to see us by being opposite us, which
10:05
Speaker 2: might mean to see our beauty, but also to see
10:08
Speaker 2: our brokenness, our bruises, our failures, our flaws, and not
10:12
Speaker 2: to run away from us when they encounter those things,
10:15
Speaker 2: but instead to say, you know, hey, I really needed
10:17
Speaker 2: more from you than you were able to give me.
10:19
Speaker 2: That that could be an incredible gesture of love because
10:22
Speaker 2: it helps us grow. Those kind of relationships are the
10:24
Speaker 2: ones we grow from.
10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always think that when anyone ever says that
10:28
Speaker 1: person's dead to me, it's like you're missing an opportunity
10:31
Speaker 1: to explain that you'd be willing to give them another
10:34
Speaker 1: chance if they actually saw the situation in a more
10:37
Speaker 1: holistic sense instead of from just their side. So it
10:40
Speaker 1: is kind of always a missed opportunity. Actually, one of
10:44
Speaker 1: my friends who I know is listening and we're talking
10:46
Speaker 1: about you, so I'll talk to you about this later.
10:48
Speaker 1: She's gonna be like, were you talking about me? Yes? Yeah,
10:53
Speaker 1: talk about the story about together, separateness aloneess, because in
10:56
Speaker 1: your book you talk about Adam and Eve and what
10:58
Speaker 1: it's in the Tora about that. Talk a little bit
11:00
Speaker 1: about that. I had never read that before.
11:02
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the most It's an incredible story
11:05
Speaker 2: that comes from this is a midrash, an ancient rabbinic
11:09
Speaker 2: commentary to the Torah that's maybe fifteen hundred and seventeen
11:13
Speaker 2: hundred years old, and it tells this. It imagines what
11:16
Speaker 2: happened at the end of the sixth day of creation.
11:18
Speaker 2: This is the first day that human beings were alive.
11:20
Speaker 2: We were human beings were created on the sixth day,
11:22
Speaker 2: according to the narrative of the Torah. And so the
11:25
Speaker 2: sun starts to set and they've never seen darkness before.
11:30
Speaker 2: And as the sun is coming down, Adam, the first person,
11:34
Speaker 2: just starts freaking out and he does what we do
11:37
Speaker 2: when we encounter darkness for the first time. He starts catastrophizing, right,
11:41
Speaker 2: and he thinks, oh my god, it's not just darkness,
11:44
Speaker 2: it's the end of the world. And he does what
11:47
Speaker 2: we do when we see darkness, which is he blames
11:50
Speaker 2: himself for it, and he thinks, what did I do
11:51
Speaker 2: to deserve this? And maybe I did something wrong, and
11:54
Speaker 2: maybe this is all my fault, and now everything's lost.
11:57
Speaker 2: And the story says that Eve heard him weeping and
12:02
Speaker 2: wailing and crying as the night descended, and she just
12:05
Speaker 2: went and she sat right across from him, and she
12:08
Speaker 2: just wept with him and held him all night and
12:11
Speaker 2: until the dawn came. And I think that the story asks,
12:14
Speaker 2: it challenges us to ask this question of ourselves, like
12:17
Speaker 2: who will be with you through the dark night of
12:20
Speaker 2: the soul? Because everybody has these dark nights? And will
12:24
Speaker 2: we let somebody into the intimacy of that heartache in
12:29
Speaker 2: order to just be with us, not to fix us,
12:32
Speaker 2: not to try to say, Adam, don't worry the sun's
12:34
Speaker 2: going to come up in the morning, because she didn't
12:36
Speaker 2: know that either, but just to sit with us and
12:39
Speaker 2: weep with us through the dark night, because often there
12:43
Speaker 2: is joy does come in the morning, right, I mean,
12:45
Speaker 2: there often is a morning. There's not always a new
12:48
Speaker 2: dawn that comes. As I also speak about later in
12:50
Speaker 2: the book that after some kinds of losses and some
12:53
Speaker 2: kinds of struggles. There isn't some bright new day that
12:56
Speaker 2: now we can start again, and then our challenge is
12:59
Speaker 2: to find the blessing even in the dark night. But
13:03
Speaker 2: very often there is a new dawn that emerges, but
13:05
Speaker 2: the fact of the new dawn doesn't make it any
13:07
Speaker 2: easier to make it through the long night. The presence
13:10
Speaker 2: of another person who just loves you and cares about
13:14
Speaker 2: you is what helps us. And by the way, to
13:16
Speaker 2: contrast with the friend who climbs into bed and cuddles
13:19
Speaker 2: when the last thing you want is to be cuddled
13:21
Speaker 2: by somebody. If you're a person who wants to experience
13:23
Speaker 2: your grief differently than that, maybe you don't want a
13:26
Speaker 2: foot massage. Maybe you just want to, you know, like
13:28
Speaker 2: you just want to.
13:29
Speaker 1: Always want a foot message. I don't know where the
13:31
Speaker 1: fuck is happening. I need a foot massage, and I'll
13:33
Speaker 1: take one from anyone.
13:36
Speaker 2: Ever, anyone. But maybe you're one of the rare people
13:38
Speaker 2: who doesn't want a foot massage, but that's what your
13:40
Speaker 2: friend wants to get. But I'm going to just like
13:42
Speaker 2: there's a there's a beautiful story that I that I
13:45
Speaker 2: found out about years years years after it happened. But
13:48
Speaker 2: we had a tragic death in our community of someone,
13:51
Speaker 2: a young person was really beloved to die by suicide
13:55
Speaker 2: and the family found his body on Friday, and it
13:59
Speaker 2: was I mean, the reverberative trauma in the community, like
14:02
Speaker 2: the It was just a terrible, terrible loss. I write
14:05
Speaker 2: about him a little bit in the book. He was
14:07
Speaker 2: a healer, and I think he took a lot of
14:10
Speaker 2: the pain of his patients in the world into his
14:13
Speaker 2: body and it just kind of metastasized inside his body.
14:17
Speaker 2: But I found out years later that a couple in
14:20
Speaker 2: my community knew about the loss. They weren't very close
14:23
Speaker 2: with either the person who died or his family, but
14:26
Speaker 2: they called the mother the following week on Friday because
14:29
Speaker 2: they just assumed, like, this is going to be really hard.
14:31
Speaker 2: Fridays are going to be really hard for her. And
14:34
Speaker 2: then they called again the next Friday, and then the
14:36
Speaker 2: next Friday, and they literally called her every single Friday
14:40
Speaker 2: for three years, and now it's been almost six years.
14:42
Speaker 2: And they called every single week, just sometimes for five minutes,
14:46
Speaker 2: sometimes for half an hour. They connected because they wanted
14:49
Speaker 2: her to know that they were not going to abandon her,
14:53
Speaker 2: that they knew that this was a hard time. And
14:55
Speaker 2: so that's the kind of sort of relentless love in
14:58
Speaker 2: showing up that doesn't actually intrude on someone's privacy and
15:02
Speaker 2: doesn't make it about your need as the caregiver rather
15:05
Speaker 2: than the person's need as the recipient of the care.
15:08
Speaker 2: But it's just a gesture of love to say, like,
15:09
Speaker 2: I haven't forgotten that your son died, and I know
15:12
Speaker 2: that you're thinking about it every day. I'm also thinking
15:15
Speaker 2: about it. I'm right here with you with love, and
15:18
Speaker 2: I think we can give each other those gifts of
15:20
Speaker 2: love much more than we do, and much more than
15:22
Speaker 2: we think we can.
15:23
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the strength that people have when
15:26
Speaker 1: they're like when you see the hostages, families like Hirsh's mother,
15:30
Speaker 1: when you see people who are able to comport themselves
15:35
Speaker 1: through what they're going through, it's almost like you're tapping
15:39
Speaker 1: into a part of yourself that you didn't even know
15:41
Speaker 1: was there, you know, Like it's kind of it's analogous
15:44
Speaker 1: to what you're describing. I think, because all of us
15:48
Speaker 1: have this like reservoir of strength, right and when we
15:52
Speaker 1: lose something, or we're losing something, you know, we can
15:56
Speaker 1: all handle it. In different ways. But we can also
15:58
Speaker 1: always surprise ourselves and each other in the way in
16:02
Speaker 1: which we do handle things, and that you can like
16:05
Speaker 1: muster up the courage and the strength to charge forward
16:08
Speaker 1: just when you think you don't have another step.
16:10
Speaker 2: Left, right, right. And what Rachel has demonstrated Hersh's mother
16:14
Speaker 2: through this time is I mean, I think she is
16:17
Speaker 2: a prophet in our time because she has been able
16:21
Speaker 2: to give words to the anguish of a mother who's
16:25
Speaker 2: in profound grief and sort of suspend it between life
16:28
Speaker 2: and death. I mean, she has no idea, and even
16:31
Speaker 2: through that, she has been able to lift her gaze
16:35
Speaker 2: and imagine a different kind of future. I mean, she's
16:38
Speaker 2: writing poetry about sitting with her with a Palestinian woman,
16:43
Speaker 2: both of them elderly, wrinkles on their face from laughing
16:47
Speaker 2: so much together, and you know, their teeth brown from
16:51
Speaker 2: all the tea that they drank together, watching their sons
16:54
Speaker 2: and their grandchildren playing together. Like she she's calling us
16:58
Speaker 2: to imagine a different in the future, even as she's
17:01
Speaker 2: grappling with the most unimaginably painful reality. And that's pretty
17:06
Speaker 2: extraordinary and one of the things that that makes me
17:09
Speaker 2: think of when is that one of the reasons that
17:12
Speaker 2: people stay away from the pain is because they say
17:15
Speaker 2: they don't want to trigger the bereaved. They don't want
17:18
Speaker 2: to trigger the person who's experiencing laws because maybe you're
17:20
Speaker 2: having a good day and you're not thinking about your
17:23
Speaker 2: child or your you know, or your loved one who's died,
17:27
Speaker 2: or you're not thinking about your your breast cancer or
17:29
Speaker 2: your you know, whatever illness you're struggling with, or whatever
17:32
Speaker 2: worry you're holding. But the fact is, we know that
17:34
Speaker 2: when we're going through those periods of darkness, when we
17:38
Speaker 2: are bereft and bereaved, we're thinking about it all the time,
17:42
Speaker 2: and it just appears like the whole world is moving
17:45
Speaker 2: in the other direction without even any awareness that we are,
17:49
Speaker 2: as Rachel Goldberg says, living on a different planet. And
17:53
Speaker 2: so what we're doing when we show up, as we're saying,
17:55
Speaker 2: I see you on your planet, and I acknowledge that
17:58
Speaker 2: you're moving in a different direction than I am, and
18:01
Speaker 2: I don't want you to feel like you are alone
18:04
Speaker 2: in this moment. Even as I continue with my life,
18:06
Speaker 2: I still see you and the pain that you're holding
18:08
Speaker 2: in yours.
18:10
Speaker 1: Okay, on that note, we're going to take a break
18:13
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back, and we're back.
18:20
Speaker 3: If you are the person who is bereaved or who's grieving,
18:24
Speaker 3: or who's going through a hard time, we get a
18:27
Speaker 3: lot of emails on the show from people who are
18:29
Speaker 3: lost and grieving. What would you say to someone about
18:33
Speaker 3: how to reach out to that eve who can come
18:36
Speaker 3: sit and weep with them, or to someone when they
18:39
Speaker 3: know they need help but they feel like, well, I
18:41
Speaker 3: should just kind of be doing it on my own.
18:43
Speaker 3: I don't want to bother them that sort of thing.
18:45
Speaker 2: So thank you for that question, Catherine. One of the
18:48
Speaker 2: spiritual practices that I write in the back of the
18:51
Speaker 2: book because I'm trying to not just put forward this
18:54
Speaker 2: idea about how we need to think about each other
18:57
Speaker 2: and our encounters differently, but how can we actually operationalize this?
19:01
Speaker 2: What are some simple things that we can do every day,
19:03
Speaker 2: And one of them is tell the truth, don't grin
19:06
Speaker 2: and bear it, don't pretend you're okay when you're not okay.
19:11
Speaker 2: And the central paradigm of the book is this ancient
19:14
Speaker 2: ritual that used to happen when the Jews would go
19:17
Speaker 2: up to pilgrimage on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in
19:20
Speaker 2: the old old days and so two thousand years ago,
19:23
Speaker 2: and the ritual was that people would ascend to Jerusalem,
19:25
Speaker 2: which is a city on a hill, and then they
19:28
Speaker 2: would ascend the steps of the Temple Mount, and they
19:30
Speaker 2: would go through this grand entryway and they would turn
19:33
Speaker 2: to the right, and everybody on the pilgrimage, masses of
19:37
Speaker 2: people all at once would circle around the outer the
19:40
Speaker 2: perimeter of the courtyard, and then they would essentially exit
19:43
Speaker 2: where they had left, except for someone with a broken
19:46
Speaker 2: heart who would go up to Jerusalem, go up the
19:48
Speaker 2: steps that they would enter and turn to the left.
19:51
Speaker 2: So they are signaling that the whole world's moving in
19:55
Speaker 2: one direction and they're moving in another. They're actually showing
19:58
Speaker 2: with their bodies. I'm not okay. And I think part
20:02
Speaker 2: of the problem of our time is that, first of all,
20:04
Speaker 2: when we're suffering, we just don't want to get out
20:06
Speaker 2: of bed because we don't trust that we're going to
20:09
Speaker 2: be held with love and with care when we do.
20:11
Speaker 2: And then if we do, we feel like we have
20:13
Speaker 2: to pretend that we're like everybody else. I have a
20:15
Speaker 2: friend whose child died from a terrible cancer, and she
20:19
Speaker 2: described going to a wedding a couple months after her
20:21
Speaker 2: child died, and she's like, I felt like I had
20:24
Speaker 2: to get all dressed up and put on makeup and
20:26
Speaker 2: address and dance like everyone, and I didn't want to
20:28
Speaker 2: be there at all. And I wonder what it would
20:32
Speaker 2: mean to trust that we are going to get up
20:35
Speaker 2: and we are going to show up when we're broken,
20:37
Speaker 2: but we're not going to pretend that we're okay. We're
20:40
Speaker 2: going to be very clear that we need to be
20:42
Speaker 2: held with love and with care because we're going to
20:45
Speaker 2: trust that we will be. And then this ritual, it's
20:49
Speaker 2: so powerful because the ancients understood something about the human
20:52
Speaker 2: psyche that I think really reflects a very real truth
20:56
Speaker 2: that we know about our spirits but that we try
20:59
Speaker 2: to deny. So what would happen is every person who's
21:02
Speaker 2: coming in the counterclockwise direction would see the broken hearted
21:05
Speaker 2: person stop, look into their eyes, and then ask a
21:09
Speaker 2: simple question, what happened to you? Tell me your story,
21:13
Speaker 2: why does your heart ache? And then that broken hearted
21:16
Speaker 2: person would respond saying my father just died, or my
21:19
Speaker 2: kid is sick, or I'm just really lonely, and then
21:24
Speaker 2: they would receive a blessing, not from the priest, not
21:27
Speaker 2: from the rabbis, not from the great leader. They would
21:29
Speaker 2: receive a blessing from the everyday people who are there
21:32
Speaker 2: on the pilgrimage, who, by the way, their instinct is
21:35
Speaker 2: to not notice the broken hearted person because they're in
21:39
Speaker 2: this beautiful, spiritual peak moment of their lives. But they
21:42
Speaker 2: are asked to stop, to see, to ask, and then
21:46
Speaker 2: to bless. And so to answer your question, I think
21:51
Speaker 2: we need to be honest about the pain that we're experiencing.
21:55
Speaker 2: We need to be willing to say to someone I
21:57
Speaker 2: need your help, I'm not okay right now. But the
22:01
Speaker 2: only way that we can do that honestly when our
22:03
Speaker 2: hearts are broken is because we trust that we are
22:06
Speaker 2: in a community of care that will not mock us,
22:09
Speaker 2: humiliate us, marginalize us to great us, but instead will
22:14
Speaker 2: hold us with love. And our shared responsibility to each
22:17
Speaker 2: other is to create those kinds of relationships, friendships, and communities,
22:22
Speaker 2: because all of us at some point will be walking
22:25
Speaker 2: in the direction of the bereaved and the bereft and
22:27
Speaker 2: the ill, and will need to be held by love
22:30
Speaker 2: when we are and this is a kind of shared
22:33
Speaker 2: commitment that we can make to one another.
22:36
Speaker 1: In the book, you talk about someone named Amanda as
22:39
Speaker 1: part of your congregation, somebody you have a kind of
22:41
Speaker 1: not an acrimonious relationship with, but just not a smooth relationship.
22:45
Speaker 1: And then you talk about kind of seeing her as
22:47
Speaker 1: a whole person, seeing that she's been through things that
22:50
Speaker 1: have affected her in this way and impacted her behavior,
22:54
Speaker 1: and so can you talk a little bit about that
22:56
Speaker 1: and like what the status of that relationship is, because
22:59
Speaker 1: I found it so interesting to have someone coming to
23:01
Speaker 1: your congregation who has those kinds of feelings but they're
23:04
Speaker 1: really not about you.
23:06
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Amanda is not her real name,
23:08
Speaker 2: just in case. In case, now people are scrolling through
23:11
Speaker 2: all their friends at the car wondering who Amanda is.
23:13
Speaker 1: But no, well, when you read the book, you would
23:15
Speaker 1: know that you can't use her real name.
23:17
Speaker 2: So yeah, right, anything that's not that's really like a
23:20
Speaker 2: little bit challenging about a person. I changed it to
23:22
Speaker 2: just protects people's privacy. And yeah, I mean this has
23:25
Speaker 2: happened not once. I love that you're a little surprised
23:28
Speaker 2: by it. But unfortunately, people often bring their rage and
23:32
Speaker 2: their trauma into relationship with their rabbis and pastors, you know,
23:36
Speaker 2: and priests because they can, because we're soft targets for that.
23:41
Speaker 2: And so in this particular case, this is a person
23:44
Speaker 2: who came in many times over the course of many
23:47
Speaker 2: years and just vented, I mean, all of her rage,
23:50
Speaker 2: but as if I'm the target. And it took me
23:52
Speaker 2: some time to realize that it wasn't actually about me,
23:55
Speaker 2: because I'm a human being. And as you know, this
23:58
Speaker 2: person sits in my office and screen and curses and blames,
24:02
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm taking it into my body and
24:04
Speaker 2: I can feel I'm getting hot, I'm getting wet. I'm
24:06
Speaker 2: thinking like I do not deserve this. I do. I
24:10
Speaker 2: just want to be home right now. I just want
24:12
Speaker 2: to be, you know, anywhere but here. And then I realized,
24:16
Speaker 2: I thought about this something that I learned from one
24:18
Speaker 2: of my very dear friends who's a pastor, like an
24:21
Speaker 2: incredible pastor and Reverend Ed Bacon is his name. He
24:25
Speaker 2: was here at All Saints Church in Pasadena, and then
24:28
Speaker 2: he moved back to the South where he lives now,
24:30
Speaker 2: and he taught me that in every experience in our lives,
24:34
Speaker 2: we can walk away from the experience and we can
24:37
Speaker 2: see ourselves as the hero. Of the encounter, like, wow,
24:40
Speaker 2: I handle that so well. You know, I'm such a
24:43
Speaker 2: hero that, you know, they lost my luggage and I
24:46
Speaker 2: kept my cool and I just moved right through it
24:48
Speaker 2: and enjoyed the weekend anyway. Or we can see ourselves
24:52
Speaker 2: as the victim, which is like, they lost my luggage again.
24:55
Speaker 2: You know, I will never fly this airline again, and
24:58
Speaker 2: or we can you know, why does this always happen
25:01
Speaker 2: to me? Or we can see ourselves as learners, which is,
25:04
Speaker 2: you know, this is the third time this has happened
25:06
Speaker 2: to me. I'm really going to try to just use
25:07
Speaker 2: carry on moving forward, and so we can assess the
25:11
Speaker 2: experience and determine how we want to let that experience
25:15
Speaker 2: land in our psychic memory. And I had this realization
25:19
Speaker 2: as I'm sitting with her, and I thought, I don't
25:21
Speaker 2: want to be a hero here. I made it through
25:24
Speaker 2: this terrible another terrible day with Amanda, and I don't
25:28
Speaker 2: want to be a victim. Like I have dedicated my
25:30
Speaker 2: life to trying to build a just and loving world,
25:32
Speaker 2: and this maniac comes into my office and is screaming
25:35
Speaker 2: at me, and what has she done to make the
25:37
Speaker 2: world a better place? You know? And here I want
25:39
Speaker 2: to just be a learner, and so in this moment,
25:42
Speaker 2: I envision a screen that comes down from the ceiling
25:46
Speaker 2: and goes right into the space in between Amanda and me.
25:50
Speaker 2: And suddenly I see her not as you know, some
25:54
Speaker 2: maniac who's screaming at her poor rabbi, but I see
25:57
Speaker 2: her as a character in a film about trauma and
26:02
Speaker 2: how trauma manifests in our relationships. And I now see
26:06
Speaker 2: her that here's this woman who's aggrieved in the world,
26:10
Speaker 2: and she's screaming at her rabbi. And obviously it's not
26:13
Speaker 2: about a rabbi. It's about her rage and her trauma.
26:16
Speaker 2: So I have enough psychic distance that I can start
26:18
Speaker 2: to ask. I wonder what traumatized her. I wonder where
26:22
Speaker 2: the pain really is coming from here, And that gives
26:26
Speaker 2: me the space to ask different kinds of questions of Amanda.
26:30
Speaker 2: And when I do, because I'm no longer on the defensive,
26:33
Speaker 2: I start to learn things about her that literally, I mean,
26:36
Speaker 2: I've been in relationship with her for many years and
26:38
Speaker 2: I never knew. And it turns out she is a
26:40
Speaker 2: victim of trauma and unprocessed trauma, and so she's raging
26:46
Speaker 2: not just at me, but she's raging at a lot
26:47
Speaker 2: of people, and then I can past her to her,
26:50
Speaker 2: I can actually help her. And more importantly, I feel
26:54
Speaker 2: detached enough that I can be in a position of
26:58
Speaker 2: service and not a position of like victimhood. And that
27:02
Speaker 2: helps me understand why curiosity and wonder about another person
27:07
Speaker 2: are so critical and why they're so hard for us
27:10
Speaker 2: to achieve when we feel like we're being targeted.
27:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the book, you talk about
27:16
Speaker 1: the kind of divide that we have throughout the world
27:19
Speaker 1: right now and especially in America, So curiosity being the
27:25
Speaker 1: opposite of that, because you know, when you're curious about people,
27:27
Speaker 1: you grow, you learn, and you cite many examples of
27:32
Speaker 1: different conversations between people that are unexpected bedfellows, like the
27:37
Speaker 1: kid who was the son of the guy from the
27:38
Speaker 1: KKK having dinner. Can you talk about that story a
27:41
Speaker 1: little bit?
27:42
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. And just like the
27:45
Speaker 2: principle here is that most of the book is talking
27:47
Speaker 2: about loneliness, isolation, social alienation, and the instinct to retreat
27:52
Speaker 2: from one another when we must turn to one another
27:55
Speaker 2: with compassion in times of joy and in times of pain.
27:59
Speaker 2: And then in this last chapter, I talk about how
28:01
Speaker 2: this social alienation, the atomization that is definitional to our society,
28:07
Speaker 2: is not only depleting.
28:08
Speaker 1: What does atomization mean.
28:10
Speaker 2: Like separating out individuals one from the other, the myth
28:14
Speaker 2: of radical individualism, the idea that we're going to go
28:17
Speaker 2: it alone, that I don't need anybody, and so I
28:19
Speaker 2: am totally separate and apart from everyone. We are all
28:23
Speaker 2: bound up in the in the bond of life together,
28:26
Speaker 2: and we need to recognize that. And so, but what
28:29
Speaker 2: happens is with this myth of radical individualization, we think
28:34
Speaker 2: we don't actually need each other, and we can go
28:36
Speaker 2: it alone entirely, and we distance ourselves from relationships. And
28:40
Speaker 2: this not only harms our spirits and harms our communities,
28:44
Speaker 2: but it's actually endangering our democracy. Hannah Arendt, the great
28:48
Speaker 2: twentieth century philosopher, wrote that social alienation and loneliness are
28:53
Speaker 2: preconditions of tyranny, that conspiracy theories and tyrannical regimes cannot
29:00
Speaker 2: take root in a society if we know each other.
29:03
Speaker 2: And we are living in a country and in a
29:06
Speaker 2: time where thirty percent of Americans say that they do
29:09
Speaker 2: not know the names of their next door neighbors, and
29:12
Speaker 2: so we are really alienated from one another, and that's
29:17
Speaker 2: very dangerous, and I think that's part of the reason
29:18
Speaker 2: that we've seen over the last several years, just so
29:21
Speaker 2: much division. The ground is rich and ready for the
29:24
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy theories that we're seeing taking root and
29:26
Speaker 2: the kind of divisiveness. So the question is can we
29:30
Speaker 2: turn to one another not only with compassion, but with curiosity.
29:34
Speaker 2: And the story of Derek Black is one in which
29:37
Speaker 2: this is a guy who was the son of the
29:38
Speaker 2: Grand Wizard of the KKK. He was David Duke's nephew.
29:41
Speaker 2: I think he went off to a liberal arts college
29:44
Speaker 2: in Florida. I don't know how his family ever let
29:47
Speaker 2: him go, but at some point when he was there,
29:50
Speaker 2: he was outed as a white nationalist. Some in fact, awkwardly,
29:54
Speaker 2: somebody was sitting in the dining hall and looking at
29:57
Speaker 2: some white nationalist website and making fun of it, and
30:00
Speaker 2: then realized that the guy who wrote the article was
30:02
Speaker 2: the name of the guy who was sitting across the
30:04
Speaker 2: table laughing with them. And so this guy is totally alienated.
30:09
Speaker 2: Now nobody wants to engage him on this campus, except
30:12
Speaker 2: for one Jewish kid who invites him for Shavist dinner
30:16
Speaker 2: and they sit together, and I imagine it's a very
30:18
Speaker 2: awkward dinner, like you're literally sitting across the table from
30:21
Speaker 2: a neo Nazi in your dorm room. And then the
30:24
Speaker 2: meal ends and he invites him back for the next jabst,
30:26
Speaker 2: and a couple more friends join, and then again and
30:28
Speaker 2: again and again, and by the end of the year,
30:31
Speaker 2: this guy, Derek Black, has essentially renounced white nationalism and
30:36
Speaker 2: writes a public letter for the Southern Poverty Law Center
30:39
Speaker 2: about how he was raised on a lie, on a
30:42
Speaker 2: series of lies about white supremacy and about the dream
30:46
Speaker 2: of a jew, free, black, free Latino free America, and
30:51
Speaker 2: that that's not where we should be heading as human beings.
30:55
Speaker 2: And so what I wonder in the book, and there's
30:57
Speaker 2: been a lot of work on Derek Black and what
31:00
Speaker 2: happened to him that he was able to make that
31:02
Speaker 2: trans transformation from being a white nationalist to being, you know,
31:07
Speaker 2: a menji guy. But I'm really interested not only in that,
31:11
Speaker 2: but also in that kid who invited him for Shabas
31:15
Speaker 2: dinner and then the others who joined, Because I don't
31:17
Speaker 2: think I would invite a neo Nazi to my home
31:20
Speaker 2: for Shabbat dinner. But I'm really glad that someone did.
31:24
Speaker 2: And what does it mean to sit at the table
31:26
Speaker 2: with someone, even someone who doesn't see you in your
31:29
Speaker 2: full humanity, and not get up and just stay at
31:33
Speaker 2: the table. What seeds could be planted in those encounters,
31:38
Speaker 2: especially when we engage them with an open heart. And
31:41
Speaker 2: we can only do this if we feel safe, if
31:43
Speaker 2: we're really legitimately safe. The work is not on everyone,
31:47
Speaker 2: but the work is on some of us. If we
31:49
Speaker 2: can stay at the table, and if we can hold curiosity,
31:53
Speaker 2: what might change? And in that chapter I describe a
31:56
Speaker 2: couple of stories, some of failure where you know, as
32:00
Speaker 2: been hours and hours at the table, and I have
32:01
Speaker 2: a hundred of these stories because I do tend to
32:04
Speaker 2: stay at the table when I can, but where you
32:08
Speaker 2: think like nothing really happens, and then a few stories
32:10
Speaker 2: where it actually changes someone's life. And so could we
32:14
Speaker 2: sit there and just stay and hold curiosity, because if
32:18
Speaker 2: we do, something might be born. You know, we have a.
32:22
Speaker 3: Ton of listeners who it's not the neo Nazi at college,
32:26
Speaker 3: but it is Uncle John, or it's mom or dad.
32:30
Speaker 3: So can you talk a little bit about in the
32:33
Speaker 3: context of your family, having someone who.
32:35
Speaker 2: Has these totally opposing views.
32:37
Speaker 3: And when to sit down and have curiosity, and when
32:40
Speaker 3: it's maybe too toxic to do that.
32:42
Speaker 2: Right, well, I do believe that we have to be safe.
32:46
Speaker 2: And you know, when we are encountering someone whose worldview
32:50
Speaker 2: is dramatically different from ours, that could be something of
32:54
Speaker 2: kind of in the realm of intellectual curiosity, and that
32:57
Speaker 2: could be in the realm of danger. And so I
32:58
Speaker 2: think the first thing we have to do is assess,
33:00
Speaker 2: you know, am I the person who can be in
33:03
Speaker 2: this relationship, and sometimes ending relationships is actually an act
33:08
Speaker 2: of self love, you know. I think that that's important
33:11
Speaker 2: for us to note that some relationships are so dangerous, abusive,
33:16
Speaker 2: toxic that staying in them does harm to us. But
33:21
Speaker 2: I think that we in general are too quick to
33:23
Speaker 2: end relationships, and so aside from those relationships that actually
33:27
Speaker 2: contribute great harm to our lives, I think that most relationships,
33:33
Speaker 2: most relationships, we can actually stay at the table. So
33:36
Speaker 2: what I envision, Catherine, is this like ven diagram of
33:40
Speaker 2: the human experience with these overlapping circles, and generally when
33:45
Speaker 2: we are sitting at that table with our uncle or
33:47
Speaker 2: with our you know, with the crazy person in the
33:49
Speaker 2: family who sees the world in a totally different way.
33:52
Speaker 2: We're hearing him at the margins of his views, and
33:56
Speaker 2: we're responding from the margins of our views, and so
33:59
Speaker 2: we are completely oppositional to one another. But in fact,
34:03
Speaker 2: aside from the margins, there's probably a good amount of
34:07
Speaker 2: overlap in what we do care about. So I share
34:10
Speaker 2: in this one story in that chapter about an encounter
34:15
Speaker 2: that I had with someone who really saw the world
34:17
Speaker 2: in dramatically different ways than I did. And I stayed
34:21
Speaker 2: at the table for almost three hours with him, and
34:24
Speaker 2: I was desperate to find commonality with this guy, and
34:28
Speaker 2: we disagreed on everything. I mean, the whole way that
34:31
Speaker 2: we look at the world we disagreed on, and it
34:34
Speaker 2: was very disturbing for me. And even still, what I
34:38
Speaker 2: knew from talking to him was that he cared about
34:40
Speaker 2: his kids, and he cared about his community. I was
34:45
Speaker 2: disturbed by where he draws the line of his family
34:48
Speaker 2: and his community and his responsibility to those, but I
34:51
Speaker 2: could see that he was driven by care and that mattered. Okay,
34:55
Speaker 2: So that was enough that he's not a person who
34:58
Speaker 2: I have. There's zero that I can see in him,
35:01
Speaker 2: But I did walk away very disturbed. But I'm glad
35:05
Speaker 2: I stayed because many years later, it turned out that
35:09
Speaker 2: some of what I shared of my perspective in that
35:12
Speaker 2: conversation may have penetrated a little bit, because he ends
35:16
Speaker 2: up shifting his approach. And he's a public figure, and
35:19
Speaker 2: so I only know about this from the newspaper, but
35:22
Speaker 2: his approach shifts, and some of his associates credit it
35:25
Speaker 2: to that lunch that we had together years before, Because
35:28
Speaker 2: when you sit with someone at the table for two
35:31
Speaker 2: or three hours, you can't make them into a caricature
35:34
Speaker 2: of themselves anymore. You see them as a person, and
35:37
Speaker 2: you see them as a person with flaws, with value,
35:41
Speaker 2: you know, with beliefs, with ideas, And so when we're
35:44
Speaker 2: sitting at the table with our uncle, can we move
35:46
Speaker 2: away from the margins and actually start with, Oh, you're
35:49
Speaker 2: afraid for the future, So am I? You know you
35:53
Speaker 2: feel like we could all be doing better? So do I?
35:57
Speaker 2: You know you're really disturbed by how broken? So am I?
36:01
Speaker 2: And at least have enough of a foundation that we
36:03
Speaker 2: can stay at the table, and then eventually, at some
36:06
Speaker 2: point we might realize that those overlapping spaces are a
36:09
Speaker 2: little bit deeper and richer than we imagined, and they
36:12
Speaker 2: might help some healing come about. We know, for example,
36:16
Speaker 2: in the struggle for justice for LGBTQ people, that the
36:20
Speaker 2: way that movements started to happen, especially in the struggle
36:24
Speaker 2: for marriage equality, for example, was because people started recognizing
36:29
Speaker 2: that their loved ones were gay. And once you know
36:33
Speaker 2: that someone you love is gay, it's very hard to
36:36
Speaker 2: hold this really strong oppositional view. So I think part
36:41
Speaker 2: of the challenge is can we stay at the table
36:45
Speaker 2: without being endangered or diminished, but in an act of
36:50
Speaker 2: curiosity and in a gesture of presence and love, in
36:53
Speaker 2: the hope that it might one day lead to a
36:56
Speaker 2: shift in the conversation.
36:58
Speaker 1: Do you have experiences where you feel like you didn't
37:01
Speaker 1: have or you failed, or you weren't able to provide
37:04
Speaker 1: what was expected from you as a rabbi?
37:07
Speaker 2: Oh God, there's so many. There's so many of them.
37:10
Speaker 2: I mean, in the category of staying at the table
37:13
Speaker 2: in curiosity. I mean, one of the stories that I
37:14
Speaker 2: share there is when I went to sit with a
37:16
Speaker 2: pretty prominent public figure who was writing views that I
37:21
Speaker 2: found really dangerous, not just like cruel, but actually dangerous
37:26
Speaker 2: to people I love. And I went to sit with
37:28
Speaker 2: him because I had this kind of naive view that
37:31
Speaker 2: you know, like I think if he just hears me
37:34
Speaker 2: talk about this, that I can humanize the issue for him,
37:38
Speaker 2: and then he might take a beat, he might think
37:41
Speaker 2: before writing, you know. Anyway, And in that experience, as
37:44
Speaker 2: I share in the book, I really did fail. I
37:47
Speaker 2: mean I felt like he was not listening, Catherine, like
37:50
Speaker 2: you're saying. I mean, some of your listeners might really
37:52
Speaker 2: feel that this is the way that some of their
37:53
Speaker 2: family members treat them, but like they can't hear. There
37:56
Speaker 2: is an iron barrier around their hearts and they can't here.
38:00
Speaker 2: And so I failed. But I didn't feel like I
38:02
Speaker 2: wasted my time because I did grow through it. Pastorally,
38:07
Speaker 2: I've had many failures where you know, I myself retreated
38:11
Speaker 2: from people who were in pain because I didn't understand
38:15
Speaker 2: that how it was my job to actually step closer
38:19
Speaker 2: to the pain. I worried that I wasn't going to
38:21
Speaker 2: have the right words. I had all the things that
38:23
Speaker 2: we've talked about. I mean, I worried that I would
38:26
Speaker 2: fail a person, that I would screw up and instead
38:30
Speaker 2: of seeing them in their pain and moving closer to
38:33
Speaker 2: the pain. In a moment of isolation, I pulled away
38:36
Speaker 2: because I was scared that I wasn't going to be
38:38
Speaker 2: good enough and strong enough. I tried to look back
38:41
Speaker 2: at those moments now as a learner, clearly not a hero,
38:45
Speaker 2: but also not a victim. I mean, we only learn
38:48
Speaker 2: these things by failing in many ways and by seeing
38:51
Speaker 2: that that actually it hurt somebody when we engage that way.
38:54
Speaker 2: We have this powerful idea in the Jewish tradition called tea,
38:59
Speaker 2: which is translated as loving rebuke, and the idea is like,
39:03
Speaker 2: don't cut people off, rebuke them with love. So we
39:07
Speaker 2: approach people who've hurt us and we let them know
39:11
Speaker 2: you really let me down. Like you were saying earlier, Chelsea,
39:14
Speaker 2: I mean like, don't bring it to the grave, bring
39:17
Speaker 2: it to the person, because there might be a possibility
39:20
Speaker 2: of healing here. And I have found that through that
39:24
Speaker 2: kind of loving rebuke, I've been able to grow as
39:28
Speaker 2: a human being, and so I'm so grateful for it.
39:30
Speaker 2: It's actually a mitzvah. It's an obligation to turn to
39:33
Speaker 2: someone with loving rebuke when they've hurt you or let
39:35
Speaker 2: you down. And those moments become transformational moments for us.
39:40
Speaker 1: I agree. I wanted to talk about the subject of
39:42
Speaker 1: Israel and what's happening to the Palestinians and to the
39:46
Speaker 1: Israelis right now. I know you've gotten a lot of
39:49
Speaker 1: blowback from certain Jewish communities and Israelis about being pro
39:55
Speaker 1: Palestinian and pro Israel. Those two things can coexist. I
40:00
Speaker 1: don't know a single woman who is happy to see
40:04
Speaker 1: any sort of violence in the world, Like I don't
40:07
Speaker 1: know that that's possible for females to not be consumed
40:11
Speaker 1: by what is happening to innocent children, to innocent people
40:15
Speaker 1: on both sides. And it feels like, I mean, you've
40:18
Speaker 1: been pretty vocal about it, So I want to let
40:20
Speaker 1: you talk about your views and how you feel.
40:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, really, at the heart of my theology
40:27
Speaker 2: and my understanding of the world is that every single
40:31
Speaker 2: human being is created in God's own image and therefore
40:35
Speaker 2: deserves to live in dignity and in peace and injustice.
40:39
Speaker 2: And so I mean, I've spent many years as an
40:43
Speaker 2: activist working to build a more just and loving world
40:46
Speaker 2: and speaking very frankly and openly about the need for
40:50
Speaker 2: Palestinians to achieve justice and to achieve self determination, which
40:54
Speaker 2: I believe is also the only way that Israel will
40:58
Speaker 2: have a safe and just future. And so I don't
41:01
Speaker 2: see the humanity honoring the humanity of Israeli Jews as
41:06
Speaker 2: in any way contradicting the need to honor the humanity
41:09
Speaker 2: of Palestinians or vice versa. I actually feel that people
41:13
Speaker 2: choosing sides in this is really there's something really perverse
41:18
Speaker 2: about what's happening, as if this is like, you know,
41:20
Speaker 2: we're like it's like the super Bowl and people are
41:23
Speaker 2: choosing which team they like better. But I am very
41:27
Speaker 2: moved by and inspired by the Israelis and Palestinians on
41:30
Speaker 2: the ground who acknowledge that there are millions of people
41:34
Speaker 2: living in a tiny sliver of land. None of them
41:36
Speaker 2: are going anywhere. We have to learn how to live together,
41:40
Speaker 2: and I believe that as a diaspora community, the best
41:44
Speaker 2: way that we can help advance a just future for
41:47
Speaker 2: all people is not by choosing sides and entrenching in
41:50
Speaker 2: false binaries and trying to prove why my team is
41:52
Speaker 2: more right than your team, but actually lifting up, amplifying, platforming, resourcing.
41:59
Speaker 2: The Israelisians on the ground who are from the depths
42:03
Speaker 2: of their anguish actually dreaming of a different kind of future,
42:08
Speaker 2: not a future of eternal war, but a future in
42:11
Speaker 2: which the people are able to achieve both individual and
42:15
Speaker 2: collective rights. And two people who've been essentially persecuted by
42:20
Speaker 2: the world and marginalized by the entire world, Jews and Palestinians,
42:26
Speaker 2: who actually are very well suited to understand and empathize
42:29
Speaker 2: with one another's pain and one another's need for home
42:34
Speaker 2: and one another's quest for self determination, should be able
42:37
Speaker 2: to work together toward a different kind of future. And
42:41
Speaker 2: you framed this as something that a lot of women
42:44
Speaker 2: seem to be unders have a kind of a heart
42:47
Speaker 2: that's big enough to understand that, or capacious enough to
42:49
Speaker 2: understand that, maybe more so than men. And I just
42:52
Speaker 2: want to say, I mean, I know many men who
42:55
Speaker 2: are also part of this movement for building a just
42:59
Speaker 2: future for both peoples. But I am struck that it
43:03
Speaker 2: is the men who are leading this war effort on
43:06
Speaker 2: both sides, and that it is women who are the
43:09
Speaker 2: voices that are really calling out for peace, who are
43:12
Speaker 2: leading the movements for peace. And I am so struck
43:16
Speaker 2: by voices like Vivian silvers. Vivian was murdered on October
43:20
Speaker 2: seventh in her key boots. Vivian had dedicated her entire
43:24
Speaker 2: life to building women wage peace, to building movements for
43:28
Speaker 2: peace with Israeli, Jews, Palestinians, Bedouin women. And many people
43:33
Speaker 2: said when because we thought at first that Vivian had
43:36
Speaker 2: been taken captive, and then found out about a month
43:39
Speaker 2: later that actually she had been killed on October seventh,
43:42
Speaker 2: And so her funeral was held about a month later,
43:45
Speaker 2: and many of the people who I love, you know,
43:48
Speaker 2: who live there, said that her funeral was the first
43:50
Speaker 2: hopeful moment that they had experienced, because it was actually
43:55
Speaker 2: a funeral that was attended by Jews and Palestinians, and
44:01
Speaker 2: they were all there saying, we have to take up
44:03
Speaker 2: the baton and carry on, we have to carry on
44:05
Speaker 2: Vivian's legacy. And so I really feel that this is
44:08
Speaker 2: a moment in which we have to move away from
44:10
Speaker 2: these kind of stake in the ground, false binary positions
44:14
Speaker 2: and instead affirm the common humanity that intersecting part of
44:20
Speaker 2: the ven diagram between people who see the world very differently.
44:25
Speaker 2: And the book comes into the world in this really
44:27
Speaker 2: interesting moment when it's really hard for people to see
44:30
Speaker 2: each other and hear each other because we're in so
44:33
Speaker 2: much anguish and trauma and fear, and when you are
44:36
Speaker 2: in that kind of mindset, it's really hard to see
44:39
Speaker 2: each other. But in fact, everybody is in anguish and
44:43
Speaker 2: trauma and fear right now, and so that should be
44:46
Speaker 2: a point of connection to help us meet each other,
44:49
Speaker 2: sorrow meeting sorrow, and vulnerability meeting vulnerability and actually begin
44:53
Speaker 2: to think together about what kind of just society we
44:57
Speaker 2: can build on the other side of all of this heartache.
45:00
Speaker 1: I would just be so much easier and so much
45:02
Speaker 1: more humane if women were in charge of Like when
45:05
Speaker 1: you talk the way you're talking and I'm thinking about
45:07
Speaker 1: net and Yahoo, it's like, yeah, he's in pain and
45:10
Speaker 1: he's not going to get out of it in our lifetime.
45:13
Speaker 1: Like I don't want that person running the show. I
45:15
Speaker 1: want women. I want like four women going in there
45:18
Speaker 1: and coming out with a solution and you know, like Condeliza,
45:21
Speaker 1: Rice and Angela Merkel and Oprah let Oprah go figure
45:25
Speaker 1: it out, you know, just women. Though it's the violence
45:28
Speaker 1: is from men. Women would never reduce ourselves like this
45:33
Speaker 1: and want to hurt so badly, you know what I mean.
45:36
Speaker 1: It's just like the lowest form of rage is this violence.
45:41
Speaker 1: It's almost like there's a smarter way to be rageful.
45:44
Speaker 1: Why do you have to reduce yourself to the dumbest way.
45:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, And people don't like in this conflict the language
45:49
Speaker 2: of cycle of violence because it feels like it's giving
45:52
Speaker 2: a moral equivalency to the different kinds of violence. I mean,
45:54
Speaker 2: nobody likes that language. And yet we literally hear people saying,
45:59
Speaker 2: we are engaging in this violence because of what they
46:03
Speaker 2: did to us, right, I mean that is the driving force.
46:06
Speaker 2: Because they hurt us, we are going to hurt them.
46:10
Speaker 2: And then you hear Rachel Goldberg, who speaks a different language. Right,
46:13
Speaker 2: I'm adding her to your list of women who we
46:15
Speaker 2: wish we're running. You know, we're running the world right now.
46:18
Speaker 2: But you hear bereaved mothers speaking a different language. Many
46:22
Speaker 2: of them are saying, I don't want any more parents
46:25
Speaker 2: to bury their children. I know that pain, you know, Chelsea.
46:28
Speaker 2: One of my dear friends is a beautiful preacher here,
46:32
Speaker 2: a black minister here in La and her son was
46:35
Speaker 2: shot and killed in a terrible act of violence a
46:39
Speaker 2: few years ago, and she I went with her to
46:42
Speaker 2: the sentencing trial of her son's murderer, and she was weeping,
46:48
Speaker 2: and she said, the last thing in the world I
46:50
Speaker 2: want is another mother to now have to grieve for
46:53
Speaker 2: her black son who's going to get locked up in
46:55
Speaker 2: prison forever because he took the life of my black son.
46:58
Speaker 2: She's like, that's not what I want in this world.
47:00
Speaker 2: And I think she's calling us, and many of these
47:03
Speaker 2: women are calling us to imagine a different kind of
47:07
Speaker 2: reality in which we don't answer violence with violence, but
47:11
Speaker 2: we dream together of what could be possible. I turned
47:14
Speaker 2: to the voices of the people who are in the
47:16
Speaker 2: Brief Family's Forum, for example, the Parents Circle and Brief
47:19
Speaker 2: Family's Forum. These are Palestinians and Israelis who have lost
47:23
Speaker 2: immediate family members to this conflict over the course of
47:26
Speaker 2: the last many years, and they turn to each other
47:29
Speaker 2: from the depths of their grief and say, we don't
47:32
Speaker 2: want any more people to die. Can we collectively imagine
47:37
Speaker 2: a different kind of future? And that is holy work
47:40
Speaker 2: and very hard work. And I wish that those were
47:43
Speaker 2: the voices that were being amplified on social media and
47:46
Speaker 2: from our pulpits and from our you know, and and
47:49
Speaker 2: in news media, because those are the voices that are
47:51
Speaker 2: actually ultimately going to bring about a different kind of future.
47:55
Speaker 2: And we know, you know, and I know that we'll
47:58
Speaker 2: get there eventually. The question is how many more people
48:00
Speaker 2: have to die before we do?
48:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, we're going to take a break and we'll
48:04
Speaker 1: be right back. And we're right back with bye bye,
48:11
Speaker 1: Sharon Rauss. This was very eliminating. Thank you so much
48:14
Speaker 1: for being on the podcast today. I just want to
48:16
Speaker 1: before you go to talk a little bit about Eycar.
48:19
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. So we built this community in
48:22
Speaker 2: two thousand and four. Remember two thousand and four, when
48:24
Speaker 2: we thought that things were so bad and they couldn't
48:26
Speaker 2: possibly get worse. It was like it was the war
48:30
Speaker 2: in Iraq. It was the you know, the Bush era
48:32
Speaker 2: Post nine to eleven. And I moved out to la
48:35
Speaker 2: from New York, and really I really felt that we
48:39
Speaker 2: were called to excavate our beautiful, rich, thousands year old
48:44
Speaker 2: Jewish tradition in order to figure out how to live
48:47
Speaker 2: lives of meaning and purpose and how to understand how
48:51
Speaker 2: we were called to live in a time of great
48:54
Speaker 2: moral crisis. So kind of at the intersection of those
48:57
Speaker 2: two questions. I wanted to build a community of joy,
49:00
Speaker 2: a community where we could laugh together, where we could
49:03
Speaker 2: dream together, and where we could work for a just
49:05
Speaker 2: future together, and where we could reclaim some of our
49:09
Speaker 2: ancient tradition and live into the best of what our
49:12
Speaker 2: tradition demands of us. And then I realized about ten
49:16
Speaker 2: years after building this amazing community, which you know, like
49:19
Speaker 2: all the best people started coming to us. I mean,
49:22
Speaker 2: as you said, you have many friends who are there,
49:24
Speaker 2: and it's a community for like really good people who
49:28
Speaker 2: care deeply about the world and also want to be
49:31
Speaker 2: able to lift their spirits, you know, and dream of
49:35
Speaker 2: a different kind of reality. So about ten years in
49:38
Speaker 2: I gave this sermon called the Amen Effect, and it
49:41
Speaker 2: was about how we who dream of building the Beloved Community,
49:45
Speaker 2: and we who are working every single day to build
49:48
Speaker 2: a more just society and to fight for racial justice
49:51
Speaker 2: and climate justice and LGBTQ equality and all the things,
49:55
Speaker 2: how we had to start by building the beloved community
49:57
Speaker 2: inside that we actually had to turn to one another
50:00
Speaker 2: in love and in care. We needed to not only
50:03
Speaker 2: protest together, but we actually had to dance together and
50:07
Speaker 2: cry together, and show up at the bedside and show up,
50:10
Speaker 2: you know, at the grave side together, and that was
50:12
Speaker 2: the kind of missing link, I think, and that's when
50:15
Speaker 2: the community really fully began to live into itself. And
50:19
Speaker 2: so it is a community of love and justice. It's
50:24
Speaker 2: fun and funny and serious and loving, and the music's
50:28
Speaker 2: great and the people are, you know, incredible, and we're
50:32
Speaker 2: really pushing ourselves to try to envision faith community in
50:36
Speaker 2: a really different way, one that suits the needs of
50:39
Speaker 2: our time and translating ancient ideas into a language that
50:43
Speaker 2: can actually help us live more deeply and more responsibly today.
50:47
Speaker 2: So beautiful, thank you.
50:49
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to
50:51
Speaker 1: meet you. I'm going to see you again in person,
50:53
Speaker 1: hopefully sooner than later.
50:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:55
Speaker 1: And the book is called The Amen Effect, and it
50:57
Speaker 1: was really beautiful and it was the very I was
51:00
Speaker 1: really what the doctor ordered. So I hope you pick
51:03
Speaker 1: up a copy. And yes, thank you so much for
51:05
Speaker 1: being here.
51:06
Speaker 2: Take care, thank you, be well.
51:09
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Chelsea Handler is my name, and comedy is
51:12
Speaker 1: my game. Comedy and therapy are my games. I'm sorry,
51:16
Speaker 1: I misspoke. I have added more shows. I added a
51:19
Speaker 1: second show in Vancouver, so I have two shows in Vancouver.
51:22
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth March thirtieth, I am coming to Calgary Victoria, Colowna.
51:28
Speaker 1: Then I've added another show in Sydney, Australia on July thirteenth,
51:32
Speaker 1: So i have two shows in Sydney July twelfth and thirteenth.
51:35
Speaker 1: For other shows in Australia and New Zealand, go to
51:37
Speaker 1: Chelseahandler dot com. And I've added two shows in Oklahoma, Norman,
51:42
Speaker 1: Oklahoma on May third, and one in Thackerville, Oklahoma, which
51:47
Speaker 1: is May fourth, and then I'll be at the YouTube
51:50
Speaker 1: Theater May eleventh in Los Angeles with Matteo Laine and
51:53
Speaker 1: Vanessa Gonzalez and Fortune Femster and Sam Jay. Those are
51:58
Speaker 1: my updates and more shows are coming, so pay attention
52:00
Speaker 1: to If you'd.
52:01
Speaker 3: Like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email at Dear
52:04
Speaker 3: Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be sure to
52:07
Speaker 3: include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered
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Speaker 3: by Brad Dickert executive producer Catherine Law and be sure
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