Latest / REALLY JEWISH with Oliver Joseph / REALLY JEWISH S1:E12 - being a rabbi
Transcript
- Oliver Spike Joseph: So welcome Rabbi Josh Weiner. This is two weeks in a trot where two of my guests are some of my favorite people in the world, which I guess is actually when I started this post because I was given good advice that ⁓ warm up with some of your closest people. So episode 12, we're bringing Rabbi Josh Weiner, one of my oldest friends. We've been friends for a chunk of time. We lived together for a bit. We spent a lot of time. Josh Weiner: Thank you. You Oliver Spike Joseph: In Jerusalem hanging out. You are the rabbi at that Adat that Shalom in Paris You've been there for a few years. You've been a rabbi since 2020 and you were ordained at the Zacharias Frankel school in just outside Berlin in Potsdam I have to tell you one of my first memories of us hanging out in Jerusalem something like Close to 20 years ago. Nothing embarrassing Josh Weiner: Nothing embarrassing please. Oliver Spike Joseph: and we were touring the old city of Jerusalem and I think don't report us anybody but I think we squeezed through the bars which was a turnstile so that we could get onto the walls of the old city and did a little tour together of the walls of the old city in Jerusalem and we've basically been hanging out on and off in different places around the world ever since. It's lovely to welcome you to our podcast, Rabbi Josh. Thanks for joining us. Josh Weiner: Thank you very much. Let's see what happens. Oliver Spike Joseph: Let's see what happens indeed as you said back 20 years ago when we first started becoming good friends Let's see what happens. We're talking about rabbis and revelation today. It's the week before Shavuot. We're recording this about a week before Shavuot a little bit on the early side but you know Our shared experience in life among other things is that we're both rabbis Tell us a little bit about how you became a rabbi, why, and a little bit about the best parts of being a rabbi. Josh Weiner: I'd say there's a kind of a simplified version of the story which is not true but sometimes it's the easy way of telling it. I grew up in a rabbi's family, my father's a rabbi. I had that around me. So a simple version of the story would just be to say, something like I followed in my father's footsteps or... I knew what it's like so I went in. A more complicated, more real version of the story is kind of a long roundabout way. I actually grew up saying I'll never become a rabbi. I saw what it's like. I grew up between Jerusalem and London following my father's work and... Then I went back to Israel. I did my military service. I went to university, I studied social work. I lived with Oliver. And I kind of went down that path. I studied first maths and philosophy, then changed to social work. I was a social worker in Jerusalem and then in Petah Tikvah, working with... ⁓ refugees living in Israel and with victims of slavery and torture. And the Jewish life, I don't have a very dramatic story of, you know, throwing it all away and then coming back, but it was more in the background of my life. ⁓ I didn't do formal yeshiva studies at that point in my life. even though I always had some books on the shelf, I was always following what was going on, doing my own studies. I always had the Shabbat meals, something me and Oliver share. Judaism revolves around meals and hosting and a community of friends. But didn't see myself as more of a rabbi than anyone else around me. That changed a little bit when I eventually I left Israel and I moved to Berlin. I was living in Berlin. I intended actually to work in the tourism industry and that's that was my plan going there. But that changed very quickly. I got a job in a kindergarten in the Masori nursery school and through that and through ⁓ finding a synagogue in my neighborhood in Kreuzberg and I kind found myself first of coming close to the Jewish community to the formal Jewish community and also finding myself very often in situations where people were treating me like a rabbi. It wasn't just about coming to my house for a meal, but those meals first of became Kabalat Shabbat services and people would come and invite their friends and their friends would invite their friends. And people wanted to meet for a chat just to see what the Jewish tradition says about their life. People asked me... to teach here and there. I didn't have any title, but just maybe a bit because of my background and because I went into that place, people accepted me as a kind of ⁓ rabbi in their life. Is that clear? Oliver Spike Joseph: Yeah, that's great. Listen, I can relate to that because we lived together in my second year in Jerusalem. I think we lived together about two and a half or three years. Not a small amount of time for the time that I lived in Jerusalem. I lived there for a total of five years. I didn't, unlike your experience of growing up in a rabbinic family and in the Frum family, let's say, I didn't personally. And I think from an early stage in my own rabbinic journey, because I was there specifically with a view to study in your Yeshiva study in religious learning institution and I was on the trajectory to train to be a rabbi. I can relate to learning from you about how to do religious life. I was a sponge to some of what you've grown up with and some of your understanding of how to live. as a firm person, how to keep Shabbat in particular and ⁓ perhaps to a lesser extent, Kashrut. Those are things that I learned from you. It's interesting because there's a flip-flopping that that was the journey that I was on and you were very much in the social work world when we lived together and on that trajectory. And then quickly as you arrived in Berlin, as you described, you went on that path. Listen, I... Josh Weiner: You Oliver Spike Joseph: I guess I can only come to this with my own experience of rabbinic life. I think I just got off the call now ⁓ some ⁓ in Potsdam, the same place that you studied, where I teach spiritual care. And we were talking a little bit about spiritual care, about looking after one another, but also looking after ourselves. And one of the students said, ⁓ unusually, there's a big flip. Use the terminology again flip-flopping again big highs and lows of rabbinic life It can be the most majestic and wonderful profession and it can also be really Intensely tough partly around the work hours the kind of the way that the rabbinic Rabbinic life is never done. There's never a kind of really feels like a kind of lull in the site particularly the moment in Jewish community life a lull in the cycle of of of rabbinic work Tell us just a little bit about some of those highs and lows for you and how you how you negotiate that Josh Weiner: Look, I won't bore you with the whole story. I found myself as a rabbi in Paris. I didn't see that happening. I'm in a fairly large Masorti community here in Paris. We have 400 families in the show and they're kind of... quite a big reach even beyond that. So lots of people have our synagogue as their synagogue of reference, even if they don't necessarily pay membership or so on. And people want to interact with their Rabbi. So it was a tough search, right? I had to learn French and find out what the needs of this community. But I think now four years in, I have... quite a good rhythm in my week of meeting people, responding to all sorts of needs. Every day I wake up in the morning, I don't know what this day is going to look like. ⁓ open my laptop, respond to emails. Then often there's kind of some small technical things and some bigger projects that need to be worked on and some very personal things. People want to share different aspects of their life. People call me, people write to me, people come to meet me during the day. Again, we talk about... the big majestic moments of life, the very difficult painful moments of life and sometimes it's much more... people are looking for relationship without actually knowing exactly what they're looking for. So I'll meet people for coffee without an agenda. I think that relationship... with a Rabbi is something which is needed. Oliver Spike Joseph: So, go on. Josh Weiner: What can I say? I? No, just to say that usually it's a very wonderful, very rewarding lifestyle. Sometimes something happens and just the rhythm gets thrown off. Right? There's a... ⁓ there's a funeral this week and then suddenly I need to dedicate myself to that and everything that goes around it, which means I didn't have the time to prepare my classes for the week, I didn't have the time to prepare my sermons for Shabbat, which means I need to do that at other points and then it becomes very intense. And balancing that with my family life, with my own personal intellectual and spiritual growth, that can become tough sometimes. Maybe that's where he wants us to go, actually. Oliver Spike Joseph: No, I don't know where I want to go. I think we have tons to go. We're both also ⁓ parents of young children and that that additional pressure of having as examples less time in the early morning and less time in the late night because the pressure runs childcare. I also think comes in and I also think that there is this in the place I often go to when I'm teaching rabbis and having conversation with rabbinic colleagues is also some of the personal aspects of the pull of being a rabbi. There's something that I find and I work a very different rabbinic career, a very different rabbinic job than you do. My work is much more piecemeal and not around one individual, big or small community. I have a few different jobs, including working on this podcast, which is less intensive in many ways than the communal rabbinic job. particularly because I don't work weekends. Most of my sabbatot are free and I don't really have responsibilities on a Sunday, which is very different from the rabbinic workload where you're often asked to work five days a week and then spend a lot of time on Saturday and Sunday also doing. Josh Weiner: right? where I tell everyone else to keep Shabbat. And I work. Oliver Spike Joseph: Yeah, the quote one of the most common questions I guess as a rabbi is why a rabbi is allowed to work on Shabbat when the rest of Jewish people are commanded to to rest on Shabbat, but The question I have is also about the pull because I think part of the draw and the temptation for a rabbi is to be loved and needed and relied upon And that can be quite intoxicating and to a degree quite dangerous. And I wonder how you interact with that part. know, like when we're not busy, often the psychology of rabbis, when you're not busy, you feel like you're undervalued and not needed enough. And when you're too busy, that can very quickly become overwhelmed because everybody needs you. How do you find that dichotomy and how do you interact between those two places? Josh Weiner: I... Interesting. I think there's a real danger of that among rabbis. There's a real danger of being... the center of people's life and there's a power dynamic which is exhilarating and it can also be very close to... it has the potential to be abused. I have many flaws, many faults, many... many of my own challenges. But I think actually that's not one of mine. Essentially I'm quite a shy person. I push myself into the center when I need to be there. I know that this is what has to happen at the moment. I can speak in front of a thousand people on Yom Kippur. I don't love it. And actually, part of my work now, say, in the synagogue... is to train the community not to need me. So I have as much as possible, I have other people doing sermons. I'm trying to train a small group to be able to lead services. both in the synagogue and to be able to go to, for example, someone's sitting shiva. Right? So they're home, have, after a funeral, they have seven days of mourning at home. And very often that person is... ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: What's a Shiva? Josh Weiner: you know, emotionally broken or confused or has so many things in their mind that they need to be helped and guided and a healthy community will be there for them that will be there to visit and to console and to bring meals but there's also the this rhythm of prayers ⁓ which is often maintained for those sitting Shiva and it's a lot for the rabbi to have to come to them for seven nights in a row. So sometimes I'm not able to, right? It's just the balance of other things that I need to do, it's other courses I'm teaching or my own family. I'm not able to be there seven days a week. But then what happens? So I'm trying to have more and more people who are able to take that role and do that task. You don't need a rabbi. You just need someone confident. ⁓ So trying... I have a name in my head for it. I haven't formalized it at all. But I have this idea of haverim right? Drawing on this ancient Mishnah category of basically people you can trust. Right? So I'm trying to formally and informally train haverim in my community to be able to... to strengthen the community without it being centered on the rabbi. Oliver Spike Joseph: So you we try each episode of Really Jewish to ⁓ bring one text ⁓ to our conversation you presented extract from the Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Tell us a little bit about the text that you bought and what does it add to the conversation in terms of the the Breslov tradition in terms of What Rebbe Nachman is trying to to teach us do you to just share a couple of words from there? Josh Weiner: I think someone said, Rabbi Shulam Halabach said that everyone has two rebbes. They have their own rebbe, their own teacher and Rebbe Nachman. And then he said, and I have Rebbe Nachman twice. So I found for many years the writings of Rebbe Nachman to be... inspirational and guiding and there's always something there and I thought this text in particular could respond to some things we're talking about here about the function of a rabbi, the function of a person and let's see if it can relate to Shavuot as well. So this is from the second volume of the collected writings of ⁓ Rebbe Nachman. ⁓ It's the seventh teaching. His teachings are called Torah. So it's the seventh Torah in the second volume of ⁓ Likutey Moharan. ⁓ And he talks about... ⁓ the process of of opening one's mind and receiving inspiration. Okay, I need to give a little bit of context before we actually dive into the text. Okay, so he has a kind of quite developed system of how our minds or soul ⁓ work. Okay, and he talks about two levels. of our consciousness where it talks about the Pnimi which is inside my consciousness. It's basically what I know. What I know about the world and the makif is around that. It's what I don't yet know. Does that make sense? Okay, so everything I know about God, about the world, about everything is my Pnimi. What I don't know is my makif. Okay? What can happen sometimes is that I learn something, right? I learn something new and then what happens is my consciousness expanded, my Pnimi grows and that piece of the makif, which was outside of my consciousness, which I didn't know yet, becomes part of me. Okay? It's what we call learning. Now, where it becomes interesting is that sometimes you have a relationship of, let's say, ⁓ a teacher and a disciple, right? Or a parent and a child, where ⁓ something in the pnimi of the teacher is the makif of the disciple. Okay, so the teacher teaches, the disciple learns something, and their consciousness is expanded. They learn something new. But what he says there, which is interesting, is that for the teacher also, they've emptied out their pnimi by teaching. Right? There's space left inside. and then a space for something else to come in. So there's this kind of flow of knowledge, flow of understanding, where the teacher is always giving, but also receiving, because now there's new space for new Torah to come in. And he moves between these ideas of Torah and consciousness and understanding and understanding of God. What happens there is it brings the Torah to life. The Torah is not static. It's always moving. Now the piece I wanted to read with you here on this esteemed podcast is where he moves away from what I just said about teachers and students or... ⁓ parents and children and he says it's actually happening in every relationship between two people. ⁓ Should we read the text together? Oliver Spike Joseph: Yeah, a segment would be great. Josh Weiner: Yes, I'll read in Hebrew and English. [Hebrew, find link to Hebrew text with translation in show notes] Producing disciples is something every person can accomplish. [Hebrew, find link to Hebrew text with translation in show notes] So two people are talking about important things and one person, one friend. says something that enlightens the other and uses its words, brings the light to his friend. So at that moment, the first friend is the Rabbi and the second one is a disciple. The first one is giving Torah to the second. Sometimes the opposite can happen where the second friend becomes the Rabbi and the first one becomes the disciple. It's not a hierarchy of power, but it's a sharing of wisdom. that can happen in any relationship between two friends. And it kind of reminds me of what we're doing here and maybe our relationship too. Right? We're friends, but we're friends and we sometimes talk about serious stuff, which means that the Torah is passing between us. And it's dynamic, it's in two directions and in giving... In teaching, we're making more room to learn. Oliver Spike Joseph: There's a complexity to the teaching that I want to present or least challenge you on. I think on one level, halevai. That's the ideal. We also have the image from Psalms. ⁓ Barzel b'barzel yachad, the steel upon steel sharpens. That somehow whenever you're sitting opposite somebody, which is perhaps one of the reasons why I love our friendship, I'm learning. Whatever we talk about, I'm learning. can say that safely in our relationship and perhaps one of the reasons why I've tried to stay friends with you for as long as we've been friends. That's a great image. But there's also a complexity here because we're rabbis and Rabbi Nachman was part of rabbinic dynasty called Hasidut which promoted the aspect of the rabbi and the aspect of the teacher as one of the one of the ideals of Jewish life. I think about one of my friends who works a base in the States. or base and the ideal they're presenting also is that People have a richer Jewish life. They have a rabbi to connect with So on one level I absolutely agree That the ideal way of learning is with your haver with your friend opposite somebody else but there's also a clear kind of reality in our own communities in the Jewish community ⁓ the generation ⁓ which promotes the need for a teacher. Somebody who is more learned than you in your life, who's going to present you with both the ideals of Jewish life and also the learning of Jewish life. But but let's let me just say one more thing, which is towards Shavuot, which is the image of Shavuot on the on simple level is Matan Torah. And Moses goes up the mountain to receive Torah. from God at Mount Sinai. But there isn't really an image of... being passed to the rabbis in that Matan Torah moment. You could identify Moses as the Rabbi Moshe Rabbeinu. But the image that we most often hold, I think, is of Torah being given to the people. And then the image of Rabbi is complicated there because why do you need the Rabbi? That it should be the people who are receiving the Torah and not relying on any kind of intermediary for that process. So, yeah, that's few images on the page. But how do you how do you get there? How do you balance out that complicated reality in terms of the need for rabbi and community? The equalization of the image that you're presenting that learning simply happens between friends. And then also that image that we those images that we take from Shavuot Josh Weiner: Look, I... One of the ideals that I can get from this passage is the Rabbi is being almost neutral in that the Rabbi is maybe a pipeline for the Torah to come to the person that needs it. I mean... Look, he gives the possibility in this text and further on in text which we didn't get to now where he basically says everyone is Moshe, everyone is Moses. Right? You are Moses and Sinai is here and Shavuot is today. Right? The reception of Torah is today. Okay? And what happens is the person looking for the Torah is not getting it from you. It's getting it through you. Look, I see it sometimes. see it happening. It's one of the most beautiful moments in Rabbi's work. Sometimes I'm speaking from the Bema in front of the synagogue. Again, I'll say more of this. think lots of what I say is banal and boring and... I'm going to stay with anyone. But sometimes I'm talking and I see someone's eyes light up and I see that what I just said touched exactly what they were looking for in life, at least at that moment. I see it and I'm sure of it and it's wonderful. And it's all worth it just for that one person. Everyone else is going to forget what I just said and that one person remembers it. it's none about me because I feel they needed to hear that thing. Maybe they would have heard it from someone else if I wasn't there. But the Torah is able to be channeled through me or through anyone who's open to it. really that's how see my rabbinic work. It's not about me, it's not about my opinions. I try not to have opinions. I try to... to be that ⁓ pipe towards the tradition which is already there. You're gonna say I'm an idealist. Oliver Spike Joseph: No, I I love it. I can listen I could also The conversation is circular in somewhere another because I can also relate to those moments where you know somebody comes up to you kiddish kiddish is When we have a big snack at the end of synagogue Often the the the the social moment of the week for many people in Jewish community and somebody says to you know I really like this image that you presented about the parasha or about the the Torah portion about Maybe Shavuot coming up Josh Weiner: you Oliver Spike Joseph: Those are tremendously important moments. If they feed my ego, I need kind of to be loved and to feel like I'm teaching people. But I also can, you know, acknowledge that there is that kind of energetic sense that I feel like I'm You feeding Torah to the community Exactly in the pipeline that you describe Let's change track just for a moment just in the last column is that we have Why is one of the one of the aspects of Shavuot the festival that we're celebrating Just this week when the when the podcast is launched Is about 49 days of counting down on the 50th day we have Shavuot it's Josh Weiner: counting up. We're counting up. Oliver Spike Joseph: ⁓ Historically, an agricultural festival, ⁓ the barley and then the wheat that we wait for at Shavuot. ⁓ One of the traditions of Shavuot is this aspect of Tikkun Leill Shavuot, a relatively modern ⁓ advent ⁓ in the history of Judaism that we up all night and we study Torah. in preparation for receipt at Torah Mount Sinai, which is the festival of Shavuot. Why are we learning Torah? Why is that so important for the Jewish people? And again, to circle back, how is the Rabbi active in that process? But first of all, why is the Torah learning itself so important to get to some of the essential questions here? Josh Weiner: Yeah. mean... Now that I've said it in these terms, now I can't really think of it in any other way, but I think... The idea that Shavuot isn't just ⁓ remembering an event that happened in the distant past, in the mythic past, but something that happens all the time, that's something that we do by recreating that experience on the night of Shavuot. We're teaching Torah, we're learning Torah, which means we're receiving the Torah. And what happens when you're teaching, ⁓ Eeii if’shar l’beit midrash ve’lo hiddush There's no way to learn Torah without innovating something as well. And these innovations are also part of the Torah. ⁓ we're celebrating having received the Torah in the past by continuing to receive it now. ⁓ Actually, I love Shavuot very much. ⁓ These last two years, I've kind of ⁓ innovated the tradition here ⁓ of doing two nights of Shavuot. of the study of the Torah for Shavuot. It's a bit exhausting, but the second night I usually invite some people and have a more intimate study session at my home. It's... is something very difficult to describe. don't know, maybe there's actually a difficulty about talking ⁓ about these subjects on this podcast in front of our anonymous listeners and viewers, right? Because from the outside, I think it looks boring. You're spending a night learning... 2000 year old texts in Hebrew and Aramaic and whatever, in French and English, doesn't matter. Why is that fun? Why would anyone want to do it? And the experience from the inside, at least for me, right, is... it's exhilarating. Oliver Spike Joseph: Can you describe that acceleration? That's the bit I mean, that's the sweet spot. That's the bit I'm interested in. What, what, what, because I can, I can relate to the experience. And I also love Shavuot what's what's, what's the spark that you're nurturing that you're finding the flames of specifically on shovel. And then you might also exactly describe, and aspire to day to day, week to week. Why, why is that exhilarating? Why is that connection to Torah important? And what is, what are Josh Weiner: Yeah. Oliver Spike Joseph: What even is Torah here, definitionally? Josh Weiner: First of all, you're asking me to something impossible. It's defining love, right? You're never gonna do justice to the internal experience of it. But you're right, like we're... we're dancing around it without being able to express it well. ⁓ And I'm using Torah in many different ways at the same time. Torah can mean the five books of Moses, it can mean that object in the synagogue, the handwritten parchment. It can be more generally kind of all of... ⁓ Jewish texts and the tradition of learning. It can be even more expansive. I said, Rabbi Nachman's writings are called Torah. And I can say, ⁓ I learned ⁓ a great Torah from Rabbi Oliver last year. ⁓ I think when I experience the... power of Torah, meaning when it says... something that reaches further than its intended context, that's when it's most exciting for me. So you can learn a text about the... I don't know, this last week I studying with people the laws of owning a slave, how to treat your slave. It's in the Torah, it doesn't mean that Judaism loves slavery, quite the opposite. And it doesn't mean that... I don't know, it's something to replicate or so on. But in the details of... how a slave is treated, how slaves are liberated. Suddenly we started talking about what's the value of a human being. How... power dynamics work in any relationship and in society and suddenly this text which was a bit weird and foreign became relevant to every moment of my life. So suddenly that became Torah. I don't if that's the best example, but that's what happens. have this engagement, so sometimes it's formal, you have to read this text this week and that week, and then... The more you dive into it, the more it expands and fills up and you get more out of it than you expected. Oliver Spike Joseph: So my version of that is that life is very individuated. That sometimes life can feel very lonely. Like I am the first person to experience this, this aspect of parenting or this aspect of relationship or this aspect of love, life, loss and that Torah has it all. So the potential of Torah, the potential of that learning is to move away from the individuation, the individual experience. something much more global and ultimately something divine which is All of this is... There's nothing new under the sun. And that somehow the experience of loneliness, which is what it is to be an individual human, is turned to something which is much more collective. For me, that's an aspect of the Torah and the revelation of why learning Torah on the night of Shavuot or any other night can have such power, have such spiritual power. Josh, give us one last line and then we're... We'll wrap up. It was so lovely to welcome you today. ⁓ God willing, we'll have you back on Really Jewish and do more learning together of this this nature. Josh Weiner: You Look, we're just talking about the Torah being infinite and you're asking me to give one last line just to sum up everything. I want to just develop something you said about the Torah, about being individual vis-a-vis the Torah and to emphasize ⁓ Oliver Spike Joseph: One line, one line. Josh Weiner: that there's no magic formulas here, right? Sometimes even in the same person, At some moment I could be reading a ⁓ text and I know basically that this is a beautiful and deep text but it's not working for me right now. I'm actually not getting, I'm not being uplifted by this Torah. It's... It could be that the same text yesterday would have worked and tomorrow will work. It's not, it's not working for me now. And, uh, I just wanted to tell our listeners that that's okay. Right. If, if what you're learning is, is not hitting you like this, you're not feeling this exhilaration and love. So don't give up on the whole system. Right. But, But it's also okay. It's not problem with you. It's actually just an invitation to try other things. read elsewhere. Maybe the Torah is outside the books. There's a Torah that can just happen spontaneously in conversations with friends, in talking to... old people, ⁓ listening to what's going on, talking to kids. Let's be very conscious of the wider Torah which is embedded in the world around us. Oliver Spike Joseph: Rabbi Josh Weiner, a perfect first word, a perfect last word to lead us into Shavuot and have you again on Really Jewish. Thank you so much. Josh Weiner: Thank you. Thanks for everything you're doing.