Latest / REALLY JEWISH with Oliver Joseph / REALLY JEWISH SE1:E23 - Maalach Hamavet, the Angel of Death
Transcript
- Roni: The Malachamavet, the angel of death, is portrayed as being a good friend of the rabbis. It is that the rabbis are dis described as being one of the it says shushbine, a good friend of the angel of death. And having conversations and chatting, and I think death has that aspect too. Oliver Joseph: if you can deal with death and death uncertainty and the possibility of death and even the describing death transition, then maybe we're well equipped to be able to support people in deep and spiritual ways. Roni: when their loved one is ill, is dying, is weak, they want the rabbi there. Like sometimes they want the rabbi there and you get called in to meet with people when they're struggling. And they want to be comforted and they want you to kind of bring God into the room for them, to help them feel that God is there, that they haven't been abandoned, that they're not alone. And it's an incredible honour and responsibility as a rabbi. Oliver Joseph: Welcome to Really Jewish, your podcast about what it is to be Jewish, joining a conversation about where we're at in the Jewish community. If you're back for another listen, welcome back. If you're here for the first time, we're delighted to welcome you. We've had a cracking summer of guests and exciting visitors to the Really Jewish podcast. Today we are welcoming Rabbi Ronny Tabak. from Newstone Newington Synagogue in London in the north east of London. He is a lovely rabbi and a good friend of mine qualified at the same time in 2015. And it's just nice to welcome him as it has been to welcome many of our guests, colleagues and close friends to this podcast. This podcast was recorded just at the end of July. And you're hearing this early in August. So that's a small lag before you got to hear this podcast. recorded with Rabbi Ronny Tabak immediately after the end of the World Cup. We are a podcast that is really just trying to dig a little bit deeper into some of the conversations happening in the Jewish world. This is a little bit edgy this week, talking about Hamalah Hamavet, the angel of death, talking about a topic which affects all life ultimately and is definitely an aspect of the Jewish tradition. And some of what we discussed today is just the diversity and variety of traditions around death and dying in the Jewish community and starting with the rabbinic tradition. So we're really delighted and excited to welcome Rabbi Ronny, a dear and lovely friend of mine and a colleague and rabbi. Welcome to the next leg of Really Jewish and this podcast on Malach Hamavet, the Angel of Death. I will. Rabbi Ronny, if that's your real name. This is so nice to welcome you, Rabbi Ronny Tabak, to our really Jewish podcast. You are a dear friend and a colleague, and we graduated at the same time from rabbinical school, which makes us about level pegging in the world of rabbinic life. Roni: Yeah. Oliver Joseph: You are a rabbi at New Stoke Newton Masorti Shul. You are a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. You're about to publish your first novel called Radiance with Izun books. We're going to try and get a link up then for that when it comes out on Amazon. And you're just a really nice fella who I've spent quite a lot of time with over the years. And it's really nice to have you as your as the first time guest on podcasts. Welcome Rabbi Rani. Roni: Thank you so much, Rabbi Oliver Joseph, if that's your real names. A bit of a bit of a niche little joke there, but it's a great pleasure to be here and thank you so much for having me on. Oliver Joseph: I don't know where the joke comes from but for some reason that stuck with us Rabbi Ronni Tebak if that's your real name for a while and I can't tell you where it comes from but it's warm and familiar and says something of our of a jovial relationship and of going back quite a few years. Rabbi Ronni tell us a little bit why you're here, who you are what you do kind of in your own words. I gave you a little introduction but it's nice to hear a little bit more of where you're at today. Roni: Yeah, thank you so much. yes, as you heard, I'm the rabbi of New Stoke Newington Shaw, which is a relatively small masority community out here in East London. I live in Stoke Newington, I've lived here for about eleven years. And as the synagogue has grown, I've also grown my own roles. I started out part-time and now I'm I've been full-time in the community now for several years. And That's what I do. I'm a rabbi in the my community, so I love to teach. I love to be part of the community life, lead services, and that kind of thing. And I love talking about strange, mysterious beings, mythological figures, monsters, ghosts and demons. And that's that's kind of my side projects, you know, my my passion projects. Oliver Joseph: Great, so today we're gonna get into a topic which is a little bit out there for the Religious Podcast, Malach Hamavit, the Angel of Death, which is interesting. We were on a Rabbi retreat together, the Masulati Rabbis get together once a year and you taught on this topic and I was really taken by it because it was both moving and intimate and sometimes. when you've taught in the past about other creatures and monsters, I've found it a little bit out there if I'm straightforward, but this topic really felt like down to earth and at home with, you I think partly what the Real Jewish podcast project is trying to achieve, which is to like, bite off chunks of Jewish life and have close conversations about the topics and hopefully with, you know, with aspiration that people walk away. from the inside of the community, from outside the community, from the different countries where people are listening with a bit more of a sense of Judaism and Jewish life. But before we go there, I think we've had a few different rabbis on the podcast and part of this project is to kind of present conversations where you can be a fly on a wall and listen in to conversations between rabbis and different teachers and educators and representatives of our community. Tell us, why on would you become a rabbi, Rabbi Ronny? Why did you choose that profession? How did you get to this place? Roni: My journey is, I think, quite unusual in that both my parents are rabbis. my mother, Rabbi Jackie Tabak, was the first woman rabbi in the UK, amongst the first in the world. And my father is Rabbi Larry Tabak. They met in rabbinical school. And so obviously I had these very strong rabbi role models in my life growing up, and we grew up in communities that was just what our life was. And for a long time I swore that absolutely I was never gonna become a rabbi. I think seeing it from the inside, you can see some of the struggles and some of the hurt that can come from Putting your life very visibly out there in the world. You know, everyone, you're really very public as a rabbi in many ways. And I could see that that was quite hard, especially as a kid. instead, I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to teach I thought first of all maths, then I thought maybe philosophy. And then when it was in it was in university when I was studying philosophy and I was reading my essays to my tutor, I realized that they were slowly turning into sermons. There was a little bit of Torah, a little bit of Talmud in each one of my essays. I was writing about philosophy of religion and I wanted to include Talmud quotes and reflections on Jewish attitudes to these questions that we were looking at. And at some point during that course I realized That what I really wanted to do was teach Judaism to Jewish people. That was really where I felt my passion lie. And I told my parents, thinking this was this grand revelation I'd had. And they disappointingly, they said, Yeah, yeah, of course you're gonna be a rabbi. We've always known you're gonna be a rabbi. it was a grand revelation to me, but to almost nobody else in my life. They all understood that this was gonna be where my life was headed. But it took me a while to see the great joy that comes from being a rabbi, a teacher, being involved in community life. There are challenges, of course, but I think having come from a rabbinic family, maybe I'm more aware of those challenges and what it's like to grow up in that environment than others. So that's kind of how I came to be here. And other parts of the rabbinic life that there are there. You know, the pastoral work, the services stuff is all stuff that's come along. But it's really the teaching that was for me the inspiration of why I to become a rabbi that I really love teaching Jewish texts, Jewish ideas. Oliver Joseph: No, and I relate to the balance which you present of rabbinic life. It sounds like in your life journey you were better prepared because you grew up, like you said, with two rabbinic parents, but that kind of back and forth whereby the rabbinic role is, from my vantage point, is wonderful and empowering and... often inspiring in the way in which as rabbis we get to be with people at some of their most vulnerable moments and moments of profound change and transformation. That's all good stuff, but it's also, I think I can relate to the part that you describe in a quieter tone, which is it's exposing and it's often can be kind of nudge and niggle on some of our own vulnerabilities and personal. personal vulnerabilities and... tough parts of our own selves and personality. can relate to all of that. Roni: Yeah, as you say, and I think this really does relate to the Angel of Death stuff we're gonna talk about. When people are at their most vulnerable, when you know, when their loved one is ill, is dying, is weak, they want the rabbi there. Like sometimes they want the rabbi there and you get called in to meet with people when they're struggling. And they want to be comforted and they want you to kind of bring God into the room for them, to help them feel that God is there, that they haven't been abandoned, that they're not alone. And it's an incredible honour and responsibility as a rabbi. Oliver Joseph: So let's get straight Roni: Mm-hmm. Oliver Joseph: into it. I agree and I disagree before we even started because I think that in my experience, there's kind of in the communities that I work inside and outside of, there's actually equal, like a 50-50 split of people who definitely want God in the room, definitely want a rabbi present, definitely want some kind of spiritual reflection or deepening of those core moments. of life, whether it's illness or sickness or even difficulty in mental health or specifically the passing of somebody or somebody in their life who's suffering. There seems to be both. I think sometimes the Jewish part is uninvited. People don't want Judaism in the room and sometimes people don't want God in the room. And there's lots of reasons also to kind of walk in the other direction. when life gets tough, but the Malach Hamavit teaching that you offered in this shiur that you ran a couple of weeks back, tell us about it. Tell us about Roni: Mm-hmm. Oliver Joseph: your relationship with this part of Jewish life, this part of Jewish fable or Jewish or Talmudic teaching. and tell us also why it's important in terms of how you operate as a rabbi. Roni: Yeah. I maybe to start to say that despite what you might think, the Angel of Death doesn't appear in the Bible. and I think that many people associate the Angel of Death with the tenth plague in Egypt, when God passes over the houses of the Israelites and kills the Egyptian firstborn, which is where we get the word Passover for Pesach. But the Bible never says an the angel of death. It refers to the maschit, the destroyer, and maybe that's a destroying angel and maybe over centuries the angel of death has kind of coalesced from that. The angel of death very much appears in rabbinic teachings, where he has very different aspects in different places, There's a remarkable description of the angel of death in the Talmud that says he is entirely full of eyes. One of the strangest descriptions of anything. I don't really know what it means to be entirely full of eyes. I can only imagine that it means that the angel of death is somehow sees everything. This aware of the whole world and death as it's taking place everywhere. But it's quite a terrifying description. And it says that these when a sick person is going to die, the angel of death stands above the sick person's head with a sword in his hand and a drop of poison hanging on it. And the sick person sees the angel of death, trembles, opens their mouth, and the angel of death drops this drop of poison in. And that's what causes the person to die. This is quite a terrifying vision of death. Right? That death as alien, as coming in from the outside, violent. And I think that sometimes death does seem like that. Sometimes death does seem like it's come out of nowhere, that it's this intruder breaking into your life and and causing harm. But elsewhere in the Talmud, death is portrayed very differently. The Malachamavet, the angel of death, is portrayed as being a good friend of the rabbis. It is that the rabbis are dis described as being one of the it says shushbine, a good friend of the angel of death. And having conversations and chatting, and I think death has that aspect too. And I think that's that aspect of being something which you can be familiar with, which can feel part of one's life, part of one's horizons, part of the experience of living. And maybe I'm drawn to this figure because I think that struggling with this personified version of death enables us to come to terms with death itself, which is such a hard concept to grapple with. I think the mythological being helps us to get to grips with it. Oliver Joseph: Hmm. So there's a lot there to unpack. There's always a moment in the podcast where I'm like, is this gonna wash? And then we kind of like, start to get into it. There's so much to unpack there. The moment of familiarity. Hang let's go back again. There's so much to unpack there, Rabbi Ronni. The familiarity with death feels important. That somehow the opportunity of learning these sugyot, of learning these sources with you, give us the opportunity to examine the topic. One of the quality, know, people often ask, like, it's not an unusual question in the Jewish world because it's one of great mysteries. What does Judaism say about... the world's come, what does Judaism say about what happens to you when you die? And the easiest answer, perhaps this is truest, is Judaism says lots of things. Judaism says lots of things depending on the tradition, where you are in the tradition, whether you're in the Kabbalistic tradition or the Talmudic tradition or the Hasidic tradition or any of the above, or the Maimonidean tradition, the more rationalist tradition. Across the different generations, Judaism says lots of different things about death. But the more perhaps interesting thing that you're saying is by way of learning some of these texts and here in the Talmud of more than 2,000 years ago in the rabbinic kind of discourse, we are using the sources to examine also what we think and also examine how we might approach these topics and as we... dig a little deeper, also kind of interact with our own emotionality and our own kind of perceptions and grievances and sadnesses about the topic. Roni: Absolutely. I I think Judaism has a lot to say about life after death, as you suggested. You know, what is what happens, you know, exactly what does that look like? And Judaism has a lot to say about life. I think that the Malachamavet is actually that point in between. Right? That malachamavit is about that moment of transition from life to death. What is that like? What is that moment like? And actually I think that that's very, very hard to talk about. Now obviously Jewish law has a lot to say about that. about how to to act to somebody while they're alive compared to when they're dead and to prepare for that moment in different ways. And as a rabbi I do feel it's a great privilege to be able to be there in those spaces, offering that support in that moment. But the malacham of it gives us that insight into that moment of transition. There's one of the stories that that we looked at together talking about the death of rabbis in particular and rabbis getting terrified about this moment of death which is coming. the one of the texts in the Talmud in Mo'ed Katan, where Rava is about to die, and he says to Rav Sa'urim, his brother, to please ask the angel of death not to torment him. And he agrees, and after death Rava appears to his brother again, and Rav Sa'urim says, What was it like? And Rava says it was like a prick when letting blood. Like that this moment of transition, of death, wasn't in the end not very painful. But then the Talmud tells another story about when Rava was the student and his teacher Ravnachman was dying, and they have the same conversation about death. Rava asks Ravnachman to appear to him after he dies, and Rava asks his teacher, what was it like? His teacher says it was like the removal of hair from milk. Which is so easy and painless, just smooth transition. And yet Rabnachman says that if God were to give me the chance to go back to the world and live again, I wouldn't take it because the fear of death is so great. That even though his death experience was was actually very easy, he recognizes that the fear of death is so painful that he wouldn't go through it again. And I think that. We are scared of that. We are really scared of that moment of dying, that moment of our soul leaving us. What is that going to be like? What is it like for our loved ones to witness them go from life to death? And I think that Reading about this in these mythologized terms help us to talk about it. It makes it that much easier to discuss the ideas, whereas if we're talking about your own death, you're talking about the death of a loved one, it's very, very difficult to talk about that fear and that transition. Oliver Joseph: So Irvin Yalom has a book called Staring at the Sun. His version of Staring at the Sun is his fear of death, is death anxiety. And he actually frames this whole book around as a psychologist, maybe a psychotherapist of many years of experience, how death anxiety is often the cause of great spiritual and emotional upheaval for the patients that he's seen. And that seems to ring true. And somehow, and maybe through these texts and maybe through this conversation, when we stare at the sun, when we look at that aspect of the ultimate destination for all of us, then we're able to actually. emotionally process and emotionally endure and become more resilient and hopefully live a better life. That's the ambition is that by somehow staring at the sun and seeing the reality of our own life journey, our own death journey, then we have the possibility to live better and live fuller. I know, I was at the Nova Festival exhibition last week, and heard my harat give testimony. I speak about it in another one of the podcasts, but she said, you live. My invitation is you to live, like she's somebody who stared death in the face, and her invitation to us is really to live. But somehow when we're... perhaps in wrapped in that death anxiety but not aware of it, that can be very debilitating. Roni: Yeah, I have sort of two versions of my own of that thought, one Torah-based and more profound and one less profound. The Torah-based one is you know, the Talma teaches that the Torah is meant to be this elixir of life. They explain the word Vasamtem, that you should place these words of mine on your heart. The Deuteronomy, they explain Samtem you should place as Sam Tam, a perfect medicine. That the Torah is somehow this medicine of life. And you know, we we say every week in synagogue it's Chaim Hila Machikimba, it's a tree of life to those who hold fast to it. And somehow facing up to death is part of that experience of embracing life, of recognizing that you're going to die. And once you can let go of that, let go of the anxiety of that by accepting its truth. Then actually one can live much better. The less profound version is Ian Fleming, James Bond, the writer of James Bond. You know, he the famous title, You Only Live Twice, not in the movie, but in the book, it refers to, he says, You only live twice, once when you're born, and once when you stare death in the face. Right? That actually you have a second opportunity to live your life once you've encountered death. Now, I think the point of learning some of this stuff is to be able to encounter death without having the near-death experience. We try to kind of replicate a near-death experience without having to have it. I think Yom Kippur does that as well. Yom Kippur is supposed to be this taste of a death experience. You fast, you don't eat or drink, you kind of deny your body as much as possible, you're dressed all in white and you're kind of acting like. these disembodied spirits in heaven who who are in constant praise of God. I think that Yom Kippur is meant to also be that confronting death in order that you can live again. Oliver Joseph: Hmm. And the possibility then is of spiritual emancipation and spiritual growth through, like you said, the living our own death without living our own death. So we don't, we don't need to wait for those moments when, you know, God forbid, a parent or a sibling or a partner passes or we experience near death ourselves, but we can do the spiritual work. where we still got all of our limbs and all of our people intact. That's the spiritual aspiration. There's something there that you've mentioned, which maybe we can go bit deeper into, this, which I shared, which is this kind of rabbi familiarity with death, which I don't think is necessarily for all rabbis, but it's definitely perhaps a unifying feature for rabbis and maybe other spiritual leaders of other faiths. of a degree of comfort. know, I said on the podcast, we're wreathed a few too many times in my own life. when my mom passed away in my late teens and my sister, just before I graduated from a vinegar school in 2015, the same year that you graduated, alongside other, other bereavements in my own life. He does sometimes feel in a slightly eerie way that that's terrain which is comfortable. And sometimes I joke with friends and colleagues when life is very even and easy, I kind of feel a little bit less at home in my life. And when there's kind of crisis erupting here or there, I'm like, ah, this I can deal with. But I mean, is that is that a good thing to kind of it's lovely to learn these texts with you. I can enter into the possibility that young people is really healthy for people to not wait for those moments of profound experience to get in the spiritual journey of somehow examining our own relationship with our destination point, which is our own death. But is there is that good in the rabbinic world to kind of be as comfortable with those? liminal spaces with the hospital bed as much as you are in the the succor or the synagogue Roni: Yeah, I mean I grew up as I said, with two rabbis for parents. So the conversation around the dinner table was often about funerals and shivers and ill health and what was going on in different communities. That was definitely part of our life growing up. I think a lot of my experience of loss was around the age of 1213 when my grandmother passed away my mother's mother and not that long afterwards Rabbi Hugo passed away he was the senior rabbi at West London synagogue and had been an important figure in our lives I think that was a very formative experience for me does it does it make me a better rabbi? I think that Having experience of the hard side of life enables you to speak to people. and when people are looking for comfort, connection, meaning, to be able to sp speak from a place which understands pain I think is helpful. But do you feel like you are able to do your work as rabbi better? Because you had these experiences? I mean obviously one wouldn't wish them on anybody, but do you think that they've transformed you to do your work in a better way? Oliver Joseph: No, it's an interesting question. Listen, just like you are here teaching in bravery and with your head held high about these texts, I think when people come to me with gruesome and difficult life problems, I just tend not to flinch, which I think is spiritually reassuring for people. when the person they go to in moments of need are people who aren't intimidated by some of those profound moments. The opposite is also true. I've said on this podcast before, when I went to university, my mama just passed away. I just left home and showed up in Leeds University. And I think I spent most of the first... year, if not two or three years of university just not telling anybody where I just come from, literally that my mom had just passed away. And I think on the on the rare moments where I did start to share my own story, people just often crumbled and often didn't know what to say. And that can be very destabilising when you're saying kind of something very simple, like nuts and bolts of your own story. And the kind of person mirroring that back to you is not really able to cope. Go on. Roni: Yeah. I think that's something we can really do as rabbis, to be able to listen. I just watched a movie last night, Ryan Johnson's Wake Up Dead Man on Netflix. And I love the knives out movies. And the main character of this film is a Catholic priest, and he's trying to solve this murder mystery with the detective. Anyway, he calls up this company to get this crucial clue that's gonna reveal the secret. And he's having this conversation, it's a very silly conversation, lots of laughter, and suddenly the woman says, Father, can you pray for me? And it turns out her mother's dying, and this whole other thing is going on, and the priest realizes he has to stop investigating this crime and be present for this woman whose mother's dying. And I have to say it felt incredibly real for me as a rabbi. That sometimes you you're having a conversation, you think it's about one thing, and then someone will reveal something to you. They're like they're having trouble with fertility, they're worried about losing their job, their loved one is not well, they've you know, they're having issues, whatever it is, they're having health issues, and you suddenly you're having a very different conversation and you you can and to be able to switch into pastoral support mode and to be able to be there and take it and listen and not run away. I think is an incredibly powerful thing that we can offer as rabbis, to be able to listen and say, your story is okay. It's not too much. Oliver Joseph: Yeah, I mean, if that's not the job well described, I think, I don't know what else is. As you know, also teach, have taught pastoral care, spiritual care for rabbis and community over quite a few years now. And I often talk about like the three dimensional conversation or the multi-layered conversation we talk about in the Jewish tradition, the pardes, the pshat, remez, drash, and sod, the different layers of how we read Torah. And I think the layers of Torah that are described there are also describing the layers of the emotional self. I often say to people, if you remember nothing else from these classes, remember that your responsibility is to acknowledge that when people come to you and start a conversation exactly as you described with the priest who's investigating the crime. the initial thing that they exhibit with you know, Rabbi and moving house or Rabbi, I'm about to lose my job or Rabbi even something somebody's going to pass away is often not the thing that they want to get to a thing that they might get to. If you can exhibit an openness of your own personal resilience, if you can exhibit kind of a deeper listening ear, then often you get to place with people and the aspect of not wobbling and being open to whatever that person has to say is really crucial. But the bit where we started is about Malach which is about ultimately being open to the lessons of the tradition, which are about some of the most crucial parts of what it is to be alive. And that feels in some way or another like the backbone. of what is, if you can deal with death and death uncertainty and the possibility of death and even the describing death transition, then maybe we're well equipped to be able to support people in deep and spiritual ways. Tell us, I wanna start to wrap up, but tell us how, what is it, on the back of these teachings, what does it mean to be a rabbi? And then I'd love to hear before you, before we log off, just what inspires you. Roni: One of things that's fascinating to me about that story with Ravah is that he on the one hand he's described as the being this best buddy with the angel of death. And on the other hand, when his own death is approaching, he is terrified. He actually can't face it and needs his brother's help to be able to face up to that reality. And I think that this speaks to me as a rabbi in a few ways, and one of those crucial ways is that. Yes we have experience. Yes we can listen. Yes we can be in the room. We have been in the room and we know what that's like. But it's also okay to be human and to be scared and to be worried and to not know what it's means. You know, just because we've been in the room supporting others doesn't mean that we've got it all and we've got all the answers and we can be confident and and strong and that it's okay to need help as well, actually. Rather needs help. He needs support. And he's able to do that for his teacher when his time comes, his brother can do it for him. And I think that's important to me, actually. I think sometimes as rabbis I should speak more personally, sometimes as a rabbi I feel the need to present myself as totally having it all together, like having it all neat and Oliver Joseph: Zip top worked out. Roni: yeah, and and really Yeah, just really like the having made it, got it, like understood it. And I think it's important that that's to remind myself and to to be okay with sharing that more the more messy side actually. I was thinking sometime you know, you mentioned the Nova Festival and how I was able to speak to the community in the weeks and months after that. And sometimes that involved standing up and saying, Look, I don't know what to say, actually. Like this is really painful and And the message from the Torah is really hard and there's a lot of pain and suffering and I'm not sure I've got the words for it this week. And I think for some people that was itself really helpful to hear, that we don't have all the answers, that we're not there. Oliver Joseph: And if I'm allowed to add, I believe that the rabbinic teachings and probably the Torah teachings as well are an approximation. Ultimately, none of these rabbis, at least in the way that I imagine, actually know anything of the Malach Hamavet in more than a spiritual approximation sense of the word. in part, the teachings kind of scream back to you, we also don't know, but we're also trying to understand. And by trying Roni: Right. Oliver Joseph: to understand, maybe we know more about the essence of spiritual life. Roni: Right, and in all the contradictoriness it's quite clear that this is not you know, you can't have all these stories together. they do contradict each other, they are a mass of contradictions. And if it's not clear yet, I don't think they literally happened like that. You know, I don't think any of these people literally met the angel of death. because for me that it's not literal, it's all it's a reflection of psychological reality. I'm definitely inspired by these strange beings in Jewish tradition. as you mentioned earlier, my book is coming out later this year, and it deals with Kabbalistic ideas in a fantasy modern setting. But it's really, in many ways, about a guy whose father dies and he's trying to figure out what that means for him and how to then live his life and make his own choices. given that his father has passed away and he has to make his own choices in life about who he wants to be. And that confrontation with death is the kind of background of that story. and I think yeah, we all need to make our own choices, who we're gonna be. Oliver Joseph: Thank you Rabbi Ronny. I mean, I thought that was fantastic to learn with you just for a few minutes and we look forward to the coming out of your new book, Radiance. But more than that, it's nice having you as a colleague and nice to be able to learn these texts together, which are not for everybody, but do really speak. something of the essence of Jewish life and something else the essence of kind of our own personal spiritual journeys, and something of what it is to be really Jewish. So thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing a little bit of that with us. Roni: It's really a pleasure and I wanna say thank you to you for being such a wonderful colleague. I always find that your questions push me to the next level. Push me to the next and that next level deeper, actually, into myself. I always feel much more connected with myself after discussing these things with you. So I really want to thank you for your collegiality and your friendship. Oliver Joseph: Hmm. That sounds really Jewish. Thanks, Roney. So what a fantastic podcast episode. It was a little bit on the edge of kind of my level of comfort to bring Rabbi Ronnie to this podcast. Not specifically Rabbi Ronnie, but the topic of Malach But we, as I described in the podcast, we studied this material at a Rabbi's retreat, a retreat that I had had in organizing, which was last month. And it was it was deep and it touched a corner of me. and it felt important to bring some of this material. It's not the regular conversation that you have around the Shabbat dinner table or regular conversation that happens inside Jewish community. But it's definitely an aspect exactly as we described of what it is to be a rabbi that part of the story is that we are supporting and engaged with people who are going through illness going through bereavement who have suffered bereavement who thinking about their own story of health and illness. And I do think that there is something of the Erwin Yalom kind of message that I bought to the part way through the podcast is that a lot of our emotional angst ultimately relates to this topic of how we interact and exchange with the topic of death and ultimately our own death. I found it moving to discuss this topic with Robert Rodney and I was also touched that he kind of pointed to the deepening of the conversation, the deepening of the learning of the text that we were able to do together. Listen, I don't want to be in a community that constantly dwells on this material and it should be, we should live in a world. God willing, it's just much less full of death and much less full of violence and sad stories. I can say that from a political angle and I can say that from a personal angle. can say from a personal angle just in the last few weeks, had a couple of stories that have somewhere or other arrived at my door of people who experienced a sudden loss and some tragic loss, one of the stories we spoke about in last week's. of Lasix podcast with Rabbi Miriam It's an aspect of the world that we live in and I can't personally do anything about the war and suffering that we experience in the world but I can stand side by side with people who are somewhere and other suffering and somewhere other asking big questions of their own life. And exactly what Rabbi Ronnie said that by way of these teachings, we can have a kind of softer landing and a softer introduction experience of the topic in a place where we are naturally and humanly disinclined to talk about death to talk about the ultimate place where we go to after our life finishes, when we get involved in some of these Talmudic discussions, we're able to just talk about the topic from a slightly more removed place. And that's probably important because ultimately exactly as we described in the podcast, when it comes to Tisha Ba'av, which we're about to mark in the Jewish calendar, just before this podcast comes out and when it gets to Yom Kippur, which will come in a couple of months time, the big fast day, well, the two big fast days in the Jewish calendar. somewhere rather we are asked to interact with this material in order to find our own way to some kind of equilibrium, some of peace and tranquility with the aspect of death. At the point at which we move beyond some of that fear, hopefully we live a healthier, fuller and better life. Thanks for listening along. I hope you found the episode interesting and of meaning. I certainly did with those moments of learning with Rabbi Rani. Thanks for listening to Really Jewish. hope you got something out of it. Please join us again. Thank you to Oiva Voi for our new ish musical intro and outro to this podcast. Listen to their single back to my roots available on streaming platforms. We are really excited to have you along for this journey. We're building this from the wheels up. We're six months into this podcast in summer of 26, which is really exciting for us. We still rely on support from people in the community to make this podcast possible including some of the tech which has failed if you're watching on the video just in the last few minutes. So thank you to our editor and producer Sophia who helps us along and if you want to support that work and support our capacity to produce this podcast please like and share this podcast wherever you listen to the podcast. share clips of it on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and feel free to donate to us regularly on the Patreon platform or just give me a call and say you'd like to support this project. I'm Rabbi Oliver, thank you so much for listening to the Really Jewish Podcast. See you next week.