Latest / In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch / Sarah Hurwitz

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Sarah Hurwitz · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

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I am Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and
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you're listening to In These Times.
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My guest today spent nearly a decade at the very center of American political
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life as a senior White House speech writer, Sarah Hurwitz, crafted messages
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for President Barack Obama and later.
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For First Lady Michelle Obama helping Mrs. Obama deliver some of her most
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memorable and impactful words, but Sarah's most meaningful writing for
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her and for the Jewish community has come since leaving government service
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in her mid thirties, almost on a whim.
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She signed up for an introduction to Judaism class and discovered the
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wisdom of the tradition she thought she already knew and had written off.
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Sarah told that story in her acclaimed first book.
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Here all along, finding meaning, spirituality, and a deeper
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connection to life in Judaism.
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And now in her new book as a Jew, reclaiming our story from those who
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blame, shame, and try to erase us.
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Sarah confronts how American culture, antisemitism, and the challenges of
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our times distort Jewish identity.
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And calls on young Jews to reclaim it with pride.
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Sarah, it's an honor to have you on the podcast today.
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Welcome to in these Times.
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Thank you so much.
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It's such a pleasure to be here.
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What a great author, lucid and eloquent author you are.
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I want to talk to you about your new book, which just came out.
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It's called as a Jew, but beforehand, if I can just, uh, share with our audience
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some of your, uh, background, you're.
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Speech writer, you pay a lot of attention to words.
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Actually, it's one of the reasons you're such a eloquent writer.
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What brought you into that vocation?
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Why The emphasis on writing speech is communicating through words.
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Well, you know, it's funny, I actually got my start in politics
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and speech writing as an intern and vice president Alleg Gore's speech
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writing office in the summer of 1998.
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So I'm kind of dating myself and the writers I worked for helped me get my
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first couple of jobs out of college, which were kind of junior speech writing jobs.
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And, you know, I wound up working on a bunch of presidential campaigns.
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Uh, three of them were losing campaigns, but then one, finally, the Obama
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campaign was actually a winning campaign.
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And while I was there to write for him, I helped Mrs. Obama with a speech
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in 2008, her Democratic Convention speech, and we really hit it off.
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And when he actually won, which was a new experience for me, I. We went
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to the White House and I was there writing for President Obama, but I
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realized I missed writing for Mrs.
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Obama.
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So I made kind of an unusual White House career move in that I moved
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from writing for the president to writing for the First Lady.
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And I did that for most of the eight years at the Obama administration.
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And when you started out, did you intend to be an author or to be a speech writer?
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Not at all.
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That internship was just kind of fortuitous in many ways, and I realized
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that, you know, at the age of 22, 23, it's really one of the most exciting
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jobs you can have in politics.
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I definitely didn't intend to be an author.
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I actually don't really love writing, believe it or not.
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I find it very hard and stressful.
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I, I much prefer.
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Doing things like this, you know, conversations, speaking events.
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But, you know, oftentimes I found that writing, you know, sometimes you have a
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book length thing that you wanna say, and so I wound up writing a couple of books.
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I like to talk to, uh, people in our vocation because of course, I, and most
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rabbis, we spend a lot of time writing and thinking, you know, spending time
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with ourselves inside of our own heads.
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And I can identify with that.
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Very painful process of writing.
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And I always, uh, enjoy hearing from people that I'm not the only
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one who struggles and suffers over every word and every sentence.
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I, I really do.
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I think people are often surprised that I don't like writing.
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They assume if you're a writer, that you must just sit down and just
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experience such a joy and bliss, and it's, uh, I find it very hard.
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I find it very.
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I write terrible drafts and then I spend hundreds of hours rewriting them
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and rewriting them and rewriting them.
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So it's a really tedious and hard process.
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So you've, uh, written speeches or contributed to speeches of very
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major American figures, contemporary and even historic figures.
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Are there any particular phrases from these figures that you've written for
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that we would know that came from you or that, or that you had a role in?
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Well, I can tell you one that didn't come from me, which was
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when they go low, we go high.
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Mrs. Obama is a very famous line.
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I wish I could claim credit for that, but actually she came up with it.
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All I did was just type into the speech.
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So, you know, when you write for people who are as amazing as she is,
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she's someone who knows who she is and knows what she wants to say, and
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she's pretty brilliant writer and speaker and thinker in her own right.
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So, you know, a lot of the, the work of being a, a speech writer for someone
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like that is really more of a partner.
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It's really more of a collaboration.
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So there's no particular phrase that, that we would know that
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the average American would know.
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That you can say I that came from my brain.
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If, if there were, I would not claim credit for it.
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Right.
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That's a good approach, especially in politics.
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Uh, getting to your book, this is the second book on Judaism that I am aware of.
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The first book, which was a big hit, was called Here All Along.
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And it's kind of, I guess, your loving testament to Judaism and
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why and how you return to Judaism.
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And you have some of that in your new book.
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I think it just came out.
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But the, uh, subtitle is reclaiming our story from those who blame,
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shame, and try to erase us.
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What motivated you to write this second book?
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What does it add to the first book and.
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Just give us a background of what was the additional urgency that
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you felt that you needed to write this second book about Judaism?
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And I was impressed with, of course, I'm a rabbi, so I I love your knowledge and, you
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know, your, your return to the sources of Judaism and your emphasis on how important
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Jewish education and Jewish literacy is.
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But also just, you know, from the perspective of the Jewish community,
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which you also relate to quite extensively in both books, why did
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you think there was another book that had to be written about this?
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Yeah, so, you know, I grew up like many American Jews, where Judaism
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for me was, you know, three boring holidays and one fun, one, Hanukkah.
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It was two texts, the prayer book I held in my hand and the Torah
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at the front of the synagogue.
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And then a handful of universalistic values don't lie,
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cheat, steal, kill, et cetera.
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And you know, that wasn't particularly compelling to
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me, so I kind of walked away.
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And then in my mid thirties, as you pointed out, I started learning and I
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was just blown away by what I found.
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You know, 4,000 years of wisdom about the human condition, about how to be
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a good person and lead a worthy life and find deep spiritual connection.
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And I just thought like, where has this been all my life?
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My first book as You, I think beautifully put it, it was a
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love letter to Jewish tradition.
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It was me trying to share what I'd found with Jews like me, and it actually
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turned out that many very traditional and observant Jews really liked the first book
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as well, because they felt like it was a fresh take on many things that they had
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been thinking about their whole lives.
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So that was my first book.
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And you know, it's funny, in recent years there are really two things
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that sparked the second book.
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The first was that I. Completed training to be a hospital
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chaplain, just as a volunteer.
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And you know, chaplaincy is multifaith.
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There are chaplains of every.
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Tradition, and they're also secular humanist chaplains.
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But I was sort of struck by how Christian the training was, even
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when it was ostensibly interfaith.
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Right?
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You know, we would talk about our ministry.
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I was told that prayer is, you know, God, please heal so and so who's
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right here in front of me and can hear me praying spontaneously out loud.
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I was told that's universal as prayer.
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Everyone prays that way.
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And I would try to explain that while it's fine for Jews to pray
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that way, we typically don't.
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And they'd say, no, no, as long as you don't say Jesus.
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It is universal prayer.
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Like that's interesting.
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And I begin to think about, you know, how many ideas that I
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have, how much language images.
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Concepts I have that are really Christian, even if we think of them
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as universalists, like the idea that spirituality is that our bodies are
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bad and carnal and degraded, inferior, and there's kind of a spirit that's
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separate, our souls are separate.
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This body soul duality, that is really not a central idea in Judaism.
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It is in Christianity, but again, we live in a. Christian dominant society.
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And so we think that that is what spirituality is.
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The second thing that prompted this book was that I went to a college campus
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probably a year before October 7th, and I was speaking at the Hillel to a bunch of
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Jewish students, and one of them raised her hand and said, how did you deal with
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antisemitism when you were in college?
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And I literally responded, what?
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Like, I, I actually didn't understand the question, and when I finally did, I said
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I didn't, not once, not a single time did I deal with antisemitism in college.
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Then the kids started sharing these stories and I asked for a show of
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hands of how many kids had felt uncomfortable on campus because they
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were Jewish and a lot of kids raised their hands, and this was happening
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at a time of the post 2021 Gaza War, where there was just this increasingly
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kind of anti-Zionist discourse online.
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That was really troubling to me, having followed, you know, this kind of right
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wing antisemitism of Charlottesville and other things in 20 16, 20 17.
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I began to really do some thinking about my Jewish identity.
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For most of my life, my Jewish identity consisted of a series
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of caveats and apologies.
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I would say, oh, I'm, I'm Jewish, but I'm just a cultural Jew.
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Now, look, if you relate to Judaism through culture, like how beautiful,
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you know, some Jews relate to Judaism through Jewish thought, music, art,
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history, literature, Israel, like that is a gorgeous way to be Jewish.
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I knew none of that.
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Or I'd say, well, I'm an ethnic Jew.
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Which is utter nonsense because Jews are of just about every ethnicity.
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So that's a meaningless statement.
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Or I would say, well, social justice is my Judaism, which again, there are Jews who
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relate to Judaism through social justice 'cause they actually really know what the
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tradition says, and they spend their lives trying to embody that with how they act.
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And that is stunningly beautiful.
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However, I knew nothing about what Judaism said about social justice or I'd
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say like, oh, I remember the Holocaust.
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I, I remember persecution.
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Which again, like, what a depressing Jewish identity.
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And you know, just the apologetics.
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They're like, I'm Jewish, but not that Jewish, but what if I was that Jewish?
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What if instead of social justice being my Judaism, like Judaism was my Judaism,
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well, why was I so worried about that?
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And this book is really an answer to those questions.
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It's a book where I go back through history to try to understand where this
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Jewish identity of mine had come from.
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And what I began to realize is that my Jewish identity had really been
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very much infiltrated and warped by 2000 years of antisemitism and anti
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Judaism, and by 200 years of Jews in a very understandable effort.
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To be safe, you know, to take advantage of all the opportunities of the modern world.
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There was really an effort to assimilate, to kind of shape Judaism into kind of a
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Christian shape in order to be accepted and safe, which, thank God they did that
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because I think you and I are Jews today in large part because of what those Jews
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did, but there was a real loss to that.
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You said you began to learn, I think you said in your thirties.
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Mm-hmm.
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Was there something specific that prompted that, or you just decided one day,
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wouldn't it be nice to do some Judaism?
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I really, I wish I had a really powerful story.
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Like it was this great spiritual journey or awakening.
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You were on the road
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to Damascus and Yeah, no, it's not.
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Believe it or not, there was, I did not have an epiphany.
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I did not, you know, see the lights.
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Um, it was actually more, I, I broke up with someone who I'd been dating.
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You know, it was a very hard breakup and I was very lonely and anxious,
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and I happened to hear about an intro to Judaism class at the local
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Jewish Community Center, and I really signed up just to fill time.
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Like there really was not a lot of thought.
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It was like, oh, I'm a cultural Jew.
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Maybe I'll learn about my culture.
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You know, it really could have been a class on just about anything.
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It happened to me at a time that was convenient for me.
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I had very low expectations, but what I found was pretty extraordinary.
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I wanna pursue that in a moment because if we can capture that, I think your
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description of your background is so relevant to millions of American Jews.
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Yes.
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And if we can capture the transition that you experienced.
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And bottle it in some way, we can do a much better job.
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Just before I get to that, you mentioned, uh, you didn't really do antisemitism,
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uh, when you were on campus, and was that because you didn't care or there wasn't
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the kind of antisemitism that were there?
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Just wasn't antis.
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I mean, in the 1990s I went to Harvard.
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Not once, not one single time did I ever feel the least bit uncomfortable
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as a Jew, not once, which I say this to college students today, and they just
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look at me like they don't believe me.
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They really, they, they can't quite wrap their minds around that.
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Well, I don't want to date you, but that wasn't too long ago.
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Oh, it was the 1990s.
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It was, it was, it was a pretty long time ago.
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But not, not that long ago.
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Not that long ago.
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Still
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it, it's sobering and eyeopening that
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it is.
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You were there, you spent four years at Harvard.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So you lived there for four years at a formative time in your life and.
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You would've responded had there been the, of course, even, of course,
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even partial antisemitism along the lines of what we're seeing now.
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Yes.
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I also went to law school in the early two thousands, and again, not once
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did I experience anything at Harvard.
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So what does it say about Harvard?
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What does it say about the country that in that short period of time,
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things have changed so dramatically.
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I think we see this throughout history.
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You know, things are fine until they're not.
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Things can change I think very, very quickly.
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So I'm not completely shocked by this.
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I think we got a little bit.
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Confused in America where we had this kind of 80 year break from
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history and we just thought like, oh, this is what's normal now.
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When actually, I think as, as Darrah Horn and many others have pointed out like this
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actually that 80 years was not normal.
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That was an aberration from the norm.
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Something I've been thinking about in recent years is
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like, oh, we're Jews again.
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We're not just like Americans of the Jewish religion,
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you know, we're Jews again.
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And I think that's, um, it's sobering.
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I sometimes wish my bubby were still alive, so I could ask her
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like, what did you do back then?
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How did you do this?
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Let me ask you, uh, you wrote that you felt ashamed, not on your ignorance,
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which you freely admitted, but your arrogance, that you assumed that thousands
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of years of Jewish tradition amounted to what you learned in Hebrew school.
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Could you expand on that for us?
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I've been thinking a lot about how, I would never ever say, oh, I think I
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know everything I need to know about the Indigenous peoples of America
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based on what I learned in sixth grade social studies or, you know, I
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think I know everything I need to know about Islam based on what I learned
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in my ninth grade world culture class.
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Like that's absurd, right?
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To say that you know enough about.
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A people, a tradition, a heritage, a culture, a religion,
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a nationality based on what you learned when you were 10 or 15.
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I mean, I, I would never disrespect someone else's
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background like that, ever yet.
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I was just so comfortable doing it to my own dismissing, just assuming nothing
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was there, proudly going around, kind of trashing it, um, because I could,
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and, you know, no one really stopped me.
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And I, I think I understand now how much I was parroting.
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Very, very old canards about Jews.
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You know, there really was, I think 2000 years ago, early Christianity did kind
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of inject into the Western world's mind.
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This idea of the Jew as Demonically powerful.
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I mean, just very, very powerful.
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Diabolically, depraved, evil, bad blood, thirsty, and in a conspiracy to hurt you.
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And I think those ideas, you know, they really do run very much through history.
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And I think in some ways I had internalized those ideas and was
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always trying to kind of convince people that I was otherwise.
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Do you think some of those ideas are transmitted even in ways that people
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aren't aware of and that they kind of project that on the Jewish state as well?
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And not that you know that that Israeli policy is not, uh, subject
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of legitimate criticism, but.
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Do you think that that when, when people relate to the Jewish state, to Israel,
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they're carrying some of those ancient tropes that they may not even be aware
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of themselves that they're articulating?
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Yeah, and I think, you know, criticism of Israel, of especially
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of its current leadership.
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It's not a problem.
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I spend a lot of my time criticizing the leadership of Israel, as is just
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about every American Jew I know as do the majority of Israeli Jews, right?
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Like that's criticism of a, of a country's actions, policies,
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ideas is really not a problem.
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But I just wanna distinguish that from accusations, from name calling.
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You know, when you have college students saying things like from water to water,
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Palestine should be Arab, or Israelis or Nazis, that's not criticism right.
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Nor would it be if Jewish students were saying from water to water, Israel should
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be Jewish, or Palestinians are terrorists.
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Those phrases are ugly, hateful, elimination and racism, period.
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Do you think they're grounded, especially in the West?
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I mean the, the Muslim world has its own, you know, background and
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relationship with, uh, the Jewish people.
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But in the West in particular,
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yeah, I do very much think they are grounded in these 2000 year old tropes.
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And I think the way that you see this is an understanding that antisemitism, it's
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not just a personal prejudice, which I think we often mistakenly believe it is.
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It's not like, oh, I think.
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Jews are dirty, cheap, bad, crass.
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I don't want one in my club.
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I don't want my daughter to marry one.
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Right?
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That kind of antisemitism is really not what you're seeing today.
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The kind you're seeing today is a political kind of antisemitism.
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Um, Yossi Klein Vy expresses this very well, where it's the idea
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that like, whatever the bad thing is, that's what the Jews are.
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A philosopher named Bernard Harrison, I think, expresses it very well.
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As in addition, which he actually says, it often takes the form of
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we, the, the great majority are doing this grand moral project.
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And the only thing stopping us are these terrible Jews.
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You know, we, the Christians are, are Christianizing, the Roman Empire.
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The only thing stopping us, these Jews who we refuse to convert, we the
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communists, are bringing about the brotherhood of man and the revolution.
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The only thing stopping us, these capitalist Jews, we the
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Germans, are bringing about this great Aryan Fatherland.
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The only thing stopping us these non-A race polluting Jews today in
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the us, you'll actually see this on both the right and the left.
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On the right.
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You see it take the form of we white Christian Americans are bringing back
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white Christian civilization and the only thing stopping us are these.
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Jews who are importing black and brown immigrants to take
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the place of white people.
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That is an incredibly racist and antisemitic, bonkers conspiracy theory
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called the Great Replacement Theory.
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Very common on the right, on the left, you have, we the majority are doing the great
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project of anti-colonialism, anti-racism.
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The only thing stopping us are these racist colonialists Zionists, which
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is a polite way of saying Jews.
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So I think these ideas, they reflect the same themes going back 2000 years.
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But you know, the truth is that antisemitism gets upgrades.
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The medieval Christian clergyman didn't think he was a bigot.
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He was rejecting Jews based on century's worth of very sophisticated theology,
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saying that they were depraved and demonic and devilish and had killed Jesus.
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You know, the 19th century European scholar did not think
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that he was being antisemitic.
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You know, he wasn't saying that Jews killed Jesus.
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That was religious, superstitious, nonsense.
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No, no.
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He had science that said that Jews were polluting the race.
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So.
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Got an upgrade today.
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No one is going to say, you know, in polite circles, the Jews killed
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Jesus, or Jews are racially inferior.
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Those are appalling to them, but they will say that, you know, Israel is a
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colonial, genocidal, apartheid state.
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That's actually okay.
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The problem isn't the Jews religion.
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It isn't their race today.
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The problem is the Jews nation.
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Let me, uh, go back to, uh, where you spend much of your book on Jewish
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values and, uh, the Jewish community.
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We didn't do so well with you as a product of religious school education.
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So you've, in the meantime, you've written two books on this.
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You've done some deep thinking about, uh, your own Jewish education.
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This, of course, is something that we obsess about.
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In synagogues as, uh, rabbis all the time.
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Really everything we do at the end of the day, I've said this before, to our, uh,
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community, literally everything is in one way or another connected to the youth with
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the intention of instilling in them strong Jewish values, which you can't do without
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a certain level of literacy, of knowledge.
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All of which is very difficult for us because the structure of the American
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Jewish community in the non-Orthodox community, which is the vast majority
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of American Jews who regard Judaism kind of like an extracurricular activity
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rather than, you know, the essence of it.
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So get mindful of all of that.
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How do we do with you and your religious school and do you have recommendations
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for us on how we can do better?
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I really don't think that Hebrew school is the problem.
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I really don't.
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I think people are doing the very best they can with Hebrew school.
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It is not the job of a Hebrew school teacher or a rabbi to make someone's
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kid Jewish in two hours a week.
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It's not possible.
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Even the most gifted educator cannot do that.
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It is the job of parents to raise Jewish children, and I have such empathy for
21:25
parents, especially those who grew up like me, because what happens is,
21:29
you know, if you grew up like me, you have this very, as Rabbi Larry
21:33
Hoffman says pediatric form of Judaism, you then have a kid and think, uhoh,
21:38
somebody needs to make this kid Jewish.
21:39
Not gonna be me.
21:40
I don't know anything.
21:41
I'll sort of just offload this onto this poor Hebrew school teacher
21:44
and say, you make my kid Jewish.
21:46
That's not something that's possible.
21:49
The reality is I know we focus a great deal on the youth, and that's
21:52
obviously incredibly important.
21:54
Camp, Jewish Day School, Hebrew school, these are really important parts of kids'.
21:59
Jewish identity development.
22:00
I'm, I'm a huge fan of all of them, but at the end of the day, the critical
22:04
piece is really what's happening at home.
22:06
And I had to grow up as a Jew 10 years ago.
22:09
I had to grow up.
22:10
I was a childlike Jew.
22:12
I had to grow up, and that meant I had to read some books.
22:15
I hate to break it to you.
22:16
There is no easy way to do this.
22:18
You gotta take an intro class, you have to read some books,
22:20
you have to do some learning.
22:22
This is not a, like take X into your heart and then y happens.
22:26
That's not what Judaism is.
22:27
It's not like take, you know, Olam into your heart and feel it in you're a Jew.
22:31
That's not how Judaism works.
22:33
There is a real body of, of knowledge, there is a whole way of engaging that
22:37
is Jewish and it does require some work.
22:40
But, and I, I really wanna push back on this like.
22:44
Self-flagellation we do, where it's like, we're bad.
22:47
We're screwing this up.
22:48
It's our fault.
22:48
We're, oh my gosh, it's the Hebrew school teachers.
22:50
No, it's the rabbis.
22:51
No, it's this like, it's actually what we're dealing with is
22:54
a much bigger problem, which was how we entered modernity.
22:57
You know, if you go back 250 years to Western Europe in the 18 hundreds
23:01
where Jews were finally being given the privileges of citizenship.
23:04
You know, previously Jews had lived in insulated Jewish communities
23:07
where they just lived Jewish lives, you know, lived by a Jewish
23:10
calendar, spoke Jewish languages.
23:12
Now suddenly they're integrating into society and trying to
23:14
figure out how to be Jewish.
23:16
And Jews, back then, you know, they didn't wanna leave their Judaism behind.
23:20
It's actually really amazing.
23:21
They could have just become nothing or become Christians, but they said, no,
23:24
we wanna be Jews, but we're gonna have to create a form of Judaism that lets us
23:28
assimilate into the modern world as well.
23:30
The form of Judaism they created.
23:32
In many ways, it kind of downplayed the things that
23:35
didn't have a Christian parallel.
23:36
You know, it really downplayed our post biblical textual tradition, 2,500 years
23:41
of commentary and debate and wisdom that doesn't really have a Christian parallel.
23:45
We kind of ripped that out of Judaism and focused on like prophetic morality
23:50
and things like that, and I think we're dealing with the legacy of that today.
23:54
We're, we're dealing with the, the legacy of this Judaism that
23:57
I think for many people feels a little bit lacking in content.
24:00
And I think we have to kind of engage in this project of reclaiming what we've
24:04
lost, which many, many Jews have been engaged in, in America for decades.
24:08
And these are the people whose books I've read, whose classes I've taken,
24:11
whose events I've attended, and who've really inspired me to write my books.
24:17
You know, I, I, I, I always think of, uh, the Passover Seder.
24:20
Remember the four, uh, children and one of the kids, he doesn't even
24:25
know enough to know what to ask,
24:26
right?
24:27
The solution according to the tradition, according to the rabbis,
24:31
is teach the kids some Judaism.
24:35
It never dawned on any previous Jewish generation that there would arise
24:41
in generation of Jewish parents.
24:44
Who actually didn't know enough to teach the kids some Judaism, the
24:48
assumption was, okay, the kid doesn't know what to ask, doesn't know what
24:51
to believe, teach the kid something.
24:53
And so we now have a generation of Jews, which is really,
24:56
it puts Judaism on its head.
24:58
It reverses everything.
25:00
We have a generation of parents who don't know enough Judaism to teach their kids.
25:04
Some of them still want their kids.
25:07
To be Jewish.
25:08
Not all of them, right?
25:10
A lot of them, we don't see more than 50% of American Jews don't affiliate
25:13
at all with any Jewish institution.
25:16
But of the ones we see, many of them, they're not against Judaism,
25:19
heaven forbid, but you know, it's not a priority for them and.
25:23
What might bring them to synagogue, and I'm not talking about all the
25:27
people obviously, but a significant percentage of them, you know, is uh,
25:31
is various other factors including say bar mitzvah and all the kids.
25:35
And that's one of the reasons why when the last kid in the family
25:39
is Bar Mitzvah, they leave.
25:41
'cause it's also expensive to affiliate, which is another issue for
25:45
the American Jewish community, right?
25:46
So, um, where do we even begin?
25:50
With a generation that upended 3000 years of Jewish assumptions, that
25:56
the parents know enough and want vigorously enough for their kids to be
26:01
Jewish, that they will instill Jewish, not only this Jewish sentiment of.
26:07
You belong to the Jewish people, but there's no identity formation without at
26:12
least a modicum of knowledge of literacy in the thing you want to identify with.
26:19
Right?
26:20
I mean, it's such a difficult problem because if you grew up like I did
26:25
where Judaism, again, you know, four holidays, three universalistic values,
26:29
two texts, why would you think that this has anything to say to you?
26:33
Why would you even bother?
26:35
Right?
26:35
It's, it's that, that, that first step is showing people like,
26:38
actually this has wisdom that is relevant right now to your life.
26:42
The ethics of modern secular culture are just so degraded.
26:45
They're so unimpressive.
26:46
You know, the self-help books, the TED Talks, whatever.
26:48
There, there's some stuff in there that is interesting and good, but I would really
26:52
argue that Jewish tradition has much deeper, more profound wisdom that will
26:55
actually help you live a much wealthier, more meaningful, more joyful life.
27:00
And I, I think if Jews could just see some of that wisdom.
27:03
They would be impressed.
27:05
They would wanna learn more.
27:06
I mean, that was certainly the case with me.
27:08
You know, I often hear Jews who've grown up with a very thick,
27:11
rich Judaism saying, no, no, no.
27:13
You gotta send them to a great Shabbat service.
27:15
You get 'em into a great Shabbat dinner, and then that's when they'll fall in love
27:19
maybe, but just to lovingly push back.
27:22
Or maybe they'll just be kind of uncomfortable and not really
27:24
know what's going on or be bored.
27:26
I'm just saying, you know, if someone had sort of focused on that with me,
27:30
that really wouldn't have been ideal.
27:31
You know, we even define our denominations kind of based on halachic
27:34
practice, and we keep trying to say, well, we'll reach the Jews by jamming
27:37
halachic practice in their face, and then they'll fall in love with it.
27:40
And my argument is actually, I think you're probably gonna be more likely
27:43
to bring people in with our radical countercultural transformational wisdom,
27:48
which is why I wrote my first book, and that was the entire purpose of
27:51
my first book, was to show Jews, hey.
27:53
There is something really extraordinary in here.
27:55
Both Jewish wisdom and embodied daily rituals that you can do to
28:00
make this wisdom come into your life community that you can build
28:03
to make your life more beautiful.
28:04
But if you want a prescription for Jews who wanna grow up, honestly, I recommend
28:09
take an intro to Judaism class, read a handful of intro to Judaism books, just
28:13
to get the contours, just to get the basic sense of like, okay, this is what this is.
28:18
Here's the general course of Jewish history texts, ideas.
28:22
And then dive into whatever lights your fire.
28:25
If Shabbat just seems so cool to you, go there.
28:28
Go deeply, practice Shabbat.
28:29
If you are really taken by Jewish spirituality, amazing.
28:32
There's an entire world of Jewish meditation retreats and other
28:35
kind of spiritual endeavors.
28:37
If you like arguing and studying law, amazing.
28:39
Do that.
28:40
But get the basics and then start learning more deeply in
28:42
whatever area really excites you.
28:44
Because all of Judaism is hyperlinked to all the rest of Judaism.
28:47
So if you're taking a deep dive into Shabbat, you're also going to
28:50
learn about a bunch of other things.
28:52
So I think that would really be my prescription.
28:54
And I, I tried to make this easy because I found learning about Judaism incredibly c.
28:59
It took me thousands of hours of learning, which no one has, nobody has this time.
29:04
So I was hoping that by writing my first book, I would save people the
29:07
time and they could spend, you know, nine hours reading or listening
29:09
to a book as opposed to thousands.
29:11
And then they could, they could sort of pursue their own path.
29:14
And I'll say my second book, I think it kind of remedies some holes in my first
29:18
book where I didn't really talk about Jewish history that much in my first book,
29:21
and I didn't really talk about Israel or Peoplehood that much in my first book.
29:24
So I think the two of them together will give you a pretty
29:27
good grounding to start learning.
29:29
So let me, uh, just press you a little bit.
29:32
Uh, I say this in the spirit of not, not self-flagellation, but because I
29:38
am interested to hear, uh, as much a variety of opinions as we can to maximize
29:44
and optimize our functioning as well.
29:46
Most American Jews.
29:49
Who identify with the Jewish community and affiliate with the Jewish
29:52
community are going to end up in synagogues at one point or another.
29:56
By far, more American Jews end up in synagogues than any other institution.
30:01
Whether the other institutions instill a deeper sense of Jewish
30:06
knowledge and identity is another question, but the reality is.
30:11
It's not likely to change.
30:13
Most American Jews are gonna end up in synagogues, those who do affiliate at all.
30:19
So we have a very heavy responsibility on us to optimize the Jewish experience
30:25
and to be able to at least pave some kind of pathway that will lead people
30:32
in a positive direction for Judaism.
30:34
Along the lines of what you're describing.
30:37
Do you have any advice for us on how we can do a better job?
30:40
Yeah, actually I do.
30:42
I'll say for most of my life, my only points of contact with Judaism were
30:46
two days a year in a synagogue and a Seder, and that was kind of my Judaism.
30:51
So I, I think those two days a year in a synagogue are very important.
30:55
And I, you know, I see rabbis just working so hard on their sermons,
30:59
like it's really, like, it is such an important thing 'cause that they
31:02
know that these are the days where they're actually gonna see people who
31:04
they don't see the rest of the year.
31:06
And you know, I think that many people come to synagogue really
31:10
wanting to hear those traditional prayers and melodies, right?
31:13
I don't, I would never say, oh, ditch the service.
31:15
That's ridiculous, right?
31:16
People want that.
31:16
That's very important.
31:18
But I think in a number of synagogues, the truth is like you could be reading
31:22
an Israeli phone book and people wouldn't really know the difference.
31:24
You know, once you get past the really iconic prayers and melodies,
31:29
there's kind of a couple hours of just people kinda muttering along,
31:33
don't really know what's happening.
31:34
And what I wonder is maybe could.
31:36
Some of that time be used for education.
31:38
Could some of that time be used to say, you know what guys?
31:42
I, I know that you know, for some of you, you're not really connecting right now.
31:45
That's okay.
31:46
You know, many Jews don't connect through synagogue, but actually, you may
31:49
not know this, but actually resetting, scripted, communal prayers together in
31:53
a synagogue, it's actually not the only central form of Jewish spiritual practice.
31:57
In fact, another equally important, if not more important form of
32:00
Jewish spiritual practice is study.
32:02
It's actually engaging with the wisdom of our ancestors as we
32:05
try to discern the echoes of the divine voice through history.
32:08
And so, you know what?
32:09
Let's try that for 10 minutes, for 20 minutes.
32:11
Let's like, here's some, here's some wisdom I wanted
32:14
to share with you right now.
32:15
Like this is what we have in our tradition, and if this excites
32:17
you, here's some next steps.
32:19
Here's a class we're gonna do as a community.
32:21
Here's a book.
32:21
We're gonna read it as a community.
32:23
And again.
32:24
I, I suggest this with such humility because I know many congregants
32:27
will freak out and say, no, no, no.
32:29
It needs to be the way it's been for the past 40 years.
32:31
We can't touch a thing.
32:32
And I, I really get that.
32:34
But I do wonder could there be 20 or 30 minutes?
32:36
Could there be something where we just say, okay, guys.
32:39
We're in a moment where many of us have not grown up, right?
32:42
We haven't become adult Jews, and this is the year where we as
32:45
a community, we're gonna do it.
32:46
We're gonna become adult Jews.
32:48
And I say this as someone who had to become an adult Jew myself.
32:50
So I say this with no judgment whatsoever.
32:53
This is my own experience, and it just takes some effort, and it would
32:56
be helpful, I think, to have the guidance of a rabbi and the support
32:59
of a community in doing this work.
33:02
You've written about your own sense of, uh, spirituality.
33:06
Could you expand on that?
33:07
I think you, you, you wrote about, uh, this concept of du to uh, kind of
33:12
practice some isolation and enhance your, uh, spiritual capacities.
33:18
It's hard for modern westerners.
33:22
To practice that dimension of the human personality.
33:26
Since we're in an era of such emphasis on, on rationalization and evidence and
33:32
science, I find a lot of people say to me, uh, they're spiritual, but they're
33:36
not religious by which I. I understand that they mean, you know, with all
33:40
their criticisms of the bureaucracy and the institutionality of, uh, religious
33:46
institutions, which kind of turns them off or they don't really want to
33:49
think about how the sausage is made.
33:51
Um, the kosher sausage, um, of course.
33:55
I think what they mean, I would like to think that what they mean by that
33:58
is that they have the basic human needs and impulses that human beings
34:04
always had that drew them to music and drew them to poetry and drew them to
34:09
philosophy and, you know, and, and the basic human condition hasn't changed.
34:14
The construct and the rhetoric has changed and the environment and the
34:19
emphasis on, uh, different values change, and I think that makes it more
34:22
difficult for people to express the kind of spirituality that you wrote about.
34:26
So, uh, help us, uh, help expand on that.
34:29
Help us understand that.
34:30
Sure.
34:31
So this was, uh, something I read about my first book, write a Chapter about God, and
34:35
speaking from my own experience, I think the reason why I so struggled to have that
34:39
kind of spiritual connection was that I.
34:41
Again, you know, points of contact with Judaism, two services a year where there
34:46
seems to be this kind of all powerful reward and punishment being in the sky.
34:50
You know, maybe gendered male or maybe we've like non-gendered
34:54
this God now in modern times.
34:56
But you know, it was clearly a being who controls things and I just don't buy that.
35:00
Just don't buy it, never will.
35:01
The idea of an interventionist God in charge of everything,
35:04
that's just not plausible to me.
35:05
And so I thought, well, okay.
35:07
I'm an atheist or I'm agnostic, right?
35:09
Those are the choices.
35:10
But actually in Jewish tradition, those are not the choices at all.
35:14
You know, in Jewish tradition, we really have a fundamental humility
35:16
when it comes to the divine.
35:18
You know, we understand that we are talking about something
35:20
infinite and ineffable, and so far beyond the capacity of our little
35:23
human brains to comprehend that.
35:25
To say things like God wants X or God thinks Y is almost to create an idol.
35:30
It's to shrink God to the proportions that our tiny little
35:33
human brain can comprehend.
35:35
So if you look back at Jewish tradition, you see all different
35:38
kind of concepts of the divine.
35:40
You see ancient rabbis insisting in one breath that God is beyond time, space,
35:44
human imagination, incomprehensible.
35:46
And in the next breath that like God is your friend who you can chitchat with.
35:49
Like both of those things can't be true.
35:52
But they didn't really care.
35:53
It was like, that's okay 'cause we don't really know.
35:55
And so I think that.
35:57
Stepping away from what you think you see of God in the prayer book and
36:00
actually maybe beginning to learn a little bit about what Jewish tradition
36:02
actually has to say about the divine, which I tried to kind of do in my, my
36:06
God chapter, to give people a sense of like, oh, there were Jewish thinkers
36:10
who said that God is everything.
36:11
You are God.
36:11
I'm God.
36:12
The idea that there's any disconnect between us, it's an illusion, right?
36:15
We, we are all part of God.
36:17
There's Jewish thinkers who say that God is what arises.
36:20
They're between two people in deep relation, deep, each one being
36:23
fully vulnerable to the other, fully seeing the other's humanity.
36:26
In those moments of deep connection, what arises between those people is God.
36:29
That's Martin Buber, many conceptions like that to choose from.
36:32
I think about when I do chaplaincy work in a hospital and I am, you
36:35
know, by a patient's bedside, just deeply, deeply present with them.
36:40
Really fully seeing them in their humanity.
36:42
You know, to me that is a moment of the divine right.
36:44
There is something deeply holy and sacred in that moment.
36:47
That is a moment when I feel connected.
36:49
It has nothing to do with a man in the sky.
36:51
And so I think I would kind of urge Jews to just like break out of this man in
36:55
the sky cage that we seem to think we've put God in, but we actually haven't.
36:59
And to start to explore the many, many options and ways of feeling and
37:03
experiencing that Jewish tradition offers.
37:08
My last question to you, Sarah, is, so we're starting on a new year.
37:13
Where would you like the Jewish community to be?
37:15
What would you like to see on the eve of next Rosh Hashanah a year from now?
37:20
So I really appreciate the many people who are working so hard to fight antisemitism.
37:26
You know, I, I really, it's, it's obviously a huge problem and I, I,
37:30
I, I do have a lot of appreciation and gratitude toward them.
37:34
I also think that like there are 16 million of us with an M that's
37:38
literally the size of like a Chinese city and not even the largest one,
37:41
like the fifth largest city in China.
37:43
And there are 8 billion others in the world.
37:45
And I think this idea that we as Jews are going to control what billions of people
37:50
think, I'm not sure that that's true.
37:53
I think oftentimes antisemitism comes and goes based on whether there's a
37:56
plague or an economic crisis or something else that triggers these old ways of
38:00
thinking, and people decide they need Jews to blame for their problems.
38:03
So.
38:04
This idea that like if we just had the right tweet, the right slogan, the right
38:08
campaign, we would end antisemitism.
38:10
I'm not sure that's true.
38:11
I think that that way of thinking is kind of like trying to
38:14
bail out a flood with buckets.
38:16
Yeah.
38:16
It's certainly worth trying and maybe if enough of us do this, we can make
38:20
a difference, but I, I would really hope that our community over the next
38:23
year, that we can just focus more of our energy into building an arc.
38:26
Into, and the arc meaning really engaging in deep Jewish learning, really engaging
38:31
in acts of deep Jewish community where we come together in various ways.
38:36
You know, I, I really think that to be a Jew is to be different.
38:39
That has been our value proposition for thousands of years.
38:42
We came along and said like, actually monotheism.
38:44
Very different way of thinking and one that has stood the test of time.
38:48
We said that all people are created in the image of God.
38:51
An idea that underlies liberalism, democracy, human rights law.
38:55
You know, we have this different way of thinking and being that I think still
38:58
has something to say to the world today.
39:00
And rather than trying so hard to fight those who hate us, I'd
39:04
love for us to dig more deeply.
39:06
Into who we are into, into our difference.
39:08
And this is actually something I say to college students all the time.
39:11
I say, you know, if the Climate Club or the Reproductive Rights Club won't let you
39:16
be a member because you're a Zionist and they have like a no Zionist allowed vibe,
39:21
well, you know, you try to talk to them.
39:22
I think it's always worth reaching out, trying to have a conversation.
39:25
But if they really won't let you in, then star your own club.
39:28
Start your own climate club and you make it welcoming to everyone
39:31
of every background and belief.
39:33
Do not exclude anyone from your club.
39:34
Anyone can come in as long as they care about climate change, and then
39:38
you make the best climate change club that that campus has ever seen.
39:41
This is what Jews have done for decades in America.
39:44
When people excluded us from their law firms, their hospitals, their
39:46
universities, we built our own and they were so outstanding that
39:49
everyone wanted to join them.
39:51
And I, you know, if we have to start that over again, that's obviously heartbreaking
39:55
to me, but also kind of hopeful.
39:57
I, I see a lot of young Jews on campus beginning to realize these
40:01
lessons and, um, it inspires me.
40:05
What a great message for, uh, the new season.
40:08
Uh, Sarah Horowitz.
40:10
Thank you, uh, for what you do.
40:12
Keep writing.
40:13
Thank you.
40:13
There, there are much more than two books, uh, in you and on Judaism too, by the way.
40:19
Thank you.
40:19
Uh, so we, we look forward to learning from you and being inspired by you.
40:24
And I wish you and your family well.
40:26
Oh,
40:27
thank you so much.
40:28
Thank you for having me.
40:33
I am pleased that Sarah Hurwitz spoke directly to and about
40:37
the Jewish Youth of America.
40:40
If they kick you out of their clubs, form your own clubs, she urged
40:44
and make them open to everyone.
40:47
I was nodding vigorously as Sarah spoke.
40:50
Wanna expand on her wisdom and guidance.
40:53
So to all the Gen Z and younger millennials who are listening and
40:57
even teenagers in Gen Alpha, alas, it's harder now to be an American Jew.
41:04
It is not only the increasing and intensifying episodes of violent Jew
41:08
hatred, it's also the atmosphere, the social and intellectual
41:12
accusations, condemnations.
41:15
And denunciations in school, university, and your professional lives.
41:20
Expressing our Jewish identity in public now often carries a price.
41:25
This was always the norm throughout the 2000 years of diaspora Jewish
41:29
history, but the past 50 years in America have been the blessed exception.
41:35
We are reverting to the historical mean and history.
41:39
Chose your generation to contend with the change.
41:43
I know it is a burden, but it is also your privilege to bear this
41:48
burden On behalf of the Jewish people and all the past generations of
41:52
Jews who bequeathed our heritage to you, I hope that the challenges and
41:56
anxieties of our times strengthen your commitment to our people and create a
42:01
fierceness of Jewish identity in you that may not have been there before.
42:06
After all, it is this very will to live Jewishly with
42:11
meaning, purpose, and dignity.
42:13
Previous generations held onto in the face of obstacles much greater than
42:17
ours that led to our being here today.
42:21
It's now your task to build the next link in the chain.
42:24
As 150 generations of Jews have done before, you do not follow some
42:30
Jews off the cliff of Jewish life.
42:33
There will be no Jewish future for you if you separate yourself
42:36
from the mainstream of our people, as Sarah rightly emphasized.
42:41
Be critical.
42:42
Even harshly when necessary.
42:45
Israel and the American Jewish community and Judaism itself are
42:49
not beyond criticism, dispute, argumentation and disagreement are
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in the bloodstream of Jewish life.
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We worship God, not people and not states, but we also need to
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learn to love ourselves Again.
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Stand up for yourselves and stand up for our community.
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Be proud Jews.
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On the one hand, you will make fierce enemies.
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You will lose friends.
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You might be kicked out of clubs.
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Climate activists might wanna impose their ideological purity test on
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you and demand that you check your support of Israel at the door.
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Gays for Palestine, who would actually be killed if they were caught promoting
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a gay lifestyle in Palestine might feel triggered by a Zionist on campus.
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If they kick you out of their clubs and it's contrary to
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school policies, demand fairness.
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If they kick you out of their clubs and they're allowed to do so, or
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the atmosphere is simply too toxic.
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I completely agree with Sarah.
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Establish your own clubs.
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This is what Jews did a century ago and soon our clubs became so excellent
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that people wanted to join us.
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They wouldn't let Jews into white shoe law firms.
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So your grandparents and great-grandparents established their
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own firms, and within two decades, everyone fought to get into those
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firms, and eventually some Jews became the senior and managing partners
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of the whitest of white shoe firms.
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Everyone can do something.
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Everyone can push back.
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Every act counts, every word makes a difference.
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Even if you think to yourself, how is this one little measly
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action going to change anything?
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Remember, your goal is not only to repair the world, it is also to repair yourself
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by defending your principles, values, self-respect, and dignity in what is
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often a contaminated moral environment.
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You'll be stiffening your backbone.
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You will prove to yourself that you can stand up to adversity.
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That there are values worth fighting for and sacrificing for, and that it is your
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responsibility to participate in the fight for justice, righteousness, and decency.
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And if you do nothing, which is how so many behave, know that doing nothing
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is also something non-action is.
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Action.
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Two.
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Roman historian Cato, the elder, taught that never is a person as
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active as when they do nothing.
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You will then just be handing your future over to others to set the course of your
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life and the direction of our society.
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But if you act, action will free you from frustration, cynicism,
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and a sense of powerlessness.
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Yes, it might bring you into some confrontation with those who have
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different values and they may kick you out of their clubs, but even
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that will be a form of liberation.
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You will be free.
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Free of the tyranny of the mob, forcing you into straight jackets of
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conformity, and you know what will happen then even without seeking
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it, people will gravitate to you.
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You will awaken, rouse, and motivate them.
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Everyone resonates to the thrilling sounds of inspiration.
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Those unique vibrations of authentic commitment that pluck the strings of our
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heart and excite the music of our soul.
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Until next time, this is in these times.