What if Being a Stranger Is Actually Your Superpower? | Better in Person

Summary

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Freakonomics Radio – “What if Being a Stranger Is Actually Your Superpower? | Better in Person”

Host: Stephen J. Dubner
Guest: Rabbi Angela Buchdahl
Release Date: August 12, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth, candid interview between host Stephen Dubner and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl: the first Asian American to be ordained as both cantor and rabbi, and the bestselling author of Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging. The conversation centers around identity, the experience of being an outsider, the responsibilities—and costs—of leadership and fame, as well as empathy, awe, and what Judaism offers a polarized world. Through personal stories and contemporary dilemmas, Buchdahl explores how being a "stranger" can actually confer unique strengths and connections.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Angela Buchdahl’s Unlikely Journey

• Family origins and “boundary crossing”:
  • Angela describes being born in Korea to a Jewish-American father and a Buddhist-Korean mother (03:09), then moving to Tacoma, Washington, where she was raised in a small but tight-knit Jewish community (04:11).
  • On her sense of otherness:

    “From the very beginning of my life, there was a certain way that I recognized I wasn’t like everybody else.” – Angela Buchdahl (03:09)

• Early calling to faith leadership:
  • Despite being considered an “unlikely” rabbi, she recalls singing prayers and leading services as a child.
  • “Jews don’t call it a call, but I do feel that I was pulled to this in a way that felt like it was beyond my control… It was just all I wanted to do.” (04:41)

Handling Loss and the “Awe Business”

• The rabbi’s role in times of death and tragedy:
  • Buchdahl discusses the emotional demands of officiating funerals, finding both sadness and “a huge amount of awe.” (05:25)
  • “There is also in every death, a huge amount of awe… it gives me a glimpse of the world beyond in a way that actually makes me want to live my life here better and more meaningfully.” – Angela Buchdahl (05:25)
• On awe as a universal experience:
  • Buchdahl references research by psychologist Dacher Keltner on awe’s catalysts: nature, art, moral beauty, etc. (06:07)
  • “I’m in the awe business, which I really love.” (05:58)
  • She lifts up stories of “moral beauty”—acts of kindness—that the media too often ignores (06:51).

Fame, Visibility, and Personal Cost

• Becoming a global face of Judaism:
  • Dubner notes the impact of fame on Buchdahl, as a rare woman, Asian-American, and Jewish leader (07:49).
  • Visibility brings both opportunity and risk: Buchdahl has been targeted along with her synagogue, and even called to assist in hostage negotiations (08:08).

[09:39] The Colleyville, TX Hostage Crisis

• Buchdahl’s involvement in a real-life crisis:

  • Details the 2022 Colleyville synagogue crisis, where a gunman believed she wielded the power to negotiate terrorist release (09:39–10:09).
  • On rabbi Charlie Citron Walker’s decision to return to synagogue immediately after the standoff:

    “We choose life… what courage it takes to choose life.” – Angela Buchdahl (10:09)

• Personal strategies for handling prominence:

  • She avoids the spotlight where possible, feeling the “weight and pain” of her position (12:27).
  • She refuses to sign open letters, noting that her name is spotlighted and often used in ways she cannot control (13:28):

    “I saw the way that my name would be pulled out of the list… I would be the face of the article and whatever tiny bit of that letter I didn’t agree with… would be emphasized the most. And then I became the face of it.” (13:28)

• The double-edged sword of recognition:

  • While visibility carries risk, it also offered Buchdahl the chance to amplify essential Jewish values through her bestselling book (15:18).

Israel, Gaza, and the Challenge of “Binary Thinking”

[16:51–22:59]

• On anti-Semitism and the fraught place of Israel in global discourse:
  • “There are people… who say, it’s an evil people. It’s a very high pronounced form of anti-Semitism on some levels and it’s other things on other levels.” (16:51–17:32)
  • Buchdahl draws a distinction between opposing governments and condemning entire peoples (17:46).
• Vision for Israeli-Palestinian relations:
  • Advocates for a two-state solution, mutual dignity, and the necessity of excluding Hamas from authority in Gaza (18:49–20:29).
  • Buchdahl invokes historical examples (Northern Ireland, Germany) to emphasize that peace is never impossible:

    “I never give up on peoples… I think people in particular circumstances behave… differently than they will when they can live in security and peace.” (19:27)

• Judaism as a tradition for “strangers”:
  • “That word Hebrew literally means to cross over, to be a boundary crosser, because to be a Hebrew is to know what it feels like to be a stranger.” (21:04)
  • She asserts the “heart of a stranger” is a potential universal bond, a superpower for empathy, creativity, and resilience (21:04–22:40).

What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?

• Religion, peoplehood, and belief:
  • Judaism emphasizes action (“what do you do”) over dogma (“what do you believe”). Many Jews are good Jews without conventional belief in God (24:12).
  • The Sabbath as “the greatest idea that Jews brought to the world”—a radical notion that time itself can be sanctified by rest, for all people and even animals (25:19–26:04).
• Building “third spaces”:
  • Buchdahl laments the loss of communal “third spaces” where people of divergent views connect as humans (31:49).
  • Shared community service or simple activities (sports, weather, meals) can build the foundation for productive dialogue on tougher issues.

Jewish Wisdom Against Binary Thinking

[27:58–32:42]

• Embracing ambiguity and the value of “the third opinion”:
  • Judaism’s allergy to binary thinking is illustrated by the phrase “two Jews, three opinions.”

    “You break out of the binary when you are willing to engage with the person that you think is your opposite… you are sharpening your thinking and you get to another idea that you could not have gotten to on your own.” (28:50)

  • In study, politics, and life, the capacity to sit in complexity is a central virtue.
• Finding common ground with opponents:
  • First conversations with adversaries need not address the most contentious points; trust is built first on shared, human experiences, which can later enable deeper engagement (31:36).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “My story is one of boundary crossing. I was born a biracial child in an ethno national state.”
  – Angela Buchdahl (03:09)

• On funeral work:
  “There is also in every death, a huge amount of awe… it gives me a glimpse of the world beyond in a way that actually makes me want to live my life here better and more meaningfully.” (05:25)

• On moral beauty:
  “My job is to call to mind that what I see all the time, over and over with normal people is acts of moral beauty every day. So human beings are the greatest source of awe that we have in the world.” (07:28)

• About fame’s cost:
  “I actually would like to be more anonymous when I’m walking in the street… if I were to pull back, in some ways, it allows a small group of haters to win. If I’m pulling back, then I’m not choosing life.” (12:27)

• Israel, identity, and empathy:
  “I want to see a Palestinian state. I want to see… that Palestinians have a right to self-determination. You need to live with dignity and peace.” (18:49)

• On the stranger’s heart as a superpower:
  “What I think Judaism has to offer is a blueprint for taking [the stranger] experience and making that into your superpower: of empathy, of creativity, of resilience, of grit.” (22:40)

• On the Sabbath:
  “It was a radical idea that, no, we are not here on Earth only just to work and produce every single day of our lives… you can sanctify time by setting it apart and making it different.” (25:19)

• Avoiding binary thinking:
  “You break out of the binary when you are willing to engage with the person that you think is your opposite… and you get to another idea that you could not have gotten to on your own.” (28:50)

• Practical approach to polarization:
  “Maybe the first conversation you have with your enemy is not the thing that is your biggest problem. Maybe actually you begin with something that is a little bit of a safer ground…” (31:36)

• Impact as a leader:
  “You make people want to be better people.” – Stephen Dubner (32:42)

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• Angela’s family history and early identity: 03:09–04:41
• Rabbi as “awe business”; Dacher Keltner’s awe research: 05:53–06:51
• Costs and privileges of fame/Colleyville crisis: 08:08–11:07
• Refusing pressure to sign public letters: 13:28
• Israel & Palestinian rights: 16:51–20:29
• Judaism, peoplehood, and the “stranger’s heart”: 21:04–22:40
• Belief vs. Practice in Judaism: 24:12–25:07
• Meaning of the Sabbath/time sanctification: 25:19–27:42
• Jewish wisdom and binary thinking: 27:58–32:42

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Tone, Style, and Takeaways

The conversation is open, deeply thoughtful, and often personal, anchored by Dubner’s candid curiosity and Buchdahl’s mix of wisdom, vulnerability, and forthrightness. Their discussion balances the specifics of Buchdahl's life and Jewish tradition with broader, universal questions of identity, belonging, resilience, and connecting across divides. The episode ultimately asserts that the experience of being an “outsider”—a “stranger”—can be a unique source of perspective, empathy, and strength, both for individuals and for society at large.

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Recommended for:
Listeners interested in religious leadership, identity, Jewish thought, the psychology of awe, strategies for navigating fame and polarization, and for anyone seeking ways to turn outsider status into connection and growth.

Transcript

[Stephen Dubner]

This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today. Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. The bonus episode you are about to hear is an interview with Angela Buchdahl, who is one of the most unusual and interesting rabbis you are likely to meet. This interview comes from a new video talk show we're making called Better in Person. You can watch it on the Freakonomics YouTube channel or on Apple podcasts, but we also like to put out this audio version in case your eyes are busy and you only want to use your ears. As always, thanks for listening.

Let's just pretend we're friends having a conversation.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Great.

[Stephen Dubner]

And maybe by the end, we will be friends. Yeah, you never know. I'm open to the possibility. Are you open to the possibility? Absolutely.

[Angela Buchdahl]

This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Angela Bukdal.

[Stephen Dubner]

If you are a faith leader of any kind, being open to possibility is part of the job description. Angela Bukdal has taken that openness a bit further and it has brought her much more attention than most faith leaders will ever receive. Here she is as a clue on Jeopardy.

Korea born Angela Bukdal is the first Asian American to be ordained a cantor, as well as this leader of a Jewish congregation. Ben what is. Rabbi, you got it.

Bukdal is at Central Synagogue in New York York City. Her services are streamed globally. And after the October 7 attacks in Israel, she got a lot of attention for rejecting a binary way of thinking about the crisis. And now Bukhdal is a New York Times bestselling author. Her memoir is called Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity and Belonging.

So I really love your book. I think it's.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I appreciate that.

[Stephen Dubner]

Thank you. It's really well written. I mean, I know that it began as sort of one book and became a different one over time. Took a long time, right? Four or five years, I guess.

[Angela Buchdahl]

It took me four years to write it because it's hard to find time to write in my day job.

[Stephen Dubner]

It's also very concise. So for people who haven't read it, you tell the story of your life, which is a really amazing story in really short chapters, which I appreciate because,

[Angela Buchdahl]

you know, our attention spans are short.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. And you've become. I mean, I think it's probably not an exaggeration to say you're the most famous rabbi in the world at the moment, which is something worth talking about because that Recognition and fame has had a lot of ramifications. Some good and some, you know, really difficult. But let's start with the autobiography. Like, we could literally talk about you and your family story for many hours. Cause it's pretty fascinating going back to 14th century royalty.

[Angela Buchdahl]

King Sejong the Great. Yeah, that's true.

[Stephen Dubner]

So give us the thumbnail and we'll fill in some details as we go.

[Angela Buchdahl]

So I won't in the 14th century. I'll just start a few generations back. You know, I think that my story is one of boundary crossing. I was born a biracial child in an ethno national state.

[Stephen Dubner]

Korea.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Korea. And so from the very beginning of my life, there was a certain way that I recognized I wasn't like everybody else.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah.

[Angela Buchdahl]

And then I moved to the United States when I was about five years old.

[Stephen Dubner]

We should say your father is American and Jewish.

[Angela Buchdahl]

My father is American and Jewish. My mother a Korean Buddhist.

[Stephen Dubner]

To this day, I love your mother so much. I really do.

[Angela Buchdahl]

She's an incredible character in this story as well as my life. She really lived through those hard things. I think if you have a parent who lived through a war, like the ones who come out of it alive, they have a certain kind of fortitude. Forced exile and forced exile. So. And that, you know, my mother wasn't actually even born in Korea herself. She was born under Japanese occupation in Japan. So the beginning of her life was already a boundary crossing at a young age, as was mine. And I came to the States. Now Tacoma is in some ways a random place for a biracial Korean kid to end up Jewish, but it was already my Warnock side, my Jewish side's home for three generations. So I was already.

[Stephen Dubner]

They built the synagogue or created the community.

[Angela Buchdahl]

They helped found the community. It was an incredibly small but tight knit Jewish community. So I grew up even though my family didn't look like any other Jewish family in our 300 family synagogue. I was a Warnock. And I saw my grandfather's picture on the wall in an Aza basketball unifor. I felt like, okay, I have Yichis here. Like, I'm connected and I have deep roots. So I was welcomed.

[Stephen Dubner]

But the weirdest thing about you, if you don't mind me saying, is how deeply you wanted to be a rabbi from the time you were very young.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I mean, I mean, someone said to me, you call this the unlikely story of a rabbi? And they said, I read your story. And I was like, it was so likely. You were singing to God when you were 8 and leading your sister in prayers when you were a kid. And there was something about that that actually felt deeply ordained. You know, Jews don't call it a call, but I do feel that I was pulled to this in a way that felt like it was beyond my control. Like it was just. It was just all I wanted to do.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. Do you still love it?

[Angela Buchdahl]

I love it. I love it.

[Stephen Dubner]

I actually.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I'm on sabbatical, and I miss being at services on Friday nights. I absolutely love it.

[Stephen Dubner]

Can I ask about the hard parts of being a rabbi? I mean, I always. I just think about the death. All the death that you're. You're. You're. You're offering a lot of condolences to a lot of different people in different situations.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I mean, here's the interesting thing about doing funerals and being close to death. It is very difficult. And there's a lot of sadness, and sometimes there's tragedy. But there is also in every death, a huge amount of awe. And that awe, it gives me a glimpse of the world beyond in a way that actually makes me want to live my life here better and more meaningfully. It just puts what's important into sharp focus every time I do a funeral.

[Stephen Dubner]

You describe being a rabbi as being in the business of awe. You're in the awe business.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I'm in the awe business, which I really love.

[Stephen Dubner]

I don't know if I believe. I love it because. Oh.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Do I need to convince you that I'm in the awe business?

[Stephen Dubner]

A little bit. A little bit.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Okay, well, let me put it in more scientific terms. So Dacher Keltner, who's a scientist out at Berkeley, he wrote a book on awe. He studied AWE in 26 different countries, across thousands of people. So this is not just awe for Jews or awe for Americans. This is awe across geography and time and space.

[Stephen Dubner]

Can you define awe?

[Angela Buchdahl]

I would say maybe it is touching and experiencing something that is vast and beyond your comprehension.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay. Dacher Keltner's research identified eight reliable catalysts for awe. Nature, intellectual epiphany, art and visual design, spiritual experience, birth and death, music, collective effervescence, and number one, moral beauty.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Moral beauty. This encounter of the kind of extraordinary acts that normal human beings do. That is what I'm witnessing regularly and lifting up. I mean, and there were a lot of stories of moral beauty that were coming out of Israel, for example, of, like, selflessness, generosity, kindness, bravery, courage that were. That. Those were the stories that I wanted to emphasize because we are caught up in the muck of the worst part of humankind. And the media wants to emphasize the worst aspects of human nature and. And they exist. You can find evil in lots of corners and with all peoples, but we've

[Stephen Dubner]

gotten better at bringing it to the forefront.

[Angela Buchdahl]

We have. And for some reason, that stuff is what's contagious. But I think that my job is to call to mind that what I see all the time, over and over with normal people is acts of moral beauty every day. So human beings are the greatest source of awe that we have in the world.

[Stephen Dubner]

So I really love your book. I think you're a great teacher.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Thank you.

[Stephen Dubner]

I really do. You've been a good speaker, good writer, good leader, etc. People are attracted to you for good reasons. You've also come to prominence because you're unusual, because you're a female Asian American rabbi, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm curious how your recognition or fame has affected not just your life, but your family's life.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I would say the fame part is hard in that the more visible the platform, the more you're targeted. And I've seen that, like, everything from Central Synagogue literally being targeted for attacks to my being called in for hostage negotiations, because that is unfortunate, the world we live in today. So I feel that the weight of that immensely.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. So let's talk about that Colleyville, Texas event. This was, as you described in the book, an armed gunman breaks or is invited into a synagogue in Texas and ends up taking. Yeah.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Not. He wasn't invited in as a stranger who looked like he was coming in from the cold. And the rabbi invited him in. What he actually was was a British citizen, originally a Pakistani Muslim who had moved to England. And in England there is a chief Rab. And he had grown up on these anti Semitic tropes that Jews have enormous influence, power, conspiratorial connections, and basically imagined that the chief Rabbi of America could make a few phone calls and get Afia Siddiqui, who he called his sister. But she's really a cause celeb in the Pakistani Muslim community known as Lady Al Qaeda. And she's a kind of a notorious terrorist who was sitting in a prison in Texas. So the reason he picked Coleyville, which is not the center of Jewish life, is because it was the synagogue that was the closest to this federal prison. So he figured if he ended up taking Jews captive in Coleyville, that he could call the, quote, chief Rabbi of

[Stephen Dubner]

America, which he decided was you, based upon you having been to the White

[Angela Buchdahl]

House a couple Times Google Internet search. And maybe because I had just been a Jeopardy. Question like, two weeks before, who knows why the algorithm put me at the top of his list for rabbi to call, but he believed that I could make a few phone calls and get this woman brought to that synagogue.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. So the end of the story is a relatively happy one, which is that none of the hostages were harmed. The rabbi, Charlie was. Charlie. What's his last name?

[Angela Buchdahl]

Citron Walker. I was very struck by Charlie Citron Walker after this incident. He ended up being on a lot of news media, which I avoided, actually, because I really felt like, first of all, this was his story. I was a side player in this, so I didn't do any TV interviews, and I wanted to remain quiet. He was asked, are you gonna go back into the synagogue again? Cause, you know, that standoff was 10 hours in the synagogue. And he said, of course I'm going back this week. He said, that's what Jews do. We go back in. And I thought about this deep sense that, like, we choose life. There's this saying. It's like I said before, you life and death choose life. Now, that seems so obvious. Unless you've actually been challenged and faced with death, then you realize what courage it takes to choose life. And Charlie was like, of course I'm going back in. And he faced his own death, literally for 10 hours, sitting there with a man holding a gun to his head. And he said, of course I'm going back.

[Stephen Dubner]

Charlie was smart and heroic.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Yes. He really was.

[Stephen Dubner]

The guy who you call a gunman, you might call him a terrorist, whatever, he ends up getting killed in the incident. Right. So none of the hostages were killed. But still, when I think about, you know, fame, many people, I think, think of fame as a pretty good thing and pursue it, even on some small level. And yet, almost all the people I've known who become famous, truly famous, like, over the years, I've written about a bunch, spent time with some I've never known one who didn't have a really terrible. Either stalker or threats. It just comes with the territory. So to me, when I think about you, you're a rabbi in New York, prominent rabbi in New York. But then you get thrust into this and you get the call from the guy, and now you've got the FBI and so on. I think about that as being kind of the cost of being prominent or being famous and being Jewish. And a rabbi is yet another layer on top of that. How do you. I mean, did you pull back from your activities? Are you Worried about being prominent and recognized, do you? What's your strategy for thinking that through? And I don't mean to ask a question that if you were asking me, I would say, let's not talk about it, because it feels like it might be better left unsaid. But I'm curious how you manage.

[Angela Buchdahl]

You know, I. It's difficult, but I. And I never have pursued fame for its sake. I have a message that I want to share, and I've always felt like I want to get this out to a widest audience as possible. I feel like this is what I'm called to do. I feel the weight and the pain of it. I actually would like to be more anonymous when I'm walking in the street. I don't like to dress up all the time. I don't like. I don't like being recognized. And so, like, I. I do feel that there is a certain tension that I constantly feel around this. But if I were to pull back, in some ways, it allows a small group of haters to win. If I'm pulling back, then I'm not choosing life.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. You were attacked again for not signing a petition condemning Zoran Mamdani when he was running for mayor of New York, an election which he won. And I was thinking about, like, if you. If you were not so prominent, would it have been noticed that your name was not on that petition?

[Angela Buchdahl]

No, of course not.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah.

[Angela Buchdahl]

But part of the reason that I made a decision that I was never signing any letters, and I made that several years ago, is because I saw the way that even when I agreed with a letter, and I usually agree with 90% of a letter, not 100% of the letter. But even when I agreed with the issue and wanted to kind of lend my voice, I saw the way that my name would be pulled out of the list of a thousand rabbis or whatever it would be. I would be the face of the article and whatever, like, little tiny bit of that letter I didn't agree with. That would be the thing that would be emphasized the most. And then I became the face of it. I essentially watched the way that my name was being manipulated and used out of my control. And I will tell you, these letters, while there is a. I understand the impulse to want to sign, there is a kind of herd mentality that I think is not necessarily good. And people said, oh, but 1,000 rabbis signed this letter. How could you be the only one that doesn't know? And I said, well, do you know there were a thousand rabbis that also signed a Starvation in Gaza letter in August. These letters are a dime a dozen. People have no idea. These letters are happening all the time. Some of them just get a lot more prominent. There's actually a pressure cooker that happens against rabbis for these letters that, like, once you see a certain number of names, you feel pressured to sign them. And then that letter was actually used and cited by Cuomo in the debate itself. And I thought to myself, is this what we want rabbis to be? To be reduced to a pawn in a electoral debate? That's exactly why you do not sign letters.

[Stephen Dubner]

Are there instances, though, where your notoriety, fame, whatever we want to call it, have been a great help to you, things that you've been able to accomplish because of it. You got to write the book you wanted to write, to be honest. Right. If you didn't have this position, you may not have been able to write this kind of book, which is a book that's not just about you, but it's about what you feel are the essential components of Judaism itself. Yeah.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I think the fact that I have a community that has been growing and that has this platform is the reason that I was given the opportunity to share this message more widely in a book. And I feel very grateful. That's an opportunity. It feels crazy to me, especially as the kid that grew up and nobody saw me or recognized me as Jewish or many didn't, or denied it. To now be able to be one of the spokespeople for the Jewish community. And I feel the privilege of that and the responsibility of it.

[Stephen Dubner]

This episode of better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. ChatGPT work moves beyond answers into getting real work done. It's a new experience in ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects across web, mobile and desktop. You can give ChatGPT work a goal and have it gather context, choose an approach, create the output and continue iterating, all while you stay in control. It can help turn messy inputs into useful outputs like briefs, spreadsheets, dashboards, presentations, prototypes, landing pages and workflows. You can even ask ChatGPT work to take on entire workflows with a single request. Here's an example. It can turn customer research into a campaign brief. Use that brief to create marketing assets and adapt those assets for different markets, carrying context through every step. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today.

Let's talk about Israel for a minute. So in the last few years, in some quarters, the very word has become a curse word. I mean, I think it's as simple as that. There are people who, when they learn that someone is Jewish or has family in Israel or when they think about Israelis, they say it's an evil people. It's a very high pronounced form of anti Semitism on some levels and it's other things on other levels. It's complicated. I think we all recognize that. How can you from your position sort of explain that to the world? Easy question, of course, but do your best.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Israel is a country that since its inception has been under attack. I think people have a hard time separating out a government from a country and the people itself.

[Stephen Dubner]

And they have a harder time with Israel than with most other countries.

[Angela Buchdahl]

That's right. That's right. Because I certainly find that people have no trouble critiquing or even saying, I completely disagree with what our government is doing and might even say it's immoral. But they would never say therefore all Americans are immoral or therefore the country doesn't have a right to exist. It seems that Israel is the only country for whom the government is indistinguishable from the entire people. So if you do not like the actions of the government, then there was a sense that that entire people is immoral or wrong.

[Stephen Dubner]

What's your position on let's take Gaza and Israel first? I realize politics is not your realm, but you're politically adjacent, let's call it so. Let's say you were asked to come over and be a member of some, let's say a permanent commission to figure out what's the most equitable way to deal with what's going on, to create a future that will provide as much goodwill for as many people there as possible. What are your first three points there?

[Angela Buchdahl]

I want to see a Palestinian state. I want to see in the same way that because I'm a Zionist, I deeply believe that Jews have a right to self determination in their land. I actually also must believe that Palestinians have a right to self determination. You need to live with dignity and peace and security. I know we feel extremely far away from the possibility of a two state solution, but I want to see steps that move us in that possible direction.

[Stephen Dubner]

Where would you propose that that state be? Because for anyone who knows the history of the region, even just the last 40 or 50 years, there have been many proposals, agreements, even to have a two state solution that then end up being torpedoed.

[Angela Buchdahl]

I think that, you know, there's obviously been a complete breakdown in trust. And right now even Israelis who five years ago would have thought that a two state solution was possible. Right now none of them feel it's possible, but everyone is traumatized. There has to be some de radical that needs to happen. But we have seen this happen in countries that we thought it was not possible. Northern Ireland, look at what's happened in Northern Ireland and places like Germany, which has now become one of the greatest allies of Israel. Like, who would have thought that when we came out of the war? So I never give up on peoples. Like we think like that's not possible. There are a certain kind of people. I don't believe that. I think people in particular circumstances behave when they are in fear or under occupation. They will behave in different ways than they will when they can live in security and peace. Think that the vast majority want that. I also think that we need to make sure that Hamas is not in charge. So I think that it's very important that people distinguish between Hamas and no longer allow them to be in charge of the Gaza Strip and create a different Palestinian leadership that can be.

[Stephen Dubner]

Let's pretend there is a total recalibration just for kicks. And it's the creation of a new era. And I say, you know, Angela Bukdal, you are a really interesting, smart, compassionate Jewish leader. And I think it's a good time for the world to understand what Judaism is and what it's not. Okay. You describe it in the book as a wisdom literature, really. And there are many wisdom literatures out there that are revered, but they're not typically attached to a living population the same way that Judaism is. So what's your best pitch?

[Angela Buchdahl]

Well, it's not maybe a surprise that it's connected to the title of this book, the Heart of a Stranger. Jews have always been a small, tiny minority. We have have in many ways existed as the counterculture for whatever is the predominant culture. That word Hebrew literally means to cross over, to be a boundary crosser, because to be a Hebrew is to know what it feels like to be a stranger. And that's the story of 400 years of us as slaves in Egypt. It's the story of US 2000 years historically as a diaspora. People living in countries where we were more or less at home, but never fully of the place. And I think that the lesson there is not just that this is what Jews experience, but it's actually the human experience. I'm realizing now that we're living in a time and day where I feel the way the Asian community in America feels that they have been misunderstood and hated post pandemic in A way that we didn't really realize. I think that we understand we still have a real race issue in our country that has not been fully resolved or dealt with. And you could go through every minority group in the ways that they feel and immigrants right now in this country. But you know that white Christian men also feel like strangers right now, and they feel misunderstood and marginalized in this country right now. So the heart of a stranger is a human experience. What I think Judaism has to offer is a blueprint for taking that experience and making that into your superpower of empathy, of creativity, of resilience, of grit. This is what Jews have had to do because we've always been that stranger.

[Stephen Dubner]

And.

[Angela Buchdahl]

And instead we are seeing ways that people who take that heart of a stranger want to build higher walls, push people more out, demonize the other side even more. And actually, this is the message. I think that we want to say no. We want to do the exact opposite. We want to say, you feel like a stranger, so do I. Let that be the first point of human connection between us.

[Stephen Dubner]

Nice. Do you believe in God?

[Angela Buchdahl]

I do, but not in the. Not in the traditional biblical notion of a sort of supernatural God that's vengeful, that, like, chooses who's going to live and who's going. Not in that kind of a way. I think, though, that there is room for understanding God in a lot of different ways, even biblically. Maybe my favorite name for God in the Bible. There are dozens and dozens of names for God in the Torah. One of them is when Moses directly asks God, what is your name? And God says, I will be what I will be. That's almost like an invitation to say, what do you need this larger force to be in the world? I will be that for you.

[Stephen Dubner]

So I know a lot of Jews who are very proud, historical, even scholarly. Ish Jews who don't believe in God at all and find it not inconsistent with the tradition because it's an old tradition. There are many branches on the tree. Tell me if that's the case. I mean, if I were to just ask you the basic question, can you be a Jew, a good Jew, even without believing in God? And if the answer is yes, or even if the answer is no, are there other religions where that's viable?

[Angela Buchdahl]

I 100% know many good Jews who don't either don't believe in God or who are not sure that they believe. And you know that Judaism is both a religion and it's a people.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah, let's talk about that.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Yeah. Which is confusing to a lot of people. But if you just think about it just being the tribe that you're born into and a kind of peoplehood, there are a lot of ways that people understand that their obligation is not necessarily to God, but to a people and to a history and to their ancestors. And that's a real thing. In some ways, it's not that dissimilar from the Korean culture in which there is ancestor worship and what you are beholden to are to those who've come before you. But I also think that the distinction here is not just that you can be a Jew through kind of cultural peoplehood, but I also know that so much of, even the religiousness of Judaism is about what do you do, not even what do you believe.

[Stephen Dubner]

So how about the Sabbath? Everybody's familiar with the concept of a Sabbath. How does Judaism conceive of it? How has it kind of reverberated out into the world over time?

[Angela Buchdahl]

Well, you say everyone thinks of a Sabbath, but I would say Judaism, that might be the greatest idea that Jews brought to the world. Because there was a time before the Torah that people just worked every day, all day long. They had to grow their food, do whatever they did. They labored every day. And it actually was a radical idea that, no, we are not here on Earth only just to work and produce every single day of our lives like the same. Actually, you can sanctify time by setting it apart and making it different. And one day a week, you should stop working and laboring and creating and producing. You just get to be. That's the whole point of it. That's the point of it all. And that was a radical idea. And by the way, it wasn't just for Jews. It was for everyone.

[Stephen Dubner]

Animals.

[Angela Buchdahl]

It included our animals, people who worked with us. Everyone should have a Sabbath. We've lost sight of the fact that there is a reason that we're here that is beyond church production and especially in a very capitalist society, which, and I'm not against capitalism, it's just that that can't be the be all, end all of our existence.

[Stephen Dubner]

I want you to say more about sanctifying time, which you just mentioned. I remember there's a book by Abraham, Joshua Heschel called the Sabbath, where, if I recall correctly, and I probably don't, he described how the Sabbath represents not the earth moving through time, but rather time going across the earth. So how do you learn time differently? Whether one wants to specifically sanctify it, like you just said, or just treat it like the valuable thing that it is. How do you do that?

[Angela Buchdahl]

The way you sanctify time. It's easy and it's hard. You literally have to set it apart as different than all other time. So the ways that Jews have done that traditionally is we say we don't run errands, we don't use money, we don't use electricity, we're not on our phones. These are the ways that these laws have evolved. It began with the idea that we don't do Malacha, we don't do work. But imagine that you really would unplug from all the things that feel like work in your day. And I just think if we took even just an electronic Sabbath. So my husband and I decided more like 20 years ago that we were going to be more observant of Shabbat than we were either of us growing up. And we said no phones to our kids. And we have a Shabbat community that has in some ways saved my Jewish family and saved my life and created kind of this tight knit community of people.

[Stephen Dubner]

You're a rabbi. It sounds like you would have already had that going. No.

[Angela Buchdahl]

One of the occupational hazards of being a rabbi is you work on the Sabbath. Right. But I would say that for me, Friday night, when I'm leading services, it doesn't feel like work. I am more in the flow, leading services than any other time of my week.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay. Now I want to be a rabbi as well. But one thing that strikes me about Judaism, one thing that appeals to me about the tradition, one thing that I really liked about your book is that Jewish thinking is really allergic to binary thinking. You know, you think about the phrase turn it and turn it for everything is in it. Right. If you look at something from enough angles, you'll not only learn more, but you'll feel differently about the thing you won't be as. So can you just talk about how to get less dug in on the binary thinking that we habituate toward and to try to be a little bit more considerate, to turn things more. Do you have any advice for that?

[Angela Buchdahl]

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you've heard the expression two Jews, three opinions. Three opinions, right. So what's interesting is, is like if that joke is about the fact that Jews are very opinionated and always disagree

[Stephen Dubner]

with each other, let's say argumentative.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Argumentative. Why isn't it two Jews, two opinions? What is the third opinion? And actually, I would say this is about breaking out of the binary. And you break out of the binary when you are willing to engage with the person that you think is your opposite. And when you are in conversation with them. And in Judaism, this is called tevruta, you actually are always supposed to study Jewish text with a partner. So you could say that's two people. So you got two opinions. No, when you are in true hevruta and you are sparring with someone, you are sharpening your thinking and you get to another idea that you could not have gotten to on your own. And to me, this is the genius of Judaism. It's like the fact that you can get to a third opinion, which you could not get to by yourself. You can only get to if you're willing to actually engage the binary. Okay, so that's in a study and move beyond it.

[Stephen Dubner]

So that's in, like, a study situation where you've chosen to be kind of

[Angela Buchdahl]

allies, but it's in politics also. It's really like it's in every realm.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. How do you. But I don't see a lot of evidence of people wanting to bring a third opinion into the room right now. I don't see a lot of illustrations of it. If I look at dc, if I look at just the way that most people are now in their circles, I think we all have these personal circles where we feel comfortable and where it's a respite from everything else. But everything else, all the stuff that's public or even a little bit public, it feels more like we're in a lockdown, binary mode.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Well, that's what you said. You just said that when we're comfortable. And I think part of the problem is right now, it doesn't just feel like it's a difference of opinion. It feels existentially threatening. We are in a place of such fear and such demonization. The polarization has become so extreme that actually engaging with the other side feels like engaging with the enemy in some way. And I think that that's what we have to work against in this environment right now, is that we have to understand that that other side, even if it feels like it is our enemy, we have to engage because we can't move forward by pulling the country farther.

[Stephen Dubner]

AP but how? Because, like, I mean, one version of reducing all of Judaism to one line is when Hillel, a couple thousand years ago, whatever was asked, you know, standing on one foot, what would you say is the message? And he'd say, love your neighbor as yourself. Right? Is that what Hillel said?

[Angela Buchdahl]

He said, what is hateful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary.

[Stephen Dubner]

Right. So commentary. We can Comment forever. And we do. I mean, that's what we do. But if you know that what is hateful to someone else should be hateful to yourself, or if you know that the person sitting across from you, you shouldn't hate. I feel like the commentary that we've been working on for the past couple thousand years hasn't produced the sort of interpersonal or political peace that we're all after. So I'm not asking you to solve the history of the world. No.

[Angela Buchdahl]

But, I mean, I do think that maybe one of the things we can start with is maybe the first conversation you have with your enemy is not the thing that is your biggest problem. Maybe actually you begin with something that is a little bit of a safer ground, or you just get to know each other as human beings.

[Stephen Dubner]

Right.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Sports is great weather. I mean, I think that part of the breakdown of what we see in America is that we've lost those third spaces where people who had ideological differences could actually meet. Social clubs, churches, synagogues, bowling groups. These were places where people across ideological difference would meet just as human beings. It's harder to demonize someone if you've actually just bowled together or if you. In my community, we have people across the spectrum. And when we pray together and sing together and serve meals to people who are homeless together, guess what? We don't have to talk about the hardest thing first. I just know you're a decent human being because we served a meal together to someone who was hungry. Now we could talk about the harder thing, where at least I start with the starting place, that you're a good person, that you want good things for people. And if I can start with that, then we can have the harder conversation. But people have decided already that you're just a bad person.

[Stephen Dubner]

That's the problem. You know what I really like about you? I think you make people want to be better people.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Oh, thank you.

[Stephen Dubner]

It's a good thing. That was such a good conversation. Thank you for bringing your whole badass self to it. You are a badass. You just are.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Thank you.

[Stephen Dubner]

You really are. Thank you so much. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, everybody.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Thank you.

[Stephen Dubner]

Remember, this interview comes from our new video talk show, Better in Person, which you can watch on the Freakonomics YouTube channel or on Apple Podcasts. Let us know what you think. Our email is [e-mail] we will be back soon with a regular episode of Freakonomics Radio. Until then, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too.

Congratulations. That's really great. I'M sorry. I had to make an adjustment. Yeah, sure. Yep. And then we'll come right back to you. Yeah, sure. Oh, me. It was a hair issue.

[Angela Buchdahl]

Well, that's the adjustment.

[Stephen Dubner]

Yeah. I'm just gonna shake. David. I'm going. Crew. Was that my wife? Ellen, is that you? That's a yes. When you hear laughter from the other room.

Thanks again to ChatGPT for sponsoring today's episode of Better in Person. ChatGPT can help teams move from goals to real outcomes. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today. Today.