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Rabbi.
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I'm Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and you're listening to in these Times. My guest today spent nearly a decade at the very center of American political life. As a senior White House speechwriter, Sarah Hurwitz crafted messages for President Barack Obama and later for First Lady Michelle Obama, helping Mrs. Obama deliver some of her most memorable and impactful words. But Sarah's most meaningful writing for her and for the Jewish community has come since leaving government service in her mid-30s. Almost on a whim, she signed up for an Introduction to Judaism class and discovered the wisdom of the tradition she thought she already knew and had written off. Sarah told that story in her acclaimed first book here all along, finding meaning, spirituality, and a deeper connection to life in Judaism. And now in her new book, As a Jew, Reclaiming our story from those who blame shame and try to erase Us, Sarah confronts how American culture, antisemitism, and the challenges of our times distort Jewish identity and calls on young Jews to reclaim it with pride. Sarah, it's an honor to have you on the podcast today. Welcome to in these Times.
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A
Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.
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C
What a great author, lucid and eloquent author you are. I want to talk to you about your new book, which just came out. It's called As a Jew. But beforehand, if I can just share with our audience some of your background. You're a speechwriter. You pay a lot of attention to words. Actually, it's one of the reasons you're such a eloquent writer. What brought you into that vocation? Why the emphasis on writing speeches, communicating through words?
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A
Well, you know, it's funny. I actually got my start in politics and speechwriting as an intern in Vice President Alor's speechwriting office in the summer of 1998. So I'm kind of dating myself. And the writers I worked for helped me get my first couple of jobs out of college, which were kind of junior speechwriting jobs. And, you know, I wound up working on a bunch of presidential campaigns. Three of them were losing campaigns, but then one, finally, the Obama campaign was actually a winning campaign. And while I was there to write for him, I helped Mrs. Obama with a speech in 2008, her Democratic convention speech. And we really hit it off. And when he actually won, which was a new experience for me, we went to the White House and I was there writing for President Obama. But I realized I missed writing for Mrs. Obama. So I made kind of an unusual White House career move. In that I moved from writing for the president to writing for the first lady. And I did that for most of the eight years at the Obama administration.
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C
And when you started out, did you intend to be an author or to be a speechwriter?
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Not at all. That internship was just kind of fortuitous in many ways. And I realized that, you know, at the age of 22, 23, it's really one of the most exciting jobs you can have in politics. I definitely didn't intend to be an author. I actually don't really love writing, believe it or not. I find it very hard and stressful. I much prefer doing things like this. Conversations, speaking, events. But, you know, oftentimes I found that writing, sometimes you have a book length thing that you want to say. And so I wound up writing a couple of books.
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C
I like to talk to people in our vocation because of course, I and most rabbis, we spend a lot of time writing and thinking, you know, spending time with ourselves inside of our own heads. And I can identify with that very painful process of writing. And I always enjoy hearing from people that I'm not the only one who struggles and suffers over every word in every sentence.
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A
I really do. I think people are often surprised that I don't like writing. They assume if you're a writer that you must just sit down and just experience such a joy and bliss. And it's. I find it very hard. I find it very, you know, I write terrible drafts and then I spend hundreds of hours rewriting them and rewriting them and rewriting them. So it's a really tedious and hard process.
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C
So you've written speeches or contributed to speeches of very major American figures, contemporary and even historic figures. Are there any particular phrases from these figures that you've written for that we would know that came from you or that you had a role in?
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A
Well, I can tell you one that didn't come from me, which was, when they go low, we go high. Mrs. Obama's very famous line, I wish I could claim credit for that, but actually she came up with it. All I did was just type into the speech. So, you know, when you write for people who are as amazing as she is, she's someone who knows who she is and knows what she wants to say. And she's pretty brilliant writer and speaker and thinker in her own right. So, you know, a lot of the work of being a speechwriter for someone like that is really more of a partner. It's really more of a collaboration.
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C
So there's no particular phrase that we would know that. The average American would know that. You can say that came from my brain.
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If there were, I would not claim credit for it.
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C
Right. That's a good approach, especially in politics. Getting to your book, this is the second book on Judaism that I am aware of. The first book, which was a big hit, was called Here all along, and it's kind of, I guess, your loving testament to Judaism and why and how you return to Judaism. And you have some of that in your new book. I think it just came out, but the subtitle is Reclaiming Our Story from those who Blame Shame and. And Try to Erase Us. What motivated you to write this second book? What does it add to the first book? And just give us a background of what was the additional urgency that you felt that you needed to write the second book about Judaism? And I was impressed with. Of course, I'm a rabbi, so I love your knowledge and, you know, your return to the sources of Judaism and your emphasis on how important Jewish education and Jewish literacy is, but also just, you know, from the perspective of the Jewish community, which you also relate to quite extensively in both books, why did 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 for me was, you know, three boring holidays and one fun one Hanukkah. It was two texts. The prayer book I held in my hand and the Torah at the front of the synagogue. And then a handful of universalistic values. Don't lie, cheat, steal, kill, et cetera. And, you know, that wasn't particularly compelling to me. So I kind of walked away. And then in my mid-30s, as you pointed out, I started learning. And I was just blown away by what I found in 4,000 years of wisdom about the human condition, about how to be a good person and lead a worthy life and find deep spiritual connection. And I just felt like, where has this been all my life? And my first book, as you, I think, beautifully put, it was a love letter to Jewish tradition. It was me trying to share what I'd found with Jews like me. And it actually turned out that many very traditional and observant Jews really liked the first book as well, because they felt like it was a fresh take on many things that they had been thinking about their whole lives. So that was my first book. And, you know, it's funny, in recent years, there are really two things that sparked the second book. The first was that I completed training to be a hospital chaplain just as a volunteer and, you know, chaplaincy is multi faith. There are chaplains of every tradition and they're also secular humanist chaplains. But I was sort of struck by how Christian the training was, even when it was ostensibly interfaith. Right. You know, we would talk about our ministry. I was told that prayer is, you know, God, please heal so and so who's right here in front of me and can hear me praying spontaneously out loud. I was told that's universal as prayer. Everyone prays that way. And I would try to explain that while it's fine for Jews to pray that way, we typically don't. And they'd say, no, no, as long as you don't say Jesus. It is universal prayer. Like that's interesting. And I began to think about, you know, how many ideas that I have, how much language, images, you know, concepts I have that are really Christian, even if we think of them as universalist. Like the idea that spirituality is that our bodies are bad and carnal and degraded, inferior, and there's kind of a spirit that's separate, our souls are separate. This body, soul duality, that is really not a central idea in Judaism. It is in Christianity. But again, we live in a Christian dominant society and so we think that that is what spirituality is. The second thing that prompted this book was that I went to a college campus probably a year before October 7th, and I was speaking at the Hillel to a bunch of Jewish students, and one of them raised her hand and said, how did you deal with anti Semitism when you were in college? And I literally responded, what? Like I actually didn't understand the question. And when I finally did, I said I didn't. Not once, not a single time did I deal with anti Semitism in college. And then the kids started sharing these stories and I asked for a show of hands of how many kids had felt uncomfortable on campus because they were Jewish. And a lot of kids raised their hands. And this was happening at a time of the post 2021 Gaza war where there was just this increasingly kind of anti Zionist discourse online that was really troubling to me, having followed, you know, this kind of right wing anti Semitism of Charlottesville and other things in 2016, 2017. And I began to really do some thinking about my Jewish identity. For most of my life, my Jewish identity consisted of a series of caveats and apologies. I would say, oh, I'm, I'm Jewish, but I'm just a cultural Jew. Now look, if you relate to Judaism through culture, like how beautiful, you know, some Jews relate to Judaism through Jewish thought. Music, art, history, literature, Israel. Like, that is a gorgeous way to be Jewish. I knew none of that. Or I'd say, well, I'm an ethnic Jew, which is utter nonsense, because Jews are of just about every ethnicity, so that's a meaningless statement. Or I would say, well, social justice is my Judaism, which, again, there are Jews who relate to Judaism through social justice because they actually really know what the tradition says, and they spend their lives trying to embody that with how they act. And that is stunningly beautiful. However, I knew nothing about what Judaism said about social justice. Or I'd say, like, oh, I remember the Holocaust. I remember persecution, which, again, like, what a depressing Jewish identity. And, you know, just the apologetics. They're like, I'm Jewish, but not that Jewish, but what if I was that Jewish? You know, what if instead of social justice being my Judaism, like, Judaism was my Judaism? Well, why was I so worried about that? And this book is really an answer to those questions. It's a book where I go back through history to try to understand where this Jewish identity of mine had come from. And what I began to realize is that my Jewish identity had really been very much infiltrated and warped by 2000 years of anti Semitism and anti Judaism and by 200 years of Jews. In a very understandable effort to be safe, you know, to take advantage of all the opportunities of the modern world, there was really an effort to assimilate, to kind of shape Judaism into kind of a Christian shape in order to be accepted and safe, which, thank God they did that, because I think you and I are Jews today in large part because of what those Jews did. But there was a real loss to that.
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C
You said you began to learn, I think you said, in your 30s. Was there something specific that prompted that? Or you just decided one day, wouldn't it be nice to do some Judaism?
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I really. I wish I had a really powerful story. Like, it was this great spiritual journey or a way you were on the.
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C
Road to Damascus, and.
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Yeah, no, it's not. Believe it or not, there was. I did not have an epiphany. I did not, you know, see the lights. It was actually more. I broke up with someone who I've been dating. And, you know, it was a very hard breakup, and I was very lonely and anxious. And I happened to hear about an Intro to Judaism class at the local Jewish community center, and I really signed up just to fill time. Like, there really was not a lot of thought. It was like, oh, I'm a cultural Jew. Maybe I'll learn about my culture. You know, it really could have been a class on just about anything. It happened to meet at a time that was convenient for me. I had very low expectations, but what I found was pretty extraordinary.
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C
I want to pursue that in a moment because if we can capture that, I think your description of your background is so relevant to millions of American Jews, and if we can capture the transition that you experienced and bottle it in some way, we can do a much better job. Just before I get to that, you mentioned you didn't really do anti Semitism when you were on campus. And was that because you didn't care or there wasn't the kind of anti Semitism that were.
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A
There just wasn't anti. I mean, in the 1990s, I went to Harvard. Not once, not one single time did I ever feel the least bit uncomfortable as a Jew. Not once. Which I say this to college students today, and they just look at me like they don't believe me. They really, they. They can't quite wrap their minds around that.
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C
Well, I don't want to date you, but that wasn't too long ago.
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A
It was the 1990s. It was a pretty long time ago, but not that long ago. Not that long ago.
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C
Still, it's sobering and eye opening that it is. You were there. You spent four years at Harvard.
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Yes. Yes.
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C
So you lived there for four years at a formative time in your life, and you would have responded had there been the even partial antisemitism along the lines of what we're seeing now.
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Yes. I also went to law school in the early 2000s, and again, not once did I experience anything at Harvard.
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C
So what does it say about Harvard, what does it say about the country that in that short period of time things have changed so dramatically?
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I think we see this throughout history. You know, things are fine until they're not. Things can change, I think, very, very quickly. So I'm not completely shocked by this. I think we got a little bit confused in America where we had this kind of 80 year break from history and we just thought like, oh, this is what's normal now. When actually I think, as Dara Horn and many others have pointed out like this actually that 80 years was not normal. That was an aberration from the norm. Something I've been thinking about in recent years is like, oh, we're Jews again. You know, we're not just like Americans of the Jewish religion, you know, we're Jews again. And I think that's. It's sobering, you know, I Sometimes wish my bubby were still alive so I could ask her, like, what did you do back then? How did you do this?
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C
Let me ask you. You wrote that you felt ashamed not at your ignorance, which you freely admitted, but your arrogance that you assumed that thousands of years of Jewish tradition amounted to what you learned in Hebrew school. 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 know everything I need to know about the indigenous peoples of America based on what I learned in sixth grade social studies, or, you know, I think I know everything I need to know about Islam based on what I Learned in my 9th grade world culture class. Like, that's absurd, right? To. To say that you know enough about a people, a tradition, a heritage, a culture, a religion, a nationality based on what you learned when you were 10 or 15. I mean, I. I would never disrespect someone else's background like that, ever. Yet I was just so comfortable doing it to my own, dismissing, just assuming nothing was there, proudly going around, kind of trashing it, because I could, and, you know, no one really stopped me. And I. I think I understand now how much I was parroting very, very old canards about Jews. You know, there really was, I think, 2,000 years ago, early Christianity did kind of inject into the Western world's mind this idea of the Jew as demonically powerful. I mean, just very, very powerful, diabolically depraved, evil, bad, bloodthirsty, and in a conspiracy to hurt you. And I think those ideas, you know, they really do run very much through history. And I think in some ways I had internalized those ideas and was always trying to kind of convince people that I was otherwise.
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C
Do you think some of those ideas are transmitted even in ways that people aren't aware of, and that they kind of project that on the Jewish state as well? Not that, you know, that Israeli policy is not the subject of legitimate criticism, but do you think that when people relate to the Jewish state, to Israel, they're carrying some of those ancient tropes that they may not even be aware of themselves that they're articulating?
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Yeah. And I think, you know, criticism of Israel, especially of its current leadership, is not a problem. I spend a lot of my time criticizing the leadership of Israel, as is just about every American Jew I know, as do the majority of Israeli Jews. Right. Like, that's criticism of a. Of a country's actions, policies, ideas is really not a problem. But I just want to distinguish that from accusations, from name calling. You know, when you have college students saying things like from water to water, Palestine should be Arab or Israelis or Nazis, that's not criticism. Right. Nor would it be if Jewish students were saying from water to water, Israel should be Jewish or Palestinians are terrorists. Those phrases are ugly, hateful eliminationism and racism, period.
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C
Do you think they're grounded, especially in the West? I mean the, the Muslim world has its own, you know, background and relationship with the Jewish people, but in the west in particular, yeah, I do very.
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A
Much think they are grounded in these 2000 year old tropes. And I think the way that you see this is an understanding that antisemitism, it's not just a personal prejudice, which I think we often mistakenly believe it is. It's not like, oh, I think Jews are dirty, cheap, bad, crass, I don't want one in my club, I don't want my daughter to marry one. Right. That kind of anti Semitism is really not what you're seeing today. The kind you're seeing today is a political kind of anti Semitism. Yossi Klein Halevi expresses this very well where it's the idea that like whatever the bad thing is, that's what the Jews are. A philosopher named Bernard Harrison I think expresses it very well. In addition, which he actually says it often takes the form of we the great majority are doing this grand moral project and the only thing stopping us are these terrible Jews. You know, we the Christians are Christianizing the Roman Empire. The only thing stopping us, these Jews who refuse to convert, we the Communists are bringing about the brotherhood of man and the revolution. The only thing stopping us, these capitalist Jews, we the Germans are bringing about this great Aryan fatherland. The only thing stopping us, these non Aryan race polluting Jews. Today in the US you actually see this on both the right and the left. On the right you see it take the form of we white Christian Americans are bringing back white Christian civilization. And the only thing stopping us are these Jews who are importing black and brown immigrants to take the place of white people. That is an incredibly racist and anti Semitic bonkers conspiracy theory called the Great Replacement Theory, very common. On the right, on the left you have, we the majority are doing the great project of anti colonialism, anti racism. The only thing stopping us are these racist colonialist Zionists, which is a polite way of saying Jews. So I think these ideas, they reflect the same themes going back 2000 years. But you know, the truth is that anti Semitism gets upgrades. Right? The medieval Christian clergyman didn't Think he was a bigot. He was rejecting Jews based on centuries worth of very sophisticated theology, saying that they were depraved and demonic and devilish and had killed Jesus. You know, the 19th century European scholar did not think that he was being anti Semitic. You know, he wasn't saying that Jews killed Jesus. That was religious superstitious nonsense. No, no, he had science that said that Jews were polluting the race. So that got an upgrade. Today, no one is going to say, you know, in polite circles the Jews killed Jesus or Jews are racially inferior. Those are appalling to them. But they will say that, you know, Israel is a colonial, genocidal apartheid state. That's actually okay. The problem isn't the Jews religion, it isn't their race today. The problem is the Jews nation.
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C
Let me go back to where you spend much of your book on Jewish values and the Jewish community. We didn't do so well with you as a product of religious school education. So you've, in the meantime, you've written two books on this. You've done some deep thinking about your own Jewish education. This of course, is something that we obsess about in synagogues as rabbis all the time. Really everything we do at the end of the day, I've said this before to our community, literally everything is in one way or another connected to the youth with the intention of instilling in them strong Jewish values, which you can't do without a certain level of literacy, of knowledge. All of which is very difficult for us because the structure of the American Jewish community, in the non Orthodox community, which is the vast majority of American Jews who regard Judaism kind of like an extracurricular activity rather than, you know, the essence of it. So get mindful of all of that. How do we do with you and your religious school? And do you have recommendations for us on how we can do better?
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I really don't think that Hebrew school is the problem. I really don't. I think people are doing the very best they can with Hebrew school. It is not the job of a Hebrew school teacher or a rabbi to make someone's kid Jewish in two hours a week. It's not possible. Even the most gifted educator cannot do that. It is the job of parents to raise Jewish children. And I have such empathy for parents, especially those who grew up like me, because what happens is, you know, if you grew up like me, you have this very, as Rabbi Larry Hoffman says, pediatric form of Judaism. You then have a kid and think, oh, somebody needs to make this kid Jewish. Not going to be me. I don't know anything. I'll sort of just offload this onto this poor Hebrew school teacher and say, you make my kid Jewish and that's not something that's possible. The reality is, I know we focus a great deal on the youth and that's obviously incredibly important. Camp, Jewish day school, Hebrew school, these are really important parts of kids Jewish identity development. I'm a huge fan of all of them. But at the end of the day, the critical piece is really what's happening at home. And I had to grow up as a Jew 10 years ago. I had to grow up. I was a child, like Jew. I had to grow up and that meant I had to read some books. I, I hate to break it to you, there is no easy way to do this. You got to take an intro class, you have to read some books, you have to do some learning. This is not a like take X into your heart and then Y happens. That's not what Judaism is. It's not like take, you know, Takun Alam into your heart and feel it and you're a Jew. That's not how Judaism works. There is a real body of knowledge, there is a whole way of engaging that is Jewish and it does require some work. But, and I, I really want to push back on this like self flagellation we do where it's like, we're bad, we're screwing this up. It's our fault. We're, oh my gosh, it's the Hebrew school teachers. No, it's the rabbis. No, it's this like, it's actually what we're dealing with is a much bigger problem, which was how we entered modernity. You know, if you go back 250 years to Western Europe in the 1800s where Jews were finally being given the privileges of citizenship. You know, previously Jews had lived in insulated Jewish communities where they just lived Jewish lives, you know, lived by a Jewish calendar, spoke Jewish languages. Now suddenly they're integrating into society and trying to figure out how to be Jewish and Jews back then, you know, they didn't want to leave their Judaism behind. It's actually really amazing. They could have just become nothing or become Christians. But they said, no, we want to be Jews, but we're going to have to create a form of Judaism that lets us assimilate into the modern world as well. And the form of Judaism they created, in many ways it kind of downplayed the things that didn't have a Christian parallel. You know, it really downplayed our post biblical textual tradition, 2500 years of commentary and debate and wisdom that doesn't really have a Christian parallel. We kind of ripped that out of Judaism and focused on, like, prophetic morality and things like that. And I think we're dealing with the legacy of that today. You know, we're dealing with the. The legacy of this Judaism that I think for many people feels a little bit lacking in content. And I think we have to kind of engage in this project of reclaiming what we've lost, which many, many Jews have been engaged in in America for decades. And these are the people whose books I've read, whose classes I've taken, whose events I've attended, and who've really inspired me to write my books.
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C
You know, I always think of the Passover Seder, Remember the four children? And one of the kids, he doesn't even know enough to know what to ask, right? The solution, according to the tradition, according to the rabbis, is teach the kids some Judaism. It never dawned on any previous Jewish generation that there would arise a generation of Jewish parents who actually didn't know enough to teach the kids some Judaism. The assumption was, okay, the kid doesn't know what to ask, doesn't know what to believe. Teach the kid something. And so we now have a generation of Jews, which is really. It puts Judaism on its head.
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It reverses everything.
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C
We have a generation of parents who don't know enough Judaism to teach their kids. Some of them still want their kids to be Jewish, not all of them.
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A
Right.
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C
A lot of them we don't see. More than 50% of American Jews don't affiliate at all with any Jewish institution. But of the ones we see, many of them, they're not against Judaism, heaven forbid, but, you know, it's not a priority for them. And what might bring them to synagogue. And I'm not talking about all the people, obviously, but a significant percentage of them, you know, is various other factors, including, say, bar mitzvahing all the kids. And that's one of the reasons why, when the last kid in the family is bar mitzvah, they leave. Because it's also expensive to affiliate, which is another issue for the American Jewish community. So where do we even begin? With a generation that upended 3,000 years of Jewish assumptions that the parents know enough and want vigorously enough for their kids to be Jewish that they will instill Jewish. Not only this Jewish sentiment of, you know, you belong to the Jewish people, but there's no identity formation without at least a modicum of knowledge of literacy in the thing you want to identify with, right?
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A
I mean, it's such a difficult problem because if you grew up like I did, where Judaism again, you know, four holidays, three universalistic values, two texts. Why would you think that this has anything to say to you? Why would you even bother, right? It's that, that, that first step is showing people like, actually this has wisdom that is relevant right now to your life. The ethics of modern secular culture are just so degraded, they're so unimpressive. You know, the self help books, the TED talks, whatever, there's some stuff in there that is interesting and good, but I would really argue that Jewish tradition has much deeper, more profound wisdom that will actually help you live a much worthier, more meaningful, more joyful life. And I, I think if Jews could just see some of that wisdom, they would be impressed, they would want to learn more. I mean, that was certainly the case with me. You know, I often hear Jews who've grown up with a very thick, rich Judaism saying, no, no, no, you gotta send them to a great Shabbat service, You get them into a great Shabbat dinner, and then that's when they'll fall in love, maybe, but just to lovingly push back, or maybe they'll just be kind of uncomfortable and not really know what's going on or be bored, you know, I'm just saying, you know, if someone had sort of focused on that with me, that really wouldn't have been ideal. You know, we even define our denominations kind of based on halakhic practice. And we keep trying to say we'll reach the Jews by jamming halakhic practice in their face and then they'll fall in love with it. And my argument is, actually, I think you're probably going to be more likely to bring people in with our radical, countercultural, transformational wisdom. Which is why I wrote my first book. That was the entire purpose of my first book, was to show Jews, hey, there is something really extraordinary in here. Both Jewish wisdom and embodied daily rituals that you can do to make this wisdom come into your life, community that you can build to make your life more beautiful. But if you want a prescription for Jews who want to grow up honestly, I recommend take an Intro to Judaism class, read a handful of Intro to Judaism books just to get the contours, just to get the basic sense of like, okay, this is what this is. Here's the general course of Jewish history, texts, ideas, and then dive into whatever lights your fire. If Shabbat just seems so cool to you, go there, go deeply practice Shabbat. If you are really taken by Jewish spirituality, amazing. There's an entire world of Jewish meditation retreats and other kind of spiritual endeavors. If you like arguing and studying law, amazing. Do that. But get the basics and then start learning more deeply in whatever area really excites you, because all of Judaism is hyperlinked to all the rest of Judaism. So if you're taking a deep dive into Shabbat, you're also going to learn about a bunch of other things. So I think that would really be my prescription. And I. I tried to make this easy because I found learning about Judaism incredibly challenging. It took me thousands of hours of learning, which no one has. Nobody has this time. So I was hoping that by writing my first book, I would save people the time and they could spend, you know, nine hours reading or listening to a book, as opposed to thousands. And then they could, they could sort of pursue their own path. And, and I'll say my second book, I think it kind of remedies some holes in my first book where I didn't really talk about Jewish history that much, my first book, and I didn't really talk about Israel or peoplehood that much in my first book. So I think the two of them together will give you a pretty good grounding to start learning.
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C
So let me just press you a little bit. I say this in the spirit of not, not self flagellation, but because I am interested to hear as much a variety of opinions as we can to maximize and optimize our functioning as well. Most American Jews who identify with the Jewish community and affiliate with the Jewish community are going to end up in synagogues at one point or another. By far, more American Jews end up in synagogues than any other institution. Whether the other institutions instill a deeper sense of Jewish knowledge and identity is another question. But the reality is, and it's not likely to change, most American Jews are going to end up in synagogues, those who do affiliate at all. So we have a very heavy responsibility on us to optimize the Jewish experience and to be able to at least pave some kind of pathway that will lead people in a positive direction for Judaism. Along the lines of what you're describing, do you have any advice for us on how we can do a better job?
- [30:41]
A
Yeah, actually, I do. I'll say for most of my life, my only points of contact with Judaism were two days a year in a synagogue and a seder. And that was kind of my Judaism. So I think those two days a year in a synagogue are very important. And I. You know, I see rabbis just working so hard on their sermons. Like, it's really, like, it is such an important thing because that they know that these are the days where they're actually going to see people who they don't see the rest of the year. And, you know, I think that many people come to synagogue really wanting to hear those traditional prayers and melodies, right? I would never say, oh, ditch the service. That's ridiculous. Right? People want that. That's very important. But I think in a number of synagogues, the truth is, like, you could be reading an Israeli phone book and people wouldn't really know the difference. You know, once you get past the really iconic prayers and melodies, there's kind of a couple hours of just people kind of muttering along. Don't really know what's happening. And what I wonder is, maybe could some of that time be used for education? Could some of that time be used to say, you know what, guys, I. I know that, you know, for some of you, you're not really connecting right now. That's okay. You know, many Jews don't connect through synagogue, but actually, you may not know this, but actually reciting scripted communal prayers together in a synagogue, it's actually not the only central form of Jewish spiritual practice. In fact, another equally important, if not more important form of Jewish spiritual practice is study. It's actually engaging with the wisdom of our ancestors as we try to discern the echoes of the divine voice through history. And so, you know what? Let's try that for 10 minutes. For 20 minutes. Let's, like, here's some. Here's some wisdom I wanted to share with you right now. Like, this is what we have in our tradition. And if this excites you, here's some next steps. Here's a class we're going to do as a community. Here's a book. We're going to read it as a community. And again, this is. I suggest this with such humility, because I know many congregants will freak out and say, no, no, no. It needs to be the way it's been for the past 40 years. We can't touch a thing. And I really get that. But I do wonder, could there be 20 or 30 minutes? Could there be something where we just say, okay, guys, we're in a moment where many of us have not grown up, right? We haven't become adult Jews, and this is the year where we, as a community, we're going to do it. We're going to become adult Jews. And I say this as someone who had to become an adult Jew myself. So I say this with no judgment whatsoever. This is my own experience. And it just takes some effort. And it would be helpful, I think, to have the guidance of a rabbi and the support of a community in doing this work.
- [33:03]
C
You've written about your own sense of spirituality. Could you expand on that? I think you wrote about this concept of Hitbo d'dudut to kind of practice some isolation and enhance your spiritual capacities. It's hard for modern Westerners to practice that dimension of the human personality since we're in an era of such emphasis on rationalization and evidence and science. I find a lot of people say to me they're spiritual, but they're not religious. By which I, I understand that they mean, you know, with all their criticisms of the bureaucracy and the institutionality of religious institutions, which kind of turns them off or they don't really want to think about how the sausage is made, the kosher sausage. I think what they mean, I would like to think that what they mean by that is that they have the basic human needs and impulses that human beings always had that drew them to music and drew them to poetry and drew them to philosophy and, you know, and the basic human condition hasn't changed. The construct and the rhetoric has changed and the environment and the emphasis on different values changed. And I think that makes it more difficult for people to express the kind of spirituality that you wrote about. So help us expand on that, help us understand.
- [34:31]
A
Sure. So this was something I read about my first book, write a chapter about God. And speaking from my own experience, I think the reason why I so struggled to have that kind of spiritual connection was that I again, you know, points of contact with Judaism, two services a year where there seems to be this kind of all powerful reward and punishment being in the sky. You know, maybe gendered male or maybe we've like non gendered this God now in modern times. But you know, it was clearly a being who controls things. And I just don't buy that. Just don't buy it. Never will. The idea of an interventionist God in charge of everything, that's just not plausible to me. And so I thought, well, okay then I'm an atheist or I'm agnostic, right? Those are the choices. But actually in Jewish tradition, those are not the choices at all. You know, in Jewish tradition we really have a fundamental humility when it comes to the divine. You know, we understand that we are talking about something infinite and ineffable and so far beyond the capacity of Our little human brains to comprehend that, to say things like God wants X or God thinks Y is almost to create an idol, right? It's to shrink God to the proportions that our tiny little human brain can comprehend. So if you look back at Jewish tradition, you see all different kind of concepts of the divine. You see ancient rabbis insisting in one breath that God is beyond time, space, human imagination, incomprehensible, and in the next breath that, like, God is your friend who you can chit chat with. Like, both of those things can't be true. But they didn't really care. It was like, that's okay because we don't really know. And so I think that stepping away from what you think you see of God in the prayer book and actually maybe beginning to learn a little bit about what Jewish tradition actually has to say about the divine, which I tried to kind of do in my My God chapter to give people a sense of like, oh, there were Jewish thinkers who said that God is everything. You're God, I'm God. The idea that there's any disconnect between us, it's an illusion, right? We're all part of God. There are Jewish thinkers who say that God is what arises between two people in deep relation. Deep. Each one being fully vulnerable to the other, fully seeing the other's humanity in those moments of deep connection. What arises between those people is God. That's Martin Buber. Many conceptions like that to choose from. I think about when I do chaplaincy work in a hospital and I am, you know, by a patient's bedside, just deeply, deeply present with them, really fully seeing them in their humanity. You know, to me, that is a moment of the divine right. There is something deeply holy and sacred in that moment. That is a moment when I feel connected. It has nothing to do with a man in the sky. And so I think I would kind of urge Jews to just like, break out of this man in the sky cage that we seem to think we've put God in, but we actually haven't. And to start to explore the many, many options and ways of feeling and experiencing that Jewish tradition offers.
- [37:08]
C
My last question to you, Cyran, is, so we're starting a new year. Where would you like the Jewish community to be? What would you like to see on the eve of next Rosh Hashanah a year from now?
- [37:21]
A
So I really appreciate the many people who are working so hard to fight anti Semitism. You know, I really, it's, it's obviously a huge problem. And I, I, I do have a Lot of appreciation and gratitude toward them. But I also think that, like, there are 16 million of us with an M that's literally the size of, like, a Chinese city, and not even the largest one, like the fifth largest city in China, and there are 8 billion others in the world. And I think this idea that we as Jews are going to control what billions of people think, I'm not sure that that's true. You know, I think oftentimes antisemitism comes and goes based on whether there's a plague or an economic crisis or something else that triggers these old ways of thinking, and people decide they need Jews to blame for their problems. So this idea that, like, if we just had the right tweet, the right slogan, the right campaign, we would end anti Semitism. I'm not sure that's true. I think that that way of thinking is kind of like trying to bail out a flood with buckets. Yeah, it's certainly worth trying. And maybe if enough of us do this, we can make a difference. But I would really hope that our community over the next year, that we can just focus more of our energy into building an ark into the arc. Meaning really engaging in deep Jewish learning, really engaging in acts of deep Jewish community where we come together in various ways. You know, I really think that to be a Jew is to be different. That has been our value proposition for thousands of years. We came along and said, like, actually monotheism, very different way of thinking, and one that has stood the test of time. We said that all people are created in the image of God, an idea that underlies liberalism, democracy, human rights, law. Yet we have this different way of thinking and being that I think still has something to say to the world today. And rather than trying so hard to fight those who hate us, I'd love for us to dig more deeply into who we are, into. Into our difference. This is actually something I say to college students all the time. I say, you know, if the climate club or the reproductive rights club won't let you be a member because you're a Zionist and they have, like, a no Zionist allowed vibe. Well, you know, you try to talk to them. I think it's always worth reaching out, trying to have a conversation. But if they really won't let you in, then start your own club. Start your own climate club, and you make it welcoming to everyone of every background and belief. Do not exclude anyone from your club. Anyone can come in as long as they care about climate change. And then you make the best climate change club that. That campus has ever seen. This is what Jews have done for decades in America when people excluded us from their law firms, their hospitals, their universities, we built our own and they were so outstanding that everyone wanted to join them. And I, you know, if we have to start that over again, that's obviously heartbreaking to me, but also kind of hopeful. And I see a lot of young Jews on campus beginning to realize these lessons and it inspires me.
- [40:05]
C
What a great message for the new season. Sarah Hurwitz, thank you for what you do. Keep writing.
- [40:13]
A
Thank you.
- [40:14]
B
There are much more than two books.
- [40:16]
C
In you and on Judaism too, by the way.
- [40:19]
A
Thank you.
- [40:20]
C
So we look forward to learning from you and being inspired by you and.
- [40:25]
B
I wish you and your family well.
- [40:27]
A
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
- [40:33]
B
I am pleased that Sarah Hurwitz spoke directly to and about the Jewish youth of America. If they kick you out of their clubs, form your own clubs, she urged, and make them open to everyone. I was nodding vigorously as Sarah spoke and want to expand on her wisdom and guidance. So to all the Gen Z and younger millennials who are listening, and even teenagers in Gen Alpha, Alas, it's harder now to be an American Jew. It is not only the increasing and intensifying episodes of violent Jew hatred. It's also the atmosphere, the social and intellectual accusations, condemnations and denunciations in school, university and your professional lives. Expressing our Jewish identity in public now often carries a price. This was always the norm throughout the 2000 years of Diaspora Jewish history. But the past 50 years in America have been the blessed exception. We are reverting to the historical mean and history chose your generation to contend with the change. I know it is a burden, but it is also your privilege to bear this burden on behalf of the Jewish people and all the past generations of Jews who bequeathed our heritage to you. I hope that the challenges and anxieties of our times strengthen your commitment to our people and create a fierceness of Jewish identity in you that may not have been there before. After all, it is this very will to live Jewishly with meaning, purpose and dignity that previous generations held onto in the face of obstacles much greater than ours that led to our being here today. It is now your task to build the next link in the chain as 150 generations of Jews have done before you. Do not follow some Jews off the cliff of Jewish life. There will be no Jewish future for you if you separate yourself from the mainstream of our people. As Sarah rightly emphasized, be critical, even harshly, when necessary. Israel and the American Jewish community and Judaism itself are not beyond criticism. Dispute, argumentation and disagreement are in the bloodstream of Jewish life. We worship God, not people and not states. But we also need to learn to love ourselves again. Stand up for yourselves and stand up for our community. Be proud Jews. On the one hand, you will make fierce enemies. You will lose friends. You might be kicked out of clubs. Climate activists might want to impose their ideological purity test on you and demand that you check your support of Israel at the door. Gaze for Palestine, who would actually be killed if they were caught promoting a gay lifestyle in Palestine, might feel triggered by a Zionist on campus. If they kick you out of their clubs, and it's contrary to school policies, demand fairness. If they kick you out of their clubs, and they are allowed to do so, or the atmosphere is simply too toxic. I completely agree with Sara. Establish your own clubs. This is what Jews did a century ago. And soon our clubs became so excellent that people wanted to join us. They wouldn't let Jews into white shoe law firms. So your grandparents and great grandparents established their own firms. And within two decades, everyone fought to get into those firms. And eventually some Jews became the senior and managing partners of the whitest of white shoe firms. Everyone can do something. Everyone can push back. Every act counts. Every word makes a difference. And even if you think to yourself, how is this one little measly action going to change anything? Remember, your goal is not only to repair the world, it is also to repair yourself. By defending your principles, values, self respect and dignity in what is often a contaminated moral environment, you will be stiffening your backbone. You will prove to yourself that you can stand up to adversity, that there are values worth fighting for and sacrificing for, and that it is your responsibility to participate in the fight for justice, righteousness and decency. And if you do nothing, which is how so many behave, know that doing nothing is also something. Nonaction is action too. Roman historian Cato the Elder taught that never is a person as active as when they do nothing. You will then just be handing your future over to others to set the course of your life and the direction of our society. But if you act, action will free you from frustration, cynicism and a sense of powerlessness. Yes, it might bring you into some confrontation with those who have different values, and they may kick you out of their clubs. But even that will be a form of liberation. You will be free. Free of the tyranny of the mob forcing you into straitjackets of conformity. And you know what will happen. Then, even without seeking it, people will gravitate to you. You will awaken, rouse and motivate them. Everyone resonates to the thrilling sounds of inspiration. Those unique vibrations of authentic commitment that pluck the strings of our heart and excite the music of our soul. Until next time. This is in these times.