As we noted last week, Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg has been, for well over half a century, one of the most courageous, creative and influential voices in the American Modern Orthodox world. For me, personally, he has been a teacher and an inspiration for many, many years—as I told him in Part I of our conversation, I remember those days when the first early drafts of portions of his new book were making their way around the Jewish world, and how I read and re-read them, marking them up, and always kept them in a place where I knew I could find them.

Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Blu—in her own right an accomplished author, poet, speaker, institution builder and more—now live in Jerusalem, where we conducted this two-part conversation about his new book, THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

In today’s episode, which we’d planned on running the day after Part I (until the news cycle got in the way with the firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant), we move closer to the events of the day, the present war and Israel’s challenges in this, the most difficult period of its entire history. As Rabbi Greenberg mentions, one of his grandsons was grievously wounded in the war—so Rabbi Greenberg’s reflections on the events of this year are not just theoretical, but personal and, still, filled with hope and belief.

In days like these, another opportunity to hear Rabbi Greenberg in any form is a gift to us all. This is Part II of our conversation, which we’re making available in full to all our readers and listeners.

Part I of our discussion with Rabbi Greenberg can be found here.

And our conversation with veteran Israeli journalist and author, Ari Shavit, about the Yoav Gallant firing, “"November 5th was the worst day of the war since October 7th. By far,” a conversation which has arouse much passionate response, can be found here.

Israel is in the midst of a period unlike anything it has ever experienced, unlike any we ever imagined. If you would like to share our conversation about what Israelis are feeling and expressing at this unprecedented moment in our history, we invite you to subscribe today.

Rabbi Greenberg was ordained by Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary of Brooklyn, New York and has a PhD in history from Harvard University. He has had a long and notable career in the service of the Jewish people. He served in the rabbinate, notably at the Riverdale Jewish Center in the 1960s. He served as professor and chairman of the Department of Jewish Studies of City College of the City University of New York in the 1970s. Together with Elie Wiesel, he founded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and served as its president until 1997.CLAL offered pluralistic Jewish learning for Jewish communal leadership and programs of intra-faith dialogue for rabbis of every denominational background.

From 1997 to 2008, he served as founding president of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation which created such programs as birthright Israel and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education.

Rabbi Greenberg was one of the activist/founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in the movement to liberate Russian Jewry. He was a pioneer in the development of Holocaust education and commemoration. When Elie Wiesel served as chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, Rabbi Greenberg served as its (Executive) Director. The Commission recommended and drew the blueprint for the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the National Mall in Washington. He served as the Museum’s chairman from 2000-2002.

He is a leading Jewish thinker and has written extensively on post-Holocaust Jewish religious thought, Jewish-Christian relations, pluralism, and the ethics of Jewish power. In his book, Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, Professor Steven T. Katz wrote: “No Jewish thinker has had a greater impact on the American Jewish Community in the last two decades than Irving (Yitz) Greenberg.” In his new book, The Triumph of Life, he argues that the Holocaust and the Jewish assumption of power in creating the state of Israel are the beginning of a new era in Jewish history. Together, these two events usher in a third stage of Jewish religion.

The link at the top of this posting will take you to the full recording of our conversation; below you will find a transcript for those who prefer to read.

Rabbi Irving Yitz Greenberg serves as the President of the JJ Greenberg Institute for the advancement of Jewish life and as a senior scholar in residence at Hadar. Rabbi Greenberg was ordained by the Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary of Brooklyn, New York, has a PhD in history from Harvard University. He's had an incredibly notable career in the service of the Jewish people. He served in the Rabbinate, most notably in the Riverdale Jewish Center in the 1960s, and as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Jewish Studies at City College, at the City University of New York in the '70s.

As if that was not enough, together with Elie Wiesel, Rabbi Greenberg founded CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and served as its President until 1997. CLAL was one of really the first organizations to do what is now not as uncommon as it was back then, thankfully, but you spearheaded it. It offered pluralistic Jewish learning for Jewish communal leadership and programs of interfaith dialog for rabbis of every denominational background. From 1997 to 2008, Rabbi Greenberg served as the founding President of Jewish Life Network of the Steinhart Foundation, which created such programs as birthright Israel and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, PEJ, as it was lovingly known back in the day. Yitz is really one of the world's leading Jewish thinkers, and he has written extensively on post Holocaust Jewish religious thought, Jewish Christian relations, pluralism, and the ethics of Jewish power. In his book, Interpreters of Judaism in the Late 20th Century, Professor Stephen Katz wrote, and I quote here, "No Jewish thinker has had a greater impact on the American Jewish community in the last two decades than Irving Yitz Greenberg."

So, Yitz, in the first part of our conversation, we were really treated to a magnificent overview of your theological development. And the first era, the biblical era, God's all in charge. Second year, the rabbinic era, God takes a step back. And in your really revolutionary theory, we're now in this third era of Jewish life, Jewish relationship with God, in which God is absent, really, from day-to-day history. Our job is to make Godliness present in the world, but God's not pulling strings. God's not expecting us to do this because we're going to get punished or whatever. And you said it much more articulately than I ever could.

And towards the end of our conversation, you said a few things that brought us to Israel. You talked about Judaism being a religion of hope, and that in the modern era, Zionism was the expression of that hope. You talked a bit about the Haredi decision to say, well, I don't have to defend this thing, which you described as being contrary completely to your understanding of what it means for Jews to have responsibility for our lives, for our welfare.

We didn't say this in the first half of our conversation, but you and I are actually having this conversation on October 7th. It's an unbearable day. And you and I said before we went on and started recording the first part of the conversation, you said to me, you have complete confidence that we're going to see our way through this. It's not going to be easy. I think a lot of people in this era are struggling to be sure that we're going to see our way through this. I mean, there are people who would say, come on, Rabbi Greenberg, it’s a year, exactly. And on this anniversary, we got soldiers moving into Jabaliya for the third time. Why are we going in the Jabaliya for the third time? Because Hamas is reconstituting itself. And we have the whole north getting pounded with missiles and rockets today, including people hurt. In Haifa, there were sirens in parts of Tel Aviv, and soldiers were killed today. And we're waiting to see what happens with Iran.

When I went out to get us some water before we started recording, and I saw somebody here in the little kitchenette area, we were talking briefly, and she said, I just don't see how we get out of this. It struck me that a lot of people are going through now what you went through in the early '60s when you were studying the Holocaust so intently. That was your break. That was your crisis of faith. This was the man who had grown up in an Orthodox world, and you knew that there were crusades, and you knew that there were pogroms, and you'd known that there was a Holocaust. But somehow meeting it face to face, sitting hour and hour, day and day, week and week at Yad Vashem, is what brought to this creative explosion of incredible thought.

I think there's a lot of people going through in 2024, what Rabbi Yitz Greenberg went through in 1961. They knew that there were crusades, and they knew that there were pogroms, and there was a Shoah. But now w...