Rabbi Steve Leder (3:21)

Yeah. As long as you understand the difference between curing and healing.

Hoda Kotb (3:26)

What is the difference?

Rabbi Steve Leder (3:26)

The same thing. There are a lot of things in life you can't cure, but you can heal from them. So I can't undo evil. I can't make a tumor go away. I can't bring someone back you love, but I can structure the chaos and help carry you and give you some faith and hope in the future and help you heal, which is very different than curing.

Hoda Kotb (4:02)

When there's a lot of pain, some people think that there's no way back. Not a physical ailment, but the kind of pain that you carry when you lose someone, when you go through a divorce, when you have something, you've lost your job or your reputation, whatever it is, and people are limping through life. How do you even begin to help?

Rabbi Steve Leder (4:24)

Well, the first thing, there are a lot of strategies for that. One of them I actually remember helping you with in the early, early days of COVID I said to you, let's all try to think of, prior to this, the most difficult thing we'd ever been through. And I know, I think, what came into your mind and. And then ask ourselves, how did we get through that? And whatever you did to get through that, those tools, those people, they still exist in your life. In a way, you have been here before, just not in quite as extreme a fashion. It's not completely foreign territory to you. You have normalized trauma before. You have normalized fear for your life before. And we can all do it again if we lean into our relationships, reach out. You know, I talk about not catastrophizing the future.

Hoda Kotb (5:28)

Yes, yes.

Rabbi Steve Leder (5:29)

And I talk about this old Yiddish expression, which I love, which is, when you must, you can't.

Hoda Kotb (5:34)

When you must, you can.

Rabbi Steve Leder (5:36)

Yes. When you must, you can. People are unbelievably strong and resilient.

Hoda Kotb (5:43)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (5:43)

When they have to.

Hoda Kotb (5:44)

When they have to be.

Rabbi Steve Leder (5:45)

And we've all had experience being strong and resilient, and that doesn't abandon us when the time comes. So there's this beautiful phrase also that I love. I won't bore you with the whole story, but the punchline is from the Talmud. Well, the story is about a rabbi who's ill and a rabbi who comes to visit him. This is a 2000 year old story. This rabbi has the reputation of being a healer. And he reaches out to this rabbi who's suffering. He reaches out to him, and this rabbi reaches back, and as the Talmud puts it, he lifts him from his suffering. And then the punchline is, because the prisoner cannot free himself. If we can reach out, it's very likely there's someone who will reach back and help lift us from our suffering. But we can't get out of this prison ourselves. And that segment we did a few years ago on my underlying anxiety disorder, that I lost control of it, and I needed help, and I got help, and it changed my life. I could never have gotten out of that prison alone.

Hoda Kotb (7:04)

I think for someone to reach out, because I'd imagine there are a lot of people listening right now who are going through something that's like a private pain. Maybe it's even a secret. Maybe it's something they can't even speak out loud. It might seem too big and too scary. And the idea of reaching out for help seems overwhelming almost. So they carry it. And I think there are a lot of people who say to themselves, look at me. I'm 40 years old. I'm 50 years old. However old I am, I've been carrying this, and I'm fine. Some pain we carry, they will rationalize. And they think I've done it, so why can't I continue doing it?

Rabbi Steve Leder (7:47)

You can until you can't.

Hoda Kotb (7:49)

Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (7:50)

Whatever you're doing to subordinate that pain. And you have to do something to subordinate that pain, to keep it locked in the basement of your psyche, you have to, whether it's workaholism or some other kind of ism, in order to keep those demons locked in the basement of your psyche, you have to live a life out of balance, or certainly a life where your professed values and your lived values are not the same. And that's a horrible way to live. Horrible.

Hoda Kotb (8:27)

I was in this group setting where. And it was kind of a. It was like a retreat. And they asked people to yell out their deepest shame.

Rabbi Steve Leder (8:39)

Well, when you verbalize it.

Hoda Kotb (8:41)

Yes.

Rabbi Steve Leder (8:41)

You own it.

Hoda Kotb (8:42)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (8:43)

In fact, you know, I can go down so many rabbit holes with you. But 850 years ago, greatest rabbi of all time, Maimonides, he talked about the reasons that people fall out with other people and how to get back, how to truly repent completely, how to be forgiven and how to forgive. And he comes up with these four steps. The first is to stop the behavior. Whatever it is, stop it. You caused a bad accident because you text and drive. Whatever. Stick the phone in the glove compartment.

Hoda Kotb (9:22)

Stop, Stop. Okay.

Rabbi Steve Leder (9:24)

The second step is to verbalize, to say it out loud. Because when you say it out loud, you're flinging that basement door open.

Hoda Kotb (9:36)

Oh, my God.

Rabbi Steve Leder (9:37)

Right? You're letting it out, and then you can talk about it. And if you can talk about it, you can manage it. What do therapists really do? What do I do? We create what's called a holding environment. A safe, completely confidential relationship with real boundaries that gives you the chance to unburden your soul. And that's a very important step to being, I guess, what I would call in alignment. I can tell you the unhappiest people I know. And in my line of work, you see the insides of a lot of people's lives. The unhappiest people I know are people who, as I said, have one set of values, their professed values, and then the way they live and they're really divergent. That's why politicians and celebrities and regular people get into so much trouble. But even if they don't get caught, it's a very, very difficult way to live. That dissonance will tear you apart. On the other side of it, the most content, the most whole, fulfilled people I know are people who live pretty close to their truth.

Hoda Kotb (10:52)

Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it's not too late. Some people wonder.

Rabbi Steve Leder (10:57)

It's never too late.

Hoda Kotb (10:57)

Is it too late to kind of, have you always lived your truth, do you think?

Rabbi Steve Leder (11:01)

No, no, no. And anyone who says they have is.

Hoda Kotb (11:06)

Not telling the truth.

Rabbi Steve Leder (11:07)

Not telling you the truth.

Hoda Kotb (11:09)

How far away were you from it and how close are you today?

Rabbi Steve Leder (11:12)

I've been very far away in certain corners, but mostly aligned in my family and public life. But no one can be aligned all the time. All the time. You know, this idea of there are good people in the world and bad people in the world, it's not true. The line between good and evil, it runs right down the center of all of us. And multiple times a day, we have to decide, yeah, choices. Which side of the line am I going to be on? We have agency and we have choices, and we need to make those choices multiple times a day. Wow. Because most people's moral dilemmas, the things that are going to throw off their alignment, it's not murder, violence. I mean, very few people engage in that kind of behavior, really. Despite the news. It's the tiny choices. I once gave a sermon that started with, rather than give this sermon, I thought about stepping out here and putting a scale and a feather in front of you and saying to you, witness this scale. Witness this feather. It is all you need to know. All of life, all of existence, all teaching. Ponder them and sit down. Now, I didn't. I mean, that's how I started the sermon. Then I talked about this idea of a metaphorical scale for each of us that is perfectly balanced between good and evil, and that the destiny of the entire world depends upon the balance of this scale. And whichever deed you do next, even a deed, the weight of a feather will tip the scale. Wow. Wow.

Hoda Kotb (13:19)

Like little tiny choices you make every day, little tiny decisions you make every day.

Rabbi Steve Leder (13:24)

As small is everything.

Hoda Kotb (13:25)

Oh, my gosh. Well, you deal in so many things. And the books you write are some of my favorites. I give them away for Christmas. I give them away to friends. But this book, I mean, I feel like you get to topics, obviously, that in many families we don't ever even discuss. And it's death and dying and what happens near the end? What happens if you've had not a rocky relationship with a loved one and now you hear they have a terrible diagnosis. Now what do I do?

Rabbi Steve Leder (13:59)

What happens then? What doesn't happen?

Hoda Kotb (14:01)

And how do I make up for 10 years of this? You sit at the bedside with the families. What have you gleaned from just being in that unique position?

Rabbi Steve Leder (14:13)

A lot. But I'll ramble a little bit and tell you the things that are most profound for me, and I'll start with one that might surprise you, given that it only happened five years ago. So before my dad died, I had officiated at literally over a thousand funerals, a thousand bedsides, a thousand bereft families, a thousand oceans of tears. And part of what people do pretty often before the funeral starts is they view the body, then the casket is closed and remains closed for the service, et cetera. And the burial. Hoda. I had stood next to a thousand families looking at the body of their loved one. And it didn't affect me very much because it wasn't my loved one. I was there doing my job, fulfilling my role. Is a better way, I think, to put it, to carry people through and to be. To offer some empathy and some structure and some kind of path back out into the light. Okay. But honestly, I could have eaten a sandwich standing next to them, because professionals have a shard of ice in them. They have to. This is still very hard to talk about. So my dad had Alzheimer's for 10 years, and he died. And he was buried the morning of the Eve of Yom Kippur, the most Spiritually significant day of the Jewish year. So I flew home to Minneapolis. I have four siblings there. My mom. Everybody's married and has kids, and, you know, the tribe is there. We go to the synagogue where the funeral's gonna be. We're sitting in some room off a hallway waiting for the rabbi to come and take us in to see my dad's body and then close the casket and then walk us back into the sanctuary and start the service. And I remember when the young rabbi walked in, I remember thinking to myself, I know exactly how the young rabbi feels right now, but I have no idea how I feel right now.

Hoda Kotb (16:39)

Okay, that's profound.

Rabbi Steve Leder (16:41)

And then we walk out, and I approach my dad's body in the casket, and I put my hand on his chest because I didn't want to feel how cold I knew his skin was, but I put my hand on his chest. Now, to really understand what I'm about to tell you, there's a little bit of backstory, which is that my dad and I have looked almost identical at each age of our lives. If you saw a picture of me at 10 years old and a picture of my dad at 10 years old, other than the clothing, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You see these bags? This is. People tell me all the time in la, you know, if you're on TV and stuff, we could take care of that. I said, never. This is my dad. I look in the mirror in the morning, and it's my dad. So I approach the casket, my hands on my dad's chest, and I'm looking at him. And the first thing that comes to my mind is, that's how I'm going to look when I'm dead and my son is standing over my casket and body. I am going to die. Die. That was the moment when I realized I am going to die. And that moment changed my life for the better. Made it more beautiful, more important, more precious. And my heart was broken. So that's the most important thing I've learned, is that the fact we're going to die either means nothing matters or everything matters. And I say, since that experience, I knew it kind of before, but everything matters.

Hoda Kotb (18:49)

Everything matters.

Rabbi Steve Leder (18:49)

Kafka was right. The meaning of life is that it ends. You know the poet Wallace Stevens? I'm going to paraphrase him badly, but he said, the beauty of a flower is that it fades. You know why no one likes plastic flowers? Because they have no death. They have no life. So that's the singular truth of it all. That there are other things I've learned that are also ennobling and important, but that's the biggest.

Hoda Kotb (19:25)

What did you lose the day your dad passed?

Rabbi Steve Leder (19:27)

What did I lose? Well, people with that disease die twice. So I had lost the man who was my father years before, and I was surprised at how painful the death of his body would be. It was no less painful than the death of his mind. And partly because there was no, in a way, no easing into it, no grat. You know, he died in his sleep at 4 in the morning in a nursing home. And while it was inevitable, it was still a shock. I've heard that a thousand times in my office, on what I call my couch of tears. People with a father, 98 years old. I can't believe he died. And, you know, to the outsider, it's really come on. But from the inside, it makes perfect sense. It's like you're watching your girls grow up and you can't believe, right, how grown up they are. And that happens your whole life when you look at your kids like, I can't. What do you mean you can't believe? You were there every day, all day, that it was happening, but still, it's a miracle. But the day my dad's body died, in a way, I think I gained. I gained partly because of what I just told you about adding value to my days and partly because it enabled me through the process of grief. It enabled me to go back in time. This is the amazing thing about human beings. We're the only creatures on earth that have the ability to summon the past into the present and carry it into the future. No other creature can do that. And so when we sat, the five kids and my mom and the grandchildren, and we started talking about my dad, we were able to talk about the dad before Alzheimer's, before the torturous decline. And that was a beautiful journey, which I still take often.

Hoda Kotb (21:47)

Did he remember you in those days?

Rabbi Steve Leder (21:49)

Well, it's very hard to know. I'll tell you an amazing boy you're getting down there. My parents were 17 and 18 when they got married. They had five kids before they were 30. I didn't know a lot about parenting. Had a horrible marriage. My mother. I visited my mother in March for a week because all my siblings were out of town. I spent a week with my mom, and when I got there, I was sitting in the little apartment in the assisted living, and she just watches Turner Movie Classics all day long. She's almost 90. And I said, mom, you seem happy here. And she said, well, I am, honey. You know, Stephen, I couldn't really be happy till your father was dead.

Hoda Kotb (22:38)

Oh, my God. That's what she said. Honesty comes with age, right? Just say your thing. You can't.

Rabbi Steve Leder (22:46)

Like, I might be 63, but I'm still the kid. And she said, well, it's true.

Hoda Kotb (22:51)

He was awful. And so I don't know how I.

Rabbi Steve Leder (22:54)

Got off on that tangent, but just so you know that my parents had this very conflicted relationship, and my dad had stopped talking for about the last two years of his life. However, I went home to visit him. I tried to go every three or four months, and I often felt like it would be the last time I saw him. So I treated every time I saw him like the last time, because he kept getting pneumonia and all these things, and I was getting ready to say goodbye, and he was in a wheelchair all the time at that point. And by the way, there's nothing more difficult to see than them transferring your once strong, fearsome dad from a wheelchair to his bed in a sling, dangling like a marionette. It's awful. It's awful. So my dad's in his wheelchair, and I get down to his level, and I said, dad, I'm going to go back to LA and I'll see you in a few months. And I looked him in the eyes and I said, I really love you, dad. And he went like this. He hadn't spoken in almost two years, and he went like this. He always made this motion when the Alzheimer's was profound, and he went, and I love you, too. That was. Was such a gift. My mom and my brother were there and they. They were amazed. So somewhere, when you asked, did he know me somewhere, he did. He found the pathway. He found the light. To be able to say that I will never, ever forget it. It's the most precious thing I have from my dad, and it's not a thing at all.

Hoda Kotb (24:54)

You know, it's so interesting that you said everything was kind of clear when your dad passed. You had a duty that you performed as a rabbi with other people who had lost loved ones. And now going forward, there were going to be more. You probably, I guess, changed the way you may have done some things, but I did. You changed it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (25:16)

It made me a better rabbi.

Hoda Kotb (25:17)

It did.

Rabbi Steve Leder (25:18)

Made me a better human being, made me a better dad, made me a better husband, made me a better friend. I don't think I was doing a bad job before.

Hoda Kotb (25:28)

I was not.

Rabbi Steve Leder (25:29)

But another Yiddish expression, which I love, a half truth, is a whole Lie. Isn't that great?

Hoda Kotb (25:36)

That's brilliant.

Rabbi Steve Leder (25:37)

Yes. Well, Yiddish, Yes. Yes. It's a distillate of brilliance. And this is how my dad taught. This is why I was telling you how young my parents were. My dad was completely uneducated. He owned a junkyard called Leader Brothers Medal with my Uncle Mort. And his professorial abilities were expressed in Yiddishisms. That's how he taught us. And a half truth is a whole lie is a very powerful idea that we could use in this country and in our government and in business and in advertising and in just about every aspect of our lives.

Hoda Kotb (26:12)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (26:14)

And I realized when I moved from being Steve Leiter the rabbi to Steve Leiter the son, that I'd been telling people a lot of half truths about grief and loss and disease and death and moving on in the valley of shadows and all of it. And I actually wrote the Beauty of what Remains as a kind of apology to the community. This is what Steve Leader, the rabbi, believed, and this is what Steve Leader, the son, discovered was wrong about that belief. And I will tell you that I've learned much more being the son than the rabbi.

Hoda Kotb (27:07)

Coming up, Rabbi Leader shares the questions we should all be asking ourselves and how we can shape our legacy. After the break, you don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns.

Rabbi Steve Leder (27:32)

McDonald's breakfast comes first.

Hoda Kotb (27:35)

Ba da ba ba ba. Every morning, we choose how to begin our day. I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious. They care about their world and they care about each other.

Rabbi Steve Leder (27:49)

There's always something new to learn, whether.

Hoda Kotb (27:52)

A news event or a new recipe. And when we step through the morning together, it makes the rest of the day better. We come here to make the most of today. We are family. We are today.

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:03)

Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7am on NBC. Hi, Georgia.

Hoda Kotb (28:10)

Hi, David. What do you think the world needs more of?

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:13)

Well, the world always needs more podcasts.

Hoda Kotb (28:16)

Didn't you used to have a podcast?

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:17)

Not only did I used to have a podcast, Georgia, it's coming back. David Tennant does a podcast with Season three is coming at ya.

Hoda Kotb (28:24)

Okay, and who are your guests?

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:26)

Who are my guests? What about Russell T. Davis? What about Jamila Jamil? What about Stanley the Tooch Tuchy?

Hoda Kotb (28:32)

So it's really just you hanging out with your mates then? Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:35)

Come join me. David Tennant does a podcast with. Bye.

Hoda Kotb (28:46)

The Beauty of what Remains. Just the title of that book. Did it come to you How. And just explain how that.

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:55)

How the title came to be.

Hoda Kotb (28:56)

I love that title, by the way.

Rabbi Steve Leder (28:58)

Well, I finished the manuscript, didn't have a title, and this is typical of me. I then re read the manuscript and looked for my favorite line and found the title. Within that.

Hoda Kotb (29:20)

There is beauty that remains. I mean, sometimes so much.

Rabbi Steve Leder (29:23)

In fact, there's also beauty that's only revealed by loss. You know, one way to think about it, I can give you the fancy Latin term is via negationis, which means by way of the negative. And it's a form of theology. So you can understand what God is by understanding what God is not by taking away bad ideas. Think about a sculpture. How does a sculpture begin? It's a block of marble. And it takes someone to skillfully remove chip by chip by chip. Everything about that block of marble that isn't that beauty hiding inside, right? So we can create by ceasing to create, by removing. And this is true of death. It strips away so much, it clears away so much dramatically or chip by chip by chip. And often what it leaves behind is something really beautiful. My relationship with my dad in death is in many ways much better than it was in life.

Hoda Kotb (30:36)

A lot of people at the end, I was just thinking about what happens. I've had friends, several friends in fact, who upon the passing of someone in their life, their parent or whatever, there is a whole family feud over stuff. Who gets the stuff? The stuff, the silverware, the. Who got the little house that was on the corner like it is a knife fight really for stuff.

Rabbi Steve Leder (31:08)

Yes, it is.

Hoda Kotb (31:09)

It cracks you up. But what up with all, all the stuff taught?

Rabbi Steve Leder (31:13)

I think I can help you with that one. This is another fundamental that I knew, but really learned very deeply through all these deaths that I've been adjacent to. The first is there's a chapter in the beauty of what remains called nobody wants your crap. All right, okay. So this came from a friend of mine, Deborah, who's a casting director in la. And she went home to Florida cause her mom died. She came back and I said, what have you learned? She said, I'll tell you what I learned, Steve. Nobody wants your crap. And she meant the double entendre. Okay, first of all, nobody wants your crap. One of the saddest memories of my dad's death is going down into the basement of my parents townhouse in Minneapolis. Mom said, Stephen, honey, go downstairs, see if there's anything of your father's you want to take. I go downstairs and all of my dad's stuff was in A heap on the basement floor.

Hoda Kotb (32:07)

Oh, geez.

Rabbi Steve Leder (32:08)

Nobody cared. Nobody. The only thing I took was my dad's hat. Cause I loved walking around Palm Springs in the winter with him in that big man in the yellow suit, Curious George hat. That was my dad walking around Palm Springs like he was the king. And that was it. So we spend all our lives working so hard to make money. To buy things that we think matter and they don't. And I like nice things as much as the next guy. But I don't define my life by them. And I don't believe my outer life is an inner life. That's like trying to eat a picture of food. It's not real. So the first thing is that it's not that things aren't nice. It's just that they don't have real meaning. They can make you comfortable, but they don't mean anything. That's the first thing. Net worth and self worth have nothing to do with each other except in our minds. And I think the other real truth that I have learned over the years. Which has been incredibly helpful to people. Far more than I thought. Here's another fundamental truth I'm gonna give you. This is gold.

Hoda Kotb (33:26)

I'm ready.

Rabbi Steve Leder (33:27)

I'm ready.

Hoda Kotb (33:27)

I'm ready.

Rabbi Steve Leder (33:29)

People face death exactly the way they face life. And people die the way they live. So that family that's fighting over the paperweights and the fountain pens and the china. That family fought and bickered over material things in life. And they're going to do it in death. The family that's whole and loving and funny and juicy and warm. When their loved one is alive. They're gonna be that way when their loved one's dying. This is also true for the dying. If you're a bitter, angry person in life. You're gonna be bitter and angry when you die. If you're a person with friends and community and love, that's how you're gonna die. Death doesn't change us. It intensifies us. Heinrich Heine, the German poet, had this joke about the Jews. He said, the Jews are like everyone else, just more so. Isn't that great?

Hoda Kotb (34:26)

I love it. I love it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (34:28)

You could say it about anyone, really. But death doesn't give anyone a new personality, whether dying or grieving. Death doesn't give anyone a new family dynamic. We live and die the same way, just more so.

Hoda Kotb (34:46)

So if you want to.

Rabbi Steve Leder (34:47)

That's the truth of it.

Hoda Kotb (34:48)

If you want to. Correct, then. Cause if you're listening to this and going, I don't want that. I wanna have some more. And there are families that don't talk about their feelings. They actually don't talk about the possibility of someone passing.

Rabbi Steve Leder (34:59)

Yeah, it's like the book of it. They don't wanna talk about it.

Hoda Kotb (35:01)

They don't wanna talk about it. Everything goes under the carpet. I know a lot of families who operate that way. It's hard to have a meaningful conversation in that kind of a setting.

Rabbi Steve Leder (35:13)

Not for them.

Hoda Kotb (35:14)

Not for them.

Rabbi Steve Leder (35:14)

For them, that is meaningful.

Hoda Kotb (35:16)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (35:17)

You know, it's hard not to be judgmental about how other people manage these things. Yeah, it's hard not to wann. Could you just hug your daughter, for God's sake? Could you just get along? Could you just agree that the grandchildren will carry the casket? No, they can't. Now, why is this helpful? Because I get a call from you and you say, steve, I know this isn't true. I'm making it up. Steve, about 10 years ago, I stopped talking to my mom because she's cold and narcissistic and withholding and I felt horrible about myself my whole life around her. And I text her on her birthday and Mother's Day and frankly, it's better for both of us. But now she's been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She's got three to six months. And I'm going to go back to the Midwest and I really hope that we're going to find each other. To which I say, I hope so too, but I doubt it. And I don't want you to set yourself up for a fantasy that is very unlikely to come true.

Hoda Kotb (36:26)

And why is that unlikely?

Rabbi Steve Leder (36:28)

Because people don't change because they're dying. And there you go, walking into the punch one more time. Now, I'm not saying don't go. I'm saying don't go with some magical thinking that your mother is not going to be your mother because she has a bad diagnosis. She's going to be your mother and more. So now that might feel like harsh guidance. It's such a relief to people. It's such a relief.

Hoda Kotb (36:56)

I've just noticed, listening to you and also knowing you, that you really do tell the truth. You tell the truth to people who seek you out. You tell the truth in a eulogy, even if it's painful. Even if it's painful, yes.

Rabbi Steve Leder (37:10)

There's a way to tell it that is sensitive. Like, for example, let's say the woman who's dying, whose funeral it is all up in her kid's business. Incredibly annoying. Just the impossible. I Might say something like, the worst thing a parent could ever be is indifferent. And she was never indifferent. Yeah, yeah.

Hoda Kotb (37:36)

And they'll get it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (37:37)

The kids get it. But everyone else is thinking, oh, isn't that lovely? And that's the art of a eulogy. A eulogy is the truth. Obituaries are the facts.

Hoda Kotb (37:49)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (37:50)

Facts don't tell you very much about a person. A eulogy is you want to get to the truths. And of course, in a way that is dignified and respectful and kind and loving, but nevertheless, the truth. So the family feels heard. And I'll go one level deeper for the truth with you, which, when I wrote these couple of paragraphs, the beauty of what remains is like 50,000 words, something like that. Maybe 100 were about this topic that I'm about to share with you. And I put them in there because this might help a handful of people. Here's something I know. People often come to see me and say things like, steve, I've had this terrible relationship with my mother and she's going to die. And I think I'm just going to feel so guilty and so much shame that we never repaired the relationship that I couldn't repair it. And I say to them, maybe, but more likely you're going to be relieved. And they look at me like, oh, my God, how does he know? Am I a bad person? But the truth of it is, there are toxic relationships in life. We do have to cut some people out of our lives like a cancer. And when they die, it's a relief. And that's the truth.

Hoda Kotb (39:25)

Wow.

Rabbi Steve Leder (39:26)

And it's a liberating truth for people who are carrying guilt and shame.

Hoda Kotb (39:31)

Yes. And what about unresolved stuff?

Rabbi Steve Leder (39:35)

Unfinished business?

Hoda Kotb (39:36)

Yeah. I just have one more thing to say. I should have said this. I didn't do that. But is.

Rabbi Steve Leder (39:42)

Well, I'll tell you, we have this amazing ability to see the missing wedge in a circle, all of us. There was a Soviet era psychologist named Blumezer Garnik, and she basically demonstrated through a number of experiments that people focus much more on the things they didn't get done than the things they did. The metaphor would be that if you show every human being a picture of a circle with a wedge cut out of it, your eye goes to the missing piece every time first. And so I can gently guide people away from that. And very often I'll say something like, people say, I wasn't there when he died. I said, that's true, but you were there when he lived. And isn't that what matters? I had this with my dad. He died 2,000 miles away from me in the middle of the night. I wasn't there. I have not felt honestly any pain about that because I was there when he lived.

Hoda Kotb (40:47)

It's so beautiful. Still ahead, Rabbi leader shares the 12 essential questions to tell a life story and a simple but profound practice of gratitude. Stay with.

Rabbi Steve Leder (41:09)

Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with one of the brightest stars in all of music right now, Jelly Roll, telling me about singing those hits that inspire and telling the story of his rise from a difficult past. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.

Hoda Kotb (41:32)

Hey everyone, it's Jenna Bush Hager from Today with Jenna and friends, reminding you to check out my podcast Open Book with Jenna. On this week's episode, I sit down with bestselling author Rebecca Yarros to talk about how she drew on her experience with chronic illness and life in a military family to write 4th Wing and her process to plot out five books in the series. You can listen to the full conversation now by searching Open Book with Jenna wherever you get your podcasts.

Rabbi Steve Leder (41:59)

Hey everybody. I'm Al Roker from the Today Show. Let's kick start your wellness journey with the all new Start Today app. Everything you need for a healthier you all in one place. Fitness challenges for all levels, meal plans that are easy and delicious and so much more. It's built to fit your lifestyle and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe Download Star Today from the.

Hoda Kotb (42:23)

App Store on your Apple device now. Terms apply cancel anytime through Apple under Profile Settings. I love this book too. For your When I'm Gone. It's another one of my favorites. For your when I'm gone. 12 essential questions to Tell a Life Story and I can only imagine you coming up with these 12 beautiful questions.

Rabbi Steve Leder (42:50)

These questions are the questions I've been asking families for 37 years to try to get to the truth of the love one has died. So the question what is love? We tend to think that we make sacrifices because we love someone. I have found the opposite is the case. Now I have to get a little geeky on you for a second. Geeky?

Hoda Kotb (43:14)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (43:14)

The Hebrew word for sacrifice. The biblical Hebrew word for sacrifice is corban. Think of it like as a root, K, R, B as the root letters. Those root letters also comprise the words for relatives to be close, to draw near, to gather in that was sacrifice in the minds of the sages. It was something you did to draw closer to God. Nearer to God. And of course, because these were communal pilgrimage festivals, you were also closer and nearer to the people you love. So when we give, we actually draw closer and nearer. I'll ask you this. I think this will probably make the point pretty clearly. What are the two most important things in your life?

Hoda Kotb (44:08)

Haley and hope. My girls.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:09)

That's one. Let's say your kids. Yeah. Your girls.

Hoda Kotb (44:11)

Kids.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:12)

Yeah. What's second?

Hoda Kotb (44:13)

My family. Rest of my family.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:15)

Let's say family's one.

Hoda Kotb (44:16)

Okay.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:17)

What's second? I would think let's do God.

Hoda Kotb (44:20)

Family.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:20)

Not your. And here. Yeah. First. Second and third.

Hoda Kotb (44:23)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:23)

Okay. What are the things you've sacrificed the most for in your life?

Hoda Kotb (44:28)

Well, now, probably my kids now, but work was the first one.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:31)

Kids and work.

Hoda Kotb (44:31)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:31)

That's what everyone says. Now, I asked you what matters most to you in your life, and you said, basically, kids at work and God.

Hoda Kotb (44:42)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:42)

Then I ask you, what have you sacrificed the most for? It's the same. Yeah. Meaning.

Hoda Kotb (44:49)

I get it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (44:50)

Meaning we care the most about the people we sacrifice the most for. That's the point. That's who we're near to and dear to and close. And when you start to think about love in that way, it changes the way you love. This nonsense that I say this to wedding couples all the time. This idea that marriage is 50, 50 is completely wrong. It's never 50, 50. After I had my back surgery, it was 99:1. I was depressed. I was on steroids and opioids. I couldn't walk. And I just needed Betsy to take care of me. There was no 50 50. When she's had her multiple surgeries, there's no 50, 50. That's love. There's no 50, 50 about it. There's no 5050 in those types of meaningful relationships. And once you start to understand that and live that, you stop keeping score. You start to realize that unlike our culture, where sacrifice has such a negative connotation. Oh, she made so many sacrifices. He made the ultimate sacrifice. We tend to think of sacrifices as a net loss. Once you start thinking about it as a net gain, it changes the way you live and it changes your relationships and it removes bitterness and scorekeeping and all of it. And that's the room you make for love.

Hoda Kotb (46:28)

Oh, my God. That is so profound and beautiful.

Rabbi Steve Leder (46:32)

Yes. Yes.

Hoda Kotb (46:33)

What question number is that? That's in here. Three. Okay. Well, by the way, all the questions, in case you want to know, I'M just gonna read them. What do you regret? When was a time you led with your heart.

Rabbi Steve Leder (46:44)

Those are related, by the way. Because what I found is what most people regret most at the end of their life is not something they did. It's something they didn't do, something they skipped. It's a sin of omission.

Hoda Kotb (46:56)

Omission. What makes you happy?

Rabbi Steve Leder (46:59)

Which makes me ask, when did you think with your heart? Because you ask people when they fought with their heart, when they subordinated their intellect, it led to the most beautiful decision in their life.

Hoda Kotb (47:13)

That was my kids.

Rabbi Steve Leder (47:14)

You led with your heart.

Hoda Kotb (47:15)

You know why? Everything logistically, intellectually, made no sense.

Rabbi Steve Leder (47:20)

Right.

Hoda Kotb (47:21)

But it was the right decision, and I knew it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (47:23)

Right.

Hoda Kotb (47:23)

And by the way, the minute I decided that I wanted to have kids, even at my age, everything in the universe was showing me. I walked. There was an interview with Sandra Bullock. I'm like. I Googled her age. I'm like, she's my age. She's actually a little older than me. Oh, my word. And then, like, everywhere I turned. But you're right.

Rabbi Steve Leder (47:42)

All of a sudden, it opens up.

Hoda Kotb (47:44)

Yeah. And then. I mean, it was the best decision I ever made. And if I would have ever thought logistically, if you start doing math, you won't do anything. It's the best thing I ever did.

Rabbi Steve Leder (47:55)

Yeah. I think it's why the Bible says we're supposed to, you know, love God with all our heart, with all our soul and all our might. Doesn't say intellect. Right.

Hoda Kotb (48:03)

Doesn't say brain.

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:04)

It doesn't.

Hoda Kotb (48:05)

The brain is always driving. I feel like our brains are driving and like our spirit and emotions and all that are in the background.

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:11)

But that's not what the ancients believed. The ancients believed the heart was the seed of wisdom.

Hoda Kotb (48:15)

All right. Okay.

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:16)

So where were we? One is regret. Two is heart. 3.

Hoda Kotb (48:19)

Three is what makes you happy. That's something to ponder. What was your biggest failure? That's a big one. What got you through your greatest challenge?

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:30)

Well, this is what I was talking about. Whatever challenge you're facing, call to mind the previous worst thing you ever faced and how you got through it, and remind yourself you did get through it. Here we are, and here we are again.

Hoda Kotb (48:44)

What is a good person?

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:46)

Yeah. God.

Hoda Kotb (48:47)

That's a good one.

Rabbi Steve Leder (48:48)

We say to people all the time, you know, be good. He's a good. What does it really mean to be a good person? What does that really mean? Because it's very hard to be a good person in the abstract.

Hoda Kotb (49:00)

Yeah. Yeah. What Is love, which we covered and loved. Have you ever cut someone out of your life? That's another chapter. That's chapter two.

Rabbi Steve Leder (49:09)

There's a lot to learn from that.

Hoda Kotb (49:10)

Yeah. The relief you describe is really profound.

Rabbi Steve Leder (49:13)

And that you can't save everyone.

Hoda Kotb (49:16)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (49:16)

You know, when I was a kid, I went to summer camp in Minnesota. You learned to swim in lakes. I took the life saving course, Red Cross life saving course in the 70s. And the first thing they teach you is throw, row and go. When someone's drowning, the safest thing you can do is throw a flotation device. If you can't do that, the next safest thing is to row to get in a boat or a jet ski and get out there. The last thing you should ever do is get in the water and swim out to a drowning person because their instinct is going to be to push you down in order to lift themselves up and breathe. And they will drown you.

Hoda Kotb (49:57)

Yes. Yes.

Rabbi Steve Leder (49:59)

And so this is true. In relationships, there are certain people. You throw, you row, you cannot go.

Hoda Kotb (50:08)

You can't go.

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:08)

They will take you down. Yeah.

Hoda Kotb (50:11)

God, that's good. How do you want to be remembered?

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:15)

Well, then you get to reverse engineer your life if this is how you want to be remembered. Loving sister. And you haven't called your sister for three years. Really.

Hoda Kotb (50:24)

Right. It's not happening.

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:25)

So let's realign.

Hoda Kotb (50:27)

It's funny, I remember, I think it was David Brooks said that, like, there's the resume. You and the.

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:31)

Oh, exactly.

Hoda Kotb (50:31)

And the uvc.

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:32)

That's exactly right. That's. Those are the Divergent.

Hoda Kotb (50:35)

Yeah. Which one are you gonna work for? What is good advice. What will your epitaph say again?

Rabbi Steve Leder (50:43)

When you have to distill your Life down to 15 characters per line and four lines total. That's what headstones allow. That's it. When you are engaged in a very powerful exercise in essentialism. Right. I have to get what I hope for to be remembered by the people I love down to fewer characters than a tweet. And then again, you get to reverse engineer because I walk through cemeteries a lot. And we're all unique individuals, but almost all headstones say exactly the same thing because we all have the same aspirations. With rare exception. Loving wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, friend. That's our aspiration now. Are you.

Hoda Kotb (51:31)

Are we living it?

Rabbi Steve Leder (51:32)

Living it. And if not, what are you gonna do about it?

Hoda Kotb (51:36)

Last chapter. What will your final blessing be?

Rabbi Steve Leder (51:38)

Yeah. I always ask when I'm meeting with a family after however long a couple hour conversation about their loved one, do you have a loved one who's died?

Hoda Kotb (51:49)

Yeah. My dad.

Rabbi Steve Leder (51:50)

Your dad? How long ago?

Hoda Kotb (51:51)

I was in college. Junior.

Rabbi Steve Leder (51:53)

Yeah. Okay. Young.

Hoda Kotb (51:55)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (51:56)

How did he die?

Hoda Kotb (51:58)

A heart attack while he was exercising.

Rabbi Steve Leder (52:02)

Sudden. So I would have asked you, and I'll ask you now, if your dad could have stood up there at his funeral and looked out at you and said something, what do you think it would have been? What would it be?

Hoda Kotb (52:20)

I'm proud of you.

Rabbi Steve Leder (52:22)

That's it. That's his final blessing for you. I'm proud of you. What more could a daughter hope to hear? That's why that question is so important.

Hoda Kotb (52:38)

Oh, that's beautiful.

Rabbi Steve Leder (52:39)

Because that's part of the beauty of what remains is your dad still has the last word with you and it's proud of you. That's beautiful. By the way, this came out of what we were talking about, about materialism. Because when you think about most people, what is most people's final word to the people they love? The last thing your kids ever hear from you.

Hoda Kotb (53:02)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (53:04)

It's usually a legalese document written by a stranger that's completely about who gets what and when and how much. As if that will somehow. The material will somehow express your love, express the spiritual. It doesn't. What do we really want? What's the real legacy? We want our loved ones story, their values, their hopes and dreams and blessings for us. Their life lessons for us. Their regrets, their hopes, their guidance even after their body is gone. That's the real inheritance we crave. And that's why I wrote this book, so that people could have a way to gift that to their loved ones. Instead of the paperweights and fountain.

Hoda Kotb (53:48)

Instead of the paperweights and fountains. I love. Before we get to this, I love. One of the things you said is if there's somebody who's changed your life or impacted your life, you have a suggestion for that person?

Rabbi Steve Leder (53:59)

Yes, a gratitude visit.

Hoda Kotb (54:01)

Would you tell me? Because this is. By the way, I think we did an interview years ago.

Rabbi Steve Leder (54:05)

We did one.

Hoda Kotb (54:06)

I never forgot that.

Rabbi Steve Leder (54:10)

I think all three of us were crying.

Hoda Kotb (54:11)

Yeah. We were bawling.

Rabbi Steve Leder (54:12)

Yeah. So this comes from Martin Seligman, who's the sort of father of positive psychology at Penn. He was treating patients for depression. And one of the exercises he gave them was to choose someone who changed your life for the better, who you never really properly thanked. Write a 300 word thank you letter to that person, show up unannounced, knock on the door. When they open the door, read them the letter. And what he found was everyone's crying. And his patient's depression improved one week, one month, and one year after. And this is part of what I was saying about the prisoner cannot free himself when you reach out. And sometimes, Hoda, like, I mean, I'm sure you can relate to this. You do so much for so many. It's easy to forget how dramatically you have been able to change people's lives. You changed my life. I've always wanted to say I've thought about writing one for you and showing up here, but I couldn't get in the door. I'm serious. You. I'm going to do it now. I wrote this book on pain. I knew I had something to say. I knew I had the ability to say it. I have something to share with people. I care about people. I love people. And I come on the show for that first time, and it was so clear to me that. That you had read the book, that it meant something to you, that we were having a real conversation.

Hoda Kotb (56:04)

Yeah. I remember.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:07)

And I asked you what to say to Betsy because she had just been diagnosed, and it was just a moment where I knew, like, here's somebody who really understands.

Hoda Kotb (56:25)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:28)

And collectively, all those segments, they changed my life. So I love you for that.

Hoda Kotb (56:35)

I love you, too.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:36)

The point is, we don't know.

Hoda Kotb (56:38)

Yeah. We don't.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:38)

When we change someone's lives, we do it all the time.

Hoda Kotb (56:41)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:41)

To. To know we're doing it is a beautiful thing. When I announced my retirement, stepping down as senior rabbi, I got so many.

Hoda Kotb (56:51)

You must have beautiful things. How did that feel for that life change? That's a big one.

Rabbi Steve Leder (56:56)

Oh, I'm completely ready.

Hoda Kotb (56:58)

Yeah, you are.

Rabbi Steve Leder (57:00)

It's a lot to carry. And I've been there for 37 years. Wow. And when I finish the two halftime years, it'll be 40 years. Like, even Moses could only do 40. That's a lot. So I'm ready, and I want to do it when I'm young enough to have another chapter. And. And I want a broader opportunity. I've been in the same community for almost four decades.

Hoda Kotb (57:23)

What did they say?

Rabbi Steve Leder (57:24)

The people most. The people who love me understood it's an era.

Hoda Kotb (57:28)

So you've had your era.

Rabbi Steve Leder (57:30)

I've had my era. I'm gonna let go of the trapeze, and I'm gonna reach for whatever, something. I'll be there. And I'm. I just. It's a matter of faith, but it feels good to me. I. Most. Most people leave either because of moral turpitude or they've aged out so badly they have to drag them out the door. I don't want to be that guy.

Hoda Kotb (57:54)

You don't want to be that guy.

Rabbi Steve Leder (57:55)

I'm not going to be that guy.

Hoda Kotb (57:56)

So when you're at this new. Because I love new beginnings. I mean, there's something. So there's something exciting.

Rabbi Steve Leder (58:02)

I'm scared. I'm a little scared.

Hoda Kotb (58:03)

You're a little scared. Okay, so what do we know what we're going to do next? Or we're not sure.

Rabbi Steve Leder (58:06)

We don't. We're talking to a lot of people in New York and a lot of people in la, and we'll see. I know not to take the first thing that comes along that I know, but I really wanna do it right. I'm gonna have a second chapter. I really want it to be meaningful and fun, and I wanna do something that matters to people but doesn't. Suck the marrow out of my bones.

Hoda Kotb (58:30)

Yeah.

Rabbi Steve Leder (58:31)

Cause what I do, there are no half measures in what I do.

Hoda Kotb (58:35)

Well, yeah. I mean, I think to be able to.

Rabbi Steve Leder (58:37)

You're either there or you're not.

Hoda Kotb (58:39)

Yeah. It's so funny, as we're having this conversation, that your dad never really wanted you to be a rabbi in the very first place.

Rabbi Steve Leder (58:45)

The first thing he said to me, okay, my junior year of college, I studied writing at Northwestern. Okay. My junior year of college, my dad sits me down and says, stephen. Only my family calls me Stephen, by the way, Stephen, I see a couple options for you when you graduate college. You could go to law school and take over Leader Brothers, or you could not go to law school and take over Leader Brothers. Those were my two choices.

Hoda Kotb (59:09)

Either way, you were going to take over the family business. That was the exact. Exactly. And then what?

Rabbi Steve Leder (59:13)

And I said, you know, Dad, I really. I think I'm going to be a rabbi. I want to be a rabbi. And he looked at me, said, rabbis are beggars. Wow. My dad was harsh. Yeah, Hilarious, but harsh. And I said, well, that's what I want to do now. Despite that discouraging response, years, his worldview didn't have an image of the rabbi I was able to become.

Hoda Kotb (59:43)

Yes.

Rabbi Steve Leder (59:44)

They didn't exist in his world. In his world, rabbis were like these slovenly guys with pickled herring on their ties and bad teeth. So he didn't have a universe in which to imagine what I could see. Yeah. So my parents had a condo in Palm Springs for the winter. And when they were there every winter and I was preaching on a Saturday morning, they would drive in from Palm Springs to watch me preach. Then we'd have lunch and then they'd drive back. There could be 2,000 people out there, Hoda. And I just saw one set of teeth smiling, and that was my dad.

Hoda Kotb (60:19)

Oh, I love it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (60:21)

So he got with the program.

Hoda Kotb (60:22)

He got it.

Rabbi Steve Leder (60:23)

He did. He did. He got it. But at first he was discouraging. No, he wasn't thrilled.

Hoda Kotb (60:28)

Wow. So there are so many life lessons for anybody who wants to read for your when I'm gone, 12 essential questions to Tell a Life Story and the Beauty of what Remains, which is out in paperback. How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift. Well, I just wanna say that I love you to the moon and back, which is what I say to my kids. And I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that you chose this profession. I'm so happy. So happy you defied your father. And I'm so happy that you have a new chapter coming up.

Rabbi Steve Leder (60:58)

Well, thank you.

Hoda Kotb (60:59)

You promise to come back whenever we figure out what that is?

Rabbi Steve Leder (61:01)

I promise to come back whenever we figure out what that is.

Hoda Kotb (61:05)

You do it every time. All right, Rabbi Leader, I love you. We'll see you back here again, too.

Rabbi Steve Leder (61:09)

Thank you, Hoda.

Hoda Kotb (61:15)

Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening and for coming on this journey with me. If you like what you heard, and I hope that you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you tell your friends. Follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now.

Rabbi Steve Leder (61:46)

On an all new Dateline. Lori Valo Daybell, you're the most hated mom in America.

Hoda Kotb (61:52)

I heard that.

Rabbi Steve Leder (61:53)

The exclusive jailhouse interview with Keith Morrison. I'm asking you a question. Did you watch your children die? That's a really sad question. The woman also known as Mommy Doomsday in her own words.

Hoda Kotb (62:07)

You've heard a lot of stuff, Keith. What I tell you will be the truth.

Rabbi Steve Leder (62:10)

To listen to the episode, just search Dateline NBC.