A Crooked Path: Living Life After Destruction

[00:17:54]N I I N I N I N I N I N I I N I I N I N I I N I N I N I N I N I N I N I N I N I N I Nana nana Does anyone know where does that tune come from? Anyone know what is that tune?

[00:18:57]From Sinai. Great.

[00:18:59]So I from BJ. So I first learned this tune. I I think I mean I may have heard it in the ether and I I one as often happened uh in Columbus when I was trying to think about melodies, I would say, what what did BJ do last week? And I would watch the live stream um and I heard I think Rolley do it for the kaduca. So it became a regular kaduca tune in Columbus. And then at some point I learned that it actually the origin I don't know who wrote it but it comes from right. If I forget you oh Jerusalem let my right hand whatever um wither wither.

[00:19:36]Thank you. Um although it's not really wither because it's this is a separate teaching but I'll go into it that it's um it's which is like forget but it doesn't say what it's supposed to forget. So it's it's an odd thing to translate.

[00:19:51]Um uh anyway it's a separate a separate lecture. Um so uh anyway so it's it's a it's a Jerusalem uh if I forget you owe a Jerusalem tune. Um that's a very beautiful one. Anyway, Shabbat shalom.

[00:20:04]Very very very glad to be here. Very glad to have everybody here. Glad everyone got some bagels, some tuna, um some cream cheese, etc. Um so my hope for for this conversation is um I tried to collect sort of three or four different sources from Jewish authors and and one bonus source from a non-Jewish author that I just thought was really lovely about about destruction. Um and and to think about the the themes of tishab I think you know tishab in my mind was really transformed um by reading allelu of blessed memory for those who I mentioned his book earlier uh this is real and you are completely unprepared and it's sort of a journey through the high holiday cycle but he starts it not at elool but at tishaba about destruction and and sort of thinking about tishaba not just as a like oi the temple's destroyed okay you know like because for most of us, you know, I mean, I'm very sad about the temple, but it's so removed from my life that it's a historical event uh and not really something deep, but but he he um frames it as the the sort of coming face to face with destruction and the like the tearing down of all the pretenses and all the uh distractions and all the illusions that we have that sort of prevent us in our life from looking straight on at the fact that everything eventually dies and everything eventually withers and everything eventually is destroyed. Um and and when you look at that fact rather than hiding from it all year round, that's sort of the first step right on the road toward Chuva and on the on the road toward transformation. Um so what do you do when you look at something horrible and and you have a terrible thing that happens a and what do you do next? Uh how do you take those steps? Um, and one of the problems that we have in thinking about this problem, this is, you know, in part the the problem of the Odyssey, not the Odyssey, which you can see now in theaters, but but thank you for laughing at that. Um, but the Odyssey, which is the, you know, why bad things happen to good people and sort of how you make meaning out of suffering. Um, and and this is not just a Jewish question. This is a question, you know, explored by sages and great, you know, intelligent people for thousands and thousands of years. Um and um and so when you think about theodysy and you know how you confront destruction, how you how you confront suffering, um it was a very broad scale. There is you know there's the suffering of like how I stub my toe, you know, how do I how do I continue to live my life after I stub my toe, right?

[00:22:40]Get on with it, right? Uh and and there's the suffering that is more intermediate. I, you know, I I lost a job. I I had a difficult relationship end. I you know, whatever. I I got sick.

[00:22:49]And then there's even more intense the suffering of death. How do I confront death? And then there's like, you know, outside of the scale of of the showa and other sort of horrible, terrible, you know, uh, incalculable tragedies. So, and they're all part of the same discipline, which is theodysy. Um, so how do you how do you, you know, the answer that you're going to have to confront the suffering of your stub toe is not going to be the same theological answer that you have for confronting the Holocaust. It's just it just won't work.

[00:23:16]Um, so within our tradition, we have lots and lots and lots of different contradictory answers about what to do when you confront suffering and how to find your way through and why God allows it and all those things. Um, so so I give that introduction because you know as we look at some of these sources, you don't have to agree with any of them and you can also agree with multiple ones of them even as they contradict each other. But my hope is that some of these will give us um some thought into when we confront brokenness in our lives or in the world um how do we make meaning out of it move ahead. All right.

[00:23:56]So we will um start with the first one and move our way forward and uh I think we'll sort of like look at the look at each text read it on the inside. So read it um you know with uh the Hebrew and the English and and the little footnotes and everything. um and then sort of pause and take some some responses and then move ahead to the next ones. Sound good? Sounds good.

[00:24:19]So this is uh this is from the um Yehuda Arya Lee alter the alter rebby lives in Poland the end of the 19th beginning of the 20th century. Um he is community rabbi near Warsaw. Um he so his books fame um I was just saying earlier to Jeremy it's like it's incredible in a lot of ways it's a beautiful deep work and it also um it collects his sermons or his reflections on the para for multiple years so you can see his his material on para devarim from you know 5660 so from 1900 and then from 1901 and then from 1902 1903 so you have a lot of material to really look through and you can see the development of an idea idea over the course of his life and you can see you know one text uh that he's sermonizing on in similar ways over the years um which is beautiful okay so this is um this is his sermon from Dvarian from this Torah portion it is written uh Hashem badu the eternal alone did guide them no alien god alongside this is from the end of the book of Deuteronomy I think this is part of uh Moses's long set of poems and things as uh as the book of Deuteronomy is closing out. So he's going to talk about this idea, the eternal alone did guide them, no alien god alongside bad, right? Why is he picking up on the word badad which here means alone even in exile as it is written bad? Alas, which I've talked about before, how can it be? Why, right? how woe to us alone sits the city. Badad, right? So, he's picking up on this connection between the word badad with God and the word badad with the city. In both of these verses, it's the same word, but the context is very different. With God, it's like God alone and no one else. God was with us. God alone, right? When we were traveling in the wilderness, when we were being guided, God alone, God, God God's own self guided us. It's a good thing, right? It's a good thing.

[00:26:35]The badad there is positive, right? The badad is bad. It is alone. It is lonely, right? Um but what he's doing is take is this is part of the sort of classic rabbitic technique which is to take one word from one place in the canon and take it another place in the canon and sort of like take their meanings and overlap them. Right? So when we have alas alone sits the city he's trying to say alas the the city sits alone with God. Right? Right. So what what what is initially a statement of woe becomes sort of like we find hidden in the loneliness the oneness of God alongside of us. It's a really clever lovely uh lovely take here. Right. Even still thereto your hand will be guiding me.

[00:27:32]The Jewish people have no other source of guidance other than from God. May God's name be blessed as it is written no alien God alongside. Right. So the sort of first the first salvo here in trying to think about finding meaning in suffering and brokenness and aloneeness is even when you feel bad alone abandoned God alone badad is with you right textually very clever spiritually very interesting um we'll go through this then we can we can sort of attack it and decide if we like it or not the word alone and so this is this is level two the word alone badad is an this is the very mystical He's going to find do word play and all that stuff. So bad is an acronym for the verse behoo.

[00:28:22]Know God in all your ways. Right? This so this is a verse um what does it mean to know God in all your ways? There's two ways I think you can understand.

[00:28:30]Well, there's many ways you can understand every verse, but there's two I'm going to share now. One is know God in all your ways. Everything you're doing, you should think about God. when you're walking down the street, think about God. When you're Don't waste your time with Netflix because that's not thinking about God. So, you know, focus on like what's important. Study Torah every second, right? That's fine. The other way to think about it is through everything that you do, you can know God. If you're walking down the street, that's a way to know God. If you're watching Netflix, that's a way to know God. If you're checking things out at the grocery store, that's a way to know God. Right? every right in all of your ways and through all of your ways you can come to know God. So alone, bad, right? It's sort of he's trying to get at not just the word play of it and the sort of clever acronym, but I think what he's trying to get at is to say even when you're alone or you feel alone, behold, even in this way of aloneeness, you can know God, right? You can find God in the loneliness, in the abandonment.

[00:29:31]Easier said than done, I I I think. And I think there's a lot to critique here because sometimes it's like, yeah, but I feel like you're telling me to find God when I feel like I don't feel God. Okay, great job, you know, Zen master here, but like this is not so, right? Uh, so I I think it's fair to critique this and to be like, "No, I I don't buy it." You know, you're just trying to make up a sense that God is there when God's not there. But I think if you're a little more credulous as I I think I am, you can say like yes, you know, there is a possibility um to go deeper into into this sense that like when when it's all when it feels like it's all stripped away, God is there also in that in that experience in all even in exile and for for him and for all the masters exile is not just like you're outside you know your not that you're outside of Israel. Exile is a spiritual condition. It's the spiritual condition of the cosmos. It's it's the existential condition of the Jewish people. Um regardless of where you are physically, right, you're sort of you're cast off. You're cast away. Um even in exile, which is a crooked path, right, which is from Arashi and this other place. You can look at the footnote if you're curious or I can talk about it. Um, so even when you're on, right? So the derek, in all your ways, in all your paths, know God. It's the same word. I should have translated it a little differently. On a crooked way, right? So in all your ways, know God.

[00:31:06]Know God when you're alone and know God when you're on a crooked path and know God when you're on a straight path and no, right? Each of these things, you can still find that God is guiding you along the way.

[00:31:23]Right? It's all God's uh hag is like guidance, right? Like like let like let God take the wheel, you know, like God's like driving the right. Okay. It is through this that God will make your path smooth. So in some ways this is like a a little extended sort of poetic reflection on Derek, right? On the path.

[00:31:43]What does it mean to be on the path, off the path, sitting alone on a and that in each of those paths, it's all part of God's hanhaga, right? God's guidance. Uh God will make your path smooth. All the crooked paths upon which the Jewish people have been sent out are destined to be made straight.

[00:32:04]The holy Shabbat itself is a testament to the fact that the Jewish people have only followed the guidance of the creator as it is written. It shall be a sign for all time between me and the people of Israel.

[00:32:17]How's it go?

[00:32:20]I'm trying to get the right tune for it.

[00:32:30]There we go. That's the tune. um one of many tunes, right? This is why Shabbat pushes aside. What does it mean that Shabbat pushes aside?

[00:32:39]Anyone know? This is a technical question. Yes.

[00:32:47]>> Yes. Exactly. So if which means the 9th of A falls on Shabbat, you observe Tishab the 9th of A on the 10th of A.

[00:32:56]Right. So he's again he's taking a calendar remark and saying you know like we have to find God even in our aloneeness. God is guiding us even on a crooked path. God is with us no matter what we do. And Shabbat is one of these ways where we can sort of sense the guidance of God and and it's so powerful that Shabbat pushes aside to Shabb, right? The sense of God's presence with us pushes aside even destruction that has to wait a day. Right? So I I think that you know reading this I I think this is a more uh optimistic theology. This is a theology that that tries to say there is light within the darkness. There is presence within the absence. Um and and God is guiding things for all of it. So you know on the one hand this is a beautiful great theology. I I find it very meaningful to myself when I'm having difficult times. I think this is like a very helpful path. And sometimes there are things that are so dark and so difficult and so isolating that it's it it feels like um it it can feel like you're being blamed for not finding God in it, you know, as opposed to this is just a terrible thing that's happening and like don't tell me not only do I have to get through this terrible thing, I also have to find God in it. Like no, I'm not right. Um, so I I want to like hold all all those possibilities for this type of theology. Okay. Tell me what you think. Yes. And say say your name too if you would.

[00:34:53]Beautiful.

[00:35:21]Beautiful. So Shabbat is Shabbat both helps us through our trauma and represents what it means to try and live through it and and come on the other side and not allow the trauma to sort of overpower everything.

[00:36:12]Great. So, so this question of of um and this I think this is kind of what this fame is getting at is like you might have questions but like whether you're on a direct come right a crooked path or you're on a straight path or whatever like God is God is with it now God is with you and to ask questions about it maybe is not so relevant or so useful that that's not a universal position in Jewish thought and and you're going to find as as we look at some of these other sources some people who are pushing and are questioning and are trying to find meaning or are sort of pushing back on this idea of acceptance.

[00:36:45]Um but but what you say is I think a very powerful thread in the tapestry of Jewish thought on this subject which is sometimes when you face suffering to ask questions about it is is counterproductive at the very least.

[00:37:00]Right? So that's one that's sort of one side of it. And there's also other perspectives on this that we'll look at.

[00:37:17]Great. Great.

[00:37:19]>> That that that even if you're asking questions um you still have a mandate to help those in need, right? And that's also that's a great sort of theodyssey approach, right? So one of the approaches in theodysy of why bad things happen to good people is like, okay, it's happening. You have to go up and help people, right? I'm sorry that bad things are happening. You got work to do, right? It's it's a cousin of of you know bad things happen because human beings mess things up. So go out and fix it. Right. That's another type of theology. One, two. Yes.

[00:38:01]the opposite >> of what?

[00:38:09]Yeah. So, so Shabbat pushes aside of >> but but a bris pushes aside Shabbat, meaning you could do a bris even on Shabbat, even though a bris in in various technical ways would violate the the labor you're supposed to do, not supposed to do on Shabbat, right? So I think in some ways it's actually not contradictory at all which is tisha of is is a moment of suffering and and and difficulty and brokenness. Shabbat was not going to allow that to take over. A bris is the opposite, you know. So okay, there's some rules against it. Okay, we're going to put those aside to welcome someone into the covenant.

[00:38:43]Right. Right. Great.

[00:39:17]Mhm.

[00:40:18]Right. So trauma does not just by definition trauma I think in part is is about a person's inability to fully process what happened to them in the moment and so the processing remains undone right and and uh and it's like you know your brain is still trying to work through it even as you move on and so you're still reliving that experience um even after the moment has passed um and there's I'm sure there's plenty of writing and research and thought about intergeneration trauma and people's trauma and yes we we have our share our share of trauma. Um so how do we work through it so that it's not coloring things and not letting us see reality?

[00:41:00]In some ways you could say that this famett here is trying to say like you know you might think that the experience you're having of pain or suffering or brokenness or whatever is is reality but there is a reality bene beneath what you're perceiving right and that reality is that when you think you're bad alone it's actually bad god alone is with you right so that's sort of one way maybe to to to think about his his teaching from a trauma-informed lens perhaps is to say what feels like reality ity because when someone is going through trauma, it's not that it's like I've heard people say it's like it's not that they they're they're like thinking about it. It's that like they are reexperiencing the traumatic moment at times. Um so but but what Father Met would say is what looks like this reality, there's also something beneath it, right? Yes.

[00:42:00]Mhm.

[00:42:07]>> Mhm.

[00:42:27]Yeah, I love that. Right. The community is great. We love community. And also sometimes like the badad, right, of being alone, right?

[00:42:35]The city sits alone. Okay. But sometimes it's within the aloneeness that you can find the inner strength to work through something, right? If you're surrounded by people, it's like hard temperament.

[00:42:46]It's a temperament thing, too. Sometimes I I just need to be alone to like have the time to think about it. um as opposed to being surrounded by everybody watching. So I think you're right, you know, like can you reframe the aloneeness into into perhaps an opportunity um to rethink something?

[00:43:02]Great.

[00:43:04]All right, let's look at this next piece. So this is from the Ishkotes. Um so Becca spoke about him last night. Uh uh Colonus Calman Shapi, I think his name is. and um right rabbi at the Warsaw ghetto um an accomplished teacher, head of a yeshiva, wrote a number of books, gave a number of sermons, and then ends up in the Warsaw Ghetto and and his writings are preserved in an archive, buried underground and and published postumously because he was rounded up uh and and killed along with uh with so many others in the ghetto. Um so this is one of his sermons from 1942. Um, and this is a different this is a different approach. And again, so so uh Shapi is a fum guy, right? He's he's like a he's a he's a kidic rebby, right? So he's not like he's, you know, some like liberal thinker. Um, he's a liberal thinker in a lot of ways, but it's not like he's, you know, he's he's a what we would now call a liberal Jew. Um, and this is this is gonna be a little much because this is a Holocaust piece, so I understand if people want to take a minute. Um, Jewish children. So first he has a long reflection on on spiritual matters and about thinking about children. Again he before the war he was the head of yeshiva. He wrote which is a book about pedagogy about how to sort of reach uh and teach children.

[00:44:25]Um, so children should not be understood just as things in and of themselves, just as our children, but also as creation and renewal, as the eternality of the Jewish people, both through the Torah taught to children, and even through what a single person learns with their fellow or says to them in the form of ethical teachings, Mus or guidance, Hadra. And so he has a long reflection about just sort of the power of children in Jewish life and education and teaching and the power of of being a teacher, the power of being a student, all these things. Um, and I don't know what he's responding to. I assume there's some terrible event he's responding to or thinking about. Um, this is a perplexing terrible thing.

[00:45:12]how the world can continue to stand and exist after uh so many of these cries harot these how many of these difficult terrible cries um he's talking I I think here about the the cries and the and the suffering and the death of the holocaust in the story of the 10 martyrs it is said the angels cried out this is the Torah and this is its reward right so what's the story 10 martyrs. If you stick around long enough on Yumkipper, you you encounter this. Um the 10 martyrs are the 10 rabbis who were slaughtered by the by the Romans. Um and the most famous of them is Rabbi Aka who um has his skin scraped off with a metal comb. And as it's happening, he says the shama, right?

[00:46:03]Right. I can I can finally thank God with all of my nephesh all my life. And he dies as he says, right? So the so part of the midrash on this is that the angels are watching all these rabbis being tortured and killed by the Romans and they say this is the Torah and this is reward right like what these people dedicated themselves to Torah and this is what they get the divine voice answered them from the heavens saying if I hear another voice I will turn the whole world back into water all right so in the midash it's like enough right in some ways it's like don't question this this is this is this suffering somehow is like essential to or embedded in the structure of the cosmos. And if you try to unravel it, the whole the whole project collapses.

[00:46:47]The whole universe like just like goes back to Noah and the flood.

[00:46:52]Now pure children, pure angels, even the great and holy among Israel are killed and slaughtered just because they are Jews. They who are even are greater even than the angels fill the entire space of the world with these cries. And somehow the world has not been turned back into water. Instead, it stands still as if this whole matter hasn't even touched it. God forbid. Fashal. The Talmud teaches when the temple was destroyed, an iron wall separated Israel from their father in heaven. Why iron in particular? Because the power of Israel's prayers can break walls. So, an iron wall was needed. But with cries like these, how could even a wall of iron stand?

[00:47:37]It can't be understood. And he goes on and he tries to propose different answers and things like that. But here you have this real and and you know again he he's someone who continues to write who keeps his faith who's very dedicated um at least as far as we know you know before he's rounded up and and sent to a concentration camp. Um but here I mean this is this is a this is the aka right this is the the woe or the this is the lament which um my teacher uh Mikall Springer talked about often as as lament is a Jewish spiritual practice right as much so just as much as famett can sit here and say God is in the loneliness God is in the brokenness um and that may be true and also to say this makes no sense how can God listen to this how how can the exist still through these cries. It aim it can't be understood, right? Um and and that sort of primal cry uh is also a legitimate Jewish practice and a legitimate sort of response to suffering. Um which is I think you know it's like not making meaning of it. You know, it's it's like refusing to make meaning of it or or at least like in the mi like as events overtake him, he can't make meaning of it. Maybe if he had lived, you know, he could have lived into the 60s and 70s and written a famous, you know, popular theological work about the meaning of the Holocaust perhaps, but but in the midst of it, as he's like listening to the cries of dying children, you think he's going to sit here and tell you that God's there?

[00:49:15]No, sir. No.

[00:49:19]Right. Um so so I think that that this is like a really important um countervoice in the tradition and one to hold on to to say like you know the the cries of suffering can't be tuned out in order to justify God, right? Or to turn the volume down on suffering in order to try and find a reason why why God should allow such a thing. So I think this is one of one of his most powerful teachings um that I've seen. I I find it very very striking.

[00:49:54]Yes.

[00:50:01]Yeah.

[00:50:12]>> Yeah.

[00:50:19]Yeah.

[00:50:28]>> Yeah.

[00:50:29]>> Yeah.

[00:50:32]Yeah. Yeah. I think yes.

[00:50:38]Right. Our our modernity, right? Uh in Deuteronomy it says my my hand and my own might has won me all this wealth power whatever you know so we you know I think this is like if I had to pick one verse to summarize like the don't quote me on this because I could pick another verse another time but one verse right now that I'm thinking of that summarizes the modern condition it's like this sense that like I have built and and amassed and and and made for myself what I have and it's it's mine because I because I earned it or I built it and and um and there's a certain truth to that because we do work hard and earn things. And also like it can it can be wiped out in a second in a second with a wildfire, you know, miles away and all of a sudden you can't breathe outside, you know, someone gets sick, just these things. Um, so I think to to face that like instability, you know, because we're so sheltered from it and thank God we have antibiotics and we have air conditioning and we have all these things that distance us from um from the the vicissitudes, you know, and and uh so when they're yanked away, it feels even more insulting, you know. What do you mean I can't go outside? Right. What do you mean I need to wear a mask outside? Right. So I I I I really get that. Yes. Okay. I saw um one and then two.

[00:52:56]beautiful. So, and I think that narrative of like from from the Showa to Atsma, you know, to independence um is a very very powerful one and I think it it influenced a lot of Jewish theology and Jewish thinking. Um, and um, actually I I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit because it it makes me think of a different uh, one of the different texts in here. Um, go to page five. Um, which is which is the the let me be careful how I say this. I in in many many many many ways Zionism and the state of Israel is is a very clear continuation of Jewish thought about our connection to um, the land of Israel. And at the same time, it's also a radical break from traditional Jewish thought about the land of Israel. a total and complete refraraming the idea that we should get up and go there ourselves and make a secular government with you know a a kessed and courts and you know pizza shops and sushi and right like that's that's like such a radical um reframing of of what our connection is to this land um and you know 70 how many years has it been since the state of Israel?

[00:54:12]78 years later. Um it feels so I think so I mean it's very fraught right now obviously but but um but that ideological shift I think doesn't feel um as radical as it once was. So so I just I want to this is a text from Rabbi Ben Lapy. Anyone know Ben Lapy from Savara? Um anyone seen this before? This is a she gave a talk called crash a number of years ago about the destruction of the temple and sort of this idea that when when you face calamity um like the showa um or or other types of calamity one of the one of the ways to refront is a to respond is a paradigm shift um so you could say that the founding of the state is a paradigm shift right one of many sort of paradigm shifts that people take in response uh in response to to the showa so this is this is from a talk she gave I think it was in like 2015, 2014. Um, and you can find it online still, too.

[00:55:08]She she gives it better than I can. Um, but I'll do my best. There are three responses to any crash ever, right? So, she's talking about in uh 2,000 years ago, the temple's destroyed. You know, the the temple is the center of all Jewish life. you know, there there may be sort of proto rabbis and and Torah study happening, but really it's the temple and the sacrifices and and the cult and the kohanim, the priests that are really the center of Israelite life, of Jewish life. Um, and it's all wiped out. So, option one, you can deny the crash and revert to your master story and take refuge there. You'll inevitably build a wall around the story to shore it up and make sure nothing threatening gets in. You get to keep your all your goodies, but it'll come at a price, right? So, um, so option one here would be like, you know, we're just going to we're going to sit on our hands and wait for the temple to be rebuilt, right? And then it'll be rebuilt and we're not going to do anything different or new because that's what we do, right? And I someone should fact checking, but I I think there's a there was a group that built another temple or a sacrificial center in Alexandria. Someone someone who's watching or listening can fact check me on this, but there I think there were attempts by some people to like try and and revive it. It didn't work. It didn't It didn't quite go anywhere. And And anyone who was sitting around waiting for the sacrifices to return, um, let me rephrase that. Anyone who was waiting for the sacrifices to return without doing anything in the meantime, those people, their story didn't live on for the most part. So that's option one.

[00:56:42]We're just going to hold on to the story even though it its center has been destroyed. Option two, you accept the crash completely and reject your master story and jump off into a new story.

[00:56:52]This is a baby with bathwater kind of thing. And remember, every story will ultimately and inevitably crash. And this story too will crash and then you'll have to jump off into another story and yet another and on and on.

[00:57:05]Right? So option two is the temple's destroyed. That means our god has been defeated in battle against whatever. And I'm, you know, the Romans seem nice enough if you just obey. So, I'm going to change my name to Claudius and, you know, have a Caesar salad and uh have a great have a nice Roman life and it'll be great, right? And you forget all actually I learned Caesar salads were invented in 1920 something by a by a Mexican chef named Caesar or something.

[00:57:30]I I learned this I read it somewhere recently. Um so it has nothing to do with Julius Caesar apparently. Um Greek salad or give a Greek salad. There you go. Uh okay. Um mo so so option two is like when when when the narrative falls apart around you in some ways it's like the logical thing to do. It's all gone.

[00:57:52]It's been destroyed. Of course I'm going to have to move on to something different. Right?

[00:57:58]Most people are going to go option one or option two after a crash. That's just what most people do. If you look carefully, you'll see that option one and option two are actually opposite sides of the same coin. They share the same wrongheaded underlying premise that most people believe that myth, the myth that master stories are fixed, eternal, unchanging, and immutable. But stories do crash. It's not bad news. And it's not an unfortunate fact of life. It is life. It's how life nudges us forward.

[00:58:27]And so there's a third option, and that's good news. The biggest crash in Jewish history, or at least the one we know the most about, was the destruction of the second temple in 70.CE. I assume that she would say with an asterisk about the Showa. Let's crank back one year to 69 of the common era and look at how these options played out. Who was going option one back then? Hint, if you're employed by your master story, if you earn your living from it, you're going to be an option one person. And so, of course, it was the priests who were going option one. They were the ones who couldn't imagine any other way to be a human being and were willing to do anything, even fight to the death to preserve their way of being Jewish.

[00:59:06]Option two, historical records tell us 90% of the Jewish people went option two in the years after the destruction. They left Judaism completely and melted into the Roman Empire. It was over. Everybody knew that. That's also, by the way, what happened in the in uh when the Assyrians um conquered the northern tribes of Israel in the year 700 something before the common era. Um the the lost tribes of Israel, quote unquote, um the northern 10 tribes are assimilated into the Assyrian Empire and and lost. We don't know what happened to them, right?

[00:59:38]Because the in some way they were forced into option two except for one small group of queer, fringy, outsider, hippie guys. no more than are in this room right now, which she's talking to a room of a couple hundred people, I think, um, who had a different idea. They went option three. They accepted and embraced the crash, took the elements that still worked from the old master story and created a new, radically different Judaism, one that would have been unrecognizable to a biblical Jew. If you're Jewish today, it's because your great great great great grandparents were some of the 10% who got what these rabbi guys were up to and said, "I see what you're doing."

[01:00:18]This doesn't feel very Jewish to me, but it will to my grandchildren. So, I'm with you. So, I'm with you. It's important to realize that these queer, fringy, marginalized, hippie guys, who we now call the rabbis, were already developing this radical new Judaism while the temple stood. They were gathering in little retreat centers called synagogues. And even when they could have gone to the temple down the street, much of temple Judaism just didn't work for them anymore. It had long since crashed for them, even while the temple was still standing. Option three became rebbitic Judaism was only one of many option 3es. Jud option three Judaisms that eventually sprang up at the time of the crash. That's exactly what you want. You want as many option threes as possible because you don't know which ones are going to make it.

[01:01:00]Right. So, what's that?

[01:01:11]Ah great great great great. Yes. Um so so this is this is a recurring phenomenon um in in in in human life too which is um so when you face destruction when you face a tragedy when you face something really really difficult you know so either you you cling to what you had before or you give it all up or you chart a different paradigm. you find a different path through, right?

[01:01:38]And um part of part she's talking about the the the creation of of rabbitic Judaism, you know, before before the temple, Judaism is temple based. It's sacrificial. Um and it's all rooted in the land of Israel. And then once we're kicked out and there's no sacrifices, we have to we focus on, you know, Torah, audim Torah study, on worship, service, and non-acts of kindness, right? That's a big paradigm shift. If you asked a, you know, a Jew um or an Israelite, you might say in the temple period, what's the center of Jewish life? They would say like sacrifices, priests, and tithes. I don't know. I don't know what they would say. Um but instead, you know, there there's this big shift and we are the inheritors of that. Um you could have a whole separate hour conversation about, you know, are we in a paradigm shift? We're living through a paradigm shift now. Was it the Holocaust? Was it October 7th? Was it is it modernity? is, you know, and and you know, am I as a rabbi like one of the koanim clinging, you know, to an old story of Jewish life because it's my livelihood and also because I believe in it, you know, as opposed to opening myself up and being being sort of willing to explore. Um, but I think the same idea applies not only to sort of institutional and historical processes, but also to our own destruction and our own life. So when we face something totally totally upends our life um you know how do we find a way to continue living and and I think often I'm not going to make a generalized statement but oftentimes I think that the that the most effective way through is a reframing of your story that doesn't cast out everything from the past but doesn't cling to it because you're living in a different world. Right.

[01:03:21]All right. Who's going option three here? Who's going option two? Who's going option one?

[01:03:27]>> Option four. What's option four? There's another option. Amazing.

[01:03:37]>> Yes. I mean, by the way, you know, option three here. So, you know, it's not just like, you know, the temple's destroyed and they wake up and say, well, you got to invent Judaism. You know, it's she makes a good point which is that some of this is already happening in, you know, and growing in communities before the destruction. And it takes hundreds of years. You know, the the Mishna comes together in the year 200. The Mishna is is uh to oversimplify sort of like one of the oldest uh canonical collections of Jewish law, you know. So, the temple's destroyed in 69 or 70 and the Mishna is codified in the year 200ish. So, that's 130 years.

[01:04:13]130 years for for like the first sort of real codification. You know, I think about, you know, how long was the Holocaust to go? It was it was 80 what's that?

[01:04:23]>> Uh no, I mean, how long ago was it? It was 80 80 something. So, you know, so we we haven't had enough time even for the Mishna of our response to that calam calamity to really, you know, we're still in in a very early period. Um, not to mention all the other upheavalss that we're going through in our lives in October 7th and America and this and that. So, so I I think um these processes take a lot of time and so yes, you are allowed to go sit alone in a room for a little bit and process um you know look in in personally and professionally when talking to people who have had serious losses. um you know if and how they emerge into a different story is something that takes time and for some people it will be days months and some people it will be years and years and some people they're not willing able ready it's not possible to them the loss is too tragic you know to to go option three and and they remain I think you know really in a very difficult place um and maybe they just need more time but but I I think you're right. This is not an instant decision.

[01:05:32]Yes.

[01:06:42]Yes.

[01:06:51]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:56]Yeah.

[01:06:59]I I'll tell you see two jokes to give me time to think of a good answer to you.

[01:07:02]One one is one is um there's some economists who said like you know in the long run you know the economy always improves but in the long run everyone dies. So right uh so that's one number two is more serious is um I think often about um about the exodus from from Egypt um it takes depending on your count 400 years. So, think about, you know, if you're born in year 100 of the of slavery in Egypt and you're born in year 100 and you, let's say you live 120 years and you die in year 220. You're born into slavery, you live in slavery, you die in slavery.

[01:07:36]Congratulations. It's Passover, you know, but like you you missed it. You missed it. You you suffered and you died for, you know, and there was no redemption for you. So, you're I think about that all the time in Pesak of like, you know, there are people who never got to see it, right? Uh so so there is no guarantee, you know, that we can all like trauma comes and we're just going to figure it out and get through our our gullus, you know, our exile or our there isn't a guarantee of it. Um it's really hard. It's really hard. Um you know, h how do we so how do we process it? Um I mean the good news is you have community and you have a tradition and you have all these rituals and you have people and you know there's all these ways that we sort of have each other to try and get through these things. Um, and I think that that like so many things, it's like the meaning emerges in hindsight, and it's a real bummer because while you're in it, you're just, you know, you're you're struggling. Um, now I can tell you from my own experience, um, of different sort of difficult moments in my life. Um, in the midst of it, it's really hard, but like what did I do? I I I found found friends, I found community, I found prayer in different moments. I read a lot of books. I, you know, I had family.

[01:08:47]all these things that sort of like anchor you through it. Um, and you sort of muddle, you know, you muddle through and then one, two, 10, 15 years later, you look back and you're like, "Wow, I got through it." You know, hopefully.

[01:09:03]Okay. I just there's a bunch of hands. I want to make sure first there's folks who haven't spoken yet and then I'll get to to um everyone else. Yes.

[01:10:02]Yeah. Yeah.

[01:10:07]Yes. I think I think that's separate from option one which is clinging to something that's that's gone. You know, I think ritual and tradition are sort of this way to like anchor you through, you know, it's same.

[01:10:20]I mean, personally, same cottage, you know, the year my mother died, like that just like having a thing to do every day where I was witnessed, you know, it it gave me the space to to eventually work toward, you know, making some meaning out of this.

[01:10:39]Yeah. Yeah.

[01:10:46]Yeah. Okay. I think see one, two, three, four. Is that okay? All right. I'm doing my best to keep track of everybody.

[01:10:55]Okay. Yes.

[01:11:29]Yeah.

[01:12:01]Yeah. Yeah, this is um reminds me of I was maybe I was thinking about this earlier. Um for those who have read YT Greenberg's stuff from the Jewish way, he has a theology that's very tied I think a very Zionist theology around posh Holocaust sort of theology where it's like that the destruction has happened and you could even say that the covenant has been broken. The covenant I think he even says explicitly the covenant is broken. The covenant is God is not going to let us be destroyed if we, you know, do our best and and we're basically destroyed and and the covenant God has not held up God's end, but we refuse to give it up. We refuse.

[01:12:40]And so we are going to take responsibility and we are going to determine what Jewish life looks like moving forward. whether it's Zionism, whether it's, you know, the different types of Judaism in the United States and the Judaisms that that grow up and emerge in in the destruction of Europe and Right. So, like there is a theology that says we we have to take responsibility for this moment and move forward with it. Right.

[01:13:06]Beautiful. Uh, okay. I already lost track of who I said. Yeah. Go ahead.

[01:13:40]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think uh and it's it's a well-known saying from Ruby Nakman, right? Aurora is right. It's forbidden to to despair, right? Um, one of my teachers, I think it was someone at the seminary who said, um, it's a sign of someone with a depressive disorder if they say if they have to make a command that says it is forbidden to despair, right? If that says a lot about Rabbi Nakman, if you want to, if you read Art Green has a book about him anyway. So, so I think that, you know, there is again a strain in Jewish life that says like you, you obligated to hope. You're obligated to hope. You don't say that if it's easy to hope, you know. Um, and you could do, you know, if we had another hour, we could try to talk about, you know, the the origins of hope in in in Jewish thought. And um, and that hope is not I don't think hope is just like I'm closing my eyes and believing, you know. I think hope is is um, it's like it has to be a possibility. You have to commit yourself to its fulfillment. It can't just be a wish. You know, there's a difference between a wish and a hope. You know, a wish is I wish I had a million dollars and that I could fly. You know, like a hope is like I hope that I can, you know, be a good parent. I could right things that I within the realm of possibility, right? Okay. I think you were next. And then and then Right.

[01:15:03]>> Yeah.

[01:15:07]>> I think we're on five now. Actually, I think we're on option five now.

[01:15:10]>> All right.

[01:15:14]Beautiful.

[01:15:31]Yeah, I think you're I think one, two, and three is a very stark way to put it.

[01:15:35]I think you're right that there's probably a much more broad uh spectrum.

[01:15:39]Great. Okay.

[01:16:15]Yeah. Amen.

[01:16:17]Yeah. And it's a real blessing to have a a community that can have these types of conversations and and do this work of of growing growing together. Did you have your hand up to it? Yes.

[01:17:06]I don't know.

[01:17:53]Yeah.

[01:17:58]Beautiful. Beautiful. I I I love the image of the seed. Um and right, you plant it and you don't know if and how it's going to emerge. All you can do is plant it and tend it and hope that something comes from it. Um and that's an act of hope. Yeah. Um so I I'll conclude just I'm going to skip because we're already out of time. So um I'll skip the um the Alan Lou piece because it's a lovely piece. You should read it.

[01:18:22]And um if people have to go well I'll I'll just read this last piece. This last this is uh from David White who's a poet. Um and um I'll just read his last piece here.

[01:18:35]Crisis is he has a book where basically it's a bunch of poems um based on one word, a definition of one word. So I'll read it. We'll let that be it and then if you want to smoo afterward, you can grab me. Crisis is unavoidable. Every human life seems to be drawn eventually as if by some unspoken parallel, some tidal flow or underground magnetic field toward the raw dynamic essentials of its existence. as if everything up to that point had been a preparation for a meeting, for a confrontation in an elemental form with our essential flaw and with what an individual could until then only receive stepped down, interpreted or diluted.

[01:19:14]This experience of absolute contact with an essential hidden dynamic, now understood to be essential to our lives, often ignored, but now making itself felt, where the touchable rawness of life becomes part of the fabric of the everyday, a robust, luminous vulnerability becomes shot through with the necessary, imminent, and inevitable prospect of loss. Has been described for centuries as the dark knight of the soul.

[01:19:42]Alma. But perhaps this dark night could be more accurately described as the meeting of two immense storm fronts. The squaly, vulnerable edge between what overwhelms human beings from the inside and what overpowers them from the outside.

[01:19:58]The waveform that overwhelms a maturing human being from the inside is the inescapable nature of their own flaws and weaknesses, their self-deceptions, and their attempts to create false names and stories to place themselves in the world. The felt need to control the narrative of the story around them with no regard to outside revelation. The immense wave on the outside is the invitation to give that self up to be borne off by the wave and renamed revealed and reordered by the powerful flow.

[01:20:29]Walking the pilgrim edge between the two, holding them together is the hardest place to stay, to breathe of both and make a world of both and to be active in their exchange. Aware of our need to be needed, our wish to be seen, our constant need for help and sucker.

[01:20:47]but inhabiting a world of luminosity and intensity, subject to the wind and the weather, surrounded by the music of existence, able to be found by the living world and with a wild self-forgetful ability to respond to its call when needed. A rehearsal in fact for the act of dying. A place where inside and outside can reverse and flow with no fixed form.

[01:21:11]Yeah, this is probably take another hour to try and untangle this. And I I I I don't even know if I could really descri I I get a feeling from it, I think, you know, letting it wash over me. Um, and just the what what attracted me to it is this idea that like you know there there's sort of like an inner life and and then there's like the world outside of us and sometimes the world outside of us crashes into us and and um very much like like the Ben Lappy piece um our own flaws and weaknesses and selfdeceptions and the false names and false stories you know this stuff can only last so long in the face of reality because sometimes reality just hits us in the face you know with something difficult and then all of our stories have to just wash away with it. Right? So I think that's part of tisha and at least what you know similar to Alan Lou who we didn't read but who I talked about you know that you face destruction and it just washes away all the falseeness and then you got to build back up right but the building back up is its own spiritual path.

[01:22:08]Shabbat shalom. Hope to see you Wednesday night for tishaba. Otherwise have a great rest of your Shabbat.

[01:22:16]Enjoy. Hopefully the weather's cooled off and and the storms are gone. Is it still raining outside? I don't know.

[01:22:22]We'll see. Shabbat shalom.