Brian Schwartzman: From my home studio, welcome to Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations. Rabbi Kamesar: There's no lever we're going to be able to pull at High Holidays, which stops climate change in its tracks. But can we give your soul the nourishment to make you be a vessel for positive change in the world? And to be able to do your small part? Brian Schwartzman: I am your host Brian Schwartzman. Today I'm speaking with Rabbi Nathan Kamesar. We'll be discussing Rabbi Kamesar's essay, Breaking Open a Paradigm for Jewish Prayer. Okay, so if you listen to us regularly, if you're a repeat listener, you know that I sometimes tend to give a lot of background information set up for my interviews. I like to ground the listener and orient you, and it might be said. I also like to hear myself talk, which may or may not be true. But here today, I don't think I need a lot of setup. Basically, we're talking with a congregational rabbi about preparing for the High Holidays, both how the rabbi prepares and how those of us who aren't rabbis can prepare. We talk about the power of prayer and what's great and what's challenging about being in Jewish community, and we also get into a little bit about those who happen to be the majority of American Jews who don't go to synagogue in person or virtually on the High Holidays. Can they get something out of it? Rabbi Kamesar's responses are engaging, at times I found them surprising and I really enjoyed this conversation. And regardless of your level of observance, belief, I think it really offers a nice framework for leading into Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe. Before we start the interview, a reminder, all of the essays discussed on this show are available to read for free on the Evolve website, which is evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org. By the way, there are also lots of high holiday resources, some of it very new on reconstructingjudaism.org. You can find it all directly through the homepage or through the Learn and Celebrate tab. And while we're at it Ritual Well, another groundbreaking website that reconstructing Judaism operates ritualwell.org. There's plenty there. Just go to the homepage and you'll find prayers, poems, rituals, new ways to think and do High Holidays. Okay, great. Now it's time for our guest, Rabbi Nathan Kamesar. He is the Rabbi of Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia. He also serves as rabbinic liaison and as a member of the steering committee of the Center City Kehillah. Kehillah means community, which is a network of communities representing the diversity of Jewish life in urban Philadelphia. He is a 2018 RRC graduate. So Rabbi Nathan Kamesar, welcome to the podcast. It's good to see you. Rabbi Kamesar: Thank you so much, Brian. It's such an honor. I listened to a ton of podcasts and I always envy guests on podcasts because sometimes it's nice to just be able to react and not have to come up with stuff. So I feel good to be in my position. Thank you for being in your position and thank you for inviting me. Brian Schwartzman: Of course. And good to see you again. It's been a while. I think last time we talked on air you were the rabbinical student and now you are the rabbi, so we've come to you for answers. Rabbi Kamesar: Oh, boy. Well then, we'll see whether we've come to the right place, but I'm honored to be here. Brian Schwartzman: Great, great. So I was wondering, we're talking in the dog days of summer. This will be out before the High Holidays if you're able to lift up the curtain... I don't know if there's a literal curtain a little and take us, what is it actually like to be a rabbi preparing for the High Holidays? I don't know what I figure, I figure hours and hours spent scrawling sermons on paper and crossing them out. Or you have a big diagram and you have to put people in places or just what is the actual process of preparation like for you? Rabbi Kamesar: So for me, the only way in which you're far off is the pictorial representations. I wish... Sometimes I see people that have storyboards, I don't know about for sermons, but just in other creative projects. And I love looking at the color schemes and the Post-its and all that. I wish that was me, it isn't. For me, it is that sort of impending blinking cursor at you. I really love it and it's stressful and I really love it. And the stress honestly is mostly self-imposed. The grind of the normal year honestly doesn't afford me the opportunity for depth and introspection that preparing for a high holiday sermon does. So during the course of a year I'm doing, typically every week during the school year I compose a Friday night of our Torah and prepare a Torah discussion for Saturday mornings. But because it's got that level of rapidity and turnover, again, there's not quite the level for depth. This is a spiritual practice for me as much as it is something I'm doing for my congregants, even though I care about what they think of my sermons. And I love that I'm able to give it to an audience and feel a reaction, feedback in the moment. Are people laughing when I hope they would laugh? Are they listening intently when I hope they would listen intently, but a lot of it is for me, it's the chance to really write deeply about some of the core spiritual questions, Jewish civilizational questions, societal questions that I've been wrestling with that I imagine my congregants to be wrestling with. So it's both for me, the most pressure packed time of the year, again, largely self-imposed and the time of the year with the most depth and opportunities for creativity. Brian Schwartzman: And I was going to ask, and I'm sure this is probably always a struggle, but do you as the spiritual leader get the time and space to go through the whole preparation process yourself? Is the preparation you do for leading simultaneous with your own process, how does that work? Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, great question. I often find myself wishing I just had days and days of uninterrupted time to write, to think, to read. And that's just not the reality of it, especially over the last several years when each year we were essentially re-imagining how High Holidays would be implemented. In 2020, it was entirely virtual. In 2021, there was an in-person, it was hybrid, a limited in-person presence I want to say. And then 2022 we were back in person, but still kind of figuring out what that would look like in the first time that we still felt COVID. And it feels like this year will be as close to the first year that's essentially like 2019. So each year required new levels of, if you want to call it logistical layers to add onto it. That's on top of all the just general coordinating of yeah, who's going to have which roles. It definitely is a team production. Certain volunteer leaders provide an immense amount of outreach to individual members of the congregation to find out who's going to be opening the arc, at which moment, who's going to have contributed their own kavanah, their own written intention to a particular moment of its service. We are blessed to have a talented [inaudible], who we're walking through when are we doing a responsive part and you're going to sing up until this point in the line, and I'm going to start reading at this point in the line. So it is a balancing act between the parts that are more of a solo part, like a sermon and the parts that are far more team oriented, just the... In COVID, we had to think through like, all right, if the kids are entering in this part of the building and the adults are entering in this part of the building, how do we figure out that building flow? So there are a number of things that go beyond just the me getting to be on the mountaintop and then come down. So that's the reality of it for sure. Brian Schwartzman: So here's one of my dreaded multi-part questions. Dreaded because I usually flub it somewhere along the way, but it was interesting, I looked it up. According to the 2021 Pew survey, only a quarter of American Jews attend high holiday services. I've studied this stuff, I went to graduate school, but I was still surprised at that low number. And I'm thinking maybe you could, maybe I'm wrong, that of those who were actually show up, a small majority sort of go through the traditional preparation process. So if that's right, I guess my two-part question is for those of us who don't know, what is the actual stuff you're supposed to be doing before you sort show up and sit for morning Rosh Hashanah or whenever you arrive? And I guess along with that, how do we... Maybe I'll stop there and bring in the second part later. Rabbi Kamesar: Sure. So there's a lot I think about with the month of Elul, the Jewish month of Elul, the final month in the year. One, is that it's when rabbis over time have named that it's a moment as we're getting ready for this... Rosh Hashanah in many ways associated as a day of judgment. Some of us liberal Jews recoil from that notion of king on high, watching the sheep march by and rendering judgments. But that is an element of it. Now it's also the day of remembrance and the notion of remembrance for [inaudible] is really about being remembered with love. There's a notion that when God, for instance, remembered Sarah took note of Sarah, that's a suggestion of oh, remembers compassionately, takes note of in a compassionate way. So this notion of a day of judgment is paired with a notion of sort of compassionate remembrance so that we feel a sense that all of our parts are being seen and though we may have as the common translation these days goes, missed the mark, the one seeing us in all of our parts, recognizes the source of all we're trying to do, all we've been through, all we care to do. So sees us for all of who we are. The lead up to that day of judgment, compassionate judgment is Elul when we're called upon by the rabbis to do heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. The idea is we don't just go in on Rosh Hashanah not having given any thought to the teshuva we're trying to do, the course correction we're trying to do, but that we've spent some time reflecting on it that 17th, 18th century rabbis even talk about the equivalent of meditating on it, of practically journaling on it, of talking to a trusted advisor, dare I say therapist about it or rabbi, whatever the person might be for you. So there's definitely introspection is called upon for the month of Elul, and Elul is also known as being a mnemonic, an acronym for Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li, I am my beloved and my beloved is for me. And the beloved in this context, in the traditional context is as thought of as the divine. It's a moment where once again, there's this introspection paired with a compassionate listening partner so to speak. So we might be inclined when we name heshbon hanefeshas this accounting of the soul, as this self scrutiny, we might be inclined to have a connotation of that being harsh. But again, it's done in this context of Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li, I'm from my beloved and my beloved is for me. This unseverable connection between you and the divine, and therefore that should give us the permission to be fully transparent. All of that said, I don't go into leading Rosh Hashanah services by any means, assuming that congregants have done that. I don't see it as a should. And if you haven't, you haven't mistepped, I see it as an opportunity and oftentimes modern life doesn't have us in tune with that rhythm. So the High Holidays really are the first time that many congregants, like era Rosh Hashanah or Rosh Hashanah morning is the first time a Carrigan is okay taking that breath to be able to do that. Fortunately, services are pretty long, so they have the opportunity to deeply reflect while there, but I certainly try and hold space assuming they haven't necessarily done that. If you even want to call it homework, it's really an extra credit assignment more so than a prerequisite for Rosh Hashanah. Brian Schwartzman: Wow, interesting. I'm not sure if the Pew survey actually, it probably incorporated virtual Zoom services or not, but I am wondering for the majority who seem like of Jews who aren't attending or participating in a service in some kind on these days, does the tradition give any technology or means to get something out of it? Would you say, "Hey, if you can't be in synagogue or at your computer on this day, you can do X or Y." Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, great question. I know that tactile moments have always and especially now speaks to the Jewish experience and the contemporary human experience. So we know that a lot of contemporary liberal Jews, those Pew studies often show that Jews stronger associations with their Jewishness are, for example, through a Jewish sense of humor than it is through a sense of needing to sit in the pews on a high holy day. As a congregational rabbi I think that there is a particular value add to the space that is held by trained clergy, by sitting alongside dozens, hundreds of fellow community members and feeling connected to them. So I think I'm often making the case for the value of a traditional synagogue experience. At the same time to your question, yes, when I started to say those tactile moments, the first one that came to mind was tashlich. It's ironic because over the centuries, as I understand a lot of the rabbinic leadership was against tashlich as a folk superstitious ritual that had people that it actually was more of a folk ritual that rabbis were concerned that the regular Joe would think that he or the regular pony I should say, could just kind of throw a piece of bread in the river and that would be good enough. And again, even later generations, as I understand it, there was the rationalism sort of felt nervous about that ritual, but it's one of those that really stuck with a lot of power. I think people really respond to symbols. So tashlich is definitely one. Again, to define it, tashlich being, when you go the day of Rosh Hashanah or the second day of Rosh Hashanah falls on a Shabbat and cast your sins away to the waters, that's one. And then there's another, which is of course eating and the apples and honey and having the good intention of a sweet new year surrounding that, maybe holding some space with some family members to talk about your wishes, your intentions for the year and what it's going to take for you to make it a sweet year for yourself and for those around you. Brian Schwartzman: We talked a little bit before we hit record. You're the parent of young kids. My kids are similar age difference, they're a little bit older. I know every congregation sort of has a different setup, but I definitely remember feeling it those early parenting years where those sort of long hours in synagogue, contemplating my life in the universe were gone. There was little snippets in between whatever, a crying baby or taking a toddler out to the playground. Do you have any advice for parents on how to get the most out of the day or how to cut themselves some slack or? Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, yeah. What a great question. And it's sort of like being a parent of young kids is hard in a million respects, and being a parent of young kids while being a rabbi is hard in a million respects. In some ways I don't have the firsthand experience that you're naming because my job so calls for me to be present for the High Holidays that my wife really steps up, her mom steps up. We have an amazing nanny who steps up. So it's one way in which I have to be very boundary for High Holidays. So I'm realizing as you're asking the question, how fortunate I am in that respect. That said, yes, there are a few things I'll say. One is I feel like the Jewish community is getting better and better at... Now, I'm sure this is not the case in every place, but it's getting better and better at the recognition of exactly the difficulties you're naming. To have, for example, our synagogue has childcare while services are going on. That said, it's not always... So I would encourage anybody who's listening to... Depending, obviously I'm also privileged to be in a robust urban environment in Philadelphia where there's a million different options and some listeners might be in more rural areas where there aren't all the choices. But if you're fortunate to be in an area where there are, I do think Jewish institutions are getting better about offering childcare. That said, one of the phrases you used in your question was cut some slack. Absolutely, cut yourself some slack in terms of... It's funny how in my experience, Jews often sort of take a no pain, no gain approach to a sort of institutional Jewish experience, especially on the High Holidays. If I don't sit for hours bored to tears, hungry, I'm not doing it right and I don't deserve the atonement that's supposed to come at the end of the holiday. In no way do I see that as a paradigm that was ever intended for us, speaking of folk traditions, that's one that somehow has gotten passed down. But yeah, there's an understanding that when you're... I think going back to ancient Judaism, part of the reason that... I don't know this to be true, but some of the reasons I think about in very traditional Judaism, women not being bound to "time bound mitzvoth," is that that's impossible when you're raising young kids. And to me that's like an instinct in Judaism that says, we understand the difficulties with young kids and we know you're going to have an experience with much more latitude when it comes to whether you want to call it your observance of meets vote or your spiritual experience. And I've heard the cliche that children aren't in the way, they are the way. That's easier said than done. But I think we should be invited to feel that sensibility when we're experiencing the High Holidays with kids present and we've got to just go with the flow of what they're going to let us do. And that is our holiday experience and that we should feel renewal through that as best we're able to allow ourselves. Brian Schwartzman: Go with the flow. I like it. So you have an Evolve assay that focuses somewhat, I think it focuses on prayer and the experience of prayer. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your own personal theology and what you see as the function of prayer. I feel like that's a standing on one foot question, but I'll ask it anyway. Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, yeah. No, it's a big question and it's one that to your point, probably sits at the center of my rabbinate, in the sense that it is really, whether I realized it or not, what motivated me to go to rabbinical school to become a rabbi and to now in my rabbi. I think that I was raised in a very traditional household, a pretty halakha household, and raised on a pretty, I would say intimate familiarity with the siddur as part and- Brian Schwartzman: The prayer book. Rabbi Kamesar: ... The prayer books, thank you. On the High Holidays, The Mahzor and the prayer book being kind of a central feature and demonstration of your commitment to Judaism. In my teens, I fell away from it that it wasn't interesting to me at all, had no place in my life. But when I was in my early twenties getting ready to graduate college, looking for an anchor, looking for meaning in life, looking for direction, I found myself gravitating towards, back towards, I should say, a traditional orientation towards Judaism and the prayer book being like the primary way to experience that and explore that. It's laid out to you that you can, or it depends on whom you're asking should daven pray three times a day. I looked to the prayer book language as the means of following through on my intuition that re-exploring Judaism would be worthwhile for me. And I guess the key word in the siddur for me was became, I didn't realize this at the time, but was really ata in the sense of baruch ata adonai, blessed are you. I found a real conversation partner in prayer as I found myself looking, searching for meaning for an anchor, for direction, for a north star of sorts. That was a really helpful, we call it device centering feature for me. To be able to direct conversation to God and really to feel heard as I was doing so to feel like my words, my pleas through the words of the siddur were landing, were being received, that it wasn't into an empty ether. And various phrases in the siddur really gave me some scaffolding phrases around the [foreign language], let us cleave our hearts to you, for instance. Or anything around Rahim, mercy and compassion resonated for me. For a while that was really good for me to be able to rely on that. Over time as I continued to explore Judaism, first of all, my prayer life vacillated a lot from this that I'm naming a very kind of traditional orientation to taking big breaks and it not doing anything for me. But now I've kind of rediscovered it and I give myself more permission now to do what the Hasidic refer to as essentially [foreign language], which is something like self-disclosure. And it really means what I kind of translate as and what a lot of translators translate as just talking to God again, that you framework was very helpful for me and just holding space to talk to God. So now what I do, at least as of the last couple of months or so is I remember reading a Heschel passage, and I think I include this in my essay, which is like, "What if we just an hour a day sort of surrendered to stillness?" So that has served as an anchor for me now where I give myself, I do a half hour in the morning before the girls get up, before Lila and Nina, the four-year-old and the one-year-old get up, I do a half hour, I sit and fill in, but it's really just in quiet. Talking to God sometimes. Sometimes it's my mind just wandering, sometimes it's my mind just thinking about work. And then all of a sudden the buzzer goes off and the 30 minutes are up, but then finding another 15 minute pocket somewhere in the middle of the workday, and then another 15 minute pocket after the girls go to bed. Doesn't happen every day, but it is something that has really buoyed me. So that you framework that being able to have an address for my thoughts, for my concerns, for my worries has been really profound for me. And so has the freedom to be able to do so not only strictly through the [foreign language], the kind of prescribe prayer service, but my own kind of spontaneous whisperings of the heart. Brian Schwartzman: With meditation, I've gotten pretty okay with sitting 10 minutes and that the 15 minutes really pushes it where I just feel this existential, I have to get up and do something right now. I guess you've pushed past that or you note it and move on if you get that feeling, Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, that is a really good... I've definitely experienced exactly what you're talking about. And when I name that there were long parts of my life where prayer didn't hold any or where I found myself having deviated from a prayer practice that was I'm sure I'd rather be reading. I have so many emails to send, like I got to get to the gym. So this is definitely not to say that this is better. This hour is the prescription and I think my life is so go, go right now that I don't know if it's just where I am in life, but I need this in a way that I didn't at a different time. With young kids, with the congregation, I need the stillness in a way that maybe my soul didn't in those other chapters of life. I don't know, I'm kind of thinking out loud, but for whatever reason, also, I love Heschel and love anything Heschel says. So if he prescribed it, then I'm like, "All right, I should try this." So that's what I've been going with lately. Brian Schwartzman: If you're enjoying this episode, if you're moved to think about the High Holidays or Jewish practice in a different way, or even look at a religious leader in a more humanized fashion, please take a moment to give us a five star rating or leave a review in Apple podcasts. These ratings really help people find out about the show. And by the way, big news in Evolve podcast world, we are so close to 100,000 episode downloads, just 4,000 to go give or take. So thank you for listening and please spread the world and help us cross that threshold. We're going to do a happy dance, we're going to share it on social media. We're going to figure out some way to celebrate this milestone because it tells us that what we're doing is reaching people, it's getting into your earbuds and hopefully making a difference in your life. So ratings, reviews, spread the word, and thank you for getting us so close to this mark. In your essay you told a story about King David and that it told you something powerful about prayer. I was wondering if you could give us the thumbnail of that story and what it's taught you about prayer, especially related to the High Holidays. Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, so the story of David and Bathsheba was always very captivating to me, perhaps because it also includes a role for a prophet named Nathan. He doesn't get that much play in the Bible, but gets a little bit, and this has a prominent role in this anecdote. So it caught my attention. This is the moment where David, whom we still hold up as really those of us who know all the details might not, but the religion as a whole holds him up really as the paragon of, I don't know, Jewish leadership. David [foreign language] David, king of Israel, live, live and endure. When we're doing the Amidah, we talk about the seed of David. So David is both like the paradigmatic leader, the model for the moshiach when the moshiach comes, and when we kind of scrutinize the story, he is so flawed and this anecdote is the, I don't know how else to say it, but the grossest version of that. He's king, he sees as the Leonard Cohen song makes famous, he sees the beautiful Bathsheba bathing on the roof, calls him to her, she's married, he lays with her, she gets pregnant. He doesn't want anybody to find out what's happened between him and her. So he calls her husband Uriah, back from the front lines fighting, I want to say the Philistines, one of the tribes, and hoping that Uriah will sleep with her and they can assume that Uriah is the rightful father of this child. Uriah is too, I guess noble and virtuous to sleep with his wife, sleep in his home bed while his fellow soldiers are still on the front lines, so refuses to do so. So David concludes for himself somehow that he has no choice but to essentially eliminate Uriah. This is the moral, I don't know, contortions that his mind goes through, his frantic mind, goes through. So sends Uriah back out to the front on essentially the equivalent of a suicide mission, knows he's not going to make it back, he doesn't. And Nathan, local prophet comes and offers David a parable, it's talking about some landowner of sorts who is rich and greedy and a different, a peasant who has but one sheep and cares for this sheep like it's his child. And the rich landowner has a random visitor traipsing through and thinking he's upholding some values, wants to treat this random visitor well, and takes the peasants one sheep and gives it to him for a meal. And David, when he hears Nathan tell this story, is outraged by the obvious injustice of it and says, "What a terrible thing this person has done." And Nathan, the prophet says simply, "Well, that's you. That's who I'm telling the story about." The cloud seems to... Whatever wool David had pulled over his own eyes during this moment seems to finally get pulled back. He takes a cold hard look in the mirror and is potentially one way of looking at it. This is a generous read that I'm giving of it, is shattered at who he's become and out of him pours the Tehillah, the Psalms, and in particular one Psalm, Psalm 51, which has a little kind of superscription at the beginning of it, which essentially says that this is the psalm that David wrote after the incidents of Bathsheba. So David writes this psalm, it's a psalm where the author of it, whether it's David, whether it's somebody else, is really just pouring their heart out on the table, recognizes how truly fallible they are, feels a sense of... Is reaching out to God and pleading for compassion for mercy, spilling their guts, putting their heart out on all the table. The notable piece of this is in a verse that is in this psalm, is [foreign language], my God opened up my lips and let my mouth speak your praise. And as you may know, that's the little verse that it's usually in small print in a siddur that opens up an Amidah. And the Amidah is really the chance for anyone who's praying in contemporary Jewish life to open up their heart to God. There is now, of course, prescribed liturgy, but traditionally and in contemporary times, there's an opportunity there to pour our heart out spontaneously as we so feel called. It's so interesting to me that the verse, the rabbis chose yes, makes sense on a superficial level of, okay, "God, open up my lips, that my mouth shall declare your praise." That makes sense just in that context to be the opening line of a prayer because it's saying whatever comes out next be good. But it's also the context is when David has been so heartbroken for his own doing, self caused heartbroken, that's again my charitable read of the experience that it all comes pouring out. And in my own experience in life, there have been times where sort of that level of suspending all, I don't know, your own sense of your will, I don't want to say your goodness, but your merits, putting all that to the side can be when the most profound and spontaneous prayer moments can happen. To me, it's not only... It's a little bit of a code for as you're entering into this prayer moment right now, do your best to suspend all that stuff. To suspend will, to suspend preconceived notions about what you're deserving of and where you think you should go and do your best to just open up the heart as best as you can, especially as you asked, in those High Holiday moments. Brian Schwartzman: Thank you. So I've got a question from our executive producer, Rabbi Jacob Staub, your former teacher. And this one sounds like a question you might've asked in the final day of class or something, but it's a teacher kind of question, but it seems like a good follow up. How do we as Reconstructionists, as modern Jews pray for compassion from God if we don't literally believe that God hears our prayers? Rabbi Kamesar: First, I have to make my usual plug here for... I know a lot of s are often... I guess I want to say that I can believe in a God, who hears my prayers while at the same time not believing in a God who is sort of going to intervene on the material plane, on the physical plane for me. So I guess what I mean by that is I can experience being heard in my prayers while also not expecting that if I pray to win the lottery, I'm going to win the lottery or pray that this team wins a football game, is going to win the football game. I don't experience the universe and God in such a way that says, "Yes, God is listening to prayers and if someone prays just right, God will push a certain lever and that indeed reign will fall on that." I do think we have free will. The universe is on the course that it is on. And in other words, I don't think God is interrupting human actions because someone prayed in a particular way. But I do think we can turn to God, a God who hears for just the sense of A, feeling heard and feeling seen, and B, the sense of love and light and life that flows from that source. So I don't think we have to believe in Supernaturalism, for example, to believe in a God who hears our prayers. That said, I recognize to Rabbi Staubs point, and I think you're right. I can totally picture him asking that question and hello Rabbi Staub, hello Jacob in class. And I recognize that a lot of people, for example, Kaplans God is the power that makes for salvation. Looking at these more, I would say force like, non-anthropomorphic depictions of God. And there too, there's a compassionate flow that we can kind of open ourselves up to. Leonard Cohen who wrote Hallelujah and the now kind of overly popularized song that's really based in some ways on this biblical anecdote also has the cracks or where the light gets in idea. And to me, that's a lot. That's a non-anthropomorphic summation of what I'm talking about, which is a little bit of heartbreak, a little bit of breaking open is necessary for that light, that love, that divine compassion to seep through. I think that's how I think about it in more , non-anthropomorphic terms. Brian Schwartzman: We just had a thing in our household where my older daughter, for the first time ever openly prayed to God for something to happen, her arch nemesis AKA, her younger sister was ill and was in danger of missing a camp overnight that she'd been looking forward to. And my older daughter, hello Maya, literally got down on her knees and prayed I guess to God that her sister would get better. And miraculously, her sister woke up the next day feeling a hundred percent. And Maya's, my older daughter's running around their house. "Yes, yes, Judaism works, prayer works." And I was glad she thought to do it, and I love that the sisterly... I was like, "Is this a moment for a theological conversation? Probably not." But it's almost like somebody wins at gambling and then the next time they try it might not work like that. Rabbi Kamesar: What I love about that is even I think there's value in human value, to let yourself yearn that much. And the prayer is really oftentimes a container for yearning. And I think the spirit wants to do that. So even if we don't believe in a God, even if you don't want to test that a second time around where the night before a test you haven't studied at all and you're like, "That prayer thing worked, I'm going to rely on that prayer." The level of yearning she opened herself up to there, not to get preachy and rabbinic, but I think there's something beautiful in that. So even if you have a different understanding of how prayer works, the pouring out of the heart there I think is good for the soul [inaudible]. Brian Schwartzman: So to name check another Rabbi, we had Rabbi Michael Strassfeld on the program a few months ago. I don't know if you know him personally or just know of his work or both. We didn't get into this as much in the show, but I read farther in his new book, Judaism Disrupted, and there's a few, I guess provocative ideas in there. And one of them was, I'm going to quote him for a bit because he said it better than I could. "But despite a lifetime of praying and leading services, I have come to believe that traditional prayer no longer works for most Jews and requires radical reconstruction." He says a little more about its archaic language, difficult theologies, and he wonders about a post rabbinic Jewish service that would, and here I'm quoting again, "Provide time to reflect on kavanah intention of the past week and prepare for the coming week." It doesn't go into huge detail as to what this new kind of service would look like. There's a few pages on it, but it seems like calling for huge experimentation to leave behind this traditional service we've inherited with adaptations in lieu of something new of... It seems like you take a lot from the traditional service. So I'm wondering how you react to that, if you see room for many different avenues. Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah, great question. I do know Rabbi Strassfeld. I'm an avid user, I rely a lot on his Jewish Holidays book. I have it behind me, and I have a copy of Judaism Disrupted, and he's going to be visiting Society Hill Synagogue to talk about- [inaudible] Brian Schwartzman: Oh, wow. Rabbi Kamesar: ... I'll read it before he gets here to talk about it with him. Actually, I knew that was an idea that he was interested in because Rabbi Deborah Waxman told me that at one point. What I absolutely support is the notion and the recognition that there are going to be times in Jewish history when we have to make radical departures from where we are. The most classic paradigmatic example of that is the temple being destroyed and rabbinic Judaism essentially replacing it, the Torah. The Torah doesn't have much of what is in the siddur in it, although a lot of what's in the siddur is in the Torah. The ritual life in the Torah is far more based around sacrifice than it is around how we now experience prayer. I don't think it's without precedent to have moments in the arc of Jewish time to make dramatic departures. And I understand a hundred percent where Rabbi Strassfeld is coming from in terms of the content of the siddur, is it resonating for people? The second paragraph after the Shema, which in some ways the one that we most direct our congregants attention to, because we've just brought their attention together for the Shema, we just chanted the V'ahavta and then we say, "Okay, read silently to yourselves." And it's a paragraph with this classic articulation. Granted, you can make a lovely midrash about it, and I'm happy to talk about that, but this classic articulation of if you follow God, rain will come, and if you don't follow God, your field will dry up and there'll be pestilence and all this stuff. So I totally understand where he's coming from on the notion of the content of the being potentially problematic. My caveat is that... Is a couple of things. One is we still have the strong communal pull, both the communal in contemporary time and accumulated history that my experience, is that people still look for a shared framework to organize themselves around, and that the siddur, while at times not aligning with individual's personal theology, serves as that anchor, that rallying point in a way where a new made up service, so to speak, is while I think it could... This isn't to say never you got to start somewhere, but for now, I still see a lot of yearning for being grounded in tradition, paired with I do think I don't lead a prayer service where I just assume that people in the pews need no scaffolding for the hour and a half that they're there. Part of my job is to be constantly giving little cover note, little like, "Okay, here's something to be thinking about while we're doing this prayer." And you're invited to either be present to the community while they're doing that prayer or you're invited to often use a group hike metaphor. You can deviate from the well trodden path and you'll find us in a few minutes if you need to. I think for communal reasons, we still want to anchor around the siddur. And the other reason I think it's helpful is I go to the part of the Torah of Shemot, of Exodus when Moses asks God if Moses can see God, and God essentially says, "No one can see me and live, but here you can see this little I'll pass by you as you're in the cleft of this rock." And the analogy I'm drawing here is that it's so hard to... If we're interested in orienting around God in some ways, which I think if you're trying to make the case for contemporary religious life, you can't divorce yourself from God or else in my mind, people they won't choose religion. They'll just choose something different altogether. So to the extent you're going to have God there to begin with, you can't just engage with that directly. You need some scaffolding, you need some metaphors, you need some imagery, you need some frameworks to use. And again, the siddur offers that. Is it the perfect framework? No. Over time, we discard some parts and we add some parts, but it still serves as the anchoring for our community. I still see a lot of value, even while I understand the motivation that's driving Rabbi Strassfeld's thinking about that. Brian Schwartzman: Interesting. Okay. So it seemed like in your essay you talk about vulnerability and surrender, and these seem to be concepts that are getting a lot of play in the broader culture. Give myself away as a Bono U2 fan, I just read his 600-page memoir called Surrender, which actually comes from a very spiritual perspective. But I guess, what are these concepts in a Jewish framework and why are they important to the High Holidays? Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah. I think there's a part of the High Holidays that presumes we desire to change in some ways, to transform in some ways. That we get to the High Holidays, we do that introspection. And it may be that some of us essentially do that heshbon hanefesh, do that internal accounting and actually say, "You know what? Yes, I did accidentally take an extra orange from Acme, but from the grocery store, but all intents and purposes, I'm feeling pretty good about the year." That may be the case for a lot of people. My experience is that most people, when they really come to the High Holidays, it's because there's something that they want to transform, that they want to change. And one of the really simple phrases I've heard this year that's been working for me is if nothing changes, nothing changes line. And that that's really self-directed in a lot of ways. If you want a change in trajectory for yourself in even in subtle ways, even just in the ways you talk to yourself, in the ways you talk to others, what's the change going to be like to get there and within yourself? What change are you going to initiate that's like that? And for me, that's often a question where I have no... We all sort of make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Oftentimes to initiate those kinds of changes, what Maimonides talks about, that's the only real form of teshuva, is when you basically are presented with the same opportunity that you've made mistakes at before and finally do it differently, that's teshuva. To get to that place, a level of surrender and vulnerability about who we are, why we are the way we are, what has led to us being that way, offering that up in some ways to the divine, however you understand that, to really say, "I don't know. I don't know what I should be doing here I am a little lost. I'm not going to try and presume that I can through my, again, force of will exert myself into that place." I think another story I cite in the essay is this from one of my teachers, Bobby Brightman and maybe somebody else, about the person trying to be spiritually pure, going to the zen master and saying, "What if I try really hard to have spiritual equanimity? How long is that going to take me?" And the Zen master says, "10 years." And then the person's frustrated and they say, "Well, what if I try really hard?" And the Zen Master says, "20 years." And that there's a degree of a cliched version that we don't always feel comfortable with in Judaism is to give it up to God that there's a way in which we need to suspend our preconceived notions about what it is we need and open ourselves up. That's in some ways what the essay was about, that cracking open, letting the light in is sometimes needed for that kind of shift. I know I've experienced that. And so it's trying to get to a place where you're not trying to predetermine the outcome, but really being open to whatever pathway may be for you. Brian Schwartzman: So I think I've got a last question, and it's not a light one, but we sort of said before we got on the air, I mentioned AI. I know you've worked in technology law and kind of have a strong interest in technology and ethics. So I was like, "Well, is there a way to bring it into the conversation?" And I think there is, I mean, I don't know. I've read a couple what if stories, what if weapons systems gets turned over to AI, suddenly nuclear war is a concern again. The global warming, democracy here in the US and Israel. I'm sure I'll leave things out, backlash against LGBTQ, gun violence. Everybody thinks our time is unprecedented and more perilous than before, but it's not completely irrational to have some kind of sense of existential dread with all this stuff going on. To those of us, maybe me included, who might show up at the High Holidays carrying some of this existential dread, what do you think folks should do with it? Is it the time to say, "You know what, this is my chance to focus on me and what I can do and my own behavior?" Because obviously it's not necessarily healthy to carry around, but it's hard to avoid. Rabbi Kamesar: Yeah. It's a really good question about... Well, so first of all, just to agree with you, it's hard not... You hit a great list. I think my wife and I played a very gallows humor game of which is going to get us first between the next pandemic, AI going rogue, nuclear war or climate change, which one is going to get us first? So that is a question I think on a lot of people's minds. The question being, "What the heck world, what are we supposed to do about all of this?" And then the subpart of the question is, what is the specific role of the high holiday experience in relationship to that? And I wrestle with how much should my sermons be sort of a social commentary or the existential angst is a good way to frame it. And how much is it about, like you said, the internal, the soul experience? How much do I sort of nourish myself as a vessel for transformative change in the broader world? Knowing this is when one of the Jewish cliches is put out there about, it's not on me to complete the work, but neither am I free to desist from it. It's the, "All right, well, how can I focus on my kind of small corner of it, which starts with me, which starts with my hamma, my vessel, my soul." And by me, I mean each of us individually. So I often try and when sermons kind of strike a balance a little bit of to take a moment yes, how can you ground yourself in the whole equanimity prayer, what I can control versus what I can't? And wisdom to know the difference, is famous for a reason. And looking at what those parts that are within yourself, that are within your control and understanding the anxiety that's coming up while also knowing that, yes, it is incumbent upon us. The way the universe seems to operate is that human beings, we do need to heal, repair the world that we're confronted with. If we're not going to do it's not going to happen. So I see the High Holidays as a moment for the soul to get nourished, to feel aligned with yourself so that you're going forward throughout the year in a way that you feel like you have a solid foundation to make those changes, to do your part, to make the contributions to those changes. There's no lever we're going to be able to pull at High Holidays, which stops climate change and its tracks. But can we give your soul the nourishment to make you be a vessel for positive change in the world and to be able to do your small part in the world. Brian Schwartzman: By the way, before I let you go, I suppose I should ask what you're talking about this year. Are you able to say? Is it in a hidden file with a lock or? Rabbi Kamesar: Well, I will say that this is my part... The point of the arc that I am in this year is the part where I say, I haven't left myself enough time. It's not going to be good. What was I doing taking June off and putting my feet up on the desk and now I'm scrambling. It is a part of my process every year. My wife is already rolling her eyes at me from saying that. So a short version of that is to say, still figuring it out. But we've touched on some of the themes. Some themes I will be talking about are one, I always do a sermon. I feel like this is part of my job, but I also think it's important is to make the case for institutional Judaism in the sense that to make the case for as rabbi of a synagogue, to make the case that engaging with synagogue life throughout the course of the year can do that nourishing of the spirit through the communal connections, through the conversations that are held in Torah discussion through the slight engagement with God. Part of my job is to, on High Holidays, that's my bite at the apple with people to make the case keep coming back throughout the year. Not in a scolding way, not in a like, "Why aren't I seeing you?" But in that's my chance to say, drop in for some shabbats. Trust me, it'll be good for you and it'll be good for us. We need you and hopefully, you need us. So one of my sermons is always in some way making that case. Another is that, I can say this, that the [foreign language], we always go straight for... That's the, you shall love your neighbors, you love yourself. But again, I use the word cliche a lot in this. I'm doing some of the greatest hits in Judaism. That's one of the greatest hits. We oftentimes jump straight to the love your neighbor part. And that's what we focus on. And there's a way in which I think what's often missing from that conversation is love your neighbor as you love yourself. There's almost an implicit message of, "Hey, are you sure you love yourself? Because you need to." And B, it's going to be hard to love your neighbor if you're not loving yourself. They're actually very much connected. It's important to find the balance between self-love and narcissism. So you want to talk about that, but I think a lot of us skew in the other direction that there's actually, we're too hard on ourselves. What might it take to explore that further? And then the third is, I want to think about... The imagery I'm kind of drawn to this year is the altar and the experience of what it must've been like to... This is very early in the process really, as you said, getting behind the curtain, but I'll go there briefly, is the visceral nature of washing the, whatever you want to call it, the entrails of this offering you're bringing and burning it up on the altar. And I'm almost imagining there's a vicarious element of that of, "All right, what is inside us? What is the muck that has accumulated inside us that we're going to be washing off and then burning up, transforming into smoke on the altar and therefore lightening our burdens in many ways so that we're able to, like we said, looking at these daunting challenges that confront us democracy under attack, climate change. If you want to throw AI in there, how can we unburden ourselves a little bit so that we can carry some of the burdens of the world? What's the muck that's holding us down?" Those are the early stage processes that I'm in with this. And they oftentimes transform over the time that I'm working on them. Sometimes they transform too long. Sometimes I'm trying to squeeze like five different ideas in there. So be it. Over time I try and work on that, but that's where I'm in the creative process now. Brian Schwartzman: Well, by the time people hear this, it'll be polished and finished so you can greet your future self with a job well done. Rabbi Kamesar: From your mouth to the non-anthropomorphic God's ears. Brian Schwartzman: What did you think of today's episode? I would love to hear from you. Evolve is about meaningful conversations and your part of that, send me your questions, comments, feedback. You can reach me, this is a real non-dummy email address at bschwartzman@reconstructingjudaism.org. Okay. Our whole team will be back soon with an all new episode. Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is executive produced by Rabbi Jacob Staub and edited by Sam Watts. The theme song, Ilu Finu is composed by Rabbi Miriam Margo. This show is a production of Reconstructing Judaism. I'm the host, Brian Schwartzman and I and my whole team, we'll see you next time. [foreign language] and Shana Tova.