Transcripts are lightly edited. Please excuse any imperfections.
David Bashevkin:
Hi friends, and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast where each month we explore different topic balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless Jewish ideas. I’m your host, David Bashevkin, and this month we are continuing to explore Jewish denominations. Thank you so much to my dearest friends and sponsors, Joel and Lynn Mael, who have sponsored this entire series in memory of Joel’s parents, Estelle and Nysen Mael, Esther bas Zvi and Nissan ben Yaakov Zvi. I’m so grateful for your friendship and support. This podcast is part of a larger exploration of those big juicy Jewish ideas. So be sure to check out 18forty.org, that’s 18 F-O-R-T-Y.org, where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails. I don’t have a clear explanation for this, but generally my favorite Orthodox Jews that I’ve ever met, almost all of them are children of Conservative rabbis.
I have almost like an eerie sixth sense, would I meet someone? And there’s a certain way that they go about things, a certain way that they talk about Yiddishkeit, the way that they talk about halacha, the way that they talk about Jewish life. They’re fully integrated within the Orthodox community. But I sometimes pause and stop and wonder, I’m saying, is your father a Conservative rabbi? Are you from a home with a parent who is a Conservative rabbi, father or mother? And very often my suspicions are absolutely correct. Now, I am not exactly offering a theory for why this is the case, it is something I’ve noticed. But I think one of the advantages of growing up in a religiously committed home, a religiously committed non-Orthodox home, is that it really shapes the way that you speak about non-Orthodox Jews. When non-Orthodox Jews are your family members, are your parents, are your children, are your cousins, are your siblings, or whatever that may be.
I think it softens much of the otherness that we grow up feeling within the Orthodox community about the way that we look at those who grew up outside of the Orthodox community. But there is an otherness about the way Orthodox Jews very often look at non-Orthodox Jews and vice versa. There is an otherness, and I’ve been in both of these rooms. The way that non-Orthodox Jews very often talk about Orthodox Jews. There is this deep otherness, this sense that there are divides, that even if we are close, even if we have a relationship, it is hard to talk about them. It’s hard to talk about religious differences, ideological differences. But when you have the frame of family, which frankly should be our frame when we think about any of the Jewish people, but when you have the frame of family in its most literal sense, I think it really shapes in a positive way the way people relate and talk to people who grew up in homes, the way that they relate and talk to people who grew up in communities about Jews, who grew up in communities other than their own.
It gives a certain breadth to the Jewish experience when you belong to a community that is different than the one you grew up in. Now, obviously there are a lot of issues that can arise in terms of halachic, observance, et cetera, et cetera. And a lot of the ideological differences can be difficult to navigate. And I’m not saying it’s all rosy, but I think particularly when a parent is a conservative rabbi who are generally much more committed, educated, ideologically informed, I think there is, when people grow up in such homes, I think a lot of that otherness, the way that they look at their parents and the sacrifices they’ve made on behalf of the Jewish people are very different. It’s hard to look at them and say, “Oh, you don’t know anything about Judaism.” It’s different than the way one would look at a, let’s say, fully assimilated or secular Jew, which I think in many ways, at least within the Orthodox community, we have an easier time relating to, we almost approach a Jew who is secular or does not have any sort of affiliation. It’s like a blank slate.
So we could kind of introduce ourselves in a different way. You’re not competing, so to speak, against different or conflicting formulations about Jewish life or observance. But when a Jew grew up in a committed non-Orthodox home, it challenges many of our assumptions about what non-Orthodoxy in fact is. What do they know? What are their experiences like? I think very often we superimpose, and when I say we, I mean within the Orthodox community, we superimpose a frame of secular or assimilated Jew, which very much exists. There are Jews who are completely alienated from any sort of Jewish life, observance, knowledge, education, but we superimpose that frame when we relate or think about any non-Orthodox Jew. And that is simply not true, and it is not the case. That is why I oftentimes struggle about how to even describe non-Orthodox Jews.
I don’t like the term non-observant Jews to describe non-Orthodox Jews because many non-Orthodox Jews are deeply observant and deeply committed though in a way that is different than Orthodoxy. I also don’t like the term non-religious Jews. I think that’s a very ugly frame because I think that there are non-Orthodox Jews who are deeply religious, sometimes more so than Orthodox Jews who grew up maybe not necessarily appreciating the commitments and the religious life that their community cultivates within them because they haven’t experienced anything else.
And that is why for today’s conversation, I want to kind of step back from a lot of the ideological history that divides the denominations and take a window into something that is maybe less ideological, but a heck of a lot sweeter. And that is the relationship between a parent and child between Mia Raskin. Mia Raskin is an incredible person, and her father Rabbi Adam Raskin, Rabbi Adam Raskin is a conservative rabbi and the leader of Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac, Maryland. And his daughter Mia, who as we’ll talk about now identifies as Orthodox something we will discuss, but has a fascinating story of her own in that she played NCAA Division I basketball, which I think is really, really cool.
And we discuss both. We discuss denominational differences, what she hears from her Orthodox friends, how she relates, and how her father relates to his own congregation and to her and her own changes. I think it is a really fascinating and important conversation. And more than anything else, a reminder that we shouldn’t just approach different denominations through ideological frames, as important as that is, and as we’ve discussed the past couple of weeks, but to remind ourselves that a familial frame is also important with all of the challenges and opportunities that it provides. So without further ado, here is our conversation with Rabbi Adam Raskin and his daughter Mia. I am so excited to speak to really a remarkable family and remarkable people. I have today Rabbi Adam Raskin, who is the rabbi in Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac Maryland.
Adam Raskin:
That’s right.
David Bashevkin:
And Mia Raskin, who is a student and a rising basketball star in Binghamton on the team. And we’ll hear more about both. Thank you Mia and Mia, what do you call dad?
Mia Raskin:
Abba
David Bashevkin:
Abba. Whenever I have parents on, I always defer an Abba. Rabbi Adam Raskin, thank you both for joining me today.
Adam Raskin:
There’s no better title than Abba.
David Bashevkin:
There’s no better title than Abba. I could not agree more. Rabbi Raskin, you are a congregational rabbi of a Conservative congregation in Potomac, Maryland. And I guess I wanted to begin by your own positionality. How did you get to the Conservative congregation in Potomac, Maryland? Did you grow up within the Conservative movement and kind of rose the rungs until eventually you are now leading your own congregation? Or was the path to the rabbinate something that had a lot of twists and turns as it is for so many?
Adam Raskin:
So I’m really a hybrid Jew. I grew up with almost every experience imaginable, beginning with my kindergarten year at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland unbelievably. I’m not even sure how I got there to begin with. It seems like ancient history at this point, but that was my one and only year of day school. But I grew up in the public schools in Cleveland, Ohio. I actually grew up in a Reform congregation where I was very active in my synagogue youth group I’m very close with my rabbi. I attended JCC summer camps where I was a camper. And then a counselor in high school started to attend Conservative synagogues in Cleveland where I was kind of exploring my own kind of Jewish roots and vision.
Hillel and Chabad at Ohio State were very influential. I have to give credit to my amazing wife whose own family and her upbringing in a Canadian family, in an Orthodox day school, in a Conservative synagogue. That was strong emphasis and of course, eventually my, eventually my JTS professors and so on and so forth. But I feel like I’ve benefited from every corner of the Jewish world. So I graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2002. I spent nine years in Dallas at two different synagogues in the Dallas area, and then came to Potomac 13 years ago.
David Bashevkin:
So I want to jump in to really talk about the experience with Mia because it really is remarkable. Mia, you went to Berman Hebrew Academy, I believe. And I wanted to begin with that decision. It could be, I don’t know enough about Berman Hebrew Academy. It’s kind of like a community school. And I’m curious to hear from both of you. Was the decision to send her, not to a Solomon Schechter, but to Berman, which I believe is under Orthodox auspices, was that an unusual decision? In a lot of schools, even in the Orthodox world, if you have a rabbi who is affiliated, not just with a movement, but there are expectations of where the rabbi is going to send their kids to school, it sends a message. And here you are, you raised Mia, not just in a Conservative home, in the home of the Conservative rabbi of the community, yet you made a choice to send her to an Orthodox school.
I’m curious if there was any pushback from your congregation on that? And I’m curious for Mia if that experience kind of made you feel a little bit different. Did you carry a denominational difference when you were in high school? Maybe we’ll begin with Abba.
Adam Raskin:
So actually the story begins in Dallas because Mia did begin her day school education at a Solomon Schechter school. And as one of the Conservative rabbis in town, I was de facto board member of that school. And what we began to realize pretty early on is that there were all kinds of activities and events and birthday parties and so forth happening on Shabbat. And Mia was unfortunately excluded from a lot of those gatherings with her classmates.
And then on the occasions when they weren’t on Shabbat, we often sent Mia with her own slice of pizza or her own cupcake or her own food to eat at these things and began to feel like this was actually not what we were hoping for in terms of a immersive Jewish day school experience. That really what we want was an environment that was going to reinforce and celebrate the way that we live at home, which is Shomer Shabbat, Shomer Kashrut, a rich and enthusiastic Jewish life. So we ended up moving her to Akiba Academy of Dallas, which is ironically where my wife, where Mia’s mom graduated. We happened to be in the same community where Sari grew up and there was a tremendous pushback. People left my shul, people were very upset and very critical of the decision. Even though I stayed engaged in the Schechter school as a Jewish professional, moving my own child was a signal for some of these people that if the Conservative rabbi doesn’t send his kids to the school, then why would anyone else?
So no matter what I tried to do to signal that I supported the school and that there were certain people in the school who did want to move it in the direction of being more inclusive of different levels of observance, and that I was encouraging that. I also said at the same time, I have kids right now who are in school. I have kids right now who need to have a certain experience and I can support your long-term vision while making different decisions for my kids who are in the school at this very moment. So when we came to Potomac, I was immediately shown by the search committee and so forth, the big community day school, the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, which was wonderful and actually Mia’s younger brother is there now. But I said to them, “I’d like to see the Orthodox Day school too.” And they kind of-
David Bashevkin:
Yeah. How did they react to that?
Adam Raskin:
Didn’t expect that. They didn’t expect that, but they said, “Okay, we can arrange that.” So it felt very similar in culture and atmosphere to Akiba in Dallas. And it was exactly the kind of space that we wanted our kids to be in because the truth is, as a Conservative rabbi, oftentimes our kids are the most observant kids in the room, and we wanted them to have peers and friends who were living similar lifestyles as we were raising our kids to live. Even as they kind of inhabited these two worlds.
David Bashevkin:
There is a certain menschlichkeit indecency that I could spot right away. The children of conservative rabbis, because they do kind of inhabit kind of that instinctive menschlichkeit, they don’t take it for granted. They know that observance is something that needs to be earned and maintained and nurtured. And at the same time, they really have a spirited way of looking at the full spectrum of observance and looking at others. I could always spot people right away from the way they speak about other Jews, but Mia, tell me a little bit, growing up. So you grew up and you really went to an Orthodox school, yet your parents obviously were not just involved in a Conservative congregation, they led a Conservative congregation.
Tell me a little bit about how that played out with your peer groups, maybe the understanding and perhaps misunderstandings that your Orthodox friends who were coming from Orthodox homes, how they reacted like, oh, your father’s the Conservative rabbi, and I’m sure there was some emphasis on the C word. How did you negotiate that and when did you kind of become aware of that difference? You didn’t just come from a rabbinic home, which is probably what most people who are the children of rabbis in an Orthodox school would say, “Oh, I’m from a rabbinic home.” You had to qualify it. Or there was this qualifier hanging. I come from a Conservative rabbinic home. Tell me a little bit about that experience.
Mia Raskin:
Sure. So well, first of all, thank you for having us, it’s very exciting. But I would definitely say that it always changed with age. So when I was younger, the big C word was a lot bigger of a deal. Still, I get some head turns as a 22-year-old. I still get head turns when I meet people and they’re like, “What? Your dad’s a Conservative rabbi?” The emphasis on the C. But I’ve noticed that the more that I speak to my peers and the more people get to know me, the C word doesn’t seem to matter as much as they actually think it does.
So when I was younger, it was this big deal that, oh, I davened in a synagogue that has men and women sit together and women reading from the Torah, and that’s really scary and frightening. But then when they got to talking to me and understood the way that I think and the way that I believe and the way that my parents, kudos to them, raised me. The way that my family participated in the greater Jewish community, not just the Conservative Jewish community, that C word didn’t seem so scary anymore.
I would even say that my friends in high school by the time I graduated, sure there would be little digs here and there because it was an easy target, but it didn’t actually matter for anything. I was respected just as much as the rest of my peers. I was learning in chavrutas just like the rest of my peers. I ended up going to seminary just like the rest of my peers in Israel. And I think that coming from the background that I did, I understood that I really feel like I speak to my parents about it all the time. I really feel like I had to grow up a little bit quicker than my average counterparts just because I was interacting with adults all the time. People were asking me questions about keeping Shabbat. “Why can’t I not turn on my phone? Is there really a spark when I turn it on?” And if you can’t light a fire, how does A connect to B?
I had 50- and 60-year-olds asking me these questions at age 10 or 11. And so because of that, I had this greater understanding of the greater picture of Judaism, and I was able to articulate my background and my thoughts at a way younger age to the point that my peers were able to respect me really early on too.
David Bashevkin:
But tell me, because you really had two sets of peers. We were talking about the way you related to your Orthodox peers. I’m curious about your peers that you had from the Conservative shul that your father led. Was there a sense of that different that you’re kind of like half Orthodox or more affiliated as Orthodox, or you are like not in a conspiratory way, but you’re like a mole so to speak. You’re not really one of us because there is some very real difference. How unusual was it? I’m sure there were kids your own age who came from more classical Conservative homes. What did your own observance as a teenager, what effect did that have with your relationships with people in your father’s shul who were more classically Conservative?
Mia Raskin:
To be completely honest, I probably have a backpack full of stories of the times that people made jokes that my skirt wasn’t long enough on Shabbat day at my father’s Conservative shul. And how silly that comment is because why do you care about the length of my skirt? You’re just saying that because I go to an Orthodox day school, so therefore one has to lead to the other. But at the end of the day, in terms of how I was interacting with people before they were Conservative Jews, they were just Jews. So before I’m talking to them about the things that I’m learning to school or the way that I’m dressing when I go to the school or how I’m observing Shabbat or Kashrut, I first have to recognize that even before they’re Jews, they’re people and we’re just having conversation. And I think that once people realize, so, right, the C word is super scary in the Orthodox world, but the O word is really scary to the Conservative world.
David Bashevkin:
Yes.
Mia Raskin:
And it’s so funny. They come up with all these. In both senses, there’s this assumption that if you identify with this specific label, then you must embody X, Y and Z, not internally, but externally. You must dress a certain way, you must practice a certain way, you must be in the community a certain way. But really at the end of the day, if we get down to the bare bones of it, we’re just people having a conversation. And I think that once I started interacting with my peers and we move past all that externalities and the things that didn’t really matter as 15- through 18-year-olds, we were really just talking about sports, hanging out, talking about what was in the media, the last movie that we saw. And it really just ended up being that it was just a peer to peer interaction and it was less about the big C and the big O words in both of those worlds. And I think that once both of those groups could get over the dauntingness of the labels, then we were all able to interact together and just hang out.
David Bashevkin:
I really appreciate that. I want to turn it back to Abba for a moment and talk about how the experience of raising Mia in an orthodox school where you see kind of your run-of-the-mill Orthodox families, yet you see they’re able to cultivate a level of observance as a starting point, as the floor of observance does kind of start a little bit higher, so to speak. And I want to choose my words very sensitively and very delicately. And I’m wondering how the experience of seeing inside regular 15-year-old teens who more or less, I’m not romanticizing the orthodox world that I was brought in, but a lot of the motions of shemiras Shabbos of keeping Shabbos and brachos and kashrus are able to be taken for granted, and then you come back to your own congregation, where the culture within the movement, a lot of those things that we take for granted are not all there, we don’t have that foundation.
And I’m curious how you deal with almost your own, I don’t know, disappointment, frustration, or kind of reconcile the affiliation with a movement that has been unable to cultivate that base level of observance and it really works. You see that it’s working on this mass level among teens, and then you come back to your own congregation, you’re like, well, shucks, what happened when you look at your own congregation like, why aren’t we able to cultivate that base level of observance in the same way?
Adam Raskin:
So that was a lot of questions.
David Bashevkin:
Yes, yes.
Adam Raskin:
So let me begin by saying that our experience both at Akiba and at Berman was just remarkably positive. The joy of Yiddishkeit, the atmosphere of commitment and immersion and Jewish life is just remarkable and inspiring and beautiful, and precisely why we wanted our kids to be in that environment. I’ll tell you that initially I was surprised by how many of the families at Berman in particular had no contact or experience with Conservative Judaism whatsoever. That was just bizarre to me. I grew up and I had friends who were in Reform congregations, Conservative congregations, Orthodox congregations. I went to Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and all these different places. I have relatives across the whole spectrum. And at Berman, I might as well have been of the Martian movement. It was really foreign, which was surprising to me, it’s very sort of homogeneous community. But that being said, they could not have been more respectful to me.
I was always called Rabbi Raskin. I was always given a lot of kavod and deference. I was a board member of the school for a few years. They really bent over backwards to be welcoming and respectful of me. And actually when my three kids had their Bnei Mitzvah, tons of kids came to our community and were housed with families and walked to shul. And some of them observed this phenomenon for the first time, and it was kind of eye-opening, others kind of davened in the back or whatever they did. But the point is when the rubber hit the road, they showed up. They were there for my kids, they were there for our family. Again, some of them, it was the very first time they’d set foot in a Conservative synagogue. But I was so proud of them and their parents and their families for giving them the opportunity to come and experience something that was a little bit different from what they were used to.
To your second question, look, my understanding of my rabbinate has really changed over time. Been in the business, so to speak, for over 20 years now. So when you say things like, does it work or it doesn’t work or it works here, it doesn’t work there. What I understand my rabbinate to be is really I think the closest analog to a Chabad shlichut. I am trying to encourage Jews to love and appreciate Judaism a little bit more, to do one more mitzvah, to be a little bit more connected, to discover something that they didn’t understand about Jewish life and learning to introduce the beauty and richness of our tradition, perhaps in smaller bites than might be happening in Orthodox congregations. But this is a shlichut. This is really a shlichut. I feel that I am working in this community to help elevate their Jewish connections and knowledge.
So does that work? Sure, it does. I see people on a derech, I see people taking on more mitzvot. I see people coming closer to the synagogue taking on more rituals. Is it going to look the same? Is it looks in the Orthodox synagogue down the street? It’s not going to look the same. But I would venture to say that some of my Chabad colleagues might also tell a similar story. The people who come in their doors are not necessarily going to look the same as a mainstream Orthodox synagogue. So I didn’t start off my rabbinate imagining that it would be this way, but I’ve come to realize that this is really what I’m called to do, to be with these Jews, to introduce things to them, to encourage them, to get them excited about Jewish life, even though it might not look the same as it does in other communities.
And I’ll just say one more thing, and Mia has heard me say this a million times. I do not work for the Conservative movement. I do not feel the responsibility of the Conservative movement on my shoulders, whether it rises or falls. I worked for the families of my congregation. I work for the Kadosh Baruch Hu. I work for Torat Yisrael, Am Yisrael. That’s who I work for. I’m really not into labels. I’m into, one of my favorite phrases in the siddur is Chaverim Kol Yisrael period. That’s how I’ve tried to raise my kids. The overarching value in our family is Ahavat Yisrael. They see people come through our doors of all different backgrounds and all different observance levels, and we constantly have taught them since a young age, you have to respect them, you have to care for them. You have to welcome them and not judge them. That really informs my rabbinate and informs our family and really is kind of the ethos that we live by.
David Bashevkin:
That is absolutely, absolutely beautiful. And I couldn’t agree more. And the generational shift I grew up where my uncle is a Reconstructionist Jew who lives in Bennington, Vermont. Most of my cousins are not Orthodox. And it’s remarkable that now it’s part of both the strength, but there’s something that we lost through that strength of community that the interaction with the wider community, the notion being invited to a Bat Mitzvah and having the Saran-wrapped meal, which I grew up going to such Bat Mitzvahs have become less frequent, less common. I ask my students, they don’t really have first cousins. Part of that story is the strength of Orthodoxy in America. But part of that is that we’ve lost touch with kind of the wider spectrum, and I fully agree with that.
There’s a remarkable part of your story, which is Mia’s commitment to Shabbos and kashrus specifically in her rising kind of skills as a basketball star. And I wanted to touch a little bit on that because really Mia does not really play games when it comes to kashrus and Shabbos. Mia, tell me a little bit, what is your role? Are you playing on the college NCAA level in Binghamton?
Mia Raskin:
I was playing on the college basketball team at Binghamton during the 2021, 2022 season. Since I have stepped away, it was a mutual decision. I thank God every day that the time that I walked away from playing basketball at a competitive level was completely my choice. And not just because I graduated high school, I had a conversation with the coach. We discussed what my life would look like if I stayed on the team more long-term, it wasn’t a match. I chose my Jewish life and my social life and my life in general. It’s a very demanding lifestyle when you play at a Division I level. And I’m so grateful for the opportunity. It was the craziest roller coaster I could have ever expected, but I’m also so grateful for where I’m at now.
David Bashevkin:
Just to have it clear, you were playing Division I basketball, which a lot of our listeners are familiar with the Yeshiva League basketball. That is the Division I in the Orthodox world. Did you also play in the Yeshiva League? Were you playing against HAFTR and Ramaz and SKA? Did you play against those teams or were you only really playing in what is the actual basketball world?
Mia Raskin:
So Berman doesn’t really participate in the Yeshiva League all that much. We get a tournament here or there where we compete. We went to Glouberman in my freshman year, went to Maimonides sophomore and junior year. So I’ve interacted with the Yeshiva League teams a little bit, but we generally played against other private schools in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, typically also schools that were around our same size, anywhere between 40 kids to 120 kids, a class, international schools, religious Christian schools, you name it, that’s who we played. And then my parents believed in me and invested in me, and they helped me play on the off-season in some really competitive leagues. And I don’t think I would’ve realized my full potential without that first coach saying to me after our first meeting where I said, “Listen, I’d love to play, but Shabbos” and I explained all the inner workings of Shabbat and she’s like, don’t worry, we’re going to make it work.
And the first time I knew I could do it was in Waukegan, Illinois. I went to a tournament, my cousin who lives in Chicago, walked me to the arena. It was about four miles away and after the whole day, it ended three games. The team left for lunch, came back, I stayed there reading the newspaper, watching basketball, all Shabbat long. And my coach said, at the end of our last game, like, “Mia, we’re all walking back with you.” And that was the first time where I was like, “I could do this. They do not have to be two aspects that are going to conflict with each other, but they can really be counterparts to my success.” And I think that coaches, like that one in high school and the coach at Binghamton that gave me those opportunities are a huge reason that I was able to have these Kiddush Hashem moments per se.
David Bashevkin:
Where you were trying to stay hold of your Shabbos observance while at the same time really competing at the very, very high levels. What did your teammates make of the fact that you were essentially Shabbos observant, shomer kashrus yet you were playing on a Division I NCAA team?
Mia Raskin:
The truth is, I think they respected me more. I think that when they realized that I had these 25 hours of undistracted time to just be with the people around me to appreciate time as it is, to connect with God, there was this sudden eye-opening moment where everybody wanted a piece of the action. And so in high school with my team, we had them over for Shabbat dinner, and then they continually came over for dessert after their public school games, would sit in our basement playing games with me on Friday nights, put their phones at the door and be there for three hours. Then in college, when I started talking to people about Shabbat in the locker room, there was suddenly another interest too. And then I had them over for Shabbat dinner and mid-season, we’re going through the motions of COVID, the stress of when’s our next game going to be?
Are we all going to be quarantined? We all were able to sit around a table and just talk about things that weren’t even basketball related. And that’s when I realized that especially for Division I athletes, their whole life is their sport and making sure that they are ready to play on game day and to take you away from that space from three hours to give them a quote unquote Shabbat experience during the middle of their chaotic week of physical straining and mental intensity, that’s when they’re like, oh my gosh, “I should do this Shabbat thing too.” And it was awesome.
David Bashevkin:
That’s absolutely fascinating and also quite moving that you did this. I want to talk because you have perceptions that we articulated this. In one world, you have like, “Oh, I’m Conservative,” is what kind of sets you apart among your Orthodox peers and then outside is kind of an Orthodox affiliation that sets you apart from maybe your more just basic traditional Jews who Orthodoxy comes with its own connotations. I want to ask a somewhat sensitive question. Orthodoxy has a lot of cultural sensitivities that surround it, one of which especially, which is quite gendered, is tznius. And I am curious in you presenting, you affiliate, I assume to some degree with the Orthodox schooling that you came with. I don’t know if you introduce yourself, “Hi Mia. I’m an Orthodox Jew.” But I’m curious how you make sense of some of the more typical or the way that people come back from seminary, they dress a certain way, how you make sense of some of the snias realities that exist in the Orthodox world of hers. A lot of people, it can be a little difficult for them.
Mia Raskin:
So there are a couple of things that I wanted to just immediately … First of all, just like my father and probably my siblings and my mom, I will never introduce myself as Mia Raskin fill-in-the-blank denomination Jew. I will always be, I’m an observant Jew, I’m really just trying to grow. And honestly, the truth to that question is I really haven’t figured it out yet. And I think that anyone my age who thinks that they’ve figured out what tzniut and what the world of halachic Judaism means to them, talk about Modern Orthodoxy fluctuating all over the place right now. I don’t know where I fall right now. I don’t know if I’ll ever know. I hope that it’s constantly going upwards, but I also, I don’t know where I’ll land on the long-term scale. I would also say that to really go into the nitty-gritty, it’s that I think that there’s a huge differentiation between the term tzniut in the term erva.
Just to translate it, I think tzniut by definition means modesty. And then erva pertains to all the halachic issues in terms of how short your sleeves can go in order to be in the halachic realm, how long your skirt must be. Maybe covering a certain part of your hair once you’re married. And I think that the differentiation of the two are really important to my identity. Because the erva aspect, there are so many different ideas and different halachic opinions that say so many different things. You’ll have one halachic opinion that says, wearing flowy pants is better than wearing a tight skirt. You’ll have a halachic opinion that says that as long as you’re wearing sleeves to your wrists, a collar to your neck, a skirt to your toes, I don’t care how tight or long it is, as long as you fit that part. That’s the first part.
I’m figuring that out every single day. I don’t want to say it’s a constant struggle, but it’s a constant debate and it’s a positive debate. But then there’s the tzniut aspect, which I think that I also would love to work on and also my peers. But the tzniut aspect of how are we treating each other modestly? How are we using our words in a modest way? How are we being Jewishly observant in a modest way? And I think that this was really pushed by the seminary that I attended, Midreshet Torah v’Avodah. I’m a huge fan of the way that they give you all these different perspectives and way to make your life just a little bit more meaningful. And that was my biggest takeaway from that year, that there’s a difference between erva and tzniut.
There’s a difference between a quote-unquote Conservative Jew and a quote-unquote Orthodox Jew. But at the end of the day, and I think my parents have pushed Berman even pushed this, and TVA, especially with all the different opinions that are present, it’s the idea that we’re just trying to make our lives a little bit more meaningful every single day using the halachic structure, the halachic foundation, the Jewish history in order to do so.
David Bashevkin:
I absolutely love that answer. I’ll be honest, even when I was asking the question, I’m like, I hope we’re able to stick to landing on this. I’m getting a little nervous, but that was really, really remarkable. Abba I hope you get nachas from just the incredible maturity and depth of this child that you have raised. I wonder if for you as a parent now, looking at Mia’s future, and we can talk about how labels don’t matter and how it’s not necessary and it doesn’t matter where you go or where you grow up, and there is a truth to that, but there also are communal realities and what different communities offer. And there is a reality that Mia may very likely be on a trajectory where the type of community that she would affiliate with is not the community that you lead and that she was raised with. And I’m curious if at any point or now you kind of contend with maybe a longing or a difficulty of, “I wish I could be leading or be a part of a community that my child would feel comfortable raising her own family in.”
Adam Raskin:
I would be disingenuous if I didn’t say that, that would be a lovely vision and bouncing my future grandchildren on my knee in the middle of services in my shul or whatever. But I also realize, as I mentioned to you earlier, that my rabbinate is directed at a different kind of a community. I am an outreach rabbi. I am a shlichut kind of rabbi. I recognize that my community is not necessarily right for every kind of Jew, even every kind of labeled Conservative Jew. That’s why there are different shuls for different Jews. But certainly for someone who is desiring the kind of community and like-minded practitioners of Jewish life as Mia, I fully understand that this would not be the right community for her family to necessarily affiliate with. And that’s okay.
And what gives me kind of peace of mind about that is a gift that Mia has given me and that gift is that she has told me in many ways and over many years that she respects what her mom and I are doing and that she sees that we are involved in a mission to the Jewish people and thinks that what we do is meaningful and significant and important. So I think that knowledge gives me the peace of mind that she can go and do and be whatever she wants, but we have this kind of shared mutual respect as Jews and as family members and as loved ones.
David Bashevkin:
I absolutely love that answer. Mia, I want to kind of turn most of your experience. I mean, now you’re on a college campus, but God willing, you are going to build a life of your own. And I can’t imagine that at some point you have heard someone really make maybe strong or comments that you may find upsetting about non-Orthodox Judaism because you know that it is describing not just a conceptual world and an ideological divide, which there are very real ideological divides. I think there’s a way that we can be nurturing and loving while still having real ideological differences. I’m curious for you, A, have you ever experienced maybe a statement or somebody talking about non-Orthodox Jews in a way that was upsetting to you? And how do you react? How do you deal when you hear somebody?
You spoke about gentle ribbing. It must be, there are certain topics that come up. I could think of one, mechitza. There are certain issues that come up where when it’s discussed, it could be a very strongly worded ideological difference. And I’m curious how you deal with the fact that you have familial affiliations where those ideological differences aren’t just conceptual but are actually familial.
Mia Raskin:
I’ve gotten digs from teachers, from rabbis, from peers, but it’s just because of a lack of knowledge and exposure. And the best word that I can come up with, and I don’t know if there’s an equal word in English, but it’s really chaval. There’s no other word to describe it. By digging at the Conservative people, you know you’re digging actually at other Jews that were also created in God’s image. And so therefore, not only are you hurting those people, but you’re actually hurting me, not just from a sense of, oh, well these people I actually respect and I can defend, but you’re also hurting me in the sense of, wait, everyone’s screaming, Moshiach, moshiach, moshiach. When’s moshiach going to come if we’re always taking digs at each other for not having the right length of mechitza or no mechitza at all, that makes no sense to me.
I would also just say that it goes both ways. One is not less guilty than the other, but by any means, I would just say by doing things that are bringing people together and just to focus on community, then I think that we can really kind of destroy those preconceptions of what the other looks like. Like the acher. I just heard a beautiful shiur by Rivky Slonim, who is the Chabad rebbetzin in here. And the people who were at this shiur were very on the more observant side of Yom Kippur. They took the time of their night to learn instead of going straight home. And she really took advantage of that time to talk about our role in welcoming the acher and that everyone’s going to constantly call themselves the other within each other’s community because we’re not welcoming each other in the first place.
So I would say that when I speak to people that I’ve never met, I’ll tell you when I go on dates even, and this whole conversation comes up of the Conservative rabbi father, oh my goodness, what’s that going to look like? It’s really the more you talk, the more you expose and understand. Again, it just really comes down to that, the respect.
David Bashevkin:
Let’s talk for a moment on the other side. Because you’re absolutely right. I also have been in both rooms, so to speak, rooms that are predominantly Orthodox and rooms that are predominantly non-Orthodox. I’m curious from Abba, is there a way that you’ve changed or a way that you react if you ever, here’s something disparaging. We have a lot of unfolding ideological battles at every point in our history, but certainly now is not an exception where frustrations at the Orthodox movement can emerge. And I would almost ask a similar question of you. When you hear somebody kind of knock or say something disparaging about the Orthodox movement, how do you react? What does that elicit from you, whether it’s from a rabbinic colleague or a congregant? What does that elicit from you given that it’s not just an ideological difference, but there is something very real and familial?
Adam Raskin:
I have made a practice not to disparage other Jews or other denominations publicly or privately. I do not speak about denominational trends and generalize. I think that’s dangerous. I think it fuels the kind of preconceptions that Mia was talking about. In fact, I often quote from sources and rabbis and teachers from across the denominational spectrum. I mean, I remember earlier in my rabbinate there was a real kind of tension around Chabad and the idea that Chabad is poaching our people and so on and so forth. I have spoken positively about Chabad. I think the Rebbe was one of the great spiritual innovators of modernity, and I think he’ll be remembered as such. And I believe in bringing to the surface all kinds of Torah from all kinds of sources, and that that’s a way of teaching a certain Achdut Yisreal. Furthermore, certainly when people have made comments, I do take it personally, and like Mia said, nobody is off the hook from this.
There’s a lot of suspicion and fear among non-Orthodox Jews. Sometimes I feel like some of my congregants would rather their kids grow up and be non-observant than grow up and be Orthodox. There’s a sense that if they grow up and they’re more observant than me, that that means that they’re judging me or that I’m not good enough or there’s all kinds of questions that surfaces, and I try to counsel people away from that. That’s a triumph, right? For someone to grow up and want more Yiddishkeit in their life. That’s not something to be worried about or to be upset about. But I also counsel that mutual respect is critical as well, from both sides. That family unity and being able to share holiday experiences, Shabbat and so on and so forth. It should be a bar that they try to reach.
David Bashevkin:
I love that. The triumph of wanting more Yiddishkeit in your life, that is probably the only triumphalism that I could get around. There are issues, and you kind of alluded to them. People get very excited and base their own truth or certainty on either talking about the demise of other movements. And we finally won. We’re number one as if we’re in some race or some battle with one another where the loss of Yiddishkeit in one movement somehow gives us a win or a check mark in the other. And I also bristle at such notions of knowing that the only game that we are in, the only competition, so to speak, is the individual bringing Yiddishkeit into our lives and the triumph of having and wanting more Yiddishkeit in our lives.
And that really transcends any denominational boundaries, which is why it is such a privilege to have you both and to speak with you both as shining examples of people who really are able to navigate and move in and out of the contours of Jewish life in such remarkable ways. I always end my interviews with more rapid-fire questions. My first question for both of you is I’m curious if there are any books that you would recommend that helped expand your heart and appreciation for the wider spectrum of the Jewish people? Because I am curious if there are any books that particularly played a role either in understanding the history or expanding your love of Amcha Yisrael, people of different backgrounds, denominations. Does anything come to mind?
Adam Raskin:
I have a deep fascination with Abraham Joshua Heschel. Everyone tried to figure out what kind of Jew is Heschel? He grew up, he’s from a Hasidic dynasty. He’s rescued and brought to the United States by the Reform Seminary in Cincinnati. Then he spent many, many years teaching Conservative rabbinical students at JTS, and everyone tries to figure out is the Orthodox, what is he? And he once said this beautiful thing. He said, “I am not a Jew in search of an adjective.” I love that line.
David Bashevkin:
I am not a Jew in search of an adjective. Beautiful.
Adam Raskin:
Isn’t that amazing? So I think the single most important book that I really ever read in my Jewish life, other than the Torah obviously, is God in Search of Man, which is Heschel’s towering work of Jewish theology and philosophy. And again, it has no labels. It’s a deep dive into Torah from a prosaic and just a deeply personal perspective. And I return to it all the time. I mean, the pages are falling out of my copy, I won’t replace it because I think the sign of a book that’s loved is that it’s worn out and the pages are falling out and the spine is cracked and so on and so forth. And I have all kinds of notes and highlights and so forth. But that is the most important book I’ve ever read and that I continue to turn to for a lifetime of inspiration.
David Bashevkin:
Abba, I absolutely love that answer. I think I’m trying to stare. I see The Sabbath on my shelf right in front of me.
Adam Raskin:
Also great.
David Bashevkin:
I have God in Search of Man somewhere. And I love what you just said. It’s a sign of a book that is loved, is one that is worn out. Could not agree more with that. Mia, Any books that really helped animate and contribute to your conception of your own Jewish identity, having that open heart for loving other Jews.
Mia Raskin:
Sure. I think that I want to go the author route. Also. I think that Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks has been a huge influence in everything that I am and have become. I found that the words that he says, although very intellectual and scholarly, and sometimes I have to reread them over and over again to understand what he’s actually saying, but the messages have connected to my campers at a Zionist pluralistic camp of Camp Young Judea, and I’ve connected to the regular shulgoers of the OUJLIC community at Binghamton. And I find that Torah that is relatable to every face and every background, it has really made an impact on me. And the work that he’s written has really shifted my perspective and understanding how to connect the modern world to every single aspect of the Torah.
David Bashevkin:
I absolutely love that answer. We did a special episode on the first yartzeit of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and his words are constantly quoted on 18Forty. My next question, I’m curious, if somebody gave you a great deal of money and allowed you to take a sabbatical for as long as you needed to go back to school to get a Ph.D in whatever subject you wanted, what do you think the subject and title of your dissertation would be on Abba?
Adam Raskin:
Wow, that’s a great question. Gosh, I just came off of a sabbatical, so I would love to do more work in Hasidut. I would love to explore the Hasidic masters, and I think that they were some revolutionary thinkers, and I would just love to immerse more in that milieu. I don’t know if I can give you a dissertation title yet, but I am constantly fascinated by their willingness to push boundaries and to talk about God in ways that others wouldn’t even verbalize in just a fascinating school of thought in Jewish history.
David Bashevkin:
I love that answer. My master’s is in Polish Chassidus studying the works of Rav Tzadok of Lublin, the influence that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov had on him. So you are in very good company. Mia. What do you think the subject and title of your dissertation would be?
Mia Raskin:
Considering? I haven’t finished my MBA yet. Crazy to think about a dissertation, but-
David Bashevkin:
But think about all the money you got to pursue it.
Mia Raskin:
All that money. I’ve been telling my parents that at some point I’d love to spend more time just learning Torah to get a certificate in education aspect, less of just a year in seminary. I think that I really do love diving into the Tanakh. I love everything that there is to offer in there. I also think that the generations of commentary just have so many different understandings to just one single word, and it’s so fascinating, and I think I would love to add my own understanding and commentary one day. So again, don’t know exactly what that dissertation is. You’s just quite a mouthful, a lot of respect for it, but something in relation to really diving into the Tanakh and understanding the depths of every single word that makes it.
David Bashevkin:
That’s a beautiful answer. My final question, I’m always curious about people’s sleep patterns. We’ll start with Mia this time. Mia, what time do you go to sleep at night and what time do you wake up in the morning?
Mia Raskin:
Boy, this is horrible. I’m probably asleep around 1:00 or 1:30 and I’m up by seven
David Bashevkin:
Rock solid. Abba, what time do you go to sleep at night and what time do you wake up in the morning?
Adam Raskin:
So in this way, we are opposites Mia. I can barely keep my eyes open after 10:00, 10:30, and I am up at the crack of dawn. I’m an early riser, I love that early morning time. I love my cup of coffee, I love that time of day. But much to my wife’s disappointment, I have a hard time keeping my eyes open. Too late at night.
David Bashevkin:
I cannot thank you both Rabbi Adam Raskin, Mia Raskin for joining me today and sharing just your remarkable story, your commitment, your family, and what you’ve created in this world of America, instead of being divided, creating space for commitment and the ultimate triumph of more Yiddishkeit in our lives. Thank you both for joining me today.
Adam Raskin:
Thank you so much.
Mia Raskin:
Thank you for having us.
David Bashevkin:
I think it’s important sometimes to remind ourselves not just our differences, but how close our communities, despite the very real and very serious ideological differences that Orthodox and non-Orthodox community have. But that doesn’t mean that it has totally broken a continuous narrative within the Jewish people as if one community is fully other and adrift without any understanding or appreciation of their own Yiddishkeit. And I think that the way that we speak about communities other than our own should be informed by this familial lens. And more than anything else, an appreciation for those who grew up in one community and then reformulated their understanding of Yiddishkeit and commitment and what Jewish life could be and decided without antagonism and without adversarialness to join a different community that is better aligned to their religious needs and religious sensibilities. And I think people are doing this all the time.
Very often we have a blanket phrase called a ba’al teshuvah, somebody who repents and kind of has a secondary conversion, the twice born somebody who has an awakening later in life. And very often I think that phrase gets overused as if it is a full break from the home and life that they grew up in. And now that they are fully and completely aligned with a new community and a new family and a new life. And that is not always true because people are not blank slates. Nobody is a blank slate. Not religiously, not ideologically, and not personality wise. And even though sometimes we may approach or think of fully assimilated Jews as a blank slate, it’s not true in that case either. Everyone has sensibilities and experiences and understanding and meeting them where they are and understanding how those experiences really form and shape their own religious capacity is beyond important.
And what I think is so moving in this story is that it interrupts or challenges in many ways, the very notion of the binary of a ba’al teshuvah, which is a break from the past and a totally new future where instead we can think of a Yiddishkeit that is able to reach everyone and find the step forward wherever they may be, that also is a ba’al teshuvah. But if that is a ba’al teshuvah, then I guess in some ways we are all a ba’al teshuvah. So in some ways, I don’t like the term because it either applies to everyone or it applies to no one, because everyone has the capacity to take steps forward and rethink and reimagine what Jewish life and what Jewish commitment could be. You don’t have to have grown up non-Orthodox to be a ba’al teshuvah. I think there are many within the Orthodox community who desperately need a connection to that ba’al teshuvah typology.
But because we only use it in the non-Orthodox community, I very often prefer to almost not use it at all because it exempts certain communities from that very notion of having a personality or a reawakening that addresses the entirety of your life. And instead, I prefer to look at everybody as having a starting point with experiences, with a life journey, with influences, with preconceived notions of wherever they may be in life. And no matter who you are or where you are or where you grew up, the one thing that I am confident of is that there is always a Yiddishkeit that can reach you exactly where you are. So thank you so much for listening. This episode, like so many of our episodes was edited by our dearest friend, Denah Emerson. Thank you again to our series sponsors, Joel and Lynn Mael. I am so grateful for your friendship and support who sponsored this entire series in memory of Joel’s parents, Estelle and Nysen Mael, Esther bas Zvi and Nissan ben Yaakov Zvi.
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