Reflections Four Months After Launch

Transcript

Transcripts are lightly edited—please excuse any imperfections.

David Bashevkin: Hello and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast where each month we explore a 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 is actually a special episode. It’s just me. I’m not interviewing anybody.

I’m not bookending a specific topic. I kind of want to reflect and process a little bit about what this site is about, who it’s for, how it should be used. And I think that we’ve been getting a lot of really, really wonderful feedback, a lot of really, really important pushback. And I kind of want to be able to address just take a step back and talk a little bit about what this is and what we were trying to accomplish.So, we have this interview with the donor behind this, the person who really corralled me into doing this.

His name is Mitch Eichen. He’s really become a friend. He’s somebody really, really wonderful. And he called up to me because of issues that he was having in his own life with his own family members.

And he wanted me to develop a curriculum addressing biblical criticism in classrooms, in Orthodox high schools in America. And I was like, no way. I didn’t think it was an effective way of addressing that. But I did think that he was highlighting a very real problem, which he actually writes about on this website in a fairly moving way, which is that there are people who are leaving or are graduating from our institutions, 12 years of education, whether it’s Orthodox or yeshiva or whatever it is.

And now they’ve kind of left the auspices of everyday institutional life. And they begin to wonder, like they have questions. I don’t think this is the majority. I think that our schools and yeshivas are doing incredible work, the greatest work.

And I think that the the reason why they’re so successful is because so much of their efforts are really expended and focused on building that sticky, deep culture and sense of identity and connection and belonging to Yiddishkeit. But there are some, and I know them. I know them because we’ve spoken, because they’ve been in my house. They have reached out even before this started, who leave and they have lingering doubts, confusion.

And I think that that’s just kind of a part of this strange modern world that we live in where the boundaries and the boundaries, I don’t mean theological boundaries, I mean sociological, like how we communicate and interact with each other. It used to be that it was much easier to just talk to people within your community. It was much easier to just reach out to people who you knew. And that’s a great kind of predictor for somebody’s success in a community, is that deep involvement.

And yeah, sure people would go out to work and be exposed to people and backgrounds that they weren’t familiar with, but at that point, they’re usually much older and so distracted that it didn’t really have that much of an effect on them. But I kind of did believe, and the analogy that Mitch uses in his essay, which you could find on the site, is kind of a the analogy of a home with like a leaky roof. It’s a good roof and it protects you from kind of the average rainstorms, but there are spots, nooks, crannies, corners that are starting to dampen the the insides. And I think a lot of that has to do with the way that we communicate with each other and the way the ideas that people are exposed to online or any of these places.

And I wanted to create a site, and this is what I pushed him on, is that I don’t want to change in dramatic ways what we’re doing in our high schools and yeshivas. I I think that they’re doing an amazing job. I just happen to think like every other generation, the roofs that we build eventually get leaks in them, and people walk away with a sense of maybe doubt or they want more information or they want to hear more about stories, ideas and experiences that they see every single day. They even discuss them at their Shabbos table, but they want more depth, more grounding to them.And I pitched him on this and he bit.

And I am not, let me be absolutely clear, I am not a fundraiser. I am the worst fundraiser who has ever lived. I don’t pursue I don’t pursue it. I’m not good at it.

And he kind of came chasing after me and felt that this was really important. And I admire the mission to do this, to find a constructive place to talk about the most complex ideas that not not on everybody’s mind, but are certainly on a lot of people’s minds. And for those people, this could help assuage, give some approach to how to deal with doubts, lingering questions. And secondly, for people who maybe don’t have that doubt but are interested, are curious in that wider experience.

They don’t want to go down some crazy rabbit hole, and Reddit threads where who knows what’s being spoken about that there. They they they want to expand their their world view in this way. But I want to be absolutely clear. I think people who aren’t interested in that and who who are not interested, they like my own parents, like really myself, most of my kind of personal religious life is not just reading books on intellectual philosophy and academia.

When I sit down and want to really recharge my Jewish batteries, it’s with Shabbos, it’s with davening, it’s with learning, it’s with Daf Yomi. Whatever it is. And I I’m almost I want to say it really clearly because I don’t want it to come off any differently. And I think there’s two really important disclaimers.

People who come and they’re like, why do you need to talk about this or or they’re not interested and they leave, I don’t view that at all as a symptom of simplicity or ignorance. I think they’re in many ways, if this doesn’t interest you, you’re doing the right thing. Do find the areas and the places and the voices that recharge your Jewish batteries, that give you a path forward. And if you’re walking away feeling destructive or you’re walking away with more questions than you had when you came in, maybe this isn’t the right charging station.

And that’s I think that’s important to admit and to discuss. But there are those, and we’ve heard from them and maybe we’ll even read a couple letters, who these conversations, these ideas do give them a sense of comfort and heartening and depth to the expansiveness of what Jewish thought and ideas are able to reach. And for that I am very privileged and proud of the work that we’ve done. Just another really important disclaimer.

I’m going to come back to this because it was one of my favorite interviews, but not for the reason that most people think. And that’s my interview with Gil Student where I kind of deconstructed his own life. We were talking about biblical criticism and how they they could divide up texts and that school of academic thought. And I said, well, well, let’s divide you up.

You’re so many things to so many people. And and he he pushed back in a in a great way, in a way that I absolutely agree with, that there are contradictions or not everything that you do is necessarily for everybody. Different people know you from different places and it it all coheres in your life, but it doesn’t necessarily, all of the different content and ideas that you put out aren’t all necessarily from that same voice. And that’s part of the complexity of human experience.

And in that way, I think it’s really important, and this is a really important disclaimer, that none of the interviews, when I’m speaking to people, are representative, for sure not, it almost goes without saying, of any of the institutions that I am associated with. And they’re not even representative of me. Meaning, I don’t think anybody can be boiled down to one conversation or one institution. And I’m a big believer that people have different voices and interests.

And no one should confuse any of my institutional affiliations with what we’re trying to do here, which I think is separate. And I think a lot of the most exciting conversations take place outside of that. I certainly look into support the movements and communities that I’m a part of. But but that’s an important disclaimer to say at the offset.So, I want to kind of go through some of the early stages of this site and I want to talk about who, a little bit more who it was for.

And then kind of go through the different themes that we’ve spoken about and some of my own thoughts on how we landed and how we fared. So when I told Mitch that I want to call this site 1840, he he did not like it. This is not how Jewish organizations usually find names. We have two basic approaches to how we find names.

We make really complicated, easy to mix up acronyms like, I don’t know, Jewish educational experience or some J acronym, J Wow, J Star, J and I I apologize for any of the J organizations that I’ve missed. And the other is we take a contemporary or or kind of traditional Hebrew word and we recast it. I actually like that. A lot of great organizations are doing that, whether with the word Sinai or Shuva.

We take Hebrew words and we recast them. I wanted to do something different and it came from a deeply personal place. I said I want to name this site 1840 because I didn’t I didn’t tell this to him initially and and if he listens to this, I apologize. The real reason why is because of the deep influence of Ishbitz Chasidus on my life.

The thoughts of Rav Mordechai Yosef Leiner who started the court of Ishbitz, which began in 1839, 1840, that calendar year, which was 5600 on the Hebrew calendar and was predicted within the Zohar in Parshas Noach that this was going to be a year where the depths of wisdom were going to spill forth. And people in the Jewish community reacted to this differently. Some Orthodox Jews, notably R’ Yaakov Lifshitz, who’s a fascinating figure and you can jump on and and email my friends at J History Sound Bites to their wonderful history podcast or or Rabbi Katz to learn more about him. He was a fascinating figure who who was the right-hand man to Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spector who was kind of the leading rabbi at the time.

His great great grandson is Rabbi Pinny Lipschutz who runs the Yated Ne’eman and kind of carries on the the legacy of his great great grandfather who also was very involved in kind of public communications on behalf of the Orthodox community at the time. And he he reacted to this, there’s a great article by Israel Bartel I have copies of it on the site. And he reacted to this by basically saying, we were supposed to, it would have been great if we would have had this redemptive Messianic experience in 1840, but all of these technological innovations, the telegraph, the corporate development, economic development has basically been a distraction for everybody. And the times and previous generations had more focus and more investment and more commitment.

And he didn’t really see the great redemptive power that 1840 as a year had on the calendar. There were others, particularly in the Reform movement, who also looked at this year and said, great, this is the year where we could kind of unshackle ourselves from from traditional Jewish thought and we can move forward. David Einhorn, who was an early Reform rabbi, he said, this is going to be our year. We’re going to take Tish’a B’Av, we could turn it into a into a holiday because this is the year where Jewish dispersal throughout everybody is going to be unchained and unfettered from traditional ideas.

Basically, modernity for him was the scissors that severed the ties to to to our past in many ways. And he viewed it in that way. But there was a different, a third school which inspired me to use 1840, which looked at all of the modernity in the world, which looked at all of the development happening in the world, and actually saw both a challenge and an opportunity. And I think that’s the moment that we’re in now in many ways in 2020.

And that was the school of thought of Ishbitz where his grandson writes that Ishbitz was founded in 1840 on a fateful 1839, 1840, on a fateful Simchas Torah where they marched out and they kind of began their own Chasidic court as a breakaway from Kotzk. And what Ishbitz really tried to do and what this was based on was looking at modernity as a ability for more access. It allowed and gave the luxury for people to ask questions about identity and self and tradition and their past in ways that they never had. And in the world of Ishbitz, modernity, while certainly a big challenge, also had incredible opportunities.

He quoted his rebbe, Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, that even though in many ways every generation, we believe there’s this notion of yeridas hadoros of every every generation getting weaker and weaker, on an individual level, there’s also something in the zeitgeist, there’s something in the air that allows individuals and the questions that they’re able to grasp and confront about what Jewish life is, what Jewish commitment is, that previous generations weren’t grappling with. And there is an aliyah, there is a ascent in every generation that’s happening concurrently with a descent. And being able to look at that dualistically and see the opportunities of this era, I think is something really remarkable. And another great thinker, Rav Shlomo Elyashiv known as the Leshem, who was born in 1841, couches his own birth in 1841 as a similar opportunity to confront maybe with a new lens, maybe dare I say a mystical lens of looking at the concilian, the unity of knowledge and the world and being able to find and foster and cultivate individual commitments that previous generations didn’t necessarily have the luxury of having.

And there is something very special about the time that we’re in and there’s something very challenging. And what I hope in many ways that 1840 will be is a way for people with doubt to have new lenses to think about their own lives, and people without doubt who are curious and interested in the stories, the personalities, and the ideas where a lot of the complexity of Jewish thought rubs up against kind of modern notions of what how things should be, when we think in a contemporary sense, and kind of expand and show a concilian and a unity of sorts.And that’s what we’ve been trying to do overall. And overall, I think in many ways we’ve been successful. But at the very outset, even when this first started, I already began to have almost doubts of my own.

And I think a lot of that kind of has to boil down with really tough conversations about how to talk about and foster Jewish commitment and how to think about that, how to think about Jewish knowledge and what should be highlighted, what should not be highlighted. This has been a debate throughout and something that I continue to grapple with. And it it was really, really and continues to be really, really hard for me. People who know me in the larger world know that conversations about anxiety and and nervousness and mental health is something that I’m I’m I’m maybe even too comfortable talking about.

But what’s interesting is that in the course of developing a site which can address whether it’s religious crises or religious commitment of sorts in this larger this larger way and bring in new voices, I had a crisis of my own, an emotional crisis. This site was was launched in May and it was supposed to launch in January. It did not launch in January because I had like a I would almost call it like a depressive episode. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t I was having trouble getting out of bed because the weight and responsibility of what this was trying to do, which is really a tight rope walk.

I I told I told Mitch initially that there are so many amazing outreach organizations, why can’t why just give to them? We don’t need to do something new. There’s amazing stuff happening already. And he felt and I think to a large degree rightfully so, that sometimes the framing or the way that the content works in those sites aren’t adequately addressing all of the sides that people are inevitably being exposed to. And for a lot of people, they’re going to dismiss that as apologetics.

Now, I don’t know that I have the same issue with apologetics that he does. I don’t. I don’t apologize for being apologetic in many ways. I feel very strongly about my commitments, but I also appreciate how bringing in wider conversations and voices can help create a sense of commitment that is richer when inevitably people are exposed to many of these ideas.

Now not everybody is, but for those who are, they do often times feel bereft. And I felt like I was on this tight rope walk where on the one hand I was being told, it can’t just be regular apologetics, it can’t just be the same old, same old of what we’ve already had. And on the other hand, I had a deep abiding sense of the way Rav Hutner, Rav Hutner was a later product, didn’t learn directly with Ishbitz but was certainly a student. He signs nearly all of his letters with a beautiful with a beautiful phrase.

The way he signs, not all, but if you could do, I’ve written an article on the letters of Rav Hutner. He signs many, many, the overwhelming majority of his letters … to elevate the depth and capacity and dignity of Torah. And I feel that to my core and I felt like bereft. I the analogy I once gave him is you’re sending me out on a on a rowboat and I’m surrounded by by sharks and you’re there on the shore with binoculars waving to me and I’m out here in this rowboat by myself trying to kind of deal with all of these different populations and ideas that don’t always cohere with one another and you’re kind of waving me and give me the thumbs up, keep keep paddling.

And I felt like I’m on a tight rope taking a lot of risk talking about these things, which is difficult and I don’t always make the mark. And in January, I was not able to launch. I I kind of fell apart. I wasn’t able to write, I wasn’t able to figure out how to go forward with this.

And it’s really thanks to friends and mentors who I’ve been in touch with throughout. I don’t want to mention anybody’s name because you do that when you need an excuse, like, oh, I ran this by. One of the top fives that I used to write at top five column, a little humorous. One of my favorite top fives is how people argue with one another.

And one of my favorite tropes for how you argue with somebody is like, did you ask a shaila? Did you ask a shaila? I don’t need to know who, I just want to know if you did. And the answer to that question is a resounding yes. Of course. Of course I reached out to to mentors and friends, but ultimately what we have here is is a product of something that I created and I don’t want to use that as like a a cover of sorts.

I think that that’s almost almost cowardly. I wanted to share but but being on this tight rope was was really hard and I still feel like I’m on there in many ways. You know, I shared this on on Twitter like the the emails that I get, it’s not 50-50, but but they’re equally vocal of of people saying thank you and and people saying, I think you really missed the mark on this. And I think exploring that and talking about what we were trying to accomplish with each topic is something really important and what I want to address now. So allow me to reflect in a way on each of the big subjects that we did.

We did Talmud, we did comedy, and biblical scholarship, and kind of share some insider reflections of what I think was that takeaway, what I think went well and what I think missed the mark. At all of those without a doubt occurred. This has been a tight rope walk of sorts and the fact that people have listened and taken their time and shared feedback really means a great deal to me and it’s quite uplifting. So I’ll begin with Talmud.

It was the first subject we did. Why did we start with Talmud? Well, insider story, as I mentioned, we were supposed to launch in January and I fell apart and continue to fall apart. Which is when the Siyum HaShas was, but this got delayed because of my own just figuring out how to navigate this. But that’s why we started essentially with with Talmud.

And I’m extraordinarily proud of the three interviews that we had for Talmud. My only major regret in the Talmud interviews, talking about Gemara and how it came together, was that the interview with Ari Bergman was way, way too short and I hope to have him on again. He’s my Rebbe. He’s a person who has really just guided my formative thought.

And what I find so fascinating is how he’s developed this project of Concilians, which is an article, God willing, that I have written coming out in November for for Tradition. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a surprise. They have a symposium on Jewish thought and I have an article coming out talking about how each of the different role models in my life who brought me to Rav Tzadok taught me a different component of Jewish thought. And to me, Ari Bergman models this notion of concilian that different disciplines of knowledge can all speak to one another and with one another to form this cohesive, unified whole.

It’s not his term, but I think that when you open up a Gemara, when you’re younger, and you have your Rebbe explaining it to you, that a lot of the questions of the structure, of how it works, it doesn’t it doesn’t really dawn on you. A lot of that is because most people don’t see a Daf Beis, again depending where you where you went to Yeshiva till till you’re even a little bit older. And how old were you when you really finished your first Masechta from beginning to end? I made a siyum on Maseches Beitzah when I was in ninth grade. I actually led the Kaddish.

I’m not sure that I really finished that masechta and knew it well. I was in Eretz Yisroel for Yeshiva, so the high school kids there, they really devour and they know, well they all know Brachos backwards and forwards. But to kind of get that bird’s eye view of what this is and the all these questions that come out on the opening page about the chaos of Gemara, about how Gemara assumes that you already know so much right out of the gate, is something that Ari and Chaim Saiman, who’s a law professor, I think really tackled beautifully about how there’s a deliberateness to why the Gemara is structured in the way it is, and why it was only later that we took all of this disorder, this apparent disorder, what seems disorderly, and then constructed some sort of order out of it in later commentators and all that and kind of had the different passages in the Talmud all talk to each other. And kind of along those lines, that’s why I thought it was so important to talk to Michelle Chesner, who’s a librarian at Columbia, and it just does such amazing work when it comes to understanding the genesis, the evolution of the page.

Because if you open up a page of Gemara, and I know this is it’s something that we’ve I think if you’ve studied a lot of Gemara, Talmud, whatever it is and whichever which way, it’s something you know, but it’s not always something you appreciate about how the page has values. There’s values in the structure of the page, why it’s structured this way, how did it come that way? How people from different generations, centuries are all in conversation in this one page. And it’s easy to lose sight of that and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think some of the beauty of Gemara isn’t just what it says, it absolutely is what it says, but it isn’t just what it says. I think part of the beauty of Talmud is just in the very generational conversations, seeing how this page is set up to be a Beis Medrash of sorts on every single page.

So really the the main regret was we needed more Ari, Ari Bergman. And if you go on the website, and I really urge, and this is the thing that’s really surprised me the most of I don’t think you get the full picture if you just listen to podcasts, not not of these concepts. And that’s why online we have readings and links and book recommendations. I think that really frames it and puts so many of the conversations that we have into context.

And we do link to Ari’s amazing series on the development of Torah Sheba’al Peh, the development of the Oral Law. It’s a long series and it really takes you through the work of his PhD, but it’s so worth listening to. It’s really a jaw dropping project and he has a book coming out that maybe we’ll have him back on when it when it does. That that’s a publication of his actual PhD work.The second topic we focused on was OTD, leaving leaving religion.

And this was definitely one of the trickier subjects. It was a tricky subject to have as number two, but I thought it was important because so much of the genesis of what this site was about was facilitating that dialogue and having a window of sorts and a window goes both ways from inside to outside of people who left, who left traditional Jewish practice, they self identify as such, and people who are still inside. And I think that there’s something constructive going on in the conversation in both ways in that window. I think when we look out and see people who leave, there there are a few things that are important and I may have mentioned some of these already.

One of them is, I remember I think I was in college and Beis Medrash when Matisyahu was at the height of his popularity. And I remember when he was going through that religious evolution of his own, it was kind of startling. And it was kind of like it for for me and I think for others, there was almost a spiritual Schadenfreude of sorts. Why’d he go off? Is that because of the kind of music? This is exactly what my rebbe warned me about.

And I don’t think I think that reaction is normal and I think that the confusion or the concern or the hurt when you see a friend or family member go off is so visceral and real. But we don’t always have the language and the conversation to really confront it and talk about it. And I think in many ways what I was trying to do was twofold. And we write about this on the site was number one I wanted to step away from the classic narrative that we ascribe to people who leave.

I don’t think it’s healthy for people within a traditional Jewish community and I don’t think it’s healthy it’s certainly not healthy for people outside. And that is everybody who leaves is, you know, subject to abuse and, you know, they went off to do drugs and be hedonistic. I mean, people people struggle, people struggle when they look at religious ideas. And I think understanding that and changing the narrative and understanding what those within the traditional community can do better can interact in a more holistic way if those people are in your life.

I’m not saying you have to, you know, it’s not like find a friend in every category, but most people know people who have a different religious orientation than their own. And learning their story and how to speak to them and how to listen to their story without allowing it to undermine your own. I think is a really important part of what we were doing. And it was also part of just the whole notion of this binary of OTD, like they’re the, you know, on the derech or off the derech.

I wanted to kind of step away with that and highlight the struggles and the doubts that pop up and that are in our lives over the course of our lives. You know, I always say as an educator, you can’t just speak to the 15-year-old in front of you or even the 25-year-old in front of you. You also have to consider the future 35, the future 45-year-old. And over the course of people’s life they they may they may confront these these concerns or doubts on their own.

And to let them know that they haven’t, you know, totally stepped out and there there is a way back. And even and this is kind of in the other direction, that people who left offer a sense of appreciation, value, and dignity. Not all, but the people who we highlighted certainly certainly do. A added appreciation for what you still have and what you’re able to cultivate with your Torah, with communal belonging.

And I think that that’s something that you really only appreciate or not only appreciate, but you appreciate in a different way when you’re hearing it from somebody on the outside. You know, when when people give shiurim, I always say, you know, it’s easy to quote Rav Shach about the importance of Torah. And it’s easy to quote Rav Kook on the importance of Eretz Yisroel. But a master educator knows to find, you know, Rav Shach and talk about that he too had a great value for Eretz Yisroel.

And Rav Kook, also, you know, you could quote him about the importance of Torah. And I think sometimes, obviously l’havdil, I’m not comparing anybody to Rav Shach or Rav Kook. Certainly far from it. But I think the the notion of switching the common narrative and the common conclusions that you hear from different people and hearing a sense of appreciation and value for the community that you’re a part of from people who even chose to left it, leave it, I think is something instructive and important.

And also helps you create a community that is even more resilient and more welcoming and more has more capacity to reach a wider group of people. And that’s something that every community and we’re no exception is something that we are worthy of thinking about. And I think the final interview there was really the most important one. And that was with Kelsey Osgood, who is a convert to Judaism and has a transformation narrative of her own, but lives a life deeply committed, but she herself is a writer who examined the work of people who went off.

And her story of somebody who went through transformation of her own in the direction that we’re probably more familiar with highlighting, somebody who came to a world of commitment. And what fascinates her about the world of those who left, even though she’s so committed and how it doesn’t undermine that commitment. I thought was really powerful and just her very story I thought was was really deeply moving. And if you haven’t listened to that because most people have never ever heard of Kelsey Osgood, which I wouldn’t have heard of her either except she would publish the review of Shulem Deen’s book in The New Yorker.

And when I saw that and found out more about her story and I was so moved by her review, I thought it was really, really remarkable. The next topic we did after talking about OTD and you can go back and check all this out on the on the site, was the topic of comedy. And this was a tricky topic because it’s like supposed to be funny, which it wasn’t. It wasn’t, you know, wasn’t all that funny. And you know, the donor who I talked to about the the site, my friend, he hated this topic.

He just wants the back and forth and these deep theological discussions, which I’m open to. They’re more challenging. I also think that they contribute less to people’s day-to-day religious satisfaction. I think highlighting these kind of broad heuristics, like the importance of comedy and what role it plays.

Can be a really important religious tool, which is why I pushed back and said, This is important. I want to talk about this. And we spoke to three people. We definitely got a lot of feedback.

We spoke to Gary Gulman, who’s an amazing comedian. You know, not a not a traditional Jew, he’d be the first to to tell you that, but he’s he’s deeply committed to his Jewish identity. And the reason why I highlighted him was less about kind of his Jewish knowledge and background, but because of the work he’s done in comedy as a response and a tool to issues with mental health. And I think that that’s so important.

The need to be able to look at comedy as almost a religious practice of sorts. I think I mentioned this earlier. I was on a panel with Rabbi Efrem Goldberg and they were asking all of us to to share what we’re doing during this pandemic to, you know, find solace and, you know, obviously, you know, we’re davening and we’re learning and all of that stuff. But I, you know, it didn’t go without saying.

Other people mentioned that on the panel. The thing that I mentioned and Rabbi Goldberg, my my dear beloved cousin, chimed in and said he feels the same way. Is sometimes when there’s just so much pressure and it’s so heavy, I’ll turn on comedy. Good, kosher, clean comedy, and there’s plenty of it.

Gary Gulman, one of them. To kind of create some space in my own life. And and that’s what we have online about these beautiful quotes from Viktor Frankl about the importance of comedy in constructing meaning.We also had a conversation with Leah Forster, who I was so appreciative that she came onto the podcast. And we did get a little bit of pushback for that.

And I think it’s fair to address. Leah has a really fascinating and complicated story of her own. We didn’t get into all of the details of her story. But what I found so fascinating is that this is somebody who grew up in a very in a Chasidic community.

And ultimately in a series of tragic circumstances, she came out as a lesbian and really her her life and positioning in that community became untenable. And normally people who would go through something like that, I would I would assume would become so bitter and cynical and frustrated and angry. And I certainly, you know, I don’t know. Would I hold it against I don’t judge anybody.

So, so that would be her decision. But what was so remarkable is that’s that’s absolutely not what happened. And this is somebody who had to reconstruct her life where where Jewish identity and Jewish practice is at the heart of it. But she was able to remain connected and warm and kind of continue to laugh with the community and provide comedy with her hilarious Instagram account, you know, on Tichel Tuesdays, where she’s still kind of welcomed and embraced in many ways in the community because I think she used comedy to create this capacity to connect to a community that in many other ways she was no longer able to be a part of.

And I think it speaks to the power and the spiritual practice of joy, of of silliness, of comedy. And I think that was really, really remarkable.Our last interview with comedy was with Rabbi Daniel Feldman, who I hope he doesn’t regret being on here. He he gave me absolutely nothing. Who and and I love him.

It was a great interview. But he was playing close to the vest. He’s a rosh yeshiva, so I didn’t expect much different. Roshei yeshiva are gonna rosh yeshiva.

And his sense of humor is incredibly subtle if you speak to him. But he is a comedy genius. Don’t let him fool you. Don’t let that interview fool you.

He is a comedy genius. He used to star in the YU Purim Spiel. And what I find so remarkable about him is there is a cautiousness. He he has a certain position which is an important position as a teacher of Torah, as a rosh yeshiva in a beis midrash that, you know, he keeps his frivolity in check.

You have to really look with a microscope to to to into it and to find it. But he is he’s just absolutely remarkable. And I think my interview with him while a little coy and a little under, what I find so powerful about him is that comedy in my reading, so to speak, of of Rav Feldman, it’s like a part of his larger practices and works in his concentration on the human experience in religious life. He’s written books on Kovod HaBrios, human dignity.

And he’s written books on kind of the interface. He’s written books on gossip. The interface of the human experience with Torah. And I think that’s what comedy is about.

It’s how that innate human side that, you know, the the laughter, the you know, there’s this great thread. I’m rambling now, so I need to pull back. There’s a great thread, we’ll we’ll try to link to it about tickling. I think that we sent it out on on how unusual the reaction is to tickle.

There’s something deeply human about laughter. And that that’s a part of his overall perspective couching comedy as a part of almost Kovod HaBrios of the human experience, human dignity. I think is really really important. And knowing the boundaries of when to be funny and sometimes you can’t make a joke about anything, which is a great segue to our final topic, which in many ways is the reason why I thought it was so important to reflect on this, because there’s no topic that I got as much really sensitive and important critique, feedback, pushback, than our discussions of biblical criticism.

And I want to kind of step back and talk about why we spoke about this subject, what some of the feedback was. And some what what some of the mistakes were in my mind, because I do think some mistakes were absolutely made and and that’s for me, quite heartbreaking because I’m looking to be constructive and we’re looking to help people explore subjects that may give them doubt or they may have never explored but a framework to understand it and they could leave it on that shelf over there. This shouldn’t be in your pocket every single day.And we spoke about biblical criticism because, let me give you a few a few contexts. Number one, is as I wrote on the podcast, I think I spoke about in the introduction.

I’m not really that moved by this subject. It’s something that maybe interested me earlier. I don’t think, and I talk about this on the site, I don’t think it should be taught in our schools. I think that the foundation that kids need, that people need is a deep reverence for Torah.

And an appreciation of Torah. And that if later on in life, there are questions and doubts that come up, they need a place to turn to explore those doubts. And I think both can be together. But let me talk about those people because there are people and this is this is part of the pushback I got.

Like who is this for? Nobody has these questions. And that I would push back on that challenge because it’s not true. There are people who are bothered by this, who have doubts about it, who want to understand more about this and be pointed in the right direction for it. And that’s why to me, I think that the person who I’ve just been so impressed with is Rabbi Gil Student, who we had an interview with.

I think Rabbi Berman is absolutely fascinating. His book Ani Maamin, which was published by Koren, is a really, really wonderful guide. I’ll be honest, doesn’t work for for everybody. Some people it doesn’t address kind of the issues that are bothering them, which is why on the site I linked to another book that I found also deeply, deeply satisfying and fascinating.

And that’s Amnon Bazak, also published by Koren Maggid, called To This Very Day, which is a callback to the notion in the Torah that we have these psukim that talk about ad hayom hazeh. Uh which as I mentioned earlier is something that Rav Tzadok talks about, the strangeness of having the Torah talk in such temporal terms, when we don’t look at the Torah saying to this very day. Which day is that talking about? We’re we’re raised and we have the instinctive relationship to Torah, that Torah is something that transcends time.And I think my own perspective of how I’m able to kind of grab these together and this discussion together and it this is certainly not going to be satisfying for everybody. It’s not all that academic.

But for me, I always think about the Gemara in Shabbos on Daf Pey Ches, which talks about Moshe Rabbeinu when he went up to accept the Torah, the Malachim started yelling at him. And they started saying, you know, you what are you giving the Torah? … What’s to this this human person? He’s going to have the Torah. The Torah is for us. And there’s a fabulous question by the Radbaz who asks, I don’t understand.

Open up the Torah. God responds to Moshe in that very in that very story saying, open up the Torah. The whole Torah is talking about human concerns. What on earth would the malachim want this for? This doesn’t address their world.

And the Radbaz, and also the the Baal HaTanya has a similar answer. And if you look at the introduction to the Sefer HaChinuch and Sefer Devarim, he also actually points this out as well, which is that there is a primordial Torah of sorts. There is a Torah that transcends the state that we have it now with nikudos, with cantillation marks, with different letters. There is a Torah like the Ramban talks about in his introduction to the Torah that is kulo shemos shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu, is one long name of God.

It is this mystical transcendent Torah. And that that that Torah is of a higher form and predates the world, so to speak. And we have the Torah that’s broken up in the letters and words that we have in front of us. But I am a believer, and this is something that the Vilna Gaon says, that there is a reason why it was broken up in the way that it was, and that what we really need to find is how the pshat, how the I don’t like the word literal for pshat, but how a serious reading of the Torah and even when it seems deliberately strange, like deliberately like why why is it making mention of this here and why is this repeated there? That pshat of why it chose that form ultimately needs to connect to the deeper, I think mystical significance that underlies the entire Torah and the reverence that we have to Torah.

And that’s the Torah so to speak that the Malachim, that the Malachim wanted to keep in their possession. And I think that there needs to be, we need to find the way to have coherence between the two. And that’s what so many of the meforshim do. And so many, I think, of the distinctions that people find and the difficulties that people highlight in more academic disciplines of Bible.

If you understand, I think, a deeper the deeper practice of how the text speaks in multiple different voices and how different passages of the Torah were written with contradictions in order to create and construct meaning, I find that that even adds deeper reverence and significance to the practice of Torah. But at the heart of all of this is the belief that God, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, gave us a Torah. He communicated with the world. And I think that kind of incoherence that we see at times or contradictions that we have, which many of them are addressed by the by classical meforshim, not all of them.

And Gil talks about this a lot a lot. And that’s why I love so much Gil’s discussion, my discussion with Gil about the incoherence in his life, the contradictions of how he means so many different things to different people. I certainly feel the same way and it’s kind of been highlighted with this very site of I have, you know, people who know me through my writings in one platform and writings through another platform. And, you know, it’s hard because I sometimes feel like all of my different audiences are descending on this and I’m not always speaking with enough precision and giving enough context to really provide the grounding for all of those different audiences.

And I think that was a mistake that I made in this in tackling this subject of biblical criticism. I do think it needs to be spoken about for because there are people who have issues. I don’t think it’s the only thing that should be spoken about because it’s exhausting and frankly, it’s boring. As I’ve mentioned.

But I do think that it needs it needs context and I needed to be more forthcoming, I think, about my own approaches and I needed to provide more context.And I think without a doubt, the interview that got the most feedback, pushback, was my interview with Sara Tessler. Was a very kind, very sweet person, but I do think that that interview in some ways missed the mark. You know, I was thinking about this story that I when I was in like 11th grade, I was never great, you know, a minyanaire and able to always constantly, you know, never miss … I was a shluffer.

I like I like getting in that sleep in in high school. And I remember once that my I had I slept in this bedroom and what I would do is my mother would always wake me up for minyan, and then I would take my pillow and blanket. I am not recommending this just to be clear. So, please don’t don’t fill up my inbox.

Go to minyan. But I would take my pillow and blanket and I would move it into my closet and close my closet doors and continue sleeping. And one morning, I remember I was like sleep was probably like 10:30, 10:45 already. I’m sleeping in my closet.

And all of a sudden, I hear my father in the room taking a phone call. And he’s on the phone and I’m like, oh shoot, he’s totally going to see me here. He’s not going to be happy. And so right after he got off the phone, he like approached the closet.

He probably saw that I was there. He walked out. It wasn’t, you know, his style to to come at me like that. And then a few minutes later, I heard my mom walking up the steps.

So I ran out of my room and went to the room next door and like literally hid behind a desk because I wanted to figure out a way to so it didn’t seem like I just woke up. And I’m hiding behind the desk and I hear my mom approaching closer. And through the window, through I’m sorry, through a mirror in that room, I see I’m crouching behind the desk and the mirror is reflecting back at my mother. So I see my mother and my mother sees me in my pajamas crouching behind the desk.

And she looked at me, you know, almost like rolling her eyes. It was such a comical scene of like trying to hide. And she looked at me and said, David, you know, sometimes we we give you, you know, just enough rope so you don’t hang yourself. I think we gave you a little bit too much rope.And I think in some ways, I thought about this story with the Tessler interview.

Why did I interview Sara Tessler? She she had written an article that got passed around on Lookjed and a head of school had sent it to me because she had written an article about teaching biblical criticism in Modern Orthodox high school, which this head of school said was fascinating about what the students’ experiences were and how they and how they reacted. And I didn’t really know her, but I knew it was a story that seemed really, really interesting. And I figured I would sit with her to kind of talk about how people react to knowing that this body of knowledge exists, that this discipline exists. Does it have to erode people’s faith to know that there are people who do not believe what we do? And I think there were two mistakes that that I think I made in the conversation is I think I should have framed it more about not her own beliefs, which I don’t agree with.

But I should have framed it more about the knowledge of that this discipline exists and how that affects students in high school and had more of a conversation and contextualize it more to talk about does the existence of this discipline, does that have to erode our faith? And I think where it kind of deteriorated was that, you know, she spoke more about her own relationship to the Torah, which is not, you know, views necessarily that I was looking to promote and certainly don’t agree with. And I should have pushed back a little bit harder and contextualized it a little bit more because I wanted a conversation about people find out about this, people find out about this discipline, how should that how should they react to that? How should they affect to that? And I felt that some of her responses, and this is my opinion and it’s not a a character assault on her. But I thought some of the responses were far too cavalier about her own conclusions, which which I don’t agree with. And I thought it lost some of the context that I was trying to find, and that was my mistake.

To contextualize it what I was looking to present was the knowledge that this discipline exists and even the knowledge that people believe in this discipline does not in and of itself need to erode one’s confidence in their beliefs in the Torah. And that’s certainly what I feel and certainly what I believe. Though I do understand, and that’s why we spoke about this subject that people there are people who are bothered by this. Not everybody.

I think it’s a topic that for most people, the first question is why talk about this. The answer to that question is because there are people who who do struggle with this. And I think just to know that it is out there builds a almost like an exposure therapy that we don’t need to fold or shrivel up that the fact that it exists. But it is it is important to be able to have the confidence and commitment that we’re certainly looking to foster, whether or not you have the doubts or somebody who hasn’t really thought that much about it, which is fine.

I’m not encouraging. I’m not a I’m not trying to evangelize this discipline. I am trying to allow people to build almost the antibodies of sorts that these discussions and these personalities do not need to erode or do not need to cause us to second guess the commitments that we have. I think that the conversations and the questions are important, and it’s through these kind of discussions, and I think for a lot of the discussions and the personalities that we’ve had in here, these are things that people are accessing online in whichever which way.

And the fact that we have a place where they can be contextualized, and I need to do a better job of that, I think is really important and something that I would like to have. But I think at the end, I don’t really think that the way people reach religious conclusions is by stacking up piles of evidence one against the other. And this was a debate that I continue to have about the site, about how it should be structured. I think one thing going forward that we need to do better is providing more context to why we’re having each of these conversations and what those takeaways are.

And I think we also need to build bridges between the different conversations so they’re all kind of speaking to one another. I know a lot of our listeners listen to Dovid Lichtenstein’s Headlines podcast, and they do an excellent job. I mean, you can’t hear them half the time because they’re talking on a phone from Bnei Brak. But they they’re all fighting with each other and he pushes back super hard.

I don’t have that personality and that’s kind of not my adversarial approach. But to be able to kind of create a dialogue where one person’s doubts is addressed by somebody else and somebody else’s approach is then, you know, discussed with somebody else’s doubts. I do think is valuable and is like the heart of religious dialogue and experience. And that’s what this is, like getting rolling up our sleeves and really having the conversations that people are I think in many ways are already having, not everybody, around Shabbos tables, in WhatsApp groups, online, about the evolution and the development of their religious commitment and identity.

And these I think are devarim ha’omdim b’rumo shel olam. These are the our most prized and treasured commitments. And our ability to foster a sense of confidence and appreciation for those commitments and for people who are struggling to make those commitments, to be able to see people within that community and talk to people who have those commitments with a sense of pride, a sense of sophistication, not dismissing them as simplistic, which is something that I absolutely hate on either end of that window. To have that mutual appreciation is something that I look forward to continuing to foster and develop.

And hopefully we’ll continue to improve. We have some really exciting topics coming up in the next in the next couple months where we’ll be talking about Jewish peoplehood, mysticism, science and Torah. And some some even more controversial ones that we’ll be dropping later. And hold your breath and I just want to thank again to all of the listeners who have been giving me feedback and been with me on this journey.

And allow me to to say I’m sorry to anybody who listened to this and walked away with anything less than something constructive or pride or an appreciation for the world that they live in and the commitments that they have to to Torah, then we missed the mark. And the better we do at fostering deep sophistication and appreciation to those commitments and to the world that we live, the better off I think we’ll all be. And I just thank everybody for continuing along with me. Thank you so much for listening to this special episode of the 1840 podcast.

And once again a reminder, I think it’s really important. The first thing you should do with any question is check out our website. It is 18Forty f o r t y .org 18Forty.org. 18 is numeric, 40 is written out f o r t y.

We have essays, readings, book recommendations for each subject and obviously a host of podcasts that you are listening to now. Please, it wouldn’t be a Jewish podcast if there wasn’t a little bit of Jewish schnorring at the end. So please like and subscribe wherever you’re listening to us, leave feedback and always feel free to reach out to me an email to keep the conversation going. Thank you all so much.

This transcript was produced by Sofer.AI.