Ep. 35- Live @ Limmud Miami 2020

This is the You Winning Life podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, trainer and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Got that? All right, so we're back at Limud Miami 2020 with one of our returning scholar-in-residences, musician-in-residence, guru-in-residence, one of my favorite speakers and friends for the last couple years, Rabbi Andrew Hahn, otherwise known as the Kirtan Rabbi. So welcome back.

Thank you, it's great to be back here.

I'm glad that you're here, and you just did your Tai Chi class. So let's talk for a few minutes about just like the Jewish Tai Tai Chi thing that's going on. What's— can you talk a little bit about that?

That's a lesser-known side of my going into a phone booth and coming out as the— originally I started out with, as there was the Tai Chi Rabbi, Kirtan Rabbi, and regular Rabbi.

That sounds like the beginning of a joke.

They all walk into a phone booth and Kirtan Rabbi overtook everything else, so I kind of put everything on the back burner. But I've been doing martial arts and Tai Chi martial arts for— I would date myself, um, 45, 46 years, and tai chi for over 20. And as I was coming out of rabbinical school, I started to do a sort of— originally I called it tai chi kavanah, like intention, you know, Jewish intention kavanah, or a Jewish kind of tai chi where you take— it's a little bit of a— how to put it— you know, kind of schlepping some concepts from Eastern practices and into Jewish, but it works out pretty well, and I tend to do it when I go around doing a lot of Shabbatons, and I will often do it first thing in the morning on Shabbat morning, or during Musaf in some places, and yeah, I really much enjoy it. It's a little bit, the word I'm looking for, whereas I don't think the Keirton-Rabbi piece is, it's a little bit of a shtick, you know, because there's tai chi and there's Jewish, but I make it work with Jewish concepts.

But it's the integration of all this, and people will probably be surprised to know, like, a lot of this Eastern philosophy stuff was, a lot of it was ours, right, in our tradition as well. And I don't think people are always out there looking for other stuff outside of Judaism, and to come back home, to have it be re-brought back in, is a really nice, beautiful compliment.

Or you can mine the tradition and find things like that. I would argue that no, it's not that it was already there and that we had it all along. Definitely the encounter with the Eastern traditions has enhanced Jewish practice. A friend of mine once said, a non-Jewish friend, he said that we kind of, we're like, he said Jews have both the bass and the treble turned up all the way at the same time. I kind of get that on some level, or that we kind of, we're really in this very either chesedik or gevurahdik tension, and I feel like these practices have come to give us tiferet, to balance that out for us, and it's a gift, and we're now taking it in, and we always have. Believe me, I've had a lot of people complain about these kind of things, but we have always subsumed the cultures that we've been amongst. I remember once this young man after the first Kirtan Rabbi Live concert, he complained that I mentioned that it came from India. And he said, "It's Jewish," just like kind of what you just said. He said, "It's Jewish all along." And I said, "Oh yeah, and I suppose you really love doing a don olam to a Prussian marching tune." You know, like we have always been part of the cultures we're in. It's just now that the culture is global. So we have this, and it's, I think it's, You know, keeping true and strong to the particular things that are Jewish. For example, I think Jewish tai chi works very well because I think Judaism has a very strong connection to body. And as Spinoza said, every idea is an idea of body. There's not this kind of radical dualism of body-mind, even though some would say there is, but I think there isn't. And so doing body-based practices like chanting, like tai chi, like yoga, Jewish yogas, I think is bringing something to us both back and new.

Yeah.

Well, I know it's definitely a well integrative mind-body, you know, like we were just talking about, like, is there a separation, like this dualism of neck-up intellectualism and heart-centered or body-felt? And the concept of Kavanah in general is supposed to be really syncing everything together. And I know how many people out there are searching, right? They're going from synagogue to synagogue, they're going from retreat to retreat. But to be able to find a way to make this very symbiotic is a very challenging task. And you've been able to do this and create a community of people who, right, one with the music, with kirtan, with chanting, all that stuff. It's very— like, there's such a beautiful taste around it that when I first heard about you through a mutual friend and then met you, that was like my first, like, "Oh, wow." Like, I didn't know you can do this, 'cause this was like as far out there bringing Judaism into this as that I experienced at that time. And then now it's such a normal for me this many years later that I want people to make sure that they know that there's stuff like this that exists this, and it's— or it could be organically Jewish and organically Jewish-centered for them to tap into it. And then the whole idea of like chanting, right? We are chanters. I know we have the silent prayer and we do repetition of the Amidah, but there's a— where is— do you think like the kind of chanting that you're doing with Kirtan can enhance the prayer experience, meditative experiences, especially if you're alone? I know that's a big practice, right?

Well, you actually— you really can't do chant kirtan alone. You can do mantras or nigunim and obviously sing alone and have a kind of a practice. And you can also hone your own skills as a musician alone. But I'm not sure, as I did another podcast not too long ago on Judaism Unbound, or I think that's called, and they, you know, our Our religion is not wired for doing alone. It's really community-based, you know, the whole thing needing a minion and things like that. But I think that these— I do find that this is taking over very strongly. The rabbis are realizing that people want to do yoga, and so let's bring it into the synagogue. People want to do— and there's a problem with these things in that on the one hand is that you have to be— I like to say you have to be the chant you want to see in the world. So having your own personal practice is very important. I mean, I had a rabbi friend of mine once said, "I don't meditate, but I lead meditation because that's what they want." And I was like, "Well, how?" There's a little bit of disingenuousness to it. You know, there's a chicken and egg part to it, but I'm glad it's all happening. And as you point out, like when I was first doing this, it was pretty— there was resistance. From the more traditional elements. Unfortunately, I come from a very traditional, strong knowledge base, but now it's becoming much more common. It used to be whenever I led a kirtan or a chanting session in a synagogue in New Jersey somewhere, originally I'd say, "Who's never done this before?" and every hand went up, and now it's just a smattering of hands. Everybody has heard of kirtan.

Which is so incredible that that's happening.

Yes.

But this is the new new. Right? I mean, in other words, this is our new paradigm that, like, what we were fighting for spiritually 10, 15, 20 years ago has become so mainstream. Thank God. So I love the fact that this is happening.

And I mean, I think maybe we're already— we should be looking for the next thing, right? This is already becoming too normative, you know.

Who knows?

Who knows? Or, or we want this to become the normative where people can tap into it on a deeper level, that maybe they just had an exposure to it, they've come to a concert, but now how do they take it home besides obviously listening and streaming and downloading your CDs?

Well, that's the next phase of Kirtan Rabbi. I'm calling it the Kirtan Rabbi Prayer Initiative, and it's a not-for-profit actually, um, that we're taking it into education, making it where I like, let there be a thousand Kirtan Rabbis, let it flourish.

And let—

because people actually want to pray this way. It's something I originally, I avoided prayer times, but I realized people actually, for some people they want to pray this way. I personally prefer a regular straight-up Conservative movement service for my own spiritual needs, and I get everything and more from that. But I do have a certain sense of how to bring that energy into the kirtan. So I, as a rabbi, that becomes my rabbinic, my mission.

Amazing. Beautiful. So I know you're doing a class again in a little bit. Um, people out there who have not yet heard you or seen you, where can they find you? How can they get in touch with you? I know I've been to— I can't even keep track how many times I've come in. I've become a groupie, a groupie of yours over the last couple years. And, um, but how can everybody else find you?

Well, there's kirtanrabbi.com, the website. It's getting redone, so it's a little, um, it needs to be— it needs a cleanup. But there's— then there's that. And, uh, Reb Drew, R-E-B as in boy, D-R-E-W, at kirtanrabbi.com. And I'm traveling the world and trying to share this Torah, which is much needed, and we're really glad that you are. Yeah, awesome. It's always good to see you, man.

Pleasure, pleasure, brother. All right, so I'm back with Danny Reed, who is our fantabulous captain, co-chair, limud extraordinaire, something, something like that, whatever, Rabbi, mohel, You know, it's like that classic line from Godfather III, whenever they—

I think I'm out, they pull me back in. So that's basically it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the gift that keeps on giving.

So—

Exactly. So we're good. So, well, first of all, like, this has been your number— how many years now as—

This is my fourth. Fourth or fifth?

Fourth year.

Last year I did— yeah, I apologize too.

Well, I think it was my— I take partial responsibility for sucking you back in.

That's right. You're the one that sucked me in. This is me.

This was, yeah.

This was all you, man.

Yeah, yeah. I publicly proclaimed that at the pop-up at Temple Menorah. That was a nice little publicly proclaimed that at pop-up. That was a pack of pickle peckers. Peckers.

So yeah, last year, so that was like, you know, 'cause we haven't had a limud, an all-day limud like this for 3 years. First time in 3 years. So last year I was thinking, you know, I miss it, we need to do something. And so I did that pop-up. To just kind of like do something LeMood-y, you know, something big tent. And then, you know, now here we are, we ended up at a full day festival.

So speaking of big tent, we have how many people approximately?

About 350 people. Wow. So, and you can see from all walks of life. And in terms, you know, this is what I love about LeMood, right? So it's not only the people that come, but it's the presentations that we have, presenters that we have on topics that cover anything and everything you can think of under, under the sun that deals with our lives as Jews. It's truly Big Ten Judaism. So it's that, it's anything that, that we feel is part of our personal lives, our Jewish lives, our history, politics, self-improvement. I mean, you're obviously a Something, something. You're something, you know, dealing with self-improvement. So, you know, so, you know, there's personal issues, but also like how Judaically, how as Jews that are part of the world we live in, you know, how we, how we cope.

So we really focus on the ish. That's the part of the Jewish, because, right, we take all those little subsections, all those little nuggets of like wherever you are, whatever community you hang out with, you're welcome here at Limud.

Correct.

And that's the beautiful thing. And not only are you welcome, but we want you to teach. We want you to be a volunticipant, which is one of our really cool things, right? Being a participant and a volunteer.

I mean, one of my favorite things is, in terms of the mood and what it stands for, there's a lot, but one of the things I love is arguing. I think it's called arguing for the sake of heaven, which in other words for me means, you know, as somebody who considers himself a truly a pluralistic Jew, that arguing for the sake of heaven means that it doesn't matter if I agree with you or disagree with you. You have a space here to express yourself.

Okay?

And I can disagree, respectfully disagree, and we can have an exchange of ideas. But it's a space where every idea that's connected to our life, our religion, our sense of peoplehood, our experience in the world and dealing with the day-to-day can be expressed and talked about. So, you know, here we have— let's take it with us. We have today, we have traditional, some traditional Torah text study, and in an hour we're going to have a session on trans Jews. I mean, the whole gamut.

The whole gamut.

Which is amazing. So it is. It's incredible. So somebody doing You know, right now we have a session going on with a rabbi who uses the Hindu chant and response meditation of kirtan to express your spirituality in connection to your body and the spiritual world, you know, and puts that in a Hebrew form. So, you know, it's not cultural appropriation.

Definitely.

It's kosher.

It's kosher. That's right.

It's kosher.

Koshered.

Koshered. Koshered and koshered. But also it's like, but he's also one of the most attended sessions. He's someone that we've brought back. He's one of our rock stars that we've, you know, we've had over the years.

And again, it's an example of how, you know, we don't exist in a vacuum. We connect with the real world. But how can we live a purposeful life? And how can we, um, you know, connect with, with ourselves as Jews, as part of the Jewish people, but also connect with the world around us too, right? Right.

So as the person who's been kind of seeing the facilitation of all this, the behind the scenes, that I want people out there to know, because one of the things that people may not know about Limu Miami is that we're 100% volunteer-run. We don't have any full-time staff. We are mostly fundraised and grants and scholarships, and God bless our, our South Florida Jewish community for chipping in, and then whatever we make on ticket sales. But everything we have to do has to come out of our, the organization's pocket, right? —So how can we inspire people to get involved? Because this is— when people ask, like, what really is Limud, I'm like, well, it's the original Jewish TED Talks. This existed way before TED Talks existed. But it's not just you sit and listen to the speaker. It's full engagement. There's workshops. There's give and takes. My workshop is going to be a fully engaged workshop in the next little bit. But one of the things that we do need and that we want to inspire is much more people in the future, right, to become involved. Correct. So how can people do that? Where do we start? Um, whether they've joined us in Limud before or they've heard about Limud and they want to do it, how can they get involved? How can they find us?

Um, that, that's a great question. So I mean, I would, I would say this is that, uh, the easiest thing is just to reach out to, to one of the board members, and I'll, I'm happy to give my email, which is dannylimudmiami@gmail.com. But we're always looking for people to get involved and, and help plan and organize. If you're somebody that's been inspired by, by Limud, or by inspired by being a part of the Jewish community, inspired by organizing something that has impact on the community, then yeah, we are, we are looking for you. We're And we're looking for all types of people. We're looking for the people that love programming. I mean, there are people that love to put things in order, you know? And I actually have a master's degree in library and information science. And one thing I discovered while taking the classes is that there are people that want an orderliness, you know? And they want to be part of the creative process or part of creation of something, but they're the ones that want to, you know, create the schedule and do the logistics. And if you are one of those people, please, we need you.

If you're one of those people who doesn't necessarily want to be in front of the camera, right?

If you don't want to be in front of the camera, that's fine. But, uh, but if you, if you want to be part of something that, uh, that has purpose and meaning and value to the community, And then once again, you can reach out to me, danny@leemoodmiami@gmail.com. I'm sure you can reach out to Jason Wasser.

I know, that's right. We have our Instagram, @leemoodmiami.

And Jason will send information. But yeah, we're going to be already sitting in 2 or 3 weeks and organizing, starting to organize for next year. Yeah, there's no break.

We just go.

Just deciding what we're going to do. So that's going to be happening in a few weeks.

Well, thankfully today's been such a massive success. I know we had some fears about, right, the numbers and, and pulling this off after a hiatus, but it's been, I mean, like everybody's having such a good time. There's so much networking going on. Yeah. There's people who've never met. That's one of the side things. Correct. The hallway conversations. Yeah. That are happening in the connections and the networking. I know there's people I've met that I've been in touch with on Facebook. Uh-huh. That we've been like, oh, we'll meet here, we'll meet here, we'll meet here. We finally met. I'm like, great. And now, yeah. And now we're like, wow, where have you been our whole lives?

Like as friends. And people are, yeah. Right. And that is one of the things. I'm sure one of the thing— comments people are going to make is that the way it's working out today is that we have 10 minutes between each session, which the reality is, is a bit too short. Right. But OK, that's good. It puts some pressure on them because they have to make those intense connections, go on to the next session, and hopefully they'll make that connection as the day—

And then they have the happy hour, the musical, right? We're going to have the happy hour. Which we're known for. And I don't think a lot of other places do that. We have this really awesome after the end hangout, come schmooze a little bit more. And we're going to be doing that. And we're going to be doing that. So plenty of good stuff, right? We got our floor musician walking by, our famous Jimmy.

Yeah, Jimmy will be playing at the happy hour. I talked him into hanging out and doing that.

And loads of talent. I mean, this is amazing, all the different things that are going on. So awesome. Very cool. Cool. Thank you very much. To be continued. All right, so we're back with Eva. Evelyn. Right. But you also go by?

Eva. Sorry. Oh yeah, my Spanish.

Spanish nicknames. Spanish nicknames. Some people call me Eve because of that. Aha.

But we're in Miami, so I have to make sure that it's culturally appropriate for everything. So we're sitting here at Limu 2020, and this is not your first year here.

No, we were with the group that made this happen the first time, so it's an honor to be back and to see this.

Always happy to have you here and joining us and running the kids stuff and singing and all these cool things. So I know one of the things besides your awesome Speaking, you just wrote a kids' book.

Yes, I did. It's called The Shabbat Treasure. I actually happen to have a copy to read to the kiddos, and it's based on a one-woman puppet show. And also the music of The Shabbat Treasure is on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, so that everybody can enjoy it. And it's about two siblings welcoming the most magical day of the week, and it's an adventure. It has a pirate, the Shabbat Pirate. Nice. So yeah, it's fun.

Because Jews aren't necessarily known for pirates. I mean, I know there's the Jews of the Pirates of the Caribbean, that there's a book like that. But every Jewish kid wants to be a pirate, right?

So the premise of the book is Eve, which is my character, that's why her name is Eve, she's getting ready for Shabbat to meet the Shabbat Queen, but her little brother wants to play. And so he goes like, oh, you want to meet the Shabbat Queen? Well, I am the Shabbat Pirate and I stole the Shabbat elements. I took them all and then I have them What, too much with the voice?

That's what I do. I was envisioning the, like, the whole story.

Yeah, in the show there's actually a puppet. When I tell the story, sometimes it's a puppet, sometimes it's just me wearing different hats, which, you know, so many people—

which kind of sounds like life in general. Exactly. Because you have all these other things going on in your life as well.

Sometimes it's a hat, sometimes it's a kippah, female kippah, you know, it depends what you're doing. Um, but yeah, and so he takes all of the elements. He doesn't He doesn't steal them, he just grabs them. And Eve has to come up with 3 fun ways to get ready for Shabbat. Those are the 3 fun challenges. And so, yeah, they get ready for the Shabbat Queen and they learn that there's more to it than just what is keva, what you're supposed to do to get ready for Shabbat, but just to have fun with it, bring the spirit in. And that's where the Shabbat Pirate comes in. And kids love it because it's about pirates. The queen, but it's also about pirates and it's about adventure.

And you're getting all the— you're hitting it all, right? You're hitting the boy side, the girl side, the pirate side, the princess side.

That's the idea. Yeah. And we're very lucky to be able to present it also at different venues, but also at the JCC, MARJCC Theater, um, last November. And Sunday morning, I'm trying— I'm starting to do that Sunday mornings at the theater because I want families to come to the theater. That's how I grew up, so I want that to, to get—

and it's a lost art, unfortunately, that's getting defunded and all these other things. So it's a beautiful thing that's happening.

Yes. And the venues, many venues are still there, so I think there is a way. Yeah. Um, and it's very special for the kiddos to be able to experience the light and the sound and, you know, to be spectators, sometimes participants, and, and to have no cell phones around and just to focus and be part of the experience.

Yeah. So walking through the steps of writing this book, because there's again so much going on in your world of what you're doing, yeah, what was that process like becoming an author? And not only an author, but it's writing a kids' book and then having to find someone to do the graphics and all that stuff.

So yeah, what was that like? So, um, I love writing. I have always loved writing. Mostly I have been writing plays. I'm a playwright. But when it comes to writing, uh, yeah, this is It was a whole new world. So, but instead I'm gonna take on the challenge. I'm gonna do my best. And I did have the show, so it was based off that, but you know, it's everything, it brings feedback to anything. So the show ended up being more like the book at the end. And I taught myself how to do it. I've had some mentors and wonderful conversations with people who, you know, said, "You can do it." They always been supportive. And yeah, you know. You already have some of your fan club hanging out over here. Yes. My number one fan, and it's so special. My little one, when I get to rehearse with him or tell him my stories. So yeah. Awesome. Do you like the Shabbat Pirate?

Yeah. Is that your favorite book?

We read many, many books. Many, many books? Many, many books. Do you have a favorite book?

What was your favorite book?

I think it was about a race in Israel nowadays. You know, we go through phases. We also love, uh, Stone Soup. Cool stories are wonderful. And you know, our tradition, thank God, has so many of them. And so new ones and old ones.

And yeah, awesome.

Well, congrats first of all on becoming— right, speaking here again today, doing all this stuff, but on the book and all the extra, the new projects and It's so exciting being here and being able to share with Limoot Miami.

I can't wait for the rest of the day. So far we've been to the drum circle and to start off with that energy is just amazing.

With our good buddy over there.

Yeah, there's so many interesting people and it's great to gather here and to learn what everybody's doing and to share what you're doing as well. So it's a great place to be. Yep, agreed. If you're not here this year, make sure you Get here next time because, you know, for all ages, all venues, or all backgrounds. Exactly. So Jason, it's been great seeing you again.

And where can people find the book?

They can find the book, it's called The Shabbat Treasure at Amazon.com. Really easy for you guys. And the music for free at YouTube. You just type in The Shabbat Treasure.

And if they wanted to bring you out to do any work, where can they find you?

I don't know when this is, is this? Yeah, whatever. So next, actually next. Sometime this week. Sunday, March 1st at 10 AM. I am actually doing the Purimagination show at the MARJCC Theater at 10 AM for the whole family. It's a one-woman show where everybody gets to become the protagonist of the story of Purim. Very special for the family. And they can go to toratron.com. It's T-O-R-A-H-T-R-O-N, Toratron, like Torah and theater in Hebrew, toratron.com. To learn more. Awesome. Thanks for hanging out. Thank you.

All right, so we're back at Libu Miami with Jacob Markey, and you just spoke. What was the topic of your little thing going on over there?

So my topic was what a ballagan, the current state of Israeli politics, and really just talking about all what's been going on in the Israeli political scene over the past year plus.

So what is going on in a quick brief nutshell? What do we need to know for the people that weren't there hanging out in your class.

In essence, for the first time in Israel's history, you've had not, not one, not two, but three elections in less than a year. And it was just talking about the background of Israel's political system and understanding why we are at where we are today and what Israel could be, could be, look, could be looking like.

So what's your guess? What do you think is going to happen? What's like, what are people thinking?

What are people saying? I mean, if only I was able to make the predictions, then I would have all the money. I mean, right now a lot of people in Israel are thinking that it's once again, again, be in the same spot as it's been over the past year or so, and they could go to a fourth election. Yikes.

So what do we need to do differently? What do people need to learn differently? Like, what's— how can we change this process, make it a lot easier? I just want to say a quick hello to a fellow Milwaukeean.

I walked into your session.

Basically, uh, I think it's It's just understanding the Israeli political system, understanding how it's different than it is in the US, and understanding the why. I think when we look at politics in another country, and when we look at it in Israel, it's important that we look through the lens of an Israeli, or look through the lens of someone there, and then we can understand better. If we look at it using the lens that we have, we might have a different thought about what it is and what's going on.

So it makes sense because I know here in America, like, if we're Jewish, we have a viewpoint or belief about what should be going on over there. And I know that there's people over there who say, you don't live here, you're not dealing with the day-to-day, you're not invested in it. Maybe you're not even giving us money or donating or supporting any of our causes. How do we bridge that divide in that gap?

I think a lot of it is understanding. I mean, I've been to Israel many times. I was saying, go to Israel, understand the issues, and then importantly, read about what's going on. There. I think there's nothing substituting for living there and spending a significant amount of time. But that's, and that's, you really, unless you are there, you, a lot of people will say like, yeah, you can't, truly can't get, you don't get it in the same way. But that's understand more. And I think luckily, I know being in Miami, this has the highest percentage of people in any community who have traveled to Israel. And I think that's really special. And I think people in Miami understand it a lot more than That distinction.

So what do you think it is about the Miami Jewish community that makes this such a different thing? Because I know per capita, I don't know, maybe compared to New York or other places, but we have so many people over the years that have made Aliyah, um, stuff like that. But I know that we're a very strong Zionist community when other communities around the world are maybe becoming a little bit more critical and more judgmental of Israel. There's always been this strong 'we support Israel even if they do screw up' mindset.

I mean, one aspect here, and for me, I'm not a native of Miami, I had to learn is the strong Latin population, very, very Zionist. How a lot of people grew up, if you're in Argentina, Venezuela, other parts of Central and South America, you have a different mindset of what Zionism is. I think, you know, you have a strong day school culture here, and this is a strong culture of how do we teach about Israel and how do we understand Israel? You know, you've got other programs here that take kids to Israel. You have dozens dozens and dozens. Overall, I got 100 kids or more, all my kids, who go on March of the Living each year.

And that's just in Dade County. You've got Broward, exactly, and everything like that.

But I think it's, it's really special, the level of engagement down here that you don't see everywhere.

And do you think from that Latin culture, because of a lot of them came to Latin America post-Holocaust, that this idea of having our safe space of the state of Israel is so much brought into them from those experiences.

Exactly. And it's also just the culture of when you're going to school, going to day school, if that's the culture in the community and the community is very tight, it's a much different conception than we have in the US in these days. And not necessarily each of them are different choices, not to kind of prejudge, but it does create a different dynamic. I mean, I think Miami has the highest percentage of day school penetration of, I think, of anywhere in the country. I'd have to double-check the statistics, but I believe that's what it is.

Incredible. Yeah. So then coming from here, going back to your day job, what's a little bit of what's going on there with what you're doing over at the Federation and how that's tied in specifically to what you were doing here?

I mean, a lot of the part of it that I do is, is educating the community, educating what's going on. And this is a, this is a perfect extension of it. I, it's not up to me to give the answers, my own personal opinion about, you know, what's happening is, or what should happen in Israel. But I feel like one of the roles is to unhelpfully help other people understand, and they can make the judgments for themselves. I think that's, that's an essential, important part of what we should be doing.

Awesome, awesome. So if people want to track you down, find out more about where you're speaking and JCRC, where can they find you?

Absolutely, my email is jmarkey@gmjf.org, jmarkey@GreaterMiamiJewishFederation.org, and yeah, love to be able to connect. I think it's so important to understand, to learn, learn for the future, and become just an educated person on this and like any other issues. But I mean, for me, one of my loves is Israel, so I want people to know as much about Israel as they can.

See how lucky you are to be working in a job, in a career with the things that you're most passionate about? Absolutely. And that's what we wish to everybody, and this is what the beautiful thing about Limud, you have all these different people, all these different backgrounds just hanging out with stuff that they're passionate about. Absolutely. And there's people here, I was mentioning to a previous guest, that they don't, they practice a in one field, but the topic they're speaking about would be the last thing you would ever expect an attorney to speak about. It's about like Five Elements Chinese medicine, right? Two completely crazy random things that are opposite worlds. But this is what the beautiful thing about Limu, that it brings all types of people together. So thank you for hanging out with us. Absolutely. Look forward to hanging out again. Thank you. All right. All right. So I'm here with Jimmy Yakov Yisrael Castello, the magical musical Maged of music. Wow, that's a nice save. All that stuff, right? I think you have the longest professional— like, is there like a logo that we can just use so we can be the artist formerly known as?

Yeah, but then when I change my name, I'll be the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Musical Maged, and it just gets longer and longer, you know. That's why, you know, Jimmy— it's hard to get Jewish music gigs when your name is Jimmy, and it's hard to get any gigs when your name is Yakov Yisroel, right? In fact, I had yakovyisroel.com for a while, like 10 years ago.

But how do people spell that?

But then when you look at Yaakov Israel, it looks, in web URLs, it's tricky. So it looks like Yaakov Israel.

So big, yeah, that's a branding and marketing thing that we should probably have figured out.

But if Gary Vee complains about being Gary Vee, then we can all work.

If we're all at that level, hallelujah, right? So, which, my goal is one day to get Gary Vee as a guest here at Leemood Miami. That'll be— Gary, come be a guest. That's it, right? You hear us? Gary Vee, we're making a big, big— requests.

Haven't you heard you talk about NET? You got to know about any of this good stuff.

Any of this good stuff. So this is not your first WeMood. You've been here for how many years now?

Forever. Forever. When did we— the first one we did?

5 years ago, 6 years ago, give or take. Yeah, yeah. You're just strumming in the hallway. Yeah. And you've worked your way up the— yeah, make it for me out of the hallway.

They said, you know, it's too loud, people are complaining.

Yeah, they're like, no, we want you to do a session, right? Yeah. And now you're doing multiple. Right. You got the kids stuff going on. Right.

We got the kids session and then the cocktail hour playing while people are not listening. Right.

But they're enjoying the music. But that's the whole thing to break up the ambiance. So, yeah.

So it's always good to, like, not get feedback from what you're doing. Like, make sure that you really love it and, like, it's not feedback from the speaker.

It's feedback from the— you don't want feedback from the speaker.

Right.

Definitely don't want that. So what's been your experience this year compared to last year's or previous years?

This year I brought my son. And we're doing parallel things, like I check in with them every 45 minutes or so. Yeah, I'm housing. And it's great because, you know, when you're doing something and you're doing the first kid session and the kids aren't here yet, so one more kid in the music session who knows the songs really helps out. Yeah. We had about 5 kids and usually about, the last couple years we've done it, or 2 years ago, when we did it, and this year we had about 5 adults and 5 kids in the kids music sessions.

It's so nice to see that, like, we put such a focus on our kids programming here, right? I think other— I don't know if a lot of other programs do that, but I know this has been a commitment that we've had for so many years, right?

And it's growing and it's blossoming, and there's— and it's not just somebody singing kids songs or reading a story. There's like real legit professionals with, with organizations and, um, what are they doing now? Grow, some sort of, um, there's a lot of— this year there's a lot of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. And, um, I mean, who talks to 6 and 8-year-olds about this?

Well, the person who's running our kids program, I mean, Basha McGann, who's a therapist as well. And so, yeah, so we always have that mindset of wanting to give much deeper, much more powerful experiences than just babysitting. And I think that's one of the many things that makes Arleigh Moods so special. Besides the fact, like, because Miami is such a multiculturalized— we know, right? It's a very big melting pot of different people. I know, right? Trying to do both. That's good. So, um, but I think this is the beautiful thing that you have everybody coming in from different backgrounds, running. Like, it's, it's like we have to select you to work with our kids. If even if you might be known in the community, but we still want to still choose, which is kind of cool that we have that reputation of being like, we're picky, we're going to make sure that we like, we give our kids the best stuff, right? And our kids program is entirely free with paid adult tickets, so it's good, pretty good deal. I think it's a good deal. Yeah. Um, so let's talk music for a few minutes.

Yeah, so at 5 o'clock we're doing the, the, um, the cocktail hour, and, um, we'll play a bunch of Jewish music, original stuff, Shlomo Carlebach things, you know, we'll, we'll— crowd pleasers, Oseh Shalom. And, um, how does that relate to spirituality? Well, I, I like to I'm going to focus on what I call "songs Jewish folks sing." What in the world does that mean? Right? There's probably, maybe there's like a dozen songs that Jews from all sorts of backgrounds, or at least all sorts of backgrounds that lee-mood, because let's face it, there's a lot more types of Jews in the world than here at Miami even, in terms of languages and culture and background and philosophies and physical characteristics. Life choices, what other options? Beards. Beards. Beard size. Lots of different sizes. You know, there's the short trim ones. And you really even, and you can't even judge anybody by the size of their beard anymore.

But if they use beard oil or not, that's a judgment-worthy thing I've heard.

Right. You know, I ran out, I gotta get more Alpha Male beard balm. So shout out to A-Town. You know, A-Town. Yeah. I've known A-Town for a lot of years, you know. And he just took his passion, I don't know, we shifted into passion, and went with it, and like, you know, made a business, and like, he's connecting with people all over the world, and— He's a rock star. And, you know, his Facebook feed turned into alpha male, people started complaining, "I wanna hear more stuff." I'm really inspired by these people that just like go out and do it, and fall on their face, and get up and do it again.

Well, it sounds like anybody in any business But, and I know like as your career has evolved, right, you're going out and you're doing kids music programs and you're doing synagogue programs and now you're doing concerts and stuff like that. You've had this nice evolution over the last couple years because music was not your first— no— career.

Back when I was in law school, I didn't want to be there, wanted to be playing music, and but didn't want to quit. Wasn't sold that it wasn't going to work until 2009 when like not only was I not happy what I was doing, but there were no opportunities to do it anymore. Anymore for a good year in Manhattan. Um, moved to Philadelphia, uh, rented a room from my brother and sister-in-law. Yeah, born and raised. My family's from Philadelphia. My mom's side of the family's from Philly and Camden. And, um, my brother went to Temple University and settled in Philly and had a young kid and, and, um, an empty room. I rented a room from them and started playing in the park. Um, and that's where you met somebody, and that's, uh 2 years into it. 2 years into it, we got set up and blind date, you know, you never know. Shlomo says, Shlomo Carlebach says you never know. She was not blind. She was not blind, but it was a shidduch date, you know, like with a mutual friend who like convinced us both to meet each other. And we were open to it.

It took. 2 dates.

We went out 2 times. And then we were an item and then we were engaged and then we got married. So we met right after—

Sounds like a Jewish success story.

Well, I'll tell you what the success story is. I was mature enough at 35 or so to realize that whatever image I had growing up of fairy tale happily ever after was not true. And here I'm in a relationship with somebody in my 30s and like We have our stuff.

Stuss. Your pekkalah.

Yeah, we have our packages. We have our mindsets and where we're stuck and where we're not inclined to grow and habits and whatever. And like, they didn't really bother each other. We knew about them. So I jumped on it. I had a little conversation with God. And before I was doing He's producing The Woods all the time. And here we go. Let's make this work. This is going to be real. I got to say that I learned— you know, Sholem Brouda, blessed memory. He would always say the worst thing that happened to all of us growing up are these kids' stories. And they lived happily ever after. And he wants to just add— when I write a kids' book, I want to end it like this in his honor. And they lived happily ever after, and they worked very hard at it.

And, and I would have it from my perspective, which I've been thinking about for years, is, and then the next week they went to couples counseling. Also, right, because that's part of the work. That's part of the, you know, it's that old joke of like back in the day, it's like if you have a therapist, there's something wrong with you. And now, thank God, in 2019, 2020, it's like if you don't have a therapist, there's something wrong with you. Yeah, right. So that whole thing is flipped. Thank God. Thank God. And if you don't— and I always joke like, if they don't like music and if they don't like books There's something not trustworthy. And I've added a new third thing to that over the last couple years. Really? If they don't like Ellen DeGeneres, they're a no-go. Like, if you can't— it's like, uh, she's likable, she's likable, she's relatable. But someone's like, they have a strong negative opinion about her, I can't— I don't know, I don't know if I could trust them. Yeah, it's kind of like a litmus test for me at 41 years old. I know it's a random one, but like, I think we all need to have our little, you know, boundaries of like, what are you going to base judgment on if the people you want in your life. And they're like, if I don't like— if they don't like Alan, can't be friends with them. You know, it's like a— it's a very strong thing. I know, I might actually give a class on it.

How committed are you to that? Are you open to the— to— well, the values of what she—

for sure, right? And that's gonna be actually my class, is me notes-based decision-making, right? Which is about character trait development. And how do you bring that— like, people say, oh yeah, I know what I base my decisions on in life. But if I challenge them to say, okay, give me your list the things that you're actually doing that on, they're gonna have a blank response. So the class that I'm giving at 4 is on that. How do you get really crystal clear on how do you want your life to be based on the decisions you're making, but what are you making those decisions on? Not based on old stories and old narratives, like you were saying about this idea of marriage, but in every aspect of your life. Relationships and friends and spirituality and community and financial investments and your food and your parenting whatever you want it to be, you know. Yeah. So for me, I'm not judging someone else who doesn't. Like, oh, this is my, you know, these are the things, right, that work for me. And like, someone has, like, they're like, oh, I don't like horseradish. That could be someone else's. Sure. Right. Cilantro. Yeah. 30% of the people like actually can't, right?

It tastes like soap. Lee was one of these people.

It tastes like soap. But thank God that wasn't a make-it-or-break-it core value for you. For some people, You know, if they're foodie, that could be a touch and go thing.

Or beards. Or beards. She's actually not a beard person.

Right. But she is now.

But she's a me person. Right. And so, so far? So far so good. Trim the mustache. I'm not tripping over it.

And even though she grew up in Thailand.

And I buy flowers. Well, maybe because, you know. Right, right. Who knows? But I have to tell you that I'm a big Calvin and Hobbes fan. And I always wondered, you know, there's different types of people. There's people that see Hobbes as real and like they have Calvin's perspective on the world and everybody else like they just don't see Hobbes for his real potential. And then there's the straight perspective of Hobbes is a stuffed tiger and Calvin Obviously, I'm much more— I have an affinity for the first type of people, and I thought, like, the person I marry has to see that Hobbes is a real tiger. If she can't see that Hobbes is a real tiger, I don't know how we're gonna hang out. How serious is this gonna get? Yeah. Libba had never heard of Calvin and Hobbes. She can't stand comic books because it's too It's not, uh, it's too much like conversation at once. She doesn't know where to start and like nobody taught her as a kid how to read comic books, so she's like, "That's not my thing." So not only does she not agree with me about Hobbes being a real tiger, but her whole paradigm is different. And yet, we've been married, thank God, more than 7 years and we're still together. And kids. Thank God we have amazing kids that keep me alive and keep me from sleeping. And something to that. And so it could be that your soulmate has never heard of Ellen, who I like. I don't know that I've sat down to watch Ellen's shows. But on Facebook videos when Steve Harvey or somebody I'm interested in at the moment is on, that's always cool. Gary Vee. Gary Vee. Yep. And Jason Wasser. And, uh, Dr. Ginsburg. Dr. Ginsburg and his magical stick.

That's not a metaphor for anything. That's actually a magical stick.

That's a magical walking stick. You know, there's beautiful grounds here. I don't know why I haven't— I don't come here. I come here once a year for Limud. So I gotta come to do—

Yeah, it's a place to go.

It's a place to go. Free. A lot of kosmonim. Don't forget about parking. Actually, you can get into Ola from here. Oh. I got one I got lost once in, why don't we just tell personal stories on the podcast?

This is just for the Weebu community.

When my third kid was born, Halili was born, she was born on, she'd just come home from the hospital I think like Thursday. Levi kicks me out to go do his voter deuce and O'Leather like for the first time in a good week or so. I get lost. Like usually I leave my phone in the car and I go wander the bike trails and I like wandering, wandering, wandering. I brought my phone with me for whatever reason, and I go farther, farther, and then I'm on this, like, I now have a map and I see that it's like a snake trail, and I just like was on the other end of the park and then walked the wrong way. It's Friday afternoon, Shabbos is coming, like, I gotta get home. I end up in FIU's campus, but because I had my phone, I could Uber I could get an Uber, and I got an Uber back to Oletta and drove home. But it was— it might have been the last time I was on this campus.

Nice. Yeah. So, pisztaatli. You got to put the effort in, right?

You got to put the effort in.

And I think that's the beautiful thing about this day, right? WeMove. It's all volunteer-driven. Right. We have no one paid staff. We were just talking about—

not only unpaid, you have to pay to be a volunteer.

And not only are there speakers, but there's comedians and all these other things that are going on. There happens to be a stand-up comedian Standing behind the screen right now with his walkie-talkie. It's a good thing we can talk about work. Right. So yeah, so now if people want to track you down, they want to bring you into their events, go do some stuff, where can they find you?

MusicalMagid.com. Magid with two Gs. And all the info is there. You can find videos and kids' music and Jewish music and dig into Shlomo Carlebach music. Let's talk about spirituality and music. For a second, just for the end. You know, because I do all these music, all these different types of music, and trying to figure out, you know, if you want to be a jack of all trades, you talked about this on your podcast just recently, you want to be a jack of all trades, you end up being like a master of nothing. But how do you give stuff up, or can you actually make a living doing just this? Can you ego handling picking on things? Can you ego handling being just a kids' musician when like, It's only part of it. So I'm thinking a lot about like mission. How do all these things, what's the common area of the kids' music and the Jewish music and the, you know, I like playing great footstep music too, but it's not on mission. Unless it's like for a specific purpose. Trying to create an atmosphere of holy joy, of spirituality, of Songs without that other kind of association, but Jewish music. Yeah. For kids, for adults, for anybody who wants to listen to it, but with like a specific focus on the musical Maguid. I don't—

That's a powerful thing because I know like in the other, like in the Christian world, right? Yeah. Christian, right? Prayer, worship, there's worship music. Right. It's such an embedded part of the culture. I actually saw a Facebook video the other day. Story of someone who worked at a church and he was going around just singing songs and he would stop and he would see which one of his office staff would continue. Yeah, he would like jokingly like rebuke them with a big smile on his face, like, "How do you not know that song?" And they're like, "I don't know the words," or, "I've never heard of that one before." So like there's such an embedded culture in youth work and community with worship scenes, right, that are done just right. And it's— thank you, that's some really good powerful rock music that's coming out of that world that's like, sell millions of records. There's a famous South Park episode about that.

Yeah, yeah, right. Where was it? Double Mer.

Right, Double Mer. So, right, where they wanted like, how do you become a rich musician, right, for the Christian rock world? But it's not that way in the Jewish world. Like, you have this— because it's such, one, we're possibly singing another language, but two, smaller segment of society, right? And then to hit that, like, you know, Latis Yahu, which, you know, we have friend social connections with now as a married to a South Florida girl. And right, there's many other Jewish musicians you've partnered with and collaborated with, but it's a niche, it's a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche. So you got to get really good, you have to make sure your branding is right, your marketing's right, all that stuff. So yeah, yeah, you got to put the work out, you got to hustle. That's the beautiful thing. So cool. All right, well, thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you.

Good. And LiMu 2020, and then obviously we're hoping obviously next year. Yeah, 2021. Amen. Beautiful. All right, back again, LiMu Miami, Lionel Mittelpunkt. Yes. Hey Jason, so afraid that was gonna mess setup, even practicing 15 times. But happy to have you here. I'm very happy to be here. You were one of the speakers that a lot of people are like, oh, this could be really, really cool. And I know you finished up once, you had 2 sessions today. So let's just quickly talk about what you just taught.

So the first one I gave was about 2 for 8, an initiative that I co-founded with partnership together of the Jewish Agency. We are believing that being Jewish is doing Jewish, and doing Jewish for us is easily created, easily replicated initiatives. Because the Jewish world doesn't need any more fundraisers, but we do need a lot of people that are doing and being Jewish for their own good and for our communities.

Awesome. And then that second one?

And the second one is a personal passion of mine. It's virtual reality and what does it mean to have a Jewish identity in virtual reality. And it's gonna be more of a conversation 'cause I believe in introducing the subject of virtual reality. We are in the first, first stage of virtual reality, but our communities definitely need to embrace and understand what it's going to do for us.

And then what we wanted to talk about, even though those are incredible, fascinating things, but I don't want to give away any of the secrets of the goods. That's why you have to come to WeMoot or— And it's being livestreamed. And it's being livestreamed. Right, right, exactly. So there you go. So the idea of young professionals is something you're really passionate about. This idea that we were grown up as, in the future you're gonna have to be responsible for this. So let's go right into that. And I know you had an incredible insight about that.

Yeah, so we are not the next generation anymore because I'm a millennial, Gen Y. Gen Z is already alive and coming into the workforce, and Alphas are being born. We are the present generation. Yeah. And when I say present, I don't mean throw off those in power right now, but it's no longer viable for us to speak of us as a future thing. And the question is not why are millennials distancing themselves from Jewish identity, Jewish communities, Jewish life, but how can we really bring ourselves to lead in this space? And it's really, it's been a real challenge for me personally and for peers of mine, to those of us who are enthusiastic about being involved and have our experiences and have done enough to now come and with as much respect as possible, not have just top-down power schemes working against us, but really how are we changing the Jewish sphere to be co-led by present generations that are able to lead. And now there's a lot of data and, and research behind this. If we don't get the opportunities to lead now, we will not know how to do it in the future. Yeah. So if I don't get to call shots now, I'm not sure who's going to call the shots after. And with that, the main reason why I'm in this and why I was brought into this conversation is because the organizations and Jewish infrastructures— not just Jewish, but we're talking in the Jewish sphere— they realize their irrelevance. And the only way to become relevant again, or maintain relevance, or bring it back, is to invite the people that you want to be relevant for, for the conversation. It is a real struggle, but That's why people like me and my peers, Jewish professionals currently, who are in the grind, and it's not easy. It's not easy being talked at, thrown off, not taken seriously, or taken too seriously, as if we are the threat. No, as if we are the saviors. I will come with my social media infrastructures and I will do this right. No, it takes a whole village and a whole organization to do it right. And if we are— it's not about opening space just physically and making it into an open space. It's about changing the work culture so that— and not just the work culture, but being Jewish. How are we accepting people's expressions of their own Jewish identity?

So it's so interesting because I see a lot of parallels between this being a former professional Jew, now being in a therapy practice, but also working with entrepreneurs. But I see the space and mindset also in the business world that technology has to be a huge part of it. New forward thinking has to be part of it. This idea that we can keep doing the same old, same old that's worked for the last 40 years isn't going to work anymore. And you can't compete in society as a business, as a company, as a nonprofit without catching up. To what's being happened now and taking that. And I see this like dichotomy of struggle. It's like a painful struggle that people say they want this change, but yet they're so comfortable and so familiar with what was.

People say— people say they want to change, but no one likes to change. And changing is hard and difficult, just like Hamilton says. And it's, it's a process. But with that, current power needs needs to understand that they are the ones who are able to call the shots and say, I need to cut on these things now. Yeah. And the reason one of the challenges with this being young adult in the Jewish world is, I know that we know the organization— say, the organization— say, organizations want our dollars for sure, right? But A, we don't A, you don't necessarily have them. B, cost of living is just different. And C, if you're being irrelevant, it's hard for me to be engaged, and the ways that I engage are not counted by you, then you're not gonna get my dollars. And we are the generation that you work with. We create business plans. We need to show that we know everything, the tech side, the workplace side, everything needs to change.

We want transparency. We want to see where it's going. We know that organizations have changed. We know that we don't want the person living off our dollars in a way, or where is it actually going? How are you actually making impact? And I think one of the challenges in South Florida for the young professionals specifically is that every organization is essentially the same. They may have a different cause or a different theme, but they're absolutely doing really at the end of the day the same stuff. We're either a Jewish program or we're an Israel program, but we're still Jewish and they're competing for the exact same people. There's no real niche. There's no real— here's our mission statement— doesn't really stand out. And you just go where your friends go. And I think that's a little bit of the challenge.

It's a challenge and opportunity, just like everything. The challenge is people are engaging with Judaism differently nowadays, to the point where a lot of my connection with Judaism is abroad and not in Israel. As an Israeli, a lot of my Jewish experiences are involved with Burning Man and festivals and being in an airport and finding other Jews. But what my generation needs to learn— and I'm not just saying power old generation needs to learn— but we need to have a lot of appreciation for the fact that these organizations organizations even exist. Because we all know what happened to our people 75 years ago, give or take. My grandparents, when they came to Argentina, had to rebuild their life completely. And what rebuilt our communities are these organizations still existing. So when I say present gen, I'm not saying just let us in. I'm saying we need to take responsibility for what our people have created. And it is a shosharit d'orot, a chain of generations. But right now, we, much like in other industries, but ours is not just an industry, it's a culture, it's a people, it's a meaning. And we have to be very humble. We've let ego and capitalist society just weigh into our engagement with our identity And that's a problem that we must take as our responsibility to fix within the next decade, 'cause I don't know what's gonna happen after that. And I'm 32 now, I'm still young. At 42, my life will be completely different, and I'm speaking for myself and peers of mine, if this grind of being in Jewish organizations, being perceived as on the first day, I'm the savior, and few days after I'm the challenge, then it's not gonna work, right?

I know so many professional— former professional Jews like myself left Jewish communal work because it was that experience. Something that I love doing. I was involved in multiple different organizations, and in one of my last positions, I felt like I got treated no differently than the janitor. And that was my aha. And I'm like, I'm not going to put up with getting paid probably lower than minimum wage, to be told that things are my problem that's been already an issue beforehand, and I should be the savior. I should fix their budget, I should fix this, I should fix their programming. I should be, I should be the Pied Piper. Yeah. And that's going to all of a sudden cause all their woes to go away. So that's a lot of pressure. And I know that the Jewish organizations need to hear this, that they're scaring away people who are so talented and so passionate and so gifted, because— and they're going to go to non-Jewish, non- profits, or they're gonna go to corporate world, or they're gonna go to some other fields because we're not creating that environment for them to feel empowered. And I think that's one of the essential parts of this.

Yes, to a greater extent, I would say me and my peers, we realize it's not about the pay, right? But it should be about the progress. And when you feel like it's neither pay nor progress, that's where you're like, I'm just gonna take my passions and talent. I'm not gonna be as passionate, right? I'm not. I'll find myself or recreate myself.

But that's, that's where the Jewish— It's the LeBron metaphor of what I'm taking my talents to Miami. Yeah, I'll take a pay cut because I want to be here with my boys to do what I want to do that I love. And I'm willing to sacrifice millions of dollars, right? I mean, obviously, give me all glory. It's that we should all be so lucky. But it's that mindset that if you build a community, someone might sacrifice in the professional world a couple thousand dollars in order to continue to see a long-term growth, to be felt like they're bringing value. And I always share this when people call me as a business owner now and they ask me my fees and they're like, wow, that's a lot. I'm like, yeah, but I always believe that I'm gonna give you more value over the cost that you're giving out of your pocket. And if you don't feel that way, then I'm doing something wrong. It's not on you.

Yeah, it's that. And at the same time, it's about evaluation at the workplace. And getting the processes. Really, we are— I'm seeing things come in 10 years after my friends have told me that in their startups or corporate, those things are already happening. And now we're just having the conversation of, should we have this? No, we need to have this. We need to start working just like the world because this is a business and we are an industry.

And we We look at the nonprofit sector not as a business.

That's where I'm challenged by the we. Right. Which part of the we? Because you and I, we get that. Yeah. And if the Jewish world would have accepted that we need this, then maybe we wouldn't go to those same organizations and businesses that have been the supportive side for the past two decades. Because the last two decades got us to here for sure, and we need the future two decades.

Now it's the next— and now is the time. Now is the next step. So good. So because we need to really continue to promote this and push this, and a lot of people need to hear about this, where can they find you? How can they track you down? How can they get involved? How can they bring you out to them?

Where do they go? So on your next, uh, podcast episode, I hope that's the first—

we're gonna go further into that for sure.

And lionomittapunk.com, Lion Mitt on most social spaces, um, Instagram, Facebook, just friend me. My second name is Amit, which in Hebrew means peer or friend. I say I go around the world and I make Jewish friends and non-Jewish friends, so I look forward to connecting with everyone. Awesome. And then the website, 248can.net, is the Two for Eight Network website. Um, we're looking to get to wherever there's people in their late 20s to late 40s that are looking to be connected with Jews all over the world and looking to be inspired and bringing outcomes and outputs.

So if you guys are young professionals and not almost so young professionals, this is the person you want to reach out to. And again, he's here at Limud Miami, and he's going to be speaking also many other places as he travels around and continues to do more of this. So please make sure to check him out. And thanks for hanging out.

Thank you very much.

All right, so we're back at Limud Miami, and we're here with Luna Goldberg, who is the new education manager at the Jewish Museum of Florida in in collaboration with Florida International University. Welcome! Thank you. So this is your first LIMU in Miami, correct? This is. So what do you think so far?

It's been wonderful. It's been really interesting to see all the different panels that we have, and all of them are full, so that's always exciting to see, which is really exciting.

So you're now doing this really awesome job. So what's your day-to-day? What are you hoping to accomplish? Tell us a little bit about the Jewish about the Jewish Museum and their mission?

Absolutely. So the Jewish Museum of Florida is a museum, it's a cultural institution, and we also have exhibitions and public programming around the Jewish history of Florida. So right now we have two exhibitions on view. One is opening next week, and it's an exhibition of Judith Lieber's work. Uh, we also have our core exhibition that's celebrates the history of Jews in Florida since the 1700s up until today. So we've been here that long? We've been here that long. The first population count of Jews in Florida, it was 1763, and there were 3 Jews in Florida at that time. Um, so it's a really long history that's very much rooted all over the state, and we also have some wonderful stories about Miami history. Incredible.

So a little bit more about what you're specifically doing. How are you taking what you're doing out of an office and into the community?

Like, what's— Definitely. So my role is to create public programs for the community. I work with school groups and community groups. So this past week I was at Nautilus Middle School. We recently received a grant through the STEAM+ program of the City of Miami Beach. And so I'm working with about 500 students in local public schools, going into the classroom, bringing our history there, and also doing hands-on activities around these fields of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, looking at how they connect to us as an institution. So a big part of my job is looking at how we could engage different communities, not only Jewish population, populations, but different communities around the immigrant story, which is very much our story that we tell at the museum. It's amazing.

What's been the reception so far? So you're going into public schools and you're the Jewish Museum, so it's right, obviously very Jewish. What's been their experience and like what's been the feedback so far?

It's been really fantastic. You know, we have students from all over, especially in Miami, it's a really diverse city, and so we have students that really recognize their personal histories through our story. It's also a story of tolerance, right? And how do we accept different members of the community? Outside of school programs, we also just recently started a series called Exploring Judaism Through Food, and we actually have one of our Limud organizers, Romy Pastor— Pastor Napperstack, Pastor Napperstack, sorry, um, who's leading cooking workshops for us. And so we have a baking event coming up on March 3rd. We're gonna do a whole program around hamantaschen. So it's—

I would assume that, like, how can you do a Jewish program without food? I mean, that's like kind of our obligatory thing that we do.

So that's very true.

That's very true. It should be like, nope, we're not going to a food program, there's always food no matter what. But, but now they know to come just for that as well. And is there anything else that's upcoming in the next couple months that people should be on the lookout for?

So in the next couple months, I'd say this coming week, this, this next weekend, March 1st, we have the opening of Judith Lieber. That's gonna be a fantastic reception that we're gonna have. And then coming up next, we have a Barbra Streisand show and a Will Eisner exhibit. Exhibition. Well, Eisner was one of the fathers of the graphic novel, so we have wonderful programming planned around all of those exhibitions, and, uh, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Incredible. So if they want to find out more where the events are, if they want to get in touch with you to bring you into, uh, any of these organizations, how can they find that?

So to find us, I'd say just go to our website at jmof.fiu.edu. There you'll find more information about the programs we have coming up, and my email is listed there as well. Awesome.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us. Thank you so much. Hey everybody, so we're at Limud Miami, and I'm with Rabbi Guido Cohen, and he is the associate assistant— the rabbi, the rabbi at Aventura-Turnberry Jewish Center, which is one of the rabbis, one of the awesome rabbis that works at Aventura-Turnberry Maimonides Seminary Jewish Center here in South Florida, and he's also one of the presenters today at LiMud Miami 2020. It's our multiple years of us doing this, so we're happy to have you here.

It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm an old friend of LiMud in the world. I started my connection with LiMud many, many years ago at the second LiMud in Buenos Aires. Wow. I went as a participant and then I I became a volunteer, and then I was part of the content committee, and I made it all the way to the steering committee. Then I traveled to Limud in the UK one day.

The big one, the mothership. Yeah.

It's something every Jew should have in his bucket list. It's like, you know, go to the Western Wall, eat at the deli in New York, go to Limud in UK.

That should be it. Those are like, and is that like the top 3? For sure. Yeah, yeah.

Second Avenue Deli, the Western Wall, Shawarma at Moshe Co., and Limud in UK. And you can come to Shabbat at ADJC also. Fantastic.

So that would be the fourth thing that you have to do, would be go to Avenger, right? Shabbat at— right.

But that I do it quite often. So then I moved to Colombia. Okay. Moved to Colombia after many years in Buenos Aires where I was born and raised. And I started my connection with Limud. And when I moved to Colombia, I realized that people didn't know about Limud, so I organized the dinner at my house, invited 4 or 5 friends, and said like, we're doing this, this is happening in 6 months, we are starting the first Limud ever in Bogotá. I think Limud Bogotá is already having its 5th edition. Amazing, incredible. So when I moved to Miami, I said, okay, where's Limud here?

And here you are. Yeah, amazing. Here I am.

I had to wait a couple of years because there was this—

We had a hiatus for a year or so. But welcome. I'm glad that we're doing this again. This is a really beautiful thing. So I know you're speaking in a little bit. What's the topic that you're speaking on?

So I'm going to be speaking about Mordechai because we're getting closer to Purim and also because I think Mordechai is one of the most fascinating characters in the Bible for Jews who live in America, especially. Because Mordechai opens up the question of how do we deal with power, you know, what's the place of a Jew in Shushan or Capitol Hill, which is kind of the same thing, what's good and what's bad about assimilation, you know, Mordechai is a fully assimilated Jew that saves the Jewish people. So I think if there's one thing that I want people to take away from my session is like, never underestimate the power of an assimilated Jew.

So with the word, maybe because we're in 2020 and words carry a lot of power and we know that, right, in all languages, what would it be like if we stopped using that term assimilated Jew? And because I know the big phrasing in a lot of words is integrative, right, or you're integrated, right, where it's not just you're all or nothing, you're not one, you're not one or the other. So is there something with this Mordechai story where even though he was out there in the world, he was able to integrate his Judaism.

Yeah, I think we were trained to become allergic to the word assimilation. I don't think assimilation is bad. It's bad to a certain degree. It's bad if assimilation is a dilution of your identity and complete separation from the Jewish people. But you know, you're wearing jeans, we're speaking in English, using all kinds of technological devices at a university that is having a church service. And we have— I mean, amazing. When I came here, I was driving and I saw like a church wherever, this way, and we moved that way.

I said like, God bless America, right? God bless America, right? This is— and this is the beautiful thing. And, and, and now not only that, but if you look at our panel panel of speakers. And this is what knowing, like, Limud, right, in London, it's like the book, their program book is a book, right? And here we have people from all different backgrounds, all different observance backgrounds, colors, everything, right? Styles and lifestyles of Jewish life.

I would say that if there is one thing that we have in common, besides the love for Jewish learning and all that, is that to a certain degree we are all assimilated. We wouldn't be here if we will be courageous enough to cross that boundary and go out to the world. And I think it's a very interesting question. And also, one of the things that the book of Esther brings up is how do we deal with acceptance? Because one of the main reasons why the Jews didn't assimilate 2 centuries ago, 3 centuries ago, is because they were not accepted into the broader society. It's not that we didn't want to intermarry. Nobody wanted to marry with us. So, you know, how do we deal with being in a position of power in a society that not only accepts but actually loves being with us?

Right. Do you think there was something that we had to do in order for us to become more accepted in that time period versus now right? Everything's always 50/50. People love you, people hate you, no matter who you are, no matter what your background. What do you think it was? Because when you look into the Jewish laws, there's a lot of rules about not assimilating, not doing this with the non-Jews, not eating these type of things, not celebrating in these type of ways. And you, you think about it, if you look at the text, it's like, we want to separate from them. But you're saying something different. They didn't want to assimilate with us.

I don't know, I I come from Argentina. Right. And in Argentina, I think it's worse news for a Catholic mom if you tell her you're dating a Jew than for a Jewish mom if you tell her that you're dating a Catholic. Wow. Or maybe the same. Yeah. So it's a— we know how to deal with suffering and with persecution. We are learning how to deal with the world that loves us and that accepts and integrates us. And that's a a challenge for the Jewish people. We haven't been taught how to deal with acceptance and with integration. And also I was thinking, you know, it's interesting, I'm here this morning, exactly a week from today I'm going to be landing in DC for AIPAC. Nice. So when you think of Mordechai, like Mordechai was this kind of Jew that had this access to lobbying and meeting with power. And you go to the, to the, to the evening session at AIPAC, the dinner on Monday evening, and it's the largest gathering of congressmen in America outside of the Congress, right, in any given year. So, well, that's, that's a tradition of Mordechai.

And I, and I love seeing that because I know like AIPAC is such a huge— and it brings people from a lot of different backgrounds. Limud is same thing when it comes to learning, right? That you have political advocacy, pro-Israel, whatever it may be. But here, as far as like the context of like anybody can learn and anybody can teach, you don't have to be an expert at something. You just have to be passionate about it. Because I know as I looked on the topics today, there's someone who is not even in the field that they're teaching, but I know they have a very specific interest in it for fun and they're coming here and teaching it and they don't have a certification. They don't have a license in that. They're not a practitioner of it. And I think that's one of the cool— they're Jews. They're Jews. And they want to teach it and share it.

You know what? Even if they're not, and that was one of the most striking phenomena in the MOOD Babata, after the first year, we had to sit at the table, the steering committee, and have a conversation about what do we do with all this amount of non-Jews willing to learn and to teach at the MOOD. And that's also a sign of acceptance and integration. And some people said we have to cap it because there will be more non-Jews than Jews.

That's incredible. That's incredible though. But I wonder how much also is a sign of like, let's say, those from generations ago that might have been Jewish families, right, that were forced to convert and stuff like that, right? Yeah, a lot of that.

But also there's a lot of people who feel attracted and seductive, seductive to our culture, our values. And again, that's, that's another interesting challenge. Maybe next year we can, we can learn about the Book of Maccabees, other times in our tradition, in our history, where the Jews went out there to promote their message, kind of as missionaries. Yeah, amazing, amazing.

So good. So if people want to track you down, where can they find you?

Uh, they can find me— I gave up on Twitter. Yeah, too much toxicity, so I'm not there anymore. They can find me on Facebook. They can find me at athjc.org, and there we have the sermons are sometimes recorded. They can come to shul. They can come to my classes. I'm a big fan of education. I define my rabbinate as an educational rabbinate, so I teach almost every day. I'm teaching something, Talmud, Torah, history, or they can come to Belimud.

I'll be here next year. Exactly. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Maybe you want to invite some friends. Invite me to your podcast.

Absolutely. Right, exactly right. Yep. This will be up online eventually, especially on the WeMood page, and I'll be on WeMood social media. But awesome. Thank you so much, and really looking forward to hanging out. Thank you very much. My pleasure.

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