Here we are, stuck in the middle with you.

Hey there, welcome to the OMFG podcast, Jewish wisdom for unprecedented times. My name is still Rabbi Jen Gubitz, and together with my friend and co-conspirator Rabbi Jodi Gordon, we're so glad you're with us.

OMFG is not just a podcast, it's a philosophy, a worldview, a way of keeping it Jewish while keeping it real. Sometimes, especially if those times are any time in the last few years, the world just gives you opportunity after opportunity to say, "OMFG." Well, the world is the world, but Jewish tradition inspires us to call out to each other and sometimes to God and to figure out what it all means. And so this podcast is our way of inviting you into the conversation.

So in true OMFG fashion, We hope you're on the couch wearing a Snuggie, sipping cold brew heated in the microwave, or dreaming of stone fruits and seltzer. Welcome to OMFG. Hey, Jodi. So I was thinking, it's cold. I'm wearing a fuzzy shirt right now, a sweatshirt that my sister gave me that has a pocket that she thought Joey could fit into, which he's not going to do. Um, but it makes me think about being comfortable. And so I wanted to know, like, what's your favorite comfort food?

Okay, I have like a very clear answer to this, but I just need to rewind for a second to the part where you said you hoped our listeners were reheating their cold brew in the microwave.

I did it the other day because I wanted hot coffee, but I overdid it, so most of it bubbled up. But I still had some hot coffee.

Well, I'm just gonna— I'm just gonna hold down my side of Western Massachusetts and say that the cold brew stays cold. But my favorite comfort food, it's like I have a very, very clear answer, and that is pasta, preferably like a macaroni, but whatever you got, with margarine and ketchup. So we've talked about this before. It's like, it's just the ultimate comfort food. You know, I've had a rough day if you see me eating that. And actually, it's delicious. And I'm not ashamed. And actually, my— it's like, it's like my comfort food for my mom, because that's what she used to eat and make for me. And maybe she was feeling crappy about things, who knows. But yeah, macaroni, margarine specifically, butter if you're feeling fancy, and ketchup.

So when you told me about the ketchup piece, I was trying to be supportive. And I was like, okay, tomato product, tomato product. All right, I see it. I have not been I haven't done it yet, but I was trying to be like, okay, affirming. I affirm your comfort food because yucking someone else's yum is not comforting. My favorite comfort food, since I know you're wondering, is obviously basic Kraft mac and cheese with peas from a can. And if you're feeling fancy, some tuna fish. You'll notice that all of these things are highly processed and come in boxes or cans except for the milk product that you might add. My dad used to make it for us every Sunday after Sunday school. And now my sister, I literally like have like I ship her and give gift her mac and cheese for birthdays and when she's having a hard time. So that's my comfort food in my like vegan or non-dairy gluten-free life. I've made alternatives. But the truth is, is like the orangeness of Kraft mac and cheese I think that's really what casts a glow on dark times.

So I— before we go on, like, I have— what I want to say about your comfort food is I can see it, I can imagine it. I've never tried it. I think if I liked it, I would like it in the same way that I have childhood memories of, um, frozen Stouffer's turkey tetrazzini. Like, yeah, like, yeah, like, I think it would be tasty in that way. I haven't had that in a really long time. I don't remember exactly the whole deal, but like, okay, mac and cheese, peas, and tuna. I'm into it. I can go with that.

I love— I mean, I think it's like, for me, it's like very Midwest. The other thing I could have said is tuna casserole, right? Just, you know, mushroom soup instead of cheese. Um, so turkey tetrazzini is a perfect parallel for you East Coast raised. So, you know, it was— we got to spend New Year's together, which was awesome. We did. We had such a sweet time, and we Did not hit a piñata. We pulled a piñata, which was far less violent, but lovely.

Yeah, we needed, we needed like a gentler start to the, to the new year. So we went for the pull tag piñata with my, with my children.

And we had, you put together a great cheese board and lots of, we, oh right, we had make your own poke bowls because you're brilliant. Um, spent time with your kids who somewhat acknowledged our presence, which was sweet. I got to play guitar with one of your kiddos. What's that?

It's a real improvement. I mean, listen, I think that ultimately, like, if we had to pick one major win out of the way that we concluded 2023 and moved to 2024, it's that your dog Joey, who you have told me time and again doesn't like men, actually seems to have, like, really fallen for Josh, my husband, which is an even bigger win because he doesn't really like dogs. So maybe the two of them just, like, saw in each other like, we should, we should hate each other, but let's prove them wrong.

And if that is how we can reach world peace, then I'll take it.

We'll take our lessons from Joey and Josh.

So here we are, 2024, and I'm wondering, like, how are you?

Uh, you know, I mean, I think it's helpful to remember that January, by and large, is not usually, like, an amazing month. I don't feel like most people walk around January being like, this is great, I'm really into this. Like, All the cold, all the work I put off in December when I kept saying like, oh, we'll take care of that in the new year, and like none of the fun. Um, but I'm— I don't know, I'm okay. It's, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like sort of all fine. I did my illness at the end of December, so like, poo poo poo, knock on wood, I don't feel sick right now, which I feel like most people have something. I mean, everyone in my house has something, but I'm, I'm managing to stand, to stand tall. What about you, my friend? How are you doing?

I'm okay. I have had 2 colds in 2 weeks, which feels rude.

Yeah, very good.

Um, I also had to have trigger thumb surgery, and which was more painful than the doctors had said. And I keep saying like, who knew thumbs were so important? And I think the answer is evolution. Evolution knew that opposable thumbs were critical. You can't buckle your seatbelt. There's so many things. So That's getting better. There's a lot you can't do. I can't open the pickle jar or things like that. And I was thinking more broadly, like, so last time around, last year around this time, we talked about Tu B'Shvat and wintering. Tu B'Shvat is coming up in a few days in the Hebrew calendar, or will be in the past when folks hear this. And we talked about then, like, how Tu B'Shvat brought us to a midwinter halftime show. À la Super Bowl to focus on growth and hope for what will emerge in this kind of yucky month of January. And I wonder if we're going to get like, you know, fan mail being like, January is not so bad, be nice to January.

I mean, we can pause and say like, it's not January's fault that January is January. Like, it just is what it is. We've been in single-digit temperatures all weekend. Like, come on.

Right, right. But I also think like, you know, we're in a post-October 7th world, and for a Jewish podcast, We should probably listen back to that episode to reground ourselves in the sweetness of fruits and wine. But this year I find myself like instead be'emsa, or like in this middle place between October 7th then and now. And I have this sense of being really unsure about where this plot in our lives will go.

Yeah, I, it feels like, like as time stretches on since October 7th, I, it's like we have to assume we're in the middle because like if this can't be the end and we're, and, and we can mark the way in which like we're not quite in the beginning. And there I would pause to say, you know, if you are a consumer of media, um, of those suffering on the ground in real time in Israel and Gaza, right? Like much has not changed. Like much has not shifted out of that initial trauma. Um, but for those of us who for better or worse live at a, at least geographic distance. Something has shifted. We know we're not at the beginning anymore. And I think that that word, the Hebrew word, be'emsa, like just sort of somewhere in the middle, feels fitting. I'm not much of a middle person myself. It doesn't feel so comfortable. There's some, I would say, really unpleasant echoes of that first year of the pandemic where we're like, we're just sitting in it. We don't know what's going to happen. This isn't ending. So in some ways, if we come full circle, it makes sense to be talking about comfort food. Right, in these times where everything just feels, let's say, not great, as like the understatement of the century.

You know, we were just about to change our podcast title from Unprecedented—

Unprecedented Times—

or Jewish Wisdom for Like Not So Interesting Times. But I guess we, we named it well back in December of 2020.

We're staying in business.

Sad, sad reason. But so I was thinking about comfort food, which is why I asked you about it. And so I did some research very high-end, not PhD research. And I found an article on the NIH website, you know, it's a.gov, so it felt trustworthy, that confirms why we eat comfort foods.

I have to say, this does feel like one of those moments when we have to wonder if we really needed science to tell us the answer, but like, why do we? I know, for foods.

I know. So basically, comfort foods make us feel better. And this— shocking. And the study that I read was about rats. But also postmenopausal women, which felt like an unfair comparison. I know. I was like, why did you—

rats and postmenopausal women?

Yeah, like they tried to replicate it in humans. It was super not— I know. I was like, how did they— why?

Like, those are the two groups. Let's look at rats and postmenopausal.

Yeah.

Okay, great. Go on. Go on.

It was not body positive. So I was like, I need something else. And then I found a study from the College of William and Mary that suggests that fermented foods also have this comfort food impact on us and it can improve our gut. And so from that, first of all, I wanna say that our beloved David Ellenson, who died in the past month or so too, was, I believe, an alum of William Mary. So I think that's why I was drawn to, um, that website. But it also made me think about like, okay, if fermented foods bring us comfort and improve our gut, This must be why Jews love pickles. Comfort food remedies our digestive issues in times of grief.

I really, I really like that idea. I would, I would pause here to tell you that we have a beloved Hebrew school teacher at Hevreh, and the re— and one reason that he's beloved is that when you arrive in his 6th and 7th grade Hebrew class, um, he brings a jar of Mount Olive pickles. And when you successfully master a skill and like demonstrate it, you get a pickle. And like this has grown over the years. And like we had a b'nai mitzvah kid in the fall present this teacher with like a Costco-sized jar of mountain olive pickles. So the pickles are not only comforting but inspiring for our Hebrew learning. So maybe all we really need is, you know, a big jar of pickles to make it, make our way through this really dark time. But here's the thing about this particular moment, right? In all seriousness. And by this moment, I'm being super specific. Like, literally right now, today, we are recording this on January 22nd. There's no hostage deal. There's no end to the war in Gaza. There's no end to the rockets. There's no relief in sight. And it's so painful. And I think part of it is because we have surpassed all the timelines that we have as examples in our sort of our understanding, you know, in our adult lives, me and you, Jen, most periods of conflict have either been shorter, right? If we think back to the Gaza Wars in 2014 and 2021, or more episodic, right? Not that periods of intifada and terrorist attacks are, are better in some way, right? But it's less sort of sustained and ongoing, which this really is. And this feeling of being in the middle feels particularly painful because if we think back to November, to Thanksgiving week, In my sort of the way I see it, it's like that period of pause and of watching hostages being released, like even that wasn't enough to move the needle toward a more permanent peace. And we're all left wanting something to change, wanting to know how this ends or evolves. And it feels like we got nothing.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like what's going on and how Israel's responding and the experience of Israelis and the experience of of how the whole world is responding. It doesn't feel like this is getting us anywhere, and it's not working. We need a better way. We need a better way. And so we're in the middle, and, and it's— and I think it's like, I want to have a crystal ball to know how things will end, right?

Totally.

And it's normal. It's— that's normal to want to know how things will end. Um, all the time in our lives, we want to know before we start something, like, how's this gonna go? Is this gonna end as a fairy tale or as a horror story? Um, and it reminds me, I would say this is like trivial compared to like living through a war or being held hostage, but this idea of wanting to know how things end reminds me of something I experienced in my final year of rabbinical school. And I think the timing is sort of relevant. Um, but if you can believe it, I was 29 years old. No, I was 28 still. And I had just finished a summer of chaplaincy at Sloan-Kettering. Nearly every patient that I worked with died. So it was pretty, um, pretty emotionally exhausting and really important work, but very difficult. And I came down with shingles and then I came down with post-viral fatigue and I couldn't leave the house really. And there was no Zoom yet to Zoom into classes. So I was just home for a long time by myself. And it lasted so long, or at least long enough that it was possible to binge watch all 5 seasons of the great TV show Friday Night Lights. It's that fabulous show that was not about Shabbat, but football, starring Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler. So I know we're not mathematicians, but you may know that 5 seasons equals 76 episodes, which also equals 76 hours of television for those who are doing the math.

So like more than 3 full days straight of Friday Night Lights. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sounds amazing, right?

But I did it over the course— like, I actually would say that, like, my binge-watching proportion to other things was, like, relatively okay because it took me a few weeks. Part of that is because you can imagine, as I watched and watched all alone, I became so immersed in the lives of the characters that it was starting to affect me personally. I was completely wrapped up in their lives and it became too much, and I couldn't imagine not knowing what would happen to each of them. You know, would he ever walk again? Would they win the championship? Would she go to college? Would he get help for his addiction? Would their marriage last? Would they be okay?

So what did you do?

Well, unable to deal with waiting to find out, um, about how their lives would turn out— and also remember, 5th year of rabbinical school, how's my life gonna turn out? I did the only logical thing I could think of, and I went to IMDb, Internet Movie Database, and I read about all the remaining episodes so I could know how it all ended rather than having to wait and watch each episode. Um, and that relieved my anxiety tremendously. And I'm not even sure if I finished it then, but I ultimately felt like, okay, they're gonna be okay, everyone's fine, everyone's fine.

So Jen, like, you know, this is something that we know, and I feel like we can offer to our listeners, like, this is something we have in common. So I had COVID for the very first time in December. What a party. And in my COVID isolation, I did a rewatch of Friday Night Lights because it is the ultimate comfort food, or comfort TV, let's call it. And it's like if we can smile and laugh about something in the midst of this crazy world we're living in, I would say that watching it now at the end of 2023 versus when I watched it for the first time, with my roommate, you know, back in like my Brooklyn apartment in 2006 is like my attention really turned from Tim Riggins to Coach. You know, I think it's like a sign of maturity. But, you know, we started by talking about comfort food. And for me, Friday Night Lights is like comforting TV. So of course, I was sort of curious about this. And much like the unsurprising science of comfort food, the unsurprising science of rewatching television shows and why many, many people like to do that is because they bring comfort for a specific reason, right? There's like this— you remove the element of wondering, the element of the unknown. And the key in all of this research about why do people rewatch the same shows over and over again is because it eliminates like the ajda, the tension, the stress of not knowing what's going to happen. Comfort shows are comforting because we know how it ends. And I think that says a lot about how uncomfortable sitting in the middle is and not knowing is for human beings.

Yeah, I think too, like, I know that as I read the news, I get caught up in the stories of families and hostages and people who have died. And it's, you know, it's not a creation on Netflix, it's real. And really, like, wanting to hold out hope for well-being for all of these people, um, it is really uncomfortable too. And I feel like I have to do it because I can't just sit over here in America and, and not pay attention.

Right.

Um, and so when I was thinking about be'emsa, I, I wanted to see if there were any texts about this concept of being in the middle. And I came across a Devar Torah from Rabbi Brian Wexler. He's a conservative rabbi, and he refers us to a Torah portion, Pinchas. It's in the book of Numbers. We're in Exodus right now. But something interesting that he pointed out was that there's a break in in the middle of a particular verse. And he calls it piskeh be'emsa hapassut, a break in the middle of the verse. And it occurs right after a plague. And then the whole rest of the line is empty, which is really unusual for Torah, right? They're really— when scribes write Torah, they are trying to really well utilize all of the space. There's a lot to fit in. And so it's really atypical that there's this huge empty line right after a plague. And Rabbi Wexler suggests that, quote, it clearly contains a pause between when the Torah tells us about a disastrous event and what the response to that tragedy will be.

Hmm. Yeah. It feels like we're like, we are in that pause where we don't know what's going to become of this moment and we can't fast forward. We can't look up the plot and the resolution. And be'emsa, it's such an interesting word. And when you first said it to me, I was reminded of a line in a famous older Israeli folk song, which is called "Odlloah Haftidai," like, "I haven't loved enough." I odloah haftidai.

And this— da da da da da da, turn around. Okay, sorry, back to you.

No, I mean, one day I think we should have an OMFG, like, Israeli dance party. But to be clear, I always sort of cut Israeli dance at camp. But I'm— I'm into it now. But the song, "Odló Ahavtidái," "I Haven't Loved Enough," is all about a person reflecting on all the things they still wish to do in their lifetime, right? I haven't yet built a village, I haven't yet painted a flower. And then there's this line, "Odló matzati mayim be'emtzah hamidbar," "I haven't found water in the middle of the wilderness." And I think that feeling of yearning to live and yearning to love, even more, feels really poignant right now, right? Like there's all these things that we still want to do. There's all these things we still wish for people all over Israel to still be able to do. And right now all we can do is— we don't know. That's the question, right? What do we do when there's no IMDb for this moment in our lives? When we're in a moment of deep existential anxiety that has sort of surpassed all the benchmarks that we would normally have to compare it to. We find ourselves here, and I guess the question is, what blessings could we wrestle from the stories that we already know and apply them to this moment?

Well, lucky for our listeners, we're rabbis, and we do this in some ways, and it's a struggle every week, right? We are always trying to wrestle blessings from the stories of our tradition, which is what Jews have always done, right? We look to the Torah, and it's basically the greatest set of reruns. Since the dawn of creation.

Exactly. We know how the Torah goes every year, even though we're different. We know the story. We have the benefit of hindsight. We know that in that tension of the Purim story, it ends right with a good resolution. We know the Exodus story. We know that slavery ends with redemption. So what has gotten the people of our, of our people through these dark times? How have the Jewish people moved through this dark middle? We have a short list for you, our friends. First, yearning for Israel. Right? Simply yearning for Israel has gotten our people through some of our darkest times. Even amidst the complaining of the Israelites in the desert, even in our moments of both spiritual and physical exile as a people, yearning for Zion has always been a spiritual posture for our people.

Number 2, lighting candles. To literally bring more light into the world. Every Shabbat we have, every holiday we light candles. When darkness comes, literally when daylight ends and evening begins, we light candles, and that helps us create more light in the world.

Number 3, planting new seeds of growth. I saw a story yesterday that really, really, really touched me. So apparently the Jewish National Fund Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, which for those of us who have walked a progressive path with Israel over the years, right, leaving aside other feelings we might have or stories we might know about JNF, I read a story yesterday that they went down to Kibbutz Re'im where the Supernova music festival had been heard, and they went with family members of those who were killed at that music festival, and they literally planted new trees in that site. And the image, right, of all of these saplings, these tiny little not yet full trees that might grow amidst the ashes of their loved ones was really powerful.

So number 4, laughter. Often gallows humor, more often puns, or anything that will bring levity. I feel like there's some great comedy out there right now. The great comedian Alex Edelman— sorry, Alex Edelman— had this— has this amazing one-man show. It's all about him going to a gathering for white supremacists because they said everyone was welcome to attend. Um, so he, he took them up on that, um, invitation. And what's so interesting about it is that he— I read somewhere that he was like, people have been saying like, wow, this is so timely. And the truth is, is that I think he wrote this show and started performing it 5 years ago.

Exactly, exactly. I mean, it is so timely, but it's so funny.

It's so funny and so poignant, and I know that searching for humor can really bring us levity in dark times.

Agreed. Number 5, comfort foods, the food of our ancestors to connect us to our heritage. And listen, that ketchup on macaroni didn't come from nowhere, so thank you, Great Grandma Esther.

Whether it's matzo ball soup or knishes or latkes, I think like really the bumper sticker of what we need to do to get through dark times is eat pickles.

Mm-hmm. And maybe, right, if we're gonna, if we're gonna elevate ourselves out of the pit, so to speak, maybe there is some poetry that can help us cope.

And so elevate ourselves out of the pickle jar, I think, is what you mean.

True. See, as you were going for that, the levity there, I see what you're doing. And so our dear OMFG listeners, a little poetry to help seal us in for this moment with renewed strength and maybe some hope. Carrie Newcomer, an amazing poet, singer-songwriter, human being, drives it home in her poem called "Liminality." So much of what we know lives just beneath the surface. Half of a tree spreads out beneath our feet, living simultaneously in two worlds each half informing and nurturing the whole. A tree is either and neither, but mostly both.

I am drawn to liminal spaces, the half-tamed and unruly patch where the forest gives way and my little garden begins, where water, air, and light overlap, becoming mist on the morning pond.

I like to sit on my porch steps, barn jacket and boots, in the last long exhale of the day, when bats and birds loop in and then out, one rising to work, one readying for sleep.

And although the full moon calls the currents and the dark moon reminds me that my best language has always emerged out of the silent, it is in the waxing and waning where I most often live, neither here nor there but simply on the way.

There are endings and beginnings, one emerging out of the other, but most days I travel in an ever-present and curious now, a betwixt and between that is almost but not quite, the beautiful but not yet.

I've been learning to live with what is, more patient with the process, to love what is becoming and the questions that keep returning.

I am learning to trust the horizon I walk toward is an orientation, not a destination, and that I will keep catching glimpses of something great and luminous from the corner of my eye. I am learning to live where losses hold fast and grief lets loose and unravels, where a new kind of knowing can pick up the thread, where I can slide palms for the paradox and nod at the dawn, as the shadows pull back and spirit meets bone.

We wish everyone blessings in the middle from this middle child and Jodi, not a middle child, older sister. We wish you blessings in the middle, and we are so grateful for the wisdom of Jewish tradition to help hold us in this in-between. So wishing you a happy Tu B'Shvat, wishing you the warmth of friends and family and comfort foods as we move into February, knowing that soon the seeds will sprout and spring will come.

This episode of the OMFG podcast was brought to you by Rabbis Jen Gubitz and Jodi Gordon, editing by Jesse Ulrich, and snark straight from Adonai.