OMfG, it's shoulder season!

Welcome to the OMFG podcast, Jewish wisdom for unprecedented times. My name is Rabbi Jen Gubitz, and together with my friend and co-conspirator with whom I am often confused, 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 or maybe decades, the world just gives you opportunity after opportunity to say, "OMFG!" Now, the world is the world, but Jewish tradition inspires us to call out to each other and sometimes to God and to try 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've had an awesome summer full of stone fruit, canned sparkling wine or seltzer, and great concerts. Welcome to OMFG.

Hey Jen.

Hey Jodi, how the heck are you? Ah, no, how are you really? How are you really?

I know, like with the head tilt to the side, like how are you? I feel like I have talked extensively on this podcast about how I'm a summer person and I love the summertime. And all of those things are true. And this summer, it really went off the rails at the end of July. And so I'm OK. Today's the first day of school here in the Berkshires. And when I tell you that I don't remember what has happened between the first day of school and visiting day at camp in the middle of the summer, and the time in between just evaporated. Like, that's kind of how I am. Um, which is to say, like, I'm fine, but I'm sad summer is ending and that I don't feel like I really got to soak it up for this last month. So who knows, we've still got Labor Day weekend. I could pack a lot in.

Your family really soaked up that camp crud and came home with fevers and pneumonia, and then Really, it was pretty epic.

And I mean, just to give you a sense of things, when I was at the pharmacy on Monday, I think it was of this week, the pharmacist was like, Jodi, you again? And I was like, the fact that you know me, my name really tells me everything I need to know about how much this has not been fun. So luckily everyone— I feel like I should like throw salt over my shoulder and spit 3 times before I say this, but I think everyone is on the mend now. In body. So now we just need to get everyone's spirits back up for another year of school and all of that.

But I'm always curious with that superstition of spitting, like, where do you spit? I'm glad we're on Zoom. Like, we're online right now, so like, I'm not going to get hit by it. But like, where does that spit go? Really curious.

Well, I feel like when I picture spitting, I also feel like I should have like a potato peeler in my hand and be like, on top of like a pile of peeled— and which is also disgusting. I don't know. How are you?

I'm good. I, um, I'm really great. We had a baby in March, as you well know. I think we maybe mentioned him when we chatted, uh, in June. Uh, his name's Ori Shear, um, and he's awesome. And we were on family leave. Matan and I were on family leave together, which was pretty great. Uh, in our neighborhood, Jamaica Plain, in Boston, every day of the week there was a meetup for parents with new kids. So we actually had a really raving social life. We were tired, but it was really fun. Um, we spent a lot of time in the Berkshires as well, although it was a bit hot. I'd like to order a slightly cooler summer next summer. Yeah. And then we went back to work on July 15th, and that's been an adjustment, but it's been mostly okay. Learning a lot about how your identity changes when you become a new parent and how to navigate being a working parent too. Two-parent working, uh, home. And I think like, but the real like amazing thing about being back to work is that I appointed myself, uh, Rosh Kef, or Chief of Fun, at the temple where I work part-time. And so I did some staff bonding, and you helped actually because we did a blind taste test of lime seltzer as a staff, and you helped me really with the characteristics we were trying to, to vote on. Um, And it was really like, I felt like I had finally come into my fullness as a rabbi and leader and really guiding people towards fun and effervescence. Yeah. And, um, it was great. And I was at Trader Joe's today and realized I could have used Trader Joe's lime seltzer too. So many options.

I was obviously like very inspired by that and will totally copy it at some point again soon. But I don't know if you were originally inspired by the fact that there was this like internet trend over this last month of the blind diet Coke tasting, and I was like, put me in, coach. Like, I am ready. People who are like, this is a bottle, bottle's disgusting. Like, this is a can. Like, I'll deal with it if I have to. You're like, there's the McDonald's. It's the crispy one. And I'm like, I could totally win if it was a competition. Like, I could, I could do that. But yeah, that's funny.

You know, we— I met— we have a new friend whose kiddo is around Ori's age. And, um, she works for America's Test Kitchen. So yeah, so when I told her about it, she was like, oh, you should come down for a taste test. But actually what I'm going to do, we've been gathering other families who like to celebrate Shabbat in our neighborhood, and I want to do a challah taste test. And I'm going to ask her to help me really like professionalize this, this work.

This would be fun. This could be great. I would like to be invited. I would like to come. I don't have a baby to bring, but I have some semi-snarly middle schoolers now. I can bring one.

You have a great personality. That's all it takes.

Oh, thanks. Well, I don't know. I feel like the thing I should really say as a way of getting into this episode with you is that I love summer, and wah-wah, mine kind of disappeared. And I'm mostly working on getting over it, which feels like a perfect segue to talk about this thing that I was telling you about, which now we're going to get to tell our listeners about, which I was thinking about. Like all the different phrases and sort of clichés or ways that we describe time, um, and like sort of like, and this part of time. And so I was thinking first about like the dog days of summer, right? Because like last week it was, it was hot and it was humid and we didn't really have a plan yet for the day. And like both of my kids were just sort of like laying on the couch like being lazy, which like fine, they, you know, they, they went hard this summer. But I was like, oh, they call it the dog days because it's just like you feel hot and lazy. Like, is that why they call it the dog days? And then, um, here in the Berkshires, we have this amazing phrase for the time that's coming up that most people are like, why do you call it that? That makes no sense. But if you live here, somehow it's like part of your, your passport to living here is talking about like this month or so ahead is the shoulder season. So have you heard about this? Like, do you know what a shoulder season is?

I've heard that phrase before. I, I'm not surprised to hear it, but tell me more.

I mean, what, what I feel like I learned in my orientation to living here full-time is that, um, you know, it's like the time where it's like the shoulder— but it's the shoulder— it's the time that shoulders the two seasons. And that because we live in a place that is so beloved, um, by people to come visit in the summer, and we get really, um, full with tourists, that when you live here you're like, oh, but the shoulder season is the best because like it's a little less crowded, but the weather is still perfect. So like, for instance, a shared love of ours, Tanglewood, right? Like there's that idea that the Popular Artists Series is kind of part of the shoulder season because it's like before everyone is here and it's after most people have gone home, theoretically, right? Like the BSO stays in residence all summer and then like, you know, those last couple weeks of June and then like the last couple weeks of August, the shoulder seasons is when we get to try to meet up with the Indigo Girls.

So it's funny because I was like thinking about my shoulders and I was like, does it have anything to do with like your actual body? Quick Google search says shoulder season originated in the 1960s between— and it's like what you described, peak and off-peak travel seasons. But what I was actually thinking about was, um, cardigans. Mm. Like, or, you know, um, yeah, when we need to start covering up. And so like, whatever the AI overview has a couple of options of what it means. And one of them is spring and fall weather, which is that the climate starts to shift. And so it's not warm enough for a t-shirt, but it's not cool enough for a coat. And it says, during these seasons, people may wrap a light shawl or scarf around their shoulders, which could be the origin of the term.

What's that? What's the movie that there's the line like, April 25th, it's the perfect weather. You just need a light jacket.

I'm not good at quoting movies, but hopefully one of our listeners will tell us.

I mean, we'll chime in.

So we have all these ways of talking about time— summer, um, and then this year Labor Day, which is the official end of summer in New England. Not so in the Midwest, we know a lot of kids in the South too went back to school like August 1st. My nieces went back to school last Monday. Growing up, I also was in school by mid-August in Indiana. Um, but at the official end of summer, New England happens this year to also be the official start of the Hebrew month of Elul, which is what kicks off our High Holy Day season. We've talked about that a few times, uh, certainly last season at this time. Um, and for us, I think there's like symbolic alignment, right? Yeah. Um, you literally cannot run away from summer's end, um, because Elul means the High Holy Days are coming in exactly a month. And I think spiritually, like, if you listen really closely you'll hear that the shofar is calling out your name. Jodi! Jodi! Terrible.

I'm so terrible.

I'm not a very good shofar, but she's going to find you.

No, I know. I feel her coming for me. You know, we have much like our sort of shoulder season and dog days of summer discussion. You know, we have a lot of different names in our Jewish tradition that we use to define the season and its holidays. You know, you just mentioned the shofar ram's horn blast, which is why we call Rosh Hashanah Yom Teruah, the day of shouting or blasting, which is one of the biblical names for the holy day.

And then Rosh Hashanah is also referred to as Yom Yibava, which is a Talmudic name meaning the day of sobbing. And the Talmudic picks up— the Talmud picks up on a few stories of people, often mothers, sobbing. Their cries are tied to those sounds of the shofar. When we go from the short blasts, longer blasts, to one extended blast, becoming what the Talmud says is a day of drawing a long sigh and uttering short, piercing cries.

So, you know, to pause there for a moment, the symbolism is pretty apt, you know, especially this year. I've been thinking a lot about mothers and mothering, and I think about mothers and mothering in the context of the ongoing war in Gaza and the continued captivity of the hostages. And I've seen people say it in a sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but it feels really like real to me to imagine how it could be different if we got the mothers around the table, right? If mothers were in charge of that sort of, of that sobbing and of that shouting and to make change, right? To bring about some sort of like substantive change to the ongoing, just, you know, complete devastation of humanity. And so, This could be that year that Yom Yehovah, Day of Sobbing, feels, you know, pretty live for people.

I actually didn't know that word until I was writing a sermon, probably like 7 or 8 years ago when I was doing research. And I— it's funny to me that I didn't know it. And also, like, rabbis are always learning, right? I was early in my career. And so that idea of mothering, I think, ties to the new year. As we enter a new year, Rosh Hashanah signifies the birth of a new world. A new future. And it makes me imagine that in the same way we're all under that same sukkah of shalom, that, that collective shelter of peace, perhaps we're all tied together by one like large umbilical cord too. Um, even though sometimes it feels like— and this is actually a condition that some people experience during pregnancy— it feels like we're all just hanging on to it by a thread. Um, and I want to like marinate on that more because, um, I know that Jewish tradition probably has something to say about, about the ways that we're all connected from the very beginning until this moment right now.

Well, I mean, I would add to that, and maybe this is more of like a— for our listeners, like, if this is interesting to you, you should look, you should look this up and listen to it. There's the song that I've been listening to a lot this summer, and it's called, um, Tefillat Ha'Imahot, the Prayer of the Mothers, and it was recorded in Hebrew and in Arabic by Yael Zuckelbaum. I'm trying to pull out the rest of their names, but Yael Zuckelbaum, the Rana Choir, Miriam Toukan, Daniel Rubin, and Lubna Salameh. And right, it has that— if, you know, if you listen to the song, it has that sort of quality of sobbing and, and just, you know, this like, what else is there to say? Like, what else is there to say except for like all of the mothers right, sort of crying out for an end.

So, and parents of all genders, people of all genders, we include you in that crying sob. So men, if you're listening, or people who are non-binary, we could use—

we're with you, actually.

We need you, we need you too. We know you're with us, you know.

And, and so all of this is to say that this, this fits into this broader framework of the days of repentance also coming for us, much like that shofar. The Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, or those 10 days of return, the days of awe, the Yamim Noraim. We could probably keep going with like more names for the time ahead, not to mention the themes that continue on starting with Slichot and then Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah.

And all these different names I think really deepen the possibilities for meaning of the High Holy Days, right? If you're not, if you're not sure how you're going to find meaning yet this year, you could pick one of these terms to try to like lean into it. So for us, it could be a day of shouting, it could be a day of sobbing, it could be a day of return and repentance, it could be a day of awe and renewal. Um, and it's no wonder then that we need a whole month of Elul to prepare ourselves for all the possibilities.

Yeah, it's no wonder that we rabbis also spend a bit of time maybe indulging in our own suffering to come up with those with— I mean, I hate to call it like this, like there's no right or wrong, but to come up with the right sermon topic for ourselves to be the ones to deliver, for our communities to be the ones to receive, right? Every year, like, the big question for all of us in this moment is like, how am I going to hit all of the themes of the holy days? You know, how am I going to comfort people and teach people and maybe jostle them from complacency? And how can I possibly avoid pissing too many people off? So, I mean, you know, inevitable, but, you know, we do try to avoid it. So today, OMFG listeners, we are going to share with you how we move through preparing for the High Holy Day sermons.

And so first, a top 10 list of procrastination that must occur in order to write your best sermon. Number 10, buy lots of books we won't read. Stack them in piles, schlep them in bags to and from work in case you have time to read, only to find out that you don't have enough time to read them all.

Oh yeah, and I would give a shout out to our local bookstores because I am trying to stop buying books on Amazon. And so this is the time of year I call it, I'm like, can you order this? Can you order this? Can't wait for them to sit on my shelf. Okay, number 9. Number 9, binge watch something completely irrelevant to the themes of the holy days.

I'm waiting for the second installment of Emily in Paris to come through. It made me cry last week, so I feel like— I hope it's not relevant, but it might be. Yeah, to the themes. Uh, number 8, go on a deep dive to find my favorite lotion that was discontinued in 2017 to see if perhaps this year is the year it will be back on the shelves. For those who are really concerned about this, it's called L'Acidrifying 5 if you find it. And also I need to explore the spiritual question at this time of year of why do so many products I love that I've been using since I was 11 get discontinued?

I mean, the difference between you and Job here.

I suffer. I suffer. I know.

All right. Number 7. This is one of my favorites. I've already done it once, so stay tuned. There's more time. But number 7, bake a peach pie with the last of the summer peaches and daydream about being the kind of person who cans or preserves food. I mean, every year without fail, I'm like, look at these tomatoes and corn, like, I wonder if I could just figure out how to save it. And then like sometimes I'll half-heartedly like shave off a few, um, corns because the corn is so delicious this time of year and put it in a Ziploc freezer bag and be like, I'll remember this is here when I'm cooking in November. And, uh, It'll maybe come as no surprise to our listeners that has never actually happened.

When your fridge broke this year, you were like, oh, there's all the corn. I actually had a peach pie last night from Petsy Pies in Boston, which was amazing. And I said to Matan, um, I reflected on a time when we brought a rancid pie to your house because I didn't know fruit pie needed to be refrigerated and brought you one that had been sitting on the countertop. And I said to Matan, we should really bring Jodi a pie when we see her in the coming weeks. And I was like, nah, she gets it, the joke's been made, it's fine.

I mean, I— listen, I love pie and I will always choose pie first as my dessert, but, um, that fermented pie was really— it was memorable. It was really memorable.

It was a little bit of like moonshine. Yeah, crust. So number 6, fold all my clothes in a new format and redo all of my dresser drawers.

Yeah, see, that's like, that's not my kind of procrastination. I love that for you. Uh, number 5, this is something I definitely do when I should be getting ready to write sermons, is I start researching where we should go on a family vacation for the wintertime. And I have found actually some of the best deals, right, in those, like, those days, erev, erev Rosh Hashanah, where all of a sudden I'm like, but we could do this during Christmas break. So stay tuned.

I love that you do that research because then it really inspires me. Much later to be like, where's Jodi going? They had a good experience. How are the chicken fingers? Okay, we're going. Also, can the vegetarian vegan husband survive there?

That is true. That is a part of the market research that I do.

Number 4, ask all of your friends what they are preaching about and see if you could write the same sermon without plagiarizing them.

It's an important step. It is an important step. Number 3, Pick one book you really do want to focus on and read it fast.

I sometimes do it on Kindle so I can like search for words.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Really fast.

Yeah.

Um, number 2, change your sermon topic at least 3 times. Rush to the Berkshires to see the Indigo Girls at Tanglewood on Friday, and then rush back 3 days later to participate in Jodi's senior rabbi installation.

Yeah.

Yay!

Fun one!

Gonna be a great week.

Feels like my bat mitzvah. Number 1, and finally, let the pressure finally kick in after lots of procrastination and panic text your friends to read what you've written. And voilà, there you have it. Magic is made.

I feel like David Letterman would be like, now I know what to do, I can write a sermon.

I got it.

Rosh Hashanah, best top 10 list ever. So it's really all that simple, uh, I hope. I haven't actually written a long-form High Holy Day sermon since 2020. I've written things since then, but I do think I'm up to the task. However, I don't have as much time now to procrastinate, so I have to be way more efficient with the time I'm wasting because Ori, he prefers monosyllabic sermons and is not supportive of my need to wear focus pants.

You know, I remember the sermons that I wrote when girls were babies. And there's like a— it's like a certain way, like your, your brain just changes, and like it'll be beautiful and amazing, and you won't— you literally just will not take as long to write it as you might have.

I can't.

5 years ago.

Can't do it.

It's okay. It's good. It's a good skill to have, honestly. You know, it's—

it—

we're still in the part, you know, we're— we are recording this on August 28th, so we're still in the part where we can laugh about this. You can check with us, you know. But in, in some ways it's foreboding, and in other ways exciting, right? We can joke about it because ultimately I think we both really love it because it's this opportunity to share vision and to speak, to try to speak some truths, to help people experience new ideas or new emotions. But it is worth saying that this year feels a little different or more difficult.

Yeah, we've been saying that though every year since, you know, maybe 2016. I'm actually, you know, my freshman year of college was 9/11. That was the year, um, that all the rabbis who, for those who had actually written their sermons in advance, had to rewrite them. And so I think that like every, I don't know if every year feels more difficult or more, we're more aware of it because we have more access to news at a quicker pace. Because I imagine that suffering and violence and grief have been in the world forever. It's just now like coming at us from every channel.

In the High Holidays in 2017, I gave one of my sermons that I gave was basically like, was 2016, 2017 really the worst year ever? Because it was like that first year of he who shall not be named's presidency. And I did all this research that actually people have throughout history tried to, through some sort of scientific method, say what was the worst year ever? So it's like, was it 2017? Was it the year of the Black Plague or the bubonic plague? And there's something a little bit humbling to realize that there have been points throughout history where people have been like, well, that was the worst year ever. And, uh, maybe it's not a competition, but you know, a friend of ours was telling me that he feels like people in his congregation are just so raw this year. They're so battered spiritually and emotionally that he feels like he has to give them a heads up about what he's going to be talking about. Like he was literally describing for me writing a letter to the congregation Um, you know, basically saying like what his sermon topics would be, which feels like some kind of rabbinic trigger warning, which I had never thought about before. And then I keep thinking about now that he has said it and been like, is there something unique about this year where people like need or want to know what they're coming into?

Yeah, I, I think so. Evan was telling me about that too. Um, shout out to Rabbi Evan Schultz. Of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was telling me that. I was like, oh, it's kind of like a social story for people who need to manage their anticipation, their anxiety, who might need help regulating emotions. And like, not, not knowing what you're walking into can be really difficult. And, and I, I do think that that can be helpful. I mean, I also think it could be like, first, I think some people will be like, Rabbi, why aren't you talking about blah blah blah? I expected more of you. So I think it opens the door to But I also think that, and I try to do this in a lot of settings that I work in, which is that like laying out how people might feel this High Holy Days, um, and offering language, spiritual language, language for accessing feelings, because I do think they're raw. And I don't think that we're, we're preaching to people who don't have a sense of themselves, but I'm not sure that all of us have stopped collectively and sat down in a room together or listened to the same words together, um, in a long time. We are constantly being like having information thrown at us and like consuming news and social media and ideas and things we agree with or disagree with. And I don't think we're like stopping to pause and like experience what it feels like to hear it all. And so I think actually it's a great idea to have a rabbinic trigger warning or a social story to say, here are some of the themes we're going to be covering, and here are some of the ways you might experience that. Even being in a room together with a lot of Jews could provoke, um, anxiety, understandably. And so I think that's really thoughtful of him. I do think people are more raw this year than ever.

Yeah, I was just having a conversation with somebody about this, and I think one of the questions that really— that, like, I'm sort of landing on is like, oh, I wonder— I think people are, are asking themselves this question, and I think over these next few weeks. And certainly right now, we're in that moment of— here in this community of anticipating lots of togetherness soon, right? We've been together all summer. It's been a busy summer. End of summer is a bit of a pause. We have a big communal event that you mentioned earlier next week with my installation, which is so fun and exciting. Right? And then the start of religious school, right? All these reasons why people who maybe haven't been around all summer are about to be back in the building. And the question that I feel like I want to try to discern from people, you know, I'm like, I'm going to look in their eyes and try to figure it out. It's that, you know, are people, are people struggling? Are people's feelings, um, around what's happening in Israel and Gaza right now, are they affecting the— of course they are. That's, I mean, I can answer that, but of course they are affecting the way they walk into Jewish spaces. But then how do we create Jewish spaces where like, is the question like, do you have to check your values and beliefs to have a Jewish spiritual home here. And I think that's going to be like one of probably many of the big challenges for all of us leading through this High Holy Day season, right? Is there room to sit in this space with people who have very, very different opinions than you do, right? But opinions and spiritual postures don't have to be the same thing.

Like, so can we all welcome a new Jewish year together, like, in our Jewish community Anyway, yeah, I think it's that, that famous quote, like, that our role, our responsibility, um, the weight of the work we do is to, like, afflict— no, I'll start with comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Yeah.

Um, it's often misquoted. I believe it's actually a journalism quote.

It is from Chicago. Yes.

Oh, it's— but it's often referred— like, people will be like, oh, the ancient spiritual teacher, and it's pretty modern. But, but I think this question of like, people are coming for so many different reasons and showing up this year that it's like, that's a, it's a big task to figure out how to offer comfort and also, um, jostle us out of complacencies. Um, and hoping that people will be open to hearing and listening. Um, and I also think like for ourselves, like remembering not to react so quickly to what we hear or read.

Yeah, you know, I'm remembering, so this past summer here in the Berkshires, we were, we were very fortunate to host friends and colleagues from Hebrew Union College as part of HUC in the Berkshires. And our colleague Rabbi David Stern gave this really incredible and memorable introduction to the weekend, um, using a metaphor that I think you and I have like heard other people teach before. I think it's a common metaphor, but this idea of like the great Jewish conversation. Right, that like Jews have been talking to each other and about each other and about and with each other, right, for thousands of years. And to cede your seat at the table because you've forgotten to have a conversation, right, like what a shame and what a loss. And that like the real— the strength and the beauty— and I'm paraphrasing him badly, right— of the Jewish people is our ability to like keep the conversation going. And so yeah, I'm thinking about that as, you know, Maybe one way we'll do this.

Yeah, stay in the conversation even if it's hard. Yeah, even if it's hard. Well, we have a lot of work to do, Jodi.

I know, we should probably get to work. So I think as we wrap this up, I am reminded for our listeners of a great one-liner offered to us from the Sephardic tradition of a blessing that is offered on Rosh Hashanah.

It's a great one-liner. One. May the year and its curses come to an end. Amen.

Amen. Wishing you all a sweet and easy ride through this shoulder season.

Amen. Shana Tova.

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.