A Jewish Conversation with Rabbi Cary Kozberg (Re-Release) - Episode 375

Hey everybody, just a quick note to let you know that this week is a re-release of a conversation that I had here in Springfield, Ohio at Temple Shalom with Rabbi Kerry Kosberg when we talked about several things pertaining to Jewish faith and life. And I wanted to share it today because just last week in the news I was reminded that in so many parts of the world the Jewish people are still being persecuted. I think sometimes we think that that's gone away, but just last week I read this terrible article about a church— yes, a Christian church in Germany— that put up— I think put up again, actually— a statue that stands like a gargoyle on the church that is incredibly anti-Semitic. And I wanted to just, I guess, in some ways be in solidarity this week as a supporter of especially my friend Rabbi Cary Kosberg. And he always challenges me and presses me to learn more and know more. And I thought this would be maybe a time to re-release an episode like this where we are already hopefully having some good conversations in this country about things that need to be changed and some misconceptions that we have about each other. And the best way to do that is to have conversations. So this is a re-release of that great episode. I really learned a lot. I always do when I talk to Rabbi Kosberg, and I hope that you'll enjoy listening to this again, or maybe for the first time. So God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to the Voices in My Head podcast. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I am excited to be bringing to you today our 200th episode. I guess we'll call it a celebration because that's a lot of episodes that we have under our belt here on Voices in My Head. And I'm really thrilled about my guest today. We are on location at Temple Shalom here in Springfield, Ohio, and my guest is Rabbi Cary Kosberg. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him, and then we're going to share a conversation together. Rabbi Cary Kosberg is the— is a board-certified chaplain and an active member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains, having received that organization's Chaplain of the Year Award in 2012. Well done, congratulations. Rabbi Kosberg is a past chair of the Forum on Religious Spirituality and Aging, a constituent group of the American Society of Aging, and a past editor of FORSA's quarterly newsletter. A published author and poet, he has presented workshops and seminars around the country and is a nationally recognized resource on spiritual, emotional, and psychological challenges that face older adults and their families. His many publications include Honoring Broken Tablets: A Jewish Approach to Dementia, The Whole World Is Full of God's Glory, In Broken Fragments: Jewish Experiences of Alzheimer's Disease Through Diagnosis, Adaptation, and Moving On, and many other resources. He is also currently serving as the rabbi of Temple Shalom here in Springfield, Ohio, and he has also been the director of religious life of the Wexner Heritage Village, a senior residential care facility in Columbus, Ohio, from 1989 to 2015. And his bio actually goes on and on and on. It's very impressive, and I'd love to share more with you, but I don't have time today. So we'll just have to tell you more about that later. But Rabbi Kosberg, thank you so much for being the guest today.

Rick, thanks for having me here. It's a pleasure and an honor. I look forward to this.

Well, this is a first time for me to get to actually come beyond the outer corridors of your temple here. I used to live right next door in the apartment complex.

Really?

And this was my voting precinct. Okay. And from time to time, because I didn't have any space, I had a dog, and I would bring my dog over and we'd play kind of in the backyard, in the field. And a couple people from the temple here, when I talked to them, said, "Oh, that's great. Bring your dog over." So I have fond memories of being next door.

Well, now you're inside.

And now I got— I'm finally on the inside. So I'm very grateful for your hospitality today. I wanted to do this and just ask some questions and see where the conversation took us, because I feel like there is so much more that unites us than divides us between not just Christianity and Judaism, but really all faiths. There's a lot that we can learn from each other in many different ways. And so I really appreciate you taking time today.

Again, thanks for having me.

I'm going to start out with a hospitality question and just allow you to answer as you would. Maybe think about today on the podcast as though you're talking to people who have never been to a temple before and are trying to learn more about it and understanding. And so as I ask you the question, you can kind of just take it from there. And, and I know that that's one of your things you love to do. You've told me—

Absolutely.

—tell people about the faith. So, so the first question I'm going to present to you today is, what does your faith say about welcoming the stranger and attending the needs of others?

Welcoming the stranger is a very, very, very key tenet in the Jewish tradition. We are told 5 separate times in the 5 Books of Moses to love the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. And so it's really about empathy. We know what it's like to be disenfranchised. We know what it's like to be on the outside. So we are commanded to love the stranger as ourselves and to pay attention to the needs of the stranger. But even with that, you know, we look back to our ancestor Abraham, who was the very epitome of hospitality. Our tradition tells us in some of the —what we call the midrash, the backstories of some of the biblical narratives—that when God called Abraham to call people to him, he would set up his tent at the crossroads. And whenever people would come, he would open up his tent and offer them food and offer them water. Of course, the classic story of that is the three visitors that came to his tent. And there's an interesting take on that is that when they showed up, God was actually talking to him. And when they showed up, he said to God, "Excuse me, I'll be with you in a minute. I have to take care of these three visitors." And that's one of the things that God really liked about Abraham. So that in our tradition, you know, the command to Abraham is that we be his walking commercials. We be God's walking commercials. And, you know, to do that really appropriately, to show God's love, to show God's compassion, to show God's loving kindness, we have to do that, particularly for people who are disenfranchised, who are ill, who need help, and who need friends. Yeah, that's—

man, that's a great answer, and I'm so glad to hear that. I've experienced your hospitality just being here today. Now let me ask you this follow-up question to that: How has being Jewish shaped your own attitude toward the treatment of the hungry, the homeless, the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned? You probably kind of answered it in that, in what you just said.

Well, you know, our whole approach to living— and it goes to, you know, so many other topics I think we could talk about— is that we understand our call is to be holy, to promote sanctity in the world. And we get that from Leviticus 19:1-2. You will be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. And in addition to doing the rituals, the ritual commandments that we believe we're commanded to do, You know, we're also commanded again to make sure that we pay attention to the hungry, to the homeless, and again to the disenfranchised. And as we were talking about just a moment ago, some of those people, particularly the elderly and the elderly who are dealing with dementia and their family, you know, Those are people that society right now doesn't really know what to do with. And as you kind of mentioned in, you know, sharing with people my biography, I've spent a lot of my years, my professional life, trying to promote the cause of caring for people with dementia. Because I think those are people that are among the most disenfranchised and the most in need of not so much physical care necessarily, but certainly our emotional care and maintaining connections with them. Sure.

So are there ways that you encourage your people that you shepherd over, so to speak, to get involved with people like, say, in homes that may have dementia and things?

I do, and You know, there's a— you can talk to people about how to do it, but it really is a thing, something that people have to come to on their own. It's almost like exercise, physical exercise. You can talk to people about the physical benefits of it, and, you know, intellectually they get it, but until someone really picks up that barbell or gets on the elliptical and really has that experience, you know, they may shy away from it. So what I've tried to do is really teach people how to communicate with folks who no longer have the ability to communicate the way you and I might. Right. To kind of— what I like to say is when someone with dementia is talking nonsense, okay, you have to, you have to kind of experience it like you would a rock and roll song. What do I mean by that? Okay. Those of us who are fans of classic rock and roll remember the melody. We don't necessarily know the lyrics. Okay. So people— these people may be talking nonsense lyrics, but we need to listen to the melody. We need to listen to how they're saying what they're saying. We need to pay attention to their body language. We need to— because really when you're talking about maintaining connections with people with dementia and with other elderly people, it's not necessarily what they're saying, it's how they're saying it. And responding appropriately is going to help you maintain that connection with them. Yeah.

Well, I had a chance to read through the pamphlet you sent me yesterday. I really appreciate that. And it was the paper that— the title's leaving me, but it was on Jewish spirituality and dementia. One thing that I really loved how you brought out, I believe it was a man who was suffering with dementia and his son didn't quite know how because he didn't seem like the same dad he'd always had. Exactly. And so part of your ministry to him was helping him understand that this is still dad, he's just perceiving the world differently. Absolutely. And I think you brought out, I'm not going to be able to quote it word for word, I should have had it in front of me, but there was a part that you refer to it in the same way that everybody seems to have a different way of interpreting spirituality, whether it be a child of various ages. And we wouldn't say, well, because you don't understand the way that we do, we're not gonna do anything with you in matters of faith or anything like that. And I liked how you brought that out because I do think sometimes— I don't know if it's just this society, but it does feel like often the elderly are thrown away in our society. Society.

When we're talking about stories of people with dementia who, you know, people ask questions, well, do these people still have spiritual needs? And I think in our time we assume that if a person is spiritual, they are able to articulate that spirituality, and if they're no longer able to, that they no longer have spiritual needs or have the ability to feel from the heart and the soul. Okay, one of my favorite stories, and I'm gonna tell the story. It's got a bit of salty language in it, but you'll understand the need for the salty language. Okay. And this is a true story. I heard it at a conference years ago, and I've used it a number of times to make the point. There was a woman who was a member of church, and she was about in her mid-80s. She was living in a assisted living facility. She had dementia. The staff was, was telling the family that she was declining and they really didn't know how quickly the decline was going to progress. So the family decided that if mom was still okay, if she was still able to ambulate and she could do it, they were going to take her to church on Christmas Eve. She had been a member of this church all of her life, and this was probably gonna be the last time she'd be able to experience Christmas Eve at her church. So Christmas Eve came, they were able to take Mom out. Her dementia had progressed. They made proper arrangements, they got her down to the front row, they surrounded her, they kept cueing her to watch the, watch the, the stage. Because it was a nativity play. They made sure she wasn't distracted. And it was an activity, again, a nativity play, and they were watching mom, and mom's face was just mesmerized. She was just into it. I mean, totally into it. And there was a time in the nativity play where one of the shepherds comes up to the manger and says in appropriate affect, "Is it possible that this baby is the one we've been looking for? Is it possible this infant really is God's Messiah?" This woman, listening to the affect, jumps out of her chair and at the top of her voice says, "Of course he is! Any dumb son of a bitch knows that!" Well, you know, hearing that story Sure. That comes from a woman with dementia. You tell me she doesn't get it. Yeah, right. Emphatically, yeah. Emphatically, she does. So again, that story for me has always been the touchstone of people with dementia do have spiritual— people with dementia do have spiritual needs, and we just need to find ways of connecting, you know, keeping them connected.

Sure. Yeah.

We don't do— you know, the commandment in Leviticus 19 says, "Show deference to the elderly." Okay. It doesn't say clothe them. It doesn't say feed them. It doesn't say keep them in nice places. We do that automatically. It says, "Show deference. Pay attention to them. Keep relations with them." Because that's what they need more than anything. Wow. They don't— we commit a sin, in my in my book, we commit a major sin when we ignore them. Yeah.

Oh, that's so true. And relationship— and I think even taking time to listen, you know, often is a key thing, or just being in the presence of people. We take that so for granted, and we've become in many ways, a lot of us in this society, so internalized that we forget that that's such a need. So Yeah. Yeah. Well, very good. Well, I could talk more about this for sure. And I think you're saying some really good things, but I want to get into some other areas of our conversation. But the more we talk, the more I just think about more things on this topic that so fascinate me. But I'll just, I guess, leave this topic by saying I love that you are incorporating that into what you do, because I do feel like there is a real need that we make sure people don't get left behind. And I loved how you said that paying deference to them. It's more than just clothing them and giving them food. They need relationship and they need help. So, very good. So let's talk about eating and drinking a little bit. Celebrating. I'm always interested in the different ways that we commemorate and celebrate and do things together. So the question I have for you is, how do people of your faith engage in feasting and fasting to celebrate or commemorate special religious events? This may be actually of interest to a lot of our listeners because we're right now as Christians in the middle of the season of Lent where there's a lot of fasting that happens. And Sunday is always a feast day. So I'd love to hear just, you know, from that about how your people engage in feasting and fasting.

That's an excellent question. You know, for us it's really about how do we mark the sacredness of time. For us in the Jewish tradition, We are commanded to sanctify time, and sometimes we sanctify it by feasting, and we're commanded to, particularly around the holiday of Tabernacles, of Sukkot. We are told specifically that we are to celebrate, and we are to give thanks to God for the bounty. Basically, the holidays are Jewish Thanksgiving, and on holiday like that, where for us, you know, as you all are in the Lent season and coming up on Easter, we're getting ready for Passover. And for Passover, for us specifically, we are to remember the exodus from Egypt specifically by feasting. You know, we sit around the table and we take our time, we tell the story of the exodus from Egypt in and we weave in eating certain ceremonial foods. And in ancient times, as I'm sure your listeners know, our ancestors did that in Jerusalem. They basically grilled a lamb chop and shared the Passover offering in family groups. We don't, we don't do the lamb thing anymore because The temple is no longer standing, but we do get together in family groups, and it's basically a celebration at Passover, as it is on any given Sabbath Friday night, sitting around the table, ideally having a wonderful meal to the point where people sometimes unbuckle their pants. Yeah. I'll tell you, I was at a Passover meal where my uncle had eaten so much that he unbuckled his pants. And we were in conversation, he forgot he unbuckled his pants. He stood up and his pants fell down. And we all had a good laugh, but he was really enjoying himself and doing what he was supposed to do. On the other hand, there are other days during the year when sanctifying time means that we engage in fasting. And the fast that most people know of is the Day of Atonement, which we are commanded to abstain not only from eating but from marital relations and from anything that causes us to feel physically good. Yeah. There are other days in the calendar year that commemorate historical tragedies in Jewish history when we're also supposed to to fast. But really, this is all about, again, sanctifying time. And, you know, as Ecclesiastes— to paraphrase— there's a time to be happy, there's a time to be sad. Yeah.

Now let me ask you this question that relates to fasting, because in Christianity— and I go to many different churches, I travel a lot, I do music, I do things like that— it seems like everybody has a different idea about what fasting is. How long it's supposed to last. How long it's supposed to go. And I've heard multiple different things, you know. No, it's a 40-day fast, so we're not going to eat anything for 40 days. I'm like, how do you do that? You know, I mean, so a typical Jewish fast, if you have a fast day, does it run from sundown to sunup? Does it— I'm just curious as to how you approach that.

Well, there are two typical Jewish fast days, okay? And they have both have to do with time. One is the we call it 25-hour fast. It's a little— about an hour longer than sundown to sundown. And that would be the fast of the Day of Atonement. Okay. There are other fasts that are more sunup to sundown. Okay. And those are fasts that are not biblically ordained, but they are ordained by the sages. And those, again, tend to be more related to historical events and not to biblically ordained God commands. Commanded fasts like the Day of Atonement. The question is, how are they observed? Biblically ordained fasts, we are not supposed to eat or drink anything for that amount of time. There are exceptions. I mean, if someone is— needs to take medication or someone needs to eat, obviously exceptions are made, but One is expected to do the best one can, literally in good faith. Sure. If one has to eat or drink, you drink water, you don't drink a Coke. Yeah, right. If you have to eat, you have a piece of bread or an apple, you don't have a hamburger. So again, it's got to be I would say, with the right frame of mind.

Yeah, well, that's very interesting to me. Being that we're in Protestant churches even are so different than Catholic churches or Orthodox churches or different things, and so I feel like half the time we're trying to get back to a place we were before and trying to figure out fasting half the time. And so we come to a season of Lent, and for the longest time, because the particular denomination I'm in, the Nazarene Church, we didn't do Lent for the longest time. It was— yeah, that's my understanding.

So I was a little bit surprised.

Yeah, we've kind of turned a corner, and we're getting back to a lot of the liturgical practices and things in many ways, just sort of broadly across evangelicalism, I think. But one thing I didn't know growing up was I always thought the entire 40 days plus Sundays I had to be fasting. I didn't know Sunday was always considered a feast day, you know. And I was, and I was so relieved, like 3 years ago when I realized, "Oh, I don't have to fast on Sunday." But it's the same for us on the Sabbath.

Yeah. When the only exception is when the Day of Atonement does fall on the Sabbath, we have to fast. But when other fast days fall on the Sabbath, the fast day is pushed to the next day. Yeah. Okay, because the Sabbath, except for the Day of Atonement, the Sabbath always takes precedent.

And well, I love that you actually take time to do feasts. To, that you actually eat together. Because we may not understand how critical that is, but how even countercultural that is in a fast food world. Totally. What that means that we would—

families are doing their own thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, how many meals are eaten on the go in the backseat of a car while mom or dad drives down the street or something? And sometimes it can't be helped because of people's lifestyle, but I love the idea that we we would make a part of our faith that we actually have to stop and take time together to share a meal.

Right, and even along those lines, even if we're not able to share a meal together, just— when you talk about fast food, I always have the image of people stopping, stuffing their faces, and moving on. Yeah. Okay, not even taking the time to thank God. Yeah. You know, say grace. In our tradition, interestingly enough, We're taught that saying grace after you eat is more important than saying grace before you eat. Why is that? Because before you eat, you're naturally going to be thankful because you're hungry. But as scripture reminds us, after someone's belly is full, they have a tendency to forget. "Well, I was hungry and yeah, but now I'm full and I'm going to go on about my day." That's the time we're commanded. That's when you thank God. Yeah. You know, when your belly's full.

Excellent. I actually was gonna bring that up, so I'm glad you brought it up first. I like the idea of taking time after the meal to give thanks. That's fantastic.

That's a sign of humility, I think.

Yeah, I think you're right. It would do us all good to figure that out, for sure. We're at the point— just to tell you a funny story— my son's 4 years old, and we were trying to teach him different things. He's learning how to sing. He's learning all kinds of different things at this point in life. Sometimes you can understand what he's saying, sometimes you can't. But we're trying to do consistent prayers at the table, you know, so that he can learn the prayers when we pray them together. And he's still just not quite there with this. He keeps looking at us saying, "No, you say it. You say it," you know. But the last few times we've done it, he's said about half the prayer with us and actually says it at mealtime. And so I'm grateful because I think the table, if nothing else, fellowship aside, I think the table can be a teaching moment too. It can help us to be such a way to teach our children.

Actually, our tradition teaches that if people sit together at a meal and words of Torah, words, you know, religious discussion doesn't take place, one rabbi makes the statement— it may be hyperbole— he says It's like worshiping idols. It's like the meal was not for God's sake. It was for, you know, for dedicated to idolatry because nothing about God was mentioned.

Wow, that's powerful. That's a powerful thought.

I wish we could do that more.

Yeah, for sure. Well, let's move on to a different topic that is another thing I know after reading your bio you care about. But caring for your body and honoring your body, and I have been increasingly doing that a lot more. I've been working out a lot. I've, over the last about 3 years, I've lost and kept off about 50 pounds. Good for you. God bless. And very adamant about, you know, this is— it's not only for health reasons, but I feel like it honors God in the way that, you know, we do this. And I feel better about myself, you know, so I'm wearing a pant size I haven't worn since high school. So that's— it's just, I'm feeling much better about life. So it's a topic I like to talk about too. So let me just ask you this question: how does your faith teach respect for life and respect for the human body? Well, the human body is—

for Jewish tradition, the human body is sacred. I mean, when we're taught, you know, we are created in in God's image. I know many religious traditions say, well, that's really about the soul and the body is just the vessel. Okay. Our tradition says both, not that the human body really, that God has a body, but it's part of who we are. Right. And therefore it is intrinsically sacred. And that's why, you know, in traditional Judaism, cremation is prohibited because our teaching is that you don't burn something that's sacred. You burn garbage to dispose of it, but to burn something would be to treat it disrespectfully. And that's why in tradition, Jewish tradition, the body itself is buried. So that it naturally decomposes. In terms of caring for the body, we are taught that our bodies are not our own. We are, you know, they're given to us in stewardship and therefore we have a responsibility to take care of them the best we can. On the one hand, we are, you know, we're supposed to do whatever we can to keep the keep them healthy, and we're not supposed to do anything that will harm them because again, they're not, they're not really ours. They're given to us in stewardship. They're not garbage.

I like how you put it that way.

Now, in terms of exercise, I gotta say, I came to exercise— I was never an athlete in school. I was pretty much couch potato. Yeah. And in my mid-30s, I started working out and found that I really liked it. I will admit to being a bit of a compulsive about it. But for me, it's more about keeping the discipline. And also I know that once, you know, whenever I do, my mind gets clear. And I try to make that time, rather than see it as, you know, this is for my own ego and this is for God. I try to make my exercise time, again, something sacred.

Well, and I'm with you there on that because I, just because of our schedules, I get up most mornings about 4 AM to start my routine. I mean, honestly, it just has to happen that way and it takes me a couple hours to get through the routine I do. But I found that It's actually helped my spiritual life too in the sense that I'm big into memorizing prayers. I don't just anymore— I don't try to be extemporaneous as much because I want valuable things to be coming from my lips to God. So I start prayers that I've memorized in the morning and I pray them from my heart. I've gotten to the point after about a year of doing this particular way of praying along with getting up to work out, about that first 30 minutes of even waking up in the morning, I start my prayer time and I just start saying it. Nobody else is awake yet, it's just me, and as I'm getting my clothes changed, I'm heading for the gym, I start going through different prayers. Father God, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God of Israel, hear my prayer. You know, I just begin almost like— I believe it's what's called the Amidah in the Jewish tradition. But I find that in the mornings, even though, I mean, I don't like getting up at 4, but I do find, and even the workout I don't always like. I understand. It's pretty difficult. But it's so helpful to me. And I have found that even that routine itself, I told you before that we lost my grandmother who had dementia last year. When I was at my grandmother's bedside, or even this past year, my wife and I, we went through two different miscarriages. Carriages when, you know, and thank you. Um, but in those moments, I was finding that those prayers just began to flow out of me, you know. And a lot of it came from making a steady routine, a discipline of like doing it and getting up to work out and getting up to pray and doing those things. And I do think they can really go hand in hand together.

In fact, and I've said to folks, um, um, exercise and prayer are very, very similar because they are discipline. And sometimes, no, you don't feel it. You say the words, but you don't feel it. We have a concept of what's called keva and kavanah. Keva is the prayers that you memorize. The kavanah is the devotion that you're supposed to bring to that. Well, you know, you and I both know that sometimes if you're in an exercise routine, you do it, but you're not really into it. But you know if you stop it, you're going to backslide. Right. Okay, and it's basically the same thing. If you want to get spiritually stronger, you've got to keep up the discipline. If you want to get physically stronger, you've got to keep up the discipline.

Yeah. All my evangelical listeners are going to be thrilled that you just said the word backslide.

I just want to add a footnote to this, that this is really an interesting conversation because I'm friends on Facebook with a woman whose brother is a big physical fitness celebrity. Okay, and she, she does her own, she has her own following, and somehow I've gotten to be Facebook friends with her, and she posted something last week that basically said, you know, if you're, if you're observing Lent and you want to maintain your health, this is what you can do. And so I messaged her. I didn't want to embarrass her, so I probably— I said, I said, I noticed you posted something about Lent. I said, do you observe Lent? And she sheepishly said, I'm Catholic, I observe. And I don't know what she thought I was going to say, if I was going to you know, come down on her and criticize her. I said, I said, good for you. And I said, you know, it's good. I'm happy to see celebrities— and she's a celebrity— I'm happy to see celebrities who are humble. Yeah. Okay. Who, you know, she's really into physical fitness. She wants people to be physically fit. She— her brother's a big, you know, and some of her notoriety is because of him, and yet she knows that this, that physical fitness is not everything. There's got to be room for God, right?

Got to be room for God. Well, that, that'll, uh, take us into this next topic. We just got a few more minutes. I, I made way too many questions, so we'll have to do—

I hope we can do this again.

Yeah, sure, sure. Um, but I love talking about every topic we've talked about today, actually. But I want to just get back to— it's really in the same topic that we're discussing, but I can't get away from something you just said a few minutes ago about we are not garbage. You know, we don't burn garbage. And I would love to know, you know, we are in a world, as you know, you just said Facebook, so that's one of the huge ways that we communicate and see the world oftentimes. We get mixed messages from the media about our worth, you know, and about who we are, or that we are worthless, so we don't measure up because we don't look like a famous bodybuilder or things like that. So I'm wondering, like, as a person of faith, how is— how does that translate when you're talking to people? About their self-image or about their self-care and their personal adornment or whatever it may be?

Two things, and they may seem contradictory, but they're not really. We should do what we can to be attractive to other people because that's— if we're not, we may not have an opportunity then to connect with with them. Okay. By the same token, it shouldn't be our total focus. Right. Okay. You know, as you indicated, our culture pays a whole lot of attention to physical beauty and physical appearance. And I think to go back to something we were talking about a few minutes ago, I think that's one of the reasons that, you know, our elderly are shunned aside because one of the things they've lost is physical beauty and, you know, stamina, and therefore people ignore them. But again, their souls are still vibrant. Yeah. You know, I'm going to be 66 this week. Okay. I still feel like I'm 22. Okay. But I also know that when I interact with people, and I can tell this, you know, when a 35-year-old woman calls me sir, I know what's going on. Yeah. You know, I could tell her I don't feel 66, okay, but I'm the age of her father, you know, and she's going to treat me either respectfully or she's going to ignore me like she would any other 66-year-old. Yeah, right, right, exactly. And I think that's really a shame because, again, God doesn't make garbage. And if we're in this world, it's one of the problems of the whole ethics of assisted suicide. You know, when people— and I'm not getting into the physical pain thing, okay? But when someone says, you know, I can do with my life what I want and I don't need to be around anymore. If you're a God-fearing person, a God-revering person, I would think you'd want to say, well, if I'm still here, God must have need for me here. Even if I'm lying in a bed comatose, but I'm not— God hasn't taken me yet. My life still has a purpose. It may be, you know, the people caring for me. I'm giving them an opportunity to learn more patience, more compassion, to better do what they do. You know, I'm not just taking from them. I'm giving back. And I think that's something we don't— we don't remember a lot.

Yeah. Then, and, you know, so often our society throws around the word, you know, the words pro-life, pro-choice, things like that. And often when we say pro-life, I think we mean pro-birth. And we're not thinking about those other aspects of— that we really are— especially because if we believe Scripture that we're created in the image of God, then there's something of value truly there.

When God created the world, what did he say? I mean, the difference between the Bible and a science book is the Bible gives an evaluation of what's there. Right. You know, God saw, it is good. Yeah. Science doesn't tell us that.

Science just tells us what is. Yeah. You had just said something and it sparked something else and then I forgot what it was. Maybe I'll think of it if I sit here long enough. Because it makes for good listening when a person just meanders in their thoughts. Well, I've lost what the train of thought was, but I appreciate your answers so much. They're so good. I'm going to kind of head to where I was going to head for wrapping up today, just because I want to not take too much time and maybe save more for another podcast.

I hope we can do this again. I've had a great time. I hope folks who are listening are having a good time.

Yeah, I've really been enjoying it, and there's a real— I feel very at ease in your presence, I guess. Good. It's not always like that when you meet somebody for the first time, but I feel very kindred in that way. I'm following Abraham's example. All right, very good. How about a couple different things, and then we'll close out? I'm a musician, so music is always interesting to me. And so I'd love to ask you a question about music in particular. What are some of the ways that people of your faith tradition use music or other rituals to symbolize life events or significant religious events?

Good question. Well, that's a very interesting question. It's got different aspects of an answer. Music traditionally was always a very important part of expressing joy and gratitude to God. I mean, David was a musician. Throughout the Psalms, it says, "Sing to God, sing to God, sing to God. Play music on the lyre and the harp and whatever other musical instruments." So singing and dancing is a big, big part. When the Temple, the Holy Temple, was destroyed in the year 70, the rabbinic sages declared that since the Temple, that holy spot, is no longer in existence, instrumental music was going to be suspended. And in most traditional synagogues, that is still the case. When you, when you go to a worship service in a traditional synagogue— by the way, we're not, we're a Reform synagogue, so we do have music. Okay. On our holidays, we have keyboard. Friday night I play guitar. Nice. And try to use, kind of recreate that kind of atmosphere. But traditionally the idea was that with the absence of the temple, our joy is lessened. And one of the ways that the sages said that that should be expressed is to suspend music, you know, actual instrumental music. And so in traditional synagogues, you're going to see that when you go to a worship service, everything will be a cappella. Having experienced both, depending on my prayer mood, I like both. There are times when I appreciate the a cappella in a more meditative stance, and there are times when I like to rock out. Yeah. So any particular— And I'm a drummer also.

Oh, nice. Fantastic. That's my first instrument. I'm a wannabe drummer. I'm much more of a guitar player and a piano player.

You and I need to get together.

Yeah, we should. That's for sure. Is there a particular song or hymn that comes to mind when you think of your faith? Like something that—

I would say probably, you know, you're asking me, probably because it's Friday, we're getting ready for the Sabbath, I would say Psalm 92. Psalm 92, very good. Song for the Sabbath. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing to his, you know, to sing to him, O Most High.

All right. Yeah, you know what, I should have brought it with me. I live down the road, I'll bring it by, but I did an album of all Psalms. Oh really? Yeah, it's called Basement Psalms. It's a live album. We recorded it at the at the Clifton Opera House. And it was my best interpretation of sort of making modern music along with some of the passages from different songs. I used two Psalms from each of the five sections of the Book of Psalms because I didn't want to sing 150 songs in the concert. But yeah, so I'll have to bring that by sometime. But that's really good to hear. I love to hear that. I remembered where I was going to go before I get to my final question. You had made reference to the fear of the Lord, a person who fears the Lord or reveres the Lord. I'd love to talk about that because I think the idea of fear actually leads into my final question. We sometimes have what I think is a distorted view of who God is oftentimes because maybe we misinterpret what the word fear means. Often we talk about the fear of the Lord. Amen. And I wonder if you could help us understand that more clearly, because when, when our society thinks of fear, we might be thinking of like a horror movie and like fear this monster that's going to be coming forward.

And that's the way people experience God, don't they?

Right. So, so as, as a Jewish person, a rabbi, as you're talking to someone about fear of the Lord, how would you describe that?

I'm so glad you asked that. And maybe we saved the best for last. Maybe. Maybe so. The Hebrew word for fear in this context is yir'ah. Now, yir'ah can mean fear. It can also mean reverence. When you revere something, you don't take— you respect its boundaries. You don't get too familiar with it. We're supposed to revere our parents. Parents. It was to honor our parents. And that means you don't take them for granted and you don't get too familiar. You don't call them by their first name. You don't curse them. You don't treat them like you would your best friend. It's a different kind of relationship. Right. If that relationship is violated, there's going to be some significant consequences. And I think that's where the "be afraid" part comes in. We're not supposed to be afraid of God. Okay. That leads into the whole question about— and I know that a lot of people understand the God of the Old Testament is an angry God. And I've often thought about that. Why do people get angry? Anger is not a primary emotion. It's a secondary emotion. Anger comes from the entity that is angry feeling betrayed. So, we have to understand, at least from our tradition, we understand that when God gets angry— we're talking about God's anger— He's not getting angry because He's angry. He's getting angry because He feels betrayed by us. He's told us exactly what He wants us to do. And on the one hand, we say, "Yeah, we're going to do it," and then we go do something else. We tend to— our tradition, we understand our relationship with God as being that of not just best friends, but almost of a spouse. And we go back to the book of Hosea, okay, where that relationship is talked about. When God gets angry, it's like, you know, if your person who you love betrays you, Aren't you gonna have some feelings about that? Yeah. And why wouldn't we expect God to be upset when we're unfaithful? Yeah.

And yet even in that Hosea passage— and it's one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and what a powerful image it is that God has Hosea marry a prostitute. Yeah. You know, to show that. And yet there's a passage passage, and I'm gonna butcher it because my memory is just bad on things sometimes, but the gist of it is that even with what God knows of his bride, his people, he still says, "But I will woo her back to me." Right, right. He hasn't divorced us. Yeah, and I think about that, and I think that is one of the most beautiful, loving things. True love, not just a felt love, but a deeper love that goes to the core. Why should God be the one that would want to woo back the one that was unfaithful? Shouldn't the one who was unfaithful just knock themselves over trying to, you know, to go back?

So that's where we see God's patience. Yes. You know, I'm gonna wait for you. Yeah. I'm gonna wait for you. I'm gonna be faithful, okay? I love you. I want you. I'm gonna wait for you.

Yeah.

It's not just about God being angry. Angry. Yeah. And it's really unfortunate that's where people go. Yeah. I mean, it almost sounds like, you know, God has this personality disorder. Yeah, right, right. You know, he's just, you know, he's angry all the time. Well, that's not the way it works. People— Yeah. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. Yeah. And when God is experiencing our being indifferent, yeah, you know, If that's where we are, if we were experiencing the same thing from someone who we cared about, or we thought cared about us, we feel the same emotion.

Yeah, and it's, yeah, we feel those emotions because there is relationship there. Exactly. That's good stuff. That was a wonderful, thank you for explaining that. That was right in line. Well, let me do the last thing, and this has to do with solidarity. I'm going to read a bit that I wrote in my question, but it's something I really care about. Recently, we've seen through news, through other places around the country, graffiti has been sprayed on Jewish community centers. There's been even, you know, a lot of the graffiti calling the Holocaust fake. There's been numerous bomb threats to Jewish community centers. Jewish graves have been vandalized. And Sadly, the list goes on and on. And so persecution of Jewish people is not something new to the world, unfortunately. So this question to me is one of the most important things that I think our listeners could take from this. I hope it's something I care deeply about. In your mind, what can those of us who are not Jewish do to support and show solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters? —Thank you for asking that question.

We could probably spend a month on that.

—Yeah, I'm sure.

—First of all, to call it out when it happens, to encourage people to understand the causes of anti-Semitism, which, by the way, a lot of folks, including Jews, believe that the roots of anti-Semitism are religious in nature, that they have to do with the Jewish people never accepting Jesus as the Messiah. Actually, anti-Jewish feeling predates Christianity. There's evidence of it in Egyptian literature and Greek literature and Roman literature. And, of course, with all due respect, Islamic literature is also full of anti-Jewish sentiment.

And there's plenty of it in Christianity, too.

Oh, yeah. That's for sure. Yeah. There's a book— if people really want to understand the reasons why, in modern times, you know, it's been— Jews have been accused of being accused of being capitalists and they've been accused of being communists. Well, those are two mutually exclusive approaches to economy. How do you do both? And why are people saying you're either one or the other? A gentleman by the name of Dennis Prager, who some of your listeners may listen to because he's on the radio, many years ago he wrote a book with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin called "Why the Jews?" Okay. And they undertook to answer the question, why is there anti-Semitism among groups that believe different things themselves? Okay. Communists hate capitalists. Capitalists hate communists. There's always been a war between Islam and Christianity going back, you know, to the beginning of Islam. Okay. Um, why are the Jews always in the middle? And their answer, uh, is basically this: that it's because of who the Jews have always represented, and that is God. Hm. Um, even Jews who are atheists, okay, collectively that's who they represent. And it's ironic that religious communities that also say they they want to do God's will, you know, have always attacked God's people. We didn't ask to be God's people. We still don't know why we were chosen, and we're told that it wasn't because we were worthy. Unfortunately, there are Jews who believe, "Yeah, you know, we're God's chosen, so it must mean we're privileged." Well, no, it doesn't. We go back to chapter 3 of Amos, which I've had to remind people of more times than I care to admit, where God says, "You alone have I known of all the people, therefore I will hold you responsible." It's like the parent saying to the elder sibling, "You and I have been around longer than your siblings and I have been around, and therefore you're responsible. You're the elder." 'Well, I'm the oldest. I'm going to hold you responsible.' So that tells us what our obligation is to God and what our obligation is to our siblings. And it's not to say, 'Well, guess what? I'm the oldest. I'm privileged. I can go to bed later than you guys.' And there may be some resentment, you know, on a psychological level there may be some resentment.

And as kids who had siblings, you know, that are listening to this, they're thinking, "I know what being the oldest means. That means I have to change the diapers half the time. You know, I have to go in and take care of the younger one." And boy, it doesn't feel so special.

Absolutely. And that's what happens to us, basically.

Yeah, and I've heard— I think it was one of our Christian theologians, N.T. Wright, who was referring to the chosenness of the Jewish people. He said, you know, we think of the idea of chosenness. It's not so much that God favors this people and thinks them so much better than anybody else. It's the idea that, hey, I've chosen you to carry this light— Totally. —into the world. And it's a burden. Yeah, it's a heavy thing. It is.

We're called to do things that other people aren't called to do. It doesn't mean that it's right or wrong. It's just we're called to do different. Yeah. And everyone's got their place in the family. For sure.

For sure. Well, this has been a real treat for me, honestly.

I appreciate the opportunity again. It's been wonderful.

And I don't know how else to say it other than just to say I stand with you in solidarity. Thank you. And when things like this come up, I've tried to talk about it on my podcast and say, you know, when I see graves being knocked over, when I do, you know, just whatever, who knows what it may be. We should be people who stand against injustice no matter what it is.

Can I just say one more thing? Sure. Because you mentioned the graves knocked over, and I don't want to get too political, but it's hard not to here. Sure. There are folks who are very upset about graves being knocked over. Mm-hmm. When it comes to supporting the State of Israel, they're not so supportive. Mm. And what happens is that sometimes it— the message is, we're going to care when it's about dead Jews. Mm. But when it comes to live Jews and their welfare, we may not be there for you. Yeah. So, ask— going back to your question, what can the Christian community do? It's to understand that, you know, Israel was created so that Jews who were persecuted would have a place to be, number one. Number two, that to try to fulfill the covenant, the scriptural covenant of being a holy people in a holy land. We're now better able to do that, and we just want the opportunity. We don't want to persecute other people. We want to live in peace, but we haven't been able to. The way stories are spun, it's still hard.

Yeah, yeah, it's hard. Boy, stories are spun, aren't they? My goodness. For sure. Well, that sounds like a whole other topic that we should get into on another podcast. There's so many things we could talk about. But, well, this has been a real privilege. Thank you for making my 200th episode so special.

I appreciate it. Again, this was wonderful. I love the opportunity to talk, and I hope you have me back.

Yeah, I hope so too. And I say this to my guests every time they're on: thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week. Thanks. Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, You can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen your inner being for every good work And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.