Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 127 | navigating divorce

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

In today's episode, we talked with Rabbi Wolpe about his perspective on divorce, navigating the meaning of marriage, leading a life of empathy, and more! It's always nice to learn from someone with a different perspective and we enjoyed our conversation with him. We are sponsored by Athletic Greens ▶ Athletic Greens Is going to give you a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D'AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/eastfam Check out Rabbi David Wolpe's books here! ▶ https://www.amazon.com/David-J.-Wolpe/e/B001K8KC72%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ htvtp://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. Today was a fascinating episode. We sat down with Rabbi David Wolpe, who is a rabbi for one of our close friends. But more than that, he is an author of many books and really brings a tremendous perspective. I feel like as a religious leader, no matter what religion we're talking about, you get access to some of life's most tender moments, whether that be like christenings for new babies, whether that be.

funerals, whether it be weddings, just having witnessed that so many times as they get to do brings a new perspective. And so the rabbi shares that perspective with us today. And I learned a lot about parenting, about marriage, about family. He shares his experience actually getting divorced and kind of gives us a behind the scenes on the thought process there and his thoughts on divorce as a whole. But we hope you learn something, as did we, I feel like getting a broad perspective on life from people who come from all different types of backgrounds is super helpful and really enjoyed the conversation. So rabbi, thank you. If you want to learn more about the rabbi and what he's up to, we'll link his information down below. But also, we have some exciting news to share because

the family made network is growing. Yes, it is. We have now six shows that we are so excited about, which include, what's up beautiful people with the Miller fam. We have first class fatherhood with Alec Lace, we have Ellie and Jared, and there are more to come. We are rolling these out monthly. So check them out. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, you'll notice that there's a channel called Family Made. If you click into that, you can discover all the other shows. And the goal with the network as a whole is to bring you a really thoughtful family content that encourages and uplifts you in your family journey. We're on this together. So for us to be able to aggregate this group of people who are also sharing information and what their

experiences are is a real treat. So be sure to do that. And if you having yet subscribe and rate this show. Should we just go ahead and roll into this? We should. Without further ado, Rabbi David Wolpey. Rabbi, it's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much. We got connected through one of our close friends and I'm very excited after having crushed through all of the interviews that you've done previously. I don't think we'll be the toughest conversation that you've ever had, but we're very grateful that you're willing to share your wisdom. I'm going to say you've gone through all the interviews I've done. We've gone through a few. We've gone through quite a few. We've gone through quite a few.

Thank you. There have been a lot. There have been a lot. Yeah. Lucky that way. So I'm excited to be here and happy to try my best at whatever it is you want to throw at me. Yeah.

Well, I think this will be interesting just because we are Christian. You are Jewish. But I think there's obviously so much that we can glean from your perspective and that we can learn from you. And you have spoken previously about marriage and. And you've gotten caught up into some controversy with the gay marriage situation. And you have some wonderful thoughts on commitment as well. So let's start on the idea of marriage and why you think it's important and what good comes from it.

So I first of all, I think that the very idea of commitment is incredibly important. And even if the marriage, this sounds weird, but I really do believe it's even the marriage in the end does not end up to be successful. I think the enterprise is a really important one for people to do their best to have in their lifetime because to commit to another human being to grow with them, to share with them, to learn from them is something that you can't do in the same way in almost any other kind of relationship. there is something about not it's the same thing in a different way with having kids there's something about not being able to just say goodbye that forces you to deal with things inside yourself and inside another person that you would more that you would normally just escape and not have to deal with and i think that that is growthful um sometimes the way we grow is by forcing ourselves into situations in which we have to grow we don't get a lot of like um

slack or like negativity on our podcast, but I will say for the most part, anything that does come back to us when it comes to celebrating marriage is the argument that marriage is only for the religious believers. Would you argue that that is true or is marriage for everyone? Because you also, you come across these people all the time that say, oh, I'm not Christian. I don't need to get married because I'm committed to this person. Right. So I, first of all, I don't believe that at all. I think that marriage is in some ways equally important, religious or not religious. I don't think religion is the decisive factor. But the other part is the reason that marriage is different is people have this illusion that what other people think doesn't affect them. I hear this all the time. I don't care what other people think I do this. with all due respect that's nonsense we all care what other people think we are social creatures we can't help it we're not hermits in a cave and when you introduce somebody as my wife or

my husband the world looks at you differently than when you introduce somebody as my partner that's because to say that someone is my wife or my husband says i intend to spend my entire life with this person that's not what it means when you say this is my partner partner. And everybody knows that. And because people treat you differently, religion is not the decisive factor. It is the way that you move in society and the way that it affects how you think about yourself. And so no, I don't believe for a moment that it is contingent on being religious or not being religious. So to add to that, maybe a two-part question, something that I've seen over and over again, even with friends of ours, are people who have been together for for many,

years, been living together, been acting as if they are within a marriage. And they're like, oh, if we get married, nothing will change. Would you stand behind the argument that things actually would change? There's no question that things will change. And they'll change. I mean, they may or may not change inside the marriage, but they will change in the way the rest of the world looks at them. And that makes a difference. It just does. There's, We want to think that we evaluate people solely by their qualities, but we evaluate them by the whole, what the novelist Henry James called the envelope of their circumstances. We evaluate them by how they dress, how they look, where they live, on and on and on and on. And even though we constantly rebel against that, the reason that we always rebel against it is because it's always there.

And so to say that you feel exactly the same about somebody who's married as you do about any other couple just, I think, isn't true. And I know to a great extent, you have to liberate yourself from other people's expectations. I think that that's true. Some of us rely too much on what other people say. But anybody who doesn't care about what other people think is a jerk or a bore, you have to care about. about what other people think because you live in the world. You really don't care at all when anybody else thinks about you. That's not somebody that I think any of us would want to spend too much time.

Well, but also beyond just how I evaluate others' opinions of me and let that persuade me consciously, I do, I mean, there is an effect of how people perceive me changes my action. Like, I might get different opportunities or I might, like, there's just different things when people perceive me in a certain way that tangibly can affect and materially affect how things progress for me, if that makes sense? No question. How you respond to social cues

determines in part how people treat you. So if you see that somebody that you know is upset and you say to them, you seem upset, they're going to respond to you differently than if you don't notice it and you just ignore that. So, yeah, it's always, it's always interactive. I mean, Buber, Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, has this philosophy of I-Vow in which he says there is no such thing as an I, isolated eye. You're always in relationship. You're not only in relationship to the

people that you're actually talking to and relating to, but you're in relationship to people who are far away. I mean, I'm in relationship to my brothers, even though they live on the other side of the country. And even my parents, although they're no longer here, even after somebody's passed away, you have a relationship. So the definition of your relationship is partly the definition of your life. And marriage is just a sanctified way of committing to another human being that is different from we just, we live together. I've also, I forget where I came across it, but this idea of your buy-in to a, a situation is directly proportionate to your investment in it. So if I have a lot of skin in the

game, I'm going to want things to go better, right? I'm going to care deeper about it. So if I say, hey, this is, this is my wife. I'm going to like, there is some part of me that's like, all right, this has been a costly relationship. I've had fewer opportunities for other relationships. I've had XYZ costs associated with this. I want to make this work even. more so now, right? You do. And also the knowledge that getting out of it is not frictionless. Getting out of it is costly too.

So all those things make marriage, I think, different from partnership, which is not to say, obviously, the partnership can't be committed and can't be beautiful and can't be it for a lifetime. All those things are true, but you don't judge by exceptions. You judge by regular standards. What would you say is like the false image the world tries to put on marriage? I don't know if there is a single false image. What I would say is, but what I would say is that because successful marriages are far

less dramatic than unsuccessful marriages, that the media tends not to portray successful marriages nearly as frequently because there's a bias towards the negative, the broken, the dramatic, the mist, the messed up, all of that. And so I think we don't have, I mean, if you think about the great novels of even Western civilization, like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary, they're about adultery and infidelity. Because those are much more dramatic than, let me portray this very happy couple that gets along and, you know, has three well-adjusted kids. That's not, that's just not going to be number one on Netflix.

How would you define a successful marriage? My first, I mean, I'm not sure that I have a specific definition. My first thought is any marriage in which the two partners think it's successful would be a successful marriage. I like that. I ask that question because with all of the interviews that we have done, we've had the opportunity to interview different, I would say, leaders in different roles within the industries of the world and it's funny we've we've

disagreed with some of them because people have answered that question in saying a successful marriage is a perfect marriage one in which no mistakes you know have been made it's just like it's by the Bible it's by the the book it's well then it's it's not then they're talking about a marriage that is not between human beings because people by definition. They just can't. I mean, we're all broken and flawed and we all have issues and problems and all of that. So there are so many varieties of marriage, too, that it's, you have to understand that it's very, it's almost impossible to see inside someone else's marriage. That's why I say you have to ask the couple, is your marriage successful? And if they're honest and they say it is,

than I believe it is. And two individuals may say that a marriage was successful even though it ended. Is that a possibility? It's possible in my case. I have been divorced for 11 years from the person who is still, I think in a lot of ways, my best friend. We talk every single day, usually several times a day. There were really compelling reasons, I think, for both of us.

We thought that ending the marriage was a good idea. I think our daughter agreed with us that it was. And yet all of us, I think, feel very close to one another and remain close to one another. And I don't know that that weirdly, I don't know that that situation is as unusual as people think in the sense that I've said that to people and they go, well, yeah, I feel that way about my ex as well. So it's true that usually marriages when they break up have some hostility or anger or something. But the variety of human behavior and decisions is infinite. And I think the marriage was successful, even though in the end it wasn't lasting. But I don't know, I mean, I don't recommend that as a model, obviously.

There's an element to which that's a failure, and it's not what anybody wanted or expected. So it's hard to say. and it's complicated, and I'm not sure it lends itself to easy definitions. Can I, can we peek under the hood from your... I would not have said it if I didn't think that that was an open invitation to ask. I mean, it's not a secret that, so go ahead, please. Well, I'm not sure I'm going to take it. I would love to go maybe where you thought I was going to go,

but wearing your clergy hat, how... What is your religious perspective on divorce? Does that change from, like, you know? No, actually Judaism allows for divorce, always has. It's in the Bible. It's in the Hebrew Bible. So it was never prohibited in the Jewish tradition. My clergy hat is not so different from my regular hat,

which is the key element to me is, Is it done with kindness and with consideration and caretaking for children if there are children? That's really how I judge divorce. I've unfortunately been partied to too many divorces where really the aim of each party is to wound the other as much as possible. And I think to myself, like, you loved this person. You had children with this person. Why are you doing this? So my perspective on divorce is better, obviously, infinitely better, if not.

But if so, there are lots of ways of doing it that are undamaging or far less damaging. And that's what I try to encourage when I counsel couples. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a life. time. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.com. Was the fact that you are a rabbi, did that add friction to you in the divorce process? It didn't add friction, but it delayed it. That is, were we not worried about how the community would react, we probably would have gotten

divorce sooner because we'd spoken about. But we really didn't want to cause that unhappiness to the community. But I think they did okay. The community. Yeah. I think playing off of this topic of like divorce being a rabbi in your openness within marriage to the gay community and same sex marriage, do you, I kind of asked this before, But in a different way, I feel like there's this misunderstanding to a certain extent within society that marriage has to be religious.

And it has to be thought of as specific to Christianity, Judaism, whatever religion you're under. And if it doesn't follow those perfect set of guidelines, you're not allowed to be in a relationship at all. what are what i i i think you might get that more because of the because of your public profile but i think that there are a lot of people out there who get married who don't particularly have a religious affiliation um and and and i as somebody who's very pro-marriage um i the truth is i i see same-sex marriage as a promotion of marriage um i think that it is a good thing And even the restraint on appetite that marriage imposes on people, I think that's a good thing, too. It is good to grow and to recognize that there are limits.

And to be in a society, like to be in a relationship, means to observe those limits so that you can function well, with, you know, play well with others. Well, you just said, that was very, I could sit on that for a little bit, the limit portion of life. Like, that is, that is deep and important to understand. That's, by the way, that's central to parenting. I mean, you do that all the time. No, you can have one, but you can have two.

No, you can, you can, you can go to bed at eight, but you can't go to bed at 12. I mean, we, we educate our children in limits from the very beginning because we know that life is not only about the limits that the world imposes on you, but the limits that you impose on yourself. We get into a lot of very philosophical debates with each other. He gets into philosophical debates. We just have a fun conversation.

But this would open the, like this would, to me, opens the question of, but everybody's limitations within their religion or not. And I say religion because I, I, I feel. like atheists and like whatever you were you were to label yourself is technically within a religion how would you argue that everybody's beliefs of limitations are different um i don't know it depends i mean it depends what the context of the question is individuals have differences societies have differences religions have differences um i can't say specific but I do know that the in some ways your limitations are a big part of what define you

and the things you won't do are in some ways as central to your character as the things you will are limitations does that equate to restriction of freedom yeah absolutely nobody has perfect freedom. And nobody wants perfect freedom. You see this, I mean, the formation of habits in our lives is a way of restricting our own freedom. Why do you have the same breakfast every morning? Because I really like that breakfast. But the answer is because we all like structure and we all like rules and we all like to have certain things that we don't have to think about. So I get up in the morning, I don't have to think about my breakfast, so that's same breakfast every day, or I take the same route to work, or whatever it is, we impose

limitations on ourselves because nobody can live with complete freedom. Complete freedom means I can do anything at any moment at any time, and that's not human. Sounds like chaos, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is chaos. And you can imagine a society in which people actually did that. It's like, I feel like going through the red, light now. Why not? I have complete freedom. But that is obviously not a society that any of us would want to live in. You want to live in a society that has rules, restrictions, laws. You want them to be minimal, right? You want to give people as much freedom as possible, but as much freedom as possible isn't total freedom. And again, you can just think about traffic is a good example,

right? Total freedom is not good if you want to get to work. another question um again looking broadly at like a lot of the interviews we've done we've talked about we've talked with different couples about infidelity um loss of a child adoption um inner racial like marriages inner ability i mean really we've tried to cross like every possible category when it comes to marriage. And I think this is more of a rabbi question specifically, but do you see within marriage and family that there's anything you can't get through?

Or like, I guess that's a biblical question and then an opinionated question. It depends what get through means. I mean, there are wounds that never heal. Yeah, no question. And I know. people who've suffered wounds that never heal. And I would not, as somebody who has been enormously lucky in his life, I would not want to

want to suggest that by getting through, you can be all right. But can you endure? Yeah. You can endure almost anything. I mean, people who went through the Holocaust and made it through. And if you say to some of them, are you wounded? say, yeah, I'm wounded forever. I saw these people in my family die before my eyes. I saw my community wiped out. How could I not be wounded by that? But I decided that I was going to live

as long as I was alive. So people can be enormously resilient, but that is not the same as being okay. There are people who are resilient and who get through the world and who do remarkable and wonderful things without ever being completely okay in the sense that those of us are lucky enough to be okay who haven't had experiences of such overwhelming trauma. And so I know people who've lost children who react very differently. But ultimately, you know, some of them are successful in turning that into something in the world that helps other people. Like the woman who lost her child and started mothers against drunk driving ended up

saving countless thousands of lives because her child died. That doesn't mean that she's okay, but it means that she used her spirit and resilience to turn it into something beautiful. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally, the ultimate off-road challenge.

Learn more. at landrover.ca is that your take on the purpose of life is to endure um no i think the purpose of life i mean sounds that i do actually have a definition i think the purpose of life is to grow in soul grow in soul to grow in soul and there are lots of ways of doing that um and so you use the experiences that you have to make you better, kinder, broader, deeper, all of those things. And that's a lifelong enterprise. And nobody, as, you know, it's going back to the question before, nobody ends up perfect and nobody ends up ideal. But some of us, if we're persistent enough and lucky enough we end up at the end of our lives wiser and deeper and better than we

were earlier in our lives and and others around us benefit from that one hopes and so i really do believe that that's why we're here so you're known for your compassion towards everyone including those who have different opinions than yourself your congregation uh i know is kind of split in different ways politically. I'm curious, what would your message be to someone who is adamantly against gay marriage? So the first thing that I would say to them is that it's really important that you listen and get to know people who are gay and who, you can be close to to understand what their experience of life is because it's easy to be

opposed from a distance. It's a lot more complicated to be opposed if you're close. That would be the first thing I would say. The second I would say is you have to tell me what the basis of your opposition is. If you say, for example, it's because the Bible is against it. Then I want to know why aren't you so opposed to Sabbath breaking? The Bible has more about Sabbath breaking than it has about gay marriage by far. So why is that the thing that you pick that is so terrible as opposed to all the other prohibitions in the Bible? Because there are lots of prohibitions in the Bible.

Why is that the one that you say, oh, the Bible says you can't do it? So I think that there are other motivations there, and it's worth exploring what those motivations are. And then the last thing I would say is that the way you, you oppose something has a lot to do with the moral quality of your opposition. That is, if you oppose it with anger and distance as opposed to with compassion and openness, then I think that that's an opposition that's hard to respect. So a lot of life has to do with understanding that people have very different backgrounds than you do,

and having a certain humility about learning from them. and I at least try. I mean, I don't succeed. Nobody ever succeeds all the time in doing that, but I at least try to do that. And when someone says, look, this is the only kind of person I can love. So are you telling me that your religion has no space

for me to love this kind of person ever for the rest of my life? It's a very hard thing to say, yeah, actually, that's what my religion teaches. I couldn't say it. What would you say is the most, important thing, a relationship, a marriage can teach a child. Kindness. I'm really big on kindness. I think that that's, I mean, and that's part of what even a divorce can teach. If you say here we are, we couldn't make this work, but we will not

be unkind to one another, even in this situation. I think it teaches a lot. And inside a marriage, you're going to have fights and you're going to be annoyed and you're going to say things that you regret and all of that. I mean, nobody models kindness all the time. The issue is not being kind all the time. The issue is understanding when you've been unkind and admitting it and showing a child that that's real because the necessity of being kind to people in the world is, I think, sort in some ways like the primary the primary um both lack and need uh and if you look around the world generally um that's cause of many many many problems is that people don't feel this powerful obligation to be kind to one another um and i think that that's what we need to teach our kids

and in the context of a home it's really powerful and by the way the other thing that's I would say is generally people who have trouble being kind are people who have grown up in homes that were unkind. And so they have a hard time learning it. And that also, that's an important trend to reverse. This is maybe a completely out of context question. I don't know if it's necessary for the podcast. I'm just curious, do you believe people can be born unkind? Yes. I do think that in the same, in the, it's, this way. I think that people have all sorts of predispositions. And so there are people who are born with, like, it's hard for them to suppress their anger or it's hard for them to, um, to feel

love as readily as other people do in the same way that some people don't have an ear for music and other people take to music naturally. It's true in moral qualities too. And everybody has a different struggle inside themselves. And it's, I mean, one person can drink and then put the drink down and the other person takes one drink and they say, oh my God, I want to drink for the rest of my life. And it's not fair to too quickly judge other people's tendencies because we're all built differently. So are there people who have more of a struggle naturally being kind?

No question. It's more of a struggle for them. But that doesn't mean that they don't have an obligation to do it. It just means it's harder. So there are things that are harder for all of us, but we have to do. I have a lot of, like, big questions. I'm just going to keep firing them off. Do you think what is your belief on, like, redemption?

Is there any, is there anything unredeemable about it, about a, about, human being? There are people who don't deserve to be readmitted to society. Yes, that I believe. Whether they will ultimately be redeemed in God's eyes is for God to decide. But there are people who have done things so heinous that they shouldn't be allowed back into the world of decent people. Having said that, I think, think our society is very unforgiving right now. And it's not giving people a second chance. And that's, that's both a moral fault and a mistake because we all need second chances. We all need

forgiveness. We all do things that we ought not to do. And so I really, I believe it is possible to be, humanly unredeemed but I also think that we overdo that these days and we don't redeem enough I I will agree and say I think one of the most disheartening things about society in the world right now is the the world expects every human being to be absolutely perfect when it's impossible to be and it could be the smallest mistake you could make and you could well hold on I I think you're alluding to some social media like effect for sure because there should be some wisdom injected though and there should be wisdom saying oh you know what I'm not this isn't something that I should share publicly

and the go ahead I agree with you but on the other hand I would not want to be judged by everything that I said when I was 16 but today it's there forever and ever and ever I wouldn't even want to be judged by everything that I said offhandedly, you know, at any age. And yet, there it is on social media. It never goes away. So I think a more forgiving atmosphere would be good. But yeah, of course, there are things that people say that they ought to be called to account for. But they ought to be able to say, you know what, that was really stupid. And I shouldn't have said that. And I'm sorry. It's just a bummer because then there's already all the articles published online that are searchable and find it's the it's locked in stone again disheartening though

because i i feel like we do live in a world where we celebrate celebrate failure more than we celebrate kindness and success and good humans we do i think that's partly human nature and social media caters to that bad streak in us that that like seeing somebody fall down better than watching somebody get up. And that is a very human quality. It's not a good one, but it's a very human quality. And I agree with you that we, unfortunately, have made that into a whole social media ecosystem

that doesn't do any of us any good. So we are, I don't want to inflate the problem, but there is heavy partisanship, which, by the way, I'm a big, like, history buff, rabbi just reading about the founding fathers and it's like i don't know everyone tries to make it seem like the political environment now is as aggressively uh divide as as it's ever been but you look at it it's like no it's kind of like everyone's always been salty about this issue and not to say that it's okay but it's it's okay right like it's going to be all right and we're not falling apart

as a country but that's my lecture on that how do you approach approach conflict. I mean, one thing from an outsider's perspective that you've done a really good job at is like openly engaging in conversations with people who have opposite perspectives as you do. But I'm talking on, I mean, this could apply for the public and political environment, but also in marriage. Like, how do you, what's your posture walking into conflict, if you will? one of the things that I learned as a rabbi is that if you listen to one side of the conflict it's very easy to be convinced you really have to listen to because I've had so many times someone will come in and say this and this and I'll go you're right and then the other person

will come in and say but that and that and man I'll go oh my gosh so so and conflict often has roots deeper than what people are presenting so it takes, again, a lot of listening and a lot of time. And it's really difficult. And even in conflicts where we feel like there's a clear villain and a clear hero, the villain still has a narrative. The villain doesn't think of himself or herself as a villain. So if you actually want to understand it, you've got to, you know,

you've got to take a lot of time and a lot of listening and it's not easy. This is where I'm a dad now. We have two kids, two and a half year old. month and I've definitely felt the effect of like I'm more of a hard line guy than I've ever thought that I would be and it's because of kind of what you just said where like if you go on Netflix there's all these documentaries uh like the unabomber one I forget the title of it but it's like the effect is you kind of build this strange empathy towards this guy who's done evil things and at some point you have to draw the line and this goes for a multitude of issues where

you're like, you know what, that's a bummer that he had an abusive family and he grew up in this bad situation. He has this. But it's so wrong. And I, how, you've been. What I would say is to understand is not to forgive. They're not the same. But you can't know whether you should forgive until you understand.

Right. Now, obviously, if you're a unabomber, you can say, look, I'm not going to forgive. That's, that's pretty unredeemable, right? To send people bombs through. the nail. Yeah. And I think, as I said, man should be put away forever and never seen again, and I'd be perfectly happy with that. But you can still feel some sympathy for the suffering. I remember years ago, a rabbi out here in Los Angeles, Harold Shoalice, had a great line that I've repeated many times. He said, you can blame your parents for the suffering you feel, but not the

suffering you cause. And I feel like that's exactly right with the Unabomber. If he said, I suffer. I would say I feel for you. But if he says I cause suffering, that's where the empathy stops. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. Babe, we have been moving in these past few weeks. Honestly, this entire summer has flown by. It's almost 2023, which freaks me out. And I think we've had over 10 trips just this summer so far. I think you're right. But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way, darling. I agree. Me neither. One thing we have been taking with us, this entire your time has been our age you want. It's a lifesaver. We've told you this a million times in just one scoop. You get 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics,

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athletic greens.com forward slash Eastfam or click the link below and you'll get access to that. Again, that's athletic greens.com forward slash Eastfam to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Let's get back to it. Kindness was your answer when it comes to children. What's your philosophy with parenting, like discipline or things that you need to instill in them? You ask that and I will tell you, I will tell you my conclusion after many years of watching kids grow up and having one of my own. How you parent depends on the kid. People have these general rules. And then you have a kid, who's always perfectly easy and does everything, and you think, oh, you don't have to be

strict as a parent. And then you have another kid who really needs guidelines and boundaries. And you go, oh, my God, you do have to be strict as a kid as a parent. So that's why I say kids are born different. They just are. And parenting, I think my philosophy of parenting is in part flexibility. However, I do have one rule. As far as I'm concerned, all parents should observe, which is you must read to your kid every night. You must read to your every night. They have to grow up hearing books read to them, hearing stories. I think there is not, first of all, there's nothing you can do that ties you to your kid more powerfully than sitting on the bed and reading them a book. And second, those memories

and the love of stories and words and being told stories is so I really, like, Like, that's the one, I really, the one thing that we did that, that I'm so incredibly grateful for. I also obviously believe that a kid should have a religious framework because I'm a religious person. And I wrote a book called Teaching Your Children About God. So, obviously, when I think, read that book to them before they go to bed. But whether you are religious or not, I really do believe that you, that kids should be read to. And there are a billion wonderful children's books out there.

that they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Oh, geez. Okay. So I love that rule, by the way. The one reason I'm so unenvious of your position, rabbi, is because you have a congregation that you'll speak to in broad strokes. And so it's one thing for me who just has to do with my family to, like, parent each kid individually but how like it's so hard because you're giving broad advice to an audience of

hundreds or thousands and like i've thought about this with politicians too it's like you have there has to be some policy that is like all right we're going to cast this out there and there's going to be people on the margins of that but like i i just i guess i say that more as like a sorry It's hard to be both general and also sometimes you have to be specific. But what can you do? I mean, the world is a complicated place. But that's what makes it interesting. You've had all the guests you've had, you've asked them the same questions,

and you've gotten all these different answers. And my guess is a lot of them, you say, well, yeah, that makes sense. That's a smart answer. And yet they don't all agree with each other. The world is just a complicated place. and also we're all doing this in the context of one kind of society. If we were in Ghana or we were in, I don't, Thailand, or we would get very different answers because the social structure is different.

And so, you know, it's an infinitely rich and interesting world. That's such a good way to look at it, honestly. That is such a good way to look at the world. It's like, wow, this is so interesting. Yeah. As opposed to getting frustrated at it, you know? Thoughts on interfaith marriages? For the Jewish people, it's a real problem because Judaism is a very, very small religion.

I mean, we have about 15 million people in the world. So when people marry outside the faith and their children are raised outside the faith, we lose people and we can't afford to. So it's very problematic from a Jewish point of view. Interesting. From a. Zuming out from. from the specific religion and like the, well,

I don't even know how you would answer that, but like from a moral standpoint. I mean, as a rabbi, I have to answer it from my own standpoint. In terms of like whether the marriage would be a success or whether it's a good thing or whether it's a good thing, I would say this, it's beautiful that people are mixed in this world as opposed to everybody being in their own silos. it does however threaten the specificity of different cultures and that's a hard thing for small

cultures it's not a hard thing for cultures that have a billion people but for ones that don't it's it's a struggle it's a struggle what's your opinion and view on converting for marriage I love that. I love people to Judaism. I think it's fantastic. No, I want more people to convert to Judaism because, first of all, I think Judaism is a wonderful, rich, deep tradition. And also because, as I said, you know, our numbers are small. And so I actually just taught a class last night of people who are converting to Judaism. And I think that it's a tremendous thing to do. So is this. Is this a too big of a question to ask. Can you summarize the differences of Christianity and Judaism? I mean, it's a big question. Obviously, the principal difference is that Christians believe that God became a human being and that the Messiah has already come. Those are the biggest differences. Jews don't believe that God ever became a human being and don't believe that the Messiah has come. Also, Judaism is much more of a tradition of practice and law. Christianity is a more internal tradition. And there are good historical reasons for that. Jesus came along in the Roman Empire. Obviously, the Roman Empire already had all the civil law you needed. He wasn't going to say,

this is the law of how you should negotiate a deal because that was all the Roman courts. Moses and Muhammad created religions in the desert. So they had to give all the law, not just this is what you feel in your heart but those are some of the differences there are many many others along the way and a lot of similarities i'm sorry i i didn't know uh there was a difference in what what do jewish people view the messiah as being because i've always equated that as a christian of like messiah equals god in human form no messiah is interesting Messiah is just a person, like any other person in the Jewish tradition, but is a redeemer who brings redemption to the world, but not God. Only God is God in Judaism.

By the way, in Hebrew, Messiah, Messiah means anointed, because it's the one, the king who is anointed, and there were kings who were anointed, just none of them proved to be the Redeemer that Jews believe the Messiah would be. So, and this is one of the reasons, not the only one, one of the reasons why Jews didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah was he died and the world wasn't redeemed and Israel wasn't redeemed and all of the things that were supposed to happen, at least according to the Jewish tradition, didn't happen. This, I, it's hard to know what's like a dumb question. I know. Is that like a, could the Messiah come tomorrow? Could? In the Jewish tradition, yeah. yeah would come today amazing how long you've been a rabbi oh um about 35 years what's your favorite thing about being a rabbi my favorite thing there are a lot of things I really love like I love doing weddings I love in a different way doing funerals if I've done it something that I've done

justice to somebody who passed away. I love teaching. I love the fact that anything that I do could possibly contribute to my ravenant. I can read a mystery. I can watch a TV show and I could turn that into something. You know, it's like I never, I never have to think, oh, you're just wasting your time because who knows? Maybe from that I'll get an insight that I can use. So there are lots and lots of things I love about doing. But I guess if I had to name one thing I would say, it is the sense that what I'm doing is meaningful, which I think all of us want most in our job. We think what we want most is a good salary,

but I think really what we want most is meaning. Preach. Is that a thing? Do you preach? Is that what rabbis do? I want to know so much. What's your favorite? What's the book you most recently recommended to someone read?

his book no i actually i would say i think i mean if i you know i have pretty classical reading taste so like my favorite novel is a 19th century novel by george elliott called middle march and my favorite nonfiction book i'll tell you two the one that i would say every human being should read is victor fronkel's book called man's search for meaning everybody should read that book But I really, I'm very, I was very influenced by a book that was written in the early 70s by a sociologist named Ernest Becker called The Denial of Death.

And that book also, if you're a little bit more intellectually inclined, because it's not hard to read, but it's a very thoughtful book. I think that's a really remarkable and important book. so what's the most polarizing damaging um belief a person can have off the top of my head i would say the most polarizing damaging belief is i'm always right and an unwillingness to listen to others or to believe that others have something to contribute conversation. Man, that's insightful. You have written several books.

Can you give us the list of maybe, or just the most recent one? Depends what you're interested. I would say I wrote a book about loss called Making Loss Matter. If you were interested in loss and grief, it's not only about loss of someone you love, it's about loss of dreams, loss of home, all the kinds of losses we have in life. I wrote a book about faith where I did all these debates with other atheists and I wrote a book about that called Why Faith Matters. That's not about why Judaism matters, just why faith matters.

And then my most recent book was a book of was a short biography of King David. And in terms of a story, that's the best story book. But it all depends. I wrote books on different things. So it depends what it is you're interested in. Well, we appreciate your time. you go and just share this last thought um we we don't share the same faith but i have grown to appreciate more than i have in my life the uh the the fact that god believing in god or having

faith is a hundred percent a choice and it could i could easily just not believe in god right like there's convincing arguments that you can buy into but the there is this element of believing that there is a god that injects this idea of whimsy or like it's like almost welcoming magic or like the unknown and embracing that with as you viewed the world like oh this is so interesting and wonderful as opposed to like a challenge or something to figure out in like the form of an equation so anyway we uh we're eternally grateful for your time and your wisdom And, you know, yeah, thank you.