Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Rabbi Steve Leder: Clearing out the Clutter, Nonlinear Grief & Finding Gratitude in the Mundane

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Rabbi Steve Leder, author and Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, breaks down the beneficial and harmful aspects of religious structure on mental health and sense of community. He details his childhood in the midwest where he worked at the family junkyard under strict, religious parents, and how stealing Bob Dylan albums led him to the hippie rabbis who changed the course of his life. Mayim and Rabbi Leder reexamine the true meaning of sacrifice, the evolution of Judaism, and how religious extremism and radical secularism can negatively impact mental health. Mayim opens up about the role religion has played in her own life and sense of identity, and how Judaism’s structure of processing grief helped her to effectively mourn her father’s death. After analyzing the ways in which society can rebuild trust in its institutions, Mayim and Rabbi Leder discuss how impactful changes in our micro communities can lead to macro effects and the importance of learning from those with differing beliefs. Mayim explains how a disconnected marriage can affect mental health during an installment of Ask Mayim Anything. Rabbi Steve Leder's books: http://steveleder.com/books/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think it has to do with a very problematic misunderstanding of what sacrifice really needs. Well, you said sacrifice, but the hair on the back of my neck just stood up. She's like, what do I have to do? How can I suffer? Sign me up. I got it. I'll give up everything right now. You know what I say? A sad Jew is a happy Jew, so let's get into this, all right?

Hi, I am Biolic, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break down the things that make us break down. Today we're going to be breaking down to Right down for you Because you know she knows a thing or two And now she's going to break down Today we're going to be breaking down Two things, religion and grief

Why not? I mean essentially we're breaking down The structure of religion as it applies To mental health with an emphasis on grief That doesn't sound as good as saying we're breaking down Religion and grief Let's be real We had a chance to talk to a cool rabbi.

We talked to a cool rabbi, and he knows a lot and he wrote a book about death. But first, the Jonathan to my David, Jonathan Cohen. Hello, my name. I think you might need to break down that reference for some people. King David was the warrior who, as a child, as a young boy, slew Goliath. And King David went on to be the first king of a unified Jerusalem. I think a lot of people lose David after he slays Goliath. There's a second chapter.

Oh, their second, third, and fourth chapters. King David was the first king of a unified Israel, Jerusalem, in a thousand BC. He unified Israel. There was Judea and Samaria, so that's a big deal. He also very, very famously saw a woman bathing on a rooftop, if you know the song, Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen. One of the podcast favorites. Your faith was strong, but you needed proof.

You saw her bathing on the roof. The biblical story is that he saw this woman, Bathsheva and she was stunning and he literally sent her husband to the front lines of the war that was going on. Not a cool move, David. And he wanted her as his wife.

And first of all, to have a figure so flawed is a powerful statement. Like it wasn't like this was hidden. Like this is his story. And when his advisor came to him and said, I heard there was a man with a lot of sheep, but he wanted one sheep in particular and he stole that sheep from someone else and King David said, well, that man should be killed.

And the advisor says, tis you, King David. So King David obviously was not killed for the Bathsheva experience, but it was a very sore spot. And David had a relationship also with a man named Jonathan. And they said that their love was more special than the love of a man and a woman. It's a very, very famous friendship. What kind of friendship? Did they start a podcast? I do enjoy making Mime blush. And if you want to see it in person, you can go to her YouTube channel and click the little notifications.

We always dress like twins. Today is Lodick Hoodie Day. Lodick is Jonathan's company, and we're wearing hoodies. Also, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet in its audio form, please do so. Drop us a five-star review because we read them, and I take screenshots and I send them to Maim. So we're going to be talking to Rabbi Stephen Leder that's spelled L-E-D-E-R. And he actually holds a degree in writing. He graduated cum laude from Northwestern University.

He's from the Midwest. He's from, I think, outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he also went to Trinity College and Oxford, did some studying there. He got his master's in Hebrew letters in 1986. He's 60. I'm just going to say it. Because you're like, are you going to speak to like a million-year-old rabbi? No, he's 60. He's a hip rabbi's hip. He's very hip. He's got tortoiseshell glasses. He's adorbs.

He got his rabbinical ordination from Hebrew Union College, which is the college of the reform denomination of Judaism. And he's very unusual in that he's been at one synagogue his entire career since he's 26. And that synagogue is called Wilshire Boulevard Temple. It's not my synagogue. I have been there. So in addition to being a rabbi and all the things that that entails, he takes. taught, this should be the word of the day, homiletics. I don't know what that means. What's homiletics? Homeletics means the art of preaching. What? It comprises the study of composition and delivery of a sermon and other religious discourse. That's very interesting. Well, he taught that. He's also a frequent contributor and guest on the Today Show. He writes for time, like a million

places. He contributed a chapter. We didn't ask him about this, but he contributed a chapter to Charles Barkley's book, who's afraid of a large black man. He's also published a ton of essays. His Torah commentaries in the Jewish Journal were read weekly by over 50,000 people. His sermon on capital punishment was included in an episode of the West Wing. Wow. An award-winning episode. I didn't even know that.

He also did work for African-American and Jewish dialogue. He's presented twice at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He's written three critically acclaimed books, and he has a new book, and that we're going to talk about today. His books are the extraordinary nature of ordinary things, more money than God, living a rich life without losing your soul, and more beautiful than before,

how suffering transforms us. His new book is called The Beauty of What Remains, what death teaches us about life. And that is just coming out. Most important to him is being his wife's husband. And he has two kids. He likes to go fishing because he's from the Midwest. That is Rabbi Stephen Leader.

And essentially, I wanted to bring him on to talk about certain aspects of religious structure that can be helpful, certain aspects of religious structure that provides strength to our mental health because of the community that is built in to the religious structure. And while there can be community without religion, the way humans evolved is that communities were built around religious structure. So he's also, he's, you know, part of the reform denomination. He's a very progressive thinker and he's a progressive rabbi. And he's just a really neat guy. And when's the last time you spoke to a rabbi? It's been a minute. All right.

Let's bring on Stephen Leader. Break it down. Welcome, Rabbi. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Our paths have crossed. I've physically been to your fine synagogue, you know, a handful of times in my life. And I went to UCLA, so I've been in your neck of the woods, as it were.

and as someone who grew up in Los Angeles and someone who's, you know, I've spent most of my life deeply immersed one way or the other in the Jewish community, your reputation precedes you in the best ways possible. And, you know, possibly most significantly, you have a tremendously large reform-affiliated, correct, synagogue, which is no small feat

because you attract a lot of people to services in a community that often is not associated with active synagogue going, correct? That is correct. And I think it's because we are so much more than what most people think of when they think of a synagogue. Right. You know, we have three early childhood centers, two elementary schools, three religious schools. We have a social services center, our Koreatown campus, because I said it's criminal to

redevelop this campus and pretend our neighbors are not poor. So we're going to provide mental health services. dental services, vision care, food security, legal aid services for our neighbors. So we're almost a community of communities is the way I like to think about it. And my job is going to be the mayor of all of these communities under our umbrella. So if Jews had a mega church, I think we would be it. It's an unusual model, but it works really well in a place. like Los Angeles where partly simply because of traffic, if you're going to provide everything

in only one location, you're going to self-limit in Los Angeles because you can't get around. So I think, you know, now we have three campuses and camps in Malibu. And I find that to be the way to reach the most people in the most meaningful ways. And also just to distinguish from a megachurch, just because I feel like we should, we do not proselytize. It's a thing. Jews don't proselytize. And also, we're not, nothing against mega churches, but we're not necessarily collecting money as a primary foundation for continuing the work that we do. I just want to say that. Yeah. In a matter of fact, because you're not supposed to handle money on the Sabbath when people come to the synagogue, Jews have never had a history of collecting money at services.

For people who may not know, there's different kinds of rabbis. We have different denominations. I'm going to do this super quick. We have different denominations in Judaism. So people might notice you're not wearing a yarmulka. You don't have a beard. You don't have those things, which are called Paius. Like, you're in a lovely, possibly cashmere v. sweater. You know, you're not in a black coat with a thing.

So just so people know, you know, rabbis are people who go to, you know, advanced study graduate school. Some hold doctorates, some hold masters. But they are, you know, trained to be clergy members to shepherds. to shepherd a community, but in the Jewish tradition, our leaders are scholars, meaning they have a specialized area of intellectual study, and in addition, they are essentially the therapist for the community at large, and that's how it's been really since the rabbinic tradition. So going on, you know, a couple good thousand years here.

So I'm just curious, you're from the Midwest, which sometimes people are, was your interest in the rabbinit, as it is, was it because of one particular? branch, you know, of the duties of rabbi? Was it that you wanted to study? Was it that you wanted to be, you know, a clergy person and shepherd people? Was it the aspect of being able to communicate with people kind of as the conduit between them and their more spiritual selves? What was it? It was a few different things. First of all, I have always had a helping gene as part of my makeup. I'll tell you, I told this story for the first time the other day to someone who asked me a similar question. The furthest back I can remember feeling that impulse to want to help another

person was fourth grade, Miss Hollingsworth's class at Aquila Elementary School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. And there was a young girl, I guess you're nine or ten in fourth grade. There was a young girl, I won't use her name because she's a real person and could hear this podcast, but she was clearly different than the other kids in the class. Today, we would say she's on the spectrum. But we didn't have that language in 1970. And I remember fantasizing. I never did it, but I remember fantasizing about going to Ms. Hollingsworth and saying to her, could I just spend a few minutes with her? Because I think I could help her. And that goes back to when I was a very little boy. So that's just part of my DNA. I grew up in a working class family. My dad owned a junkyard with my uncle Mort and a blue collar working class family.

there were seven of us in a two-bedroom, you know, 1,400 square foot home with one bathroom. We weren't poor, but, you know, we were working-class family. And I grew up, my parents were 17 and 18 when they got married. Whoa. And they had five children before they were 30. And they knew almost nothing about parenting. Nothing. They barely knew each other or themselves.

Yes, that's right. And I was never once, never once. tucked into bed and read a bedtime story by either of my parents. I mean, things that basic to parenting were outside of their universe. And I grew up in a very harsh, I would say. My father was a harsh person. I talk in the book quite a bit about his harshness and his crudeness and how militaristic and dominated by fear my home life was as a kid. There were lots of loving and happy moments too, but the primary feeling was one of fear and anxiety. So maybe that's where it's starting. Now, the other part of it is that I was, so again, this working class family, my father's

religion was work. And it was the only thing that mattered to him and everything else was frivolous and a waste of time. So if I wanted to play baseball, if I wanted to play hockey, if I wanted to do theater, if I wanted to be a writer, if I want to be a musician, it was all bullshit for him. Like literally, that's what he would say about it. That's bullshit. Okay. And except for one thing. There was one exception to that rule, which was the synagogue. Anything I wanted to do at the synagogue was great. It was the one place my parents would actually give me a ride to. If your synagogue had hockey and basketball, you would have been in good shape. Right, right. I found you don't have to be Sigmund Freud to understand that that was the only

place where my creativity was valued. And it was the only place in my, life other than school where people were learned. You know, I grew up in a, my parents barely went to high school. So I became enamored of people who were learned. And of course, who's more learned than the rabbi? The rabbi's wife. Sorry. I digress. No, she's more bitter. She's not more willing. When when I was 14, and I'm the fourth of the five kids, and my parents, and my parents were kind of done parenting by the time my brother and I rolled around. When I was 14, I started getting into trouble. I was smoking pot every day in school.

I was failing a couple of classes. And then I got arrested for shoplifting Bob Dylan albums from Target. At least, I mean, at least it was Dylan. That's right. I got arrested while my parents were on vacation in Florida. My sister had to bail me out of the police station. My parents had to come home from their vacation. Oh, no.

We had this whole, it was horrible. No. And my parents were at a loss. They realized like, hey, we should probably start paying attention to this kid because he's on the wrong path. And they went to see the rabbi, Rabbi Max Shapiro, a temple Israel in Minneapolis. And Rabbi Shapiro, to his credit, said to them, he's a great kid. He's just a little bored. And you need to change his peer group.

You should send him to this Jewish summer camp in a Connemwalk, Wisconsin. And they did. And that is the experience and the moment that changed my life. That's amazing. From the moment I stepped off the bus, I loved everything about it. First of all, it's the first time I ever saw rabbis and shorts and t-shirts who could throw baseball. This was amazing to me because my rabbis were these old, scary, robed, German, you know, guys who I couldn't relate to at all. And here are these, this was 1975 when I was there.

here are these basically hippies, you know, dodging would, went to rabbinical school not to, so they could dodge the Vietnam War. And they played the music I loved. They dressed the way I envied people could dress. I love the services. I love the pretty girls from Chicago with flowers in their hair on Shabbat. I love the singing. I love the whole thing. And you know what?

The truth is I never look back from that moment. I think many of us, if we're lucky, when we're at an impressionable age like 15, we see a role model and we say to ourselves, when I grow up, I want to be like him or I want to be like her. And for me, it was these great hip rabbis, you know, in the Midwest in the 1970s. And it was the one pursuit that was above reproach for my parents, other than taking care of the United States. taking over leader brothers scrap iron and metal. And that's the truth. That's how it went down. Now, it just turns out that it's been a beautiful marriage and a beautiful fit for me.

By the way, and I talk about this in the book, I worked at that junkyard every Saturday and every summer of my life from the time I was five or six years old, I was on the floor, on my knees, scrubbing toilets and scrubbing floors. I was taught at a very young age that workaholism was the only exceptional. acceptable isn't in the world. And all five of us worked there and worked hard. So I have three older sisters and a younger brother. They're all still in Minneapolis, maybe five miles from the home we grew up in. I'm the one who, as everyone in the family puts it, got out. And St. Louis Park was, if you ever saw the Cohn Brothers movie, a serious man, that was my childhood.

They grew up about five blocks away from me, went to high school with my sisters. That movie is an hallucination of my childhood. Wow. That is exactly what it was. You made your way out here, out west, as a young rabbi. I was 26 years old when they offered me the child. Were you placed at Wilshire? It's kind of like coming out of law school.

All of the congregations all over the country that want to hire a young associate come to the rabbinical school. and they interview all the graduating seniors. If they like you, they fly you out. You have another round of interviews, et cetera. So I flew around to a bunch of places, including Wiltsville Bar Temple in Los Angeles. It seemed to me to be the best fit. They felt I was the best fit.

I was literally 26 years old when they offered me the job. And I started, my first day was July 15th, 1987. And it is the only place I have ever worked as a round. That's unbelievable. It's very unusual. even know if you're good at it. We know you're good at that place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm doomed to failure anywhere else. I will tell you, I was ordained with a class of 70 rabbis, and I am the only one who is still where he or she started. I mean, yeah, it's very, very unusual. So kind of shifting

a little bit to sort of mental health, I kind of don't know. Jonathan, I'm going to let you pick. Do I ask first why religion is good for mental health or why it's bad for mental health? Let me get the bad out of the way first. We're going to get the bad out of the way. Okay. So I think that a lot of the interest that Jonathan and I both have in speaking to you is, you know, surrounding the role of religion in mental health. And, you know, as someone who was raised in a synagogue have never not been involved in one significant way or, another with Jewish life and living, it's an integral part of my life kind of like the way my eyes are the color they are. For me, it's completely... Organic. Right. It's not distinguishable from other aspects of me. I, you know, whether I commemorate the Sabbath coming the way

my Orthodox family does, like, the Sabbath still comes. I'm a deeply, like, I'm deeply integrated into this whole thing. And do see how it helps my mental health. Like, that's, you know, And we'll get to more reasons that people say that. But many people, and I'm not just speaking for the Jewish community, although it is something that I know about a lot in the Jewish community, many people say that whatever religion tried to do to them made their lives very difficult, very painful, and not just like the family dynamics like,

oh, you need to go to church, you won't go to church, you know, meaning a lot of the structures that many of us experience, were harmful and troubling. And it does make many people turn away from organized religion. Now, I'm not asking you to defend organized religion, because the fact is, it's not for everyone. And, you know, for me, I have found no other system that helps me be the person I believe God intended me to be

than this structure that I was born into. You know, like, for me, having the things to do like that's what drives me when people say like why do you wake up with so much energy because I'm serving the Lord like that's why like and I just feel that but in in general I do hear this from a lot of people are like I'm spiritual but I'm not religious and what do you feel like is what what's going on there yeah well I think what people are reacting to is extremism anything to an extreme becomes oppressive secularism and religiousism and religious So I think what when people say religion is at the root of conflict in the world, what I believe

they're really saying, if they really look carefully into religion, is that religious extremism is at the root of conflict in the world. But so is radical secularism. If you think, for example, about the three most murderous regimes of the 20th century that killed maybe 100 million people, what were they? Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. and Hitler, the three that outlawed organized religion. So let's not kid ourselves that religion is the problem.

Fanaticism and extremism and rigidity is the problem. Creating a sense of relative value to life is the problem. Well, and a lot of people also, you can get a really bad rabbi. You can have a really bad experience with someone who's not compassionate, loving, and we then group that with like all of religion. Like that's all of my religious experience. Yeah. Just like there are bad therapists and bad teachers and bad lawyers and bad dentists.

Yeah. I happen to think only about 10% of people who do what they do are good at it across the board. Across the board. Right. So I think we need to be really careful not to tar religion, all religion, with the extremist brush. That's the first thing I would say. And in this business about I don't like organized religion. I ask people, what would you prefer disorganized religion?

Like, would you like your phone call never to be returned when you call the rabbi for your mother's funeral? Would you like your name to be wrong on everything? You know, what do you prefer disorganized religion? Come on. Let's think a little more deeply about these things. I think that's just, you know, that's just a straw man. My NBi Alex breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful.

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Honestly, like, what I think is that a lot of people don't like rules. They don't like knowing about them. They don't like keeping track. I'm not talking about you, Jonathan. You got a whole other set of things I can say about you. No, but I think, like, people don't like obligation. And I think part of this, like, oh, I'm free. And, like, you know, thank you, 1960s and 70s.

I appreciate all the things you gave us. But also this notion of, like, you can't tie me down. Like, I think people don't like being told what to do. They don't like a place you got to be. Like, put your butt there. Maybe put on some long pants. Maybe a tie. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, I think it's even deeper than that. I think it has to do with a very problematic misunderstanding. understanding of what sacrifice really means. And I'm going to get a little super Jewie on you for a second now. You said sacrifice. The hair on the back of my neck just stood up. She's like, what do I have to do? How can I suffer? Sign me up. I got it. I'll give up everything right now. You know what I say? A sad Jew is a happy Jew. So let's get into this. All right. All right. Now, most people think about sacrifice. Which religious obligations are? Most people think about

sacrifice as a net loss. He made the ultimate sacrifice. It was a terrible sacrifice, right? But the Hebrew word for sacrifice, Corban, comes from the root meaning to draw near or to be close. It's the same word Cro-veem as your relatives. So if you ask most people, mine, what are the things, let me ask you, what are the things you have sacrificed the most for in? your life. My kids. Give me one more. I mean, my religion.

I mean, there's a lot of sacrifice in there. Now, what are the two things or three things you feel the closest to and mean the most to you? My children and my relationship with the higher power. Bingo. Okay. So we think about sacrifice as a net loss when the truth is, it's the things for which we sacrifice the most, in which we find the most meaning and connection. And that's a very different

way of understanding rules and understanding behavior than I don't want to be told what to do. Let's have a little humility and consider for a moment that the sages of 2,000 years thought very deeply about the human experience. Let's give them a little credit and think maybe these people knew more about what leads to a meaningful life than we do. Because, you know, the pandemic, I think, has it certainly taught me a lot of things, one of which is that a busy life and a meaningful life are not the same thing. And that the most important things to me aren't things at all. It's not what we have. It's who we have that matters. And the religious construct helps nurture all of that. It helps, it helps, it's, the religious construct is an exercise in essentialism.

It is, it is, you know as much about the Sabbath as anyone else about Shabbat. It is what you don't do, not what you do, that creates the beauty of that day, right? So in Latin, it's called via negationis by way of the negative. What religion clears out of our life, the clutter it removes from my life, gives me a greater sense of peace and sanctity. that's mental wellness. Yes. Like, you know, these kind of like buzzwords, right, that religious people get to use. I mean, that's essentially what we're talking about, right? So like peace and clear, like that's, I mean, what we're looking for is a lack of anxiety. Yes. And how do we get that? I mean, let's talk about

counting our blessings, which, you know, is just a cliche. But what if you really live that way? You know, I wake up every day and I say a prayer that thanks God that my breath has returned to me. And many of your listeners know, many don't, that in Hebrew, the word for breath and the word for soul are the same word. Right? That, and if you were to ask me, you know, what is spirituality? What is it really? Because the word is so overused. It's lost its currency.

It's a meaningless word now. But what I think it means in its ideal state is the sanctification of the mundane. Right? Why do we say a prayer over a slice of bread? The most humble, right, simplest of foods. Because if you can be grateful for that, you can be grateful for the many other greater blessings in your life. It's also very Buddhist. It's very, you know, it's consistent with Eastern tradition as well.

I mean, all these are paths to the same truth. All of them. And I think that's what people mean when they talk about disorganized religion or, you know, when they, not that I think they want disorganized religion, but I think what they're saying or what some people say when they're like, spiritual, not religious, is that they're looking for the connection points between all these face, which are all paths towards the same road. And they're like, okay, but, you know, the specifics of any particular path or dogma, I can leave, but what I want are those. But you can't, but that's not how it works. You cannot separate the values from the specific

vehicles that transport those values through society. You can't do it that way. You know, you just can't do it that way. What you can do. is assign equal value to these different paths. You know, my wife and I got engaged on our second date. I knew I was in love with her the moment she walked in the door. And that's my wife and my love. Now, does that mean someone else loves his or her spouse any less than I love mine? No, it's just my way.

And yours is your way. And they are equally valid. But they are also equally specific and unique. and that is how they sustain themselves. So, you know. You're still together, I assume. Yeah, yeah. We are.

And, you know, look, I think this is particularly true in America where our cultural exemplars are so flawed. You know, if we lived in the America of Lincoln and Jefferson, I mean, okay, maybe I would rely on majoritarian popular culture to give my kids good values. But we all know. We all know. that that's not the America we live in now. And so to dismiss all religion and say, I don't want the particulars, I just want the outcome. That is impossible. It doesn't work that way. I don't think they

want the outcome as much as they say, look, Buddhism has a variety of practices that are very positive and very helpful. And Judaism also has that. That's your marriage. And my marriage is my marriage. And they're equally valid. Again, just playing the, that other role is that why can't I have some of the Buddhist, some of the Judaism, some of those aspects, and why can't I mix them together? And why does all of these paths have to be separate? I mean, my response is, most people I know who say I'm spiritual, I'm not religious, they often don't have a spiritual practice. What they have is a belief that we're not alone or that there is a God, typically based on the God that they were educated to believe in,

which is, you know, typically a patriarchal, you know, kind of figure, but that they reject the way that they were raised to worship that God or to have that spiritual experience. But, you know, it becomes also kind of like a semantic thing. Like, for me, dropping acid is a spiritual experience. Like, of course it is. But that's a different conversation than how do you gear your life? How do you raise your children?

Like, what holiday do you want to celebrate? And the fact is for Jews, as, you know, 2% of the United States population, It is problematic, you know, to be like, I take a little bit of Christianity. I take a little bit of this. It can be problematic in terms of the structure of communal identity. I also think it's disrespectful to other religions in this sense. They are not the same. There are very profound differences between Judaism and Christianity and Buddhism.

They are not the same. They have the same goal. They have their own structures and rules to achieve that goal. But they are not the same. of their beliefs, despite how much in America we want to make a big party out of everything, some of their beliefs are antithetical to each other period. End of story. And we are being dishonest and disrespectful to those religions when we pretend otherwise.

So you're going to make, you're making a lot of people mad, which is totally fine. It's your job. I'm thinking of people like Sam Harris. Yes. Who actually we've had on this show. He was angry. He was angry before me. That's true.

No, I've known him since grad school. He's a very interesting, you know, figure, you know, kind of in this whole conversation. And, you know, and people like him. And, you know, I get very intimidated when I talk to people like Sam Harris because for them and Jonathan, I think, has, you know, some of this intellectual streak in him as well. It's like, this is all fairy tales. Like, these are your fairy tales. And it's really cute and it's sweet and it's good for controlling people. I'm just telling you what some people might be saying. No, but let's stop there. Okay. Yes.

We have to now talk about what does a myth really mean? Because in common usage, oh, that's a myth is tantamount to saying that's a lie. And a myth is not a lie. A myth is a way of describing reality. I'll give you an example from my daughter when she was five years old. This is why it's so important to teach these things early on and to be straight up about them in religious institutions. My daughter, when she was five years old, before Hanukkah, a friend of ours gave her of menorah with Noah. It was Noah and two animals of each, you know, on the arcs of four sets of

animals and Noah and a little ship. And I read her the story of Noah and the flood and the ark and the animals. At five years old, she says to me, Dad, there's no way Noah got all those animals on a boat and took care of them for that long. And I said, you're right. But that's not what the story is about. The story is about us being the protectors of all the animals on the planet, that the future of the world, the future of the planet, depends on how we behave. Because that's the difference between a fact and a truth. I don't read the Bible for its facts. It's not a book of facts. It's a book of truths. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't any facts in the Bible. There are, just like if you were writing a novel about L.A., the 405 might be in it, and it's real. But that's not the same thing.

So I think it's extremely important that we have a more sophisticated understanding of the Bible and that we approach it as a book of truth, not the only book of truths, my book of truths. Other people have theirs. But it is definitely not a book of facts because that clearly, clearly is something that most thinking people would reject, including me. What's the sort of truth component to God basically flooding the earth because he didn't like the behavior of the human beings on it? In that, because... In my opinion, the truth of it is that, and remember, God said, I'll never again destroy

the earth by water. Okay. It was a limited promise, okay? This is why James Baldwin wrote that essay, The Fire Next Time. God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign, not the water, but the fire next time. To me, the answer is that it's a very clear warning that human behavior is capable of destroying this planet. Nuclear war is a good example. We do, if we behave badly, have the power to destroy the Earth. that is the truth of that story. Now, the fact that it gets sort of laid on God's shoulders, shall we say, or God's responsible,

I guess it depends on how you understand God as metaphor, or I understand God is almost like Einstein's unified field theory. I happen to write my rabbinical thesis on Einstein, that there is a single unifying force behind all of existence. and depending upon how human beings behave, that force reacts in certain ways. So I think only a fool would reject the idea that human behavior can destroy the planet. And that's what that story is about. So much of these aspects of Judeo-Christianity are also, they don't exist unisolated from the culture that they existed in then. meaning, you know, the notion that women's voices weren't heard, because most women were not out in the public, you know? Yeah, they were property.

Right. So, of course I want to know women's voices. Of course I want to know female perspective. The notion is not that, like, religion created this structure that was the patriarchy. The patriarchy was the structure that everyone was living in. And the fact is, yeah, homosexuality was enormously feared and misunderstood for most of human history when we have these kinds of structures. And or what the Bible was reacting to in that specific instance was the kind of abusive Greco-Roman homosexuality between men and boys. Now, it's also fair to say that the Bible was a,

I think, divinely inspired, but humanly authored document by schools of authors over centuries. and I'm prepared to say that some of what's in it may have been right and correct by the standards of that day, but by the standards of our own day are clearly immoral and wrong. And that's why Judaism has evolved and continues to evolve. In fact, the Hebrew word for law in Judaism, halakha, comes from the root word to go, to walk, to be in process. It's a static verb. It's a moving thing, the law in Judaism. It evolves, as it should.

Just why do we have amendments to our Constitution for the very same reason? And I think that it's a little unfair to critique the Bible from the perspective of modernity for the parts of it, which were clearly in and of its own era, and should be rejected. So I think that that's where the American ethos, I think, is positive. It has a very positive influence on religion. And I'm all for it. I mean, it's very refreshing to hear shifting a little bit to more of sort of what religion can provide in terms of, you know, kind of mental health. And also this is not like, I don't want people to feel, especially Jonathan, like this is not an advertisement for religion.

Like, here's the best way to be mentally healthy. But I think it is interesting. Attend these days at the synagogue. Right. No, but I think it's important that like, you know, to speak to people like rabbi leader who's, you know, literally dedicated his life to the academic pursuit of compassion and connection with human beings, not just Jewish human beings, with human beings in general. A lot of times you hear people talk about the benefits of religion and they give a list of examples that are

all sad. Like, when you break your foot and no one can help you if you're part of a religious community, they'll come. You know, like, what will you do when your father dies? And it's like, oh, then everyone. And while those things are true, through, maybe you can reflect a little bit on some positive aspects of how having a religious community or a sense of ritual, you know, which Judaism is huge on ritual and many religions are not. You know, everything we do has like a candle and a thing and a blessing and a thing and a hand motion. We get a lot of things. So maybe you can talk a little bit about sort of like what are the positive ways and not just the in bad times kind of benefits for our mental health, you know,

in particular. Yes. Well, I think, first of all, you know, we were talking earlier about spirituality and what it really means. And what it really means to me is the sanctification of the mundane. That to me is what it means to be a spiritual person. Everyone can feel spiritual at a beautiful sunrise or a mountaintop. That's child's play. Can you have a sense of gratitude and awe for a slice of toast, for drawing breath, for the fact that, you know, there's a prayer in Judaism that you say after you go to the bathroom, that thanks God that your openings open and your closings close. Now, that sounds pretty funny until you have an opening that doesn't open or a closing that doesn't close. And that's called

a stroke or a heart attack or an embolism or you're impacted and you're dead. So can you have a sense of sanctity and reverence and gratitude for the mundane? Because that, is really good for your mental health. That is good for your soul. It's harder to be depressed when you're grateful. And it's nice to say, oh, yeah, I'm grateful. But you know, when you were a little kid and you went bowling, they put those bumpers on the lane to keep the ball in the lane?

To me, that's what religious discipline does. It keeps me on the path. It reminds me 100 times a day to count my blessing. to be grateful for the smallest of things, that I have obligations to live beyond myself as part of a community. And yes, yes, I will say when sorrow comes that there's a community that cares about me. I'll never forget this. I've had a shiver once with a man whose 30-year-old daughter had died in a car accident. Everybody's arms around each other.

He looks around, looks at me, says, this changes nothing, but it means everything, right? Because no one suffers pain better alone. And the tradition also forces us to count our blessings when we don't feel like it. The cottage, the mourners prayer, for example, must be said standing. When you are at your lowest, the tradition says, stand up. And it has to be said in the presence of at least nine other people, as in when you want to crawl in a hole, stand up, put your arms around some people. Here's one very deep. There's a blessing in Judaism over the new moon.

And the Talmud requires a blind person to recite the blessing over the new moon. Now, in other words, it's a way of life that encourages us to affirm what we can't even see. with hope. And to me, this is a beautiful way to live. It's my way. It doesn't have to be your way or anyone else's way. But this system of blessings and behaviors changes my orientation to the world in a beautiful and powerful way, even when I'm suffering, but especially when I'm not. Am I a guy who would say a blessing over a piece of bread every day if I didn't come from this tradition, maybe, but probably not. So that's what it comes down to for me, is a system of behaviors that gives me a great sense of awe and gratitude. So the first thing that came to me,

and then I do want to talk a bit more about the cottage process in general. My grandfather, My mother's father was very religious, and he was a lay chazen, which means he was not formally trained. You know, he left school at 15 to make hats and then, you know, flee the pogroms and come to America. But he was gifted with a voice, you know, a very specific voice. And so in every community, he lived in a little community of Holocaust survivors in San Diego my whole life. That's where I was born. You know, and he was the canter. He was the singing leader, you know, for the community.

And he had a thing about corrupt rabbis. And he did not trust rabbis because one rabbi, you know, stole money in the Bronx, like whatever, in the 19, you know, the late 40s or whatever. But and my grandfather, you know, may his memory be for a blessing, he was not an educated man. He was a sweatshop worker, you know, his ability to think like that was just one person. That didn't happen for him. All rabbis were corrupt. the entire system was corrupt and like that the rest of his life that was his story you know so i think also you know i hear you speaking and i can't help but have that voice in my head of like

but sometimes they're corrupt these nice people who tell us what to do and i think that's one of the things that can be scary about religion i would put a little differently i would say sometimes they're human and flawed and have their own anxieties and make their and make their own mistakes and have their own insecurities and you know I'll just tell you this much when someone comes to me having committed some kind of moral failure and this happens very frequently before I open my mouth to say anything I ask myself where is that same? flaw in me so that I can respond from a place of empathy and humility. And I will tell you, I can always find that flaw in myself.

I'm curious if there's a commonality in what people are coming to you with. If you sort of see ebbs and flows, you know, everyone's life is unique and different, but there's sort of a commonality in suffering. And I'm wondering if, you know, as someone who sees and his, counseling and giving support to so many people in a congregation. I'm wondering if, you know, you have some insight into that commonality. Yes, there are some commonalities, one of which is the frightening and stark realization that we are really not in control. And that rocks people. It rocks people to their foundational core when you realize that you are subject to the rhythm

and power of things beyond your control. And that's, I think, a big one. That's death, for example. That's cancer. That's divorce sometimes. It's many things. But the foundation is built upon this idea of, I really am only human and I really can only control so much.

And there really is a big part of this. By the way, I think this is why the pandemic has been so frightening for people because it pierced everyone's sense of invulnerability, both as individuals and all of us as a species. We realize now how vulnerable we are, all of us. I always feel vulnerable. Maybe that's why I didn't take it so bad. You know, but I think that's one of the answers in terms of you're, if you're asking me about the common, you know, underpinnings of pain and fear. The second one I would say is the feeling of isolation. and abandonment, that you're in it alone, that no one understands, and no one really cares,

and no one can really help. That's a very common feeling for people who are suffering, that my God, I'm here all alone. I mean, this is why so many people who could benefit from therapy don't seek it. And I'll tell you something. There's a beautiful phrase in the Talmud, which says the prisoner cannot free himself. That is such a powerful idea. The prisoner cannot free himself. When you're suffering, you have to reach out. And when you see suffering, you need to reach out.

Because only another person can lift you from yourself. Also, that is, you know, essentially that that's the key to unlock the prison. That you are holding, you're holding the key inside the prison. You have the key and you don't even know it. the prisoner cannot free himself or herself. Now, if once we grasp that, then the road to mental health becomes a viable path. You've written many books,

and we will link to all of them on our website, but the beauty of what remains, how our greatest fear becomes our greatest gift, is a really, really beautiful. You write as if each chapter could be its own universe. You know, I mean, you're a very, you're a very lyrical writer, and it's part of also the Jewish tradition,

which I love so much, is that even our most intellectual are also poets. You know, King David was also a poet. You know, he was a warrior and a poet, and how I get all emotional when I think about King David. It's just a thing. And flawed. And flawed, exactly.

Sent a man away so that he would die and he could marry his wife. Anyway, the, you know, the focus is, a topic that obviously is, you know, one of these evergreen problematic and confusing aspects of life, also one of the top five stressors in life, death. And I think in particular this last year has given everyone a new sense of mortality, or at least those who kind of have wanted to delve into it. So I think it is a topic that's been on people's minds.

And, you know, without this seeming, again, like, you know, an advertisement for religion and certainly not for Judaism in particular, one of the things that I often hear from non-Jews is how much they find fascinating how we handle grief in traditional, you know, in traditional Judaism. And indeed, I've often heard people say, of all the things that we get wrong in Judaism, we seem to have figured out a very specific, you know, and. very concrete and complicated way of dealing with death. And, you know, I'll just list a few things, you know, that I know. And also, you know, I come from a very superstitious family. I'm Hungarian. We have a lot of superstitions. And one of the men hugs, one of the customs in my family is that if you have two living parents, you do not go to a cemetery. And that's, you know, it happens in many families. I don't know if it's my Hungarian side. But, you know, you know, you know, it's a I didn't grow up going to funerals.

That wasn't, you really don't go until you, quote, you know, need to, as it were. And, you know, it wasn't until my father passed, bless his memory. He died. It'll be six years ago on Pesach. And, you know, the experience of the structure surrounding grief was already familiar to me from when my grandparents had passed. I was very close with them and they lived here in Los Angeles. when you are a direct mourner, because there are designations in Judaism of who is a direct mourner, and it doesn't mean that you love the person more or less.

There's a lot of reasons. But anyway, once I was a designated mourner, which is when you are a spouse, a child, a parent, a partner. A sibling? Less so. Less so. But okay. Okay, so fine. The first, anyway, it wasn't until then that I, you know, had to take out my book.

and I do subscribe to, you know, more of, I guess, modern orthodoxy in terms of my following Jewish law. But there are a lot of rules. There's a whole book that, you know, we kind of like keep by us. But one of the first things that is very interesting that we do is we do not embalm. We, we therefore, and of course there are Jews who do. There are Jews who do cremation. But traditionally speaking, we bury literally that night if you can. as soon as possible.

The notion is that the spirit is waiting and that the body should be returned to its source as quickly as possible. In addition, we sit for seven days of Shiva and it's like, you know, you just pile on the difficulties. You sit low to the ground. You don't serve yourself food. And I don't mean difficulties.

Sorry, I don't mean difficulties. I mean the inability for you to act like things are normal. is removed. You know, I did not, this is just the truth. I didn't shower for the entire Shiva period. I wore the same clothing. I mean, I, you tear clothes when you hear someone dies. I wore the same clothing. I sat on the floor. You don't serve yourself food. Like, you don't leave that house. You stay there and you stay there and people come to you so you can recite the mourners prayer. So that's another thing that we add is that we're going to force you to be around people. You do not get to isolate. You are going to be in a situation.

where you praise God with a prayer that's not even about death. It is a rabbinical punctuation, in theory, between services. People will come to you to do that. And then for a year, you are encouraged to do that every day. This is something that typically men do, and men typically in Judaism will pray three times a day in traditional circles. I wouldn't always get to pray three times a day. There were days when I got to. But as a woman, this is also very very not regular, and I was the only woman, you know, saying Caudish in Orthodox communities. I would have my own little section, and that's like a whole other story. But the notion that the first month is exceptional and then something shifts, and then the first

year is exceptional, and again, it shifts, and that's usually when we dedicate them at Sava, the gravestone. Right, the headstone. And every year, when we commemorate that death, you get to say, that prayer again. And it's interesting because I did all, I mean, I didn't wear bright colors. I didn't go to live bands. Like, I did the full, you know, the whole McGillah and found it incredibly healing, incredibly profound. And I also did a lot of work before my father passed, you know, to try and get clean, you know, as it were, with this whole process. But what I think kind of stands out to me

the most is I don't know that for everyone that would make them feel the level of healing that I felt. I don't know that. But I know that for me, I took the wisdom, kind of like you said, I banked on thousands of years of experience by, you know, people who are philosophers and leaders and thinkers. And I kind of just put one foot in front of the other. And especially as a woman, especially in Orthodox synagogues, it had a whole extra set of challenges. But the notion was I took something on in honor of my father's memory, not because he was a religious person. He was not a religious person. He actually said on his deathbed, I should have spent more time on religious things.

But it was also, it was a way to keep my mind kind of constantly engaged with my grief, but also constantly immersed in the outside world. And I would say Kaddish sometimes at 5.15 in the morning. It depends on the time of the sunrise. So like, you know, our services rotate throughout the year. So it was like this was my thing was that every night I'd call the shul and listen to the lady in the recording, tonight services will be held, you know. And like that was my thing. And that sense of ritual gave me structure and it gave me comfort. And yeah, did I get bored? Of course I did. Some days in I would kind of like daydream or fall asleep a little bit until, you know, it came time for Kaddish. But maybe you could speak a little bit to specifically the way Judaism handles grief, death, and how that is really a large component of, you know, a distinguishing factor of how we try and deal with the mental health challenges in particular that come up surrounding grief. Well, I would frame it a little differently than you.

you, although I think you'll agree with it. I think of the death and morning rituals in Judaism as permission granted. Permission granted to you, Maya, to have this vessel, this holding environment, this container, to protect you until you're back on your feet again, physically and emotionally. It's one of those areas. You know, sometimes we create laws. to change human behavior, and sometimes we create laws to protect human behavior. And to me, the Jewish laws of mourning were meant to protect the mourner,

to give you permission to hunker down for the first seven days and not have to do a thing to take care of yourself. And permission granted for the first 30 days, not to have to return to normal life because you don't feel normal. And to have at least three moments a day to remember your beautiful dad and all that he was and all that he wasn't. So many days, Cottish that first 11 months after my dad died, it just, it saved me. It saved me. It gave me a place to land in the chaos. And so that's how I think. think of these things. Yes, there are obligations, but I think they're obligations meant to protect and comfort us. Well, and the idea is also to give, you know, to give space to feel. And, you know, I automatically think of people, I mean, it's not that different from after you give birth. You know,

there are people who really hunkered down. And like, you know, with both my kids, I was home for 40 days, which is a, you know, traditional concept as well. But so many people are like, I don't want to sit in any of these emotions or feelings, I just want to get up and go back to my life. You know, like, I don't want to deal with this. I'm like, oh, I had a baby. All right, but I really want to just, like, get back out there. And I think after death, there are many people who are like, yeah, I don't, I don't want to sit in it. I don't want you telling me the things you miss about him. I want to pretend it didn't happen. And also, I can't begrudge people that. No, but my experience is the rebound effect of that is pretty terrible.

Right. And I think a lot of people listening will probably resonate with that, people who've experienced grief, you know. There's, there's not one right way to do it, but I would say more, I would be more sort of. There's no wrong way to grieve. There is no wrong way to grieve. And this idea, one of the things in the book that I think has, just from the emails and, you know, texts and Instagram messages I'm getting about it, one of the things that I think has helped people the most in the book is that I take on the idea of grief having stages, and I push back against it very hard. I'm 60, and my generation and yours and the one to follow,

we were all raised under the umbrella of the work of Elizabeth Cougla Ross, who said there are five stages to death and dying. There are five stages to grief. Now, her thinking was actually more sophisticated than that sounds, but even saying, even writing a book, the five stages of grief, implies that grief is a linear problem. process. And I say in my book, anybody who thinks the shortest distance between two points is a straight line knows nothing about grief. Because grief is nonlinear. It's not like you feel A, then B, then C, then D, then E, and you're done. It's much more like waves.

And Judaism is there to help us when those waves are very close together and very large and pounding us every day. and then the laws kind of adjust to that period where the waves grow further apart. And then it adjusts to those days and years where you have calm beautiful seas for a week, a month, a year even, and then a rogue wave rises up and just takes you down. So what I think Judaism has helped with in terms of grief and mourning is, well, let me just put it this way. One of the, I think the golden thread in my book is the journey from Rabbi, from Steve Leeder the rabbi to Steve Leeder the son when my father died. And one of the things I learned in that shift from rabbi to son is Steve Leeder the rabbi, whenever I had a wave coming at me, any kind of wave, no matter how large, a wave of hard work, a wave of funerals, a wave of anxiety, you name it. My default setting was I'm planting my feet, chest forward, and I'm going to stand my ground because I am more powerful than that weight.

And now we all know what happens to people who do that sometimes. They end up thrown upside down, thrust against the rocks, gasping for air. What Steve Leader, the sun, learned, is when these waves come. And this is what I really learned about grief is the best thing to do is lie down, let it wash over. you and float with it. Just float with it until you can stand up again. And that is grief. And much of Jewish tradition is permission granted to lie down and float with it. And the encouragement to reach out a hand to let someone else help lift you from your suffering. And to me, that's the beauty and the wisdom of it all.

What was writing this book like for you? You know, was it cathartic? Was it like, I mean, I don't mean to ask you all those kind of like banal questions, but is this the book you wished you didn't have to write? Is it the book you didn't want to write? Is this the book that you feel you were supposed to write? Well, I'll give you the quick backstory, and it'll answer your question. Three years ago on Kulnidre, which, as you know,

was the holiest night of the Jewish year. I gave a sermon, it had been my 30th year as a rabbi, and I gave a sermon about what being so intimate and up close with so much death had taught me about life. And it had 10 points. Now, I did it that night because Colnidre is a kind of Jewish day of the dead. It is meant to mimic death. For example, we wear white because burial shrouds are white. We fast because the dead neither eat nor drink. The whole service begins by removing moving three scrolls, the three Taurus from the Ark, and the Ark is empty. And those three scrolls represent the three judges in the Badin Shalmala in the Heavenly Tribunal before whom we will have to make an accounting of our lives when we die,

according to legend, and the same word for Ark where those Torres came out of in Hebrew is the same word for coffin. So there we are, standing before the tribunal metaphorically, staring into our empty cough it. It is meant to force us to think about our death so that we change our lives. I gave that sermon

one year later to the day mine. I buried my father in Minneapolis and I became a mourner. And I learned that some of what I had said a year ago in that sermon

as I say in the prologue of the book was just one degree shy of the deepest truth. It wasn't all the way there. There's this old Yiddish expression that a half-truth is a whole lie. So I wrote this book in a way as a kind of an apology for that sermon. Like this is where I got it wrong. And this is the real truth. And in that sense, I felt not only that I had to write it, but also it's the book I could only have written after.

making that transition from Steve the rabbi to Steve the son, whose father just died. And I wanted to take the reader, not on my journey, but on their own journey, down to these deeper levels of truth. And people say to me, how could you spend two years writing a book on death? I said, I didn't. I spent two years writing a book about life, about what death comes to teach us about leading a more beautiful and more meaningful life. That's what I'm wrote about. But that's the real backstory was that sermon that needed to be reimagined and at rewritten. Rabbi, we currently live in one of the least religious times ever. There are fewer millennials engaged in religious activities, fewer people trust institutions, including government

institutions and medical institutions. And there's sort of been a breakdown across society about where we can find viable information. We don't trust news sources. Everything is politicized. We're in massive conflict, which Miami and I have discussed as, you know, this is a major problem for mental health and a collective healthy society. As someone who is building community on a more micro level than on a national or global level, I'm wondering, like, how do we rebuild our trust in societies so that people can access the positive aspects of these institutions and we can sort of try to regain some semblance of not normal because I think we're in a new normal, but without trust and security in our institutions and trust in what is true, we're kind of doomed as a race of human beings.

Well, first of all, you're right. Okay, let's stop there. Okay, that's great. We'll send that to your mom? Yeah, that's it. Send it to my mom. Religion will always mirror the larger ethos in America. So if we don't believe in government's ability to get anything done,

if anger and distrust are the general larger ethos in America, it's going to be mirrored at every level of our society, including religion. Now, what's my approach? What do I get out of bed every day, knowing that so much of that larger ethos is beyond my ability to control? You know, there's this phrase we use a lot as Jews, Tikunalam, it means to repair the world. I think it's a misnomer at best. The idea that any of us can repair the world is an idea that I think is beyond what's really possible. I wake up every day with the thought of, like, what can I fix in my small corner, in my relatively small sphere of influence? How can we be an exception to the larger ethos?

How can I teach be sure that our children in our day schools are being taught the value of kindness? Despite the fact that they're all being raised in a. culture that devalues kindness. How can I teach the value of community in my little microcosmic community and be an exception to the cynicism and fracturing of community at the more macro level? So that's the best I can do. And of course, if I can do it in my institution and you can do it with your podcast and someone else can do it with their little league team and someone else can do it, you know, with their YMCA and someone else can do it with their church and someone else can do it with their mosque. There is a multiplying effect and it does matter. And no, it's not an answer to

the larger problem. But I can't solve that larger problem. He who saves a single life, it is as if you've saved the entire world. I just want to say that like, Mr. We Can't Save the Whole World. Well, each person is a world. And I'll tell you an interesting story. When I graduated rabbinical school, I went to the handful of professors that I respected the most, and I asked each of them, what, in your opinion, is a successful rabbi? I want to be a successful rabbi. What does that mean to you? The best answer I received was from a non-rabi on the faculty, a wonderful guy named Ezra Spice Handler.

It was a professor of Hebrew literature. He said to me, a successful rabbi is a person who deeply affects at least three people in his or her career. I never forgot that. And that's how I try to live every day. And I have my weaknesses and I get tired and I have flaws and all of that. But I really try as best I can to really help people and to really affect people and to really be there for people. And you know what? that's the best I can do.

And some days it's enough. Really, really an honor to speak to your rabbi. Thank you so much. And really appreciate your transparency and your heart. So thank you so much. Thank you. The same to you. And I really mean that.

So we have reinstated trust in all the institutions. We fixed everything. Everything's fine. Our work here is done. Everyone's going to be religious. It's going to be great. I'm just kidding. I don't want that to be.

That's not my goal. So much of what intimidates people. about religion is not feeling like there's a human interaction, you know? And I think the days of old, for many of us, no matter what your religious tradition is, the days of old of having like that dude who was like a glorified father figure, you know, I think they're gone. And that makes for a tremendous amount of anxiety for certain individuals who don't resonate well with that kind of dad figure, you know, as like the boss of you in synagogue. And I, you know, when I first went to, you know, started going to synagogue when I was a kid, yeah, we had like two older dudes who

just like kind of were scary. Like they always had these big robes and, you know, they were very scary. But I remember my bat mitzvah was the first time that we had this rabbi who, I mean, ended up being there, you know, many, many years who just retired. And he was the first, like, young rabbi that I had ever had. And I mean, he had young kids. He was probably, I mean, he's probably younger than me, but still, he wasn't like a kid. He was a grown-up, but he was young enough that, like, he wasn't old enough to, like, properly be my dad. And he was cool. Like, and that's who I wanted to talk to. My problem is that I never connected at all to why we were being taken to synagogue. So we would get dressed up and we would be shuttled to the car and

there was a lot of stress that we were going to be laid. Right. What are you wearing? And how do you look? And how come we're not ready yet? And my mom and dad being like, come on, we got to go. Why are we going? Here we go. And then we'd get to synagogue. And then I'd sit beside my grandmother who would just feed me candies so that I would sit

there long enough. And then there was a break in the service. And then they would release the children. That's right. And then we would release the children. Release the cracken. And then you were supposed to go to your like children's service because it was attached to a school.

And then you would like go into the little rooms. except I'd always get jail broken from the little rooms. Like we always had, you know, either my siblings would come and get me or I'd like lie and I'd get my way out of it. And then all of my friends would like run around the synagogue playing. We'd go outside in warmer weather and play dodge ball or wall ball or whatever it was. And in the colder months, we would sit underneath the stairs and gamble playing cards. And then after a certain while, it's like, why am I? I never found that person who was like, this has some value for you.

And also, if you don't have like a, if you don't have a social circle there, you know, there's not much anchoring you. We did, but we all got jailbroken so we could run around. I really hope that people don't see this as, you know, trying to push religion or push, especially pushing Judaism, especially because we don't proselytize. But I think it is important to learn from people you may not 100%. and agree with because what I'm hoping is that the larger concepts of where do we find, you know, points of weakness in our own mental health? It's when we don't feel supported. It's when we isolate. It's when we take the hardest transitions in life, such as loss, and we shove them down and we hide them away or we drink them away or we push them away. And for people who live, you know,

a life of religious structure and a life of ritual, yeah, there's things you're told to do and, you know, do this, do that. But I think the general notion is a universal one. I hope that that's what people take out of this episode. Let's do an ask my am anything. Okay. Ask Miami Anything. Yeah. This Ask MyManything is from Pamela Arthur, and it is a very good question, but somewhat open ended. It's broad. I'm a little broad. How can a disconnected marriage affect your mental health? Oh. That's the response I thought we were going to get. It's not the reason we broke up. Well, let's, since we can't speak to Pamela directly, Jonathan, let's describe what a disconnected marriage is, where needs are not being met, people are not communicating, you're not deciding, everything's bickering, like that? It could be that. It could be totally people living separately.

and there isn't a connection point to come together on. Yeah. So that's going to, well, your mental health, I mean, it can suffer in many ways. You know, and I would say this is true for both parties. You know, obviously if there's one person who's more of the aggressor and the other who's being more victimized, you know, the dynamics might shift. What do you mean by aggressor there? So if you have a situation where there's disconnect because one person, for example, has. you know, an addiction that's taking them away from being connected or they're hostile,

emotionally abusive, physically abusive, you know, then you're going to get a certain level of disconnect. But let's just talk about a lot of things, you know, could have gone better and didn't and now you have this disconnect. We'll just kind of keep it with that kind of example. In that case, the feeling of loneliness and isolation will take hold. And this is, you know, the amazing, beautiful, wonderful, and tragic thing about being human and our mental health, there's not one way that will look. So a lot of people will withdraw. A lot of people will feel a tremendous loss of self-esteem. They will feel unlovable. They will eventually get depressed. But some people in that situation will get tremendously resentful and high.

hostile and angry. You're never more alone than when you're alone next to the person you're supposed to be connected with. Yeah. So, you know, your mental health can suffer in many ways, but ultimately the root of it is that you are suffering from deprivation, you know, emotional deprivation. Or constant eggshells or constant sort of constriction because you don't know what you might step on. That'll lead to anxiety. Yeah. Pamela, I hope you're okay. We're wishing you the best. Thank you for submitting. Did you send in that question? I did not. My alter ego is Pamela. And if anyone else wants to send a question, you can do so at Bialikbreakdown.com. BIA? L-I-K-B breakdown.com. And lots of people are sending in text questions. You can also upload a video. We're not getting

a ton of those, but there is a link that you can do that from your phone. Let us know if that's working for you, and we look forward to it. Jonathan, thank you for joining me, as always. on this journey and from my breakdown to the one I hope you never have. We'll see you next time.