Search Engine - What does it feel like to believe in God?

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger. Support the show: searchengine.show To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Serval AI. If you ever worked with an IT team, you know how quickly their day gets eaten up by repetitive tickets, password resets, access requests, onboarding. It all adds up. And as your company grows, those requests just keep piling higher, pulling your team away from the work that actually moves the business forward. That's where Serval comes in. Serval can cut up to 80% of your help desk tickets. And it's not just another tool layering on AI as an afterthought. While legacy platforms bolt AI on, Serval was built for AI agents from the ground up. Here's what that looks like. Instead of a new hire onboarding taking hours or even days, a manager just drops a request in Slack.

And Serval handles everything instantly. No back and forth, no bottlenecks. Serval even writes automations in seconds. Serval powers the latest growing companies in the world, like perplexity, Mercore, Verkata, and Clay. Get your team out of the help desk and back to the work they enjoy. Book your free pilot at Serval.com. slash search. That's s-e-r-v-a-l-com slash search. When I was a kid, I believed in God. The Christian,

big guy in the sky, God. My family wasn't hardcore about it, but we went to church on Sundays. When we kids resisted, we were bribed with donuts. I found Sunday school to be mainly confusing. I understood the concepts of God and Jesus, but I remember having a lot of questions about the Holy Ghost, this character whose backstory the teachers never seemed to want to fill in. But I believed in God. I prayed every night. I prayed for a long list of everyone I hoped God would protect, really everyone I knew.

My family, my friends, relatives, the souls of pets who had died. I couldn't fall asleep until I had prayed. Always the same prayer, every night, until I turned 15. When I was 15, something terrible happened to someone I loved. After that, I only prayed that this one person would be safe. A month later, the same terrible thing happened to them again. And after that, I mostly stopped praying. At first, I think I was pretty angry, but the anger went away.

And then when it was gone, it just felt easier for me to live in a world where everything didn't happen for a reason. A world where when someone I knew got hurt, I didn't have to look for a lesson in it or imagine it as part of a plan. I kept getting older. I didn't think about God very much. But a couple years ago, I had a funny experience. I was in the desert with a friend, and I had this feeling I never had before. It lasted for about a minute, just this sense, like a physical sense, that the world might just be a shadow of a different world,

a place that was more real or more true. It lasted for about one full minute, and then it passed. I did not rush off to start a new religion or join an old one. I took what had happened with a grain of salt, but I also didn't discard it. It just left me with new questions. I know I'm not allowed to do a podcast called Is God Real? But I did want to try to understand what faith feels like to the people who have it. That question has really been sticking with me.

I think I'll probably ask it a lot in the future to different people of different faiths. But recently, I found one person who would let me pester them about it. Do you want headphones or no headphones? I don't think I need headphones. I might do no headphones too, shrivy. Is that okay with you? Yeah, I'm listening. Tell me what you had for breakfast today.

For breakfast today, I had a smoked salmon avocado toast. This is Vika Krieger. How do I describe this person? We met recently. He leads a progressive Jewish spiritual community in Berkeley called Hukhmad Halov. I really enjoyed talking to him. And I got the sense I could ask him

a bunch of invasive questions about his faith, that I could ask him about God like I was a kid who'd never smoked weed. who wanted to know what weed was like, and that these questions would not offend him. So I invited him to search engine headquarters to ask one of those, no questions too big. So my plan today, like this sort of roadmap

I'm imagining for this conversation, I want to talk about your early life. I want to ask you about what your relationship to faith has been like, how it's changed, how you were dragged kicking and screaming into Rabbi Dumb? Rabbi Dumb. Rabidant. Rabidant.

And then I want to see if I can get a sense of like how it feels to believe, as someone who doesn't particularly believe. I brought one of my favorite books on the topic. Oh, really? So that you can see the title. Like catching water in a net. It's a book about how to describe God. Oh, really?

Yeah, so it's like, this is the title. That's great. Okay, so we're doing something impossible today. Yeah. Okay, so can you just tell me about your life before you decide to become a rabbi? Like, even, like, as a kid, did you believe in God? Well, so I grew up in Los Angeles. primarily. And I would say I definitely believed in a version of God as a kid, for sure. That sounds

not too different from the version of the God that you described growing up, even though I grew up Jewish. And so I grew up Orthodox, which means, like, on the very observant and very traditional end of the Jewish spectrum. And my parents got married when they were very young, like 19, early 20s, and divorced a year later. And I was born in that one year period. Oh, wow. And my mom stayed in L.A. and my dad moved out and eventually landed in Israel. And so my mom is what maybe you would just call, like, regular Orthodox or, like, centrist Orthodox. And my dad is ultra-Orthodox, or you call, like, Harady or Hasidic, like, where they, with the hat and the beard and the garb and all of that.

And so... So, like Williamsburg Orthodox. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, I mean, there's nuances, but, you know, lost on people. What are the nuances? Well, I think there's like different, like the garb may look the same, but I think there's like different theologies around within those communities, but subtle. And so I grew up primarily in L.A. And when I was younger, I would go back and forth between that sort of L.A. Orthodox world and then

the ultra-Orthodox world with my dad. And so those were like the formative experiences of my childhood, particularly when it came to religion, but like my life was religion because I lived in this insular orthodox community. So you're in Los Angeles, but it's like a very strict upbringing, like a strict religious upbringing. Yeah, like, you know, only eat kosher food, which means that, like, you can only eat in restaurants that are, like, certified kosher. I don't think I knew a non-Jewish person until I went to college.

Oh, wow. Like, I, you know, kept strict Shabbat, which means for one day out of the week, no electricity, no money, no phones, no screens, no driving. so like, you know, borderline Amish, I would say. And is it like, I want to say excuse my ignorance, but if I say that I'm going to have to say it so many times in this interview. So just as a blanket consideration, please excuse my ignorance. Like, you know, I said like Williamsburg Orthodox.

Like in Brooklyn where I live, it's sort of this thing that people always find remarkable when they move here, that Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has a reputation as being both like a hipster neighborhood but also an expensive neighborhood, there's one portion of Williamsburg that is just like Orthodox Jewish. And when you are driving, all of a sudden, you just, like, hit it. And it's, like, a lot of people in the same community, living the same way. Was it like that in Los Angeles where you're in, like, a distinct community where everyone's sort of following practices? Or is it more dispersed?

I would say it's a little bit more dispersed. But there's a couple neighborhoods where you're, like, driving through Beverly Hills, you're on Rodeo Drive, you're passing by Prada. And then you take a left turn on Topico, and then all of a sudden, all the storefronts are in Hebrew. all the women are walking around with wigs and long skirts. You know, so it's got that Williamsburg-esque vibe, but it's a little bit less in your face. And I would say, and I would say this is probably pretty formative to who I am, is that people are like, oh, my God, you grew up Orthodox.

And I say, yeah, but I grew up L.A. Orthodox. And what does that mean? So I think there was, like, a little bit more permeability, right? Like in Williamsburg, you'd think, like, if a kid grew up in Williamsburg, it's like, oh, they've got this kind of, like, super austere orthodox upbringing, but you got hipsters, you got clubs and coffee shops, you'd think that some of that would permeate in. But in Williamsburg and other of these ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in New York,

the gates are pretty high. Like, you don't really get much of that culture in, whereas where I grew up, like, I definitely, you know, by the time I got to high school, I would go out to, like, punk shows on Hollywood Boulevard. I would go to raves out in, like, the deserts around L.A. I would go surfing on weekends with my friends. And so none of that was.

happen if I grew up in Williamsburg. And when you're experiencing punk shows and raves particularly, like, was that okay? Or was it like you're sort of like stepping out? You know, when it comes to Orthodox Judaism, maybe religion more broadly, there's sort of two pieces. There's like the letter of the law, like, what are you allowed to do? What are you not allowed to do? And then there's like the cultural pieces of like what is culturally acceptable and culturally

layered on top of it. And so there's nothing wrong with going to a punk show. according to the laws of Orthodox Judaism, but it may be frowned upon from like a culturally conservative perspective. And I think in L.A., you know, there's still a lot of that judginess, but there's a little bit more of an acceptance of,

okay, like, you can sort of play in both worlds. So like I would go to a punk show, but I'd always keep my head covered. Probably didn't wear a yarmulka to a punk show, but like where a baseball hat or a beanie or something like that. Or like, I wouldn't eat anything there because the food there wasn't kosher, or if I was out all night partying at a rave,

I would make sure to be back in time for sunrise so that I could pray the morning prayers. And did you feel like you were moving between worlds? Did those things feel cohesive to you? I think that I definitely had a little bit of a sense of subversion, like, oh, look at me, I'm a badass, I'm, like, doing these things. But I also, I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on why, but I felt a sense of integration.

I was just like, okay, like there's no paradox here between like doing this, you know, going to a rave and being an Orthodox Jew. And I kind of reveled in my ability to move between those worlds and not feel attention. I've realized the question I meant to ask you really was like, and you've answered it, but was did you feel ashamed? And it sounds like you didn't feel ashamed. It felt like exciting or normal or correct. I mean, I think that, I mean, I definitely was like a type A overachiever in high school.

And I think that part of my ability to move between those worlds, is like, I was, like, really hardcore on the Jewish front, right? And so I was, like, super into everything. I was, like, in the top Talmud class, like, studying the best freaking ancient Aramaic legal codes that, you know, you can imagine. I was, like, valid Victorian of my school and, like, all of that. And I was, like, bleached hair and baggy Jenko jeans and, like, you know, as one does in the 90s. And, like, I think there were people whose system would overload at the contradictions and would look at me and be like,

I can't fit this guy in a box. And I was just kind of like, whatever. Like, I like doing all these things. And there's nothing mutually exclusive. And I think there's something also interesting about, like growing up Orthodox in that I, you know, I learned fluent Hebrew from the time I was a kid. I learned Aramaic.

And I was studying the text, the Torah, all the legal codes from a young age in a way that, like, I had direct access to them. So, like, I didn't. need a gatekeeper. So, like, someone can be like, you're not allowed to do that. And I'll be, like, show me where it says that in the text, right? Or I'm going to open up the Talmud and, like, find the place where it talks about this and be like, well, it doesn't say that in here, right? And so I think that for a lot of people who don't have that direct access, they need it mediated through a gatekeeper.

And generally those gatekeepers have a culturally conservative agenda. And so, like, oh, no, you're not allowed to do that. And I'm like, well, it doesn't say it in there. So I'm going to do it. Right. So there's kind of, there's this quote, I think is obviously. Audrey Lord who said, you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. I'm going to be really embarrassed if it's not Audrey. I think that's right. And I kind of was like, well, like, I guess maybe sometimes you can. Like I had the tools.

The masters gave me the tools to dismantle the house. And so, okay, so at this point, you're like, you're able to live in different worlds. And the God that you're imagining is the sort of like classic God, like God in the sky watching. On a throne in the sky, long beard, kind of wagging his finger at you, recording all of your good and bad deeds in a book, and you're praying to this person just like you were sharing. And so, yeah, that was definitely the God that I believed in as a kid. And what was your relationship like to that God?

You know, it's funny because people assume that if you're Orthodox or if you go up really religious, you have a very close relationship with God. Yeah. And that was not my experience growing up because there was, so many rules about what it meant to be an observant Jew, right, in terms of everything about what you eat. Literally, how you get out of bed, which shoe you put on first. First, it's the right foot, and then it's the left foot.

And there's like all these things, well, this is like, you know, the Jewish version of it. And now, as an adult, I can see how much of it is based in, like, post-Holocast trauma, OCD. I remember always growing up being like, this feels like OCD. And now I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's, like, not a coincidence. Like when people spend so much of their life having their agency taken away from them and like being abused and traumatized, the way they deal with that is by creating these incredibly specific rituals for every aspect of your life. You've got to wake up. And before you do anything, you have to wash your hands.

And there's a certain way that you do it. Two scoops on the left, two scoops on the right. And then there's a prayer that you say before you do anything. And then which shirt sleeve do you put on first? Which pant leg do you put on first? And so like, and it's for every part of it. of your day. Like literally every step of your take, you're thinking about, okay, what's the Jewishly prescribed way of doing this? And it's almost like there's no room for God. And like, yes,

in theory, you're doing all these things because you think that that's what God commanded you to do and that's what's going to make God happy. But we almost forget about that because, like, you're just so focused on all the rules that you're keeping. And so my life was deeply infused with Judaism, like every moment of my day was infused with Judaism. But God was like weirdly absent, except for this, like, hovering background figure that's, like, keeping a tally of did I put the right foot off the bed when I woke up in the morning? And so when you said college is when you start to kind of split somewhat from the exact rituals in place of your childhood?

You know, I think it was like a slow progression. Like, I'd say to this day, I'm still quite traditionally observant. And a lot of the rituals that I kept back then, I still keep today, for example, example, like I keep a pretty strict Shabbat from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Like, I don't use my phone. I don't use the internet. I don't drive. I don't use electricity. I don't use money. So I do a lot of things from when I was growing up, but the intentionality behind it is much different. And the relationship of that act to God is very different. And definitely going to college was a big part of that. I mean, I grew up in this insular world. Then there's like sort of tradition

in my community that after you go to high school, you go spend a gap year. in Israel studying in yeshiva a jewish study school institution seminary and so i went to israel for a year and i just literally from like 7 30 in the morning to like 10 o'clock a night i just studied talmud all day long which is like obscure jewish aramaic legal codes i can't imagine studying anything that much that it was it was when i started drinking coffee for the first time for sure but like i mean it does boggle my mind when i look back to being like holy shit how did i spend so many hours the day studying what these, you know, first century, second, third century rabbis were saying about your ox, gourd, my ox, and who pays who what, what, conditions? I was like, as like an 18-year-old

and what were you getting out of? Like, as 18-year-old you, like, what is happening in your mind while you're doing that? I think part of it was, like, it was just what was done in my community. It is very intellectually stimulating. How come? This is like for the, for the, we all have those friends that, like, graduated college and were so excited to go to law school because they wanted to study torts, you know, and they, those big books, I don't even know what they're called, but those, like, weird leather-bound books that have, like, all the legal theories in them. Like, that's probably the closest parallel, where you basically, the Talmud is basically a transcription of esoteric debates and arguments between rabbis. And when a rabbi will put forward a position, another

will argue it. And they're basically using the Torah as, like, a proof test. Like, well, I think the Torah says this. It's like, no, well, I think. I'd interpret the Torah this way. And so there's something kind of intellectually satisfying about, like, deconstructing an argument, following a debate, and also doing it in ancient Aramaic, in a book that has no punctuation. And so, like, there's something cool almost about, like, decoding these texts. That makes sense. So it's like, it's very intellectually stimulating.

And it's, like, the Netflix algorithm of experiences would be, like, for fans of debate club and arguing. Absolutely. Yeah, totally. Yes, that's exactly right. But I will say that for me, and I don't want to judge other people, but like for me, there was exactly zero spiritual fulfillment in that task. But like this idea of like spiritual fulfillment, like that wasn't really part of my vocabulary

growing up. I mean, it's probably not part of most teenagers' vocabularies, but this idea that like religion would be like nourishing in some way, that wasn't why we did it. Right. And so going to college, like leaving my world, all of a sudden being surrounded by like other kinds of Judaism, more like mystical versions of Judaism. more like mystical versions of Judaism, more embodied forms of Judaism.

I was just kind of like, huh, okay, like that is interesting to me. And like being able to pause and ask questions of like, why are we doing this? And who are we doing this for? And like, definitely the questioning started then and continued well into my 20s. And so then what does that period of questioning look like?

Yeah, I mean, college again was like this interesting time. I went to Yale, which was like a total mind fuck for me, being this cloistered Orthodox Jewish boy who went to only Orthodox Jewish schools, basically only knew Orthodox Jewish people, all of a sudden to a college campus where I was like, you know, and in my community,

highbrow, secular reading was People Magazine. People didn't have like the New Yorker. Oh, hell no. I never heard of the New Yorker until I went to college. But that's so weird. I mean, just to say, like, whatever, different transmissions reach different people and places and mean different things.

but why People Magazine? Stars just like us. That was my favorite part of People Magazine. Like the highbrow families had Newsweek. Okay. But yeah, it was just like not a very intellectual milieu. And so like anything that I learned was like books that I had read on my own. And then I went to college and it was so embarrassing because there were so many words that I had never heard said out loud.

And so like I'd only read them. And I'd be in seminars with kids who went to. to like Exeter and Toad and, you know, all these, like, fancy prep schools. And I would, like, mispronounce words all the time. And people would always laugh at me. I always feel like, just to defend people that mispronounce words, I'm always like, all that means is that you read a lot. Totally.

But I think there's, like, something about, like, growing up in a cultural milieu where, like, people talk, have intellectual conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I thought the word panacea and panache were the same word. I can imagine that getting embarrassed at Yale. Yeah. And so, but, you know, it was definitely, like, my intellectual horizons were, like, totally broadened. But, like, I still prayed three times a day.

I still studied Talmud with a friend, like, two hours a day. I still kept Shabbat and kosher. So, like, I had this sort of cultural mind-blowing moment, but then I also, like, kind of kept doing my thing. Yeah. And it didn't, again, it was like you were able, I'm so used to hearing stories where a very familiar arc of a very familiar story for me is, person grows up in cloistered, intense, religious community. And then, you know, it's almost like every culture loves a conversion story into itself. And so, like, as a progressive intellectual type, we love the story of, like, I was very religious,

but then I read the New Yorker and I, blah, blah, blah, blah. But your story, the way you tell it is I was very religious. I found more experiences. I found more things to read and think about. But I was able to bring with me where I came from in a way that didn't. feel painful or confusing. Yeah, and like maybe partially I attribute it to my upbringing in L.A. where there wasn't this, like, strict binary of like either you're this way or you're

this way. But it was the sense of like, if these practices are meaningful, you can keep doing them and do other things that don't conflict with those practices. Right. But have you ever heard of the concept called the second naivete? No. It's this, like, French philosopher Paul Reker. He kind of like traces a version of that arc that you just traced, but it's got a slightly

different twist to it, which is like the first naivete is like you grow up and you learn about the god in the sky and you pray to this God to do good things for you. And then there's like a second phase, which is like it all comes crashing down and you have this realization or you learn like, holy shit, like all this is bullshit. Religion is constructed by all these people with nefarious agendas, like screw this. Then he has this thing called the second naivete, which is like, okay, like, yes, religion is invented by people. Like, yes, there is, like, no old man in the sky. And there's still value in a lot of this stuff, right?

And I'm going to, like, choose to believe a lot of this stuff in a way that, like, is more suited to a grown-up sensibility of, like, what exists and what doesn't exist. But I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, there's, like, a way that you can opt in to that world that sort of meets you post-crash. Right. Like, a way to not become one of those, like, internet atheists that's, like, constantly being like, oh, the flying spaghetti monster or whatever.

Yeah. They can't imagine that the human desire for believe in something larger or a spiritual existence is anything but like a dumb trick played on dumb people by the people who would manipulate them. That there might be something valuable or real about that impulse, even if you don't sign on to whatever you grew up with. Totally. And like a lot of my 20s and 30s was about, like, updating my conception of God and then

looking back on my life and the practices and the way I kind of live my life as an observant Jew and saying, okay, like, which of these still resonate, which of these don't resonate, and, like, what aligns with this conception? And actually, like, a lot of it does align. It's funny, as you talk about this stuff, one of the things that makes me realize is that in my existence as, like, you know, the identity categories I belong to or don't belong to or like flat in between, I'll have days where, I don't know, like in the last few years, I feel like I spend not a lot of time, but some amount of time being like, you know, like progressive, liberal, like, left, whatever, where I'm like, where do I, where do I fit in here? Where don't I

fit in here? Like, how much does it matter to know where I fit in here? Like, how much is the tribal question versus an intellectual one versus values one? You've had to do that sort of internal maneuvering with faith. Totally. Yeah. There's a famous rabbi who, who, said, like, the people I socialize with, I can't pray with, and the people I pray with, I can't socialize with. And you relate to that. Yeah. And I think that, I definitely relate to that. And I think that that's, like, to the extent that I quote unquote left orthodoxy, though I like to pretend that I haven't really left. But to the extent that I've left, it was actually more for, like, social reasons in that, like, the people in those communities tended to be more socially conservative,

and that's politically conservative, and just, like, not into the kind of stuff that I was into, intended not to be like particularly interested in the world, particularly interested in things beyond their sort of parochial bubble that they lived in. And then like I'd go hang out with like my cool friends who were like into all the things I was into. But they're just like, oh, religion. Like that's weird. Like why are you keeping Shabbat? God, ugh. And so I'd say that like that tension in my 20s is what kind of led me down into this spiritual leadership route because I was just like, I mean, there was still a long ways to go until I got there.

but it was a sense of like, well, I don't fit in here, I don't fit in there. I guess I kind of got to create for myself what I want. Coming up after the break, before Zvika becomes ordained as a rabbi, we chart how being both spiritual and unusual can lead someone to perhaps the strangest professional path I've ever heard a person describe. That's after some ads. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors out there whose job is to help your clients keep more of what they

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I don't even know how to handle this in the context of an interview. Like, one of the things I have to do is, like, take complicated lives and simplify them in a way that is not untrue. but is legible. And you've had such a interesting, like, life path that I'm not... Like, can you give me, what is your quickest, dirtiest pencil sketch of your professional life from college to rabbi? Yeah. I mean, I'd say probably, like, the headline is ADHD.

But, okay, the quickest, dirtiest sketch is, you know, graduate college, become a journalist, work in Newsweek in New York. Because I spoke Arabic, they send me to the most. Middle East. I become their Middle East correspondent, lived in Egypt and Lebanon for a couple years, moved to D.C. for the first time. Work at the New Republic for a couple years. Work at the Atlantic for a couple years. Work as a writer, editor, all sorts of different things. Work in a Middle East think tank. Work in the Defense Department. Work at the State Department. And then John Kerry, who was a secretary of state at the time, was like, hey, like, all this stuff is happening in Silicon

Valley. And like, it's like really affecting policy. And we don't have any whose job it is to like build relationships to Silicon Valley. And I was running the innovation lab at the time at the State Department. And they were like, Sveka, do you want to go be our ambassador to Silicon Valley? And I was like, yeah. Why not? Yeah. So I moved to California and did that for a little while. Then Trump got elected. And I was like, fuck this. Working for Trump. And so I taught at Stanford. So I studied design as an undergrad. So I went back and I taught in the design school at Stanford. And then I was a design. I got hired by the World Economic Forum, like the Davos people, to set up a hub for them in the Bay Area,

focused on, like, ethical tech, responsible tech. So I did that for a couple years. And then Facebook hired me to be their first ever head of ethics, director of responsible innovation. What was that one like? You know, it's definitely the job title that gets the most Snickers. And when they reached out to me, like when the recruiter first reached out, out to me, he referred to the job as chief ethics officer at Facebook. And I just, and I burst out laughing. And I was like, this sounds like an onion article. But, you know, eventually what, and I spent a lot of

time, like, talking to like all the people who I'd be working with. I was like, okay, like this actually sounds like it's legit. But I love the job, you know, despite all the sort of snickers of you like, they're like, oh, you did a really good job. And it's like, yeah, okay, fair. You know, like, I didn't totally transform the business model there. and zero out any harm that was being caused in the product. But I built a 40-person team there, and we reviewed hundreds of products before they were released, actually pretty early in the product development process.

And we were able to sort of figure out or like anticipate, like, how might these products harm people? And like, I found the engineers and the product managers to be quite, like, well-meaning and being like, oh, wow, like, we hadn't thought about this, right? It's not their job to think about, or it's not their mindset to think about, like, you don't wake up every morning being like,

how is this thing that I'm working on going to harm people, right? So, like, having a team that is their job, like, it actually made it a lot easier. And so, like, you, again, forgive me this naive question, but, like, you're in a job that involves thinking through ethics and morality. The part of you that you would consult when you're trying to solve a problem there, was it just like you yourself? Were you thinking about, you know, Talmudic disputes about ox-coring in Aramaic from an Aramaic from these centuries ago. How did your faith and your job doing moral reasoning for a tech company, were they involved with each other? Yeah, I was just like walk into a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg,

like open my Talmud. I just be like, Mark, it says it right here in the Talmud. Like, you got to change the newsfeed algorithm. No, I mean, it's interesting because I think actually like, when they recruited me, I'm just like, first of all, I just want to let you guys know that I'm not a very ethical person. We're like, that's okay. Even better. But I'm not like a conceptual ethicist. I have no professional background in ethics, right? I don't come with like frameworks for like ethical reasoning and things like that.

But basically like the first thing that I really tried to impart to people is like number one, like it's generally not right versus wrong. Like generally it's not like, you know, either we launch this product and it brings us lots of revenue and more clicks, but it might cause a genocide in Myanmar. You know, like it's not like those types of tradeoffs. it's more like, hey, like, we could do end-to-end encryption for all of our messaging, which is great for privacy and everybody's like really being the drum on privacy. But that means we don't have access to any of the content in those messages

and there might be proliferation of all, you know, human trafficking and child pornography and terrorist extremist groups. So it's like, that's a tradeoff, like optimize for privacy or optimize for safety. Yeah. And like being able to surface that and sort of frame it a way where it's like, what are we going to optimize for? And so it wasn't really my job to tell people what the right answer was,

even though most people wanted me to just tell them, they're like, what should we do? And I'm just like, well, like, let's actually frame up what the tradeoffs are and help you make an intentional decision about what you're going to prioritize. But it's funny, I mean, that does sort of sound like I have not often sought spiritual guidance in my life.

I'm not trying to say you were a spiritual leader at Facebook, although that's like a great movie idea, but more like you were doing what I've found people do, which is, like, they rather than be like, here's what you should do. They'll say, here's what you might consider. Well, it's interesting because, of course, I'd be, like, very careful, like, not to, like, bring religion into the room with, you know, like, I'm not going to, like, proselytize people, you know, but, like, I think there was this sense that it was spiritual work.

And, like, people would often, like, jokingly call me, like, Facebook rabbi. You know, they would just be like, hey, rabbi, I need some advice, you know, on this stuff. And so, and I do think there is, like, a link. between how I practice now as a rabbi and how I practiced the responsible innovation work I did at Facebook, which is like even now in a spiritual leadership role, people come to me all the time and they're like, what should I do? You know, my husband's having dementia and I want to put him in a nursing home because I still want to live my life. Like, what should I do? And I'm like, it's not my job actually to tell you what the right thing to do is. It's like I can help you frame up what values are at play here.

I will walk beside you and give you some tools, give you the confidence to trust your own moral compass, but I'm not going to like loan you my moral compass. Yeah, but people want that. Oh, totally. Yeah. Like, especially engineers. Just like, dude, like we got lines of code to write. Yes or no. What should we do?

Did you ever just give them a straight yes or now? No. No. But I think maybe it's also just something that is part of my constitution and that like I just grew up around. many rabbis who just constantly told people what to do, that I'm just like, I'm not, it's not my damn. Like, I'm not here to tell people what to do. Okay, so Facebook, ethicist. Yeah.

Then what happens? So, like, I had these two, I like praying with these people. I like socializing with these people, but, like, I feel like there's nowhere where I can, like, pray and be spiritual with the people who I actually like. So I just, like, started, like, doing a lot of my own, like, pop-up stuff, you know, like putting together like prayer services, like in my living room, in my backyard, just kind of like experimenting.

And I'm like, I grew up Orthodox. I know how to do this shit, you know, like. It's funny, it's also you're taking the ethos of DIY scenes like punk and raves. You're like, we can just throw a show. Totally. Totally. Totally. And like a lot of it, like, because also I spent a lot of my time in my 20s.

I took like a little detour. I never like left Judaism, but like meditation and mindfulness became really important to me because as I mentioned, I have very severe. It's not just like my career is ADHD. I have very severe ADHD. And like the only, and like medication did not work for me.

It gave me like horrendous headaches. And so the only thing that really worked for me was meditation. And so I got like really into meditation in my 20s. And like mindfulness was really important to me. And like embodiment became really important for me. I know that's kind of like a buzzwordy. Yeah. It's kind of like a new agey phrase.

I live in Berkeley. I know like translate. Yeah. I got to translate like some of the lexoneliority. But like, I don't know. I'm guessing you can relate to this. But like I spent a lot of time in my brain, right? A lot of time, like, thinking and mulling things over and da-da-da-da.

And, like, intellectually is, like, the way that I engage with the world mostly. And I just, like, at a certain point, realize that, like, that wasn't really serving me. And that, like, I needed, not that I should stop doing that, as if that's even possible. But I need to spend more time, like, in my body. Not just thinking all the time, but just experiencing and being and moving. And so meditation was really helpful for that, but I got really into dancing, which had always been part of my life starting with the like mosh pits in the punk scene and then moving into like the electronic music. All these embodiment things started just being a really important part of like my spiritual practice. But then I realized like, hey, I want to like fuse all of this together.

Like I've got the traditional parts of Judaism that still really speak to me, the ritual, the practices, the liturgy. And then I've got mindfulness and meditation. And I've got embodiment. like, how can we bring that all together? And part of it was also this learning journey that actually Judaism has. I mean, and by the way, so does Christianity in Islam. Like, they have these ancient embodiment, mindfulness, traditions that have been sort of sanitized in a post-enlightenment,

sort of rationalist Western European world for Judaism and Christianity in particular. So I just kind of wanted to bring all these things together. And so I was like, oh, like, I'm going to, like, do stuff like this, you know, in my living room, and I think there are a lot of people who, like, grow up more progressive, and they're kind of wary to do sort of radical things in a religious space because they're like, oh, well, that's not authentic and that's not real or that's not okay. And I'm just like, dude, I grew up in the Orthodox world. I know the emperor has no clothes, like, over there also, right? Orthodox Judaism is just as constructed as whatever we could construct as well. And so I think

there is this conception, especially from people who grew up outside the Orthodox world, that Moses got the Torah at Mount Sinai and then like passed it down and like basically was living as an Orthodox Jew like Moses had those like side locks in a black hat and a beard and then like Judaism had been practiced like that all the way down to Orthodox Jews today

and anything more progressive was like a deviation but like I guarantee you if Moses came alive today watching an Orthodox synagogue you'd be like what the fuck is this? What religion is this? This is not the religion I got at Sinai. A few years ago, Sveka started attending rabbinical school. His time there coincided with a chapter of personal crisis in his life. A divorce

burnout. He took a break from full-time work to focus on parenting his child. And ultimately, he'd end up in the job he has now, leading services for a Jewish spiritual community in Berkeley. Basically, there was this community in Berkeley that was started 30 years ago. It's called Khokhmat Halib, which means wisdom of the heart. And it started as a Jewish meditation center. Okay. And it was a bunch of what we call boo Jews. Buddhist Jewish people? Yes.

Okay. Which there's a sizable population of boojews, of Jews who were just like, oh, Judaism's like really not spiritual enough for me. I'm going to go to Eastern religion, which was like, even though like Judaism has like a pretty long lineage of meditation and mindfulness practice, it's not, it was never mainstream in Judaism. It's certainly not in modern history. But there are practices that you can go back to.

And so there was this movement of folks who wanted to like reclaim mindfulness and meditation and contemplative practices. And so they created this center. But it's been around for about 30 years, and it's slowly evolved into, like, being more of, like, a traditional synagogue. Don't tell anyone. Where they have, like, prayer services

and bar mitzvahs and weddings and, like, things like that. So you ended up in a place where, even though you didn't want to be a rabbi in a synagogue, you're a spiritual leader who is now graduated rabbinical school in a spiritual community that has synagogue, like, tendencies. Yeah, synagogue adjacent. But you feel like you have a practice that fits with your own contradictions or things that maybe don't feel like contradictions anymore, but perhaps once did. Well, yes.

And like what I, I promised myself when I went to rabbinical school, but even more so when I took on this job, I promised myself that I would not have a rabbi persona. That I would not have like my rabbi persona and my like friend persona or like private persona. I know so many people who are in spiritual leadership who live. of these double lives. Yeah. I was like, I don't want to do that, and I don't have the energy for that, and, like, I don't think it's good for people. Like, I don't think it's good for the people in the community, and it's not good for me.

So I was just like, I'm just going to be myself. Warts and all, and, like, if anything, like, I would like to be a role model for people to be like, hey, look, that guy who's up there on the stage, like, giving the sermon, like, look how flawed he is, and he's up there on the stage, like, being a spiritual leader. That means he's, like, valuable and worthy as a person. And so if he can be up there doing that, like I can also be lovable because of all my flaws and all the ways in which I fall short

and I'm still a work in progress and have not figured things out at all. But isn't it strange? I mean, look, I'm on the side of flawed people, honesty, uncertainty. But even to me, it's surprising that, you know, people often go to spiritual places for answers. When people are showing up with questions and you're like, the answer is, I don't know.

It's not just that I don't know. It's that like, it is okay to have those questions. You don't actually need the answer to that question. It is okay to be living in this place of uncertainty and confusion and not knowing. And I want to like validate you for that. And like that is actually, I think often more powerful than giving people the answers. You're saying that a question can be as valuable as an answer. Yeah.

And like not knowing. Like I mean, so much of my personal practice has been releasing the expectation of knowing. And it's just like, oh, like you're confused, that means you're right. Right. Certainty is actually the wrong place to be. And like, listen, I'm exaggerating a little bit. There is Jewish wisdom out there on a lot of questions.

And I do have access to a lot of that wisdom because of the like decades I spent studying all these ancient texts. And so I do try to sprinkle in things from the texts. But I will say like there is a lot of Jewish wisdom about not knowing and mystery and surrendering control. I was reading your sermons. I was struck by a couple things. I'm so excited to hear what you have to say

because generally I'm like preaching to the converted. I'm not the converted. Yeah, and so I'm so curious, because I don't write them in my, like, people who are like wouldn't be kind of like a captive audience and so I'm so curious what comes out. Well, the first thing, and I was like, perhaps this is just my boundless narcissism, but I was surprised reading some of what you'd written because I thought, oh, part of the job you're doing

is less far away from the job that I try to do than I thought, where it's like you're telling stories, you're choosing stories that already exist, you're trying to contextualize the experiences people are having and give them something that might help them make meaning out of it. Like there was a sermon where you were talking about, it was as simple as, hey, like, everyone's going home for the holidays, people are going to have difficult conversations with family members.

You were relating an experience you'd had where you'd, like, made comments that were, like, about Israel Palestine, that were sympathetic to Palestinians, and you had, like, more hardcore, like, pro-Israel people who had said hurtful things to you. And I thought, like, oh, this is a kind of sense-making and meaning-making that, like, I understand. And that surprised me. I mean, that is, like, when people ask me, what is the role of being a rabbi? I'm not just saying this because you said it. The number one answer I say is meaning-making. Like it is helping people make meaning. It's like helping them as they're like navigating their lives

with a certain level of unconsciousness. It's like helping them pause and be like, how do I make something that feels mundane feel meaningful? And it can be through a teaching, it can be through a prayer experience, it can be through rituals, totally meaning-making is my job. But then there was another type of sermon, and this is where I was like, oh,

religion requires a level of familiarity with text, that I don't have, where it would just be about, you know, stories from the past, stories from scripture, that's the part that I can never, it always feels impenetral to me. It always feels like a TV show that is on its like 15,000 season. And everybody's like, oh, season one, this thing happened. And everybody says it means this, but I think it means this.

And like, I understand the pleasures of textual analysis, and I understand the pleasures of looking at a story and trying to see it differently. But that was the part where I thought, like, oh, this is just a culture that's not my own. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting how much I take for granted people's familiarity with, like, just the general contours of the Torah or the Bible. You know, like, just the other day, I was just like, oh, that's going to story of, like,

the binding of Isaac. And someone's like, what's that? I'm like, you don't know the story where, like, Abraham was commanded by God to, like, sacrifice his only child, you know? And they're like, no, I've never heard that story before. I'm like, right. I live in this, like, little bubble. Like, of course, the binding of Isaac.

But, well, and do you, okay, the binding of Isaac, which is a story that, as you start to describe it, I do know that story. When you're making a decision in your life or confronting something confusing or painful that's happened, are you like, oh, the binding of Isaac? Does it? Right. I mean, I think that, I don't know if this is the question behind your question, but it's the question that I'm hearing is why am I returning to the Torah as this like book of wisdom, right? Yeah. And, you know, the traditional answer to that question is the Torah was written by God. Right.

Right. And so, like, if you want to, you know, and like a kind of way it's often talked about in Jewish tradition is it's like it's like a blueprint for the world and like a sort of instruction manual for how to live your life. And there are parts of the Torah that are very much instructions like eat this, don't eat this, wear this, don't wear this. So that that stuff's kind of clear if you believe in it. But then there's like lots of stories, like the binding of Isaac or like the Exodus story or whatever. And it's like, well, what are, why are those in there? At the very least, these are stories that have been passed down from generally. generation to generation, and they are, like, in the DNA of anyone who's in the world of Western civilization, and including Christianity and Islam. So, like, first of all, the fact that they have been passed down, like, there's this kind of buzzword these days of, like, ancestral wisdom. And it's just like, yeah, this book has been around for, like, a really long time. So even if you don't believe God wrote it, like, there's something there, you know? So, like, I think it's, like, worth exploring. And then even if you don't think that it's inherently valuable, it has shaped our society.

That you can't disagree with. And so, like, looking back at it with sort of a critical eye and being like, what is here? What is this text and, like, what wisdom can be mined from it? Like, it feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Yeah. It's funny. I had a moment in my life where things were more challenging than usual. And it was the only time where I found that when I read or thought about stories from the Bible I grew up with as a kid, I found myself more attracted to them.

and it wasn't because I felt more faith or less faith. I think it was the feeling of like people in the past lived lives that were harder to make meaning out of because death was everywhere and things were more senseless. And the stories that those people had used to survive then might be more valuable because, I don't know, making sense of modernity can feel hard, but it's not hard like plague is hard.

You know what I mean? Totally, totally, yeah. And I think that, first of all, I think that's an important context for, like, when that book was written, right? But I also think the core tension, right, of being a quote-unquote religious person is, like, the God that is portrayed in these religious texts is, like, not a very appealing God. Yeah. It's just kind of like, you have a God who gets angry. You have a God who gets jealous. You have a God who feels like kind of petty, actually, like, in the Torah.

And you're just like, how is this supposed to be the bedrock of a faith? This is God that's actually such an unappealing character. It's like going to see a play where, like, the main character is, like, really unappealing. It's just like, you know, like, it's kind of how I feel about White Lotus. Like, I kind of hate that show. I'm just like, there's no appealing character in this whole show. So, like, the Torah is kind of like White Lotus in that way. But it's also the text that you have to use.

Right. Well, the way that I navigate that is that the God of the Torah is not God. The God of the Torah is a character. It's a God character that was, like, created by humans, but it's not God. And I would say that there's an inherent contradiction, and I'll say in Judaism, it may be true in other religions. I'm just less of an expert in other religions, that like Judaism has these sort of two paradoxical sort of truths, which is that, like, we have the God or the Torah that is very much a human-like figure that has feelings and does things. but then there's like it's very clear in the Jewish sort of tradition, the Jewish law, whatever, that like you are not allowed to personify God.

You are not allowed to anthropomorphize God. Like God is not a person. God is not a being. God is like not separate from us in any way. And so it's this paradox of like, wait, okay, like this resonates. Like I think for a lot of modern people, this idea that God is not like a person or a sentient being in any way. It's like, okay, that can kind of square that with the world as I see it. But then, like, what the fuck is, like, this very human, like, God in the Torah, right?

Or in the Bible or in the Quran or whatever, right? And the only way to really square that circle is, like, that is actually, like, a God projection. That is actually, like, a human creation of God. That is not God. Right. It's a God character. Right. It's like we've made something in our image rather than something making us in its image.

Right. You know, and it's, like, a useful, jumping off point to have a conversation about God, but it's not, that is not God because you can't, that God does not have human form. So like, how can you talk about God in that way? Coming up after one more short break, we get to the question that brought us here today. Okay. What does it actually feel like to believe in God, at least for this one person? That's after some ads for companies. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built

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designed to deliver more runtime, more speed, and maximum performance. Then grab a select Milwaukee fuel attachment, like the pole saw, edger, or brush cutter, included at no extra cost when you buy the Milwaukee M18 string trimmer. Shop seven days of spring outdoor power deals at the Home Depot, now through April 29th. So what is it like for you to just live everyday life with a belief in God? Like, how are you having a different experience than May? So I was joking with you before that there is this book that I love, that talks about the challenge of like explaining the experience of God,

and it's called Catching Water in a Net, which is like, it's so hard to talk about it. So I'm going to try to talk about it. I appreciate it. And so the first thing I want to say is, like, I don't spend all day, every day thinking about God. Okay. Right? And in the Jewish sort of spiritual tradition, like, that's okay. There is this practice called dvacut, which literally means, like, cleaving or connecting.

And it's like, we always want to be deepening our awareness and our connection to God. But, like, that's something that you drop in and out of, right? Probably the best analogy is, like, mindfulness, right? Like, yes, you could be like a Buddha on a mountaintop somewhere and just be fully mindful 24-7. But actually, like, for most people, it's like I strive to have moments of mindfulness in my life. And those moments kind of inform the rest of my life, but I'm not just like sitting in Lotus position all day, right? But sometimes you are, sometimes you are in this analogy, there's times where you do feel like you're getting a clear connection or a clear thing. Yeah. And so to answer this question, I kind of have to tell you like what I think God is.

That's fine. I'm going to come out of the closet and tell you what I think God is. You know, so, like, in Jewish spiritual tradition, God is, like, and it's going to be so hard to say things that don't sound like completely woo and sort of out there. So you have blanket permission. Permission to be woo, sir. Yes. So in Jewish tradition, the shortest way to sum it up is, like, God is oneness.

That, like, everything that ever was is and will be, the sum total of all of those things is God. Okay, so it's like an immolation of self as part of it. Absolutely. There's, yeah, and like this concept of dvacud of cleaving is like when you feel totally subsumed in the oneness. Like that's the sort of goal, right? And like God is an English word and a Christian word. It's not a Jewish word. And the word for God in the Jewish lineage is it's a four-letter word that you can't pronounce.

It's some people called the ineffable name. And it's like some people clumsily pronounce it in English. I don't know if you've heard that. I have read that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because those are the, it's the, like, four letters. They're, like, all vowels and, like, you can't really pronounce them. But, like, first of all, there's something cool about having a name of God that you can't pronounce, which, like, really gets at the fact that it's this kind of, like, intangible mystery

and not, like, a person, like, a being. But the word for God, which I can't pronounce, is actually an amalgamation of the Hebrew words for was, is, and will be. Haya, hovei, if you mush all those words together, it'll create the word for God. So God is essentially like everything that is, was, and will be.

So when you ask me, like, how do I experience God, how do I connect with God? To me, it's how can I plug into that awareness that everything is one, that we are all connected, not just like we all people,

but like everything existence is connected and not just like everything currently existence, but like everything that was in existence, everything that is, and everything that will be is like all of that is connected. You can either think of it as like there is a life force that flows through all those things or just like all of those things mush together are God.

And when you're describing that awareness, is it an intellectual idea, an emotional idea, a physical feeling? Like at a peak experience of that awareness, what is happening inside your mind or inside your heart? Yeah, it's a great question. And I remember asking this question to one of my Spirochip's teacher because she was like, okay, your homework for this month is every day I want you to spend 10 minutes meditating on the oneness of existence.

Sure. And like when I heard the assignment, I was like, okay. And then like I sat down on my first day. I'm just like, okay, like, what do I do now? Like one. Okay, everything is one. Everything is one. And then like, of course, like I went to that intellectual place.

I'm like, what does that mean? Everything is one. Does that mean that we're like literally connected, like glue? Like, is it something flows through all of us? And so, like, there is like a way in which you can grapple with that intellectually. But for me, once I sort of move past that intellectual piece of it, there is a felt experience of it. If we are all part of like one entity that is God, we always all belong. And there is just this like beautiful sense of peace for me that just kind of like descends on my body when I'm feeling kind of on the outs or sort of, you know,

not belonging this sense of like, oh, we're all part of this. Like, we're all in this together. All the sort of distinctions kind of fall apart. That's like one way in which I definitely like experience God is when I allow myself to relax into that awareness. And so it's the way you're describing it, it's like a place you can go sometimes with stillness and contemplation. Yeah, that's kind of how I experience it. Yeah. That's really beautiful. I mean, it's like, I feel like people talk about oneness and unity and, like, trying to get away from the self. And I understand those things. But I guess I hadn't connected it to a feeling of belonging.

Totally. Yeah. And it's so core in the Jewish teachings, or at least in, like, the mystical, spiritual teachings that, like, I've really gravitated towards. And, like, it's funny because people ask me, like, where do you encounter God, like, most in the world? And, like, I've really thought about that. And, like, honestly, the place where, like, most encounter God is on the dance floor. Really? Yeah.

And it was kind of cheesy, but like there's this moment when you're dancing. And like, I don't know, I particularly like electronic music. I don't know if it's true in other genres of music where you're just like on the dance floor. And you were just like feeling the music. Like it is just like vibrating inside of you. And then you just look around and everyone else is just feeling it, right? Because you're all dancing to the same beat. You might be dancing in different ways.

And some people are like more subtle and some people are bigger movements. But you're all dancing at the same beat. And it's just like, Ooh, like I feel connected to everyone on this dance floor, because we are all in it and we're all feeling it. That's oneness. So that's the place where I'm most feel connected to God. Maybe the other place is like when I'm surfing.

Really? Yeah. I generally go surf at sunrise, and there's this moment where like the world is all dark, and then like you kind of see like the beginning glimmers. I'm on the West Coast, the sun does not rise over the ocean, but you just kind of see the like glimmers of, the like morning light kind of sparkling over the water.

And then like, I actually don't feel connected to God when I catch a wave. I feel when I'm just kind of like floating and you kind of, like the waves kind of come. And it almost feels kind of like the heartbeat of the earth. And it's just like, oh, there's just this kind of like steady presence connected to something bigger that I can just relax into. So those are like maybe, as I think about it, like two places where I definitely feel God. I'm always encountering studies suggesting that basically if you can believe in God in many ways, you're likely to be happier. And I was like, well, that's great.

But it's not the type of thing you could rationally persuade yourself into doing. It's like, what advice would you have for someone who doesn't believe in God? Like, what are the things from your practice that you think a non-believer could still benefit from? I was talking to my friend, Adina, this week, who's a spiritual leader here in Brooklyn. and we were talking about this whole idea of like believers versus non-believers, and we were saying how that doesn't feel like the right way to divide the world between like atheists and believers, or like people who believe in God and people who don't believe in God.

It's people who think about the nature of existence and people who don't. You know, a lot of people ask like, do you believe in God? My version of that question is I start with, what do you believe in? you know, in every spiritual tradition, there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to define God. And I think that, in essence, you can find a definition of God in some spiritual tradition that resonates with what you believe in in terms of the nature of existence. But that means you have to be curious about, like, the nature of existence, why are we here, what's happening in the world beyond what can be explained by science.

You have to be interested in asking those questions. It's funny. I mean, I know your bent is towards not being prescriptive, but I do think, like, the advice I would take from that or what I take from that is that perhaps more important than whether somebody has faith or doesn't have faith or what they have faith in. I do think it's pretty important to wrestle with larger questions, because I think if you don't, you end up just being stuck with the small ones. Like, your life just kind of becomes, am I having. happy today? Was I happy yesterday? Will I be happier tomorrow? Will I get this? Will I lose this?

And sometimes things go really well and sometimes they go really poorly. But it's almost like there's larger questions about existence or a refuge because they give you a larger time scale of meaning than whatever's happening right now. Totally. Yeah. I mean like people ask me like, well, like, why do you believe in God? And I'm like, because I like to. It nourishes me. It gives my life meaning. It gives me an impetus to sort of grapple with these questions. I don't believe in God because I feel like I have to. It actually brings meaning to my life. Yeah.

But I also, like, I don't want to just punt on your question because I can give a more specific answer of, like, what I recommend. Like, I'm a big fan of prayer. And you might be like, wait, what? Like, if someone doesn't believe in God, the prescription you're going to give them is prayer. And, you know, to me, like, I like to say, you know, there's that phrase, like, dance like nobody's watching or whatever. So I like to say, like, pray like nobody's listening.

So there's like two parts of it. One is just stating what you want, like verbalizing and allowing those words to come out of your mouth actually has a positive impact. People who verbalize what they want feel more of a sense of hope. Yeah. And then like number two is like I really do find a lot of power on this idea of surrender. Yeah. You know, just like, oh, like there's something I really want. And like one solution is to just like work my ass off and like grab.

and like really try and get that thing. And then like there's another strategy, which actually in the strategies are not mutually exclusive, you can say like, actually this is like totally not within my control to get. And I'm going to like surrender my ability to make this thing happen. And there is something perhaps counterintuitively really helpful for me at least to just like be like, yeah, I'm going to just like put this out there and like surrender my sort of exclusive control around making this happen.

And so like prayer to me like has those. two components to it. And that's like one genre of prayer, which is like wanting things to happen. There's also like a whole other genre of prayer, which is around gratitude, which I find really powerful. And like if you're, you're a more traditional person, you're like thanking God or forgiving you these things. But then if you don't think of God as like a person that gives and doesn't give things, there's still a value in being like, I'm so grateful for, you know, for all the things that I have in my life and to get specific about it and to on a daily basis, connect with gratitude. So, you know, it can take on a different flavor depending on what your

conception of God is, but I think that anyone can benefit from a prayer practice. That's not what I expect you to say, and I like it. I also just like, it's funny this year, we've sort of been collecting advice from people, and I would not have predicted at the beginning that where we'd be sort of a year in is like, consider prayer and surrender. The world is so fucked that, like, the only thing left to do is just surrender. It's a piece of the equation. It's not the whole recipe, but, you know, I think it's an important practice. Zika, thank you for talking me about this.

Thanks so much for having me. When I spoke to Zvika, I was having a nice week. The week after was more challenging. And I found this conversation playing back in my head. During the tough week, I had this feeling that I forgot I have sometimes, which was a little jealous of people who are able to believe. It's a funny kind of jealousy. There are so many things you get to choose,

how to behave, who to spend your time with. But if you choose to believe in something, I'm not sure what you have really is belief, or if it's belief, it's not the kind of belief I'm jealous of. But Zika had told me the two things someone like me might take from someone like him were prayer and surrender. You could try saying what you hoped would happen,

or you could try letting go of your ability to control it. Sometimes I think, for those of us who don't believe, we make this mistake, that if no one's in control, we have to be. Maybe that's wrong. This week, I'm trying to surrender. I'll let you know how it goes. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. Search Engine was created by me, PJ Vote, and Shruthy Pinnaminani, and is produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Backchecking this week by Holly Patton. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armand Bizarrean. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman

and Leah Reese Dennis. Thanks to the team at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Porello, and John Schmidt, and to the team at Odyssey, JD Crowley, Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Matt Casey, Moira Curran, Josephina-F,

Courtney, and Hillary Shuff. Our agent is Oren Rosenbaum at UTA. Follow and listen to Search Engine with PJ Vote now for free on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

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