Tangle - Rabbi Moskowitz on LGBTQ rights and religion

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

On today's podcast, we are sitting down with Rabbi Mike Moskowitz — an ultra-orthodox religious leader who is also an LGBTQ advocate and progressive activist. Rabbi Mike Moskowitz is the Scholar-in-Residence for Trans and Queer Jewish Studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBTQ synagogue. He also happens to be my rabbi, and someone I have a personal relationship with.In this episode, we discuss the intersection of faith, politics and LGTBQ issues, and how Rabbi Moskowitz ended up landing in a rather heterodox spot compared to his peers.If you'd like to see more of his writing, you can find them on his website, https://www.rabbimikemoskowitz.com/resourcesIf you enjoyed this episode and want to support Tangle, please give us a 5-star rating and subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.readtangle.com/--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast,

a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some reasonable debate, and independent thinking without the hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's show, we are sitting down with a very special guest, Rabbi Mike Moskowitz. Rabbi Moskowitz is the scholar in residence for trans and queer Jewish studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue. He also happens to be my rabbi and a personal friend, a man I learned briefly under at a shul in Harlem. Rabbi Moskowitz, thank you so much for being here. Isaac, thank you so very much for having me. Before we jump in, a brief

disclosure, as I sort of alluded to there, you and I know each other, unlike a lot of the guests I have on the show, we have a close personal relationship. I think maybe a good place to start would just briefly tell my story and how we met. And then I'm very interested to hear about your origin story. So I, as I've mentioned in Tangle a few times, lived in Israel. I went to a yeshiva there, basically a school for Jewish studies, but one that was specifically geared towards people who were raised in a secular home, which is how I was raised. And after my experience there in the yeshiva, I sort of went through this conservative religious and sort of moved conservative politically on some issues after college. I had like a very influential experience there. And when I came out of it, I was sort of lost in the wilderness as people with kind of incongruent political and religious views often are in America because everything is so sort of broken up into left or right or religious or not

religious. And I found a shul in Harlem in New York once I moved back to the city that was both Orthodox and also being led by this rabbi I heard whispers about who was a brilliant, well-studied rabbi who had all the ordinations you could imagine, but also had some sort of more progressive politics. And that was you. And we met and hit it off immediately. I think we shared a love for good beer and distilleries and had some really good conversations and arguments and debates. And I immediately knew I liked learning from you. And I knew that I was sort of compelled and bewildered by your politics. I'd never met sort of a black hat, bearded Orthodox Jew

who was also really unabashedly progressive, which made you super interesting to me. And it turned out we went to the same yeshiva. At least you spent some time there when you were in Israel. So I guess a good place for me to start with you is just hearing a little bit about your story. I mean, how did you end up in this space?

How did you end up Rabbi Mike? Thank you for the very generous introduction. Yeah, the time in Harlem was a really interesting intersection of both people and also identities. For me, borrowing language from the queer community, I was assigned secular and then kind of came out as Orthodox in high school. People who knew me when I was a kid told me they always knew that I was Orthodox and really went on a right-wing trajectory for about 20 years. From basically 17 to 37, I was very much in that world. I was employed by that world.

I studied and became ordained in the ultra-Orthodox, very right-wing world. It's a very insular community. It's historically almost hermetically sealed from the outside world, which is one of the things that, of course, doesn't allow for progress to be able to enter and to kind of incubate. And in Harlem, I was exposed, I think really for the first time knowingly, to people within the trans community. There were congregants. I was also a rabbi at Columbia University and I had students. And as you know, someone in my family at the exact same time was coming out and transitioning and I was really at a complete loss in terms of how to hold the truth of the lived experience that was different from my own from the tradition and from

all the things which I had been taught and I think what really came out for me is just like somebody who is cis and meaning not trans really can't relate to the lived experience of somebody who's trans because it requires an expanded awareness of gender beyond one's own body. I think for many people in insular communities, there's also limited in an awareness of lived experiences beyond their own. And so I think a lot of what, in retrospect, I heard of in terms of homophobia and transphobia has really nothing to do with scripture or our tradition, but it has to do with the lack of exposure and proximity to people within those communities. And so for me, it really was the level of closeness, the people who I had gotten to know and love and respect, some of whom were actually part of my family. And then they let

me know that they happen to also have these other identities. And then I was forced to question all the things which I was taught around these things. And I think that this is not just about the experiences of people in marginalized segments of society. I think that this is not just about the experiences of people in marginalized segments of society. I think that this actually has its source in the divine. You know, the divine revelation I see is like God's coming out speech. And unfortunately, just 40 days later, after Mount Sinai, when God told us about God's self as being kind of the one infinite source of the universe, just 40 days later, we're serving this golden calf and erasing God's identity and God's experience. And unfortunately, because in part of the way in which we treat God's children and we

dehumanize them and as a result, kind of purge them of the divine image in which we're all created, we've actually kind of forced God back into the closet because it's not such a safe space for God to be out as God's self, because we have a hard time relating to things which are different than our own. And God's experience is not a human experience. And so, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, it's interesting to hear you frame it that way. And also, you know, it makes me think a little bit about your quote unquote transition. I mean, you, I've heard you talk before about this period of your life, the 17 to mid thirties, where you were really conservative and more in the right wing world.

And it's not often you hear of people having sort of a political or worldview transformation. And I'm, I'm wondering if you could speak about that a little bit. I mean, what were like the seedlings of that? How did that begin? And how was that process for you? Because I often try and be really open-minded to the point where I will openly switch my position on something and say, it's okay to evolve. It's okay to change regardless of what direction you're going. But you don't always meet people who have a total political transformation, I guess. Yeah.

I think we all adopt certain narratives that help us make sense of our role in a broader story and where we are and what we believe. We associate with things that don't necessarily have great consequences, like sports teams. It's just part of a way of like, this is who I am to the world. And I want it's important, you know, for people to know who I am. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it's very healthy. And part of those narratives, I think, come with a deep kind of tethering to a truth that validates and affirms that narrative. And then people start living lives

where all of a sudden that truth is questioned. And if you believe in that which is below the truth, for example, that gun violence is bad, and you're told the more guns, the less violence. And then at some point you just are reading the news and it's like, there's a lot of guns, there's more guns, there's more gun violence. Sometimes a person might say to themselves, but I haven't actually changed what I believe. I believe that gun violence is bad, but I was told a certain kind of story, which now it's just harder and harder for me to believe is true.

And I think that's really what happened for me, that being told that, you know, identities of gender, identities of sexual orientation is about, you know, deviations and perversion and desire. And really it's all one in the same. And it's a detour from from kind of heteronormativity which is fine as like a narrative if that's what you're taught and

you're straight and you're living in a place where they're they're you're told there aren't actually queer folks so it doesn't really affect you because you have no connection to it and then you start meeting people who are in exclusive monogamous long-term relationships and they're raising children and the most amazing people and they happen to also be gay and then you start meeting people who are in exclusive, monogamous, long-term relationships, and they're raising children, and they're the most amazing people, and they happen to also be gay. And then you start realizing that gender identity and sexual orientation aren't one and the same, and who a person is when they go to sleep is different than who you want to sleep with. And then you start meeting children that are expressing gender identities, completely unaware of any sort of sexual orientation because they're kids and they have no desire in sexual ways. And so you start questioning all the things that you were told. And then you're like, huh, I always wanted to live in a life, in a community, in a life that was filled with righteousness and decency and morality. But the truth that I was told about, you know, these identities from people who were not part of that community,

it's just, I feel, is a contradiction to the reality of the facts on the ground. And I think that, for me, was the big pivot point, where the things that I was told simply became clear to me that they were coming from a place of a

lack of awareness, a lack of exposure, a lack of real first-hand knowledge, and more from a place of a lack of awareness, a lack of exposure, a lack of real firsthand knowledge, and more from a place of the unknown, which is often a place of fear and stigma and prejudice. So I would say there was less of a deep internal shift and more of kind of a fact-gathering perspective paradigm shift. It's interesting because I have the privilege of interacting with people from across the political spectrum every day. I mean, I always say this, one of the favorite parts of my job is getting the email responses to my newsletter or the comments on a podcast. And I have this really diverse readership of people all across the

political spectrum, all across the religious spectrum who come at, you know, really important issues that people care making with, you know, opening up about being religious or being very faith oriented. Typically, most of the time, 70, 80 percent of the time, those people end up sort of espousing much more conservative views and like the the American split, I guess you would say. So one of the big issues, obviously, 10 or 15, 20 years ago was gay marriage. And that has sort of become more politically accepted now. But I think there's still a very deeply rooted religious belief that marriage and sexual relations are between a man and a woman. And I'd be curious to hear how you can possibly stand on the same book and the same scripture and come out with an opposite perspective or a different perspective. So I'd love to hear you sort of explain specifically from a scriptural perspective, you know, why you aren't in that same space anymore?

Sure. Yeah, there is a verse, and it certainly means something. It's up to a lot of different interpretation exactly what it means. And the Talmud, you know, one of the early written parts of our old tradition that was redacted, struggles with even what some of the words in that verse mean. There's a great exchange between the person who actually wrote the Mishnah, the previous, kind of the earliest writing, about what does the word to'eva, which we translate as an abomination. One rabbi says to the other, Nu, what does this word mean? And the other one says an answer, which he says, no, that's not right, and goes through a whole list of maybe it means this, maybe it means that.

So today we come with a lot of confidence of what we know this means, but at the time it wasn't clear at all. And finally, the rabbi was a little bit, I think, frustrated that, you know, he's literally the author of this text. Says, okay, you tell me what it means. And he frames it in a heteronormative way that you, a man who's married to a woman, is making a mistake to be with another man. married to a woman is making a mistake to be with another man. And that is the most literal interpretation of the verse, that a man shouldn't be with another man the way he is with a woman,

presumably his wife. And that's how the major medieval commentators understand this passage. And that's Hollywood. And I think what's deeply and tragically ironic for me in understanding where the Orthodox, the ultra-Orthodox, and not just within the Jewish world, but in kind of the fundamentalist space at large, is by denying the queer experience, the queer identity, we're actually forcing queer folks to marry straight, which when the world was a less safe world to be out, people suffered in silence, or they, you know, were unfaithful on the side. Now that people can choose who they want to

be with in many more places, there's real choice to be made. But by denying that identity, we have to erase the necessity to actually on the side, is that we are enabling those literal fulfillment of this verse that they're faithful for a while until they're not. And for example, in Lakewood, New Jersey, where I studied, you know, the non-Jewish community there knows not to date Jewish men because all of the Jewish men are married to women. And it's also for women. There are all these groups of women who get together for like psalms classes where they're going to recite psalms together. It really is just a way of being able to be with other women. And I got a call recently, and I get this call not infrequently, where a woman will reach out and say, listen, I'm single, but the only women I'm dating are married to men, and I really would like to date another single woman. So the idea that there aren't queer people is not part of the reality of the universe. And denying the experience actually comes to fulfill what is the most literal prohibition, which is one of dishonesty. A person is misrepresenting themselves

as both straight when they're not, also single when they're not or available. And there's a way in which, certainly in rabbinic literature, particularly around women, that it's also framed that husbands should warn their wives not to be with other women, but it doesn't mention that mothers should warn their daughters or teachers should warn their students. And there you see it in rabbinic literature more explicitly that it's, again, it's a function of being unfaithful, that a woman might think, listen, I'm just being with another woman. It's not real.

I'm not cheating on my husband. But really what the rabbis are saying is that intimacy is intimacy, that love is love. And being unfaithful is what really is this abomination. It's a to'eva. That same word, to'eva, abomination, is also used in Hebrew scripture, just owning unfair weights and measures. If a person has one weight for buying something, another for selling something, just owning them is a biblical prohibition because it represents dishonesty. You can't be dishonest in the world in that same world that the word is deployed. So when I think about what are we supposed to do with that verse, you don't have to be progressive to have to answer that. What are we supposed to do? What is society supposed to do about holding the reality of the lived experiences of people? Should we ask someone who's not attracted to somebody of the

opposite gender to still marry them? But the Hebrew Bible also says that it's not good to be alone. So what does it then look like to create space for people to be in the most authentic and genuine versions of themselves in relationship to God, that a sanctuary should literally be a safe space for people to acknowledge their identity, their relationship with God. So I'm not trying to get out of the question and saying that it's simple, but just saying there's a verse, so you can't be gay. That's not what the verse is speaking about. Identity and just being just is free from action. And the fact that society is not willing to acknowledge that people sometimes just are, and they want people to try to pray it away or go to conversion

therapy, speaks to being detached from what's happening in the world, the reality of it. And you can't answer a question until you're willing to acknowledge kind of the givens of the world. So that world still has a lot of kind of education to go through to realize that for most people, it's not a choice, and that it's not good to ever, nobody would want someone who they care about to be married to somebody who couldn't find them attractive. It doesn't end well for anybody. Yeah. You know, it's funny.

I mean, as someone who considers myself pretty skeptical of most things I come across, I think I was always a little bit skeptical about the simplicity of that narrative about what, you know, the Old Testament or the Bible tells us. about what, you know, the Old Testament or the Bible tells us. And I think one of the things when I first sort of encountered this perspective from you and read some of your writings about it, I was sort of like, you know what, it makes sense to me that there's this gray area and this nuance. I mean, this is true for almost anything you learn in Jewish studies around what these ancient writings mean. But I will say I was quite surprised and quite sort of floored the first time I read you write about trans issues as they relate to scripture.

And I was floored because I never would have imagined that that was something that was addressed or even alluded to. But you have made the case quite strongly that, fact it is and that we have pretty specific and obvious writings in Hebrew, ancient Greek, whatever that are speaking to this. And because it feels like such a new issue, I was so blown away that this was out there and that you had sort of found like a narrative and a through line for that. And I'd love if you could maybe just speak a little bit about that too. I mean, about what we know about trans issues as they relate to the scripture.

Yeah. I mean, the first thing to acknowledge is that as we see it today, it is relatively new and we see that it's changing, you know, it's pride month and the language from this year is just different from the language of last year. And one of the things about language is just that it's always more limiting than the experience. So I think the experience has always been there, and the way in which we've spoken about it has been different. But I think deeply in a theological space, if we think about our origin story as humans, the very first person ever created was created in the image of God, both male and female as that binary, the poles. And then the person was split.

In fact, in Genesis 1, God speaks to the individual in the plural. And so, you know, if God can use plural pronouns, so can we. And then if we think about being created in the image of God when God doesn't have an image and that God has gendered attributes, but God doesn't have a body. So, like, what does that tell us about, you that tell us about the meta question of where gender lies? I don't know that we have access to that information. Is there a definitive moment in a person's personal transition, which is so individualized and simply different from each person, that for some people it might involve hormones, for others not,

for someone who's genderqueer and doesn't fit into the binary, having a line that like, okay, now Jewish law can see you as this, you know, crossing over to a new category. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. I think there's a much more essential question, which is as a human, what's my role in being supportive? What am I supposed to do as a person who doesn't necessarily understand to make sure that you're safe, that you're provided for, that you can be in a healthy and happy relationship with God and society and yourself and all of these things? there's a lot of work we can do without having to answer that question, acknowledging the urgency of providing a safe space for people to be who they are in relationship with God. And so at the different intersections of kind of Jewish law and gender, there are different approaches. And so each one's a little bit different, but we certainly see it around conversion in particular. There's a great parallel between a person who, let's say, is assigned not Jewish and says that, no, really,

There's a great parallel between a person who, let's say, is assigned not Jewish and says that, no, really, I feel like who I am, my essence is among the Jewish people. And our tradition teaches that the souls of people who convert were actually there at Mount Sinai in just a function of time. So you have this similar language that a person was assigned one way and they come to realize this other. And it's a gendered process that men transition to Judaism. They convert. There's a certain kind of procedure. Some of it's shared. Some of it's unique for men that involves circumcision. But it's clear the very first law in the laws of conversion speaks to if you have somebody that doesn't have a penis to circumcise, it can still convert as a man, that it's actually body part specific and not

gender specific. And so when we think about even gendered-based spiritual practice, which our tradition has a lot of, to what extent is that not really about gender and really just about body parts? And so I think we are, as a society, going through a transition of trying to understand what this means and trying to make observations of to what extent does the social construction of gender and different waves of feminism actually, you know, influence the way in which we see masculinity and femininity. But one of the things that's very clear is that God has these attributes and that that's part of us being created in the image of God and God doesn't have a body. So I would say it's very much an ongoing excavation of trying to uncover and discover the divine will and truth. And some of these questions are very difficult. But what's also equally simple is that people are people,

and that they need to be treated with respect. And we need to provide the resources that we have within our tradition and within our community to better understand those needs. But in the process, we actually do get to understand God better, because there's something about that awareness beyond the body that actually taps into more of God's identity, which exists free from a body within Jewish tradition. I can't help but wonder, I mean, you present these ideas in the spaces that you operate in. I know at CBST, which is an LGBTQ synagogue, you're operating in a very progressive space, but you also have a pretty public profile. You write, you publish stuff in the Jerusalem Post and all these newspapers, and you came up in

arguably one of the most orthodox spaces in the world in Lakewood, New Jersey. I mean, what's the response been like to your transformation and to your progressive politics? Do you run into anger and rejection? Are people inquisitive? They're interested about it? Are you bringing anybody to your side? Have you successfully converted any black hats like you into the more progressive space? How has that experience been for you? It's a great question. It's been a mix, to be honest. I think certainly early on, people acknowledged there was a need, but nobody wanted to be the person who was in that space. And kind of my coming out speech as an ally, now a little bit more than five years ago at

Old Broadway, till now, I mean, it's a different world. The last five years, it's not a tale of two cities. This is the best of times. It has never been better within the Orthodox world, within the ultra-Orthodox world. And I'm actually in Israel right now. And tomorrow, I'm speaking at the Jerusalem Open House, which is the Jerusalem kind of LGBT center. And one of my rabbis growing up, his wife is a speech therapist, and she has been going to this Jerusalem open house now for a couple of weeks. She just started, but it's like an eight-week course to teach people who have transitioned to either use, how to be able to make their voices sound either more masculine or more feminine. And her husband is a very famous rabbi here in Israel,

is the author of important books. And they are huge supporters, and they are deeply engaged in the space of allyship. Because in that space of ideas, in philosophical and theological spaces, not everyone feels comfortable. But in the human space of like the people who are suffering, I think all good people

are are empathic like that and so I think one of the things that has changed more than my work kind of outwardly to the world is the way in which more and more people now know someone in their own lives who's trans or queer and you know I think you know Harvey Milk spoke a lot about you know the greatest thing that a queer person can do if they feel safe is actually coming out because it does, it changes the culture. And so one of the things that we've seen now in the last five years is really I think everybody in the ultra-Orthodox world knows somebody in their family, in their neighborhood, someone of their friend's family of trans experience. And so that kind of disruption to the narrative of denying it, I think, is really powerful. they need resources and perspectives. And so they reach out, but I would say there's a huge increase recently as the world, certainly in Israel starts opening up a little bit more where more and more rabbis are reaching out saying, Hey, I have this student. He's lovely.

She's lovely. They just came out to me as whatever. I want to be supportive. I don't have the language. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. So can you like, you know, I'm not going to necessarily agree. I'm not going to blah, blah, blah, but I would like to hear what you have to say because I want to be able to help this person. So as that continues to become easier for I'm not going to blah, blah, blah. But I would like to hear what you have to say because I want to be able to help this person. So as that continues to become easier for people to come out and say, hey, listen, I just – I am. I think – I don't think these are going to be the same issues five years from now.

So this is heading in the right direction. And, yeah, I mean, I have a lot of stories, people reaching out, wanting to have advice about what to tell parents of kids who, you know, are, you know, whether the parents want to send the kids to conversion therapy or something like that. I just got a great phone call from a young woman. She was forced to marry this guy knowing that she was gay. They have a kid, they just got divorced. And she's now back into her parents' home in this ultra-Orthodox community in New york and muncie and um you know the parents are very much trying to be supportive and trying to navigate and it's a very sad story that's preventable you know once you can acknowledge these identities but the idea that you can move

that we as a as a world has moved from a place of like seeing the the queer experience as being an intolerable deviancy uh to a tolerableiancy, which is still horrific and offensive language. But now like it's moved to acceptance and then celebration in so many places. The biggest space in those four different marks are from the first two. And once you're able to kind of tolerate, even though it's not ideal, it allows for you to get to know and appreciate and accept and celebrate these experiences. And so those others kind of ideal spaces are being acquired at great speeds. I mean, the modern LGBT movement is just 52 years from Stonewall. It's interesting that last framing, because it's a great segue into my next question, which I'm interested. I mean,

somebody comes to you who says that they're gay and they're in the ultra orthodox community as a rabbi. And from that scriptural God believing perspective, is your teaching to them that, you know, I've heard it framed from some sort of moderate rabbis or moderate religious folks that, okay, you're, you know, this is a sin, but it's a sin, you know, on par with all these other sort of lesser sins that people do every day. That's sort of like one framework for the conversation that I've seen is like, we make this big deal out of people being gay when really that's just like our own obsessiveness with sex and that culture and our

homophobia. And that's why it's such a big issue. Or are you teaching them that like this actually isn't, you know, you sort of said like there's the tolerable deviancy to like, this is okay. And like, we are embracing this and celebrating this. And that's a big jump to make. I'm just wondering how you handle that. I mean, I think some people who are even moderates would still argue, well, the Bible is pretty clear that, you know, being gay is a sin. And so when you approach these people, are you saying, you know, like this isn't the best, but it's okay.

Are you saying like, no, this is wholly good for you. And how do you talk about that with folks? I think it's a big, it's a huge fallacy in the world that being gay is a sin. There's no scriptures to support that. Like being straight is not a mitzvah. You don't get points for being attracted to someone of the opposite gender. You don't get to merits for being attracted to someone of the same gender. There's just no such thing.

It's just, it's not a category. We're attracted to the people that we're attracted to. It's just, it is what it is, and you're not punished or rewarded because there's no effort. And each person is in a different space of what they think God wants from them to do or not do as a result of the acknowledgments of that identity. So in that space, there is, I would say, both the universal question that we all have to ask ourselves, like, what does God want for me, the result of my unique life experiences in this moment? And that's a struggle for everybody on a good day, regardless of your identity. It's just, you know, what am I here for? It's something that we should all obsess about. definitive line of a particular action, and that's a line that I can't cross. And so when they say, Rabbi, listen, I just, I don't want to be alone. I want companionship. I want, I'm like allergic to telling people what to do. We're not here to, I don't think, to try to force people into acting

a certain way. I think we're supposed to offer perspective and guidance and access, and people can make informed decisions, but really take ownership and responsibility for their unique relationship with God. I mean, I've had this, it's happened so many times where a guy who's married to a girl, married to a woman, reaches out and it's just so filled with shame, the shame of being gay, and completely feels exonerated from what should feel the shame and the guilt of actually being unfaithful. Like guys who have cheated on their wives with other men. Some have contracted things because there's not a lot of sex ed or health, so they're not using protection. But the shame and the guilt of just being gay and being worse than a particular action that was something that they made a choice about, being unfaithful and lying and being deceptive and all those things.

And that's a cultural piece that has nothing to do with God. So when people come out as being gay, they're often carrying and kind of actually encumbered by this sensation of like, it's a sin to just be. That God made a mistake by putting me in this world. So the first thing I say to them is God doesn't make mistakes. God's perfect. God doesn't put extra people in this world. There are no extra people. We need you. We love you. We see you. And like you, like everybody else, to ask yourself, what does God want from me being who I am? and we all answer that question differently so for some people who feel that what's expected is you know living a life of being alone and just

suffering you know i try to offer a certain perspective um that you know it's difficult i think to defend that perspective but if that's what i think person wants then they want like strength and trying to to be able to to do that i think you know as a community we should accept that not everybody sees things in the same way but more often uh people are in a space of look i i still have dreams of i wanted to have family and i want to have community and i want to follow things and so like what can i do to be supportive and so we we try to be supportive in letting people know which synonyms um can they go to and not have to worry about homophobic speech. But the idea that there needs to be some sort of secret list of which synagogues can you go to and not hear, you know, it's insane that a person of color should have to be told, listen, there's just a lot of racism in this synagogue.

You're not going to feel comfortable there. What kind of synagogue or house of worship can these types of prejudices and hate speech be condoned? So there's a lot of work to be done. And unfortunately, it's often placed or it feels like it's being placed on those who are marginalized. It's the same thing. It's the same question around mass incarceration and voter suppression, that it's not the people that have the power that are the ones who are being told that you need to act more responsibly. It's the people who are being dehumanized and objectified and marginalized that we're saying, listen, you know, we, those who are already in places without so much agency need to somehow rally and combat these big forces. So it's a struggle and it's real, but it does get better.

And I think the more that people can tell their first person stories and narratives, you know, the more that people are able to connect with each other and really change the dominant culture. I could talk all night or all day as it is in my case. I know it's getting late over there. I really appreciate the time. I think, you know, I guess my closing thought or inquiry for you would be for people who are out there listening and sort of have their, you know, their religiosity and their faith informing, you know, certain more conservative social views. I mean, what's the, what's the approach to re-examining that? I'd love to hear how you did it. Not that one way is right or wrong. I mean, I think on these issues, obviously, I'm very progressive and very left. And I write pretty openly about that in my newsletter, especially LGBT issues, because I have so many friends and family who are gay or trans or whoever, and I love them deeply, and I'm going to protect them and fight for them. But I'm curious, you know, what, what your starter thoughts are for people who are sort of interested in reexamining this stuff? We're all works in progress. And I don't know, like,

what the end line is for any one person of like, this is the goal of who you're supposed to end up to be. But I think, although many people might disagree with, like, what is the end goal, I think we can look at where we are right now and equally feel like, well, this isn't okay. I'm not okay with this. And so I think looking particularly at the places where I think it's like kind of the lowest hanging fruit, for example, forcing queer folks to marry straight, like, would you want that to be your sister or your kid or, you know, someone that you care about? Like, I wouldn't want that to happen to somebody who I care about. you know, someone that you care about, like, I wouldn't want that to happen to somebody who I care about. So I think there's, I mean, this is one of the things that's happened, you know, around police brutality and, and other issues that regardless of like, where you think the end thing, the same thing with ICE and immigration, we've heard it and seen and it's been recorded so many horrific episodes that I think it's easy to say, well, this isn't okay. I'm not okay with this. So like, we might disagree on the way in which we're supposed to get there, where the there is,

but I think we can agree on this. So I think by examining what's wrong right now, and I don't think it's different from the Israel-Palestinian conflict, like we can all acknowledge hopefully the following givens and we see like, that's not what's happening now. So, you know, can we have this conversation? Because I think one of the things that happens, particularly with young people, that it's like this all or nothing, like if you can't be 100%, then there's no space for you. I don't think that's how the world works. And I think real change, by definition, is incremental. even just a couple of years ago, as a person who's white, you know, being at a Black Lives Matter rally felt uncomfortable. And being an ally is often an uncomfortable and awkward space, because it's predicated on the world being broken. If people aren't being dehumanized, then you don't need this other people standing up. And then at some point in the last couple of years, that awkwardness of standing up and reexamining and thinking about like, what has my whiteness

as an inherited kind of identity what has that historically contributed to things in what ways am i complicit in what place ways might actually still benefiting from these things without acknowledging it so all of that stuff is awkward um and difficult until the awkwardness of being silent simply outweighs it and i think what happens when people start hearing about how difficult life is for so many people, the microaggressions, the intersectionality, the macroaggressions, you know, a person who uses a wheelchair and also maybe is genderqueer trying to find the bathroom, you know, the intersection of this and that, no one should

have to stress about trying to find the bathroom in an airport where like, there are just things that like, I'm not okay with this. And it doesn't make a difference how you see the world. People shouldn't suffer in this way. So I think the starting point is, you don't want people to have to suffer, right? Nobody wants people to suffer. Okay, so here's an issue. You know, everyone should have safe bathroom access.

You know, when you take your kid to the movie theaters and the kid's like too old to go into the bathroom of the wrong gender, but too young to really go into a bathroom by themselves and the parent who into the bathroom of the wrong gender but too too young to really go into a bathroom by themselves and the parent who's bringing them as the opposite gender like it's not everyone should have safe bathroom access it's not about being trans or using a wheelchair it's that we need to figure out a better way of being so i think in those spaces we can say listen we don't have to agree on the things which are like further down but there's

really some very urgent pieces here i think you, and this is the same conversation about like, is the world flat? Like there's all these bizarro conspiracies now about like everything. The givens are now variables. So like, can we bring it back to like, what's the given that you and I can really agree on? And like start from there because I think because everything is so divisive right now and that everything is an indicator or perceived as if you believe this, you also believe all these other things. It's just not true. Healthy people have nuanced and

complex worldviews, which are often very fluid. And it's healthy to be able to say, I don't know. You know, I don't know. I like this person. I support this politician on these things, but I'm actually a little bit disappointed on this and a little bit surprised about this. And, you know, I wish they could do that. And like that space, Israel in particular, like, are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian? That's the choice. What kind of choice is that? I can't support humanity. I can't support people having access and being safe. And like, why can't we like have something that, you know, if your views on something that's so complicated can fit on a placard at a protest, it's not a starting point for a conversation

i think being able to to say i can love you as a human being like a brother like a sibling like a sister and to say i think this idea is insane but it doesn't take away the way in which i see you as a human being i want to understand how can such a good person have such a ridiculous view on something like that's a it's a lost art like people used to discuss these things at the core root of the world of ideas of like you and i believe in the same things in terms of an end goal we don't want kids to have to worry about getting shot going to school so like we can fight about whether or not more guns or less or fewer guns helps achieve that goal but now the givens aren't the same assumed givens anymore and i don't know how we like recover from that but i would say that that

the starting point is to come together to have that conversation. And as a rule, I personally, I try not to walk away till I feel like I can't walk any closer that we have to engage and engage and engage. And if it's not in the world of ideas, it's over a cup of coffee, it's at a concert, it's at a bar, it's, you know, it's in community, we try to connect in different points of being human to say, listen, you're a good human, but like, this is nuts. So, you know, if at some point a person says, yeah, I just, I don't think the world's round. I think the world's flat. I don't think we ever went onto the moon.

Okay. So we can't go on boats together and we can't watch. Like, it's just, okay. Like we can't, we just, you know, I don't know what to tell you. So I would say that we're too quick to walk away. And when we walk away, the space between just continues to divide. Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, if people want to follow your work and keep up with you, what's the best way to do it right now? Sure.

RabbiMikeMoskowitz.com. I have about 100 articles there that I've published on these topics. And there's a few books. There's a book on allyship that we just put out called Chavar Up. I have a book, Textual Activism, that came out a few years ago. And God willing, in the fall, I'll have a new book called Graceful Masculinity. I love it. Thank you so much for the time, Rabbi.

And maybe we can do it again soon and get into some other issues. I'd love to. It is always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much for having me. Today's podcast was produced by Tangle Media in partnership with our friends over at Impostor Radio. If you enjoyed the podcast, be sure to give it a five-star rating, share it with your friends, and go check out readtangle.com for more. Thanks for watching! character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.