Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Episode #19 Yom Kippur in an 'Upside-Down World' with Rabbi Ralph Genende
In this High Holy Day special episode, one of Australia's leading rabbis, Ralph Genende, joins Dash and Tami to reflect on Yom Kippur and the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Special thanks to Ivany Investment Group for sponsoring this episode:
Articles relevant to this episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/beyond-a-year-of-shattered-hope
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/october-7-set-off-an-existential-ache-a-kind-of-bewildering-fear
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/the-interfaith-conundrum-awful-time-is-also-one-of-opportunity
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/the-long-road-to-restoring-my-faith-in-interfaith-relations
Special thanks to Kehilat Kolenu for the use of their recording of Lev'vim.
To buy a copy of Living in an Upside-Down World:
https://shop.retrospect.agency/product/living-in-an-upside-down-world-by-rabbi-ralph-genende/1
Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
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Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? But a little bit ashamed that you're barely keeping up to date.
Speaker 2:Well, you've come to the right place. I'm Tammy Sussman and, in this podcast series, author, historian and TJI's executive director, Dashiell Lawrence, and I call on experts and each other to address all the ignorant questions that you might be too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1:Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. Ashamed to Admit.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, chag sameach to you and yours. You're listening to Ashamed. To Admit, I'm Dash Lawrence from the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 2:And I'm hungry, I'm really hungry.
Speaker 1:You're also Tammy Sussman. Are you prepping for the Yom Kippur fast, tammy? Is this practice pre-fast practice?
Speaker 2:Like the opposite of carb loading. No, I'm just generally hungry all the time. I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually don't fast.
Speaker 1:Okay, Any particular reason. You're a non-believer. You don't like sticking to the rules. What makes you think that Dash Just something I've come to learn about you is that you're generally someone that escuses convention, so is that harsh?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. That's pretty spot on, and I don't necessarily do it on purpose. But I'm also not ashamed to admit that I am a recovering anorexic, bulimic orthorexic all of them. So, just like recovering alcoholics may choose not to drink alcohol again, I made the decision many years ago not to fast again, because then I just become addicted to that. So I just thought I should put that out there, because I'm all about stomping all over taboos. There might be some people in similar situations. This is something that you have to run by a rabbi. The rabbi might give you permission to skip the fasting. I didn't run it by a rabbi, but I've run it through plenty of therapists. I just did want to acknowledge that this time of year can be very triggering for a lot of people, and that's why I'm very judgy when people tell me that they're doing the intermittent fasting diet. Now Dash, I know you're into health and you're into marathons. Have you ever dabbled in intermittent fasting?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't. I'm not sure that I would have the discipline to hold out for any longer than just a few hours. You know me, I'm constantly snacking, like before we came onto this podcast. I worked my way through a brand of healthy nut butter filled balls protein balls. This packet was really meant to last me the week and I've just knocked it off almost in one sitting, so you know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:You're nut loading, your egos loading before Rosh Hashanah because you know that you won't be eating nuts. I'm happy to hear that Whenever an Ashkenazi Jewish friend tells me that they're doing the intermittent fasting diet, the first thing I say to them was your ancestors did not survive starvation in Auschwitz for you to do the intermittent fasting diet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I don't judge people's health and lifestyle choices generally, if at all. I think that we do have a tendency sometimes to take things to extreme. And yeah, fasting when you don't you know outside of Yom Kippur is not for me. But hey, whatever makes you feel alive and makes you feel vital and healthy, then you know, that's your choices.
Speaker 2:I think you're lying. I think anyone who says no judgment or I don't judge, I don't buy that at all. We all judge other people's lifestyle choices and the amount of people who tell me that they're fasting on Yom Kippur. People say just do it for the challenge. How does that have anything to do with atonement?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's that time of year to perhaps judge their tone. Manned, yep, but it's that time of year to perhaps judge. The reason we're talking about Yom Kippur is we are approaching that holiest of days in the Jewish calendar when this episode comes out. We've just welcomed in the new year, and just ahead of us is Yom Kippur and Tammy.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but every now and again when life is hectic, when the world is a mess and boy, it is a mess at the moment in the Middle East, we'll talk about that in a moment but also when we approach these big milestone points in the year, I feel the need to connect with a wiser and calmer soul, and for me, rabbi Ralph Ganendi is one of those people that I turn to for some hope. For those of you who've never heard of Rabbi Ralph, he is a modern Orthodox rabbi who is widely respected both inside and outside the Melbourne Jewish community for his kindness, his compassion and his ability to connect Jewish tradition and learning with the realities and the challenges of modern times. For nearly two decades he was Senior Rabbi at Caulfield Shul and before that at Auckland Hebrew Congregation. He began his rabbinical career in his native South Africa.
Speaker 2:These days, rabbi Ralph Ganendi is Principal Rabbi to the Australian Defence Force, senior Rabbi of Jewish Care Victoria and of Kesher, the Connecting Community, and is the Interfaith and Community Liaison at the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. That's AJAC right.
Speaker 1:Correct as we approach Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. What better way to connect with the meaning of this important day, as well as the 12-month anniversary of October 7th, than a conversation with one of Australia's leading rabbis?
Speaker 2:This interview was recorded hours before Iran launched its missile attack on Israel, so that's why it wasn't mentioned in the conversation. And, dash, before we started recording. I know you and I were talking about this space of uncertainty that we're all sitting in at the moment and praying that things will de-escalate, but for now, in the days leading up to Yom Kippur, we hope that you listeners draw solace and hope from our conversation with Rabbi Ralph.
Speaker 1:Ganendi, welcome to Ashamed to Admit, thank you, and I'm not ashamed to be with you. Finally, someone that's not ashamed to be with us.
Speaker 2:Dash while you're setting up, Ralph. You might recall we were on the same panel at the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival.
Speaker 1:There were like 10 of us.
Speaker 3:We were given a few minutes.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that was my first Writers Festival and my dad came. My dad has sleep apnea so we were really worried that he would fall asleep during that session and he didn't at all. He loved it and he's not a reader. He's read a picture book to my kids and he reads stuff for his in-construction. So, he reads reports, but he's never read a book. And at the end of the session he went to the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival bookstore run by Gertrude Nallis and he bought one book, and that book was your book.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, that's amazing. That's a very nice story.
Speaker 2:And he read about a quarter of it, which is, ralph, that's actually like the best compliment to you. That's the most of a book he's ever read, and it was yours.
Speaker 3:Well, that's quite something. Well, I'm pleased to hear that. Thank you for that, and thank your dad. Tell him I'm really quite moved that he bought it, and what he read of it, ralph.
Speaker 1:This podcast comes out in the days after Rosh Hashanah and in the days just before Yom Kippur, and I was wondering what does this time of year traditionally evoke for you? And, in light of the fact that it aligns with the anniversary of October 7th, how might that be a different time of year?
Speaker 3:Well, I think this time of year always resonates for me. It's a time of reflection, it's a time of introspection. There's something in the air, there's the anticipation and some of the apprehension as well, as we are facing. These are called the Yamim Nurayim, which means the days, days of awe. So you know, there's something awesome and reverential about it, but it's also it's got a sweet quality as well.
Speaker 3:You know, it's not for nothing that we wish each other a Shanat of Awamutukau, a sweet new year, because I think there is in well, certainly in melbourne in australia, there's, you know, spring is in the air and there is a kind of a spring in our hopefully in our foot as well, spring in our way that we go into the new year, because we go into it not only with a sense of apprehension and anxiety, but also we go into it with a sense of anticipation and potential.
Speaker 3:I think the anguish and the anxiety are more overbearing almost for most of Jewish people, but I think it is also despite that, I think despite the anniversary being one of heaviness and one of and you know, by the way, rosh Hashanah is called one of the names in Jewish tradition it's known as Yom HaZikaron, or the Day of Remembrance, so it is a time of reflection. Remembrance of the past year and of what has taken place has taken place, but it's also inside that inherent in this time of the year is the opportunity, the opportunity to change things, the opportunity for a different perspective, and I think that is so important for us after this last hard year and the events just over the last few days, I think hopefully will restore something of the confidence in Israel and therefore the confidence for us as a Jewish people who had so much of our very confidence shattered by what took place on October 7th.
Speaker 1:You talked about the idea of this period actually usually evoking anxiety in a Jewish tradition. I wasn't aware of that. Can you speak briefly to that point?
Speaker 3:Well, rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For us Rosh Hashanah, you know, new Year, in the sort of common imagination is one of celebration, kind of beckonal even. But you know, for us a new year is never it's always a serious one. I mean, after all, you know, one of the main songs or parts of our prayer or liturgy over this year is, you know, who by fire, who by water, which Leonard Cohen made so well known in his version of it. So that's serious stuff.
Speaker 3:It's about what I think Socrates said. You know, the unexamined life is not worth living. And so we're supposed to be examining our lives during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That's serious stuff, asking the most basic, essential existential questions. And certainly Yom Kippur as well has that idea of looking at the books of life, books of death, and you know there is that element of judgment as well.
Speaker 3:That's what Yom Kippur is about atonement. So that's why I'm saying that one goes into it with, hopefully, with a sense of some apprehension, anxiety. You know that I have a responsibility as well to change my life and to contribute towards changing the world. We're a bit of an audacious people. We've got chutzpah, and part of our chutzpah is that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We're saying it's not just our individual fates, it's not just the fate of the Jewish people for the year to come that is being determined, but it's the fate of the whole world. So you know, that's quite a heavy thing to rest on our shoulders, but it is. I think it's with the audacity of our hope that we can, no matter how difficult it is and has been, we can change it for the better has been.
Speaker 2:We can change it for the better.
Speaker 3:Dash. Any opportunity for anxiety the Jews will take it, so of course it goes without saying.
Speaker 1:But I didn't realise that it was wound up with this most reverential, significant time of year, but of course that makes sense. The second thing that you referred to, ralph, was this notion of the events of the past few days actually rendering some sense of hope and, as you said, some sense of belief in Israel. I assume you're talking about Israel's military campaign and both the assassination of Hezbollah's leader we're talking on Tuesday, the 1st of October. Israel has, just this morning, begun a ground campaign, which is a significant step up in the conflict. You regard that, though, as rendering some sense of hope.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that it's one of the things that was shattered October 7th shattered our hopes, shattered our dreams and it shattered our sense of Jewish identity, but particularly shattered our sense of security and our belief that Israel will always be their secure, strong place for the Jewish people. And that almost mythical belief that we had was shattered seriously October 7th with Israel being overrun, with Israel being unprepared and, for Israel's, the image of Israel as being able to convey to its enemies its strength and acting as a deterrent power against the enormous amount of animosity towards it in that part of the world. So that was shattered and I think that increased and brought about a deep sense of vulnerability, not only for the people of Israel but for Jews across the world. You know, I think part of the vulnerability and the fragility we have been feeling, putting aside the anti-Semitism has, because of Israel not being quite as strong and secure as we believed it was.
Speaker 3:And I think the events of the last few days for me and I think for many Jews will be wow, the ingenuity, the chutzpah, the ingenuity of what Israel has achieved in not just the last few days but in the last few weeks, with the assassination of the top leadership, with its preemptive moves against Hezbollah, is about. You know, that's the kind of Israel that we believed in and it is great to see that being restored. Of course, there are dangers to that as well. There are always dangers, you know there are dangers, dangers, especially with an incursion. And the danger to Israel now is that it may have restored its confidence but that it needs to be careful that it does not bring with it a sense of arrogance and complacency.
Speaker 1:So, Ralph, your book of 2022, Living in an Upside-Down World, which is a collection of your writings, your sermons, your thoughts over the course of two decades, I think, features a section all about the High Holidays and their meaning and their significance. I know this because I published this book.
Speaker 2:Ralph, is it okay if I read a quote from the book? I won't put on your accent.
Speaker 3:I'll be very happy if you read a quote from it.
Speaker 2:The Jewish holiday cycle is a complex interplay of the biblical and the rabbinic, rich in ritual, stunning in its symbols and profound in its ideas. It reminds us that no two moments are the same. No two hearts are identical. Each beats with its own energy. And then you say every time I hold a new year calendar in the palm of my hand, I'm reminded of all the colour and potential of these days and weeks ahead, but I'm also mindful that, like fine grains, they can just slip through your fingers and be lost forever. Can you say a bit more about how the arrival of the New Year can re-engage or re-inspire us, because I feel like I need a bit of that. I know lots of people feel the same.
Speaker 3:Yes, we probably don't need any reminders about the fragility of time and the fragility of our lives, because I think that has been emphasised for us over the past year. But I think that with a new year also comes you know the power of our prayers, originality of our tradition and the capacity to change, to heal, to mend. So in the quote you just read out, I said you know so. These are new moments that are coming, so they don't have to be colored and defined by what has been. They now can be shaped and designed differently by what we want them to be. This is a new year, this is a time of new opportunity, and one of the most amazing things I think of Jewish tradition is that it believes in hope and opportunity. That you know, despite Shakespeare, that there is a destiny that shapes our ends. Refue them how we will. You know that things you know. We just can't change it. That's the way life is and just life happens and bad things happen. And you know that things you know we just can't change it. That's the way life is, and just life happens and bad things happen, and you know that's part of your fate.
Speaker 3:Rabbi Soloveitchik speaks about not only fate. He says yes, there are certain things that are beyond our control, but there's also something called destiny, which he says, which is within our control. And maybe you know we've been placed in this situation where none of us chose to be living right now and having lived through October 7th, but at the same time, it's within our destiny, it's within our hands to use what has happened to say we still believe in hope. We Jewish people have been through enormously difficult, tough times in our past, but we know from our past as well that we can change things. We can change the now, we can change things for the future.
Speaker 3:And when I look around, I see examples of people who have been able to seize opportunities to make a difference and to change. And I think you know, when I look at just what has happened to us as a community and what has happened in Israel, I see so much positive energy and coming together in a solidarity and the support that people show to one another. You know they always say that in a time of tragedy, in a time of disaster, you will find the best and you will find the worst tragedy, or in a time of disaster, you will find the best and you will find the worst. So we have seen the worst, but we have also seen some of the best and we can help the best shape what the future year is going to be for us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that. You just name-dropped another rabbi I've never heard of. Who's that?
Speaker 3:So Soloveitchik. He was one of the great leaders of Judaism and certainly of a movement called modern or centrist orthodoxy in the late 20th century mid to the late 20th century and he was somebody who spoke about the synthesis of tradition of the past and of Jewish tradition with the best of what the contemporary world has to offer. So he has been one of my role models. Somebody who then took that and I think crystallized it until his untimely death a few years ago was Rabbi Jonathan Sachs.
Speaker 2:Right. How do you think they'd all feel on a panel and you're also on the panel if I came and presented a case to just can the whole fasting aspect of Yom Kippur the Jews have been through enough, don't you think?
Speaker 3:I think you're being too fast.
Speaker 2:I see what you did there. Yes, no, say more.
Speaker 3:I think you're being too fast in your rejection of something that has sustained the Jewish people for thousands of years. You know, fasting isn't just a crippling negative event. For me, fasting is liberating. There's a beautiful saying in the Talmud. It says that before a person eats, it says they have two hearts. After they've eaten, they've only got one heart. So while you're fasting, you are downplaying your physical needs and you are upplaying a better part of yourself to ascend, to come out.
Speaker 3:So I see fasting as a way of sort of it's a clearinghouse, it's a way of clearing my mind. You know people do that. You know Buddhism. They do it through silent, you know, through silent retreats and through eating. Also, through eating, very little Other traditions have got ideas of fasting. The idea of fasting, then, is not one of punishment and of torture, although I know that it can feel that way, but I think, if you manage to do it to me, it kind of lets me have a mind shift and a soul shift and focus on stopping to think what am I going to live from? And starting to remind myself what am I living for?
Speaker 2:So your mind just isn't cluttered with the things that you're excited to eat when the fast is over.
Speaker 3:Look, I won't pretend to be a saint, and there may be certain times during the fast when I think, oh, I would give my soul now for a glass of Coke, you know, for a rogala, you know something to eat, but on the whole I don't, you know. Actually, look, I think I'm quite fortunate also because I get involved in the leading of the services as well. So, it sort of certainly focuses my mind on what I'm doing and not thinking of how my stomach is feeling or how I'm feeling.
Speaker 2:There's a distraction.
Speaker 3:It's a distraction, but I'd like to think it's a discernment and it's an intentionality as well.
Speaker 2:No further questions, Ralph.
Speaker 1:Are there other rituals or other practices that you hold very dear at this time of year between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?
Speaker 3:Well, maybe just focus on Yom Kippur for a moment and come back to Rosh Hashanah. But Yom Kippur, you know, and the idea of the fast and one of the beautiful passages we read on Yom Kippur comes from the prophet Isaiah. And he says you know, if you're just fasting to show you know how much you are, you know how much I can endure without eating? He says you're missing the point of it. He says the point of the fasting is to focus your mind. It is to get you to think about why you're fasting. And the purpose of the fasting is I'm fasting because I want to look at myself and look at how I've behaved and I want to feel sorrowful for the way that I have acted towards myself, towards those closest to me, towards people outside. And I think so it becomes.
Speaker 3:If there's anything that is a national sorry day for the Jewish people, that is Yom Kippur, for we are supposed to be saying sorry to people that we have harmed, and I think we should be saying sorry to the environment that we continue to harm and to damage. We should be saying sorry to the people that we are to harm and to damage. We should be saying sorry to the people that we are not reaching out to in their pain for maybe for the events of the past year and certainly for the pain that we have caused them. So I think that aspect is really important, but also what comes with it. It is acknowledging and being sorrowful, and that's what atonement is about, but it's also about the belief in forgiveness, that if you are sorrowful and that's what atonement is about but it's also about the belief in forgiveness, that if you are sorrowful enough, you would hope that the person on the other side will forgive you and you hope that you will be forgiving if somebody says sorry to you.
Speaker 3:You know it was Tracy Chapman some years ago. Saying about sorry is one of the hardest, difficult words to say, and I think she was quite right. Sorry is hard to say and I forgive you. It may be just as hard to say as well in certain circumstances. At the end of Yom Kippur we're supposed to come out of it with a sense of joy and elation that we have cleansed and cleared the way and the obstructions between us and others, between the obstructions and obstacles that block us from our spirituality or, for me, from God, and for the obstacles that get in the way, that impede our progress, to allow our best selves, as individuals and as people and as a community, to emerge.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is, as you said, a very big theme, a very big part of Yom Kippur. Traditionally, you're seeking forgiveness from others, but it's also an opportunity to allow forgiveness, to let forgiveness in and to perhaps forgive others that have sinned you or trespassed you. To that end, I wanted to talk about the last 12 months. You are someone that has invested an enormous amount of your professional life, and your personal life as well, in interfaith dialogue and extending yourself outside of your Jewish community, building all kinds of bridges into the Islamic community, christian community, many other faiths. Yet I know, ralph, that in the days and months after October 7, you were very distressed and, I think, angry at the lack of compassion, the lack of understanding that was shown by other interfaith leaders, including people that you had built friendships with and connections with over many years. So, to that end, I'm wondering where are you at now, nearly 12 months on, do you still harbour some of that sense of disappointment, that sense of anger?
Speaker 3:So, you're right, dash, it was. I think that in terms of my interfaith work, which I've been involved in now for most of my life, and the events and particularly the days after October 7th, even before Israel responded or reacted or anything had taken place, it was the deafening silence of our partners in interfaith that was devastating, it was angering, it was challenging in an incredibly profound and deep way. I suppose in some ways it was also my worst fears about interfaith were recognized. You know, I was never too idealistic, I think, about interfaith work and I kind of recognized that, unfortunately, a lot of interfaith that I was involved in was more of a feel-good exercise and sometimes I even got the sense that people were playing a game for different reasons, whether it's political or for, you know, to be liked or to get out there, to get recognised by the media, and that in a sense that there was a superficiality. You know some people call it, you know, the kumbaya kind of. You know we're all in this together and we will cover up the obvious differences and challenging difficulties that there should be and there are between people who are different. Jonathan Sachs speaks about the dignity of our differences and very often interfaith work was not about appreciating the differences and focusing on yes, you know you like the same kind of food as we like, and you've got holidays, we've got holidays. You like the same kind of food as we like, and you've got holidays, we've got holidays. You know you guys cover your hair at certain points. Some of us cover our hair. You know that type of thing.
Speaker 3:So I think this was a critical moment for me. I was angry. I did resign from my membership of the Jewish Christian Muslim Association, of which I'd been a past president, because I felt that is where, you know, some voice should have come from. I was angry for a while and I was hurt by the people that I thought. You know I expected more from because of our ostensible friendship over the years. But I think at a time of loss, anger and loss often go together. You know we are angry at the situation we're in, but, you know, having some time to reflect on it, I think I thought and I draw lines from our prayers which we say to God will you please allow your compassion to overcome your anger? And I think to me that was something so critical was to allow compassion and compassion to overcome my sense of anger and my sense of betrayal.
Speaker 3:And then, the more I thought about it, I thought, you know, actually we need to redouble our efforts in terms of interfaith, that you know, maybe we were just not doing it properly or doing it in a way that we could and should have.
Speaker 3:Maybe now this is an opportunity for actually to have a more in-depth kind of conversation. And that is where a lot of my focus has been, and even taking on this job at AJAC, which is as interfaith and community liaison, has given me an opportunity to focus on the importance of interfaith and the importance of how much more important it is that people of religion talk to one another, and I think many of the problems are overlooked. In the Middle East, it says, you know, that middle people say well, the whole problem is religion, is the problem, one not always recognized. I think it is certainly part of the problem, but it is also the solution, and I think that's where politicians and I think people have politicized religion and taken away from it its strength to actually help us communicate, to help us find the compassion that is within our traditions, to help us engage better with one another and to help us mend this very broken world of ours.
Speaker 1:Just so our listeners understand, part of your feeling of betrayal was from a silence and from a lack of recognition, both in written words but also verbally no one picking up the phone to offer a sense of condolence at the loss of the Israeli lives, the loss of Jewish lives, and also an unwillingness to have a conversation. Is that part of what the betrayal was? And I'm wondering whether those conversations have occurred in the last 12 months where the bridges have been rebuilt.
Speaker 3:Hmm, so that's a very good point that you bring out there Dash. So I think, yes, there was the sense of the betrayal, and the anger came because it was just the silence from so many people who just wanted them to pick up the phone and say how are you doing? You know, of people within the political, within the Islamic council, locally, you know, I just felt it became politicized and did not allow for any engagement. And I'm not to say that there were not voices on our own side that were just as guilty, but I think that there have been and I have used, I mean, and I'm using my time and energy and my efforts now to say how do we re-engage, how do we rebuild or how do we mend the bridges that have been damaged not completely broken, I think I don't believe interfaith is broken, but I believe it's been seriously damaged.
Speaker 3:Faith is broken, but I believe it's been seriously damaged, and there have been conversations with counterparts in other faiths, including a few within the few, I think, brave Muslim voices who prefer not to come out in public, I think, unfortunately, for reasons that they fear for their own safety. But there are people there and one of the most amazing things I must tell you is I've been invited to a conference by an international Muslim organization. They are the ones who initiated this conference with Jews and with Christians in November, and then, at the same time, I'm also in touch with a group in Israel who are looking to engage and engaging with imams and rabbis and scholars of both traditions. So that gives me a sense of hope that we can mend and build those bridges.
Speaker 1:Who or for what are you sorry for in this?
Speaker 3:are you sorry for in this new year? You know, I guess I'm always sorrowful for the way that I think, you know, have I been a good enough partner? Have I been a good enough father? Have I been a good enough grandfather? You know, it's always one, because I'm a very outgoing public person and you know I'm spending a lot of my life in those driven kind of thing.
Speaker 3:And sometimes, you know, I think we need to ask ourselves, you know, and I try to ask myself, coming back to what we were saying earlier on that question what am I running from? What am I running to, kind of thing. And that sometimes, you know, we're so busy with our lives and our careers and how we present ourselves to the world outside there that we don't spend enough time with those who are closest to us, and so I always feel a bit guilty about that need to ask them for, ask my family, you know. Have I been, you know, too much out there again, not paid you enough attention, didn't hear you know enough of what you were saying or asking of me? That would be on a personal level, yeah.
Speaker 1:Does Yom Kippur also represent a time to perhaps heal and forgive parts of yourself?
Speaker 3:I think that is something that Yom Kippur renews it. It is something that I would say through, you know, for me that is where therapy has been most helpful. For me, that is where therapy has been most helpful and I think it was, you know, through a combination of both therapy and through Torah therapy, if you like. The combination of the two, I think, has helped me to become more forgiving of myself and not to be so harsh on myself as I was and have been in the past. And I think you know we have that in ourselves. You know that we can't quickly, sometimes often, just start blaming ourselves for not being good enough and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Ralph. I mentioned my father earlier. He was the one at the festival who bought your book. Yes, my sister's a therapist and she'd really like my father to have therapy, but I just think he'll never get there. So, because he clearly respects you, can you just maybe for a few minutes, just convince him to go to therapy, because it sounds like it's done wonders for you.
Speaker 3:I think, for a start, we should recognize that therapy is very Jewish. After all, you know, there was somebody called Freud who invented this stuff called talk therapy. But I think it's more about listening therapy, actually. And, if you had asked me also like what are some of the most central phrases and verses that I think of in our liturgy and in our prayers in this time of the year? One of them is a prayer called Shema Kolenu, which means God, listen to our voice, which is, of course, the obverse side of the other one, which is Shema Yisrael, where God says, hey, listen to me.
Speaker 3:And I think listening is one of the most incredible gifts that we are given and one of the most challenging tasks that we have as well to listen acutely and astutely to one another, but also to listen to the voices within ourselves. And for me, therapy is about allowing you to be listened, but also, I hope, to listen to when you're hearing yourself reflected back by a therapist who is a good therapist. Well, essentially, what they're doing is reflecting back to you what you have not been able to articulate, or even to bring to attention what you are articulating, and with that it comes the capacity to listen deeply to yourself, to the voices within that you may have been muffling or not allowing to come out. So I think therapy can be liberating and is a source of growth to almost all human beings. I know there are some people who are just. You know if you're close to it, you know what they say. If the light bulb doesn't want to change, it's not going to change. But I think most people can and will benefit from some form of therapy.
Speaker 2:I think my dad would have fallen asleep by now, not because of you, but because of his sleep apnea, as I mentioned earlier. But I think what I gathered from that is that Rabbi Ralph is recommending as a New Year's resolution if you've never had therapy before this this year, what is it? 5-7?
Speaker 3:5-8-5. I think this is we're in 5-7-8-4, going into 5-7-8-5.
Speaker 2:Is that basically what to sum up?
Speaker 3:I hadn't intended that to be it, but I would like it to be a combination. I'd say it's about yeah, I think you know therapy is liberating, but I think just as liberating is to pay attention and to listen to your Jewish soul and your Jewish tradition, because I think that there's so much wisdom there, so much contemporary insight that you can draw on as well to face the challenges in one's own life and in the world around us.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you.
Speaker 3:I had to give you a rabbinical answer too, you know.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Ralph. Just one last question, Ralph, you're a great collector of song lyrics, verses, quotations, psalms from the Torah. Just wondering if there's something you'd like to leave us with as we move into Yom Kippur and begin this new year.
Speaker 3:I'm going to leave you with something from great American poet, mary Oliver. She said Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift. I'm profoundly moved by that quote because I think, you know, we were given a box of darkness and I think and some people will say, well, it was given by our enemies, but I would say maybe it was given out of love as well, by God, and I know that maybe that's a serious theological issue to think about. But what I guess I am saying is that the box of darkness is also a way of once we open it up, it gives us and leads us back into the light. And so that is why I love that particular quote and I would like to think that the darkness that we are coming through, and we will come through this dark year, we've been and back into the light. And that is what Yerushalayim Kippur is about, or Zeruah, it's about a new light, a light that is renewed. And that is also part of my, I guess, my quote from the book of Psalms where King David says he says, he says One thing I've asked from Hashem one thing.
Speaker 3:I've asked from God that you let me sit in your house, that I may sit in the house of God for all my days. Now, I don't think that means, oh my, you know, I have to go and sit in a shul. I have to go and sit in a shul, I have to go off to an ashram or something. But I think it means that I can understand the place that I'm in, I can transform. It is also. This is the house of God. This is a place that is filled with God's possibilities and wonder. For us to discover, to strengthen us, to give us courage.
Speaker 1:for us to discover, to strengthen us, to give us courage and to lighten the way ahead for us. Rabbi Ralph Ganendi, thank you for all the time that you've given us today and the wisdom that you've left us with. It's been a pleasure to have you on, and we wish you a Shana Tova and a Happy New Year.
Speaker 3:And it's been a pleasure engaging with the two of you, and I wish you also that and a Sh wish you also that a year full of light and sweetness and wish you well over the fast yes, we shouldn't forget that.
Speaker 1:Thank you that's it for today. You've been listening to A Shame to Admit, with Tammy Sussman and me, dash Lawrence. This is a TJR podcast.
Speaker 2:This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with the music by Donovan Jenks and this psalm by Kehilat Kolenu. Our episode this week was made possible by the support of our sponsors, peter and Sharon Ivany of Ivany Investment Group.
Speaker 1:Links to Rabbi Ralph Ganindy's TJI articles are in the show notes, and if you'd like to buy a copy of his book Living in an Upside Down World, you'll also find details in our show notes.
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