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
ASHAMED TO ASK! With special co-host Shoshana Gottlieb aka. JEWISH MEMES ONLY
Jewish educator and meme queen Shoshana Gottlieb aka @jewishmemesonly joins Tami in the studio to answer questions from a non-Jewish person. Except that non-Jewish person didn’t show up (dw, not in an anti-semitic way, she just had a last minute crisis). So Tami and Shoshana made lemons into lemonade, turning the episode into a crash course of Jewish texts with lots of Jewcy tangents. You’ll love this one.
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https://thejewishindependent.com.au/think-people-want-chance-laugh-things-hold-sacred
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/the-influencer-intifada
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/owning-the-problems-in-jewish-schools-is-necessary-for-change
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Are you ashamed to admit that you went to a Jewish school for 12 years but don't know the difference between Torah, the five books of Moses, Tanakh, Gemara, Mishnah and the other one?
Speaker 2:Well, you've come to the right place. I'm Shoshana Gottlieb filling in for Dash Lawrence, and, in this special episode of Ashamed to Admit, tammy will be asking me all the questions you might be too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1:Join Jewish educator and Instagram personality Shoshana. You know her as Jewish memes only Gottlieb as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. Ashamed to Ask.
Speaker 1:Shoshana Gottlieb. Welcome to the Ashamed to Admit, ashamed to Ask studio.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I do appreciate it. The studio does look a lot like my apartment.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie to you Don't pull back the curtain, Shoshana.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry. Lovely to be here in the same room with Tammy.
Speaker 1:In this very high-tech studio, yes, in this very high-tech studio. Yes, shoshana, before we proceed with today's interview, dash Lawrence is not here, but he is here Spiritually, mm-hmm, and I know that he'll be cranky with me if I don't ask you a little bit of biographical information, like all the plot points in your life.
Speaker 2:All of them. I'm almost 30.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of them just tell our listeners what they need to know about you and what you do and why you do it sure.
Speaker 2:My name is Shoshana. I grew up in Sydney. I have been here my whole life, except for a couple of years when I lived in Jerusalem. I went to Kesetora College, so I have been very involved in the Jewish world for a very long time. I wanted to be a writer, screenplay writer, movie person and then for a lot of reasons, decided it wasn't for me. But I did decide that Jewish education was for me. But that's like a whole other podcast of how I reached that decision. So I studied for two years at Pardes in Jerusalem. I'm currently doing my Master's of Teaching so that I have my teaching certification for Australia and I'm a Jewish educator. I teach high school 7 to 11 Jewish studies.
Speaker 1:Shoshana Gottlieb, mame Queen.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jewish educator Like I get paid to do that, yeah, not for the Instagram, not for the queen role. The monarchy is is separate, but I do get paid for the education bit, yeah, but then, like, the reason that I get asked to do things like podcasts is because I started Jewish means only at the end of 2019. I was working at a doctor's office at the time and all of a sudden, I had no one coming in and like nothing to do and I had all of this free time on my hand and I had internet connection and like very basic stupid photoshop skills and everyone in the world was on their phone at the same time and so, like perfect storm of gaining a very small army of followers and parlaying that into, I talk about Jewish culture, a lot Jewish texts, learning, all of that stuff Okay, so that's kind of the bare bones necessities, I'd say.
Speaker 1:I remember following you when you had like 5,000 followers. I'm just looking up how many followers you have now. Do you know the figures off the top of your head? 31? 32.4. 32.4. Thousand followers 32.4. 32.4. Thousand followers yeah.
Speaker 2:And then like a couple. I'd say like 6,000 on Facebook and then like 14 on.
Speaker 1:Twitter While Dash is away and I get to run the show, which is a little bit scary for everyone involved. The format of these episodes is that we get someone who isn't Jewish to come into the podcast studio and ask us questions, but that guest ghosted us today, so it's just you and me. You are enough. In a previous episode that I co-hosted with Elise Esther Hurst, playwright, author, that I co-hosted with Elise Esther Hurst, playwright, author, community gem co-writer of Yentl, while we were waiting for our guest Van Vadum to arrive, we asked each other what kind of questions we were a bit anxious about getting, and I said that I was concerned that I'd get a textual kind of question, because I know that there are some books of Moses. There are five of them. I couldn't tell you if that was the Torah or if that's separate. Is that the Torah? Yeah, the five books. Okay, what else? This is my question to you what else is in the Torah besides those five books? Because there's also Gemara and then there's also other stuff, other texts.
Speaker 2:If we want to turn this into a crash course of main Jewish texts. I can absolutely do that. I do it several times a year for all of my classes. Okay, children forget over and over again. Yeah, so the Torah is the five books. They're the Torah. Torah is a scroll that we read in shul right, so it's in scroll form. It's in book form. So you might have heard it referred to as a chumash as well. So a chumash is just the Torah, but printed in a book and bound and usually has other commentaries around it from other people.
Speaker 1:So it's like all synonymous.
Speaker 2:When it's in the scroll, it's the Torah. So that's the five books, okay, but they are attached to two other books called Nach, and so it becomes known as Tanach, standing for Torah, the T, the N is Navim, or prophets, and the T sound is for Ketubim, which means writings, extra writings, okay, and so we believe that the Torah was, or a lot of Jews, religious Jews, believe that the Torah is God-given. And then Nach acts more like the history books and all of those things together, the three books. Tanakh in the secular world is known as the Old Testament. So when you hear Old Testament thrown around, it's not just the five books, but it's all of those other books as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the five books are God-given.
Speaker 2:Allegedly. Who's to say, right, okay, when Moshe goes up Mount Sinai, he's only receiving the Torah, none of the other stuff.
Speaker 1:And then there's the other stuff which is, you said, like the history, the prophets.
Speaker 2:And that's where we get stories like King David, like Samson and Delilah, jonah and the whale. That all comes from Nevi'im, or the prophets, and then Ketuvim, the later writings. That's where you get Psalms, that's where you get the story of Esther, the story of Ruth. You get Daniel, oh, you get Song of Songs, shur HaShurim. All comes from Ketuvim, which is later writings, which are both the later writings, are some of its history, or like perceived as history. So that's Esther and Ruth and Ezra, and like Daniel the late one. And then you also have books of poetry. So you've got Psalms, you've got oh, you've got Job is thrown in there, which is not history or poetry.
Speaker 2:You've got Song of Songs. You've got Eichat like Lamentations, you've got Ecclesiastes Kohelet, and so they're like the fun extras.
Speaker 1:Okay. Bonus, yeah. Bonus round yeah, okay. This is such a dumb question.
Speaker 2:There are no stupid questions.
Speaker 1:Oh, there are. Trust me.
Speaker 2:No, because I consider this as a Jewish educator. Like we throw so much at kids, expecting that their parents are doing stuff at home as well, but like, as we know, like a lot of parents don't have the skills themselves to do that and so, like parents come to parents, come to us. They're like, why doesn't my kid know how to do kiddish, like on a Friday night, why don't they know those words? And I'm like, because I have to teach them everything else in the Jewish world and maybe you can take the time to do kiddish on a Friday night. You know what I mean. So it's like Jewish kids get so much thrown at them from so many different directions. It's such a broad expanse of history.
Speaker 1:Yeah so many intricacies.
Speaker 2:That like it makes sense that there are questions at our ages, and so there are no stupid questions, because it's really sometimes really hard to get your head around.
Speaker 1:I'm finding it hard to get my head around the fact that the five books of Moses are allegedly God-given, but they were given to Moses.
Speaker 2:Huge question that everyone, like all rabbis, essentially have spoken about. Okay, and that's the other thing that I will say. My other disclaimer if you have a question about the torah, it's been asked before and answered, probably by a rabbi, um, like centuries ago is the answer that it's just time isn't linear so the answer is is that the rabbis tackle it from different ways.
Speaker 2:Some say that he was given like the whole thing, like he was given the information and wrote it down, right, so like he's like Moses is the scribe, god is dictating it. But then you get to the point and this is the part that really stumps rabbis is that the last, like handful of verses of the Torah describe Moshe's death. So how do you have a book that describes someone's death but allegedly he has written it and they have to come up with some like kooky, crazy answers that are like well, actually, secretly, his successor, joshua writes those last ones. My favorite one is like Moshe himself wrote it but God had an angel, like cry, onto his face and so his eyes were blurred and like he didn't really know what he was. Like he was writing it but he wasn't really seeing what he was writing, kind of vibes like not to give away the ending, because we have to believe.
Speaker 2:We, being like you, know orthodoxy because Jewish orthodox people, because a lot of Jews have to believe that it's God given the rabbis have gone historically, have gone out of their way to try and like figure out a logical way that that works, whereas like more secular jews or jews in academia, things like that can talk more about the historical element of the writing and the compilation of the book firstly, I've never thought of moshe as an author before, and I love that yeah, best-selling author of all time.
Speaker 1:People have asked me who's your favourite author and I've never had an answer. Now I've got one. Yeah, so that's one win.
Speaker 2:Like Ghost Rider right, Because God's dictating to him.
Speaker 1:Secondly, I feel it was obviously Miriam and he just got credit for it. Who wrote it?
Speaker 2:down, yeah, no, I mean, I mean, like I love the theory. I love the theory because historically, women have been male, like their husbands and brothers and whatever like editors, right. Like. That is a thing that's happened throughout history. However, according to historical records, miriam wasn't on the mountain with Moshe and also like wasn't ever involved in like. According to the story, like wasn't involved in judicial stuff, right? So like wasn't involved in that part of his life of like that kind of leadership.
Speaker 1:But maybe she just wrote the last little chapter about his death.
Speaker 2:Oh no, she was already dead. She was already dead by the time he died.
Speaker 1:Ah, how do you know?
Speaker 2:that the story tells us that she dies and then Aaron dies. It's actually like I think it's absolutely heartbreaking because he's just a guy who, like, loses everyone who's close to him, and what's really interesting in the text is that, like his famous wrongdoing is that and this is like why he doesn't get to enter the land of Israel is he strikes a rock instead of talking to the rock right, you know that story, I remember that story, one of the few stories I remember from primary school.
Speaker 2:Go on and that happens just after Miriam dies, right so his older sister dies, we associate Miriam with the well of Miriam, right so, like, on her behalf, the Jewish people and the Israelites had water in the desert, and so she dies and the well dries up, according to the rabbis, and that's why the next episode is Moshe has to ask a rock for water and instead of asking it and it doesn't work, and he strikes the rock and, like he gets really frustrated really quickly and I think, right like it's so heartbreaking like his sister, sister's dead, the symbol of her for the people has dried up and he has to, like find a way forward without someone who has been like his mentor and his friend throughout the whole story.
Speaker 2:Right, like she watches over him from a young age, as he's, like in the Nile, and so, of course, like you're dealing with grief and all that thing, all of the things connected to you know the death of someone close to, and like so you strike out and you hit the rock because you're frustrated and then, ultimately, he's punished for that, which is just really sad.
Speaker 1:Just take a step back for a second. You said we associate Miriam with the well. It rings a bell, sure, but maybe I'm confusing it with Jacob who meets his wife at a well.
Speaker 2:Wells are everywhere. Miriam and the well, as far as I know, is something that the rabbis come up with. If your listeners want to fact check me, that's also fine in the comments, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, they're your listeners now too. Yeah, my listeners.
Speaker 2:I think that's all rabbinic about, like that water connection for the Jewish people as far as I know. But the well is also like a recurring theme, usually a romantic one, actually like a place of meeting throughout the Torah and Tanakh.
Speaker 1:A motif you might say Absolutely there aren't enough wells these days don't you think I mean like?
Speaker 2:I feel like because we figured it out, like because we have tats. Okay, I don't yearn for a time where I, as a woman, would have had to, like, walk three miles, fill up a bucket, I mean an ornamental.
Speaker 1:Well, oh, like an ornamental one yes, Sure like, bring them back.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, might attract some mozzies. Yeah, I'm scared of still water. I've seen a lot of TikToks on like why it's bad you know You've seen a lot of TikToks on like why it's bad. You know You've seen specific TikToks on why still water is bad or why wells are bad. No, still water.
Speaker 2:Okay, go on. I couldn't tell you a single fact about it.
Speaker 1:Breeding ground for bacteria.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's just like I have inherited a fear of still water and so I'm like no wells for me, thank you inherited a fear of still water and so I'm like no wells for me, thank you. I have inherited a fear of public spas from tiktok. No, from my mother.
Speaker 1:Okay, like actual inherited okay, yeah, I'm with you. Did you also get this? Never use a public spa, because then you'll get thrash no, never heard that from my mom.
Speaker 2:Okay, my mom kind of like hates that my building has a communal washing machine just because she thinks it's gross and I'm like you know what I mean. So like I understand the same kind of like people putting their soiled things or selves into a space that you then have to share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But never like a public bath sitch.
Speaker 1:There was also the story in high school that you shouldn't use a spa because a guy could jizz in it and because it's warm, the jizz could stay alive and enter you and get you pregnant.
Speaker 2:So I'm actually delighted to tell you that that is a plot point in my favourite television show, glee. Season one of Glee. Season one of Glee, quinn Fabray is impregnated by someone who is not her boyfriend, because she cheats on her boyfriend, finn, and then she convinces Finn that it's his baby because they made out in a hot tub, and that goes on for half a season, if not more.
Speaker 1:Love it so are you telling me?
Speaker 2:it can happen, no she lied to him. Okay, thank you, it was her excuse because she had cheated on him. Yeah, you were scared for a second there, though I was. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Science, oh my God. I also just want to say that when I lived in an apartment block in Bondi with a communal washing machine, I once opened up the washing machine and someone had vomited into it after a big night. So your mum's not wrong.
Speaker 2:Why would you tell me that that's actually a really upsetting story?
Speaker 1:Just check.
Speaker 2:You got to check every time, thank God I live in a very lovely building Lots of families, no real parties, so no vomit it's not like you open up the washing machine and your eyes are all blurry because you're Moses on your deathbed exactly. I don't have an angel like crying on my face.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, do you see what I did there? I loved it, thank you big fan, yeah, okay, my next question is a natural progression from what we've just talking about. You know a lot of this stuff because you studied at is it a yeshiva or a seminary?
Speaker 2:I actually studied at both what I would describe as both, and I also went to a very religious school for 13 years primary and high school which is where I credit all of my actual skills and a lot of my knowledge from.
Speaker 1:Okay, so statistically, how many lesbians were at Sam Ueshiba? One in three. What are we talking? One in five.
Speaker 2:The first one I went to was an all-girls seminary. It was right after high school. Of my close group of friends that I had from that seminary that, like I'm still like half in contact with, I'd say there's like out of like, let's say, eight girls, four or five are queer in some way. As for the yeshiva I went to, which is called pardes, which is in jerusalem, it is a non-denominational, co-educational, very left-leaning space.
Speaker 2:So everyone's gay, everyone is something, um, and I describe it as the lesbian capital of jerusalem because it is because, like, that's just where, like, if you go to Israel, if you're gay and you're like they're either to study, to connect with your religion, to connect with, like some, some spirituality, you go to Jerusalem. Right, because it's like everyone goes a bit crazy in Jerusalem and because, like, you're searching for a place where you can study, be gay, all of these things, you're naturally going to go to Pardes, right, it's one of like very few options to go to where you can feel like you're your whole self in a space and you're not putting aside your queerness or your politics or things like that. Lesbians just love it there, the gay girls. Poh, dime a dozen, dime a dozen at Pardes.
Speaker 1:Cool, I'll add it to the list. Uh-huh, love it. Back to what you were talking about with writing the five books of Moses. Then you said some people say that his successor, joshua, took over.
Speaker 2:I mean like took over the writing or took over the leadership, both the leadership. So I would say Joshua didn't necessarily take over the writing full stop, because he dies in the next book, in the first book of the end part of Nah. He dies at the end of the first book of that and that book's called Joshua.
Speaker 1:I don't know much about Joshua. I just know that a lot of Jewish boys are called Joshua. Yeah, so he's the first.
Speaker 2:As far as I know, he is Moshe. So he's actually on Mount Sinai with Moshe, what he's further down the mountain. That's actually my favourite, because I was learning about the golden calf. I was just doing some fun reading golden calf, yeah, and when Moshe's coming back down the mountain like to be surprised that the Jews are now worshipping an idol.
Speaker 2:He's walking with Yeshua and he's like having dialogue with him, where Yeshua's like I'm hearing something, I don't know what it is, it sounds like war. And Moshe's like no, it's not war. And so like he appears a bunch of times as Moshe's successor in the Torah, and then when Moshe dies, and then Moshe like and then when Moshe dies, and then Moshe like sort of there's like a ceremonial imparting of leadership onto Yeshua or Joshua. And then the second book is him leading the Israelites into the land of Israel and conquering the land from, like the Canaanites and the different people who lived there.
Speaker 1:This is news to me. Was anyone else on the mountain further down?
Speaker 2:Not that I know of. So like people walk Moshe to the base of the mountain right and then him and Yeshua go up and as far as I know, yeshua like doesn't go all the way up, he like also stops halfway down.
Speaker 1:That's like my style Stop halfway, don't fully commit, get a bit tired and arthritic. I'll stay on this rock.
Speaker 2:You go the rest of the way 100%. That's me as well.
Speaker 1:Yehoshua had autoimmune arthritis. He was the beginning of it all.
Speaker 2:So you could probably write about that and someone would be like, yes, I have proof to back that up.
Speaker 1:Who was after Yehoshua then? Fantastic question.
Speaker 2:So, after the book of Yeshua, we have the book of Shoftim, or judges, and we enter a period of Jewish history where there's no one set leader, right, so, like, moshe and Yeshua command the entire people. And then we enter this point of we have certain judges who, at different points in history, rise up because, like the Jews, need saving. And so the most famous example probably, of a judge is Deborah, or Deborah right. She's the only female judge mentioned, super famous. We love her. Samson is one of the later ones, but it's also considered not really a great one, if we're being honest.
Speaker 1:Because he was too concerned about his hair. He was conceited.
Speaker 2:He was really arrogant in a way. That does not serve a leader of the Jewish people. Right, we're all about humility in our leadership, are we? We try that's like Moshe's whole thing.
Speaker 1:I was thinking modern day On modern day, no, no.
Speaker 2:I have something I want to actually talk about. Okay, that's connected to humble leadership, okay, and I want to pose this question to you for the statement and to your listeners, our listeners collectively Well done. I think that there is a type of rabbi who grew up religious, wanted to be famous in some way, knew that it's really hard to crack into the business and keep Shabbat, keep kosher, all that stuff, and so settles for being a rabbi. I want you to think in your head of a rabbi who uses a pulpit like a stage. Right that Zavah Torah is an Academy Award speech every week. Right, it's like everything.
Speaker 2:And I think social media has speech every week, right, it's like everything, and I think social media has made it worse, right, like because their stage has expanded beyond just their pulpit audience, but like they can expand into the rest of the world. And I think it's like an epidemic we're facing of Jewish men who, like, who crave fame and who turn to being a rabbi for that, and I think that's a bad mix, because your rabbi should be seeking to like, go viral.
Speaker 1:Is that such a bad thing if they're charismatic and bring more people into the community?
Speaker 2:I think there's a difference between charisma and like trying to go viral, yeah, which is what a lot of people do, right, like you know when someone's in the biz, right, whether it's showbiz or apparently um rabbinical biz. Like you know when they're there to be famous, as opposed to like a love for the craft right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like they're just like popping out song after song, like they're doing what's whatever's catchy, because like they need that 15 minutes. Yeah, and I feel like you can tell when a rabbi like the first thing that they have on their mind is will people like me after this speech, as opposed to how do I serve my community?
Speaker 1:right, yeah, okay, I'm thinking of a few.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we both drop in the comments below. Which sydney rabbis? Or melbourne or melbourne, that's true. Brisbane, do they have one? Or adelaide I?
Speaker 1:said perth had like three no, the only thing that I've really thought about in terms of rabbis and their intentions or their career paths is I have a theory that surely a high percentage of them don't actually believe in God or are not religious, but they have a certain set of skills community leadership. They kind of want to be business owners Interesting.
Speaker 2:I can see that being a thing. I think there's a lot of religious Jews who secretly don't actually believe in God, because I think it is possible to be like physically, functionally, a religious Jew. Right, you're doing, you're going through the motions, shabbat, kosher, you dress a certain way, you do certain things. It doesn't like permeate your soul. Yes, you don't have a connection to god because you haven't had to do any of the thinking or feeling associated with like searching, gone through the motions your whole life. Yeah, like, I think for a lot of religious people, like god is the reason for everything, but god is always like like god's there at the forefront. You know what I mean. I've been thinking about that a lot for like a really long time of how many of these people like genuinely can say they love god, and how many people are there because they're trapped there right, because, like they're scared of what's outside of that community and of reckoning with that.
Speaker 2:How many people do it because they like it, they love their community, but like they don't actually connect with the spirituality of it, and that's okay, yeah, 100. I'm just curious because, like, yeah, it's something that I've reckoned with for a really long time I would love to love god.
Speaker 1:do you believe in god? I was gonna ask you do you love god? No one's ever asked me if I love God. People have asked me if I believe in God, like when I'm talking to secular people about it.
Speaker 2:I start with the belief thing first, because I think that there has to be a level of knowing before you can love something right? Yeah, like, do you think you know or believe in?
Speaker 1:God. I want to believe in God. I believe in something more. I think there are multiples out there. I don't think it's one God. Yeah, and definitely not a God with the old man voice. That's in all the old movies we had to watch in primary school.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, can I give you my pitch for God first? Yes, okay. So my pitch for God is, firstly, I think that, like everyone thinks that Judaism's conception of God or a lot of people think Judaism's conception of God is the old man that we learn about in primary school, right, that, and like the Simpsons, god right has five, is just taller than the average man and like has a deep voice. I think that, just the same way that, like, the maths that you learn in year five is different to the maths that you learn in year seven and eight and nine and ten, right, it gets more complex the older you get because you have to expose yourself to more understandings that there's more out there in terms of how I understand mathematics. And then, when you get to university, it's even crazier. You have to be constantly thinking about, rethinking about conceptions of God. Because my God isn't a man in the sky either, right, my God isn't, like not bound to gender, because, like, it's not a physical being in any way.
Speaker 2:And there's, I think, two ways that I think about God. One is a very Hasid ways that I think about God. One is a very Hasidic way of thinking about God, like it's very it's my Chabad roots coming out and that is God as, like a penentheistic being right, like in Chabad Hasidic, you've learned that everything in the world has a spark within it, like a godly spark. So, like inanimate objects have a certain level of godliness within it that allow it to exist in a world like created by God. Plants and vegetation have that second level of godliness within it, right, because it's inanimate but it grows and it breathes and it changes. Animals have another step of godliness and then humanity has like that final, like the highest step of godliness that you can achieve, like the spark within you, right, that innate thing.
Speaker 2:And so for me, godliness is the thing that connects us right to one another. Right, for humans, it's our intellect connects us. That is godliness. Be right Like there is a love, like because we can feel love for animals. There is a godliness there, right, because I can respect the animal kingdom the same way when I look at nature and I can appreciate, like the beauty of nature. So there is godliness everywhere, and part of worshipping or believing or being in relationship with God is respecting and interacting with the world around me.
Speaker 2:Right, being nice to another person is me believing in god, because I believe that that person has inherent worth because they have godliness within them. Right, god isn't the thing that sits above us and, like, commands us, but god is the thing that connects us and runs through us and makes ways between us, exactly, makes us a part of the world around us. So that's my first pitch for God. Okay, god is connected between all things, like the godly spark. Everything can be worshipped in a certain way, right? That's why religious people, before they take a bite of an apple, they'll say a brach on it, right, they'll bless the apple and bite it because you're, like, emphasising the godliness in that thing, you into the godly object that it can be, you're giving it that sense of holiness. The second one, actually, is connected to a story in the Tanakh.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to assume, but I know that you've heard of Eliyahu Hanavi.
Speaker 2:Eliyahu.
Speaker 1:Hanavi Big guy. He's the same Eliyahu from Passover, mm-hmm yeah. He's a prophet, yeah, which means he is a messenger from God, mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:He's a prophet, yeah, which means he is a messenger from.
Speaker 1:God, mm-hmm, and I know that at the Passover Seder we leave a space for him, but he continually ghosts us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ghost who visits and gets drunk right like ghostly Santa for the Jews.
Speaker 1:Okay, that is all I know.
Speaker 2:Like fantastic. On point, eliyahu is huge in the Talmud and sort of Talmudic literature. Okay, wait, what's Talmud? Okay, talmud is a mixture. It's the term that's used to describe the Mishnah and the Gemara together, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:But the Talmud refers to rabbinic writings, which are both stories, but mostly just law that has been written during the rabbinic era. And the writing down of the Mishnah, I think, is around like 0 AD, right Like the time of Christ, and just after like those couple hundred years after that, the Talmud is only codified and again, I'm definitely getting all of this wrong. So I implore people to fact check me. As far as I know, the Tal would have been codified like 400 ce. So it's all of these discussions that rabbis are having post the destruction of the temple and they're discussing the intricacies of law and how we live the law that has been given to us by moses on sinai, and all of those discussions and like the deep discourse around how we practice is written down in the Talmud. Okay, but it also includes stories about the rabbis and the lives they live. Talmudic literature is like kind of how people talk about it. So Eliyahu is a huge person in Talmudic literature. He comes up a lot and it's like always stories of like a small town needs fish for Shabbat and a beggar comes into town and needs a place to stay and everyone welcomes him in and then magically there's fish for Shabbat and that old man that they welcomed in, that beggar was actually the ghost of Elijah. So he always pops up as this ghost who gives people an opportunity to do good or gives people information. He talks to rabbis sometimes ghosts and then like appears in a lot of medieval folklore in the same way of like a random guy comes to town and we have to be nice to him because that could be Eliyahu Hanavi who will like give us something right. So he's like uses that kind of magic guy who appears and grants a wish and leaves again. He also appears, like you said, at's Seder, comes for a drink. He also appears at every circumcision. So there's also usually a chair for Elijah at a Brit Miller at a circumcision. So he appears at every year at like two big points of like Jewish celebration, but in the Tanakh he appears in the Nevi'im in Prophets. In the Tanakh he appears in Nevi'im in Prophets.
Speaker 2:He's kind of like this really crabby old man who appears out of nowhere, right, he doesn't have like a big origin story. He just kind of appears on the scene and he tries to get Jews and Israelites to believe in God because they're currently in an era of idol worship and idolatry. In an era of idol worship and idolatry, and he has this really great story where, like, he causes fire to come out of the sky from God and consume an offering in front of all of these people, and yet the fire coming out of the sky, like an objective miracle, doesn't cause them to fully repent and believe in God, and so he flees. As he flees, he like begs God to kill him. He says I haven't done my job, kill me. And so he flees. As he flees, he like begs God to kill him. He says I haven't done my job, kill me. Like let me out, like I want out of my contract, kind of vibes.
Speaker 2:He then God's like don't be stupid, go walk for a bit. So he walks for 40 days, right, which is like also this repetitive theme in, like Moses on Sinai for 40 days, is like that kind of calling back. Yeah, and he gets led up to a mountain and he's like in this cave and god says go out of the cave. And like stand on the mountaintop. So he's standing on the mountaintop and like the line is, and there was like a huge, like an earthquake, and like the ground shakes the mountain, and it says and god is not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a huge wind and it's like a whirring wind around around him on the mountaintop, and God is not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a huge wind and it's like a whirring wind around him on the mountaintop, but God is not in the wind. And after the wind there's a fire, this huge fire that comes crashing down, consuming everything, but God is not in the fire. And it says and after the fire, it's called the Mamadzaka, there's a thin, still sound, and like that's called the mama zakat, there's a thin, still sound, and like that's the end of his vision. Right, and so what? What's the text teaching us? Like, what do we take out of it? Right, these huge episodes of greatness, of majesty, of miracle, these huge big life events of the earthquake, of a fire coming down and consuming all the things? God's not in those things. Where is god? Right, it's suggested in the thin still sound, like in the in between.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the things in jewish education is we rely on the big events to solidify jewish identity. Right, we have, we're really good at camp and at purim and like all of these celebratory things where we have like carnivals, where we have rides, where we like do all these huge fun, like summer camps, like fun activities, all of these things. And yet we're facing a community where, like, kids aren't going to shul, people my age aren't at synagogue for the most part. Right, like like we've done a disservice to a lot of young people for them to think that the only time they can feel God or connected to Judaism or anything is in these huge, fun, big moments, whereas the text itself tells us where is God? God's in the in-between, god is in, like those low moments. God is not in the euphoria that you feel. All the time. God is in when you're making breakfast and like, for some reason, the bagel tastes so much better today than it did yesterday and you don't know why.
Speaker 2:Right, like that's godliness, right like that little thing, or last night I was listening to a new album for the first time and like I kept catching my breath because I loved it so much, right, and I was like this feels like I've heard it before, but I know I haven't, and like it's making me like I can feel it in my gut. That's God, right. That's the in-between where God is and when you're hanging out with your friends and like the sun is setting and you all kind of just stop for a moment, you're like, wow, this is so beautiful and you're like I don't want this hangout to end. That's God, right. Like there's in-between moments of beauty that are all around us and we have to remember that. Like we don't have to relegate loving God or feeling exposed to God in those huge big moments, but it's an all the time thing and that's how you get to love someone, right, right when you're dating someone, because what you were just describing was reminding me of yeah, falling in love yeah, right, it's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 2:It's like if you go on one or two dates with a person and they're fantastic, great, you've gone on two dates with them, right, right, but you're spending all your time together. You don't want to leave them, you're lying in bed and just chatting all the time, right, those moments are more important for a relationship than a big date at a fancy restaurant. Yeah, it's the intimacy, and I think a lot of people don't understand that a relationship is something that you have to build right, like a relationship with God isn't just going to appear out of nowhere and it's something you have to invest time in, like you have to invest into feeling that thing. No one asks me if I love God either.
Speaker 2:By the way, everyone asks me do you believe in God? And I'm like yeah. And the question is like, how do you know that God exists? And it's because I feel it right. How do I know that I love my partner? Because I have immense life altering love for that person. How do I love God? Because I feel it in my bones on a near daily basis.
Speaker 1:That is how you know something exists wow, so much of what you said was really moving. But I also just love the fact that people may have tuned into this interview because they thought we were going to have a light-hearted chat about comedy and they got this.
Speaker 2:That pleases me my thing is like if you make someone laugh, they're more likely to listen to you in the long run. Yeah, right, and so, like, this is part of your grand plan, it's part of my, it's part of my plan, it's part of my whole shtick with, I guess, with my Instagram, but also, like, like, because I make you laugh a lot, you're more likely to listen to me when I have something serious to say.
Speaker 1:Shoshana Gottlieb. Thank you so much for joining me today on a shame to admit thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it, and that's it for this week you've been listening to.
Speaker 1:a shame to ask, a shame to admit sister podcast with me, tammy Sussman and Shoshana Gottlieb, who is filling in for Dashiell Lawrence. This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Donovan Jenks, if you like the podcast, leave a positive review and then follow the Jewish Independent and at Tammy Sussman. Bits on Instagram. You can find Shoshana at Jewish Memes Only.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening and look out for another episode next week. Bye, thank you.