Rabbi Shira Stutman: We're in the process of trying to make lemonade out of lemons, right? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: That's right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: It is true that being in an actual community is better than being on Zoom, right? So all of the things that you hear both of us saying, like, "Yeah, look at what we're learning about ... " This is awful. Right? I can't wait for it to be over. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman and I'm so happy to welcome you to Hashivenu, a podcast about Jewish teachings on resilience. My guest today is my friend and my colleague, Rabbi Shira Stutman. Shira is the senior rabbi at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC. She's just an extraordinary person and an extraordinary rabbi. Welcome, Shira. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Thank you. The feelings are very mutual, Deborah. I'm really, really happy to be here. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I'm want to name, for our listeners, that were discussing resilience and Judaism and life, right before Passover 2020, right before Passover 5780, which is a pretty unprecedented moment, I think, for you and me and the larger world. We're both at home practicing social isolation and spending most of our time at home. And to quote you back to yourself, as we were preparing for this, you said, "We're sitting in the unknown right now." And I want to name that time for our listeners as I welcome you to this conversation. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah, for sure. It feels like there's just so much that we don't know -- from what day we're going to come out of this, to how we're going to come out of this, to how our organizations or our family systems are going to look, what they're going to look like when we come out of this. It just feels like there are very, very, very few things that we know except for like this moment. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Right. It is a real invitation to be in the now and to be in the present, because anything else, we have no information and it's so easy to spin out into really unconstructive scenarios. So, again and again, I just keep trying to bring myself back to my breath, back to my breath of, "Okay, this is where I am right now. How am I doing right now?" Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. Right before Shabbat last week, I was teaching a Zoom class for my cousins.There are six cousins on the Zoom class and I just pulled something out of my archive. It was on the concept of shleymut and what does it mean to be Shalom. It was going back to this- Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Shleymut is about wholeness. What does it mean to be complete or whole? Rabbi Shira Stutman: That's exactly right. Right. It comes to the word shalom, which we think of as meaning hello and goodbye and peace. But it actually comes this idea of feeling whole. So the question that we were discussing is, what does it mean to feel whole? We were going back to this moment in Genesis when our forefather Jacob was arriving in Shekhem from Padan-Aram, he was in this really in between time where he had been kicked out of his own home. His brother wanted to kill him. He left everything he knew to go to a place. He'd wrestled with an angel. Rabbi Shira Stutman: But he was in this one moment that the biblical texts called Shalem, and the rabbis were trying to figure out what is ...? What does it mean to be whole? What one of the rabbinic answers was ... I'll find it in my notes after I finish talking ... They said what it means to be whole is to acknowledge that bad things have happened in the past,, and bad things are going to happen in the future. But in this moment, this one moment you have a moment of peace. Right? A moment of wholeness. To me that was just so ... It blew my mind. Because I think of Shalem as so much bigger. I think of Shalom as so much bigger. I think of wholeness as so much bigger. Rabbi Shira Stutman: But it doesn't have to be everything and all encapsulating. It can be just this minute. It could be just the second, that is a second of peace, a second of wholeness. Even though we know more is going to come and more and things have happened in the past. But we have the now. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: What I love about that also is because, with social isolation, you and I both live big lives. I travel all over the world. I was non-stop before I had to retreat into my house, and you, at Sixth and I, have world leaders and internationally renowned authors coming through. We live these big lives, and now, our world in a certain way, has contracted. I think that mirrors what we're enacting, what we're living out as well. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. So, Sixth and I, our team ... Sixth and I, for those who don't know, it's a spiritual center. I always tell people, I think Mordecai Kaplan would be proud if -- you know, his memory be for a blessing, but it's a spiritual center. But it has secular arts and culture programming and, specifically, Jewish programming. So we wanted to come up with a vision statement. If when we look back on this time, we're proud, why would we be proud? So the vision statement that we came up with, we decided that this was davka, this was precisely not the time for Sixth and I to go national or international. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Even as Zoom has reached anywhere, as you were just saying Deborah, for us, we decided to go smaller. This is our time to really take better care of the people in our specific area. Anyone can come and wants to participate in our programming, of course. But there is a way that this is going to help us go smaller. That's why that poem from the Unitarian minister got such traction about, imagine this time as a Sabbath, as a time of stepping back and going smaller. I've already learned from that one piece enough to take me -- I'm not ready to go back out now, but knowing that's not going to happen, it's really going to hold me steady for a long time. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: We'll post for our listeners a link to the beautiful poem that says, "Let's learn from the Jews on their Shabbat. This is an opportunity for pause, for rest, for renewal." We'll post that and you'll see, I hope that everybody's listening that this is what it's like whenever Shira and I are together is we just dive right into whatever it is we're talking about in the richest possible away. It's one of the things I love the most. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: So, you've just explained a little bit about what Sixth and I has been, is in this historic ... It's such a great story that it was a thriving synagogue and then it was not. It was quite bereft, and then renewed with the function and the programming that you just laid out. And now, when none of us are going in to gatherings, I think that this is such a weird and interesting and challenging time for those of us who find great wisdom in convening, in gathering people together from the Jewish mandate, from that call for connection with other humanity. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: To me, that's my go-to strategy: come together, be with other people, lean on other people, learn from other people, offer your support, open yourself up to transformation and connection with other people. That's just simply the wrong thing to do at this moment in time. Rabbi Shira Stutman: It really is requiring such a rejiggering. I'm so with you on this, Deborah. Even our conversion students, in addition to taking our conversion class and meeting with their supervising rabbi, they're required to do what we call three Jewish events a month, three times a month. In addition to their weekly class and their meeting with the rabbi, they have to be out in the community. Because I, like you, believe that community is what makes Judaism vibrant and evolving, that we're just out in this way. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, this has required a whole new understanding of what community is. And there have already been a lot of ... There's been a lot of learning about ways community can form. We predominantly use Zoom. There are some of the functions of Zoom that really, really help you build community even virtually, like the breakout sessions. I call it the havruta function, but I know that's not what Zoom calls it. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's a traditional Jewish learning dyad where you're one-on-one or a small group with people. It's great. That's great. Rabbi Shira Stutman: And the other thing that I think has been really beautiful about Zoom, for those who use it, and I'm sure it's true on the other platforms as well, is the chat function. I was joking last week with some ... I forget who I was talking to ... But this is the contemporary Talmud. One day, if we print out all of the chats ... It's like, so when you're leading services and you see people chatting in the chat box, that's of course what happens when you're leading services anyway. Everyone's chatting. So there's a lot of community building beauty that actually can happen. It just has to happen differently. You're not touching each other, literally, as much, so we just have to work twice as hard to figure out how to touch each other in other sorts of ways. Rabbi Shira Stutman: One of the things that we do, every time I lead something on Zoom, I begin by begging people to turn on their video camera, because I just feel like ... And we're going to start, with our smaller classes ... Some of our smaller classes that we're going to limit like 30 or 40 people, we're going to say you're only allowed to do it if you have video function. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Oh, wow. Rabbi Shira Stutman: If you have no video function, for equity reasons, of course you're welcome in. But if you're someone who just is having a bad hair day, or more likely it's that you actually want to do two things at once, we say we don't want you for this. But there are all these things that are starting to happen differently as we build community in this sort of way. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's interesting. I'm noticing something really interesting in myself. One of the things I love about Hashivenu, about this podcast, is ordinarily we record it in this lovely little studio that we've created at Reconstructing Judaism in suburban Philadelphia. For me, that studio space is like a cocoon, and I just stop thinking about anything else and give my attention fully to this conversation. There isn't that much in my day that is like that. I have a lot of meetings but they're often tactical meetings or planning meetings. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: The meaning making often happens either when I'm leading ritual or when I'm writing on my own. So when I'm on Zoom for some of those meetings with people from all over the country, the impulse to multitask is so strong, and to check the email or something like that. I will say that one thing about working from home and working most of my time on Zoom is I'm noticing a quieting for myself, and a stillness, and a much greater capacity, even when it's not this qualitative conversation, when it is more of the workaday business that I'm much less interested in multitasking. I am slowing down in a way that I think is very good for my body and for my spirit. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah, right. I think that I have been surprised to find a working on Zoom more exhausting than I thought it would be. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah, I think that's right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, it's forcing me to slow down in ways unanticipated. I'm actually, I'm not a great sleeper, but I've sleeping many hours a night like I'm exhausted. So I do feel like this is one of the surprises for me. You're in these sort of one-on-one or like five different people having conversation at once. Number one, you really do have to focus more. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Rabbi Shira Stutman: You just don't have a lot of stuff happening in your peripheral vision in the same way as you do when you're in a regular office. The other piece that's like, you have the intimacy of seeing into other people's homes. Right now, I'm looking into Sam's home. I'm looking into your home. You can see into my home. I actually have moved my desk so that people can see ... Before, I was just facing a window. So I moved my desk so people can see more of what I'm proud of in my home. When I lead services, I have a special chair. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Before we started recording this, we were talking about seeing everyone's pets. I work mostly with people in their 20s and 30s, for many of whom the pets are like their most important loved one in their home. So all of this is like a increased concentration because there's an increased intimacy. So, I think that could be deeply meaningful as we're trying to counteract some of the obvious challenges of this virtual life that we're living. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I think that's right. I heard this wonderful story yesterday about Hebrew school teachers. How do you do Hebrew school online? And really taking advantage of being in homes so that there's ... What a teacher was saying, I can't remember, the name was something like go get it, or do you have? She'll say, "Well, in your house, do you have a Kiddush cup? Three minutes." And then the kids run and they get the Kiddush cup and they bring it and they show their Kiddish cup and then they put it down. They say, "Okay, do you have a prayer book?" Rabbi Deborah Waxman: So it's this way for them to ... It's a show and tell, but drawing on the resources of the home and so sweet. You could bring one of those things into class, but here, everybody can do it, and the kids are up and moving. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I think ... By the way, we're going to be, this is probably going to go live after Passover. But the funny thing about Passover in this moment is that, I've been getting calls from journalists who are like, "We want to talk about Ramadan and Passover and Easter." And I say to them, "That's fine, but Passover is supposed to be in the home." Right? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I know. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, obviously, we have this added burden of doing Passover by Zoom and all of these problems. But the idea of, it's different than having Yom Kippur in your home, in which most people are actually at the synagogue. We do have all of these opportunities. I love the idea of the scavenger hunt in the home. Uncover the Jewish ... I mean, from my constituency, which is mostly people that are not living in their childhood homes, they're mostly living ... It's a little bit different. Rabbi Shira Stutman: But in general, if you're living in a home in which someone has lived and there's Jewish stuff everywhere, if you're a Hebrew school teacher, look at your parents wedding album, if they had anything Jewish in their wedding. Anyway, there's just so many ways to sort of ... The home is such an integral part of what it means to live a Jewish life. It just has to be lifted up in a certain way. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: That's right. That's right. So let's actually ... One of the things that we were talking about as we were preparing for this conversation was about loneliness. I've worried so much about the people who live alone and what this must be like. I feel, just to locate myself, I live in a good-sized house in a suburban neighborhood, which -- I still can't believe I live in the suburbs. I still think of myself as a very urban person. But I've been really grateful for it right now because we have a backyard. We have plants coming up and flowers blooming. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: So, my wife and I, we're not tripping over ... We have our separate spaces to retreat to, but then we're together and where we really feel like we're in this together. I fret so much for friends and relatives and people I know in the world of all ages who are on their own and what this must be like to have to navigate through it without touch, without anything other than virtual contact. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. I'm going to begin with your end because I do think the loss of touch is not a small thing. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's huge. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I think the research is ... You don't need two rabbis to ... Look on any research they say. That is something that I don't ... I don't know what to do about that. I do know that some people were saying you have a coronavirus family, like one person, one other person, that you can touch, literally. I just think that could be incredibly meaningful to people. So that's something that I go to sleep at night thinking about. Rabbi Shira Stutman: That being said, as I said before, a lot of my congregants live on their own. I am lucky ... Let me begin with the good news. The good news is I actually, I know there's machloket, there's good, holy disagreement about this, but I am grateful that this is happening during spring time. I am grateful that this is happening during a time of coming alive- Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And more light. Rabbi Shira Stutman: More light, coming alive. I'm in an urban environment so a lot of my congregants have been taking the coronavirus walk. I think that's part of the beauty of this coming alive-ness. I also think that loneliness ... And again, this isn't something that you need two rabbis to tell you, it's a public health issue, that loneliness is also its own kind of epidemic, and this was true before coronavirus hit. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, there are ways that, now that more people are experiencing loneliness than people who were experiencing ... that there could be learning that we bring into the future. There could be learning about how to watch out for other people. Also, how to connect with other people in a boundaried way. What I like about Zoom is I can make phone calls and it's just like, I don't have to be worried about feeling ... When I'm done, I can be done, and I get off the call. Or when they're done with me, they can be done. They get off the call. There's like a boundary-ness that makes me feel so much more generous in the sharing of my time with other people. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, I do feel like there is a way that we can learn how to live in loneliness that can keep us going even after this is over. Look at the positive about this, because it's expanding the number of people who are experiencing loneliness in this world. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I think that's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. As I said, I'm talking to people all day, mostly on Zoom, so I'm seeing them, and I live with someone. I haven't been to the store in 10 days. I think I'm getting ready to go out tomorrow. We're planning the list very carefully. But when I was last, I went to Whole Foods nearby. We have a friend who works there, and I rounded the corner and there he was, and I almost burst into tears. I was just so delighted at ... I've been reaching out to old friends from all over the country, and mostly FaceTiming or Zooming. There's been the visual component, but the spontaneity of it and the unplanned nature of it. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Sam and I, we work in a very social environment where we're chatting with people. Just running into someone was ... I really cherished it. Part of what I liked about living in a city and what I miss in the suburbs is that, in the city, you control who you encounter so much less than you do when you live in an environment where you're getting into your car and driving from point A to point B. But it just feels so precious at this moment in time. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I think that what you said is so important in a lot of ways. You and I are ... Or I won't speak for you, we're in the process of trying to make lemonade out of lemons. Right? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: That's right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: It is true that being an actual community is better than being on Zoom. So all of the things that you hear both of us saying, "Yeah, look at what we're learning." This is awful. I can't wait for it to be over. Just seeing one person, of course you're going to almost burst into tears, because in that one moment, you realize what you're missing. You're seeing, in a second, the enormity of it all. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Including the interruption because ordinarily, that kind of emotion, my next thing would be to hug him. They're like, "Oh, no. You stand on the other side of the aisle, so that we can then have this conversation." Rabbi Shira Stutman: 100%. It's funny, when I've been talking to different journalists or whatever over the last few weeks ... and again, they're always trying to do like the "Judeo Christian" ... I'm putting that in scare quotes because I hate that phrase ... They're trying to do the Judeo Christian, so they're like, "Talk to us about making theological meaning out of this moment." Rabbi Shira Stutman: I'm like, "Yep. I'm sure there are Jews right now we're working on making theological meaning. *We* are working on organizing." In this moment, Jews are like ... like the Holocaust theology didn't come out during ... lehavdil (to distinguish), I don't like to compare things. I don't need to compare these two things, but the meaning making can happen later. But right now, we're just trying to get through, and we're just trying to figure out how we can flourish ... which is of course the connection to happiness ... how we can flourish to the best of our abilities. And there will be things that we learn. It doesn't mean we're going to be grateful for this time period. It just means that there will be learning. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I do actually think that's a very Jewish response and very reflective of where you and I both come from. If you adopt a stance of curiosity, then you're learning from something. You're learning something at all times. But I will say, it is interesting. I think you're right, we're organizing right now. We're a little bit more than two weeks into the self-isolation, and our doors closed of our physical institution about two and a half weeks ago. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: So, we went into programming right away. We'll put links on the website of all the amazing content and all the amazing programs that Reconstructing Judaism and that Ritualwell have put out, just such extraordinary content. So beautiful, so sustaining. Every place else, what Sixth and I is doing, and institution after institution, the Jews filled the internet with content. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: What we started to hear from folks is they actually want connection. They don't want their days ... They're so interested in the courses and in the readings and in the webinars and all this. But at the end of the day, what they want is an opportunity to come together and to talk. So, we've actually started to ease off a little bit, in terms of content production, and move more into convenings and opportunities for people ... and sometimes it's substantive. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's like congregational presidents or executive directors ... We had a board meeting yesterday and the formal program started at 12:30 Eastern time, but we opened up the Zoom room at about 12, so that people could come together and just schmooze. And at my minyan, everything, the services finish and then there's virtual Kiddush, and people go and get their Kiddush cops and we say Kiddush and then the link stays open until the last person is ready to leave. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. You're really hitting the nail on the head. People want connection. I also think ... I think you maybe think this ... They want spiritual meaning. One of the conversations I had this morning ... I'm a rabbi with many rants, and maybe next time we have a podcast, I'll give you a few more of my rants ... But one of the rants I have is about cultural Judaism and what does that actually mean? I was talking with someone this morning about what cultural Judaism means. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Cultural Judaism, in this moment, is whatever. It's like, all right, maybe I'll make a matzoh ball for my Passover Seder. Whatever. [inaudible] But what people actually want is thickness. They want spiritual meaning in their connections. We never do daily prayers at 6th and I. We're a pretty secular ... We have daily prayer services four or five days a week. This morning I did it, we had 50 to 60 sign ins. I don't know, because over ... We had 80 to 90 at one of them last week. It's just like, people want some sort of connection to something greater than themselves. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: That's exactly right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I think that these are natural human instincts that we've always had. So, how can we put them into effect during this moment and how can we hold onto them after this all is over? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Right. That is the question is, how much of this is like a blip that we just have to get through? And how much of this is like a reset? As unwelcome as this is, we are learning essential things about ourselves, and the ways that society is structured that work against our well being and our sense of interdependence and interconnectedness. Will we, on the far side of this, have the capacity to reorder our lives and our organizations, our institutions, in a way that's going to foster this, rather than just go back to what it once was? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I think the economic adjustment is going to help us in that way, as hard as and painful as it's going to be. I don't think we're going back to what was. I think we have the opportunity to ... God willing, we're going to have the opportunity to create something new. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. All right. I'm going to hold onto your optimism. I'm going to take hold of it. But that's one of the things we need to do in community right now, is we need to like share each other's pessimism and optimism and anxiety and take on each other's burdens and celebrations. Yeah, I hope that we don't just go back to business as usual, minus a few Jewish organizations that didn't get [inaudible]. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I really, really hope. I know that my husband showed me last week a video ... I keep saying it came out of Scandinavia. I don't really know where it came out of, but I imagine it's Scandinavian. The title of the video is, "Thank you, coronavirus." The entire video is like, "Thank you for reminding us that we need to bring people together and we're all interconnected and the Earth needs us." Rabbi Shira Stutman: All of it is true. I agree with every single word in the video, and I wanted to take my computer and throw it out the window. I am not ready to say, "Thank you, coronavirus." I think it could have used it if it was ... I really was 100% convinced it was a Saturday Night Live skit that he was showing me. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah, it was satirical in a certain way, right? Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. "Thank you so much for reminding ..." And it's true. It is going to be a reset that none of us wanted, and good things are going come out of it. I'm so pissed. I'm so pissed. That was like, we're holding so much all at the same time. I know that most people know the Ecclesiastes, the poem in Ecclesiastes, that was made famous by the Byrds: to everything, there is a season. But I'm such a fan of Yehuda Amichai's poem. God willing, you'll link to all of these because I'm going to like massacre all of them. Rabbi Shira Stutman: But Yehuda Amichai's poem is like, Ecclesiastes says there's a time for everything, but that's not true. There's not a time. You need to like laugh and hate at the same time, to make love and make war at the same time. I feel like, to me, that's so much true. Rabbi Shira Stutman: We're slowing down with coronavirus but we're also sitting inside, and my son is graduating from high school at the same time. Right? All of these things are ... Sometimes I can hold that and it's beautiful and it's a mess, and our life is a mess, and sometimes I'm angry and I'm joyous at the same time. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Right, right. Well, I think that's exactly right. I think holding is exactly the right image, in the complexity of the moment. I feel like, I'm not a Pollyanna-ish, but I just ... What I am, I think, is very pragmatic. Somehow, individually and as a leader, I've really been able to just be like, "This is what I have control over at this moment. This is what I understand at this moment. There's so much I don't know." And then like, okay, I have a little bit more information and something else comes into focus and I'm able to see it. Somehow I'm just able ... I'm taking it in, in a way that I'm not ... Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Most of the time, nights are not so good. I've never been a good sleeper, but most of the time I'm not overwhelmed by it. I do feel like ... partly because I need this, and rabbinically, what I've been putting out is like, when I think about the resilience that is embedded within Judaism, it's about that we have to be oriented toward joy even at the hardest times. That core teaching, I do really feel like 20 plus years in the rabbinate, of that being my primary Torah, of putting out again and again and again, that I really have been able to take it in, in such a way that it's keeping me from catastrophizing, I think, in a way that's been really, really helpful personally. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. I think that's really ... The orientation, like orienting toward joy whenever you can. Of course, I would say, I'm sure you agree, but joy is understood in the Jewish tradition. It's encapsulating meaning making and service to others. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And community. Right, right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Community. Joy is not something you can do on your own and do it justice. I think that's true. It's like, to recognize what is in your control and what is outside of your control. I've never been great at that, but it is a really important learning in this moment. God, who would have thought a few years ago when you started with this podcast, how important resilience would become? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Well, I started it right after the election, because I needed it because I was just so staggered. I was so staggered and so sad. We don't talk about politics all that much in this podcast but I felt like I was standing in the midst of some ruins. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Things have been creaking, and cracks were appearing, but the structures, the institutions and the conventions of my childhood, had been holding up, and then in early November of 2016, they all came crashing down. I felt like that's what it felt like to me, and that we were going to have to build a new future. I felt like I had a bully pulpit. I had this opportunity for leadership, I had training as a rabbi, I had my training as a historian. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It was really interesting, this shift for me. That's actually some of the roots of this podcast. As the leader of the Reconstructionist movement, which has really been a cutting-edge, on-the-forefront movement, up until that point, I felt like I had been like dragging the Jewish community into the future. Beginning in November of 2016, I started dipping into traditional texts and traditional practices much more deeply, realizing our ancestors, they've survived plague. They've survived upheaval. They've survived destruction and they knew how to get through it. They knew how to mourn and they also knew how to be creative in response to that. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: They didn't do it immediately. It was decades after the destruction of the temple that Lamentations was written, and decades after the destruction of the second temple, that Eicha Rabbah, the Midrash on it. It's not immediately, but just both the large historical broad brush strokes were incredibly helpful to me, and then the exploration into the individual practices and into the aggregated wisdom has been so nourishing and sustaining to me. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I say this as a rabbi, someone who had access to those resources. That has everything to do with the roots of this podcast, because it just felt like one way or another, through politics, through environmental degradation or through pandemic, that we just need to be ... We need to nourish ourselves. We need to find ways ... and we don't have to start from scratch. We don't have to do it all by ourselves. Rabbi Shira Stutman: I think it's so interesting that you're connecting nourishing ourselves to the idea of resilience. I find myself responding to that. I'll work it out with my therapist, but it's like, my first instinct with resilience is like, man the barricades, or human the barricades, whenever we're supposed to say at this point. But I love that you're including self-nourishment as part of going out to do the work, because it's exhausting. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Maybe we'll wind down with this. I'll share an image, and if there's anything that wakes up for you, this beautiful image from Psalm 23 that so many people know, of the overflowing cup. So, kosi revaya, my cup is overflowing. Our colleague Rabbi Marjorie Berman offered up this image to me once that, ideally, the service that we're doing, the activism that we're doing, everything that we're putting out as rabbis, it comes from the overflow, and that if we dip too deeply into the cup itself, it'll dry out and we won't have that overflow to offer. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It has to come from the shefa. It has to come from the abundance. And therefore, to work very hard on the container so that it can remain full and so that there is that overflow. There's a beautiful chant by Shefa Gold. I mention her so often on this podcast, just to those words, kosi revaya, that I frequently chat to myself, because sometimes I'm the cup itself, and sometimes I'm the contents of the cup, and sometimes it's the overflow. But just making certain that the vessel is intact just feels so essential to me in order to be able to show up for other people. And that's true just on an ordinary day or that's true in these extraordinary times. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Yeah, I think that feels incredibly, incredibly meaningful to me. I feel like I need to like sit with that a little bit more, remind myself to make sure that my cup and the cup of people that I work with isn't as filled as possible, especially during this time when the instinct is to keep on producing, producing, producing. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Fred Dobb wrote about this weeks ago already, the idea of Shemiita [the sabbatical year] and letting things lie fallow a little bit as well to see what will grow. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: That's exactly right. Rabbi Shira Stutman: So, I think ... Gosh, I can't wait to hear this again because I wish we had so many more hours to speak. I cannot wait to hug you in person one day, you get to hug me if needed and soothe me if needed. We get to actually give each other big hugs. Thank you so much for all that you're doing and all that Reconstructing Judaism is doing to help bring us into this great unknown and into this next stage. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah, thank you. You too. You are such a shining leader and I learn so much from you both personally and in the work that you're doing organizationally. It's a blessing to be with you in this medium and I can't wait till we're together. We talked about a lot of different really rich resources and we'll load them up onto Hashivenu's website, and you can also find more resources on ReconstructingJudaism.org and on ritualwell.org. There's really wonderful resources around the pandemic on both of those sites. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I ask listeners, if you are willing, to also subscribe or rate or review us in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to thank my guest, Rabbi Shira Stutman for our rich and our wonderful conversation on community building in general, in times of pandemic, on loneliness, on resilience, and renewal. Thank you so much, Shira. Rabbi Shira Stutman: Thank you. Thank you so much, Deborah. Thank you, Sam as well. See you soon. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Good. I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman, and you've been listening to Hashivenu, Jewish teachings on resilience.