Alex Weissman: For me, there was a cognitive shift around what motivates people to do justice work. Usually the question is, what keeps you up at night? Sort of the tikkun olam model of "where's the broken?" And this was bringing my intention to think about where's our gratitude and how can we leverage our gratitude as a motivator for change. Deborah Waxman: I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman and I'm so happy to welcome you today to Hashivenu, a podcast about Jewish teachings on resilience. I'm so happy to welcome Rabbi Alex Weissman. Alex is a Reconstructionist rabbi. He's a 2017 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. And he works as the senior Jewish educator at the Brown/RISD Hillel. And he's been, I think, a really important thinker and teacher for some of our projects here in the Reconstructionist movement. And I'm excited to talk with him today and to shine some light on his really lovely and important teachings in general and how they relate to consideration of resilience. Welcome, Alex. Alex Weissman: Thank you Deborah. Honored to be in conversation with you. Deborah Waxman: Always. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. Where I want to begin is with an amazing essay that you wrote for our project Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations. Evolve is a project that tries to address, in terms of content, really challenging and important topics of our day from a Jewish perspective with a Reconstructionist lens on it. And also, beyond the content, in the process, tries to do so in ways that foster brave conversations on these challenging topics, forthright conversations that are also deeply respectful, grounded in Jewish values, and with the goal of staying in community together, even as we have these conversations. Deborah Waxman: And Alex, you wrote this amazing essay for our consideration, the grounding essay in a series of essays and resources on thoughts about justice from a Jewish perspective that you titled Hallelujah. And it contains a loving somewhat critique and also alternative to a phrase that is so essential to liberal Jews today, tikkun olam. And so, I'd love to start there with the premise of and the core insights of the Hallelujah essay. Alex Weissman: Sure. So, I'd say I started thinking about what I wrote about in the Hallelujah essay... what was it, 2007. So, I was living in New York at the time and was very involved with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. We were organizing on the Shalom Bayit: Justice for Domestic Workers campaign. So, trying to pass a domestic workers bill of rights in New York state. We ended up passing it. It was the first of the kind in this country. It's very exciting. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: But, along the way, part of our work was to organize employers of domestic workers. So, we worked with an organization, Domestic Workers United, they were the ones organizing domestic workers. And we were the ones saying, employers also support this bill. And, when I spoke with employers, and I quote one at the beginning of essay, Donna Schneiderman, who is a co-chair of the campaign and a central leader. And what I found was the overwhelming attitude that she and other employers felt for their domestic workers. Alex Weissman: So, these employers were bringing people into their homes, paying them to work and care for the most important things in somebody's life, family, home, and self. And the gratitude that these employers expressed when they spoke about their employees, about these domestic workers, was so overwhelming that, for me, there was a cognitive shift around what motivates people to do justice work. Usually the question is, in organizing language, what keeps you up at night? Sort of a focus on the brokenness, the anxiety, the pain, sort of that tikkun olam model of "where's the broken?". And this was bringing my attention to think about where's our gratitude and how can we leverage our gratitude as a motivator for change. Deborah Waxman: I just love that. I mean, I have heard many times what you call a standard question about what keeps you up at night. And that shift to what gets you up in the morning, I think, is deeply in alignment with the cultivation of resilience. And it shifts everything. And because there is that powerful teaching from social sciences, backed up by tons of data that our brains and our psyches, what we give our attention to increases. So, what it means if we shift over from that place of brokenness, and not to deny it, not to bury it, or erase it, but to put the bulk of our energies more toward something that is more life-sustaining, more nurturing. Alex Weissman: Yeah. And our tradition encourages us to do that from the second we wake up. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Alex Weissman: I was just listening to your interview with Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg and she was talking about the embodied practice of saying Modeh Ani, the gratitude prayer, as soon as we wake up before we get out of bed. So, the very first words that are supposed to come out of our mouths in the morning is an expression of gratitude. And, if that can be a guiding force for us in our daily life, in our commitment to justice, what are the possibilities that open up from that? Deborah Waxman: I think though, in the essay you're muscular. You have this... I'll read you back to yourself. "By focusing on our suffering, we risk exactly that, focusing on our suffering. We risk being self-centered, exclusively self-protective, and lacking compassion for others. The ancient rabbis and our tradition demand more of us. They demand Hallelujah." Deborah Waxman: So, I love that language that you use, how imperative you were, how you mandated it. So, I think that's right that living beyond or in relation to, rather than bound by a halakhic system that would mandate the hundred blessings a day, it means we have to be responsive to that demand in different and, I think, more intentional ways. Alex Weissman: Yeah. It's easy to stay in the pain and the suffering. And I don't mean that in a dismissive way in that it's easy, but psychologically we're more inclined to think about what's bad in our life. And psychologists talk about negativity bias. And certainly, there have been moments in my life when grappling with homophobia and heterosexism that it's easier to only think about that and the ways in which I've been oppressed and I have suffered. And those are important things and have been motivating for me in my pursuit of justice. And also, I'm incredibly privileged and blessed in my life. And, if I don't acknowledge that, that's just honest and not sustaining, it's not integrated. And I can be caught in self-pity. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. I'm thinking about white privilege, as you talk about that. And you talk about how, if we are both grateful and intentionally political about it, that can help us to be mindful of the ways that it can slide into complicity and so that we can monitor it and activate it for empathy and activism, rather than just for reinforcement of privilege. Alex Weissman: Yeah. And I'll say the times that I have taught some of this material that's often where I get the pushback is around feeling gratitude for privilege because that's such a foreign concept, right? Like I don't feel like grateful that there's white supremacy in the world. That's something I feel deeply sad and afraid about. And I'm deeply grateful that, when I walk down the street, I don't need to be afraid of police officers. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: I don't like where it comes from, but I'm grateful that that's my experience. And I think everybody should have that experience. Deborah Waxman: Right. Right. That's exactly right. How to universalize it rather than just reinforce it for those of us who have that kind of comfort, and ease, and a lack of self-consciousness. I hope that everyone listening will feel moved to read the essay, because I think it's an incredibly... it's just lovely writing with really important teaching. And we'll put a link to the essay on the notes for this episode. Deborah Waxman: I know that you try to bring it to life and raise it up. Can you talk about some of the ways that you try to move from the powerful teaching and the grounding theory into practice? Alex Weissman: Sure. So, my first year at rabbinical school, I was in class with Rabbi Vivie Mayer. We were studying the Haggadah and we were studying the Mishnah or the early articulation of the Passover Seder. And I was really struck by the line "bekhol dor vador hayyav adam lirot et atzmo ke'ilu yatzah miMitzrayim" — "In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see oneself as if they emerged from Egypt", which to me seemed so foreign from my life experience. Yes, as I said, like there had been hard moments in my life, but the idea of seeing myself as if I actually went out of Egypt felt very hard and foreign to me. Alex Weissman: In my last year of rabbinical school, I had an internship at Brandeis University with Brandeis Reconstructionist Organization, the mighty Reconstructionist movement at Brandeis, and I was there for the Shabbat. I don't remember if it was right before or right after the most recent presidential inauguration. And it felt like a real moment of uncertainty and fear. And I wanted to be able to talk about that without talking about it. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Exactly. Alex Weissman: Knowing that most likely there are some mixed feelings in the room. I think the room certainly leaned left, but I didn't know for sure. So, I thought a way in was to go deeper into the story itself. So, instead of writing a traditional D'var Torah, I wrote a guided meditation that was inspired by one of my favorite authors, Lorrie Moore, who writes beautiful fiction. And, in her first collection of short stories called Self-Help, many of the stories are in second person. So, I decided to write this meditation in second person as a way for us to really see ourselves as if we went out of time, and offer that as a way to encounter the uncertainty of the moment and going deeper into the story itself. Deborah Waxman: And how was it received? Did you get feedback on it? Alex Weissman: I think people found it powerful. I shared it at my Seder last year too. One thing I didn't expect from it was it also brought up associations of the Holocaust as another moment of fleeing persecution, unsafety here. So, again, even though it's about this ancient story, it still had these modern resonances in people's life without any explicit mention. Deborah Waxman: I think that is part of the teachings that we learn from trauma is that things get layered on. And certainly it's part of our personal histories and that's part of Jewish history. I think a lot about Tisha b'Av, in relation to Yom Hashoah, in relation to the Holocaust Memorial Day... so Tisha b'Av, the ninth of Av, for those who aren't familiar with it, was the date that the first Temple was destroyed. And then, somehow it seems, according to Jewish storytelling, the Second temple was destroyed. And, when we mark those cataclysms other cataclysmic losses, other catastrophes were marked for generations, for centuries on that day, the ninth of Av. Which is in the middle of the summer. Kids who went to summer camp tend to know a lot about the ninth of Av. And folks whose Jewish experience is either more synagogue based or more secular tend to know very little about it. But, in the Jewish imagination, it became both this like telescoping in and telescoping out of catastrophe and loss. Deborah Waxman: And there was some debate when the Holocaust Memorial Day was established, whether it should be on its own or layered into this collective day of recovery from trauma. And there's much more to say about the timing of Holocaust Memorial Day. We won't get into it. But I think a lot about that, whenever I think about how dwelling on one trauma, how it can awake other traumas, whether they're collective or whether they're individual. And that's the whole point, I think, behind trigger warnings and everything. But how to be capacious about it and prepared for surprises, as you said, and prepare for grief, prepared for grief. Alex Weissman: And I think it matters so much how we tell those stories. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: When thinking about that Passover story, yes, enslavement is part of that story, and so is redemption and liberation. So, to go back to what we were talking about earlier about what we give our attention to grows, in Torah we're reminded again and again... and this is cited frequently for good reason, "don't oppress the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt." So, calling on that experience of suffering as a motivator for compassion, for treating others as well. And then, the rabbis, and the Mishnah, and liturgy I think generally focused less on that and more on the experience of liberation itself, right? Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: To see oneself as if you went out of Egypt. It's not to see oneself as if you are a slave or you are living in Egypt, but it's to see yourself as if you were liberated. Deborah Waxman: Right. And that there are obligations that arise from that, I think. And the first and foremost in the traditional Jewish imagination is we were not liberated just to be free. We were liberated to go and serve the divine. We were liberated to march our way to Sinai, to receive the Torah, and to be in a covenantal relationship with this God. And more generally, I think those reminders so much are about demanding, not only action, but also empathy. That the action that we take is one of empathy with others. And I think of that as such a core teaching of Judaism, that it is about empathetic action. Alex Weissman: Yeah. Deborah Waxman: And I think one of the things I'm aware of as someone who likes ritual, likes prayer, goes to synagogue, lives much of my life according to Jewish time, I'm aware of how much this remembrance of the redemption, not the slavery, but the redemption is embedded into the daily life, twice a day. If you're praying twice a day, there's this reflection on how we were redeemed and how we need to be working toward the next redemption. And that's messianic in the liturgy, but also it's not hard to translate it into what happens day to day. And in the Kiddush for Shabbat on Friday night when we bless the wine, there's a raising up both of creation and redemption, almost as if the redemption is embedded into creation. So, you're right that, even as the Exodus narrative is so embedded, the major points are so much more about the redemption than about the oppression. Alex Weissman: Yeah. At pretty much every single holiday, most holidays I should say, are described as zekher liy'tziyat Mitzrayim, as a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, it's in festival Kiddush in addition to Shabbat Kiddush. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Alex Weissman: And we say it all the time. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. So, I think what I want to ask you, Alex, you talked about how you came to this guided meditation when you were working on a college campus. And I'm just wondering about that setting. Are there particular sensibilities that you bring to your teachings? Or are there particular insights that you gleaned from working with college age students? Alex Weissman: Well, one of the things I find myself teaching often is about hesed, is about loving kindness. And my last year at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, I took a class with Rabbi Jacob Staub called, Midat Hesed the spiritual quality of loving kindness. And we studied the teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe who is a 20th century German and then Israeli rabbi who taught about hesed. And I've taught this in a semester long class. I do this in small groups and individually with students. Alex Weissman: And I think invariably having clear spiritual practice that is about grounding oneself in values and traits that students want to embody in the world is really appealing and transformative. That the very first practice that Shlomo Wolbe offers is, a few times a day think about what the person in front of you needs. I think this isn't the kind of Jewish practice that is legible to most people as Jewish practice. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: It's not Shabbat. It's not kosher. It's not davening. But it's grounded in Jewish story and Jewish teaching. And I think this is what students largely are looking for is how to be the best versions of themselves they can be in this incredibly tumultuous and stressful time in their lives. I've heard students talk about how these practices are helpful with anxiety. Instead of being caught up in their own concerns about what's happening in a moment or what somebody else is thinking of them, they have a practice that's, "okay, what does this person in front of me need? "And it helps them relax and gives their mind something to do that is good for the person in front of them and good for them. Deborah Waxman: I'm so struck. I mean, I say often that the reason I'm Jewish is not to be the best Jew, but because I think Judaism teaches me a lot about how to be the best human and the best citizen of the planet. And that interconnectivity that we were just talking about, both in terms of redemption, ge'ulah], and also now you're grounding it in this hesed practice, this loving kindness practice, I think it's so important. I mean, for me, it seems like such a powerful alternative. I won't say corrective, but alternative to the hyperindividualism that I see so rampant around us. And that's only fueled by, not just capitalism and consumerism, but also by social media, and curated profiles, and Instagram, and so. Alex Weissman: And I think the way our culture of education works is very much about an individual's success. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: We don't think about success in education that, like, my job as a student in a classroom is for all of us to learn well and grow, right? It's like how do I say the smartest thing? How do I get the A? Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Alex Weissman: But this practice, I think potentially, has the possibility to reshape the experience of the classroom where we're actually thinking about others' needs as students, and as humans, as co-learners, and re-frames what educational success looks like. Deborah Waxman: And talk about, if part of education is about life preparation, what phenomenal preparation for building just and caring communities. And I'm really struck by the antidote to anxiety. And it's almost like cognitive behavioral therapy. Like here is a practice that, when you feel like you are going in this particular direction, here is... it's like a Mussar practice. Here's an ethical practice that you can do that will, as we were talking about, switch your energy from one place to another. Alex Weissman: Yeah. I didn't expect that to come from my students. But, in teaching it multiple times, to multiple students, different contexts, it's coming up again and again. So, it's been a surprising by-product. Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Alex Weissman: Actually, after we meet and talk, I'll be meeting with two students to teach this. Deborah Waxman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex Weissman: The final session of the school year. And I got an email from one of them last week. She's a student at RISD. She makes art. And the practice that we're in right now is about welcoming guests. And we talked about what that means when you're a college student, and how can you be a host when you're in college. And she said she's getting ready for sort of her final presentations of her artwork and it's inspired by different Jewish teachings. And she was feeling shy about offering that to a largely non-Jewish audience and how to talk about Judaism publicly. And she said that when she started to think about all of them as guests in this space, it suddenly shifted her experience and her anxiety. She became less anxious. She felt more comfortable talking about how her art was inspired by Judaism, by her Jewish values, and just reshaped her relationship to her peers. Deborah Waxman: That's an amazing story. And I hope some day to be able to see her art. It's a great place for us to wind down. I think it's so rich. I guess the theme I see from some of what we're talking about is … Paying attention to grounding metaphors, and honoring all of them, and choosing to raise up some of them in ways that they can bolster us and offer up lenses that help us, as you said, to be our best selves. And it's not just that they're college students, I think it's all of us. So, thank you so much for this conversation and for your writing and your thinking. I'm so interested in what comes next. Alex Weissman: Thank you, Deborah. It's a pleasure to talk with you, as always. Deborah Waxman: My guest today is Rabbi Alex Weissman, who is the senior Jewish educator at Brown RSD Hillel. I want to thank him for this wonderful discussion. And we will post some resources from the really rich conversation that we had on our website. Hashivenu.fireside.fm. And as always, you can find more resources on ritualwell.org or on reconstructingjudaism.org. I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman, and you've been listening to Hashivenu, Jewish teachings on resilience.