Bryan Schwartzman: From my home studio, welcome to Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations. Rabbi Adina Allen: Torah teaches humans are created b'tzelem Elohim, in the image of this divine creative force. Therefore, each and every one of us are endowed with this creative capacity. I think we get trained to focus on product or end result, or art is really about what other people think of what I've made. And really, art can be just for you. You never have to show it to anyone. Bryan Schwartzman: I'm your host, Bryan Schwartzman, and our guest today is Rabbi Adina Allen. We'll be discussing Rabbi Allen's essay, The Jewish Studio Project: Art-Making as Another Way to Interpret Our Texts. So this essay explores the creative process, spirituality, and the ways we can use art and other forms of creativity to access Jewish texts, learn more about and access the deepest parts of ourselves, and actually change the world. Bryan Schwartzman: We talk specifically about The Jewish Studio Project, which is an organization, and the ways it brings techniques developed for art therapy to enhance spirituality and Jewish community. Bryan Schwartzman: All right, just to set the scene, this conversation took place in late April, when virtually the whole country was in lockdown. And definitely some things have changed, but so much of the living and working at home dynamic is still in place for so many of us. Bryan Schwartzman: As a reminder, the essays discussed on this show are available to read for free on the Evolve website, evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org. The essays are not required reading to get into the show, but we recommend checking them out. Bryan Schwartzman: Okay, let's get to our guest, Rabbi Adina Allen. Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, writer and educator who believes in the power of creativity to revitalize our lives and transform Jewish tradition. She's the co-founder and creative director of The Jewish Studio Project. Bryan Schwartzman: All right. Welcome to the show, Rabbi Allen. It's great to have you here. Rabbi Adina Allen: Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Bryan Schwartzman: We're recording this still we're still in the time of social distancing. We don't know what the next couple weeks will bring. Things might look a little different by the time this gets onto people's podcast feeds, but how are you doing with social distancing? I understand you and your partner are running this organization, Jewish Studio Project, full-time, and you have a six- and three-year-old at home? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yep. And a dog. Bryan Schwartzman: Oh, and a dog. Can't forget the dog. How's everybody doing? Rabbi Adina Allen: Thank God, we're doing okay. I was just thinking, every day really is a roller coaster and full of every emotion intensely, but it's been really special to have a lot more time with our kids. And it's sort of been beautiful in some ways, seeing the boundaries that have been broken down between those things, as my kids and other people's kids are in Zoom frames and babies are there in the [inaudible] meeting, in some really beautiful ways and some more challenging ways, too. So I'm definitely tired, but thank God we're all healthy and beautiful weather here in Berkeley, so we have a lot to be grateful for. Bryan Schwartzman: Ah. They're long days, but it's amazing what kind of feels normal now, which would have seemed insane three months ago. So, I don't... Rabbi Adina Allen: Absolutely. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what remains and what changes once we're able to move about again. Bryan Schwartzman: So before we dive into Jewish Studio Project, I guess I want to acknowledge, I think everybody, our listeners, people are dealing with all kinds of stuff right now. Anxiety. Their emotions are, like you said, a roller coaster. Do you advocate folks, to the extent they can carve out time, delving into some kind of creative process? And is there something you can recommend they do without going through the whole program we'll talk about in a little bit? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think what you're saying is right on. One of the things, depending on how you engage material, I think one of the things that art-making can really be a tool for emotional regulation, for slowing down, sort of the same way meditation can be. I think of it as a moving meditation in that way. Rabbi Adina Allen: I'll say, of course, for so many of us, art-making brings up all kinds of baggage that we have around what we've been taught by our culture, or by parents, or by whoever, that we're not artists, or we're not creative, or here's what this means or that means. And so, part of the process is trying to let go of that and know that you deserve to work with materials. Art is for everyone. And that's one of the foundational beliefs of Jewish Studio Project. The democratization of creativity. Rabbi Adina Allen: So with that, I would say, yeah, we're dealing with really complex emotions and often nonstop, and this can be a really traumatic time for folks. So I would say start with where you are. Wherever you are, no matter where you are, is the perfect place to begin. Regardless of what you think of your talent or your ability, creativity resides naturally in each and every one of you. Rabbi Adina Allen: And you don't need any special skills or special training or special materials to be able to engage in art-making. You have a ballpoint pen, you have a #2 pencil, you have a stack of highlighters. You don't need anything beyond what you already have. Rabbi Adina Allen: And then I would say start with who you are. So to get quiet and go inward and just see what's there for you right now? Are you elated? Are you agitated? Are you anxious about something? What's there right now? Rabbi Adina Allen: And that art-making can really be a way to be with what is. The good, the hard and everything in between and it welcomes everything. Everything is welcome onto the page. Rabbi Adina Allen: And then I would say start. One of the invitations we use at Jewish Studio Project is start by making marks on the page. So really just that simple. Start by making marks on the page, and then one of the rules of the studio at JSP is to follow pleasure. Rabbi Adina Allen: And what we mean by follow pleasure is follow where the energy leads you. Where are you feeling the energy move and where are you feeling stuck? Let yourself follow where the energy is. Doing little circles is feeling really good or working with the color green or big giant brush strokes. To not be focused on what the end result is going to be, but on what feels good in this moment right now in this activity. Rabbi Adina Allen: So yeah, pick up a material that intrigues you and a color that sparks your interest, start by making marks on the page and then follow where the energy leads you. Give yourself a set amount of time, even if 10 minutes is what you have in the day, and see where you are at the end. Bryan Schwartzman: It's interesting. I think it was either you or your partner said on the Judaism Unbound podcast a couple of years ago, when maybe the Jewish Studio Project was a little less known, that people seem to just assume it was a program for kids. And there is something like that. I think everybody seems to take for granted that being creative is a positive for kids, even if we know they're not the next Picasso. But there isn't that assumption at all with adults, it's leave the art for the artists. Rabbi Adina Allen: Correct. And being an artist is an amazing thing, and there is a place for people with trained skills and abilities who have honed a craft, and that's extremely important. What we're trying to say is art materials, though, are for everyone. Rabbi Adina Allen: And where do we lose the ability to stop playing with paints or finger painting or color? These are spiritual tools and tools for self-exploration. And like you said, yeah, maybe even as early as preschool, I can see kids being, "My piece wasn't hung on the wall," or "I wasn't praised for what I did." And so we start learning, "I'm not good at that. I'm going to stick to the things that I'm good at." Rabbi Adina Allen: Humans are innately creative. I mean, Jewish Studio Project, the foundational belief is that we're all made... Torah teaches Beresheit bara Elohim. In the beginning, God created. Creating, creativity is the first act. It's from that act that the entire world is birthed. Rabbi Adina Allen: And we're told a few verses later that humans are created b'tzelem Elohim, in the image of this divine creative force. Therefore, each and every one of us are endowed with this creative capacity. And as humans, we need to be creative. Rabbi Adina Allen: And so really, these tools are all of ours. And I think we get so focused or we've been so trained to focus on product or end result, or art is really about what other people think of what I've made. And really, art can be just for you. You never have to show it to anyone. We see it as a form of prayer. It's all of ours and it's a tool for connecting to self and to something bigger than ourselves. Bryan Schwartzman: All right. Hopefully, my listeners have been patient, but I've waited a while to ask you, maybe what should have been the first question: what is the Jewish Studio Project? Rabbi Adina Allen: Jewish Studio Project is a five-year-old organization located in Berkeley, but working nationally. And our mission is to activate the creativity that exists within each and every one of us. And the goal of that is threefold. To make life more meaningful, to make Judaism more alive, and to make the world more just. Rabbi Adina Allen: So we really see this creative process, this art-making and text-learning methodology as working on all of those levels, allowing us to more deeply know ourselves as an individual and "What's here for me in my life and what do I need next? Have I made art about it yet?" Rabbi Adina Allen: The art-making practice that we use interacts with Jewish texts. So how can creative process allow new insights and information to surface from our ancient texts and allow me to bring my unique voice to this ancient tradition so it can continue to thrive and to inspire others? Rabbi Adina Allen: And then really about social change. That we see the creative process, as I said earlier, helping to cultivate the traits within ourselves that we need to make the world a better place, which we see as learning how to be with complexity and sit with ambiguity and traverse the unknown with courage. Bryan Schwartzman: And obviously things are a little different now, but what are some of the main programs you run? Rabbi Adina Allen: So our core program is called the studio immersive, and it's a five day deep dive into the Jewish Studio Process methodology, spiritual practice, Beit Midrash, text study, cups of inquiry, Jewish text study, and this art-making practice. And we've now done seven studio immersives and we have an alumni base of a hundred folks all over the country. Rabbi Adina Allen: And one of the amazing things, despite all that is very hard and challenging and, you know, fills me with grief about this time: there's also been something really beautiful in moving everything to Zoom that we've been able to connect and really build this alumni community all across the country and connect folks to each other. Rabbi Adina Allen: So that's like a core program. We also have all kinds ongoing local programs for our local community. And we do a lot of professional development traveling all over the country to work with clergy and spiritual leaders, Jewish professionals, and Jewish educators at institutions all over the country. Bryan Schwartzman: How have the programs been impacted by everybody having to stay in their home? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, well, one of the things is that people have more time and a real need, it seems like, for ways of connecting to community across distance and for spiritual tools for being with what's really hard. And so I feel really grateful to be able to offer this. We had a program the other week with 70 people all over the country, making art together and doing text study. And it feels incredible to be able to feel a sense of connection and kinship with folks without even having to speak to one another. Rabbi Adina Allen: To be sort of simultaneously making art in our own spaces, but feeling connected to one another through seeing each other and knowing that we're each doing this process in our own way. But we are actually doing more programming now than we ever have. We have like five or six programs a week now, some are more text study based, creative writing based, visual art-making based or more on spiritual practice and singing and sort of just dropping into the moment. Bryan Schwartzman: I believe the Evolve essay talks about the four rules of the studio process. Is that important to understand? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, I think the rules of the studio, they're great for art-making and they're also, we always say "taking it off the page," like they're really great practices, I find, to be applied to daily life. So the first rule I mentioned before is follow pleasure. And like I said, that means follow the energy, follow where the energy is leading you and how can we learn to do that? First huddle, listen to ourselves of like, "What is pleasurable in this moment? What is feeding me or giving me energy?" Rabbi Adina Allen: And often it isn't about joy or happiness. It's about being with pain or being with grief, but it's where the energy is sort of leading us to be. "So how can I do that with materials on the page, but also how can I do that in my life?" Rabbi Adina Allen: The second rule is the no comment rule, which is often the hardest one for folks. And the rule is no commenting on your own or anyone else's piece, even and especially to say how much you love it, which is usually what we want to say because we've been conditioned to be polite to one another. And the idea behind that rule is, first of all, it frees you up. If you're not thinking about what you're going to say to someone about their piece or what they might say to you about yours, it frees you up to just get to focus on what's at hand on your piece. Rabbi Adina Allen: And also we talk about when we want to make comments on other people's pieces, usually our comments have much more to say about ourselves than they do about the other person or their piece. And rather than offloading that comment and that energy to that other person to have to hold, if we can channel that comment into our piece, like, "What does it say to us? What does it mean for us that we want it to say that?", it usually has a tremendous amount to offer. So I am by no means perfect at this. And in the studio, I abide by this rule. In my real life, you know, with children and all kinds of other things, it's not always possible and it's not always an appropriate role to follow, but sometimes it is like, "Hmm, how might no comment be really helpful here?" Bryan Schwartzman: This just seems the polar opposite of the kind of workshop method that most of us think about with maybe the typical studio art class. Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's totally a place for studio art classes that are giving you feedback on technique and getting peer reviewed. I think all that stuff can be really important with a certain goal in mind. For us, the goal is about learning to listen to yourself as the authority and what do you need? What do you want, what does it say to you? Rabbi Adina Allen: And so having someone else's comments actually really interrupt that process and we're so conditioned to create things that are praised by other people that it really sort of narrows what is possible, what gets created. Sort of the field of what gets created gets really narrow, because we're all trying to do things that we think will get accolades or impress, or be told that we're the best because we all want to be the best. And so when we take out that, when we say no comment, and we take that factor out, what is able to be created, just kind of can explode into whatever is coming to you, whatever's coming through in this moment. Bryan Schwartzman: Yeah. I've actually been journaling throughout this past couple months, which is not my normal practice. Normally, if I sit down to write something it's for an audience. And I do think there is something in doing that and just kind of letting the hand flow. Bryan Schwartzman: Something you wrote [that] really struck me was, you talked about the Jewish studio process, shifting the emphasis from using art as a means of expression to a means of exploration. That sounds big. I'm not sure I totally understand it. Can you give us a sense where you're coming from with that? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah. I think the phrase that's often used is artistic expression or creative expression, and that's really valuable and important. I think art can help shift our ideas about something in hugely important ways, but it's not the only way that art can be used. When I hear creative expression, I hear, "I have an idea to express and through this artistic form, I'm going to express that and then others will be impacted by that." Rabbi Adina Allen: And I just want to lift up the value of also creative exploration, of having no idea what the end result is going to be or where something is going to end up, but going through that process of discovery and emergence. Of really being in the moment. We have a number of foundational texts that guide the work of Jewish Studio Project. And one is the name of God, Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I will be that which I will be. Rabbi Adina Allen: I'm thinking about God as process and as us being in process with God and through creative process, co-creating this world that we exist in. And so can we be in that process of emergence of discovery without knowing what is going to end up at the other side? Because the truth is we never really know, right? But can we let ourselves be on that journey without some predetermined destination? Bryan Schwartzman: All right. Short time out here. Want to help us out? Express your truest opinions. Please take a moment to give us a five star rating or leave any kind of review on your podcast app. These ratings really help other people find the show and get these messages out there into the world. Bryan Schwartzman: All right. Now, back to the interview with Rabbi Allen. How do you choose your texts? What makes a good text for this kind of process? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, that's a great question. It depends on what your goal is and if you're trying to study a particular thing, but really any text. I mean, we've done it with pieces of Talmud, certainly pieces of Midrash. Right now we're working on sort of a Jewish Artist's Way project that's using, going through all of the parshiot, every section of the Torah. So really anything. Rabbi Adina Allen: The themes that we've sort of focused on in our studio immersive have been themes that are both rooted in Jewish texts, but also sort of evocative of sort of existential human issues or questions. So like Lech Lecha, God's call to Abram to leave behind where he was and journey into the unknown and all the Midrash and commentaries and texts around that. Our last immersive was on Dayenu, what is enough? The question of what is enough and exploring that through creative process. Rabbi Adina Allen: So it can also be used with non Jewish texts of reading the newspaper and needing to respond to something. So really with whatever is sparking you, whatever is igniting something in you or whatever you have at hand. And I wanted to say to you about, you were saying, you're usually writing for an audience, but now you've been doing more journaling during this time. And just to offer that, I think as someone who also writes for an audience often in my sermons or published pieces, this process goes really well, hand in hand, with sort of creating art for the public and can be a really great first step for that. Rabbi Adina Allen: And I was just thinking of a story from this past high holiday season ,that I was really stuck trying to come up with what I was going to say for Kol Nidre, for - we lead high holiday services in Berkeley, for the Berkeley High Holy day community. And I just could not, it just felt like such an important moment. And I just did not know what I was going to say. Rabbi Adina Allen: And so I went into the studio and did the Jewish Studio process and started with marks on the page to see where it would lead me. And in this case, this image of a boat and waves with this big eye in the middle of the boat and a rainbow arching overhead came out at the end of this sort of, must've been like a three hour session of art-making. And I did, in our process, we have a something called witnessing, which is writing in response to the piece and to the process. Rabbi Adina Allen: And all of this stuff came out about Noah's Ark and about Jonah and the whale. And from there, it led me to a sermon about climate change called Risking Everything: Noah's Ark in an age of climate change. Rabbi Adina Allen: And so I would say I didn't have that idea before. I wasn't thinking about Noah's Ark or going in and making a boat. But one of the quotes we think about a lot is that by the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung who says, "Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain." So I find when my intellect is not getting me to the place I want to go, that creative process can allow me to open to knowing that exists in other places in myself, and allow that to come to the surface. Bryan Schwartzman: Who's showing up for this live and online? Is there a typical profile of a Jewish Studio Project participant? Rabbi Adina Allen: I don't think so. One of the things we're so excited about is the intergenerational nature of the work and who it's sort of brought to our door. There's people in their early twenties. people in their mid to late eighties, people of all different Jewish backgrounds, Orthodox to unaffiliated and everywhere in between. Rabbi Adina Allen: There's clergy and scholars and people who are completely unfamiliar with Jewish texts. There's people who are established artists and people who are terrified of paints and art materials. So that's something we feel really excited about, that we've been able to create a space that brings all these different folks together, and where each can offer what they have and learn what they need to learn. And it's been a really rich environment. Bryan Schwartzman: Respecting confidentiality. Is there any way you can give us an example of how it really impacted a participant's life, or if you had an established artist, if it led to an artistic breakthrough? Rabbi Adina Allen: Well, for a lot of our established artists, it leads to sort of a freeing up of creative energy, because they become so accomplished and so honed in their craft that doing anything that feels messy or unfinished or not neat, it's sometimes hard to tolerate that. And so this process gives a real structure and invitation to go to the places where they're not accomplished, where they're not the best at, and allow something to emerge. And often there's just so a wealth of creativity that can explode from there. That can influence the rest of their work. Rabbi Adina Allen: So definitely seeing that when people come in as established artists - sorry, can you hear my kids screaming? One of the things we think about with the process of that, it is able to hold both the intellect and the intuition and imagination. And I think often we have places we can go for intellectual engagement and stimulation and other places we might go for creativity and imagination, but that this is able to bring both of those together. Rabbi Adina Allen: We often think of it as the DNA strands of who we are as human beings, intellect and intuition, imagination. And that this process helps to reweave those strands because they become a little bifurcated or separated, especially I think in the Jewish community where we have really, I think, over-privileged the intellect to some extent. Rabbi Adina Allen: But the intellect is hugely important and needs a space at the table. So I think for folks who've been brought up in sort of more traditional Jewish intellectual environments, it's been freeing in a way, to have a place for the intellect that's able to kind of surface and bring to bear intuition and imagination and get in touch with those parts of themselves that they may not have had before. Bryan Schwartzman: Do you expect to continue the increased online availability post-whatever we're in now? Or is it too early to say? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, it's so hard to say what are people going to want or need in a few months. We're really trying to stay in the moment, which is also hard when you're trying to manage a team and a budget and all the rest of those things. I think our highest priority is to respond to the need and to the moment and to bring our work to bear and the way that can be the most impactful. Rabbi Adina Allen: And I certainly think that online will be a part of that going forward because it's really been special and to give so many more people, we've heard from folks just that they have access in a way that they never had. If they couldn't fly here to be at a studio immersive, or we didn't travel to their city, they didn't have an option for tapping in and now they do. And so that feels really great to open up access in all kinds of ways. Bryan Schwartzman: Do folks have to have their own easels or paint tubes or is that all kind of clearly stated, or...? Rabbi Adina Allen: No, we say, like I said, in the sort of exercise I took folks through on this earlier in this episode, really, whatever you have is great to work with. My mom's an accomplished artist, but they just moved as I mentioned, and they have a bunch of cardboard boxes. And so she's using those as the background to paint on because it's a material she has in abundance. And I think that's sort of a beautiful teaching for this time of like, "What do you have?" Rabbi Adina Allen: And coming to appreciate and work with that, what you have on hand and yeah, you can go online and order paints or whatever you want to work with, too. And that's fun, but your kid's markers or crayons or the highlighters you have from work, you can work with anything. And sometimes it's less intimidating when we're not using things that are deemed as art supplies, where we might have more expectation on what comes out the other side. Bryan Schwartzman: I think I heard or read somewhere or other, you talking about the comparison of art and Judaism as a spectator sport, or what so many of us are happy to leave to the professionals. How does that linkage, if it's there, play out in your work? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, I said before, but you know, it's really, this work is about democratizing creativity and art-making and democratizing Jewish learning and text study, really with the belief that Judaism needs all of our voices. We say that Torah is an Etz Chaim: that it's a living, breathing sort of tree of life. And for it to be that, I think it needs each generation and the fullness of each generation's continued sort of fresh breath blowing into it for it to stay alive. Rabbi Adina Allen: I think it wants that. It needs that. If I were to paint it as a person, that's how I see it. And I think a lot about the rabbinic Midrash, the text about revelation and the moment of sort of God's voice coming forth on Sinai, where it says, "God spoke to us like a picture that was visible from all angles. It spoke to each of us, but we each stood at a different angle. So therefore we each see some part of the truth." Rabbi Adina Allen: And by means of that analogy, none of us see all of the truth. And so it takes all of us from our perspectives, bringing our voices into the room. So that's something really central to Jewish Studio Project and to this methodology, is bringing real intellectual engagement with Jewish text in a way that allows every voice into the room and to bring your unique life experience, whether it's as a mother, a doctor, a librarian, whatever your path has been and to bring that to bear on the text. Bryan Schwartzman: Okay. Another time out here. While we have just a couple seconds of your time, if you'd like to support these groundbreaking conversations of Evolve on the podcast, on the website, in our web conversations, or even the curriculum we're producing, you can. You can make a contribution to reconstructingjudaism.org/evolve-donate. Bryan Schwartzman: There's also a link in our show notes. Okay. Thank you. And now back to Rabbi Adina Allen. I seem to recall you saying that that Jewish Studio Project has actually done High Holiday services and things like that. That seems to get into the question of an alternative Jewish model because that's typically what we see, what we think of in terms of synagogue. So how do you see Jewish Studio Project fitting into the overall ecosystem? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah. You know, one thing I'm excited about is we've always seen ourselves as a spiritual community and it's always been hard to convey that when we do have a spiritual community here in Berkeley, but we really see that as broader than that. We see it as anybody who using the Jewish Studio Process as a spiritual path, as a spiritual tool. Rabbi Adina Allen: And like I said, this is a time when distance is sort of broken down by Zoom. And so that we can connect with folks all over the country and the world who are using this process and use it as a way both to prepare for and maybe even to engage with High Holidays. Traditionally, our High Holidays are more sort of a traditional service base with lots of poetry and singing, but not art-making. And so I wonder if that will come into play this year or not. Bryan Schwartzman: I mean, we've kind of been hearing about for a long time how the post-World War II suburban synagogue model is struggling to adapt and may not meet the needs of current and future generations. And we're entering this, what seems like a really profound economic crisis that a lot of us haven't felt the full effects of yet. I mean, obviously you don't have a crystal ball, any sense what we're going? What things might look like on the other side of whatever this is? Rabbi Adina Allen: Oh, gosh, If only I knew. I'm asking myself, obviously, the same questions and I don't know any more than you or anyone else, but I will say that, I think, given that question, art-making is a really incredible tool because it allows us to be in the present moment and create into the future. Sort of take what we're imagining and create it on the page. Rabbi Adina Allen: And I think this is a time that calls for radical imagination of what do we want to come out of this on the other side? What do we want to remain? What do we want to be different? It's sort of this really intense and painful for many of us, forced pause, but I think it's a time where our imagination can really run wild of like, "Okay, if I could design my dream future of what this looks like on the other side, what would that be like for myself, for Jewish community, for my family?" Bryan Schwartzman: I think I want to close and go back to the beginning, or at least close to the beginning in your Evolve essay. You describe what sounded almost like a revelatory experience where you brought us back to your college class and art-making really as a way to tackle some of the pressing issues of the world. And I guess, how does that happen? How does creating help one gain more empathy or empower one to tackle these things like climate change, racism that seem intractable? Rabbi Adina Allen: Yeah, it's funny that you used the word tackle and I feel like almost- Bryan Schwartzman: No, no, football metaphor, sorry. Rabbi Adina Allen: No, no. I think it's great because it sparked something for me that it's like less of an active process. I think what we as humans are sort of geared towards is the active process of "How are we going to tackle? How are we going to solve, what's our strategy and solution?" Rabbi Adina Allen: And I think often we do that. We create those solutions or those pathways from a place of where there's some blindness within ourselves. And I think art-making in this creative process, the Jewish Studio Process, or other kinds of reflective art-making can allow us to surface where the knots are for each one of us in these issues, so that we can be clearer in approaching those issues without weaving our own baggage into the ways that we're responding or weaving less of it into the ways that we're responding. Rabbi Adina Allen: And I think for some issues it's not about tackling or doing anything, it's about staying present to and aware of and awake and alive too. And I think art-making is a way to do that and it doesn't, in creative process, like I said, the foundational rule is to follow pleasure. That we get to do that in a way that is pleasurable and pleasing by working with materials and moving our hands and being with color and texture. Rabbi Adina Allen: I think often we feel like we need to constantly be bludgeoning ourselves and suffering. And that art-making allows us a way to be with things that are really, really hard, that are impossible to hold, but in a way that allows some pleasure into that experience. Bryan Schwartzman: Well, Rabbi Adina Allen, thank you so much for being with us, for sharing insight and stories and taking time out of a very packed, compressed schedule. Rabbi Adina Allen: Thank you so much for having me, Bryan. It was wonderful to talk to you. Bryan Schwartzman: Thanks for listening to my interview with Rabbi Adina Allen. If you enjoyed this conversation, definitely check out the essay on Evolve, the Jewish Studio Project: Art-making as another way to interpret our texts. Bryan Schwartzman: So what'd you think? I'd love to hear from you. Evolve is about conversations and we want you to be part of that, so send us your questions, comments, feedback, anything. You can reach me at bschwartzman@reconstructingjudaism.org. Evolve, groundbreaking Jewish conversations is executive produced by Rabbi Jacob Staub and edited by Sam Wachs. Our theme song, Elu Finu is by Rabbi Miriam Margles. The show is a production of Reconstructing Judaism. I'm your host, Bryan Schwartzman. And we'll see you next time.