Rabbi Sandra L: If you are a cisgendered white male, and you are a rabbi, you can get away with not sharing a lot of personal information. I don't have the luxury of not sharing about myself because people assume a level of entitlement to learning about me, and so what I've decided to do was to craft that narrative, to have control over that narrative. Brian S: From the recording studios of Reconstructing Judaism, this is Trending Jewish, the Jewish podcast about everything. With me, Bryan Schwartzman and ... Rachel Burgess: Rachael Burgess. Brian S: Well, I look at the numbers, so I've seen we have just had our 10,000th download, so that is pretty cool. Rachel Burgess: Yay! Brian S: And I believe we've been on the air about a year. Rachel Burgess: Yes, I just saw on Facebook, we just had our one-year anniversary. Our birthday just came up, the birth of our podcast. That was very exciting to see. Brian S: [Singing] Yom Huledet Sameakh ("Happy birthday") Rachel Burgess: So, if you like what you're listening to, and you want to keep listening to it, if you haven't subscribed yet, you can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Overcast, Castro. Wherever you can get podcasts, we are very likely there. And also, rate us and let people know how you love our show, and that would be helpful to attract other listeners like you. Brian S: And Major Gifts Officer, do you want to make a pitch? Rachel Burgess: Yeah, so if you like the work that we're doing here at Reconstructing Judaism, you like our podcast, please support the work that we do. You can do that by going to reconstructingjudaism.org/support. Rachel Burgess: So we have an amazing interview today. We're going to be talking with Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who at the time we recorded the interview, she was just a few weeks away from becoming a rabbi. So that's why we wanted to put the disclaimer in at the beginning. But I have to say that this woman is probably one of the most amazing people I have ever met, and I hope when I grow up some day, I'm just an ounce like Sandra Lawson. Brian S: Yeah, I do miss having Rabbi Sandra around the building. There was a time where I lived a block from her, so miss having Sandra and her partner, Susan, as a neighbor. It's funny, I listened ... I don't want to get ... It's too early in the podcast episode to get serious, but I had a thought at least seemed serious to me in my head, which was ... I don't know about you. I went into this episode thinking we were going to discuss Judaism and technology, because that was our focus. It's kind of been one of our ongoing themes. And kind of thought, "Well, I know Rabbi Sandra is very eloquent about speaking about issues of Judaism and race and identity." And I'm like, "Okay, we'll save that for another podcast." because this is the technology episode, and it's almost like ... I'm not one of these folks who uses the term "white privilege" all that often, but it kind of dawned on me, like, "Oh yes, I can just turn that off and say we're not going to talk about race. It's going to be something totally separate." Brian S: But I think it was a surprise to me to see how much Rabbi Sandra's approach to technology was related to issues of race and how she's perceived and been reacted to in the Jewish community. So it was a little bit of a light bulb moment for me, and what I hope isn't the last. because nobody wants to feel, "I'm 42 now and stuck in life with the same attitude." So I don't know. That's me. I'm off my soapbox, now. Rachel Burgess: Well, it's actually funny, because there was another part of that interview that I think about, actually, quite a bit. because we're going to be going into why she got so interested in technology, why she became a musician. And basically, the way that she approaches her life in general is she doesn't see challenges ... I mean, she sees challenges, but she doesn't see them as impossible road blocks. She doesn't see them as blocking her way. She uses these tools around her in order to make a difference and do great things and get her voice out there in a very impactful, meaningful way. And that's really an inspiration to not just say, "Okay, this is really hard. I'm just going to give up," and instead saying, "Wait a minute. How am I going to find a solution that's going to work to help me do what I need to do?" And so I think about this interview quite a bit as well. Brian S: And there's so much of her life we didn't talk about. We didn't get into the military and her time as a US military police in South Korea. Maybe that will be another podcast episode. But I'm about to introduce our guest, who is actually not here in the studio, but through the magic of illusion and audio technology in about 30 seconds ... Rachel Burgess: And magic. Brian S: ... You'll think she's here, because ... Rachel Burgess: It's also magic. We're also in a rabbinical school in an institution of faith. Brian S: Yes. So as I said, Rabbi Sandra Lawson graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College this past June, and we already miss her. Rabbi Sandra is the Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life and the Hillel Jewish Educator at Elon University in North Carolina. She is a thoughtful pioneer of using social media to teach Torah and was once named by JTA as one of the "Ten Jews You Should Follow on Snapchat." Brian S: She's also been called the Snapchat Rabbi and she describes herself as a sociologist, personal trainer, weightlifter, vegan, writer, public speaker, and musician. So, welcome Rabbi Sandra to Trending Jewish. It's a thrill to have you. You actually got the moniker "The Snapchat Rabbi." I don't know if you asked for that or not, but you're on Snapchat, you're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. How did you get into this? How did you decide, "This is a space that there's a vacuum in and I want to fill it?" because I know it's been a process of at least a couple years of experimenting, exploring. Rabbi Sandra L: Yeah, I mean, for me ... And you know, other people have different stories, but for me this using social media to teach Torah, using social media to show the world that I'm a rabbi, came out of fear and necessity. My first year at RRC, I went on a couple of job interviews and instead of being asked about my skills or what I could offer the community or typical questions when you go on an interview, I was constantly asked either about my race or how I was Jewish or when I converted. And I actually went on one interview where I was never asked any questions about skills at all, because the person just couldn't get past the fact that I was a rabbinical student, I was Jewish, or whatever her particular hangup was. Rabbi Sandra L: In this particular community, I had assumed that I wasn't going to get the job because she didn't really interview me, but I still needed to perform. I still needed to do the service and go through the process. So I was like, "I'm just going to tell the community my story of how I arrived." And once I did that, when I was leading the service and I gave my d'var, people were much more open to me and then we were able to have a conversation about skills, because I sort of laid it out there. And I had learned right away that I didn't want to be a rabbi who graduates from rabbinical school and still having to explain and answer the question, "How are you a rabbi? When did you convert?" Or whatever the inappropriate questions were. I wanted to show people. So I spent the next five years creating an online presence, so when people Googled me, they could see that I was a rabbinical student, they could learn about me. I put my bio up for people to see. Rabbi Sandra L: And as I started doing that, I got more comfortable in the medium and as different apps started coming along, I would try them. Some of them were crap. Some of them were fun, like Snapchat. And I watched other people on Snapchat and was like, "What can I do on this platform?" And I just decided to teach Torah. And that turned into a story, and I was just having fun. Rachel Burgess: It's interesting also, because in your social media presence, you're also not just Rabbi Sandra, you're also this really, really fun, interesting person. I remember one summer you were doing, "Okay, I'm doing a mile for a day..." Rabbi Sandra L: Oh, right, yeah. Rachel Burgess: And you would sing some music or mouth some music and dance to that, and then a couple days later you would give this great piece of Torah. How do you ... Instead of just putting your skillsets out there, why do you put so much ... I mean, I'm glad that you put so much of your personality, because it's fun and engaging and exciting, and I love it. But I think there's also this bit of being a rabbi where you have to separate your personal, emotional self from your work, because you can easily get drained from it. So how do you create that ... How do you decide how much of yourself you put into your work? Rabbi Sandra L: The interesting thing about social media is, I think people forget when they use the platforms that the operative word is "social" and so, social media is about getting people to follow you, getting people interested in you, and sharing parts of your journey. And so I remember that I was doing that challenge with my wife. I'm not a big runner, and I figured running a mile a day would be fun. So I started posting things like that to sort of hold me accountable. Like, if I'm telling people that I have to run a mile a day, then I have to run a mile a day. And people did like that, and people started following me. Rabbi Sandra L: I don't share everything. There's things that I keep personal. But I try to share some of my day so that people who want to see that can see it. So like, usually, if Susan and I are going to the gym, people can see some craziness of our workout or whatever. That's kind of where social media is right now when it comes to Facebook and Instagram and ... People want to see what people are doing throughout the day. And when I've talked with other rabbis who just want to put content out there, like put their Torah and they don't understand why no one's engaging with them, I'm like, "because you need to show some of the personal. You need to show the process of creating your podcast or the process of writing your d'var or a photo of yourself or something like that." Brian S: Yeah, I love the early morning gym posts and videos. So you're being modest, not much of a runner, but you're, I don't know, squatting 500 pounds. I don't know what your squat ... Rabbi Sandra L: Yeah, that's easier for me than running. Brian S: I was here at an event where you talked about your one minute Torah podcast and there was almost ... definitely curiosity on the part of the faculty here. Like, "We didn't train you to do it like this. We didn't train you to teach Torah like this. How did you learn it?" And I guess I'm wondering, do you really approach interpreting a Jewish text differently in an online form than you would talking in a room or in a synagogue or at a café where you've led services? Or is it just more similar than your teachers realize? Rabbi Sandra L: For me ... and Elsie, our dean, asked about this ... I created the podcast after Trump was elected and I realized that I had a lot of audio and video from my Snapchat stuff and my Instagram stuff. Initially, I sort of took some of that audio and edited it into the first podcast episode. And I also was sort of reading and seeing a lot of tweets and Facebook messages that were just ... People weren't happy, and a lot of people were angry, and I didn't want to contribute to that. I was also in my own sort of kind of pain around like, "How did we get where we are?" I didn't want to contribute to that. I didn't want to be a part of that hostility. I wasn't happy that Trump was elected either, but I wanted to put more positivity into the online space. Rabbi Sandra L: And so that first year of that podcast sort of came out of the fact ... One, I believe most Jewish podcasts by rabbis are just too long. It's just regurgitating whatever they did in their d'var, and it's long and it doesn't ... I don't think it's appealing. Some of them are. And I'm talking about the podcasts where it's just the rabbi talking, not like interactive podcasts. And so I didn't want to contribute to that. And I also realized that if I didn't sit there and say, "In Leviticus 20 whatever," or "the Torah portion Emor whatever ..." All of that stuff, all that textual stuff, could be in the side notes. And once I got rid of that, I could actually, in a minute, give some teaching that showed gratitude or gave some people ... Rabbi Erica Steelman said it was like a little pearl of wisdom in a minute. It was just enough to sort of put positive energy into the world. Rabbi Sandra L: I've actually since changed the format of my podcast. But that's where that sort of minute came from. Brian S: And I guess just back to my original question. Do you think that took a totally different skillset or approach, or was it just adapting what you learned to a new format? Rabbi Sandra L: I think both. Actually, I have to realize, I got the idea from Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, who does something similar. And I was like, "Oh, I can teach Torah in a minute. That's totally possible." But I do. I think it's sort of creating a different way to teach, creating a different way to teach Torah. You know, you spend all this time in school and you're taught your sermon should be 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever, depending on the setting and nobody says how do you condense that down into a minute. And you do it by taking a small chunk of it and creating a little teaching and you save the rest for another day, or you put it in the side notes or something. Brian S: I'm just ... It feels so related to me, so I'm going to follow up. Granted, when somebody goes to [a] service, we have no way of knowing how much they were impacted, whether it really hit them, whether they're going to go out and behave differently. But there seems to be a question out there of, how do you gauge the impact of online Jewish content. I guess my two-part question is, is that fair, is there sort of a bias against the online sphere, and is there a way you have been able to gauge the impact you've had on your listeners, viewers? Rabbi Sandra L: Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is that what social media provides you is instant access to whoever you want to connect with. So if people like what they see or are touched by what they hear or whatever, they can immediately contact me through the messaging part of Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook, or just comment. And I have ... I remember this one woman. I don't know her name, but she sent a photo of herself and her daughter to me and it said, "We don't make it to shul every time, but my daughter and I sit and listen to your Snapchat stories." And I was just like, "Wow." That's pretty amazing, and it felt really personal and I was really touched by it. And she was also saying in that same thing that like, "This is another way for me to connect with my Jewish identity and another way for me to teach my daughter about Judaism, and it doesn't necessarily have to be us going to a shul all the time." Rabbi Sandra L: And I've had other people ... I have a lot of people who follow me who aren't Jewish, who are just sort of curious. I had a woman tell me ... Actually, we've become friends online. I've never met her in person, and she's coming to my graduation. Brian S: Oh, wow. Rachel Burgess: Wow. Rabbi Sandra L: And she found me on Snapchat and we've since followed each other on Instagram and other platforms, but she said that her sister or somebody in her life close to her converted to Judaism and she never understood why until she started listening to me. And it made sense ... She still may not understand why her sister converted, but I'm giving her access to something that is important to her sister and now it makes more sense to her. Rachel Burgess: I'm curious, also, because we've ... We're talking to people about the trends in the Jewish community, so we know that people aren't coming to shul, that memberships are dropping in synagogues, and you are at this cutting edge of technology where nobody was really doing what you were doing and sharing Torah in your way. And from the things that you're seeing and from these different organizations and these different startup communities that are happening, what do you feel like is the future of the rabbi? What is the rabbi now, as opposed to what the rabbi was even ten, twenty years ago? Rabbi Sandra L: I think what's interesting is, I personally think this is an exciting time to be Jewish and it's an exciting time to be a rabbi. What makes me sad is that there are many in the Jewish community that are fearful. There are many rabbis who are fearful, because they don't know or don't recognize the Judaism that's coming out. So Rabbi Benay Lappe says that the Judaism that exists now ... And she said this in a podcast with Judaism Unbound ... will probably be completely unrecognizable to the Judaism that her parents or grandparents had. Rabbi Sandra L: I sort of feel like the time period that we're in right now is probably close to the time period ... or close to the change that happened after the Second Temple was destroyed. Those rabbis were radical, entrepreneurial. And I know there are stories that we tell about them that may not coincide with actual history. But Judaism could have died and it reinvented itself. And we're in the stage right now that the rabbis who are more forward thinking, the communities that are more forward thinking, that are trying to attack the issues that are happening in their community in a forward thinking instead of ... What I mean by ... For example, the solution to finances, "How do we get more members in?" or how do we get ... "We raise dues" or whatever. That was one way of thinking about it. There are now other models of "How do we raise more money?" Rabbi Sandra L: And so communities that are more transparent about that process and thinking more outside the box are succeeding. And the ones that are continuing to try things that don't work or are continuing to do things because they do work but they're not working as effectively, are really having a hard time right now. Brian S: So I guess I'm not sure how to ask this, but you can zap me if I ask it the wrong way. But based on your forward thinking mindset and sort of just based on who you are when somebody meets you, black, queer ... Do you feel better positioned to kind of encounter Jews on sort of these outer edges? And is it more challenging to approach traditional settings? Rabbi Sandra L: Yes and no and whatever. I think because ... I think I'm uniquely situated. I didn't grow up Jewish, so I didn't grow up with any of the baggage. That's also kind of sad, because a lot of things that I just don't inherently understand. So, sort of growing up on the outside and coming in as an adult, I often see things in Jewish communities that other people may not see. Until I started rabbinical school, I did see myself on the margins of Jewish life, like I'm someone that sits on the outside. Now I'm a rabbi, it's kind of hard to say I'm on the outside. But I still am because people, when they see me, they see my blackness before they see me, and they often see my blackness before they recognize or even understand or care that I'm Jewish. And even after I've expressed a Jewish identity, people still forget because they have their ideas about what a Jew is supposed to look like. Rabbi Sandra L: And then the rabbi thing, that's just like ... If you Google "rabbi," you have to go down like, five rows before you even see a female. We still have this image of a rabbi online with payot and beards and [the] dude is white. Rachel Burgess: So I'm curious also as you were saying, you talk about these experiences that you didn't have. But I think also in your experiences that you've had doing these very innovative things, what have you learned through your work with social media and that online presence? What has that done to shape you as a Jew and a rabbi? Rabbi Sandra L: It's reminded me that people still need rabbis. And that people are still excited to be Jews and people are still excited to learn about Judaism, and we have a lot to offer. I believe that if I didn't use social media, I might be one of these people like, "Nobody cares about Judaism, and what do we do?" But I encounter people all the time who are excited to be Jews. They just don't really like what's being offered to them. And that doesn't mean I have a solution, but I'm just saying that people right now ... I don't know the numbers, but I feel like the largest growing demographic of Jews are the unaffiliated. And a lot of those people are happy and excited to be Jews. They love their Judaism, but they don't want to go to a shul, they don't want to go to a JCC, they want to express their Judaism in other ways. And what that is, that's the challenge. Maybe finding out what they want to do. Brian S: I'm going to feel really silly if you tell me you've been singing and playing guitar since you were five years old. I get the sense that it's something that's come about relatively recently. So I guess I'm wondering, did your exploration of music just come out of a passion and love for music, or was it just a sense of how much people experience their Judaism musically and you felt you needed that component, or was it a little bit of both? Rabbi Sandra L: It's kind of a funny story. I took some guitar lessons when I was a kid. Brian S: All right. So ... Rabbi Sandra L: I did take some. But nothing major. Like, I could move up and down the neck. I don't read music. I could play chord structures from songs. I couldn't figure out the strumming and the singing at the same time. And I was terrified to do either one of those things in front of people. So I would sit in my apartment or my house or wherever I was living with me and my dogs, trying to learn some song. And that was it. Nothing. So the funny thing is I really struggled with Hebrew, and Tirzah Rom, who was a teacher here, told me that I had ... One of our projects was we had to teach a class for ten minutes. And I was okay with reading text, but verbalizing Hebrew was really hard for me and I would go into these what I would call panic attacks whenever I had to try to talk because I couldn't figure it out. Brian S: You had to teach a class in Hebrew? Rabbi Sandra L: Yeah. Thank you. When she gave us this assignment and everybody left the room, she made a beeline for me. She's like, "I know, I know. You're worried. But you can do anything in those ten minutes, just don't read." And so I go home and I write this script for my class and I couldn't embody it. I couldn't get the Hebrew in me enough because I kept doing this mental translation every time, going from English to Hebrew, and it was taking so long and then I couldn't ... It just ... If I could read it, I would be okay. Rabbi Sandra L: And so, out of desperation I was like, "I'll just singsong it." So I grabbed my guitar and I was just going to play some chords and I was going to use the music to help me to remember the words, but when I did that, that didn't work either. Rachel Burgess: Oh my gosh. Rabbi Sandra L: So it was late at night and I just sort of took this script and I actually just changed it into a song. I really thought I was going to fail, because I was like, "I'll write this song. I'll bring it to class. People can read the song as we're singing it on the board and I can have the song in front of me." So in my mind, it was sort of like reading but not. And I was like, I had nothing to ... I was like, "I'm going to fail this class, but I'm going to do what I was assigned to do and if I fail, I've gave it my best shot." And so, I did two things that day. I created a script using puppets and I wrote this song to teach the class. And when it was over ... And people were singing the song, and I didn't really write it down, so I don't remember what it was today. And also, the grammar sort of went out the window, too, because I was trying to get the Hebrew to rhyme. Rabbi Sandra L: And when the class was over, I just thought Tirzah was going to fail me. And she came over to me and she's like, "That was awesome!" And Tirzah was like, this typical Israeli woman who I loved dearly, but was not the most affectionate person outwardly. And she was like, "Every year students do the same thing over and over and over again, but you!" And so I was like, "Oh, wow! I'm going to pass." That's all I thought about, seriously. Like, "I'm going to make it through this program." Rabbi Sandra L: And Amber Powers, who at the time ... Rabbi Amber Powers was the ... I think her role at the time was the Dean of Admissions, but she was also a rabbi in the building that I talked to a lot. She stopped me one day and she's like, "You play guitar?" And I was like, "It's sort of a secret. Nobody knows. I'm like a closet guitar player." And she's like, "You should do something with that, because that's actually good and you could get a job with that." And so it made me think about it in a different way. I didn't come to RRC expecting to be another rabbi with a guitar. Rabbi Sandra L: And so I started posting songs and stuff online, because I didn't have the background of Hebrew songs and so I wanted to learn those songs on my guitar. And so as I learned them, posting them online was another way to sort of get over my fear of playing in front of people. And also because I didn't have the background of Jewish songs, but I did have the prayer knowledge, I just started writing my own stuff and writing my own prayers. So yeah, that's how that happened. Rachel Burgess: It seems like also you're doing these brilliant things and when you're telling these stories, it almost sounds like it came out of a place of fear, where "I started playing around on social media because I was afraid I wasn't going to get a job and having to explain my background over and over again and I started playing guitar because I was afraid I was going to fail my Hebrew class." But look at these amazing things. Even though you had this fear, you not only didn't let it stop you, but it somehow sparked something in you to just do something incredible and think outside of the box. Is that inherited? Have you always been that way, or ... Rabbi Sandra L: I don't know. It's interesting, because I was talking to another rabbi friend of mine a few months ago about this and we were sort of discussing at the time that maybe my military background had something to do with it. Like, how do you approach a problem, solving a problem. But yeah, for me, a lot of these things did happen out of fear. I was sort of fed up with constantly explaining how I'm a rabbi or how I'm Jewish, so now when I send out information about myself, I put a link to my website so that people will see right away that I am different and that we can move to the next step with the conversation. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Rabbi Sandra L: Sometimes I think because I didn't come in here with this model of how a rabbi's supposed to be ... I mean, before I came here, I really had two rabbis and they are ... Rabbi Liz Bolton, who's a rabbi in Canada. She used to be in Baltimore. And Rabbi Joshua Lesser. Those were my two models. Those two models are awesome. I mean, one's a trained opera singer and Josh is just amazing and how he sees community. Those were my examples. Brian S: I'm wondering, does being relatively open about vulnerabilities, fear, the obstacles you've overcome ... Does that help you as a rabbi in some way? Because encountering the Jewish tradition can be scary. Encountering Hebrew can be scary. Talking about God or life's big questions, all of these things can be difficult for people. It's a threshold to ... I'm wondering if that aspect of you can ... if you've found it helps you connect with others. Rabbi Sandra L: I think so. And I also think, as I've talked to some people that I've gone to school with ... If you are a cisgendered white male, and you are a rabbi, you can pretty much protect a lot of your identity. You can get away with not sharing a lot of personal information and people tend to assume that they don't need to know those things about you. A colleague of mine ... I'm not going to say his name ... But he was saying how, when he was interviewing for a job, did not like to disclose that he was single, or anything about himself. And after a conversation with me, he didn't realize how much privilege he had. And I said, "I don't have the luxury of not sharing about myself, because people assume a level of knowledge or assume a level of entitlement to learning about me." Rabbi Sandra L: And so, what I've decided to do was to share ... to sort of craft that narrative, to have control over that narrative. So to answer your question, yes, I think it does help when people learn about me, and I think it gives them an opportunity to get to know me. But it's also because people have asked me some of the most crazy, inappropriate questions that I just don't think my male colleagues ever get asked. Or white colleagues, actually. Brian S: Just from talking with you today and talking with you in the past, it's clear that sometimes being asked, "What's your story?" immediately upon introduction is problematic at the least. I mean, obviously, I walk into a room full of Jews, nobody asks, "What's your Jewish story?" Maybe they should, because we all have our own paths in life. But I guess I'm just ... As something that maybe is instructive for us, for our listeners, what kinds of situations would make that sharing more comfortable? Rabbi Sandra L: One thing that's interesting is, if people just asked me what's my story, that would actually be okay. That's actually, I think, a fair question because it gives me the opportunity to respond how I want to. The challenge is ... As far as I'm concerned, all Jewish stories are important. All Jewish stories are amazing. And when we focus on those stories of people who look different than people in our community, we're missing some amazing stories out there. Rabbi Sandra L: When I walk into a Jewish space, or when I'm in a Jewish community, often for the first time ... And this happens less and less and less. Keep that in mind, because as I move through the world, people know more about me. It's not just like, "Tell me your story." It's like, "When did you convert?" Upon meeting me, shaking my hand, "When did you convert?" That is literally ... before my name, before anything else. Or, "How are you Jewish?" Before ... People get so tripped over themselves that they forget common manners. Like, "Hi, my name is Sandra. What's your name? Tell me your story." Rabbi Sandra L: So it would actually be refreshing if someone said to me ... Which I had one person say it that way. But when I did tell them my story, they weren't happy. What they really wanted to know is how am I black and Jewish. But people need to understand that when they ask ... Being curious is fine, but when the curiosity sort of gets in the way of someone's movement ... So, like, if you're so curious that I can't even sit down in the pew, or if you're so curious that I can't even pray, that's problematic. If your curiosity is ... And I'll share this as an example. I had someone interrupt me during the Amidah, which is like, the prayer you shouldn't interrupt people, to ask me how I was Jewish. In my mind, this person could not get over themselves how I was standing next to them in my prayer shawl ... Rachel Burgess: Oh my god. Rabbi Sandra L: ... in my kippah, and just had to ask. I don't remember how he phrased it, but ... He might have even said, "Are you Jewish?" And I was like, "Now?" I mean, I don't even know what I said to him. This was a Conservative synagogue somewhere in the world. But that is sort of like ... It's keeping me from doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Or people's curiosity keeps me from movement. Rabbi Sandra L: Before I came to RRC, I worked for the Anti-Defamation League, and I won't go into all the details, but when I was done with my presentation, two men ... tall men ... kept insisting that they wanted to know how I was Jewish. Now, I was there to teach all these donors, but these two men sort of blocked me into a corner because they were so curious about me that I couldn't actually have access to the other donors to talk to them. That's why I was brought down. And when I didn't answer the questions they wanted to, they just kept insisting. So here I am a small ... smaller than them. Both these men were over six feet tall. And I don't think they realized how ... In some ways, sort of ... probably weird ... like, terrifying, like how much power their male presence had, because they could not get over themselves with their curiosity of how I was Jewish. Rabbi Sandra L: And I know that's ... I'm not white, so I don't really understand what goes on for white Jews when they do that. But I know that I experienced it. I know my experiences are not unique as a Jew of color. But curiosity is fine. It's just ... be respectful. Rachel Burgess: Let the woman pray, damn it. Rabbi Sandra L: Oh, I could tell you stories for days, but ... Brian S: I think it was really hopeful what you said about the importance of all Jewish stories, and I think we could extrapolate the importance of all human stories. Rachel Burgess: It's such a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you, to see you become a rabbi. I have learned so much from you, and I just want to be you when I grow up. Rabbi Sandra L: Oh my God, thank you. Rachel Burgess: And I hope that everybody gets a chance to check you out on all of your social media profiles, so on Facebook, on Snapchat, on YouTube. Check out her website. Learn some Torah. Rabbi Sandra L: Yeah, thank you. This was fun. It was awesome. Rachel Burgess: Thank you so much. Brian S: There are plenty of places to check out all of the amazing Torah insights and personal comings and goings of Rabbi Sandra on Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram. Her handle is @sandrajlawson. Facebook, you can find her at Rabbi Sandra. And her website, which is sort of a clearinghouse for everything she's doing, sandrajlawson.com. There are some great articles, profiles written about Rabbi Sandra there. There's also a pretty cool podcast interview she did with Judaism Unbound about a year and a half ago. So check out sandrajlawson.com. Rachel Burgess: And you can check us out on Facebook. We're on facebook.com/trendingjewish. And you can check us out on our website. We have other links and different resources at trendingjewish.fireside.fm. And you can subscribe to our podcast on Google Play and on iTunes and Stitcher and Castro and wherever you can download podcasts. If you like what you're listening to and you like the work that Reconstructing Judaism does, you can definitely show your support. Support our work by going to reconstructingjudaism.org/support. Lihitraot! Brian S: Lehitraot! Brian S: We already miss her. Um ... Strike that "um." Or leave it in. I don't care.