Today to launch our season on tikkun olam, we sit down with Rabbi Susan Goldberg, the founder of Nefesh in Los Angeles and Rebecca’s very own rabbi-on-speed-dial. We laugh with our bellies and dive into the difference between healing and repair, how to make peace with our ancestors, and the utmost importance of making space for repair in yourself, in your family, and in your community. Amy also gets rewarded her very own badge of K’rov Israel.

Check out NefeshLA.org for more on Rabbi Goldberg.

An Edited Transcript of Our Convo:

Rebecca Lehrer: You are listening to The Mash-Up Americans.

Amy S. Choi: Hey, I am Amy S. Choi.

Rebecca Lehrer: And I’m Rebecca Lehrer. And we are the Mash-Up Americans. We are back.

Amy S. Choi: Well, some form of us is back. We’re mostly back. Whatever has happened to our souls in our bodies and our brains in the past year, we are new and different people. I’m going to say growthgift.com, but I don’t know. I don’t know. Would somebody consider us lesser? What?

Rebecca Lehrer: Maybe if they’re rude. Well, I have no time for that person. No, a lot has happened this year. A lot of life has happened in our personal lives and in the world, but I think we are here and ready to engage, so that’s something.

Amy S. Choi: Yes, it’s actually almost comical. I don’t know that even doing some sort of laundry list of catch up over the past year-

Rebecca Lehrer: No, no.

Amy S. Choi: … it’s just simply-

Rebecca Lehrer: Life.

Amy S. Choi: … life. Life lifed so hard this year.

Rebecca Lehrer: There was a lot of grieving and death. There was a lot of big secrets and family reveals. There was a lot of learning about ourselves and placing ourselves in different contexts that we didn’t realize we were meant to be in. There was also a lot of showing up for ourselves and each other, which really was heartening and grounding in swirls of time, would you say like that?

Amy S. Choi: You know what? Okay, that list was good.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, it was both specific and not. And also beautiful children growing and business booming and wonderful partnerships and richness and life. With that, we also have these feelings, I would say in us, which is-

Amy S. Choi: Oh God, we have so many.

Rebecca Lehrer: …. so many feelings. And I think part of what has become really clear to us in our conversations this year and in our experiences is that, what does it mean to pick a lane in this world and make something good happen? And also how much of the world can feel broken and has pieces everywhere, but actually how much opportunity there is for repair? And so this season we want to talk about repair at The Mash-Up Americans.

Amy S. Choi: Repair. And I think part of that is that it happens to us and we see it happening to the boldest and brightest people who are our friends, is just that there is so much in the world, as we said, life is really lifing and the world is really fucking worlding right now. And it can feel like you get struck by a kind of paralysis when you’re like, there is so much happening and I want to do my part. And that is part of how we see ourselves as being a part of the world and being part of community is helping and doing something to fix our little corner. And also, it’s hard when you’re like, do I focus on my corner when it’s the whole world that seems like it’s crashing down sometimes? And I think that is what we really wanted to get into is how can we do what we can in our lane and still live these beautiful and joyous lives?

And so we really think about repair as our end point to this trilogy that we’ve been exploring in terms of subject matter, like grief. We got to work through our shit. That’s what we did two years ago. And then we had how to… Our guide to a mash-up life, how do we really pursue the richness and the vibrancy and the beauty of the world and what it has to offer and what we can soak up from it and what we can give to it? And now it’s like part of living a really good life is also leaving a better world for the future. We’re both moms, we both have kids. We’re both deeply connected and intertwined in the peoples and all the peoples that are in our lives. And so what can we do? And luckily my favorite peoples, the Jews. The Jews have a concept for it.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, there’s this idea of repair of tikkun olam and repairing the world. There’s also teshuvah, which is repair, interpersonal repair, which is an interesting thing that we’ll get into. But you grieve for what’s broken and lost and you live fully and joyfully for all the time you have on this earth. And you also build and repair for the future. I think we actually feel… We’re very much not cynics, I would say.

Amy S. Choi: No.

Rebecca Lehrer: We feel clear about the challenges in this world, but in community with each other and community with our kids and their schools and our friends and family and our found family, there’s so much hope and richness and chance to make a difference. And that’s where we want to focus. We’re channeling Mary Oliver thinking about what are we going to do with this one wild and precious life. And so to set that stage and get us going on a season of repair, we are welcoming Rabbi Susan Goldberg, who is my personal rabbi and Amy’s adopted rabbi.

Amy S. Choi: I’ve got a couple, but she’s very special to me, Rabbi Susan Goldberg,

Rebecca Lehrer: Rabbi Susan Goldberg is a Northeast Los Angeles native like myself. She was a rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, one of the largest temples in the city. And about five years ago she left to start her own community called Nefesh here on the east side of Los Angeles. It is growing and richness of spirituality and thought and intellect and love and community, and it is a spectacular place. And she’s an extremely thoughtful person and you may recognize her persona as the rabbi in Transparent, so here is Rabbi Susan Goldberg.

Amy S. Choi: Rabbi, thank you so much for being here. I’m so thrilled. And as we like to joke, Rebecca is our honorary Korean, she’s been adopted into the Korean culture. And I really feel like a Jew adjacent. I grew up in a Jewish community. I spent my adolescent years at bar and bat mitzvahs just feel really close with the Jews. And I think to me, the thing that has-

Rebecca Lehrer: There’s a lot of jokes about-

Amy S. Choi: Koreans and Jews.

Rebecca Lehrer: We thought we’d open a bar.

Amy S. Choi: K’s and J’s. That would be our signature cocktail. But to me, the idea of tikkun olam has always made the most sense to me as a spiritual concept or a way of bringing religion into our actual human lives and grounding it. And it’s ambitious but also realistic. My understanding of it as a Jew adjacent has been that we strive to do something to repair the tears in the world that we are born into. And the suffering and what we see in the brokenness is part of what makes us human and also the humanness that we have to try and fix something in our little corner of the world, what we can do. And so as somebody who has always loved and read about this concept, is this accurate? Can you tell us what is tikkun olam?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Beautiful. I also want to say, I want to try that cocktail.

Amy S. Choi: The K’s and J’s?

Rebecca Lehrer: It’s so delicious.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And there’s actually a term for exactly what you just said, k’rov yisrael, being close, k’rov, to draw near to the Jewish people.

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh my God, I’m going to get you a new sweatshirt, k’rov yisrael.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: There is a concept. It’s a beautiful thing. We’ve always lived amongst other peoples and there’s been a sense of affinity. And so it’s beautiful to hear you say that. And yeah, it is true what you’re saying about tikkun olam. And it is a spiritual concept and it’s a very practical and lived concept, which is how Judaism expresses much of our spirituality is in the very lived experience of the here and now and how we take care of ourselves each other, our communities and the world. And so this idea of tikkun olam actually comes from a mystical framework that people have heard because Madonna had popularized the idea of Kabbalah, but it’s a form of Jewish mysticism that either emerged in the medieval period or some people believe it was discovered from a more ancient time.

In the medieval time, we’ve discovered something more ancient. And there are lots of things to Kabbalah, but one piece is that this guy Isaac Luria, as we always do in Judaism, we take core concepts and we continue to wrestle with them throughout the generations, change them, add things, focus on parts and not others. That’s always been our history, which is frankly why I think we’ve survived for so long, our willingness to change and grow. And so he added a whole look at the cosmology, at the beginnings of the universe. And he had this idea of the shattering of vessels that the way he describes it actually feels pretty linked to a Big Bang idea, so there was a shattering of vessels. And then all of us in what we do are repairing these vessels. We’re doing a tikkun. Tikkun means to repair, so tikkun olam originally has this cosmological beginning and a mystical beginning that our actions have these ripples throughout time that are larger than ourselves, which we know to be true generationally, ancestrally.

And it’s pretty profound to think about how that can actually repair the texture, the surface of all things. And then in more modern times, again, we have this active, alive tradition with ancient teachings that in every generation we make new and also stick to. It’s both. If we had only made new and don’t stick to traditions, then we also wouldn’t be here. Judaism continues because we both hold fast to our tradition and we’re always changing it. And what I find, which is interesting is some people think it’s one or the other, but really it’s both.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, I feel like there’s a note. I assume this happens in everything. I do feel it in the world where you think because something started the day before you started doing it, you assume it was always there.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: And then you’re like, oh, no, wait, that was a song they introduced last month, I just didn’t know because I only started this month.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: I just showed up.

Rebecca Lehrer: And you are then the person who immediately becomes lowercase conservative about that song. You’re like, no, I need to-

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: This is mine.

Rebecca Lehrer: This is the tradition.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: This is tradition.

Rebecca Lehrer: And I think that’s the attention.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And inside baseball, I would say that you very much know, Rebecca, that what song you do is a thing.

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, my gosh.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Like how come you’re doing all different tunes? In any case, in this more modern period, tikkun olam, this concept that came from a mystical, cosmological place has very much become how Jewish people talk about social justice, so repair of the world, tikkun olam, to repair the olam, the world. And I feel it holds all of it and more. I think it also has real internal implications for our own growth, generational implications, family healing, as well as healing of our neighborhoods, our communities, our country, our world. And all of that is alive inside of this idea of tikkun olam. And just this idea of tikkun, of repair, is so meaningful. This idea of tikkun as literal repair, like we’re literally re-sewing the fabric of places that have been harmed and holding them with tenderness.

Amy S. Choi: Is there a difference to you between repair and healing?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: That’s a great question. I think healing can be so many things. It’s so expansive. We do prayers for healing as a part of every service. And when you hear somebody’s sick, we immediately say, [foreign language 00:12:28], may they have a healing of wholeness. And it’s an interesting thing because I’ve learned along the way, sitting with people who are dealing with illness, I’m also a cancer survivor myself, that healing is not the same as cure and healing can have resonances beyond what might seem to be a cure. We can be healed, but still be ongoing in dealing with what it is that we’re dealing with. And repair, to me has healing inside of it has great potential for healing. But repair for me has also this element of doing, it’s action forward. We’re going to do something in order to repair. And sometimes healing can come from being, coming to a place of acceptance and being with what is. It’s another way that I think about faith, that faith is being with what is and fighting for what’s possible.

And I think that that is inside, again, the way the Jewish tradition approaches spirituality is that there is doing. And I know this is going to be an odd thing to say, but sometimes doing is not doing. Sometimes to do something is to refrain from doing. And that’s a huge part of Jewish spiritual practice. We have what’s called the mitzvot, the commandments of ethical and ritual things that we do. But there are more things that we’re commanded to not do than we’re told to do, so how do you make something different? People always think, oh, I’m going to make this thing special by doing these things. Sometimes you’re going to make an interaction special or a spiritual happening happen because you don’t talk or you don’t say the thing that would cause harm. Or you don’t treat the person this way, or you don’t give your money or your time and attention to really awful things in the internet, you refrain.

Refraining is a huge part of doing, so when I’m saying we do, I also want to make it clear that I include not doing in terms of an action of repair, because sometimes repair involves us actively refraining from habits and patterns that we’ve been in.

Amy S. Choi: I think the thread there is the consciousness with which you approach either of those things.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes.

Amy S. Choi: And saying, oh, this is going to be intentional, that I will not or I will do.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: You’re a community leader. You’re my rabbi. I’ll tell you, having your rabbi on text is a real upgrade.

Amy S. Choi: I feel real jealousy. She’s like, “I’m just going to call Susan.”

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m just going to text my rabbi to see if I could get some just quick advice. But you are holding a community, being a spiritual leader, and with many theologies, it’s a Jewish community. And then in this, I want to say this last year, but has been extremely volatile and tense, especially fraught for those, I think for everybody. And within my own heart and soul, the stuff you’re learning, unlearning trying to do or not do without also having any answer to the thing. And I wonder how, while also knowing one of the key tenants, the core tenants of our tradition is about the alleviation of suffering, about community care and compassion, which I do believe should also go to ourselves and to others. But it’s been so… It’s such a hard work to not just put your head in the sand or to also have any form of a knee-jerk reaction.

And at the same time to feel in a very precarious situation as a Jew, because that is a defining feature of being, a half of us at this point or whatever, being a diasporic peoples, it’s defined as being a little bit outside of things and always slightly precarious. And I do think that motivates so much of the theologies and compassions, and to me it’s actually what’s beautiful about it. And also it could feel so scary. And I wonder, for you in holding that and knowing the long game, the long history, but also trying to hold this huge cornucopia in your community of points of view, let’s say about what’s happening in Gaza or what happened on October 7th in Israel. How do you lead that while also evolving your own sense of what is right or what you know?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: It’s true we have a real diversity of experience around Israel, Palestine in our community and the whole Jewish world does. And I think that’s one thing for people to know and keep in mind that any community is not a monolith. And if any community is not a monolith, let me just tell you, the Jewish people in particular, there’s all kinds of humor about two Jews opinions. And in times where the stakes are so high, where there’s so much pain and suffering, and a tremendous amount of death, it still is the case that we need to stay close to our values. In fact, we need to cling to them even harder. And one of the things that’s been painful in this past year is to see aspects of the Jewish world that have not been able to name and recognize the suffering of others. And that is true in these, when people go to the polls, the extremes of a side, and they can say, well, I see the suffering of this group, but I refuse to see the suffering of another group.

Because it’s really a false binary. Anytime a binary comes up, we need to be red lights, what’s this binary? Is it useful? What does it bring us? And it brings some sense of, I think, protection or protection of self or not needing to see other things and not needing to take in. And I’m saying extremes because there is profound Jewish leadership both on… Certainly we know there is a lot of Jewish community talking about Israel and protection of Israel. And there’s also a lot of Jewish community that is involved in the work to protect Palestinians and in Palestinian liberation. And so one of the things that’s been really hard to see is the difficulty that Jewish people have had in just talking to each other. There is so much repair that has to happen, historical repair, ideation of what the future could bring, a more equitable future, and to not let go of the reality that is possible. It is possible to have a safe and secure place for Israelis to live with dignity and human rights.

And it is possible to have a safe, secure place for Palestinians to live with dignity and human rights inside of a shared land. I really know that that’s possible. And I feel that as a person who stays close to your values and the values of our Jewish tradition, that we need to be able to speak from this place. That’s what we’re called to do. Not to bury our heads in the sand even when it feels like everybody is watching for every word you just said. I’m sure somebody’s going to go back, rewind what I just said. What’s the order in which I said it? How much strength and power did I put behind? And what was my tone of voice? And that’s what it’s like right now to be a leader in the community. And it is overwhelming. It is overwhelming. And that’s nothing compared to the suffering that’s happening, so as much as it is hard to create leadership in this moment, it is about standing inside of our deepest values. And that is why you have Jewish people active on all parts of this inside of this.

Amy S. Choi: Thank you so much for sharing that and being so clear. Just before we started recording, we were talking about ancestral healing as well.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes.

Amy S. Choi: And in hearing you explain nothing that’s happening now is new and the tensions are not new and the violence is not new and there’s so many historical forces at play. And we were talking about earlier, again before we started recording about how when we think about repair or healing, that Jews have a concept of our ancestors actually possessing us.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Inhabiting us.

Amy S. Choi: Inhabiting us.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes, possessing us. Yes.

Amy S. Choi: And how do both on a personal level and a global level, as we think about the healing that is happening and all of the historical forces that are at play, both on us in our bodies and also in the world, can you talk about what that inhabiting means and how we can work with our ancestors to do the work of repair?

Rebecca Lehrer: Wait, can I just tell you though, I was in New York with her October 11th of last year. I didn’t realize all the other terrible personal tragedies I would suffer the next months. But at the airport terminal, as I got to the place where you can sit waiting and plug in your phone, there was just a Zohar.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Just sitting there.

Amy S. Choi: Wow.

Rebecca Lehrer: I took it.

Amy S. Choi: One of Fina’s… My daughter, one of her best friends, is named Zohar.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, Zohar is the book of-

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: It’s the er text Kabbalah.

Rebecca Lehrer: Mysticism, of Jewish mysticism.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And that’s the text-

Rebecca Lehrer: I was like, “This is just sitting here?”

Amy S. Choi: I know.

Rebecca Lehrer: Is it calling me. No, I waited a while.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And that’s the text that either emerged in the medieval period, was either written in the medieval period, or as some people believe-

Rebecca Lehrer: Madonna wrote it.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Not Madonna. It was buried and rediscovered in that medieval period, but was much more ancient. And so one of the mystical ideas is, in terms of tikkun and in terms of ancestral healing as you said, or at least ancestral action to try and repair, is the idea that we can be inhabited by a gilgul. That’s the transmigration of souls, that a gilgul will come into us because there’s something that they didn’t repair or fix that can be causing harm right now. You may be inhabited for a period of time as something that doesn’t belong to you, that’s your ancestral lineage, needs to be repaired. And I find it a profound idea. And I think also that sometimes we feel like, why am I so interested in this? Why am I so involved in this? And it could be because it’s a gilgul. And there are some people believe that since there’s been so many generations now that all of us have gilgulim, that all of us have-

Amy S. Choi: Oh, I have so many, there’s a lot.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Inside of you. And what I appreciate about that, there’s so much hope inside the idea of repair, because the idea of repair tells us that it’s possible that we can repair. And I think in these times-

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re not just broken.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: We’re not broken. And in fact, one of the things I always say about this world that we live in is that it’s always broken in whole at the same time. And all of us are broken and whole at once. And the idea that there can be repair is really hopeful in a time where I know that things can be really bleak and we think, oh, these things aren’t possible. And there’s been a recent shift in this country towards a more hopeful vibe. And what I noticed about it felt like a hook. People’s hook was ready. And can I just hook onto that hope and optimism because I need it? And it’s always available to us.

And part of how we have hope is knowing that repair is possible and that we are ourselves engaged in the work of repair. Because when some people say, “Well, okay, well, how do you continue to be uplifted and things are so hard?” It’s like, “Well, that’s because I’m continuously involved in actions of repair.” People, “Oh, that’s so nice of you to do on behalf of your community or on behalf of your neighborhood or on behalf of people very far from you.” It’s like, yes, it is a really important thing for others, but it’s so important for ourselves. And part of what-

Rebecca Lehrer: Purpose.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And part of the false American idea that’s so individualistic focused is that we don’t need that somehow, that we can be okay. In every level, that this whole idea of a popular family, it’s such a weird, odd, very contemporary, not ancient concept that you could take people away from kinship networks and from everything that they… And put them alone in a house and they’re going to be fine. How we’ve separated people from community, and a lot of what people get from being in spiritual community is just that, it’s community. And in a country that tells us you don’t need that. But it is so primal that we need a group of people to be going through life with, and we need to be there to support each other in grief, to celebrate our joys and to hold each other accountable to our values.

Amy S. Choi: Thinking about communities, I do these plant medicine retreats, and I’ve been doing them for the past year. They’ve been incredibly impactful for me. And I was telling Rebecca, it’s like a way in which all of the other spiritual and healing and therapeutic work I’ve done, I now believe it more, it’s not an intellectual exercise. But one of the things that the facilitator says that was really helpful for me was, “Oh, a lot of people come here because they’re seekers or they have this idea that they want to save the world. You want to help people, you want to save things.” And he’s like, “The most important thing you can do is define your world.” What is your world? Your world is really your family, your friends, your colleagues, your immediate thing. And what you can do by doing some healing or repair for yourself is save the world from the version of yourself that you could have been if you had not done this repair for you and that that then emanates out.

And then you are able, if you can heal yourself to truly be in community with other people and heal with other people and then do more active repair. And it just makes me think it was like A, personally, so revelatory because it eradicated any last thoughts I had about like, “Oh, this is so fucking indulgent. What am I doing? How do I do…” Just get over yourself. There’s so much suffering in the world. Why are you so caught up in your own shit? And then also being like, oh, right, the world is very global and we’ve just talked about these entrenched millennia old tensions and violences and sufferings that are happening. And also the world is just the people sitting across from you. When we think about repair and when we think about what a community is and how our listeners can get started on this in their own lives, how do you think about the world that you live in?

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, can I say one thing though about Rabbi Susan Goldberg? She is a Northeast Los Angeles native like myself, and something about all Jews and also immigrant communities, you have points where you come in and the east side of L.A. was a place where there were many Jews and the turn of the 20th century. And then as people became more successful or what have you, many people moved west.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And the housing restrictions changed.

Rebecca Lehrer: Redlining where Jews were not allowed to live in many places. And so as that changed, people moved to bigger houses and… Whatever. The trajectory of many communities. But like my family, Susan and her family are Northeast LA core. And now she has created this extremely robust, magnetic, queer, funky, diverse, extraordinary and very spiritual Jewish community in Northeast LA, which also becomes a hub of all the people who are coming back to… The cycles of where people move. And it’s really, it’s something just, I think to your point about like, oh, she’s actually a hometown gal. She’s within a mile radius of where she grew up, is now creating another community that has huge ripples.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Thank you for all that. I really live and breathe community, I think. My parents were both community organizers and their spirituality I would say was neighborhood. My parents were secular atheist Jews from a long tradition of those who found their Jewish identity and how they cared for the world and the neighborhoods around them and made the world a better place. And so I was always this little kid who was also like, “But I’m having these big feelings, and what about this mysticism that I am experiencing?”

Rebecca Lehrer: And you’re like, “Have you guys met gilgul? It’s your great-great-grandmother?”

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And they were like, “Do you want to go to the doctor?” And I was like, “Okay, maybe I don’t talk to you about this.” And so on my path of spiritual seeking and learning more about different traditions and really deepening my own Jewish spiritual learning, it also always… You don’t do that alone. It always is done in community. And what you were saying, Amy, about how do we do this? It’s not far from us. In my seeking, I would see what you’re saying, how sometimes there could be spiritual growth offerings that are only about the self, self-separated from community. And then I was also, as I said, raised in spaces, social justice spaces that were all outward facing and people probably needed to do some work on themselves. And then in between, there’s also the interpersonal, how do we relate to the people in our house, our neighbors, our closest friends? And then how do we care for communities?

For me, that’s what I call the fourfold song, which is from a teaching of a Rabbi, Rav Cook. And the way I shifted is, I think about that any practice needs to hold and be true. Our values need to hold in how we treat ourself like our own growth and care, because some people, as we know can be kind to others, but real mean to themselves and the ongoing just intense negativity internally because of how people were raised and shame and all kinds of societal reasons. Self and then others, or I could say are beloveds, the people we’re in closest proximity to, which are our most profound teachers, our kids, our siblings, our parents, our elders, our cousins, all of that. And of course, our beloved chosen family, our dearest ones. That’s where the work happens. That is like, oh, your lofty ideas. Well, when you’re coming home and you’re frustrated and your kid comes running at you, how are you going to communicate?

Rebecca Lehrer: Scream. You’re going to scream.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Our beloved. Maybe, we’re going to step outside and give myself one more minute. What is-

Amy S. Choi: We’re going to refrain.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: The pause. Exactly.

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re going to refrain.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Exactly. Thank you very much. Refrain. And then we have our community, and I say communities because the truth is, especially the living in here, we have multiple communities and then the wider world around us. Any spiritual practice needs to speak into those. And one of the things that I think is challenging sometimes when people are like, “Let’s ditch our old ancient practices and let’s find new things. Let’s make new things,” I think new is always okay if there’s something to bring, but I do think it needs to be brought back and in conversation with our ancient traditions because they are so… They have been through this before. I remember when Trump was elected and people were losing their, “This is not possible.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding? Everything’s possible.” And then it was COVID. I was like, “We know tyrants. We know plagues. We literally have wisdom teachings on all of these things.”

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, my dad gets the Talmud email every day. I think he’s five years in to the seven, whatever. And I get probably too forwarded to me a week. But they’re so specific.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: So specific.

Rebecca Lehrer: They’ll be like, “When you eat this and you have this kind of gas…” It’s like-

Amy S. Choi: I need these. I need these. Please forward on.

Rebecca Lehrer: And it’ll also be like when your wife says something that makes you mad, how do you deal with that? It’s the range of human experience that is so specific.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And that is it. And I know we were laughing about what do you do when you walk into the house? But that is heightened spiritual experience. That is it. And people think it’s about going up to a mountaintop and having a solo journey in which you reach some sort of enlightened state. I really think that profound spiritual practice is in relationship with each other and just to say, we’re not always going to do it right. We’re going to make mistakes. And that is also a part of all of our traditions. How do we repair when we make a mistake? In the Jewish tradition, we call that teshuvah and that the possibility of repair is there for us. Every year at Yom Kippur, I always think they don’t say, “Well, check and see if you need Yom Kippur this year.” No, we’re going to have it this year because there’s an acknowledgement that we’ve all made mistakes every year and we need to repair them.

And so just that is hopeful that there’s room for our striving, our trying, our growing, and then when we make mistakes that there’s repair that we can do, so it starts right where people are at. It’s not far away. It’s right in your house. How can I be more intentional in my relationship with myself? If I’m going to hold, for example compassion, what would compassion towards myself look like? What would more compassion look like towards those I live with? One of the teachings on rachamim on compassion that I love is what if you treated the people who live in your house from time to time, maybe not always, but from time to time as guests, what if we treated them as guests? Because I know many of our traditions, I know Korean and Jewish has a lot of focus on how you treat guests. I inhabit that sometimes like, “Hey, would you like some water? Do you want something else to eat? Are you comfortable? Is there some way I can help you more?” Because-

Rebecca Lehrer: And then is your family like, “Is this a trick?”

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: No, but it is a practice, right?

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: That’s like it takes the big idea of compassion and makes it very practical.

Rebecca Lehrer: I think a theme that is really emerging in direct relationship to repair in these conversations we’re having this season is community.

Amy S. Choi: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: And it’s emerged in everyone as a critical grounding piece of any kind of enriched repair work, is entirely community driven. And I think that it’s just interesting to feel it like emerging from each conversation. And we are parents to children in public schools, and those are communities we are investing deeply in. Although I keep joking that I’m like, “I started student government in seventh grade and I can’t quit it.” I’m now on the parent committee at the Hebrew School. You know what I mean?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Yes, you are. Thank you. But that is, it’s everywhere. Interconnection is everywhere, right?

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: It’s in the natural world. It’s underneath our feet in all parts of the earth that are communicating with each other. It’s a very new and contemporary idea that people could do everything solo. It’s part of this American mythos that is just time to fully reject because it’s literally not healthy. We have an epidemic of loneliness. It’s not healthy for our neighborhoods, for ourselves, and it’s not part of who we are.

Amy S. Choi: When we think about community and the inhabiting that we have in the ancestors that we carry with us and the ideas that we carry with us, is that something that I know that I find is a real challenge is I am trying to make community within myself. I’m trying so hard to be in relationship with all my gilgulim and sometimes they don’t want to be… Or the kind of relationship that I’ve had with them is fraught and challenging and disturbing. And I talk with Rebecca about this, as a creative person and as an artist, there’s no work that I could ever possibly do that is more important than breaking the cycle. And hopefully not giving all my gilgul to my sweet little kids. What is a way in which we can work better with the community that we inherit in ourselves in addition to this outward expanding look at community?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: It’s beautiful. The idea of a gilgul is that it’s going to inhabit us for a time in order to do a repair, so it’s here to try and help something, to repair something from the past. We also can be in relationship with ancestral lineage that carries things that continue to carry harm. And so it’s really sorting through that. If this has been a lineage that has created some harm in past generations and is leading me to do things that don’t care for myself well or for my family well or for people around me, what does that need to heal? What could heal that? What is it calling out for? It could even be something that you ask. What do you need to heal and move through? There is a way in which we are always going to be inhabited by our ancestors. We are always going to be carrying generational wisdom, but also pain.

And so what is the opportunity we can create to listen, to say, “I’m here to hear, I’m here to not be reactive. I’m here to be intentional. I’m here to listen. What is it that I need to hear in order to take the actions that repair?” And some of the actions might just be that. Part of what’s so profound is when people feel heard, even when they’re parts of our ancestral tradition. The power of listening can itself transform. Like, oh, okay, you’re not trying to avoid, you’re not trying to run away. You’re not trying to pretend it’s not happening. What happens if you just listen without an incredible amount of weight around it? What if I just hear you and I’m not going to do anything else but just make space to listen? What does it want to reveal? Because we don’t know yet. That’s part of what’s so incredible about being a part of ancient traditions.

There are going to be things that we figure out in our lifetime, but there’s also going to be things that we don’t yet. There’s a sense of humility around how much we can possibly do and how much we make space for what’s coming ahead with all of that great hope and faith for what’s coming ahead.

Amy S. Choi: Thank you. Thank you. One of the questions that we had coming into this was about faith and about what happens when your faith is tested. This is, I think, a question that everybody has is we think of hope as a practice and in these very trying times, which as we have clarified, are not new to us in our generation or to our human existence, but it is a trying time, so what’s the thing that you can remind yourself when-

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: When your faith is being tested?

Amy S. Choi: Yeah.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And when you’re feeling despair? Well, I think the first thing is to not push away the feelings of despair and grief. One of the things that I’ve really witnessed over the last year isn’t in the face of an incredible grief. You can see those who are refusing to experience it, and sometimes their actions come out of a place of feeling understandably powerless, but also not willing to experience it. Part of it is in a supported way with community, not alone, allow yourself to feel the despair and the grief of what’s happening in your life or what’s happening around you. And then the next step is what is something I can do that acts from my faith? If faith is being with what is, accepting with what is, and fighting for what’s possible, I’m going to do both of those things. I’m going to sit with the reality of what’s here, not deny it or push it away. And then think of, I always say one to three, one to three actions I can do this week that is building towards the future we want to create together.

Rebecca Lehrer: Related to finding a place to repair, what is one thing people can do?

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: A place to repair?

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: One thing? When people come to me and they’re like, “I would like to be of greater service in the world, and how can I help to repair?” There’s this sweet spot between what it is that is most concerning to you. This is the thing that I’m seeing in my neighborhood that I want to help with or in the world around me. What is that thing that you feel most passionate about helping to repair? What are the special skills that you have, the unique skills that you have that you can offer? And who’s doing this work already? That’s a really important piece because sometimes people jump to like, “I’m going to start my own nonprofit.” Okay, turns out there’s six nonprofits that are already doing the work you’re wanting to do.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes, correct.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Who’s doing that work already? And then the next step is to do it, to reach out and say, “I’m passionate about this issue. Here are the skills that I bring. How can I be of service?” Now, there are some times where nobody is doing it. You’re noticing a need that’s not being filled, and then absolutely you should gather a group together. Three is a group, in my opinion, seven’s even better. But three is a group.

Amy S. Choi: I thought you were going to say nine.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: And you can say, “What can the three of us start to do about this problem that nobody’s tending to?”

Rebecca Lehrer: But I love that that it’s never, let me start it alone. It’s always gathering a group.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: That’s right.

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s how we feel in our 11 years strong partnership, I’m like… When people are solo entrepreneurs of whom we know many, I’m always like, “Oh, yeah. I couldn’t have done this alone.” Having a teammate is critical to both of us thriving and complementing each other. Rabbi, I feel really lucky and so grateful.

Amy S. Choi: Beyond.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Amy S. Choi: I am so… I feel filled up and I have so many more questions, and I also feel like-

Rebecca Lehrer: Wait, what’s our name for our… What is our-

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: K’rov? K’rov yisrael.

Rebecca Lehrer: Jew adjacent.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: K’rov yisrael.

Amy S. Choi: I expect an Etsy delivery in the next month.

Rebecca Lehrer: You know you will.

Amy S. Choi: With some customized jewelry, with a sweater, the whole thing.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Rebecca, it’s wonderful to have you in community at Nefesh. And Amy, it’s a delight. I listened to your guys’ podcasts, and I love the mix of humor with profound truths that you’re sharing, so thank you for all the fun.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, I thought you were going to say profanity, and I was like, well, we got that-

Rebecca Lehrer: I do say to Amy every year not to be a proselytizer, but if she did live in Los Angeles-

Amy S. Choi: I would be going to Nefesh.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m always like, “You should come to… You should come. I think you’d really feel it in your bones.” Anyways, I’m ready to do some good crying this year.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, yeah. Thank you, Rabbi.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg: Thank you.

Rebecca Lehrer: Thank you. May we all be inscribed in the book of life.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, yeah.

Rebecca Lehrer: Wow.

Amy S. Choi: I have some gilguls to tend to. I have a whole fleet. I have a herd. I have just so many gilgulim that I don’t even know how to talk about my gilgulim right now, but they’ve got some repairing to do and so do I.

Rebecca Lehrer: I see them. They’re just bubbling up. They occasionally right behind you in a-

Amy S. Choi: I know, my aura of gilgulim.

Rebecca Lehrer: They all look like Beetlejuice.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, we all have them. Thank you to my Rabbi, Susan Goldberg, for being willing to have these conversations with us and also answering my extremely random texts about what is kosher for Passover. May this fall bring a sense of renewal and repair and humanity and community to everyone listening.

Amy S. Choi: Next week we’re going to get into one of our greatest dreams, which is fucking winning. We have George Goehl, the world’s greatest community organizer, and a dear, dear friend to talk about the power of winning, even the little wins because we all need a W. Take the W, man. Bye. See you next week.

Rebecca Lehrer: Ciao. 

CREDITS

This podcast is a production of The Mash-Up Americans. It is executive produced by Amy S. Choi, and Rebecca Lehrer, senior editor and producer is Sara Pellegrini, production manager is Shelby Sandlin. Thanks to DJ Rob Swift for our theme song, Salsa Scratch. Please make sure to follow and share the show with your friends.