Yadid: What does it mean to go to a synagogue because you wanna talk to the people, but not because you want to pray there?

Anna: I remember crying on the floor of my friend’s room, talking to her, realizing that I can’t go back, that it’s no longer my space.

Sami: Theoretically I could create like, the space that has my Jewish politics and my Jewish social life and my Jewish spirituality and everything. But then it’s not gonna fit very many people. For me, maybe what I’m feeling is, I kind of want to be mixing and matching.

Deb: In some ways, it’s much easier to try to refine or reform an institution that exists than to build something completely from scratch.

Sami: Welcome to Future Tense, a show that puts today’s biggest Jewish questions in the hands of the leaders of tomorrow. I’m Sami Jinich.

One of my most vivid memories from my gap year in 2021 was during Shabbat in Tzfat, the cradle of the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah. A few friends and I trekked through town in search of a cave on a hilltop where we heard young people often gathered for havdalah. The streets were empty, but the air was full of sound. A symphony of prayer, song, and laughter emanated from within homes.

It was magical. We stayed in this cave long past our curfew, singing beautiful songs I’d never heard, and feeling a kind of camaraderie and warmth I had rarely encountered before. Now, there was something about the place, the caves, unsettling, mystery, the fervor that I admired, but didn’t quite share that made it feel like it wasn’t fully mine, and yet I profoundly enjoyed it.

See, at 18 years old, I loved being a welcome guest in other people’s homes, maybe even more than feeling at home myself. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and understand what other traditions were like. I knew that I wanted to live Jewishly, but where to move within this community? I hadn’t the slightest clue.

But now as I graduate college, I have new priorities, namely, finding and settling into spaces that feel permanent and complete, aligned with all that is me. It’s one thing to feel excitement and joy and to be welcomed in a place, but I learned over the past four years that when you fully embrace a community and help contribute to its growth, you receive something greater than any experience. You feel like your sense of being is fulfilled.

I felt this as membership chair of my university’s Hillel, where encouraging Jewish freshmen to participate made my own commitment to the space more tangible, and when I became frustrated that there were no spaces for nuanced discourse on Israeli democracy and the conflict, I formed a chapter of J Street U. Neither space filled every checkbox of what I sought, even in a simply Jewish context. But for the first time, I wasn’t just dropping in or moving through. I was sprouting roots, and I had a real stake in these spaces.

So as I begin navigating the vast untailored world before me. I want to find spaces that feel mine, but I’m also left with many questions. Will it be enough for a community to only check some boxes and not others? Can I mix and match spaces? If none feels perfect, what if I find a space that excites me spiritually, but that holds serious contradictions with values I care about?

For example, I love the warmth and openness of Chabad and the way it connects Jews around the world. I’m uncomfortable with parts of its theology, stances on Israel, the role of women, and relationships with non-Jews. So I could choose to tolerate aspects of a space I dislike in order to partake, I could join and try to change what I don’t like, or I could opt out entirely hoping to one day find the perfect Jewish space.

I’d love to get some more perspective before making any conclusions. So I’m happy to be joined by my co-hosts, Anna Weiss and Yadid Orlow. Welcome.

Anna: Hello.

Yadid: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Sami: I’d love to hear from both of you. What’s your experience been like finding or creating Jewish spaces that feel right for you?

Anna: Growing up from ages like 11 to 17, I went to the same sleepaway camp. It was like a Bnei Akiva sleepaway camp, and it was one of my favorite places ever. It felt so much like home, I never felt so accepted or I never felt like I belonged somewhere so much so. Some of the best people I’ve met. Wonderful experiences, games, some of the most spiritual and life-changing experiences I’ve ever had. It was an incredibly meaningful space where I felt like I could be the most myself.

When I was on my gap year on Hevruta, I changed a lot—the way that I dressed, the way that I presented myself, religiously, I had changed, and I’d come out as queer, and I was supposed to be a, I was supposed to be a counselor at that camp that summer, and I remember crying on the floor of my friend’s room, talking to her, realizing that I can’t go back, that it’s no longer my space. It had been my space for years and I didn’t want to taint that for me, and it no longer felt like my space. And so I think ever since then I’ve been continuously trying to figure out and find something that feels like my space.

Yadid: That’s, I mean, that’s really fascinating, ’cause actually, Anna, like I grew up at the same summer camp and I remember very distinctly, for as long as I can remember, that not feeling like my space holistically, and that whether it be religiously or spiritually or interpersonally, there were moments when I actually felt like this wasn’t a place I could call home, even if there was as many if not more moments when I felt like I could.

And so I guess I’m wondering back to you, like was there something distinct about the kind of, not alienness of that space but difference in your interacting with it that made it no longer feel comfortable?

Anna: I had changed a lot as a person. The things that I valued and the way that I wanted to exist in the world kind of no longer aligned with some of the values or even rules that existed at that camp. There were some things like, especially in terms of dress code, that I was like, I as a counselor cannot see myself telling a girl that she has to change her pants ’cause they’re too tight. Like, it had gotten to a point where it was like, I, I can’t do that and it doesn’t mean I don’t understand the value of the camp and don’t still deeply appreciate what it gave to me. It just no longer felt like a place that was comfortable.

You also kind of talked about the language of home, and I actually wanna turn it back to you and talk about, what does it mean for something to be your space or for you to be able to refer to it as like, this is my space. What do you wanna feel?

Yadid: Yeah, I think about the difference between like in restaurants, there’s obviously restaurants that have great food and that have great service and where like you feel like this is good. And then there’s the restaurant, I remember very distinctly the restaurant that my family and I went to growing up, this Chinese place, and it wasn’t that they had the best chicken. Their chicken was good on good days. It was bad on most days. But it felt like home because when we went, my mom and dad knew all the servers and they would say hi to us. And before we’d even sat down, sometimes they had a pot of green tea ready, ’cause they knew that was my mom’s favorite. And there was something about being taken care of that went beyond like a single good experience or a single trait that made it excellent and it was actually just like, it felt warm.

Sami: Yeah. I think I can relate a lot to that. And I think maybe taking it back a little bit too, earlier in my intro I said that, you know, what I look for is, is something holistic. And I think you guys have used that word too, sort of like a, space that feels holistically like my Jewish space.

But I think if, if we’re using that sort of metric of a place that feels like you can really be a part of it and you feel, you know, homey, it’s sort of an intangible thing. I think it’s kind of hard for me to actually picture one space that can encapsulate all of the facets of my Judaism, right, that would fit everything.

I mean, you know, theoretically I could create like the space that has my Jewish politics and my Jewish social life and my Jewish spirituality and everything. But then it’s not gonna fit very many people. and so I think, for me, maybe, what I’m feeling is I kinda wanna be mixing and matching multiple spaces where I could go to a place where. I’m getting that spiritual, you know, experience that I want and maybe so long as it’s not conflicting too much with other values that I have, so be it that it’s not the exact perfect social environment or that they don’t serve me the perfect food.

But I think that’s more important to me than going to a space where, you know, I’m, I’m getting great food, but it’s not much more than that. I think I used to want that now, not as much. How do you guys think about that?

Anna: Yeah, I think it has to do with a couple things, which is like, what are, what am I looking for when I’m going into different spaces and do I feel like I need everything to exist in the same space? And I don’t think I do. I think there’s a lot of value of having multiple different kinds of spaces.

Thinking about like at school, I engage with Adamah, which is like a Jewish environmentalist sustainability group, great for activism and for education, it’s not a religious space. I ran a group called Complex Conversations with my friend Ari, as I mentioned in a previous episode, where we talked about a wide variety of topics in the realm of Israel-Palestine. And that was a great intellectual space in a space to have conversations where we all had shared some shared idea of what the space was to look like. We weren’t talking about sustainability, we weren’t praying together. My mom has been in the same book club for over a decade, and they’re all Jewish, and I just went to a Shavuot potluck that was hosted by a member of the club. That’s not a religious space. They’re not talking about Israel-Palestine necessarily. Like the different spaces are good for different things, and then you also get bits and pieces of different friends and different people that you get to meet.

Sami: Yeah, I, I like that you’re describing, you know, tangibly like what are the particular, not just types of places, but places that you’re finding yourself in. Like I think, when I think about whether I want right now more than anything, a social space, a spiritual space, religious space. I do want to have a synagogue when I’m older. But right now what I really want to have is a good Jewish social environment where I can have good conversations and debates with people about Jewish issues or sort of with a foundation and something Jewish.

And I’m looking at, you know, thinking of my dad right now, who with the synagogue does something, I think it’s called Scotch and Scriptures, where they talk about Talmud and other sort of Jewish topics over drinks. Drinks don’t matter so much, but just that it’s like a place for friends to gather and, and talk about these things and like, that’s something that I want. But I’m curious, I mean, Yadid, you haven’t answered yet. Like what, what is a tangible space that like you’re looking for if, if anything?

Yadid: Yeah, I think, I mean, I have a, it’s, it’s hard because there’s a really interesting, I have two distinct responses to what you’re saying. One of which is like my instinctive response to you, Anna, that when we’re talking about finding spaces that help us in one respect, but not in another, I think about like, what does it mean to go to a synagogue because you wanna talk to the people, but not because you want to pray there. And for me, I, I’m instinctively responding to that with, well, you should go for both because you can’t really pick and choose.

But then I hear what you’re saying, Sami, and I think I would love to learn scripture with people that are really interested in scripture. I don’t care for scotch. And so that, holding both of those truths is something that I think really muddies my answer to that question.

Anna: Mm-hmm. Well, I think it’s also like, it’s a conversation of like, what’s important to you and also like you don’t have to like exist in these spaces if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t feel right. And I agree with you, like when you’re going to synagogue, ideally you’re doing both. Realistically, that’s not always happening. But you know, there are people who still will go to shul, you know, for two hours every Saturday to sit in the back and talk with their friends. Maybe that’s annoying. But they’re still going and they’re members of the shul and it’s something that’s important to them. At the very least, passively, even if they’re not actively like engaging in, in davening, they’re still going to all the events.

Sami: But, so let me ask you one, one other question then. Do you think, you know, for me, I’ve found that it’s important to have at least some space or spaces where I feel like I’m really contributing to the growth of the place. Like it, you know, it enhances my experience to a whole other degree. Do you feel a need for that? I know, Anna, you talked about something like that for yourself, but would you need that in order to feel like a space is really yours, to feel like I am part of the building blocks of it? Or can you just find a space that like works really well and just be part of it and exist in it?

Yadid: I mean it’s, I think there’s a duality to that question because on one hand it’s like, yes, because to truly buy into something you need to contribute to it, whether that means in dollars or in hours, and that there’s something about like enhanced buy-in that you get by literally buying in and investing.

I think that on the other end of that, like what if there’s no space that really works for you? Are you supposed to be changing spaces or creating new ones? And what are the consequences of that? Like, these all end up opening up as questions.

Sami: You had told me earlier before our conversation that there was a, a different type of, of space that you were interested in that wasn’t particularly Jewish. I’m curious to hear more about that.

Yadid: Yeah. I, I think this, I was thinking about this also in response to both of you in terms of like the picking and choosing and the selectiveness. This sort of gets even more complicated cause Judaism is an ethno-religion. But like, in my mind there is Judaism as a vehicle for spirituality and religiosity, and then there’s other groups, whether it be the swim team or the book club that exist outside of the bounds of that.

The question that comes up for me then as a response to what you’re saying, Sami, is what if I really find my spiritual Jewish awakening to be in a Taoist or Daoist space? And like, is that still a Jewish space if it’s how I’m accessing my Judaism, but it is very explicitly not Jewish?

Sami: Yeah. I really relate to that too, Yadid, and I would actually like to bring in our guest scholar now to help us think more about that tension.

I’m pleased to introduce Deb Berer. Deb is senior faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a scholar of rabbinic literature and Jewish ethics. Deb’s work explores how dialogue with classical Jewish sources can open up new perspectives on contemporary questions. Deb also happens to be working with us behind the scenes on all our episodes, so we’re super excited to have you finally with us.

Deb: Thanks guys.

Sami: I’ll start us off with a question tied to Yadid’s last point about, you know, maybe wanting to explore Taoist space as a Jew.

So I, having grown up around many people who weren’t Jewish and in many secular spaces, I think it wasn’t always a default for me to choose Jewish spaces, particularly when it’s not all about the religion or all about the spirituality. For example, a Jewish book club versus just like any other book club. And obviously I’ve, I’ve chosen to be part of Jewish spaces. I’m here now and I do it very frequently, so I know there’s something there, but I have a hard time articulating what it is actually that is making me wanna choose a Jewish space over a non-Jewish alternative, you know, from the sort of space that I inhabit.

So I’m curious if you could help me articulate what that is.

Deb: Yeah, I think it’s a great question. I think that part of what might be behind it is the different ways that we connect to our Judaism and our Jewishness. So one thing that comes up for me is I, over a decade ago, I spent a year in Jerusalem at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, which is a classical text study environment. So the people who went there were already sort of oriented towards a similar set of Jewish interests.

But one of the things that we joked about at a certain point in the course of the year was, even within that sort of shared set of interests, we used to joke that we’re just kind of different kinds of Jews. Like there was a certain group of us and I was among them that would go to every extra class we could possibly go to. We were at Night Seder, we were at any extra evening class that was offered, doing any kind of extra learning we could, and we’re like, oh, this is, we’re the learning Jews, like we’re the Jews who just wanna be studying and that’s our way of connecting.

And then there were the people who, we would say are the “peoplehood people.” They wanted to be with other Jews. They wanted to be doing things with other Jewish people, but it wasn’t necessarily about that the thing they were doing had to be Jewish. It was about doing stuff with the Jewish community.

And then there were people who Israel was really at the center of their Judaism, and they wanted to be going out and exploring Israeli culture and connecting to their Judaism in that way. And so I think it’s partly about sort of what is the nexus of where you feel most Jewish or most excited about your Judaism. If that’s by talking about books with other people, you might wanna join the book club with other Jews, the Jewish book club, or the book club that studies Jewish books or something like that. That might be a really important thing for you.

Or if you’re someone who wants to be doing things with other Jews, you might explicitly wanna join the Jewish book club that’s not talking about Judaism at all, that’s reading books about, like novels, about the 18th century or something like that, but you’re doing it with other Jews.

But if you have other avenues in, where, maybe you’re like me, maybe you really like studying classical texts. Maybe you really like going to shul or synagogue and davening. Maybe you really like a Jewish meditation practice or something. Like there’s a whole variety of ways you might connect in. Then you might explicitly want your book club experience to not be with other Jews and to connect with people outside of your Jewish community in that way. So I think that’s, for me, that’s part of how I’ve noticed when I’m choosing certain kinds of spaces to be Jewish spaces or not Jewish spaces.

Sami: So maybe this is obvious, but it seems from what you’re saying, like the prerequisite though, to have any Jewish spaces that you just have a default desire to want to be around other Jews and be part of Jewish peoplehood, right?

Deb: Yeah, I mean, I think especially deciding on something that’s not where the core activity isn’t something that’s about Jewish practice necessarily, where you’re thinking about like, do I wanna do this as a Jewish book club or not Jewish book club. I think it’s about, is this part of my life where it’s particularly important to me to be connecting to other Jews in some way, or for something about my Jewishness to be central to this experience? Or not—is it kind of incidental and maybe there’s other Jews in my book club, but that’s just because they happen to be there. That’s not sort of part of what we’re doing together. Does that make sense?

Sami: Yeah, totally.

Anna: That makes me think of, like we’ve talked about in the past, like the multiple facets of Judaism, like religion, observance, language, family culture, history. Like there’s so many different ways that people connect with Judaism and they’re all… Some might argue that certain parts are more valuable than others. I would say they’re all just as valuable. It’s any way that helps you feel connected, even if it’s not explicitly religious, it’s still, you feel that sense of community or the attempt at that sense of community, or the attempt at that sense of community.

Yadid: And it feels like… like what is the inherent value, to a Jewish person, the Jewish people, the Jewish communities in creating distinctly Jewish spaces.

Sami: Yeah, I was afraid to ask it, because I think it’s kinda like a core tenet of what we’re doing here, but I mean, maybe it is worth asking…

Deb: Why do we wanna have Jewish spaces?

Sami: Yeah. Like why, why should I be Jewish?

Yadid: Why should you create spaces that are celebrating, cultivating, or delving into that Judaism?

Anna: That are Jewish specific instead of like, oh, I just have a book club for everyone. It’s like, why do, why does this need to be Jewish specific?

Deb: Well, I think it really depends on what kind of spaces we’re talking about, which I think is maybe a slightly different question from why should I be Jewish at all? But if we assume that, I mean, I think all of us in this room have decided we care about being Jewish in some way. And if that’s the case, then I think it’s an important part of our identity and your life. Then you wanna find places that you can share that with other people for whom it’s also important. And so I think part of what we’re talking about is the access in your life in which it’s important, right?

Like if, if for me, Jewish food is really important, then maybe the place I wanna connect with other Jews is actually around food. If, for me, prayer is really important, maybe the place I wanna connect with other Jews is around prayer. If, for me, learning is really important, maybe the place I wanna connect with other Jews is around learning.

And so I think that’s part of why we see such a variety of different types of Jewish spaces and why some, I’ll just say for myself, why some Jewish spaces I walk into and really feel, I feel really excited about this space. I’m like, this is where I wanna be. These are my people. And some Jewish spaces I walk into and I’m like, this is, this is nice, but I might elect for this aspect of my life to go to a different space. I think it just has to do with how you connect.

But I think inherently, at least for me, when something’s important to me, I want to share with other people who also value that thing. And I think part of what we’re getting at here is that it’s not necessarily true that as Jews, the things that we love about being Jewish are all the same. And so I might like, this is a silly example, but I hate gefilte fish. I just, I can’t eat it. And I know Jews who love gefilte fish, and that’s a huge part of their Jewish life.

Anna: I’m one of them.

Deb: And I’m not gonna come to your like gefilte fish tasting party. It’s not gonna be my Jewish space. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. It’s just not where we’re gonna connect as Jews. And I think that’s totally fine.

Yadid: But aren’t those conflicting values? Like to say, everyone has their diverse personal version of Judaism and we want to create Jewish spaces where people can interact? Unless the point of it is like the pluralist ideal of people engaging with each other because they’re different. Like I think about the book club and like if it’s a nonfiction Jewish book club, even if the books aren’t Jewish at all, you’re saying everyone here appreciates nonfiction. So I guess even going back to your gefilte fish example, is there a value in you going to that gefilte fish thing, even if you don’t want to eat it because it’s just like you should be spending, like is there something more than just sharing in this Jewish culture where it’s like there is an inherent value to spending time and spaces with other Jews?

Anna: Well, you can’t go to everything. You don’t wanna do everything

Yadid: But maybe you should go to some things.

Anna: Well, yeah, like, if you wanna connect with Jewish people and the only thing happening in your city is like a gefilte fish tasting, I’m sure Deb, you would go, you might not eat like a gefilte fish, but you’ll go to be with Jewish people. If there are seven different learning events happening in one night. You don’t need to go to all seven of them. It’s fine. You have these other… Like, the goal in not every space is also like pluralism. It’s like this is a space for people who like these things and in other… we’ll have other events that you might like. Tonight we’re doing gefilte fish tasting. You’re not gonna go to that. Tomorrow we’re gonna do a brisket tasting. Maybe you’ll go to that. The next day a wine tasting. Maybe you’ll go to that. Maybe not.

It’s not, like, all encompassing, which I also feel like is a helpful lead to a question I have, which is when you enter spaces, not just with conflicting like events or likes, but like very much so conflicting values. I also like think about Chabad. Love Chabad. Don’t wanna completely denigrate it when I talk about it, but I used to go there a lot early on in college at Muhlenberg and also at my last school, because I grew up Modern Orthodox. I knew the tunes, I knew the language, I knew the food that we were having. I knew what the prayer services were gonna be like. So it felt very comfortable.

And at the same time, someone, to what Sami was saying, some of their things surrounding surrounding roles of women and some other things surrounding, the concept of like, or trying to get people to be more religious. Or the concept of like matrilineal Judaism only and paternal Judaism isn’t like, really Judaism/// like are for me, really big issues. And at the same time, there were parts of that place that I found valuable.

And so how do you navigate those spaces? Or also at what point do you like draw a line of like, some of my values are really well met, but some of them really aren’t and maybe I don’t have another option, maybe I do have other options. Where do you draw that line?

Deb: Yeah, so I think I hear some different things in Yadid’s question and what you were just saying, Anna. So one, I hear Yadid saying, is there a value to pushing ourselves to go into the Jewish spaces that aren’t necessarily the places we already sort of naturally gravitate towards or prefer?

And then I hear you sort of complicating that, Anna and saying, well what about if there’s actually something problematic to me in those spaces or those spaces, sort of platform ideas that I, I don’t support? And I know I said there were three, but I don’t remember what the third thing was, but I, and I hear sort of a tension in those things.

And so I think I would say a couple of different things. My perspective on this has shifted somewhat in that I recently moved from Washington DC, which is a very large Jewish community to rural western Massachusetts where we have a much smaller Jewish community. And so when I was in DC, I could, you were talking about sort of mixing and matching earlier. And I could really, I could go to any, I had like the full buffet of options. There were so many different synagogues, so many different communities. I could shul hop as much as I wanted, Ad I could wait until I found the community that… No community is perfect, but that aligned most closely with what I felt like I was looking for in a community. And there was something really wonderful and beautiful about that.

But having moved to this small town, I’ve also found that there’s something I really value. We have a couple different options in my town. There’s a Reform congregation, there’s a Conservative congregation, there’s a daily minyan that’s not affiliated with either of those, that’s sort of traditional egalitarian, but because it’s smaller, I’ve noticed. It actually is both less maybe tailored to what I might perfectly design because I don’t have this whole array of options, but also matters a lot more if I’m there. Like it’s a smaller community, and so it’s more likely that I’m helping to make the minyan or I’m the person who’s agreed to do whatever at the service or like clean up after kiddish or whatever it is, that people notice more if I’m there and it feels like there’s more, there’s a different kind of value to my participation.

I think it’s been interesting to kind of go to your point of like pushing ourselves sometimes to go to communities that might not be perfectly what we’re looking for—is there a value in that? Yadid, what you were saying, I think I’ve seen a real value in recognizing that it matters to other people if I show up.

And I think that’s a big part of community and all those sort of interactions, the sort of like what I would call interstitial, like in between the main event pieces that make community. I think there is a real value to that and I think that’s part of the value of community more broadly.

But I think that’s different from what you’re pointing to Anna, which is if this community I felt really platform things that I had a moral objection to in some way, or that I felt didn’t accept who I was as a person in some way, or didn’t accept my family in some way… I think I could visit those communities. I think it would be really hard for me to make that my home community, because I think being involved in a community to some degree is investing in the life of that community and wanting to say like, this is something I want to see in the world.

Maybe depending on the points of conflict and where I lived, I would wanna try to invest and change it, but I think there’s the like preference of like, oh, I wish we sang different tunes, or, this isn’t my style, versus, and I think there’s something, I wanna say, really important about the aesthetic dimension. I’m not trying to diminish that at all. My enjoyment is often really based on whether it’s the tunes I know and things like that. But I think there’s something different for me there versus there’s something I actually object to that’s happening in this space that I could never really feel fully seen, fully welcomed, fully participating in.

Yadid: I, I think Deb, in response to what you’re saying about the Hartman teen fellowship and like the, during the Shabbaton, the closing Shabbaton of the program, there was a really awesome moment where on Saturday there was this really awesome singing moment that happened that was predominantly modern Orthodox tunes.

But then on Saturday night, there was this whole like array of dances that happened that were a mix of conservative and Zionist camp movement dances. And I wonder if there’s a value in those moments to… like the learning, like being in other people’s spaces, I mean, I feel like you’re gonna agree with this in a heartbeat. Like there is obviously a value to being in spaces that aren’t yours because there’s like a thrill of learning something new, but also in that space, there were teens that felt very engaged with their Judaism through this thing that wasn’t there. Like, wow, it’s so cool how rich and developed and diverse Judaism is.

Deb: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, again, that’s a little bit to me a difference of thinking about your home space, like the space you go to all the time versus stretching into other spaces and experiencing other spaces. And I think sometimes what can be incredible about that is the ability to bring something back home with you.

So, you know, Sami, you were talking about your experience in Tzfat, and when I was in Jerusalem, I, for that year where I learned a Pardes, like a half a block from my house was this minyan that met in, it was like in a scouts building or something. And it had a mechitza, which I did not grow up with and is not my preferred style of davening. They had the most beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat service I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was, it was packed on both sides. Everyone was singing. It was so beautiful. It was lay-led. I mean, there was a rabbi of the congregation, but it was always different people up from the, from the minyan leading the service. And I still think of that as like one of my most spiritual experiences, one of the times where I really connected to a prayer service.

And I find myself frequently trying to find ways to bring little pieces of that into the communities that I participate in now, because there were things I found really valuable about it, and I never would’ve found those things if I hadn’t popped into that space. Right? I mean, I don’t live in Jerusalem long term. If I did, I don’t know that that would’ve made that my forever home for other reasons.

But I think absolutely there’s something both about stretching yourself, about seeing what’s possible, and also about seeing what you, what pieces of one space you might be able to bring into another.

Sami: I think this leads pretty well into another question, Yadid, I think you had about sort of when you appreciate a space, but don’t necessarily wanna be part of it, but wanna support in a way?

Yadid: Yeah, I, I guess this is almost like a self-critique because I keep pushing like we need to go to these spaces that aren’t ours. But I, I’m realizing that I, that might be illusory, like the distinction between spaces is sort of much more gray and much less of like a straight line through the sand. And I think about the difference between, I guess, two different examples.

One of which was this person who I was talking to who’s the head of education at a Conservative synagogue in my community. But is spends their, Shabboses, like their weekends in Monsey, New York and as like an observant Jew. And on the other end of the pendulum, there’s the people that pretty consistently donate to Chabad because they really love the work that they do, even though they might not have stepped into a synagogue in a year.

And like I wonder, is there actually a difference between these spaces? And moreover, I guess going beyond what does it mean as a value for me as someone to go into a space that isn’t mine, what does it mean for us to blur the lines between spaces holistically?

Deb: That’s a good question. I think part of what I hear you talking about is we have a sort of, we think often in a denominational landscape, right? So Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, various denominations, parts of Orthodoxy, Reconstructionist, all these different things. And I think fo many Jews, A) I think, at least for my generation, I don’t know, for your generation, those labels don’t quite feel like they fit anymore or aren’t the most important defining labels for our Judaism. I don’t know if that feels true to the three of you, but also I think many people move between denominational spaces, for sure. They go to this school, but they daven that shul, they work at that organization. There’s lots of in between.

I think the example you give of people who maybe don’t go to synagogue, but they’re donating to Chabad in some ways, potentially, that’s an ability to appreciate across lines like. Maybe it’s not for me, but I’m glad this exists in the world. I think this is important work in some way, or I think, you know, when I was on a college campus, it was important to me that there was this kind of Jewish space, even though I’m not there anymore or that I’m not at that place in my life anymore, or I just, I want there to be a space for Jews who do Judaism differently.

And so in some ways I think there’s something really beautiful about that moving across. But I also think it speaks to the ways in which… I think often, I think there was a time where the synagogue was the institution of American Jewish life, and I’m not sure that that is our time anymore. I think we default to thinking about it, but I don’t know if those are kind of the right lines for us to be drawing when we think about Jewish spaces.

And I’m actually curious for—Sami, it looks like maybe that surprises you. I don’t know if I’m reading you right, but I’m curious for you all, like when you think about after college and finding Jewish spaces, do you think about looking for a synagogue or do you think about other kinds of spaces?

Sami: Yeah, I mean, I think I sort of mentioned this a little bit before, but I do at some point in my life want to find a synagogue that’s stable. And, and I mean, especially I think when I have kids and my plan is to have kids someday. I don’t wanna just be like jumping around and mixing and matching for them because they might get confused. Although that’s maybe a question for another episode, but I think, you know, there’s a couple of spaces that I’ve heard about. I think one’s called like Lehrhaus. I don’t know much about it and I’m gonna learn more.

Deb: It’s awesome.

Sami: But, so I think it’s places like this, that, you know, as I mentioned, I think it has a mix of a social and intellectual component. That’s what interests me most. Like, I do like going to services. I don’t usually know what it is that I’m praying about, but it’s usually meditating for me anyway.

But like, I think you’re right. I guess I was surprised to hear you say that synagogues maybe aren’t that central institution anymore. I don’t know if I feel that way when I’m around adults, but it certainly feels that way for me personally. And, you know, Hillel was like the base of my Jewish life when I was at Duke. But it wasn’t really the services that were the central part. If anything, I tended to show up for the Shabbat services in the last five minutes most weeks because I liked the part where we summarized everything and did a couple last prayers. But yeah, I mean, I definitely am looking for, I think, more spaces that are, again, social, intellectual, academic.

Anna: That’s so interesting, ’cause now I’m also thinking about, like for me, the synagogues that exist are important. For me also, like activism, tikkun olam is a huge part of Judaism. Also being queer is a huge part of my identity and queer Jewish spaces very much exist. And I was just thinking like, maybe when I’m an adult and I start figuring it out, like how you visit colleges to see what you like. Like maybe I should go to different cities and start looking at different synagogues and also see like, what are the people engaged in there? Because I don’t think…

And I same here, like I, I go to Hillel every week. I go to services on the high holidays and a lot of times, like at home, the synagogue that I went to, I went to every week for years, and then I kind of fell off. But I always went for high holidays. But it was still important that that existed even though it was my main connection to Judaism. But a big part of it was through Hillel and through that synagogue I learned about other organizations and I learned about other kinds of people. And so it does feel like a helpful central place to find those outside spaces. And it’s not enough of a space for it to be like, well, I like the synagogue, but if there’s nothing else happening in this area, that’s not gonna work for me.

Yadid: Anna, I’m wondering in response to that—if you’re not like contributing to that community and if you’re not going consistently and it suddenly doesn’t exist, like I know we were talking earlier about how like not every space feels like it fulfills all of these different things. If you found one that did for, in a magical utopic world, I mean, I dunno if this is utopic to you, ’cause you might wanna have these different spaces.

In my mind, in a magical utopic world where there happened to be a synagogue that also had a summer camp that was two hours away, ’cause obviously you don’t want your kids to go to camp near you. And it also had a good set of youth services and it also had great afterschool programming and it was all this stuff and it was great. Would you take the time and energy and effort to make it thrive?

Anna: Absolutely. I, I think at, in college I’m involved in many, too many extracurriculars. A lot of them keep running because I’m putting in that work. Some of them exist because I’m there. Some of them keep moving and are changing and getting better because I’m saying this isn’t working and we need to, to shift. Sometimes I do things I don’t wanna do, but I know it’s important ’cause I’m part of the community. Similar to what you were talking about, Deb, where you live, like if I lived in a space and there was only a synagogue and it wasn’t my favorite, but they relied on me to make a minyan, it would be annoying, but I would be there.

Because right, it’s also, it’s like if you have a hundred people, part of a group, but nobody’s willing to lead, what are you actually doing there? And you can’t be mad that the space doesn’t exist when you’re not willing to contribute to its existence.

at certain places, like my synagogue at home, as hundreds of members, the Hillel at my school, thankfully, is like very, very lively and active, and people are going to services. They don’t need me. But there were some times like on Hevruta when we would want a minyan for random mincha that not everyone wanted to do that I would, I would help be a part of and I would help facilitate, because I recognize the importance of contributing to this community, and it’s not going to exist if I don’t step up and do something, even if I don’t wanna do all of it. And I think I find it very frustrating when people continuously complain about spaces not existing, or spaces being difficult, but don’t do anything to either find another space or make it better. Don’t complain about a problem if you’re not gonna try to make a solution. I’m a big believer in that.

Yadid: Thinking about that, I think about the distinction between producers and consumers. And actually, like passing this to you, Deb, I remember meeting this guy who worked at a Hillel at a university in Texas. And he was explaining to me how he has like four kids that come a week. Maximum. Not four sometimes. Not four and there’s sometimes 40, just like there’s four kids and they constantly show up.

And I wonder if there’s communities in America and in the world, though really focusing on America for the sake of our shared experiences, where there are whole communities of people interested in creating distinct spaces that are confused why it doesn’t exist, ccause no one has stepped up to create them?

Deb: Yeah. I mean, I’m sure. I think it’s really hard to create something and I think often there’s a shared desire for something, but in some ways, it’s much easier to try to refine or reform an institution that exists than to build something completely from scratch. And I’ve definitely been a part of communities who have tried to build things from scratch, and it could be really challenging to figure out like all the different pieces of how you do that and different people’s roles and investments and…

But I also, I grew up in the Havurah movement and so my parents were in a Havurah my whole life. It was, in my experience, a group of people who were all local to the same place, who met, we met like bimonthly in people’s home for Shabbat services, outside of synagogue, totally lay-led. And it was also just sort of… we did our Jewish life together and most of the people in the Havurah that I grew up in were also members of synagogues and went there when the Havurah wasn’t meeting.

But it was, I think I didn’t form it, I was a kid in it, but I think it was an attempt to fill in a, a felt gap of something about the synagogue wasn’t meeting what that group wanted. Maybe they wanted something more intimate, maybe they wanted a different style of service. And it also was really a community building. I mean, my parents were friends with these people for decades. And, you know, when my mom passed away, all those people showed up at the funeral and like really supported my family during that time. It was really, it’s been an incredible, decades-long community.

And I think I see how much, I mean, my dad’s still doing, I see how much work goes into planning a service every other week when especially when you’re not, not all these people are trained as rabbis. Hosting in your space, figuring out what you’re doing with the kids, making the food, like all of that stuff. So it is a big lift, but I also think it’s very doable and sometimes it’s a matter of scale, right?

There’s only four people at this university. You can do something different. There’s lots of things you can’t do when there’s only four people, but there’s a certain kind of intimacy you can create when there’s four people that you can’t create when there’s 400 people. Or it’s harder to create when there’s 400 people

So I think it’s partly figuring out if there’s a need there that you feel is not being met, what exactly is it? Why isn’t it being met? What’s the best way to meet it? And kind of going from there.

Yadid: Are we getting lost though, in trying to make a space work for everyone?Like what you mentioned, making the food and organizing logistics and what’s gonna happen with the kids, and obviously the kids are important ’cause I assume that a lot of the people in this community have kids and like they have to be cared for or watched.

I wonder what would it look like to just say, we’re gonna have a box of prayer books, siddurim. And maybe depending on the like space, either we’re gonna have a mechitza, or a trichitza, or neither, and that’s it. And then we will send out invites en masse. And we don’t have to make it a space where there’s delicious food and we don’t have to make it a space where the singing is perfect ,because it’s just about getting people in the room. And as we grow, then we can nitpick.

Deb: Yeah, I think it really depends on what the community wants. I think this was a community that wanted to raise their families together, and so figuring out the childcare and having the food and having the social environment was really important to it. And you know, I’ve over the course of my life, participated in various different initiatives, some of which lasted a long time, some of which were more short-lived, that were organized around different needs.

You know, like a, I, there was a community I was part of for a little while that we called it Kabbalat Shabbat-luk, I think was what we called it, where it was like we do Kabbalat Shabbat services and have a potluck afterwards. I was part of a different community that was Kabbalat Shabbat with Tots, where we did Kabbalat Shabbat, but, and then, but everybody had really tiny kids who were constantly interrupting the service. And it was partly about like in this life stage, I want this kind of community, and the big institutions that I’m part of, like the synagogue, it’s harder to connect. So I want this other kind of space. They weren’t intended as replacements, they were intended as complements.

And so I think also kind of going back to that, when you were talking earlier about mixing and matching, I think that was the phrase you used. Sometimes there’s a problem that Anna was pointing to of like, there’s something problematic for me in this space, and I love this tune, but I don’t feel like I can really be here for other reasons. And sometimes there’s the problem of like, okay, this institution exists and it fulfills part of what I want, but it doesn’t fulfill another part of what I want, and so I’m gonna go to a different institution for that piece of my Jewish life. Or I’m gonna build something on a small scale that is maybe more social or maybe some other piece to be able to make the match in the way that I want to. So build the compliment that I need.

Sami: That makes a lot of sense.

Anna: I was just gonna say one final point, like the work that we’ve put into this podcast is also part of, like, it wouldn’t exist if the four of us and the other people working on it weren’t putting in that time and energy. We didn’t just show up to start talking, like, we all had to buy in. Maybe if there were 20 people they would write a script for us, you know? But it’s like just the few of us who are working really hard on creating the space and making it happen because we believe in it.

Deb: Yeah. This is one version of your space.

Sami: I think this is a great place to wrap up, but I want to thank Deb again for joining us, and for just helping us out with the whole series.

Deb: So happy to be in conversation with you. Thanks guys.