w/ Miryam Kabakov ESHEL LGBTQ+

Lio

Hello, Seth. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jew Function episode 112. We have a great guest for you today. But before we start, I just want to remind everyone who's just joining in that we have been doing this for a while. And we don't ask for anything in return except for one thing, that you help us spread this conversation. I believe that we are the only ones speaking about anti-Semitism with this perspective, according to the laws of nature. we explain it based on the on historic patterns the words of Jewish sages and even network science no one else is doing it and as the world keeps revolving we see that no one is coming close to solving the problem of anti-semitism so we actually grow more confident that we we have something special here and so if you feel the same way if you feel that you are getting value from this and that it's inspiring you to maybe consider this explanation for antisemitism and our solution, not ours, you know, the sage's solution to antisemitism, by all means, do your part by spreading this conversation, like, share, comment, it helps tell someone about this talk, share a clip. You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, I post occasionally, Facebook, did I say? Anywhere there are some Jews, you'll find this. So that's the Jew function. Seth, how's it going? Are you excited about the upcoming election?

Seth

How do you feel? Interesting. That's what was on my mind to discuss with you. Humans are such interesting creatures. We're so malleable. We're so adaptable. And also, it seems so complicated. If you try to, just running a family or running a business, we see how complicated, or just trying to connect your printer. We see how many things can be so complicated. But there are natural laws in everything. They're not obvious. Hunger, it's natural. When I get hunger, I feel it. But there's a thing in humanity, a law, a well-known law, although it's not obvious, that something repeated enough times starts to become natural to a person. So even if somebody is your enemy, but they continually repeat to you that they're your friend, the human mind doesn't know how to deal with that and it actually believes it. And we can see this over and over everywhere we look in advertising, how many habits we have, how many foods we eat that aren't healthy for us, how we're in a crisis in relationships, we're in a crisis in education, we're in a crisis in healthcare, but we spend more money than anyone else. and we have more agencies telling us how to be healthy how to be educated all these things and uh we see that there's some kind of um problem there we're running there's some kind of problem there's a serious problem uh and they're all all these things are um are are accumulating together to to a breaking point um but yeah i'm okay you want to i was gonna say that the new york city uh mayoral election will be um whichever way it goes um will be uh anyway a mirror for humanity and hope you know the the problem that we have as modern humans is something called like insurance you know like you can always hedge yourself against something by by paying now and and pushing the consequences off till the future but it feels like maybe we'll be the mirror is getting closer and closer right you know you buy insurance or like you know i want to build my house here but at a certain point like hey stop building in this town we want to preserve the legacy of the town you know like everything is good of course you know in judaism there's a thing that uh you know everyone to the left of me is a goy and everyone to the right of me is a religious

Lio

extremist no matter where i am on the spectrum right everyone to the left extremist to the right

Seth

here right right that's right so it's like you know as long as i get what i want good but when they want to do more it's it's too much um i think i think look um i think when we talk about it right

Lio

Human nature is built in such a way that we have this engine inside and maximum pleasure, minimum pain. And pain sometimes means doing something. I just want to be left alone, just keep doing what I'm doing. I don't want to change course. I don't want to get out. I don't want to protest or this and that. I'm not motivated. I'm motivated to keep my life the way it is. And so even if I'm shown all the facts, as you said, it's like you're seeing all the smoke, but you're like, I'm not going to start fighting a fire. right? It's smoke, right? What can you do? And it's something that we see repeatedly. And when a person does wake up, it's often too late, right? It's the frog that's being boiled alive. We know that. We talked about it many times. The question is, I think what's happening right now in New York is just one little example. And it's a big example for a lot of people, But it's a little example, considering human history and us sitting here trying to get Jews to wake up to the fact that antisemitism is on the rise. There's something about the relationship between Jews and the world that doesn't make sense. We have to solve it or before it will be too late. And in some places, it's already too late. We see some places in Europe, right? Muslims are sending local politicians out of the country. You see what's happening here. I just got a clip on my Instagram showing Mamdani's network of Islamist terrorists, Linda Sarsour, the blind cheek who supported the 93 attack on the Twin Towers. He's so embedded. He's not some socialist guy from Queens. He's a Muslim Brotherhood guy, which more power to them. I wish more people would rise up to what's happening. And at the end of the day, everybody just wants to keep doing what they're doing and just be included. So if it means I'm voting for this guy and everything is going to be fine, great. But we know it's not going to end up well. Already now in the UK, there are demonstrations where the progressives are shouting downward racism. And the Muslim is like, no, dude, fuck off. You know, racist. He's like, no, brother, no. No, no, not your brother. They're already turning against them as we said they will. So I think this deep desire to belong is our downfall. It could also be our take it out of here, but it's also a very dangerous thing because when you use it against people, they may, in the moment of truth, choose to belong to something, even if it's terrible, just because it ensures that they can continue to live a relatively normal life. See that? Now, it doesn't work for everyone.

Seth

I mean, that's New York. I mean, it's not...

Lio

Well, not just New York. It happened in Nazi Germany. Not everybody was a Nazi, but you, you know, you towed the line, right? Not everybody was a crazy.

Seth

In New York, if someone tells you, I'm going to lower your rent and I'm going to get you cheaper food and I'm going to do, I mean, it's a hard, it's hard to say no to that, especially if you're in that situation.

Lio

Exactly. Do you take two minutes to actually research that and see if it's possible? If anyone has managed to do it? No. It's like, oh, it sounds good.

Seth

That's really not the point. It's not, it's not, it's not, we're not talking about logical things.

Lio

No, exactly. Exactly. We're talking about belonging. And I think if there's something that jives with my desire to receive pleasure and I don't have to, all I have to do is just cast a vote somewhere, I'm in. And that can be, like I said, a very dangerous thing. And we brought, I think this is a very important topic because we're not, this podcast is not the New York mayoral elections and it's not about real estate and rent. But we did bring someone today, a guest, which if those elections go through, as the predictions show, for Mamdani, and we're going to start to see more mosques and more Sharia law around the city, what does that mean for a lot of populations? just don't fall within the framework of Sharia law, right? Even assuming this was a possible future for New York, right? Hard to imagine. Let's say it would immediately exclude so many people. So we brought someone who deals with exclusion and inclusion all the time. She's, well, you saw her name on the thumbnail, but I was going to say that she's a national leader who worked for more than three decades on the inclusion of LGBTQ plus individuals in the Orthodox world. It's a very specific space. Her name is Miriam Kabakov, and she's the executive director and co-founder of ESHEL, a national organization that supports LGBTQ plus Orthodox individuals and their families. And prior to that, she was in New York. She was the New York National Program Director of Avodah, the Jewish Service Corps. the director of LGBT programming at the JCC Manhattan and, and held other roles in that space in New York. I think the bio says she doesn't live in New York. Now she's in Minneapolis, I think, right? Somewhere. So she's going to tell us, but I'm very happy to invite on the show, Miriam Kubacko. Miriam, please join us. Hi, Miriam.

Miryam

Thank you so much. It's really an honor to be here. I no longer live in Minneapolis. I live in Western Massachusetts in a college town. So discussions about Israel are very up in the air all the time. you know, I'm very, um, height, my awareness is so heightened to this. And I grew up on the upper East side of Manhattan. Um, and I went to a Jewish day school that was kitty corner to the turn variant, which was the home of the Nazi party during world war II. And so we were educated about, you know, I was, um, in Yorkville, which is, you know, where a lot, a large German population was during the time, during that time. And we were, we were just really made very much aware of the history of where we were and the feeling that at any moment, you know, you turn the corner and something can happen towards you because you're a Jew. And I walk around with that feeling inside me. And I think a lot of us do, but I also think it's really important to realize that that's not really always the case. And it's not the case. We have allies everywhere we go. We have people that cared about us and loved us and took care of us during Nazi Germany. And I just like, I have for my own internal system and my own mental health, I have to believe that. And I do believe that. And I think that, and my job in my work, well, in different spheres of my life, especially living where I do is to build bridges and just, just to really make conversations with people who might

Seth

otherwise think of me as really alien and different um so if you if i can't leo yeah who um so let's talk about the bridges and let's talk about the allies because can we can we hear about ashel for

Miryam

a second just just yeah i would like to talk a little bit about ashel first because i think that

Lio

that's what i have this big logo yeah so just tell us what's it all about what i do all the time so

Miryam

So HL is an organization that works with thousands of Jews who are LGBTQ and who have come out in Orthodox community. And we also work with our families, like their parents and their friends and their wider community. We build community with them and we advocate for them and we help them, their parents advocate for them in Jewish day schools and synagogues. We do a lot of support. So we have a lot of support networks, support groups that we provide people to get through their struggles. And lastly, we do education. So like we educate, you know, people in Orthodox communities on how to be allies. So while it's an entirely, well, it's a little bit of a different topic, obviously, the idea of allyship is very big for us at ACHEL because we kind of think that if we don't educate our allies about who we are, or just like that third ring, not the people who are immediately involved, but the outer ring, then we're never really going to get anywhere in Orthodoxy. because our vision is that anybody, that any Orthodox Jew who's LGBTQ can go to an Orthodox show of their choice. And our mission is to make Orthodoxy LGBTQ, you know, inclusive completely. So the only way we're going to do that is to reach our allies. You know, the people who are directly affected, you know, bond together, they find each other in community and they get support that way, but they don't want to just be with each other. They want to go back to the lives that they had and just, you know, what they grew up with. So that's why we do a lot of focusing on our allies. And how do we do that? A lot of it is like, you know, you have to get to know the stranger, you know, in order to like overcome whatever biases you have, you have to put a face on the the thing that you think is weird to you, strange to you, dangerous to you. And that's what we do. So we, you know, we, we train our allies. We get our Orthodox rabbis to meet LGBTQ people, to sit with them face to face and to realize like, they're not, they're not really any different than the rest of us to put a human face on who we are. You're muted, Leo. Yeah.

Seth

Leah, we don't hear you. Okay. That sounds like a hard work.

Miryam

Yeah.

Seth

There's many, many things to get into there. Let me ask you one simple ground level. Why does – what's the need to join a group that I guess by nature that group is not inclusive of the LGBTQ community? Is that right?

Miryam

The Orthodox community?

Seth

Yeah. Well, because I imagine there's been there's been LGBTQ people or maybe not definitely gay people in the Orthodox community probably forever.

Miryam

Exactly. Right. Yeah. So no one. Right. So we're not joining any community. We are just in the community. And so there are people who come to HL who want to convert to Orthodoxy, which is really interesting to me always. You know, that's really a true choice. But, you know, people people want to remain in their Orthodox communities because they love their community. They love their families, their traditions that they were raised with. you know all the teaching that we go you know that we acquire as orthodox jews is very um soul-filling and it's very validating and it and it and it helps us be strong in this really difficult world so nobody's joining it we're just here right it's just that we don't want to leave

Seth

it we don't want to get kicked out of it really where is that where is the point for example as a man for example i would come in in the morning i'd put on my tefillin i would pray right no problem afterwards we'd sit around the table we would learn some torah maybe have a l'chaim or something and after that i will say you know it's it's monday morning after that i'll go to work and a good monday morning yeah and the the gay guy who was next to me put on his tefillin after that we talked about torah and after that he goes to work so so far there's no you don't even

Miryam

know you know so where's the problem yeah so if the person comes out in their orthodox community um it depends on the synagogue and we do a lot of work with synagogues which i'll talk about in a little bit but um it could be that all of a sudden you don't get an aliyah to the torah or you don't get to lead for the entire community you know um as as a prayer leader as a shaliyah tzibor um maybe you don't get to pray for everybody on Yom Kippur, one of the most like holy days of the year. And maybe socially you're cut out. So it's not just the rituals, it's also socially because there's a lot of homophobia in the Orthodox community as there is in any community, but, you know, it's sort of like, it's part of our, it's a little bit part of the, you know, the tradition that homosexuality is forbidden as far as the way the rabbis are understanding the passages in the Torah right now. And so, you know, if somebody is blatantly doing something that is like considered forbidden, then they're already a little ostracized. However, this form, this form of sinning seems to be far outweigh the, you know, other things that are listed in the Torah as sins, right? So you could be cheating on your taxes or cheating on your wife or whatever. And it's just not as bad as this, you know, just because of the culture. And so, yeah, it could be that you are just the same as the gay guy who's sitting next to you, but it's entirely possible that his experience is just really, really different. The other thing is that when you don't see yourself reflected in a community, you feel invisible. And then you feel like you can't really stick up for yourself if you have any needs and be out you know is who you are and you know i think the parallel is that jews have this everywhere right like people are afraid to come out as jews if you're traveling or if you're in a community where you're in the minority and um yeah so it's a little bit of a parallel it is a parallel experience i think coming out as a jew and coming out as a gay person in orthodoxy is very similar yeah i think totally i i was just telling seth before we started that

Lio

years ago I was I was I got to I was asked to film a guy who grew up in 770 the Chabad community and realized that he's gay and as a teenager he left like many do and they have a little clique they would meet in Manhattan in one of the clubs and bars and talk probably know where it is I think it was somewhere on the east It was a place they would meet. And they all kind of talked about the desire to be part of the community, but they also understood how difficult it is to be back in that community with everything, all the baggage that goes with it. And also there were a lot of bad experiences of people who weren't strong enough to even leave. They just committed suicide and other things of that nature. And so for him, it was a big deal to come back to the community for me to film him walking, saying hi to his teachers and the friend. It was like a redeeming moment. I don't think he actually went back. It was more of an overcoming moment of trying for him. I think an important moment, but I don't think he went back. I think that community is pretty tight-knit. It doesn't have room for that for all kinds of reasons, as you said. I mean, tradition, this, that, and the other. And by the way, just as a side note, I think there are a lot of customs in the Orthodox community, especially in the diaspora, but not only also in Israel, that may require change, that they may not fit the time we live in. However, who am I to go there and tell them this, you know, if they don't feel that they need to change? So the question is, how does that really work? Like, what do you consider a successful day in bringing people together? How do you measure that? Like the community says, yeah, sure, we'd love to have you. Or how does that look?

Miryam

Yeah, that's a great question. And so I'll just start with the LGBTQ people themselves. What that man had that you filmed was like what I call like a healing moment, right? Like he overcame his anxiety about going back to where he came from. And he allowed himself to be there. Now, it's possible that nobody else knew what he was doing, right? It was just something that internally he was able to face the fear and step into it and move a little bit inside of himself. Yeah, he didn't go back and join the Chabad community that he was a part of, but at least he had that moment where he could feel strong enough. And the reason why he probably felt strong enough is because he knew other people like him. So, you know, similar to how you introduced your podcast, like as Jews, we have to stick together. you know it's the most important thing for us to be strong together and to be unified and in at Aishal we bring LGBTQ people together in such a healing environment so like our signature event our biggest event of the year which this year is on March 13th in um in Maryland we're having a retreat so we take people on a weekend retreat a Shabbat and we bring them into what feels like how they grew up. So like an Orthodox Shabbat with all the prayers and all the rituals and Shabbat dinner and all the things that happened for them when they were growing up. And we bring them together so that they can be together as LGBTQ Jews in the same environment. And a lot of people just come out of that feeling completely whole. And they have the experience of what it could be like to be whole. And then they have the strength, they have that feeling inside of them that it's possible. And they go back into their world, aspiring to that moment of wholeness. And on the other side, we are working with Orthodox communities in trying to get them to understand the experience of the LGBTQ person and get them to feel some empathy and understanding of that experience so that they can meet them somewhere in the middle. And so with LGBTQ person, we're giving them a sense of like what it could be like to stay whole and to be whole and to stay orthodox. And for their community members or leaders who are maybe sort of wanting to push them out, because it's such a complicated, difficult thing to think about, we try to bring them along and say, you know, why lose those people? Why, why take, why take away from them what they had when they were growing up and what they really truly love. And maybe they're going to be an asset to your community. You know, why, why do you think they're going to take away? And so at some point we have a meeting in the middle and that's our, what we call our welcoming shuls project. So like we've interviewed over 300 Orthodox synagogue rabbis in America, in North America, just asking them like, if an LGBTQ person came into your community, what would they experience? How would they feel? What would you feel? And what would you do for them to make them feel like they fully belong? And then we have people asking us where they can go, you know, what synagogues they can go to or where, if they want to move to a new city, where can they go and feel welcome? And so that's sort of a way of us matching people with the right communities and, you know, and strengthening, I think it's strengthening the Jewish community by having, you know, diversity inside your city where you have it anyway, whether you know it or not, and just acknowledging it and acknowledging our differences.

Lio

I'm curious, Mary, I'm sorry. But do you, I'm curious, do you, when you do these, let's say this retreat, right, and you bring people together, do you rely on Jewish sources to talk about those things? What's your excuse for asking for this kind of reconciliation or inclusion? Because I'm just playing devil's advocate here, right? Another person could say, listen, we don't fit. We have our own ways. Our community is like this. We've been doing this for 2,000 years. We're still wearing those weird clothes, even when it's 90 degrees outside. They should go live where they want to live and do what they want to do.

Seth

Why do you want to wear polyester in the summer and wear a nylon wig?

Lio

Yeah. Why mix those things? Maybe they don't matter. So do you rely on something in our sources? Because I can tell you that a lot of verses in the sources that talk about the need to combine opposites and all that. There's a lot of, I'm just curious, how do you frame it? Are you just talking about psychology, humanity? Talk to me about the inner quality of that.

Miryam

Yeah, I mean, we talk about our need to have what we had and to not have anyone take that away from us. And we don't talk about halakha that much. We don't debate halakha because you can't really win when you talk about Jewish law with rabbis or legal experts in Jewish law. Like it just doesn't, it doesn't really get us anywhere. And it's really not about the law. It's really about who we are. And, you know, whether you like it or not, like, you know, modern science has shown that there are gay people everywhere, a certain percentage of every population. why did God make us this way? I don't really know, but I believe that there, if God made us this way, there's a reason. And so, you know, we don't, we can bring in a lot of texts. We do bring in texts and we talk about how the Jewish tradition really honors difference and honors debate and honors things that are not the norm, like not what you would, might expect. And, you know, the rabbis in the Talmud sort of recognized nine different genders, for example, right? Rabbis today don't talk about that stuff. So we have this really rich tradition and we have to, we, we definitely call upon it to help us understand and to help us, you know, appreciate who we are. But outwardly we don't really debate Jewish law. Cause like I said, we won't win with someone else. And also internally people feel very, very conflicted and we're trying to, because of the law. So like we're trying to get them to move away from that way of thinking about themselves for their mental health. What can I tell you? Like, it's just a it's just a question of our mental health. A lot of people, you know, get very depressed. They're very isolated and they feel like they're not worthy of a full life. And we want to tell them that they are completely worthy of a full life. And luckily for us, the Jewish community, especially in New York City, with the UJA, the United Jewish Appeal of the Federation in New York City, has recognized that, especially after October 7th, the people in our community really need more. They need more community building to meet each other for their mental health. And it came out of the mental health division of the UJA to support a full-time person working in New York to build community for our community. So, yeah.

Lio

So, yes, Seth, if you have a question, I want to ask about how does that converge with the upcoming mayor? Just a very practical question. What do you guys think about that? How do you profess belonging to a society that doesn't want certain kinds of people to belong in it? I'm really curious.

Miryam

Wow. I mean, I just, I believe that the New York Jewish community is very strong and I hope that they can support each other in whatever ways are necessary going forward. The interesting thing about our community is that we sort of embody these really two poles, right? Like we did this survey after October 7th of our community and how they were doing in terms of their experience of antisemitism. And in non-Jewish LGBTQ spaces, the rates of antisemitic experience, like the experience of like slurs getting kicked out of places, both online and in real life, were much greater than in other places. So, you know, so we sort of embody these two different identities. So, you know, yeah, it's just kind of an interesting thing to watch. Seth, do you have any reflection on?

Seth

this is fascinating and i want to um hopefully get into this and mostly miriam i think that um if we take off the the specific uh garments of of this experience i think behind it there's spiritual movements moving like for you it's around lgbtq right for someone else it's that um i don't know maybe he was in combat or something in it but underneath the uh physical expression there's all these movements of the souls trying to get closer and further away is is how i see it through here what so what i'm going to ask about is more about them the souls right forget the clothing and i know it's hard because all day long we're dealing with people but let's try and get to to the middle so in spirituality what we're dealing with is the uniting of opposites right like you makes peace in heaven make make peace for us so in spirituality opposites can exist together in our world fire and water or any kind of opposites are always extinguishing each other or banging heads against each other and we have a way to manage that and that is in the method of jewish spirituality we're not trying to correct the biggest uh you know when we start with our tikkunim we're starting with the closest ones the easier ones and then building the system from there we don't start with the most difficult thing and and that's how it degrees so my question is where are the success like your goal is a gigantic goal right and it's it's clearly you know for example someone comes to you and says where can I move so you're gonna go through your database and you're gonna say let me place this person or recommend someplace that's already gonna be accepting somewhat and let them join in there let them all have a good experience And then from that, other people will be able to see that and grow from that and be experienced. You wouldn't take that person and say, well, here's a really, really difficult situation where they, you know, I'm going to put you there and you're going to fight the rest of your life. So practically, where are you finding success stories? Not about the names and the faces and the places, but how do you take these two different worlds? What are the conditions where two different worlds can come together and successfully, not that this person is, that there wasn't an overcoming. Specifically, where there was some overcoming, but these two opposites were able to come together and find success. And then from there, the process can grow.

Miryam

Wow. I want to say that we experience it the most in our parent work, our work with Orthodox parents, because what I'm hearing you say, Seth, is that, well, okay, this is what I heard when you spoke right now about spirituality. What goes off in my brain is that we're all sparks of holiness inside of us. We're all souls. We all belong to one big spirit. And if we got rid of the outer trappings of who we were and we could all just embrace each other's divinity, then the world would just be filled with love.

Seth

right and we also wouldn't need creation if we were just all one again in you know in souls

Miryam

but yes yeah so um but if we stripped away what makes us different then we would see deeply how we're so similar and how at our core we all want the same thing you know um and so we work very hard to get to that in inner spark and inner divinity right to like strip away what makes us feel different or what, what's, you know, makes us look different from each other. And we're able to achieve this the most, I want to say in our work with parents, because, you know, as a parent, you know, you don't love anyone more than you love your child, you know, basically like, you know, in a good situation of parenting. And then your child, after 20 years of knowing them and loving them deeply tells you that they are somebody who you never thought that they were. And it's an incredibly alienating moment for parents. All of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, I thought I knew who you were and now you're telling me you're someone else? That can't be. And then the parent rejects that identity that the kid is shared with them. And they cannot even begin to accept like this new reality. And so our work is to get the parents to see that the kid is really the same person that they were their entire life. They just weren't telling you this one thing. And why didn't they tell you? Many reasons could, it could be why they didn't tell you they didn't know, or they were really terrified or, you know, whatever other reason. But now that you know this, we need to bring you back to the common thing between the two of you, you know, and the basic love that you had and you can still have. So we do a lot of work with parents. And I think that is one of the things that is the most gratifying to me when a parent can re-emerge as the loving parent that they were and also just access that feeling of love. And, you know, that really gives me hope for, you know, for all of our, all of orthodoxy, all of our community, that if every leader in the orthodox community can understand like that every person in their community is like their child, they need to act like the parent and to love them the way they did, you know, the day before they came out to them. And that kind of work, like the face-to-face work, or like just people understanding about their biases, to me, that gives me hope for the future and just in general for people to get along.

Lio

Do you think that these people who have had this kind of breakthrough, especially as your parents, do you think they're able to become maybe ambassadors for such connection beyond the LGBTQ space? Do you think they have the desire maybe to expand it? Because what we're interested, what you're doing, as Seth mentioned, you're working on a very specific issue within the Jewish community. But if I just replaced LGBTQ with just any other thing, a political view, a culture, a particular way of doing the prayers, You know, there's so many things that separate Jews from one another. In fact, this is sort of we were founded on this separation. The LGBTQ thing just simply became, you know, I want to call it sort of a hot topic in the last several decades. But it's just one more thing, one more excuse to shun the other, to not love the other, not express that love, as you said, from a parent to a child. And what we're saying here in this show, and what we're trying to say, we're screaming this every time we get on the show, is that we, all of us, are guilty of this. Not just parents of gay children or neighbors of gay people. All of us. We all have an other in our lives, probably many others, that we refuse to bring into our hearts. That we refuse to open up to. that we refuse to relate to them as our children. But that's what we need to aspire to. Exactly. In fact, that is the highest law. And that is why we don't care about it. You want to argue law? You want to argue Mishnah and subtleties? Go ahead. We're not in court. There's one mitzvah, which is the rule, the cloud of all the mitzvah, which is love the other as yourself. You love yourself more than you love everyone else. Let's see you love the other more than you love that. That's the rule. That's the highest rule. That's the greatest rule of the Torah, right? As Rabbi Akiva said. Right. And when you do that, that's when you reveal the creator, which is a force of love and bestowal, not some holy. I didn't realize this, but now that you're saying this, Leo,

Seth

it's as if, Miriam, and that's a tall order, but maybe everything you and your community have done so far has been like training in the trenches.

Miryam

Yeah.

Seth

Because now you have all these skills and understanding and actually emotion tied to it all, but the skills that you have are needed in, you know, strip the specific LGBTQ work and put it to the side. The actual skills you acquired, the actual experiences you acquired seem like the skills and what's needed. Now in all of Kalal Yisrael, how are we going to bring these groups that each one has something against the other one. Yeah. How are we going to bring that together so

Miryam

that we can all become a family? I mean, I mean, exactly. And right. And, um, these are, this is muscle memory. It's emotional muscle memory. You know, our, our parents are like their heart muscles are so strong after they've gone through, you know, a year or two of working on themselves with our support groups and our community events and our network. They are struggling so deeply and their hearts get really strong with the ability to stretch and love and encompass the other and the people that feel so strange to them. And I'm just so proud of them. And when I think about them, I just want to cry because they've just come so far. And you're right, it's a parallel to the rest of the Jewish community and people on this planet. Like, how do you look at somebody who you cannot even relate to, let alone maybe you hate them because of what they stand for or what they've done to you? And how do we get to a different place and embrace them and love them and feel bad for them because maybe they are barking up the wrong tree or they don't believe in the things that you think are wise or healthy. So, yeah, I do believe that the work that we do is translatable. It's something that maybe everybody needs a little bit more of in this world. And I agree with that. And Leo, I just want to go back to what you said. You alluded to something, which is that you hit upon our theory of change. and that is that when we bring the parents into our community and closer, they become the advocates for change in their communities because their kids, 50% or so, we once did a little bit of research on this, leave the Orthodox community. We don't want that. That's what we don't want. We want them to stay, but they leave and for their own good reasons, you know, but the parents don't leave. They generally stay in their Orthodox communities, You know, they don't move because their kid came out and they are left to face the homophobia, the, you know, the the isolation that their kid coming out has, you know, sort of left them with. And they don't want to stand for it. A lot of them are like very active in their synagogues or active in their Jewish communities. And if they have the strength to be an advocate, they will stand up for their child and other people's children. And this is what makes change ultimately. When people leave, which is what a lot of people want, they want the gay people to leave. They're like, okay, fine, you're gay, you came out, just don't be Orthodox anymore. We've heard that from Orthodox rabbis. They're like, you don't belong here. Go somewhere else. Good luck. But, you know, parents don't want that for their kids and they don't want that to feel a part of a community that would do that to their child. So, yes, Leo, what you said is right.

Lio

I have another difficult question. Do you feel like something about the Orthodox community also needs to change? the way they some of the customs tradition beliefs or is it all perfect just accept the other and

Miryam

and we're good we're good to go yeah no i think what's hard about in america it's very different in israel i have to say and in other places but in america what's hard is that you have these rabbinic associations that they have the ability to ostracize the rabbi so that the rabbi's hands are tied, like very often in private, a rabbi will tell a parent or tell a person who came out to them like loving, accepting, beautiful things. And then publicly they can't say the same things because they will get shunned by their community of, you know, their rabbinic association. So I think the structure needs to change so that that can't happen. You know, there's just a lot of social pressure and like looking at the other and saying, oh, you're not, you're no longer Orthodox. If you said that you can't be Orthodox anymore. You're not really the rabbi I thought you were. And, and that's what's sort of damaging, I think, to the Orthodox community. In general, rabbi leaders can't really speak their mind. They get in big trouble sometimes.

Lio

We know that. We absolutely know that.

Seth

It's unpopular, but they could actually speak their minds.

Miryam

Yeah, they can. But it's the rabbis that have nothing left to lose. The ones that are like sort of like the last job that they're going to ever have, like they're about to retire or they're so beloved that they know that their community really stands behind them. And those are the rabbis that can really be allies to us. And we've seen it, you know, and it's wonderful. But it's just a shame, like the younger people in the profession, they're sort of like lightly, and then they do one thing that feels a little marginal, and then they get slapped, and they go right back to the center. We've experienced this when working with rabbis, and they've said to us, I wanted to do a weekend with you, or a program with you, or bring in Eshol with a speaker, but I was told by the local rabbinic association that if I did that they would take away my whatever, my Heksher, my Eruv, or like whatever the thing that the local Vod was overseeing.

Lio

Well, you know, the good news is that the greatest Kabbalist in the 20th century was Yudash, like Baal Sulem, and he wasn't afraid to speak his mind. And indeed, he was excommunicated by the judges in Warsaw and moved to Israel. And it may have saved his life. I mean, he asked him to leave Poland before the Holocaust. And they refused. And they all perished in the Holocaust. Wow. And I think, I mean, I don't know how many Orthodox rabbis listen to our podcast, but if there are any, I would encourage people to look to that highest mitzvah, the highest one of all, because it's very easy to get lost in the details. We know that. Right.

Seth

Like in everything. Also, you don't have to start with everything. Just start with loving the other Jew. Like, let's cast that net. Let's not maybe deal with marriage or this or this or this. Let's just start with, you know, also we see this in politics all the time, right? Like, let's pick abortion, the most divisive topic possible, and let's put that all over the news every single day. Instead of let's pick the topic that 90% of people agree with and start with that, and then let's get closer and closer to some sense of understanding between us. Let's cast a net that includes everyone. Let's start with the easier corrections first. Let's not ask people who are, you know, it's very difficult to go to an Orthodox rabbi with this worldview whose grandparents were like this and great grandparents were like this and raised his whole life like this and demand him to change. That's not fair and it's not easy for him also. But loving the other as yourself, like if no one's trying to hurt you, you know, it's different if someone's coming to try to kill you. So we don't have to. We also have another rule, kill him first. But short of someone trying to kill you, if it's another Jew who's living their life and trying to be in love, and you're also a Jew trying to live your life in love, let's start with the easiest possible corrections and not ask people to break their back in order to make me feel comfortable. Let's all try and start with the easiest things. And I don't know why any rabbi could not get on board with at least, you know, if it was framed in something that wide. It doesn't accomplish all your goals tomorrow, but it creates a place where we're at least connected now somehow.

Miryam

Sure. Yeah. I mean, we do have a lot of rabbis that will say every Jew is welcome, you know, every Jew should belong. But when the rubber hits the road, that's where our work begins, because that's not always, you know, doesn't feel comfortable to them, isn't the case. But I want to say, like, I don't blame anybody, because what I was saying, you know, you were saying what's like the major problems in orthodoxy, or is it perfect? Absolutely, it's not perfect. Orthodox people are just people, so it's imperfect. But it's the peer pressure. so I don't blame people because they're trying to hold on to their jobs but more importantly they want to lead a community and they want to do a good job and they believe that they can do good so what you're saying Seth like start with the easy stuff like that is a lot of what I think you know the people we work with want to do they want to just kind of like create a groundwork like lay the ground work, you know, like basic, like here are the principles, here are the things we believe in, and then slowly add or slowly build onto that. So that probably is, does happen on quite a bit.

Lio

What is, what is your dream? You know, if you could dream big.

Miryam

Well, any person who like runs a nonprofit, they want to dream that their, their nonprofit doesn't have to exist anymore because we're usually trying to solve a problem so like if the problem didn't

Seth

exist we wouldn't have to do this leo and i are always wishing that we're out of business already

Lio

exactly but i'll make it difficult because what if i told you that um it's not a particular problem to solve rather there's a there's a certain way we need to um conduct ourselves with each other that way it's something we have to work at 24 7 we have to work at it because it goes against our nature yeah it's the one thing that we have to do which which actually um reflects our humanity we're not like animals all animals work right according to maximum pleasure minimum pain they don't make plans they don't have a sensation of the other yeah they feel there's another animal in the room but that's about it there's no feeling of the internal qualities of the of the other entity like humans do we have it we naturally share that burden between us and but we do everything to kind of cover it up and so we can continue to feel maximum pleasure you know little pain or payment as possible yeah that's the thing we have to work at we have to constantly remind ourselves give ourselves strength to work against what we call the will to receive for itself that's the sort of the ego, the expression of the ego in this way. And, and, and so in a way we cannot quit our, our job. This has to be our, in fact, it has to become our full-time engagement by everyone. So I'm trying, I want to reverse the nonprofit paradigm instead of, I don't have to do this anymore. No, we all do this 24 seven all the time. Is that a good dream for you? Or is that a terrible dream?

Miryam

No, I mean, I love my work and there's got to be a reason why I love it because it's so difficult. But I think that what you're hitting on, Leo, is that, that I love seeing people get over their feeling of being different and reaching beyond those differences and finding a commonality. And to me, if every human being on the planet could just do that, we would all be at peace. Honestly, like that's just, to me, that's it, right? Like we are terrified of difference. We're terrified of what's strange to us. And if we can just kind of, you know, shore up our internal strength and believe that it's going to be okay to open our hearts to what feels strange and different, then it's possible that we will all be in peace with each other. And I think what we want more than anything is for people to stop hating on each other and accepting and opening their hearts. And, you know, this is like, obviously, it's the biggest problem on our planet. I mean, aside from other big problems like climate disaster. But, you know, people need to really understand the other, I think. It's the most important thing. And that's what brings me the most joy. So yes, you're right, Leo. If I could flip it from a problem to a solution that we all love working within, that would be it.

Lio

Nice. Seth, do you have any questions? Because I want to ask if she's promoting anything, a book, a retreat, something. and I really think I have a feeling that after the coming election in New York there will be a lot of interest in what you're doing and where you're doing it yeah I think so I don't know if you want to tell us a little bit what's on the horizon and how can people find you yeah good

Miryam

all right well I'll say our website is eshelonline.org L I N E.org. And I imagine you have show notes. You'll put that in. We do have some big events coming up for parents. Like I said, we have our big retreat on March 13th and we have our big LGBTQ retreat on April 30th. These are annual events that are a great way for people to meet others in our community and enter into the whole network of everything that we do. if you're an orthodox leader a board member a rabbi a synagogue member and you want to figure out how to make your synagogue more welcoming and inclusive you should reach out to us and we'll connect you to our welcoming shoals projects um and if you believe in what we do and you want to help us grow especially right now we're having a big push in new york city because of the population there, go to our website and make a donation and, you know, reach out if you feel like you are able to really support us in getting to the next level of helping people in New York, but also across North America. Nice. Very nice.

Lio

Thank you. I put in the chat a little quote. I'm going to post it right now. It's from Baal Salaam, from a newspaper. he tried to publish there was only one or two additions to it sadly but it was right before the establishment of the State of Israel, it was during the British mandate but that newspaper just has everything in it, so this is a little quote from that, maybe you can, we ask every guest to read a quote from our sages I think this one it also evokes some questions, so it's okay if you want to open it up, but it's also okay if you just

Miryam

read it and let people mull it over. Sure. You want me to read it out loud? Yeah. Okay, great. This is going to take a lot of thought on my part. I got to think about this one, but yes. Yeah. Okay. So the measure of egoism inherent in every creature is a necessary condition in the actual existence of the creature. Without it, it would not be a separate and distinct being in itself. Yet this should not at all deny the measure of altruism in a person. The only thing required is to set distinct boundaries between them. The law of egoism must be kept in all its might to the extent that it concerns the minimum existence. And with any surplus of that measure, permission is granted to waive it for the well-being of one's fellow person. Wow. Thank you. I have to say thank you for that.

Seth

Well, Salah Sulama was talking to the other Jews and was shunned in Poland. And he spoke his mind and they ostracized him. Wow. The same Kabbalist, Yehuda Ashlag.

Miryam

Oh, this is the one that left before the war.

Seth

He also, he published this paper and the saying that everyone needed to love each other. He was an Orthodox guy, very conservative. Yeah. He published this paper that everybody needed to love each other. That was the foundation of being Jewish. And the other Orthodox guys went to the British who were, you know, it was the British mandate in Israel at the time. And they reported him that he was spreading communist propaganda. They shut him down. They shut him down. That's why he wasn't able to publish anything else.

Miryam

Oh, that's really sad. Can you spell out his name? I want to capture it.

Lio

Baal Hasulam. B-A-A-L Hasulam. H-A-S-U-L-A-M.

Seth

It's based on, he did the Hasulam commentary on the Zohar.

Lio

Yeah, the latter commentary because he describes the, he really made a, I mean, we won't have time to get into it now, but he really made a tremendous, he was a revolutionary, if you will, after... Very orthodox. Yeah, very orthodox, but after basically those big milestones in the development of the internality of the Torah, of Jewish wisdom, and after the Ari, the 16th century, there was a big break. Baal Shem Tov also did something very unusual, and then Baal Salaam is the one who really adapted the wisdom in a way that we just everyday people can understand it and can relate to it and really get a sense of what the hell does it mean to be a Jew today alive in the world what does it mean to be Jewish it's not the things that you do you know in a very orthodox way although he wasn't against that but he was very much against the orthodoxy that favored those things over that that final goal of humanity, the correction of our soul, acquiring the right intention, which is to love. Exactly. You are still a desire to receive pleasure. That's okay. That's who we are. Each one derives pleasures in a different way, right? One this way, one that way, one does this, one does that. That's okay. But to what end are we doing this? And that goes to what you were saying earlier. It's not even so much as stripping away the differences, rather than saying there will always be differences. We will never agree on everything. We don't have to like each other's every little thing, but we have to love above it. And that's what we hope to do. Which article is from? What? With a quote? From the newspaper, from The Nation.

Seth

Okay, so it's called Ha'uma.

Lio

Yeah, The Nation. You can find it also on kabbalamedia.info. You can find it. Yeah. We'll put it in the chat. And what we have here info, we can share it. And I'm inviting everyone who's listening as well to sample, again, the first season of The Jew Function, the first 22 episodes, because they talk about those things, talk about those sources and sort of follow a timeline of our development. And when we were in line with that rule of love and when we left that ideal of love and unity and pursued other endeavors and what happened then. So we have a short memory. So this is a good, good, chuggy memory. It's also great listening. You can bring it to the retreat. You can probably listen and talk about those things. Maryam, I encourage you. We would help if needed, of course. And we invite you to stay in touch, spread the Jew function, and we'll happily support your efforts in building bridges. I think we all need to learn how to do that better.

Miryam

I mean, thank you so much. It's been a beautiful experience talking with the two of you. Thank you.

Lio

It was our pleasure. Seth, thank you. Miriam, thank you so much. Keep doing what you're doing. And we'll see everyone on the next Jew function. As I said, we have a great line of guests coming up after a bit of a little holiday rest we took. So stay tuned and join us, I want to say next Sunday, probably another live session. So this is it. We're at the Jew function. Find us everywhere. Like, share, comment, hit the bell

Lio

so you get an update when this thing comes live. And be a good Jew. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye, everyone.