w/ Judy Greenfeld #2

Lio: Hey, welcome to The Jew Function. I'm Lio.

Seth: I'm Seth. Hello, everyone.

Lio: And we're here to talk about the Jews. We just had a conversation earlier, Seth and I. Is it okay if I tell them? We had a conversation about what needs to happen for this thing to take off. Obviously, we're not doing this for money. If you've been listening to the show, you know we care about one thing and one thing only, and that is to get more Jews to talk about, to acknowledge, to discuss, even to argue about our role, our unique role in the world. And no, it's not about creating lucrative startup companies. It's about a new kind of start, actually, a start of loving your friend as yourself. It's about being role models for the rest of humanity, especially at these times when the ego is taking over everything. And that's what the world needs. We're speaking from the shoulders of giants who said before us that this is the reason for the existence of the Jewish nation, as strange as it is, a strange bird in the landscape of humanity. We are here because we, at some point in the past, were able to follow Abraham and learn how to unite above our differences and hold on to each other, even though there were forces aiming to tear us apart. We learned how to do it. We went into the depth of our ego in Egypt, and we came out, and that's the story of Passover. We came out of the grip of our ego and united as one man in one heart around Mount Sinai, around the Mount of Hate, actually, to receive the Torah, the instruction on how to do it, how to apply it between us. And we took that, we went back to the land of Israel, the great desire. We sort of, after disconnecting from the ego, from all of our desires, we went back into our desires. We took everything and we used everything in order to cover it with love, sort of as a reason to cover it with love. We were not sitting in some forest without a shirt, caring about nothing, needing nothing. No, with all the desires of our lives put together, we covered that with love and we built the temple. And it's not even the temple, it's not the stones and the wood and the marble and all those glorious descriptions. It's actually an internal temple. It's a place that's separate. It's sanctified. Sanctified in Hebrew means separate. It's just separate from the usual pursuit of fulfillment. And we did that, and it was great for a while. For a few hundred years, it actually worked out well. We fell from that, and oh, the whole thing shattered. We fell back into our egos and spread around the world with one reason to wake up when the time was right and be an example to the rest of the world, which is today. So here we are, Passover.

Seth: Nice podcast intro. You just basically gave the whole history of the Jewish people and the old meaning. Well done.

Lio: Yeah, I felt like we needed something, you know, and it's Passover and this is the chance to do it. There's a reason why this is the most important holiday, and every father has to tell it to his son. And it's like we tell the story again and again. Not so we think about it as some far-away event in the past, but no, something we have to do. We're telling it so we won't forget that we have to do it. And so this is where we are. And I want us to talk about it, Seth. I want us to take a radical approach to Jewish unity. And not say, oh, we should, it's nice, but like there's no other choice.

Seth: And my problem is I don't know how to communicate these things in a way that, you know, it's just like, tell me where to charge my credit card, $4.99, and just send me the PDF. You know, or just in three short videos, you know, and you can get it. And it's not like that. And that's why we have to have these conversations from week to week because it's also evident to us that the solution actually, it comes through the way that it's constructed is that by connecting more and more, it becomes revealed more and more. Even though, for example, Rabbi Akiva or Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Shimon, right, revealed the Book of Zohar. But that's not the end of the story. Not until all of humanity absorbs this. Does everyone come to that degree? So we now set out in a very circular path to find, at first, people who, although we've spoken to haters and everything, some violent antisemites on this podcast. But we're looking to find people who are close and that we can resonate with and increase this, the frequency of what we're talking about. Through concentric circles and more circles and more circles, penetrate so that this message of Jewish unity finds its way to every corner. And that's how we got here today.

Lio: Exactly. And we won't stop until it becomes as sexy to talk about Jewish unity as it is to talk about who wore what to the red carpet. And I think there's a future in that. And for that, we bring our guest from the West Coast, our past guest and dear friend, who's a rabbi and a cantor, a founder and a leader, someone who's led a congregation specializing in inclusivity and in building bridges and bringing people together. And we want to talk to her again because it feels so good to talk to her. So please, let's give a warm welcome to Rabbi Cantor Judy Green.

Seth: And in post-production, we'll add the sparkles and the fanfare.

Judy: Wow, it's a little gift, right? The little magic. Yeah. Ah, just love what you said. I was just smiling and just going, you know, cheering inside. How articulate. And how much is the richness that's in this particular time? We're in this little time warp. I feel that it's, I was just speaking with someone who's going through conversion. And I just have to show you that something that I created in rabbinic school, it's going to be opposite, but how the holidays and the cyclical timing of our people. And, you know, here we are completely the opposite. Passover, Rosh Hashanah. There's a link in that kind of timing and memory. Those little, that circle is really a cycle where we're evolving because we live in linear time. And I'm fascinated with that because I find that every time we hit these different places along the calendar year, we go into this time pool. Where it's past, present, future, and how deep we go is really who we're having that conversation with. But it is so vastly deep. That I think sometimes we lose the meaning and we get caught in what we did maybe five years ago, or who's not at the table, or past family things, and it extends so much further because we are living in biblical time at the same time as we're here. There's like a duality constantly we're asked to live in. And that can be confusing to people, you know, that we live. You know, we're asked to walk the Torah, we're asked to live the Bible, we're asked to live these holidays as if they're happening to us right now, and here we are in 2023. And there's a lot of correlations. There's a lot of things that are similar, and it's mind-blowing. And also, some of it is metaphor for us. And it's a way of remembering who we are. It's an identity that no matter what's happening, this holiday gave us our identity. As a nation. Abraham did, yeah. But that birth, that idea of splitting a sea, that beautiful birth image of walking through the Red Sea and birthing a nation. Wasn't just the Jewish nation, it was monotheism. It split the mind of the world. Never before had there been. This oneness. Never before had there been one God. I mean, we're talking about a time where there were pharaohs and that was comfortable, and people were slaves, or people were beneath. And now, all of a sudden, we care about each other and we are, and it's still, it's safe. No one's killing each other because we are, well, we do kill each other, but we don't live in only dictatorship. You know, there is hope that we're living, you know, side by side. And I think that sometimes I wonder if we really get the power of what happened and how we could. It was like an atom bomb. I mean, it really split the world.

Seth: What was the atom bomb? Go ahead and say it. What was the atom bomb that hit humanity?

Judy: This idea of one God. The whole paradigm shifted. Think about time and think about

Lio: But was it one God, or is it just really the oneness? Not just one God. It's like, oh, there's a one God. And there's like, no, everything is one. There's just one. There's one oneness, and we're aspiring to move back toward it. I think that's the mind-blowing idea. Not just simply, okay, you can burn your other deities. It's going to be just one. Save you the trouble, you know, save a few bucks on daisies, right? No, it's the entire it's the wholeness, as we say in Hebrew. Like one, unique, and unified. But it is one. Everything that comes from him works to bring everything into oneness. And everything that looks maybe as many is actually just expression from the one. I think that's the quantum leap there.

Judy: I love that you added that other piece because I think that when I say one God, it's really you're absolutely right, it's one consciousness, one people. And there's more to it than just the belief in one God. This idea of oneness is so linked to that. And I love that you brought that in. And so difficult to do and to penetrate the consciousness of our world because we are scattered. But this holiday, because we're going through it, I think creates this energy. You know, like a fertility where we're all in the same place, where we are observing a holiday where we're literally eating humility. We're eating this, we're eating our story. And this story has nothing to do with our ego and our ego systems. And that's what creates this oneness, is that there is this beauty and safety in humility and in this, and it's not about humiliation. Humility is exactly your right seat, like you have your space. Fill it up. It's a good thing. And that we all have a purpose here. And we're a piece of that puzzle so that we really are creating, as you said, we're coming together and creating one picture.

Lio: So tell me, you know, we're all sitting here all agreeing with each other. It's great. We can just, you know, this is great. I'm not getting it. And it's really it's especially stark here in Israel, with Jews in Israel. I don't know exactly how it is with Jews, where you are on the West Coast or with Seth on the East Coast. But the sense that so many of us

Seth: Here we're firebombing senators' houses on the East Coast.

Lio: Oh, okay. Okay, so that's relaxing. No, I'm asking specifically about our own people, Jews who are so oblivious to this information. And not only that, they're really trying to deny certain feelings that they have. They're walking around with feelings and they're not asking. Why do I have this feeling? I heard some other podcasts, and that guy was saying, Well, you know, I like everything about the Jewish system. That's what I'm teaching to my kids and all that. But, and he's a good guy, he's one of the good guys. But you know, this messianic sense, the sense that we are here to kind of bring the end of the world, and I'm like. Why not? Yes, let's move out of this world already. Enough with the bigger house, bigger car. Okay, fine. We got it. How many lifetimes are you going to do this? Aspire for the same thing. Let's. Rise up. And so the Jews really have this ability to wish for something and to lead humanity to something really outside of this world. And we're suppressing it. No, it's messianic, it's this, it's that. What are we afraid of, Judy? What's the story? Why is it so hard to agree with that inner feeling?

Judy: So, what's interesting is for the last eight months, I've been in Texas. I'm at a synagogue where I'm the senior rabbi at a congregation here in Texas. I don't know if I told you that. This group also had a hostage incident. Before I got here. And it was really terrifying to them before, you know, during COVID. It's a whole story in itself. There's a movie about it now. And this, you know, so there's a lot of in Texas, we have neighbors who we have so many churches and types of Christianity that I've never encountered before in my life. And when we talk about Messiah, and I'm seeing a different feeling here in Texas. Messiah is scary to people because it represents who's right and who's wrong, which disturbs me deeply. I mean, I don't really know. Jesus is not our first topic. And I feel that this whole idea of who's right and who's the real Messiah and all of that. You know, in our faith, the Messiah has not come.

Seth: Leo, why do we even need to get into Messiah? It's not even a conversation. I'll tell you.

Lio: No, I'll tell you why. No, no, I want to hear Judy, but I'll tell you why. I think it's a chance, an opportunity to redefine that word for what it truly is. Maybe that will remove the fear. If people are still expecting something.

Seth: Yeah, but there are so many other things that there's so many other points of common connection we can make before we get to something that strikes to the root of division.

Lio: Why? No, but Messiah, it's good. Look, I was asking about a feeling that Jews deny. A lot of Jews feel that, you know, if you really if you sit with someone and you have a few drinks and they open up and they relax and you probe a little bit, they do have this sense of yes, in some cases you can call it superiority. You know, the sense, and sometimes you can say it's a sense of uniqueness, a difference, a calling, but all those things point to something that's a little scary. And as Judy said, when you say Messiah in that context, where she lives right now, it points to judgment and right and wrong and all that. And maybe in their mind, it also points to things. And I think if we diffuse these things, if we say, dude, Messiah, Moshiach, from the word Lim Shoch. It's a force that

Seth: I know, but it's such a heavy lift. Why don't you just say to people, don't you want a world where everyone treats each other well and people

Lio: is also temporary? It's also a way station on the way to somewhere higher. But anyway, I'll let Judy, you. No

Judy: No, let's get there. You know, you could edit this if you'd like, but I think that what is so important—and maybe I should be more simple—is Messiah for some people is the end, you know, where it represents some kind of ending. Like you were saying, that transition is beyond, and it frightens people because it's also beyond comprehension. This is kind of where Kabbalah scares people but fascinates them. Judaism doesn't break down. Look, what does Mashiach mean? It's exactly what you said, Seth. There is a unifying force. It's not scary because it's a good thing. It's not Elijah walking in after he's finished everyone's wine and saying, "Okay, Mashiach is here." It's a feeling and a sense that it's more important to embrace one another than to harm each other. I think Mashiach or Messiah is really a consciousness. I don't think it's a person who's going to create wins and, you know, that kind of dramatic thing. I think suddenly, there will be this type of oneness and wholeness that you're talking about, Lio. It's more important than your car. It's more important than how much money you're going to make, which has become such an obsession. It's going to be beyond billionaires taking over this world, bigger than AI. There's serenity in it. The way we're going now is: who's going to build more? Who's going to have more money? Who's going to build more? Who's going to have more intelligence? The pursuit of AI and all of that is scary because it's happening. You know, Mashiach is a shift to, hey, let's even this out. It isn't about building more, and we don't want another war. So, what do we have instead of a war? And how is that going to happen? Again, I don’t know.

Seth: First, the Muslims are going to take over Texas, and then the Christians are going to fight the Muslims, and they're all going to turn on the Jews, and then it's all going to happen.

Judy: Exactly.

Seth: That's what's going to happen, basically.

Judy: God forbid. But, you know, I do love this idea that we're at a place, and this story, this story of origin that we have, is a showdown in some ways between materialism and God, like this very thing, right? It's a showdown. We have magic, so do we. You know, why did we have this kind of story that is told over and over again in Star Wars and in all these different things? What, you know, what was that?

Lio: Well, it's exactly that. The thing that we brought, which started with the oneness, is not simply the fact that everything was one, or rather, everything is one, just our perception is broken, and that's why you see everything as separate individuals and entities competing. But it's actually all parts of you. You could say that, but another aspect of that oneness is the ability to hold on to two opposite things at the same time. It's not either/or; it's both. And this is something really seen in Jewish thought and is really missing in a lot of other people's thoughts. That's also what scares people about Jews because they have that ability. Jews even don't appreciate it sometimes, don't even know why they have it. It's just like, well, whatever. But it's not a natural quality for a lot of people. It's really difficult for them. It creates a cognitive dissonance for them, and they're stuck. But—

Seth: Give an example of what you're talking about.

Lio: Since we're talking about Passover and the whole thing, let's talk about that. Jews get out of Egypt and come to the desert. They stand together around the mountain of hate, Mount Sinai, from the word 'Sina.' So they take all the hate, all the friction, all the separation, all those different individuals, pile it up, and stand around it, wanting to cover it all with love. That's the first hint at that ability. Then you have Moses, which is like Mashiach, the same root. It's to pull out; it's a quality, a force, a desire for something higher. He goes up the mountain and makes contact with the upper force in nature. While you're reaching out for the highest ideal, whatever that is, everybody down is like, "Alright, it's been 30 days. Let's just make a golden calf," right? And they do that.

Seth: Aaron is responsible for it, who was the guy who went to Pharaoh.

Lio: We don't want to name names. It's okay. It happened a long time ago. But the thing is, so you have, on the one hand, this highest ideal—spirituality, godliness, everything you can imagine. And then you have the basest materialism and the gold, "Give me your chains," and this and that, right?

Judy: Except for the women.

Lio: What's that?

Judy: Except for the women.

Lio: Women bring their desire to the table; that's plenty. So, that moment already establishes this duality. Both have to exist in you. You have to make that choice every day. One is not going to go away. You must wake up every day and choose: Am I working for the gold? Am I working for the God? Where is my heart? What's more important? Both things happen in your life at the same time. You don't leave life and go live like a monk. There are no monasteries in—

Judy: Judaism. That's not our faith, yeah.

Lio: No, because everything happens here and now. Monasteries, caves, yogis, they're all great, way stations on the way to something. It's a good practice, but it's not the end goal. The end goal has to happen here and now with everything. And that's just one thing. Then you open a Talmud, every second portion is an argument, and they're trying to find that place. But the tension remains. It's not just one over the other; it's usually some sort of dynamic tension between them. Where do you see it, Judy? Maybe you have other examples of what—

Judy: Seth was referring to, especially when you were saying let's not go quite to the Mashiach. Where was that next level?

Seth: I'm just, you know, we're good cop, bad cop, me and Lio over here. He always wants to just rip the scab off. Well, actually, half the time he wants to rip the scab off, half the time I do. But when he does, I always want to say, why don't we try and find some common ground first? I think that going straight to calling it the messianic era raises too many flags and stumbling blocks. Why not—

Lio: Every once in a while, you keep it interesting. Set, we throw a little block.

Judy: Do you think we're in the—

Seth: Messian—

Judy: Era? Do you think we—are in the messianic—

Seth: Yes, we're in the footsteps of Ik. Yeah, in Aramaic, it's the footsteps of the—these are the birth pangs of the Messiah. Now, we can tell that because of what's happened. After the destruction of the temple and the exile of the ten tribes, and now we're almost—the in-gathering of the exiles has to precede the revelation of the Messiah. We see that. People are popping up all around. I think I saw yesterday, I don't know if it's true, but that the Saudi royal family is actually Jewish, like Mohammed bin Salman. It was in the Jerusalem Post yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if ISIS is Jewish. I wouldn't be surprised to find that all these people all over the place are Jewish. Are you shaking your head? No, you don't think so?

Lio: Yeah, movers and shakers. A lot of them are Jewish. That's just—

Seth: Yeah. So if we have, you know, we went through a lot of things, but if we have two tribes now, so there were 10 other tribes. And between the intermarriage and everything else, there's probably a billion Jews out there who don't know that they're Jews, all over the world. And so now that these sparks are rising again and this consciousness is popping up everywhere, this unity consciousness is emerging all over the world. We see the world becoming more and more connected. Leo's in Israel, Judy, you're in New Jersey, and we can all be together like this. So, in our mind, these concepts of bridging the gap in distance—and we also mentioned something at the beginning, which would be good to talk about, which is time. Is this actually a biblical time? Is the Torah something eternal? Or are we on a timeline? Like, it's another Jewish thing that Leo talked about: holding these opposites. So we're on a timeline, but we're also on a cyclical path. All of these things are in our practical lives. Everything is becoming revealed. The spiritual roots are touching down. We see all these things about unity and connection between all of humanity. All the pieces are in place for the big reveal. I love one of my favorite lines. It's in one of the portions about Pharaoh. So Moses says to God, "Ever since you sent me to Pharaoh to speak in your name, things have gone bad upon them. It hasn't gotten any better. You sent me, and now everything is terrible for these people." And then God goes, "Okay, now I'm going to show you what I'll do. Now I can show you my signs and wonders." So it's like without the big setup, there's no big reveal. And we're at the point where the big setup is, you know, all the pieces are almost in place, and then the big reveal is going to happen. That's how I see it.

Judy: You thought of so many things as you're speaking because I think of how long I've been studying Kabbalah and mysticism. Over 30 years myself, and how it used to be this thing that women couldn't do, and you had to be 40, and all of this frightening aspect of it. And just like you said, you started with 10, and now it's this enormous group because of this awakening. Kabbalah mysticism has become so normal. I mean, I was kind of on the fringe, and now it's normal to talk about that and mysticism. It's common to talk about energy and spirituality and quantum physics. When you talk about this big reveal and coming together, I think it was like five years ago I realized something really exciting was happening. All of a sudden, everything is lining up. Medicine, psychology, quantum physics, all of it is saying the same. Science, which was a thorn in the side of religion, is now beginning to speak the same language. It echoes Judaism, and all of these things are being revealed, and we're talking about the same thing. That's fascinating to me because now it isn't weird, and it's something that we can agree on and come together about and be in awe of. You may know him, you may not know him, but there was something that I watched about 15 years ago. There's this man, Simcha Jacobovici, who did a study of the ten tribes and how the ten lost tribes, and how he searched all over the globe.

Lio: Yeah, I remember this guy.

Judy: I just loved it. He showed that he found in Russia, in all these different places, people who were Jews, and they didn’t know they were Jews. They were singing "Shalom," and they had Shabbat, and they were doing all these rituals. They were black, Asian, and they started to come back to Elijah's cave, which I've never been to in Israel. Lio, is there a cave of Elijah?

Lio: There's a cave in the Carmel Mountains that's attributed to where Elijah used to hang out and where they summoned all the idol worshippers, and there was a big showdown. It's not as popular as Rashbi's cave and the caves near Meron. But no, I'm sure if you throw a stone in Israel, it falls on a cave.

Judy: I think that idea is very exciting. I don't think most people in the United States even knew that the ten tribes were lost. I cannot tell you how many times I've talked about, you know, except—

Seth: The Mormons, I think, who—

Judy: I think they're one of—

Seth: Us.

Judy: What are they, the Levites? No.

Seth: No, no. Forget it. I don't know the reference.

[Several speakers express admiration and agreement with the ideas presented.]

Judy: So anyway, I think that there is this unity consciousness. I'm curious to hear at your seder tables that are like the United Nations if that's something that's talked about. Because, you know, clearly Eastern Europe was devastated, right? And Israel has been. It seems that it's just been advancing, and there's so much there. And I think I'm surprised, but Seth, I wonder how much consciousness is in New Jersey or whatever. Being from L.A. for 35 years and now being in Texas, it's this real, really incredible, eye-opening experience to see what's happening in our world because my shock is how many people have come to me who want to convert since I've been here. I mean, at least 10. I'm not talking—I mean, I do conversions all the time—but 10 coming to me, it was just surprising to see why there's this whole group. I say to them, you want to be Jewish now? Why now? Isn't it a little scary for you? But there's a calling. Every one of them said there's something inside of me I cannot resist any longer. I've searched everywhere. This is where I feel at home. I'm not doing it because I'm going to get married. I'm not doing it for any of those reasons, except inside of my soul, I'm home. I've heard that, but not with a...

Lio: People. Listen, we hear it. On this podcast, you know, The Jew Function, we read quotes from our sages, but we don't really make it a soapbox for talking about Kabbalah in a promotional way. But the truth of the matter is that this is one of probably the most impressive things about this wisdom and what it's doing around the world. When you have people from the Amazon jungle and you have people from deep in Africa, from Ghana and Congo, and you name it, and people from Iran, Turkey, and the Philippines, and Siberia...

Judy: And I was just in Peru, and it's the same thing.

Lio: They just have this desire to move towards unity. And that is what we're saying on The Jew Function all along. You know, Jew is from the word “U,” from the word “ich,” unity. That is the desire that characterizes a Jewish person, who has this constant strive, whether they like it or not, they want it or not, they didn’t ask for it, it doesn’t matter. It somehow forces them to look in that direction. And in some cases, if it doesn’t become a spiritual thing, it stays on this level. It translates into a big draw toward humanism and human rights and all these human movements. And then, if it doesn’t get answered spiritually, it becomes distorted and becomes this weird, you know, woke kind of ideology or weird conservative. It has to find its resolution above, not on this level. If it only stays on this level, it gets all wonky. But we see it in people all the time. And it has nothing to do with what your birth certificate says or your ID or passport or whatever. This is a desire. It’s an inner thing and sense. That’s all we have, desires. That’s what it is, you know. We're feeling...

Seth: There's probably, you know this, but there's—I saw some articles that came out this week that ADHD medication has been over-prescribed to children because these were actually just children with a lot of energy. And they created a whole industry to just give them meds to calm them down. So, what you notice in the schools is that if you take a kid and have him sit in a chair for eight hours a day, he's going to go bonkers, especially when the world around him is exploding. In so many ways. The world around him is exploding emotionally. The world around him is exploding technologically. And you're telling him to sit tight and not move and just do a worksheet and just listen to whatever when what a kid needs is to run until he's exhausted. Then he needs to sit down and watch a great movie about history. And then he needs to sit in a circle with his friends and have a discussion about something. He needs, and then you have an entire generation who’s fit and healthy and ready to deal with challenges. And because the system isn’t there for the child, we just drug the kid into a stupor. Because around the child, the child is not the problem. The system around the child didn’t give him. And I think, for people like the three of us now, here's what I'm coming to in this conversation: all of these people are awakening. But let's say, in a sense, that they're like those kids who are awakening and the structures—Judy, you talked about this the whole time. Last time we had a conversation, the normal synagogue didn't provide the right structure, and the normal Jewish communities didn't provide the right structure. So all these people are waking up. And if they don’t have some kind of system structure school to fit into correctly, it spirals out into any drugs or another system or wokeness or this thing or that thing. So it’s incumbent upon people like us to advertise to create these, to be parts of making these structures so that as the people funnel in, like as these awakenings happen in Peru and wherever they're happening, Texas. That people have a place where they can blossom.

Judy: Well, I think that—hey, let me just go back to Mount Sinai for a minute.

Lio: You go.

Judy: And I love what you said. You know, I never looked at it as the place of sin. Because there's a book out that I recently saw and have tried to read—I haven't gotten all the way through it—but that we don't even know where Mount Sinai is. And when those things happen, it’s...

Lio: Between us, Judy, it’s between us.

Judy: It’s the...

Lio: Place between us.

Judy: Right, which is just gorgeous.

Lio: For the rock and the desert. Yeah, maybe there’s a rock, but it’s not important. It’s not the...

Judy: Rock. Yeah, no, gorgeous. And so, yes, and I think that we were given, as you said, instructions, but we were given boundaries. If you do not have boundaries, you do not feel loved. That's for children. If there are commands, when people would hear 10 commands, that word had to be stretched out, at least for me. You know, I say to people they were strong suggestions...

Seth: Of how...

Judy: A sane...

Seth: Suggested that you eat matzah for seven days.

Judy: So, if they can, you know, people are rebellious, and their big argument against Judaism is the dogma. But if at a closer look, once you get out of the argument, you look at some of—most of the laws or what—oh, I have to put my thing in here. If you look at what the Torah is telling us, it's these suggestions and boundaries: here's how to live a good life. And here's how to live a life where you have some clarity and begin to understand what your purpose is. Because what else are we here for but to understand what we're meant to do on this planet? You know, we really have to find that out.

Lio: So, yeah, I want to push that a step further. It’s not simply ‘here are some suggestions to help you live a good life.’ Rather, it's saying, look, you can try and fulfill all your desires in this world as best you can. Ultimately, you’re going to start to feel that it's impossible. That the more you want, the more empty you remain at the end.

Lio: Doesn’t matter...

Lio: What you pursue, what is the object of your pursuit. When you get it, you want something bigger and better to feel the same level of pleasure. In fact, ask every drug addict: he'll tell you, you know, what are you doing? You're chasing that first hit, which was so great. And you never, you always have to double up the amount and try harder until you're dead. Because there's no end to that. The will to receive, the substance that we're made of, this desire to receive pleasure, is simply not designed to be fulfilled directly in this way. If it were, you would be an animal. Animals, they want something, they go for it, they eat. A horse eats hay and is super happy. He wakes up the next morning, "Oh, I wish I had some hay." He finds some hay, eats it, he's happy. You know, done. A person can’t do it. You know, you eat this today, then you need another, then you need six cooking channels that tell you what to eat, and then you need all the restaurants and the Michelin stars and this and that. There's never an end to it because that’s not... This is not the goal. That’s not the purpose.

Lio: The purpose is not simply to live a...

Lio: Good life. It's to eventually lead you out of this life. It's to lead you above this life. There's another reality on a level that's higher than this reality. And that's where it's trying to lead us. And where does it reside? It resides in the space between us, not in me, not in you, not in him.

Seth: Just to clarify, you're not when you say out of this world, you're not talking about some messianic thing where we're all going to drink something and leave the thing, right? No, we're going to stay here.

Lio: The world stays the same. How do you say in English? Right? Like the world stays the same. Exactly the same. But your whole perception of it changes. If I'm staying in this world, I see two people fighting. If you rise to the next level, you see two people dancing.

Judy: The same action. And it’s also what all the Jewish stories and the legends are like. They teach all the time. That’s why they’re so refreshing. And it is to be able to see with different eyes, with spiritual eyes, to lift it to the next level.

Lio: All the traditions, in fact, speak like that. The psycholog...

Judy: Did a great thing, too. What am I not seeing that's there? It's other dimensional. I mean, we think of God as being up here, but what we haven't considered is it just in another dimension that we have not yet broken through to. At times, we do.

Seth: So I’m willing to spend $4.99. Will you send me the PDF on how I can see the other dimensions? So now we get down to the... Even...

Judy: If you had the PDF, you’d have it for a while and then you wouldn’t have it again because our job, our life is about that struggle, that inter...

Lio: Here's the PDF, Seth. I'm sorry. I have...

Judy: A whole shelf full of them. And I think that, you know, when you talk about, so you know, I wanted to bring that up about the structures. And literally, the structures have become schools now. Literally, their buildings. Now, when the temple was destroyed in 70 of the common era, I mean, that’s the agreed-on date. It could have been, you know, somewhere else around there. Think about what it did. I mean, on a metaphorical level, it taught us something really important: that those structures become brittle and they become distorted because the second temple was distorted. And sin, I mean, there was a problem. There was not this beautiful blossoming. You know, there was no room for that. It was contained. And Judaism at that moment in time, again, a shift, becomes an education. Those few rabbis who were smart enough to turn it into an education so that the other kings and whoever was in charge wasn't threatened by it. And they created schools and books that contained all of that beautiful understanding and wisdom, and put it into a method: structures, laws, mitzvot. Now, we have all that in our religion, but I must tell you. When I was in Israel, my Orthodox friends, my girlfriend who was so far from Orthodox, but I realized in her life, it was, you know, how in L.A., it’s how many steps do you walk? Well, for her, it's how many mitzvahs do you do a day? Like, I mean, it was so interesting to me. I was like, oh, you just hang around to see what other mitzvah you can do. And here we are walking to get those 10,000 steps so that we have a better body or whatever it is. And there it was: how many mitzvahs can we do a day? I cannot tell you how many Jewish people, when I say 613 mitzvot, they don’t believe me, A. And I literally have made copies. Those thick copies of this is what we're contracted to do. This is our contract. You're doing a lot of them anyway, but you need to know that was what we're super glued to. And it's, you know, actions that are better than, oh, look what I did. Good, I did a good deed. It's a good deed that has a ripple effect in the world. We're here to make this world better. So, some of these things that we are at least teaching.

Seth: Well, let’s stop for a second. Let’s say, what are we here to do? What does...

Lio: That...

Seth: Mean? Just to recycle, you know, to be nice to each other? Let’s talk about the big goal for a...

Judy: Minute. So the big goal, I mean, this is just what I think, but I again, I have my kippah in my head for a reason because it’s not just what Judy thinks, it’s what Judy mixed with. Judaism is teaching me.

Seth: Judaism.

Judy: There you go, right?

Seth: You should patent that or trademark that.

Judy: Judaism. But think about it. What—this is, we all hit this point in our life at some time. What am I here for? What is my, what am I doing on this planet? Right. And I think through different philosophers and through different rabbis, I've come to believe that we have a purpose. I mean, Rabbi Sacks says we're all a letter in the Torah. Rabbi Natan Mendel says we're all a little piece of God, right? We do our work here on Earth and then we go back to the source. Right, in El, Sham, and Atah, that that actually could work rationally if we come into this lifetime to contribute our piece, you know, whatever it is, without judgment, to be the best Rabbi Judy that I'm meant to be, to embody what my soul desires. And then I go back to the source and I tell my whole story. Well, God, you know, energy, look what I have to share. Then, of course, God's going to be all-knowing because God knows everybody's little piece. And I believe that we come back. I mean, Kabbalah talks about seven heavens, right? You guys have heard about the seven heavens, maybe not. We'll talk about it more. And then there's completion. You know, sometimes when a baby dies, they’re complete. I mean, it’s so sad, but I’ve heard Kabbalah rabbis say they completed, and they only needed to be on Earth for a minute. That was comforting to me to hear. And...

Lio: That's...

Judy: What I, when you hear those things, we know that what's what people's greatest fear is death. Right? And what if we knew it was just part of the evolution? There's more. Like, what if we had certainty? And, you know. God did not tell us, and we know this also from Talmud, didn’t tell us for a very good reason because there was a fear that we would just go, we would stop, we would stop desiring, start, we'd stop yearning to know what the secrets are.

Lio: That's true.

Lio: Yeah, there's no question that it all serves a big purpose. What we're trying to do is zero in on a particular aspect of everything you described. And that is the connection we need to create between us or, in other words, the fact that we must gradually come to care for others more than we care for ourselves. That is basically the ask. It's scary—scarier than death—because it's the death of that egoistic quality I identify with as myself. I take care of myself. I do what I need to do for myself. But we don't realize how much beyond the necessities—like eating, breathing, food, sex, family, a bit of money, a bit of recognition, the basics—we spend so much extra time on ourselves. We're taking away from the system. What's required of us is to reverse that trajectory and start caring about each other more than we care about ourselves.

Seth: Also add, it's a gateway. It's not just an ethical thing that we should all be nice to each other, but it's a gateway to the other dimension, Judy, that you talked about. As long as I'm perceiving the world through what I can get for myself, I lock myself into a very small perception of what the world is. But when I'm trying to love the other, if God's quality is love and I change my quality into love, then God and I have the same quality, and now I can perceive the dimension He's in. Loving the other is not just some ethical direction we have; it's actually the gateway toward spiritual perception and spiritual feelings.

Judy: That's so beautifully said, Seth, I love that. I think of Mus, something I'm also involved in. Mus is embodying those qualities of God so that we walk in God's ways. I have a conflicting feeling about this, and I see the two of you, and I feel very connected to both of you. We've had this wonderful discussion, and here you are in different parts of the world. It's so soothing to my heart and soul to know that we are discovering, learning, seeing, and wanting to talk about it and let people know. I used to struggle with this, maybe because I grew up with women who were martyrs. "I do it all for you."

Lio: It's all for you. Nothing for me. Right. I think that in our world, in America, the me, me, me movement has gotten out of control. It's totally out of control. However, when Judaism doesn't talk about the individual, because if you're not okay, you cannot give. So when I say those prayers in the morning, that are in the siddur, or mod'an, there are about three prayers that are about me to get myself aligned. Then we move into the we. I can't agree with you more, but I think it's individual. Some people are too much the we, and sometimes they have to go back to me. This is where you're holding duality.

Seth: Yeah, sure. There's none else besides him. And also, if I'm not for myself, then who is? And the Jew is constantly, like Lio said earlier, holding these two completely opposite realities and is trying to walk that middle line.

Lio: I want to say this is definitely a very American thing. I mean, like what you just described, it's a classically American argument. I have to take care of myself. I need to be okay before I can start giving. I can't lose myself in others without finding myself.

Seth: No, but no bread, no Torah. I know what you're saying. You're pushing back against this kind of self-love movement and all that, but you have to have—I’m just challenging you a little bit because we've talked about this many times. You have to, like, get up, brush your teeth, make your bed, and stay in shape before you can really help anyone else.

Lio: It's what you said, Judy. You have to have these boundaries that define the boundary of the self, right? What is the boundary of the self? This is everything that I'm not. And then what remains is what I am. So you have to have that. But ultimately, it goes back to the desire. It's not some action done in my mind or through my actions. When it's all said and done, I have to get some external help to accomplish that change. We need more people like you. This is one of the most amazing conversations I've had in weeks. I have immense respect for you guys because you're doing one of the most important things, which is the ability of self-reflection that most people just can't do.

Lio: I love what you bring to this podcast. It's not just identifying the problem; it's how we combat it—by coming closer to who we are. We're trying to do something good for everyone. We're going to find each other. We're connecting the dots now, and then the light will grow. People who are trying to do it on their own—either just giving themselves to everyone or not ready to give—are still thinking only in terms of what they can do. What we are asked to do is to actually turn back to this force that is surrounding us, the upper force. You can call it God, the creator, your inner self, or your higher self. It doesn't matter. The point is that there's something that's not in you individually. As long as you're trying to do it with yourself, it will always be an egoistic action. Whether it's the doing for everyone—let me tell you a secret, it's still for you. Deep down, it's like, and that's why I deserve so much, right? It's not the right action we're talking about. And the one who says, "Oh, I'm not ready to give, I don't have anything to give," you're right, because you have nothing. Both of them are wrong to think they can do it on their own. What we're saying is when you actually make the effort to connect with others, you start to build a field that attracts that quality we're after. That quality doesn't appear in the points of the network; it appears in the connections between. They form this lattice, this net, where this force reacts.

Seth: I think what you're talking about is that I stop seeing that "me" is inside this protein body, and I start seeing that actually "me" is part of this bigger organism that includes others. I think of myself from this skin in is me, and from this skin out is not me. But then, with this different dimensional consciousness, I realize that including bigger and bigger amounts of reality inside my own soul, we're not talking about ethics or anything like that anymore. We're talking about a whole different system with completely different operating rules.

Lio: It's actually like physics more than ethics. When we try to send a spaceship to the more distant planets in the solar system, you don't go directly. It's not like you draw a line from Cape Canaveral to Mars. No. You wait for certain alignments of the planets, and then you throw your spaceship out, knowing it's going to get attracted by the gravity of Earth and then the gravity of the Sun before becoming a slingshot to Mars. That's how you get to Mars. On your own, you can't. You don't have it in you. It's only when you tap into something bigger happening around you. The same thing needs to happen between us. We need to stop thinking that we're going to change the world on our own. We are part of a collective, and we behave as if we're not. That's the source of our pain. Whether you're trying to hold on to yourself so badly or give everything you have—neither is correct. You have to have a clear center. You have to take care of your necessities, whether it's five burgers a day or one veggie burger a day, a bed to sleep on, a house, a car. You need the basic needs. Whatever you need to live in this world, right? No more, no less. Everything else, you have to start to turn toward the connection to that network. You have to become a router in this big network so stuff can start to flow through you. And there's an infinite amount of energy that can flow through you. That's what we're saying. That's what we need help waking people up to.

Judy: We're talking about a couple of different things here that I find fascinating. We have these tools, let's say, mitzvot. If you really do a mitzvah, we shouldn't have any billionaires because those billionaires should be giving money to the people who need it. However, a mitzvah is doing something clearly for another human being but having this ripple effect that changes how other people think. You don't know who's looking at you. You don't know what it's even doing. You have no clue. If you expect to get something back, you haven’t really done the mitzvah. I cannot tell you, even in my own life, you've given, and no one cared, or knew, or appreciated it. And, in fact, you felt like, why did I even do that? That's the struggle we have in this life. When you talk about this other dimension, who doesn't want to go there? It sounds like a woo-woo place, right? But we have a religion, at least in the United States, that has now become a connection by calling Judaism a place to identify who you are. I know this resonates for the young people in my congregations. Your kid is being bar or bat mitzvah. They've become a conduit of mitzvah. They don't even know what it is. I spend a lot of time explaining it and experiencing it. That's what we should be doing. Forget reading the Torah. You know, all that stuff in the Torah—do it. Let's see you do it and give back because you're doing it. We're all looking for happiness. How do we get happiness in the world? Through meaning, through finding meaning for our purpose, being appreciated, and love. It's much more than just the values and ethics that Judaism sets down, though those will help you get there. You will get disappointed by people, places, and things. You need to understand that you won't feel the oneness there. But the consciousness you're talking about exists in Judaism through the stories, the Torah, seeing the disappointments of our ancestors. The Torah is a story form of those Ten Commandments. It's the series. You get to watch the series and how it plays out. Because to hear just those commandments is not enough, there are a lot of tributaries underneath thou shalt not steal, right? If I don't ask you how you are, Lio, or Seth, I've stolen your time. I'm just talking at you. If I don't know you, if I don't listen to your podcast, if I don't have a moment with you, I haven't connected. That's stealing your time and your beautiful podcast. Humans are not, we have to learn this. Think of a baby. We don't come out knowing how to do this. To be good people, we have to learn. And some days we're not. We're like, ugh, can't believe I did that.

Lio: Let's put everyone at ease. No one is good. There's a saying: there's no righteous person in the land that hasn't sinned a thousand times. There's also a famous rabbi from Kotzk who said the Creator doesn't want angels. He's got angels. He wants humans, flesh and blood, with all the ups and downs and turmoil. Whatever you have, this is good. Start from here and make a conscious effort to connect with this force. Forget God or creator, just this force of love. Try to be like it toward others. After your necessities are taken care of, try to dedicate everything else to that. You'll see amazing things begin to happen. It doesn't matter if you're feeling down, hurt, this, that. You'll start to come out of yourself. That's what you'll feel.

Judy: Yeah. And I think that just as you have created this, you're a force for that. It's important for you to see it as, you know, there's a book called "Grist for the Mill," or it's like that pearl being formed out of the roughness. Our job is to take that roughness, and there's plenty of it. I have the scars to prove it. If I tell you things in my life, somehow, I'll look for that one little nugget for Shabbat, and it makes me soar. Or I'll find that one piece of music, have this one conversation with the two of you today, or see those tables of people from all over the world celebrating Passover. It's just so amazing. How cool is that? Not everybody gets as excited, but to me, that shows in this isolated world we live in, many people still care. Judaism is alive, and I don't care what the Pew Report says. It's alive.

Lio: The Pew Report.

Judy: The Pew Report, right. And if kids aren't there yet, like you said, if they've had too much ADD medicine. The good news about ADD is they're the best Torah readers.

Lio: True, my son does like the Torah.

Judy: They're the best Torah readers because they have to repeat it over and over.

Lio: Yeah. So look, when we started, Seth and I were talking about what we were going to discuss and how it would make a difference.

Seth: Mostly, I was saying we're up against a gigantic wall. When are we going to see the wall break through? What do we do with our lives? That's what it's actually saying.

Lio: And I was saying to have the opportunity to go against that wall, that is the most important thing in our lives, as opposed to another house and another this and that. I have the basics taken care of, so what's really important? To have that and to be able to talk about it and try to get people to see that, I think that's already immense.

Judy: You talk about these different levels. Being the head of a synagogue, most people don't understand how synagogues are even run. There are a lot of obstacles. I don't love that part of Judaism at all. It's about what goes into the business, and synagogues are businesses, and what goes into being from a different sect and trying to connect with other Jews. It's not easy.

Lio: Sometimes Jews are the worst. Terrible people.

Judy: And I tell them something new, and it's like, well, it used to be this way. Where's the old Os Shalom? That's from Sinai. You changed it. And I said, just keep singing. I'm always going through this. How will I reach just one person, maybe one person? And then I think they understand, then they forget. It's something that I struggle with daily, and I don't know why, but the truth is, I don't know what else I would be doing. It clearly is worth the struggle. I will never know if I touch that one person. But today, I hope in your listeners, maybe one person feels they're up against a wall, and they're hearing something refreshing and real about Judaism that's evolving after COVID. There's so much going on in people's identity as Jews. It's a conflicting time.

Lio: Our job

Judy: is to say, take a deep breath. We have the same story. Just look at a little Torah. It'll calm you down. Stay simple because Judaism is simple. Just come to Shabbat, eat a piece of matzah today with me.

Lio: And yeah, just start caring for one another a bit more. That's all we're saying. They're all your family, they're all your friends, they're all part of you. Imagine they did a DNA test, and all these people are your relatives. That's it.

Seth: Or you ran a multi-dimensional test and discovered that your soul doesn't end at your skin, but all these others are part of your soul too. In caring for them, you're actually caring for yourself and the health of the whole thing.

Lio: Maybe we

Judy: can

Lio: raise some

Seth: money by making a multi-dimensional scanner so people

Lio: can Yeah, we're on it. If you get value from the show and you want to see your inner soul print, send your loose change to our Patreon.

Judy: Can we ask you to read this closing quote from the Exile and Redemption article?

Lio: Giant Kabbalist.

Judy: "As long as we do not raise our goal above the corporeal life, we will have no corporeal resurrection, for the spiritual and the corporeal in us cannot dwell together. We are the children of the idea. And even if we are immersed in 49 gates of materialism, we will still not give up the idea. Hence, in the holy purpose for God's sake that we need."

Lio: It is the holy purpose, exactly. That's what we

Judy: need. God's sake is that we need this quality of love.

Lio: Maybe that's easier. For the quality of love, that's

Seth: big. You missed the whole thing that went on. Rabbi Judy changed it from his to God's, and then you said his again, and then she said hers.

Lio: No,

Judy: but yeah, semantics.

Lio: Rabbi Judy, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time and your insights.

Seth: And God help us that this understanding and the good connection will spread out and somehow reach people wherever they are through whatever network, through the soul network.

Judy: Yeah, and I'm reading this again and because this is a deep, deep quote. It's a deep quote. And the whole idea, Lio, of what you said, we need, we have to have the need and the desire. Because God needs us. It's a relationship. It's a relationship that we're, I think of it as being super glued to, kind of an interesting thing. We don't have meaning unless we have that other part of ourselves that's alive.

Lio: Exactly.

Judy: Anyway,

Lio: you all heard the rabbi do it. We trust that you'll continue to do all this great work and we will stay connected. Please, if you listen to this talk, spread it, let other people hear it and get inspired by it. There are a lot of good things in it, a lot of good things in The Jew Function. Listen to season one, the first 22 episodes, because we tell the entire story of the Jewish people, from beginning to end, to where we are today. And the end chapter is with you. So listen to it. It's great. And leave a comment, a review. This is really what we need from you. We don't need your money. Just your attention and your time. Put a little comment there and share it, and hopefully, we'll awaken more people to that calling.

Judy: Thank you both so much.

Lio: Thank you. Bye, Judy.

Seth: Bye-bye.