Rebuilding Faith After Fire: Rabbi Amy Bernstein on Community, Post-Traumatic Growth & Love

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Rabbi Amy Bernstein is with us today. Rabbi Amy is the senior rabbi of Kehillat Israel in Los Angeles, a Reconstructionist temple with a congregation of over 1000 diverse households. She is a well-respected leader, a brave woman, a true friend. For me, Amy is one of the people in my life that easily lives her life genuinely caring about others and stepping up for others and operating from empathy seem to come naturally. What I feel from Amy is love. So many things to talk about here today, but let's start with a brief discription of reconstructionism.

Hi, Rabbi. Amy. Hi, Cynthia. Reconstructionism was denomination of Judaism. It's the baby of the movements. It was founded by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, whose students really pushed him to make this new denomination. He didn't want to further fracture the Jewish people when they really pushed him on some issues in the conservative movement. He was part of the conservative movement. He was training conservative rabbis in their seminary. That's what he did his whole life. At the age of 83, they convinced him to found the Reconstructionist movement because they really, truly believed he and his students really believed that all of our practice as Jews is not from above, coming down to us as instruction, but rather is our people reaching for holiness.

And this is the way our people has figured out how to do that. And that has evolved and changed over time. So all of Judaism has evolved and changed over time. Kaplan was insistent that that is one of the best things about it. He doesn't claim this is from Torah. Which other movements do right. What Torah really meant was right, and Kaplan understood no, our understanding of Torah evolves and how to live and what what an ethical life looks like, what ethical, you know, practices look like. And that changes over time. Egalitarianism. Feminism, queer people, all of that changes.

Welcoming people who want to convert to Judaism. There's just been a lot of changes in Jewish life. And he believed that was one of the best things about it and why we're still around as a people. 3000 years after our ancient homeland was destroyed and we were dispersed as a people. Everyone else has gone from that time. He also believed that Jewish identity and Jewish people, hood is the only constant over those 3000 years and that, how Jewish you are isn't about how often you go to synagogue. It's not a religion. It is primarily a belonging to a people.

So for him, how Jewish are you? Is a question about how thick is your Jewish identity? Do you eat Jewish food? Do you or, you know, get Jewish humor? Do you read Jewish literature? Do you identify as belonging to this people throughout history? How connected do you feel to other Jews? So it's not really about the religious practice. That's part of it. But, but it's one small part of it. All those other layers of being Jewish are just as important and profound. And justice Jewish is. So then is it unique to re constructionism that the Torah is sort of interpreted, based on current events, that it is that unique, then it is not.

What is unique is that we are proud of that and own it and say that out loud. So people say, oh, you pick and choose what you're going to. Well, yeah, everybody does, including the Orthodox. There's nothing in ter that says whether a microwave is kosher. You know, how do you kosher a microwave if something happens or something unkosher gets put in a microwave. How do you, how do you kosher the microwave. Well they have to interpret it right. That constitution our constitution in. That's the that's the closest example I can give. They have to interpret that law for this time, right?

Right I see. So everyone has to do that. Yes. So you're just saying yes. And that's a great thing. So you know you know in a way it's sort of like the Constitution of the United States mean you have to figure out okay, wait a minute. These guys didn't know about this thing that's happening. How do we apply these rules. Do we apply these rules to what's going on currently? Correct. So so for instance, our understanding of what a human being is has changed. Yes. Right. All men are created equal. Right. Yeah, but if you were not white, you were not equal.

And you were only. What are some ridiculous fraction, you know, of a person and so it's a good thing that that changed. It's a good thing that women can vote. Yes. It's a those are all good things that you take from your new understanding of what should be. And you apply it to the law, and you change your practice based on new values and new understandings. How hard is that for you as a leader, leading a group of people, helping them understand the Torah in in current terms? Are you? Gosh, it's hard to get this concept into words. Are you because you lead Torah study classes and and you even have a podcast, right.

So which we're going to find out more about. It seems to me because I'm just thinking about this in terms of our government, that there are people imposing on us new interpretations. To settle something or because they deem it to be the best interpretation. Right. And we're in a situation where there are an awful lot of people who don't question that. It's like, okay, this guy said this, we were just going to go with it or were too afraid not to. And certainly you're not doing that. But what is the thing or the element or the feeling that helps you and the people listening to you think that this is the right approach in terms of a current interpretation?

Wow, that was a long question. No, no, I totally get it. Okay. Part of what makes reconstruction ism different. And one of the reasons it is its own denomination and not part of the conservative movement, is because the rabbi is not seen as the arbiter of the law. First of all, we don't live a life that's based on Jewish law. We take the inspiration of the values underlying Jewish law, justice, equity, fair weights and measures, compassion, you know, all that stuff. There's a level above which. Below which no one should fall. You know, a social safety net.

We take those values and then have to figure out how to apply that as Americans to the society that we live in. So who would that mean? Who does that mean I would vote for? Because whose policies line up with my understanding of the inspiration underneath Jewish law, the concepts right that that are about justice. What has happened is that some people have elected someone to be that arbiter. That is not my role. My role is to be a facilitator and an expert in Jewish law, Jewish history, Jewish philosophy, Jewish ways of approaching ethical and moral quandaries.

My job is to educate the community about what's been and what my best thinking is and my, you know, teachers best thinking is about those things. Now, and they make a decision as a community. The board of directors will make a decision. My job is to be the Jewish facilitator. That's a very different role, right, than the arbiter of Jewish law. So in a conservative synagogue, is this kosher or is it not? The rabbi decides. Yes. Being an expert in Jewish law says this is kosher. That is not. That's not my job. That's that's analogous to what are you hiring the president and his cabinet or her cabinet to do, if you're hiring them to facilitate good decision making between all of the branches of government and the bicameral, you know, legislature that results in a different kind of decision making process than if you hire a dictator.

You hire someone who you want them to make the decision, or you're okay with them and they're, you know, group making decisions and interpreting the law in a way that many of us object to. So I already object to the kind of process that this government uses, and the people who voted them in will tolerate, because you're in a situation where you, see your approach really working. And so that is I think if I understood you to some degree, you go back to the very, very basic principles that these rules came from, which compassion, empathy, love, justice.

And if you always are keeping those things in mind, you are going to be able to help yourself and others come to healthy decisions in support of a greater community, and understanding that other people have a very different understanding of what should be done than I do in any given ethical or moral dilemma. That's okay. We have different histories, we have different ways of looking at things. We have our own personal trauma, we have our own personal gifts and our own insights and our own challenges. And we always bring that to bear on our deepest beliefs about what we should do right.

In any kind of situation that's based on values. Yes. So so there may be 17 different ways of looking at a good ethical solution to what a civilization has to do is decide, okay, we have 17 different opinions. How do we get to the best decision possible for the most people in this community? And it doesn't have to be my decision. No. And nobody else's. It's a sort of a group effort. Right. Well, the there's democracy for you. Correct. So then there are these many different ways to come to a good ethical decision. And then everything else is just unethical.

Well it's also sometimes about what's most ethical, what's most possible. Sometimes what's best isn't possible. Sure. Right. Like what would be best is for there to be no children dying of hunger or malaria and no war and no war. Right. So we know we have food rotting, you know, in silos in this country that could be used, you know, to feed people in countries where they're not able to meet subsistence levels. It's sickening. Thought 100%. So I believe it is possible, but there's not the will. Right. So, so sometimes doing what's most ethical, there's not the will.

Sometimes it's just not possible to that doesn't mean everything else is unethical I guess is what I'm saying. Yes. There's varying degrees, right. There's sometimes we're put in a really bad choice between bad and worse. Right. And do things we don't want to do because it's the least horrible option. Yeah. You know, I mean, there are those things that happen. Unfortunately. Yes. And I think we have to figure out ways to help us out in terms of not putting anybody in those kinds of positions. And it's a big, big, big, long journey, maybe hundreds of years, I don't know.

But I think we have to do what you're doing, which is start in our own communities and help each other and lift each other up. And you're doing such a great job of that. And you are. You have unusual circumstances. I mean, this this world of rabbis is, that you're a woman and you're a rabbi. Is is a still a little uncommon, isn't it? Not so much anymore. Not so much anymore in seminaries. In the liberal seminaries, it's 6040 women. Awesome. So the graduating classes are all 60, 40 women. And as a female rabbi, at once, you've graduated and and you're getting yourself situated in this fabulous new profession, are you more limited?

Because in some forms of practice, Orthodox. Can a woman be a rabbi? No. It's starting to change a little bit. They're giving them a different title, but they're starting. It's starting. But but that doesn't really matter for me to be efficacious. I just need my people to buy into my leadership. Right. So it doesn't matter to me that the state of Israel doesn't recognize my rabbi. You know, it's like the only place I'm not recognized as a rabbi is the Jewish state. And I wonder what it even be possible for an Orthodox woman to choose to be an Orthodox rabbi that would go against her teaching, wouldn't it?

Yes. So like I said, it's starting to shift. They're starting to come up with language for teacher. Which is really what Rav in Hebrew the term rabbi Rav means abundant, wide, big and that it's supposed to refer to an abundance of learning. So my, my degree that hangs on my wall, says Amy Rose Bernstein will now be known as a rabbi and teacher in Israel. That's that's what a rabbi is, your teacher. And so they're they're using language that isn't rabbi, but it's like I see high teacher. So it's very close. But anyway, what her authority will be, you know, women in the Orthodox world who who knows hopefully it's evolving, but it doesn't really matter.

In my world. What matters are my people and my community and the larger interfaith community that I interact with in the Palisades and in LA. That my authority is recognized and I only have authority because, you know, 930 families say so. Yes. Say yes. She speaks for our understanding of this issue. Yes. And that happens because you do it well and they feel well represented and, and and it's not easy also to have such a diverse community where we don't agree. And like, you know, the only I joke, the only sport that Jews are naturally good at is debate.

And so we argue a lot, but that's healthy. I mean, you ultimately don't you generally come to some decision where everybody's been heard and generally generally doesn't mean but but what do they say about compromise? Like if both parties leave unhappy it's a good solution. It's kind of like that. Yeah. Often the people who don't get you know the decision they want don't feel great about it, but they feel good about process and they feel good about okay. If, if the majority of the community feels this way, we'll just have to suck it up. Yeah. And and that's the process, I think a healthy process.

So I do want to speak about Los Angeles in the Palisades and what's been going on. But I wanted to talk further about you being a leader and you've led quite a life, and you've got yourself to this, this amazing place that you you're satisfying so many people and helping so many people, and it's clearly something that you are passionate about that you love. How did you get here? Do we have seven? I was going to say, how long do you have? The short version, is that I come from a household where my mother converted to Judaism. She grew up Southern Baptist, so she had a lot of problems with a theology that was very authoritarian and very, This is what you believe and you don't question.

And my father was raised Orthodox and felt very similarly like that. He was told, this is what you do and this is what you eat, and this is what you don't and you don't question. So they both didn't like that approach to belonging to the Jewish people, but both felt very strongly about belonging to the Jewish people and raising Jewish kids. Because we lived in Atlanta, Georgia in the 60s. I was born in 65. The school system wasn't fantastic. And so the public school system, and so I'm sure my grandparents, also my father's parents, were pushing, for us to go to private Jewish day school.

So I grew up in a Jewish day school and then chose to go to Yeshiva High School, a very small Orthodox high school, for three years until I came out as a lesbian at 16 and needed to leave that environment. So, so in that environment, you could not be. And was that still in Atlanta. My world was a Jewish world. And my parents divorced when I was eight. It was a very messy divorce. It was very ugly. And we just kind of slid down the economic ladder after that. And did your mom maintain her Jewish identity? She did. She did. And so I think the place I felt safest was at school, where things weren't coming apart and where things felt really solid.

And my teachers and my rabbis and my the principal and, you know, everybody, like, just felt really supportive, really loving, compassionate. Like it was a place I felt safe and where I felt like belonging was really important. And I did feel like I belonged. I loved Jewish texts. I love studying philosophy, I loved studying, I loved singing, you know, all the stuff we sang. A lot of the Jewish Service Services song. So, you know, we sang a bunch of stuff and Jewish camp songs and just. I loved all of it. And you, you created your own family. I did, I felt like I was part of a family, and I felt like I was part of a people.

I'm also adopted. So not having any biological connection to any of my family. I felt I had a connection to Abraham and Sarah that was just as legit as any of my classmates. Right. 3000 years is a long time. So like they may have been more related to their, you know, grandparents generation or whatever, but I felt I was a descendant of Abraham and Sarah and can you just like they were. Why? Because some of our audience may not know the importance of those two individuals. So those are the two who are our mythic ancestors, who began the Jewish people and our sacred mythology.

And anyone who converts becomes a daughter or a son of Abraham and Sarah. And I really felt like they were my ancestors. And it didn't matter about genetically. It didn't matter that I wasn't genetically Jewish. That did not matter what mattered. I felt like I was that they were my ancestors. They're the only ancestors I knew about. Them and Jacob and Rebecca and you know like. Yeah. The whole you took them business Isaac and I mean all of them. So that felt like my family and where I belonged existentially it's where I belonged. And and that stayed with me through college.

But because I left and wasn't talking to Orthodox Judaism or the God of Orthodox Judaism anymore. So it was very lonely in college being without a community, being without my community, the Jewish community, everything looks familiar to me about it. You didn't go on to an institution that was a Jewish. So I went to northwestern. And there was progressive Judaism there, but I wasn't mature enough to figure out how to do it. I was still too reactive about. There's all this English. It feels like church, like it doesn't feel like legitimate. It doesn't feel authentic.

And I was just too immature to figure out which parts could work for me and which parts didn't. But it is true that I did not become a reformed rabbi, in part because when I was looking at rabbinical schools, it still was a whole lot of English, you know, a lot a classical reform with, you know, the, the rabbi as orator in a robe and a organ. And, you know, that's what I was exposed to when I was young, especially in the South. That's the kind of Reform Judaism I experienced. And so that's not what I wanted. It didn't speak to me. It still doesn't.

I mean, there's lots about it that's beautiful, but it doesn't really fill me the way, Hebrew and traditional, study and and prayer does. So when I came back to Atlanta after I graduated northwestern, I was really struggling to figure out how to put the Jewish piece back in my life. And someone told me about a gay and lesbian synagogue, and I was like, no way, no way. Talk about love and be possible. It can't even be possible. Fakey fakey fake Judaism? Absolutely not. Not going to happen. You won't catch me dead. There. And my partner at the time said, well, then you can't complain at the High Holidays that you're really lonely and depressed.

Complain or go to the right. Like I was like I was not going to give up my rights to complain. Like there was just no way. Okay, I'm going to one service one. And I don't want to ever hear about this again and I will. I've done my job, I will done my job. And then I get to complain. And so she said fine I said fine just fine fine. So I go to Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year, I go which is one of our holy, you know, the holy, the high holy days for us. And so I go and there's a woman, Rabbi at this synagogue. She's an out lesbian. And are you rolling your eyes?

And I'm like, what? And she's wearing traditional garb, meaning a burial shroud, which is what we wear at the High Holidays. Many people wear them traditionally. She's wearing a burial shroud and a full prayer shawl, and uses Hebrew and Yiddish in ways that I can tell she's from a traditional background. And I thought, how? How is she doing what she's doing from where I'm sitting? Like, how did she get there? And it was a legit service, and it was like a lot of Hebrew. And and she's reading from the Torah in Hebrew and which has no punctuation.

I'm like, what is happening right now? My world was like, rocked. So, because I look like Susie Cream Cheese. Somebody came over to say, are we sure she knows where she is? Does she know what she's doing? She just. Does she know what she's doing? And so, they came over and they were very warm and very welcoming and very lovely. They gave me a prayer book. Someone sat with me to tell me what's going on, and and I came out because I wanted them to know. Yes, I, in fact, am gay. And that's one of the reasons I'm here. And and I come from, you know, Hebrew Academy, you know, in Atlanta and a high school.

And so one of them ran up to the rabbi to say she knows Hebrew. She knows all the prayers, and they're always looking to get people involved. You know, and so sure, when they told her this, she said, okay, great. We'll have her do kind of a standard prayer in Hebrew that is sung. So I chant this prayer that I've been chanting my whole life and she says, oh, but you need to stay after services. And I'm like, how am I in trouble already? I've been here half an hour. I just, I my first time you how am I in trouble? I'm staying after school. All right.

So she said, afterwards, she said, here is the prayer book for the High Holidays. I'm going to send you a tape and you are going to sing the service. For Yom Kippur, for our holiest day of the year, because she can't carry a tune in a bucket. That just makes me want to cry. Well, that's what happened. So I learned everything for Yom Kippur. Because I've been going my whole life. I knew the service. And the first time I ever heard a woman's voice chanting in a synagogue was my voice chanting our most sacred prayer. Call me dry that next week. That gives me chills.

So I started to cry. She started to cry. Everyone started to cry like it was just this huge catharsis. And I didn't know it then. But that's when everything spun on its axis. And that was the beginning of my road to rabbinical school. I didn't know it, but so after that, you you saw an inroad and I stay very involved. She was a visiting student rabbi. So they didn't have a rabbi. I had a traditional background so I could leave Friday night services. I could literally study, I could. So all of a sudden I was leading this community in its Jewish life.

And trying to learn the language of liberal and progressive Judaism and Reconstructionist it was a Reconstructionist synagogue trying to learn the language of that and the philosophy of that and the theology of that. So I read an introduction, you know, to Judaism, a Reconstructionist approach. And like, I was like, where has this been all my life, respecting and regarding tradition without needing to be controlled by it? Yeah. To bring our, you know, our, our sensibilities of 2024, 2025, whatever your you're into these texts and to these values and to these practices, it's like, where has this been?

And keeping the values at the core. Correct? Yeah. And like. How did I not know about this? How come most Jews don't know about this. And they still don't I really don't. They still don't. I mean, isn't your synagogue one of the very few? Yes, about 100. And we do a terrible job of advertising and y reconstructions. I don't know, we just stink at it. We're really bad at it as a movement. Really bad. And now that denominations are in decline. We're not going to get better at it. I see and I think more and more synagogues are not going to identify as reform, reconstructionist, conservative like really that's going away.

And is that a good thing. I think it is. I think it's a good thing. Yeah. So it is a good thing that denominations are in decline. And why do you say that? I think they were helpful for people to try to figure out where they stood on the spectrum of both practice what we call praxis, and philosophy and theology. At one point it was helpful as progressive Judaism was emerging, it was helpful to kind of figure out where exactly you were in the relationship between liberal approaches and liberal values, and applying that to our tradition, I see, and where the tradition trumps the, the, the new thinking about something and and where are you in that mix that was really helpful to have different places people could land where they felt comfortable.

As a conservative Jew, you might say, I can go this far. Yes, I can get this. But when you look at the FA reform, you're like, yeah, that's too far. Yeah. So I think it was really helpful like to, to have these denominations flourish and their philosophies, you know, inform people's lives and choices and communities grew. Women, you know, became much more involved in, you know, in Jewish life and leadership, queer people, you know, it was just very healthy for all of the developments and evolutions that have come to Judaism through the, you know, development of progressive Judaism.

At some point it started to, like, grind against each other and to be, a barrier for people that I think now people are finding communities that feel comfortable to them, knowing that there's a range of theology or philosophy or praxis, and it doesn't matter as much that you match everybody else's level of keeping kosher, or it doesn't matter at all to us that there can be people who it matters to them. So we have a kashrut policy for the building, and there's people who don't care and we can live together. So is that already pretty prominent as a set of ideas in the Reconstructionist domain?

Saying you can be kosher and I don't need to be, and I'm going to pray like this, and you're going to pray like that. And it's all kind of welcomed. Yes, yes. And we have discussions that are meaningful to me about things that are beyond the traditional practice of kashrut, like pork and meat and milk and shellfish and all that, and goes to, again, the underlying value of cash. Fruit is about bringing Jewish ideals and values to eating. So something really important to us also as a community is not just that we have a kosher kitchen so anyone can feel comfortable eating at at an event at our place if they have a stricter, you know, observance of kashrut, but also that we don't use styrofoam.

And we don't use single use water bottles because for us, eco kashrut is just as important. Plastic water bottles are not kosher. I mean, they are technically, but we believe that it's against Jewish values around consumption to use them. So we don't use them. We have water coolers and everybody has a bottle or we provide, you know, recyclable cups. So it's ultimately about what's best for the person and the world. Right. And so it's kind of an ongoing conversation between the tradition and what our contemporary values are around bringing mindfulness.

Right. So, so and consumption look how you've updated this portion of the Torah. Yeah. Yes. And that's what we care about is how do we do that. Our ancestors were looking for ways to bring holiness into eating. So they limited how much meat you could eat by making it only sacrificial meat that you could eat like that. That was a value. To limit your consumption of meat and killing other things. Yeah. To eat if that's the underlying one of the underlying Jewish values. How do we bring that forward. What else should we not be eating. What was that.

What was meant by that. Right. How far reaching can that be. So for me I only eat free range chicken. Because it's bringing that value forward. Yeah. We're going to look at trying to reduce the cruelty of how things are, you know, slaughtered for us to consume. If we're going to reduce the frequency, you know, then I don't I don't eat red meat very often at home. I and free range chicken is a must because their lives are so horrible the way that has raised so. And in addition to saving some creatures from that cruelty, there's a good amount of the health of the person eating taken to mind, right?

That it's not that good for us to eat so much red meat. I find too, that well, first of all, I believe that you're involved in learning about other faiths too, and that you have a community of faith minded people that you relate to, right? Yes, we have an interfaith clergy group in the Palisades, and, that is a very close knit group, and we meet every month to sit and have lunch and just talk and get to know each other. We plan a Thanksgiving service together every year, an interfaith Thanksgiving service, and we come together around some other events.

But we we take very seriously knowing each other as people. We have very different theologies. We have radically different understandings of God. And what that then means for how you're supposed to be in the world. That I'm queer, right? For some of them is anathema. But it doesn't mean that the person who holds a theology that says I'm living wrongly and unethically in sin, it doesn't mean he doesn't love me as a person. That goes a long way to healing the ways that we bump up against difference. That could be splintering for our community completely.

And it's hard for me to wrap my head around that. I I'm pretending to be and your body over there. And how am I hated for being queer? How do I how do I know this person is hating me for being queer, or dismissing me, or disgusted by and also at the same time receive his love? How do you how do you do that? I think partly it's because of who he is. I don't feel like he hates me, and I don't feel like he's disgusted by me. His tradition teaches him it's wrong. He knows mine does not. Progressive Judaism does not teach me that it's wrong. So he knows I'm living in line with my values.

They don't line up with his. But they don't allow women to be leaders in their church either. So it's like yeah. So he knows and respects that my tradition celebrates my authority or being an authority. The being the rabbi, he knows that and he respects that. And his church does not. Does that make sense. Like so he it does. He doesn't judge my following my theology and my traditions, guidance and I don't begrudge him following his. He's we were on a, on a panel discussion one time and he said to me we were talking about queerness and gay relationships and gay marriage and whatever.

And he said My God is not confused about what makes a family. My God is not confused. And it was interesting and I kind of chuckled and I said, mine is not confused either. About what makes a family love makes a family. Yeah. And so it was like we both had exactly the same value. Right. Which is our God is not confused. Yeah. About family. And we have a very different interpretation of what that family can be. Right. But you take the Constitution and you say there's a right to privacy. Well does that mean abortion is legal or not? Yeah. Right.

So you're taking the same exact law from the Constitution or several laws, and you're using them to bolster your understanding of why this should be allowed. Right. And that, our thinking has evolved and should and a woman should be able to blah, blah, blah. So, it's very much like that, like his if his tradition evolved this understanding of what marriages and my tradition evolved a different understanding, we both get it that we're taking the same institution of marriage or commitment or family, whatever you want to say, and interpreting it wildly differently.

But we both would agree. I think that spouses shouldn't cheat on each other. Yes. Like, oddly, we do have values that line up that we should be loving towards our kids and not beat them. You have a lot that lines up. We have a lot that lines up. And so also just as much as he believes this is what a family is and you believe this is what a family is, as much as you understand that he has this belief system and it doesn't include you getting to be gay in his church, yet he still loves you. It works the other way as much as you disagree with sort of the ethics of his theology.

Let's say you still care about this person. And yes, wow, that's a big lesson for the world. It's huge. Which is that's why I brought it up, because had we just met at an event yearly at, you know, at the Interfaith Thanksgiving service, I bet I would have my judgments. I'm sure. And my assumptions. Yeah. And my prejudice, you know, about people not, you know, recognizing feminism or gay whatever. I know he loves me and he knows I love him because we sit together every single month. And is that sometimes a struggle to sit together every month?

Because when certain topics come up, it can be uncomfortable? Yeah. And I have been very impressed with how grown up we are about being able to have some hard conversations. We don't go deep into it. Once we hit something that was like, oh, oh, that's a nerve. Like, that's going to be tough. Yeah, let's calm this dance like we we need to make a decision about what to do about it, but we're not going to have a whole philosophical conversation about it. Like, unless we want to. But so there's times we have gone there and there's times where we haven't.

And so the goal of this group getting together is what is it that you're bringing? Broader up, a broader set of tools to your congregants? It's about a commitment on all of our parts to having the world be less hateful, conflict oriented, based in misunderstanding and assumptions based on other rising and polarizing. I mean, I know that sounds really pie in the sky, but but we do it every month. I think even when it's hard, because we know that's the only way forward, is to know each other and like each other as people, to trust each other as having good intentions.

What, however messy the results of those intentions can get. And then we're able to stand together when something goes down and our communities are able to stand together when something horrible goes down. Yes. And I think it also gives us the tools to support each other, help those who who can't be in the position to live that way yet for whatever reason. And it's a constant reminder that that we that we have more in common than what separates us. Yeah, that we're all human beings trying our best because it's so not true out there right now. It is internet has made it.

So we talked about this last time. It's made it so bad that everyone's reactive, the, you know, algorithms that push us, the stuff that's going to make us the most angry. We have to have some kind of antidote to the poison that we're taking in all the time that for us as clergy is an antidote, that we just refuse to allow our differences to keep us from doing what we can for each other. And as a faith community, you know, to to be together and help each other out. I love that you come back to this month after month, knowing that there are going to be things that are going to be aggravating or or stressful, but you you come to terms with it and the only way to understand each other.

And then again, as I always say, and what you see going on outside the the turmoil, the wars, the stress. All of that just ceasing, all of that I need to take a deep breath is going on inside of us, and we've got to figure out a way to quell that, to get back to love. Talking about sounding corny, I mean, it's it's it's really empathy, compassion, love feeling, working from feeling rather than intellect. All of those things will help us know that we can and should and do sort of automatically support each other when you come from that sort of a base and and owning and naming our feelings that we're coming from.

Yeah. Because so often people are coming out of fear for sure. And when people are coming out of fear and don't realize it, they get very justified. They there's righteous indignation all over the place. Right? And so both empathy, love, compassion. Yes. Forgiveness, transformation, you know, curiosity, all those things are really important to work from that place and to acknowledge when we're working from a place of fear, or sadness or grief or loss or rage, you know, and, and to be able to say, okay, I feel really scared right now. About where this conversation is going.

Yeah. I just need to and I've said that in that group, I've said this makes me very nervous. I just need to let you know this makes me very uncomfortable and I'm feeling afraid. And here's, here's what scares me about this. And when we can do that we can have a conversation or I say you know what, I'm just feeling too activated and too fearful and triggered and I need to like take a break from we need can we switch topics for right now I need to I need to regulate my own, my own responses before I feel like I can have a thoughtful conversation and and then to that to know that, I mean, first of all, it's great that you know enough about your feelings to be able to say, I don't want to keep doing this right now.

I've got to take some time over here and either think about it or not. Think about whatever your processes are. The other people in this group doing the same thing. Yeah. And we try to help each other get there. Like if you can tell somebody is activated and they can't seem to regulate like they don't know to, you know, like to, to say, you know Cynthia it seems seems like this is a hard topic for you right now. Do you want to continue to have this conversation? Do you do you want a minute? Do you should we talk about something? I'll, you know, like what?

What do you need right now? In this moment, it seems like this was really landed for you in a. Yeah, hard place. Like what? What what can we do for you right now? And and to just check out what a group of people here. It's fortunate to be attached privilege to be a part of truly. Well thank you for sharing all that and thanks to your cohorts. Please let them know. Yes, they're they they fill me with hope. You know that people are willing to live that way and, you know, get out of our own way and not let the differences separate us more than they have to, more than they need to.

Well, and this group of people, I imagine on some level all had a calling to do this, whatever it was about the way they lived their lives prior to coming to this. It's such a gift to have this group of people doing what they can to serve our best interests and hopefully push us along, help us see where the best places to come from are, which is empathy and compassion and so I mentioned that I wanted to talk a little bit about the Palisades and, and Los Angeles. So your home is, is was in the Palisades and the synagogue is in the Palisades. And the synagogue was seriously damaged in the Palisades fire.

And your home was destroyed, and the homes of many of your congregants were destroyed or smoked out, or they they don't know when they're moving back in if they choose to move back in. When we last met, I think it was April of last year, and none of this had happened. And many things have changed in your life since then. But now you're in a position of having lost everything yourself on a personal level. I mean, you're thank goodness you're still here and beautiful and smart and loving, and you have your beautiful daughter and Luna, who's joined us today.

Fabulous. Luna, who who has been a huge blessing to you. So you have that, but you have this thing to contend with on a personal level of losing everything that you had in your home. It's not just that they're material objects at all, things that you've taken a lifetime to put together. I don't mean to make you sad. Geez, Louise, it's always there and and yet you are having to assist those that are in the same boat, and having to come stand up for them when your own existence must be exhausting. How do you how do you do that? You can't put your own position aside.

And maybe it's helpful that you're in the same boat. I mean, how better to know what they're going through? Yeah, I was going to say, but it's it's important to be able to speak for me always from a place of authenticity. Always. I mean I can't lie and intellect and whatever. But when I'm really talking to people in crisis, I always feel like I need to come from my, my experience of crisis. Right. Like you're getting through it. So, so for example. So if you, you must all the time spend time with people who are, suffering. Either there's a husband who's supporting his wife, who is dying of cancer, or a, a family who lost a loved one.

And you may not have the same experience, but you do. What do you do? Do you go into your own history and find things that brought up feelings that you think they maybe feeling? Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm an empath. You are so and so for those of us who are empaths it's a scary world to live in. It's easy though for me to sit with people and and get what they're feeling as an empath. That's that's not that's not hard for me. I think it just comes naturally. Yeah, I would say so. And why do you think that is? What what makes someone an empath and someone else not so?

I thank God for therapy. I was in therapy for a very long time. And my therapists, taught me that my mother was a narcissist and she was a borderline personality. And the way that that manifests is particularly gnarly for children. And what it means is that the child develops the ability to read the narcissist very quickly. Nonverbal. So we grow antenna that protect us. So how my mother walked in the house, I knew her mood. I knew what her day had been like, and I knew what I needed to do to stay out of her way. If it was the way she closed the door, the way she walked up the stairs, I knew.

And so. And did you know that do you think consciously or unconsciously or both. I guess it was just pervasive. You there it was, it was there. Like I knew it was going to be a good night or I needed to walk softly. So I think that's part of it is that, you know, being and she and she raised us with my dad back in the 70s. Mothers were awarded full custody, and there wasn't half and half. And he moved to Florida and remarried. And so we were really with her. And she had all the power and control. And so we were alone. Me and my sister were alone in the house with her, so I had to figure out how to manipulate things to stay safe.

Oh, you're saying exactly what we talk about here all the time. You know that. But what we do as humans, you know, to sort of mold ourselves to fit into an environment that was given to us or that we were placed into, how do I make this safe for myself? How to how do I survive? How do I help my mother survive so I can survive? And look at you just doing that all over the place. So I remember saying to my predecessor, Rabbi Steven Carr Rubin, who was senior before me, I remember saying to him, you know, there's a part of me that feels almost selfish having this job.

And he says, what can you say more about that? I said, well, it really this work allows me to heal, you know, to constantly be addressing the fissures at my core, the, the toxic environment I was placed in. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm at the center of a community. I'm always looking after everybody because then I can feel powerful and safe. You know, that I have some agency, you know, because, you know, if I could kind of manipulate everything at home that I. I was going to be safe. Yeah. So if I can read everybody and respond to what's going on for them, then I'll be safe.

And I'm right in the middle of a big family, and they're not going to kick me out because they need me. So that's interesting. So in a way, you are doing what you did growing up. Making a safe environment. But when you were growing up it was either that or expose yourself to the narcissism of your mother. Right. And as long as you kept this little world you wouldn't have to deal with that. Now you, you're your instinct is to still do that. But the instead of surviving, there are rewards for you and obviously for the people that you're attending.

Right. So those were and I said, and then I get rewarded for it. You know, people thank me for doing what like really is like a basic need for built in now programed into me. And and so I feel kind of selfish, like doing this work and getting thanked for it. And he said to me, well, you could have joined a gang. I never thought about it that way. I was like, oh my gosh, you're right. There is something to me having chosen to deal with my breakage. And my fissures this way. Yeah. And I'm allowed to feel good about that. Absolutely. And so that yeah that was a huge shift for me.

And I was so grateful for that perspective from him. And that's probably the way we're supposed to be looking at so many of our relationships. Even when it comes to work. It's this symbiotic thing. You get something, I get something. I mean, how great that you're you get to grow from this. And and the more you do that, the better you are at helping everybody else but that. But that's so wonderful to live a life where you feel like you are always trying to grow, and you're trying to get better at what you do and who you are and being authentically you.

And that changes over time. I'm 60 years old like that. It's it's changed. Like how I see myself, how my role in the world, how I see my role in Jewish community has changed over the 28 years of my rabbit. It's a refreshing and wonderful thing to be able to look at that and say, okay, look, I'm 60 years old and I'm still evolving. For your congregants who are in this with you, how are they faring? I would imagine that everybody's taking this on, in different terms based on their histories, what they think, losses, what's important to them, or is there a a big, big set of threads that runs commonly?

I think both are true. There are some common themes. People feeling really disoriented, really unbalanced. Routines go away. You have to form new routines. Are people making life changing decisions? People are making life changing decisions. Some. Some, if they're older, their adult children are making life changing decisions for them. People who are living independently at home, whose house burned down, their children are saying, that's a you're we're not rebuilding. No way you're coming to live with us in Arizona, or you're coming to Texas, or you're coming to, you know, North Carolina, where it's time, So some of those decisions are being kind of taken out of my seniors hands.

I'm now of course, they agreed to it. I'm not saying that's against their will. I'm saying they understand that they don't have the capacity, not the capacity. They don't they can't make the decisions the way they used to. Yeah. Because now it's a much broader context. If it's going to take five years to rebuild, where are we going to live until then? And then, you know, all of that. And then what is the quality of life and what's the quality of life? And the kids are like, well, we want you near us. And we've waited and you were happy in your home, but the home is gone.

This is the moment. And so I've lost an entire swath of my community. Who are my elders? That is really hard because I always swear I'm not going to cry when I talk about this. Because I just assumed I would be with them. Yeah, but they were sick. Oh, and as they're dying, I've loved them for 15 years, and it was always my assumption that I would hold their hands at the end. They're just gone. They've been uprooted and planted somewhere else, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm glad that they're having good lives, and I'm glad that their children are enjoying their company, but it's very hard to lose them all at once.

I can't imagine what that's like. It's really hard. And, I miss them at Torah study. I miss them at services. You know, I miss George Walton, 96 years old, telling me, Rabbi, you're terrific. I don't hear that anymore from him. But, you know, it's just that they're just small things, not small things. They're. They may seem small, but they're huge in terms of how we feel rooted and grounded and oriented in the world. And and I would imagine, too, that many of the people who are most involved are the elder people because they have more time on their hands.

They're retired or or, you know, sort of thinking things through and wondering about the universe and a god or no God. You have more time to think about such things. And and their perspective has shifted. You're not trying to make it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Their life is their life, you know? Right. They got to think about their career or they're not satisfied. But it's done. Their perspective has shifted. What's important to them has shifted what they think about. They start to think about legacy. They start to think about their grandchildren's future and what kind of a world they're living in and what kind of a world we're giving them.

And what are we setting them up for? A right. And these things really start to be core issues in terms of what you just sit around over coffee wondering about. Yeah. And so those are those I was in dialog with those people a lot. That's a much different conversation than the one we tend to have over the water cooler. Sure. You know, or even turning on the radio or the, you know, news broadcasts, like it's just not the conversation. And, and I love that conversation. Yeah. And I loved constantly being brought into thinking about and reflecting on those things and not the petty stuff that we all get so caught up in, including me.

Sure. I mean, we have to live our lives, raise our children, pay the car bill. That's right. And so, so I miss I'm. And that it's not just I mean, I can have that conversation with other people, but that's where they were living all the time. And be you get very close to people when you're having that kind of conversation. I can imagine the intimacy is profound. So I was closer to many of them than I am to everybody who's so busy. Yeah, that I see at meetings, you know, that I see it in finance committee meetings or at a board meeting or, you know, and I love them too.

But it's a different relationship when you're sitting with people who are contemplating the end and what their life has meant, and talking about things deeply and about what they wish they could change. What a unique position for you as a youngster in their world. Yes, to be in that way. They call me kid. No wonder you miss that. I miss that. So I want to shift a little bit. So you are a proud queer woman living in the United States in 2025. What is happening? How do you feel about being a queer woman in 2025? Is it is it a lot different than it was five years ago, ten years ago different than when you were growing up?

I mean, there seems like there are things to contend with now that we haven't had to contend with for a long time, and they're showing up again. It's both. And again, it's, you know, it's like on the one hand, it's so much better there. Know, I couldn't get married for most of my adult life. There was no gay marriage. I wasn't allowed to marry the person that I loved. There was no legal protection for our relationship. There was no legal protection for my daughter. Right. And parents to be parents. So, it's so much better in terms of that stuff.

It's not even that big a deal anymore. Like, I don't even think about it so much anymore. It may not go away in California, but do you fear that? Yes. So I fear, though the sharp turn to the right that we've taken. I very much fear the administration that we have in place right now in terms of whose voices are loudest, and no one being willing to stand up, to those voices that, you know, want to push, you know, agenda 2025, a project 2025, and all of those crazy, you know, really Christian, conservative kind of ways of approaching things, white nationalist ways of approaching things.

So I'm deeply concerned about that at the state. So that's scary that we could be moving backwards. The fact that Roe v Wade was overturned is terrifying. The fact that, you know, people are, you know, talking about wanting to overturn gay marriage, that's terrifying to me that not just that I might not have the privilege to marry. It's not that. It's how could we possibly be going to a place where we're taking rights away from people? We've never done that. We have always understood. I'm sorry. I'm getting activated. Go. We have always understood as a country that the more rights people have, the more people who are protected by freedom and responsibility.

With that freedom, the more people who have that, the safer everybody is. When did when did it become okay to start taking rights away from people? When the vote expanded, it got better. Our system, our electorate got better. When women could work outside the home and contribute their talent and their time, and they had the right and and were able to do that and get equal pay. That was that's amazing. That's a good the productivity went up. You know, there's better ideas when half your population is not you know, sidelined. Yeah. So and better for our children, better for our children.

And so we take the right to an education when to take rights away from people. That has been antithetical to what it meant to be American and what it meant to be a liberal democracy and a republic. So how do we get people to speak up? I, I don't know, but I'm not in the halls of power. So what I have to say doesn't really matter. But I was in the street. I took to the street, you know, to say, you know. Yeah. And so I feel like we need to do that. So on one hand, I feel like. So that's really scary that, that we might be looking at a time where rights are being rolled back.

But at the same time, the left has become so orthodox that I'm just a plain old L. I don't know anything. I'm just a plain old L, which means check, check yourself. You're not gender fluid. You're not, you know, somewhere on that spectrum of, like, I'm just a plain old lipstick white lesbian, which means I have very little in my community to say about stuff. Wow. Which is a very interesting. What do you do with that place to be? I am very disheartened. At. How long have you felt this? Probably 15 years. Really, but solid ten and it's getting worse.

And so how do you stand up for being not just a plain old L. It's it's really hard. It means I don't I often don't want to be in queer spaces where, where the, where the demographic skews younger. And a lot of us feel that way. A lot of us old L's and GS feel that way, that we're not welcome in a space if we're not a T or a B. So or a Q, so you're not far reaching enough. You are you to you're too close to being not gay. Regular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cisgendered white female. So I have very little to say in a lot of people's minds on the left about any issue, because I am from privilege, my white privilege, my class privilege, my cis gendered privilege.

All of it. My Susie cream cheese lipstick, lesbian look, privilege because I pass. I remember having this conversation when I was young. I didn't think I'd have to have it as an older person. But I remember someone said to me, so, you know, you dress for the patriarchy, you wear heels, you wear makeup and certain kinds of jewelry in your hair. You realize you're oppressed, right? You realize you dress as an oppressed person answering to the beauty standards of the industry, and that's run by the patriarchy. What did you do with that information?

And I said, oh, wow, really? I said, so for me to be liberated, I should dress how you tell me to dress as a dike? Yeah. Then I'm liberated, right? Right. I dress in cargo pants and short hair and get more butch. Because you say that's liberating. You know that? That's how I'm going to be liberated. Then that's what I should do. Just follow what you tell me to wear. Like in what world does that makes any sense? Isn't the whole idea supposed to be that we get to choose? Yeah, and of course they'll say you're brainwashed by the culture. Okay, fine.

And you're not. And that's all. Just because of how you look. And that conversation is happening again. That because I can pass. I come from a place of privilege and I, I know I have white privilege, I know I have class privilege, I know I have privilege because of the opportunities in education that I've been given. And that got me ahead. So I make money that other people 100% own that. What does that have to do with me not having anything to add to the conversation about what it is to be a queer person in this world right now? And I mean that that in dismisses a huge community and it's a real issue.

It's a real problem. We're having a real problem in our community because, well, in my opinion, and I am I'm not in your world, but it seems to me that because you are a huge community, men and women who, you know, look like you, that community is losing out because you have this valuable voice and want to be part of this queer community. You're not stepping away from it, but you're sort of being forced out. So what I believe is wrong with the rest of America is also wrong with queer America, and that is that we've been pitted against each other and we're focused on our differences, and we are focused on a zero sum understanding.

So if you have rights and privileges or we're focused on your concerns as a, you know, non-binary person, if we're not focused on that exclusively, you've got less of the attention. Pie. That's a zero sum way of thinking that I completely disavow. Yeah, it is not a zero sum game. We need to grow the pie of attention to rights and responsibilities right in general, and justice and equity and compassion and all of that stuff. So how do we do that? If we do that, everybody gets a bigger piece of pie, but we're fighting over the size of the of the piece and that's been a victory that we've been turned against each other.

Both in the political realm, you know, and in and I see it in the on the left. Yeah. And that's that only fuels the bigger fire. Yes. And it's interesting because, you know, you would sort of stereotypically think that perhaps the queer community would be more accepting of differences because they started out really as a community struggling to feel part of the bigger picture. So this is what is so disappointing in the movement of the left. The far left and I'm annual. That's just language. It's just terminology. But it is so orthodox on the left that it bumps right up against white nationalist orthodoxy.

Yeah, they are the same. If you exclude me because I'm a Jew and you're a fascist, or you're a or you're a white nationalist, it doesn't matter. It's the same. It's the same. It's you know, that you're going to exclude me because fill in the blank and we're we're doing it on now, the liberal left in a way that is undermining our ability to make change. It's how we lost the election. Yeah. And look, you're just speaking about this organization that you're part of that you participate in monthly and you're you're really trying. I love that you're digging into each other's existences and, you know, getting growly and angry about different approaches, but letting everybody have their say and their approach, as long as there's some sort of ethics about it.

And that's what I feel like. On the left We have lost is a shared language and a shared set of guiding values and principles, and everybody argues from a place that they feel is the self righteous indignation. And that has not served us. It has. And and we're so busy protecting our opinions. Right. And I'm being right. Like, and I'm so into being pissed off I get it. I that can be harnessed and used in really incredibly important ways. But to turn it on each other and get mad at each other because we're not this enough or that enough is stupid.

It is and counterproductive. And it's dangerous. Anybody make our society better? And it's how it's how power is now in the hands of some pretty radical folks. Yeah. What are some good ways that individuals can start to address this? So I think one thing we have to do is, we have to check what we're watching and listening to. I think we've been very lazy about allowing ourselves to be influenced by lots of things that we haven't brought conscious choice to. I've been very careful about how much news I consume recently and news from one source.

Yes, yes. Because I realized that it's just it's churning the same old stuff and I get enraged and feel helpless. And that's not helpful for me to be able to create change and to be able to create energy and momentum around positive change. So I realize I have to start reading things that that give me a sense of possibility, a new way to talk about things and think about things. Whether that's teachers or poets or, you know, whatever it is, I need to start paying better attention to those kinds of materials and turn off the TV and radio more. So I always feel like it's important for me to be engaged enough to know what's going on in the world.

That's important. But yet I don't know if what I'm accessing is telling me the absolute truth. It likely isn't, no matter where I'm going, because there is no such thing. Right. We used to agree on at least a set of facts. We don't even have that anymore. We don't. And truth is whose truth. Right. So I get that. And that's all that's going to be the case. You know going forward I get that. But what I'm talking about is the stuff where it's like, I know about the big beautiful Bill. Why do I need to listen to another story about the level of machinations, you know, going on?

Like, I said, it's going to pass or it's not going to pass. There's nothing I can do about it. I can only elect officials who won't do that kind of thing. Right? Who won't cut right. You know, the medical care for the poorest kids in this country. So I that's the part where I'm like, okay, do I need to know more about what senators are saying about, no, no, you've done what you could. You elected who you thought would represent you best and you know, right now I'm not so sure anyone's being well-represented. And so it's it's not that people should disengage.

It's good to know what's going on in the world, but you don't need to drive yourself nuts by picking up the newspaper every morning and just doing a deeper dive into something you can't affect. On my drive, I could be listening to this podcast because it's a different perspective, it's a different focus, and our lives attention is what we choose to focus on. Our entire lives are what we choose to focus on minute after minute after minute after minute. That becomes a life. And what we're not. I'm actually reading something about attention, which is why it's here, right?

Yet that attention, it's a weird thing. It's a weird thing. Attention. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. It's really fascinating. I'm curious about conversation one time. Yes, but because attention is a very interesting thing, because there's so much we miss that we think we're attending, and we actually miss a lot that she doesn't miss. Luna attends to a lot on a walk to two city blocks that I miss. Yeah. But I think I'm paying attention anyway. So so what we pay attention to becomes our life right. That becomes our a life. And so you can choose to focus on love and empathy and compassion and do that for half an hour or an hour or listen to more about the big, beautiful Bill.

And I've realized that I don't I don't need to know any more about that. I know what it's about. I know the basics, you know, and I know the counter. And for arguments, I was like, okay, it'll be what it'll be. I don't need to hear another half an hour about it, but I could use a podcast on The Hidden Brain or or, you know, I'm now studying post-traumatic growth because we talk a lot about PTSD, but all of my people have been through trauma, or many of my people have been through trauma, including me, and we don't talk a lot about PTG, post-traumatic growth.

Why not? We don't because we've skewed, you know, towards the way it's an illness. You know, the way that it's a malady, right? Because that's what so much of our culture does, is it looks at what's wrong with us and how do you fix it, rather than what are allowing Vietnam vets all the way through Afghanistan and, and the recent, more recent, you know, American veterans experience of war, what enables the ones that thrive to do that, even though they lived through the most horrific traumas imaginable? What's the difference? What made the difference between PTSD as their, you know, response and PTG?

Yeah, well, that's a really great set of things for me to be paying attention to. Yeah, that rather than write the big beautiful bill because that will help me be able to use language and, and practices that will allow me to help my people to have a better shot at experiencing post-traumatic growth anymore. Yes. Which is it's not going to fix it. You know, it's clearly at the forefront in your community, right? 100% at the forefront of my community. And that's really where I need to be spending more of my time getting educated, getting inspired, getting creatively, thinking about.

So how do I bring that to my people? That's such a good lesson for all of us. How do you focus on the things that you can actually affect? Really good lesson and the things you can't affect, but wish you could are probably going to cause you stress. So somehow suss that out. You know, I, I hate I was completely shocked and frozen and frightened when Roe v Wade went out the window and, I couldn't in a million years think of that happening. And I can't now change that. It was done. And I can't keep listening to things that tell me I can't change that.

It just makes me more and more frustrated. So where do I go in this world where I can make a change? And if that is so important to me, that topic, where do I go in my world where I can affect that thing to some degree? And how do I. And then this is also speaking to what you were saying before. I'm, I do this because I'm selfish and I do this because it helps other people and I can't help myself from wanting to help other people. So what about solving problems or or meeting challenges is satisfactory to you? Where can you find some recovery and doing that?

And at the same time, you can't help but other help but help other people. So I think helping other people gives me a sense of agency, because I feel like such a victim of circumstance on so many levels. And that's one of the first things PTG addresses is victimhood. Moving from victim to victor over your circumstances. That's big. So I think part of my being with people and helping people is really helps me, because it gives me a sense of agency so that I don't feel quite as helpless and as much a victim. So that's part of it. Part of it also is having a role is really helpful.

Like having something I'm supposed to be doing is really helpful because otherwise I could sit in a padded room and it would need to be a padded room. And just brood. Sure. And that's so easy for all of us. And that would be really easy for me to do as brood. And that is certainly not helpful. And that is not skin I want to live in. Yeah. Well, and you've put yourself in a position where that's really not possible. That's not possible. So, I do think looking back, you know, always hindsight is 2020. I do wonder about how many of us jumped right in to help and go full throttle because we didn't want to address our own pain, and our own grief and our own loss.

Because I'm now I feel like I'm experiencing a level of burnout. That is, I'm going to have to take a month off because I can't. I can't keep doing this. So this level of burnout is because it's sort of a almost a perfect storm of needing to. You're being so needed, and you so want to help, and you can't help yourself, but help. But you need help. And so helping others helps you, you you get a lot of satisfaction from that, which is fantastic. But helping others and and feeling good about that doesn't help you recover from your own circumstances that are very similar to those of the people you're helping.

So you're still pushing all of that by the wayside. So people in the helping professions who are wise and mature and have done good work, like with in therapy and, you know, other places we know to be on the lookout for the danger of allowing helping to cover. Yes, our willingness to face our own grief and our own fear and our own disequilibrium and but I didn't pay good enough attention to it because I was needed. And I want to be needed. I'm glad I'm needed. I'm glad people think I'm somebody they want to talk to, and that I can be helpful because I wouldn't be a very successful rabbi or leader of a community if I weren't.

And I don't think I was as honest as I could have been about my own limitations and my own, Compromised capacity, given the exhaustion and, and the frantic pace at which we have to go in disaster recovery, I think that's another thing I want to do in my later years is I think I do want to be part of disaster recovery work. Wow. Which is not a club you want to belong to. I don't think so. So you're taking on this new kind of edgier, advanced level of helping people and how are you still going to take care of yourself in that? Yeah, yeah. So that's why I'm taking a month.

Okay. Rather than getting away from helping yourself, I'm using this, like, highly magnified, intense helping people thing. You still got it. Be helping yourself. So I need to take some time off. I need to step away. I need to to immerse myself in some other things. That's not the fire I need to get out of L.A. I need to be in nature. I need to be outside more. I need Luna and, me and Luna need to be outside more. I need to be outside more with Luna. And and and that means just being, like, more in touch with the creature side of myself. And the world.

So I'm aware of that. And then I need to figure out what's going to feel enriching. You know, I need to do yoga more. You know, there's things I need to be doing more to take care of myself, that there's just not been the space in this new reality in all of us are dislocated and we're all over the place. And so we it's just been very hard to form routines that are supportive of the things I know I need to be doing to stay healthy. Well, and again, you especially because it is your job to help all these people with this trauma as you go through the trauma yourself.

So I'm very proud of you for taking time, and hopefully when you come back, they'll be you'll have discovered that there are these windows that you need to use for yourself in your day. Every day. And I'm so happy you have Luna. Me too. I have a bumper sticker that says who saved whom? What do you think, Luna? Well, Amy, thank you so much for being here. It's just fabulous. And I love that you speak your mind. It's a hard thing to do, even in this little safe space. It's still hard. And I want people to listen to that and find their own strength.

And I think we all need to think about Post-Trauma growth, because we're all going through some amount of trauma or post trauma, and it is a moment really to grow in it, and it shouldn't be looked at as a detriment, you know, like, oh, that person's got this post-traumatic thing going on. We all do. And even, you know, in the work here, we are trying to help people grow from the trauma that has been put upon them across the course of their lives. And that's the only way we're going to improve. And in that improvement, I hope we all gain a voice that speaks to love and ethics and compassion.

Yeah. And you are all that well. And I'm so grateful that you helped focus people on exactly this approach to, okay, what how do I hold stuff and stay in a place of love and stay in a place of gentleness and compassion, because that is what we need right now. And there's a lot of other things to think about. So your podcast, is it available for everybody today? It is our k I dawg o u r k I dawgs podcasts. Or just go to the website and you can find our podcast. Mine is, the Friday Rabbi Bernstein's Friday morning Torah study. Thank you. And thank you for being here.

And pleasure and an honor. And Amy has lots of people paying attention to her podcast, which only means that, as I already know, it's super valuable and very, very interesting. So please pay attention to Amy's podcast and thank you for paying attention to ours and hope you can go out in the world and think about these things, and do something wonderful with your day in your life and take a stand. Thank you.