Episode 32: Sharing Jewish Joy (with Tony J. Westbrook, Jr.)

4:12PM Oct 9, 2022

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Tony Westbrook, Jr.

Keywords:

jewish

people

judaism

question

tony

rabbi

life

learning

liturgy

hillel

synagogues

moment

prayer

blessing

community

read

thinking

world

educator

louis

Today's episode is sponsored by my friends at Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire and online at tbanashua.org. They welcome everyone to participate in their services and programs throughout the year in their neighborhood or online. I did high holiday services with them for a few years. It is such a warm and welcoming community with a really brilliant leader Rabbi John Spria-Savett, whose Tov The Good Place podcast has also been a sponsor of our show. Thank you so much our friends at Temple Beth Abraham!

Shalom, everyone! Welcome back to the light lab podcast. My name is Eliana so great to have you here. If you're listening when this comes out, it is Chol Hamoed Sukkot. The day is in between on Sukkot, which means we use the greeting moadim l'simcha. And you might want to respond: chagim uzmanim l'sason. We'll put a link in the show notes for a song that can help you learn this greeting if you'd like to use it today. I hope if you celebrate or even if you don't, that you've been having a wonderful chag-tober as I saw someone post about it online and love that very much. I've been having a really great chag-tober. And right before the holidays, I recorded a bunch of really great interviews that I'm so excited to share with you and today, my friends, we are talking to the one, the only, Tony J. Westbrook, Jr. Tony is an award winning Jewish African American activist, Jewish educator and community leader. He is the director of Jewish service learning at repair the world. Before that, he was the assistant director of Hillel at Washington University in St. Louis, and the director of Jewish life for Capital Camps and retreat center in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. He also serves as a freelance Jewish Life Consultant and Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion educator and has facilitated racial justice and equity training sessions for BBYO, Beit, Hillel, Hillel International and the Wexner Foundation. And I heard about and found Tony's amazing education work through his social media presence. He has 1000s of followers on Instagram and on Tik Tok bringing joy as Judaism to all of them. He earned his BA in communication studies from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri, and is a graduate of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. And he's also the recipient of the Covenant Foundation's 2021 Pomegranate Prize for emerging leaders in the field of Jewish education. This is someone who has contributed so much to the Jewish education field. And I'm so so grateful that we've had to talk to him. In fact, just last week, Tony was named one of Tel Aviv Institute's Top 100 Most Influential Jewish people. That's like in the world. He is an incredibly sweet soul. And I'm so so glad to bring you this week's interview with Tony J. Westbrook, Jr.

Tony, so great to have you here. Welcome to the light lab!

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

So, so excited. I want to start by going way, way back and ask what prayer was like for you when you were a kid growing up? What was your relationship to prayer?

So for me, growing up prayer was the way in which to communicate with God communicate with the divine. I didn't grow up Jewish. I grew up in the Pentecostal movement of the black church. And so prayer there looks very different for folks coming from that community. It's ecstatic. It's through dances, through praise, it's through worship, and much later in my life, and I officially became Jewish, prayer changed but whenever I think back as a kid, it's this very like, embodied thing, right? It's through music. It's through, you know, waving your hands in the air. It's it's really this embodied thing, which I think I still hold a lot of that today, which is always interesting sort of when and how it shows up.

Right, the past is never really past, it's still a part of our present. I'm wondering also then, when you were younger, what was your understanding or relationship or ideas about God? Were the people in your life talking about God and what God was?

Yeah, so my mother, who I'm sure will listen to this many, many times, is a, as a pastor, as a minister. And so she really was my first model of like, how to interact with God. Whenever she was walking into a room, she was in conversation with God, if she was in the kitchen cooking, she was in conversation with God, if we were, you know, writing in the cart, going to targeted or going to the grocery store, she was in conversation with God. God was, was and still is, I think, for me, is very real entity. I don't know it's people in my community growing up really talked about God as if God was the person standing next to them in the room. And also this, this God of like, doing miraculous things for people, right? So if someone's cousin was sick, there was a prayer group, a prayer circle that figuratively and sometimes literally formed around the individual for people to sort of lay hands on the person who was sick, and to sort of really channel that godliness through. And I don't know, if I'm being totally honest, I don't know if I ever like really subscribe to that. As a kid, I always had lots of questions about, I don't know, I've always had questions. And sort of in the community that I came from, having questions are questioning sort of about God, maybe not God's validity, but the way in which God showed up in our lives wasn't something that was so encouraged, despite how embodied it was and sort of felt at the time.

Right, that's certainly something that I resonate with. And maybe our listeners do, too, is coming to that age of the questions. Are there teachers or experiences that you remember that helped you kind of along this journey? Where did you find those questions taken seriously, or feel safe asking them?

For me, when I started exploring Judaism, I think as a, as a way of life, to the path of conversion. That, for me was the first time I encountered being able to ask questions in a religious space. And while I may not have gotten the answer, in great Jewish tradition, almost nobody ever like gets the answer the first time. Even if you ask, like, what's one plus one? We all think it should be two, but sometimes it might not be two, right? And so just thinking, thinking about one experience, particularly in particular, and college, really sort of asking the question, why, you know, why bad things were happening? Why seems like evil people were prospering and like, I could walk out of my dorm room and go down the street. And I could see people who were really suffering and really struggling. And I was really met, with like, here are avenues in which we can explore that question together. And it's not a question that, you know, sort of new to the world. But here's what 1000s of years that Jewish tradition have to say about this particular moment in time, there's something about that, just incredibly powerful, that I really hold on to and I try to encourage my students, as a Jewish educator, I really try to encourage them to, to ask those questions. And then to sort of fall down the rabbit hole of the Jewish question of why and wisdom and all those different points of access.

It's really incredible that you're able to bring that to your students as well, because that is such a powerful part of being Jewish is that the question is part of the journey.The question is part of the point and like you said, there probably isn't just one answer. There can be so so many, plus the answers that we also bring to our tradition, that's very powerful. When did the journey to Judaism start for you along with the questioning? What do you find kind of brought brought your boat there? I'm imagining like a boat of life kind of floating on a river. It's like, Oh, how did I how do they get to this place?

So I've always been a very inquisitive individual. If you ask my parents, I've been asking questions from the time I could speak. For me, but really, the it's a long, sort of beautiful winding road story, the shortest version of it. In elementary school, we had a reading unit that was dedicated exclusively to the Holocaust. And this is in Missouri in the 90s, which, I don't know if that would happen now. But I was very happy that it happened when it did. And up into that point, my knowledge of Jews and Judaism was sort of ancient Israel light Judaism, aka the Old Testament, and the Holocaust. And there was really nothing in between. And there was really nothing after for me, and I read the Diary of Anne Frank. And really just like, like, saw my, so much of myself, sort of, in this young girl's story, that it just opened this little window into the world of like, what are Jews? Like? Who are Jews? What is Judaism? What does that look like today? Are there Jews alive? You know, do I know anyone who's Jewish? Which, like, in my school district, there were three Jewish folk. And we knew that they were Jewish, because they all like weren't in school at the exact same time, in the fall for like four weeks, which I now understand. As a Orthodox Jew, I totally get why they'd like, disappeared for four weeks. I did a program in high school called cultural leadership that brought together black and Jewish students learn about anti semitism, racism, discrimination, oppression, all of the big isms. And part of that program was really learning about the other. So in this case, as a black person, non Jewish person at the time, learning about my Jewish white peers, culture, history, and religion, and they had to do the same for us. And really seeing that Judaism was a living, breathing entity. Fast forward a few years I had done that program, went off to undergrad, and was really involved on campus and really wanted to recreate a lot of the friendships and allyships that I had in the cultural leadership years, and at the same time, was going to both church and synagogue and I really wish I could say, you know, I was exploring, I was really seeking the face of God and trying to find some meaning. It wasn't that at all. What it was, I knew that on the weekends on Shabbat, Friday and Saturday, the synagogues hosted students for meals. And on Sundays, the churches hosted students for meals, and so me never, I've never liked eating in the cafeteria. And I have always been a fan of home cooked meals, I signed up for these meals, because I was like, Oh, I'm sort of familiar with Shabbat, I, like, helps my friends celebrate Shabbat in high school, I know what that is. And walking into one of the partner synagogues at the time, having no clue, again at the time, like what the Hebrew was what the music was. But it just struck something so deep within me that I like couldn't shake. And over time, I sort of stopped going to church, and then was really proud of my early in sort of synagogue and Jewish spaces. And when I moved back to St. Louis, after graduating, I found that I like just didn't jive with the church. That isn't to say that, like church doesn't work, you know, or church. Church didn't work for me, and but it might work for lots of other people. And so recognizing that and lifting that up, and reached out to one of the rabbis who had taught during our program year at cultural leadership, Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri, who is quite literally just the most wonderful person you'll ever meet. And she explained it this way, when I brought this to her and said, you know, this is how I'm feeling. This is really what I'm thinking about. I think I'm sort of always meant to be Jewish, I don't really know what that means. I don't, I don't know anyone who looks like me is Jewish, which if the Tony then could sort of see where the Tony now is, and like, all the Jews of color of converts, and more and more folks who have been born Jewish, who are both black and Jewish, or Jews of color, that Tony would like, never believe the reality that I live in now. And she put it in this really beautiful way. You know, we are all born with these garments. And you know, our parents try to fix this up as best we can. And so my parents gave me this really beautiful Christian garment that really just supported me in the years that I needed to be supported. And then at some point, you know, maybe it became a little itchy, maybe it became a little uncomfortable. It didn't fit right. And so now I was at a point in my life where I was trying on different garments. And one of those garments was Judaism. So she said, Look, I want you to go out and explore, see where you fit into the community. And come back and if you want to convert through the Reform Movement, great. But I really want you to see what other options there are. And that started this two year adventure journey in the St. Louis community of going to all, I think we had 16 synagogues at the time. At some point, I knew all of the rabbis because I was just like, if I got a meeting with him, I was asking him all of my questions, you know, what does it mean to be a Jew in today's age? What does it mean to keep Shabbat? What does it mean to keep kosher? What does it mean? What is it, you know, anything and everything I was asking everyone. Eventually had one conversion through the Conservative movement, cuz I felt like it at the time, like Orthodoxy was slightly too much for me. And I felt like Reform like, was great, but it wasn't like where I particularly fit in. And so the conservative bent was sort of where I found a home. And so after two years of studying, my rabbi, Rabbi Ari Kaiman, said, Tony, I think you're ready. I said, I'm not ready. I need to, I need to learn all of these other things, which, of course, is sort of life, right. And like, before the Beit Din, went into the mikvah, came out Jewish, super excited. I felt like I was missing some experiences. One of them being camp. Now I'm an outdoorsy person back then I definitely wasn't. So it's like, I don't want to go to camp. The other one, I knew I could sort of change which was becoming a Bar mitzvah. So I went back to Rabbi Kamen and said, You know, I want to become a bar mitzvah, what does that mean? What does that look like? And so embarked on another two year journey of learning and discovery, really diving deep into liturgy and how liturgy flows. And you know, why we say certain prayers at this time and not at this time and sort of the structure and how the, you know, what we do as Jews and most synagogues today mimics what we did as a as a nation, and the temple 1000s of years ago, and on my 28th birthday became a Bar mitzvah. Fast forward resort. There were a lot of years spent in Israel studying because I wanted to learn more. The question of why seems to like get me not trouble, but it always leads me to like these unexpected places. So I spent almost four years in Israel learning at Machon Pardes in Jerusalem, really immersing myself in the Jewish question of why. Why text? Why Mishna? Why Talmud? Why, Israel, you know, just really everything and anything. Eventually did get those summer camp experiences, because then I worked at Capital Camps in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania as the Director of Jewish Life for a number of summers. And then landed a fantastic job at Hillel in St. Louis. And now I have my, my current role. Somewhere along the way, I have another conversion, an orthodox conversion. Because of the time I spent in Israel, I realized I'd become much more religiously observant and was really living my life within a halachic framework. And so for me, that version was sort of a, like checking off the box so that I could, so that the outside sort of matched the inside, if that makes sense. That's the shortest version that I can give.

Well, the shortest version, but with, with so much with that question of why, like you said, it's incredibly powerful. And like you said, it does take us to some interesting places. I want to give a shout out to Rabbi Ari Kaiman, because he was my camp counselor when I was a kid, and is still a dear friend. So that's really special.

I love him. He's, he's really fantastic. Shout out, shout out to became. Shout out Rabbi Talvi. Shout out all of these different people and places that you were able to explore along your way. I'm thinking about when you were doing this deep dive into liturgy into the how, what, where, when, and why of liturgy, what spoke to you about that? One of the things that you were discovering, were things that made you either wonder or stop and say, Wow, this is something that I want to be a part of. I'm thinking about how when we do B'nai mitzvah education for kids that are that young, it's a challenge to explore all the things that we want to explore. And as an adult, you really got to set the course and set the tone. And I'm wondering, what are the gems that you picked up through that?

I love that, that question and that framing. For me, Judaism is really rooted in intentionality. And I think somehow somewhere along the way, that is that messaging has been lost. I think it has particularly been lost in the way that we do b'nai mitzvot in today's modern world, whether you're Orthodox or Reform or Conservative or any anything and everything in between. I think that intentionality has been lost. One of the things that I was really surprised about, and this shout out to one of my favorite people in the world and dear dear teacher, Rabbi Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy of Machon Pardes in Jerusalem. When we were learning Mishna Brachot, the mishna that deals with essentially like all of the blessings, that we have the opportunity to say, very intentional about not saying like that, we have to say, but I think it's an opportunity for us to connect to the Divine by saying these things. The one that I was really struck by and the, I always mess up the story in the mishna. But the question of when can one like, say the Shema, if someone's like working in a tree, do they need to come down to be sort of on the ground, to say it to really sort of be firmly planted and rooted where they are? Or if someone is traveling by cart, I guess, as one did in those days, you know, did they need to pull over to the side of the road to say it? And the rabbi's come up with all of these different explanations for why they should or shouldn't. And for me, what really comes through is that the rabbi's. And again, this is, I think, for me, sort of the the piece that I really hold on to, the rabbi's really try to find different access points, the way that I read it, they, they find different ways for people to connect in whatever situation, they find themselves as opposed to just saying, Well, if you're already up that tree, you stay up there and you don't say, you know, rather they give you these different options of maybe you should climb down, you know, and just take a break from work to say or maybe if you're traveling you should, you know, set aside a moment to say it here and really trying to meet people where they are recognizing that, you know, not everyone is the sort of like pious individual who's just learning and studying and, and praying all day. That's not really I think how Judaism is set up. We're like a we're working people, we've got lives where we're out and about. And so like when can we find those moments to really be intentional to say these various for brachot, these various blessings. Another one that I am struck by about that like again just sort of elevates this notion of intention, intentionality, is the asher yatzar blessing one says after using the restroom, and in the language of the blessing, it's really praising God, praising the divine for just creating the body in a way that makes everything work. And I had never thought about it, you know, I've learned it said it every time I went to the restroom, really didn't think twice. Until there was a like a medical problem that all of a sudden made using the restroom impossible for me. And then it took on all new meaning. I don't know it's, there's a there's a real intentionality, there's a real - it gives us these moments to really just stop in our busy day to day lives. To just notice the small things, those blessings for for eating fruit from a tree, fruit from the earth, also known as vegetables. Like I love saying a blessing over eating a french fry. Because it's, it's a fruit from the earth. So like, it's super exciting. It sounds super cheesy sometimes. And my friends are just like Tony, like don't, don't do that. Just see the french fries. But it kept us it just gives us this framework to just stop. Notice. And that for me is the piece that I really hold on to.

I love that, that's a huge part of blessing practice for me. And it's also, I'm reflecting on how the your journey can seem, you know, to the outside like such a huge monumental thing and it is but it comes to life in these small moments in the small moments that we all experience and bringing a little more intentionality to them, which I think is really powerful. Speaking of small moments, that's a strange segue but we're going to get there. The reason we were connected is because of your presence on social media as @frumjewish blackboy, I don't have Tik Tok but I have Instagram and I love watching Tik Toks that people send me on Instagram and yours come up all the time. And there is such Jewish joy in your online presence in a space that can be so filled with vitriol and questionable things like you are an absolute ray of sunshine and I'm wondering. First of all, how did that start? And what is it like to share these kinds of little moments in your life as a Jewish person, publicly, with 1000s of people?

So it started as a result of the pandemic. I was working for WashU Hillel in St. Louis at the time. And students had been sending me Tik Toks for months, and I just had no clue what it was. I was like, This is great. I don't know what this is, I'm not sure why this person is dancing. Or why the cat falling off of this thing. I should be laughing at it. Like it's sort of funny. Not entirely sure what this is, great. Keep sending them to me. And slowly but surely, I started getting comments from them when they would send these messages because they were all still at home at the time. And we didn't know if they were going to be able to come back in the fall back to campus. And they said, Tony, you should make some videos, I think it would be hilarious if you did it, like follow all the trends. And I said, I will make an account on the condition that I don't make any content, I just want to like see what you guys are doing. But not in like a creepy way just to like, know that you're still alive and that you're like thriving, even though we're all like really challenged by this moment. And this was the early days of the pandemic. And so fast forward to August, we got the word that students were going to be able to come back to campus. I like made I think my very first video was like, a children's book of me reading the word weasel in Hebrew. And then that was it. And like three people watched it. And I was like, I'm done with this. Nobody watched my stuff. Wipe my hands clean. I made another video and some people like more than three people watched it looks like oh, this is okay, this is weird. And then I made a video of like, finding my machzors. Like just in time for Rosh Hashanah. I figured what I wrote is the caption, but I was just like dancing around on my roof with them, and like 500 people watched it. I was like, Oh, they or something to this. And then for me the big breakthrough moment of like, oh, there's there's really something here. I made the video right before Yom Kippur. Ben Platt, and I always forget the actress's name. But they had done it on Instagram. And I - I saw the video on Instagram and Facebook. Like a year or so before.

Beanie Feldstein? Was that the don't eat anything. Think about since don't eat anything?

Yes.

Yes. I think double check.

Yes. So I was just like sitting outside of Hillel, as we were getting ready to like prepare for evening services. Like just had a few minutes. And so I you know, think about your sins, think about your sins, think about your sins, don't eat anything. It was a not even 30 seconds, it was a 15 minute clip. I like posted it turned my phone off, you know, went into the evening to do Yom Kippur things. And it was only after Yom Kippur ended. And I turned my phone on. And my boss like slapped me and was like, what does it feel like to be a superstar and I was like, in a shout out to the WashU football team? I was like what she was talking about. And she was like, on Tik Tok! Have you not seen it? And so then when I went back and looked, I think at that point, there were like over 100,000 views in the, you know, 24 hours. And so that, for me was the thing that sort of like started, it started off as a joke of like, I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do this. I'll do it, but I'm not gonna make any content. And then it was like, Okay, maybe I'll make some like silly videos, just to brighten people's day, because there's enough terrible things in the world. And I don't want to contribute to that. And so as I just continued to create things, one of the things that became very apparent, I think, for, for many Jews, right, wrong or ondifferent. The way that the world tells them they should relate to their Judaism is through trauma. I saw lots of creators who were constantly making Holocaust jokes or like, really gross, anti semitic content. And I sort of made the conscious choice that a, I wasn't going to engage in like any of that. Because there's already enough people out there putting out trash, I'm not going to add to the evergrowing garbage heap. And I was like, I, I think being Jewish is the coolest thing in the world. It gives me a framework for how to live my life. If I read like if I really wanted to, it could quite literally dictate what I did from the time I woke up to the time that I go to sleep. And in some cases it does. It like gives me that framework of like, oh, at this time, Tony, you should be awake so that you can say, this blessing or you should be thinking about prayer around this time of the day where you should think about giving charity or serving the community in these ways. And I, by nature, I like to think of myself as a joyful person. A jokester, if you will, my mother always tells me I should have been on Broadway or, or something. But here I am Jewish educator. Woo! And I don't know, it's just there's just there's so much just hate, and really just gross anti semitic things on Tik Tok in particular, that seems like no one is moderating it, no one's watching it, despite the fact that myself and many other Jewish creators have, like, made content about calling these other creators out this other really not so great content out. And so for me, it's, it's sort of this cathartic thing to just like, share the joy that I have for being Jewish, sort of with the world. And doing it in a way that's accessible, doing it in a way that's fun. In a way that's, that's meaningful. I'm working on a series now, because I just moved of like, what does it mean to set up a Jewish household? And so, you know, I have dishes that I haven't used yet, mostly because I want to record this. But I have dishes that I haven't used yet that I want to take, I want to toyvel them, I want to, you know, kasher them, make them kosher. So what does that look like for people that I've never done that, never seen it? Putting up a mezuzah, what does that look like?

It's incredible to see how accessible you make this because also by making it joyful, you're making it accessible, and showing how it doesn't matter how you ended up within the Jewish family, these traditions and these rituals are yours also. You mentioned the the challenges of social media, the anti semitism, the anti everything, it can seem like a dark and scary place. I'm wondering though, what are the positives? Like what have you gained? What have you found through engaging on social media in this way? Like, what if anything, is is the saving the saving potential of of all of the social media? What could it do for us?

It might sound counterintuitive, but really the the human connections that I've made with people, I think back to some of the just like, what I thought was sort of silly, fun, high holiday content of like, Oh, here's me and my Sukkah. And just like making a funny video about drinking too much coffee, and being up all night, in my my Sukkah, of how people like that resonated with so many people who had grown up, you know, going to their grandparents' sukkah. And, you know, as they like, moved away and became adults, they just lost sort of touch. And it was this moment in which it sort of brought them back. And they were now rethinking how they wanted to be back in a community. Curating I think an online community, which there's something to be said for, you know, having an in person community. But I think there was a particular moment during the pandemic, and it's still so to this day, but I don't think as like, to the great extent, in which people really were coming together as a community. And so people who were in these really small towns in Missouri, that were watching my content, and then sending me this really beautiful notes and emails about what it meant to them. Where I think some of the criticism, and I often try not to read some of the negative comments or things that come in my inbox. But some of the things like why are you doing this, this is really stupid, you should spend your time doing other things, which no one wants to hear. And I mean, they're like, not wrong. Right? I could be spending my time doing other things. But this is how I'm choosing to spend my time because it's clearly reaching a number of people it's, it's making a difference in their lives in some small way. Even if it's 30 seconds of them, like smiling and laughing. I've now been able to help 1000s of people smile and laugh and a world that increasingly dark, and to the point about accessibility. I recognize that not everyone is fluent in Hebrew. Not everyone is fluent, in Aramaic, and I think often the tradition, and particularly like the world of textual study and ritual, often seems relegated to old Jewish men and black hats. And the reality is this is this all of our, it's we all own it, it's up to us to pull a book off the shelf and start reading. And to like really be active participants, and curating our own Jewish experiences and building our own Jewish identity.

That's so beautiful. And what you're doing is you're showing people that it is possible to curate your own Jewish identity within the context of a larger community and system. That's one of the ways that I think it's so powerful is that little jolt of Jewish joy is also incredibly subversive in a landscape that, you know, where anti semitic statements and almost literal and also literal Nazism is a thing again, how it's, you know, how, how is this a thing, it is still a thing you like putting on tefillin, wearing a tallis, dancing, praying, kissing a mezuzah, holding your machzor with such joy is like, the most subversive. It's a subversive act, and it's a rebellious action, an important one, at least that's how, at least that's how I see it. And I know, at least for me, any negative stuff is hard, especially from people that, you know, they say, why don't you do something else? And I'm thinking, why are you spending your time sending negative comments to creators on the internet? Who are just trying to spread some joy? Like what's, what's your life like, man?

Exactly. Yeah.

What must I be like? Blessings to you. Okay. I'm wondering how or if, being a publicly facing Jewish person has impacted your personal Jewish life? Like how, how has, yeah, how has been outward facing affected your, your inner Jewish life?

And it's a question that I don't think about very often. And I'll tell you why. I think for me, I, visibly Jewish, whether I'm on camera, or not, I'm always wearing tzitzit, always wearing a kippah, some folks say yarmulke, like I'm, I'm always very visibly Jewish. And so I'm, like, always thinking about that. I often am a leader in the communities in which I find myself. And so also thinking about, you know, as a leader, what does that mean? Are people looking at me differently? Are they holding me up to different standards? I mean, I hold myself to sort of unrealistic standards. So I'm not worried at this point in my life, about other people's standards. Really, right now, just just meeting my own standards, is that enough of a challenge. I think, for me what it is really done. And this was like, a lesson that I really learned hard and fast at Camp, is that I have to know it, whatever it is, sort of, in this Jewish context, I have to know it for myself. Because the moment someone asks me about it, I really have to be able and ready to explain, you know, the why the who the what sort of what it is I'm doing or participating in. And it's sort of like, just reinforces the knowledge that I already have. And I'm very transparent about I don't know, something I'm not, like, if you asked me what tefillin are, I'm not going to be like, oh, it's this magical box that we as Jews put on, and now we have superpowers. I mean, I personally think that, but I'm also not gonna, you know, just make up something. I'll say, oh, you know, I actually don't know what you know what this thing is or what it's about. But let me go do some research. Let me go like, check a Talmud look in the Mishna. And like, find out where this comes from, why we do this, or why we don't do this certain act. It's like it for me, Judaism is a sort of experiential, religion and culture. And it really forces the participant to constantly be engaged. Again, although I think some of that has sort of been lost in communication throughout the, the ages. But it really forces us to, to think about the things that we're doing, why we're doing them, or at least that's how I how I view it. I think that framework is there. I don't know if everyone necessarily taps into it. But that's that's how I navigate that.

Yeah, and I think what's powerful about you as a Jewish educator also is, and I think about this a lot. The best teachers are the ones who would not only have a grasp intellectually of the material, but who are teaching you because they love it so much or this brings so much joy or meaning to their lives or they're geeking out over it, and they just can't wait to share it with you, because they care about you, and they want you to have access to the same amazing thing that they do. And so you are keeping an incredible sense of integrity, but also becoming an a better educator every time that you do that, because through your TikToks, through your Instagram presence, and also, through your interactions, you're saying, Judaism has brought so much joy to my life, I want to share some of that with you. And that means a lot more than - Well, I was told that I have to teach you this thing. So I'm going to tell you about this thing, right? There's a huge difference. And that joy is like that's the conduit, that's the thread that's able to run I think from one person to another and reaches out, even in like a tiny screen in a little box that we're that we're seeing. I'm wondering, as we start to wrap up our conversation, is there a prayer, or a Jewish spiritual practice, or piece of liturgy that you found particularly resonant these days, just in your own prayer life.

So it's not technically a piece of liturgy, although it could be. It comes from the Gemarah, and the Mishnah of the second chapter, tractate Pirkei Avot, the ethics of our fathers, ethics of our ancestors, if we're being more inclusive, that Hillel used to say those who are overly concerned about embarrassing themselves won't learn. And that, for me, is a quote, that has really become a piece of liturgy. For me, it's within sort of Jewish thought and Jewish canon, that it's not something that like we, we sing about on Shabbat, it's not something we say every day, the way traditional Jews pray. And for me, I think about it, I've like written it into, like, the front cover where my name is like, this holy book belongs to Tony blah, blah, blah. And then that quote is there. Because like, for me, it's maybe one of the more powerful pieces that isn't technically a prayer that has become a prayer for me that if I am consistently, thinking about how I'm you know, I'm gonna mess up this thing, or how I'm going to be so embarrassed if I, if I do X, Y & Z that it prevents me from ever doing it or ever trying, then I've already failed, I've already lost the war. And just like, really being transparent, really like putting it out there if like, I don't know everything, there's more in Jewish tradition for me to learn than I will ever know, in my lifetime. I mean, I'd love to get to a point where I know everything, but let's be realistic, that's not going to happen. And so for me, this just like, and I always say this right before the right before the morning blessings, we're really thanking, we're thanking the divine for returning the sight to the blind, for clothing, the naked, there are some pieces of the traditional liturgy, you know, that I may not say, because I have, like, have strong feelings about it. One in particular, it's like, for men, we say, you know Blessed are You God who has, who has not created me, a woman. And for women, it's something akin to, you know, who's created me, like as I am. And I often find myself saying the other, rather than the piece of like, Thank you for not treating me as, as a woman. And I've read many of the commentaries about that, about how it's because women aren't so obligated to do as many mitzvah and yada, yada, yada. And I hear that, and I know that that works for some people. It doesn't work for me. And I really resonate with the idea of like really thinking, the Divine for creating me as I am, as this imperfect being as this person who, who is messing up, but is also learning who's also funny, who's also all of these, like, whatever adjective you'd like to add on to the tower of Tony, for me, those are sort of the two pieces that I think, I think about on a daily basis, I say on a daily basis, I meditate in some capacity. It's like written everywhere. So it's a constant reminder for me.

It's so indicative of how accessible you make Judaism and how personalized it can be, because you've taken a line from our wisdom tradition, and turned it into a prayer for yourself. That's incredibly powerful. That's a little ritual that people can take, what does it mean to find a line that speaks to you and to hide it in places like a little note for yourself to find as a reminder? It's beautiful. Absolutely. Beautiful. Is there is there anything else that you'd like to share with our light lab audience, any, anything that we should take away from our conversation together?

I often get the question or the comment under some of my videos of you know, I'm really struggling with my faith, I, I want to do so much more. And often I take that to mean, in terms of observance, you know, gaining Jewish knowledge. And if people walk away with nothing else, I want people to walk away, knowing wherever you are in that moment is where you're supposed to be. And that is the starting point for you. That might mean for some people going off to school to get a degree in Jewish education, Jewish Studies, whatever. For other people, it might mean, going on Rabbi Google and asking a question, and going through all of the search options there. For other people, it might mean, you know, instead of going out to the movies on Friday night that you, like, actually stay home with your family, and watch movies. And while I know that might sound like heretical and the, the more orthodox and more traditional spaces, there are many ways to do and to be Jewish. And there's no one way that's more authentic or more right than another way. And so in that sense, wherever you are in that moment, is exactly where you need to be. And start off doing things in a small way. Something that can just be writing a post it to yourself, and then reading that posted in the morning. It couldn't be, I don't know, setting an intention for the day, whatever it is just these small steps. I often think about the Tony of you know, 15 years ago, looking at where I am now. And like, I don't even think that version, something you could have ever conceived. Like right now as having this conversation on zoom of like, Tony, you're a Jewish educator. I didn't go to school for that. I was supposed to be a cardiovascular surgeon. And like, things change, and being able to go with the flow and just recognizing that wherever really, wherever you are, this is where you are. You're meant to be in that moment.

Amen, that is a prayer that you have given us. Thank you so so much for taking the time to speak with us today. What an absolute joy.

Thank you. This was fantastic. I love talking ti you.

And thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our editor Christy Dodge, thank you to Yaffa Englander who does our show notes. Our theme song is A New Light by me. Thank you so much to Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire and online at tbanashua.org for sponsoring today's episode. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram at the light dot lab. We are so so grateful for you listening and sharing the podcast and going on this liturgical and prayerful learning journey with us and we'll see you again very soon.