Martini Judaism

Rabbi Jeff Salkin sits down with Rabbi Jonah Pesner, one of American Judaism's most prominent voices and the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Together, they dive into the deeply rooted relationship between Judaism, politics, and social justice, exploring why so many Jews align with liberal causes while maintaining a vibrant spectrum of political thought within the community.

From the historical and spiritual foundations of Jewish values to modern-day challenges in maintaining empathy amidst polarization, Rabbi Pesner offers insights that are both grounded in tradition and urgently relevant. The conversation spans critical topics, including:

As always, Rabbi Salkin keeps the conversation shaken and stirred with humor, insight, and a dash of martini wisdom. Whether you lean left, right, or somewhere in the middle, this episode will challenge you to think critically about what it means to live into the Jewish covenant in today’s world.

If you’re inspired by this episode, let’s continue the conversation:

On Tuesday, July 16, I and a group of rabbis traveled south from Jerusalem — to the Gaza envelope.

There, we visited the places that Hamas had ravaged on Oct. 7, 2023.

We visited the site of the Nova music festival, where we said kaddish for the young victims.

We visited Kibbutz Nir Oz. We walked through the rubble of the burnt houses, the burnt kitchen, the places where people died, and the places where people were taken hostage. One-quarter of the residents of Nir Oz were killed or taken hostage.

I have experienced many moments of pain in my Jewish life, even as I have experienced many moments of joy and exaltation.

But never in my life have I encountered the memories of such sheer evil as I did at Nir Oz.

I had not known at that time that I was walking in the footsteps, walking the same ground, as Alex Dancyg, of blessed memory — a proud son of Warsaw.

And so it was in Warsaw on Yom Kippur that I dedicated the memorial service to his memory.

Adapted from my Yizkor sermon, given on Yom Kippur, Beit Warshawa, Warsaw, Poland.

Two of my favorite people — Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer — who have just written a new book, "It Takes Two To Torah: An Orthodox Rabbi and Reform Journalist Discuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses," with a foreword by Mayim Bialik. This is a book about each Torah portion, as read through their lenses, and is a series of conversations and intellectual wrestling matches.

First, this modern Orthodox rabbi was one of the first rabbis to really touch my life and to engage me in what my Protestant colleagues would call “formation.”

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg was a congregational rabbi in Riverdale, NY; the founder of the Jewish studies program at City College of New York; the creator of CLAL, the Center for Learning and Leadership – which is a think tank for Jewish pluralism and intra-Jewish conversation.

I first met Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Blu, the major Jewish feminist leader, when he engaged me to work with a bunch of modern Orthodox teenagers on a CLAL retreat.

That encounter with Rabbi Greenberg, whom I would come to know as Yitz or Rabbi Yitz, changed my perception of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism. It made me more open to seeing the Jews as a unified people, and not just a discrete collection of ideologies.

Yes: this Orthodox rabbi helped shape the world view of this Reform rabbi. His vision of an observant Judaism that was open to the world and freely encountered the world moved me – so much so, that decades later, I would become a regular participant in the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, founded by Rabbi Greenberg’s colleague, the late Rabbi David Hartman – also an Orthodox rabbi, and like Yitz, also a rebel.

The second way in which Rav Yitz is my oldest friend in the rabbinate: he is 91 years old, and he has just published his magnum opus, his master work, the culmination of everything that he has taught for so long -- "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism."

This is the book that Yitz's students -- and frankly, the Jewish world -- has been waiting for for more than a half century.

We need to take the spiritual journey of Ana Levy-Lyons with the gravity it deserves. Truth be told: There is a shortage of rabbinical students. Jews need rabbis. Levy-Lyons obviously has the human, intellectual and spiritual skills for it. I look forward to welcoming her as a Jew, and certainly as a colleague.

But there is far more to this story than is readily apparent. This is not only a story about how someone has entered Judaism. It is also a story about how someone left the Unitarian Universalists. The reason for that departure is fascinating, compelling and instructive.

Jews have been living on an emotional roller coaster.

In recent weeks, we experienced a welcome "high." Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was under serious consideration for vice president on the Democratic ticket.

Then, in recent days, for many Jews, a "low" when Josh Shapiro was passed over in favor of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Jews have a right to be disappointed.

But along with that disappointment, let us realize the Shapiro possibility contains two serious lessons for American Jews.

First, the purpose of an election is not to make Jews (or any other ethnic group) proud. The purpose of an election is to win.

More than forty years ago, as I prepared to ascend the pulpit for my first High Holy Days sermon as a rabbi, one of the elders of my congregation, dear old Arthur Leibowitz, pulled me aside.

“Rabbi,” he said to me, “Preach the Dickens at ’em.”

I said to him: “OK, Arthur. Just please don’t have any great expectations.”

American Jews already know, intuitively and rationally, that they are living in the "worst of times." The rise of antisemitism, both in the United States and abroad, and the ongoing, unfolding horror of October 7 and its aftermath, makes that all abundantly clear.

But, let me pull back the curtain for you, and show you that in some ways, we are living through the best of times.

“I am running away to join the circus.”

It was 2004, and my synagogue in Atlanta had welcomed Amichai Lau-Lavie as a guest speaker. Amichai had been the founder of Storahtellers, a ritual theater company, which was an innovative approach to presenting Torah in synagogue. He had come to our congregation along with what could only be described as a madcap ensemble of actors, singers and theater professionals – who also knew Torah. 

They dramatized the Torah portion. And, much more.

The congregation was mesmerized.

The next day, we had breakfast. This is what I said to him:

“You are the circus, and I am running away to join you.” 

Those are the kind of feelings that Amichai Lau Lavie evokes. For decades, he has been one of American Judaism’s most creative, most courageous, and most outrageous, spiritual leaders.

Listen to the podcast interview with him.

This is his resume. Time Out called him “an iconoclastic mystic." NPR called him “a calm voice for peace." According to the New York Times, he is a “rock star.” The Jewish Week called him “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world.”

Rabbi Lau-Lavie is the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC, where he has been living since 1998. Just recently, his colleague at Lab/Shul, Shira Kline, received a coveted Covenant Award for her contributions to Jewish education.

He was ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016 – which is the only thing conservative about him.

Being a rabbi is not a career for Amichai; neither is it a calling.

It is a genetic predisposition.

His cousin is Rabbi David Lau, the current Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel. His uncle is Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, and survived the Holocaust as a child. His brother is Rabbi Benny Lau, one of Israel's most prominent Orthodox rabbis.

If Amichai did 23 and Me, the results would scream: "rabbi!"

Amichai is the 39th generation of rabbis in his family.

Except, he is the first one to be openly queer.

Did I mention that he used to be a drag queen? His drag persona was Rebbitzen Hadassah Gross, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, who was the widow of several rabbis.

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the subject of a new movie -- Sabbath Queen, directed by Sandi DuBowski, who previously directed "Trembling Before G-d," which was the first film to shine a light on the plight of Orthodox LGBTQ persons.

"Sabbath Queen" had been entered in several festivals, but had been cancelled because, well, you know. It is making its premier at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it is the only Israeli-ish film in the festival.

Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie has many gifts. Chief among them is his ability to transform our views of Judaism, in which he takes us from the either/or to the both/and. He strives to be radically inclusive, even if it means dipping his toe into waters that some might find heretical.

My favorite quote of his: “The Bible is the PDF, and we are working on the google doc.”

As in: The biblical text might be a set text (as some might say: set in stone). But, a google doc is the result of many minds, souls, and hands writing and re-writing it -- as a communal effort.

We are all working on that doc.

I am experiencing serious FOMO.

I am totally bummed that I am going to be out of the range on Monday to watch the solar eclipse.

So, let's talk about Judaism and eclipses.

Are there eclipses in the Bible? Most likely. It is possible that the plague of darkness during the Exodus from Egypt was a total eclipse of the sun. Likewise, when the sun stood still in the book of Joshua, that also might have been an eclipse. There are also references to solar eclipses in medieval Jewish texts, especially as they might have influenced the calculation of the new moon.

But, far more compelling is the idea that God is also in eclipse. The term for that is "hester panim," the act of God concealing the Divine Presence as a way of punishing the Jewish people.

To experience the hidden Presence of God was to experience great terror and anxiety:

"How long, O LORD; will You ignore me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I have cares on my mind, grief in my heart all day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Look at me, answer me, O LORD, my God! Restore the luster to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” my foes exult when I totter" (Psalm 13: 2-5).

It is dangerous — to directly experience the hidden nature of God can sear itself into your eyes, and into your soul. God chose to conceal the Divine Presence — either as a punishment for sin or because God cannot tolerate the fact of our suffering.

But, here is the good news: a God Who hides is also a God who can be found.

The eclipse itself is a testimony to the cycles that attend to the natural universe, the flowing of time and the placement of the planets and orbs — all imagined, all in the mind of God — as intimated in the opening words of Genesis.

You have bought your eclipse glasses, haven't you?

In the words of Bruce Springsteen:

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sunBut mama, that's where the fun is ("Blinded by the Light").

What are the three little words that rabbis almost never, ever, say to their congregations.

Hold on, because I am about to say them.

God loves you.

That is the topic of Rabbi Shai Held's new book, "Judaism Is About Love,"` which is also the topic of today's "Martini Judaism" podcast.

Wait a second, you are saying. Isn't this supposed to be Martini Judaism -- not Martini Evangelical Christianity? Am I reading the wrong column, or has Jeff Salkin decided to convert?

Neither.

Let’s face it: “God loves you” is not how the world views Judaism.

It’s not how Jews view Judaism and God either.

We have forgotten and abandoned this sublime and comforting idea, and we are the poorer for that amnesia and abandonment. 

A conversation with Shai Held, regarding his new book on the topic...

Our liturgy proclaims it very clearly – for starters, in the Shabbat evening liturgy:

I like to think of Judaism as the story of a romance.

When we study Torah, do you really want to know what is happening?

It is as if we have entered into that romance with God.

We read every word of Torah, listening to its nuances and wondering aloud and in sacred community about its meaning….

If you’ve ever been in love, you know exactly what I mean.

In the Zohar, the cardinal text of Jewish mysticism, the author imagines the Torah Herself (yes, herself – in the Jewish imagination, the Torah is always feminine).

The Torah is a kind of Rapunzel, waiting coquettishly in her tower while her lover tries to find her and rescue her and even ravish her. Our love affair with Torah is perhaps the closest way that we can understand our love affair with God.

Where did we lose the idea that Judaism is about love?

Our history has bruised us and battered us, and it has forced us to be deaf to our own beautiful traditions.

To quote the late chief rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “Once upon a time, we saw ourselves as the people that God loves.

“Now, all too many of us define ourselves as the people that the world hates.”

Yes, I am painfully aware of what is happening in the world right now -- and especially in this country -- with the frightening rise of antisemitism.

But, the idea that we are the people whom the world hates is a pathetic distortion of our faith and our fate.

Because, do you know why countless generations of Jews were able to stand up to Jew-hatred?

Because no matter what befell them, they had faith in God’s love.

We still do. Thank you, Shai Held, for bringing that idea back.