Tattoos and Torah

What does Rabbi Iggy really think?  

This week, for the first time ever, Rabbi Iggy is not the host of Tattoos and Torah but the guest.  Acclaimed artist (and previous guest) Naama G interviews Rabbi Iggy to dive deep on his mystifying and esoteric past.  This conversation will take you from India to old New York, from Rabbi Iggy’s early misadventures to the roots of his faith and sexuality.  

If you’ve been curious to hear Rabbi Iggy tell some of his own story, you’ll find it here

Why is it that our foundational stories are so often about brokenness?  

This week, Rabbi Iggy ruminates on the origins of our major tensions, from the story of Cain and Abel to his observations as a father.  These original schisms, breaks, and polarities can create trauma and pain, but they are also core elements of our humanity.  

This is an episode for anyone interested in navigating the things that pull them apart — or, as Rabbi Iggy puts it, learning how to walk.

Acute trauma—in the form of a sudden injury, accident, or the death of a loved one—can change our lives in an instant.  How can we transcend that trauma and find meaning in our pain?  

This week, Rabbi Iggy sits down with Travis Taylor, a healer and Reiki Master Teacher, for a fascinating conversation on the parallels between physical and emotional recoveries, identity, and Travis’s own remarkable journey.  

Together, Rabbi Iggy and Travis present a guide for how to adjust to the world through your trauma.

If you’re holed up in quarantine, or maybe you just have some downtime, you might be wondering, what should I read?  This week, Rabbi Iggy offers his long-requested book recommendations.  The list is a window into Rabbi Iggy: the major influences on his thinking, the making of his spirituality, and the friends he found in books.

How can we become the person we want to be while finding the romantic partner we deserve? That’s the work of Brandon Groux, a breathwork facilitator and life coach who focuses on helping people get back on their feet after breakups. This week, Brandon sits down with Rabbi Iggy to talk about love and the value of heartbreak. Their conversation ties together the fascinating threads that make up Brandon’s life, from van life to training men how to slow down and learn to emote.

The Jewish tradition is full of prescribed fasts: breaks from food, drink, and speech.  How might these intentional fasts cultivate a richer spiritual life?  In this episode of Tattoos & Torah, Rabbi Iggy considers the merits of brief and purposeful deprivations.  Paradoxically, Rabbi Iggy explains, creating room for silence can amplify the voice of our inner souls.  If you’re interested in finding intentional space for your inner dialogue, this episode is for you!

Through the pandemic, lines between physical trauma and emotional trauma have seemed especially blurred.   

This week, Rabbi Iggy and Dr. Gulick, a neuropsychologist and fellow at Clinical Neuropsychology Associates, explore questions of trauma and identity.  How can conversations around brain plasticity and neuroscience thoughtfully converge with questions of the human condition? This fascinating conversation finds the synthesis of both science and spirituality, guided by Dr. Gulick’s expertise and Rabbi Iggy’s rabbinic wisdom.  They discuss Dr. Gulick’s recent research around brain fog from Covid-19 and the long-term effects of anxiety, depression, disconnect, and addiction on the brain.  

This is a discussion that will leave you with real tactics for how to retain as much brain plasticity (and humanity) despite what happens to us.

After Thanksgiving, our fridges are full of Turkey and our hearts are full of gratitude.  We can eat turkey sandwiches throughout the week, but what do we do with our spiritual leftovers?  How can we navigate the crash of our emotional outpourings and find ways to sustain gratitude beyond a single day?  This week, Rabbi Iggy ponders the more painful and confusing elements of gratitude.  He draws from the emotional diversity of his family and ancient Jewish traditions  to offer lessons in carving out spiritual leftovers for the days and weeks after Thanksgiving.  This is an episode for anyone interested in reclaiming gratitude from performance and living a more spiritually sustainable life.

What does it look like to mature into our recoveries?In this episode of Tattoos and Torah, Rabbi Iggy is joined by Gary Sanders, mindfulness and meditation expert and founder of SCV Mindfulness.  Rabbi Iggy and Gary explore approaches to recovery that deviate from Alcoholics Anonymous, focusing on the use of meditation, mindfulness, and buddhism in sustaining recovery.  Their riveting and honest conversation touches on the role of trauma, loss, and grief in the recovery process.  If you are interested in applying the tools of recovery to the rest of your life, this episode is for you!

Our lives are full of mandates, orders, and obligations.  This week, Rabbi Iggy wonders, how can spirituality guide us through these mandates?  Rabbi Iggy’s ruminations weave through hot-button issues like the Covid-19 vaccines along with his personal history, all with an eye toward finding freedom through our burdens.  Ultimately, this is a brief and instructive guide to reclaiming responsibility, agency, and sovereignty through the things that make us feel powerless.