Episode 3.6 Transcript

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Welcome to Women Rabbis Talk! The podcast where women rabbis talk to other women rabbis about being women rabbis. I am one of your hosts, Rabbi Emma Gottlieb. And with me is your other host, 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Rabbi Marci Bellows! 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
And Marci, what are we thinking about this week? 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
So I'm so glad you asked Emma! I am thinking this week about the concept of sabbatical.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Oooooh

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yeah, this is a concept that goes all the way back to the Torah. If you take a look at Exodus chapter 23, verses 10 and 11 and beyond, it actually is based on the concept of Shabbat, which is of course, we work for six days, and then we rest on the seventh, we have Shabbat, and the land is also supposed to have a Shabbat, a sabbatical year. So verse 10, says, "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield. But in the seventh, you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it. And what they leave, let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards, and your olive groves." As it talks more about sabbatical, and then about the Jubilee Year, which is every 50 years, we learn about how people are also supposed to have rest. And the clearing of all debts during this time period, the return of land to its original holder is actually a really beautiful way to set up a society. What's relevant to us as rabbis is that some of us are fortunate enough to have in our contracts a sabbatical, which means that in our seventh year, approximately, we have a sabbatical, we have a time set aside to rest, and to perhaps take the time to do the things we haven't had a chance to do, because our schedules are really busy, and to counteract any of the forces that have led to us feeling close to burnout or really exhausted, especially the past few years with COVID, and with the all the new technology we've had to learn and use. It's been quite a difficult few years. And I am really excited because I have a sabbatical coming up, beginning in December, that will be three months. And then I'll have another three months next year. And interestingly enough, this happens to be my seventh year at my congregation. So look at that, I worked for six years. And now in my seventh year do-do-do-do!  I get a sabbatical. And in my eighth year as well. It'll be a chance for me to rejuvenate, recharge my batteries, to read the books, in my ever-growing pile of books that I don't have a chance to read. I'm gonna see like a ton of Broadway shows. I'm going to travel. And next year when I travel, I'm gonna go to South Africa, and I'm gonna see one of my best friends in the world, Rabbi, Emma Gottlieb, which is really exciting, too. So what do you think about the whole concept? 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I'm so excited for you. I'm excited to see you and show you South Africa. And I'm excited for you to get the rest that you've so deeply deserved. I'm excited because I for the first time have a contract that has a sabbatical in it, that's in my foreseeable future. So stay tuned, everyone for that episode in a couple years, but it's coming! It is so important. It's so important and and you know, my my dad is Rabbi, I grew up sort of knowing about rabbinic sabbaticals and being in a in a family cycle that included sabbatical travel. I think probably I was in rabbinical school before I realized that not all rabbis get sabbaticals. And that not all of them, get them automatically after six years, or in the seventh year or the either year, or whatever it is. And anyway, I think it was something that I sort of assumed was a right for rabbis, and it is actually much more of a privilege. And also as you were talking about it, and talking about burnout, and all these things I was thinking, you know, like most rabbis that I know are fighting burnout a lot sooner than seven years. And and also, you know, seven years is it's not like you get when automatically in the seventh year of your career. So, you know, I've been a rabbi for 12 years. This is the first time that I have a sabbatical in my near future because I was never in a congregation long enough to earn a sabbatical. So you know, if you're, if you're for for whatever number of reasons, there's lots and lots of rabbis are, in a job for three years and then four years and then five years and then four years and whatever it is, if you never get to seven years somewhere, which not everyone is lucky enough to do, you never have a chance at a sabbatical, and then you could go 20 years, as a congregational Rabbi and never got a sabbatical. And by then you're very burnt out. I think it's a beautiful model. I love that, that it draws from a biblical model. And I think the Torah has so much wisdom for us about the need for everything to rest and have a period of rest, right, the land needs to rest, people need to rest, financial debt needs to rest, slavery needs to right? Like it different kinds of being in debt in different ways all have rest built in, in the biblical system. And I love that we have this model for rabbis, that says rabbis also need to rest. And yet the reality is that most rabbis probably are not accessing the rest that they need, whether it's in a sabbatical cycle, or any cycle, especially now with burnout rates being so much higher than they used to be. And I think Rabbi-burnout was a real serious thing long before COVID. I think we feel burnt out after, you know, a few months. Sometimes, you know, if we're not taking proper care of ourselves. So I wonder, you know, how, how we ensure that more and more rabbis have access to cycles of rest? And also whether the whole idea of sabbatical and rabbinic sabbaticals and what they mean and how long it takes to achieve and like, does that need a review? And I don't even know how we would do that. Because we're all part of smaller rabbinic communities that are regulated in in different ways. So it's not like there's one world body of rabbis that would say, you know, now everybody gets arrested after two years, or four years or six months, or -

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
You're absolutely right. And now that I'm thinking about it, this is my 18th year as a congregational rabbi, and I'm finally having a sabbatical. Because I'm finally in a job long enough to have one and I mean, I was in my previous position for seven years and would have had a sabbatical. But instead, I had a baby. So that wasn't it was time off. But a maternity leave is certainly not a sabbatical. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
It's ludicrous for a community to insinuate somehow that - I'm not saying that your community did. But, if somebody said, Oh, you're you had maternity leave so you don't need a sabbatical. That's, it's not the same. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
It's not the same. Right. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Nobody would say to a male rabbi, oh, you check six months of Daddy leave, that's the same as a sabbatical. You know?

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
That's probably true. This is my first sabbatical that I have the privilege of experiencing. And I feel very lucky to be at a community that values the time that's needed to do this kind of recharge. I'm also really excited because the project I want to work on for this three months is something that I've been dreaming about for 20, maybe 25 years, if not longer, which is a guided Jewish meditation album. It's something I've I've led workshops on in so many different settings. And every time somebody says to me, when are you going to publish these? And when can we get a recording of them, and I'm like, oh, soon, soon, soon. And I've been saying soon for, you know, more than 20 years. That's something using this wonderful recording equipment that we've really put together finally, and have ready to go, that I can make a number of tracks of and make available to the public. So I'm really excited about being able to do that in the midst of the travel and learning and time spent with loved ones that I'll have a chance to do. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I am very excited to to hear how those come out and to promote you when they do. And also I think it is important to mention for our listeners who might not realize that most rabbinic sabbaticals aren't just time off either. Like we just talked about how they're meant to be this opportunity for rest and refreshment. But most of the time when congregational rabbis take sabbatical, there is an expectation from their community that they're doing something to further their, their learning, to further their rabbinic profile, portfolio, academia. So So most rabbis, when they go on sabbatical, they have to spend at least part of that time, and I imagine different rabbis have different agreements with their congregations about how much of you know what, what the outcome has to be, and how much of their sabbatical is meant to be spent doing it, but lots of rabbis, you know, write books on their sabbaticals, or take undertake some kind of project like what you're describing, or go on a learning seminar like go to Hartman or something like that, study for another degree, you know, work towards a Master's or PhD or something like that. So they're not, It's not like six months of vacation -

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
right 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
- either. Right? So it really is. I think sometimes people who do know about sabbaticals have a lot of misconceptions about what a rabbinical sabbatical really is, how long it is, how relaxing it may or may not actually be. And hopefully, you know, the the kinds of studying and writing that we do on sabbaticals leaves us feeling refreshed and renewed because it's the kind of studying and writing that we don't have the time for in our day to day rabbinic work. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
I'm also excited to be taking a writing retreat with our consultant and guest in just a few moments, Rabbi Leah Berkowitz. To just write together and have quiet time to let our gears turn the way that they can't always in an open environment. So there's lots of good stuff. And she'll be on sabbatical. Yeah. So she'll finally have a sabbatical as well. And so she will be writing. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Yeah, it'd be amazing to see what she does when she's on sabbatical, given what she can do when she's not! And we're so excited to be hearing more about that in just a minute. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yep. So stay with us, everybody. Thank you so much.

Friends, we are so honored today to have two incredible guests with us, one of whom you are very familiar with and one of whom we can't wait to get to know better. They are co authors of a brand new book that just came out a few months ago. And we welcome to Women Rabbis Talk (and women amazing educators talk, for today) Rabbi Leah Berkowitz and Ricki Wovsaniker. Welcome to the show! We're thrilled to have you, Ricki because you are new to the show, we're gonna start by introducing you while you're on the show, you know, introduce yourself, tell us more about what you do and where you teach. 

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Sure. So my name is Ricki Wovsaniker. The book, it's Erica. Eric is my full name. And it was the name my grandmother called me and certainly this book is for my grandmother. So I wanted to make sure it was that name. But Ricki is fine for conversational purposes. I am a Hebrew school teacher. I've been a Hebrew school teacher, I think I'm about to hit my end of my second decade Hebrew school teaching. I taught for a long time at Chicago Sinai, in Chicago. I now teach at Or Shalom in Vernon Hills with Rabbi Ari Margolis, who's the best person ever. And Leah's the one who told me that he would be the best person ever. So I'm very happy about that. I've been teaching there for about six years. I teach - right now I am teaching sixth graders about life cycles. I am teaching seventh graders about Holocaust and then next quarter, I'll do seventh graders about active mitzvot. And then I also do Hebrew Through Movement, which is you know, where you teach them Hebrew through telling them to do things in Hebrew, in sort of Hebrew. And yeah, and they have a lot of fun with that. And then I'm also teaching Hebrew at BJBE, which is in Deerfield. And it's where both of my kids went to preschool. That's what I do right now, in addition to writing and taking care of my kids. And I came to this really, I came to this because I was missing song sessions from my NFTY days. And I came to understand that I could go teach Hebrew school and then be in their music classes. And then I can have song sessions again. And I happened to live right around the corner from Chicago Sinai at the time. So that's how I ended up there. And then even when I moved to my sub, the suburbs, I still loved that my boss, but then when she left, and I was coming to the realization that if you cannot get to your temple on a Friday night, you don't belong to that temple. So then that's when we were looking for a suburban temple, and I'm so happy that friends of Leah, were already here because it's, it's the best. Or Shalom is the best. Anyone who lives in the Illinois area should efinitely check out Or Shalom in Vernon Hills, because it's a good community. And I also I've been interested in Torah, academically since college, I took a class with Alicia Ostryker, the Bible is Feminist Literature, which was fantastic. I then went to, I got a Master's in English at UIC. And I did my Master's Thesis on a story in Judges. And then I went to U Chicago's Divinity School to get that, to further my Jewish Biblical education.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
And what university did you go to? 

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Brandeis University with Leah

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Go judges,

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Go judges! 

Yay!

Ricki Wovsaniker  
We met within the first week of our freshman year. And

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
I was about to say, we lived on the same freshman hall, but we didn't you just sort of come into our freshman hall.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I didn't technically live on her freshman hall, but I don't think I slept many nights away from it.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I just want to apologize to our listeners who like me, feel othered every single time we have a guest who went to Brandeis, and Marci needs to spend five minutes of podcast time talking about Brandeis and Go Judges. I know that it stems from my own deep place of Brandeis envy. Dearly listeners, I'm sure you share both my envy and flavonoids at this, but good judges, and

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Well I will say my 14 year old daughter like up until the last couple years we tease her we're like oh, you have to go to Brandeis your legacy. You know, we both went you have to go. But we were mostly teasing her. But now she's like, well, the only place I can go is Brandeis because that's where all the Jews are. 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Sounds good. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yeah, yeah.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Also, just a shout out to Queen's University in Canada. When there's a time where there is another rabbi who came from that fabulous Ivy League quality institution, I would, I'd love to invite you to be on the podcast so that we can shout out Queen's  together and be really obnoxious with that. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yes, challenge accepted!

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Isn't that where and of Green Gables went to college in the 

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I think so

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Probably. It's one of the oldest universities in Canada. And my guess is that it makes sense. But yeah,

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
yeah. So and I just want to say also for the non-brandeisian listeners the "go judges" thing is kind of ironic. Elisa Kopel, who has been on with me a few times, we've always said that to each other when Brandeis comes up, even though I don't think we ever said it during our time at Brandeis. It is not a school - we do have some really great division three sports teams, but we weren't exactly a school where like you went to a football game and painted your face blue. So th "Go Judges" is somewhat ironic.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
And I recently tried to type "Go Judges" on a friend's Facebook post and it came out "go nudges", which felt very Jewish. Go nudges! One other shout out to Rabbi Ari Margolis, who is I believe, first cousins with one of my best friends, Jessica. And so he's practically mispocha. He's, he's family. So he's really a terrific guy.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
And he was in my Year in Israel. So he's, he's a beloved classmate. So definitely mishpocha.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
so definitely zero degrees of separation.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Yeah.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
All right, so Rabbi Leah Berkowitz, tell us again about yourself, just in case we have listeners who have not met you before.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Okay? Hi, I'm Rabbi Leah Berkowitz. I use she/her pronouns. I go by Rabbi Berkowitz professionally but in this conversation I'll be Leah. Let's see what else was I? I went to Brandeis with Ricki we met pretty much the first week of college ended up in a group together that ended up living together our junior and senior years. And also, we found out we were looking at each other's you know how you used to fun-tack pictures to the to the cinder blocks in your dorm, we both looked and we both had the same picture, which was the AHAVA sign in Israel that you have like the whole Teen Tour like it gets in the letters and you pose in there? We both had that picture with different people in it. And we realized we were on the same NFTY in Israel trip. We weren't on the same bus though. In the no degrees of separation, Ricki was on a bus with somebody from my youth group named Alexis Scott. Hi, Alexis, if you're listening! And we, we both thought they were awesome. So we found out that we had probably been on the same trip, which meant it was like 99%, certain we had met and and Ricki believes that we fell asleep on each other at a lecture at in Prague. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
That's beautiful. Wow.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
And I love that that's taken on, like the quality of mythology, like "Ricki believe we fell asleep on each other." Like that's the narrative that we're going with. 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Right, right, because we both remember falling asleep. We just don't remember if it was on each other.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Leah, remind us of some of the synagogues in which you have worked.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Yes. So I started out at Judea Reform Congregation in Durham, North Carolina, which is where I met. The Margolis', Ari and Rachael, who were at Beth Or in Raleigh at the time.  So so yeah. So I worked at Judea Reform Congregation in North Carolina. I was, I taught Day School at Gan Academy in Massachusetts. I was a solo rabbi at Vassar Temple in Poughkeepsie, and now I'm in year five at Congregation Kol Ami in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Fabulous, thank you so much. And right before we started recording, we we realized this is Leah's third official time on the podcast. But fifth time total because there were two other less formal times she's appeared on the show, once at a URJ biennial, when we were doing lots of quick interviews with people, and once in our one of our Facebook Live interviews over a summer. And so you know, we had joked with her and with Rabbi Elisa Kopel that we were giving them correspondent status. And we're thinking that maybe Rabbi Leah Berkowitz will be like a literature correspondent and maybe we'll bring in some book reviews. So if you have any suggestions of books, you think that Rabbi Leah Berkowitz should review for our podcasts that are relevant to women rabbis, or the women rabbi or feminist Jewish experience, please let us know.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
sounds like fun and I realized I'm thinking in terms of an SNL terms. I'm like, I want my five timers jacket.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yeah, yeah,

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
We we do actually have a Women Rabbis Talk swag store. Our listeners may have have heard in our ads about it, how to order our swag so I'm sure we can come up with specialized swag for specialized guests.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
So we can't wait to hear how this book came about. 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Yeah. So it's interesting that you mentioned the the 2019 Biennial, which is really like one of the last big events of the before time. The last time, many of us were in the same place, or I guess, in the same city. So I had for a long time, I had for a long time wanted to do a Midrash collection, particularly actually about biblical women. And I had started it during my time in North Carolina. And then when I moved on to some other positions, it got put in the drawer because I was so so busy all the time. But I really wanted to do a collection of Midrash about women in the Bible. And I also was interested in lifting up more stories of lesser known biblical characters or lesser addressed parashiot out because if you're a rabbi, or an educator, a lot of times, you'd be like, I need a teaching story for this parsha. And there isn't one because you know, it's in Leviticus or whatever. So anyway, I had already been thinking about that for many, many years. When I was at bianniel, my colleague, Rabbi Heather Miller, a shout out class of 2008. She was like, oh, weren't you gonna write a book of parasha stories? And I was like, Yeah, I should probably get on that. And then on my way back, I stayed with Ricki because Ricki lives in Buffalo Grove. And that biannial was in Chicago. Ricki was saying, and I'll let her explain more about the details of what she was trying to do. Ricki was, was saying, you know, we should write a book of stories about Bible stories, because I think we both need it, and it needs to be in the world. And we started it's actually I think that was the only time we talked about it in person, everything else had to be done virtually. But we like sat on the couch in the basement, I think while your kids were putting up holiday decorations and, and wrote a little outline. So Ricki, want to say more about what, what you, how you came to that moment?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Sure. First of all, both of us have always had a strong interest in writing and have shared that interest with each other. And even in writing Midrash, because we, one of the things we did was go together to a writing a writing workshop at the Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts. And I think we were both working on midrash-y stories at the time, not stuff that would be in this book. And then as a Hebrew school teacher, I was mostly teaching for the first many years, I was mostly teaching stories from the Tanakh that I started with post-Torah. So it was Samson. And, and it was Deborah, and it was prophets. And then I was realizing that my kids didn't know the Torah stories. So I would go back to those. But there wasn't, I was teaching fourth grade and up, and there wasn't much out there that was appealing to them. And then I'm getting students, especially by the time I started, Or Shalom, and had Lila Margolis, and other students like her in my class, who are voracious readers, and get really attached to the books that they read in the series, they read, I wanted, I had been writing like, my own classroom materials, because I didn't like what was out there. But I really wanted for there to be something for the kids that really engaged them as readers, as well as in a Jewish space and as part of their Jewish education. So the title is, "Maybe it Happened This Way: Bible Stories Reimagined." I mean, the title is, this is Midrash. This is us interpreting the Torah stories in our way with the messages that we think we find in them, or want to emphasize in them. One of our purposes was to engage the kids in knowing that this is one suggestion. And that Judaism is a religion of suggestions, of maybe, of this is the best interpretation I've got, or this is the interpretation that seems to fit the moment or the situation. But it's not the only way. And I think that's especially important in A) in Reform spaces where the kids, you know, I'm not trying to sit here and tell them that the Big Bang didn't happen, obviously. And I want them to know that that's not what I'm sitting here and trying to tell them about Judaism, because some of them don't. Some of them are so surrounded in our world with religion is this one specific version in which someone on high tells you that and therefore, if you're rejecting that you're rejecting religion. I want them to know that is not the case. They do not have to reject religion in order to still be a science minded person or a rational member of the 21st century. They are not little anymore, they are not just wanting to parrot back stories and draw pictures of rainbows, which, hey, I love drawing pictures of rainbows no slamming on that. But they they are pushing back. They are questioning and they need to know that that is part of Judaism, that that is what they are absolutely allowed to, encourage to do in this space of Jewish education.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I love that your title echoes for for me, and for others who are familiar with, with rabbinic writing, the concept of D'var Acher, which means another interpretation. When the rabbis and the sages are are interpreting Torah, there's one opinion given and then there's another opinion given and they often introduce the other opinions with D'var Aher. And this is kind of a contemporary way of saying, maybe it happened this way, right? Like, OR it could be this! and I love the the spotlighting of that authentic part of our Jewish tradition, that our rabbis were not, didn't hand us literature of one opinion. Our rabbis handed us diversity and spectrum and options and D'varim Acherim and and I love that that echoes in the title of your book and that you're instilling that value and that understanding in your readers.

So you've shared a little bit with us about the inspiration for the book and how it came into the world. You've had phenomenal reviews so far. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about what need you were responding to when you envisioned this book and when you were writing this book.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
So for me, this book was a really long process. I think for both of us it was I feel like we've been working on this book, as long as we've known each other. In rabbinical school, I took a class on Midrash with Rabbi Norman Cohen, which was amazing. And it was, you know, it was an elective. I took a class with him, like the standard class, on Midrash, but he also taught a class in writing Midrash. And I just, I fell in love with that. Unfortunately, my final project from that was on Lot's daughter. So I couldn't put that in this book, because that's kind of a that's very, not for children's story. I ended up being really interested throughout my my rabbinical education in stories of biblical women. And I ended up doing part of my thesis on the midwives in Egypt, which did make it into this book. And when I was first, a rabbi in Judea Reform congregation in North Carolina, I had a student who is now about to graduate from medical school, so I'm just very shout out to Tyne Tyson. So she came up to me at the end of religious school t'filah, she must have been 12 years old. And she said, I don't know why we bother to put the matriarchs in the Amidah, they don't do anything. And I had this moment of like, I need a resource for this student to know that there are women in Bible, including the matriarchs, but also other women, who do things. I want them to know about the midwives I want them to know about the daughters of Zelophehad. I want them to know, I want them to know these stories. And I went and looked for a book of this nature. And there is one, there's Lilith's Arc by Deborah Bowden Cohen, which is, I believe all the women of Genesis as teenagers. So that was a great start, but it wasn't what I felt we needed. And I actually found recently like, there was a Facebook memory that said, has anybody written a book about Jewish women for for teens, if not, I have to write one. So I started that and that again, process ended up in the drawer. But realizing that we we needed we needed stories to tell in the classroom, we needed stories to tell on the Bima and we needed materials to give to the Tyne Tyson's the Lila Margolis', and also sometimes we have students who aren't engaging with traditional religious school and need something else to have a resource to say this is not a child's book of Bible stories. This is something you can really sink your teeth into and talk about with with an adult, hopefully a book actually, I dreamed of it as a book that that parents and children steal from each other, that they both want to read because that we heard from from Rachael Margolis that when the book arrived at their house, Lila immediately stole it and has not given it back. Rachael has not had a chance to read it yet.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I gave her one I you know, I was going to donate one to the temple anyway. So I just I gave her first first look at the one I was going to donate to the temple. So hopefully, she's been able to look at it now unless one of her other children stole it, which is entirely possible. And for me, I really I mean, honestly, I was getting jealous. The kids are coming in. I like Harry Potter as much as the next person, but they're obsessed with Harry Potter. And then they're obsessed with Percy Jackson. And I'm like I - Come On! Judaism has some good stories! I wanted them to know those stories. So that was, that was a large part of it for me.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
I love Midrash. I love teaching Midrash. They're so creative, they bring so much life and vitality to the text that sometimes isn't there. But sometimes there's pushback from people who see the text as unchangeable, as immutable, as - they don't even realize they're kind of being fundamentalist about it, or that Judaism doesn't require that of us. But for those who feel like we don't have permission to change the text in the way that you do so freely, how do you answer them? 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
So this is interesting, because when we were preparing for our book launch with somebody from the publisher, she mentioned that my last book, Queen Vashti's Comfy Pants, got a little pushback from a more traditional Jewish community, because it strayed from the story and made Vashti in some ways a hero. The interesting thing about that is that the reason Vashti is not a quote unquote, hero in the Jewish tradition is all Midrash. In the story, she's just somebody, she says, no, she gets banished, it's like, sort of morally neutral, what she's done, she's just, she's a straw woman. There's all these Midrash that make her just unmitigatingly evil, or gross, like she has a tail or some say she has male genitalia, you know that she had leprosy. And so she didn't want to be exposed. And by the way, even the idea of her being naked is not in the original text. So these are all things that are Midrash that have now become so superimposed on the story that we think of them as, as fact. So people were understandably hostile to this story of Vashti as sort of this feminist hero. And there's actually there's a lot of those kinds of stories out there for adults. So there are there's already been that conversation, there are thinkpieces on it. But meanwhile, the idea of Vashti is evil was also Midrash. So it's just as likely that she was, I mean, probably not in comfy pants, because I think that's anachronistic. But like, she is just as likely that she was an introvert who didn't feel like going to a party than that she had a tail. So I think, and I'm sure we could do that for almost every story in the book, that people could say, well, x, y, and z. And we could say, well, but the stories that you know and love, are also a lot of times shaded with Midrash. So for instance, I did a story on Abraham smashing the idols, that's a story that is Midrash, that most Jewish people think is in the Torah. That's how ingrained it is. And that's how much I realized it's because that's how much people identify with it. It's somebody rebelling against their parent, 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I've always felt that the reason that people that so many people think that that particular Avraham midrash is part of Torah, is that it is in every single children's textbook for religious school in America, from like, the 1940s, and 50s, and 60s, and whatever. So an entire generation of American Jewry, across denominations were taught that story as children in their Bible studies classes. And the reason I'm bringing it up is it how powerful that you have now created this text that you will be giving to children, and not necessarily that we want them to misunderstand that these stories are the stories in the Torah, but the power of the texts that we give our children, our Jewish children, and the way that they are internalized as Torah, and as part of Jewish tradition, and that even when all of those Jewish adults say, I hated religious school, I'm sending my kids anyway, but I hated religious school - even when they experience of the education doesn't have power, the texts have power. And it's amazing that you're putting these, adding these texts into the conversation.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Yes, and I'm thinking of like a particular orange textbook that I had as a third grader. And then later I was the assistant, shout out to Beverly Schoenberg. My third grade teacher used this orange Bible stories textbook. And when I was her teaching assistant, when I was 15, we were still using that book, and that has the smashing of the idols in it. What I did want to say is this book, you know, I don't know who wrote those books I'd have to those other books, the orange book, I'd have to look it up. But it's a very, like broad brush of the stories. Both of us come to this with a background, both Jewishly and academically where we've actually read these stories line by line, where we're familiar with a lot of the traditional Midrash. When we're doing something different, it's with the knowledge of what the story originally was, and all the different, not all but a lot of the different interpretations of it. So it's loving, and it's also it's also with some of that knowledge in our back pocket. We're not just making stuff up that we do say in the book, but there's a line in the book where we say, "you're going to look at this and say, Are you making this up? And we'll say yes, yes, we are." 

Ricki Wovsaniker  
And as an aside, it has been my mission as a Hebrew school teacher, to turn out children who did not hate going to Hebrew school, there been people in my life who I know who either permanently turned from Judaism or temporarily turned from Judaism, that I'm like, I don't want them to leave, I want them to stay and know that this is a place for them. So that's been my mission as a Hebrew school teacher.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
 Kol HaKavod 

Ricki Wovsaniker  
And yes, that story was in my elementary school, Hebrew school book too.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Everybody's. I love that you're reminding us of the learning that goes into Midrashim not just the creativity, then. Authentic Midrashim are a fusion of imagination and education, and interpretation. It's almost like the literary equivalent of an educated and educated guess and educated hypothesis. Yeah. Is that a thing?

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yeah. And uneducated hypothesis. Sure. 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
And we also we talked about this in. We've talked about this before, that a lot of times what I use as an example, and this is funny, because until recently, I hadn't actually ever read any real Jane Austen I'd seen like all the movies, and I'd seen a lot of the -  read and seen a lot of the adaptations and I finally had to read Pride and Prejudice because I realized that read so many adaptations, and I needed to know if they were accurate. When I'm trying to explain Midrash to people, I often use those adaptations. And of course, this is a very, like, time specific reference, that the movie Clueless is a Midrash on the story Emma, on the Jane Austen book, Emma, it's NOT the story of Emma, but it does hit a lot of the same points. Recently there was a great movie called Fire Island which imagined Pride and Prejudice as a as an all male romcom. You know, there are these again, loving interpretations that are making these stories relevant and also saying isn't this a great story? This story is so good that we just keep telling it with different characters in different settings.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Do you mind if I actually go back to the push back on doing Midrash for a moment, because I really, I feel pretty passionately about the fact that the project of doing Midrash, of looking at these stories again and again, from your new, you know, a contemporary perspective, or from a personal perspective, or whatever - you need it, the whole project, the whole project of Judaism or any any religion, any engagement with any story falls apart if you can't do that. If you know, if you don't make Clueless, if you don't make Fire Island, people will forget the Jane Austen exists, which they should never do, because she's lovely. And if you don't keep interpreting the the stories in the text, it becomes a dead dry text that nobody cares about anymore. And you can edit - it is, it is important. I do think like the twin impulses in Judaism of tradition, tradition, tradition. Let's reinterpret, let's figure it out. Let's - I think we need both of them. But I think it can be incredibly easy to dismiss the let's reinterpret, let's change, let's let's even make ourselves compatible with the contemporary world, because that feels like, oh, that's less Jewish, or that's less powerful. And I really, genuinely think it's not, I genuinely think you need both having equal power and being in constant conversation with each other. And if we don't keep making these stories relevant, they won't be. So that's that's what I say when people want to say, hey, you can check into these stories.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
We'll look at the success of And Juliet that has been touring. This brand new show on Broadway, which, you know, isn't just another, like West Side Story, is another retelling of Romeo and Juliet in a whole new way. Emma saw it, I'm interested in seeing it. The soundtrack is really fun and is using pop songs by boy bands and Britney Spears and people like that, as Midrash on the story of - you want to say anything Emma? Go ahead, talk.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I do. I do, because here's the thing, not only is And Juliet midrash on Romeo and Juliet, but it is restorative justice in action, because it is the entire playbook - so it's not the entire playbook - but it is the the music is the playbook of a particular song writer who has written for every famous boy band, every famous girl band, all the pop stars, you name them, they've sung at least - all these hit songs that you know and love, that you don't know were written by this guy because you think they were written by Britney Spears and whoever. But they were written by this guy, so fine. So he's he has taken his playbook, and repurposed it. And some of the songs are songs that when they came out as pop songs, were like actually sort of horrible and damaging to young people and the way that they view themselves and each other and all the stuff, and they've repurposed them in the show to be like empowering of women and empowering of queer people. And while I was watching it,  my mind was exploding, 'cause I was like, this is restorative justice in musical pop culture form! And that's amazing. And I don't know if anyone has like written that article in The New York Times yet, but somebody should write it, because it's amazing. And I will get off my high horse now. And we can keep talking about midrash.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I didn't know about this musical either. But I was just gonna say like, even Romeo and Juliet was William Shakespeare taking from other sources to tell a story. Like we do. So that's the other thing. And we've talked about Midrash as fanfiction, which it is, and fanfiction can be incredibly dismissed. But so, you know, I'm a writer, like, you're a writer, everything is fanfiction, everything is borrowing.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
And contemporary Midrash is also a restorative justice, because we are giving voices to characters who didn't have voices. And we are calling out pieces of text that need to be called out and calling in points of view that can be called in. And so it's all it's all restorative justice. And it's all beautiful. And I'm so happy about it.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
I did not know this existed. I'm really happy this existed. I also think, Marci, that West Side Story is another great example that probably is a little more universal than Emma and Clueless, but West Side Story as the Midrash. But even every cinematic interpretation of either Romeo and Juliet, or West Side Story, like there was a new one and they made new decisions. And even though it's the same story, and that's also Midrash, in a way, and it's also true to the original, in a way. So I'm really excited that that musical exists, and I feel like it was made - that's one of those things where I'm like, I feel like it was made just for the people on this call. But I'm sure there are other people enjoying it too.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
And all the Jews, all the Jews behind the scenes, who also you know, probably were thinking midrashically when they created It 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
uh huh

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
It's brilliant. It's also like Shakespeare's wife, it's her story. It's her, she's editing his story, and she's like, "maybe it happened this way!"

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
that's amazing

Thank you so much for those wonderful thoughts on your book. We have a segment in each episode called Ask The Rabbi. This is going to be Ask The Learned Jew. This question comes from dear friend Jackie McCowan: What do you wish your congregation or movement emphasized more? Or were more interested in? Is there an issue or a topic? Something you wish was more at the forefront? I would imagine, then it is.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
And for me, I'm so happy with yes, Reform Judaism in general, but my congregation specifically, the only thing I can even circle around is, I mean, Or Shalom is such a wonderful community and people are so strongly involved. And I would love to see that people who are Reform Jews, whatever space they're in, understand that that you are still a full Jew. This is not Judaism light, and also that your temple or your whatever, wherever you engage with your Jewish life. It's a it's a community project. It's not a service, you're paying. For that, but I honestly, major shout outs to Or Shalom, it's an absolutely wonderful congregation, the whole community is wonderful,

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
great answer.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Can I just acknowledge that it's amazing to hear a congregant speak that is, like completely satisfied. That's, you know, especially in the last few years, that's that's, I think, ever, that's not really that's not really typical.

Ricki Wovsaniker  
We have to complain about things are the evil I will think things are going to well for us and we'll screw things up. So you know,

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
keina hora!

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
pu-pu-pu! 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
One of my, one of the first programs I designed for my first synagogue was in response to an older gentleman's criticism. And he, after it was over, he called my office and I picked up the phone and he said, I wanted you to know why I'm 85% satisfied. And then he launched into all of his criticisms. I was like, I'm gonna take that as just a huge win. And I just wanted to point that point out that so when Ricky was planning her wedding, which I had the privilege that was one of the first weddings I co officiated at. So I learned, I was spending the summer learning Sheva Brachot, and Ricki was spending the summer planning her wedding. At one point, I don't know if this was an email or a call, but you said to me, you know, it's actually harder to be a Reform Jew, because I went to my rabbi, and he handed me all these books and told me to plan my wedding ceremony. Whereas if I had been Orthodox, I would have gone there, they would have said, show up on this day, make sure you've been to the mikvah, and I'll be in charge of everything. And I wish, I wish we had more congregants and teachers like Ricki, but I think it's all the - and the reason. And the reason I say that is not just because she's awesome, but because she understands I like this idea of this is the this is a community project. This is something that we do together. It's not a fee for service. It's not a country club, it's, it's an opportunity to create something, and it's not light, it's progressive. And that's a different thing. And we have to work just as hard to be progressive. So yeah, and and for me, what I'm, what I'm feeling a lot of in relation to that is that, you know, a lot of us, a lot of our synagogues, and especially in the last few years during COVID, but just in general with demographic, demographics, shifting, and attitudes towards affiliation shifting, like we've really just been focused on survival. And I was recently in a class with Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, who's an amazing Orthodox scholar, and theologian, and we were talking about this struggle for survival. And he goes survival for what? I am still not sure exactly what he meant by that. But I sort of took that as: what is it that we're actually trying to do? And why don't we make sure that that's what we're putting forward? So for me, a lot of that is, I think that there's so much that's beautiful about Judaism, in terms of study, in terms of worship, in terms of building community, you know, I have this wonderful core group of people in my synagogue who participate in that. And then I have a lot of people who, and then a small congregation, I think you have a higher percentage of people who are actually really involved. But I think there's always still those people on the periphery saying, you know, I'm not getting anything out of being part of the synagogue. And there's always sort of that question of, well, are you participating? Are you putting something into it? And it can't all be about marketing. It can't all be about, you know, it's not all about gimmicks, or anything like like that. So to be able to say like, Hey, why don't you come and study Torah, why don't you come and study Midrash or Talmud? Because when we do that, even though you know, maybe we barely get a minyan to do that, each time we assemble. I feel like those people like we're really, it's really juicy, like we're really getting into it. And there's so much there. If you don't partake of that. You don't build those relationships with each other. You don't build those relationships with your clergy and you don't build relationships with the text. So it's, I forget, I think it was Rabbi Eliot Dorf said something along the lines of like, you can't step up to bat for the first time in baseball and expect to hit a homerun, you've got to like play pretty regularly to occasionally hit a home run. And our team, just our local team just lost the World Series. So that's on my mind anyway, but just this idea that I would love it if people were more engaged in Jewish learning and Jewish activity in a, you know, in a meaningful way so that we could all do this together. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Love that. Thank you

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
We are going to move to Questionnaire Mahair, which is our rapid-fire question and answer segment. Leah has already given us her Questionnaire Mahair responses. So Rick, you're up to bat, as it were, to kick the can down the road on the baseball metaphors. So Ricki, are you ready?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I'm going to do my best.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
It's super easy. You don't have to think too hard. Just whatever comes to you. So Ricki, who was your first woman rabbi, either in your home synagogue or that you were first aware of?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I am trying to think about it. And I don't. I don't remember ever thinking women couldn't or weren't rabbis. But I think when I left, when I graduated high school and you know, effectively left my home Temple, which by the way, it was a wonderful place. And it still has, the head rabbi was the second Rabbi when I was a kid, and he's wonderful. His name is Rabbi Dan Cohen, of  Sharei T'filah Israel in South Orange, New Jersey. I believe when I graduated, our senior rabbi left, Rabbi Cohen became the senior rabbi and I believe the next Assistant Rabbi was a female rabbi. So she wasn't like mine, but she was my family's. And then you know, Brandeis had female rabbis and female, future female rabbis all over the place.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Go Judges!

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
So actually to have two of the people that lived in our suite junior and senior years aren't our now Rabbi's. 

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Tell us about a woman who inspires you can be Jewish or otherwise? Well,

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I did. I dedicated this book to my grandma Sally, my grandma Sally, she passed away when my a week before my first child was born, which was extremely painful. But she was just she was, first of all, absolutely. Everybody knew my grandmother, everybody. She was a first grade teacher and then a guidance counselor in her town. She was also a member of Hadassa, on the board of her temple, on the board of the public library in her town. Everywhere we went with my grandmother, you know, some, we would always run into people who knew her. And it even extended to, I said, we are the only people with our last name? A few years ago, helped my cousin edit a book she was writing about modular, it was a fictional a novelization of like a modern world. So I was in the the acknowledgments of her book. She was, and understand my grandmother lived her entire life in like North Jersey. And my cousin is also from, you know, lives in North Jersey. She was in Ohio, on a book tour. And somebody came up to her and said, I noticed this person, Erica Wovsaniker in your acknowledgments, could she possibly be related to Sally Wovsaniker? In Ohio! And it was because her sister in law had once taught with my grandmother back in New Jersey. So the power of like, everybody knew her because she brought so much light to the people around her. She was always smiling. She was always joyful. She was, oh, she very much valued being a trooper. So for instance, the first time my mother in law met her was when they came out to Chicago to visit us. And my grandmother, she loves her like her urban steps. She loved New York City, coming to Chicago, she wanted to do all the things in a city. I was, you know, we were 22 years old, we did not have any money. I was not, I didn't understand the bus system yet. So we just walked everywhere. So we walked my grandmother from our apartment to the Art Institute, and then back up to our neighborhood to go to dinner. And then we walked up to Second City to see a show where you sit on tiny little seats at tiny little tables the whole time. My grandmother had a fantastic time. And it was a little bit rainy that day. It wasn't really the nicest weather. And I remember my mother in law just being like, so impressed. That, oh, she didn't complain once. And she was always always reading. She was always always learning. She loved the theater. She loved and she was certainly one of the first people who read to me constantly. And that that impulse, she would tell me that only interesting people never get bored. Because interesting people are interested in everything. And she was interested in everything. And when I was in grad school, she would be the first person I'd call after class to say, guess what I learned today. So that, her spirit is definitely something I want to keep in the world to the extent that I can. I complain a lot more.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
She sounds amazing. Do you have a favorite Jewish character from a book movie or TV show?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I mean, it's hard to say because I just assume all the characters I like are Jewish. And sometimes I'm right. I mean, does Jon Stewart count? He's an actual person, not a character, but he's also I think he's both of our husbands. You know, we both want to be married to John Stuart.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Ricki, is there a Jewish text teaching or value that inspires you or that informs your life?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
I mean, so many all the time, I think, I think right? I think Midrash is the value, the value of always questioning the value of always, I tell my students all the time, like, we took a whole bunch of arguments and put them in a book and called it holy. And that's, I think the thing that informs me the most. That that that is a holy act.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
I love that. And this last question is for you, and for Leah, because she gets to answer this one, because it'll be an update from last time we chatted to her. So first, Ricki, and then Leah, what are you thinking about these days?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Anti semitism, a lot. I just read. People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, and also all the things happening in the world. And I'm teaching Holocaust class for the first time. So that's on my mind, a lot. 

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
I want to echo Ricki's shout out to People Love Dead Jews as that book, and it's really hard to recommend it to people who haven't heard of it, because it sounds horrible. And it's one of the best books I've ever read. I loved Dara Horn, whatever she does, but it's very rare that a book on Judaism can make me think differently about Judaism. And I just felt like every chapter completely blew my mind. And it made me go watch The Merchant of Venice, which I had never seen before, and ironically, is not taught in the introduction to Shakespeare at Brandeis University. Actually, this is one thing that I'm still thinking about from that book. And I read it like six months ago, which is Merchant of Venice was supposed to be a comedy. And that really is upsetting to me.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
on that happy note!

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
If you need a happier thing, well, I don't know if this is the happier thing for congregational rabbis. But I'm thinking a lot about how to get our people back in the building since we've been hybrid. And we moved during the pandemic. So trying to figure out how to get people to feel like the physical space is their home again, even though we now have this wonderful technology that connects us from all over the world

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
That's a big thing, is to feel motivated to come back and enjoy the ease with which they can still be there. Like it's still wonderful, as opposed to not coming at all. It's wonderful that they are choosing to log in and valuing that, too. So good point. Oh, my gosh, Ricki and Leah, what a pleasure to speak with you both today. Really, we're we're so we're so happy for you. We're so privileged that we get to learn from you in this incredible new book. Maybe it Happened This Way. And it'll be fun to you know, be in conversation with the book itself and say, Okay, maybe it happened this way. And then how can I think about ways it happened in other ways? And that's just so exciting that you invite us into conversation with you. And I'm sure we'll see we'll have some of our readers write to us and let us know what their reactions to your book is. So where can we, A) where do you recommend we find your book? And, you know, where can our listeners reach out to you if they have questions about the book about, you know, anything related to something you've said today?

Ricki Wovsaniker  
Well, I just want to I don't have so much of a professional web presence yet. When I do, I'm sure if you are in touch with Leah on professional spaces, you'll be able to find me, but I am otherwise not super findable yet. 

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Okay, thanks.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
And so as far as our book, we really want people to support their local independent bookstores, which you can either do by going there and ordering our book, because likely it's not actually on the shelves, but that also lets people know that it exists. And if you are somebody who doesn't like to leave the house to buy your books, you can go to bookshop.org. and you can pick which bookstore you'd like to support in purchasing the book. So and then your local bookstore gets a cut, which is great. Or whichever bookstore you choose, you can choose a bookstore on the other side of the world. And you can find me at Leahrachelberkowitz.com. I am on all the social medias as @rabbilrb at the social media and that social media, and I don't know how many of those social media are still going to exist by the time you hear this. But that's where you can find me.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yes. Or if we'll still be on set social media. That's, another thing.

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Yes. Got it. We will do our best to make sure that all of the different books and authors and things that we've referenced in this episode, and all of those websites and social media tags, etc, will all be in our show notes. So listeners if you are trying to remember all those details, you don't have to, they'll be in the show notes.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
Yay! Thank you so much!

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz  
Thank you.

Rabbi Marci Bellows  
What a joy be well,

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb  
Thanks. Thanks.


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