# Can Diaspora Jews Move On From October 7? - with Rabbi David Wolpe and Rabbi David Ingber

An episode of [Call Me Back - with Dan Senor](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1539292794), 7 Oct 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://podcasts.beehiiv.com/d9ee47aa-cc91-4ad0-b1e2-000191888049/01a0599f-c7dc-725e-a326-2afd78c94e7e/01a113ff-97f4-7fee-9e15-21a2af97b72d/01a116b3-6f5c-7a44-a5a6-b2ce4d756cdd.mp3

What does it mean for diaspora Jews to move forward from October 7th without becoming complacent or consumed by fear? Three years after October 7th, Dan Senor sits down with Rabbis David Ingber and David Wolpe to discuss what the aftermath has revealed about Jewish life in America. They discuss the growing sense of uncertainty among diaspora Jews, the tension between Jewish values and liberal democracy, the debate over Zionism, and how Jewish communities can respond with both moral clarity and openness. In this episode: • Why October 8th became a turning point for diaspora Jews • Has the relationship between liberal democracy and Jewish life fundamentally changed? • The Jewish community remains divided over Israel, Zionism, and Jewish self-determination • Can Jews hold onto hope without ignoring the warning signs around them? • Re: Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s Kol Nidrei speech, does Zionism need to be reclaimed? • How do you distinguish moral clarity from paranoia when it comes to Jewish safety? • Why Jewish communities need to make room for disagreement without giving up their core values, allowing young people to enter the fold • What would it take to turn the years after October 7th into a renaissance of Jewish life? Watch Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s Yom Kippur speech about reclaiming Zionism here. This episode is sponsored by American Friends of Israel Navy SEALs (AFINS). For a brief video on Buddy Line and to support the program, visit https://AFINS.us/warriorcare. ___ Get your tickets to a live taping of Call Me Back at the Streicker Center in NYC on October 22. https://streicker.nyc/event/cmb_f2026/ ____ Sign up to Ark+ to get access to exclusive episodes and ad-free listening to Call Me Back and every show in the Ark Media Network. Sign up at arkmedia.org/subscribe ____ More Ark Media: • Listen to: Call Me Back • Listen to: Ark News Daily • Listen to: For Heaven Sake • Listen to: Chosen People Problems • Sign up for our weekly Newsletter Follow us on social: Facebook I Instagram I X I TikTok Continue the conversation on THE FOLD, our private moderated community for Ark Media listeners. The Fold is where you can dig into all of the issues Jews around the world are facing. There you can ask questions, hear other takes, keep talking about it with people who care as much as you do. Learn more and join us at arkmedia.org/subscribe Credits: Ilan Benatar, Devan Schwartz, Mindy Schaper, Ava Weiner, Andrej Todorovski, Martin Huergo, Mariangeles Burgos, Karina Logiohio, Leonardo Erhardt, Ignacio Herbojo, and Yuval Semo

## Transcript

[0:00] Ignorance has a price, but independent Jewish journalism like Arc Media's is how we guard against paying it. If you're able, consider becoming an Arc Plus member and help keep these conversations going.
[0:13] Join Arc Plus at arcmedia.org. \[Instrumental music\] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast. The nears of safety can be very thin, and we know this in Jewish history.
[0:31] So I think that the key is a kind of flexible alarm. That is, we can't be rigid and interpret every slight as a catastrophe, and we have to be nimble on our feet.
[0:44] But we're too old a people to be hysterical, but we are too wise to be naive.
[0:51] We have a role to play and that we can't forget our role in the larger story, and that when we do forget our role, that it's not a good thing for us or for the, the larger Jewish family.
[1:00] So I feel that each and every Jew outside of Israel has to recognize that they are participating in this bigger story, and we can't forget that.
[1:08] \[Instrumental music\] It's 4:00 PM on Tuesday, October 6th here in Tel Aviv, where I'm visiting right now.
[1:26] It is 9:00 AM on Tuesday, October 6th in New York City. Three years ago, October 7th changed Israel, but it also changed Jewish life far beyond Israel's borders.
[1:38] For Israelis, the years since October 7th have been defined first and foremost by war, by soldiers, hostages, funerals, displacement, and the extraordinary physical demands of defending a country at war.
[1:51] For Jews in the diaspora, the experience has been different. Israel's war was kinetic.
[1:56] And while much of that war may now be behind us, for many Jews outside Israel, the conflict has migrated somewhere else entirely into our politics, universities, workplaces, friendships, film and television and musical concerts, cultural institutions, and sometimes even families.
[2:15] In that sense, diaspora Jews are still very much in the fight. And three years in, a deeper set of questions is emerging.
[2:24] For generations, many Jews in America at least, and across the West, believed that Jewish flourishing and liberal society were deeply intertwined.
[2:33] That pluralism, tolerance, minority rights created the safest and most natural home Jews had ever known outside Israel.
[2:41] October 7th has undermined that confidence because some self-described liberals that portray Israel as fundamentally at odds with liberal values have themselves found common cause with forces that are anything but liberal.
[2:55] This means groups like Hamas. This means the Iranian Islamic Republic.
[3:00] This means movements that reject religious freedom, minority rights, women's rights, gay rights, and many of the principles Western liberalism was in part built to defend.
[3:10] So is it really about competing values, or has something deeper changed in the way Jews understand their place in Western society? And perhaps most importantly, what wisdom does Judaism itself offer for this moment?
[3:24] On the third anniversary of October 7th, I wanted to have that conversation with two rabbis who have spent much of their lives and their careers thinking seriously about Jewish identity in America.
[3:36] Rabbi David Ingber is the founder and senior rabbi of Ramamoo, a congregation on the Upper West Side of New York City, and rabbi of the 92NY and senior director of the Bronfman Center.
[3:47] And Rabbi David Wolpe is rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund and host of The Sapir Podcast. He's also a prolific author.
[3:59] He's about to publish his ninth book, and he formerly taught at Harvard's Divinity School and served for a brief moment after October 7th on Harvard's antisemitism task force.
[4:10] Both are among the most prominent Jewish thinkers in America today. So in this conversation, rather than asking how Jews remember October 7th, I wanted to ask a harder question.
[4:21] How do diaspora Jews move forward from October 7th? My conversation with Rabbis David Ingber and David Wolpe right after this message.
[4:31] \[Instrumental music\] I'd like to tell you about Ido, radioman to the commander of an elite unit. On October 7th, Ido was a 22-year-old reservist when he, his commander, and teammates responded to Kibbutz Be'eri.
[4:48] They fought house to house, block to block, to retake the community from Hamas terrorists and save families. Never far from his commander's side, Ido was just steps away when his commander was killed in action.
[5:01] Ido continued his reserve duty, deploying to Gaza and Lebanon, but was haunted by questions about what he could have done differently.
[5:08] Friends of his fallen commander encouraged Ido to join Buddy Line, a program of American Friends of Israel Navy SEALs. Buddy Line pairs Israeli Navy SEALs with IDF combat veterans struggling with PTSD.
[5:22] Over the course of a year, they rebuild trust, confidence, and connection through warrior-to-warrior care. For 750 veterans so far, it's working.
[5:32] With the help of his buddy and the program, Ido overcame his self-doubt, regained his confidence, and began pursuing his dream career in an elite counterterrorism unit.
[5:43] As we remember October 7th, please consider supporting the well-being of Israel's defenders through the link in our show description. A gift of any size can help someone find their way back.
[5:55] \[Instrumental music\]Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi David Ingber, welcome both of you back to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. So Rabbi Ingber, I'm gonna start with you.
[6:10] Three years after October seventh, Israelis can at least imagine a moment where and when the physical war ends, or at least comes way down in tempo.
[6:21] I'm in Israel right now, and you can really sense that in the various conversations. But for diaspora Jews, the battle often feels much less finite.
[6:30] It is happening, as I said in the introduction, in our politics and universities and cultural places and workplaces, at our kids' schools and social circles.
[6:38] And I remember early on after October seventh, Rabbi Ingber, you and I had a conversation, and you said something that I still remember and I quote all the time.
[6:47] You said, "On October seventh, Israel was at war, but on October eighth, we in the diaspora learned that we were under attack." Now, do you think diaspora Jews are still living in their October eighth, if you will?
[7:01] The one that you described as that moment where Jews felt like they were under attack in a way that's similar or different to how Israelis are less and less living in their October seventh, at least day to day?
[7:15] I think the first thing to say, 'cause I know this will be airing tomorrow on October seventh, is just how people like me and, and Rabbi Wolpe, and like you and others are holding the ongoing trauma and pain of our Israeli brothers and sisters and our family in Israel.
[7:30] As much as we're talking now about the diaspora, which is vital, I think it's just also-- it's really important to begin from that place as a rabbi and as a spiritual leader here in the Jewish world, in the diaspora.
[7:40] Our hearts are, of course, always with our brothers and sisters, and I can't imagine that tomorrow will be easy for anyone on any level, and so our hearts are with them.
[7:48] And that being said, I think that there's a different fight going on here, and one that it's really sometimes difficult for people in Israel to understand. There was an alarm that Israel didn't heed.
[7:58] There were signs, there were warnings, there were real on the ground things that were ignored that came unfortunately and tragically and horrifically appeared on October seventh.
[8:09] And I think similarly, we woke up on October eighth, and we realized here in the diaspora that there had been warnings.
[8:14] There had been people who had been saying for decades that the ideological frameworks within universities and some of the, the identitarian politics were really, really, really dangerous and bad for the Jews.
[8:25] And we were told over and over again that we're being alarmist. We're being-- you know, the right is more, uh, dangerous than the left, that kind of thing.
[8:33] And I think that's another alarm that we can't ignore going forward. It's kind of-- it's on the ground happening in real time. I think that the criminalization of Zionism, the-- what I call the Scarlet Z, right?
[8:43] Just to be able to-- The moral grammar that has been the moral grammar of American Jewish experience, the grammar of rights and justice and love and all those things, were co-opted to some extent in many ways over the last couple of years in ways that make it almost impossible for Jews to see.
[9:02] I mean, the lie becomes harder to recognize when it co-opts the truths that you love.
[9:07] And a lot of the lies that have been spread, the libels about the Jewish state and about Israel, were framed in language that, that, uh, you know, American Jews were very familiar with and very comfortable with and very centered in.
[9:17] And that has left, I think, many, many American Jews feeling homeless at this moment, not knowing politically where they belong, not knowing, um, feeling very much abandoned and betrayed by the left, and feeling very suspicious of the right, and for good reason on both sides of the political divide.
[9:33] And I think that Jews feel that deeply. And I'll just say the last point I'll make is that I also feel that Jews feel a precariousness that they n- they have not felt, you know, all of American Jewish history.
[9:44] I think there's a unique experience of being endangered, embattled, and surrounded and not knowing where to turn.
[9:52] The majority of the people that come into my office, whether at the Ninety-Second Street Y or at Ramamu, the majority of the people that come to talk to me are nervous, and they feel the ground beneath them has completely destabilized, and they're not-- Like, you know, "Where do we find ground?
[10:04] Where do we find stability? Where do we stand?" We don't know where we stand.
[10:07] You know, the rise of the DSA and the sense that on the left, part of what it means to become a member and, like, in good standing in the DSA or now in Democratic Party is to say something, you know, negative about Israel to call to question the legitimacy of the Israeli project is the most extreme version of it.
[10:24] And obviously, more centrist Democrats are, are not talking about it that way, but they're saying things like, uh, "We have to abandon Israel," or, or, "We have to cut off aid to Israel," all these kinds of making Israel into this pariah state.
[10:34] And then on the right, Jews are saying, "Well, you know, we don't know if we have a home there either," and they're nervous about the rise of the ultra-nationalist right. And so people are confused.
[10:42] I think there's a moral question for a lot of Jews that walk into my office wondering what the true narrative is because they're getting so much information from so many different places and who to believe and what to believe.
[10:50] And thank God for, you know, podcasts like yours where people go to get some clarity. I think people just feel extremely nervous in one camp.
[10:57] And then another camp are people who are saying, you know, it's giving them clarity around, uh, you know, what Jewish power looks like, and that's a camp that I'm, that I'm also nervous about.
[11:06] Even within the Jewish world, the splits and the divisions around Israel are making things feel like we're in completely in terra incognita. We don't really know where we are, and that's always produces anxiety.
[11:19] All right, Rabbi Wolpe, I wanna ask you to respond to the idea that there was this widespread assumption among many American Jews that liberal democracy and Jewish values were naturally aligned.
[11:32] Do you think that's still the case? I think that the assumption is still the case, but you can rely on it less and less, uh, which seems like a paradox, but let me explain. Mm-hmm.
[11:42] A pluralistic acceptance of difference in society, which is the hallmark of liberal democracy, is good for Jews.
[11:50] What is happening is that people who identify themselves as liberal Democrats are, for one reason or another, carving out Jews as a special exception to this.
[12:00] Were they in fact faithful to the principles of liberal democracy as Jews supported them twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred years ago, I think it would do well for Jews.
[12:11] But I don't think on the left or on the right that people who give lip service to liberal democracy are in fact enacting it the way that we grew up with it.
[12:21] Having said that, I also want to respond to my friend David by not negating what he said, which I thought was both astute and accurate, but by presenting the hopeful side because I think that's important, too.
[12:36] One of the things that we learned on October 7th, maybe the way to put it \[laughs\] is that the Jewish people are a phoenix in a world of arsonists. People try to burn us down and yet we seem to resurrect ourselves.
[12:50] And it reminds me of the Jewish national anthem which is based-- A lot of people are not aware of this, at least a piece of it is based on the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37 where it says, "Avdat tikvateinu," we've lost our hope.
[13:06] And in "Hatikvah," it deliberately takes that phrase and says, "Od lo avdat tikvateinu," we still haven't lost our hope.
[13:14] And the assertion of "Hatikvah" was to say, yes, we are aware that there have been times in Jewish history when people were tempted to say they lost their hope, but we're not gonna do that.
[13:25] And I think what you have seen on October 7th is a systolic diastolic movement.
[13:31] There's been a lot of awful stuff, obviously, around the world and in America directed at Jews, but there also has been a certain strengthening of the Jewish spine that I think we don't want to miss at this moment because it's important and hopeful.
[13:49] Drawing from the dry bones means that every time we blow into the shofar, which is itself a dry bone, we are reenacting this resuscitation or this kind of resurrection of the dead in that image, and that we are a people who make music from-- I love that you brought that because I think it's important to hold that beautiful image of we are a phoenix amongst arsonists.
[14:08] It's just really profoundly inspirational.
[14:11] A- and I know that you know we both are in the business of trying to, you know-- No sermon ha- that either one of us has ever given has ended on a depressing note 'cause we have to provide redemption.
[14:20] \[laughs\] It's kind of like one of our occupational hazards. But I just get nervous about that hopeful message when I feel like, how do we hold hope and also alarm people about what's really at stake here?
[14:33] That's, I think, the real-- what I'm scared about. Uh... I think this is a profound question, and I wanna switch it both ways.
[14:41] Sometimes I find it ironic that I go around the country and I speak, and I know you both do the same, and you speak to beautiful luncheons in beautiful hotels with wealthy, successful people, and then you tell them things are terrible.
[14:54] They're just terrible. And you feel the disconnect, and yet at the same time, what you're saying is true because like civilization, veneers of safety can be very thin, and we know this in Jewish history.
[15:08] So I think that the key is a kind of flexible alarm. That is, we can't be rigid and interpret every slight as a catastrophe, and we have to be nimble on our feet.
[15:21] But we're too old a people to be hysterical, but we are too wise to be naive. I have two responses to that. One is the idea of veneers of safety.
[15:32] This is obviously a big theme in a book that I often refer to, The, The, uh, Pity of It All by Amos Elon, which is, um, the first book I should add in the, in the new book club we are launching. A beautiful book.
[15:43] Painful. It's a beautiful book, and it's an important book.
[15:46] The other point I would make is that I agree with you that we all speak to audiences all over the place, and we can paint a picture of a very dark moment these last few years.
[15:56] What I try to do, though, and David Rabbi Ingber knows this 'cause he hosted me for the State of World Jewry address, I try to paint a picture of a path forward.
[16:05] We could choose to be in this period of darkness, or we could choose that the years after October 7th will be re- remembered as a renaissance in Jewish life in the diaspora, but we have to make certain decisions and establish certain priorities.
[16:17] So it's not-- I mean, in other words, we have some agency here. Right. The diaspora does still have some agency. Not the kind of agency that Israel has.
[16:25] Israelis have a different kind of agency, but we, we do have some agency.
[16:29] So look, at, at Maimonides Fund, we have this Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute where we're taking people who are successful in their secular world and who woke up to the idea that they wanna be Jewish leaders in their various areas.
[16:41] And one after another after another, almost every one of them said, "I'm an October 8th Jew." Right. So I agree. There is agency to be, uh, effectuated.
[16:51] Some of the movements most hostile to Israel today, mostly in the non-Jewish world, have aligned themselves with regimes and ideologies that I mentioned in the introduction that are profoundly illiberal, like by definition.
[17:05] Do you see what we're experiencing as a clash of values, or is something else going on?
[17:11] First of all, I believe deeply that the prejudice, the growing prejudice against Jews is a growing prejudice against the West, and that many of the movements that take Jews as the tip of the spear, their general idea is to in fact attack the values, the institutions, the nations, the groups that represent what we loosely call Western values.
[17:35] And Jews represent that in a variety of ways. The second piece of this, though, is that Jews have the millennial distinction of being hated when others are not hated.
[17:49] And even when prejudices against others seem to be waning, which is the case in many respects in American society, that does not happen among the Jews. Only rabbis have favorite lines about antisemitism, but I do.
[18:04] My favorite line about antisemitism is from the writer Maurice Samuel, who is not that well remembered today, but was a brilliant writer. And he said-- When someone asked him, "Why do people hate the Jews?"
[18:15] He said, "No one likes their alarm clock." Hmm.
[18:18] And I've always felt like there's something about the Jewish presence that not only represents negation, we negated Christianity, we negated Islam, those religions that wanted to co -opt us, but represents independent success in a world that tried to crush both, both Jewish independence and Jewish success.
[18:41] And it is a kind of narcissistic wound. And yet at the same time, we still support the West so that if you are a supporter of the West, you can feel the wound.
[18:50] And if you are an opposer to the West, you can feel the support. We get it from a lot of directions. Yes.
[18:57] Our mutual friend, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, gave a sermon during Kol Nidre, during the Kol Nidre service over Yom Kippur in which-- And we'll play a clip of the sermon, but-- and we won't play all of it, but we can link to it.
[19:09] She takes on this notion that we, the Jews should retire the term Zionism. There's this argument, and I have given air to it, that we should retire the ter-- not retire, but we should stop asking this question.
[19:21] Are you a Zionist or are you not a Zionist? Where do you stand on Zionism?
[19:25] So you understand where I was coming at this point is I, I do think it's a mistake for us to frame every discussion with someone we disagree with about Israel as though it's a debate an, about an ism.
[19:34] We do this with no other country. With no other country does every question about a problematic government policy or a problematic decision it made in history is it a debate about an ism?
[19:44] Because when it's a debate about an ism, it then is really a debate about whether or not it should exist.
[19:50] And Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor -in -chief of The Atlantic, he and I once had this conversation, public conversation at Aspen Ideas Festival. This is years ago.
[19:58] And he was basically arguing we should retire the term Zionism. This is way before October seventh, by the way. And his argument is half the world's Jews live in Israel. More.
[20:07] He said a debate about an ism is like, okay, e-even if you come down that you're against the ism, what do you do about all those Jews living in this place? It's becomes a very practical question.
[20:17] And the analogy he made, which I was very struck by, it stuck with me, is when y-- a newly married couple has a debate or a discussion about whether or not they should have kids.
[20:26] And it's all very abstract and that like parenthood, what do we think about parenthood? Is parenthood a good thing? What will parenthood do to our marriage? And it's, it's like this hood, it's like an ism.
[20:35] And then you have a kid, and you don't have debates anymore about parenthood as an idea because you have this kid.
[20:41] And to say you're against parenthood once you have that kid is like, oh, but very practically, what happens to this kid? Very practically, what happens to some half the world's Jews if you come out as against Zionism?
[20:55] So let's just talk about Israel as a real place, as a real country, rather than an intellectual idea. Angela argues the other side of that.
[21:03] I want to play a clip of her point about the importance of us reinvesting and reembracing in Zionism, and then I want to hear you guys respond. I want to rescue the word Zionism.
[21:16] A Jewish Federation survey earlier this year grabbed my attention. Nine out of ten American Jews believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. Nine out of ten.
[21:29] But only a third of us are willing to call ourselves Zionists. Why does that matter?
[21:36] Because when a majority of Jews reject the name Zionist, it obscures just how mainstream support for the Jewish state and attachment to Jewish peoplehood is for Jews. Zionism, simply put,
[21:52] is the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self -determination in our ancestral homeland. If you believe Israel should exist as a Jewish state, you are already standing inside the Zionist argument.
[22:06] Let me tell you why I am a Zionist. To me, Zionism is what becomes possible when the Jewish people can fully shape our own lives. Rabbi Imber, I'll start with you.
[22:18] So on the one hand, this should be an issue that's a non-issue because Zionism was an ideology and a movement towards self-determination and self-sovereignty for the Jewish people.
[22:28] It's our national aspiration to have our own sovereignty. But that's been achieved, and so we should just retire the phrase. It's kind of a, it's like a funny thing to be talking about Americanism or- Right...
[22:38] it's the world around us that in some way demands this conversation take place.
[22:43] And it's similar to the conversation about anti-Semitism writ large that I think Bret Stephens in his State of World Jewry kind of brought with a very provocative statement that we shouldn't be fighting against anti-Semitism because that's not our job to spend, you know, Jewish, the Jewish community spends a billion dollars a year on keeping our synagogues and our JCCs safe.
[22:58] And that's unfortunate. That should be the job of the government. \[chuckles\] Like, like why are we in the job of explaining why you shouldn't hate us?
[23:05] And why are we in the job of, of having campaigns on Super Bowl ads, right? So that's a really nice idea. But the truth of the matter is, is that we have every reason.
[23:15] If no one else is going to do it, then we better do it ourselves because in the end of the day, we're going to be the ones who are the recipients of anti-Semitism.
[23:21] And similarly, we can decide to retire the n- the name, but I think Angela is actually saying, "Listen, why should we let the world dictate whether we use the term or not?" And the world is dictating it to some extent.
[23:32] And when they frame themselves as anti-Zionist, we have to find a way to speak back, like the rabbis say, "Da'at am ha-arets."
[23:39] Like you have to know what to say to a heretic or someone who's challenging fundamental pieces of your existence.
[23:43] Now, again, I feel so deeply that this conversation is between the West and those who are enemies of the West in the most profound way, and that Zionism represented a Jewish call to do exactly what the West has been saying to some extent, dignity and for the Jewish people, our own s- our own power, power with compassion, but power nonetheless, and not to be victims and not to be always at the behest of every host country that ever hosted us that then kicked us out.
[24:11] We return to history, as Michal Bitan would say, we return to history. And I agree with that.
[24:16] And I think that that is what's at stake and the ways in which the West has been criminalized and the advance of Western civilization has been criminalized with all of its faults and all of its shadow.
[24:28] We can agree that it's n- imperfect in many ways, that Israel is the stand -in in so many ways for what is now essentially a war between the advance, in my opinion, of civilization and its regression into tried and failed ideas and tried and failed approaches to creating a better society.
[24:49] Rabbi Wolpe? We're in the business of words, and I think we understand that words both have implications and that they change over time.
[24:59] And as a practical matter, I understand why someone would want to drop a word that has become uniquely toxic for many people.
[25:08] I bristle at giving up a word that ha- as is also so rich and has such a beautiful history without an adequate substitute. I mean, what is it that Pinsker and Hess and Herzl were arguing for?
[25:20] And I would also, because this is for October 7th, I would just remind people what Zionism is on the ground in these days.
[25:31] Right after October 7th, I was in Israel, and I was sitting with two friends, and one of them had kids serving in Gaza and said to me that many of his friends have a sign on their door, and the sign says, "Do not knock," because they know what a knock could mean when they have kids serving in Gaza.
[25:50] So you can call them in advance and say, "I'm coming over," but they don't want to hear that knock. And when you feel how your heart seizes up at that knock- That gives me chills...
[26:01] and then you think this is actually what Zionism is.
[26:05] It's the willingness of people to go to sleep at night tortured about where their kids are and whether they will come back and whether they will be woken in the middle of the night by a knock.
[26:16] I just think that the debate over the word is so abstract compared to the reality of blood and guts and pain and loss and anguish on the ground, that even though I see both sides, I'm not sure that I'm disposed to take a sort of hard line on either side.
[26:36] There's a kind of strategy amongst those who are trying to delegitimize Israel, which is to use language, to take language, an appropriate language, and to criminalize it and infect it, as a word, you know, the moral contaminant.
[26:48] Like, the idea that a Zionist or any Israeli for that matter, I mean, even your average Israeli speaking Hebrew, you know, in a cab somewhere here in New York, in an Uber, would be afraid is because of this war of language and war of narrative that we are, I think, losing in many ways.
[27:03] But I think that the toxification, the moral contaminant to make Israel and Zionism or Zionist into, you know, something like COVID, like, to, to give it a viral element that you have to steer clear of it.
[27:16] And, and what I said in my sermon this past Rosh Hashanah, and I think you agree with me, Rabbi Wolpe, is that they've done a pretty good job over the last three and a half year, three-plus years.
[27:25] Like, it has gotten to the point now where, of course, anyone like a Brad Lander who thinks that they'll be safe, you know, because they're, they're the good kind of Zionist.
[27:33] Like, there is no-- there's not gonna be a good kind of Zionist anyway.
[27:36] And I kind of-- I understand why for those people who want to, you know, not use that word anymore because they're like, "It's become so morally contaminated." It isn't, but of course, it's become so...
[27:46] It's been used in that way. But what you just said was that's why so many of us don't want to lose that word. Absolutely. And, uh, you know what it reminds me of?
[27:54] There was a, a Hebrew poet, Amir Gilboa, and in the early years of the state, I don't remember which year it was, I think it was in the '50s, he wrote this very short poem that goes, "If they show me a tree and I say it's a tree, they'll agree it's a tree.
[28:07] If they show me a stone and I say it's a stone, they'll agree it's a stone. If they show me my blood and I say it's blood, they'll say it's color."
[28:16] And the point is, you can define even Jewish blood as not being blood, and if you completely accept the definitions of the world, you have all of a sudden erased yourself.
[28:28] So I can understand that in normal discourse, Israelis, Jews who are arguing for Israel would want to use a word other than Zionism so as not to hit trip wires that they don't want to hit.
[28:41] But I certainly wouldn't write the word out of history because it has so much richness in the past.
[28:48] I will say, I do think the combination of the word Zionism and the word genocide are-- If I, if I had to strip everything away in terms of what we in the diaspora are dealing with, it's that we're forced to defend this idea called Zionism, and then when you combine it with genocide.
[29:06] So it's a bad idea that is leading to genocide. No one, no one in their right mind should think a genocidal state or a genocidal government should exist.
[29:16] And the moment you establish that this place where I'm sitting right now is genocidal, and oh, by the way, it only came into an existence because of some idea, some debate, some intellectual thing.
[29:28] So it turns out it was a bad idea, and it turns out, oh, by the way, it was a really bad idea 'cause it led to genocide. Right.
[29:34] But what it also does is clarify something that people like Mikha Goodman have been saying and, and writing about for years, and, and all, I think all of us have known, which is that when people said it was about 1967 and occupation, really what they were talking about was the original sin, which is Zionism itself.
[29:51] And those colors now could not be clearer.
[29:53] Like, when people are out and criticizing Israel, you know, they only-- This is one of the reasons why I don't like throwing them Bibi, you know, or throwing them, you \[chuckles\] know, the settlers. Right.
[30:04] Like, uh, we can all agree that there's criminality in Israel because guess what? Israel is a country. There's criminality.
[30:10] \[laughs\] There are, there are unfortunately and sadly- There's criminality, there's corruption, there are bad decisions, there's bad politics...
[30:18] But, like, the fact that it becomes, and so easily has spun into this is what Zionism always was going to be, that the, the playbook of, like, seeding the zeitgeist with words and throwing them out and beginning to, like, say, "Oh, I have permission to say this," now it's almost obligatory to use the G word, that was strategically being, you know, it was being massaged into the \[chuckles\]
[30:41] into the, into the world, into the culture so they could, you know, freely bandy it about and change the definition of genocide so that we could be included in it, Israel could be included in it, and so now every Israeli, whoever served in the IDF, is now tainted with that.
[30:53] And I think that that phenomena of the alarms we ignored and how they seeded it, I'm worried about going forward what we're ignoring now because we're looking at that. So I'm trying to both, hold both of these things.
[31:03] What did we ignore that we could get to the point where the G word is used to talk about my cousins and your cousins and my brother, my sisters, and what about going forward? So I'm worried about both of those.
[31:14] There's an uncomfortable temptation There has been an uncomfortable temptation, you know, since October 7th, and I hear this all the time, but to say, you know, "We now know who our friends are."
[31:24] And I, I do this too, by the way. But Jewish history teaches the danger of dividing the world into friends and enemies in a very dispositive way.
[31:33] For example, the, the, the Italian Jews who aligned with Mussolini's fascist movement during World War II, that didn't end so well for those Jews. I'll start with you, Rabbi Wolpe.
[31:42] How do you distinguish between that moral clarity and paranoia? So I try very hard to insist that the only position that is really illegitimate in the Jewish world is literally anti -Zionism.
[31:59] That is, Israel should not exist. If you think that Israel... Even if you think Israel committed genocide but you think it has a right to exist, I'm willing to talk to you as somebody who could be listened to, persuaded.
[32:14] We are so quick to rule people out of the community, and when you rule people out of the community, they are very, very slow to ever return.
[32:22] And I remember-- Like, the place that I learned this lesson so powerfully was I was once driving along, and Allen Ginsberg, the poet, had died.
[32:31] And he was in Hebrew school when he asked his teacher a question that offended the teacher, and the teacher threw him out. And he said, "I never went back."
[32:40] And I thought here was an incredibly gifted man who, because he was rejected from the community, rejected the community in turn. So my, my tent is much wider than many others.
[32:52] That doesn't mean that I won't vigor-- I won't say that I think they're radically wrong, argue with them, tell them why I think they're wrong, hope they'll come back for more discussions.
[33:03] But I try really, first of all, especially if they're young, because I have a great deal of faith in young people growing out of convictions that they hold when they're nineteen, twenty, or twenty-one.
[33:15] Uh, that's why I kept trying to approach the encampments at Harvard until they finally said, "We were instructed not to talk to you." \[laughs\] And then I got the message.
[33:24] Um, but unless they really want to say that state should not exist and the majority of Jews in the world should not have a home, I really want to try as best I can to embrace...
[33:36] I remember, you know, I ended a sermon two years ago on Kol Nidre by telling the story of the Baal Shem Tov, who-- the founder of Hasidism, who a man came up to him and said, "My son is, has gone off the way, and I--
[33:49] he doesn't do anything that I want, and I'm not sure what to do." And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Love him more." Mm.
[33:55] And I really do believe that there's a certain amount of embrace that we can show we're not afraid of your believing things that we think are wrong or even dangerous, as long as you're still willing to talk to us, engage with us, be part of the family.
[34:10] We'll be right back after this brief message. \[gentle music\] Three years on from October seventh, tens of thousands of Israeli veterans are battling PTSD.
[34:22] Only some of these men and women will be able to recover through conventional treatment. That's where BuddyLine comes in.
[34:28] A program of American friends of Israel Navy SEALs, BuddyLine pairs Israeli Navy SEALs with IDF combat veterans struggling with severe PTSD.
[34:38] Over the course of a year, they rebuild trust, confidence, and connection through warrior to warrior care. For seven hundred and fifty veterans to date, BuddyLine has been a lifeline back to society.
[34:50] To watch a brief video and support the program, visit afins.us/warriortocare or use the link in our show description. Your gift, big or small, can help someone find their way back.
[35:04] \[gentle music\] There's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and I'd say there's never been less of it worth trusting.
[35:18] But because our Arc Plus members fund most of what we do here at Arc Media, we're free to cover the stories that need to be told honestly and without compromise.
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[35:48] You can sign up for Arc Plus at arcmedia.org, or follow the link in our show notes. And we're back with Rabbis David Wolpe and David Ingber.
[36:02] Okay, Rabbi Ingber, Jewish communities have spent thousands of years thinking about what it means to live as a minority among other peoples.
[36:12] What do you tell your own congregation when they look to you for guidance on how to deal with moments like this?
[36:17] Dan, my-- the theme that I imagined would be the, the right theme this year for the high holidays for the Rommune community and beyond it at the Y was centered around the word shamar, which means to guard or to tend or to be vigilant about, and it appears five hundred and seventy-seven times in the Bible, in the Tanakh.
[36:33] In various forms, it means to preserve, like shmarim are, are the preserves of things, you know, that which is preserved, that which is left over.
[36:40] And I argued in the sermons and throughout the high holidays that a good shomar, someone who, who is a guard, doesn't look only to the left or to the right. Has to have their head on a swivel.
[36:49] I used to play hockey, and, you know, defensemen were-- had to have a head on a swivel. You have to look in every which way. You have to look behind you, in front of you. You have to see things.
[36:58] And if you are biased towards one direction, you're gonna miss things, and that's not good shmira. That's not guarding appropriately.
[37:05] And so that means for us, I think in this moment, that- You know, anti-Semitism doesn't have, uh, you know, an address on the left or only on the left or only the north or the south or the, or the east or the west, and anti-Zionism has also shown itself to be incredibly resilient in, in every which direction.
[37:20] And I think that we have to be good shomrim, and we have to be people who guard our humanism, guard our liberal Jewish values, our highest moral values, and we also need to be guardians in every direction.
[37:31] And that means having the courage to speak truth to power in every direction, and even truth, of course, especially to people who are coming to us who disagree with us. We can love them more, as Rabbi Wolpe said.
[37:42] I agree with that. And we also have to be honest about it.
[37:46] I think that I'm troubled by some of my colleagues who will invite anti-Zionists and others onto their platforms but don't push back because we want to showcase our listening skills, and I think that that is very paternalistic.
[37:58] I think we have to, like, bring people onto shows but engage them because I tell you what, people on...
[38:03] who are disagreeing with me vehemently are inviting me onto their shows, and I've seen them engage in a very, you know \[laughs\] in a very antagonistic way with people who come on as if we're the, you know, they're the ones who have to challenge the status quo.
[38:17] We have to be willing to say there's something at stake here in both directions, and we love you, but we're gonna disagree with you in full voice. Uh, in terms of my own community,
[38:26] you don't always have the luxury of having a community that thinks in only one way, and you get to walk out in your community what it is to hold a community as capaciously as possible, as big as possible.
[38:37] And that means you have to both hold your center, who you are and what you, and you speak for the tradition, but also love your community and make room for the diversity within your community, and that also means having private conversations, and not everything has to be done in a public way.
[38:51] And I think that at this moment in my community, um, I think our community wants clarity, but they also want the healing that comes from being within Jewish community.
[39:00] I think the community, uh, the Jewish tradition is incredible. It has resources for healing and for dealing with some of the most difficult moments in, in our lives.
[39:10] And I think as a rabbi and as a leader, we have to be able to have that at our disposal to showcase the resilience and the wisdom that the Jewish tradition brings for, uh, a moment just like this one.
[39:21] I think that's beautifully said. What you discover, especially if you have adolescents, is at a certain point in people's development, they like abstract principles more than people.
[39:32] And I think there are a lot of people who really, they're like tied to abstract principles, and people sort of disappear for them. But then you get older, and you realize what family actually means.
[39:43] And I think that the-- this is the maturity right now that the Jewish people has to go through, is that, you know, a lot of young Jews don't realize in twenty, thirty, forty years, there's gonna be one group of people that will care about them and to whom they belong, despite the fact that they may have repudiated them and insulted them in their youth.
[40:05] Because family is very deep, and I hope that the period of sort of adolescent rebellion will in time pass, and Jews will come to recognize what Jews have throughout Jewish history, which is the sense of...
[40:21] Remember at the, at the Passover Seder, which-- who's the wicked son? It's not the person who says, "I don't believe in God," or, "I don't want to do mitzvot." It's the person who separates themselves from the community.
[40:32] Because to be part of us is to be protected, uplifted, safe, and loved. You have a real wake-up call in your life when you realize that how things turn so quickly, there's a turntable of circumstance and conditions.
[40:46] So here I am in New York giving a sermon about how we have to guard the tradition, we have to be shomrim, and another aspect of the shomer is, as Rabbi Wolpe knows, like in Jewish law, when you're a shomer, you're a steward.
[40:58] You're given an object or something precious, and you have to watch over it and then give it back to its original owners untarnished, you know, as it was and when it was given to you.
[41:05] And the Jewish tradition is that we're all shomrim. I had to give this whole sermon, and I'm considering myself to be a staunch, you know, shomer for, for Zionism and for Israel.
[41:15] And then my sermon shows up on Facebook, and reading through some of the comments, I came across a comment from somebody in Israel who's clearly Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox or some such label, and he excoriated me for being a liberal rabbi, and he literally went to town on me with some of the most ugly insinuations about my motivations and why, you know, how I, in public I desecrate Shabbat because I, you know, I use a microphone or because I use electricity or some such thing.
[41:40] And it didn't matter to him that I studied in an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva, that I feel like I'm, that I'm doing God's work and that I'm, uh, you know, trying to do God's work and trying to be a steward of this tradition.
[41:50] And it just made me realize like how anyone can be on the out relative to somebody else in our family and, and we have to do our best to love them even more, as Rabbi Wolpe said.
[42:01] Like to, you know, obviously in public to be able to fight the good fight, but to remember that when push comes to shove, we're a very small family.
[42:10] We're really a small family, and we have to do our best to keep the tent, uh, flaps as wide as possible.
[42:16] Rabbi Wolpe, younger Jews-- You can make an argument that younger Jews are inheriting a different experience from the one their parents knew.
[42:24] In other words, there is this argument that they're encountering anti-Semitism, they're encountering accusations that Jews have perpetuated a genocide or, or are supporting a genocide.
[42:35] They're encountering this before they even are literate Jews and immersed in, in Jewish life in a, in a very kind of meaningful and deep and regular way, and they're suddenly hit with this.
[42:47] Now, I could argue also that our parents and our grandparents dealt with their own versions of what we're experiencing today. It was different, but this notion, this golden age of Judaism, I think is kind of overstated.
[42:57] Dara Horn argues, I think quite persuasively, against this narrative that, that everything was golden and then, and then the world came crashing down.
[43:04] But that said, I-- the big differences in previous generations, I think, and I, I'm not certain of this, but I think while previous generations of Jews in the diaspora have had to deal with-...
[43:17] discrimination and tension and libels. You know, being in Jewish life was not only associated with negativity.
[43:23] They, they, they were more grounded in positive Jewish living, which is almost like an inoculation or something that balances out the hassles and headaches o- of Judaism, which I call the animosity from critics and my...
[43:35] So I do wonder whether or not the problem younger Jews are dealing with today is not only that they're dealing with this new wave, not unprecedented, I should add again, but a new wave of hate directed at Jews, except they're not as grounded in Judaism.
[43:49] So it's like they're not getting the upside of Judaism. They're only getting the downside of Judaism, and that's actually why they are saying, many of them, "What do I need this for?"
[43:59] What you said in your speech at the Y, the, the obligation on the Jewish tradition to find ways to educate young Jews is not only a nice thing to do and a good thing to do, it is an existential urgency for the Jewish world.
[44:17] There's no question about that. And it's why, in part, you have discovered this very strange... Although David's, uh, anecdote contradicts this, but I think for the most part this is true.
[44:28] There's a very strange new division in the Jewish world. That is, you will get Reform and Conservative rabbis praised by Orthodox rabbis who never, ever would have said a kind word about them- Hmm...
[44:39] because basically we all know that the real fight now is are you a Zionist, are you not a Zionist? Or whatever word \[laughs\] you want to choose to substitute for Zionist.
[44:50] Um, and so yes, uh, I don't want Zionism to be the content of someone's Judaism. I want Judaism to be the content of someone's Judaism, and Zionism is an integral part of that.
[45:02] But we have an enormous amount of educational work to do. Judaism is countercultural.
[45:09] You don't get it from the atmosphere of living in America, and I don't think the Jewish community, for all of its quite remarkable achievements, I don't think that it has managed to educate the non -Orthodox Jewish world at nearly the level that is absolutely demanded if we're gonna come through this with a literate and loving population.
[45:34] Younger Jews who have, who feel alienated, it's because I think they think that we gave them a Judaism that was too thin, or I think we gave them a Judaism that's too thin to withstand, like, a moral crisis.
[45:45] Like, I think we talked a lot about Jewish vulnerability and not enough about Jewish vitality. I think that we talked a lot about why Jews were able to survive, but not why Judaism is worth living within that tradition.
[45:56] We sometimes gave them Judaism, uh, or Israel that was too simple and not enough Israel that was complex. So let me push back on that, Rabbi Ingber, 'cause I, I do wonder if you think you've been true to that.
[46:07] Because, and, and, and I'm not just saying you, but many rabbis.
[46:09] Our friend Daniel Bonner over at Chabad Moed, we were together bouncing around Borough Park at some ungodly hour, and he made the argument to you, but it, well, again, as I said, it's not just to you.
[46:20] He said, "Why do all these rabbis," mostly non -Orthodox rabbis, I should add, they have the largest turnout in their congregations, call it the biggest audience they're gonna have of the year between Rosh Hashanah and, and Yom Kippur.
[46:32] So this is their moment. This is their kind of state of world Jewry \[laughs\] or State of the Union.
[46:37] And they choose, as you did with your, what I thought was a very moving and important sermon about Shomer, but so many choose, and literally almost every rabbi whose sermons mean something to me, that I'm curious about what they said, whether I track down what they said or I watch what they...
[46:53] Almost every one of them gave what I would call a political sermon, a sermon about Israel, and the debate about Israel, and Zionism, and polarized politics.
[47:02] When in fact, to your point, we're not spending enough time talking about the vitality of Judaism, that Judaism is actually, has many of the answers to the most perplexing- Yeah... and desperate social ills of our time.
[47:15] Loneliness, disconnection, isolation- Sure... lack of meaning and purpose. And many rabbis didn't use this opportunity.
[47:24] And, and Judaism has a lot to say, and instead we bring these people into the synagogue on the high holidays, the one or two times they're gonna be in a synagogue in a year, and say, "Oh, welcome.
[47:36] We're here to talk about the issue that you hate talking about." \[laughs\] "And that makes you crazy in every other aspect of your life, but welcome. Chag Sameach. Shanah Tovah."
[47:45] As opposed to saying, "The upside of Judaism," as I call it, "has so much to offer, and we're gonna talk about what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be more Jewish." So, so I'm- I, I can defend you.
[47:56] I can defend you 'cause I'm, I'm emeritus now, so I'm out of it. Um- I was actually gonna use you as an example because your Shabbat, you know, Friday Night Live, your Shabbat- Yeah...
[48:05] services used to get thousands of people. My Kol Nidre sermon- You're allowed to bring in representing counsel, Rabbi Ingber. \[laughs\] My Kol Nidre sermon was, was actually about exactly what you're talking about, Dan.
[48:16] It was about- Mm-hmm... joy and getting rid of negation and what Judaism tell, tells Juden...
[48:22] Now, the reason that it was is because now that I'm emeritus, I do the Kol Nidre sermon, and I have always felt I followed my father's model, and I think a lot of rabbis do.
[48:32] Rosh Hashanah, which is about the Jewish people, should be about the state of the Jewish people, and Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur should be about the state of the Jewish soul. Mm.
[48:42] So if they give one political sermon, I get that. That makes sense because it is on everyone's mind, as long as they do the other thing, too.
[48:51] And I will just say that having listened to Rabbi Ingber for years, his teaching is ve- certainly very soulful. He is not a I'm gonna get up and give a political sermon every time- Mm-hmm...
[49:01] kind of rabbi, and now I will let him \[laughs\] defend himself.
[49:05] Yeah, in fairness, I should say before he defends himself, his Rosh Hashanah sermon was about what he referenced earlier, the more kind of political themes, whereas his Kol Nidre sermon was actually about some of the issues I ho- would hope rabbis would talk- It was about call me back.
[49:19] It was about call me back- Yeah... literally, which was invoked, which was quoted. Yeah. No, it was about connection and Jewish connection- Right... and the Jewish, Jewish ideas and roots. In terms of connection.
[49:28] So I, I don't wanna take away f-from that sermon. Right. Right, right. But I, but I do wanna make a broader point. Yes, yes.
[49:33] The broader point, the broader point is well, is well taken because I think that I used to ha- be of that opinion, and for twenty years I didn't give sermons about anything political 'cause I didn't go into the rabbinate for politics.
[49:45] I didn't find mys- I wasn't a social activist. I wasn't a, you know, communal organizer.
[49:50] I came back to Yiddish guide because, uh, the Judaism, because of spirituality, because of meaning-making, because of its beauty and its compelling spiritual practices, of which there are literally dozens upon dozens that one can engage in that, that im- both improve the quality of your life, but also more importantly, improve your connection to meaning and, and to purpose.
[50:10] So they were conspicuously absent from my, from my rabbinate for two decades. I always used to say, "I get people in here one hour a week. What am I gonna do? Is, is write...
[50:17] You know, give them Thomas Friedman or some o-" \[chuckles\] Like, I'm, I'm a rabbi. I'm gonna g- \[chuckles\] you know, I'm gonna- God forbid... Bashemtov, d- you know? Or... So I get it.
[50:24] Uh, on the other hand, as Rabbi Wolpe said, in the name of his father, which I love that you invoked, you know, we're in the business of dignity, and if the Torah doesn't speak into the human condition broadly and into the Jewish condition narrowly or particularly, then we're also not doing our job.
[50:39] And so one-sixth of my sermons, I give six sermons over the high holidays, and one of them was around quote-unquote "politics."
[50:45] But I think that we are in the dignity business, and human rights and human dignity and justice, all of those things are not foreign to us.
[50:53] And so I think if we use Torah to speak into that and not just use Torah as an accessory or as a kind of garnish, you know, "I really wanna give a sermon about this, and I'm gonna find something in the Torah and lump it on," that's not asking the Torah to give us wisdom.
[51:07] I think that's a different engagement. I think that we could do to have more Torah from our pulpits.
[51:14] And I also wanna charge anybody who listens to this, and this is something that I get a chance to say 'cause you have a large platform, Dan, is that it's not just rabbis.
[51:20] We need congregants and people who show up wanting to hear Torah. Because often what I hear from rabbis is, "If I speak about Torah, people will be bored," or, "If I speak about Torah, they're not gonna be interested."
[51:31] We need a community of people who are thirsty to hear wisdom and say, "We're coming to hear Torah. We need wisdom." I think that's equally important. So I have a book coming out that's entirely about values.
[51:45] It has no politics in it. It's about values that America has lost. And everybody that I mention it to, they say, "Oh, that's the kind of thing that I am looking for."
[51:54] People do feel an absence of settled values in their lives, and they're at sea not only as Jews, but also as human beings who used to know how to navigate the social and value-laden world.
[52:11] And now we're very much at sea. And I think that our tradition, both American and Jewish, can provide us with a lot of, a lot of insight.
[52:20] Yeah, and it really, it ties us back to October 7th in a profound way because o-of all the things that Judaism can give us at this moment, it's really... It has, it has a grammar for grief.
[52:31] It has shiva, it has shloshim, it has a year of kaddish. Zachor, remembering our purpose. Mm. Part of the Jewish toolkit, of course, is being able to speak exactly into values, into what means to be a human.
[52:43] And so Judaism can help us become greater humans, not just better Jews. Okay. I, I wanna wrap with a question for both of you.
[52:51] Eventually, every generation has to decide what it will carry forward from a trauma and what it will bury.
[52:57] Briefly for each of you, what should diaspora Jews never forget, and what do we have to stop carrying if we wanna get unstuck from the trauma of October 7th? Rabbi Wolpe, I'll start with you.
[53:10] We have to stop caring about small slights and seeing them all as harbingers of great catastrophes, and have a sense of proportion about what matters and what doesn't.
[53:25] And what we can never forget is the most important lesson of our tradition from the beginning, which is that the Jewish people are inextricably bound wherever they live in the world, that we are one family with one transcendent parent, and that this connection to God, however you conceive of God, makes all Israel family, and that you can argue with family, that you can fight with family, that you can even fall out with family.
[54:02] But then one day when you have a crisis in your life and you feel alone, the person who will come and help you is your family.
[54:10] And I hope that our children and grandchildren will know that both here in Europe and Asia and, of course, in Eretz Israel. Rabbi Imber?
[54:22] There's something irrational and yet pernicious and consistent about anti-Semitism that in some way is always the outlier.
[54:30] Um, and so we have to let go of the safety and the comfort and the assurance that we thought we had. And what we must remember is, I think, that, that we're deployed.
[54:40] Like I, I-- My rabbi, Rav Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of blessed memory, used to always ask me what my deployment was.
[54:45] He wanted to use that language, and it, it has a kind of martial element to it, which is unfortunate, but deployment means like you're a shaliach, you're a messenger.
[54:53] And I think that, like, the two and a half tribes that were outside of Israel from the Bible, right? They were on the, on the Transjordan, but yet they still had a role to play.
[55:01] I think that American Jews and diasporic Jews more broadly have a role, and we have-- we are deployed. We have our own mission, and we have to remember that mission. We have to remember that we are one body, one family.
[55:13] As Rabbi Wolpe said, we're one body, and that we have a role to play, and that we can't forget our role in the larger story, and that when we do forget our role, that it's not a good thing for us or for the, the larger Jewish family.
[55:25] So I feel that each and every Jew outside of Israel has to recognize that they are participating in this bigger story, and we can't forget that. All right, gentlemen. Thank you for this conversation.
[55:37] It was an important conversation. It was a rich discussion. I wish we didn't have to have it integrated into and framed around this horrific 24 hours, this anniversary.
[55:47] But I, I, as always, am grateful for your, for your wisdom, and your calm, and your balance, and look forward to having you both on again soon. I also want to say thank you to you, Dan, for your hearing the call, right?
[55:59] That you, you became a shaliach in a major way, and you deployed, and many people look to you and to Call Me Back for sanity and, and, and during crazy times, so thank you.
[56:08] It has been an, a signal service to, not only to the Jewish people, but to the Jewish people and beyond, so thank you. Thank you. Crazy times demand a crazy podcaster. \[laughs\] Thank you both.
[56:22] All right, gentlemen, thank you. Yeah. Good to be with you, Dan. Take care. Bye-bye.
[56:26] \[outro music\] You know that feeling when an episode ends but you're far from done thinking about it?
[56:45] For many of us, the instinct is to go to social media and see what people are saying, but let's be honest, opening up about Israel and Jewish life on these platforms usually means bracing for a fight.
[56:57] The algorithm rewards outrage over understanding, and everyone ends up shouting past each other instead of listening. So we at Arc Media built something different.
[57:06] The Fold is a private, thoughtfully moderated community for listeners of Call Me Back, and the rest of the Arc Media family.
[57:14] It's a place to keep the conversation going and to get to know people who care about the same issues you do. We know not everyone is going to agree, but that's kind of the point.
[57:23] We want The Fold to be a place where you can ask questions, learn from one another, without worrying about how our adversaries will respond.
[57:32] Inside The Fold, you'll find conversations about Israel, Zionism, Jewish history, society and culture, and more. Join us at arcmedia.org. That's arcmedia.org. We hope to see you there. \[outro whooshing\]

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