Episode 4: “Shortcut Empathy” + Rabbi David Wolpe
[00:00:00] Jonah Platt: Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, is coming up this weekend. For those of us who observe, we will spend the day reflecting on our mistakes and wrongdoings of the last year, doing heartfelt repentance for them, and setting our intention for the year ahead. But what if you're not good at recognizing your own flaws and errors?
[00:00:19] Jonah Platt: How do you apologize for harmful actions if you don't even realize you've taken them? There are a number of psychological biases that reflect this very human inability to objectively take stock of ourselves. And I've especially noticed them hard at work over this past painful year. There's the blind spot bias, when a person is easily able to find fault in the thinking of others, but not their own, allowing them to subconsciously overlook any evidence that doesn't support their own already established ideas.
[00:00:49] Jonah Platt: Closely related is confirmation bias, where we give more weight to information that supports what we already believe, again mistakenly thinking ourselves objective [00:01:00] and fair. And now, I'd like to submit my own psychological fallacy into the mix. Something I call shortcut empathy. I've observed that we, as a modern day Western society, grossly over exaggerate our natural ability to be empathetic, while at the same time underestimating the effort required to actually empathize.
[00:01:24] Jonah Platt: After all, we are living in the era of inclusion, of wellness training, and trigger warnings, GoFundMes, and preferred pronouns. As Joe Bluth says in my favorite show, Arrested Development, we're really nice now. Yet, all these positive behavioral shifts have, I believe, also come with a false sense of superiority.
[00:01:46] Jonah Platt: The thinking goes that if I embody this new societal ethos, and support the right causes, and think of myself as a generally good human, then I've checked all the boxes of a highly empathetic person, right? But in reality, none of those [00:02:00] things are an automatic substitute for the actual work of empathizing.
[00:02:04] Jonah Platt: In fact, many of the folks who likely style themselves as the most empathetic are in fact the most calloused, unreasonable, and inflexible when it comes to Jews and Israel. Now, I do believe that intellectually, we in 2024 possess a greater sensitivity to the negative impact of harm. If we see or hear about something horrible, we say, oh my god, that's horrible, and we feel horrible.
[00:02:28] Jonah Platt: But that is not empathy. That's sympathy, which is lovely, but it's different, and it's not how you resolve conflict. To exhibit true empathy, we must adopt the process of the actor. We must imagine ourselves into a specific set of circumstances, using our own personal relationships as substitutes for the people involved, to truly understand the feeling.
[00:02:50] Jonah Platt: We need to go there, completely, body and soul, no matter how painful, especially when it's painful. We must close our eyes and literally play the scene in our minds. What would [00:03:00] it look like, sound like, feel like, smell like, if this were happening to me and my loved ones? So why don't more people do this?
[00:03:08] Jonah Platt: Well, number one, we're lazy. Doing this work takes energy and effort and care, and we got a lot of other stuff to do. Number two, I think there is a fear to go there. Somehow, allowing ourselves to feel the pain and humanity of others weakens our own position or the righteousness of our cause. But in fact, the opposite is true.
[00:03:28] Jonah Platt: Because it's only by allowing ourselves to truly feel the pain of others that we can verify the moral character of our own beliefs. About a year ago, I had the opportunity to appear on a YouTube show called Middle Ground, where I and three other Israel advocates sat across the table from four Palestinian Americans, and we agreed or disagreed with various prompts.
[00:03:48] Jonah Platt: As you might imagine, it was a very tense afternoon, but I did my best to engage in a spirit of middle ground, looking for ways to connect with and relate to the people across from me. I kept asking myself, if I were Palestinian American, [00:04:00] can I honestly say that I'd think or feel any different? I'd like to think I'd still be able to hold space for the truth of the Jewish narrative, despite the primacy of my own narrative and my immense feelings of pain and futility, but I also recognize that I'm a human being, fallible as any other, so maybe not.
[00:04:16] Jonah Platt: It was in that spirit of grace and understanding that I reached out to one of the women across the table for me after the show. She seemed the most familiar to me, a person who, if she had been born Jewish, would maybe sound like me. And if I were born Palestinian, maybe I'd sound like her. So we met up for lunch and just got to know each other as human beings.
[00:04:35] Jonah Platt: I felt proud, honestly, and reinforced in my belief that empathy doesn't have to mean agreement, that understanding does not mean capitulation, but rather an open door to conversation. Then in the wake of October 7th, this woman posted a video on her Instagram in full support of Hamas. calling their atrocities justifiable and their resistance a human right.
[00:04:59] Jonah Platt: I felt [00:05:00] sick to my stomach and I felt I had to respond, so I carefully composed a personal text. Quick tip, never do the heavy convos on social media. But before I wrote it, I practiced some empathy. I really tried to put myself in her shoes and asked myself if I felt my people were being slaughtered and oppressed and nothing was working, would I too come to the conclusion that all means are justified?
[00:05:23] Jonah Platt: I could feel her anger, disillusionment, and desperation, but still, I knew the answer to my question was a resounding no. And I know this because I've heard the equivalent on the Jewish side. They want to support Hamas? They all deserve to go. And that's not who I am. There are lines I will never be willing to cross.
[00:05:43] Jonah Platt: And yet, because of my empathy, I was able to reach out to her from a place of calm and moral clarity, having genuinely tried to understand her. She never responded to my text, and has since spent the last year using her social media to express support for terrorists and [00:06:00] hate for Israel. But it doesn't get under my skin, because I know that not only is she wrong, but I did my part in trying to connect, so I could let it go.
[00:06:10] Jonah Platt: Which brings me back to shortcut empathy. We have to do better and push ourselves to do the hard work of the real thing. Not just because it's right, but because it makes us better people. More open to connection and cooperation with folks who are different from us. The only way forward is together. This is the fourth episode of Being Jewish, with me, Jonah Platt.[00:07:00]
[00:07:04] Jonah Platt: My guest today is a special one. He officiated my bar mitzvah and my wedding, and those are my siblings. I think he officiated my bris. I don't remember. I was pretty young. Maybe you can clear that up. Uh, and if that weren't enough, he's a best selling author, a fixture in both print and television news media, a vaunted scholar, and the rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
[00:07:25] Jonah Platt: Newsweek called him the most influential rabbi in America. Welcome, Rabbi David Wolpe.
[00:07:31] Rabbi David Wolpe: Thank you. Thank you for
[00:07:32] Jonah Platt: being here.
[00:07:33] Rabbi David Wolpe: Remember your bris very well.
[00:07:34] Jonah Platt: That makes one of us. Okay, so I want to start back at the beginning. You grew up the son of a rabbi. Yep. I feel like kids who grow up with a rabbi parent are either junior rabbis or rebels as kids?
[00:07:49] Jonah Platt: Which one were you?
[00:07:50] Rabbi David Wolpe: I was actually both. I started off as the rebel and then ended up as the rabbi. I mean, if you'd asked me when I was a kid, what do you want to do? I would say, I'm not sure. I think I want to be a writer, [00:08:00] but one thing I know is I don't want to be a rabbi. Right. And then I ended up being a rabbi.
[00:08:04] Rabbi David Wolpe: So I, it's a very influential thing to be as a parent, partly because one of the things I do remember as a kid is, When my father spoke, all the other parents listened. And that's a really powerful thing for a kid to see. So that affects you in different ways.
[00:08:23] Jonah Platt: And did you always feel ownership of your own Jewish identity or did it feel like it was an extension of your father's?
[00:08:29] Rabbi David Wolpe: It was definitely, we were part of like a corporation. You know, there were, rabbi's family. Right. Right. And it took a while for me to, I guess. Figure out what my own voice was and but I but I must say even to this day sometimes when I'm speaking I hear my father come out of me. So I'm not sure I ever completely individuated from that, but yeah.
[00:08:55] Rabbi David Wolpe: I
[00:08:56] Jonah Platt: think that's pretty normal for any father son relationship. It's
[00:08:59] Rabbi David Wolpe: probably true, [00:09:00] especially if you're lucky enough to have a really good father. And I had a really, really good father.
[00:09:04] Jonah Platt: So hearing about your really good father, what's one of the best things about being a rabbi's kid and what's one of the worst things?
[00:09:10] Rabbi David Wolpe: The worst thing is that people assume you are what you're not. Um, that is like, I would go to people's houses and I would be six or seven years old and they would say, what's your name, David? Won't be. Are you rabbi? Won't be son? Yes. And they would say, I used to keep kosher. And I was like, think I'm six years old.
[00:09:26] Rabbi David Wolpe: I don't care. I was like, take it up with my father. Um, so you, and sometimes that affects your peers too, that they see you as a rabbi's kid. Um, the thing that was good about it was that I think If you're lucky enough to be the child of a rabbi who is well thought of by his community, there's a real sense of pride in being the rabbi's kid.
[00:09:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: That's so nice. So yeah, and I felt that.
[00:09:51] Jonah Platt: And what role did your mother and your brothers play in shaping your Jewish identity?
[00:09:56] Rabbi David Wolpe: So my mother was the person that I sat next to in synagogue. So in [00:10:00] some ways, I mean, not only did she make the home, but even my synagogue experience was in some ways more about my mother than my father.
[00:10:06] Rabbi David Wolpe: Although my mother was also the person who I think was responsible for my sense of public self, because my mother cared a lot about how, like, that we were dressed right when we walked into synagogue. They had a lot of eyes on you. And yes, and, and believe me, when someone walked in who wasn't dressed the way she thought they should be, my mother was not, uh, shy about, you know, Letting that be known, um, with an eye roll or a look.
[00:10:32] Jonah Platt: That's so nice. Yeah. What was one of your favorite Jewish family traditions in your house?
[00:10:36] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, oh, it was easy. Hands down, Friday night was our favorite. Like, everybody was always at the Friday night dinner table. We, always argued about something. Um, and whoever made everybody else laugh won. It was like, definitely the, that's how we all became like, you know, used to making jokes in conversations and so on.
[00:10:59] Jonah Platt: This podcast [00:11:00] could like basically be called, I love Shabbat. Like every guest comes in, like their favorite thing is Shabbat. It's really a beautiful gift. It was great. Okay. So when and how and why do you decide to become a rabbi?
[00:11:12] Rabbi David Wolpe: It's kind of a, uh, bizarre story in the sense that I was, I mean, I was still very much attached to Judaism, um, and I was at Camp Ramah and I had graduated college and I had spent a year writing and I was going to continue writing and try to publish something.
[00:11:28] Rabbi David Wolpe: And Elliot Dorff, who was a rabbi who taught and still teaches at what's now called American Jewish University, said to me, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, Elliot, I know that you spend your time talking people to go to rabbinical school. I grew up with her. I know what it is. I want to be a writer.
[00:11:44] Rabbi David Wolpe: He said, well, what do you want to write about? I said, I don't know. I don't really know anything. I just always knew that I wanted to write. And he said, how about if you go to rabbinical school for a year, you're not doing anything. The worst that happens is you'll learn something. And the best that happens is you'll find your [00:12:00] subject.
[00:12:01] Rabbi David Wolpe: And I said, okay, just like that. And that was it. And I went to rabbinical school and I loved it.
[00:12:08] Jonah Platt: Wow.
[00:12:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: And he was right. I think what was important here was that it wasn't my father asking.
[00:12:15] Jonah Platt: Because
[00:12:15] Rabbi David Wolpe: as much as I loved my father, had he said, why don't you go to rabbinical school? I think I would have said no.
[00:12:20] Jonah Platt: I got to do my own thing. Exactly. I totally understand that. Have your reasons for continuing to be a rabbi always been the same as why you became one in the first place?
[00:12:30] Rabbi David Wolpe: Hmm. Um, I think not. Uh, I started off being a rabbi because I really loved studying and learning and writing and and because I'm a little bit asocial.
[00:12:47] Rabbi David Wolpe: By which I mean, like, my default is to sit in a room and read a book. My default is not to go out to a dinner party. And in fact, one of the nice things about being a rabbi is because you are supposed to be social, it [00:13:00] forces me out of what would normally be a lot less social. Um, Interactive, but because of that, that's what I thought I would do.
[00:13:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: I would be at a university and I would teach and then I would go home and I would read and I would study and I would go back and teach. And then when I went to a synagogue, which happened because we were going to have a child and I was doing a lot of traveling and we thought it's better to be in one place at one time.
[00:13:25] Rabbi David Wolpe: I realized how much I actually got out of. doing things like weddings and funerals and bar and bat mitzvahs. Um, and it didn't change who I was. Like if you said to me tonight, do you want to go do the wedding or do you want to sit at home and read? I would definitely go for sit at home and read. But then when I did the wedding, I would say, actually, that was really, I really enjoyed that.
[00:13:50] Jonah Platt: What do you love about being a part of those life moments?
[00:13:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: Well, it depends which life moment. For a wedding, it's just kind of a high. There's just joy, and it's [00:14:00] like you get to be a part of that joy, and you get to contribute to it, and that's great. For a funeral, it is, um, much more of a sense of being needed, because I remember my father saying to me.
[00:14:15] Rabbi David Wolpe: You can skimp on anything except a eulogy. He said, you give a bad sermon and you'll give a better sermon next week. You give a bad wedding talk, they're still married. Right. Nobody's going to say the wedding was ruined because the rabbi didn't give a good talk because they got married. But they'll, people will never forget what you say at their loved one's funeral.
[00:14:35] Jonah Platt: Right.
[00:14:35] Rabbi David Wolpe: So I work hard at that. And I really think, um, when you get it right, there's an enormous sense of sad. Satisfaction. Yeah that you were able to sum up this person's life for the people who needed that to be done so
[00:14:51] Jonah Platt: and I can attest and to your you know skill at that Recently when you spoke at I'm at a year ago at my friend [00:15:00] Mark's funeral and so did you and so did I very beautifully You and you
[00:15:06] Rabbi David Wolpe: So that matters.
[00:15:07] Rabbi David Wolpe: Yeah. And that's, and when you do something that's important and that it matters and it works, it's a, it's a wonderful feeling, even though it's obviously very sad.
[00:15:15] Jonah Platt: Right. Yeah. So you were the senior rabbi at Sinai temple for many, many years. How long? 26 years. 26 years. In what ways do you feel like you left it stronger than when you arrived?
[00:15:26] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, well, when I arrived, it was actually not in very good shape. They'd had, um, a series of unsuccessful rabbinic figures. Um, the last five or six had all left after a relatively short time or before they were supposed to. So first of all, just the fact they had a stable leader for a long time. In fact, when I was going to go there, my father didn't want me to go.
[00:15:51] Rabbi David Wolpe: He said he heard it was an Yoshveha, which is the Hebrew phrase that means a land that eats its own. [00:16:00] Los Angeles or the synagogue? No, Sinai. Oh boy. That's what they had said. That's what the spies say about Kanaan, about Canaan in the Bible. And he'd heard terrible things about Sinai. It's like every rabbi has, he said, so I really don't want you to go.
[00:16:14] Rabbi David Wolpe: And, and. I went anyway, obviously. Um, but I think the first thing was that actually this is a successful and stable and decent congregation, and you can keep a rabbi for a long time if it's the right match. And, uh, I think there was much more of a divide than there is now between the Persian and non Persian members of the congregation.
[00:16:37] Rabbi David Wolpe: That took a lot of work and a lot of time, but I thought that that also strengthened.
[00:16:42] Jonah Platt: How did that dichotomy affect your time there? It was probably pretty central to you. Well, it
[00:16:50] Rabbi David Wolpe: was pretty central because the two populations were really antagonistic towards each other. Not everybody obviously but many of them.
[00:16:58] Rabbi David Wolpe: And it was [00:17:00] for really very understandable reasons on both sides. You have a synagogue and like you have a country or anything else and all of a sudden a huge population comes in that speaks a different language, has different ways of being and has different cultural patterns and says, your home is my home.
[00:17:21] Rabbi David Wolpe: So we're here now too. And you're like, but what about all the things I was used to that have changed? And what about the fact that you're speaking a language in my own home that I don't understand? And so the Ashkenazi population felt put upon.
[00:17:33] Jonah Platt: Mm
[00:17:33] Rabbi David Wolpe: hmm. And the Persian population felt, we just ran away from our country, we came here with almost nothing, we're also Jews, and this is our refuge, and you're telling us Like that we're not wanted.
[00:17:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: And so the way that you bring them together is to let both understand how the other one is feeling.
[00:17:53] Jonah Platt: How do you do that?
[00:17:54] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, by telling them, honestly, by telling, I gave a sermon saying many of the [00:18:00] things that I just said and talking about how we were now going to create a new world. like various groups and dinners at each other's homes and so on.
[00:18:08] Rabbi David Wolpe: So not so that you can become the same, but just so that you can appreciate who each of you are. And I think that over time that got, first of all, um, the Persian population got much more used to being in Los Angeles, were less afraid, were, felt less prejudiced from Los Angeles in general, because when they first came.
[00:18:31] Rabbi David Wolpe: What the average person on the street thought about them was they're from Iran and we hated Iran at the time It was at right after the hostage crisis and so on And then for the Ashkenazi population They felt like much more comforted, accepted, went to each other's bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings.
[00:18:51] Rabbi David Wolpe: And it just both time and effort like helped, helped. So I
[00:18:57] Jonah Platt: think could probably still use a little more help.
[00:18:59] Rabbi David Wolpe: [00:19:00] Can always use more help. It's always hard to keep populations that are different, um, unantagonistic towards each other in certain ways. It's, It's never a perfect solution, which is why all over the world, immigration is such a touchy issue.
[00:19:17] Rabbi David Wolpe: Sure.
[00:19:18] Jonah Platt: Do you have a favorite Parsha?
[00:19:20] Rabbi David Wolpe: I mean, I do, but it's not really fair. It's my bar mitzvah portion was Genesis. So that's a good one. It's a really good one. It's the creation of the world. It's Adam and Eve, you know, it's, it's a lot of good stuff. Um, so I gotta say that that's my favorite, but it just, That's Burt's.
[00:19:36] Rabbi David Wolpe: No, you didn't
[00:19:37] Jonah Platt: have one of the, you know, leprosy ones. Exactly. I was very, I was very lucky. In your eyes, not necessarily in the congregation's eyes, but what in your eyes were one or two of the most important sermons that you gave?
[00:19:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, I think that the most important ones were, first of all, that Persian Ashkenazi sermon, no question about it.
[00:19:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: At the time it was a huge, uh, [00:20:00] I think, I mean, obviously the one that made the biggest stir of a single sermon was one where I said the exodus didn't happen the way the Bible said, which I still hear about all the time. Um, and then probably Um, it wasn't exactly a sermon, but there was a morning during the second intifada when we raised millions of dollars on a Shabbat morning.
[00:20:21] Rabbi David Wolpe: Wow. And I remember how I started, which was, I said, imagine a cell phone and the cell phone's in a backpack and it's ringing, but there's no one to answer. And that cell phone belongs to a child. Um, and I said, we wanted to bring millions of dollars, as much as we could to victims of terror to help people like those parents get over what happened, um, to the extent that it was even conceivable or possible.
[00:20:52] Jonah Platt: Yeah.
[00:20:52] Rabbi David Wolpe: And, uh, and we brought, we ended up bringing 3 million to various terror victim groups. Um, and [00:21:00] that was. That was a powerful, uh, experience. That's amazing. It was.
[00:21:05] Jonah Platt: You were very early in the Jewish community to say that you would officiate gay marriages when legalization of gay marriage happened. What was the reaction to that?
[00:21:14] Jonah Platt: And have you seen the Jewish community shift at all in that regard since those early days?
[00:21:18] Rabbi David Wolpe: So, um, the reaction was. kind of explosive. Um, uh, let me just explain how, what my thought was about timing. First of all, it was, it ended up on the front page of the New York and the LA times because there was such a reaction in the synagogue at the time, because especially not only, but especially inside the Persian community, they were socially very conservative.
[00:21:42] Rabbi David Wolpe: And I knew that I couldn't do until I had at least a couple of Persian parents whom I could then send other Persian parents to, because you couldn't send them to Ashkenazi parents because they wouldn't trust them to understand what they were going through. [00:22:00] Right. So once the first couple of very courageous young Persians came out and their parents had to deal with it then I said, okay, now I can, now I can say this is what we're going to do.
[00:22:12] Rabbi David Wolpe: And in fact, that's exactly what happened was Persian kids then came out to their parents and the parents said, what do I do now? And I said, oh, well, you can go to this person and she'll tell you like what she went through and so on and so forth. Because there was so much, a lot of it was just the sense of shame in your community that the Ashkenazim didn't have as much.
[00:22:37] Rabbi David Wolpe: It wasn't, it was so much more accepted in the non Persian community that when Ashkenazi parents had kids who were gay, it wasn't like they thought, Oh my God, all my friends are going to think, what did you do? Right. Right. But in the Persian community, that's what it was like. And so it took work.
[00:22:55] Jonah Platt: Makes sense.
[00:22:56] Jonah Platt: How do you maintain your sense of self while being devoted to [00:23:00] such a large community?
[00:23:01] Rabbi David Wolpe: It's very difficult because the weird dynamic of a lot of rabbis is you're telling other people to live a life of family and you don't because you're always at other. I used to say I spend my life living other people's lives.
[00:23:19] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. I would go to their simchas and the thing is If it's a small school, it's different. In a big synagogue, I mean, you can only be close to a hand, really close to a handful of families. So, a lot of the time, you were the pivotal person for a family that you didn't really know, but they felt like they knew you.
[00:23:41] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. And, and that's both a privilege, but also not always easy.
[00:23:47] Jonah Platt: So the real reason why I had you on to being Jewish is because you wrote a book called Why Be Jewish. So I had to have you on, uh, which, you know, actually received that book as a temple gift for my bar mitzvah. I know. Uh, so in it [00:24:00] you say, Judaism's most important single teaching is that each human being is created in the image of God.
[00:24:05] Jonah Platt: Why is that the most important thing?
[00:24:07] Rabbi David Wolpe: It enables you to understand that even people that you dismiss, dislike, think are foolish, think are enemies, think are whatever, have the same essential worth that you do. There's no such thing as a worthless human being. And it's so easy, especially now we're in essentially wartime, it's so easy to think that they, their lives are not worth as much as ours.
[00:24:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: And, and that's easy, that's easy to do with any difference. I mean, throughout history, people have done it with race, with religion, with ethnicity, with nationality. It's always, if you're not like me, you don't count as much as me. And really, Judaism, I see, came into the world to insist that that is not true.
[00:24:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: And it, as far as I know, is the only real universal principle that ties all human beings together. Right? [00:25:00] It's not genetics. No, it's the fact that we have the image of God in us, and, and I think if that were universally believed, the world would be an infinitely better place. I
[00:25:11] Jonah Platt: know, that's true. Yeah. How do you reconcile that idea with someone who is, you know, truly evil, a mass murderer?
[00:25:17] Rabbi David Wolpe: The way I reconcile it is, that's why we call them evil. Because, when a lion does something, you don't say, that's an evil lion. Right. The only reason that someone terrible is evil is because they have the image of God in them and betray it so horribly. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to call them evil.
[00:25:36] Jonah Platt: I like that.
[00:25:36] Jonah Platt: You also wrote in the book, if you wish to know the character of a people, look to its heroes. Who should be our heroes?
[00:25:43] Rabbi David Wolpe: The thing about Jewish heroes that makes them, especially biblical heroes, that makes them distinctive is they're all flawed. They are all flawed. Like we don't have any perfect people.
[00:25:54] Rabbi David Wolpe: There's nobody in the Bible you can't criticize. You criticize Moses, you criticize Abraham, you criticize Sarah, you criticize [00:26:00] everyone.
[00:26:00] Jonah Platt: Right.
[00:26:00] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, I wrote a book about King David. God knows there is a lot in King David to criticize. Yeah. So I would say that the important thing about having a hero is not to make them perfect.
[00:26:11] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, to say, you know, Given the limitations and flaws of being human, they still did great and good things. And all the people I just mentioned did that, and, and so I'm bullish on heroes that are imperfect, you know?
[00:26:28] Jonah Platt: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. Okay, so a lot, I actually got a lot of people who wanted me to talk about this subject I'm about to with you, which is your time at Harvard.
[00:26:37] Jonah Platt: The past year, a lot of interest. Um, so you retired as senior rabbi and you were a visiting professor at Harvard University in the Divinity School. Yes. So first, how did you define, how did you find the Divinity School itself to be?
[00:26:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: I'm going to start with a caveat that every place at Harvard has wonderful people, profound scholars, interesting thinkers, and it shouldn't, and there's no place that is absent of that, [00:27:00] certainly including the Divinity School.
[00:27:02] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, But I think that it was also a place that, uh, was deeply unsympathetic to what we might call mainstream Jewry and certainly to Israel.
[00:27:17] Jonah Platt: That's unfortunate to discover. So you happened to be at Harvard the year there was this enormous explosion of anti Jew bigotry. You've taught at other universities before.
[00:27:30] Jonah Platt: Was there ever any indication that this kind of anti Jewish hate was brewing in higher education or this a brand new phenomenon?
[00:27:36] Rabbi David Wolpe: No, it wasn't a brand new phenomenon. I mean, at Harvard already, it was known when, when I was going to Harvard, people asked me if I thought I would encounter it. Um, and, and it's, it's a combination of a lot of different factors.
[00:27:50] Rabbi David Wolpe: One is remember that, um, especially the divinity school, but Harvard, Harvard. like a lot of universities has a long history of protestant [00:28:00] christianity, which was sometimes very hostile to judaism. So some of the germs of that hostility existed, um,
[00:28:08] Jonah Platt: institutionally,
[00:28:08] Rabbi David Wolpe: institutionally. That's one thing. The second is that with the increase of students who came from the middle east, where there's a lot of anti Semitism, um, and money that came from the Middle East, which was promoting programs that were hostile to Israel, that fostered that same lack of sympathy, um, for, certainly for Zionism and, and also, you know, as a corollary to Jews.
[00:28:38] Rabbi David Wolpe: So no, I don't think that it's entirely surprising, although the explosion of it and the force of it and the breadth of it was shocking.
[00:28:48] Jonah Platt: Yeah. So while all this is happening, this explosion of anti Jewish hate, you're asked by the then president Claudine Gay of the school to serve on this anti Semitism [00:29:00] commission.
[00:29:00] Jonah Platt: Right. Uh, from which you ended up resigning after how long? Couple months. Couple months. Cause as, as you've said, you felt like the whole thing was a cover for Harvard and they had no intention of listening or doing anything. What specifically did you encounter while serving on the commission? Like what were the red flags that led you to resign?
[00:29:17] Rabbi David Wolpe: This actually gives me a chance to tell you my favorite line ever from TV. Great. Which is from BoJack Horseman.
[00:29:24] Jonah Platt: Brilliant show.
[00:29:24] Rabbi David Wolpe: Somewhere in BoJack Horseman, they say, if you're wearing rose colored glasses, all red flags look like flags. Mm. Which is really brilliant. Yeah. I heard that. I thought, that is fantastic.
[00:29:35] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, and, and so when I started off, people told me. This is not real. But I was like new to Harvard and I was a little bit wearing rose colored glasses. I thought it's, you got to give it a chance. Sure. The people on the antisemitism commission committee were wonderful. And we developed recommendations and, and proposals and, and no matter how often we would recommend stuff, [00:30:00] nothing was happening.
[00:30:01] Rabbi David Wolpe: And, and at a certain point, a core of us, four or five of us, wrote a resignation letter. And, um, we were helped very much. And I want to give him credit by the advice of Larry Summers, who was a past president of Harvard, uh, among his many other distinctions. And, and we delivered the resignation letter. And that was the only time a member of the corporation showed up.
[00:30:26] Rabbi David Wolpe: The corporation is the group that runs Harvard. Uh, so she showed up these were all the meetings were on zoom. And said, please don't resign. We really, we have a plan. We're really getting started and so on and so forth. And we said, okay, we'll give you a chance. So it wasn't as though David Wolpe thought nothing was happening, but the other members of the commission thought it was great.
[00:30:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. We all saw the same thing. Okay. And then the hearings happened.
[00:30:53] Jonah Platt: The congressional hearings.
[00:30:54] Rabbi David Wolpe: The congressional hearings where the three presidents, um, whatever the opposite of distinguished yourself [00:31:00] is very much undistinguished themselves. And And I felt like after that, it was almost embarrassing to still pretend that we were doing anything.
[00:31:13] Rabbi David Wolpe: So I called the president or actually she called me and I told her, I said, look, I know that you're in an impossible position because it was very hard to know how to handle this.
[00:31:23] Jonah Platt: It's very gracious of you to say.
[00:31:24] Rabbi David Wolpe: I said, but I'm also in an impossible position. I just regret that my own, getting out of my impossible position is going to make yours harder.
[00:31:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: She asked, what could we do? And I gave her all the recommendations that we'd said, and it was clear that they were not going to happen. And so the next day I, I, and I spoke to the other members of the committee. Next day I resigned. I did not think, I really didn't think that it was going to get millions and millions and millions of views, but it did because I think there was an enormous pent up frustration of why isn't anyone in this university standing up and emperor has no clothes.
[00:31:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: And so when I did, people [00:32:00] were relieved, I think.
[00:32:02] Jonah Platt: When you say, you know, you spoke to her directly and it was clear none of these recommendations were going to be taken, like, what was her response to you with them?
[00:32:10] Rabbi David Wolpe: So I have a different interpretation of her conduct from many other people, which is the way you become president of a university, Some people said, for example, oh, she was president of Harvard because she was a black woman.
[00:32:23] Rabbi David Wolpe: And I think that's foolish because there are a lot of black women and a lot of them are enormously accomplished. Why did this person get to be? And the answer usually for a position like that, which is not unlike a synagogue rabbi, is you get appointed because people like you. But the trap of that is, if you're a person who's used to being liked, And you have to take positions that will make people dislike you.
[00:32:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: It's very hard. So I think that she found it very difficult to take positions that the faculty would be angry at, that the board would be [00:33:00] angry at, because these were her contemporaries and they all liked her and she liked them. And so, and especially at Harvard, I think the ideology and not only hers was.
[00:33:11] Rabbi David Wolpe: We're Harvard. Right. We'll be fine. Yeah. We
[00:33:14] Jonah Platt: can do whatever.
[00:33:14] Rabbi David Wolpe: We've been here for hundreds of years. And by the way, did I mention we're Harvard? Right. Oh, there was a lot of that. And also the fact that you was getting, I'm sure, a lot of pressure from, I mean, we talk about Jewish donors, but there were hundreds of millions of dollars coming from places like Qatar.
[00:33:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. And other places in the Middle East. And those were also, you know, in peril. And I think you put all that together and it was going to be like, we will just wait until this storm dies down. And, and none of us were prepared for that.
[00:33:46] Jonah Platt: It's interesting the way you just described her is, you know, you made me think of a lot of figures in entertainment and in social media who have this fear of, they have this strong need to be liked, have an insecurity about it.
[00:33:59] Jonah Platt: And [00:34:00] they, they have this fear upsetting people upsetting their fans as and you know, more important to them than doing what's right.
[00:34:06] Rabbi David Wolpe: Let me just honestly, like, you could easily have done that. I mean, the tack that you've taken a lot of the reason that people admire what you've done is because You know that by being so upfront about being Jewish at a time like this, you're going to get a lot of flack.
[00:34:24] Rabbi David Wolpe: So I, yeah, but, but the answer of this is not the way most people answer that. The way most people answer that is, yeah, that's where I'm not going to do it.
[00:34:31] Jonah Platt: Yeah. So. I don't know. Feels like. Kudos to you. Thank you. I appreciate, you know, just doing what you got to do. Right. That's how I feel about it. Um, So you said in a recent speech that DEI is broken.
[00:34:43] Jonah Platt: Can you elaborate on that thought and explain what role, if any, you felt DEI played at Harvard?
[00:34:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: This is the ideology behind it. Societies are built in systems. systems discriminate sometimes against certain groups, especially in America. There was red lining in [00:35:00] housing. There was systematic discrimination against African Americans, so on.
[00:35:03] Rabbi David Wolpe: And therefore, if there's inequality among groups, it must not be because of merit. It must be because the system is broken. And if you fix the system, right, you will get perfect equality among various groups. The problem is the system can be broken, but you're still not going to get perfect quality when you fix it among various groups because, and this is the metaphor I used, the only way you get an even lawn is with a lawnmower.
[00:35:30] Rabbi David Wolpe: It doesn't matter how much fertilizer you throw on a lawn, it's not going to become even. And the same thing's true with people. The only way you get equality of outcome is if you cut down the top, not if you incentivize the bottom. Because cutting down the top will make sure that everybody only reaches this level.
[00:35:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: So if you're a small group that over achieves, you're going to get it in the neck. And a small group that over achieves is another way of, it's like a synonym for [00:36:00] Jews. Right. And therefore, the view of the Jewish people was not, Ah, look, you have unusual merit and we want to encourage that because it's good for the world.
[00:36:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. It was, You have achieved unusual outcomes. Therefore, there obviously is something unfair about the position that you occupy in society. And so when you say, no, no, no, but actually, don't you know that in the lifetime of people who are still walking this earth, a third of all the Jews in the world were killed.
[00:36:28] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. We actually don't. come from a position of privilege. This has been a real struggle to get here. It does not accord with the life experience of most of the people at Harvard who the only Jews they know are Jews who are successful and Jews who have not had terrible hardships in their own individual lives.
[00:36:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. And so there is this tremendous gap between the reality and what the perception is. And most DEI is built on that perception. [00:37:00] My own take on it is DEI should be adversity based, not race based. If you make it adversity based, it will disproportionately be people of color. in our society because disproportionately people of color have faced adversity in growing up, but also the white kid from Appalachia, whose parents were opioid addicts and has never gone to school will also get help through DEI.
[00:37:29] Rabbi David Wolpe: even though he doesn't have a race based claim, but he has an adversity claim. And that's what I would hope for, is that we would see adversity as the standard by which we have to help people.
[00:37:42] Jonah Platt: Makes sense to me. Yeah. What advice would you give to current Jewish students right now navigating anti Jewish racism on campus?
[00:37:51] Rabbi David Wolpe: I actually literally just wrote this this morning for the ADL. I think the first thing to know is that you're not alone. that the Jewish community really wants to support you, [00:38:00] that Chabad, Hillel, ADL, your rabbi, your synagogue, so on, all of them stand with you. You aren't alone.
[00:38:09] Jonah Platt: Yeah.
[00:38:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, and second is to recognize that a lot of this, a lot of this comes from ignorance and not hatred.
[00:38:17] Jonah Platt: Mm hmm.
[00:38:17] Rabbi David Wolpe: And that what you think of as, oh, this person hates me, they probably know really as much about Israel as you know about like Nagorno Karabakh. I don't even know what words you just said. Right. Exactly. So sometimes it's really important to recognize. that, that just because something is important to you, um, someone else, it may be important to them for a second because it's on social media, but they don't really know about it or care about it.
[00:38:40] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, and, uh, and also you have to find like you do at every, in every place in life, you have to find people who share your values and you care about. because without some kind of social circle, you're really, um, it will be very difficult.
[00:38:59] Jonah Platt: [00:39:00] Yeah. So usually, uh, on this show, I aim to have Jews or non Jewish allies who are known for their work in other fields.
[00:39:08] Jonah Platt: And I offer them this chance to open up about the connection to Jewishness. You are unique in that you are obviously a Jewish professional of the highest order. So I want to take this opportunity to tap into some rabbinic wisdom since I got you here. Sure. So. You have emphasized the importance of Jews seeking God.
[00:39:25] Rabbi David Wolpe: Yes.
[00:39:26] Jonah Platt: How can individuals, Jewish or not, cultivate a deeper relationship with the divine in their everyday lives?
[00:39:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: Well, the first, the first way is to want it, um, and, and then there are, usually the way that people go about seeking God is through nature. Some people find it, you can find it in the woods, in the mountain, in the river, in the stars, through community, other people who care about that.
[00:39:51] Rabbi David Wolpe: Like sometimes you have an experience, uh, of something transcendent when you sing with other people that you don't get. [00:40:00] any other way. Right. Um, and in synagogue you sing together. There aren't that many places in American society where people actually get to sing together. Um, and then there is study.
[00:40:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: There are, there are, um, beautiful books and texts and so on that can really elevate people and make them feel differently about the world. I always tell people that books like Heschel's the Sabbath or, um, Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning are books that really elevate your spirit and, and allow you to find parts of yourself that otherwise you wouldn't know.
[00:40:36] Jonah Platt: Is believing in God a requirement for being Jewish?
[00:40:39] Rabbi David Wolpe: No, it's not a requirement for being Jewish, um, I mean our name Yisrael means struggling with God. Right. If you struggle with it, if you think about it, if you are like Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav beautifully said, he said, I'm a moon man. My faith waxes and wanes.
[00:40:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: You know, sometimes it shines bright, sometimes it's dark. If it matters to you, and I think it should, [00:41:00] then I think you're right in the mainstream of the Jewish tradition.
[00:41:03] Jonah Platt: The important thing is, is to just be struggling, be in the mix.
[00:41:07] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right, is that you're not indifferent to it. Right.
[00:41:10] Jonah Platt: Speaking of that struggle, that was my Bar Mitzvah portion, was Jacob wrestling with the angel.
[00:41:15] Jonah Platt: Talked all about struggle. As a clergyman, is there any distinction in your connection to being Jewish between the religious piece and the nation personhood piece, or is it just one and the same for you?
[00:41:26] Rabbi David Wolpe: I mean, Herzl was a great Jew. He was not at all religious. Right. But obviously his effect on the Jewish tradition was much more profound than a lot of religious Jews.
[00:41:37] Rabbi David Wolpe: Sure. So I see the distinction. I, I'm, I don't live it in my own life, but I certainly appreciate it.
[00:41:43] Jonah Platt: Okay, so you were the person who gave my wife, Courtney, weekly shout out to Courtney, You gave her and me the confidence to have tattoos as Jews. So can you please explain for my audience that the kosherness of tattoos?
[00:41:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: Okay, so, um, [00:42:00] I didn't know you were gonna put me in this. Now I'm in trouble with every Jewish parent who is watching this show. So here's the story, like, The only thing that most Jews know about tattoos is not true. Right. Which is that you're not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery if you get a tattoo.
[00:42:14] Rabbi David Wolpe: And that's totally false. Totally false. It is. No Jewish authority has ever said that. I mean, just think about it. Like, yes, if you break the Sabbath, if you murder someone, you can be buried in it, but it get a tattoo. You're out. You're out. Um, and I don't know where it started, uh, but if you don't believe me, just Google, can you be buried?
[00:42:34] Rabbi David Wolpe: And you'll see that that's not true. It was
[00:42:35] Jonah Platt: some, some mom who didn't want their kid getting a tattoo.
[00:42:38] Rabbi David Wolpe: So the issue with a tattoo is this, you are not allowed to deface your body. And the reason you're not allowed to is that your body is a gift. It's a loan. Right. You have to return it. So, if you see, for example, piercing your ear for, uh, an earring as a defacement, you shouldn't do it.
[00:42:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: But if you see it as an enhancement to beauty, [00:43:00] then it's permitted. If you see a tattoo as an enhancement to beauty, then I think there's a very good argument why you could get a tattoo, because it's not defacing your body. That's actually By the way, I don't, I don't have any tattoos in case Yet. I don't.
[00:43:14] Jonah Platt: Um, this is a good segue to my next question. How do you balance which laws and rituals should continue to be upheld in 2024 and what can we leave to history?
[00:43:25] Rabbi David Wolpe: I think that there are certain Jewish laws that we ought to recognize no, just no longer apply. I, I mean, I think it would be wonderful to have a third temple.
[00:43:34] Rabbi David Wolpe: I do not want to sacrifice animals there, especially as a vegetarian. So I think that the way you do this is organically in community. That is, you create communities that value this or that or the other, and that's why it's really good that Jews don't have a hierarchy. Because there isn't a Pope Jew who can say, this is a law that you cannot change.
[00:43:56] Rabbi David Wolpe: Instead, there are different kinds of communities of Jews, and [00:44:00] I think increasingly that will be true. As mainstream institutions speak less to younger people, and I think they do, and younger people will create their own kinds of institutions that speak more to them. Right. And, and that's just the way it'll be.
[00:44:16] Rabbi David Wolpe: Based on their
[00:44:16] Jonah Platt: own values and priorities. What's your perspective on the role of Israel in Jewish identity?
[00:44:22] Rabbi David Wolpe: I think that people who don't think it's central don't realize how central it would be if they didn't have it. Like a lot of things, you don't know how, um, how much modern Jewish identity is buttressed by the reality that we have a state, um, and if it were, God forbid, a thousand times if it were gone, it would be an incomparable loss to everyone's sense of Jewish identity, even those people who think they don't want it to be there.
[00:44:52] Rabbi David Wolpe: I really believe that.
[00:44:54] Jonah Platt: What do you say to the Jew who identifies as Jewish strongly and thinks Israel [00:45:00] should not exist?
[00:45:01] Rabbi David Wolpe: I actually don't start the conversation by saying anything. Right. I start the conversation by asking them why and asking them to tell me more and trying to understand how they could come to that conclusion.
[00:45:11] Rabbi David Wolpe: Weirdly, anomalous position of believing in a tradition whose sacred scripture is all about getting to the land, whose prayers constantly mentioned being in the land, whose holidays talk about living in the land next year and say that I'm actually part of this tradition, but I don't think the land piece is part of it.
[00:45:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, and so I guess once I understand that, I know better how to figure out how they could hold those positions at the same time. Because the truth is that, that from my point of view, they either deeply misunderstand Judaism or deeply misunderstand Israel.
[00:45:52] Jonah Platt: Does it, you know, diminish their Standing as a Jew in some way or is it, you know, I'm
[00:45:58] Rabbi David Wolpe: not, I [00:46:00] don't, I don't give out the cards, you know, about who gets into heaven, where you're standing as a Jew.
[00:46:05] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, I think that it makes it very difficult for the mainstream Jewish community to to embrace them because here we are in a real existential struggle for the life of six or seven million of our brethren, the majority of the Jews in the world. And, and here's somebody who claims to stand with us, who does not at all stand with us.
[00:46:27] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. So in that sense, I think it's hard for the community, um, to say, we don't judge you in any way.
[00:46:35] Jonah Platt: Right. So this episode is going to air during a period of the Jewish calendar called the Days of Awe. What are the Days of Awe?
[00:46:44] Rabbi David Wolpe: They're the days in which self examination of yourself and your deeds and your relationship to God are paramount.
[00:46:50] Rabbi David Wolpe: And what you're looking forI'll go back to your, um, to your Torah portion. Um, Ibecause I thought of this when you said it. It's like, [00:47:00] when Jacob's wrestling with the angel, and then the dawn is breaking, and he says to the angel, Bless me. What the angel says is, What's your name? And he says, Jacob. because the last time he was asked his name, he lied about it.
[00:47:13] Rabbi David Wolpe: He said, I'm Esau. Um, so the angel wants to know that he's really going to fess up to who he is. And then he says, your name is no longer Jacob. Now it's Israel. And I thought about that a lot because In my life as a rabbi, people often ask me for blessings, and what do they want? They want, like, health, success, children.
[00:47:32] Rabbi David Wolpe: Comfort from the rabbi. If I ever said to someone, here's a blessing, your name is no longer Jonah, it's Fred, they would say, that's not a blessing. Um, but the idea, of course, is what the angel's blessing him with is self transcendence. That in the next year, you don't have to be the same person that you were last year.
[00:47:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: You can be better.
[00:47:49] Jonah Platt: It feels significant to me that the first anniversary of October 7th is falling during these days of awe. What do you make of that?
[00:47:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: I think that the same thing is true for the Jewish [00:48:00] people and for the world, that we have to really take a hard look at what we did wrong and what we did right in this year.
[00:48:07] Rabbi David Wolpe: And even as we remember that There was a tremendous loss of innocent life and there are hostages still in Gaza, and it's been an incredibly painful year on so many fronts, um, As human beings and, and as Jews and as, uh, citizens of the world, I think we could all do better. Always. Yeah.
[00:48:30] Jonah Platt: How, if at all, has your connection to being Jewish changed since October 7th?
[00:48:36] Rabbi David Wolpe: I think that I have gotten a little bit more binary because I really feel the peril of in a way that I didn't before because of the explosion of anti semitism and hostility towards Israel. I have, I think, less bandwidth for people who, um, I think don't, um, [00:49:00] don't have some sympathy both for my people and for the land of Israel.
[00:49:05] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, I'm sorry that that's true, but I think that the part of, part of being, uh, part of having principles is also having limits. Um, and boundaries are important to life as well. And I think my boundaries in certain ways have hardened.
[00:49:21] Jonah Platt: Makes sense. As I mentioned, uh, this coming weekend after this airs is Yom Kippur, where we repent for our sins so that they can be wiped out and will be inscribed in the book of life.
[00:49:33] Jonah Platt: Do you really believe that we can control our own destiny in such a linear way?
[00:49:38] Rabbi David Wolpe: No, but I do believe what the Unatana Tok'ev says, which is the prayer where it says, you know, who shall live and who shall die and who by this and who by that and so on. And then it says, But, um, tfilah, tshuvah, and tzedakah, prayer, repentance, and charity, can avert the severity of the decree.
[00:49:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: The decree is death. Everybody's going to die. [00:50:00] The legacy you leave, how you die, that actually is in your hands. And I think that that's more the lesson of Yom Kippur than, you're not going to get inscribed in the book of life every year, sooner or later you won't. Right. But how you get inscribed in the book of memory, that's really up to you.
[00:50:20] Rabbi David Wolpe: And I know, having done now many, many funerals. that how you get inscribed in the book of memory has to do with how the people who are close to you have experienced you in life.
[00:50:33] Jonah Platt: That's a great thought to take into a holiday. Okay, tell me the truth. Yeah. Do you drink water on Yom Kippur? Because you stand up there and talk for a lot of hours.
[00:50:42] Rabbi David Wolpe: I don't drink water.
[00:50:43] Jonah Platt: That's very impressive. It's actually not bad. I mean, you're, you're talking and talking all day long. It's
[00:50:47] Rabbi David Wolpe: much easier to be a rabbi on Yom Kippur than to be a congregant.
[00:50:51] Jonah Platt: Because you're in, you're in the flow, you're in the zone.
[00:50:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: Because I have something to do. Yeah. I've always got something to do.
[00:50:56] Rabbi David Wolpe: I don't have that much time to think about it. The people who amaze me are not the [00:51:00] rabbis, because I can keep quiet for a while. The cantors. The cantors. I don't know, I don't ask, but I can't imagine.
[00:51:13] Rabbi David Wolpe: Yeah,
[00:51:13] Jonah Platt: we've been talking for an hour. I drank a whole glass of water. It's crazy. But you
[00:51:18] Rabbi David Wolpe: really do. But when you're a congregant, I don't know how congregants fast
[00:51:22] Jonah Platt: you sleep in as late as possible. You got to give yourself a headstart. All right, so now we're going to do a little segment where we take questions from our Instagram audience, and they've left Got some questions for you.
[00:51:34] Jonah Platt: Sure. Actually, this first question is not from Instagram. It's from my story producer, Sean, but I really liked it. So we included it. If you could invite any historical figure to Shabbat dinner, who would it be and what do you think they'd find most surprising about modern Jewish life?
[00:51:48] Rabbi David Wolpe: King David. Because I wrote a book about him and because he fascinates me, I gotta say.
[00:51:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: And I think he would find the most I think what he would probably find most remarkable [00:52:00] is, um, that we still invoke him like thousands of years later. Yeah. I think about that a lot with
[00:52:07] Jonah Platt: people like Mozart. Yeah. We're talking like 3,
[00:52:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: 000 years later. Really? I'm still like on the books. Pretty cool. That is pretty amazing.
[00:52:14] Rabbi David Wolpe: Right. Cause he was honestly was a king and like a little part of a little, you know, in the world and like all these people that he fought with, they're gone and we still talk about him. So yeah. Wow.
[00:52:24] Jonah Platt: Oren G18, shout out to my camp buddy Oren. Uh, he asks, who is Rabbi Wolpe's rabbi?
[00:52:31] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, I mean, for many, many years it was my father.
[00:52:35] Rabbi David Wolpe: Uh, now I don't so much have a rabbi as I have good friends that I talk to. So,
[00:52:40] Jonah Platt: yeah. That provide you wisdom and counsel.
[00:52:43] Rabbi David Wolpe: Exactly. Yep.
[00:52:44] Jonah Platt: Another camp buddy, shout out at Rube T. He has a few questions. First, he asks, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
[00:52:52] Rabbi David Wolpe: When I was going off to rabbinical school, my father said to me, When you get there, there's going to be something called the [00:53:00] development department.
[00:53:01] Rabbi David Wolpe: He said, they're the people that raise money, right? They I'm sure have students go out and speak for the school, go to the development department and tell them, you probably have students speak for the school. I'd like to be that student. He said, you will get experience speaking to 10 people and to a thousand people.
[00:53:17] Rabbi David Wolpe: You'll get to know the entire community. You'll get to know the people who raise money and the people who have money, the people who support Jewish institutions. And in fact, it's exactly what I did. And now every time I talk to college students, I tell them to do the same thing. Say, if you want a career where you're going to be in front of other people, Go to the development department of your college and say, I would like to represent the college.
[00:53:40] Rabbi David Wolpe: And it was great advice.
[00:53:42] Jonah Platt: Wow. Yeah. You got vocational training. Second question from Ruben. How do you get Jewish kids not to spoil Santa Claus for their non Jewish friends?
[00:53:53] Rabbi David Wolpe: This is a question to which I have given no thought. Yeah,
[00:53:56] Jonah Platt: right. We got you on the spot on this one.
[00:53:57] Rabbi David Wolpe: Exactly. Uh, [00:54:00] I mean, I, I would say it's, the only way to do it is to tell them don't spoil Santa Claus for your non Jewish friends.
[00:54:07] Rabbi David Wolpe: Don't be a spoil sport. Yeah, exactly. It's like, do you know that Mel Brooks routine about tearing paper?
[00:54:11] Jonah Platt: No.
[00:54:12] Rabbi David Wolpe: Oh, so Mel Brooks has this routine about it. He said he went to a psychiatrist because he was compulsively tearing paper. He said, and he cured me. He said, so Carl Reiner says, what do you do? He said, tear it.
[00:54:20] Rabbi David Wolpe: Don't tear paper. So the same thing, like, don't spoil Santa. Just don't do it.
[00:54:24] Jonah Platt: Love it.
[00:54:24] Rabbi David Wolpe: Yeah.
[00:54:25] Jonah Platt: And Ruben's last question. Was Jonah a good altar boy?
[00:54:29] Rabbi David Wolpe: Um, Jonah was a really wonderful, I mean, look, I will tell the story. Um, Jonah is the only person I think. in my congregation who at age, what was it? 15, 14? Younger, I feel like.
[00:54:47] Rabbi David Wolpe: Was it younger? 13? Around
[00:54:48] Jonah Platt: Bar Mitzvah age, right? We
[00:54:49] Rabbi David Wolpe: walked around the block and talked like about Jewish philosophy and Jewish ideas and Jewish belief because you really had questions. And that was, so you weren't an [00:55:00] altar boy, but you were a great, Thank you, I appreciate that.
[00:55:06] Jonah Platt: I feel like we gotta end it there.
[00:55:07] Jonah Platt: That's right. It's, you know, I'm gonna go out on a high note.
[00:55:09] Rabbi David Wolpe: Exactly.
[00:55:10] Jonah Platt: Thank you so much for being here. It's been a great pleasure. I mean, this has been so enlightening on so many levels. It's like
[00:55:15] Rabbi David Wolpe: walking around the block again. There you
[00:55:16] Jonah Platt: go, I love it. Thank you to everyone who makes Being Jewish with Jonah Platt possible.
[00:55:23] Jonah Platt: Executive producer Matthew Jones, story producer Sean Levy Ishvili, and editor Patrick Edwards of Rainbow Creative. Consulting producers Bethany Mandel and Ariella Novek of Shield Communications, social media manager Yuval Yosha, graphic designer Noah Bell of Bellboy Creative, My incredible research assistant, Samantha Greenwald, everyone at Aura House Studios, the whole team at Jewish Broadcasting Service, composer Gabe Mann, and of course you, dear listeners, who even stuck around to listen to all these credits.
