CONNECT
LISTEN TO AUDIO PODCAST

Rabbi Dalia Marx on Grief, Prayer and Jewish Responsibility

Dr. Dalia Marx—one of the most respected voices in contemporary Jewish thought and liturgy. We talk about how October 7 and the war since have brought profound and rapid changes to the world of Jewish prayer: the language, the focus, even the urgency. Rabbi Marx also shares her reflections on the Jewish responsibility to bring our hostages home, and the prayers—old and new—that have sustained her through these past eighteen months.

It’s a moving, grounded, and deeply thoughtful conversation with someone who has dedicated her life to holding the sacred and the human, side by side.

  • 0:18 Intro And that's really the magic of it all, because when you when you say something again and again, for example, I lead services in the synagogue that I attend, I don't think it ever happened to me that I didn't see something I haven't seen before. In a way, the text is what it is, the traditional text, but the way you address it, the way you experience it is new. 0:37 And I think the most prominent example that I have is since October 7th. I see every time it speaks about Matira suing God who frees the captive, or literally God who unbound the bound ones. It appears in the liturgy again and again and again. Only Saturday morning, Shabbat morning, we have it 6 times. 0:55 I never notice it. And all of a sudden, because of the situation, it sticks out to me. It becomes very conspicuous. 1:13 Speaker 3 Welcome to RAW Podcast, where we confront the complexities of war from the inside out. I'm Manukh, a journalist, author, yoga teacher, and meditation practitioner. RAW, or War Spelled Backwards, symbolizes how many of us feel in the face of the Israel Gaza conflict, exposed, vulnerable, and seeking understanding. 1:37 Here, we don't just discuss the external battles, but dive deep into our internal struggles, examining how this violence has shaken our very core. Join me in conversations with philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual leaders as we explore how to navigate these painful times with wisdom and resilience, finding guidance for our own paths through this raw, unfiltered world. 2:08 Today on RAW, I speak with Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx, one of the most respected voices in contemporary Jewish thought and liturgy. We talk about how October 7th and the war since have brought profound and rapid changes to the world of Jewish prayer, the language, the focus, even the urgency. 2:28 Rabbi Marx also shares her reflections on the Jewish responsibility to bring our hostages home and the prayers, old and new, that have sustained her through these past 18 months. It's a moving, grounded, and deeply thoughtful conversation with someone who has dedicated her life to holding the sacred and the human, side by side. 2:51 Rabbi Marx is the Rabbi Aaron D Penkin professor of liturgy and midrash at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. She's the first woman in Israel to hold a professorship in liturgy and is a trailblazer in both academic and spiritual circles. 3:09 Her work bridges scholarship and lived practice, and she's the author of several books, including When I Sleep and When I Wake on Prayers Between Dusk and Dawn. She's also a contributor to the New Israeli Reformed Prayer Book and a leading voice in shaping how prayer responds to collective trauma, grief, and hope. 3:35 Dahlia, welcome. 3:37 Speaker 1 How are you? How are you feeling? 3:39 Speaker 2 I'm happy to be with you. I think it's important and also interesting to consider the situation we're in from from more spiritual or liturgical or ritual perspective. 3:51 Speaker 1 As I was walking on my way here, I asked myself, you know what, what was kind of like my original intention when I, when I, when I started this podcast, the kind of guests that I have on this show. And one of the types of people that I invite are more spiritual people and rabbis. 4:09 And I asked myself, why did I turn to rabbis? Because I myself am not religious. I'm Jewish and I grew up in a, you know, Jewish school and everything, but I left all that a long time ago. And yet I think that since the beginning of the war, I realized there is an importance to the spiritual part of us to kind of to hear the spiritual perspective of what's happening. 4:41 And even for those of us who who might not, you know, have a certain religiosity or I just think there's so much beauty in stories and so much beauty in depth. 4:56 And that's what, right? That's what religion is. 4:59 Speaker 2 I, I think it's, it's about religion, but I think it's, it's about religion in a very Broadway, not necessarily Jewish religion or Jewish traditions or the way Judaism in manifested in the public sphere in Israel, which normally has relatively very specific shades. 5:17 I think people are spiritual, people yearn for for answers. People seek the transcendent, people seek holiness in their lives. And different people do it in different ways. And I think Jews tend to do it Jewishly, not necessarily in a religious way, but in a Jewish way, to use the Jewish language to draw from the wells of wisdom and knowledge and experience that we have as Jews and, and manifest it in liturgy. 5:47 And I think this is very, very clearly manifest in the in the last almost year and a half that Jews turn to our sources sometimes to draw wisdom, sometimes to draw consolation and comfort, sometimes in a very defiant way. 6:04 So that many, many responses, especially in this war, I think it's unprecedented in our tradition. If I look in the previous wars that we unfortunately had in this country, you would have sometimes prayers composed by the military chief rabbi or the chief rabbis of Israel or, you know, general things here. 6:24 It seemed that for a moment everyone was seeking for this kind of response. People were composing prayers, People were looking for prayers and with a very easy way to transmit things and to pass things along through social media and through WhatsApp, things travelled very fast and everyone maybe took a, a certain text and added some. 6:48 You, you see that the lifespan of different texts that evolved in a very, very beautiful way. And, and what you said about yourself not being religious, I tend to say, I don't know if you would agree with me that just as we say about human beings, that we are Homo sapiens, I sometimes think about ourselves as homo orantis, the, the praying individual, right? 7:11 That this is something that is in a way in, in, in our DNA. Now, I realize that not everyone is like that. Some people don't have the need, but many people do have a need to have this moment of, of pray, moment of, of seeking response or seeking meaning in ways that are not very visible to our worlds. 7:33 And, and one of the great examples in the Israeli context is the kibbutz movement that from the beginning was what you would call socially as from sociological point of view, very secular, even atheist. But some of the most interesting and creative and thought provoking and moving, I would say liturgical creativity took place in the kibbutzim. 7:59 And I think in this context that we are in, and that's what we are here to talk about, it is manifested in a very beautiful and profound way, in a very multifaceted way in different segments within the Israeli society. 8:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, I think 2 words that stand out for me from what you said are the words meaning and transcendence. They have a less kind of like religious dogmatic connotation. But I think that as we know in our Western society especially, we live in a very individualistic society and it's fine as long as everything's going great. 8:33 But I think that when a seismic, you know, catastrophic event happens that is bigger than you, it is bigger than any individual, it is bigger than even like, you know, nationalities. It is, you know, transnational. It becomes transcendental and then we automatically, and that was my response, also look for something, you know, it's like looking for the bigger, looking for the elder, looking for the wiser. 8:59 What does this mean? And how can I be with this moment? Because none of us, I think, could be with this moment in an individual way. 9:08 Speaker 2 Right. What comes from your last words is the need for community, even if you live in a very individualistic society. I come from Jerusalem, which is a somewhat different world. That's where I was born and grew up. I'm a 10th generation Jerusalemite. 9:24 But I do, I do agree that we tend to live in a more segmented, individualistic society. But when something like this happens, you, you need other people to connect with and other people to mourn with and other people to consider what happened and to give meaning, to ascribe meaning to what happened, to give some structure to what happens. 9:46 It's very difficult to do it on your own. And that's why people looked for each other. And in a way, prayers and rituals were part of that. You see it in a very manifested way before the every week, before the demonstrations, both in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and other places, we have a havdala service led by the Reform movement and people come. 10:09 You know, not all the people who come are Reformed Jews. You know, in Tel Aviv you have hundreds and hundreds of people every Shabbat evening, if I understand correctly. But people need it. People need to sync together. People need to listen to words of wisdom, not just, you know, the words of the demonstrations demanding from the government and all this. 10:26 This is important, but people also look for a different language. We have Kabbalah Shabbat services in Jerusalem, in the hostages compound in Balfour St. We have many manifestations of words of prayer. 10:41 I call them prayer. Maybe some other people will give them different names and that's also cool, but but ways to look at the situation beyond the immediate military situation, political situation to go to go to this place beyond and prayers, that's what they offer us. 10:59 Speaker 1 So I want to take you through kind of two different parallel phenomena that kind of happened to me and tell me what you think about it. 11:09 Parallel Phenomena So I think I had, on the one hand, something that many people like me went through when October 7th happened afterwards, the kind of trauma of the silence from the world, you know, the parading of the paragliders on, you know, campuses in the United States. Kind of like a deep, deep trauma and a attack on my Judaism as someone who really was living in Israel with Jewish, 3 Jewish children, but more like as a global citizen. 11:37 And I think that what that kind of like in a way that dehumanization of my Judaism did is that it actually made me embody it for the first time in a long time, right? At some point, it's like something arose in me. I am Jewish and I am proud and, and I think what happened next is I was looking like many people for something spiritual, like both for community and, you know, and I found that community and the moms that I go to coffee with every Monday. 12:09 And we used to talk about diapers and, and suddenly we started talking about politics and demonstrations and hostages and, you know, different kind of like battles. So I really, I had my community, but where I found that spirituality, which is really something that I deeply needed is in my meditation studies. 12:31 So the last two years I've been studying to become a meditation teacher with some of the wisest and most extraordinary humans on this earth. And there are many, many, but some of them. And that really has accompanied me through the last 1 1/2 years of war. 12:46 Words of wisdom, words of kindness, of humanity, of of integrity, of resilience, of beauty, of transcendence. 12:54 Speaker 2 But also anger and resilience. Yes, resentment. And, of course, defiance. 12:59 Speaker 1 Yes, I assume. And of course, yes, because in meditation it's about being with whatever is here. So when I felt rage, when I felt shame, when I felt guilt, I felt the whole spectrum of emotion. It was about being with it and really leaning on the wisdom of elders. And sometimes I kind of wish, I wish that that wisdom had come from a place that is more, you know, from my tribe. 13:24 And I don't know if it's by virtue of where I live in Tel Aviv, but I just, I didn't find it. So first of all, do you think there is something special, different about a Jewish spirituality accompanying, you know, us through this time? 13:41 The Importance of Spirituality in the Terrorist Era And, and why do you think that for so many people, it's still missing? They they don't find their place. 13:47 Speaker 2 Yes, I think it goes beyond the Israeli society I was in. I was in New York in October 7th and I, I, you know, the, the events were unfolding to me when I was there. And again, a big trauma. My son used to study at that time at NYU. 14:02 That's Ground Zero of all the tents and the, you know, and he felt it in a very, very painful way that friends of him go to this demonstration of from the river to the sea. In the beginning, he tried to to speak with people and to show the larger context, but he gave up. 14:20 And also his teachers, his professors were part of, you know, high fiving these peoples in the tents. That was very, very painful. I think in in a way what it showed us that our language is not just Israeli, it's it's global Jewish. You see it in many Jewish communities, the abroad. 14:38 I, I, I just returned from Chicago and Berlin and you see that Jews seek out each other in in a more meaningful way than before. Many rabbis report surge of people who want to convert to become Jews, people who want to join Jewish congregations to sign their children to Jewish day school. 15:01 That's, that's something that like what you say, you know, people look for their tribe. People sort of circle in if we thought, if if they say we thought we were Americans and as Americans we are Jews. Now the Jewish partake precedence over that. 15:19 So I would say it to your question, I think spirituality is something that has to do with our human condition. It's not about one people or one religion or 1 geographical place. But I think what is unique for us as Jews is that we have the Jewish language, we have the wealth of sources that we use to draw from. 15:41 We have the Torah, we have the Bible, we have the Mishnah, we have the rabbinic literature, we have the Hasidism, we have the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. We have Jewish poetry. I think Jewish poetry, Israeli Jewish poetry is a very, very meaningful source. You may not call it religious, but I think it's religious. 15:59 When Hana Senesh who was killed was murdered exactly 8 years ago in November and she wrote a Elisha Loiga, Merle Olam Hajol Vayam, Rishu Shalamain Baraka Shamain Filata Adam when she writes My God oh. 16:19 Speaker 1 That's the song I used to sing. 16:20 Speaker 2 Right, yes, yes. I pray that these things never end. Right? And then she ends. May the prayer of the human heart, the human being never sees. I see it as a prayer, right. We think about Hannah Senesh as a as a warrior, as a parachute, a person who was sent to save her Jewish brothers and sisters in Hungaria. 16:43 We think of her also as a poet. But think about it, in those days, people used to write big national songs. And she writes this very personal song. She was walking in Caesarea on the on the shore, on the beach and she's she sees God's revelation in the world. 16:59 Now she described it in Jewish language, in the Hebrew language that in and of itself I think has element of sacred. The Hebrew language is I think has holiness within it. It's embedded in it. So I think in, in every time we, we look for for this kind of literature, we use the Jewish inner language that we have. 17:22 Now you describe something else. You describe some sort of tell me if I'm describing it well, it's some sort of being an orphan in a way that you are in a way deprived from that language. It's, it's not something that you own. 17:37 That has to do in many ways with our, with the way we are educated here in the, in, in the schools, both the Orthodox and the non Orthodox. In a way we are deprived from this language and we have to acquire it. I was born and raised in a secular family. 17:54 I, I, I got to religion and to become a rabbi many years later, and I had to acquire this language. And when you acquire it as an adult, it's a little bit different than really being a child and just, you know, absorbing it in a more natural way, Right. 18:11 So in a way, what you have to do maybe if if it is something that is on your plate and what I had to do is, is actively seek for that language. It's not something that is provided to us. Yeah. But I think this is something that a lot of Israelis do. 18:27 And and and in the last since October 7th, this is something that you see across the board. People don't want to buy ready made versions of Judaism, right? There are those who know what to do and let go to these people and they'll tell us what to do. There are many people who do that too. 18:43 But searching within me, what is really the kind of response that I need? How do I want to address the issues that are so scary and sad and tragic and even the hope that I have and do it Jewishly, right? 19:02 So this is an effort you have to do. It's not something that is served to you. 19:06 Speaker 1 Well, you just inspired me to. 19:10 The Story of the Girl in My School I hadn't thought in a long time about this, this story from my childhood where I, I told you I was in a Jewish school in Antwerp, Belgium. And it was like in Israel, it would be considered muscle tea, but it really wasn't, you know, like in here, it would be considered religious, but it wasn't. 19:28 And at some point, I don't remember in which grade, the girls were allowed to study Mishna and the boys were allowed to study Tarmoud. Oh, yeah, Yeah. And being who I am, I I didn't care about Talmud, but I it outraged me so. 19:44 Speaker 2 You didn't want to be excluded. 19:47 Speaker 1 Yes, so I rode to 1 rabbi and I rode to another rabbi and ended up going to the big rabbi of Belgium who checked with the authorities in Israel and gave the permission for the girl in my school to study Talmud. So then of course, I had to go study Talmud after they gave me that permission. 20:06 And of course, I was the only girl who chose to be in the club. Yeah, that's that's one anecdote. And perhaps you're right that that's what I have to do again today is search myself and not wait for this kind of like enlightened, poetic rabbi to just land in my living room and then? 20:26 Speaker 2 Then I think there are many people who do expect that and then some of the people who are, who are willing to provide that provide a kind of Judaism that may not resonate with who you are, right. It's a very much segregated Jews and non Jews, men and women, you know, gender denominations. 20:46 I think if if I get you right, that you are interested in something that is more open and holistic and pluralist and, and even progressive. Maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm reading, you know? 20:58 Speaker 3 If you tell me if I if. 21:00 Speaker 2 I get it right, but but it seems to me that a lot of people don't want to be told that's Judaism. That's how you have to observe it. These are the prayers. This is the what it means to keep kosher. This is what it means to keep Shabbat. 21:16 We want to have our agency here. We want to have our choice and do and do things according to how we believe. In a way, that's how Judaism always progressed, right? We used to be a people who worshipped God not exclusively, but primarily through sacrificing and offering animals. 21:38 Judaism was able to translate itself to the next level, to the next realm, to the post temple, a reality. And it's not only that we survived, we thrived. Judaism as we know it today is not Judaism that was known at all to Jews during the Temple time, First Temple and also Second Temple time. 22:01 So I think we have this amazing life force within us that allows us to, to translate ourselves and to adapt. That's what kept Judaism alive through all these ages and through all these trials and tribulations that we went through, right? We, we were not one thing. 22:16 We were always evolving and Jews were different. If you open different prayer books, and I'm talking about traditional, what you would make called Orthodox. If you open as a Yemenite, Tidor the Ticlal, If you open a Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Kabbalah influence, they're not the same. 22:32 They're very similar, but they're not the same. Every community poured into it. It's hopes and yearnings and fears and and experience in a way our to fill out our prayers. Some scholars call it the Live Diary of the Jewish People. 22:50 So what would be the next chapter? Yeah, that's what I'm asking myself. 22:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, I want to first take a few step backs and I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about you. 23:02 The Journey to Becoming a Rabbi You have a family history, your 10th generation Jerusalemite on one side and 1st generation on the other. 23:10 Speaker 2 That's what we'll call it, Jerusalem mix. 23:14 Speaker 1 It's a dish. It's a dish. Yeah. OK. OK. So tell us a bit about, you know, about you, your story and how did you come to be a rabbi? I see you brought a sea duel here, a Jewish prayer book into into the studio. 23:29 What? What is the arc of that journey? 23:33 Speaker 2 All right, so I was born in a very typical Israeli family. We used to light Shabbat candles and do kidosh every Friday night and maybe go during High holidays to the synagogue, but not not much beyond that. And around my bat mitzvah here, I did not have a proper bat mitzvah. 23:50 I did not read from the Torah. But you know, we had a party. I realized that I was Jewish. And of course when I'm saying this is this is ridiculous. I was, I grew and was raised in Israel, in Jerusalem. We celebrated the Hagim and all that, but for the first time it, it, it resonated to me that it requires something of me that I have to learn that I have to deal with it. 24:10 And that led me to, to the Reform movement where because I really could not understand really, it wasn't an ideological thing. It was a very primary understanding that I cannot sit behind a mishita, right behind a partition in the synagogue where men lead the services and men read from the Torah and they are called for, for the Tori. 24:33 And women just sit basically passively behind the partition, right? And I think one of the really defining experience was when I went to the synagogue and there were so many women there, educated, you know, some of them were university professors. 24:50 And we didn't start the service. And I said, what's going on? Why don't we start the service? It was supposed to start 10 minutes ago. And someone said, we don't have a minion. We don't have a quorum of 10 adult Jewish men, right? And then a little, excuse my word, the Pischer, you know, a kid who just that is bar mitzvah entered the room and all all of a sudden we have a minion. 25:11 So I realized that that cannot be my Jewishness. That cannot be my Judaism. But I really try to think very seriously what it mean to be to be a Jew. How do I deal with religiosity in a profound and serious way? 25:28 And I don't think that being a serious Jew has to do with your denomination. It has to do with your search. And of course, we normally when we think about religiosity, we think about sociological language, right? How people dress, where people send their children to study, what kind of. 25:45 Speaker 1 Black keeper. Yeah. What do they wear? 25:48 Speaker 2 Exactly. And I live in Jerusalem, so it's much more, you know, what kind of black keeper and how exactly you wear it and what kind of head cover women have and how all these very, very specific questions that are not about really, I understand not about really your religiosity, how you believe in God, how you manifest your humanity through religion. 26:09 It's more about the sociological division and and that did not interest me very much. So that's basically my my journey. And how do I get to Fila? I think Fila prayer, Jewish prayer is really the main language through which Jews experienced themselves throughout the generations. 26:28 The Language of Prayer So before the printing press, where books were very precious and expensive, people didn't have shelves and shelves of books. If you had a book, it was probably not Maimonides or Kabbalah or even not the Talmud or the Mishnah, even maybe not the Bible. 26:45 It would be a prayer book that moved from a generation to generation. And that's what really attracted me to this, to this, right? Because this is really how we, that was, that's, that's the language Jews use to meant to experience themselves. 27:01 So to explain themselves, if a traditional Jew prays three times a day, I try to pray three times a day. It doesn't always work, but I really try that. The language of prayer, and here I'm talking about the statutory prayer, becomes the way you envision the world. 27:16 That's that's the way you see the world. And that's what led me to both deal with liturgy in a scholarly way, but also in a religious way. And that's why this sidor that you're seeing here, Filata Adam, the Prayer of the human being, is a prayer book. 27:33 That's a prayer book of the Reform movement that I was fortunate enough to edit it with my colleague, Rabbi Alana Lisita a few years ago. It came out during Kovid and and we were very mindful of the fact that if you say something and you repeat it again and again and again, it becomes part of your inner structure, inner language. 27:52 And if you use hate language, that's not a good thing, right? If you if you talk about the non Jews as those who worship it vain and nothingness, that's how you would treat the other people. And I don't think that's the the language that we want to address our, you know, they want to create the world, right? 28:14 We want to use positive language. So these are some of the changes that we made in this prayer book that to, to bring it more to both to be very Israeli, we added a lot of Israeli poems that we consider prayers like the one that I just mentioned to you from Khanna Senesh. 28:35 But other two, we wanted to bring traditions from the East, from the West, from different ethnic groups within Judaism and from different times. So that that's the product that we have here. 28:47 Speaker 1 I, I, I was thinking about something that my yoga teacher used to say to come back to that kind of like more Eastern spirituality. 28:54 The Power of Words But she she she did love bringing in Hebrew words and she used to say abracadabra, you know, which is like magic creating magic is Evare Adaber. I will create as I speak. 29:10 And it reminded me of what you said of while you're, as you're praying three times a day, the kind of the words that you say become your reality. What she meant to say is we should be mindful of how we speak in the words we use because it becomes our inner and outer reality, the way we view the world ourselves. 29:31 And Yeah. 29:32 Speaker 2 I think it's interesting when you compare it to more Eastern cultures. You know, my son just came back from India and, and Thailand, so we talk about it a lot. I think in, in, in, in, in Eastern traditions, it's more about chanting and meditating. And Jewish language is very, it's very verbal. 29:51 Like you, really. You talk a lot, you utter you it's. 29:55 Speaker 1 Not surprising you. 29:56 Speaker 2 Talk a lot. It's a lot of words, right? So it's very, it's a very worthy type of liturgy. But actually what what happens in a way is similar to what you would describe, something that goes beyond the words. 30:11 Speaker 1 Because you repeat it again, it's almost like a mantra. It's almost like a meditation. Because I remember all the ones who I was always jealous of the, the, the Jews who remembered the words of all the Tefila. I, I don't know a single Tefila by heart. And it's, it's almost like a, at some point it's repetitive. 30:27 It's kind of like it's meditation. It's just being with the words, being with the present. I guess it can go several ways. Some people might say it and think about their, you know, matzo ball soup on the stove. And some people might say it and actually, you know, feel the words. 30:43 Speaker 2 No, but that's really the magic of it all, because when you when you say something again and again and again. And I, for example, I lead services in the synagogue that I attend every Shabbat morning. It's the first part of the liturgy. It's called tsuke de Zimba, verses of him. The only reason I do it is that it's the only way I make sure we, we begin on time. 31:03 And you read the same words again because this is a more traditional synagogue. It's, you know, it's the same text. I don't think it ever happened to me that I didn't see something I haven't seen before. You know, a combination of words, something about the sound, something about a metaphor, something about an image, something I'm connecting to places within the liturgy that I didn't see the connection before. 31:23 This is always in a way, the text is what it is, the traditional text, but the way you address it, the way you experience it is new. And I think the most prominent example that I have is since October 7th. I, I, I see every time it speaks about Matira suing God who frees the captive, or literally God who unbound the bound ones. 31:46 It appears in the liturgy again and again and again. Only Saturday morning, Shabbat morning, we have it 6 times. I never, I never noticed it. And all of a sudden because of the situation, it sticks out to me. It becomes very conspicuous. 32:01 Speaker 1 So I think that's a good segue into talking about prayer, religiosity, liturgy since October 7th. 32:09 How did the events of October 7th affect your Judaism? And if you will, I would be happy if you wanted to share, you know, on that day and after what kind of happened to you? Did you have any kind of like internal crisis in your Judaism? Did did it bring up any of that or did it actually strengthen, reinforce and and change in some way? 32:29 And then, you know, how did this Judaism sustain you? 32:33 Speaker 2 Right. I I think I did experience it very much as a Jew. That was the lens that I experienced it. It also human, but but mostly Jewish in a way, these horrific events sort of was coming truth of something that we thought is something we we talk about in past tense. 32:57 When we talk about pogroms, we talk about the Holocaust. We talk about prosecuting Jews because they are Jews in such a horrific way. We thought that we are in a different place. You know, since I was a little child. It's not only the things that I heard at home in kindergarten, elementary school, it's really the way everything was, was saying to us. 33:22 We are in a different place. We are in the state of Israel. Things like this cannot happen. It belongs to the past. We learn about these things, we think about these things, but we we when we will never leave them again. This is something that is not part of our reality. 33:38 So of course there were wars and there were many horrific terrorist attacks throughout the years, but something like this was really unprecedented. So in a way, this was very dark and and tragic way of fulfilling the Jewish fate again, in a way that we we thought we're not there anymore, right? 34:02 So I think that was part of the shock that a lot of people felt and I felt personally. 34:10 Speaker 1 If you're enjoying this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to RAW on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a review and share it with someone who might find it meaningful. You can also explore more about the show and subscribe to my newsletter at with anuke.com. 34:31 In a way, October 7th, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, made us realize how present this trauma still is. 34:38 The first instinctive things that helped him It just needs the event to awaken it, right? And so a lot of us lived it as if it was not our first time. What are like the first kind of like instinctive things that you turn to and throughout this period, what has kind of helped you personally most? 35:00 Speaker 2 I think community helped a lot, gathering with people and doing things together, singing and I think singing together in the Israeli context is has a liturgical meaning and also praying and also demonstrating in the streets. 35:17 I think part of the trauma here is that this horrific things was caused to us by our enemies who did not distinguish between, you know, soldiers and civilians, between women and men and young and all all these things that we know of. 35:31 Speaker 1 And Arab and Jewish, by the way. 35:33 Speaker 2 Of course, religious gender, nothing was there were no distinctions and and there were no distinctions of of different people and their attitudes toward the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinian. That was very there was a big shock. 35:50 The other thing is that we did not see our leaders taking the responsibility we thought they should take, right? First of all, take personal responsibility and second of all, making sure we stay together. 36:06 And the the kind of things that we see now more in a more overt way. Before it was more, you know, hidden in a way is that causing different segments of the Israeli society to to go to each other through neck and terrible things that families of hostages here. 36:27 I, I sit a lot at the protest tent in front of the camp from the front of the Knesset, in front of our parliament. And the kind of things these people here from fellow Israelis, some of them induced and in a way encouraged by some of our leaders is unbearable, right? 36:51 So we suffered this horrific thing, but now we have the internal division and, and rupture. That's very painful. I remember as a young child the, the Yom Kippur War back in the day, it looked like it's went on forever. 37:06 Now we know it was less than three weeks, but it as a child it felt like really long. And my father was in the war the whole time. But I really felt people come together. There was a sense of unity. There was a sense of really, we're in it together. 37:22 It's very clear who is our enemy and what we should do against it. We kind of don't have it anymore. I mean, the the enemy is, it's clear what the enemy is, but it's not clear what we should do about it and how we come together about it. 37:38 That's that's a very painful thing, you know, and a lot of the wonderful things you see in the Israeli society are bottom up, not top down, because the people were and are amazing, right? The people saved the day. It's not the leaders of this country. 37:55 And the liturgy is part of that, the kind of things that were created by people for the people. If you think about the events that had to do with a year anniversary of the massacre, right there was the national event that I don't know how many people watched. 38:14 It was very it, it was not done live. It was only broadcast on TV and the people were not there. And the and the event that was done by people, for the people in the presence of people, you know, that was much more meaningful to a lot of us, I think. 38:35 Speaker 1 So I want to talk about that question of the hostages and the captives, because you mention it also a lot in the, in the prayer books in our history about, you know, redeeming, freeing the captives. 38:45 Is the freeing of the captives a Jewish duty? Is the freeing of the captives a, a Jewish duty? And if it is, you know, if, if, if, if you believe it's a, it's a moral obligation as a Jew. How do you how do you square that with the fact that a lot of the people who are saying we we need to continue this war, even if it comes at the expense of our captives, are actually religious people? 39:10 I mean, you see, you know, the Smutrich and Bengvir and, you know, people with keep us on their head, but they, they, they believe that that God, you know, would want them to do that. Tell me about first of all, Judaism and captives. 39:26 Is is there a clear answer? 39:29 Speaker 2 It's funny, I was smiling when bitterly smiling when you mentioned some of these names because you know, my children, sometimes when they want to tease me, they say, you know, the worst thing that happened in human history were caused by religion. And they're right. Many of the worst thing that happened to humanity were caused by religion, but some of the most beautiful things were caused by religious people and religiosity. 39:53 So religion in and of itself is not good or bad. It depends what you do it. You can use it to do horrific things. And by the way, the war that was forced upon us was done because of in the name of religion. Exactly, exactly so So religion can be the cause of really bad things and really good things. 40:12 It depends what you do with it, how you mold it. And yes, I I believe that freeing the captive is a Jewish. Obligation in a way I don't even, I don't know if I can even say that it's a moral obligation. I think it has. 40:28 We have no meaning as a Jewish state if we don't take care of our people who are in distress and in unbearable situation for so long, such a long time. And now we know, you know, when we reflect back, we know that a lot of it could be resolved before in the same more or less constellation. 40:48 Constellation, right? So I do think it's a moral obligation, yes. 40:55 Speaker 1 So, you know, you care a lot about our people, about the hostages, and we talked about how October 7th kind of made us turn into our tribe. It kind of made us look at ourselves for salvation, and rightly so. 41:13 You know, in many ways we became very tribal because we needed it. How has your experience been kind of watching the suffering on the other side as a, as a person, as a, you know, as a more global person, as a, as a human, as a, and as a Jew and as a rabbi. 41:30 How Has the Israeli-Palestinian War Impacted You? What has been the internal dialogue for you when you know, we know, some of us watch, some of us refuse to watch the media landscape in Israel. Is is is really terrible at showing the suffering on the other side? 41:42 Speaker 2 You have to go abroad. 41:43 Speaker 1 Censored, Exactly. You have to go abroad, you have to lead, I don't know the New York Times and, and social media. But if if you are exposed to it, and if you are willing to be exposed to it, how have you felt about this? 41:56 Speaker 3 War. 41:58 Speaker 2 I think the first part of the, for the first month of the war, I, I found it honestly speaking hard to feel genuine empathy. I knew it cognitively, intellectually, but I could not recruit the emotion. 42:15 And now, now I realize that there are suffering individuals on the other side. It's individuals that many of them are have nothing to do with what happened. Some of them have a lot to do with WhatsApp. So it took me some time to to recruit this empathy toward people, you know, this human, this basic human understanding of, of suffering, that people should not suffer, people should thrive and should people should be well, people should be OK. 42:46 I, I don't diminish for a moment the guilt of Hamas. I don't expect much from Hamas. I expect a lot from our military, our intelligence, our leaders to make sure that we are safe. 43:02 Speaker 1 I remember again as a child hearing the stories of the Bible and a lot of them were very, very violent. The leaders that we, you know, we were told to admire the the. 43:14 Speaker 2 Joshua. 43:15 Speaker 1 Yes, Joshua, who who in many cases they were war leaders and, and, and decimated a lot of people, et cetera. And so that's always something that, to me, I felt a little bit uncomfortable with and I never got an answer for. Is war OK? 43:32 And does Judaism talk about that at all, about mercy, about compassion? Or is that like more like a Christian thing? 43:40 Speaker 2 I I think Judaism speaks in many, many languages and many, you can find different attitudes to war and some war wars are necessary. But my monitors, for example, he makes a very clear distinction between what he calls Muhammad mitzvah and Muhammad Rashoud. 43:56 Muhammad Rashoud, you know, a war that you elective war as it were, right? If you want to conquer other lands. That was how countries and, and the states used to deal with each other in, in, in antiquity, right in, in, in the Middle Ages. 44:14 You know, you would that's that's one thing. And and there is another thing, which is Muhammad mitzvah and that's that you are obliged you, you have to take care of it because you have to defend yourself. And what we see here is the great amount of people who volunteered to to take part in this defending of, of of of the state and of the country. 44:37 Speaker 1 What are some of the Jewish spiritual leaders who have most inspired you? 44:44 The Importance of Spiritual Leaders Thinkers. Leaders. 44:46 Speaker 2 Or Hadan Ginsburg, who who advocated for what he called spiritual Zionism. So it's not just being in the land and having a Jewish state. It's also what we produce. We should be a center of wisdom, of spirituality, of knowledge of, of doing good in the world. 45:09 That's what he advocated for, right? And I think that's maybe the next phase that we have to approach. It's not just having a state and having a safe borders, which we should. It's also what we do within those walls. The second person that I'm thinking of is a female rabbi. 45:26 She's the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. I'm talking about Regina Ionas from Berlin. She was ordained in 1936 in Nazi Germany. She worked as a rabbi. Not everybody recognized her as such, but there was a great need for spiritual counseling, for community leadership, for teaching, for the for the German Jews. 45:50 Many rabbis left at that point. She was arrested and taken to to Rezenstadt in 1942, and she was murdered with her mother in 1944. And I think of her as a great example. When I went to rabbinic school, we didn't hear the name. 46:08 We know nobody spoke about Regina Yonas as being the first rabbi. Nobody knew about her. So I, I think in a way she was murdered twice. She was murdered by the Nazis and she was murdered by the amnesia, the, the, you know, general amnesia, nobody spoke about it and nobody remembered her. 46:26 Now in Europe, they do have a memory plaques and, and a lot of her memory is being reenacted in a way. And we should also do it here. Women did great things and she in a way was the mother of all of us who want to be leaders within the Jewish people. 46:45 Women rabbis, women cantors. It was at the beginning within the Reform movement and then the Conservative movement. Now, within Orthodoxy, there are 6 rabbinic school who ordained women Orthodox. And that's amazing. By the way, Regina Yonas did not identify as a liberal or progressive Jew. 47:03 She was very traditional, right? She thought that Judaism allows her to be a rabbi. Maybe nobody really asked this question seriously before that. These are the two people that I want to share with you this moment. 47:15 Speaker 1 When you go around in in Israel are, would you say the majority of people are still surprised that you are woman rabbi? Have they, you know, they didn't know that that exists or do they find it weird? Or do you think there's like a growing understanding, you know, a validation for, for that role? 47:35 Speaker 2 I think in many, in many places, it's a very normal thing. It's also a joke. You know of one of my friends, her son who's three years old said, well, men can also be rabbis because all the rabbis he saw are women. Obviously in others, in other parts of the society, it's not so known. 47:53 So if I go on a on AI don't know on a cab, on a taxi and the, and the driver asked me what I do and I answer, he says, what is it unheard of? A woman with a tally. It's a prayer show. It's unheard of, but but then he heard it. So next time it's not unheard of anymore. 48:11 And I think there's a growing understanding that all genders should be respected within Jewish tradition because we are 50%, some say a little bit more than 50% of the Jewish population. Think about all the beautiful voices that we have lost throughout the generations because women were not allowed to teach to who to lead prayers to, to study people. 48:33 Women did not have access to scholarship, right? And especially we are the people of the book. I'm a Sefa, right? It's literacy is such an important thing for the Jewish people. It's so important that we tend to neglect the fact that only men had access to study right? 48:53 And and that was something that was marking the Jewish tradition that people were educated. But when I say people, until not so long ago it was only men and the fact that women today have access to, to study to higher Jewish learning, that's one of the great revolutions of our time. 49:13 We have to be thankful for that. I I tend to think about these things when I'm very depressed because of the situation. 49:21 Speaker 1 Thanks for sharing that. Would you like to share any prayers that you think offer solace or that you would like our listeners, perhaps religious or not, to hear? 49:35 Prayers for the victims Right. I think there's three types of prayers that have to do with the October 7th and the war that followed it. The first type is using text, ancient texts that are already in our use, but doing it in an in a new way. So in many synagogues till this day in in where I pray, we say a special Psalm every day from the death. 49:56 I call you God MI Mama king Katika. It says Psalm 130. In other places they say a different Psalm and we say a special prayer called called Ahinu. Our brothers and we also had sisters, all the House of Israel who are in distress and and in captivity. 50:13 May May God release them. So we say that there are prayers that are traditional but had a new variation, new additions or changes within them. So, for example, you take El Maleer Hamim God Filled with Mercy, which is a morning prayer. 50:34 I have like 400 prayers that were composed in this month since the massacre. Quite a few of them deal with this prayer. El Maleer Hamim God filled with mercy and each one adds something else. So if it's the chief IDF Cantor Evanson, he he talks a lot about the bravery of the soldiers and of the of the police people. 51:00 If it's more civil text, then he talks about the suffering of the civilians. So you take a text that is very resonating in the Israeli ear because you hear them in all the memorial services, secular, religious, military, and you pour into it new content. 51:21 And the new content that you pour into it reflects who you are and how you see the situation. So that's the second type. You take a prayer that is already there and you sort of revise it a little bit, add something to it. And the third part is new prayers all together, new prayers. 51:38 There's a great surge of creativity with regard. They are to new prayers. I remember sitting in my hotel room. I told you I was in the United States during, and people already started to send me texts because they knew I like texts. 51:53 And I, you know, what do you think about that? What should I change? It was a coping device. And we know that throughout the ages, Jews responded to catastrophe, to to tragedies, to pogroms, to persecution. They responded to it liturgically. 52:09 And that's something that you see, you see now too. 52:12 Speaker 1 By writing prayers. 52:13 Speaker 3 Writing. 52:13 Speaker 2 Prayers, right. So writing prayer is a coping device. It sort of gives structure and give meaning to to what you are experiencing. But then performing them in a community or in in a school setting or in a family setting or in a demonstration setting and sort of gives it a more a larger resonance in that sense. 52:36 Speaker 1 Do kind of Orthodox Jews also amend prayer or is that really something more progressive reform? Or do they really stick to the original text only? Or do they also adapt prayer? 52:53 Speaker 2 I think the adoption of prayer is more in the non orthodox streams of Judaism. But if you think about this prayer that I just mentioned, just for an example, El Manera Hamim, the traditional prayer, you cannot really talk about the traditional prayer. First of all, because it's a relatively new prayer. 53:10 It was composed in the 16th century as a response for Hamlinitsky programs in the in the area that now is Ukraine. Even in traditional prayer books, you have different variations of this prayer and it is adaptable. 53:26 So you have Elmar El Khameim to remember the Holocaust victims, and you have Elmar El Khameim to remember the fallen soldiers and to remember it's Hakabim who was assassinated by an Israeli Jew. You have it is a mandible in and of itself. So I think in the more progressive segments of Judaism, there's greater willingness to to touch it and to change it than to mold it. 53:49 In the more traditional or conservative low case conservative segments you you sort of maybe insert something new into the text, but not really mold it all together. 54:01 Speaker 1 Do you have any text that you want to pull up and and read to US? 54:06 A Prayer for Permission One or two that you'd like to leave our listeners with. 54:09 Speaker 2 Wow, right. So there are many of them, maybe the the first one is is a shoot asking for permission by Rabbi Shira Levine. She's from Kibbutz Khanaton and she writes the following. This is by the way, has to do with the High Holiday liturgy, with Yom Kippur liturgy. 54:25 She's asking with the consent of the Almighty and the with the consent of the congregation in the convocation of the heavenly court and the convocation of the lower court. This is really how you begin the High Holiday, the Yom Kippur prayer. In honoring of those who passed before me. 54:41 I hereby enter this service with a broken heart and with all. At this time when the gates of heaven are open, let us pray for the swift deliverance. In near time. Let us pray for the sweeten of the harsh decree. 54:57 Let us pray for the return of the hostages. Our well-being is tied to their. Please eternal, do this for their behalf, if not for ours. May the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you. 55:14 So that's just one example of that. I will say this prayer was written just before High Holidays this year, that with every festival that we approached since October 7th, there was a surge of prayers. So, for example, the first festival was Hanukkah, right? 55:32 Hanukkah is all about heroism, heroic victory, military victory, right? That's one of the main themes of Hanukkah. How do we deal with it after what happened? So there were many people who wrote another stanza, another bite, another. 55:50 Speaker 1 Passage. 55:50 Speaker 2 Another passage, exactly another passage of the very famous poem we sing on Hanukkah, Ma Oztu responding to our situation. Some of it is, you know, kill all our enemies, wipe Gaza, you know, all these kind of things. And some of them is more about help us save us, help us to maintain and relieve and, and, and and resurrect our hopes and all that. 56:15 So that was Hanukkah and then came Purim. Purim is all about joy. So how do you think about happiness and merriment in the context of Purim, Right. Purim was also very complex. When you think about the last chapters of the Megillah with the with the Jews killing their enemies, you know, how do you do that and then pass after you think about freedom? 56:36 How can we celebrate the celebration of freedom when so many of our brothers and sisters are still in captivity? That was the main thinking of a lot of Jews last year, right? And I think the the the most devastating type of liturgy that was created was around to Shabba have the 9:00 to 5:00, the day of the ultimate destruction, the day that is a receptacle of all our tragedies throughout the ages. 57:00 Speaker 1 The destruction of the temple. 57:01 Speaker 2 The destruction of the temple, but then all the destructions that came after it, in a way they were absorbed into Shabba. So every festival was in a way responding to the situation. 57:13 Speaker 1 That's really interesting because it just made me understand to what extent not only Judaism in our heart and the kind of spiritual connection, but actually the chronology of these holidays were a way for people to deal with the sorrow, with the confusion, with the rage, by, you know, having to celebrate certain things. 57:38 You kind of are able to process almost in some ways to to digest to work with the the the horror absolutely now. 57:48 Speaker 2 Look, in a way it's always like that because the festivals, they will, that's the nature of the year cycle when they're always repeated regardless of where we are and how we feel, right? And but we sort of respond to them from the place we are, right. Regarding your family or community or country, the situation in the world are, you know, in a happy situation. 58:08 They were we respond to it in a different way than in times of distress and trouble. So they've in a way this the the year cycle is, is an anchor for our hopes and fears. 58:24 Speaker 1 Another prayer perhaps, that, you know, if people are in their car and they're going through a hard time, and I'm wondering if there is a kind of poetic prayer that that can be a bomb for the soul. 58:39 A Prayer for Redeeming and Freeing the Hostages I will maybe read to you a prayer by Rabbi Oded Mazzol in He's a rabbi in Jerusalem. He's actually a rabbi in a congregation that was very, very close to one of the hostages families, Karina Arayev. And they, they felt it in a very, you know, visceral, personal way. 58:58 And he wrote a prayer for gardening, redeeming and freeing the hostages. And he says the following. May the one who blessed our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel, made the one who answered Dina in her torture, Joseph in prison, Daniel in the lion's den. 59:20 God of Abraham the first who was willing to risk his own life for the release of prisoners and hostages. He's talking about Abraham working hard to release his nephew Lot. May God bless the hostages taken in captivity by our enemy and all those missing and unaccounted for citizens, soldiers, men, women and children. 59:42 And then there's a place to add names of people you think about on their days who are imprisoned and in grave danger. May it be your will, God of all that they will be released speedily and returned to our land, to their families, and to their homes, safe and sound in body and spirit. 1:00:02 Plant the power of hope in the hearts of their loved ones, frantic and yearning for their release. Grant Wisdom. In the hearts of those laboring for their release and compassion in the heart of their captors. 1:00:17 And I think this is a very moving part that he's also addressing the captors and and and asking for their release. And maybe I will end with words of of the Bible of words that are ascribed to our mother, Rachel. 1:00:33 Maybe I will conclude with the words of the prophet Jeremiah. And he says the following. Thus said God, a cry is heard in Rama, wailing, bitter, weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. 1:00:49 She refuses to be comforted for her children who are gone. Thus said God, restrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from shedding tears. For there is reward for your labor, declares God. 1:01:05 They shall return from the enemy's land, and there is hope for your torture, and there is hope for your future, declares God. Your children shall return to their land. So these are the words of the prophet, the Isaiah chapter 31 and may we say Amen. 1:01:25 Speaker 1 Amen. Amen. Amen. 1:01:27 Speaker 2 May our prayers, may the words that we spoke today, be irrelevant very, very soon. That is to say, we will hear them and think about the dire Strait that we were in. But we will be in a very different situation. I believe that it can be the case because we have a strong and full of will people here.

Related Episodes

What they’re saying

“So deep, so true, so hopeful.”

 “Thank you so much for this wonderful interview — so deep, so true, so hopeful. May you both be blessed!”

@nachamuami

YouTube

“Meaningful in the madness.”

 “Thank you for making the effort to have this conversation and create this podcast for us during such madness. I still process the stress we went through, and listening to this conversation was truly meaningful to me.”

@five_green_olives

YouTube

“Thoughtful and eye-opening.”

“An incredible find!”

Avigail80

Apple podcast

“Raises big questions, makes your heart sing.”

 “This podcast is remarkable as it delves deep into the emotional journey stirred by the conflict between Hamas and Israel. A must-listen that raises important questions and makes your heart sing. Excited for more!”

5AliBali5

Apple podcast

“A healing beacon.”

 “RAW provides a profound journey for the soul, spirit, and mind. In these challenging times, it serves as a therapeutic guide, offering insights that help confront the complexity of the Israel war.”

LuLu6764

Apple podcast

“Food for the soul.”

“I have been searching for a podcast like this, one that speaks to my heart and soul in these challenging times. This was a great episode and I am looking forward to the next one!”

Johnson_768

Apple podcast

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Thoughtful reflections, upcoming events, and gentle resources to support your path toward resilience, clarity, and mindful presence.

By entering your email, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, including receipt of emails and promotions.

+ 3

PODCAST

SOCIAL

  • info@withanouk.com

LEARN

About

Contact

SERVICES

Podcasts

Meditations

Speaking Engagements

Books

Blogs

LEGAL

Terms of use

Privacy Policy

Booking Policy

Cookie Policy

© 2025 Anouk Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise noted, the content displayed on this website is the intellectual property of Anouk Pvt. Ltd. All logos, trademarks and work samples are property of their respective owners.

PODCAST

apple-podcasts

SOCIAL

Business address to be mentioned here

LEARN

About

Contact

LEGAL

Terms of use

Privacy Policy

Booking Policy

Cookie Policy

SERVICES

Podcasts

Meditations

Speaking Engagements

Books

Blogs

  • info@withanouk.com

© 2025 Anouk Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise noted, the content displayed on this website is the intellectual property of Anouk Pvt. Ltd. All logos, trademarks and work samples are property of their respective owners.

Subscribe to my Newsletter

Get insights, event updates, and exclusive resources to support your path to resilience and mindful living.

By entering your email, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, including receipt of emails and promotions.