Sacred Disagreement: One People, Many Voices—The Z3 Podcast

What does it mean to belong to the Jewish people in an era of deepening division?

In this thought-provoking episode of the Z3 Podcast, host Rabbi Amitai Fraiman is joined by Rabbi Shai Held and Dr. Mijal Bitton for an expansive conversation on Jewish identity, communal leadership, and the challenges of navigating ideological diversity—especially in the wake of October 7. Together, they grapple with tensions between inclusion and boundary-setting, the evolving role of Israel in Jewish life, and what it means to foster belonging in both liberal and traditional communities. This is a candid and deeply reflective dialogue on the enduring commitment to Klal Yisrael. Watch now to dive into this meaningful conversation between Jewish communal leaders.

About Our Guests

Dr. Mijal Bitton is a spiritual leader, public intellectual, and sociologist. She serves as the Rosh Kehilla of the Downtown Minyan in NYC and is Scholar in Residence at the Maimonides Fund. A Visiting Researcher at NYU Wagner, she directs pioneering research on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States. Bitton is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, a New Pluralist Field Builder, and a Sacks Scholar. In the wake of October 7, she is deeply committed to renewing Jewish solidarity and building vibrant, inclusive Jewish life. She was a featured speaker at the historic March for Israel in Washington, D.C. She co-hosts the podcast Wondering Jews and shares weekly reflections on Jewish life, identity, and resilience in her Substack newsletter, Committed.

Rabbi Shai Held, one of the most influential Jewish thinkers and leaders in America, is President and Dean of the Hadar Institute in New York City.  Rabbi Held received the prestigious Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, and has been named multiple times to Newsweek’s list of the most influential rabbis in America and to the Forward's list of the most prominent Jews in the world. He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (2013) and The Heart of Torah: Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion (2017). His new book, Judaism is About Love, was published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in March 2024.

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Video Transcript

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (00:07)

Hello and welcome to the Z3 Project podcast. I'm Amitai Fraiman, the founding director of the Z3 Project and this is our podcast. Thank you for joining us. In today's episode, I had the great pleasure of sitting with two thought leaders, two teachers of mine, Rabbi Shai Held and Dr. Mijal Bitton for a conversation about what it means to be in community, what are our boundaries, what are our legitimate conversations and arguments, what does critique look like, how do we deal with what's going on in Israel here in North America. It was a very interesting conversation, very much in the spirit of what we do at Z3 and having two people

who have deep respect for each other. very clear through the conversation, but also very clear and distinct positions that don't always align and even contradict each other. And the form of the conversation was really a respectful argument and I very much enjoyed and learned a lot from the conversation both in the substance and in the way it was presented. So I really do hope that you enjoy this episode as much as I do. A little bit about our guests, both our past Z3 speakers of course, and you can find their appearances, their speeches on our YouTube channel.

Please check that out. Both gave very powerful speeches and shared their thoughts with our audience in the conference immediately after October 7th in 2023. Very well worth watching. enough about that conference, a little bit more about our guest today. So the first guest is Dr. Mijal Bitton. She's a spiritual leader, a public intellectual, a sociologist. She serves as the Rosh Kehillah of the Downtown Minyan in New York City and is a scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund.

She's a visiting researcher at NYU Wagner. She directs pioneering research on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States. And Bitton is also an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, a nuclear-list field builder, and a Saks scholar. In the wake of October 7th, has been deeply committed to renewing Jewish solidarity and building vibrant, inclusive Jewish life. ⁓ She was a featured speaker at the historic march for Israel in Washington, D.C. And she co-hosts a podcast, Wandering Jews, and shares weekly reflections on Jewish life, identity, and resilience.

and her sub-sex newsletter, Committed. Rabbi Shai Held is a philosopher, a theologian, and Bible scholar. He's the president and dean of the Hadar Institute. He received the prestigious Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education and has been named multiple times by Newsweek as one of the 50 most influential rabbis in America and by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the 50 most prominent Jews in the world. Rabbi Held is the author of three books. The first is Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Call for Transcendence, The Heart of Torah, and his most

most recent book, Judaism is about love was published in 2024 and he's the co-host of or he's the host sorry of Hadar's newest podcast Answers with Help. So thank you for joining us for this episode. I truly hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Please follow us on our various platforms and social media. Join our email list and we have a lot of content shared weekly. Our conference is coming up. We have eight other conferences happening across the nation. A lot is happening here at Z3 and we would love for you to be aware and up to speed. again,

Thank you for joining us for the Z3 project podcast. I'm Amitai Fraiman and this is episode by Shai Held and Dr. Mijal Bitton.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (03:21)

Hi, welcome, Rav Shai and Dr. Mijal. It's great to have you on the podcast. I'm really, really excited that you're joining today for this episode of the Z3 Project Podcast. And ⁓ we'll jump right into it. I'll do the intro, all that stuff afterwards. I'm really honored and excited that ⁓ the both of you, I consider both of you my teachers and I'm just thrilled to have this conversation with the two of you.

Rabbi Shai Held (03:45)

Thank you for having us.

Mijal Bitton (03:46)

It's so great to be here.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (03:47)

So, look, I'm gonna go, let's go right to it. We can skip a lot of the, think the, but I might consider the preamble questions or the conversation is supposed to lead up. We're in a very difficult moment, I think, for the Jewish people. In Israel, there's a war going on for the past 614, 15 days when we're recording this. In the US, we're seeing some rising, quickly escalating tensions and attacks, brutal attacks against our community.

⁓ And the two of you serve as heads of communities in slightly different capacities, but I'm curious in this moment, do you address what's going on with your constituency, with your community? How do you even start mitigating, or not mitigating, but making this accessible to them? How do you translate it to them? We can start with either one of you. We're going to have this in a free form. We'll see how it goes.

Rabbi Shai Held (04:46)

Mijal, I'm happy if you want to go first.

Mijal Bitton (04:49)

Sure. It's such a broad question, Amitai, of course, about how we react to this moment. So maybe I'll just share a couple of ways that I have been thinking about, both in my capacity as spiritual leader of the downtown Minyan and also I have the privilege of teaching Torah like all across the country. And I think one guiding principle for this moment is to not... It might sound very obvious, but like to not pretend that it isn't hard.

like to not pretend that we are not living through something really destabilizing, that something feels broken ⁓ in the American experiment and in the American Jewish experience. And I think it actually gives great spiritual comfort to our communities and individuals when we're actually able to take a step back and say, yeah, we're in the wilderness. This is really hard. ⁓ And we have to acknowledge that. ⁓ Together with that,

what I really believe it means to be a Zionist and I shared this Amitai when I spoke at Z3 I believe Shai started sharing words of Torah in that conference two years ago, a year and half ago and I ended it but for me what it means to be a Zionist is to hold on to our sense of agency to our sense of agency there is so much that Jews can and should be doing right now in light of all of the problems that we have in the world

whether it is to invest in repairing the bonds between us internally, whether it is to double down on having strong Jewish communities that know what they stand for and are unafraid of our spiritual vision for what it means to be a Jew, whether it is to hold on to the Jewish power, and I'm saying that knowing that it's a complicated term, but in terms of pushing for policies that will keep us ⁓ safer.

and

building alliances with friends outside of our communities. So I think both naming the challenges of the moment and then like doubling down insisting on seeing ourselves as agents who can do things that to me feels like the building blocks of spiritual resilience for right now.

Rabbi Shai Held (07:03)

Yeah, I appreciate ⁓ everything you said, Mijal. Maybe I'll just try to hold it up to the light in a slightly different way. I think probably saying similar things. One is that I will say that this might reflect something about my particular role in the community, but the question that I feel like people come to me more often with than any other is where do I find hope?

I feel like the pervasive sense of hopelessness is something that I've never really experienced before among people anywhere near the extent to which I experience it now. And I would want to say two things about that. One is that I don't think hope is an alternative to grief. It actually comes through being fully inside of the grief that we're dealing with grief about so much that has been lost.

You know, obviously the sheer horrors of October 7th for many of us, you know, I'm not equating all these different things. I'm going to say they're all different and complicated. The threats to Israeli democracy, the threats to American democracy, the anti-Semitic violence in America. There's just like a lot of pieces. For that matter, the splintering and sundering of the Jewish community. There's so much to feel grief over. And I think actually that one of the things that

Spiritual teachers, rabbis, teachers have to do right now is actually give people the space to grieve after that I would say I Have really been taken with a whole group of writers Who I think really helpfully distinguish between hope and optimism. Optimism is a temperament. There's no virtue in optimism. Hope is a decision and a commitment

⁓ You know, ⁓ there's a famous British writer named Terry Eagleton who actually argues that optimism is an obstacle to hope because optimism very often actually prevents you from looking at the situation the way it is. It's a kind of rosy pair of glasses, right? You don't actually see the depths of the various crises we face. So in a funny way, like I always tell people

Let's look for hope, but that's not let's not look for optimism. That's not actually what's helpful here. What's helpful here is hope and we can talk about that more if it's ⁓ relevant. I guess I just want to say one other thing and this in a way dovetails with something that Mijal just said, but I think it remains important now as it is always important not to let antisemites or antisemitism

Determine or define what we understand Judaism and Torah to be and to require of us You know, I've shared a lot in the last year that I had this experience that Was really actually really difficult. I my book judaism was about love went into galleys on october 4th 2023 and a couple of days After october 7th, it's like wednesday or thursday of that week my editor

Mijal Bitton (10:07)

Wow, I didn't realize that.

Rabbi Shai Held (10:16)

Calls me and says, so listen, let me just tell you something about publishing. When a book is sent into galleys, nothing and I do mean nothing can stop the process. Nothing. And he says, now that said, do I hold up this book? And I was so taken aback, you know, and I was like, I said, give me 24 hours. I don't even know how to answer you. And when I said to him the next day is listen,

I don't want you to hold up the book for two reasons, the first of which is less important for our purposes. I said, look, anything that I say right now, 72 hours after October 7th, I'm going to regret three weeks from now, let alone when my grandchildren are, God willing, reading this book. I can't breathe. I can't say anything, you know, intelligent for posterity right now. But more importantly, and this is the point. I cannot allow Hamas to determine the content.

of what I think Torah asks of us as a community. I won't do it. Right. In other words, my vision of love will not be taken over and destroyed by antisemites. I just don't think we can do that. They don't have that much power. We have to respond. We have to engage, but we don't let them determine or distort either the Torah or our souls that read the Torah.

Mijal Bitton (11:44)

Can I actually ask Shai question about that based on his book? So it's funny, Shai, when you were talking about ⁓ hope and a British author, I was thinking of a different British writer by Jonathan Sacks, who also made the distinction between hope and optimism in a similar way to the one you made. And I know that... ⁓

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (11:44)

So yeah, yes, yes.

Mijal Bitton (12:04)

I've had conversations with fellow students of Rabbi Sacks where we asked ourselves would he have changed some of what he has written in light of October 7th? Some of his books were very much pushing against defensiveness and against almost like seeing ourselves as attacked. And you just said "I won't allow Hamas to let me rethink the way that I think about Judaism and its lessons on love and its underpinning of love."

But I'm really curious, I'm asking with curiosity, was there a moment in which something about that attack and its aftermath just changed the way you understand the world and the way that you understand we need to apply our Jewish wisdom to the world? Because that's the conversation I wish I could have with Rabbi Sacks right now if you were alive.

Rabbi Shai Held (12:54)

Yes, so, so it's interesting because I think it very much has changed my perception of the world in a variety of ways, which I think is different from what I was trying to say a minute ago, which is like my understanding of what the textual tradition amounts to, right? So let me say one very small thing and then one large thing. One of the small things is I think that I have more clarity now about how

how not necessarily what I would have said, but how I would have gone about talking about a question that is, the hardest chapter in the book is, there a mitzvah to love our enemies? And one of the things that I have sort of come to see more and more clearly, mainly because not surprisingly, this is the chapter that more people have pushed me on than any other since the book came out, is that one of the challenges we have is the English word enemy.

We use it for such an absurd array of things, right? An enemy can mean someone I don't get along with at work and an enemy can mean Sinwar and when people say is there a mitzvah to love your enemy, right? Now I see we have to stop and say wait. What are we talking about? Right? Hazal I think our sages were very preoccupied with the notion that we owe certain kinds of love to people we don't like and don't get along with.

That's a different discussion than what we might owe to Saddam Hussein or Yahya Sinwar or whatever it might be. So I actually think it just sort of clarified for me a lot of things. think I would say for whatever it's worth, Mijal, that like a lot of people of my generation...

Some illusions we might have had about who our friends were have been burst in very deep ways.

I also would, mean, honestly, I don't know if this is maybe kind of jumping the gun to a conversation we could have later. I also feel that one of the things that I've seen in Jewish life and experienced in the last year is what I have come to in my own head, at least to think of as the great squeeze, which is that the really loud voices in the Jewish community are people who are either extremely, extremely far left.

or extremely, extremely far right. And in the year I spent when my book came out traveling, I discovered that in my perception at least, probably 90 to 95 % of the American Jewish community is not represented by either of those two loud Jewish voices. And that one of the things we need to do as Jewish leaders is carve out space for a different and I would say more reflective of Torah ⁓ type of conversation. Each of those things we could

you know, unpack it, greater length. But let me ask you, mean, Mijal, so what about, has your understanding of Torah changed in light of the last two years or just your understanding of the world? Or are those indistinguishable for you?

Mijal Bitton (16:00)

That's a good question that you're turning on me now that I haven't thought about.

Does my understanding change? I don't think so in a foundational level, even as I, you know, I give sermons, drashot, every week, I write a sub-stack every week on the Torah portion and I just felt that I read everything differently, know, everything just comes to life in a different way because of what we're experiencing. ⁓ But no, think really it's just going back to foundational debates that we've had in Judaism about like, you know, the way the rabbis would say, asav sonel yakov, there's something existential around

antisemitism and essential and kind of feeling that those debates that maybe we felt had been settled have just been completely open right now. So I think that's both a question about the world and about what Judaism expects from us if that is the case.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (16:54)

Yeah. So I mean, ⁓ I'm perfectly happy to let the two of you go. No, no. I mean that without a sliver of cynicism or Israeliness, I told this is a shield from that. I very sincerely, but I have a question. First of all, both already covered a lot of ground in terms of threads that we can pull on. But I think there's something there that we I don't want to I don't want to paper over. And that's a question of

Mijal Bitton (16:58)

Sorry.

Rabbi Shai Held (17:05)

And without Israeliness I love it. You're fit.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (17:23)

You know, not so much of what do we mean when we say community, right? Because, a lot of words we overuse and we kind of misuse all the time. Shai, you referenced enemy. Mijal indirectly, you you gave a a ⁓ very tight definition to Zionism that I very much like as well in terms of sense of agency. But Zionism also being misused in all kinds of ways. So I guess when I'm looking at community even, right? So like, and when you think of your communities, you know, how do you, how do you...

focus or how do you identify those groups for the sake of figuring out what are the common goals or the common denominator of that community, right? Because Shai, you said we have to open up spaces where 95% of the people can find themselves in. But I imagine that in each one of your communities, there's also internally elements that are pulling apart and asking you to say certain things or say more of other things. And so that drives this point of like,

How do we think of community? How do we think about unity in this moment? Is that at all a value, something we're striving towards?

Rabbi Shai Held (18:32)

If I could, ⁓ I would just add one question to your question that's a little bit, kind of comes at it from a funny angle, which is what do we expect or want from our religious leaders in this moment? One of the things that I hear from rabbis all the time is I'm not allowed to say anything. Meaning I get killed no matter what I say, right? If I say something that's

quote unquote, to pro-Israel, then people tell me.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (19:01)

But is

that is I look I have the the the great privilege of not being a communal leader. So I'm saying this with a huge immense of humility but leadership is about making a stance right taking us in many ways right.

Rabbi Shai Held (19:21)

Yes, I think it's true, although I... ⁓

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (19:22)

Like it's almost

a cop out. I can't say anything because somebody got to say something.

Rabbi Shai Held (19:26)

So I think that there is some truth to that. also, think, look, I'm also not the rabbi of a synagogue. I mean, I have donors that I'm accountable to and communities I'm accountable to, but I spent a lot of time talking to rabbis of shuls and I think that it might be a little too easy to say what you're saying. I'll give you an example, very concrete example. And actually the content is almost not the point, but several years ago, I got a call from a

congregational rabbi who said the following thing to me. He said, I feel that the Torah requires me to give a barn burning sermon about how it is an Avera to vote for Trump. That's what I, that's my reading of the Torah. It is a sin to vote for Donald Trump. And then he said, you know, I lost my job 18 months ago and my son who's in high school had to uproot his life and move. And it was really, really hard for him.

I know that when I give the sermon I feel called upon to give, we will have to move again. Tell me if I'm not a total failure if I don't give this sermon because I feel responsible to my child. I'm sharing this story only because I think it's too easy to condemn rabbis or teachers for not taking a stand when sometimes humanly it's actually somewhere between difficult and impossible. Like I do think it's important to just acknowledge that and yeah, go ahead.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (20:37)

See you next time.

So,

yeah, I don't want to hear me call somebody because you're putting...

Mijal Bitton (20:55)

When I want to react to Shai's story and then I'm gonna tell

you a different question but just Shai I am so I don't know if the rabbi gave that speech or not I would find it I mean I think I mean I would find it

Rabbi Shai Held (21:04)

I think he gave a toned down version of

Mijal Bitton (21:10)

I would hate it if he gave that speech just in general. think that we can also have a conversation about like rabbis and spiritual leaders and the distinction between political statements and partisan ones. I actually think that Shai, when you say, know, what's the obligation of spiritual leaders? What can they say? What should they say? I think your question denotes the fact that there's multiple values that are attacking at us constantly.

Rabbi Shai Held (21:22)

Agreed.

Mijal Bitton (21:40)

mean, the classical thing would be like justice and peace. I have a community. I want to keep people together. Sorry, truth and peace. And I also want to like say certain things that are true. So in that way, I don't think that it's a matter of our failure as communities that our rabbis don't feel like they can say certain things. I think it's a reflection of the fact that rabbis have and leaders.

have this complicated job of having like multiple values they have to hold together. And I am happy that we are staying up at night saying, what can I say? Because I believe to be a Jew is to call, to think about the many values and commitments that obligate us.

Rabbi Shai Held (22:20)

I don't as I think you know, I don't disagree with that and my point in telling that story about the rabbi I want to think that sermon was not to pasken or come down one way or the other on whether he should give that sermon or not. It's just to remember the humanity of people who feel stuck. That's all I mean, it's really I'm making us. I'm making really a smaller point. Look, by the way, I would just say I actually agree with Mijal, but I want to say that I think it's actually quite hard to do this right that teachers of Torah

Mijal Bitton (22:33)

Yeah.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (22:34)

not die, for sure. For sure, so I mean...

Rabbi Shai Held (22:49)

should be teaching about values. Sometimes those values have fairly clear political implications and they should avoid being, you know, partisan rally speech givers. I totally agree with that. But I will say that what I hear from, I mean, I gave a very extreme example mainly because I was interested in the human struggle that he was experiencing between what he felt his duty was to his whatever to Torah and to his family. But

You know, I think I hear from rabbis a lot.

It is really hard for me to know that no matter what I say in my sermon at Kiddush, 40% of the congregation is going to tell me why what I said was not only wrong, but also deeply offensive. And I think that that connects to a larger issue, which I think is just really fundamental, which is we live in a time, certainly in America. I mean, I think this is true about Israel too, but since we're all sitting in America right now,

where people pretty much always assume the worst about people they disagree with. And that is really very hard. It is very hard to build community in a time like this. ⁓

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (24:04)

Yeah, for sure.

It's only compounded by the platforms that we use on a daily basis,

Mijal Bitton (24:09)

And I would also say that I think part of our job is, I think we're all educators in different areas, but part of it is to figure out how do we soften the binary. So I'll give you an example. I have been in the community that I lead, which is made up of mostly young Jews in their 20s and 30s. We meet in lower Manhattan. It's pretty ⁓ diverse in terms of who comes from different denominations. And...

And we've had a strong response post October 7th, of unabashedly centering our Israeli members, centering our veterans, centering ⁓ individuals who were affected by October 7th, and being very strong about that. And part of the question that has been emerging in the last few months is people who, in very different ways, sometimes they critique, sometimes they question, what Kavan would say. but.

you know, ⁓ what if I hate what I was doing? What if I disagree with the following policy? What if, whatever are you saying? don't have a place in my, in this community. ⁓ And we can talk about boundaries soon, but before we talk about boundaries, I'll say there's also an educational element. So here's something that I've been trying and I'm not saying that I've been successful because I'm still figuring it out. But at the end of our

services, we say a prayer for the hostages, we look at their pictures, we have ⁓ an idea of veterans with relatives in the IDF say a prayer for those who defend our country, who defend Israel, sorry, and we also sing a tikvah. And I have begun kind of like sharing very publicly and saying, I want to remind all of us that as we say this, we can have

I say differently, but we can have different intentions here. There's been people who agree or disagree with the current coalition. can use the anthem as a form of protest. You can use it as form of agreement. There's a lot of ways that we can soften the binaries that we are holding. So think part of what's really complicated about this moment is that there are going to be disagreements. But I also think that we can fight to have a different discourse and we can say, we can have an expansion.

sense of what it means to support Jews in Israel even if we have different opinions on what the government is doing in a particular case. So that's a hard call but I think it has to be part of this conversation.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (26:29)

Sure, for sure. I think from our, just to reflect on Mijal's point here, I think that this is something that we come up here, of course, very often as we're designing these conferences, we have a lot of interested parties who trying to pull us and push us in different directions. And what I come back to tell them is like, listen, and this is again, this is very different from a, I'd say a denominational setting in that sense, whether it's a yeshiva with certain elements and students or a minyan, a downtown synagogue, something like that, but a...

a public square needs to be a place where we can really have those conversations. And I wonder how much, how, how, how can these more ideologically aligned places or more, I wouldn't say now it's not more narrow than a JCC. Okay. Can they fill those roles and how to do it? It sounds like you're trying, you're, you're, you're starting to navigate that space and kind of softening a little bit the edges around these conversations. And Shai, I'm curious if like in the Beit Midrash,

in the alumni network, ⁓ is that a conversation? Is that even being raised in any way?

Rabbi Shai Held (27:34)

I mean, you know, it's funny. One of the things I've been thinking about as I've, know, as we've been having this conversation and it's something that I thought about a bunch in the last few months. And I don't know how interesting this is. This may just be, you know, my own personal story is that. For good or for bad and probably for good and for bad, honestly, since October 7th, my instinct has very much been.

to be in pastoral mode rather than in, I don't know what the other word would be. mean, I do not, activist mode, can't, I hate the way people use the word prophetic. you know, whatever, I'm just not, so when you asked that question on me, Ty, my first instinct was to say, you know, holding communal spaces is really, really important, obviously, and really challenging, obviously.

Mijal Bitton (28:07)

Activist.

Rabbi Shai Held (28:30)

But I think it actually begins with something that is in a way more local and intimate, which is how do I see the person sitting across from me with whom I disagree politically? Like, can I find this human being to be a human being worthy of respect and care and compassion, even when I find their political views troubling? I mean, where it gets harder is when I find their political views reprehensible, right? It gets harder, right?

But I just been thinking a lot and actually what prompted my thinking about that even more just now, I would tell you is when you made a passing little comment about the platforms that we use to speak. Because so much of our society, I think foments forgetting the fact that the people we disagree with are actually also human beings. Right, like I've been thinking a lot about like, how did it happen that so many Jews are comfortable referring to other Jews as kapos?

I see on Facebook. I just wonder like, what are you? Why? What is where is this? How do you speak to another Jew in this way? Right. And I just sort of feel like a really central piece here is recovering the simple ethics of Ben Adam L'Chavero, how you speak to another human being. You know, and I understand that there are people who will say, yeah, that's a cop out. It's an invasion of the big issues and the big questions. I just really don't believe that it is.

I think it is really fundamental and essential. I mean, I'll tell you, there was an amazing moment in the tour I did around my book. The moment that was most like arrestingly beautiful for me was the very first event I did was a conversation with Congressman Jamie Raskin about my book. And someone, the moderator asked Congressman Raskin and me about...

I don't even remember exactly what the question was. Something about loving enemies, people we don't get along with. And this is what Jamie said. And it is so moving. And I'm probably embellishing this because it's been a couple of years, but this is what I remember. He said, I am sitting here in the Bnei Jeshurun on the Upper West Side. That was like who hosted us. He said, I'm aware that what I'm about to say is going to shock and maybe even appall some of you, but so be it.

I would like to say that one of my very closest friends in the United States Congress is Lauren Boebert. And it was an audible gasp, mamash, an audible gasp in the room. And he said, I know, I know. Let me be clear. I think Lauren Boebert is wrong about everything. I think she is a toxic force in American politics. But I want to tell you something else. When I was diagnosed with lymphoma, no member of the United States Congress

was as consistently kind and caring to me as Lauren Boebert. Not one. So there's two things that can be true at the same time. Lauren Boebert is really, really, really problematic, and she's a human being capable of great love. What it means to love your enemies is to know that.

And it was sort of dead silence in the room. It was a very powerful moment.

Mijal Bitton (31:42)

Shai, what do you

do with that? What do you do with that when you think about, like, I'm gonna take this to extremes, right? Just for the sake of conversation. Like when you think about, you know, like Hamas terrorists, or when you, I'm not comparing, again, I'm not comparing. Or when you think about, you know, ⁓

Nazis in Germany and I'm asking this genuinely. I'm not asking this to disagree with you I'm saying like part of like it's like ⁓ there's something there's something so and I totally agree with you about that the humanity of this all I agree with you that Listen, my own personal family life has people who vote all over the place with views that I find problematic or reprehensible and we all love each other and are committed to each other ⁓ but there are questions about Even as I agree with the thrust of what you are saying There's always like a little voice in the back of my mind

Rabbi Shai Held (32:08)

Yeah, no, I know!

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (32:09)

Yeah.

Mijal Bitton (32:34)

that's asking well what about the edge cases right what about the extremes because the most lovely intelligent kinds of people have done monstrous things.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (32:43)

Yeah. Mijal and Shai let me just... Is there... No, no, no, this is great. I just want to... because this is a question I've been thinking like as we've been from the beginning. Is this perhaps the utility of the category, and I'm going to introduce it, of HaSot, of Amalek in our tradition? Is there like a spectrum that on the... like there is... our Rabbi is identified because we can find dozens and scores of, know, texts of, you know, God crying on the, you know, Yom Suf and the Egyptians that drowned and...

Rabbi Shai Held (32:44)

So, yeah.

Mijal Bitton (32:46)

Sorry.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (33:12)

know, with Ben-Polo Evecha, etc., etc., etc. But there is also, you know, yes, they work to soften that over time as well, so not everybody falls into the category of Amalek but is there a utility? Yeah, nobody falls, yeah. But maybe, maybe if we, maybe... Yeah. Yeah, so that, so like, so, you know, maybe, never were you asking the most question, is that, like, is there a category that falls like, you know, Oyev is like a spectrum? The camera only captures this much.

Rabbi Shai Held (33:21)

No, no, not anybody falls into the category of Amalek. If you want to reach that top.

Mijal Bitton (33:25)

Well, I would argue

not genealogically, but maybe yes in terms of actions.

Rabbi Shai Held (33:31)

Okay, but that's a... Okay.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (33:39)

And then there's like, but there is an edge case.

Rabbi Shai Held (33:43)

So

let me try briefly to respond both to what Mijal said and then Amitai to your sort of kind of intervention in the conversation. So I think we all think about that and rightly so. I I remember when I went home that night after that conversation with Congressman Raskin, I thought, would you say that if I told you that Saddam Hussein was kind to his housekeeper?

Right? Would you have said that too? But what I found so powerful about him saying that is you can find stories about Nazis being kind to other Nazis. L'havdil, let me just underscore, I'm not right. L'havdil is everything here. let's just, unless there's anyone who just wants to jump on us, we're not making comparisons. But I think what makes Jamie's story so powerful,

Mijal Bitton (34:25)

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you on the big lie. Yeah, distinction.

Rabbi Shai Held (34:40)

is that the boundary crossing was so vast. It was about being kind to between kindness between people who see each other and maybe actually really are ideological enemies. I mean, there's just something I think really, really important about that. And I think where I get stuck, Mijal with the question you asked, and then maybe we could say something about the Amalek piece, but ⁓

I think I even quoted this in my book, you the journalist Ron Rosenbaum coined this term, what he calls the argumentum ad hitlerum. The argumentum ad hitlerum.

Mijal Bitton (35:16)

Yeah, I know, I

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (35:17)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mijal Bitton (35:17)

know, I know. It's basically just thinking Hitler can break apart any argument because there's always going to be that edge case that won't work.

Rabbi Shai Held (35:23)

Yeah,

yes, but right, but the crucial point here really is, and this I think is really important, it's not that that question is not important, it's that it can be a distraction from the real work of 97% of the cases we actually face.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (35:39)

Mijal, you had a question. you a minute to kind of like organize your thoughts around it. But I think that, I think the big difference with all the l'havdils, l'havdils, l'havdils, at the end of the day, in Shai's example, right? It's, I wouldn't like, they're not enemies. They're boreh plukta, right? But they're, right? They're sitting in argument, right? But they're,

At the end of day, they're using the same text, right? They're members of Congress, right? They're here to work for the betterment of the United States. share, you know, like there are people like a distinctly outside group. Yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (36:09)

I don't know, Amitai. I don't know whether Americans believe that about each other.

You know what? I think that ⁓ that is the fantasy of the America that we wish we lived in. But if you asked Jamie Raskin's most impassioned supporters, do they think that he's living in a shared discord with Lauren Boebert? I think the answer would probably be no. And by the way, I would say there are, mean, honestly, if I was being honest, there are,

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (36:33)

But I'll push the message.

Rabbi Shai Held (36:39)

many Americans, including some in power, with whom I do not share any vision for America. I don't believe they believe in democracy.

Mijal Bitton (36:47)

You know, could we apply this question to the Jewish community?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (36:51)

Yeah, wanted to thank you, I'll bring it back to our team.

Mijal Bitton (36:51)

and or the politic. No, no,

no, because this is I'm curious to hear Shai the way you would approach this. think ⁓ one of the big questions that have really emerged post October 7th, I mean, hasn't emerged, it just becomes stronger, has been a question around boundaries. ⁓ And it's a question around boundaries for local communities. And I think local communities have different boundaries than like, you know, broader Jewish communities. ⁓ And a big question has emerged around anti-Zionism and anti-Zionist Jews.

and how much do we need to put?

boundaries and boundaries can have different textures so I'm not saying it's all the same ⁓ and to say ⁓ we are going to stand for certain things and these things might mean that some people won't like us so they'll choose to walk away and some people we won't let in so we ourselves will gatekeep. So I know that I have my own answer to this and how I think it should play out but I'm curious Shai especially with your

holding up the pastoral as the orientation that you have been taking since October 7th, how would you think about this in an applied way? Putting you in the spot here, that's it.

Rabbi Shai Held (38:05)

Yeah, so I suspect that neither you, Mijal, nor you, Amitai, will like my response to this question. ⁓ I have a few different responses, none of which ⁓ I personally find all that helpful. And part of me wants to say, I'm a philosopher. What do you guys want from me? But let say a couple of things. One is, I don't object to gatekeeping as long as it genuinely takes place in both directions.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (38:12)

You know.

Mijal Bitton (38:22)

No, no, you can't do that, sorry.

Rabbi Shai Held (38:34)

But when one criticizes Yair Golan for misspeaking, but says nothing about Ben-Gvir for not misspeaking and saying things that are fascist and genocidal, right? That is terrifying to me. Let me just finish the sentence one second. So when the gatekeeping is only in one side, I really worry about this. Meaning because then it feels to people, not wrongly, that the gatekeeping lacks integrity, right?

Mijal Bitton (38:48)

Yeah, but then I want to respond to this actually.

Rabbi Shai Held (39:03)

I am totally fine with gatekeeping to say anyone who's not really in favor of Israel as a democratic, as a democratic and Jewish state, you can say this. I don't know that I would say it, but you could say is sort of beyond the pale. But then it has to apply for someone like Ben-Gvir, who's anti-democratic. And it has to apply to people on the left as well. But I want to say something. Please. Yeah.

Mijal Bitton (39:21)

Could I respond to this before the next point? Because I actually

been thinking about this and first let me give a disclaimer that I am not a supporter of Ben-Gvir. But I do think that, and that I oppose, let's just say it more clearly. But I do think there is a distinction that is fundamental here and operative and that traces its roots to rabbinic, maybe even biblical Judaism, which is that there is a very strong difference between

actions that are wrong and that are even reprehensible and actions that are and I'm going to speak in very extreme terms but a collaboration with the enemy. What do I mean by this? Right? So the rabbis in the Talmud they have plenty of ways that they think about people who destroy society, people who are wrong, people who are heretics, people who are self-destructive, people who fight against each other, you know what I mean? And they allow for Rome to basically come in and then they have special categories for Jews who

help or collide or abet the enemy, the political enemy of the Jewish people. So the way that I would refine, Shai, what you're saying and what I've actually seen because my circles are politically very diverse, I have seen in right-wing Jewish circles, ⁓ like a different way of saying it is like if you had like a Jewish right-wing ⁓ religious figure who was ⁓ supporting Tucker Carlson right now,

I think most right-wing Jews in America would go against that. What I mean to say is that I think if the application is, you on the right and on the left and colluding or enabling what you view as like the enemy of the Jewish people, then I agree with you. There has to be consistency. But actually, it's important for me to say this because I think I'm not again advocating, you know, bring Ben-Gurion again, just to be clear.

Rabbi Shai Held (41:10)

Yeah, so I

I hear what you're saying and yet I have to say I feel that Hilul Hashem desecrating God's name on a massive scale is not really such so much smaller a crime than collaborating with enemies and I think of people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as guilty of Hilul Hashem on the grandest possible scale that may be just a difference of judgment that we have

Mijal Bitton (41:35)

Can you just translate the

way you think about Hillul Hashem for everybody who's listening?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (41:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (41:39)

I mean, Hillul Hashem here, well, Hillul Hashem, let's speak sort of broadly for a minute, bringing dishonor and shame upon the name of God in God's Torah. That is how I want to understand what Hillul Hashem is. And when you proudly, in the name of Torah, advocate things that are morally reprehensible, you desecrate God's name. That's not a small thing to be poo-pooed at all. ⁓

Mijal Bitton (42:05)

I did not by

the way, just to yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (42:07)

No, I know. don't mean you. Sorry. I don't mean it like that.

I just mean in general, we should not poo poo that. Meaning, as exactly my point, I think there's a tendency to sort of poo poo that. And it worries me a lot that it allows us to tolerate things that should be far beyond the red lines that we draw.

Mijal Bitton (42:30)

So it's interesting, I

think you're upholding as red lines, if I'm hearing you well, almost like two different...

forms of transgression in this conversation. One is a Hillul Hashem and one is collusion with enemies. By the way, what makes all this so much more complicated is that all these things are so slippery, right? Like ⁓ there's people who like stay up late at night kind of bickering over who is desecrating God's name, right? Which side doing what and who is our enemy that we are then colliding with. And it just, it's both about almost like first principles and also the application of that.

Rabbi Shai Held (42:39)

Exactly right.

Mijal Bitton (43:06)

⁓ And I'm saying this as somebody who has many, I have a lot of relatives in Israel. I have so many relatives in Israel who voted for Smotrich or Ben-Gvir or Shas. And those same relatives are individuals who will go and risk their lives for me. You know, pick up a gun and go to, and I'm like, and to me that, that in some ways it feels.

Rabbi Shai Held (43:07)

By the

Mijal Bitton (43:30)

I don't know, I have to think about this a little bit more, but I'm not saying again that I admire or respect or want that political choice to be good. I think it's very dangerous for the Jewish people. I think it's terrifying. And at the same time, it's... Yeah, no, no, keep going. Keep going. Yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (43:41)

By the way, just to... I'm sorry. Sorry. No,

no. So just to sort of even make this even more complicated and give myself a migraine for a minute. I've also heard people I know who are in Israel who I would say are left of center, but not leftist say, yeah, collusion with the enemy, Bibi and Hamas and Qatar for all these years. The right is all colluded with the enemies, right? Actually, they did this. Now, I don't particularly like think that's helpful.

But I think when you start introducing terms like colluding with the enemy, even that is complicated. I mean, look, I would just say one of the things that I find very difficult, and maybe we should just, you I should say this and then go home.

Mijal Bitton (44:20)

No, but you didn't finish

answering the question that I asked you because I interrupted you around anti-Zionism and boundaries so don't go home until you answer it.

Rabbi Shai Held (44:26)

Okay, no, no, mean, I'm kidding when I say go home, but,

⁓ now I forgot what I was going to say. No, it's okay. ⁓ you know, categories are really, really useful until you deal with fresh flesh and blood humans in flesh and blood situations. And you realize how impossibly difficult it is to apply them. What is collusion with the enemy Bismar Nase in our time? It's very complicated.

Mijal Bitton (44:33)

Sorry.

Rabbi Shai Held (44:55)

And what is Hillul Hashem? mean, someone might come to me and say, actually refusing to take a certain kind of robust muscular position is Hillul Hashem. It's very, very hard. I just want to sort of acknowledge that. But I want to say something else. This is perhaps a sheerly inflammatory statement, which I don't actually mean inflammatorily at all. It's just actually for me a religious question that I've been sitting with a lot. Okay, so I'm just going to share this and Amitai

Mijal Bitton (45:07)

But some things are very clear. Keep going. But yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (45:24)

We can decide later whether we're going to edit this out. OK, so. I find it to be a really interesting ⁓ window on the secularization of Jewish modernity. That someone can walk into a shul and say in shul say, I don't believe in God and we'll say no problem. And in many shuls

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (45:30)

I'm

Rabbi Shai Held (45:52)

Here, here's a room. Meditate and do yoga. It's great. And I'll see you at Kiddush. And then someone walks into a room and says, you know, I don't believe in Israel. And we say, get out. We have red lines. And I'm, you know, by the way, I myself have been, I would say guilty of something similar, but I find it the part of me for whom this is at the end of the day, all about God.

finds it to be such an interesting window about how secularized we are that we cannot.

Mijal Bitton (46:22)

Can I respond to that though?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (46:23)

Yeah, ⁓

Rabbi Shai Held (46:38)

You can delete that. Just something that I think about a lot is...

Mijal Bitton (46:40)

No, but I want to

respond to it, Shai. I think it's an important note.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (46:53)

doing what we don't want to do, which is escaping to these conceptual big things. I want to like bring it back to community, because I think there's an argument to be made about like, and because I'm trying to push it, but like, what does that mean in our community? So Mijal, you please respond to that. Talk about the anti-Zionism, but I like there's, there's, there is an argument, I promise.

Mijal Bitton (47:07)

No, the reason

I want to respond is that Shai, you're not the only one to say this. ⁓ Well, you use the word secularization, but there's been many people, especially in anti-Zionist religious circles, who will say, they will describe this as hypocrisy. They will say, you don't... I know, I know, God forbid. Completely. But they will say something along the lines of...

Rabbi Shai Held (47:14)

really? I'm relieved to hear that.

Wait, but just to be clear, I am not an anti-Zionist. I hope that's clear. I'm talking as a theologian and a religious person. I mean, I just find it interesting. But go ahead. Yeah, sorry.

Mijal Bitton (47:38)

accusing communities that believe in Zionism as a boundary right now of being hypocritical and they will say something like, you don't care if I keep Shabbat, you don't care if I keep kosher, you don't care how carefully I file my taxes. The only thing you care is about Israel and in doing so you are being hypocritical.

Rabbi Shai Held (47:47)

Mmm.

Interesting, I haven't really heard that.

Mijal Bitton (47:56)

The reason I wanted to respond is that I have in my brain written an article in response, which I've never written. So I'm going to take this opportunity to kind of name something. I don't think that that is an aspect of secularization and I don't think it's hypocritical. I think that those boundaries are legitimate when Judaism is a political entity.

I don't mean political in terms of modern politics. mean political in terms of being a nation, in terms of being a people that are bound to each other. In my scholarship on Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews, this distinction makes sense like a thousand percent, right? Traditional communities never asked, how do you practice? They never asked, what do you believe? But they were incredibly sensitive to what they are going to call like

I want to use the word political, but again, not like in a modern term, like a betrayal of the collective. As an example, I did my PhD on the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. I interviewed over 100

individuals from the community and I asked so many of them what are the red lines? What are the red lines? And none of them said like Shabbat, Kashrut even as they said most of us keep that most of them said and you know, I'll just give one example. They're like if you if you betray us publicly, okay, if you do that publicly and like you go with those who are trying to hurt us, that's the red line. So I don't think that that's a flaw. I think that that is that that makes us different than a Protestant

religious group which is only about God and theology. are not that. We do have God and theology but we are also a family and a nation which makes us a political being, a creature.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (49:36)

One of.

Rabbi Shai Held (49:40)

So I don't disagree with what you just said, although I do have two questions about it that I'm not really asking you. I'm just sort of saying I think our interesting questions is first of all, the question of Mizrahim versus Ashkenazim on this issue. And second of all, the issue of Mizrahim in the 21st century as opposed to what would have happened, which I don't know, in the 14th century. And I think you have...

I don't think my point is so much to evaluate this so much as to understand how second it seems to me I Know I know I I hear you I still think

Mijal Bitton (50:10)

I don't think it's secular, that's what I'm arguing.

And we might have different

conceptions. This might be good just to name. You and I might reflect, I don't want to make it too extreme, but we might be pushing in different conceptions about what Judaism is and what Jewish communities should be.

Rabbi Shai Held (50:29)

I don't, so I don't, I mean maybe, but I don't think I want to jump to that. I certainly think Judaism is political and Jews are, I mean, you know, I spend more and more of my life right now as, as, think, you know, talking to Christians about the differences between Judaism and Christianity and not allowing Judaism to become just another Protestant denomination. I think that's actually very important. I still think there's something very secular here because Judaism is both a religion and a nationality.

And there's a kind of just interesting deprioritization of the theological here. Someone might say, in good Talmudic language, ein hachi nami Of course that's true. Or as Haredim liked to say, gut shabbos, gut yontif. You just realized that? I... What'd say?

Mijal Bitton (51:13)

That's a little bit what I'm saying.

I think I'm a little bit saying that. I'm saying to me this is not an aspect of modernity or secularization and it's not something unique only to Mizrahi Jews. I think this is denoting the way, at least my conception of Jewish communities and Jewish life, which always cared about God but never established a boundary around God.

Rabbi Shai Held (51:25)

I think it is

⁓ I mean, okay, maybe we should leave this, I don't think that's accurate. okay, Amitai you wanna go somewhere else. I feel your urgency.

Mijal Bitton (51:44)

We can agree to disagree here.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (51:48)

No, no, I just want to make this,

I want to make this, look, there is.

There was a speaker at Z3 a years ago when he kind of also broached, this is way before October 7th, like five, six years ago at this point. And he said, you know, the reason he's like, I'm an atheist, whatever the whole thing. But he says, after the Holocaust, you know, child of survivors, he said, there's one thing I know for a fact, Israel keeps me safe, not so sure about God. That was kind of the statement he made, which is why people kind of might be gravitating in general in a world where like the level of,

Rabbi Shai Held (52:21)

By the way, that's a definition of secularization, which I'm not opposed to, but that's literally what you just said! Israel keeps us safe, but God doesn't keep us I mean...

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (52:26)

I'm not arguing with

what's behind this, I'm just trying to explain that position to those who are saying what, right? So I'm not, and I don't know where I fall, why, I'm not a sociologist, I'm not, you know, but.

Rabbi Shai Held (52:36)

Yeah.

No, I agree

with that. the way, again, I just want to underscore, I'm not even judging people for that. I'm just observing that I think it's like a fascinating unfolding of Jewish life that it seems to me and here I really do disagree with Mijal is really distinctively modern. I mean, you and I, Amitai, if you remember this, sat in a meeting with a writer from the New York Times and I made a similar observation. This was before October 7th. And he said, mamash mesiach lefitumot, just in italy, he said, well,

What do you mean? Israel is real to me and God is not. And I was like, right, that's the point I was trying to make. That's all. It's a simple observation, right? Anyway, go ahead.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (53:18)

Yeah.

Yeah. So, but either way, right, and this, we're come back to the anti-Zionism question because I think, this is a page that I took out of Ezra Klein's book that I read also during the pandemic years ago, but I think why Israel is different. Part of the problem of these conversations, they're also conceptual, they're also elevated to a national level, and we don't talk anything on the local level, right? And when everything's at national level, everything's high stakes, it's big picture, you but in the end, when we have to sit across someone, know, Al-Ashay's pastoral modality,

Rabbi Shai Held (53:39)

Mm-hmm.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (53:47)

or Mijal, when you talk to a congregant, there's a person, a real person in front of you, and that you have to deal with. And the question of boundaries and how do we think about these things is very, very, very real. And so again, you know, and bring it back to this question, like, okay, so we can explore these bigger questions, you know, if we had the time forever, unfortunately we don't. ⁓ Okay, so like Shabbat, you know, Mijal, it's the minyan, someone comes, what do you, like, how do you think about this? ⁓ Shai, in the Beit Midrash, someone comes and says, what do you, like, where do you go with this?

Mijal Bitton (54:11)

Yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (54:16)

So, Mijal, is it okay if I respond first for one second? I want to say something almost very simple, and then Mijal can tell me why this is too simple, but this is my instinct, is I think there is a difference between having a stand about what does this community and this institution stand for and not chasing people out the door who don't believe all the things that the community or the institution believe.

Mijal Bitton (54:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go first. I'm writing down my thoughts so I won't forget them.

Rabbi Shai Held (54:46)

Meaning, you know, I don't know, I go to a shul that in theory stands for certain things. Let's go back to religion for a minute, because to belabor my point, that's easier to disagree about in this day and age. Like there are people who are like, yeah, I go to a shul that like the shul is Shomer Shabbat. But when I leave here, I'm not Shomer. I don't feel obligated by halacha in the same way that other people do. But like I understand that's what the institution is. I am perfectly comfortable and even happy with people who come to Hadar.

to Hadar programs don't share Hadar's understanding of Zionism, are not like thrilled with the fact that like we're building Batei Midrash all over Israel, but are like, you know, I don't need to pick a fight here. I understand what this institution is. I get a lot out of it. There's many things about it I agree with. I feel at home here. I feel respected as a person. Great, right? I don't need every person who partakes in my institution or my community's programming.

to share every one of the stands that my community or my institution believes in. Nor do I think I should compromise on what I believe in, in order that nobody ever feels a moment of discomfort. In other words, I just think that that's really fundamental. we get, a lot of us get tripped up on this. Honestly, I think some of the liberal denominations in America have struggled with the fact that

They're afraid to ever take a stand that any member might actually feel like, I don't agree with that. And so it ends up becoming this very kind of attenuated bond. don't even know what the right word would be here. The path is not what I mean, but the path I would want to walk on is saying, look, as an institution and a community, we believe in certain things and we don't do tits as checks, right? People are welcome here to believe all kinds of things.

Mijal Bitton (56:35)

Yeah.

It's funny, Shai, I think you and I are really, really closely aligned in this, ⁓ where you said just resonates. I often describe it as what I have learned from a certain Sephardic approach to community, ⁓ which is again, not to mythologize or to idealize too much or to pretend history didn't exist. But there is some precedent in my communities in which you have communities that have very thick collective norms and like thick

notions

of what the community stands for and then people are just welcomed in with the understanding that there's going to be deviance. Deviance is expected and accepted. ⁓

And I agree with you, this to me is a critique, I'm going to make it a critique of both liberal Jewish communities and orthodox Jewish communities, right? Because you could argue, not everybody, again we're thinking in categories here, which as you reminded us are imperfect, but liberal Jewish communities have in the last 30 years in America increasingly refused to stand for things that some people might find unpalatable.

because they have, they've almost like many communities, not everybody, but have bought into the assumption that if I stand for something or a platform, something that makes you uncomfortable and as such you won't come, then I am not being inclusive and it is my responsibility to make you feel comfortable. So, so this model is a critique of that. It is also a critique of what we might call like what happens sociologically in many Orthodox communities, which is an assumption that everybody agrees or behaves in the same way as what is platform as the norm. So I agree with you a hundred percent.

I think it's up to us to think about communities that are unafraid to... ⁓

to take on stances that still make space, you know, no ideological gatekeeping at the door. And I would also add here, I think that we can talk in theory about Zionism, anti-Zionism. I can talk about that, but I'm also aware of how personal this all is. What I mean to say is that it's a very different conversation if you're asking me to talk about like platforms and boundaries and me speaking with a close friend of mine whose first cousin

is an anti-zionist and the other cousin is in the army and they're trying to figure out what it means to be in family and it's all very very messy and poignant and complicated ⁓ maybe the only exception that i will put here Shai is that i think and this is all tricky so don't ask me to give you like you know perfect scientific analysis of this okay thank you but but i do think there's a distinction between how we live in community with each other

We can talk about our communities. We can talk about the messiness of being in family. We can talk about how complicated this is for American Jews, about how Zionism means so many different things. Some people tell me "I'm an anti-Zionist". Then I ask them, what do you mean? And I'm like, by your definition, I'm an anti-Zionist too. So these terms are slippery. They're complicated. There's often like a blurring of the lines between the government of Israel and the state of Israel and the people of Israel and all of

that. ⁓ So I want to hold all of that complexity. And I also want to allow us the ability to say at can there are there are things that are complicated. There are positions that shouldn't be platform. There are individuals who are causing harm. ⁓ and, and, know, Shai, you said earlier, I forgot your exact language, but you mentioned the dangers of

⁓ simplifying things that are very complex and I agree with that and I also believe there is a danger of complicating things that are clear.

and that should be clear. And I think that we are called to do both and to have that kind of discernment. especially within communal life and in pastoral life, we need so much discernment. We need to err on the side of having broad boundaries. We need generosity of spirit. We need to pastor each other and have many, many disagreements. And we also need to hold this with the fact that we are facing some very real threats right now. And there are going to be moments in which we are going to be called to use other muscles.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:00:33)

Yeah, so I think the only thing I would say here again is if we're going to use those muscles, I hope we use them to exclude what we regard as, to use your term, collusion with an enemy and also what we regard as desecration of Torah and God's name. you know.

Mijal Bitton (1:00:52)

And across

the political line, like you said, which I think is 100% is what shows whether something has integrity.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:00:59)

Yeah. So I think this is actually where Israel is very different from the American experience. And again, just to bring it back to what we're trying to do both in this podcast and also with our conferences is that Israel and maybe I'm still kind of very, you know, I have a Pollyanna ish kind of view on this. but but I also do think that there is legitimacy to this is that in Israel, there's no escaping the other. Right. In America, we talk about the crazy uncle that comes once a year to some, you know, ⁓ dinner. And like, do we go? Do we do we talk to you? Right. In Israel, it's like every Shabbat.

every cab ride, every bus.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:01:30)

Amitai that's

how my children think of you, the crazy uncle we try to over-quit.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:01:33)

You you see, yeah, yeah, if only you'd invite, no,

Mijal Bitton (1:01:33)

Hahaha

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:01:38)

but the point being that davka because of that, like in Israel, there's like everything is like on high octane all the time, but that proximity forces you to at the very least, right? And like, yeah, we follow the news and we see what's going on, but also in the Knesset, if you ask people about who their friends and who they get along with and then, you know, like it's just that...

that closeness, that intimacy, serving in the army together, working, all that just makes it on the one side way more emotional, but also more resilient. And I think, you go back to our context here, that's what makes it hard. And so like, again, in a more narrow, denominationally aligned institution, right, we might have the luxury to say, like, you know, we're not checking anybody, you know, what exactly they're eating or wearing or whatever, but it's self-selecting in a way that we might not be forced to deal with some of these questions ultimately.

in a real day-to-day moment. ⁓ But then the question is like, so what are we missing? How do we expand that a little bit for the depth of who we want to be and opt to be to include, not for the sake of inclusivity, but for the sake of Shivim Panim, of getting more aspects into our life so it's richer. How do we create that place? How do we make that happen?

Mijal Bitton (1:02:55)

Well, Amitai, can you say I was following your thought and then like I missed the question. Can you say the question again? Sorry.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:02:58)

Yeah, so the question in the end

Rabbi Shai Held (1:02:59)

I know me, me too.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:03:01)

is, if we do, know, because we've been talking a lot about, you know, what are the lines, what are the boundaries, et cetera. And I think that it's because of the unique, not the unique, the context of American Jewish life where we come together in a more narrow ⁓ ideological or theological or practice oriented spaces, synagogues, schools, right? And that's where we come together as communities. We're not forced necessarily to actually

interact with the other, right? It's voluntary. It's voluntary self-selecting. And so I, and I think that we miss out a little bit because we're not, we don't have those spaces where you have to interact with people. And I'm talking about like the edge cases, but like, please get narrower and narrower because like, I don't agree with this and this and this and slowly it's really uniform. And so like, talking about unity, how does that become uniformity? How do we actually expand who we are? So we're not missing out on, on the depth and breadth. Yeah, of course.

Mijal Bitton (1:03:29)

It's voluntary.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:03:54)

Can I ask you a question Amitai? Is that permitted in this format?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:03:57)

Of course,

Rabbi Shai Held (1:03:58)

So I guess it's funny, your question makes me wanna ask you, you've been living in America for quite a number of years now, right? What?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:04:06)

Yes.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:04:10)

What if any role does a theological and or political understanding of Klal Yisrael of the Jewish people as a collective do for you around this question? Meaning, know, do you sometimes see people and say like, I have nothing in common with you, but we're part of the same collective. It really, it does. So just give me an, tell me about that. I'm really curious to hear, because I struggle with this question about, you know, do American Jews

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:04:31)

Yes.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:04:39)

will believe in Klal Yisrael. Do Israeli Jews still believe in Klal Yisrael? But some of you are saying unavoidably they do more than Americans do. So talk to me about that.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:04:50)

So I don't know if I'm more than or whatever, my experience, I mean the motivation of the work, right, in these conversations is because I think that that modality of Klal Yisrael has been lost on us. And I think that we, you know, we focus a lot, the imagery that we use to describe who we are, right, as a people, family, we're cousins, there's a lot of imagery around that. And I think that all that is true, but I do think that there is an element that is lost sometimes, and that is that we are also,

We also need to be, we're boreh plukta. The modality of machloket, of chavruta is so fundamental to who are. So you have a study partner, someone that you disagree with as a way to find more truth in a higher level. And there's text about that, text abound, about knives being sharpened one against the other, or a father and son who are studying and they start as enemies, back to Shai's distinction there or attempt at, but they end as lovers. ⁓

point to that, right, because there is something that happens when we do that, when we disengage, I think that's a real problem. And so like I will seek out and create spaces for people who will, who might not want to interact. And that's a different, that's very different from an advocacy or even like, it's a different purpose, right? And each one has space, but I think like fundamentally we need to be able to engage in those levels. Now there are still questions of boundaries that come up.

and you ask different people in this organization, they'll have different answers to what those boundaries are. ⁓ I hew towards more people who, know, like people that have a real or perceived shared future, immediate or long-term, as a guiding principle and not tough for the past, right? Because it's easy to look at the past. We're all word Jews, we all went through this thing, but moving forward, are we working towards the same thing? We can disagree on how we might reach that point, but if we, you know, and that, if we are all under the understanding,

that no one is going anywhere and we need to work together to get to that point, then we have to be in conversation. We must be that. So that's my perspective, I think, to the question of Kral Israel and looking for people like I disagree with and they disagree with me, but we have to be able to sit in those conversations.

Mijal Bitton (1:07:08)

Yeah, and Shai, don't know if this is what I think I heard in your question, a question about American Jews, right? Do we still have this sense of care and obligation for each other, even when we are different or disagree? And I'll just tell you, we are recording this like this last, it was a busy month. I visited communities from.

Minneapolis to Atlanta to Toronto to like a bunch of different places. And whenever I go to two new places and I meet with Jews that I've never met before, and I talk to them and, I am every time I get this sense of like, of being taken aback by them, the passion, the love and the care that I find American Jews express for Jews in Israel and around the world.

in like so in so many different places and I think that

I think that one of my kind of like the things that I've taken in the last 18 months is that in the American Jewish establishment, especially in liberal spaces, I think many had almost like made Kaddish for this feeling. know, many had said like, you know, like we don't have ethnic Judaism anymore. We don't have bonds to each other anymore. We only have bonds to each other if we agree with each other in which we are aligned. And then you look at the people, not everybody, of course, but you look and there has been this consistent

swelling of just of just ⁓ care for Klal Yisrael so

To me, there is something very powerful there and a question for us as to what it means. I believe in this very much. part of like my guiding principle. I believe that I am part of to be a Jewish, to be part of a, of a really big, messy, complicated fighting family. and, and to me, this is part of the most important project that we have to continue nourishing and we have to spend more time nourishing our ability to be with each other than calling out the margins. know we spent in this conversation a bunch of time on that. ⁓

Rabbi Shai Held (1:08:59)

you

Mijal Bitton (1:09:10)

But to me, that's almost like a tiny part of the work, an important but small part of the work. And the most important part of the work is to actually figure out the guiding principles, mechanism, and muscles that we need to really care for each other.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:09:23)

So clearly I missed that part of the question. So Mijal, thank you for that. No, no, no, because I, no, not at all. I did have, yes, what Mijal said.

Mijal Bitton (1:09:26)

or I heard it and it wasn't there and I just made it up.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:09:35)

It's interesting.

Sorry. Go ahead.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:09:38)

No, no, was saying what Mijal said, like, so just like to come from my perspective that if I did miss the question is, which is why I'm doing what I'm doing, we have to, I think people are interested in that sense of Klal Israel, and they need it, but they don't know how to exercise it, they know how places for it, which is why we're doing what we're doing, right? We're seeing people, yeah, go ahead, Mijal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna, yes, yes, yeah, I'm minded on that.

Mijal Bitton (1:09:54)

⁓ Sorry, I have to leave in like 10 minutes just to get a break before my next one just letting you know. Sorry, keep going.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:10:00)

It's interesting, you know, I...

think the way that I personally at least think about an experience, Klal Yisrael, is in a slightly different register, I think, than what the two of you said, although practically it may be the same. One is, it will not surprise you in light of what we've already talked about, that Klal Yisrael is first and foremost for me a kind of theological experience. That is, I believe that we are all summoned by the same God to be in covenant. ⁓

And that means that because I think of this theologically and in a very particular way, I often find myself thinking of myself in community with people who may or may not think of themselves in community with me. And if often, if they think they are in community with me, they think so for very different reasons than I think. That makes sense. Was that too abstract? Meaning, you know, because I believe that the entire Jewish people are summoned by God to live in covenant with God.

Mijal Bitton (1:10:50)

was a bit abstract. Give me an example. us an example.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:10:52)

A little, a little,

little.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:11:00)

I mean, Jews are totally secular and I feel like you are part of my family because God has made it so. And they would look at me like I was Martian and that's okay. I don't have any need for everyone to share my religiously grounded conception of Klal Israel. But also, you know, there's another dimension of Klal Israel for me, which is like, let me say it in this sort of almost funny way. We inherited the same letter from our grandparents. We just read the letter differently.

Mijal Bitton (1:11:03)

yeah.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:11:30)

Right? Like we have the same heritage. We have the Tanakh and Chazal and medieval Jewish writing. And right. And so there's a way in which we have a shared inheritance. It's actually after those two things that my sort of more political and practical, you know, the theological in particular makes it very hard for me to walk away from other Jews. Because

Mijal Bitton (1:12:00)

Quit.

Quit.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:12:01)

You're

part of my divinely ordained mishpacha. Right?

Mijal Bitton (1:12:05)

you

Yeah, agree with it. It's funny Shai. I want to actually take the two statements that you made and offer you ⁓ a third that kind of may play with that. You spoke about, you know, it's almost like there's like the vertical and the horizontal and how they intersect, right, between us and between God. So at Sinai, you could argue that like we had an intersectional covenant, right? Like us, God, us, each other, us, God, each other constantly. There's a philosopher that's influenced my thinking in this. I don't know if you

the works of Mayor Buzaglo in Israel. I did not know I was going to be all like Mizrahi Sephardic, you know, stuff in this conversation, but I guess I will. But Buzaglo, he almost gives like a different layer of theology in which the two statements that you make, that you made almost cannot be separated. It's not so much like I remember that it's to at Sinai, is I inherited from my grandparents the memory of Sinai. And it ties the theological and the

Rabbi Shai Held (1:13:03)

Mm-hmm.

Mijal Bitton (1:13:06)

in a way that cannot be pulled apart from each other. And I'll tell you Shai I'm mentioning this because the tension that I live with, And I agree with you, I feel called in a religious sense. I feel a connection with other Jews, but I also feel a divine connection with the family, which then brings up all, I know, know, which I'm just thinking, which then brings up all the questions when.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:13:26)

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Mijal Bitton (1:13:32)

Like we can ask this sociologically or even like in terms of our personal lives, right? Think about our families, our siblings, our cousins, right? But is there something that any of them will do?

that means we, you know, they have put themselves out and that is really hard because we don't like to think this way and it's very extreme. But sometimes we have to think this way to preserve the family because we love the family so much. And I'll just name that to me, this is where so many of the questions come up, like the intersectional nature of who we are as Jews that I cannot talk about me and God without talking about us and God. I can't, it was plural in Sinai, right? Like atem, Hashem was speaking in a plural way. So, and I think that

that's part of what makes this really complicated, that we are bound in a multi-directional way.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:14:23)

So I would say amen to all of that. I I agree with that. I think it's actually a sort of almost just different language for a similar idea. But part of what made me want to say it is, I mean, Ty, when you started by saying we are boreh plukta, we are in an argument with each other, part of me thought, you know, there is tarbuta machloket in the history of Judaism. There is the culture of disagreement, but we can easily over romanticize that. There is also the culture of having cast people out.

plenty of times. And for me, it's actually helpful to think first that my Bar-plukta, the person I'm arguing with, has been divinely sanctioned as part of my family. I can't walk away. Sometimes I argue with people and I'm like, you know what? We don't have anything to talk about. I can't really do that very easily with members of my community because it's just overlay of history and theology that make that impossible.

That's why I just wouldn't start where you started. I mean, I don't disagree with you. I think part of what it means to inherit this is to talk about what does it mean and sometimes to disagree passionately about what it means and what it asks of us. But it starts from somewhere I would say, like at a deeper substrate of theology and history, not just, you're someone I happen to talk to. No, we share inheritance with a capital I. Torah u'Mitzvot. And you might think Torah u'Mitzvot. means something else than I do. Okay, fine. But

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:15:41)

Right. Yeah. So I...

So I'm gonna do some of this.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:15:51)

Right? There's just a deeper starting point. Which I think is what most Mijal and I are saying in different ways. Or maybe even pretty close to the same way. And I know you don't disagree with that.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:15:58)

Yeah, so, no,

no, which is why I typically, which is why I also brought in the example of the father and son war or in a machloket right? Like that's, that's, clear, but 100 % agree, 100 % agree, but we are coming to time and I want to be respectful of it. So this is the last question because we focus a lot on the heritage and what we've inherited, what we've gotten and who we were. But I, and we start off with hope and hope has to do with the future.

So I'm gonna add, and to me part of the equation is that shared, not just a shared past but a shared future at some point, someplace, somewhere. And I'm curious, know, and you can choose which one you want to answer. ⁓ But either let's talk about hope for a second. What gives you that hope in these moments? ⁓ And the other is what does that shared, or maybe they're connected, what does that shared future, real, perceived, imagined, whatever, play?

for you and thinking about your community, our family, and how we're moving through these difficult moments.

Mijal Bitton (1:17:01)

I'm happy to share, it's like a moment that gave me great hope in the last month. I was invited by a student of mine to speak at her Jewish affinity graduation.

I didn't know much about it. ⁓ It was at the Columbia Social Work School. And when I walked in, I realized that that morning they had the big general graduation, which was taken over by pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas, kind of like unclear kind of a protest, depending how you read different slogans. And this was a graduation that the students had put together and they had graduated from a school that was amongst what I would call the worst in the country,

just Columbia but Columbia Social Work School ⁓ in terms of just physical harassment of students and just like really ugly things that many of them experienced. ⁓ And I felt that I really felt so moved by that.

experience of just meeting these Jews, most of them in their 20s, who came to speak to me that, you know, they weren't that engaged in the Jewish community before, they didn't come into this school as like Jewish students, and they went through this really, really hard thing, and then they showed me pictures of marching in the general graduation, and all of them were, I don't know how to call them, the thing that you put around your neck, like graduation, whatever, you know what I'm talking about, like a sign of some...

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:18:26)

Yeah, it's like a banner to something

Mijal Bitton (1:18:28)

a banner and their banner said Jewish

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:18:28)

you wear. Not the castle on the head. But yeah.

Mijal Bitton (1:18:31)

graduate with like a big star of David even as they knew that you know that they might have a position there and and I just felt that there is something magnificent about

the potential we just have of going through really hard things and emerging out stronger. And I know it sounds cliche, but I just keep thinking back, you know, biblically to, how Jacob becomes Israel, right? Which is he has this encounter, this struggle, this wrestling, he's left limping, but he's also changed, he's transformed into a person who can confront really difficult things. And

And that really moves me tremendously, just constant encounters with Jews all over the place, theologically, religiously, politically. We don't vote the same. We don't think the same. We don't pray the same. We might not pray at all. But there's just been, I'm just really proud. I'm really proud to be a Jew, just in light of my encounters with other Jews and how we're responding to this moment.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:19:38)

Shai.

Rabbi Shai Held (1:19:43)

Yeah, I mean, don't disagree. Obviously, don't disagree. It's hard to disagree with someone's experience of hope. But I guess I would say two different things just to add to the mix here. One is that I think a lot about this idea that one of the questions were asked when we die, according to the Talmudist Sipita Lishua, which is often translated as, you wait for redemption? But I've argued that a better translation is, did you anticipate redemption?

By which I mean, did you create little pockets that represent the world as you imagine it will one day be? Did you create communities where, Tzelem Elohim, the image of God is truly affirmed? Did you create communities where people talk to each other in ways that, you know, are compassionate and con... You know, did you create windows, glimpses of a different kind of future?

By the way, that's what the spirituality of Shabbat is all about. The whole notion of Shabbat is me'ein olam haba as an anticipation of the world to come, is sort of like, can you experience now some glimpse of how you imagine the world will one day be? And I would say, you know, I experienced those windows not so rarely. They're very small windows and they threaten to be enveloped by the darkness. But I do experience those windows and they're very powerful.

and I hold onto them for dear life. The other thing I would say, which is just really directly parallel to what Mijal said, but maybe kind of holding it up to the light slightly differently. The other thing that I feel like I've experienced since October 7th that I find so incredibly touching, and it's in part because I think I sold people short on this. When I embarked on my, you know, very long book tour, I thought,

No one's going to want to talk about anything. People are so wounded and so traumatized and so angry and so politically divided. Who's going to want to talk about the meaning of life? And ma ha'shem Elohecha sho'el mi'imach, right? What does God— Who wants to talk about that? And the answer turned out to be more Jews than ever before.

That has been my experience. And not only more Jews, but with a more open heart. And yes, of course, the people who self-select to come to an event about a book called Judaism is about love with me is a self-selecting crowd. And nevertheless, I just found it unbelievably moving. The things people would put on the table about their personal lives, about their religious lives, their fears for America, about their fears for Israel.

I mean, it's just been incredibly moving. I love the Jewish people. They drive me totally crazy. I hope I drive them a little crazy too. ⁓ They drive me crazy, but I've just seen so much beauty in the last couple of years in the place that I'm happiest, which is in a Beit Midrash learning Torah with people.

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:22:53)

So thank you, thank you both Dr. Mijal Bitton and Rav Shai Held so much for joining us today in this podcast. I found it illuminating, inspiring, challenging and hopeful and I hope you did as well. And really just thank you so much for your time.