Welcome to Breakfast in Hell.

This week, I'm joined by Rina Saltzman.

Rina has spent most of her professional life in theater and was born into and raised in the Jewish tradition.

Rina talks us through her faith journey from a very different lens than we typically see here.

It's been mentioned on the pod before that one of the striking differences between Evangelical Christianity and Judaism is that most people of Jewish faith were born into it.

It's genetic, it's a part of their being.

Throughout her life, Rena has a firm understanding of her very tangible ties to her religion, and from that comes a life of not leaving her faith, but more questioning what her faith looks like to her.

Sometimes it means a pretty strict adherence to certain Jewish laws and traditions or Hebrew School as a child, and other times it means something much less formal.

It's something relatively unique to the Jewish faith, and knowing that her religion isn't an on off switch allows Reena the freedom over her life to explore it in ways that aren't really possible for those that just choose a religion.

I also think you'll find my conversation with Rena educational, as she is well versed on the various sects within the Jewish faith as well as the history of her faith.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

Here's Rena.

Rena, thank you so much for joining me.

I've known you for about a half decade now, and you reached out and I said you wanted to be on the show, and I'm very, very excited to get to talk to you.

Can you tell the folks at home a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and kind of when your life starts intersecting with faith.

Sure, I am from New Jersey, Jersey City to be exact, right outside of New York City.

I don't remember a time where my world and my knowledge didn't intersect with faith.

Actually, I have pictures of myself and synagogue at a very young age.

My parents were community leaders and synagogue leaders, so it's been instilled in me since I would say birth quite frankly, Oh.

Wow, yeah, unbelievable.

So how did that shape your childhood?

You were you were at the synagogue every time the doors open.

Then yes, I would say that that is actually true.

Uh, we were, in fact we're we're in the process of our synagogue was sold.

Uh, which happens, and you know, we moved on from that synagogue years ago, but we've moved the windows.

The windows were actually given to us, a beautiful, beautiful stained glass windows to my new synagogue.

Oh wow, which.

My brother is you see, to be the president of.

And so we're actually dedicating them on Saturday night.

And that brought up a lot for me.

So sorry, I think I just got off track.

No, there is no such thing as off track.

What you've done really well, as you foreshadowed the fact that you still are going to synagogue pretty regularly.

Uh.

So we have a journey to tell, and that's good.

It gives people a snapshot.

And so as a kid, tell me a little bit of how like that framed your world, being at the church every time the door is open, and and then how you know as you grow what that kind of does to your belief system.

Yeah, so it's interesting.

My parents were very, very involved in our synagogue.

My mother was the head of what they call the sisterhood.

My dad was president.

We have those titles and synagogues.

I have no idea, I.

Will I don't know what that is I guess maybe like d Ken or Elder would be how churches work.

And I've learned so much from listening to your podcast.

So so President is you know, the big leader, not because we have rabbis, we have you know, we have religious leaders, and then we have kind of the more secular leaders of the synagogue.

And I was sent to.

My parents were very very it was very important for them to have their children be educated as Jews.

Right, So most synagogues, I would say all synagogues have some sort of educational system Sunday school, Hebrew school, something like that depends on this where you live in Judaism.

And I was sent I was sent to a religious kindergarten on a bus that was like a forty minute ride.

When I was in kindergarten, you were taking forty minutes on the bus when you were found out.

With a whole bunch of other Jewish kids.

And it's called the yeshiva, and that's that means school.

Yeshiva is a Jewish school.

And I was there for about a year and a half and a rabbi actually I'm left handed, and a rabbi tried to tie my hand behind my left hand behind my back, which was a thing.

And that's not just a Jewish thing, that's that's the thing for left handed people.

You can ask a lot of left handed people.

I'm left handed with everything aside from writing, so I do everything else left handed, but I write right handed.

But yes, I have heard of this, like stories.

Like this fascinating.

I went home and obviously like cried or something to my parents that this has happened, and they pulled me out of that school within five minutes.

By wow.

But I went to Hebrew School and that was like three days a week, right, It was like Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

So that's on top of your regular schooling.

Yes, when too went to a secular grade school, grammar school one through eight, you know, first grade through eight, eighth grade, when to Hebrew School until I was ready to be bot mitzvah, which happens at for me at twelve.

Girls are twelve, boys are thirteen.

Okay, it's when bar mitzvah or bot mitzvah is bot is the female, when you are welcomed into the Jewish religion as an adult, really as a group, as somebody who was able to take it.

So Hebrew school.

This is teaching you how to read and like read in Hebrew.

That it is the religion.

We study religion, well, study the you know, the Five Books of Moses, of the Torah, we study you study commentaries from the rabbis.

Not at that age, it's more cultural and a lot of cultural stuff.

Did you find I mean interrupt, did you find this interesting?

Like was this interesting to you?

Or is this required by your parents?

And so you did it.

It was required by my parents, so I did it fair.

But then because the Jersey City school system, my mother was in the school system and he was a teacher, will understand, that left a lot to be desired.

Yes, my parents wanted when we got to high school age, my parents wanted us to go to back to the yeshiva.

And it was the same yeshiva, just in a different place in my in my town.

Actually another half hour ride on the bus, right.

And then we went to high school and I went to high school in the yeshiva.

We actually prayed in the morning.

We went started in synagogue in the morning.

We then went to our Hebrew and religious study classes from like nine to noon, had lunch, and then we did we actually did secular studies from one till six.

So I was at school all day from freshman year till my junior year.

And then we got a little bit of a break in senior year where we attended some college grade, college level classes in the afternoon.

So I was done by like two or three.

Oh, that was a break the college level classes.

That was great.

At that point, I was more invested, right.

It wasn't just because my parents made me go.

This was something that I loved.

It became part of my being.

I think Judaism and being a Jew is who I am, and so it became a very important part of my education.

And on some levels it also became a little stifling.

So you know, going to school that I graduated in a class of twenty five people.

My whole high school was one hundred people.

Wow.

When I finished high school, I loved my friends.

Where Facebook has brought us all back together, I didn't want to see any of them, like I'm out of here.

Yeah, And there was there was a movement among our rabbis who taught us to have us go on to a Yeshiva college, which does exist in New York City and in other places, but New York being a very big college.

My sister actually went to a yeshiva Yeshiva college, but I wanted no part of it.

I was a theater person.

That was that became somewhat my religion as I moved into adulthood.

So and I want to get to theater in a second, But I like, we've had someone else from the Jewish tradition on the pod before and the I the difference between a lot of uh, you know, folks that come on here to talk about Christianity.

There's obviously there's many, but at some point these folks just either their parents, it's your grandparents, or someone just chose to be, you know, a part of this one Methodist or Baptist church or this sect of evangelicalism.

Whereas you know, your genetics are like even if you never went to a temple a day in your life, you are you are inherently a Jewish human being.

So could you talk about how you know what it's like to have your faith inextricably a link to your inextricably linked to your personhood.

And if that you said stifling, is that part of you know you become a theater, you know, you know, theater becomes your religion.

Does Judaism feel inescapable or does it?

Do you feel like this part just baggage that you're carrying with you?

At that point, I think, I think I don't want to use I don't want to be negative about my religious my religion in a way that it's I did say it's stifling, but it's it was.

It was stifling in that in the environment I was in, right.

Okay, got it?

So I was I will always You're right, I will always be Jewish.

You can, I could convert.

I will always be Jewish because Judaism.

And there's lots and lots of people who will discount this.

We we are a people.

We are not just a religion, right, we are a culture.

We are a people.

We are a religion.

And for me, that's all intertwined, right everything.

I veer towards Jewish culture a lot, even in my theater world.

Right.

But I think you know, for me, the stifling part was I didn't go to synagogue.

I went to synagogue when I needed to with my family in my college years.

I didn't seek it out individually in my college years because of my high school.

It also tracks, I would say, it tracks from you know, even before high school, you're going to synagogue every time the door is open.

Your dad's heavily involved, your mom's heavily involved.

There's a there's a pretty natural instinct when you get out on your own to go I'm going to do things differently, So skipping synagogue and trying to figure out who you are that makes a lot of internal sense.

Right, I mean we you know what, there's certain factions of Jewish you know Jewish life.

Right, there's Orthodoxy, there's Conservative, which is the group that I belong to, and conservative doesn't mean conservative the way the world conservative conservative Jews are actually liberal for the rest well, not all, I won't say that, not all.

There is some you know, very conservative, very retal conservative Jews, but we tend to be more liberal, right.

And then there's reform Judaism, and then there's kind of sects of Judaism in between.

So you know, it's when you when you try and pull things apart, it becomes very very challenging.

And when you're when you're a person of faith, which I am, it's whether I'm in a building or not.

Do I believe in God?

Absolutely?

God is with me all the time.

God is here, right, and our our view of God is very different than the Christian view of God.

Yes, so I don't know if I answered that question.

No, no, No, you're doing You're doing great.

But I do want to dive further into this this But like you said, when you know, Orthodox reform conservative, and it gets tough.

You know, if you were when you were in college, how would you or now either way, how would you?

You know?

With Christians the denominations, like, there's veryvery specific beliefs, you know, like it's an interpretation, right, we we tend to make it about specifically us, like how what specifically emotionally God has told us from these words?

Whereas and if my understanding is wrong, please correct me with Judaism.

It's how many of these more ancient rules are there to follow versus?

Remember?

Is that accurate?

It is accurate to an extent.

Yet so in an Orthodoxy there are what what are called six hundred and thirteen minutes vote things that we should that Jews Orthodox Jews should follow.

Right, it's not a lot a lot well for the rest of us, it's you know, for those of us who don't aren't taught.

And I was taught in an Orthodox high school.

I mean, my high school was run by the what's called the bub butcher hot seedom.

And you've probably seen hussydom in the cultural sense of the guys with the black coats and the big cats and the you know, and that's stereotyping, right, that's a stereotysm, right, Yes, But my teachers came from that world and a Hasidic is is there are levels of Huscidam too, but but so they're very strict and my I have family members who are very strict, but they are more modern Orthodox, still keeping the Sabbath still, you know, Sabbath starts on Saturday, on Friday night at sundown.

It ends on Saturday at sundown.

It means we don't watch TV.

It means we don't we go to synagogue.

We you know, we have certain things we do on a Saturday, but we don't do anything that involves electricity.

Quite frankly, you don't turn on lights.

So you still subscribe to this or is this I am?

I am a conservative.

I consider myself a conservative Jew, but that really means that that's where I practice Judaism.

Right now.

I've been a lot less than conservative movement I've been more sometimes in the conservative movement.

I followed my own path in so many ways, So.

What did that look like in college?

So what did that look like in college?

When you're figuring out?

It kind of became what we call the the high holiday jew what means I was Jewish?

It's always Jewish.

I'm always going to be Jewish.

But I went to synagogue on my holidays?

Right, I became I wasn't on Friday night Saturday morning Jews?

Ye, my god, those times.

I have two questions.

One is I know how different denominations of evangelicalism judge each other, right, I know it's like, oh, you think drinking alcohol is okay?

You think dancing like these are these are big arena.

These are huge platforms.

Like the idea of not using electricity on Saturday versus just going on the holidays, Like those are big differences in belief systems, Like what's the what's the judgment?

Like does everyone just still go well, because we're a race of people, we're all still Jewish?

That's one?

And two does that your practice?

Did that affect your belief you're existential?

Not in your personhood?

I understand you know that you're Jewish, you're from this group of people.

I understand that, but does so these are two big questions and I can repeat them, uh, the judgment of these different levels, and like how they treat each other, like how do Orthodox Jews treat just like high holiday Jews?

Verse?

And then also you're in college.

Is your belief in there being an all powerful being a God?

What God's role is in your day to day life?

Did that ever change as your judaic practice has changed?

Yeah, I think for me being away from well, let's go to the first one.

First, the judgment.

The judgment, yes, is their judgment?

Yes?

Absolutely, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't right.

My father, who was an amazingly fabulous human being, he's just a good man.

He could not understand anything but Orthodox and conservative.

He was.

He was raised Orthodox, he practiced conservative all his adult life.

Reform Judaism to him was like going to church.

That's what he thought it as right, there are reform synagogues or churches, and it wasn't you know it was.

My father was also a really funny person, so it was a joke, but in his mind it kind of wasn't.

It's like that's a watered down version for him.

Right.

Do Orthodox Jews look at me differently?

My sister is an Orthodox Jew.

She doesn't impose her belief systems in terms of how she practices on us.

She never has, even when she found kind of the Orthodox way in high school.

She didn't force my parents to become more than they were.

She didn't force anything on us.

My brother or myself, do we respect absolutely when when they are My brother keeps a kosher home.

My brother, it's a it shouldn't out him like this, but but he is.

He's not necessarily kosher everywhere else, Right, he'll eat in a regular restaurant.

Yeah, But if my sister comes to his house, she can be assured that his house is kosher and she can eat there.

Because there are amles about that in Judaism.

Right now, that seems a lot more empathetic and understanding than the Christian counterpart version, which is, in my house, you're gonna do it my way.

Yeah, and in her house we obviously do it their way because anything that wasn't kosher into it just.

Seems like you.

Because I do think there's something about you being a people group that does lend itself to go, well, I'm going to do whatever's the It's like in education, we call it the least restrictive environment.

So the thing that works for as many.

So if we're in the if we're with the Orthodox jew then we're going to do the thing that doesn't compromise their Orthodox standing.

And then we're not.

We don't we don't have to.

And that is you know how I grew up.

The flip was true.

It was like you you know, us Southern Baptists have the corner on real Christianity, you know what I mean, Like we have the like they haven't figured it out yet over at the Methodist Church or whatever.

And so that's a and I like that's a pretty important distinction that goes at the end of the day, this is my Jewish brother or sister.

I'm not gonna get in the way of of how they choose to practice it, and vice versa, which is which is uh, it's admirable if nothing else.

Yeah, I mean I can't speak for everyone.

I do think that there are sex of the Orthodox, of the ultra orthodox in and then a lot of them live in New York and in Brooklyn or in the mountains and the cat skills who who are very you know, have a very narrow view of the world and don't mix and don't they live in their own communities of course.

And when you get put that there are there are sex like As I said, my teachers in high school are part of the Lebabacher sydem, which are a more I'm going to use the word liberal.

They're not.

But in every town if you look up C.

H A, B A D.

In New York, in Greenville, you will find a hubad, which is how we pronounce it that you will welcome everyone, okay, And it's to allow people who may not have synagogues that they belong to, because we do have memberships and I know that you and when you have this other Jewish person on.

We talked about how to be a member of a synagogue.

If you don't have a place to go, they welcome you in.

But it's not a welcoming in a proselytizing and it's not a welcoming in of you have to do it our way.

It's an introduction sometimes or it's just you have nowhere else to go, so we're going to provide.

You with home.

Okay, all right, Well that makes.

Sense, like, and we don't proselytize, right, just don't.

We're not allowed We're not allowed to do that.

That's that's awesome.

First of all, right, No, let's get I want to I want to hear the second part of this, which is, like your belief system, you know, as your practice definitely changes, does that incorporate a questioning of you know, like these existential matters of like why we're here and who put us here?

And what happens after we're here?

And does mine you know, does the number of times I go to synagogue affect how God blesses me or how my life got Like these are things that I, at least in my experience, we all think, right, what was going on there?

Yeah, I think from the time, you know, I start when I started college, I did.

Even though I said, I don't want to be a near you know, I don't want to be near any of my college friends or my I mean high school friends, or the judy or the practice of Judaism as I knew it, I did kind of veer towards you know, there's college groups of Jews called Hillo you go and belong And I kind of gave that up very quickly in that it didn't provide me what I needed.

I have always felt that God is within me in a way of how I handle the world.

And I think my college years kind of took me away from the practice of Judaism and kind of brought me to a more ethical Judaism.

Okay, but I wasn't practicing right, I wasn't doing what I did all through high school and did it form did I?

Ever?

I never got away from God as a being, God as a spirit God as you know, we don't.

I don't necessarily call God he or she God is God.

I think that's probably best.

Yeah, And and I like prayer books that kind of have that attitude or have that you know in them where where it doesn't refer to God as a person.

Uh.

And So I think those years were very much by trying to find out who I was, separate from who I was as a Jew.

But at the same time, I didn't pull away completely from Judaism.

I just wasn't practicing it in a way that I was used to.

And it was It was a freedom, absolutely, and for me, I think still to this very day, I kind of have my own thing, right, I don't.

I don't practice Judaism the way other people do.

Now.

There were years where I went to synagogue every week because it brought me spiritually.

I needed that, right, and I needed community.

Of course, it's a huge part of a why a lot of people go to any any religious organization.

Yeah, And I feel like the pandemic kind of changed that a little for me in that when we were alone, I actually used to watch synagogue services that were you know, on Fridays or Saturdays.

But I found it more in myself to guide myself in Judaism, not necessarily having other people guide me.

And I think that's what happened in college.

I think I pulled away from the organization of religion in a way and started experimenting with other forms of Judaism.

Like there's a set called reconstruct.

I could never do reform because my father's church was still so you know, and I wasn't involved with a lot of Jewish organizations at the time.

But you know, for me again, and I think we can never get so far away from it.

The jewishness of me, the cultural aspects of being a Jew, are the most important, one of the most important parts of me, right and I think you see it.

You know.

There, I'm going to talk about this for a minute.

There is something about being Jewish that does make you somewhat of another right other as quote unquote other.

And we are, as Jews not always comfortable in the world of Christianity because Christianity is surrounding us.

We we where are two percent, We're point two percent of the world population.

And so I think that also informs my belief in who I am and what I am as a Jew.

So even though there was a pulling away from the let's say, the orthodoxy of it, right, and I'm using orthodoxy in like the people who go to synagogue every week and the people who you know, I became a different kind of Jew for myself.

And I don't know if that makes sense or not.

No, it does.

And in a world where the foundation of your belief system is is I can't not be Jewish, right, that is that is the one you know, that's the one plus one equals too that we start with, right that if you can't not be Jewish, then all you can do is slide on a spectrum.

Right, you can slide on a spectrum of practice my and then the belief you know.

I love the idea that if I am inherently Jewish, then God is inherently in me.

So those two things kind of go hand in hand.

The not proselytizing like that you're not allowed to proselytize, Just answer why on that first?

I love that first of all.

I mean, and I think we would probably be in a better place if you know, we we could all get behind that.

That beliefs are like you're you're talking about things that are inherently very personal, right, Like this conversation is a personal conversation, and your sisters is and your brothers are isn't all?

You know?

And making that a space that can be yours is is great?

Why?

Why is that important for the Jewish tradition and Jewish faith?

So I don't know that the I guess I should have maybe looked at this before.

I don't know that the why of it is.

I've always said Jewish, being a jewis is hard, right, Being Jewish is not an easy thing.

And I have friends who converted.

I have a friend who converted a number of years ago who was now a rabbi, came to the came to the not oh, I'm going to convert because I'm going to get married.

I want I'm converting because I want to be Jewish, right, I feel like I am a Jew.

And in the process of being converting, the rabbis are actually have to ask you time and time again, are you sure you want to convert?

And it's a it's a rule.

I think it's like three different times they have to ask you, are you sure you want to convert?

And then you go in front of a panel of people.

You know, it's called a big din.

And I think it's not because we're you know, somebody.

I think also you're other guest talked about the chosen people.

It's not because we're chosen in any special way.

We're not special other than being a very small minority in the world.

The chosen part is a whole different theory.

But I think it's I think it's because we know that it is hard to be a Jew, it is hard to be who we are in the world, because.

It's not it's not an emotion.

It shouldn't be an emotional decision.

It's not yeah, yeah, and and and you have to really want it, like this isn't just so, I don't think again, it is against the rules of Judaism to act to encourage someone to be Jewish, and I would have to look up where that all came from.

I'm sorry, I really don't know.

No, no, but what you're saying is that it's not even just not what you do.

You guys do the opposite.

A sorry, are like, are you really sure you want to do this, because.

There's a triple checking here.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, no, no, no, you you mentioned zero point two percent of the population.

When you hear the you know, I will use because I'm you know, I'm from a Christian tradition, a white Anglo Saxon tradition, right that when you hear this majority population, like Christians talk about how they're that they're they I don't know who they is.

I guess the government.

They're coming for our Christianity, like, which is such a clear emotional like it's an emotional logical fallacy.

And I'm not asking you to go through the history of the persecution of the Jewish people.

I feel, you know, I feel like we've got a pretty good handle on that.

But just as a as a populative minority, just as a point two percent, who does we do have if you we just look at the last one hundred years of history, not the ancient history of the Jewish people, just the last one hundred years.

We have a track record of Jewish persecution.

When you hear the majority population say they are, I don't I still don't know who they are.

They're coming for your Bibles, They're coming for your Christianity.

They're trying to take it out of the public square.

And knowing that's an emotional response and the Jewish belief is not that is not this emotional response.

It's a steadfastness of genealogy, of genetics.

What is that?

What is that process like for you?

What's it been like for you over the course of your adult life?

Silly, I actually have to ask you to explain they're coming after our I'm not sure I understand that as a concept.

So like there's been a push.

I mean, listen, this push started with unfortunately with integration in our country.

But like taking prayer out of schools or uh not just prayer out of school's prayer before the football game, or like the thing that they made up where Christmas was being replaced with Xmas or things like that that are just classic Christian culture war things, right.

Oh get I get what you're saying.

That you're coming for your that's right.

That the others are coming.

That's right, Christianity, that's right.

Sorry, now I understand.

So they they are the others, whatever, the others.

It's a straw man.

It's a complete straw man.

The majority of people in our country are Christians.

There's nobody coming, but they like to think somebody is right.

So we are a Christian culture.

I mean we are a you know, they say we're a Judeo Christian culture.

But that's like okay, really doesn't mean a whole.

So I'll give you the example.

This morning there was or yesterday there was a proclamation by the president.

I even used that.

There was a proclamation that it was going to instruct schools on how to conduct school prayer.

That's public schools.

That sends a sugar down my spine.

That literally like makes me feel like, well I left.

I know that that isn't gonna sound so weird, but you will get this.

I know the words to every Christmas song there is basically because from grade one till eight I sang those in school.

Yeah right, I was.

There was no like, let's do a Jewish song.

Maybe there was one, but every Jewish kid knows every Christmas carol, right, we wrote some of them, a lot of them, actually.

But you know, when somebody says we're coming for your bibles, I could care less about your bibles, honestly, I mean as a Jew, and I think most Jews feel that way.

Like your Bible is your bible.

It has no relevance in my world.

You should be allowed to practice whatever religion it calls to you.

I could care less about that because it has no impact on me until you start telling me that I can't pray the way I want to pray.

And I think I've had that all my life, honestly, as a Jewish person growing up in a Christian society, you always you never I never felt like, oh, someone was going to make me not be too you wish I'm lucky in that way.

I think there are other people who who have have had that.

But that whole idea of us coming, you know we are coming, or or liberals are coming to take away your religion is beyond anything I can ever imagine.

It makes it literally sen shivers up and down my spine.

It's wild.

Did you ever growing up look at the at the Christian tradition and like feel as though you were missing out on something like there's something that you didn't get to do.

Nope, no, I think I've said this to you before.

I or you may know it just from our other interactions.

I've never turned to Christmas tree.

I do not have that experience in my life.

Do I feel like I'm missing something?

Absolutely not.

We are inundated by things like Christmas from what now, right September and they'll start putting out Christmas stuff in five minutes.

So we're so what was I missing?

I mean, I what was I missing?

Y'all have one day gifts?

I had eight, that's right.

So No, I you know, I grew up I was very I grew up in a very in a way, very sheltered environment from my really young days because I thought everyone was Jewish.

I grew up in a Jewish community.

I you know, I until I went to grade school and then actually until I got into like seventh or eighth grade, where where anti Semitism reared its ugly head in my world.

Literally from a classmate I didn't think about.

I knew y'all have a have these wonderful traditions, and I loved watching all the Christmas stuff on teav We did it, you know, we went every year, my parents took us to look at all the lights and then up and in neighborhoods that are in our own right.

Yeah, but I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood.

My synagod was down the block.

We went there every every minute we could.

And and that's how I grew up.

So I didn't.

I never felt like I was missing something.

I do feel sometimes like I'm the odd man out.

Okay, that that does happen, and that's yeah, that makes sense I from a spiritual standpoint, And like you know, when I have someone on this show who's almost always escaped some sort of Christian sex denomination or at sometimes even like cult level, the story that Christians tell when they tell their story is always like this is when I felt closest to God, this is when I felt furthest away, or this is when I stopped believing in God.

When for you and telling and telling your story of your adult life, as as someone that's been Jewish their whole life, I just don't get the feeling that that's kind of how it would be framed for you like spiritually, if you tell a story about you know, how you were as a spiritual being, as someone dealing with you know, just the day to day, you know, existential practice of living as someone who also is Jewish, How would you frame that if it's because my only you know, my only frame of reference is this is when I was really church.

You know, the more I was going to church, the more I thought God was with me, the less I was going the more I you know what I mean, Like that's my only kind of it's a very if then.

For me, if I think for me, there's nothing and I am Look when we first taught of talking about this, my framing of how we were the discussion was, I think there's a misconception about some things that Jews believe.

And I do think that because my Judaism is so much a part of me, I don't have an instance.

Right, this happened, and I left It was more of questioning what God has in mind for me and how am I either fulfilling it or ignoring it?

Quite franklin, right, And that was and that did happen quite a number of times throughout my career.

And remember I work in a very odd industry.

You can't really be a religious person and follow everything and be a theater person.

You can't do it.

We work at sixth and seven days a week.

So there was a part of me where I was.

I did go through some guilt of wanting a The kind of pushed me pull you of my religion and my upbringing and how I related to God and my love for what I do and who I am, and that became in a way, I'm a Jewish theater person.

I'm a theater person, right, and that at some point in my young in my adulthood, I would say twenties and thirties, I kind of threw away the religious part to develop myself in that, but I never threw away God as a concept.

I just kind of went, eh, you know, I'm going to do this and that's going to force me in a way to not follow what I've been following for most of my life.

And that kind of started in college and went well into my probably thirties and forties.

And I don't know if that.

Make sense, but no, it does.

The connectivity that you have with your being never leaves, but everything around you and your circumstances change.

And your practice changes.

This question popped in my head as you were finishing up there for Jewish people, like is the what is the afterlife?

And is it all the same for every Jewish person?

Ah?

So there are different there are different concepts of the afterlife.

We so one, you know, we believe that there the Messiah hasn't come yet, right of course, So we also believe that at some at some point, and we believe there's a Messiah born in every generation.

Okay, they just haven't revealed themselves or the circumstances didn't allow them to reveal themselves.

And we believe that when the Messiah comes, there will be a reincarnation, reincarnation of everyone that's lived.

In a sense, we believe that there are share souls, right like, and I firmly believe that they're a shared soul, shared souls.

I believe that I have lived before in a different.

And this is a this is not just a certain certain version of Jewish.

This is I.

Shouldn't speak for every Jew in the world, but yes, of course as a whole.

And there's also a level of we believe that heaven.

There's not a heaven and a hell.

We don't really believe in hell, which makes it.

Yeah, it's not in the Bible, so that makes it even everyone's version, there's not in there.

So we're luckier in that sense.

And nobody's telling us we're going Well, some people do tell us we're going to hell, but but we don't.

Yeah, but we don't believe we're going to hell, right like, but there's a there's also so do we believe that we're going to heaven?

Heaven is really what they call gon Aiden, which is the garden of Eden, and there is there is a level where you get to the Garden of Eden.

Do you believe it?

No idea?

Do you believe in a literal like from the original Torah?

Do you believe in a literal garden of Eden, like a literal Adam and Nave that really existed?

You do believe that?

Okay, Todra is not a store.

I mean, yes, you can say it's a story that was put together by the rabbis.

I get that, But I I hold those beliefs of my childhood that there, that there is, that Adam and Eve existed, there was you know, and and and I think that holds me into Judaism in a way like that that that makes it sensible for me because this is what I do believe.

It's what I read.

You know, if I go to synagogue every week, this is what we read.

We read the Bible every week, we read the Tower a portion every week, and we do that through the whole year, and then we start all over again.

Here there's a repetition and a remembrance that's so so beautiful about that we do there?

Well, yeah, yes, no, Kidden, is there uh?

You know?

Within Christianity there's a just like some people believe Adam and he really existed.

Some people believe that it's it's a metaphor or a symbol, or like like returning to Eden is a very popular Christian metaphor for heaven.

Right, It's like, you know that Jesus Christ is called Adam again by a life.

People like this idea that Adam was you know, given another chance through the personhood of Jesus Christ or whatever.

So is there a sect of Judaism that believes that the toy is a metaphor or is pretty much everyone more literalist with that you think we're more literalist.

I'm guessing that there may be some of the way more liberal X might believe that they're metaphors, yeah for stories, but I I believe it.

How does this frame your day to day like, how does how does your belief in what's to come?

Your belief and what is like existing in you?

How does that frame Wrena is every day in New York City.

I think it makes me in New York City, I eBay, I think it makes me a more emphathetic person.

I think it makes me I there's a there's part of my Jewish faith which I feel that that is really bound in ethics, right, and Jews talk a lot about ethics.

We there is a lot of ethical discussion that goes along with being a Jew.

How we work in the world world.

There's the phrase is called tikun oulam and it's literal meaning is heal the world?

Oh?

I like that and and that is well within my belief system.

That is part of who I am.

And it doesn't have to be within the Jewish religious world.

It's who I am as as you know now, I'm a Union.

I'm a leader in the in the Union outside of my what I did for thirty forty years in my career, So it informs how I deal with my five hundred and thirty five members of my union.

It deals with how I look at a homeless person.

It's it informs how I give charity in And I think it's particularly growing up in the New York area because because we were again in my youth, thought everyone was Jewish, but as I grow was I grew up and I realized that wasn't true.

I think it allowed me to kind of even in the moments where I questioned where God was in my life, I never questioned my role as a Jewish person in the world and how I as a Jew needed to go through life.

And it's still every day, still does and I'm not as I don't go to synagogue as much as I used to.

I'm going to try and change that practice because I'm feeling more in need now and I think the world's changing in the way it has has made me feel that need.

I think the way the world is right now, and again, I think, as you probably also we talked about before, it's about community, right and there are signs where I really need to be around Jewish people.

I just do, you know, and we're walking, you know.

And also September tends to be that time, because September is when our holidays are our big holidays, the high holidays.

We're going to get together.

A week and a half from now.

Twenty second is Russia Shana, and that's our high holiday going into Young Kipper, And so there's a lot of stuff that happens in September for me that I guess it's like going back to school.

It's kind of that reinvention of who I am.

You mentioned these holidays and traditions and like, maybe I'm just this is maybe a dumb question.

I know, you know, I had such a great family.

I still do have some it's your great family, Like family get togethers.

We're just my absolute favorite growing up.

And I may have said this on a podcast somewhere, but it took until I started dating my wife to realize that some people dread family get togethers.

They don't actually enjoy them.

You talk about community and tradition, and you know, because of how few Jewish people there are, that seems to be a more tight knit tradition than you know, the wide swath of what a Christian tradition would be because they're so varied.

Is when you say you missed that community in that tradition.

Do we still have some of the similar kind of possible pitfalls of family and community get together that we that I'm talking about, Or is Jewish tradition are these big like Rasshashana?

Is this a big time where that stuff's just kind of left the door and people just don't do that.

Then I don't think you can general I think it's hard to generalize.

I think that there is a lot of for me personally, Yes, for me personally, everything goes away when I'm with my family.

But that's my family.

I am blessed by my family, right like I grew up with parents who were Other people come up to me and say, oh, your parents who were the most amazing?

Oh, I get that right, right, we get that too.

And my brother and sister we don't spend the holidays with my sister because of her religious practice is that she can't travel during the right.

I drive to synagogue.

My sister wouldn't.

My sister doesn't do that, right because the holidays are like big Sabbaths, they're just more days.

But I think that Jews, and certainly in media, you can see it in some of our enter entertainment, and you know, we're an angst filled group.

And and and that's why, that's why they are a lot of Jewish comedians.

And some of their their kind of jokes and their self deprecation come out of their how they grew up and how some Jewish parents are very demanding and some Jews demand things of other Jews.

And I don't think we're different in the world of that.

But the holidays do bring people together in a different way.

Yes, So like for us, we have two days of Russiashan, one day of young Kipper, and those those tend to be really really big family events.

It's like Thanksgiving.

I always say, Russishan is to Thanksgivings food, which we make up for a week later by fasting.

That's right, you guys, you guys, yeah, you double back for sure.

So if you you know, for for for those that for for younger Jewish folks that don't have your uh pedigree.

Let's say with your how your parents, you know, you're on the bus, you're going to Hebrew School, You're all this stuff, and they're trying to they're trying to make it in a world around them that is a very Christian world.

And they're struggling with practice versus belief versus inherent being.

What would what would your encouragement be to them as they're navigating the journey that you've already navigated.

I think for me, I think for what I would say to someone is there's no perfect Judaism, There's no way to perfect how you go forth in the world.

I think I wear my Jewishness on my sleeve.

There's I present as a cis gender white woman, right like I could be Italian, I could be you know, I could be Christian for any for all, anyone new.

But I wear it on my sleeve in a way that maybe is a self defense mechanism.

But I don't think we need to do that.

I think we need to take pride in who we are and again, how we are as Jews in this world can be challenging.

I faced anti Semitism.

I've also faced thee what do you mean you don't celebrate Christmas?

Why don't you have a tree?

Right?

And I have fiends who have trees, and I'm who are Jewish, and I'm who are and aren't in like a marriage where there's somebody where the partner.

Isn't what they want to do they just want to.

Treat work power to you.

It's just not me.

And so I think you to any young person, and I would say this to any young person I work with, is you need to be true to yourself.

Don't be afraid to be who you are.

And if that is going to synagogue and that helps you, or talking to a rabbi and that makes you, you know, understand more learning about your own culture.

I think you just have to figure out who you are first.

And then if the religion, don't make the religion an overbearing thing that you have to get to make it something.

If you want it, It's there for you.

That's what I would say to somebody.

There for you.

The community is there for you.

I like that.

I can't.

It's hard for me to even imagine a world where religion was like with faith and community, it was just something that was there when you needed it and not there to judge you when it wasn't.

I think, and I think there are some young Jews who feel that way too.

Rina.

You're a wealth of information and you're so kind, and I just appreciate you spending the last hour with me.

It's been an absolute joy, really has Thank you.

Dan, It's it's been good for me too.

It's a lot.

I can't thank Rena enough for joining me this week.

Rena is a wealth of wisdom, and her stories were fascinating.

I experienced a real paradigm shift on how I think about these big existential questions like who we are and where we come from.

As someone that was more or less given the answers to these questions, I adopted them as my own as a child, and then as an adult, there's been well, let's call it an excavation of those beliefs.

Rena, however, doesn't question the basis of her faith.

How can she?

It's quite literally in her DNA.

Does that mean she has all the answers?

Absolutely not.

It just means the perspective with which she views religion and her faith is vastly different, and to be honest, it's quite refreshing.

While there are certain sects of the Jewish faith that clearly place more emphasis on a strict adherence to levitical law, for Rena, the evidence of her faith doesn't have to be proven.

It demands no verdict.

It just is growing up.

I was never even introduced to this as a possible way to live.

What if you don't need to prove that you believe in something greater?

What if you don't have to tack on ridiculous ideas like a place of eternal damnation, or needing to evangelize as a precursor for being allowed in your faith, or even just to feel calm and content.

What if you could wake up every day knowing that your actions aren't weighed in the balance of eternity, and yet your spark to love, action, and goodness because you know that's what's inside of you.

Would you have it all figured out?

No?

Would you be free from all the terrible stuff in the world?

Absolutely not?

But is it a more fulfilling way to live?

Unequivocally yes, Thanks for listening.

Breakfast in Hell is produced by Will Cown.

It's written and hosted by Daniel Thompson.

If you enjoy the pod, please do us a favor with a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Breakfast in Hell Pod.

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