Noam
Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam. I’m Noam
Mijal
And I’m Mijal.
Noam
And this podcast is our way of trying to unpack those really big questions being asked in the world today about Israel, about Judaism, and about the Jewish experience.
Mijal
This episode is lovingly sponsored in memory of Leo Bernstein.
Noam
And today in our Denomination Series, we’re talking about Conservative Judaism. As you’ll hear on this podcast, I was really obsessed with Conservative Judaism growing up — in many ways in college. I grew up with conservative clergy in my extended family. So today, to help us explore Conservative Judaism — the history, a little bit about the philosophy, the future — Mijal and I have an incredible husband-and-wife duo with us: a remarkable team. Rabbi Erez Sherman and Rabbi Nicole Guzik, co-senior rabbis at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
Noam
So awesome to have the two of you, Rabbi Nicole Guzik and Rabbi Erez Sherman. Thank you for joining me and Mijal. So excited to have both of you.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Not often that we get to be together actually, so thanks for making this moment.
Mijal
Yeah, well, welcome to Wondering Jews. I think this is our first conversation with two individuals.
Noam
With two individuals. Yes, yes.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Really? Wow. Thanks for having us.
Mijal
Yeah, so we are really lucky. Thank you for joining us.
Noam
And definitely our first married couple. And the two of you are co-senior rabbis at Sinai Temple. Are you the first couple to be co-senior rabbis in the US? Is this new? Have other people done this besides you?
Mijal
Yeah, I never heard of that before.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
No, I’m almost positive we’re not the first married couple to be co-senior rabbis. In fact, I think we’re about to be in a conversation with other couples who are co-senior rabbis in the Conservative movement — not just across the country, but I think also in South America, in Europe. So that’ll be interesting to kind of be with our own. We’ve never really had that conversation with other couples, but we’re still figuring it out, too.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Yes, I saw that.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
No kind of secret sauce to this, but we’re still figuring it out.
Mijal
It’s really fascinating. And I’ll say for me and my husband — my husband is a rabbi, I am a Rosh Kehilla spiritual leader. We actually serve shuls that are like 10 minutes’ walk from each other in lower Manhattan, separate communities. And I am looking at you and I’m fascinated to hear about this phenomenon — that there’s a bunch of couples leading synagogues together across the Conservative movement around the world.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Wow. So separate separate communities.
Noam
Mijal, one second — before they jump in, can you imagine being a co-senior rabbi with your husband at a synagogue?
Mijal
No, no, no, no, no, no, we can’t. I don’t want to overshare. You know what I mean? You can have a wonderful marriage but not be able to work together. Am I the only one who feels this way? I think for the sake of our marriage, that wouldn’t work so well.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Really? You don’t think so?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
No. I would… I just wanna say…
Noam
That’s horrible, Mijal. But the two of you are able to do it. How do you do it? Do you divide and conquer? Does one of you take a big sermon and the other takes another big sermon? How do you do that?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
That’s… Well, I walked the dog this morning. There we go.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Yes, actually. That’s funny that you just said that. OK, but I walked the dog yesterday. I think we divide up pretty well, but I’m not sure it’s so clearly articulated. Some things are articulated — like Erez is always going to be in charge of the dentist appointments. That’s just what he took on. I’m primarily in charge of dinner. That’s just kind of what happens. So I’m not sure if we say at the beginning of the year, let’s make sure you do this and I do this.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Maybe there’s an inherent trust in our relationship where it kind of gets done — or some yelling at the end of the day and it gets done. But I will say at the synagogue, I think there are very clear delineations as to what our portfolios are.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Gets done.
Noam
Okay, what are they? What’s the difference?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
You go first.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Okay. First of all, my realms are primarily in the mental health world. We started a Sinai Temple Mental Health Center at Sinai — we can talk about this more if you’d like. But much of my life is around counseling: premarital counseling, congregants coming in talking about their marriage or a diagnosis. I have my master’s in marriage and family therapy. So most of my day is spent on clinical matters. That’s a huge piece of my day. Erez — not to say that pastoral care is not part of his work, it very much is — but I think people may come to me for that given my degree.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
I would say Nicole is a leader in that field — bringing mental health into the synagogue space. Previously, not having a mental health center meant outsourcing to professionals. But we have that here, which I would say is revolutionary, not just in the Conservative movement, but in the Jewish world. And we hope that will grow because there is such a big need.
Mijal
Yeah, it’s awesome. Your congregants are lucky to have you in this way.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Thank you. We also have a full-time clinician — a full-time social worker on our staff.
Mijal
Amazing.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
And if I do a wedding and I say, hey, would you like three premarital counseling sessions, confidential with the person next door? That’s an amazing thing to offer — not just with a counselor, but also with the rabbi.
Noam
Yeah. And what about you, Erez? What would you say your primary focus is?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Yeah, so as you mentioned — Israel. About 20 years ago, the Fleischmann family told Rabbi Wolpe, we need an Israel center. Most people laughed and said, what’s the crying need? And now let’s talk about today — what’s the crying need of the Israel center? Every community needs one. We have four pillars: travel, education, culture, and advocacy. And I’ll throw in this last piece — because there’s a basketball behind me — it’s the sports piece. Not just about being a fan, but in the religion space and the Israel space, sport is a way that bridges people together which no other type of activity or passion can do.
Mijal
The whole of Israel. You own Israel. Just kidding.
Noam
He does — Erez is one of the leading rabbinic leaders in the United States of America in terms of Israel education.
Mijal
Israel education.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Thank you. Yep.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
A huge voice.
Mijal
That’s where I met Erez, by the way — at a conference that was all about Israel education.
Noam
Well, the two of you do remarkable things. Mijal and I could speak to you about this for hours. But what we want to do is actually understand Conservative Judaism. That’s what we want to focus on. I’ve been personally obsessed with Conservative Judaism for a very long time. My grandfather was a conservative cantor for over 30 years. My uncle is a conservative cantor. My other uncle was the president of his conservative synagogue. That’s the way my mom grew up. And that’s a big part of my identity — seeing conservative clergy Judaism in the 90s. And then when I got to college, for some reason I got so into Conservative Judaism. I had to write a thesis about the difference between Conservative Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy. And it was hard for me to pin down in a sentence what was the difference — both say they want to adapt to modernity, both say they want to be a system based on Jewish law. And so I was so interested: what is the difference between the two?
Noam
I spent a lot of time researching and writing and then teaching about this. But you two are Conservative rabbis, so ignore everything that I did. I want to know from you — what is Conservative Judaism?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Often people define Conservative Judaism as what it is not. It’s not Reform and it’s not Orthodox. But you asked the right question: what is it? And one very well-known rabbi — I will not say by name — once told me, everybody is a Conservative Jew, they just don’t know it yet. When I look at some of the great young Modern Orthodox rabbis of today, I actually see them as my former campers in USY and Camp Ramah, USY Pilgrimage. That line is very, very interesting. But I would define Conservative Judaism as authenticity to both theology and practice.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
I know that rabbi you’re talking about.
Noam
Okay.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
If I could just add to it — the Conservative movement used to have a college program called Koach. Koach — power, a strong power. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that exists on any college campus anymore. But I would attend these programs while working for JTS as an admissions intern for the rabbinical school. I would get to go to college campuses and attend these Shabbatons, and they would bring preeminent Conservative scholars. There would be debates between Rabbi Neil Gilman — known for his theology, the master of speaking about God — and Rabbi Joel Roth, who would speak about Jewish law. And the metaphor was seeing Conservative Judaism as working within the confines of a chess game: there are particular rules, various pieces, and so many different ways to get to the end of the game, but you can’t throw the pieces off the chessboard — the chessboard can’t be thrown out the window to achieve whatever you want to achieve. And I love that.
So when I think about Conservative Judaism, often I will be asked a fun, interesting question. And I know this is about how it’s relevant today, but this has been happening for thousands of years. An example would be: now that we have electric cars, can you drive an electric car? Or even better — Waymo. Do you guys have Waymo?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Waymos.
Noam
Waymo in LA. Mijal, have you seen Waymo? It’s so weird.
Mijal
Nope.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Oh my gosh, it’s everywhere.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Exactly. It’s a driverless car — we hear them up and down our street all the time.
Mijal
Oh, I heard about it. My brother actually sent me a selfie of him in LA in the driverless car. Yeah, okay.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Self-driving. Yep.
Mijal
I wish we had them here.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
So think about that from a Jewish law perspective. This is the purpose of the Conservative movement — to get a question like this: is it halachically permitted? Is it Jewishly permitted to be in an electric driverless car on Shabbat? Yes or no? And I think what the Conservative movement does — it doesn’t throw out the chessboard, but plays within the rules of Jewish law. It comes up with an answer that is both authentic to Jewish law but also keeps in mind the community aspect: is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? But there’s no disregarding of Jewish law saying this doesn’t matter to us anymore. That’s always, I think, the beginning. It’s key.
Noam
That’s key. Right, that’s key to Conservative Judaism.
Mijal
Can I ask a question? The latest Pew said about 17% of American Jews identify as Conservative or as belonging to the Conservative movement in some way. How much do you think they are moved by the same rationale that the two of you share? Or is there perhaps a different way to understand why people identify as Conservative?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
I think if I had to choose a bumper sticker for Conservative Judaism it would be ‘and,’ not ‘or.’ It shouldn’t be this or this — it’s actually the ‘and.’ Whatever your passion is outside the synagogue — and Judaism too. And so when we talk about why our members — and Nicole can correct me if I’m wrong — they use the word ‘tradition’ more than ‘Jewish law.’
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
I was going to say the exact same thing. Even though they may not use the words ‘Jewish law’ or ‘halacha,’ they’ll use the word ‘tradition.’ They want a traditional synagogue. They want to hear Hebrew in the service. They want to hear the familiar melodies they grew up with. At our synagogue we have a daily minyan — a daily gathering of Jews twice a day for prayer. Our congregants not only feel proud that we have the minyan, but they attend it. If you come to our services on Shabbat morning, we’ll have somewhere between 600 and a thousand people, because they care very much about a full Shabbat service. And they really want to see their daughters read from the Torah. They want to sit with their daughters and their sons in a Shabbat morning service. They want the option of having their daughters where everything is at their fingertips. So many people will choose Sinai because it’s a traditional synagogue where the daughters, in particular, have the similar kind of Jewish rights as sons.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
And I would also say — some Bat Mitzvah families say, I’m here because Rabbi Guzik gets to do my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. That’s a huge role. It happens often, which is I think a newer thing than we ever expected.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
It’s the best.
Mijal
How typical would you say your shul is for a Conservative shul? The reason I’m asking is — I also know from my own research that Sinai has a very significant percentage of Persian Jews who are part of its lay leadership. And that adds a whole layer. There aren’t as many prominent Reform and Conservative synagogues on the East Coast with such significant percentages of Sephardic members.
Noam
Good question.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
I would never have thought — growing up as an Ashkenazic Jew in upstate New York, mostly surrounded by Holocaust survivors — that I would be preparing next week for Nowruz Shabbat, where I’ll have three different generations of Persian Jews speak about their experience as American Jews in a Conservative synagogue. I would never have thought that when I go back east to my family in Philadelphia, they’d say, ‘Hey, can your kids sing that song? Tabalo, tabalo, tabalo de mo’borac.’ Like — whoa, that’s part of me now. And the story has become part of us.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
As we saw the joint U.S.-Israel action involving Iran, you have to know that when Erez and I watched this, we felt like this was our family story. An exodus story — the liberation of the Iranian people. These are our people. These are their relatives. These are people who had to flee 40 years ago in the middle of the night. It’s truly a Passover story. And it’s a story that Erez and I have told from the bema on Passover, because on Passover we get over a thousand Persian Jews.
Mijal
Do you serve rice? They still come on Passover?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Nah.
Noam
Can you explain that question to people? Someone listening is going to be like — do you serve rice on Passover? What are you talking about?
Mijal
I’ll say it with a personal anecdote. My mom grew up in a Spanish-Moroccan family where they didn’t eat rice — not all Sephardic Jews eat rice. Ashkenazi Jews don’t eat rice and legumes on Passover, and most Sephardic Jews — but not all — do. When my family moved to Great Neck and became part of a Persian Mashadi community, our first Passover there our guests were uncomfortable because we didn’t serve rice. So my mom literally did an annulment of vows at the beit din to change the custom.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Because you didn’t serve it, they felt uncomfortable.
Mijal
My whole point is that for our Persian friends and family, part of the Passover meal is rice. So I was just surprised that you have a seder on Passover without rice, but that’s just me.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
We do have Ashkenazic congregants who have now taken on the practice of eating rice because they go to their Persian friends’ seders and that’s become their Pesach tradition. As for the percentage — it’s probably around 40% of our congregation that is of Persian descent. But what we have really emphasized and are so proud of is that we are a very diverse congregation. If you came in on a Shabbat morning, you might hear people speaking Spanish — we have so many Jews from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba. So many Asian Americans are part of our congregation. We just celebrated a South African family. You won’t walk into Sinai and see a homogenous group — you will see a truly diverse Jewish community.
And that impacts all of our conversations. When you say ‘a Conservative Jewish conversation,’ you might think we’re just dealing with Jewish law — no, we’re dealing with many different Jewish laws at the same time. Shiva looks different. Shiva looks different in the Persian community.
Mijal
That’s the mourning period after someone dies.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
The mourning period after someone dies. It’s pretty traditional for Ashkenazic Jews to have the mourning period in their homes. But it’s become traditional for our Persian congregants to have the mourning traditions in the synagogue. And the funeral looks completely different. So we as a clergy staff just add layers depending on the background of the congregant.
Noam
So it sounds like your synagogue feels very much like Klal Yisrael — the Jewish people coming together in lots of different ways. Listen, so far what I’m hearing is Conservative Judaism sounds unbelievable. It sounds incredible. It sounds authentic. I’m in. But I’m going to now challenge and ask some tougher questions.
Mijal
There’s basketball.
Noam
60 years ago, the great sociologists — and now I’m going to pull from Mijal’s book as a great sociologist of today — the argument was that there would not be Orthodox Judaism in the United States of America, that it would go by way of the dustbin of American history, and that really what’s going to take over American Judaism would be Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
But Orthodox Judaism — the trend is strong, it’s growing amongst the youth. In the 1960s and early 70s, around 50 to 55% of American Jews identified as Conservative. Whereas now, as Mijal said, it’s closer to 17%. It seems like there’s been a precipitous decline over the years.
So I want to ask you as leading Conservative rabbis — why has there been a decline? Is there a branding problem around the word ‘conservative’? What do you attribute that to and do you agree with my assessment?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Some of the programs that were the successes of how we’re sitting here today are no longer. It’s really sad — I’m almost in tears saying this. Koach, the college campus program. I’m a Columbia University grad. I spent all my time there. My best friends were Koach. The best time was Shabbat when everybody came together — Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative — in the Kraft Center on 116th and Broadway. USY Pilgrimage. I staffed that for three summers. I met the most unbelievable kids. Some of them are Modern Orthodox rabbis right now. Others are Conservative rabbis. There were 12 buses at a time. No longer. It now merged into Ramah — which, by the way, Camp Ramah is a shining piece of our movement and has to continue to keep going strong. And USY, United Synagogue Youth.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Yeah, thank God for Camp Ramah.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Most Conservative rabbis I know, if you’re looking for a vibrant youth organization, are actually partnering with BBYO. We have 4,000 students coming together — very Zionist, pluralistic. Where am I taking my teens? I’m taking them to StandWithUs conferences and JNF USA conferences. Zionism seems to be the shining light. But when we stopped funding those programs, we lost the pipeline. We were recruited out of Koach to go to JTS. Well, where should the seminaries recruit now? There’s no Koach. How do I identify a Conservative Jew on campus? So we’ve sort of lost literally a generation. And I know that’s the question out there in terms of the pipeline.
Mijal
That’s pluralistic — just for our audience to hear.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
We fought back against a lot of these early decisions. When I was the president of UCLA Hillel — led by a Modern Orthodox rabbi, by the way, who said to me, ‘You should go to JTS and be a Conservative rabbi. This is who you are.’ But how many Modern Orthodox rabbis on college campuses are saying that to their students? I hope that’s happening. I had a gem in Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller who was able to say that to me. But when you cut the legs under a movement, how is it supposed to stand?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Very proud of that.
Noam
I’m going to throw out a framing and I want to get your reactions. I think with Conservative Judaism, it’s about ‘and’ — you could do this and you could do that. In Charedi Judaism and Reform Judaism, maybe it’s more of an ‘or’ — it’s either we live a life of halacha intensely or we’re part of the world intensely. And in Modern Orthodoxy, the word I was thinking of is ‘more’: more commitment to Jewish law, more commitment to Zionism, more commitment to secular wisdom. It’s not ‘or’ or ‘and’ — it’s ‘more.’
I want to know — within the denominations and movements I just suggested, the ‘or,’ the ‘and,’ and the ‘more,’ does that sound right? And I also want to challenge a little bit — you said the decline is because of undercutting funding to these programs. But I’m also wondering if there’s something else, if maybe Conservative Judaism fulfilled its mission. And 30 years from now, there’s going to be another name — maybe it’ll be called ‘Authentic Judaism’ and not ‘Conservative Judaism’ anymore. What do you think?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
I’m on that.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Okay, well, about the ‘more’ piece — the only way I would push back is ‘more for whom?’ When you’re speaking about women in Judaism, yes, there may be women’s minyanim, fine, that’s lovely. But it’s not necessarily the full egalitarian experience that I think we offer. So I’m not sure it’s ‘more’ for everyone.
And I think you’re on the mark — who wants to live with labels right now? ‘Conservative’ is a hard label. People get very confused: are you conservative politically? When you’re already asking that question, we’re having a whole conversation about whether it’s capital-C or lowercase-c. What we’re trying to provide is a diverse congregation with many political views. So for sure, there’s a branding problem.
And I think we were all kind of bred to compete with each other — which synagogue is bigger, what does this synagogue offer that one doesn’t. But right now Erez and I are working really hard on collaborating with other synagogues in Los Angeles, and even other faith communities. Perhaps it’s going to be less about the particular label or denomination, but rather what do these synagogues offer each other. We came up with a membership model where you don’t need to worry about attending this one or that one. We’ll maintain our identity and authenticity, but we do have to move past this competitive mindset.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Two weeks ago, we had Major General Doron Almog here from the Jewish Agency. There was a bat mitzvah, and I showed him a religious school service with three different minyanim going on at the same time. He walked down the hallway and said, ‘This is what we need.’ And it was Israel. And just a couple of days after that was a bill in the Knesset for the first reading that was basically going to say you’re arrested for egalitarian prayer at the Kotel.
When I spoke to somebody who happened to be in the Knesset during the bill, I said, ‘Tell me what I should tell my diaspora community.’ He got back to me and said most of the members of the Knesset had no idea what they were voting on. And that really made me realize we do have a place of education here.
I’ll give you one last story. When we brought a basketball team from the Otef Gaza last year — 14-year-olds who had been displaced for two years — they came, went to the Lakers and Clippers games. And then they said, ‘What are we going to do for Shabbat?’ I said, ‘You’re going to come to the beit knesset.’ They said, ‘No, we’re not.’ They quietly, hesitantly came in — and by the end they were singing and dancing at the bima. The next year they came back and said, ‘We’re going to the Lakers and the Clippers — but we will go to the synagogue. We loved it so much.’ And so when we talk about what is the crying need given the decline, I can say thankfully we’re in a place where it’s been successful and I hope we can be a model for others, smaller and large.
Mijal
I’m just curious — if you had to think about the future of Conservative Judaism: some people say Conservative and Reform Judaism are kind of going to merge. Or some people say no denominations are going to matter. I’m not talking about the future of Sinai Temple, but if you’re thinking about just Conservative Judaism — any guesses of the trends that are going to shape it?
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
It would be very hard for the two of us to say we don’t imagine a future with Conservative Judaism. I believe we both see a future. Although I do think — and you’re starting to see this trend — you’ll see synagogues that will start to offer more than one denomination within the same building. You’ll see the Conservative minyan in one sanctuary, a larger Reform one in another. It’ll be fascinating if we get to a point where we could have a Modern Orthodox shul housed under the same building.
Noam
Isn’t that like a Hillel? Isn’t that like Hillel on campus in some ways?
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Don’t you think it is? It would be like a Hillel on campus, but as a house of worship for the community. A really beautiful sharing of resources. What would it look like to all come together for Shabbat dinner? It’s the same Hillel model, Noam. So that could be the future. You won’t hear us say there won’t be a Conservative Jewish movement of some kind in the future.
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Yeah, I’m deeply involved with the rabbinical school spaces, specifically with Israel. I think Israel will be a unifier within the Reform and Conservative movements. I work really closely with Amplify Israel doing unbelievable things with Zionism. Unpacked has this post-denominational feel. And this past year, our daughter’s bat mitzvah was on the weekend of the Palisades and Eaton fires. By necessity, the reconstructionist synagogue KI had no place to go and they ended up having their B’nai Mitzvot at Sinai Temple. We had to work out the halacha of how they practice their service and parties. But you know what — that was their space at that moment, and we can actually coexist. I wish we had done this before a tragedy brought us together, but now we’re thinking about what it looks like to do this when things are good.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
And no pushback. No one has once said, ‘I walked by the KI area and heard something.’ It’s understood — that’s their religious space.
Noam
It’s okay. Genuinely pluralistic. I have one more question — on the topic of Israel and Zionism.
Mijal
That’s the easiest topic in this conversation.
Noam
Within the rabbinate in the Conservative world — you’re playing a lead role in making sure that Zionism remains central to the Conservative Jewish movement. Is there a problem with Zionism in the Conservative rabbinate? How do you see the future of Zionism in the Conservative movement? And why are you so passionate about it?
Rabbi Erez Sherman
I’m going to tell you a story that happened yesterday. I teach a class at Loyola Marymount University — a Catholic Jesuit school out here in LA — called Zionist Ideas. And I asked a speaker to identify herself: revisionist, cultural, political, diaspora, or religious Zionist? She was Israeli her whole life, and she told me, ‘I didn’t know there were so many choices.’
And so that was eye-opening — what’s in the tent and what’s out of the tent of Zionism? You want to criticize a government but still have love of Eretz Yisrael, Am Yisrael, and Medinat Yisrael. It’s a complicated space. And I think what has changed is where you can have those conversations. It doesn’t have to be the bema. The bema is streamed forever — as Rabbi Wolpe once said, ‘You can’t practice your comedy on a street corner anymore.’ But behind closed walls — we’re about to launch a program called Table for Ten — we’re going to have real conversations of diverse thinking about Israel. And I think if Zionism is defined more about Jewish peoplehood than about Israeli policy, then I think we have great hope.
It has been truly an honor to lead the Fleischmann Family Sinai Temple Israel Center with Rabbi Guzik. I can’t keep up with the amount of requests from people who want to engage with Israel here in this congregation, of all ages. I lead this Rabbinical School Fellowship, and the funders asked me, ‘Why is a YU student going to take a Zionist fellowship from a Conservative synagogue?’ I asked Rabbi Wolpe what I should say, and he said: ‘It’s the only thing we can actually talk about. Halacha, egalitarian issues, kashrut — we can do that separately. But Zionism is the only thing we can actually fulfill together.’ And I’m passionate that we can do that.
Mijal
Beautiful. I feel like the theme coming up is investing in ‘and’ — in relationships.
Noam
And yeah — for everyone listening, if my Hava Amina, my hot take, my initial supposition is off, I could be totally off. I was just thinking about it. So I appreciate it. Mijal and I appreciate the two of you so much. You’re such an inspiration. It’s so cool to see what the two of you do day in, day out — your optimism, how you’re viewing your roles as not just predicting the future, but helping to shape the Jewish future. It’s nothing short of inspiring. Thank you so much.
Mijal
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.