Ask a Rabbi III - The Rabbi Rises

Your favorite Rabbi is back! And our July vacation starts...now.

Hello from NYC! Last week, I (Yael) spent 3 wonderful days in Austin, Texas, followed by 3 not-so-wonderful days in Austin, Texas, praying to the airline gods to bless me with a flight home (should have just started with Hashem). My exile worked out well for you listeners though, as you got to enjoy Chaya Leah talking to her father, Rabbi Abba Perelmutter. I left them with explicit instructions to answer listener emails, but as you know Jews are hard to control….I doubt you’ll be disappointed by the conversation though, which covers everything from a

Matt Welch

Shabbat to a Talmudic interpetation of the Ukraine conflict.

Now back to ME.

Recently on a whim I decided to sign up for our friend and former guest

Meghan Daum

‘s Unspeakeasy retreat for women who regularly commit thought crimes. As you can imagine, the idea of talking about my feelings for a weekend with a room full of uterus-havers sounds about as appealing to me as going to an AOC karaoke fundraiser. Naturlly, I hated everyone there as soon as I walked in. As we all went around and introduced ourselves, I felt the ice around my heart melt and about 3 intros in, I was clapping and tearing up with the rest of them. I can’t say much about what happened over those two days (though if you want to imagine us pillow fighting in our undies, be my guest) but I can say that for a second, I felt like a normal person among normal people. No topic was off limits and though disagreements were had, nobody felt the need to tiptoe or throat clear. We also got to meet the amazing

Bridget Phetasy

and Diana Fleishman, as well as other cool heterodox thinkers in the Texas area. Check out

The Unspeakable with Meghan Daum

podcast for the next retreat, I promise it’s worth it.

We want to wish all our listeners a happy Fourth of July, which Chaya Leah will be celebrating in Europe like a traitor, and I will be celebrating inshallah in Downtown Manhattan, where this great country became what it is today. If you are feeling a little down about America lately, here are some things we love about it 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Yael: Amazon returns, soft-serve ice cream (also known as American ice cream in Israel), Harrison Ford, ranch dressing, country music, endless roads, light Gatorade, optimism. 🇺🇸

Chaya Leah: free public bathrooms, American chutzpah, endless possibilities, freedom of speech, abundance of everything, the NFL. 🇺🇸

You know what else we celebrate this week? The wedding anniversary of these two youngins, who were married 22 years ago today! Though I make fun of Chaya Leah for being an ISIS child bride, she did really well with Boruch, who you can sometimes hear quietly sneak into the room when we are recording to bring her coffee. Mazal tov!

Here’s some Israeli/Jewish media to consume while we’re gone (a listener requested this but I forget who):

1. Rehearsals - hilarious show about two playwrights in Israel (Hulu)

2. Fauda - action-packed award-winning show about undercover Israeli agents in the West Bank (Netflix)

3. Teheran - like Fauda’s little sister (Apple TV)

4. Shtisel - follows an orthodox father and son in Jerusalem, sounds really boring but is wonderful and beloved by secular Jews and goys alike (Netflix)

5. Spies of No Country (book) - by our beloved former guest Matti Friedman, about Arab Jewish spies at the birth of Israel.

6. Catch 67 (book) - by Micah Goodman, a somewhat concise explainer of where we are today with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Have recommendations? Drop them here!